Pat's Palestine Blog 6

Pat Devlin shares more of her experiences as a member of the World Council of Churches' Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI).

Occupation writ large in Hebron

Think wartime films of occupied France and you will capture something of the atmosphere of central Hebron. Even after a month here it was quite a shocking experience during my two day visit to our team in Hebron.

The Oslo Accord of 1995 divided the West Bank into 3 zones

• Area A Wholly under Palestinian control (this includes most of the Palestinian cities)
• Area B Joint control: Palestinian civil administration, Joint Palestinian/Israeli ‘security’
• Area C Wholly under Israeli military control ( this includes many Palestinian rural communities – more of this another time)

Unlike other Palestinian cities, Hebron is divided into H1 under Palestinian control and H2 under Israeli military control. H2 includes much of the city centre and old city as well as the mosque and synagogue housing the tombs of the patriarchs. The reason for this is that in Hebron the Israeli settlements are in the centre of the city.

As you approach the city centre the road forks. The left fork leads into the old city and the right fork leads to a pedestrian military checkpoint with metal detectors and if you pass though successfully, you find yourself in the infamous Shuhada street. This was once the main shopping street of the Palestinian city, but now it’s like a ghost town. If you are a Palestinian (or even an international during the time I was there) you are only allowed to walk the first 200yds of the street before being halted by another military post, just before the Jewish school and central settlement. This is precisely where the Palestinian girls must climb the stairs to the Cordoba school and for the Hebron team one of their main tasks is watching the girls safely in and out of the school, because in the past they have had to run the gauntlet of stone throwing settlers as they came down the stairs from school. On the day I was there, the school had an open day and the contrast between the normal excitement of the pupils as each class lined up to perform their part of the show was a testimony to the Palestinian determination to continue with as normal a life a life as possible despite the abnormal context of their lives.

From the school we were able to walk by the houses on the hillside below the Tal Rumeida settlement and we saw how the settlers had cut through the trunks of the vines growing in the gardens and heard of their violence even towards the children living in those houses. Descending from the hillside we entered the Old City where some of the walkways have overhead wire mesh to prevent the settlers tipping their waste onto the Palestinian traders and customers below.

In the Old City we met Nahla at her handicraft stall. She is the aunt of two boys who were arrested after the disturbances when Netanyahu announced that the site of the tombs of the patriarchs would become a Jewish heritage sight. Nahla’s sister Leyla had sent the boys to buy bread, but they were detained accused of stone throwing and the 15yr old had now been in prison in Tulkarem in the north of the country for some weeks. That morning they had heard that he was to be released, but only after falsely admitting to stone throwing and the 15yr old would have to find his way from Tulkarem right down to Hebron with only 15 shekels in his pocket. We hoped our team in Tulkarem would be able to help.

We continued on our way through the Old City until we reached the military checkpoint and turnstile leading to the Mosque and Synagogue housing the tombs of the patriarchs. Having passed through the turnstile we had to go through an airport style checking system before entering the Mosque. The underground tombs were actually sealed up by the crusaders before they left, so what you see is something like giant tabernacles erected on the ground above the tombs. Abraham’s tomb can be seen both from the mosque and the synagogue. We moved on to the synagogue, where a young Israeli told us: “It’s better that they can’t come here and we can’t go there, that way we don’t fight – not that I want to fight and I don’t think those other guys want to fight either – it’s the big guys that want to fight!”

The next day we returned with a watching brief, as over 800 Palestinians made their way through the elaborate security checks to Friday prayers in the mosque. Identity papers were taken from about 15 young Palestinian men and they had to wait after prayers until the Israeli military were ready to return their papers to them . Later we took tea with a Palestinian shopkeeper, whose premises are just opposite the mosque and synagogue. He told us the Israelis had offered him large sums of money for his property, because they want exclusive occupancy of this important area, but so far like many Palestinians he has quietly resisted.

Thursday: An Absent God

Ray Anglesea reflects on this particuar day of the week

As a self supporting minister formerly operating in the knock-about world of daily work I am relieved that Thursday is not generally regarded as a Holy Day, a significant religious day of the week. It was on a Thursday, in the hurly-burly of the Jerusalem suburb, Bethany, Jesus took leave of his disciples. After he had blessed his disciples his resurrected body was carried up to heaven without even a hint of a goodbye to his disciples. Like the nursery rhyme - Jesus /Thursday’s child has......“far to go.” In the all consuming interests of our working and family lives Jesus absents himself from our earthly life on a Thursday. On that Thursday in particular – a significant event took place on an ordinary working day. “I could never get the hang of Thursdays,” said the character, Arthur Dent, from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. “Thursday! it’s too gruesome,” said Holly Golightly, in Breakfast in Tiffany’s.

Our life as human beings presents us with many occasions when we have to say good-bye, perhaps not all of them on a Thursday, and not all of them as we might have wished them to be if the ordering of our lives were in our power. Some of us over the years have had to say good-bye to loved ones, through death and bereavement, divorce and separation; some of us have had to say good bye to local church communities which we have come to know and love; some of us have had to say good-bye to ways of seeing ourselves. It was on Thursday my son married his beautiful bride; it was on a Thursday that I said goodbye to a way of life that had been my life blood for three decades and more. In the haste to get forms completed, a Plan B was not in place, a back- up church job was not offered, an offer of a living and a stipend not made. Legions of angels or the equivalent of the ecclesiastical cavalry did not come and rescue me from my depressed and miserable encampment (which rather surprised my working colleagues) to spread soothing Tinkerbelle dust around. There were no Superman tricks.

But for that, at least, I was pleased, thankful and relieved. Stipendiary ministry is not the refuge of the unemployed. I soon began to loathe conversations with friends who would say “What is God saying to me in this situation?” as if one could distinguish between a God who can arrange a new possibility from a God who could have arranged a redundancy? I too was irritated with employed friends who appeared not to care, the classic empty one-liner “you are in my prayers,” and then the brush off. Over the last few months I have come to realise that a self supporting ministry is not, at heart, only about how ministry is exercised in the daily patterns of daily working life, or on Sundays either within or outside local mission partnerships. It is a way of life. For whether one is employed or unemployed that vocational ministry of the self supporting minister is forever shaping one’s outlook and understanding of oneself and of the church. That thought, from a self supporting minister who was retiring from ministry, offered some practical and intellectual consolation and support.

And so like my recent experience of redundancy in my professional life (who ever heard of an unemployed cleric?), only too often for our taste and comfort, goodbyes are wrenched from us, often out of control, out of our power, occasions even of pain and bitterness. And so it is with the disappeared Christ. When Christ is absent we try to bring him back with all manners of minister-craft and pleading. We reach out to that cloud where he sits in glory. And while he sits “at the Father’s right hand in glory everlasting” earthquakes destroy our cities, volcanic ash hangs over Britain like an ill-omen disrupting travel journeys and causes economic chaos, famine reduces life to a scramble for survival, and debating politicians fight over every scrap of election territory. Where is God’s power in all this – in the unemployed masses, the hungry and homeless, the ravaged people of Haiti, the butchered people of Rwanda, the bereft people of Poland? It seems, apparently, life can go on apart from God, and we can go on, quite easily, without God. If Christ is ascended, if Christ is absent what are we doing in church, in our local mission partnerships? Why praise God when he has removed himself from the world?

I can imagine Heaven’s fanfare trumpets did blow on that first Ascension Thursday to welcome home the returning Christ in a cloud-like tent of meeting, to be reunited with his prodigal Father. But to make sense of that upward mystery perhaps it is easier for us earth-bound creatures to invert the story of the Ascension and ask “how is God who absented himself made present in our world? Perhaps the writer to the Ephesians gives us the hint of the answer. “He that descended is He who also ascended far above all heavens, that He might fill all things” Ephesians 4 v10.

But the word ascended implies that he also descended to the lowest level, down to the very earth. That means God is present where he cannot be present – in the depths of hell, the abyss of despair. God’s presence is not just in the sacred places of our churches and cathedrals where dedicated coal-black dressed silk stoled stipendiary ministers fuss over God’s train (which filled the temple, Isaiah 6 v1) and where they faithfully serve, but also where God is most absent: in the pit, in the mire, in the squalid mess of humanity outside the church where Christ was crucified in an unfenced and unadorned place, the place where self supporting minsters ply their renewing ministerial craft of hope without Geneva robes, candles and crucifixes, prayer and hymnbooks and polished brass vases full of Tesco’s two-bags-for-the-price-of-one, lilies. For in that place, that is where God’s glory is to be found (Isaiah 6 v3). In the meaningless struggle of existence, God has been present.

And it is in this world, “filled with his glory,” that he exalts the wretched of the earth. He lifts them from the depths to the heights, and he raises the poor and the unemployed, the destitute and the powerless from the dust. He champions the poor and rescues them from their misery. It is the proud who are abased and the humbled exalted, the rich who are impoverished and the poor enriched; the well fed who are sent empty away and the hungry filled with good things. That is our hope. There is no place however remote from which he is absent, neither is there a situation, however desperate, which he does not share with us. And he is there making transformation in his glorious world, not just on Thursdays but the remaining days of the week too.

St Leo, that great Italian Doctor of the Church, in one of the earliest Ascension sermons said that in the life of the church “what was visible in the person of our redeemer is now represented in the mysteries.” In every communion service we are lifted up to the heavenly places and sustained in love. Confined in a cell in Beirut a priest took “a bit of stale bread hoarded from a scanty meal.” “Once again” wrote Terry Anderson, journalist and hostage*, a sharer in that communion service, “Christ’s promise is fulfilled. The miracle is real.” Out of that and all such darkness, the way lies open to heaven; for the Lord has ascended that he might fill all things.

Revd Ray Anglesea

April 2010

*Terry Anderson was an American journalist taken hostage in Beirut in 1985 by Hezbollah Shiite Muslims in an attempt to drive U.S. military forces from Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War. The longest known held hostage, he spent 6 years and 9 months in captivity. Anderson was released on 4th December 1991. He was reported as saying he had forgiven his captors.

Pat's Palestine Blog 5

Pat Devlin shares some more everyday experiences as a member of the World Council of Churches' Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI).

Yanoun

On Saturday we experienced what our presence in Yanoun is all about. Just after 1pm there was a loud banging on the door. Our neighbour had come to tell us that settlers, from the Itamar Settlement, above us, were coming into the village.

We watched as a growing number of young Israeli men (19 in all ) made their way to the village well. Rashed, the mayor, suggested we could go down and try to talk to them. This was not easy. There was a language barrier, but attitude was a much bigger barrier. They were intent on going down into the well to swim and nothing we could say about contaminating people’s drinking water would make any difference. As far as they were concerned, this is their country and they will do as they like in it. This was followed by some fairly insulting stuff about Arabs in general and ourselves as ‘foreign visitors’ As is normal here, two of them were armed, but there was never any threat of the arms being used, just a bit of pebble throwing at one point We stayed with them, hoping they would not do any damage while we were present and eventually they made their way up through the village and left.

About an hour later, a small number of them returned, but 3 Israeli army vehicles arrived at the same time, probably as a result of the phone calls made by Rashed and myself to the Palestinian DCO, the UN and Rabbis for Human Rights. They didn’t seem too interested in our version of events and when we showed them, where 6 of the young men had climbed down to swim in the well, the comment of the officer in charge was “Brave Kids”! However their presence deterred the young settlers from returning and the villagers were able to get on with the main business of the day – a wedding celebration!

Burin

Burin has suffered a lot over the last few years. Crops were burnt by settlers from the Bracha Settlement in the summers of 2008 and 2009. From September 09 to February 10 a total of 296 olive trees were cut down and destroyed by settlers.

There are two families who are completely cut off from the village by the roads serving the settlements. When we visited one of these families last week, we also met a physician and psychologist from Medecins sans Frontiers. They told us there is a big need for psychological support as people try to adjust to their reduced circumstances, lack of opportunity and severely restricted movement. This family now have so little land left to them by the settlers that they only have twenty sheep and they are unable to tend their olive trees safely. The Palestinian government are considering making a small payment to help families who have lost so much to the settlements, but the mother of the family tells us “ we would rather have more sheep.”

Meaning then we could make our own living. Normally the families would support themselves by selling sheep’s milk, cheese and yoghurt and making olive oil, as well as having small crops of wheat and vegetables. At the village centre we met the leader of the newly formed farmers association, who told us they are now planting, cultivating and harvesting their land in groups of 20-30, so that they will not be so vulnerable to the settlers “in shaa’allah” or “God willing” as they always add.

Asira

In 2008 Asira suffered a very serious attack by over 100 settlers from the Yizhar Settlement and it’s outposts which are very close to the village and there have been repeated incidents since then. We visited the last house in the village which was built by the owners before the settlement outposts appeared on the hill behind them. The house is now defaced by bullet holes and settlers’ graffiti. This is not a poor family and in other circumstances it would be the site of an exclusive hotel, with its breathtaking views of the surrounding hills and valleys. Instead a mother of 4 young children says she would be living in fear of the next attack, if it wasn’t for the strong support of the villagers who only a few days before had seen the settlers approaching her house before she was aware of them and they had come up the hill to protect herself and the children That same day she was awaiting a visit from a psychologist who was coming, through the school in the village, to offer support to her eldest son.

Madama

Madama is a large village which is flanked on one side by the Yizahar settlement and on the other side by the Bracha settlement. Madama had always depended on the natural Ben Shira spring for its water supply. But in June 2009 the water was no longer flowing from the spring to the holding tank under the mosque in the village which had supplied the village with water. The village was forced to make alternative arrangements, buying the water they needed from a tanker supplied by the municipality, who in turn were purchasing the water from an Israeli company. Villagers were spending between 400- 600 shekels a month Eventually, investigations in the company of the Palestinian DCO and the Palestinian Water Company revealed that the well house built by the villagers to pipe the spring water to the village had been deliberately damaged and the strong suspicion was the deed had been done by settlers from Yizahar settlement which overlooks the spring.

The villagers hope to get permission and a military escort to enable them to repair the well house, but this will always be a vulnerable source of water, now the settlement and its outposts are so near The Palestinian Water Company backed by US Aid are investigating the possibility of connecting the village to the Palestinian Water Company’s supply. But, just to carry out the initial land survey on the opposite hill below the Bracha settlement has required 2 permits and a military escort.

So, our snapshots begin and end with stories of water – a free gift – essential for all life and growth, but so easily manipulated as a weapon in an unequal political conflict over land .

Kate at Keld

Minister in training Kate Baxter is the latest to have spent a week as "Minister in Residence" at the Keld Resource Centre in Swaledale. Here she shares her experiences...

Last year David Peel ‘phoned to ask if I would be interested in spending a week at Keld as minister in residence. It didn’t take me long to decide - yes please.

I had never been to Swaledale before so had little idea what to expect, despite looking at the wonderful pictures available on the Keld Resource Centre web site. I arrived the Saturday before Easter to wet snow, but the Manse was warm and welcoming, a home in waiting. Keld itself is tiny, 23 houses, but a community that draws from outlying farms and houses. As soon I introduced myself, by knocking on doors, I was welcomed. A warning must be given about the amount of lovely cake and tea that you just can’t say ‘no’ to while in Keld!

The main Easter worship in Keld URC was held at 2pm with a congregation of sixteen, ranging from fifteen months to eighty eight years. And we celebrated. On each day I held worship in the church at 8am and 4.30pm. Most days I was on my own and sometimes I was joined by locals and people passing through. But there was something rather wonderful and, I suppose monastic, about being alone in a church offering praise and prayer and the Scripture, holding the people of Keld and visitors and farmers in prayer.

My days were mainly taken up by visiting known members of the congregation, friends of Keld Resource Centre and speaking with walkers and cyclists passing through at this place where the Pennine Way and Coast to Coast walks cross. There was time also to explore the Swale and it’s dramatic scenery and waterfalls, to watch and listen to the birds and just to be with God.

It has been a week of a journey in Keld. It’s all about being a minister in residence in Keld. Talking, sharing, praying and being in the midst of this place. It has I think, shown me how important it is as a minister to be yourself in a place and with people and to be open to the movement of the Spirit. All sorts of unexpected conversations have been had, two women who were waking and stopped to chat gave me a hug and said ‘God bless’ when they went.

It is important to be with people in God’s love in the middle of whatever they are doing and wherever they are. It comes back to what I learned in hospice work; that as a minister of God you are viewed as carrying not only God with you but also all the stories and traditions of Christianity, of our great story. So long as you are the person God called you to be and you are willing and able to share with others and let others share with you.

It has not been a week I will forget easily. I fully intend to come back, there is so much to do and see and I’ve not even managed to touch the tip of the iceberg.

If you have never been to Keld the Manse is available to rent as a holiday cottage, or perhaps just a day trip. But go and experience for yourselves the warm hospitality of this place where the stranger is truly welcomed.

Pat's Palestine Blog 4

Pat Devlin, who is known to many of us in the region, not least through her work with CAP, is at present in Palestine as part of the World Council of Churches' Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI).

Here she continues her regular blog through sharing what she calls "a news sheet with a difference"..... "I thought some of you might be interested in a Gandhian perspective on the West Bank. It certainly gave me the broader perspective and inspiration, I needed at the time."

Meeting at the friends Boys school Ramallah - 5.4.10

Speakers : Rajmohan Gandhi & Mustafa Barghouti

Silje and Pat were attending a meeting at Ramallah Friends Boys School, hosted by the National Palestinian Initiative, whose general secretary is Mustafa Barghouthi and who have the following 3 aims:

• End the Occupation
• Resist
• End Racism

Mustafa Barghouthi was the first to speak He started by welcoming particularly all the young people who were present at the meeting. He set the tone by saying Gandhi epitomized the fact that moral spirit is greater than material might. He called tortured people to unite in seeking freedom ‘No one can ride on your back unless you bend’

Mahatma Gandhi visited Palestine in 1938. He said then that Palestine should be for the Arabs and that it was a crime against humanity to deprive them of their land. Gandhi developed a model for building popular resistance. Barghouthi advocated a boycott of Israeli products, not just settlement products and further international sanctions against Israel. He said the current present struggle was not a conflict between equals, but a struggle between the oppressed and the oppressor.

Rajmohan Gandhi opened by saluting the Palestinian ability to enjoy life despite hourly humiliation and suffering. He saluted the Palestinian struggle against injustice He then summarized the key points in Mahatma Gandhi’s life, starting with his relationship to South Africa. He said India was a land of diversity, but rigidly divided by caste, whereas in South Africa all castes and religions, which were not Afrikaans, were thrown together

He returned to India with a strategy to unite all groups starting from his home region. He set up a training centre to mobilize people from all backgrounds. His followers took vows: Traditional vows like: truth, non violence, non accumulation of property New vows including: to work for the unity & friendship of all communities

• To work against Untouchability
• To live with fearlessness
• To earn their bread through the sweat of their brow

Using these methods he led a victorious struggle against imperialism. The British had greater respect for a non violent fighter than fear of a violent fighter. In India, Hindus are the majority, Muslims the minority. Extreme Hindus killed Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. But his death advanced his cause. He had a great Muslim friend, a Pashtun leader from Afghanistan called Abdullah Khan. Abdullah opposed the tradition of honour killing. He spent 27yrs in prison under the British and Pakistanis, like the many Palestinians who have spent long years in prison and like Nelson Mandela. He spent his life fighting for democracy and visited Jerusalem in 1920.

Rajmohan then went on to reflect on what he had seen during his brief visit to Palestine. He said the settlements, wall and roads that divide Palestinians from each other and prevent them from earning their livelihoods are more ugly than he realized and he hoped that this knowledge would burn in his heart forever. He said these realities nullify Israeli talk of their desire to see a Palestinian State. Israel is promoting fear among its own people to continue the enforced policy of domination and expansionism. They view the Palestinians as an inferior race not meriting equality and respect. They never talk of colonialism being good for the Palestinians

He again expressed his admiration for the Palestinian’s creativity and struggle and encouraged them that they were winning small victories again and again eg. opening a road, retaining land Preserving an olive tree are all precious victories. He had also been very impressed by the work of Palestinian civil society in: education, medical relief, facilities for the disabled, training women doctors, teaching children to help each other.

“Self confidence will be found with one hand fighting for your rights and the other hand reconstructing civil society” This is not just a coping strategy – it is a sign you are winning victory.”

Then he turned to the international community. Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere. The independence of India , Pakistan, Sri Lanka are incomplete without the independence of Palestine He saluted the Israelis who support the Palestinian struggle If I don’t join the struggle for this I am a smaller person. We have to meet our maker who will ask us what we did about injustice.

Why does God take so long to give victory to a just cause. It is a mystery like the death of children through natural disaster. I accept mystery. I cannot shake the almighty to act. I must learn patience which is the most frequently used word in the Qu’uran. But we can disturb the sleep of the international community.

On Easter Sunday he was at Abraham’s tomb in Hebron and in Bethlehem, where he prayed for the liberation of Palestine and for his Jewish friends in Israel and the USA. He said he could not offer advice after 3 days but he had some suggestions to offer:

• Be patient
• Never lose faith in ultimate victory – the oppressor will crumble under the weight of their own wrong doing
• Be appreciative of colleagues and don’t blame them for their omissions
• Continue the work of strengthening civil society – build your Palestinian home – make everything of the highest quality
• Continue to laugh your way to victory
• Form a partnership between Muslims & Christians.

A society is great if it respects its minorities He added the international community has duties. Opinion has to be mobilized in support of the Palestinian cause. The sense of justice in Judaism must be aroused. Non violence must always be joined to struggle and resistance. The Palestinian struggle is tougher than the Indian struggle. But the Palestinian people are resilient and gifted. You will find a way to overcome obstacles and move forward

Mustafa Barghouthi responded that Palestinians must develop open thinking capable of learning from others. We must learn not only to be fighters but to be effective: “ We must learn not only to be fighters, but to be effective and achieve results. When we are despondent we count our losses as achievements, but we must measure real achievements”

How can we be effective – Gandhi, Mandela, Martin Luther King started by refusing to accept the injustice. Popular resistance is growing, but we need to unite to be effective. We must be organized and united to succeed. A leadership role is not about position but about what a leader can provide for the people.

“Don’t accept not to be yourselves. Be yourselves and you can be more”

Pat's Palestine Blog 3

Is Easter also for Palestinians?

This year, the feast of Pesach (Passover), Palestinian Land Day and Easter for both the Eastern Orthodox and Western Christian Churches all occurred in the same week. Israel announced that the West Bank would be closed (ie people with West Bank I.D.s would have no access to Jerusalem) from Sunday March 28th (Palm Sunday) until April 6th, the Tuesday after Easter.

Palestinian Christians being prevented from attending the traditional Palm Sunday procession organised an alternative procession, starting from Bethlehem and heading for Jerusalem Echoing Jesus’ ride through into Jerusalem crowds of people waving palm branches accompanied riders on a pony and two donkeys through a checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem on Sunday, the Christian festival of Palm Sunday.

The march was supposed to have stopped at the checkpoint, but once the group reached the checkpoint gate for vehicles, approximately 100 protesters made their way through the gate. Apparently the security guards were unprepared: they were far too few to be able to stop the demonstrators who managed to walk through the second gate and on to the road to downtown Jerusalem, still being led by the donkey and the horse.

About a hundred metres down the road, the Israeli police realised what had happened and blocked the way. The demonstrators stopped, although they easily could have marched on as there were only a few police officers on the scene. In response, the checkpoint was closed for all vehicles and foot traffic attempting to enter Jerusalem. Eleven Palestinians were detained, including a prominent Palestinian politician
Checkpoint 300 - the main Bethlehem checkpoint giving access to Jerusalem from the Southern part of the West Bank- remained completely closed for the rest of the week Those with humanitarian concerns (eg access to hospitals) had to seek access via an alternate checkpoint and access for those wishing to enter Jerusalem for the Holy Week ceremonies at the church of the Holy Sepluchre was very uncertain - eventually some permits for worship were negotiated, but there is now a movement from the churches to resist the demand for such permits

Meanwhile we observed Holy Week about 45 miles north of Jerusalem in the Nablus area. On the Tuesday of Holy Week which was also Palestinian Land Day we went to Awarta, where we took part in a very different kind of procession. On Sunday March 21st, two young men were killed as they worked in the fields below the Izahar settlement. The circumstances of the killing were unclear Men lined the village streets as we arrived and entered the ‘town hall’ for a more official welcome from the mayor and his officers. We were joined by a small group of women which included women from the ambulance service which attended the incident.

At 10 45am we set out to walk to the place where the young men were killed, a distance of about 3 km. It was a solemn march with many carrying pictures of the two young men. When we arrived at the spot people were anxious to tell us their version of events and wanted us to take many pictures.

Then the olive tree planting began both to commemorate the young men and to mark Palestinian Land Day. Some of the youths became high spirited and raced up the hill with the Palestinian flag. The older men watched anxiously in case armed settlers would appear at the fence on the brow of the hill. But, the young men succeeded in planting the flag high on the hill, reclaiming their land in a symbolic way.

The walk back was more relaxed. We shared food and drink and the young men were very keen to talk to us. Many of them had gone to school with Salah and Muhammad and you could see them wrestling with the mixed emotions of anger and grief.

On Good Friday Sonti and I visited a remote village called Khirbet Tana, now in an Israeli military area The dwellings in this village have been demolished 3 times, because the aim is to make it exclusively an Israeli area, part military, part green belt. The villagers are currently living in tents in the midst of their ruined dwellings and dreading the heat of summer

We have been asked to visit because they are about to rebuild the school and there is anxiety that it will be destroyed again before it is completed. As we made our photographic record, the image of the phoenix bird rising from its own ashes came to mind and we carried these images to the Stations of the Cross in Nablus

Easter Saturday here is known as Holy Fire Saturday and there is a tradition that the Holy Fire is taken from the tomb in the Holy Sepulchre Church in Jerusalem and carried out to the cities and villages of Palestine.

We joined the celebrations in the Rafidia area of Nablus. The Holy Fire was brought first to the Church of Jacob’s Well ( where Jesus met the Samaritan Woman) and the Orthodox priest then brought it to Rafidia , where processed between 4 churches, led by the scouts with their drums and flags and flaming torches. We prayed in turn in the Melkite Church, the Anglican Church, the Latin patriarchate Church and finally the new Orthodox church, where everyone was invited to light their candle from the fire.

After this we attended a more traditional Easter Vigil Service in the Anglican church

On Easter Sunday morning I walked to the tomb of Nun, father of Joshua, which is little more than a mile away from our house and offers wonderful views of the Jordan Valley and I tried to allow something of the spirit of Easter to permeate my heart and mind, now so full of often contradictory images.

Pat's Palestine Blog 2

Daily life and Daily Tragedy in Yanoun

In some ways it was a relief to head north to visit the village of Yanoun, where I will be spending my 3 months together with my Norwegian, Swedish and South African team mates. Yanoun is in a very beautiful location, nestling among limestone hills reminiscent of the Peak District. Sheep are the main business of the village and we met the mayor of the village, as he grazed his sheep between the olive trees in the valley below the International House, where we will stay. Taking in the scene around us we picked out the animal sheds, which belong to the Israeli Settlers who live on the hill tops surrounding the village and who are the reason for our presence.

Left - Our team in front of the International House (Sonti, Silje, Pat, Tor) in Upper Yanoun

Right - The new team being shown the ropes: Walking to Lower Yanoun

We cannot see the houses of the settlers, but the village is surrounded on 3 sides by the illegal outpost buildings of the Itamar settlement, some of the settler animal sheds are only 400 metres from the houses of Upper Yanoun. In 2002, the harassment of villagers by settlers became so severe – village men being beaten in front of their children, animals mutilated, crops destroyed – that all the villagers left for Aqraba, the nearest larger village under full Palestinian control. Israeli and international-l peace groups came to the Yanoun to provide a protective presence and slowly, the villagers came back, about 80 in number. The Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme has had a permanent presence in the village since June 2003. In recent years the village has been relatively quiet, but the relentless incremental acquisition of the village land by the settlers continues.

We have now been back in Yanoun for almost a week and are getting used to the rhythm of village life. Life here begins between 4-5am By 7am the shepherds are out with the sheep on the lower slopes of the hills ( all that is now left to them for pasture) and the women have started bread making in the tabouns (the small outbuildings which house a sunken cooking fire) We try to take a walk between 7-8 am just to see that all is well and observe any changes on the hilltops – we may call in to one of the houses to buy fresh food for breakfast.

Left - Cheesemaking

Right - Rashid, Mayor of Yanoun

The women milk the sheep twice a day and make cheese, and yoghurt. They also keep hens for the eggs and the children have rabbits for the pot. The sheeps milk is a real treat on cereal, much better than our shop semi skimmed variety! The village has about 400 acres planted with olive trees and 100 acres planted with almonds figs vines etc. There seems to be a small amount of wheat and vegetables and herbs are often planted between the olive trees. So it could really be the good life, if the villagers were not prevented from tending their olive trees nearest the settlement outposts and only allowed one day to harvest with military protection, instead of 8-10 days. Moreover Israel no longer allows them to export their produce beyond the West Bank

The younger children start school in the village at 8am and the school bus collects the older

ones to take them to school in Aqraba about 3 miles away. Aqraba has a population of about 10,000 and has shops for all our basic needs. The road to Aqraba is the only way out of Yanoun as the direct road to Nablus and it’s surrounding villages has been closed by the Israeli military. This means that very circuitous routes have to be taken to nearby villages, but more of that next time. Meanwhile I’ll let the children of Yanoun have the last word....