In case anyone doesn't know, Doug is serving as an Ecumenical Accompanier for the World Council of Churches. This is his third report. Andy

DEC 29

    It's now about 4 pm here and we are back at our Jayyous house.  We
had a call from an EA at Janoun a while ago that about half a dozen
settlers with two shepherd (German?) dogs had entered the village.
Aya,from Scandinavia, began photographing them and they left.

    Well, tonight is when we arise at 3 am and take a taxi to Qalqilya
for the terminal monitoring.  We'll probably return to Jayyous around 7
and take a nap.  Then I'll be heading to Jerusalem for 3 days off which
the office wants everyone to take, though at different times.  

JAN 2

    Today Tzegha and I go to Qalqiliya for English conversation with 6
or 8 members of the English Club.  We'll leave here at 10:45. In the
afternoon, the calendar informs, we'll walk through some of the small
villages south of Qalqilya.  Jenny is in Jericho for some of her days
off and will meet us in Al Quds {Jerusalem} Thurs eve.  We will attend
a demonstration Friday against the apartheid road system.  Tomorrow
morning TZ and I monitor the Falamya agricultural gate and then attend
a Teachers' Retirement Party in Qalqilya.

JAN 2 (later)

      Tzegha and I went  at 11:00 to Qalqilya for the Open University
English Club.  Had discussion with 6-8 students about the pluses and
minuses of western societies compared to the middle eastern.
Interesting that many of their perceptions are pretty accurate.

      Arrived home at 1:30 and went to buy fresh cheese from the
neighbors in back.  Cheese not ready but they invited us for tea and
oranges.  A daughter-in-law, maybe 25, translated well as she had
English in high school and a year at college.  Her husband joined us
and the older couple, and small children came and went.  The young
husband had studied law in Libya and has a high rank in the Qalqilya
police.  The older father

has many orange trees and vegetables on the Israeli side of the separation fence and has a permit to cross.

    The problem is that he needs help at harvest time, which is now,
and the son is consistently turned down for a permit.  This is typical
in this village and a large problem.  We offered to help pick as our
schedule permits, hopefully Saturday.  Of course we don't know if the
soldiers will let us through the gate but will give it our best effort.

JAN 4

    Yesterday was quite eye-opening.  Four of us including Jenny,
Tzegha, and Guilliam boarded a bus with an Israeli peace group at 10:45.

    We drove through beautiful West Jerusalem and out into the country
for almost an hour.  Up and down the hills (like the Ozarks without the
woods, mostly olive trees) to a small Palestinian village where we met
with a few more activists who had arrived on their own.

       We could see a highway up from the town and it had a high wire
fence along both sides.  We also saw a line of Israeli soldiers behind
a razor wire barrier at the end of houses nearest the settler road.
Yes, only Israelis, most of them settlers in the occupied territories,
are allowed to drive on this nice four-lane highway leading to
Jerusalem.  This situation occurs throughout the West Bank and was the
reason for the demonstration.

      The village men and boys were also participating with the Jewish
activists (including three women from Machsom Watch) and we
"internationals." They started things off by going to the barrier with
their flags while we activists took another road around the soldiers
toward the fenced road.

        So about 30 of us went around the soldiers and their razor wire
and ran through an olive grove uphill to the wire fence.   Six or eight
Israeli policemen were on the highway side and we spread out along the
barrier and shook the fence with our hands.  The police were speaking
Hebrew to us telling us to stop and get away.  They swatted at our
hands with theirs and this went on for about ten minutes as Israelis
drove by and gawked at the disturbance.

       Meanwhile back at the army line of twenty soldiers behind their
razorwire, the Palestinians were waving flags and apparently being a
little rude to the soldiers, who began firing sound bombs and tear gas
at them.  Of course the villagers scattered as we watched from a couple
of hundred meters up the hill.  Then the police came through a hole in
the fence and began pushing our group away from it.  The EAs tried not
to

come into contact with the police because that is against the group's
policies.  Don't get arrested and don't get hurt.  Some of the other
peace group resisted being pushed and a couple of men were arrested and
marched off.  A half dozen activists sat down on the hillside and the
police did not seem sure what to do about that.  Meanwhile at the
barricade the Palestinians had reassembled back in front of the
soldiers.  Pretty soon more tear gas and sound bombs were fired and the
villagers scattered again.  We were getting pretty good whiffs of the
tear gas as it drifted in our direction.

   Those of us at the highway fence yielded to the police and went back
down the way we had come, around the army line.  We kind of became
mixed with the Palestinians and the soldiers fired gas and sound bombs
at us.  Things gradually calmed down and some of the village leaders
approached the army line and began speaking to the commander. Actually
this was after the soldiers advanced further into the center of the
town with three vehicles blocking the road.  As the Palestinian men
left the soldiers rocks began to rain down on the soldiers and
commander, having been thrown by a group of boys standing partly out of
sight. This brought on the usual firing and possibly some rifle fire
from the army.  Of course, the soldiers had helmets with face guards
and bulletproof vests, so I don't know that any of them were hurt
much.  

    Finally, after advancing their vehicles to the main town
intersection, the army turned around and left; except for three or four
troops chasing rockthrowers up into surrounding

housing areas.  Then the demonstrators began leaving and boarding the
bus, some saying that we really hadn't seen anything, yet, as some
demonstrations go.                      

    Have many good pictures.  The Palestinians resent the Israeli
settlements in their land, the confiscation of their fields and homes
and pastures for the construction of these wide highways and fences.
These roads also inhibit their travel routes, causing extra distance to
underpasses for their poorly maintained roads while the settlers have
modern freeways straight to Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, etc.    

    I forgot to mention it had been raining for the last half hour of
the protest.  Tzegha and Guilliam rode the bus back to Jerusalem but
Jenny and I rode in a minivan type taxi along with several other people
to Ramallah.  A Palestinian woman had been giving an interview to a
Japanese TV crew about the people not giving up their resistance to the
Israeli occupation of their land.  I thought she looked a little
familiar and she boarded the minivan with us.  I asked her if she was
in the ISM (International Solidarity Movement) and she said she had
been active but not so much now.  I asked her if she had spoken at the
NGO Conference at the UN in New York several years ago and she said
yes, in 2002. I said that my wife, Andrea, and I were there and had
heard her and her husband, Adam, speak.  She seemed pleased to be
remembered and said that Israel had deported Adam in 2002 or 2003, even
though he is Jewish and an American.  They are of necessity living
apart now. (*Doug refers to Huwaida Arraf and Adam Shapiro, two
cofounders of the International Solidarity Movement. They are quite
"googleable").

      On the van I sat next to a young Jewish man who is in his last
year at Tel Aviv University.  He said about eight other students had
also come to be in the protest.  He also mentioned that the University
is struggling financially as are many Israeli activities such as
healthcare, teachers, you name it.  We agreed that Israeli financing of
the occupation is hurting its society in general.

      We changed minivans in Ramallah and arrived back in Jayyous well
after dark.  This is Saturday at 8:15 pm and we have to get up at 3:00
to go to Qalqilya North Terminal for monitoring that checkpoint.  Many
Palestinian workers cross into Israel to work if they have

been granted permits to do so.  But they must go through metal
detectors, have their belongings scanned, show ID and have their
handprints scanned.  Only four lines inside the facility to process
about 3,000 people in 2 or 3 hours results in long waits outside in the
cold.  

    We EAs have phone numbers of Machsom Watch ladies (*Israeli) to
call if the lines are long and don't move reasonably
well.                

SUNDAY JAN 6

    Hi Andrea,  it's 8:00 Sunday night.  

   Late this afternoon Abu Azzam, our landlord and main contact,
dropped by regarding a couple of plumbing matters.  He said his repair
man was behind about 100 cars at a flying checkpoint between Jayyous
and Azzoun, not too far away.  I offered to put on my coat and vest and
go observe.

    We chatted a little and I called Tzegha who was on her way back
from days off in Jerusalem, and she was also trapped at the flying
checkpoint.  So I called a taxi and rode 7 or 8 minutes to the backed
up traffic.  I walked up the line of cars, just after dark, and the
leader of the four soldiers approached me.  They had traffic backed up
substantially in both directions.  

    I said, "I'm from the United States and represent the World Council of Churches.

You have a big line of cars backed up here and I'm here to observe.
I'll stand just over there."  He said, "Only observe" in an accent.
Only 10 or 15 seconds after i took my stance at the roadside he came
over and said  "We just received orders to move to a new place.  This
checkpoint is over."  So they commenced to put their stopsigns and
other gear into their humvee and I just stood there and watched them,
not moving.  

    Tzegha drove up in the passenger side of a small car with a young
Spanish man driving.  They waited while I waited, still standing, for
the humvee to actually drive off.  I

suspected that if I'd left first they would reopen their checkpoint.  

    Then Tzegha and Pepe brought us back to Jayyous.  When he left I
asked him to call if the soldiers had returned,but he apparently didn't
need to.

    I really felt good, that it had been a contribution to the
Palestinians who live around here.  If the soldiers received a new
order just after my arrival it was one heckuva coincidence.  Truth be
told they were out messing around and didn't want to take a chance
being reported.