Update #6 from Kansas City Ecumenical Accompanier Doug Whitmore, a
United Methodist. The EA program  was started several years ago by the
World Council of Churches. You can learn more and see photos of some
EAs in the convoy to Gaza at http://www.eappi.org (under photos and
videos). It's a three-month obligation, in case anyone would like to
serve. Doug will be glad to answer questions when he returns in early
March.

JAN 24 (Thursday)

I just heard a while ago that 200,000 Gazans had gone into Egypt.  On
Saturday I plan to be on a bus in a convoy heading to Gaza with
essentials like cooking oil and flour, beans and rice, etc.  Several
other EAs are going too.  

JAN 25

    Did I tell you about
the kibbutz we visited Wednesday?  Lydia Aisenberg, about our age, came
to Israel before the 1967 war from Wales. She was our guide and said
she had experienced anti-Semitism in Wales.  She joined a Jewish
Atheist Socialist kibbutz that was started in the early 1920s and the
original folks lived in tents. Her job for the first fifteen years was
milking cows, which of course means getting up early and working again
in late afternoon. Everyone worked hard and they had good land, which
led to success and survival. She married a Russian and had four or five
children who are grown now. Everyone in the kibbutz has become well off
because at some point they got into plastics manufacturing (remember
advice Dustin Hoffman received in The Graduate?).  They make a covering
for the big round hay bales farmers favor and they hold a patent.  

    Although a number of kibbutzs failed, this one now has a thousand
members and everyone lives in nice permanent housing.  The place
reminds me of a Florida retirement town with red tile roofs and
beautiful mature trees and plantings.  Everyone eats together in a nice
big school cafeteria and everyone has a job in the community.  They
distribute money on some kind of a shared basis and even have an
assisted living center that helps care for the elderly.  Lydia said
they have about 30 committees that run everything and make big
decisions as a community.

        This morning I accompanied EA
coordinator Valentina to Bethlehem to make a presentation to Lutheran
seminary students and their leaders.  Half were from St. Paul, MN and
half from Berkeley, CA.  We gave a Powerpoint talk for advocacy and
recruitment and the people seemed to enjoy talking with someone from
Kansas City.

       After lunch I set out for the weekly Women In
Black demonstration in West Jerusalem where many Jewish Israelis live
and work.  Being on foot and getting slightly lost I arrived late at
1:20.  There were 20-30 women dressed in black holding signs that said
"end the occupation."  I asked if I could join them, even though my
vest and trousers were tan, and they pointed me to the signs.  Choice
of Hebrew, Arabic or English so I took English and Hebrew.

Standing next to a woman a little older than me I said something to her
and she answered in "American" English.   She told me that years ago
she had moved here from San Francisco and married a man born here who
is a tour guide.  She asked if I'd visited the Garden Tomb, as she had,
and explained how to get there.  We talked about the different kinds of
Christians who visit here and the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program.  I
told her a little about my favorite book, "Jesus,Uncovering the Life,
Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary" and she thought
her husband would be interested because of his experiences as a guide
for different Christians.  Also mentioned the author--Marcus Borg.

    As we conversed people drove by or rode by on motor scooters and
many gave us thumbs up and some yelled at us, displeased.  A man in
black had meanwhile joined us and started arguing with a passerby and
the woman near me said something in Hebrew to him.  Then she told me it
was supposed to be a silent demonstration and that arguing never
changed any minds.  At two o'clock another woman began gathering up the
signs and the woman talking to me extended her hand and I gladly shook
it and said goodbye.  She made me feel that there really are people of
good will here.

JAN 26

    It's 9:40 Sat night and we're back from the convoy to Gaza and have our computers set up on the wireless.  

    About 8 EAs rode on one of three large buses leaving from Jerusalem
at 9:30 or so. These buses met up with 20 or 30 cars at a stadium
parking lot. That small convoy met up with more cars and buses about an
hour toward Gaza.  By noon the convoy had about 8 large buses from
Israeli cities and maybe 80 cars.  We stopped at an orange grove just
before arriving at Erez crossing so everyone could take a leak in the
grove!

      I estimate about a thousand people- Israeli peace
groups, internationals and Israeli Arabs {Palestinians living in
Israel, mainly up north}.  Most brought boxes of goods and there were
two large pickup truck loads, one with a Pal woman leading chants in
Arabic.  Speakers and people milling around listening and taking photos
of each other.

    Israeli police and armed forces stood around
the terminal to keep the demonstration in a large parking area.
Surprisingly they were not carrying the M-16 automatic rifles we
usually see the army and border police armed with. I think they were
worried about press and TV coverage and didn't want to look too
oppressive.  The whole thing was actually quite peaceful and began to
break up in two hours.  

    On the way back, our Jayyous team
switched to a bus headed for Haifa so we could get close to the
Qalqilya crossing area. That bus held all Palestinians and they thanked
us for supporting them and the Gazans.  We made a small contribution
toward cost of the bus. I'm hoping you"ll see news coverage of the
demonstration in the U.S., but don't know if it will be shown widely.
It was a cloudy day and rained on the way home but the farmers need it.

      Tzegha and I are getting up at 3:15 am for Qalqilya North terminal.

JAN 27

    Did you see anything or read anything about the Gaza convoy and demo?

Some
kind of a change needs to occur over here.  The Bush initiative has not
resulted in any noticeable improvements for the Pals.      

    We
did our terminal watch at Qalqilya this am.  The weather was a little
warmer than the past couple of Sundays.  However after a smooth start
the metal detector just inside the front gate began going off quite
often. The soldier was yelling at the men to go back through and show
him what they had in their bags.  This went on long enough that the
line outside was backing up and Tzegha and I each called the
Humanitarian Hotline to some army office.  Finally an order must have
been given to get things moving which must have included turning metal
detector to less sensitive.  Anyway things then got backed up inside
from the inflow but it was late enough that the line was somewhat under
control. We left at 6:30.

      Came back and slept over next three
hours but not well.  It's noon now and we have invitation from the
Christian woman, Afaf, in Azzoun for lunch at 1:30.

      Propane heater is sputtering so will need tank changed today.

JAN 28

    To answer your questions: the Gaza demo never got across border, just to Erez checkpoint.

      Some Pals here in West Bank saw the demo on TV and recognized the EA vests.  That was good.  

    Today we three are visiting Jenin because Jenny has a friend there
and we want to see a Freedom Theater performance tomorrow.  Will return
to Jayyous tomorrow.  Have three guests coming Thursday—two EAs and an
Israeli grad student.  Should be interesting as I think the Israeli is
in the reserves.

      Next Tuesday I'm to help with presentation to
Lutheran bishops and will have two days off.  Following week three days
off.  Following week has three days training new group.  Last week of
February on Wednesday is handover ceremony to new group so it feels
like we're going into the home stretch!

JAN 29

    *Doug
and the Jayyous team returned from Jenin Jan 29, a Tuesday. He writes
about that for tomorrow’s journal, but meanwhile, he and other
internationals were contacted by Christian Peacemaker Teams with the
following report:

On Friday, Jan 12, a shepherd from the
Palestinian village of Tuba in the South Hebron Hills was grazing his
flock in fields several hundred meters south of Havat Ma’on, an illegal
Israeli outpost, when settlers from the outpost approached in a white
car. Settlers from the outpost are well known in the area for their
attacks on both local Palestinian shepherds and farmers and on
Palestinian children walking to school. More settlers arrived, along
with a jeep of Israeli soldiers, causing the shepherd to move back to a
safer location. The soldiers informed the international volunteers
accompanying the shepherd that the shepherd was not permitted to graze
on the land, despite the fact that the outpost is illegal and the
Israeli Army itself had previously issued a demolition order for Havat
Ma’on.

That order has never been carried out.

Despite
the fact that the shepherd moved farther down the valley, the soldiers
and a settler security guard followed him. Not content at having pushed
the shepherd back, before leaving, two soldiers dropped their pants and
displayed their buttocks to the shepherd and the international
volunteers in a lewd, insulting manner.

The incident was part
of ongoing harassment in the area of Palestinian shepherds by Israeli
settlers and security forces. The following day, settlers from the
outpost fired six shots at the shepherds. The police did not respond to
that incident. The day after the shooting, Sunday January 14, settlers
armed with clubs came at the shepherds to once again push them off the
land. On Monday January 15, Israeli soldiers threatened shepherds with
arrest. Their efforts are part of an ongoing process of illegal
settlement expansion in the area. (from the Christian Peacemaker Team
in Al Tuwani, near Hebron)

JAN 31 (Doug)

    8:45 Thurs eve.
Two nights ago we had a wind, hail and rain storm.  Internet out at the
house but working at this little cafe.  We haven't done too much
exciting since returning from Jenin.  There, we were well taken care of
by a young lawyer in training and his mentor, about 55 years.  Jenny
knows the brother of the young man in Switzerland and he wanted her to
visit his family.  The father is dead but the mother, sister and a
couple of brothers live on the fifth floor of an apt building that was
severely damaged by Israeli army a few years ago.  Theirs is the only
occupied apt.  They fed us dinner and breakfast and treated us royally,
though they are struggling financially.  

    The young lawyer’s
trainer has a nice house and large family ranging from 20 to 10.  But
he said the lawyer business was slow and I think they get by from
inherited land.

      They told us that Jenin has pop of 30,000 plus 20,000 more in the camp.  300 young men in Israeli prisons.

FEB 1

Sometimes our hardest work is listening to the stories of bad things
that happen to families from the occupation.  Just sat with a lovely
mother and her sister and the daughters.  Ones son is half way through
a seven-year sentence for having his brother’s phone number on his
phone.  The brother was an Al Aqsa member now martyred two years ago.

The other mother has two smart daughters attending Najaf University in
Nablus but the father lost his job and permit to work in Israel.  They
don´t know how they will manage.  Every day has similar stories.

    We visited two poor families in Azzoun two days ago because their
15 and 16 year old sons had been shot. They were hit in the leg and
then a soldier came over and shot them again in the leg, "as an example
to others who might throw stones."