May 14, 2009 PEACE TEAM IN WEST BANK
Deisheh Refugee Camp, Israeli-Occupied West Bank- The six members of
the Catholic Worker Peace Team, Brenna Cussen, Colin Gilbert, Mark
toured
United Nations school in the Aida Refugee Camp where Pope Benedict XVI
said mass yesterday. The spot was in a courtyard of basketball courts
around the corner from a plaza specially-built for the Mass, but
rejected at the last moment because it is adjacent to the Israeli
separation barrier wall. The streets were festooned with Palestinian
and Papal flags. The wall had several spray-painted welcome signs for
the pope along with murals and graffiti opposing the 18-foot tall
concrete barrier. Near the spot where the altar would have stood was
large message which read "Victory attained by violence is equal to a
defeat, for it is momentary.' Mahatma Gandhi.' Another message said,
"Love thy neighbor means don't shoot them." Nearby, the group saw a
large mural of a dove wearing an armoured vest within a sniper's
scope. Some of the graffiti was good humored. One message was, "I
didn't ask to be a Palestinian. I just got lucky."
The group next visited
where Professor Mazin Quimsiyeh took them onto the roof of a
five-storey classroom building to show them the impact of the Israeli
occupation on
surrounding hills as well as the three refugee camps inside
which are still filled with Palestinians displaced by the creation of
the state of
barrier and what he called "settler roads," which are highways upon
which it is illegal for Palestinians to drive or even cross on foot.
He said that only one side of
Palestinians and that, even there, it would only take "two Israeli
soldiers with a bulldozer to completely close off
Jewish-only settlements. He also pointed out large olive groves which
are now on the Israeli side of the barrier. These are no longer being
tended and their Palestinian owners were not compensated from the loss
of them or their land. He said that Palestinians get 15% of the West
Bank's water even though they represent 80% of its population and that
settlers are billed only 5% of the cost for water that Palestinians pay.
The team then visited the
city,
computer systems engineer who works for the
Committee, a group that restores ancient and traditional homes in
half hours to go from
closures, he said that under normal circumstances it would only take
45 minutes. After talking about his restoration work, he explained to
the team that
military installations connected by roads upon which Palestinians
cannot travel. He said journeys that should be 2 minutes might now
take an hour. He said in one square kilometer of the old city there
were 101 impediments to Palestinian travel including iron gates,
roadblocks, checkpoints, concrete barriers, prohibited roads, and
fences. He said that 76% of Palestinian businesses in that area were
closed by compulsion or due to reduced business. He said the center of
the city has 400 Jewish settlers who are guarded by 1,500 Israeli soldiers.
On a tour of the old city led by Badia Dwaik, a member of Youth
Against Settlements, the team crossed two army checkpoints and visited
the Tomb of Abraham, the only location on earth where a Jewish
synagogue and a Islamic mosque share the same building. It was here,
in 1994, during the Islamic morning prayers that an American Jew, Dr.
Baruch Goldstein, entered the mosque with several guns and killed 28
Palestinians and wounded many more before he was himself beaten to
death by worshipers. Israeli soldiers, on duty at the mosque, did not
intervene. The Israeli government responded by putting all West Bank
Palestinians under curfew and restricting their use of the mosque from
then on. One Palestinian quipped, "We were punished for the crime of
being massacred."
Scott Schaeffer-Duffy, Brenna Cussen, Colin Gilbert, and Mark
Colville walked into one of the areas where Palestinians, like Badia,
are banned from driving, walking, and living. The former Palestinian
homes and businesses were shuttered and run down. The streets were
empty, save patrolling Israeli soldiers and a small number of Jewish
settlers. Anti-Arab graffiti was inscribed on several abandoned
Palestinian homes, several streets were blocked with concrete barriers
and barbed wire. They spoke with several Israeli soldiers including an
18-year-old who fought in
that the killing was indiscriminate were not true, but admitted that
younger soldiers, like him, were kept on the outskirts of the
fighting. The team members entered the Beit Hadassah settlement, the
oldest and most extreme in the
playing and a group of foreigners receiving a lecture on the why
Afterwards, they visited the farms of Attah and Jowdi Jabbar, which
are located adjacent to the Kiryat Arba settlement outside
This settlement is one of the largest. When it expanded 15 years ago,
20% of the Jabbar farm was seized, it's ancient olive trees cut down,
and the area left a barren field. It remains empty to this day. Team
member Scott Schaeffer-Duffy visited the Jabbars in 2001 when he
photographed two Jabbar family cars which had been burned the night
before by Jewish settlers. Schaeffer-Duffy and team member Brenna
Cussen visited the farm in 2004 and found numerous grape vines cut
into stumps by settlers. On today's visit the team saw the fields,
which were filled with tomatoes and other vegetables in 2004, lying
fallow. Attah explained that six months ago the Israeli government cut
off half of their water supply and that two months ago the Israelis
seized the irrigation pipes of all the Palestinian farmers in the
valley, saying that the Palestinians had illegally tapped into
government water, a charge Attah vehemently denies. He said the
Israelis took away 20 truckloads of pipelines. He said this
accompanied a policy begun years earlier to pour salt in Palestinian
wells. He also said that 90% of the valley is now under a demolition
order and that all Palestinian houses could be demolished at any
moment. He said that his farm was originally 90 acres and that he was
a rich man, but that since 1995 the Israelis have gradually seized all
but seven acres. He said that last year he planted 4,000 tomato
plants, but that this year, with almost no water, he cannot grow any.
He does not know how his family will survive.
Attah Jabbar said, "The soil of this land is fat. I was able to
grow organic vegetables without any pesticides, but, now we suffer
because we don't have other jobs than farming. We are not allowed to
work in
Bank, 50-60% of Palestinians have no jobs. People are just getting
poorer and poorer.'
Jowdi Jabbar showed the team the ruins of his home which once stood
next to Attah's. He said that settlers came to that house in the
middle of the night and broke all the windows. Falling glass injured
his three-year-old daughter whom he carried to the hospital several
miles away in
daughter was hospitalized for six days at great cost to him and was
left blind in one eye. He said that when the settlers destroyed his
house he went to the police station where the Israeli police "talked
to me like a dog and to the settlers like kings." He also told the
team, " My children have not been able to sleep through the night
since this glass breaking."
Jowdi says that the Israelis came on a Friday telling him that his
house was going to be demolished, but that Muslim lawyers do not work
on their sabbath and Jewish courts are not open on Saturday, their
sabbath, and his house was bulldozed early on Sunday. He had no resort
to the courts. He said, "I never did anything to the Israeli
government." He added that "The land does not belong to the
Palestinians or the Israelis. It's God's land." His brother Attah
agreed, "We are guests here."
Jowdi concluded emotionally: "We don't have fairness in this
life.... I need an easier life for my children, a life of peace,
without confiscations, without attacks in the night, without hate in
the heart...I see this question in my son's eyes, 'Why did you give me
this life?"
The team gave the six Jabbar children, aged 6 to 14, some of the
stuffed animals donated by children in
member Scott Schaeffer-Duffy told the Jabbars, "I wish we could give
you 10,000 liters of water and an end to this oppression."
The Jabbars posed for a photograph with the Catholic Worker Peace
Team and its banner calling for and end to the occupation and for
peace.
Afterwards, team member Mark Colville described the Israeli
treatment of Palestinians in
racist plan to displace them from their land and make them refugees in
impoverished urban ghettos."
The team returned to Deheisheh refugee camp for a tour and plan to
visit Beit Sahour later tonight. They also plan to join nonviolent
protests against the construction of the Israeli separation barrier in
the West Bank
Israeli, and international peace activists have been injured and
killed by Israeli soldiers during these demonstrations. The team also
plans to meet in
to the demolition of Palestinian homes. On Saturday, they plan to
visit Sderot, the Israeli city which was hit the most by rockets fired
from the
Sunday.
Contact: 203 415-5896
For more info contact:
Saints Francis and Therese Catholic Worker House
508 753 3588
theresecw2 at gmail.com
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Previous Postings:
The “Catholic Worker Peace Team” model explained by Scott Shaeffer-Duffy and Brenna Cussen
http://groups.google.com/group/National-CW-E-mail-List/browse_frm/thread/f7f9bccbaa3fcaac?hl=en#
CW Peace Team arrive in Cairo with Medical Supplies and Toys for Gaza
http://groups.google.com/group/National-CW-E-mail-List/browse_frm/thread/7f64d91eff3300fc?hl=en
"Rafah Crossing Closed: CW Peace Team Will Attempt to Enter
http://groups.google.com/group/National-CW-E-mail-List/browse_frm/thread/1b403a448bebaf70?hl=en
Catholic Worker Peace Team delayed at Rafah Border; Medical supplies sit idle.
http://groups.google.com/group/National-CW-E-mail-List/browse_frm/thread/fff62c9e3f7d1130
CW Peace Team Praying for Entry into
http://groups.google.com/group/National-CW-E-mail-List/browse_frm/thread/5d575a837c6efa15
Catholic Worker Peace Team Arrives at Palestinian Refugee Camp
http://groups.google.com/group/National-CW-E-mail-List/browse_frm/thread/ea118e48c961f823
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