Tuwani Accompaniment

The School in at-Tuwani

The Situation in Tuwani
It has been quiet this week because all the planting and plowing is done and the rains haven't begun, which means there is nothing green for the sheep to graze on so they stay home and eat grain. During the planting and plowing there were a number of nasty settler encounters. The problem here--and in much of the West Bank-- is a land dispute. Jewish settlers living in the nearby Maon Settlement want to claim and use land owned by Palestinians. We accompany Palestinians to prevent settlers from taking it by force or intimidation.

There was an Israeli high court decision recently that affirmed the right of these villagers to plow and plant their own land, but still there have been problems with settlers, especially in the areas not covered by the court decision. And it seems to us that the Israeli army is more accountable to the settlers than they are to their own court system. We expect the problems to start up again as soon as the rains begin and Palestinians will want to use their grazing land, also coveted by settlers. That should start any day now--the rains are late, but in the last few days winter has been blowing in, and winter brings rain.

We continue to accompany a group of about a dozen Palestinian children to and from school every day. Accompaniment means watching to make sure the Israeli soldiers come at the appointed time to walk with them to protect them from attack by the settlers. It has been going smoothly, and recently they began using the shortest path to school, the one where I was beaten, which takes them only about 20 minutes each way. There have been problems still with settlers; recently they came out even with the soldiers present and managed to hurt one of the children.

This morning we awoke to find Israeli soldiers bulldozing closed the main road out of the village and into Yatta, the nearest larger city. They periodically close it and Palestinians open it up by digging it out by hand, because people need to use the road to get to school and work, and to transport food and supplies to the village. This time the soldiers put such big rocks in the way that they will be nearly impossible to move. But I have confidence that the Palestinians will figure out a way!

The reason for the closure, we assume, is that a settler was killed near Hebron, about an hour away from Tuwani (give or take). In a normal democracy, with normal rule of law, police investigate the crime and punish the perpetrator. Here, Israelis punish all Palestinians through closures, bulldozing, roadblocks, and other measures, before anyone even knows who committed the crime. I do not get this mentality. It is a form of collective punishment, and is evidence of the fundamental flaw in Israeli policies toward Palestine. Until those policies change, there will be no peace here.

Lomas de Poleo

One aspect of border work that I have not explored with you much so far is violence on the Mexico side and how it relates to US border policies. I received some information from the Columban Fathers (a Catholic religious order) about a violent land dispute in Cuidad Juarez (across from El Paso, TX) that one of their priests was involved in and that was related to US policies in the area.

Last weekend I drove there with another CPTer and learned more about the story. The US has decided to put a new legal international border crossing at Sunland Park, NM, a suburb of El Paso. Sunland Park is rather depressed but is already the site of a casino and racetrack. They think a border crossing will bring economic development. This seems odd to me---in Douglas the economic development consists of retail outlets like Wal-Mart that cater to Mexicans with special shopping visas--hardly large scale economic development.

On the Mexico side they also expect economic development. Right now what is there is a colonia called Anapra, and next to it a settlement called Lomas de Poleo. The people there live in shacks and work in the maquilla factories earning somewhere around $45 per week. Those that have jobs, that is.

A short bit of context for those of you who aren't familiar with this: the maquilla factories make cheap manufactured goods that are sold in places like Wal-Mart. They have them all along the US-Mexico border--on the Mexican side-- and also in places like Haiti, China, etc. International corporations run them and they get closed and moved every time the company finds a place with cheaper labor. In Mexico, people were forced to leave their farms as a result of NAFTA and other US trade policies which dramatically decreased the price of agricultural products and made farming unsustainable on a small scale. The people who left their farms either work in the maquilladoras or smuggle themselves across the border into the US looking for work. Colonias filled with desperately poor people have sprung up around the maquilla factories on the border.

I hope you are still with me! Enter the Zaragoza family. The Zaragozas are a rich Mexican family who seem to own everything (including Corona, which has me highly depressed). Apparently because of the possibility of development of some kind, the Zaragozas have decided they want the land called Lomas de Poleo. It sits atop a mesa surrounded by mountains with a great view of the US.

According to the Mexican constitution, if you settle on unoccupied land for 5 years or more and no-one claims it, it becomes yours. Many people have been there 30 years or more; others for 10 or 15 years. In short, they all own their land. But Zaragoza has decided to claim it, and has surrounded the community with gates, fences and barbed wire, and placed his own guards around the town, controlling who comes and goes. He has so far bulldozed dozens of homes.

About half the village has already fled. About a month ago one person was beaten to death trying to defend the home of a friend. He left a wife and three children. With the support of the Columbans, the village has filed a legal complaint and has established a permanent protest at the office of the Attorney General in Juarez, where jurisdiction lies. They have hung banners from the building calling Zaragoza a criminal and there is a coffin on the front steps calling attention to the man who died. So far they have been there five weeks.

They don't know when the case will be resolved or who long they will have to stay. They do know that so far everything has gone in the favor of Zaragoza.We don't know what we will do yet in response to this situation. We would like to support the protest in some way and also to support the priest who is accompanying the village through this ordeal. For me this trip provided a glimpse of the many different peoples and places who are being harmed by our border policies.

Life and Death in the Desert

Life and Death in the Desert


Random ID checks. High intensity light surveillance. Low level helicopter flights. Fence and wall construction. Infrared sensors. Vehicle checkpoints. Unmanned drones seek evidence of weapons, or drugs, or people-smuggling. Officers patrol on foot, horseback, or jeep. Police, soldiers, or agents detain lines of people at the side of the road until they complete a computer check of citizenship and work permit status. Some are arrested, some are prosecuted, some are deported.

These scenes describe life in the West Bank, Palestine, where I served with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Hebron this past Fall and Spring. The effects of this high level of militarization in Israel-Palestine are well-known to many religious activists. Israeli army (IDF) militarization of the West Bank has created a virtual ghetto for Palestinians, many of whom have been living in refugee camps since 1948. Militarization prevents Palestinians from freely moving between the West Bank and Israel, effectively separating the Palestinian people from their families, from their historical lands, and from decent jobs in Israel. In the name of national security, the IDF inflicts abuse and humiliation against Palestinians which would never be tolerated in Israeli society.

What is less-known is that this level of militarization also describes life on the US-Mexico border. I have been working with the CPT team in Douglas, Arizona, since I left the Middle East in May. I have found an eerie similarity between what, in the name of security, the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinians and our own government is doing to migrants from Mexico and other places south of the US border.

Israel is building a wall around Palestine, and we are building a wall on the border with Mexico. So far there are about 70 miles of wall, which is constructed of metal landing pad material leftover from the Vietnam War, on the US-Mexico border. Near Douglas and Naco, Arizona, there are many still-unused piles of this material, which has been hauled in from its storage places around the world. On one part of the wall, near Naco, a sign announces that an army engineering company based in Fort Benning, Georgia, is responsible for constructing it.

The Israel-Palestine “separation wall” and the US-Mexico “border fence” divide wealth from poverty and opportunity from desperation. The walls separate people from jobs and family. They separate people, whose ancestors have lived on the land for centuries, from their traditional land and culture. The land on the wealthy side of the walls was taken by force from darker-skinned people by primarily white colonizers. As described above, both walls are constructed in the name of national security and therefore require a high degree of additional military presence to try and secure the border.

This part scares me. Our Border Patrol is not the IDF, at least not yet. And so far, we have seen no Mexican suicide bombers. But is this where we are headed? There are proposals in Congress to increase militarization of the border zone. We have not learned from the experience of Israel. Militarization does not work. On the Israel side, people live in constant fear of violence and have become numb to the invasive presence of weapons and soldiers in their society. On the Palestine side, militarization has increased the sense of desperation among the Palestinian people, because they feel locked in without access to resources, jobs, and opportunity on the other side of the wall. Even inside the West Bank, Palestinians cannot travel freely. Desperation has led some to believe that their lives are expendable. In my view, Palestinian suicide bombings are at least as much about suicide as they are about bombing the Israelis. People do not blow themselves up if they feel hopeful about their future lives.

Since the passage of NAFTA in 1994, desperation has heightened on the Mexico side of the border. The average wage in Mexico has dropped 34%, while the cost of food, housing, and other essentials has gone up 247% (Border Action Network, Militarization and Globalization, www.borderaction.org). Hundreds of thousands of migrants cross the border into the US every year seeking better lives. Increased militarization around population areas has caused migrants to cross in remote and dangerous desert regions. There have been more than 3000 documented migrant deaths from 1995-2005 (Derechos Humanos, www.derechoshumanosaz.net). Many local activists believe that number is likely much higher and that many bodies in remote regions are never found.

In June, I walked through the desert from Sasabe, Mexico to Tucson, Arizona. It took us 7 days to walk 75 brutal miles. During the walk I realized that a person would have to be desperate to attempt this trip. I think it may have been the day that I twisted my ankle. I decided that I was going to try and walk the rest of the way anyway, because that is what a migrant would have to do---or else be left for dead. I imagined a migrant coming to the realization that he or she would not be able to continue. Ever.

If increased militarization won’t work, then what will? The answer is complicated, and includes legislative action for comprehensive immigraton reform, education about border issues, sustainable development on the south side of the border, and many other factors. I hope, though, that people of faith will look deeper than legislative advocacy and education. It seems to me that the root cause of all this militarization is racism---a fear among the white power establishment in the United States of an invasion of people of color from the south who will overrun and alter our way of life and power structure. For the Christian, working to overcome racism is core to our identity. “There is...one God and Father of all, who is above all and in all and through all” (Ephesians 4:6, NRSV). All are equal in God’s eyes. Churches must, to be true to themselves, refuse to allow their believers to live with atrocity.

This particular atrocity is a global issue. It is not just taking place on the US-Mexico border or in Israel-Palestine. Worldwide, the relatively rich and white people can travel wherever they want and access the resources they want. The poor people of color are stuck in places without enough resources to sustain them and cannot travel freely. These people are thus forced to risk their lives to cross oceans and borders in search of better lives for themselves and their families. It is time to name freedom of movement as a human rights issue and border enforcement a human rights violation.

A Few Stories from the Border

This week the team camped out and fasted for the last three days on the border wall at the place where we paint the crosses. Border Patrol had painted over them again, and we spent three days repainting all 12 crosses, for the 12 who have died in this county this year crossing the desert. While we were there, we came across of number of groups of migrants who were walking along the Mexico side of the wall, presumably to cross farther down the border, where there are fewer border patrol present. We could see and hear them through gaps in the wall.

On Wednesday late afternoon some of us were driving out to the camp at the wall and came across a woman walking along the road. I asked her if she was ok, and she said yes, but then she asked if I would give her a ride. I put her in the van and drove her (past 2 BP jeeps and 2 ATVs with BP agents dressed in jumpsuits, black helmets and gas masks) to our campsite, because Scott has better Spanish and we needed more details about her situation.

We gave her food and water, as she explained that her group left her behind because she was having leg cramps and she could not keep up. She also said that BP agents had passed her on the road and not stopped. Strange as that sounds, we hear stories like that all the time. She was wise to stay on the road, because it is the ones like her that end up dying, left behind in the desert because they cannot walk fast enough. She had no food or water on her. The only thing she was carrying was a copy of the Gospels.

She explained that she was trying to join her husband in Phoenix, that she came from central Mexico on a 30-hour bus trip to the border, and that she had been walking about 4 hours when we picked her up. She had no idea where she was or how far from Phoenix. She did not know whether Douglas was in Arizona or Mexico. She was very young, maybe 21 or 22. We decided to help her make some phone calls to try and meet up with her husband.

Scott and I brought her back to the house (past a large gathering of BP agents and trucks) to use the phone. It was funny to hear her explain to her husband that she was picked up in the desert by "unos gringos" who are Christian. She showered, we gave her some clothes, she ate and drank, and eventually she made arrangements to meet a ride in the McDonald's parking lot. She and I walked there, and there were more BP jeeps, so we had to walk back to the house, where some people picked her up late in the evening. I hope she found her husband and that she is ok.

On Thursday morning at the camp we entertained a visitor from border patrol. He was plainclothes and drove an unmarked car, but would not give us a card, so we don't know his title. He was a talker and stayed for a long time. It was interesting to learn more about him---things like he has two daughters who are drug addicts and one is in jail (crystal meth). He is raising his grandchild. His youngest daughter is at home, and she has "experimented" with illegal drugs because of her sisters, and that is ok with him. Yet there he is out on the border, doing his job to intercept illegal drug shipments, among other things. He is former "Special Forces" and has served in various US wars all over the world.

He is from the area, and he talked about what it was like when he was growing up, when Mexicans came across the border all the time to work, but then went back home. We all agreed that people would rather be able to go home. He also understood as clearly as us that there is a whole system of exploitation going on here, starting with the organized crime syndicates on both sides of the border who are people-smuggling. His view is that there is less risk and more profit in people-smuggling, so that many of the drug smugglers have changed over to doing that.

He also agreed that employers are benefitting from being able to hire cheap labor and not obey US labor laws, because illegal migrants are too afraid to report exploitation. He did not seem to think that it would therefore make more sense to increase enforcement against employers instead of punishing the poor people crossing the border looking for work. That was too much of a stretch for him! He did understand, though, that it is a supply and demand issue, and that as long as there is work in the US (and nothing but low-paying crappy work south of the border), the people will come. But at the same time he thinks that the solution is increased militarization of the border. There is no logic to it.

We asked him what we would have to do to keep BP from painting over our crosses. He said that there was nothing we could do--that they were going to keep painting them over in black. He said he was under pressure from Tucson to charge us with vandalism for it. He acted like he was not inclined to do so, but we were unsure if it was a good cop-bad cop thing and he was just warning us that arrests were about to come down, or if he was letting us know that he was not going to charge us. I guess we will see.

We did make a point of saying that the cross-painting is harmless, so why would they bother to press charges for it. He suggested that we make a proposal for artwork on the wall and submit it to their community relations folks. I asked if we could do that with the crosses, and he said no way. I wonder who defines what is art!

Monsoons and Floods

The monsoon season has finally arrived. This means we have heavy rain almost daily and the weather is much cooler in the late afternoon. Different from the rainy season in Palestine, where it rains nearly nonstop and is freezing cold, here the rainstorms are short but heavy, just enough to cool everything off a bit but not so much that we actually need rain gear. But the ground is so dry that it takes awhile for the rain to soak in, so there are sometimes flash floods.

I think in my last email I wrote about the arrest of two volunteers from our partner organization, No More Deaths, for transporting a migrant to the hospital. Where that case stands is that the government offered them a plea deal (the exact details of which have not been made public) whereby the charges would be resolved in exchange for 12-18 months of probation. The two turned it down and are going to trial. The government dropped one charge, obstruction of justice, but continues to pursue the felony charge of transporting an undocumented person. It is unclear whether the Border Patrol will continue to arrest for this activity---so far it has continued with no further arrests.

In response to the arrests, NMD launched a campaign to "flood the desert" with volunteers searching for migrants in distress, which we participated in. I volunteered to be on call to transport to the hospital if needed and if the other volunteers did not want to risk arrest. Luckily, it was not needed. Chances are, though, that I would not have been arrested, because I think the BP doesn't want two cases going on at the same time.

We have continued to paint crosses on the border wall for every death in Cochise County this year, and so far we are up to 11. Every time we go to paint a new cross, we find the old ones painted over with black paint, so we end up painting all new ones every time. We do not know who is responsible. So far, the BP monitors our action but does not try to stop it. Presumably they could arrest us if they wanted to (for doing it on government property), but to their credit, so far they have refrained from that. The crosses are harmless, make the wall look better, and are meaningful to those of us painting them.

After we paint the crosses, we always hammer on the wall to symbolize our desire to break down the barriers between people and nations. We may start doing other kinds of symbolic actions at the wall---it is under discussion. At this most recent cross painting we invited local media, and there were a couple of newspaper articles about it in the surrounding towns.

In addition to increasing desert patrols, we have also started more intentional monitoring of the Border Patrol, similar to what we do in Palestine. Although there is no evidence of anything systemic, we do know there are abuses, and abuse can only take place if no-one is watching. With this high level of militarization, I think it is a good idea for them to know they are accountable. There was a case this week where a local BP agent blew the whistle on the deplorable conditions in their holding facility and was fired for it. So locally, although we have not seen any abuses on the street, we think there may be some inside.

I'll be leading a group to DC September 14-16 to lobby for comprehensive immigration reform. If any of you are interested in participating, especially all you nearby Maryland folks, let me know. I can email you detailed information and a registration form. It should be fun---a bunch of our local partners are sending people, all of whom have lots of experience on the border. They have voices that need to be heard in this debate, and it feels good to be able to facilitate that.

Some Mexican documentary filmmakers interviewed me this week about the similarities between the border wall here and the security wall in Palestine. It is so interesting to me that even here people continue to want to talk to me about my experiences in Palestine. What goes on in the Holy Land is important for many people.

No mas muertes

Two volunteers from the organization No More Deaths/No Mas Muertes in Tucson were arrested on Saturday morning because they had migrants in their car. No Mas Muertes is a faith-based group and key CPT partner in our work here. They staff a migrant camp in the desert south of Tucson on the US side, while CPT staffs a migrant camp, along with our Mexican partner, on the Mexico side. It could have been any of us arrested. I was at the Mexico camp when the arrest took place.

Here is what happened, in the words of the NMD press release:
On Saturday morning, July 9th, two NMD volunteers came on a group of nine migrants in varying degrees of distress. They had been walking for several days, lost in the desert. The volunteers provided food and water to these persons and they washed their feet and cared for their blisters. The volunteers treated these friends as you and I would wish to be treated if we fell into such straits; they showed human compassion to those our government degrades as less than human. Three of these persons reported vomiting, diarrhea, and one reported blood in his stool, all conditions which are symptomatic of extreme and life-threatening dehydration. After consultation with No More Deaths vounteer medical personnel and legal counsel, the decision was made to medically evacuate these persons to be treated by a doctor in Tucson.

Ms. Sellz and Mr. Strauss volunteered to take these persons to be treated by a No More Deaths doctor and they were arrested en route. Upon learning of the arrests, a No More Deaths volunteer doctor and nurse went to the border patrol station where they were being held and asked to see the migrants. The border patrol turned our medical volunteers away and later a border patrol spokesperson said the travelers were "ok" and did not require treatment. We know they were far from "ok."....end of press release quotation

The two were charged with 2 felonies. They are college students volunteering for the summer. One was obstruction of justice and the other was particular to the statute concerning transportation of undocumented persons. The statute reads that you cannot transport an undocumented person if it is "furtherance or abetting" illegal migration into the US. The border patrol has chosen to interpret this to mean any transportation of undocumented person illegal.

If I put an undocumented person in my car to go to the movies, is it furtherance or abetting illegal migration? What about if I am driving them south? Do I have to ask for documents every time someone gets into my car? Do I only have to ask for documents from Hispanic people, or do I have to card everyone? I'm no expert, but the law seems extreme to me. What are we, the Soviet Union?

Militarization of the Border

On Friday we did a prayer service in front of the border patrol station in Douglas, Arizona. It is the largest border patrol station in the world, they claim. As part of the prayer service, I poured blood (actually, it was strawberry marguerita mix) in the shape of a cross in the soil in front of the station. It was a symbolic way of stating that the desert soil has become marked with blood, making it both tragic and sacred, like the Cross.

It would have been nice to use real blood, but we did not have the technology. This action had some meaning for me beyond the obvious targetting of the border patrol. I marked the sign of the cross in blood in the desert soil here; but my own blood is in the desert soil of Tuwani, and that event and place has become for me both tragic and sacred.

We have had some discussion about why target the border patrol. The reason is that some of the policies of increased militarization originate with them; the other reason is that no matter what the origin, the border patrol is responsible for implementing them. We don't want them to learn to live complacently with atrocity. We want them to think about the consequences of what they do, and hopefully lead them to become compassionate.

Border Patrol militarization includes highway checkpoints, helicopter patrols, video surveillance, infrared sensors, drones, the border wall, and a very high presence of border patrol agents. It reminds me a lot of Palestine and makes me wonder where we are headed. (In Palestine they are called border police. I don't know if they have any stations larger than the one in Douglas.)

Last weekend we heard that vigilantes were going to be out in full force, because of the 4th of July holiday. The Minutemen held a rally in Phoenix, and they had some small patrols in the Tucson area. But the Minutemen are the least of our worries here. They are just the ones who have gotten the most attention. They are minor compared to the ones who claimed on their website that they were going to greet people attempting to cross the border with AK-47s. We patrolled around, but didn't find anyone. These are white nationalist hate groups, primarily. Some of them are local ranchers.

This weekend we are part of a migrant camp in Mexico. Our Mexican partners only have the resources to hold it about every two weeks; when they have one, we help to staff it because they believe that the presence of internationals deters violence from gangs, drug runners, and Mexican military. There is violence against migrants on both sides of the border; they are very vulnerable.

The purpose of the camp is to be a safe place where migrants in distress can get water, food, and medical attention. We place it at a high crossing point. Some legal advisors have told us that we could be at risk, even doing it on the the Mexican side, of prosecution by US authorities for aiding and abetting illegal immigration. We can see US border patrol vehicles parked across the fence from the camp.

The biggest problem for me is not the legal risk, but the fact that it is just unbelievably hot.

A System of Exploitation

Yesterday we received a call from a woman who owns a small ranch about 15 miles down the highway from us and which sits on the border with Mexico. She is elderly and may be suffering from some early stage of dementia.

I had met her once before, last week, when another local activist called us to come out to her farm because she had three migrants there and she was afraid of the border patrol. Last week the three just wanted to make a phone call, which we let them do, and they arranged whatever they were going to arrange and went on their way. But the situation seemed sketchy last week, and even more so today.

Today she called us saying that she had 7 migrants on her property and she wanted our help in getting them to leave. The migrants were staying in a shed on her property that seemed to be set up for that very purpose. When we spoke to them, they said that their coyote (the Mexican guide they pay to get them across the border) told them to go there, and that the coyote said that the property owner was being paid $100 per person. The property owner says she is being regularly hassled by the border patrol and that she is afraid of them and afraid that her employees cannot be trusted not to report her to them.

The migrants say that she is a regular stop and that many pass through her property, and only sometimes does she get concerned, especially when her employees are around. The property owner says that border patrol ride through her property at night on their horses, and buzz her with helicopters, and she doesn't want migrants to stay there.

We finally reached an agreement with the migrants that 6 of the 7 would walk back up toward the mountains until their pick-up arrived. We gave them plenty of food and water for the several hours they would have to wait. The 7th, the one with the cell phone, would wait in the shed until he recieved his call from the pick-up giving the location so the group could meet him or her. The one with the telephone wanted to wait in the shed because he said that he could not get cell phone service in the desert, but could get it if he stood in one corner of the shed.

We brought this proposal to the property owner, and she agreed to it. We waited until the 6 had left, and then we left. Who knows what happened after that. They may have come back. The property owner has recourse--she can call the border patrol. Clearly she did not want to do that, and clearly the migrants knew she did not want to do that.

After they left, I went to talk with the property owner, trying to find out the real story. I asked her if she was being paid. She denied it. But then she spilled at least part of the story. She used to have this Mexican guy ("Martin," coincidentally the same name as the coyote the migrants were calling both times, today and last week) working for her whom she totally trusted. He took care of her and she allowed him to board his horses on her property.

Then one day suddenly she had five border patrol vehicles in her yard. They marched 18 migrants out of her locked shed and arrested Martin. But she emphasized that as far as she is concerned, Martin was innocent. He served a year in jail and now cannot come into the US. Clearly, Martin is now running his business from the Mexican side and steering migrants to her property. She denies knowing who it is that is sending them to her. She also denies being a part of it. Who is telling the truth? I think she is very vulnerable, but I also think she is a party to it.

She hates the border patrol, but I think we need to ask ourselves why the border patrol is allowing this. They know perfectly well what is going on there if they are really patrolling as much as she claims.

I think this story provides some insight into the game that is being played between the coyotes, the border patrol, and even some property owners. The migrants are caught in the middle of a large money-making scheme on the part of everyone, including the empoyers in the US who hire them at substandard wages and benefits in order to increase their own profits. Many property owners are also caught in the middle, not wanting to be a party to migrant deaths or human rights abuses, but also not wanting to break the law. Other property owners, as we see from this story, are part of a complex system of exploitation.

To me it highlights the need to legalize and normalize what is going on here, to get it out of the hands of organized crime and to give migrants legal recourse against exploitative employers. The system has also led to widespread document fraud in the US. The migrants we encounter are coming because they know they have a much better chance of finding work in the US than in Mexico. And bad as the jobs are that they take in the US, they are much better than what they are leaving behind. I try to imagine what it would be like to leave everything I know permanently, to resettle in a foreign culture and land. People do it because they see no better alternative.

Walking the Migrant Trail

We finished the walk on Sunday. We walked 75.9 miles in 7 days from Sasabe, Mexico to Tucson. It was brutal, but I finished it.

We started Monday morning from Mexico. The first and the last day we walked fewer miles, and the other days we walked between 12 and 16. From Monday through Thursday we were in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, which was lovely. Lovely for desert, I mean. It was hot and dusty, but the surrounding mountains provided some great scenery and sunsets. After we left the wildlife refuge we walked on the highway the rest of the way. The scenery was still pretty, but the highway was hot. I breathed in so much dust during the course of the week that I had to send our support people out to get me more allergy medicine.

The point of the walk was to experience for ourselves what migrants go through to get across the border to safety, and to bring attention to their plight. The way I see it, migrants are coming here for jobs that are available to them at wage and benefit levels that most US citizens won't accept. Immigration policy has led to tightening of border controls around population areas, but has left the border porous in the most dangerous crossing areas--the desert. This has led to about 3000 reported deaths in the last 10 years, and probably many more bodies are never found.

There came a point during the walk where I realized at a much deeper level than before that a person would have to be desperate to attempt this trip. I think it may have been the day that I twisted my ankle and realized that I was going to try and walk the rest of the way anyway, because that is what a migrant would have to do---or else be left for dead.

This realization reminds me of the time I recognized at a deeper level that the Palestinian suicide bombings were more about suicide than bombings. That the desperation of their situation had led them to think their lives were worthless and expendable.

We camped out every night but one. On Friday night we stayed in a church that had offered us hospitality. I can't tell you how great the floor of that air-conditioned church felt. It made me understand the importance of sanctuary (in all the meanings of that word!). By then a flush toilet and water to wash my face seemed like luxuries. I imagined what it would be like for migrants who did not have support vehicles full of water and snacks following them every step of the way. It made me feel even more committed to providing sanctuary when the opportunity presents itself.

The walk was a time of great grief for me. As I walked in the hot sun, breathing in all that dust, I imagined the migrant person walking the same path and at some point coming to the realization that they would not be able to continue. Ever.

I had some time to reflect on the similarities between my desert experience in Palestine and the desert here. Israel is building a wall around Palestine, and we are building a wall around the border with Mexico. The walls divide wealth from poverty and opportunity from desperation. The walls separate people from jobs and family. The walls interrupt freedom of movement. Both walls are highly militarized. The land on the wealthy side of the walls was taken by force from dark-skinned people by white colonizers.

I am struck, and not for the first time, at how you become your own enemy. We should never create enemies for ourselves, because history has shown repeatedly that the most likely outcome is that we will, eventually, turn into that enemy. So the Berlin Wall has now become the wall dividing Israel from Palestine and the wall separating the US from Mexico. Except for the racism part, the same factors are at work.

Freedom of movement is an international human rights issue. The relatively rich and white people can travel wherever they want and access the resources they want. The poor people of color are stuck in places without enough resources to sustain them and cannot travel freely. These people are thus forced to risk their lives to find something better. Seen in this light, border enforcement becomes a human rights violation.

I am still tired, but recovering. I will have to throw away my sneakers. I have developed a strange taste for gatoraide. My ankle still hurts. But it was an awesome experience.

Para-Militaries in the US

We met with someone from the Minutemen yesterday. It was our first formal meeting with them as a team. Despite press reports to the contrary, they are still here in Arizona and very active at the border, especially on the weekends. They have two main "lines" around here, but are expanding soon into Texas and California. They believe that they have stopped thousands of migrants from crossing the border; of course we know that the migrants have simply gone around them to more remote places, making a dangerous crossing even more dangerous.

The guy we met with is the spokesperson for the Minutemen and second or third in the hierarchy of command. As such, he was quite disurbing! One of the people I was with, who seemed to know something about these things, said he exhibited signs of paranoid schizophrenia. He took small kernels of truth and manipulated them into a complete fabrication. But there is enough of a kernel of truth in what he says that he can convince people.

Some of his claims: Every migrant that crosses illegally is carrying a backpack full of drugs. All the children crossing the border illegally are sold into slavery or prostitution. 3,000 people are crossing illegally each night around Douglas alone. All Hispanic communities in the United States are harboring criminals. He claimed that the organization is nonviolent, trained in the teachings of King and Ghandi, yet his associate who was also at the meeting was wearing desert camoflage and packing a gun.

Rather than trying to prevent migration with guns and intimidation, we would rather address structural causes. One of our local partners is an organization called Just Coffee. Many of you know about fair trade, but this is even better. Other fair trade companies buy the coffee at a fair price but then roast it and market it in the US, which continues to transfer jobs across the border. Just Coffee Pays farmers in Chiapas a fair price, then roasts and markets it in Mexico, keeping the jobs there. Many people we have spoken with say that the migration crisis got considerably worse after coffee prices fell dramatically in the 80s and coffee farmers could no longer support themselves, so they all migrated north. Anyway, the more Just Coffee we buy, the more fair wage jobs are kept in Mexico. Fair wage jobs in Mexico will lead to fewer dangerous border crossings. You can find them at http://www.justcoffee.org/.

Migrant Deaths

12 people died crossing the border this weekend. One of them was in Cochise County, where the CPT team is living. During the weekend we were camped out on the Mexico side trying to help migrants in distress and about 70 came through our camp for help. There was a group of three women, one with a two-year-old child, who might have have died if not for us.

The man who died in our county was found about 5 miles north of our camp, and may have come through it. We don't know.

This afternoon we held what has become a weekly prayer vigil at the border crossing to remember all those who have died in our county (Cochise) trying to cross the border through the desert. Some of the bodies have never been identified. I was thinking while we were calling out all their names that if I were a family member of someone who died, it would be meaningful to me to know that someone out there was praying and remembering.

Tomorrow morning we are going to paint crosses on the border fence, as a way of calling a failed immigration policy what it is. We have decided to paint one cross for every migrant who dies this year in our county. So far there have been three.

Post-Conflict Accompaniment in Kosovo

This spring I spent about 10 days in Kosovo learning about the Operation Dove accompaniment project there. Operation Dove (OD) is an Italian group with a mission similar to CPT.

The situation in Kosovo is complicated and I'm not sure that during our short time there we came away with a complete understanding. The region is functioning under a fragile peace agreement with the UN in charge. "UNMIK" is slowly handing over governance to local authorities, but they are probably at least a year away from handing over power completely. The population consists of 80% Albanians, 10% Serbs, and 10% others. Many Serbs fled to Serbia after the NATObombing, which is why their numbers are so low. Both Albanians and Serbs believethe land of Kosovo is rightfully theirs, and both point to history to back them up. Albanians are mostly Muslim and Serbs are mostly Serbian Orthodox.

Most Serbians live completely separately from Albanians, in enclaves or villages away from Albanian population centers. Serbian enclaves are surrounded by UN military checkpoints to prevent random violence. Operaton Dove says that although there does not appear to be any organized violence on either side right now, there is a high danger of random violence, especially of Albanians against Serbs. Serbs are generally fearful to travel unescorted out of their enclaves.

Operation Dove has been working in the region since 1999. They are currently living in a Serbian village called Gorazhdovats. The mission of the team consists of accompanying Serbs when they have to travel outside of the village and cannot get official accompaniment, as well as developing relationships inside the community, and faciliating two groups of young adults, one Serbian and one Albanian, in order to sow the seeds of reconciliation.

UN troops will provide accompaniment if there is an urgent need and there is 72 hours notice. Many Serbs need to travel and cannot give the required notice, and OD spends a good deal of time transporting people and shopping for them. Gorazhdovats has a few small shops, but any real needs have to be met in the nearest city, which is Albanian. Serbs feel they cannot go there unaccompanied.

Starting about a year ago, OD and their partner organization decided to form two small groups, one Serb and one Albanian, to work on analyzing the effects the conflict has had on them and on society, to see what they could do about it. The idea is to eventually join together as one group, working together for peaceful solutions. The project has many phases, and they are now still in the early one, talking about the trauma of the conflict and the effect it has had on them. They recently identified issues of injustice, and each group chose one specifica justice issue to try to think of solutions. Interestingly, both groups chose the same issue: freedom of movement.

The Kosovo accompaniment is a "post-conflict" presence because there is a peaceagree ment and the shooting has more or less stopped. The violence is random, not organized, but could still explode at any time. OD is focusing on how to help the Serbs maintain a dignified life, and on how to sow some seeds to prevent future outbreaks of violence.

Soldiers, Settlers, and Problems

Settlers coming out of the trees to attack.

I am back in Hebron after a very eventful week in Tuwani. This week I understood my first full sentence in Arabic without translating it in my head: "Kim, there are soldiers in Hafez' house." I think that says a lot about the situation. The words in Arabic that are stuck in my head forever are the ones for "soldiers," "settlers" and "problems."

On Saturday an Israeli activist group joined us to continue cleaning up the poison in the fields, which appears to be far more toxic than we had even feared. We had the usual soldiers come, much negotiation, and finally they let us stay for the clean-up. Then we got a call that the settlers had come out in a different part of the area. They were trying to provoke a confrontation. I wasn't there, but people from Operation Dove said they had to get between the two sides.

A similar thing happened on Sunday, only this time I was there. Three of us were walking toward Khoruba, which is the place where most of the poison was placed. Khoruba is a Palestinian village abandoned several years ago due to settler violence and harassment. It is located close to Tuwani, and is in the fictional military fire zone that the army keeps using to keep the Palestinians away from the land. Palestinians still use it for grazing when they can get to it.

Anyway, on Sunday we were walking toward Khoruba because we had seen the shepherds going in that direction, and we knew it was not safe for them. When we got close we saw that the Maon settlers had come out and were looking across the valley toward Khoruba. When we got closer we saw that there were shepherds there, and I called the police. We hurried closer to the shepherds, and the settlers began walking toward us. I must have called the police about 10 times, but it took them 45 minutes to get there. The place is very remote and hard to find.

The settlers did not have masks and I did not see any weapons, but to me it was clear they were coming to try to provoke a confrontation. They had cameras, ready to take pictures of Palestinians misbehaving. There was a lot of yelling and getting in each other's faces, and I was in the middle of it, trying to pull Palestinians away from settlers. The settlers said horrible things to me in English, and the Palestinians said they were doing the same to them in Arabic. It lasted about 10 minutes, with me eventually ending up between the two sides. We stayed that way until the police finally came. The police refused to talk to the CPTers or the Palestinians on site, and based on what the settlers said, they arrested two Palestinians over the incident.

Both are now out on bail. We had to go to the police station to make statements that neither of them had hit or thrown stones at settlers. It was very scary for me, because I thought it was going to get violent. I am sure that if CPT was not there, it would have been worse.

I also really felt my lack of language skills in that situation. Usually I have someone with me with better Arabic, but this day there was no-one, and it was a real problem, both in calming down the Palestinians and in dealing with the Israeli police. I asked the settlers what they were doing there, and they said they had come to see what was happening on their land. The land is not part of the settlement or even part of the illegal settlement outpost. They said they were filing a court case to claim the land and they wanted pictures. No explanation about why they had to be right up in the shepherds' faces to do that. To my mind, it was a provocation.

On Tuesday we organized a press conference and demonstration in Hebron about the settlers poisoning the land. Almost the whole village of Tuwani came out for it, and it was very empowering for them, I think. They got a lot of press coverage. Afterward the village leadership told me how much they appreciate me and CPT. It was a good moment.

The next day the shepherds found more poison in a different place, another place that the settlement wants to claim for itself. It was the same area where the settlers came out on Saturday. So you can see how it continues to escalate.

It is hard for me to leave, because the work here is incredible, but I am also ready to move on to something else. I feel that it was important for the village that I came back after what happened to me there. Despite my lack of Arabic, I have developed strong relationships, and that feels good. I would like to come back.

An Holy Week of Extremes in Tuwani

I reached Tuwani on Monday of Holy Week for a "normal" day of accompanying the Palestinian shepherds in a place where they had recently been attacked and beaten by Israeli settlers. It went without incident.

On Tuesday we woke up to learn that during the night Israeli settlers had come down and spread poison on Palestinian land. The poison consisted of barley kernels boiled in rat poison. We later had it analyzed and learned that this particular poison kills instantly if over 300 grams is consumed; but in any amount will stay in the system of the animal for a long time and will be toxic to anything that eats it, even if the contaminated animal shows no symptoms.

The poison was and is everywhere: In little piles under the shrubs that the sheep eat; under rocks; spread thinly all through the grass. We started notifying the press and the Israeli authorities immediately, and on Wednesday, after we got some latex gloves, we started cleaning it up. By Wednesday morning at 5:00 a.m. one sheep was dead. By Wednesday afternoon three sheep were dead and 13 sick. Two gazelles were found dead, along with a variety of rodents and snakes. I have seen the gazelles run wild in this land, and they are an endangered species. This area is also full of storks--you cannot believe how beautiful they are! By Saturday there were four dead gazelles found and I also saw a dead black snake--a big one.

We spent Thursday cleaning it up and talking to press. It became a big story in Israel, because this of course could affect wildlife all over the area, not just South Hebron Hills. To clean it up, we had to pick up the barley kernels one at a time off the ground. It is tedious and time-consuming, and we may never get it all. The Israel Park Service was helping on Thursday and Friday.

On Thursday the Israeli authorities came to see the poisoned places: police, army, civil administration (the branch of the army responsible for governance), etc. We were accompanying the Palestinian landowners as they showed the authorities all the poisoned places, because Palestinians are used to being abused by Israeli authorities and they feel safer when we are with them. Anyway, I was walking through the hills when I ran into three young settler men who said they were helping with the clean-up.

They were from a nearby settlement (Suseya), not the one next to Tuwani (Ma'on). They heard about the poison and wanted to help clean it up, because, although they agree that all the land belongs to the Jews, they do not believe that poisoning it is the way to claim it. They also talked about the fact that Jews have all the power in Palestine and they intend to keep it that way.

On Friday morning (yes, Good Friday) we got a call from the nearby town called Kirmil. Five Israeli settlers with machine guns were at the local swimming pool threatening Palestinian children. This was my Way of the Cross for the day. We left to walk up there, and the villagers met us with a car at the road block (constructed by the Israeli army) which prevents free access between the towns.

We got about three-quarters of the way there and met the settlers on the dirt road leading to the pool. They were five young men about college-age. They looked like they could be nice young men, except for the M-16s they carried. We got out of the car to talk with them, asked them what they were doing and why they were there. They didn't really answer, and when I pulled out a camera they turned around and began walking in the direction of Tuwani.

We followed them on foot, because there were a lot of Palestinians farming and grazing along that road. When the five young men reached the paved settler road (off-limits to Palestinians) a car was waiting for them and they drove off in the direction of the settlement. Why did they walk through Palestinian villages and farmland with machine guns and threaten children? I do not know. To me it looked like a display of power.

On Holy Saturday the excitement really started. We had made plans with Ta'ayush, an Israeli-Palestinian human rights group that we work with closely, to bring a larger group of people to Tuwani to clean up the poison. They brought maybe 25 or 30 people.

That morning, because there were so many Israelis and internationals present, the shepherds from Tuwani and a nearby village, Um-Fagara, decided to graze their sheep in a place called Khoruba, on a hillside across from the place where much of the poison was placed. Khoruba is an abandoned Palestinian village, but the land still belongs to those who abandoned it. It was abandoned about 4 years ago as a result of settler harrassment and violence.

The village is also located inside something called a Military Fire Zone. A Military Fire Zone is a way for the State of Israel to legally confiscate land from Palestinians. They claim they need it for military purposes and then no-one can go there. There are, however, still Palestinians living inside this Zone, and the army does not fire anything in there. We clarified with the civil administration what this means. They said that the only people allowed inside the Zone are the people who live there, but that the Palestinian landowners can graze their sheep there on Fridays and Saturdays. Remember that we are talking about a Saturday.

So the shepherds decided to test this with this big group present, to see what would really happen. The reason is that if Palestinians abandon their land, then legally Israel can seize it after three years, so they have to keep using the land if they are to retain ownership. After about an hour of grazing, some settlers came down from Ma'on and saw what was happening and called the army and police. The police arrested one Palestinian and a scuffle broke out between a soldier and another Palestinian, resulting in a face injury to the Palestinian. I was not there when this happened--I arrived about 2 minutes after--so I did not see who did what to whom.

The army declared that all the shepherds were detained and would be arrested for grazing their sheep in the Military Fire Zone. They were waiting for reinforcements. I called the civil adminstration and they confirmed that the shepherds had the right to graze on Fridays and Saturdays, and said they would send a jeep. We waited awhile and finally they came and released all the shepherds. But they forced them off of the hillside and into the valley below.

The valley, which also sits in the Military Fire Zone, had been planted with corn by the settlers. So the Palestinians were forced by the army to graze their sheep in a settler field! Note that the settlers are permitted to plant corn in the Military Fire Zone, in land that belongs to Palestinians, but the Palestinians cannot use their own land.

By this time it was afternoon and the second incident of the day happened. While the sheep were grazing the the cornfield we all again started cleaning up the poison from the opposite hillside. I received a call from a colleague who was walking back to the village, who told me to look up at the settlement. I saw a line of settlers, about 30 or more, coming out of the settlement all dressed in white. They were lining up on the road that the Palestinian children from the nearby village, Tuba, use to get home from school.

The army and police were preparing to escort the settlers along the road, and then they all started moving toward Tuwani, where I knew that the Tuba kids were waiting with two people from Operation Dove (OD) for their military escort home. So we all got up and quickly headed toward Tuwani to head them off. We walked very quickly and got there first. Me and two OD people sat down in the middle of the road to try and block the settlers from passing into the village and toward the place where 13 children were waiting to go home. There were a few Ta'ayush people standing behind us as well, but we were in front, sitting down.

The settlers kept coming toward us, but then the army stood between us and them, and then the police pulled a car up and blocked the settlers, eventually diverting them back toward the settlement. After that, I walked a little way (maybe 10 or 15 feet) toward the settler line in order to see that they did not return to the village by another route. I was still very far from them, but had a view of where they were going. Suddenly, out of nowhere, an Israeli soldier came up behind me and pushed me down the hill. No explanation. He did not even ask me to move first. I asked him why he did it, and he refused to answer. Lucky for me, I was not injured.

The children from Tuba were still waiting to go home. So Saber, the mayor of Tuwani, lined them up and began walking them himself; three OD people and me went with him. The army is supposed to provide the escort, but they had not shown up, and instead were escorting settlers. When the army saw that we were going, they sent a jeep to go with us. As we walked, we could see settlers in the trees with their dogs, following us the whole way. At one point one came out and got into an argument in Hebrew with the soldier. The soldier prevented him from coming near us or the children.

When we got the the edge of the settlement, the soldiers left us and we walked the kids all the way home. This is not usually necessary, but things seemed particularly dangerous, so we felt we should. We held their hands the whole way. Then we had tea in the cave of Omar, one of the fathers. Then we had to take the long way home from Tuba (2 hours over rocky hills) in order to avoid the settlement, because it was too dangerous for us to walk there without a military escort.

I was supposed to leave Tuwani Saturday afternoon, but one of the villagers told us he was afraid that settlers would come to the village in the middle of the night, so we kept some extra people there and I stayed. Nothing happened, and I came back yesterday afternoon and was able to go to Easter Mass at 5:00. Today we learned that the settlers put out more poison, this time in the direction of Tuba.

Palm Sunday in Jerusalem

On Palm Sunday the CPT teams accompanied a peaceful procession of Palestinians from Bethlehem to Jerusalem. It went really well in the sense that it stayed peaceful and prayerful. Most of the CPTers stayed at the front of the procession to try and prevent any clashes, but there were none.

We got to the checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem and the army stopped us. We sat down in the middle of the road for about an hour. There were about 150 people at that point, because many Palestinians left the procession, wanting to avoid clashes with the army. When the army said we had to move or they would force us off the road, the Palestinian leadership read a statement and then we peacefully left.

Here is the statement:"We in the Bethlehem community have come to you today with a message on behalf of our people. We represent the family members and friends who are imprisoned by these concrete walls and wire fences that now create the Bethlehem open-air prison. You, like the prison guards, control our freedom and ability to live as human beings with dignity in this holy land.

Our strong delegation of civilians comes to you without weapons but with great strength and commitment to deliver this message of peace. In the name of security, you do not permit us to travel to work, to school and to worship in our holy sites in the city of Jerusalem. Your government deprives us each day of the basic human right to self-determination. Each day you keep us from being with our families at weddings, funerals, graduations, birthdays, and religious holidays...

Each day as you come to our city, you serve the system of violence that keeps our people imprisoned and without the ability to live the life of a normal human being. With your guns, tanks, and insults, you teach our children to hate. However, we believe each of you has the power and choice to choose a different ending to this story. We appeal to your conscience and humanity as individuals and as soldiers who may feel there is no way out of this system. Put your guns away, and join us in the fight for peace and freedom."

I was proud to stand behind it.

Settler Violence and Jerusalem Roadblocks

The Hebron settlers seem to be getting scarier and scarier. I was walking with a few others along a road that leads from the settlements to the Tomb of the Patriarchs, and the soldiers at one of the checkpoints stopped us, saying that we could go no farther, because the road is not safe for anyone who is not Jewish. It was interesting to hear that from an Israeli soldier.

We had a meeting with someone from the Hebron government who told us about settlers from Kiryat Arba (the largest settlement in Hebron) confiscating some Palestinian land and building a path from the settlement to Worshipper's Way. Worshipper's Way is the ancient path that leads to the Tomb of the Patriarchs. The story is that it was the path that Abraham walked. We went to inspect, and found the story to be true. The Hebron official checked with all the Israeli occupation authorities and confirmed that the settlers do not have any legal claim to the land.

Tomorrow some Palestinian Christian groups in Bethlehem are planning a march from Bethlehem to Jerusalem for Palm Sunday, complete with donkeys. The procession will challenge the Israeli military checkpoint that divides Bethlehem from Jerusalem and makes it impossible for Palestinians to get from one city to the other. CPT is one of the sponsors of this action and we will all be there. I am looking forward to Mass at the Church of the Nativity, which stands over the spot where it is believed that Jesus was born.

For me the march has great symbolic significance: the Palestinian followers of Jesus today cannot travel from Bethlehem to Jerusalem. Also, Jesus' own procession into Jerusalem had political as well as religious significance. He knew that if he went to Jerusalem he would likely be killed by the Romans, but he went anyway because he knew it was part of a mission much larger than his own life. I feel there is a parallel when we go to Tuwani: We know there is a high risk that Israeli settlers will attack us again, but we go anyway, sacrificing our safety for a cause much larger than ourselves.

There were three separate incidents with settlers in Tuwani this week. First 12 settlers came out of the outpost, one with a gun, and went after Palestinians farming and grazing. Rocks were thrown, but the army got there quickly and they left. A little later about 100 settlers came out of the settlement and occupied a hillside belonging to Palestinians. Then 50-60 Palestinians came out and stationed themselves on an opposite hill. The CPT and Operation Dove folks stationed themselves between the two groups, along with a large contingent of Israeli police and soldiers. There was a 2-hour standoff, until a high-ranking Israeli officer got them to disperse. CPTers spent their time trying to keep people from throwing rocks at each other. Some of the Israeli settlers are armed, but the Palestinians are not. Then the settlers started walking back to the settlement, when they turned off the road and occupied another Palestinian's grazing land, chasing his sheep away.

There is a nonviolent revolution with sheep happening in Tuwani right now, which is why the settlers are getting so concerned. With our accompaniment, shepherds are starting to band together to go in large groups to grazing land they have not been to for many years due to settler harassment. They are reclaiming land previously confiscated by the settlements, emboldened by our presence. This is important, because when the lines get drawn for the Palestinian and Israeli states, they are most likely going to use the de facto boundaries drawn as a result of settler violence and harrassment. Both sides, I suspect, are fully aware of this.

Who Is In Charge?

Tuwani is like one big camping trip. This time I brought some of my camping equipment and was much happier for it. I was also happy to have serious rain gear, even though it covered me from head to foot in army green and the villagers kept saying that I looked like a soldier.

Our main mission in Tuwani at this point is accompanying the shepherds as they try to reclaim grazing land that settlers kicked them off of years ago. Thanks to our presence they are now going to places that they have been afraid to go to for several years, even though the land belongs to them. We have almost daily encounters with soldiers and settler security, but this week there were no dangerous encounters with settlers.

There was this week a settler attack against Palestinian shepherds in the adjacent village of Jawaia, across the road from Tuwani. We were not accompanying them, but were called to wait with them until the police came (after over an hour). One woman had a serious punture wound on her forehead and another a fractured hand. They believe that the reason they were attacked is that no internationals were accomanying them, and they will call us from now on when they want to graze there. Their land is located right across the road from the Maon settlement.

We had a few other bizarre incidents as well. Basically, any time the Palestinian shepherds want to graze anywhere near the settlement or settlement outposts, settler security comes and calls the army and the army asks them to move. We ask for the orders and the map which closes the areas legally, but there rarely is one. We are there because it makes the shepherds feel safer when we deal with these authorities.

It seems clear to me, and several soldiers have confirmed this, that the Israeli army is taking their orders from the settlement. When we talk to settler security, they make it clear that they think that all the land belongs to the Jews and the Palestinians have no rights to it. I'm guessing that if peace becomes more of a reality, these settlers will step up their violence, as they become afraid that the settlements and outposts will be dismantled.

Palestinian Land and the Law

Welcome to my first letter from Hebron! The roads from Jerusalem to Hebron were open when I came in. The next day, Saturday, everything was closed up and the service taxi had to drive through a field to get us out to Jerusalem. There was also an ID check on the road and a new checkpoint coming out of Hebron. This because of a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv on Friday.

Anyway, the interesting thing is that by Sunday, when I returned, everything had opened up again. This is way different from last fall, when they closed up the entire West Bank for three months after the bombing in Beer Sheva.

Monday I went to Tuwani. You will recall that Tuwani is the small village that we work in and the location of the settler attack against me and Chris last fall. I felt I needed to go there right away because I will be coordinating the project while I am here and I wanted to get a feel for what is going on. I was able to see the nearly-completed medical clinic which happened as a direct result of the attack. I also saw 15 children being escorted by the Israeli army to school past the settlement. It is up from 5 to 15 kids, now that there is less danger to the children. This is also a direct result of the attack.

One of the more exciting things for me is to see the Israeli army protecting Palestinians when their mandate in the occupied territories all along was to protect the settlers, not the Palestinians. What has happened is extraordinary.

Now the main work in Tuwani is escorting shepherds while they try to graze their sheep. Grazing happens in this season, when the ground is wet and green. During the rest of the year sheep are fed barley and other stored-up grains. Anyway, much of the land is located near the settlements, so even though it is owned by Palestinians, the settlers try to chase them off. This is because if they can keep the Palestinians off their land for long enough, the settlers think they can claim it for themselves. They have done this repeatedly and successfully over the years as a way to expand their settlements. The difference is that now there is international accompaniment, so the shepherds are emboldened to stand their ground against the settlers.

Many of you already know that there was a settler attack against us two weeks ago (the week before I got here) while my colleagues were accompanying the shepherds. One of the Italians was hosptialized with a broken jaw. The mask fell off of one of the attackers, so we have pictures, and he was arrested and there was already a preliminary hearing. This, of course, would never have happened if a Palestinian was injured.

We continue to escort the shepherds and there are clashes nearly every day. We joke that yesterday was a quiet day because all that happened is that some settlers with guns chased the shepherds off their land. However, since the attack two weeks ago, the army has established some kind of a base in the trees across from the settlement and now arrives fairly quickly when there is any kind of encounter or clash.

The shepherds have filed a case in the Israeli courts to retain claim to their land. The soldiers, who have seen the deeds, believe that the Palestinians will win their case. It is just a matter of how long it takes. However, we don't think winning a court case will keep the settlers from acting violently. They act violently in Pa;estinian villages all over the Weet Bank, no matter what Israeli law says.