wfn.org | U.S. Congresswoman Lois Capps Visits Palestine

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel
Communications
c/o Lutheran World Federation
P.O. Box 19178
Jerusalem 91191 Israel
Contact - Larry Fata
eappi-co@jrol.com
+972 (0)2 628-9402
www.eappi.org

Lois Capps of the United States House of Representatives, representing
California's 23rd Congressional District (Santa Barbara/San Luis Obispo),
spent Wednesday morning 14 January, 2004 in the village of Jayyous.  She saw
first-hand the plight of the people of Jayyous, whom the Ecumenical
Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) has been accompanying
this past year.

Rep. Capps (D) heard five men speak briefly of their ongoing experience as
Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.  She was then taken to the
balcony of the Town Hall overlooking Israel's internationally recognized 1967
border (the "Green Line") and the so-called "separation fence" and highway
below - with the Jayyous farms, greenhouses and much-coveted water wells
isolated in the three miles in between.  She could also see both the illegal
settlements on Palestinian lands and, in the distance, Tel Aviv and Netanya
on
the Mediterranean Sea 35 kilometers to the west. She saw how the
85-meter-wide
clearance of ditch, highway and "fence" actually looks like a vast boa
constrictor snaking over the hills and valleys in the richest farmlands and
plentiful water wells in Palestine. The five men were chosen as a
cross-section of what is happening in communities across Palestine during its
current occupation by Israel.

   a.. Abu Sameh taught school for 32 years then took early retirement to
work
his inherited and purchased farmlands: 500-year old olive trees and citrus
groves. Recently, two years into his dream and without explanation, the
Israeli government refused him and many other farm leaders one of the new
permits, required to cross through gates in "the fence" to work on their
farms, support their families and prevent confiscation of their lands.	Abu
Sameh spoke if his "love" for his olive trees.	He said that since he can't
care for them they are "abandoned."  Capps was affected by this Palestinian
farmer's feelings towards his olive trees, a symbol of life in the
Mediterranean for millenia.  "Your love for your olive trees has touched me
very deeply," she told him.

   a.. Rashad Sleem, Headmaster of the Jayyous school system, spoke of the
severe complications, through lost freedom of movement, for his teachers and
himself.  This is caused by permanent roadblocks, permanent checkpoints and
unpredictable "flying checkpoints" between Jayyous and the homes of his
teachers, frequently making it impossible for them to get to work.

   a.. Sameh Samha, a Tulkarem policeman, told the U.S. delegation of the
frequency with which Israel Defense Force (IDF) units arbitrarily and
provocatively stop him from getting to work, through their checkpoints
between
Tulkarem and his home in Jayyous.

   a.. Mahmoud Krieshe reported to the group the many hours of work he loses
each week because of the unpredictable time of gate openings by IDF units,
resulting in him and 50 to 60 other farmers having to wait anywhere from 30
to
90 minutes each day beyond the stated times of openings and closings of the
gate into their lands.

   a.. Allam Sleem then reported, as one of many university students in
Jayyous.  He summarized the team's concerns as not only theirs but of
Palestinians as a whole. Personally, he focused on the way he, other students
and their professors are frequently kept from getting to classes at his
university.  Stressing the fact that he has a "clean" record in IDF files, he
found no justification for delays and preventions without just cause, except
to provoke hostile reactions.

Rep. Capps was visibly moved by all that she saw in her short visit.  "I am
shocked by what I have seen and heard and I am deeply sympathetic to the
hardships under which these men, their families and the Palestinian people in
general have to live," she said.

Capps came to Palestine as the traveling guest of Bishops Dean Nelson and
Murray Fink, two southern California bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church of America (ELCA) and the Rev. Mark Brown, the ELCA's Assistant
Director for International Affairs and Human Rights and U.S. Coordinator for
the World Council of Churches' EAPPI.  Their host in Palestine was the Rev.
Russell O. Siler of Jerusalem's Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, accompanied
by the Rev. Ramez Ansara, Lutheran pastor in Ramallah of the Church of Hope.
They were joined by Rev. Dr. Mary Jensen and Yakub Moussa of the Ecumenical
Lutheran Church in Jerusalem staff.