Jayyous, Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Photos by John Buttrick


At 6:10 this morning I put on my EAPPI vest and began my one kilometer walk to the south farm gate that separates Jayyous village from the agricultural land of Jayyous. The sun was rising: the air was crisp and cooler than it had been since we first arrived in July. I passed olive fields on the village side of the barrier fence where families were heating water for tea and preparing for a day harvesting olives. People have been talking about the harvest practically since we arrived almost three months ago. It is a time for hard work. It’s a time for the extended family to get together to share the load. It’s a time to renew old friendships. People from the extended family arrive to work for a few days or to stay for the whole season. Friends from Palestine, Israel, the Middle East and from countries around the world gather to participate. It is a festive time. It is time of hope that the harvest will be plentiful. It is a time of planning and strategy to get the olives off the trees, sorted, and sent off for processing: some for oil and some to prepare for eating. And for some it is a time of desperation.

It is toward those desperate people that I am walking this morning. These are the people who must have permission to go to their olive trees. There are permits to farm, there are permits to pick and there are permits that allow passage through a particular farm gate in the barrier fence. Each of these permits has a beginning and an expiration date. Along with the correct permit, a person must have a proper ID that has been issued by the Israeli government. All ID’s are not the same. Some will let a person pass through a particular gate. Others will not. There are three gates in the barrier that are in proximately to Jayyous: the North Gate #943, the South Gate #977 and Falamia Gate #927. Farmers go to the gate that offers the easiest access to their fields.

Lined up waiting for the Israeli soldiers to come and open these gates are husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents. On Fridays and Saturdays many children from infants to teenagers join the throng. There are donkeys and carts, wagons and tractors, trucks and cars as well as people on foot. They carry containers for collecting olives, water, food, harvest equipment, and cooking utensils. Each has an ID and a permit that matches their particular situation. The North gate is open for one half hour in the morning, at noon and in the afternoon before dark. The South gate is open for fifteen minutes morning noon and afternoon. Falamia Gate opens at 5:15am and remains open until 5:15 pm.

The South Gate has the fewest number of people crossing onto their land. This morning there were three men, three women, three donkeys and a donkey cart waiting to go through the gate to their olive trees. When the soldiers arrived this morning they did not open the gate as usual. Two of them walk over to the gate and stood. The oldest of the people waiting, a man appearing to be in his 80’s, left his donkey and approached the fence to speak to the soldiers. This man has been going through the gate practically every day during our three month stay in Jayyous. He is small and thin and a bit frail. He appears to have been in the sun and weather for many years. They spoke for several minutes, voices becoming louder and more urgent on both sides of the fence. The farmer passed his credentials through the fence. A soldier barely glanced at them and passed them back. It became obvious that the gate would not be opened today. The decision had been made before the soldiers arrived. The people standing there could see their olive trees beyond the three barrier fences and a road, but they would not walk on their land this day.

It seems that everyone who has been passing through the South Gate since it was made available has a pass for the North Gate #943. This is because when their permits were issued, the South Gate was not being used. Later, when the South Gate became available, people with land accessible from that gate were told they could use the permits they had been issued for #943. They have been doing this for over a year. However, this morning the soldiers had been told not to let these people through any more until they go to the DCO to get permits with the proper gate number. It came as a great surprise to the farmers. Also they are afraid that if they go for a new gate number they will loose the permits they have. Then they will not even be able to use the North gate to travel an extra hour or two to their land.

As the soldiers and the people began to leave, each on their own side of the fence barrier, the Palestinian women expressed considerable anger, yelling at the soldiers. One of the woman soldiers began to laugh at them. When I questioned the source of the humor, a soldier responded that it wasn’t funny but that women were saying bad things about his mother. He could not understand why they would do that. He could not understand their anger. He thought they should simply get the new permits and everything would be ok. The metal fence is not the only barrier between these people.

The situation at South Gate #977 will never get into the daily newspapers or on the evening TV news. Jayyous is like the mythical town of Lake Wobegon that time has forgotten. But it is also a place of real people who are in a struggle for their lives. The news tells us about peace negotiations, the end of a temporary freeze on settlement building, U.S. military aid for Israel, the struggles and the disagreements among leaders of nations and various political parties. We talk about terrorism and mistrust. There is discussion about one state and two state solutions to the conflict between Israel and Palestine. We talk about democracy, theocracy and apartheid. We talk about the big issues of settlements, Jerusalem, the Separation barrier, freedom of movement and what it means to be a “Jewish” state.

Meanwhile, the famers and their families stand at the farm gate, caught in a web of confusion over ID’s, permits, and how to harvest their olives. These people cannot wait 10 or 20 or 50 years for justice. They need to get to their fields and their jobs tomorrow.

I have to leave Jayyous in 8 days. My visa is expiring. But how can I leave the farmers standing alone at Gate # 977 looking through the fence and the razor wire watching their olives fall off the trees to rot in the soil. That picture will never leave me and I’m compelled to show it to you. We need to show it over and over until people of every nation say to Israeli, Palestinian and U.S. leadership, “it is enough. Let our people go. We refuse to participate in the oppression any more: with our tax dollars and government aid, with purchasing of goods from outlaw settlements, with our rationalizations that some people are more chosen by God than others or more victimized than others and with our fear of people who are different from us.”




Negotiations among nations may be complicated and tradition bound, but taking down that fence will set free both the oppressed and the oppressors. And we might even be able to meet each other as human beings, sit under an olive tree, have breakfast and build relationships rather than more fences. EAPPI-US and Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) have sent me as an Ecumenical Accompanier serving the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained herein are personal to me and do not necessarily reflect those of EAPPI-US and Global Ministries or the WCC.