Christian Peacemaker Teams UK

John Lynes is a CPTer from East Sussex. He will return to the UK on 25th January.

Good news at last, from two directions. The Palestinian village of Susya is several miles from At-Tuwani, on the edge of the Negev Desert in the occupied West Bank. The villagers, all cave-dwellers, were expelled from their caves in the 1980s to make way for an archaeological park containing a synagogue from the 2nd century AD. They continued to farm their former fields, living in huts and tents not far from the Israeli settlement of Susiya. The Israeli settlers repeatedly harassed the settlers, preventing them from cultivating their lands.

An Israeli peace movement, Ta’ayush, obtained an interim injunction from the Israeli Supreme Court ruling that the expulsions were illegal. However the Israeli authorities now claim that the villagers’ new homes were constructed without the necessary building permits, and so must be demolished. The Supreme Court will hear their appeal on 29th January.

The good news is this. Children from Susya go to school in At-Tuwani. They are forbidden to use the direct “settler” road, and could not afford to pay for a truck. Now a Jewish charity from the UK, the British Shalom Salaam Trust, has stepped in, with sufficient funds to pay for a vehicle and driver for the rest of the school year. I was doubly happy about this as the original approach was made by a Christian (me) to a Jewish charity (linked to Jews for Justice for Palestinians) for Muslim children. Blessed are the peacemakers. Anyone who has visited Hebron will know Shuhada Street. It was once the Piccadilly of Palestinian Hebron. But since the start of the Second Intifada it was closed to non-Israelis. Every shop was shut. The few Palestinians who continued to live along Shuhada Street were forbidden to use their front doors. Christian Peacemakers like me who persisted in walking along the street could expect to be spotted by Israeli settlers and kicked, pushed back or showered with stones. Often Israeli soldiers would stop us “for our own safety”; settlers, not soldiers, effectively controlled the street.

The good news? Two weeks ago the Israeli Supreme Court ruled the closure illegal. The Army conceded it had “made a mistake”. Since then journalists, Palestinians, Israeli activists, Christian Peacemakers and today (Thursday) members of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, have set out to walk along the street. Sometimes the soldiers let us pass. Once they threatened to arrest me. Sometimes they stop us “for security reasons”. But we continue to assert our human, and now legal, rights with the encouragement of Palestinians and Israeli human rights groups.