On team during this period were Johann Funk, Drew Herbert, Kathleen Kern, Paulette Schroeder and Ryan Shiffer.

1 December 2009

      The civilian police at the Ibrahimi Mosque checkpoint shouted at Schroeder that she was not allowed to monitor school patrol from where she stood; she could walk back and forth, but could not stand still. She reminded the Captain that if the soldiers were not doing anything wrong, they would have no reason to object to someone watching them. 

   The officer saw Schroeder writing and at one point went to her and said that if she wanted something to write about, she should write about the Palestinians' waste of water. "Look" he said, "Every day they wash down the Mosque steps and use a lot of water.  Israel needs that water."  Schroeder said perhaps they were trying to honor Allah by keeping the steps clean and then said, "What about the swimming pools in the settlements?"  "You mean," he said, "the water from the lakes?"  Schroeder reminded the Captain that that settlement land was the Palestinians' land; so actually the settlers are stealing from the Palestinians' water."  The Captain said "No, no."

      At the Qitoun checkpoint, when Funk said, "Shalom" to a soldier, he responded, "You have no right to be here.  This is not your problem.  This is a Israeli/Palestinian problem."

2 December 2009

      Schroeder and Kern, with a translator, interviewed shopkeepers in the Old City.  For the most part, the shopkeepers have been in their shops for more than forty years and have seen a steep decline in business since this Intifada began in 2000.  One shopkeeper said that the military closed his shop for three years.  When Funk asked what they would like CPTers to tell people when they return to their home countries, they said CPTers should say that people are suffering here, that they are not terrorists, and that their governments should stop giving money to Israel.

   Funk and Schroeder, returning from an afternoon patrol, met soldiers whom they had previously seen detaining five men against a wall.  This time, they were holding a young man known to CPT. Schroeder told the soldiers that he was their neighbor and a fine person.  The soldiers tried to make the CPTers go home, but they remained, moving back one step at a time while the soldiers searched the young man. Schroeder asked one soldier what the problem was, and he said, "He and his friends want to kill us."

3 December 2009

      During school patrol, Kern noticed that the soldiers at the Qitoun checkpoint, like the ones on duty the day before, made attempts to engage the students in positive ways, asking them about school, etc. as they checked their bags.  However, when one soldier jokingly asked young boys for their IDs (which Palestinians get when they turn sixteen) the boys looked very anxious when they told him they did not have IDs.

      On the way back to the apartment through the market, a shopkeeper waved them down and said soldiers had taken two young men around the corner and beaten them, throwing one to the ground. 

4 December 2009

      EAPPI (Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel) volunteers came by to talk about CPT taking over Qurtuba School patrol while they were on retreat for the week and also asked CPT to go to Al Bweireh to check out a new settlement outpost.  Palestinian children on their way to school report settler youth from the outpost harassing them.

      At the mosque noon patrol, a policeman asked Kern,  "Is your work political?"  "We prefer to think of it as spiritual," she said.  "Okay, as long as you don't cause problems for police and soldiers," he said.  "We try not to," she said.

5 December 2009

      Shiffer and Kern went to Al Bweireh to see the new settlement outpost, a small pre-fabricated building with a flag.  EAPPI has been monitoring the outpost and heard that settlers have thrown rocks at children walking home from school.  According to the family in the house closest to the outpost, settlers had recently stoned the house.  The family called the police, who never came, but soldiers arrived and twisted a young woman's arm to take her video camera.  When they saw the camera was from the Israeli human rights group, B'tselem, they returned it, but destroyed the footage.

While they were standing along the route that the children use to walk home, the EAPPI volunteer, Kern and Shiffer saw two young settler women who walked to the outpost and then came out with two young settler men.  The EAPPI volunteer (from the U.K.) reported that on the previous week, a settler from the outpost had told her to go back to America and then said, under his breath, "I'm going to kill you."  He also told her, "I'm not afraid of you."  She replied, "I don't see why you would be afraid of an unarmed woman."

      The EAPPI volunteer also reported that a family near Kiryat Arba had gotten permission to plow from the military, which told them, "As long as you don't have internationals there, there will be no problem."  Settlers subsequently stopped the plowing, so the family wants to have internationals next time they try.

      CPTers joined other internationals to monitor the Saturday afternoon settler tour. When one of the soldiers escorting the tour heard a Palestinian man telling a group of Lutheran bishops that the soldiers had taken over a Palestinian house across from the Beit Romano settlement, a soldier with a U.S. accent told him, "You ask the father," pointing to one of the bishops.  "He will tell you that the Bible says who God gave this land to."

6 December 2009

      At noon, Border Police held a couple teachers for over an hour; when Schroeder asked the reason, they said they did not have to give her a reason. 

      At about 2:00, a tour of young settler supporters showed up in the market.  An old man holding packages came up from behind and a soldier said he could cut through the crowd to get to his shop; when he hesitated, the soldier told the other squad members to move the people in the tour to the side so the old man could pass more comfortably. The old man's face was still beaming when Kern passed him and he called out something about having no problem with soldiers.

7 December 2009

      Because EAPPI was on a retreat, Kern was monitoring the Dubboya Street exit to/from H-1 (Checkpoint 56).  A police jeep pulled up and an officer told Kern that only TIPH had a mandate to be there.  "You are a guest; you are not here to work," he said.  When she said that that EAPPI was there every day, the policeman said, "EAPPI is gone.  You go too."  When Kern said that EAPPI would be returning, the officer said they would be arrested too.  He said if he saw her again, he would put her into a police jeep and take her to the police station at Kiryat Arba.  She said she would leave after she made a phone call, and the policeman started getting out of the car, so she moved swiftly to the other side of the checkpoint. 

      Schroeder was standing by the mosque gate for school patrol when the police officer began saying, "Nazi, Nazi, Nazi" to her.  She shook her finger and said, "That is not right.  We are Christians; it is not right to call us that."

      Before afternoon school patrol, Funk, Herbert and Shiffer met with Reem Al Shareef, principal at Qurtuba school, to discuss the morning's incident with Kern and the police.  Al Shareef told them that over the past few years there have been a number of individual police officers who have made the same threats to members of EAPPI.  She said not to worry, to leave if an officer tells CPTers to do so, and notify the school if they are not at the checkpoint.

      An Old City mother whose sons the Israeli military has detained and beaten frequently, called the team, and Herbert and Schroeder rushed to the scene.  Six soldiers surrounded the mother and father who were standing in front of their son while two other boys were detained beside the boy.  After about one and a half hours, the police arrived, and the boy, plus his mother and father were taken behind the settlement gate where the police had parked. After about fifteen minutes, soldiers released the family and told them to go home. They also released the two other boys.  For much of the hour-and-a-half wait, Herbert and Schroeder engaged in conversation with the soldiers about what it means to make decisions, and what that will look like when the soldier can make decisions for himself in wider Israeli society.

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