“Do you know what the best thing about tonight is?”. I answered honestly, “No”. The soldier pushes his helmet back up his forehead with the butt his gun and says, “I get to drive these British Land Rovers”. I am not sure how to respond to this and so I sheepishly smile back. My coy response does not deters the soldier, who I later find out is called John, from continuing. “The Palestinians are really suffering you know”. I sensed an old IDF trick coming on, luring lefty NGO types into a false sense of security so I volunteered, “so are the Israelis”. John’s response was telling, “Are you crazy man? You really think the Israelis are suffering in comparison to the Palestinians?”
By this point I will admit that a certain degree of surrealism had been entrenched into the proceedings. I had been called by a local Palestinian at around 1:00 in the morning. He said that the IDF were in his house and they going to arrest his brothers and I should come quickly. As I turned the corner to his house I was met by at least 3 jeeps and an unknown number of soldiers. At first I negotiated a compromise about where my colleague and I could stand to monitor the proceedings. A few minutes later though one of the soldiers beckoned me over and at first started to interrogate me before letting himself slip into casual conversation.
Ignoring the growing sense of irony I pushed on with John, “A lot of Israelis are living in fear, they feel scared all the time, it is not good to live your life in fear”. The IDF soldier, now the voice of rationality in this increasingly bizarre conversation chirped back, “I know that but this fear cannot justify what we are doing here in the West Bank”. I trailed off, “No…of course not”. John was either a master at using reverse psychology or he was an Israeli soldier who was genuinely concerned about the Palestinians.
In the following 5 minutes we talked about the London bombings and how this had fuelled a growing suspicion of Muslim communities in London and what steps could be taken to breakdown this divide. I talked about multi faith projects I have been involved in and he listened with genuine interest. Our conversation meandered easily through politics and religion. After a while I tried to steer the conversation back to the reality in which we found ourselves.
As casually as one can ask an occupying soldier I said, “so, what are you guys up to this evening?”. I was meant to be getting answers to why they were terrorising a community in the middle of night for no apparent reason. Instead I sounded like I was flirting. I clarified, “what are you’re…ummm…objectives?”. The soldier laughed, smiled and said, “We are here for security, I think you know what that means”. I smiled and nodded as if this sort of response comes up all the time and I knew exactly what he meant. Of course I didn’t really know but I guessed this either meant they were there for no reason at all, or there was some super secret army reason for them being there that he couldn’t let on about. I suspected the former.
I glanced around and watched a collection of silhouettes on the roof tops. Men looking on to try and see what the IDF were doing. John caught my glances and reassured me, “they are just curious, there is nothing to be afraid of”. My colleague was stood 20 yards back nervously trying to work out what on earth I could be still talking about after 10 minutes or so of conversation. I knew it was time to draw this surreal conversation to a close. To do this, you would ordinarily ask a closed question like, “Is there anything else?” (a standard way to close what was meant to be an interrogation). On this night though I pushed my thumb into the palm of my hand and said, “I am really sorry, I don’t want to appear to be rude or anything, but if I stay and chat to you here for too long everyone will want to know what I was talking to the soldier about. It might cause some problems tomorrow. I hope you understand”. I was apologising to an occupying soldier for having to break off our nice little midnight chat. Once again, a big smile spreads across John’s face and he beams, “of course, I hear the Israelis have got a bit of bad reputation around these parts”.
As I walked back to my colleague, I felt two completely contradictory emotions. I could feel the cold metal being aimed at my back as I walked away, soldiers poised with suspicion ready to strike at any moment. The cold harsh reality of occupation – soldiers storming houses in the middle of night, interrogating, harassing and intimidating. Then, in complete contrast to this I felt John’s warmth. In my mind’s eye I saw his smile and could hear his soft laughter. Within a few minutes John had shown me a sign a hope and optimism that I know will stay with for days to come.
What will stay with the villagers however is another night time incursion, another family traumatised by interrogation. Mothers and fathers terrified at the prospect of their sons being arrested. Young men having another sleepless night living under the constant threat of arrest. They know too well that being a young male is enough to have you dragged from your house in the middle of the night with no explanation. This will stay with them for longer than just a few days, this will be with the for the rest of their lives.
By invitation from the Qalqiliya branch of 
EAPPI teams do not actively participate in demonstrations, but attend to show sympathy and talk with people. Sometimes we find eloquence without the use of words.
In the small town of Qalqiliya, more than two hundred attended the demo. Not bad!
There is beauty to be found on the West Bank. Administrative detention is not among these. The life of Khader Adnan is on the line; a very thin line. Should he die in illegal detention, scenarios including disruptive, violent response are more than probable. Israel’s Supreme Court will hear an appeal for Khader’s release today.
Hynd's Blog 
The last 24 hours – an extract from my diary.
This is a short extract from my diary (with the naughty bits removed) covering the last 24 hours.
18:25 – I get a text message from one of our local contacts asking if I want to play football in the village with some of the other guys. It sounds like a laugh so I pull on my Arsenal shirt (staying neutral in the Barcelona/Real Madrid turf war) and head out. The two guys I meet are wearing jeans, jackets and leather shoes and I wonder whether my tracksuit trousers and football shirt looks a bit eager. This feeling is confounded when we stop and eat freshly made falafel (it’s hard to say no to Palestinian food). We arrive at the pitch (floodlights and all) and I start to get the feeling that something is not quite right.
18:45 – We spend over an hour warming up (I say we, the two guys who I arrive with are sat on the side – of course they are not playing, they’ve just eaten). This warm up is more exercise than I have done for a very long time. Apparently F.C Jayyus take their warm ups (and football in general) very seriously. I try to cover up my inherent lack of ability and my self-created lack of fitness by making jokes. The guys I came with laugh, everyone else looks on with growing concern at the amount of sweat dripping down this English boy’s face.
The coach barks instructions at players and I occasionally hear my name mentioned (that’s right, this village football team has a coach, and he barks). I try my best not to mess up but get the feeling that I am not the foreign super signing that F.C Jayyus had been looking out for.
21:00 – I survived it, just. One shoulder in the face, and only the occasional noticeable mistake and I think I survived my first (and possibly last) training session with F.C Jayyus. I walk off the pitch knowing full well that my legs will be stiff tomorrow but pretending that this sort of exercise is par for the course for me. It was great to meet some new faces in the village and to have a kick around with them – I wonder if that feeling is mutual? Either way, they are eager for me to come back to the coffee shop with them to watch Champions League football. I excuse myself, miming that I have to get up early tomorrow for checkpoint monitoring (I always thought the Jungle Book was hard but this take charades to a whole new level). I walk away from the group feeling proud that I have turned down the chance to watch football in favour of getting to bed on time – perhaps this whole experience is making me grow up.
23:30 – It’s pathetic and I know it. I have to be up in four and half hours but I could not resist watching Arsenal play (second leg trying to come back from a 4-0 first leg deficit against A.C Milan). Arsenal go 3-0 by half time and I am on cloud nine…and then…nothing. We (because when you support a club you are a part of the collective) crash out of the Champions League and any thought of silverware for the season goes out the window with it. To top it off, my home club, Cheltenham Town drop 3 crucial points in the race for League 2 promotion. I go to bed with my mind swarming with football. How can I love something that consistently causes me so much misery?
But anyway, if you’re looking to support Arsenal or Cheltenham Town I came across these useful coupons for Amazon. Take a look!
1:20 – I am awoken (2 hours after I went to sleep – not that I am bitter) with a phone call to say the IDF are in the village making an arrest (possible arrests – plural). After a quick assessment we decide it is too dangerous to be wandering the streets so we decide to monitor the situation from our rooftop staying in mobile contact with others around the village. It is an eerie feeling to see these silhouettes of men on roof tops in the early hours, all whispering reports to each other. It does however work as an informal information network.
2:30 – An hour later we receive confirmation that a local has been arrested. We can see IDF jeeps buzz around the outskirts of the village but only occasionally see them in the village. These late night visits (often not to make arrests) are happening far too often. I go back to bed, my mind now buzzing not with triviality of football, but of the guy who has just been bundled out of his house in the middle of the night – where will he end up, what will happen to him, what (if anything) will he be charged with?
4:55 – Alarms, I hate alarms. It does its job though and I am up to monitor the agricultural gate to the North of the village which open 5:30 – 6:30 every morning. I arrive and the IDF are parked with their headlights on full beam facing straight at where I monitor the gate from. I stand there, centre stage, performing the worst solo performance they are likely to ever see (essentially a tired Englishman staring blankly at them). After a while a small trickle of farmers flow past and I mutter a few good mornings. The Israelis have made a concerted effort to encourage farmers not to use this gate (as the road on the other side runs straight through a bit of land marked for settlement expansion) but still the locals use it. I wander back to the house feeling cold and tired.
08:45 – A Palestinian with an Israeli ID is coming to pick us up and to drive us to the other side of the separation barrier. We pass through the checkpoint and our bags are x-rayed and a sniffer dog sniffs every nook and cranny of the car. The young girl behind the desk has a staring competition with my passport photo (my photo wins every time) and I am asked why I visited Egypt (A: “I was on holiday”…my mind runs through potential comedy answers and I stop myself from laughing by making a sort of snorting noise). She looks at me and waves me through.
09:30 – We meet a local farmer and he walks us around his land showing the problems that they face (settlement expansion, military activity, water rationing etc). Inside a hut on his land we drink sweet tea and point at maps laid out in front of us. He shows us how the access to his land is being controlled (you need to have a permit to access your own farmland), restricted (they have built a massive separation barrier through the middle of his land – twice) and made unreliable (he had been waiting for months to get a permit). Worst of all, it can be taken away at any minute. We are shown his neighbours land which has been literally blown away – it is now a stone quarry providing material for massive ‘settler only’ road upgrading schemes. Areas all around his land have been claimed by the Israeli government as state property (using British mandate laws I should add – sigh…I love the BBC, tea and cake at 4pm and The Beatles but I sometimes struggle to find anything else to be patriotic about and being in Israel/oPT is not helping this).
We are joined during the day by a Dutch delegation who have decided to spend their free time working as unforced free labour on the land. For some this might seem an odd choice for a holiday but I think I ‘get it’. It is beautiful land they are working on and it is rewarding work. At the very least I ‘get it’ more than those fighting for sun beds in Magaluf.
17:00 – After a long day in the sun in the fields this is exactly what I don’t want. I am sat on a concrete bench in the seam zone (the area in between the separation barrier and the Green Line) waiting for a taxi driver who is over 1 hour late staring at the backend of a checkpoint I am not allowed to enter (it is for workers only). When the taxi does show up (with no explanation for the delay) I need to be driven in a huge loop around and through a car terminal. No one checks any of my nooks and crannies on the way back through.
I am currently serving as an Ecumenical Accompanier in the West Bank – follow the hyperlink for more information.
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Tagged as Diary extract, EAPPI, football in Palestine, Human rights, Israel, Jayyus, land access, Palestine