the encroachment ran close up to his home. The land yielded him and his neighbours income from the grape and olive harvests, but lay under a confiscation order. In February 2004 further incursions by Harsina settlers encroached on his land: part of the vineyard was rendered inaccessible by the erection of a fence, and he coulde not obtain permission from the Israeli soldiers to cross over to the other part of his vineyard. Soldiers threatening him, he claims, with a nighttime visit to smash his head, if he persisted in pruning his vineyard on the encroached parcel of land. Two members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams stayed overnight to ensure his safety As a result of the fencing he was forced to detour some 2 kilometres on foot every day to reach his home, passing through two Israeli checkpoints. He can no longer access his home by car.Assaily eventually obtained a stop-work injunction from an Israeli court to block the continuation of works that aimed to fence off his property. Non-violence is the key to peace Speaking of Palestinians generally, Assaily argues that their principle virtue is patience, but that their great defect is the slowness with which they take on fresh ideas. His peace-campaigning is ecumenical, in that it draws on the writings of Gandhi, the Qur'an, the Torah and the New Testament. He often works to advise Palestinians demonstrating in Jerusalem on how to devise slogans that are less generic, and more in keeping with the realities of their everyday life. Jerry Levin, CNN's former Middle East Bureau Chief before he was taken hostage by Lebanese terrorists, and now member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams in the West Bank, has singled him out as a "creative Muslim exponent of non-violent activism". His long time friend Hussein Ibrahim Issa also collaborates on the project. At the outset their fellow Palestinians suspected he and his friends must be either CIA agents or collaborators with the Israelis. Issa had his house where he had set up a kindergarten, firebombed in 1988 for organizing an encounter between Palestinian and Israeli schoolchildren. In Assaily's view, since 1948 both Israel and the Palestinians have been unsuccessful in pursuit of their respective goals. Israel in trying to achieve peace and security through the exercise of force, the Palestinians by recourse to armed struggle, therefore, he argues, the time has come for non-violent pursuit of their