Dear friends,
Greetings from Hares! As you can see, I’ve arrived safely. When the plane landed in Tel Aviv and everybody clapped, I knew I was in Israel. I took a deep breath and thought about how different this trip will be than all the ones in the past…
First I want to thank you all for the incredible support you have given me in the past month as I have prepared for my trip – it gives me such strength and peace to know I have so many individuals and communities who care about me and what I’m doing.
There are currently six of us in the IWPS house, two core team members and four volunteers. I must say the house is quite nice and spacious, and we have a great view from the roof of the surrounding Palestinian villages and Jewish settlements (including Ariel, the biggest settlement in the West Bank). Our landlord, Abu Rabia, lives downstairs with his wife and two children. I played ball tonight with his younger son, Sajiyd, who is 2 and a half years old and so adorable. Abu Rabia was one of the first people in the village to start talking about the possibility of an international presence here, and continues to work with IWPS. He visited us Thursday night and our conversation varied from what we want to do about heat in the winter, to whether IWPS women would like to join 50 men from the village on a trip to Arafat’s compound in Ramallah on Friday, to the grove of trees that the Israeli army cut down that day in a neighboring village. Seeing the trees just lying there on the ground, he said, reminded him of photos of the massacres at Sabra and Shatila. The needless destruction of life… He went on to say that trees do not discriminate – that we all breathe the air they give and eat from the fruit they bear. He reminded us also that humans are the only animals who kill not only for food, and who use more than we need. Murder and greed – if only we could rid ourselves of these two faults…
I spent Friday and much of Saturday in Beit Sahor, near Bethlehem, meeting internationals who have come to work with the ISM, and participating in their training. Kate, another IWPSer, helped with the training (don’t worry, I’m not traveling alone yet!). I must say the part of the training that sticks out most in my mind was the weapons display. Ghassan, a Palestinian man who works with the ISM, dumped out a bag of weapons that we might see, and explained to us what they do. The facilitators prefaced this part by saying that it was not to freak us out, so I must also say that I am not trying to freak you out. But to watch as he showed us different types of bullets, tear gas canisters, and sound grenades, and explained different types of tanks and APCs… and then as he said about certain weapons, “But don’t worry, they only use this against Palestinians,” or “Don’t worry, they aim low at internationals,” or “They use these all the time in Gaza, but not in the West Bank”… Does that make me feel better? Should that make me feel better? And the rubber bullets – I had always thought of them as balls of rubber, bouncy and not so hard (although obviously anything shot out of a gun at a high speed can injure people). But no, “rubber bullets” are hard metal balls coated in a thin layer of rubber. The rubber was thicker during the last Intifada, Ghassan explained, but there has gradually been less and less coating.
I’m starting to get a small feel for both the everydayness and the arbitrary nature of the occupation. The checkpoints, the roadblocks, the fact that nobody seems to notice them or talk about them much unless something really egregious happens. Even I, having just arrived, followed Kate from taxi to taxi on our way to Bethlehem, and only after we got there did I stop to think, “It should not have to take 5 cars and 3 hours to travel 40 miles.” At each checkpoint or roadblock we got out, walked through, and picked up another taxi. And of course, Palestinians are used to this. As we returned to Hares this evening, we saw that police had set up a temporary checkpoint outside our village – stopping cars and buses, checking IDs. We sat down on the roadblock about 50 meters away just to watch what was happening. As we sat, Kate explained that the roadblock has been here since the start of the second Intifada, so all the cars inside Hares have been here for 3 years, and cannot get out. The cars on the outside can’t get in, so some people who do drive around park outside the village.
That’s all for now. I realize these thoughts may be slightly disjointed, but they are my initial impressions, and I know how important it is for people who are not here to hear something, anything, from people who are here. So there you have it. I will continue to be in touch and send out reports, although our internet access is quite limited at the moment.
Much love and gratitude, and prayers for peace, Hannah
