Dear friends,
I know I sent an e-mail out just 2 days ago, but yesterday I faced the scariest and most disturbing situation yet. I'm extremely drained at the moment and apologize for not wanting to write more, but I will attach our press release about yesterday below (pictures at bottom if they come through on e-mail. Otherwise, they should be posted on our website soon - www.iwps.info).
The only thing I want to say is that it's hard to keep perspective on things here. I'm so used to Israelis with guns (soldiers and settlers) that they don't faze me anymore. I forget that they're real sometimes. In the moment yesterday, standing with women and children as the soldiers yelled, ran at us with tear gas, and cocked their guns, I was quite scared. But afterwards, I think about the soldiers who opened the back of their jeep to point their guns one more time as they were leaving, and it seems like a video game or movie to me. Or just a bunch of young boys with toys. Which is, ultimately, what it is. It's just that these toys can kill…
Anyway, read on…
Press Release – Press Release – Press Release – Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
REPORT: Three hundred men rounded up and detained in Kufr Eyin. Approximately 25 arrests were made.
On Thursday October 23 at 8:30 a.m., IWPS office got a call from a man in Qurawat Bani Zeid, saying that six Israeli jeeps and Armored Personnel Carriers (APC) had moved into the town. The man requested our presence. At 10:30 four IWPS workers arrived at a nearby village and walked across a roadblock to access the area, witnessing a number of jeeps passing on the road. We entered Kufr Eyin, population 1,500, and were told the army was now there. Moments later, a formation of approximately 40 soldiers marched down a hill and into a waiting APC. Further up the hill, a military incursion was in progress. Israeli army jeeps and more APCs were parked in front of the village school. Several men, blindfolded and handcuffed, were being led into one of the APCs. We were told that Israeli soldiers were holding all of the men in the village between the ages of 14-40 in the schoolyard. As IWPS workers watched, the soldiers herded frantic mothers and children back away from the arrest scene. For approximately 1/2-3/4 hour, the soldiers kept the villagers back from witnessing the arrests, often times yelling, threatening the women with tear gas, and chasing them back towards their homes, with rifles pointed at them. The army vehicles left at 11:30 a.m. with the men they had arrested.
We spoke with witnesses, one of whom had been held in the schoolyard since 6:00 a.m. He relayed the following information: At 2:00 a.m., the soldiers surrounded the village. Shots and explosions were heard. Between 4:00-5:00, the army announced curfew through loudspeakers of roving jeeps, ordering all men between 14-40 to present themselves at the school. Shortly afterwards, they conducted house-to-house searches, looking for men. He said there were 33 military cars and 300 soldiers involved in the operation, one soldier per Palestinian. Three hundred men were herded into the schoolyard, their identifications checked in groups of 10. Eight did not have Palestinian I.D.'s and were immediately blindfolded and sequestered. Thirteen others were ultimately blindfolded and arrested as well, and estimated the total men arrested to be between 20-25. The majority remaining were made to sit against the wall of the school ard in the sun from approximately 6:00-11:30 a.m. The witness said the soldiers provided some water for the men, but they were given no food and limited bathroom use.
The soldiers had constructed barbed wire pens inside the schoolyard, drilling holes in the concrete for the poles, then stringing barbed wire to divide the yard into three sections. They destroyed a door and windows inside the school. One young man was hit by a border policeman in the stomach, struck with both rifle and fist, when he asked to use the bathroom. They had also demanded the detainees give their phone numbers to the soldier, and on a number of occasions, when men claimed to have no phone, the same soldier would read the phone number out loud, as if to show the men that they could hide nothing from the army.
The witness reports that Kufr Eyin has been under heavy surveillance for the past 10 days. A curfew has been enforced three times in the past week; people with olive trees have been prohibited from harvesting their crops.
IWPS workers witnessed damage to the school following the release of approximately 275 men and boys. A window was broken, and there was a watermelon-sized hole in the thick concrete wall adjacent to the rooftop door, which lay in rubble off its hinges on the ground. The soldiers had left their trash, and ripped several of the school's posters from their walls.
Friday, October 24, 2003
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
City Life: Tulkarem and Nablus
On Monday, Lynn and I left for a couple days off in Tulkarem and Nablus. Maybethese don't seem like prime vacation spots to you, but I hadn't yet experienced city life in Palestine, and I wanted to see what it was all about. After two days, I've had enough.
I told you in my last e-mail about Ruwayda, the woman who works for the General Union of Disabled Palestinians (now I have the name correct). We went back to visit her and her family Monday evening, and Tuesday we planned to go to Qalqilya to see where she works and to see the concrete part of the Wall up close (I have only seen fence so far, and the city of Qalqilya is surrounded by concrete). We arrived in Tulkarem to a house full of excited people, and ate delicious m'sakhen – bread with onions, spices, and almonds. After dinner, Ruwayda said, "Now I'll give you a tour of Tulkarem at night." I was shocked. It was not yet 7:00, but in Haris we don't go out after dark, and I thought that this was the case in most of Palestine, since soldiers are more likely at night to shoot at anything that moves. Ruwayda, however, was fearless, and she got in the car and used her good leg to drive us around town. We asked if she was scared – at night, as a woman, with internationals – but she said no andc ontinued to blare music as she showed us the university, the hospital, her sister's house, her family's bakery, and the Tulkarem refugee camp. The poverty was palpable as we entered the camp. It was dirtier and noisier than the city, and people were hanging out in the streets. Ruwayda explained that since the houses were so small in the camp, people tended to be outside later at night. As is often the case, I regretted the fact that I didn't read Arabic better when we drove past dozens of messages in graffiti on the walls. I did understand one, though. In English it said: "No War the Iraq."
We drove past a friend of Ruwayda's in a wheelchair, and she explained that two of his brothers had been killed by the Israeli army, and he had been shot and paralyzed from the waist down. Ruwayda turned the music down and continued onto a place that she told us was dangerous to drive. We told her she didn't have to go, but she said that she wanted to show us the Wall. We got to the end of a dark, eerie road and could see the fence a kilometer or two in the distance. Beyond the fence were well-lit, well-paved roads. "Those are Israeli cars driving," Ruwayda said. "That side is Israel… it's so close…"
As soon as we hit the main roads again, the volume of the music increased. I asked her to write down the name of the musician for me, and in true Palestinian fashion, she said, "No, I will give you the cassette." I can't say I'm disappointed about this, although the two shirts and hat she gave me were a bit over the top.
When we got back to her house, she turned on the TV, we watched part of Alien 4, she gave us pajamas that she insisted we wear instead of our own, and we went tosleep. A few hours later I was dreaming about loud airplane sounds. In the dream, I looked out the window wherever I was and saw several commercial planes flying past each other very closely. Suddenly there was an Apache helicopter, and a moment later I was inside it with several soldiers. My dream ended then and I woke up to the sound of real gunshots. Lynn and Ruwayda were sitting up in bed looking out the window, and they told me there had just been a loud explosive sound, like a bomb from a plane demolishing a home (or like the sound of the airplanes and helicopter in my dream). Ruwayda explained that it's like this every night: that soldiers come into town and shoot, usually looking forsomebody, and stay most of the night. Just then roosters began crowing. I'm not sure if the gunshots confused them or if they have a different concept of dawn (2am), but they kept at it almost as long as the soldiers with their guns (hey, maybe they were crowing in protest). Ruwayda took my phone and called her friend at the refugee camp, who told her it wasn't happening there, so the soldiers must be in the city. A couple minutes later, Ruwayda's sister-in-law Arij walked in with her 2-year-old daughter Hanin, who had woken up with trouble breathing. Arij's husband took Hanin to the hospital to get medicine, but ofc ourse this was extremely risky while soldiers were somewhere in town shooting.
This string of events did not seem particularly unusual to Ruwayda or her family, but I cannot imagine living constantly with such a threat of organized, sanctioned violence so close to my home. I suppose this is one privilege most Americans have – most organized, sanctioned American violence takes place in other countries. Even most Israelis rarely feel the results of the occupation of Palestine, and it is only a matter of a few kilometers from one place to the other.
I tried to go back to sleep, but my thoughts wouldn't rest. First: "Well, I'm safe. If the soldiers are trying to find someone, it must be someone who has done something. They wouldn't come in here." But then my thoughts went directly to Latin America, thinking of all the dictatorships in the 1970s and1980s, all the people disappeared, stolen from their beds in the middle of the night because they were activists, or students who attended one meeting, or just students… And then my thoughts went back another 40 years to Europe and I thought of all the people taken to concentration camps or death camps for manyr easons, one of which was the simple fact of being Jewish. Like the simple fact of being Palestinian… I'm not trying to equate the Holocaust with the situation in Palestine, but it amazed me how quickly my brain moved to that place. And they are not entirely without their similarities. Israelis have all the power, all the control. The army can do whatever it wants to do. Maybe, if it goes too far, some voices of protest will arise from the world community, but nothing too significant, nothing to deter them from continuing the destruction of an entire people. And Palestinians, on the other hand, are caught in a trap of relativity: "Well, at least it's not as bad as Gaza." "We're not starving, we have homes…" Somewhere deep down, I think people still believe that if they go along with what is expected of them, they might be safe. In saying this, I do not wish to shortchange the resistance that happened during the Holocaust or the resistance that is happening here in Palestine. I do have to say, however, that I wish there were more. I wish people had more real hope for change through creativity, and less false hope of thinking that they may be able to survive in some form if they comply with what their oppressors demand of them…
I did fall back to sleep eventually, and needless to say, the army did not come for us. We woke up to the news that 11 had been killed in Gaza and many more wounded. Ruwayda called friends in Qalqilya, only to find out that the West Bank was still under heavy closure and it was not likely we would reach Qalqilya. Instead, we visited the family bakery and learned how to make kras (incredible bread with cheese or zatar in it). We then went to Ruwayda's local office in Tulkarem, right next to the mukata'a (the Palestinian Authority building) that was bombed last year [Apparently Israel has destroyed the mukata'a of almost every city in Palestine. I find it ironic that the Israeli government then complains that the Palestinian government doesn't do enough.]
After a couple hours and many phone calls to Ruwayda's taxi driving friends, we found a car to Nablus – or so we thought. In one town we stopped andt ransferred into a truck, which took us up and down the mountains and hills surrounding Nablus on a path that was at its best suitable for donkeys, and at its worst merely a tract of untenable rocky land. We did arrive, however, and went straight to a wonderful hotel called the Yasmeen. We walked around a bit and then went back to the hotel for dinner. As night fell, we heard gunshots in the distance. Nobody seemed fazed. I had heard that the extreme violence ofthe occupation was more blatant in the cities, but I was not expecting its constant presence.
We then turned to the television and saw Al Jazeera filming the incursion into Ramallah. The army had imposed curfew, and some were saying this may be the moment that Israel tries to remove Arafat. We asked our waiter if this was unusual, or if curfew like this always happened. "It always happens," he replied. "It happens here in Nablus all the time, too. It's just that usually we don't have journalists here to cover it." Well, there was technically no curfew in Nablus last night, but like every night, the army lurks around corners and people are afraid to go out. So for Nablus and for Tulkarem, on these particular days and from this particular experience, perhaps I can be your journalist.
Happily home in Haris,
Hannah
Arabic phrase of the day: zaaki ktiir (very delicious)
I told you in my last e-mail about Ruwayda, the woman who works for the General Union of Disabled Palestinians (now I have the name correct). We went back to visit her and her family Monday evening, and Tuesday we planned to go to Qalqilya to see where she works and to see the concrete part of the Wall up close (I have only seen fence so far, and the city of Qalqilya is surrounded by concrete). We arrived in Tulkarem to a house full of excited people, and ate delicious m'sakhen – bread with onions, spices, and almonds. After dinner, Ruwayda said, "Now I'll give you a tour of Tulkarem at night." I was shocked. It was not yet 7:00, but in Haris we don't go out after dark, and I thought that this was the case in most of Palestine, since soldiers are more likely at night to shoot at anything that moves. Ruwayda, however, was fearless, and she got in the car and used her good leg to drive us around town. We asked if she was scared – at night, as a woman, with internationals – but she said no andc ontinued to blare music as she showed us the university, the hospital, her sister's house, her family's bakery, and the Tulkarem refugee camp. The poverty was palpable as we entered the camp. It was dirtier and noisier than the city, and people were hanging out in the streets. Ruwayda explained that since the houses were so small in the camp, people tended to be outside later at night. As is often the case, I regretted the fact that I didn't read Arabic better when we drove past dozens of messages in graffiti on the walls. I did understand one, though. In English it said: "No War the Iraq."
We drove past a friend of Ruwayda's in a wheelchair, and she explained that two of his brothers had been killed by the Israeli army, and he had been shot and paralyzed from the waist down. Ruwayda turned the music down and continued onto a place that she told us was dangerous to drive. We told her she didn't have to go, but she said that she wanted to show us the Wall. We got to the end of a dark, eerie road and could see the fence a kilometer or two in the distance. Beyond the fence were well-lit, well-paved roads. "Those are Israeli cars driving," Ruwayda said. "That side is Israel… it's so close…"
As soon as we hit the main roads again, the volume of the music increased. I asked her to write down the name of the musician for me, and in true Palestinian fashion, she said, "No, I will give you the cassette." I can't say I'm disappointed about this, although the two shirts and hat she gave me were a bit over the top.
When we got back to her house, she turned on the TV, we watched part of Alien 4, she gave us pajamas that she insisted we wear instead of our own, and we went tosleep. A few hours later I was dreaming about loud airplane sounds. In the dream, I looked out the window wherever I was and saw several commercial planes flying past each other very closely. Suddenly there was an Apache helicopter, and a moment later I was inside it with several soldiers. My dream ended then and I woke up to the sound of real gunshots. Lynn and Ruwayda were sitting up in bed looking out the window, and they told me there had just been a loud explosive sound, like a bomb from a plane demolishing a home (or like the sound of the airplanes and helicopter in my dream). Ruwayda explained that it's like this every night: that soldiers come into town and shoot, usually looking forsomebody, and stay most of the night. Just then roosters began crowing. I'm not sure if the gunshots confused them or if they have a different concept of dawn (2am), but they kept at it almost as long as the soldiers with their guns (hey, maybe they were crowing in protest). Ruwayda took my phone and called her friend at the refugee camp, who told her it wasn't happening there, so the soldiers must be in the city. A couple minutes later, Ruwayda's sister-in-law Arij walked in with her 2-year-old daughter Hanin, who had woken up with trouble breathing. Arij's husband took Hanin to the hospital to get medicine, but ofc ourse this was extremely risky while soldiers were somewhere in town shooting.
This string of events did not seem particularly unusual to Ruwayda or her family, but I cannot imagine living constantly with such a threat of organized, sanctioned violence so close to my home. I suppose this is one privilege most Americans have – most organized, sanctioned American violence takes place in other countries. Even most Israelis rarely feel the results of the occupation of Palestine, and it is only a matter of a few kilometers from one place to the other.
I tried to go back to sleep, but my thoughts wouldn't rest. First: "Well, I'm safe. If the soldiers are trying to find someone, it must be someone who has done something. They wouldn't come in here." But then my thoughts went directly to Latin America, thinking of all the dictatorships in the 1970s and1980s, all the people disappeared, stolen from their beds in the middle of the night because they were activists, or students who attended one meeting, or just students… And then my thoughts went back another 40 years to Europe and I thought of all the people taken to concentration camps or death camps for manyr easons, one of which was the simple fact of being Jewish. Like the simple fact of being Palestinian… I'm not trying to equate the Holocaust with the situation in Palestine, but it amazed me how quickly my brain moved to that place. And they are not entirely without their similarities. Israelis have all the power, all the control. The army can do whatever it wants to do. Maybe, if it goes too far, some voices of protest will arise from the world community, but nothing too significant, nothing to deter them from continuing the destruction of an entire people. And Palestinians, on the other hand, are caught in a trap of relativity: "Well, at least it's not as bad as Gaza." "We're not starving, we have homes…" Somewhere deep down, I think people still believe that if they go along with what is expected of them, they might be safe. In saying this, I do not wish to shortchange the resistance that happened during the Holocaust or the resistance that is happening here in Palestine. I do have to say, however, that I wish there were more. I wish people had more real hope for change through creativity, and less false hope of thinking that they may be able to survive in some form if they comply with what their oppressors demand of them…
I did fall back to sleep eventually, and needless to say, the army did not come for us. We woke up to the news that 11 had been killed in Gaza and many more wounded. Ruwayda called friends in Qalqilya, only to find out that the West Bank was still under heavy closure and it was not likely we would reach Qalqilya. Instead, we visited the family bakery and learned how to make kras (incredible bread with cheese or zatar in it). We then went to Ruwayda's local office in Tulkarem, right next to the mukata'a (the Palestinian Authority building) that was bombed last year [Apparently Israel has destroyed the mukata'a of almost every city in Palestine. I find it ironic that the Israeli government then complains that the Palestinian government doesn't do enough.]
After a couple hours and many phone calls to Ruwayda's taxi driving friends, we found a car to Nablus – or so we thought. In one town we stopped andt ransferred into a truck, which took us up and down the mountains and hills surrounding Nablus on a path that was at its best suitable for donkeys, and at its worst merely a tract of untenable rocky land. We did arrive, however, and went straight to a wonderful hotel called the Yasmeen. We walked around a bit and then went back to the hotel for dinner. As night fell, we heard gunshots in the distance. Nobody seemed fazed. I had heard that the extreme violence ofthe occupation was more blatant in the cities, but I was not expecting its constant presence.
We then turned to the television and saw Al Jazeera filming the incursion into Ramallah. The army had imposed curfew, and some were saying this may be the moment that Israel tries to remove Arafat. We asked our waiter if this was unusual, or if curfew like this always happened. "It always happens," he replied. "It happens here in Nablus all the time, too. It's just that usually we don't have journalists here to cover it." Well, there was technically no curfew in Nablus last night, but like every night, the army lurks around corners and people are afraid to go out. So for Nablus and for Tulkarem, on these particular days and from this particular experience, perhaps I can be your journalist.
Happily home in Haris,
Hannah
Arabic phrase of the day: zaaki ktiir (very delicious)
Saturday, October 18, 2003
Three Days in the Life
Dear friends,
My past three days have been quite busy and quite varied, and I would like to give a short account of each day. In brief – Thursday we picked olives again in Marda, Friday was an action outside Ariel planned by queer Israelis, Saturday was a fun olive-picking day with wonderful energetic women in Tulkarem. And as always, the subtext is the occupation…
Thursday:
I woke up at 5:30 am, the usual time for olive-picking days. We had arranged for a taxi driver from Ariel to come for us at 6:15 – he’s a non-Jewish Iranian refugee who had applied for asylum through the UN. He requested to live in the United States and they sent him to Israel (at least this is what we understood). He was sent straight to Ariel and now lives there with a bit of guilt. Because he has a yellow license plate (Israeli citizenship), he is able to drive us around during closure, so we have called him quite often during the past few weeks of almost constant closure.
We met the farmers at Marda, and one 78-year-old man named Abu Hassan quickly adopted Dunya and me and led us up the hill to his land. Immediately he began to speak Spanish (yet another man who has spent much of his life in Venezuela). Halfway up the hill we realized that he did not intend to pick that day. Because his land is so close to the Ariel fence, he has not been there for a year and had no idea whether his trees would have any olives. He wanted us to accompany him that morning for safety as he checked out the situation, and would bring his family back the next day to pick.
Abu Hassan’s land is right next to a huge trash heap – trucks from Ariel settlement come through the fence and dump their waste onto Marda’s land. Aside from this trash and the looming settlement above, the land is gorgeous and from the top of the hill one can see the beautiful Palestinian landscape for miles around. Indeed, Abu Hassan’s trees had olives, although not as many as last year (the harvest comes in two year cycles). Two brothers were picking right next to him, so after Abu Hassan left, we spent most of the day with these brothers (Husam and Hasmi). Husam speaks excellent English, although he only spent one semester in university (he couldn’t afford more). He claimed that he learned his English from television, and I must say that if this is the case, I’m extremely impressed. At one point after Dunya and I finished a conversation with each other about our coworkers and their attitudes with army officials, Husam turned to us and asked, “What does ‘irreverent’ mean?” Apparently, this was the only word in our conversation that he had not understood.
The day passed quickly, full of discussions about racism and poverty in the United States, potential Palestinian resistance against the Wall, religion and culture, and more. People in other parts of Marda faced problems from the army, who told them they could only pick more than 500 meters away from the Ariel fence. Our particular family, however, picked in peace and enjoyed our company as much as we enjoyed theirs.
On our way out of the village, Ayman stopped me and kidnapped me with what one IWPSer has named “brutal Palestinian hospitality.” Seriously, though, I did enjoy myself at their house (this is the family I previously referred to as my favorite family). The only disturbing moment was my entrance, upon which I found 6-year-old Ramee playing a computer game called “Gulf War.” All I managed to say was “Unf mish kwayiss” (violence is not good). Watching a Palestinian child play with fake tanks and guns on the computer, in a game portraying the US invasion of Iraq, was not a good end to the day.
I returned home, only to get a call from Abu Rabia about two problems: 1) Three farmers had been arrested in Mas’ha that day because they were attempting to access and harvest their land. 2) Two people had just been shot in Qarawat Bani Zeit, and the soldiers were not letting the ambulance through the checkpoint to the Salfit hospital. We made calls and did what we could – I have not heard about the people who were shot, but I know that the farmers were released from Ariel prison and presumably got home safely.
Friday:
“Women settlers! In Ramat-Gan it’s a lot easier to be a lesbian!” Thus read the press release and flyer that Black Laundry distributed on Friday at the action at Ariel settlement. The launderesses, as we like to call them, are by far my favorite Israelis that I have met (even if their subtlety is beyond some people's comprehension). They are “lesbians, gays, and transgenders against the occupation and for social justice." The purpose of the action was to draw attention to Ariel, because this settlement is the primary reason that the Wall is planned to cut 20 kilometers inside the West Bank and devastate the entire Salfit region where we live.
The Black Laundry women showed up in stewardess drag, intending to set up a passport control booth and stop cars entering Ariel. The general message: “Hey tourist, your visa is up. Go back to Israel.” [Incidentally, one launderess did not attend the action because she is uncomfortable with the concept of a Jewish state and thought the action’s message might suggest otherwise]. Before we actually set up, the police were there, asking whether we were Black Laundry, how long we would stay, and what our signs said. They weren’t particularly thrilled about the signs in Hebrew, Russian, English, and Arabic saying “Ariel is not in Israel.” Before we knew it, several police cars and army jeeps were there, announcing that they would arrest us in 5 minutes. They produced an army order declaring the entrance to Ariel a “closed military zone” (they did not appreciate our questioning why it was only closed to us and not to settlers), and we started to move away. We got outside Ariel and moved 200 meters away, as one cop ordered us to do. Suddenly, the rules had changed, and the cops decided we couldn’t stand where we were standing, and we were not allowed to move (didn’t leave us many options, eh?). They ordered us to get into the police cars and army jeeps, and they would transport all 15-20 of us to the checkpoint at the Green Line (1967 border between the West Bank and Israel). We tried to call a taxi, but finally they shoved us into the cars. They drove us quite a bit past the checkpoint into Israel, but it was certainly better than other scenarios we could have imagined. At the end, we ended up spreading out along the side of the road with our signs. Most cars slowed down to see what the signs said, and as a result we received a few beeps of support, several obscene gestures and words, and even a swerving car threatening to hit two women.
We stopped at 3:00 pm so the Israelis could catch the last bus back to Tel Aviv (buses stop running on Shabbat). Although we did not do the exact action we planned to do, I consider the action a success for several reasons: 1) So many policemen and soldiers spent their afternoons threatening us instead of interacting with Palestinians. 2) The police and army presence certainly caused people to slow down upon entering Ariel. 3) We were apparently important enough for a special army order to be issued. 4) We actually sparked a counter-protest (one settler returned with a giant Israeli flag about a half hour after driving past us). 5) Any excuse to hang out with the Black Laundry folks is great! (www.blacklaundry.org)
Saturday:
Today four of us went to Tulkarem to help women harvest in a village that had been having problems. Because closure is still in effect, we had to walk the first few kilometers to the Qarawa roadblock, where we found a Palestinian car. When we reached the Jbarra checkpoint and got out to get another taxi, the soldier informed us that we could not turn in the direction we wanted to turn because we did not have a “B+” stamp on our visas. We protested that we had been there many times before, and I asked if this order was in effect only today. He said, “No, it began on Friday.” We have no idea whether this B+ visa really exists or not, but we did manage to get through after talking with 4 different soldiers. Our theory: during closure, the soldiers are extremely bored because nobody tries to pass through. When we show up it gives them something to do, so they all want to hassle us a bit before letting us go. At one point, one soldier checked our bags and still refused to let us go. I asked, “If you’re not going to let us through anyway, why do you check our bags?” “You might be coming to blow us up,” he responded. “Okay, but we’re not, so can we go?” said Kate… and so on.
We thought we were going to a town because the army wouldn’t let people through the Wall, but we arrived and discovered that the Wall did not cut through the town of Shufa, and they were primarily concerned about settlers. We went with 10 women from PARC, in order to help one specific woman with her land. PARC, the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee, is part of the People’s Party, the Communist party that is the main rival to Arafat’s Fateh party. These specific women have been organizing against the Wall, and are obviously a very tight group of friends. As soon as we got in the bus, they started singing and laughing, something I have not heard many women do in Palestine (it is not generally considered appropriate for Muslim women to be so loud, and especially to sing). We met some wonderful women, one of whom is the manager in the Qalqilya office of the Disabled Union of Palestine (I’m not quite sure this is the official name, but this is how Ruwayda explained her position to us). Ruwayda was absolutely amazing – walking up steep and rocky terrain with her crutches and laughing the entire time.
We picked for a few hours, and the fun never ceased. I did not understand most of the Arabic, but we did figure out that they were talking about their husbands much of the time. I also learned a few lines of some of the songs they sang – about their land, peace, work, etc. On our way back, one woman’s husband called her and said the army had just come through and declared curfew, so the shops were all shutting down. By the time we got there, however, things seemed to be back to normal. We spent an hour in Ruwayda’s house and met about 20 of her family members (it is a 5-story building with 3 different homes, and more people than I could keep track of). The family was really lovely, and the children were interested in us but didn’t merely gape as though we were from another planet (which is sometimes the reaction we get from children). When we left, we again had trouble getting through the Jbarra checkpoint, but once we did it was remarkably easy to get home. As always, our driver stopped every time he saw another taxi, so they could ask each other what to expect in the stretch of road ahead.
We all walked in the door with smiles on our faces – this was the best day we had had in Palestine, we agreed. The community of strong women was indescribably energizing. Apparently, it was too good to be true, because when we got home we read online that a half hour after we left Tulkarem, a 16-year-old Palestinian boy had been shot and killed by the army. We called our friends, who seemed to be doing okay.
As if the killing wasn’t enough to bring us down, I called the Olive Harvest coordinator in Marda to confirm that we would be coming tomorrow. We hardly got through the hellos when he said, “The army is driving through the village announcing on a loudspeaker that we cannot leave our houses.” Curfew in Marda?, I thought. Sure enough, that seems to be the case. We are not certain of the reason, but rumors have it that some children may have thrown rocks at an Israeli car outside Marda, and the car lost control and crashed. Regardless of the situation, we will go to Marda tomorrow morning – either to pick olives or to monitor the situation if curfew is still in effect.
I think these three days may be simultaneously the most confusing and most normal days I have had. On the one hand, closure has been intense and Palestinians are as restricted as ever. On the other hand, I have gotten used to seeing no Palestinian cars on the road and living daily with the occupation, and my time with Palestinian people has been absolutely joyful. Thank you all for reading. As always, feel free to e-mail me with any points of clarification. I know I include a lot in these reports, and not every incident is thoroughly explained.
And now, for your Arabic words of the day: Here at the IWPS house, we have coined a few phrases of our own.
1. Bezabtly – “bezabt” means “exactly,” and what better way to explain the concept than “bezabtly”?
2. Banaatis – “banaat” means “girls,” so Carolyn has decided that “banaatis” means “girlies” (this is how Carolyn addresses us).
3. People my age may not understand this reference, since I didn’t, but remember the show “Get Smart” and the phrase “Good thinking, 99”? Well, every time somebody has a good idea now, we say “Fiqra kwayyisa, tisa w’tisiin.”
That’s all folks.
Sending love around the world,
Hannah
My past three days have been quite busy and quite varied, and I would like to give a short account of each day. In brief – Thursday we picked olives again in Marda, Friday was an action outside Ariel planned by queer Israelis, Saturday was a fun olive-picking day with wonderful energetic women in Tulkarem. And as always, the subtext is the occupation…
Thursday:
I woke up at 5:30 am, the usual time for olive-picking days. We had arranged for a taxi driver from Ariel to come for us at 6:15 – he’s a non-Jewish Iranian refugee who had applied for asylum through the UN. He requested to live in the United States and they sent him to Israel (at least this is what we understood). He was sent straight to Ariel and now lives there with a bit of guilt. Because he has a yellow license plate (Israeli citizenship), he is able to drive us around during closure, so we have called him quite often during the past few weeks of almost constant closure.
We met the farmers at Marda, and one 78-year-old man named Abu Hassan quickly adopted Dunya and me and led us up the hill to his land. Immediately he began to speak Spanish (yet another man who has spent much of his life in Venezuela). Halfway up the hill we realized that he did not intend to pick that day. Because his land is so close to the Ariel fence, he has not been there for a year and had no idea whether his trees would have any olives. He wanted us to accompany him that morning for safety as he checked out the situation, and would bring his family back the next day to pick.
Abu Hassan’s land is right next to a huge trash heap – trucks from Ariel settlement come through the fence and dump their waste onto Marda’s land. Aside from this trash and the looming settlement above, the land is gorgeous and from the top of the hill one can see the beautiful Palestinian landscape for miles around. Indeed, Abu Hassan’s trees had olives, although not as many as last year (the harvest comes in two year cycles). Two brothers were picking right next to him, so after Abu Hassan left, we spent most of the day with these brothers (Husam and Hasmi). Husam speaks excellent English, although he only spent one semester in university (he couldn’t afford more). He claimed that he learned his English from television, and I must say that if this is the case, I’m extremely impressed. At one point after Dunya and I finished a conversation with each other about our coworkers and their attitudes with army officials, Husam turned to us and asked, “What does ‘irreverent’ mean?” Apparently, this was the only word in our conversation that he had not understood.
The day passed quickly, full of discussions about racism and poverty in the United States, potential Palestinian resistance against the Wall, religion and culture, and more. People in other parts of Marda faced problems from the army, who told them they could only pick more than 500 meters away from the Ariel fence. Our particular family, however, picked in peace and enjoyed our company as much as we enjoyed theirs.
On our way out of the village, Ayman stopped me and kidnapped me with what one IWPSer has named “brutal Palestinian hospitality.” Seriously, though, I did enjoy myself at their house (this is the family I previously referred to as my favorite family). The only disturbing moment was my entrance, upon which I found 6-year-old Ramee playing a computer game called “Gulf War.” All I managed to say was “Unf mish kwayiss” (violence is not good). Watching a Palestinian child play with fake tanks and guns on the computer, in a game portraying the US invasion of Iraq, was not a good end to the day.
I returned home, only to get a call from Abu Rabia about two problems: 1) Three farmers had been arrested in Mas’ha that day because they were attempting to access and harvest their land. 2) Two people had just been shot in Qarawat Bani Zeit, and the soldiers were not letting the ambulance through the checkpoint to the Salfit hospital. We made calls and did what we could – I have not heard about the people who were shot, but I know that the farmers were released from Ariel prison and presumably got home safely.
Friday:
“Women settlers! In Ramat-Gan it’s a lot easier to be a lesbian!” Thus read the press release and flyer that Black Laundry distributed on Friday at the action at Ariel settlement. The launderesses, as we like to call them, are by far my favorite Israelis that I have met (even if their subtlety is beyond some people's comprehension). They are “lesbians, gays, and transgenders against the occupation and for social justice." The purpose of the action was to draw attention to Ariel, because this settlement is the primary reason that the Wall is planned to cut 20 kilometers inside the West Bank and devastate the entire Salfit region where we live.
The Black Laundry women showed up in stewardess drag, intending to set up a passport control booth and stop cars entering Ariel. The general message: “Hey tourist, your visa is up. Go back to Israel.” [Incidentally, one launderess did not attend the action because she is uncomfortable with the concept of a Jewish state and thought the action’s message might suggest otherwise]. Before we actually set up, the police were there, asking whether we were Black Laundry, how long we would stay, and what our signs said. They weren’t particularly thrilled about the signs in Hebrew, Russian, English, and Arabic saying “Ariel is not in Israel.” Before we knew it, several police cars and army jeeps were there, announcing that they would arrest us in 5 minutes. They produced an army order declaring the entrance to Ariel a “closed military zone” (they did not appreciate our questioning why it was only closed to us and not to settlers), and we started to move away. We got outside Ariel and moved 200 meters away, as one cop ordered us to do. Suddenly, the rules had changed, and the cops decided we couldn’t stand where we were standing, and we were not allowed to move (didn’t leave us many options, eh?). They ordered us to get into the police cars and army jeeps, and they would transport all 15-20 of us to the checkpoint at the Green Line (1967 border between the West Bank and Israel). We tried to call a taxi, but finally they shoved us into the cars. They drove us quite a bit past the checkpoint into Israel, but it was certainly better than other scenarios we could have imagined. At the end, we ended up spreading out along the side of the road with our signs. Most cars slowed down to see what the signs said, and as a result we received a few beeps of support, several obscene gestures and words, and even a swerving car threatening to hit two women.
We stopped at 3:00 pm so the Israelis could catch the last bus back to Tel Aviv (buses stop running on Shabbat). Although we did not do the exact action we planned to do, I consider the action a success for several reasons: 1) So many policemen and soldiers spent their afternoons threatening us instead of interacting with Palestinians. 2) The police and army presence certainly caused people to slow down upon entering Ariel. 3) We were apparently important enough for a special army order to be issued. 4) We actually sparked a counter-protest (one settler returned with a giant Israeli flag about a half hour after driving past us). 5) Any excuse to hang out with the Black Laundry folks is great! (www.blacklaundry.org)
Saturday:
Today four of us went to Tulkarem to help women harvest in a village that had been having problems. Because closure is still in effect, we had to walk the first few kilometers to the Qarawa roadblock, where we found a Palestinian car. When we reached the Jbarra checkpoint and got out to get another taxi, the soldier informed us that we could not turn in the direction we wanted to turn because we did not have a “B+” stamp on our visas. We protested that we had been there many times before, and I asked if this order was in effect only today. He said, “No, it began on Friday.” We have no idea whether this B+ visa really exists or not, but we did manage to get through after talking with 4 different soldiers. Our theory: during closure, the soldiers are extremely bored because nobody tries to pass through. When we show up it gives them something to do, so they all want to hassle us a bit before letting us go. At one point, one soldier checked our bags and still refused to let us go. I asked, “If you’re not going to let us through anyway, why do you check our bags?” “You might be coming to blow us up,” he responded. “Okay, but we’re not, so can we go?” said Kate… and so on.
We thought we were going to a town because the army wouldn’t let people through the Wall, but we arrived and discovered that the Wall did not cut through the town of Shufa, and they were primarily concerned about settlers. We went with 10 women from PARC, in order to help one specific woman with her land. PARC, the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee, is part of the People’s Party, the Communist party that is the main rival to Arafat’s Fateh party. These specific women have been organizing against the Wall, and are obviously a very tight group of friends. As soon as we got in the bus, they started singing and laughing, something I have not heard many women do in Palestine (it is not generally considered appropriate for Muslim women to be so loud, and especially to sing). We met some wonderful women, one of whom is the manager in the Qalqilya office of the Disabled Union of Palestine (I’m not quite sure this is the official name, but this is how Ruwayda explained her position to us). Ruwayda was absolutely amazing – walking up steep and rocky terrain with her crutches and laughing the entire time.
We picked for a few hours, and the fun never ceased. I did not understand most of the Arabic, but we did figure out that they were talking about their husbands much of the time. I also learned a few lines of some of the songs they sang – about their land, peace, work, etc. On our way back, one woman’s husband called her and said the army had just come through and declared curfew, so the shops were all shutting down. By the time we got there, however, things seemed to be back to normal. We spent an hour in Ruwayda’s house and met about 20 of her family members (it is a 5-story building with 3 different homes, and more people than I could keep track of). The family was really lovely, and the children were interested in us but didn’t merely gape as though we were from another planet (which is sometimes the reaction we get from children). When we left, we again had trouble getting through the Jbarra checkpoint, but once we did it was remarkably easy to get home. As always, our driver stopped every time he saw another taxi, so they could ask each other what to expect in the stretch of road ahead.
We all walked in the door with smiles on our faces – this was the best day we had had in Palestine, we agreed. The community of strong women was indescribably energizing. Apparently, it was too good to be true, because when we got home we read online that a half hour after we left Tulkarem, a 16-year-old Palestinian boy had been shot and killed by the army. We called our friends, who seemed to be doing okay.
As if the killing wasn’t enough to bring us down, I called the Olive Harvest coordinator in Marda to confirm that we would be coming tomorrow. We hardly got through the hellos when he said, “The army is driving through the village announcing on a loudspeaker that we cannot leave our houses.” Curfew in Marda?, I thought. Sure enough, that seems to be the case. We are not certain of the reason, but rumors have it that some children may have thrown rocks at an Israeli car outside Marda, and the car lost control and crashed. Regardless of the situation, we will go to Marda tomorrow morning – either to pick olives or to monitor the situation if curfew is still in effect.
I think these three days may be simultaneously the most confusing and most normal days I have had. On the one hand, closure has been intense and Palestinians are as restricted as ever. On the other hand, I have gotten used to seeing no Palestinian cars on the road and living daily with the occupation, and my time with Palestinian people has been absolutely joyful. Thank you all for reading. As always, feel free to e-mail me with any points of clarification. I know I include a lot in these reports, and not every incident is thoroughly explained.
And now, for your Arabic words of the day: Here at the IWPS house, we have coined a few phrases of our own.
1. Bezabtly – “bezabt” means “exactly,” and what better way to explain the concept than “bezabtly”?
2. Banaatis – “banaat” means “girls,” so Carolyn has decided that “banaatis” means “girlies” (this is how Carolyn addresses us).
3. People my age may not understand this reference, since I didn’t, but remember the show “Get Smart” and the phrase “Good thinking, 99”? Well, every time somebody has a good idea now, we say “Fiqra kwayyisa, tisa w’tisiin.”
That’s all folks.
Sending love around the world,
Hannah
Thursday, October 09, 2003
Jayyus Action and Closure
Tuesday evening Nijmie, Jean, and I headed to Jayyus to support Palestinian farmers who had been locked out of their land for 4 days. Like in so many other villages, the Wall has come through Jayyus and separated hundreds of farmers from their land. Every morning, afternoon, and evening, the army is supposed to open the gate and let the farmers through, but this doesn’t always happen.
When we got to Jayyus, we learned that the closure of the West Bank, which had been announced Friday evening and selectively enforced since then, would continue for Wednesday and Thursday. Of course, the farmers still needed to get to their land and 40 internationals had shown up to support them, so the action was on. We would specifically try to get through the gate in the Wall, continue to Zufin settlement, which has stolen land from many families, and pick olives with these families.
Wednesday morning, we headed to the gate and were met by a busload from Rabbis for Human Rights. We were all disappointed that only about 25 farmers seemed to be there, but more came throughout the day. Some young men from the village had caused a bit of damage to the wire fence the night before, so there was enough space to pass equipment through it. I saw one man come running out of the trees on the other side and run up to the hole in the fence. A woman, presumably his wife, handed him a bag of farm equipment and he ran back into the fields. The woman started to cry as she held the fence and turned her head away from the cameras that were starting to take notice. I wasn’t sure whether she was crying because of this arbitrary separation from her land or because her husband felt the need to sleep in the fields so he could work. I assume it was a combination of both.
Some Palestinians had determined that the gate was actually unlocked, but people seemed scared to walk through (I’ve heard that keeping the gate unlocked is a relatively common psychological game the soldiers play). As people were talking about what to do, we saw an army jeep winding around the security road. The internationals sat down in front of the gate with enough space for it to be opened. The soldiers immediately locked the gate and left. We began our plan of having a sit-in, but with the army now gone and with people so frustrated, a few Palestinians took matters into their own hands. In just a couple minutes, they broke open the gate and the crowd erupted in applause. Farmers started to walk and ride through, with internationals on the sides in case the army returned. The gate supposedly has sensors, but we were hanging around the gate for at least a half hour after it was open, and no authorities returned. Perhaps they were waiting for later to retaliate, we worried. But the act of breaking the gate – largely symbolic but real in the sense that farmers would get to pick today – gave people a sense of triumph in those early morning hours.
People split up, and most of us marched to Zufin, only to find that the farmers whose olive trees were in the settlement were not there. Some had not shown up at the gate and some had shown up too late and were not able to get in. We split again, some people going back to monitor the gate, some picking olives with other families, and some (including myself) continuing on to find more farmers. We hiked several kilometers looking for other farmers with land in the area and finally came upon a few farmers with greenhouses. We picked cucumbers for several hours and tried to keep in touch with people back at the gate, but cell phone reception was shaky and batteries were running out. We did hear that with 15 media people there, the army seemed to be letting farmers go to their lands without checking their IDs, at least for a certain period of time. Shortly after, we heard that security had done a sweep of the land and tried to force all the farmers to go home.
At one point, we heard that 3 internationals had been arrested. Apparently they were held very briefly, probably not officially arrested, and put on a bus to Tel Aviv with instructions not to return to the West Bank. Some time later, we were told that people would try to go back through the gate at 5 pm, so we began to head back. We got another call that the army had arrested 2 more internationals and 2 Palestinians. As people in the village heard, they headed down to the gate again, and the army immediately threw tear gas across the gate, which wafted up the hill. People continued, and the army threw more tear gas. People then dispersed into the trees, but came out again to watch what was happening. One army jeep then roared into the village, and the soldiers got out and apparently began to chase Palestinians through the village on foot.
Meanwhile, my group was still beginning its trek back to the village. One farmer we were working with gave us a ride most of the way on his tractor, but was afraid to approach the gate, and afraid of repercussions in the coming days, so he dropped us off at one point and headed back to his fields to sleep. We continued on foot, and I saw a white truck drive by with “TV” written on it. I recognized John Burns from the New York Times as the driver, and we tried to flag down the car, but it kept driving. I quickly called him on his cell phone, which he didn’t answer, but after a few minutes the car returned. Again they were going to drive past us but I managed to convince them to stop. John got out to talk on his phone and I spoke with the other three people in the car. I told them we were heading back to the gate and it would really help to have some media presence. The reporters responded by saying that they had been filming earlier, and were forced to stop. The army had told them to leave the security road and vowed to arrest them if they returned. I have to admit I think it might be an interesting wake-up call for reporters from the New York Times to get arrested, but it meant that they had no desire to help us in this situation, so we continued on our way. We then saw the border police drive by with the blindfolded arrestees in the back. We figured they were heading to the settlement for interrogation.
When we got to the gate, internationals on the other side began to clap for us (we found this interesting, since they were the ones who dealt with tear gas and soldiers all day as we picked cucumbers). No words passed between us and the soldiers as they opened the gate for the 7 internationals, an older woman, and a man with his donkey to enter the village. As we walked up the hill, people suddenly started to scream, “You’ve got to be kidding!” and “What is the world coming to?!” I turned around and asked, “Is there another jeep coming?” “No,” replied one Californian, “Arnold Schwarzenegger won!” [I mentioned this later to a group of people and one Swede said, “He won what?” I said, “He’s the new governor of California.” The Swedish man just began to laugh.]
We got back to the ISM house and people began to debrief. The comment that struck me most came from another Swedish man who said, “I was out there all day picking olives with a wonderful family, and really forgot about the occupation as I participated in the normal, daily life activities of one woman. Then I returned to find yelling and tear gas, saw my friends blindfolded in the back of a jeep, and saw 18-year-old kids laughing and enjoying themselves as they destroy this perfect world.”
I will shorten the story from here, but will say that by the end of the night we had information that all 4 arrestees had been released, and people went to sleep relieved. Nijmie, Jean, and I woke up early to come back to Haris. We had heard that closure was being seriously enforced (some people say the army intentionally waits at least a few days after a big suicide attack for closure to kick in, because they want to make it absolutely clear to the Palestinians that it is for punishment and not for security. Many soldiers have confirmed this, but clearly Sharon prefers to show the world an image of security and not collective punishment.).
We got to Funduq with little trouble, but the ride from Funduq to Haris was another question. Nobody seemed to want to go, and taxi drivers kept getting messages that “flying checkpoints” had been set up at various points along the road. Some Palestinians suggested we get a yellow-plated car (Israeli – not stopped at checkpoints), but we prefer to support Palestinians, so we found a green- and white-plated driver willing to take us. Sure enough, shortly after we started our journey, we were stopped. Nijmie and I got out of the car and asked why the Palestinians weren’t allowed through. “Closure,” the soldier responded. We didn’t get much more information than this, but our driver managed to negotiate with the soldier by saying he only had three internationals in his car, promised not to pick anyone else up, would only take us to Haris and then return, and would leave his ID with the soldier while he did this. We continued on the road, and out of nowhere four soldiers lunged into the street. They were probably just getting there, but perhaps they did this to every Palestinian car, just to startle people. Of course, our driver didn’t have his ID to show the soldiers, but he explained the situation and one soldier was ready to let us go. Another soldier jumped in and started yelling at the driver, clearly bored at the prospect of sitting near an empty road all day. Finally they let us go, and I have to say I cringed upon hearing our driver say in Hebrew, “Thank you very much,” as he drove away. The fear among Palestinians, which leads to deference even in the face of humiliation, really upsets me. The power dynamic is so clear here, and yet people continue to claim that Israelis are afraid of Palestinians. I do believe that some Israelis are afraid of traveling on buses because of the thought of suicide bombers. Within Palestine, however, why would people build settlements right next to Palestinian villages if they were so scared of their neighbors? Why would they storm into Palestinian towns, wander around, drink from people’s wells, and return to their settlements (this happens in Yanoun) if they were really so scared? It becomes clearer and clearer that nothing really happens for security reasons, but it continues to be an effective disguise for Sharon’s policy of stealing land.
Well, we did get back to Haris, though the soldiers at our roadblock were being extra rude and were carrying more visible weapons than usual. They refused to let us through at first. Nijmie responded, “I know what closure means, and I know how badly you treat Palestinians here, but closure doesn’t apply to internationals, so what’s the problem?” After a bit of a wait and a thorough bag search, we were let through and came home. We met Abu Rabia on the road (our landlord), who confirmed what we had heard from other IWPSers – that the army had entered the village yesterday, and began arresting people. Abu Rabia stepped in when a soldier was trying to beat someone up, so the soldier turned from the first man and took Abu Rabia into the jeep. He sat blindfolded for about an hour, he told us, and had a conversation with the soldier, who told Abu Rabia that if it were up to him, he’d kill all the Palestinians. He ordered Abu Rabia to warn everyone in the village not to intervene in soldiers’ actions, to which Abu Rabia responded, “I’m not your servant. You have your guns, you have the weapons and the power, you can do whatever you want to us. Don’t use us.” He told us that he thinks he may have gotten through to the soldier at the very end when he said, “You’re going to grow up and look into yourself and look back at what you’ve done, and you will not be happy with it. If I were still who I was at your age, I would be fighting against you right now. But I’ve grown, and I’ve learned.”
May we all continue to learn peace, and unlearn the violence we are taught to embrace or ignore.
Love Hannah
When we got to Jayyus, we learned that the closure of the West Bank, which had been announced Friday evening and selectively enforced since then, would continue for Wednesday and Thursday. Of course, the farmers still needed to get to their land and 40 internationals had shown up to support them, so the action was on. We would specifically try to get through the gate in the Wall, continue to Zufin settlement, which has stolen land from many families, and pick olives with these families.
Wednesday morning, we headed to the gate and were met by a busload from Rabbis for Human Rights. We were all disappointed that only about 25 farmers seemed to be there, but more came throughout the day. Some young men from the village had caused a bit of damage to the wire fence the night before, so there was enough space to pass equipment through it. I saw one man come running out of the trees on the other side and run up to the hole in the fence. A woman, presumably his wife, handed him a bag of farm equipment and he ran back into the fields. The woman started to cry as she held the fence and turned her head away from the cameras that were starting to take notice. I wasn’t sure whether she was crying because of this arbitrary separation from her land or because her husband felt the need to sleep in the fields so he could work. I assume it was a combination of both.
Some Palestinians had determined that the gate was actually unlocked, but people seemed scared to walk through (I’ve heard that keeping the gate unlocked is a relatively common psychological game the soldiers play). As people were talking about what to do, we saw an army jeep winding around the security road. The internationals sat down in front of the gate with enough space for it to be opened. The soldiers immediately locked the gate and left. We began our plan of having a sit-in, but with the army now gone and with people so frustrated, a few Palestinians took matters into their own hands. In just a couple minutes, they broke open the gate and the crowd erupted in applause. Farmers started to walk and ride through, with internationals on the sides in case the army returned. The gate supposedly has sensors, but we were hanging around the gate for at least a half hour after it was open, and no authorities returned. Perhaps they were waiting for later to retaliate, we worried. But the act of breaking the gate – largely symbolic but real in the sense that farmers would get to pick today – gave people a sense of triumph in those early morning hours.
People split up, and most of us marched to Zufin, only to find that the farmers whose olive trees were in the settlement were not there. Some had not shown up at the gate and some had shown up too late and were not able to get in. We split again, some people going back to monitor the gate, some picking olives with other families, and some (including myself) continuing on to find more farmers. We hiked several kilometers looking for other farmers with land in the area and finally came upon a few farmers with greenhouses. We picked cucumbers for several hours and tried to keep in touch with people back at the gate, but cell phone reception was shaky and batteries were running out. We did hear that with 15 media people there, the army seemed to be letting farmers go to their lands without checking their IDs, at least for a certain period of time. Shortly after, we heard that security had done a sweep of the land and tried to force all the farmers to go home.
At one point, we heard that 3 internationals had been arrested. Apparently they were held very briefly, probably not officially arrested, and put on a bus to Tel Aviv with instructions not to return to the West Bank. Some time later, we were told that people would try to go back through the gate at 5 pm, so we began to head back. We got another call that the army had arrested 2 more internationals and 2 Palestinians. As people in the village heard, they headed down to the gate again, and the army immediately threw tear gas across the gate, which wafted up the hill. People continued, and the army threw more tear gas. People then dispersed into the trees, but came out again to watch what was happening. One army jeep then roared into the village, and the soldiers got out and apparently began to chase Palestinians through the village on foot.
Meanwhile, my group was still beginning its trek back to the village. One farmer we were working with gave us a ride most of the way on his tractor, but was afraid to approach the gate, and afraid of repercussions in the coming days, so he dropped us off at one point and headed back to his fields to sleep. We continued on foot, and I saw a white truck drive by with “TV” written on it. I recognized John Burns from the New York Times as the driver, and we tried to flag down the car, but it kept driving. I quickly called him on his cell phone, which he didn’t answer, but after a few minutes the car returned. Again they were going to drive past us but I managed to convince them to stop. John got out to talk on his phone and I spoke with the other three people in the car. I told them we were heading back to the gate and it would really help to have some media presence. The reporters responded by saying that they had been filming earlier, and were forced to stop. The army had told them to leave the security road and vowed to arrest them if they returned. I have to admit I think it might be an interesting wake-up call for reporters from the New York Times to get arrested, but it meant that they had no desire to help us in this situation, so we continued on our way. We then saw the border police drive by with the blindfolded arrestees in the back. We figured they were heading to the settlement for interrogation.
When we got to the gate, internationals on the other side began to clap for us (we found this interesting, since they were the ones who dealt with tear gas and soldiers all day as we picked cucumbers). No words passed between us and the soldiers as they opened the gate for the 7 internationals, an older woman, and a man with his donkey to enter the village. As we walked up the hill, people suddenly started to scream, “You’ve got to be kidding!” and “What is the world coming to?!” I turned around and asked, “Is there another jeep coming?” “No,” replied one Californian, “Arnold Schwarzenegger won!” [I mentioned this later to a group of people and one Swede said, “He won what?” I said, “He’s the new governor of California.” The Swedish man just began to laugh.]
We got back to the ISM house and people began to debrief. The comment that struck me most came from another Swedish man who said, “I was out there all day picking olives with a wonderful family, and really forgot about the occupation as I participated in the normal, daily life activities of one woman. Then I returned to find yelling and tear gas, saw my friends blindfolded in the back of a jeep, and saw 18-year-old kids laughing and enjoying themselves as they destroy this perfect world.”
I will shorten the story from here, but will say that by the end of the night we had information that all 4 arrestees had been released, and people went to sleep relieved. Nijmie, Jean, and I woke up early to come back to Haris. We had heard that closure was being seriously enforced (some people say the army intentionally waits at least a few days after a big suicide attack for closure to kick in, because they want to make it absolutely clear to the Palestinians that it is for punishment and not for security. Many soldiers have confirmed this, but clearly Sharon prefers to show the world an image of security and not collective punishment.).
We got to Funduq with little trouble, but the ride from Funduq to Haris was another question. Nobody seemed to want to go, and taxi drivers kept getting messages that “flying checkpoints” had been set up at various points along the road. Some Palestinians suggested we get a yellow-plated car (Israeli – not stopped at checkpoints), but we prefer to support Palestinians, so we found a green- and white-plated driver willing to take us. Sure enough, shortly after we started our journey, we were stopped. Nijmie and I got out of the car and asked why the Palestinians weren’t allowed through. “Closure,” the soldier responded. We didn’t get much more information than this, but our driver managed to negotiate with the soldier by saying he only had three internationals in his car, promised not to pick anyone else up, would only take us to Haris and then return, and would leave his ID with the soldier while he did this. We continued on the road, and out of nowhere four soldiers lunged into the street. They were probably just getting there, but perhaps they did this to every Palestinian car, just to startle people. Of course, our driver didn’t have his ID to show the soldiers, but he explained the situation and one soldier was ready to let us go. Another soldier jumped in and started yelling at the driver, clearly bored at the prospect of sitting near an empty road all day. Finally they let us go, and I have to say I cringed upon hearing our driver say in Hebrew, “Thank you very much,” as he drove away. The fear among Palestinians, which leads to deference even in the face of humiliation, really upsets me. The power dynamic is so clear here, and yet people continue to claim that Israelis are afraid of Palestinians. I do believe that some Israelis are afraid of traveling on buses because of the thought of suicide bombers. Within Palestine, however, why would people build settlements right next to Palestinian villages if they were so scared of their neighbors? Why would they storm into Palestinian towns, wander around, drink from people’s wells, and return to their settlements (this happens in Yanoun) if they were really so scared? It becomes clearer and clearer that nothing really happens for security reasons, but it continues to be an effective disguise for Sharon’s policy of stealing land.
Well, we did get back to Haris, though the soldiers at our roadblock were being extra rude and were carrying more visible weapons than usual. They refused to let us through at first. Nijmie responded, “I know what closure means, and I know how badly you treat Palestinians here, but closure doesn’t apply to internationals, so what’s the problem?” After a bit of a wait and a thorough bag search, we were let through and came home. We met Abu Rabia on the road (our landlord), who confirmed what we had heard from other IWPSers – that the army had entered the village yesterday, and began arresting people. Abu Rabia stepped in when a soldier was trying to beat someone up, so the soldier turned from the first man and took Abu Rabia into the jeep. He sat blindfolded for about an hour, he told us, and had a conversation with the soldier, who told Abu Rabia that if it were up to him, he’d kill all the Palestinians. He ordered Abu Rabia to warn everyone in the village not to intervene in soldiers’ actions, to which Abu Rabia responded, “I’m not your servant. You have your guns, you have the weapons and the power, you can do whatever you want to us. Don’t use us.” He told us that he thinks he may have gotten through to the soldier at the very end when he said, “You’re going to grow up and look into yourself and look back at what you’ve done, and you will not be happy with it. If I were still who I was at your age, I would be fighting against you right now. But I’ve grown, and I’ve learned.”
May we all continue to learn peace, and unlearn the violence we are taught to embrace or ignore.
Love Hannah
Saturday, October 04, 2003
A day in Jbarra
I just heard about the suicide bombing at a Palestinian owned restaurant in Haifa. My first thought is that of mourning – it’s awful that 19 people lost their lives today in this way. My second thought enters quickly, though, and is one of practicality: this will not mean good things for Palestinians in the coming days. I wish I did not have to think this way, but my life is now directly affected by Israel’s policy of collective punishment. Of course, the West Bank has already been under closure for a full day, so clearly even closure does not stop people from carrying out attacks (and probably contributes to it).
The purpose of this letter, however, is to describe the past couple days, during which I stayed in the house of a family whose house is scheduled to be demolished any day now. Azmi’s land and house were part of the village Aras until the Wall came through town and left him on the Jbarra side (like 16 other villages, Jbarra is now caught between the Green Line and the Wall, and will presumably be annexed into Israel eventually). The security road now runs right past his house, and there is a gap in the barbed wire that will undoubtedly be filled in if they succeed in demolishing his home. The army has claimed unconvincingly that the demolition has nothing to do with the Wall, and that they want to demolish his home because he did not have a permit to build it. Why didn’t he have a permit? Well, he tried to obtain one, and was denied because he wanted to build on “agricultural land.” His response: If this is agricultural land, why is there a settlement right there? Why do they have the right to build? But of course, this is how the system works here.
Let me explain a bit about the Wall. In some places (around the city of Qalqilya, for example), it is a 30-foot concrete wall. In other places, it is a fence, but this ‘fence’ takes up 50-100 meters in width. There is barbed wire, then a security road (for jeeps and police), then the big fence itself, then a road for tanks, then a ditch, and then another fence. In Jbarra, there is a gate for children and teachers to walk through to go to school (Jbarra and Aras share a school on the Aras side of the fence), and soldiers open this gate for about a half hour each morning and each afternoon… except when they don’t.
Last night I was hanging out with the family and practicing Arabic with Azmi’s 13-year-old daughter Abeer when one of Azmi’s sons came home and said, “We can’t get to Tulkarem. The checkpoint is closed until Wednesday because of the holiday.” Yom Kippur begins Sunday evening at sundown and ends Monday evening at sundown, but apparently the army has decided that the West Bank will be under closure from Friday evening through Wednesday (or at least that’s what these soldiers told these Palestinians at this moment). Since the checkpoint is located at the entrance of Jbarra, this means that people in Jbarra are literally imprisoned right now, even more so than usual.
Soon after, we noticed that a jeep was at the gate (about a kilometer from Azmi’s house). Azmi’s relatives were visiting from Israel (from Jaffa, outside of Tel Aviv), and their car was parked near the gate, so Azmi went to investigate. He called a half hour later to tell us that the soldiers had taken his ID from him and left, so he was sitting in the car waiting for them to return. Meanwhile, a jeep (the same one?) pulled up to our house. Immediately, the laughter and conversation stopped and some people tried to shove me and the other international into the house. Someone else said, “No, let them stay, we can have guests if we want,” so we stayed on the porch. The jeep stopped at the entrance of the driveway, which was probably good, because earlier that day Azmi had built his own roadblock (a stone wall) on the path in his backyard where jeeps often drive. I can’t wait for the jeep to pull up there and for Azmi to ask for ID, as he has promised to do, but seeing as he was sitting a kilometer down the road without his own ID at this moment, I was glad the jeep stopped before seeing the wall.
The soldiers claimed that two “terrorists” had jumped over the fence and were probably in the fields somewhere, so the soldiers would be wandering around the land looking for them. Why they felt the need to park in Azmi’s driveway was unclear. We began to hear helicopters, planes, and vehicles, and saw flares on parachutes falling from the sky to light up certain areas. Eventually the soldiers left the house and Azmi got tired of waiting and came home without his ID.
Meanwhile, the man I was supposed to meet at 6am today called to say he was stuck on the Tulkarem side of the checkpoint and would be going back to Tulkarem to sleep because he couldn’t get home. I decided to get up early anyway (not that there’s much of a choice in a house with 12 people) and walk to the gate. On the way I noticed the army telling the children to go home. The hummer then began to drive towards me, and the soldiers stopped and asked what I was doing. I said, “Why can’t the children go to school?” One man shrugged his shoulders and continued to eat his gummy bears, and all four pretended not to speak English. Of course, I pretended not to speak Hebrew, so I suppose we were even. I continued on my way and met the children and Abu Abdallah, a man I know from the town. Some of the children had left, but some were still hoping the army might come back and open the gate.
The army did come back at one point, and I asked again, “Why won’t you let these children go to school?” “Orders,” one responded. He explained that two terrorists had jumped over the fence the night before, so school would be closed for a few days. I pointed to the kids and said, “Are they terrorists?” The soldier replied, “Well, no, but sometimes terrorists dress as children.” I looked at him incredulously and returned to the group of Palestinians. Abu Abdallah told me, “They weren’t ‘terrorists.’ People jump over the fence every night trying to get to work. The army just decided to cause trouble today.” Perhaps ‘every night’ is an exaggeration, perhaps not, but the fact that people can so easily jump the fence surprised me. Then again, desperate people can find a way to do almost anything. Just one more indication that this isn’t a “security” fence at all, but an attempt for Israel to create “facts on the ground” and grab more land from Palestinians.
Abu Abdallah pointed to the greenhouses on the other side of the fence and said, “Those are mine, and I can’t get there to work anymore.” He showed me the pipe he had connected from a water tank in Jbarra to the greenhouses several hundred meters away. The army had broken the pipe once, he had fixed it, and now they’ve cut it again. We talk more, and Abu Abdallah says, “How can these children learn if they can’t go to school? How can they grow up to be anything but terrorists if their land is taken, their homes are demolished, and they can’t go to school or work?” Lately I have wondered the same thing. I stand at checkpoints or stay at houses about to be demolished, I see the way many soldiers treat Palestinians, and I think it’s truly amazing that there isn’t more violence carried out by Palestinians against Israelis. If I ever figure out why millions of Palestinians remain entirely peaceful in the face of such glaring violence, I’ll be sure to let you all know.
A closing thought: The Wall/fence is not for security. If it were, it would not be built entirely on Palestinian land, annexing several thousand Palestinians into the possible future border of Israel. Furthermore, people who are willing to kill themselves for a cause will find a way to do so. I know it is difficult for any authority to admit a lack of control, but this is a necessary step in bringing peace. Not only do Israel’s policies fail to prevent attacks, they encourage them. Nobody is born a terrorist. Israel’s policy of collective punishment – imprisoning all Palestinians and maintaining a system of Apartheid – actually creates terrorists.
I would make my reports double this size if I thought you all would read them. Because I haven’t, I realize I am leaving many points of explanation out. I hate misunderstandings, so if you have any questions about anything I write, please ask. I promise to get back to you as soon as I can.
Keep on working for peace, in whatever ways you choose…
Hannah
P.S. You may wonder how I’ve gotten home to the computer if the Jbarra checkpoint is closed. I consciously used my American privilege (or really, my non-Palestinian privilege, since closure is often only enforced on Palestinians, not internationals and certainly not Israeli settlers) to get through the checkpoint.
P.P.S. I have decided to include an Arabic phrase of the day in each report. Today’s is: Ihtilaal harban (the occupation is rotten).
The purpose of this letter, however, is to describe the past couple days, during which I stayed in the house of a family whose house is scheduled to be demolished any day now. Azmi’s land and house were part of the village Aras until the Wall came through town and left him on the Jbarra side (like 16 other villages, Jbarra is now caught between the Green Line and the Wall, and will presumably be annexed into Israel eventually). The security road now runs right past his house, and there is a gap in the barbed wire that will undoubtedly be filled in if they succeed in demolishing his home. The army has claimed unconvincingly that the demolition has nothing to do with the Wall, and that they want to demolish his home because he did not have a permit to build it. Why didn’t he have a permit? Well, he tried to obtain one, and was denied because he wanted to build on “agricultural land.” His response: If this is agricultural land, why is there a settlement right there? Why do they have the right to build? But of course, this is how the system works here.
Let me explain a bit about the Wall. In some places (around the city of Qalqilya, for example), it is a 30-foot concrete wall. In other places, it is a fence, but this ‘fence’ takes up 50-100 meters in width. There is barbed wire, then a security road (for jeeps and police), then the big fence itself, then a road for tanks, then a ditch, and then another fence. In Jbarra, there is a gate for children and teachers to walk through to go to school (Jbarra and Aras share a school on the Aras side of the fence), and soldiers open this gate for about a half hour each morning and each afternoon… except when they don’t.
Last night I was hanging out with the family and practicing Arabic with Azmi’s 13-year-old daughter Abeer when one of Azmi’s sons came home and said, “We can’t get to Tulkarem. The checkpoint is closed until Wednesday because of the holiday.” Yom Kippur begins Sunday evening at sundown and ends Monday evening at sundown, but apparently the army has decided that the West Bank will be under closure from Friday evening through Wednesday (or at least that’s what these soldiers told these Palestinians at this moment). Since the checkpoint is located at the entrance of Jbarra, this means that people in Jbarra are literally imprisoned right now, even more so than usual.
Soon after, we noticed that a jeep was at the gate (about a kilometer from Azmi’s house). Azmi’s relatives were visiting from Israel (from Jaffa, outside of Tel Aviv), and their car was parked near the gate, so Azmi went to investigate. He called a half hour later to tell us that the soldiers had taken his ID from him and left, so he was sitting in the car waiting for them to return. Meanwhile, a jeep (the same one?) pulled up to our house. Immediately, the laughter and conversation stopped and some people tried to shove me and the other international into the house. Someone else said, “No, let them stay, we can have guests if we want,” so we stayed on the porch. The jeep stopped at the entrance of the driveway, which was probably good, because earlier that day Azmi had built his own roadblock (a stone wall) on the path in his backyard where jeeps often drive. I can’t wait for the jeep to pull up there and for Azmi to ask for ID, as he has promised to do, but seeing as he was sitting a kilometer down the road without his own ID at this moment, I was glad the jeep stopped before seeing the wall.
The soldiers claimed that two “terrorists” had jumped over the fence and were probably in the fields somewhere, so the soldiers would be wandering around the land looking for them. Why they felt the need to park in Azmi’s driveway was unclear. We began to hear helicopters, planes, and vehicles, and saw flares on parachutes falling from the sky to light up certain areas. Eventually the soldiers left the house and Azmi got tired of waiting and came home without his ID.
Meanwhile, the man I was supposed to meet at 6am today called to say he was stuck on the Tulkarem side of the checkpoint and would be going back to Tulkarem to sleep because he couldn’t get home. I decided to get up early anyway (not that there’s much of a choice in a house with 12 people) and walk to the gate. On the way I noticed the army telling the children to go home. The hummer then began to drive towards me, and the soldiers stopped and asked what I was doing. I said, “Why can’t the children go to school?” One man shrugged his shoulders and continued to eat his gummy bears, and all four pretended not to speak English. Of course, I pretended not to speak Hebrew, so I suppose we were even. I continued on my way and met the children and Abu Abdallah, a man I know from the town. Some of the children had left, but some were still hoping the army might come back and open the gate.
The army did come back at one point, and I asked again, “Why won’t you let these children go to school?” “Orders,” one responded. He explained that two terrorists had jumped over the fence the night before, so school would be closed for a few days. I pointed to the kids and said, “Are they terrorists?” The soldier replied, “Well, no, but sometimes terrorists dress as children.” I looked at him incredulously and returned to the group of Palestinians. Abu Abdallah told me, “They weren’t ‘terrorists.’ People jump over the fence every night trying to get to work. The army just decided to cause trouble today.” Perhaps ‘every night’ is an exaggeration, perhaps not, but the fact that people can so easily jump the fence surprised me. Then again, desperate people can find a way to do almost anything. Just one more indication that this isn’t a “security” fence at all, but an attempt for Israel to create “facts on the ground” and grab more land from Palestinians.
Abu Abdallah pointed to the greenhouses on the other side of the fence and said, “Those are mine, and I can’t get there to work anymore.” He showed me the pipe he had connected from a water tank in Jbarra to the greenhouses several hundred meters away. The army had broken the pipe once, he had fixed it, and now they’ve cut it again. We talk more, and Abu Abdallah says, “How can these children learn if they can’t go to school? How can they grow up to be anything but terrorists if their land is taken, their homes are demolished, and they can’t go to school or work?” Lately I have wondered the same thing. I stand at checkpoints or stay at houses about to be demolished, I see the way many soldiers treat Palestinians, and I think it’s truly amazing that there isn’t more violence carried out by Palestinians against Israelis. If I ever figure out why millions of Palestinians remain entirely peaceful in the face of such glaring violence, I’ll be sure to let you all know.
A closing thought: The Wall/fence is not for security. If it were, it would not be built entirely on Palestinian land, annexing several thousand Palestinians into the possible future border of Israel. Furthermore, people who are willing to kill themselves for a cause will find a way to do so. I know it is difficult for any authority to admit a lack of control, but this is a necessary step in bringing peace. Not only do Israel’s policies fail to prevent attacks, they encourage them. Nobody is born a terrorist. Israel’s policy of collective punishment – imprisoning all Palestinians and maintaining a system of Apartheid – actually creates terrorists.
I would make my reports double this size if I thought you all would read them. Because I haven’t, I realize I am leaving many points of explanation out. I hate misunderstandings, so if you have any questions about anything I write, please ask. I promise to get back to you as soon as I can.
Keep on working for peace, in whatever ways you choose…
Hannah
P.S. You may wonder how I’ve gotten home to the computer if the Jbarra checkpoint is closed. I consciously used my American privilege (or really, my non-Palestinian privilege, since closure is often only enforced on Palestinians, not internationals and certainly not Israeli settlers) to get through the checkpoint.
P.P.S. I have decided to include an Arabic phrase of the day in each report. Today’s is: Ihtilaal harban (the occupation is rotten).
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