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
