Dear friends,
The word ‘trapped’ comes to mind quite often here, and I want to take a few moments to explore this feeling. I often hear people talk about the prison that is Palestine, and the very real fear that the Wall will turn it into even more of a prison. I feel it more intensely this time around, and I think the feeling of being trapped extends both inward and outward from that place of physical walls.
The idea for this e-mail came while I was crouched in a corner of a house in Deir Ballut the other day with about 25 other people, mostly children and a few women. We had been standing at the edge of the village after the main part of the demonstration had ended. We could see army jeeps in the distance, and occasionally they shot tear gas at groups of people who tried to walk through their land to get closer to where the bulldozers were working. Suddenly, a jeep came speeding down the road from inside the village. People started screaming and scattering every which way. The army threw sound bombs first, and many of us scurried into the closest house. This brings us to the crouching in the corner, where I looked around at the little kids who were crying and covering their ears, and I just thought, ‘We’re trapped.’ The sound bombs were unbelievably loud, and one glass in the middle of the room actually shattered. I was sure the army would throw sound bombs or gas into the house, or start shooting, but apparently they decided to target the people who didn’t make it inside and had scattered throughout the olive groves instead.
This physical trapping inside houses has been happening more and more recently, especially in Az Zawiya where the border police have been targeting internationals (although they’ve only been holding people for a few hours and not even officially arresting most of them). We find ourselves moving secretly from place to place, climbing over rocks and walls of locked schools and peeking from roofs to see where the soldiers and police are. It’s really like a scene from a bad movie, and it’s completely exhausting and sometimes quite frightening.
Trapped. It happens during the demonstrations as well. We walk in large groups towards the army, and their military strategy (or is it just force? Is brutal force a strategy?) often traps us. They can see us from further than we can see them, they are usually standing at a higher elevation than we are, and, not to be forgotten, they have heavy weaponry. They shoot gas and rubber bullets, they sometimes come from all directions, they drive around and do their best to provoke the boys into throwing stones. And sometimes the boys respond, and those of us on the streets are again trapped – trapped between David and Goliath, with both sides willing to use internationals as human shields. We try to step aside at these times, though not without fear for what will happen to the children. The kids’ stones are no match for the army’s guns, not to mention the fact that the land and villages are Palestinian, and the Israeli army has no right to be there in the first place. It’s hard to know what to do when the worldwide media justifies even murder if it’s seen as a response to stone-throwing, and the soldiers know this.
Does it make a difference to have internationals and journalists there watching? Perhaps not as much as it used to (we are not immune to IDF violence anymore), but I’m convinced there would have been people killed at these demonstrations in the past couple weeks had we (outsiders, cameras, a few white faces) not been there. Palestinians are trapped in their own skin, unable to escape the racism that leads soldiers to kill them and the world to ignore them or call them terrorists. Never have I been more acutely aware of the arbitrariness of birth than in the past couple weeks.
Trapped. I think it was Mustafa Barghouti who I heard say that the concept of negotiation between Israelis and Palestinians is like putting a tiger and a lamb in a room and telling them to negotiate. Year after year, day after day, Palestinians have been forced into political and human concessions that trap them further while shifting the debate in favor of Israel. The first and perhaps largest compromise was Palestinians’ acceptance of the state of Israel in 78% of historic Palestine (accepting the occupation of 1948 with the hope that it could end the occupation of 1967). Now Israel is building the Wall. The Palestinian response at first was, "Don’t build it," which then shifted for some people to, "Okay, build a wall, but build it on the 1967 border rather than inside Palestinian land." Now, as we stand in places like Iskaka and watch the path of the Wall, I hear Palestinians say, "If you want a Wall around Ariel [25 kilometers east of the 1967 border], build it a few hundred meters over so you don’t steal too much more of our land." Concession after concession. Trapped.
And of course, we are all trapped in our own hearts, minds, and experiences. I was having trouble sleeping last week, especially when I tried to nap after a demonstration. Every time I closed my eyes I saw soldiers and tear gas, and every sound I heard made me jump. I can’t even imagine what Palestinians must feel, and specifically how children deal with the fear. I also wonder whether Israeli soldiers have nightmares about what they’re doing, and if so, whether that comes from a place of physical fear or moral imperative. Do they think they have a right to stand in those fields and physically and forcefully prevent people from being on their own land?
There was an article in Ha’aretz (a major Israeli newspaper) a couple days ago that cited some frightening statistics. A recent poll shows that 64% of Israeli Jews believe that the Israeli government should encourage Israeli Arabs to emigrate. 45.3% actually say they support revoking Israeli Arabs’ right to vote and hold political office. If this isn’t a case of being trapped in one’s own mind, I don’t know what is. I say this not to absolve Israeli Jews of their responsibility to unlearn racism, but simply to recognize that we all set traps for ourselves that we find near impossible to escape.
It’s hard to think and feel our way out of all the traps the physical, emotional, political and ideological. This is only my first attempt at defining a few of the more obvious traps I’ve noticed in these two weeks. How to dismantle them? Well, that’ll have to wait until later. Shwaye shwaye, as they say here (slowly, step by step).
Wishing all kinds of freedom for all kinds of people,
Hannah
Thursday, June 24, 2004
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Deir Ballut
I realized today that part of what’s been so hard for me during this past week and a half is that I have a very clear concept of the destruction of life, but not a grounding in the life itself. I’ve seen the taking, but not what’s being taken. I’ve come straight into a world that is in complete upheaval and haven’t had a ‘normal’ day in Palestine. It’s true that I’ve been here before, but I forget things, and I can only imagine that it’s much harder to understand for those of you who have never been here at all. So I’m happy to report that I had a wonderful night with a family in Deir Ballut last night, and my past 24 hours have been relatively quiet. I’d like to give you a glimpse into life in the village of Deir Ballut.
At around 7 or 8 last night, we received a call from Fatima saying that the women of Deir Ballut wanted to have a meeting and plan an action for 6 am the next day (today). Deir Ballut, with a population of 4,000, is one of three villages (with Az Zawiya and Rafat) that will lose over 90% of its land when it becomes trapped in an enclave of the Wall. The village invited us to come and stay the night, so we made a quick decision to send 3 of us to Deir Ballut to see what was happening. We picked up Fatima on the way, and were greeted warmly when we arrived, which is typical in Palestine. Nobody seemed to know whether there was a meeting or where it was, which unfortunately is also quite typical. We spent a good amount of time trying to contact the women of the village and the mayor, and in the meantime we talked, laughed, and watched a strange Hollywood film with aliens, half-naked women, and other elements that one of our hosts insisted were regular aspects of American culture.
I had forgotten about the incredible power of women’s affection here. As we sat and talked, the mother of the house braided my hair and her daughter made tea. We laughed with each other and discussed the meanings of our names. The youngest daughter is also named Hannah (it’s a common Arabic name), and the family reminded me of its meaning: contentment.
The women in Deir Ballut have a different relationship to their land than in some other villages. Most Palestinians are both attached to and dependent upon their land, and in Deir Ballut it is primarily the women who work the land. The men used to work in Israel, and now that they’re forbidden to enter Israel, some of them work in places like Ramallah and others don’t have jobs at all. Like almost every village in the West Bank, Deir Ballut has thousands of olive trees, but they also grow a wide variety of other things: potatoes, eggplants, almonds, beans, garlic, onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, and more.
In addition to Deir Ballut’s 4,000 residents, over 1,000 people from the village are now living abroad, many of whom are in Brazil and Venezuela. The family we visited with has many relatives in Brazil, and most of them have spent time there themselves. We managed to understand each other quite a bit when I spoke Spanish and they responded in Portuguese. Of course, there was much Arabic, English, and Hebrew thrown into the evening as well.
The older woman who had braided my hair took me to the roof at one point when I asked about the Wall. The bulldozers work most of the night, she explained, and sure enough we could see the lights of the army jeep in the distance and hear the faint noise of the uprooting of trees. The rest of the land looked absolutely peaceful, the sky was full of stars, and even the sound of the bulldozer blended eerily with the breeze.
We returned downstairs and finally someone had contacted the mayor, who came over around 11:00. He was worried about a demonstration, he said, and it didn’t seem people were organized enough to pull it off yet. I could see his stress, knowing that his village will be encroached upon so severely by the Wall, but also worrying about his people being injured. Ambulances can’t get to the land very easily, he explained, and if people were hit by gas or bullets, they wouldn’t make it to the hospital on time (Deir Ballut doesn’t even have a proper clinic). There hadn’t been a proper meeting of women or anyone else in the village, so people decided they couldn’t possibly plan an action for the morning. Fatima decided she would rather be hungry than angry about it, so we had a small meal sometime after midnight and managed to stay awake for a few more laughs and some conversation.
This morning we returned home to Hares, and though I was disappointed that the women had not organized an early morning action, I was somewhat relieved to know I wouldn’t be spending my day marching towards soldiers of the fourth largest army in the world. Tomorrow morning Deir Ballut will have a demonstration. I have no doubt that we will all face tear gas and possibly other weapons again, but I hope that my fear may be lessened and my purpose heightened by the knowledge of the beauty that these people are trying so desperately to hold onto.
At around 7 or 8 last night, we received a call from Fatima saying that the women of Deir Ballut wanted to have a meeting and plan an action for 6 am the next day (today). Deir Ballut, with a population of 4,000, is one of three villages (with Az Zawiya and Rafat) that will lose over 90% of its land when it becomes trapped in an enclave of the Wall. The village invited us to come and stay the night, so we made a quick decision to send 3 of us to Deir Ballut to see what was happening. We picked up Fatima on the way, and were greeted warmly when we arrived, which is typical in Palestine. Nobody seemed to know whether there was a meeting or where it was, which unfortunately is also quite typical. We spent a good amount of time trying to contact the women of the village and the mayor, and in the meantime we talked, laughed, and watched a strange Hollywood film with aliens, half-naked women, and other elements that one of our hosts insisted were regular aspects of American culture.
I had forgotten about the incredible power of women’s affection here. As we sat and talked, the mother of the house braided my hair and her daughter made tea. We laughed with each other and discussed the meanings of our names. The youngest daughter is also named Hannah (it’s a common Arabic name), and the family reminded me of its meaning: contentment.
The women in Deir Ballut have a different relationship to their land than in some other villages. Most Palestinians are both attached to and dependent upon their land, and in Deir Ballut it is primarily the women who work the land. The men used to work in Israel, and now that they’re forbidden to enter Israel, some of them work in places like Ramallah and others don’t have jobs at all. Like almost every village in the West Bank, Deir Ballut has thousands of olive trees, but they also grow a wide variety of other things: potatoes, eggplants, almonds, beans, garlic, onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, and more.
In addition to Deir Ballut’s 4,000 residents, over 1,000 people from the village are now living abroad, many of whom are in Brazil and Venezuela. The family we visited with has many relatives in Brazil, and most of them have spent time there themselves. We managed to understand each other quite a bit when I spoke Spanish and they responded in Portuguese. Of course, there was much Arabic, English, and Hebrew thrown into the evening as well.
The older woman who had braided my hair took me to the roof at one point when I asked about the Wall. The bulldozers work most of the night, she explained, and sure enough we could see the lights of the army jeep in the distance and hear the faint noise of the uprooting of trees. The rest of the land looked absolutely peaceful, the sky was full of stars, and even the sound of the bulldozer blended eerily with the breeze.
We returned downstairs and finally someone had contacted the mayor, who came over around 11:00. He was worried about a demonstration, he said, and it didn’t seem people were organized enough to pull it off yet. I could see his stress, knowing that his village will be encroached upon so severely by the Wall, but also worrying about his people being injured. Ambulances can’t get to the land very easily, he explained, and if people were hit by gas or bullets, they wouldn’t make it to the hospital on time (Deir Ballut doesn’t even have a proper clinic). There hadn’t been a proper meeting of women or anyone else in the village, so people decided they couldn’t possibly plan an action for the morning. Fatima decided she would rather be hungry than angry about it, so we had a small meal sometime after midnight and managed to stay awake for a few more laughs and some conversation.
This morning we returned home to Hares, and though I was disappointed that the women had not organized an early morning action, I was somewhat relieved to know I wouldn’t be spending my day marching towards soldiers of the fourth largest army in the world. Tomorrow morning Deir Ballut will have a demonstration. I have no doubt that we will all face tear gas and possibly other weapons again, but I hope that my fear may be lessened and my purpose heightened by the knowledge of the beauty that these people are trying so desperately to hold onto.
Friday, June 18, 2004
Update from Salfit Region
Dear friends,
Unfortunately, I can’t say things have gotten any better since I last wrote, but there are ups and downs each day. I’ve seen more guns, inhaled more tear gas, and heard more sound bombs than I ever could have anticipated. Because things are so bad, though, and because this new section of wall will cut 25 kilometers into the West Bank to surround Ariel and steal 65% of the land from the region of Salfit, journalists have been showing up to demonstrations in the past few days. I can only hope that some of you are seeing news about what is happening (people from CNN and NBC have been in Iskaka in the past couple days, as well as Palestinian, Israeli, European, and Arab media).
The positive :
1. Residents of Iskaka managed to stop the bulldozers from working on Thursday.
2. The Israeli High Court ruled yesterday that no more construction should happen in the towns of Iskaka and Salfit until an oral hearing on the matter. This doesn’t necessarily mean the bulldozers will stop working, but it does mean that if they continue to work, Israel will be violating its own law and not only the international laws that they consistently ignore.
3. The United States State Department has issued a statement against the current wall construction around Ariel. [Of course, this happened last year as well and it hasn’t stopped anything. Words only go so far. If the US were to stop giving Israel $13 million a day, perhaps Israel would take the warnings more seriously.]
4. A representative of the UN has implicated Caterpillar in human rights abuses against Palestinians.
5. Palestinians from many villages continue to demonstrate every day of the week, and today are marching in large numbers to their land for mid-day prayers.
The negative :
1. Israel is quickly beginning construction in so many new areas that Palestinians, internationals, Israeli activists, and journalists are struggling in our capacity to deal with everything (obviously an intentional move on the part of the Israeli government/army).
2. More and more people are injured each day, and the human rights abuses are piling up.
Some examples :
a. A woman in Azzawiya who was 9 months pregnant was badly tear gassed last Thursday. Five days later she gave birth to a stillborn baby whose skin and blood were blackened, which doctors say is a direct result of the tear gas.
b. The army has been firing gas into the center of villages – houses, buses, etc. – in Iskaka and Azzawiya, if not more places.
c. Soldiers fired gas directly at a group of Palestinian government representatives and old men in the town of Salfit, and threatened young boys with live ammunition.
I feel completely heartless reporting on what I’m seeing in this way, but you can imagine it’s hard to put my feelings into words right now. I want the information to get out there. My own analysis and story-telling can wait.
Below is a link to my online photo album, where I’ve uploaded some photos from the past couple days. There’s also a link to a video that Kate made yesterday in Salfit.
Thanks to everyone who has sent supportive e-mails. I can’t always respond, but I really appreciate them, and the Palestinians I’m working with are happy to know how many people in the US really do care about where our money is going and are prepared to stop it.
Peace and strength to all,
Hannah
Unfortunately, I can’t say things have gotten any better since I last wrote, but there are ups and downs each day. I’ve seen more guns, inhaled more tear gas, and heard more sound bombs than I ever could have anticipated. Because things are so bad, though, and because this new section of wall will cut 25 kilometers into the West Bank to surround Ariel and steal 65% of the land from the region of Salfit, journalists have been showing up to demonstrations in the past few days. I can only hope that some of you are seeing news about what is happening (people from CNN and NBC have been in Iskaka in the past couple days, as well as Palestinian, Israeli, European, and Arab media).
The positive :
1. Residents of Iskaka managed to stop the bulldozers from working on Thursday.
2. The Israeli High Court ruled yesterday that no more construction should happen in the towns of Iskaka and Salfit until an oral hearing on the matter. This doesn’t necessarily mean the bulldozers will stop working, but it does mean that if they continue to work, Israel will be violating its own law and not only the international laws that they consistently ignore.
3. The United States State Department has issued a statement against the current wall construction around Ariel. [Of course, this happened last year as well and it hasn’t stopped anything. Words only go so far. If the US were to stop giving Israel $13 million a day, perhaps Israel would take the warnings more seriously.]
4. A representative of the UN has implicated Caterpillar in human rights abuses against Palestinians.
5. Palestinians from many villages continue to demonstrate every day of the week, and today are marching in large numbers to their land for mid-day prayers.
The negative :
1. Israel is quickly beginning construction in so many new areas that Palestinians, internationals, Israeli activists, and journalists are struggling in our capacity to deal with everything (obviously an intentional move on the part of the Israeli government/army).
2. More and more people are injured each day, and the human rights abuses are piling up.
Some examples :
a. A woman in Azzawiya who was 9 months pregnant was badly tear gassed last Thursday. Five days later she gave birth to a stillborn baby whose skin and blood were blackened, which doctors say is a direct result of the tear gas.
b. The army has been firing gas into the center of villages – houses, buses, etc. – in Iskaka and Azzawiya, if not more places.
c. Soldiers fired gas directly at a group of Palestinian government representatives and old men in the town of Salfit, and threatened young boys with live ammunition.
I feel completely heartless reporting on what I’m seeing in this way, but you can imagine it’s hard to put my feelings into words right now. I want the information to get out there. My own analysis and story-telling can wait.
Below is a link to my online photo album, where I’ve uploaded some photos from the past couple days. There’s also a link to a video that Kate made yesterday in Salfit.
Thanks to everyone who has sent supportive e-mails. I can’t always respond, but I really appreciate them, and the Palestinians I’m working with are happy to know how many people in the US really do care about where our money is going and are prepared to stop it.
Peace and strength to all,
Hannah
Monday, June 14, 2004
Wall, Gas in Azzawiya
Dear friends,
I’ve been back in Hares for less than two days and already I have disturbing news to report. I don’t like to dwell only on the negative so let me start by saying that transportation from place to place seems easier than last time I was here. A few roadblocks have been removed (including the one at the entrance of our village!) and a major checkpoint has been moved slightly so that we no longer have to pass through it to get here from Jerusalem. Our landlord has a new baby who is three months old, and their 3-year-old son seems as happy and carefree as ever.
I’m writing tonight because I don’t know what else to do. I’m writing because I feel burned out after being tear gassed just once and Palestinians continue to demonstrate nonviolently every single day, knowing the tear gas and rubber bullets are coming. They have more at stake, I suppose – it’s their land that is being stolen. I’ve seen some incredibly strong and brave Palestinian women in action, telling soldiers who are young enough to be their grandsons that they are not afraid of the guns, the gas, and the bulldozers. I actually become less afraid when standing next to the soldiers as well (they’re unlikely to gas themselves). It’s trying to hide from tear gas in the olive groves that really makes me feel vulnerable.
But let me start over. The Israeli army began uprooting Palestinian trees in the village of Azzawiya about a week ago to make way for the Wall. The village will lose 90% of its land. Just today Israeli newspapers announced that the “Ariel loop” of the Wall (which will run right past – or through? - our house) will begin soon and be completed by May 2005. An hour after we read that article, we got a call from the mayor of Salfit to say that Wall construction in Iskaka is scheduled to begin on Wednesday. Iskaka is east of Ariel (with almost 20,000 settlers, Ariel is the largest settlement and was strategically placed smack in the center of the West Bank). Meanwhile, construction all around the Jerusalem area (but east – deep into the West Bank) is ongoing. PENGON (Palestinian Environmental NGO Network) has good maps of the projected path of the Wall at www.stopthewall.org.
We have been spending our time in Azzawiya these past few days. Every day the men, women, and children go out to demonstrate nonviolently. Yesterday, the day I was there, was apparently typical. About 300 of us began marching up the road towards the land that the bulldozers were destroying, armed only with onions, lemons, and bandannas and dentist masks covered in perfume and cologne (tear gas sends a signal to your brain that tells it to stop breathing – the strong smells remind you to continue). The army immediately fired several canisters of tear gas at us, which split up the crowd. Some went forward, some went backwards, we went into the olive groves below. About 20 of us – Palestinian women, internationals, and Israelis – wandered through the groves trying to make our way up to where the bulldozers were working. The soldiers could obviously see us, because they kept firing gas directly at us, but we couldn’t see them. I’ll spare you the hot journey through the groves, but we did manage to find our way back up the hill. Soldiers began running at us and we put our hands up and said as loudly as we could who we were and what we were doing there. As they got closer, I started to relax a bit. I am more familiar with face-to-face confrontation with soldiers, and I still have some faith that they are less likely to injure people when they can see people’s faces. This is also perhaps the most difficult moment for me, though – the moment at which I myself remember that the soldiers are human. How frustrating to ask an 18-year-old kid, “Do you think what you’re doing is right?” and hear him respond, “It doesn’t matter.” “Of course it matters!” we said. “It’s my job,” he responded, “I’m following orders.” “Do you know who that argument didn’t work for?” asked another Jewish international. “Don’t compare,” said the soldier, but without much conviction. The soldiers stand there stone-faced as they tell the women they have to return home through the groves and not on the road we had finally reached. They seem emotionless, but of course they must react this way, because they are human beings. Most of them are not monsters or rabid ideologues, so if they don’t shut down, they will no doubt face a decision many of them are unprepared to face – to serve in an army of occupation or to refuse to do so. Other soldiers react to their job differently – giving each other high fives and laughing while smoking their cigarettes and taking a break from throwing tear gas.
I am running out of steam and I’m sure you are too, so I’ll only add a few details: As far as I know, 5 Palestinians and 1 Israeli have been arrested in the past 2 days. All but one Palestinian (and possibly the Israeli) have been released. There have been over 80 injuries, mostly from tear gas, 12 from rubber bullets, 4 or 5 from being beaten with sticks by soldiers, and one (a journalist) who was badly burnt when a sound bomb hit his back. Tear gas has been fired into at least one ambulance. Today a number of fires raged (the mayor says the IDF was intentionally burning the vegetable gardens), and Palestinians who tried to put the fires out were further gassed.
This is completely insane. I want to believe that nonviolence will prevail, that the army will get tired before the Palestinians do, that Americans will wake up and see where their money (over $13 million a day) is going. Unfortunately, I’m not sure I can confidently say that right now. I can say that Israeli journalists have been responding to our press releases and showing up more than usual, and also that an overwhelming majority of the internationals I’ve seen so far are Jewish. I just heard that an Israeli lawyer will take this case to the Supreme Court tomorrow to try to change the route of the Wall. I implore you to do something to stop this atrocity. Call someone (a friend, a family member, an army, a Congressperson). Organize an action. Say a prayer. Come to Palestine. Do something. If you don’t, what’s happening here is likely to become another of our many moments in history that future generations will look back upon and say, “Why did people not act to stop this? What were they thinking?”
I’m not particularly thrilled about the fatalistic tone of this first dispatch, but I can’t think my way out of it right now. Thanks to everyone for your support (especially the B2P folks – you’re wonderful!).
Hoping to center myself in the coming days and send more positive thoughts your way.
Love Hannah
I’ve been back in Hares for less than two days and already I have disturbing news to report. I don’t like to dwell only on the negative so let me start by saying that transportation from place to place seems easier than last time I was here. A few roadblocks have been removed (including the one at the entrance of our village!) and a major checkpoint has been moved slightly so that we no longer have to pass through it to get here from Jerusalem. Our landlord has a new baby who is three months old, and their 3-year-old son seems as happy and carefree as ever.
I’m writing tonight because I don’t know what else to do. I’m writing because I feel burned out after being tear gassed just once and Palestinians continue to demonstrate nonviolently every single day, knowing the tear gas and rubber bullets are coming. They have more at stake, I suppose – it’s their land that is being stolen. I’ve seen some incredibly strong and brave Palestinian women in action, telling soldiers who are young enough to be their grandsons that they are not afraid of the guns, the gas, and the bulldozers. I actually become less afraid when standing next to the soldiers as well (they’re unlikely to gas themselves). It’s trying to hide from tear gas in the olive groves that really makes me feel vulnerable.
But let me start over. The Israeli army began uprooting Palestinian trees in the village of Azzawiya about a week ago to make way for the Wall. The village will lose 90% of its land. Just today Israeli newspapers announced that the “Ariel loop” of the Wall (which will run right past – or through? - our house) will begin soon and be completed by May 2005. An hour after we read that article, we got a call from the mayor of Salfit to say that Wall construction in Iskaka is scheduled to begin on Wednesday. Iskaka is east of Ariel (with almost 20,000 settlers, Ariel is the largest settlement and was strategically placed smack in the center of the West Bank). Meanwhile, construction all around the Jerusalem area (but east – deep into the West Bank) is ongoing. PENGON (Palestinian Environmental NGO Network) has good maps of the projected path of the Wall at www.stopthewall.org.
We have been spending our time in Azzawiya these past few days. Every day the men, women, and children go out to demonstrate nonviolently. Yesterday, the day I was there, was apparently typical. About 300 of us began marching up the road towards the land that the bulldozers were destroying, armed only with onions, lemons, and bandannas and dentist masks covered in perfume and cologne (tear gas sends a signal to your brain that tells it to stop breathing – the strong smells remind you to continue). The army immediately fired several canisters of tear gas at us, which split up the crowd. Some went forward, some went backwards, we went into the olive groves below. About 20 of us – Palestinian women, internationals, and Israelis – wandered through the groves trying to make our way up to where the bulldozers were working. The soldiers could obviously see us, because they kept firing gas directly at us, but we couldn’t see them. I’ll spare you the hot journey through the groves, but we did manage to find our way back up the hill. Soldiers began running at us and we put our hands up and said as loudly as we could who we were and what we were doing there. As they got closer, I started to relax a bit. I am more familiar with face-to-face confrontation with soldiers, and I still have some faith that they are less likely to injure people when they can see people’s faces. This is also perhaps the most difficult moment for me, though – the moment at which I myself remember that the soldiers are human. How frustrating to ask an 18-year-old kid, “Do you think what you’re doing is right?” and hear him respond, “It doesn’t matter.” “Of course it matters!” we said. “It’s my job,” he responded, “I’m following orders.” “Do you know who that argument didn’t work for?” asked another Jewish international. “Don’t compare,” said the soldier, but without much conviction. The soldiers stand there stone-faced as they tell the women they have to return home through the groves and not on the road we had finally reached. They seem emotionless, but of course they must react this way, because they are human beings. Most of them are not monsters or rabid ideologues, so if they don’t shut down, they will no doubt face a decision many of them are unprepared to face – to serve in an army of occupation or to refuse to do so. Other soldiers react to their job differently – giving each other high fives and laughing while smoking their cigarettes and taking a break from throwing tear gas.
I am running out of steam and I’m sure you are too, so I’ll only add a few details: As far as I know, 5 Palestinians and 1 Israeli have been arrested in the past 2 days. All but one Palestinian (and possibly the Israeli) have been released. There have been over 80 injuries, mostly from tear gas, 12 from rubber bullets, 4 or 5 from being beaten with sticks by soldiers, and one (a journalist) who was badly burnt when a sound bomb hit his back. Tear gas has been fired into at least one ambulance. Today a number of fires raged (the mayor says the IDF was intentionally burning the vegetable gardens), and Palestinians who tried to put the fires out were further gassed.
This is completely insane. I want to believe that nonviolence will prevail, that the army will get tired before the Palestinians do, that Americans will wake up and see where their money (over $13 million a day) is going. Unfortunately, I’m not sure I can confidently say that right now. I can say that Israeli journalists have been responding to our press releases and showing up more than usual, and also that an overwhelming majority of the internationals I’ve seen so far are Jewish. I just heard that an Israeli lawyer will take this case to the Supreme Court tomorrow to try to change the route of the Wall. I implore you to do something to stop this atrocity. Call someone (a friend, a family member, an army, a Congressperson). Organize an action. Say a prayer. Come to Palestine. Do something. If you don’t, what’s happening here is likely to become another of our many moments in history that future generations will look back upon and say, “Why did people not act to stop this? What were they thinking?”
I’m not particularly thrilled about the fatalistic tone of this first dispatch, but I can’t think my way out of it right now. Thanks to everyone for your support (especially the B2P folks – you’re wonderful!).
Hoping to center myself in the coming days and send more positive thoughts your way.
Love Hannah
Saturday, June 12, 2004
Arrived Again
Hello everyone!
I'm writing to let you know I arrived safely and uneventfully into Tel Aviv yesterday. I met up with a couple Israeli friends from Black Laundry (www.blacklaundry.org) and slept long and well last night (possibly even overcoming jet lag in just one day, but we'll see about that). I don't have much insight to share yet, and have noticed only what I always notice in Tel Aviv, which is that life is bizarrely normal. I went grocery shopping this morning with my friend Inna, and when we passed by graffiti that said in Hebrew "End the occupation!" she commented on how strange it was to see that. Not that it's uncommon - all the graffiti I've managed to read so far, at least in this neighborhood, has been on the left side of the spectrum - but the occupation is just so far removed from the average Israeli (with the exception of soldiers, settlers, and possibly folks in Jerusalem). Anyway, I walk through the streets here and notice that everyone's dressed in a way that would be considered 'left-wing crunchy hippie' in the US, and I wonder how that context translates to this city, this country, this reality. But that's enough about Tel Aviv. I'm heading to Jerusalem shortly, and will most likely make it to Hares by tomorrow. I plan to be in Hares with the International Women's Peace Service (IWPS - www.iwps.info) for about a month now, then in Bethlehem for a month studying Arabic and working with a Palestinian organization. Then I'll help for 2 weeks with a Boston delegation before returning to IWPS in late August/ early September. I'll stay there for the duration (until late October). And that's my plan in a nutshell. I'll keep you all posted on the work I'm doing (largely anti-Wall work in the coming month, I suspect). I just wanted to send this quick e-mail before crossing the Green Line into the land of slow and unreliable internet connection.
Much love to all,
Hannah
I'm writing to let you know I arrived safely and uneventfully into Tel Aviv yesterday. I met up with a couple Israeli friends from Black Laundry (www.blacklaundry.org) and slept long and well last night (possibly even overcoming jet lag in just one day, but we'll see about that). I don't have much insight to share yet, and have noticed only what I always notice in Tel Aviv, which is that life is bizarrely normal. I went grocery shopping this morning with my friend Inna, and when we passed by graffiti that said in Hebrew "End the occupation!" she commented on how strange it was to see that. Not that it's uncommon - all the graffiti I've managed to read so far, at least in this neighborhood, has been on the left side of the spectrum - but the occupation is just so far removed from the average Israeli (with the exception of soldiers, settlers, and possibly folks in Jerusalem). Anyway, I walk through the streets here and notice that everyone's dressed in a way that would be considered 'left-wing crunchy hippie' in the US, and I wonder how that context translates to this city, this country, this reality. But that's enough about Tel Aviv. I'm heading to Jerusalem shortly, and will most likely make it to Hares by tomorrow. I plan to be in Hares with the International Women's Peace Service (IWPS - www.iwps.info) for about a month now, then in Bethlehem for a month studying Arabic and working with a Palestinian organization. Then I'll help for 2 weeks with a Boston delegation before returning to IWPS in late August/ early September. I'll stay there for the duration (until late October). And that's my plan in a nutshell. I'll keep you all posted on the work I'm doing (largely anti-Wall work in the coming month, I suspect). I just wanted to send this quick e-mail before crossing the Green Line into the land of slow and unreliable internet connection.
Much love to all,
Hannah
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)