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
