This past Saturday, I organized a trip to the north (Hares and Mas’ha - in the Salfit region) for the people in my Arabic study and volunteering program. It began with a 40 minute wait at the Bethlehem checkpoint - that is, 40 minutes with our bus in the front of the line and the soldiers completely ignoring us as they let people through from the other side. Finally I got out of the bus and slowly walked towards the soldiers until they yelled at me in Arabic to stop. I asked what the problem was and told them we were late for our tour in Jerusalem. I must have spoken enough English to confuse them or make them decide that it was more tiresome than desirable to give me a hard time, so they motioned the bus to come forward. It’s always hard to tell whether something like that will work, whether getting out of a bus or car to complain to the soldiers will get us through quicker or slow down the process for everyone. And of course, it was only my status as an international that allowed me to try at all.
The day went smoother after that, and we moved from place to place with ease and on time. Our last stop was Munira and Hani Amer’s house in Mas’ha, the house that is completely enclosed by the Wall, ‘security’ gates, and the settlement fence. Their prison is a microcosm of the prison of Palestine, and the occupation gets played out in front of their house on a daily basis (soldiers harassing them, settler kids throwing stones at their house on Shabbat, etc.). I don’t know that I can ever visit them and be completely happy with what I see, but it was wonderful to see the mural that their children and children’s friends painted last week on the Wall. [Kate was there and wrote a wonderful report about it, which you can find, along with pictures, on the personal blog page of the IWPS website - www.iwps.info - go to link at bottom.] Saturday was also the first time in a long time that I’ve seen Munira and Hani relatively happy. Munira says everytime she looks at the Wall now, she’ll remember who painted which parts of the mural.
After our visit, the Holy Land Trust folks headed back to Bethlehem and I joined the IWPS women for what I thought would be a relaxing evening in Nablus. They had planned to take the evening off and visit the hammaam (Turkish bath). So we headed to Huwara, the main checkpoint into Nablus, and were told that Nablus is closed to internationals. The soldiers claimed they were just trying to protect us - didn’t we know there was an incursion going on? So often I’ve heard soldiers talk about military operations like they’re simple facts of life that humans cannot control, like they’re saying, "Be careful, it’s slippery over there." This time I’m glad I didn’t talk directly with the soldiers, because I probably would have been tempted to say something like, "There’s an incursion going on because you - the Israeli army - are invading," or at least to ask, "Why are you so concerned about me? Isn’t it also dangerous for Palestinians to be there?" In any case, there was no getting through Huwara, and the taxi drivers (who always have the most reliable up-to-date information about the travel situation in Palestine) suggested that the only way we’d get in is by hiking over the mountain. Call us crazy, but we decided to do it. The trip involved a couple cars at the beginning and the end, and about an hour of hiking in the middle. "We’d better not get shot trying to get to the hammaam," we kept half-joking to each other. Luckily we made it without running into any soldiers, and aside from the few cockroaches in the hammaam (and the fact that the sauna felt a bit too much like all of Palestine this time of year), we managed to have a relatively relaxing evening.
It was getting out of Nablus that was anything but relaxing, and certainly reminded me that checkpoints are perhaps the most blatantly frustrating manifestation of the occupation. I figured I would try to go out through Huwara, because it is far quicker than leaving any other way. Since the army didn’t want me in Nablus to begin with, I thought maybe they would let me out. This turned out to be the case (although it wasn’t the case for other IWPSers later), but the treatment of the Palestinians that I witnessed was enough for me to question the humanity of the Israeli soldiers.
I arrived at Huwara with Um Fadi, a friend from Hares who I randomly ran into on the way out of Nablus. We stood in line together, although we decided it would be best for her if we didn’t try to go through together. About 100 women and 50 men were standing in several lines (4 lines for women, 2 for men) waiting for the soldiers to call them forward to show their IDs. I looked around and on all sides saw watchtowers and army vehicles (jeeps, a tank, a camouflage bulldozer). Much has been written about the architecture of checkpoints, but it’s something that particularly struck me on Sunday.
The soldiers stood in front of the lines alternately blocking one or another with concrete blocks, plastic barriers, tables, and anything else they had lying around. At one point a soldier began moving quickly towards one of the men’s lines, pushing them backwards. "Irjaa’, irjaa’" he kept repeating ("go back, go back" in Arabic). He was looking one man in the eye while pointing his gun directly at the man’s groin. It was as clear a power game as I’ve seen. He was obviously trying to provoke the Palestinian man, and occasionally moved his gun up to the man’s stomach. When they were parallel to me, I turned to the soldier and said, "What’s the problem? Is there a problem?" I knew this might diminish my chances of getting through, but I could not stand there without at least letting him know I was watching. The soldier ignored me as I repeated my question. Finally he turned to me and said, "Uskut!" I wanted to correct his grammar, to tell him the appropriate way to say "shut up" to a female in Arabic is "Uskuti," but I thought better of it. He then repeated himself in Hebrew. I asked again, "What’s the problem?" and finally he told me, in Hebrew, that the men needed to stand behind ‘this line’ (he pointed to a random spot on the ground, and turned around and walked away). For the next half hour or so, he called people only from the other men’s line. One at a time, two at a time, four at a time (he would hold up a certain number of fingers, and that many people would be allowed to advance). I remembered a comment I heard recently from a woman in Machsom Watch (an Israeli women’s organization that monitors checkpoints). She said, "Soldiers are always asking why Palestinians can’t stand in a straight line.... Israelis invented not standing in line!"
Meanwhile, I heard another young soldier shouting at the women’s lines. "Lo lazuz!" he kept yelling in Hebrew ("Don’t move"). Apparently a couple of the women were fidgeting under the hot sun as they tried to calm their young children, some of whom were crying. The soldier stood a few meters away and pointed at whichever woman he decided could advance to the next soldier, who was checking IDs. If the wrong woman stepped forward, he would yell at everyone and threaten to send people back to the beginning of the line.
Most of the women had been shopping in Nablus, and the soldier first made them put their bags on a table and take out their contents. Apparently this was not good enough, though, because he stepped forward at one point, picked up a large plastic bag that one of the women was carrying, and dumped it from a height onto the table. "Kulam roim?!" he yelled condescendingly at the crowd ("Does everyone see?"). "This is what you must do," he told them in Hebrew. He then stepped back a few meters again, but enforced this absurd and humiliating rule that all women must pick up their bags and completely dump out their contents, rather than carefully taking their new clothes, books, and food out to be checked.
I struggled to keep my composure during these 45 minutes, and noticed that Um Fadi was making conversation with people and keeping a bit of distance between the person in front of her and herself. Checkpoints, like most lines, are crowded and frustrating, and often people will begin pushing each other to get through. Um Fadi instead created camaraderie among the women around us.
When I was finally chosen to move forward, I handed my passport to a soldier. Without opening it, he held it up for another soldier to see, and though he didn’t say anything, his eyes were asking her, "Should we give this international/American a hard time or not?" She said something about the visa that I didn’t understand, at which point he opened my passport, looked at the picture and the visa, and slowly closed it. He then gave me a look that said, "Okay, time for the power game." I was both tired and frustrated, and decided the best strategy was to look ahead (away from him) as though I was ready to walk away, and put my hand out. Apparently he decided it wasn’t worth the energy to harass me, and after a slight hesitation he put the passport in my hand. I walked away slowly without looking at him, and he didn’t stop me. No words passed between us at all. This doesn’t always work, but on Sunday it did. Of course, I am again aware that most Palestinians would not feel comfortable trying this, and that if they did, it could cause serious problems for them. The power game is always a delicate balance between confidence and obedience. It’s a moral issue, a strategic issue, a political issue, a human issue.
On our way out, I noted about 10 young men - on their way into Nablus - being held in a small concrete pen. I walked past them at first, not wanting to jeopardize my own luck, but then turned around and decided to give them cards with Hamoked’s phone number (Hamoked is an Israeli organization that speaks Arabic and helps fight human rights abuses at checkpoints, among other things). I managed to talk to the men for about a minute before the army seemed to notice. The Palestinian men were slightly confused (I can only imagine what they think when a random foreigner approaches them, gives them a card of an Israeli organization, and tells them to call the phone number on it), but at the end they seemed to understand at least enough to make the decision about whether to call. As soon as the soldiers noticed and started to yell at me, I walked away and caught up to Um Fadi. The soldiers had opened the boxes of pastries she had just bought for the Salfit girls’ summer camp the next day, but otherwise she exited unscathed. She had kept her composure the whole time we stood in the line, but after showing me her open boxes, she threw her hands in the air and said, "They ask why Palestinians make explosives." I responded with something I had been thinking for the past hour, and in general since I first came to Palestine: I am constantly shocked when I see the restraint of Palestinians. I often truly marvel over the fact that there isn’t more violence towards Israelis.
One of our meetings Saturday was with Issa Suf, a friend in Hares who is a long time peace activist and was an athletic trainer before being shot and paralyzed by a soldier almost 3 years ago. He has recently written a letter to the soldier who shot him, telling him that he feels only pity, and not anger, towards that soldier and all other soldiers. One of the internationals in our group Saturday said he finds that sentiment almost incomprehensible, and asked Issa what he thought of an early Malcolm X quote that went something like this: "To respond to violence with nonviolence is not only wrong, it is criminal." Issa replied: "I know it is much harder to use nonviolence than to use violence, but it’s the right thing to do. Violence is just not what we are taught. It’s not part of our culture or our religion." I think this is ultimately true. Inshalla (God-willing), the world will someday soon realize the simple truth that Palestinians are overwhelmingly a peaceful people. Maybe justice can unfold from there.
Seeking peace, justice, and truth,
Hannah
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Friday, July 23, 2004
My Life in Bethlehem
Hello friends. I've been in Bethlehem for a week and a half now, and time is moving quickly. I'm busy with many projects and I'm exhausted, but it's a welcome exhaustion borne of concrete and tangible work and not simply the general emotional exhaustion of living in Palestine.
I want to modify a statement I made in my last report. I called Bethlehem one of the "deadest cities I've seen". I think instead that life is more concentrated here. In the outskirts of the city few shops are open and I don't see many people on the streets, but the marketplace is thriving and there seems to be a bit of a night life. Or at least enough of a night life to draw a lively crowd at a hip hop show I attended last weekend. The group is called Dam, meaning 'eternity' in Arabic, and their signature song is 'Who's a terrorist?' I wish I could have understood more of their lyrics, but it was nice simply to be in a room with politically charged music and to witness the young Palestinian hip hop scene (young both in the sense that it's just beginning to develop and also literally the age of the crowd (mostly pre-teens and teenagers). Dam is from Lod, a town within the current borders of Israel (quite close to the airport) that is split between Palestinians and poor Jewish immigrants. There's apparently a wall between the Palestinians and the Jews in Lod, similar to the wall being built through the West Bank. I hear that people are shocked when they go there, which I plan to do with a delegation from Boston at the end of August.
Preparing for this Boston delegation has been one of my time-consuming projects, but one that I'm most excited about. The more I work in Palestine, the more convinced I become that people need to come here and see for themselves what is happening. To get acquainted with Palestinian life to some degree, and to experience what it means to live under occupation. Of course I will never feel exactly the way a Palestinian feels, but the closer I can get, the more effective I think I am in my work for justice. [Anyone who's interested in coming here, please contact me. I'd love to give you suggestions or help plan an itinerary for a group.]
I've been practicing for the delegation by playing tour guide a few times in the past couple days. A friend of mine from college just participated in the Birthright Israel trip (a free trip to Israel for young people who haven't been to Israel before). She and another participant were exhausted from the Israeli propaganda they received over the past week, and wanted to come see a bit from the other side. I showed them around Bethlehem (to the best of my ability), and told them a bit about the Wall and the settlements. Last night the other folks in the Palestine Summer Encounter program came to Dheisheh to take a tour with my host father. I didn't do all that much work beyond arranging the trip, but tomorrow I'll take the group to the Salfit region and really will act as a tour guide for the day.
I'm working with two Palestinian organizations here. Shiraa, the Laborers' Association for Studies and Development, is entirely run by volunteers and has no money, but does excellent work (Abu Rabia, my host father and director of Shiraa, actually attributes Shiraa's effectiveness to its lack of money, although at this point he'd be happy to have a bit of funding for some of the projects). Shiraa has taken a lead role in supporting the municipality workers in the Bethlehem area, who have been on strike for a couple weeks because they have not been paid in several months. The organization supports families as well, through English classes, a women's embroidery cooperative, a dabke troupe and other youth activities, etc. I plan to help with the embroidery cooperative for the short time that I'm here, specifically in regards to worldwide distribution (so if you have ideas, please let me know!).
The other organization I'm working with, the Arab Educational Institute (AEI), focuses on nonviolent education with both Christian and Muslim Palestinians. Their 'summer school' (a week of presentations and workshops about nonviolent change, cooperation, and more) is coming up next week, and I'm charged with preparing the icebreaking activities for the week. It's been interesting trying to convey my ideas to people from a different culture and in a different context than I'm used to. After the summer school ends, I hope to work on another project: conducting interviews with some of the young people from AEI who have traveled abroad to attend conferences or speak. I'll pose tough questions to them to see how they each choose to 'communicate Palestine,' and possibly offer some of my own thoughts at the end.
It seems I've written a full e-mail about work, but I'm learning just as much from my wonderful host family as I am from all the projects I'm trying to coordinate. The oldest kid, Rabia, is a good language study partner, and I've played card games and chess with the other three (although the youngest, Yazzin, is a 10-year-old clown who never misses an opportunity to cheat). I attended my first Muslim wedding a few nights ago, and while I didn't always appreciate being in a small room with about 75 women while the men were dancing outside, I did notice that the teenage girls danced freely with the older women, and the self-consciousness level was considerably lower than I've seen in mixed gender groups (in Palestine, the US, and everywhere else I've been).
More next week, but for now, that's my update from the holy land.
-Hannah
I want to modify a statement I made in my last report. I called Bethlehem one of the "deadest cities I've seen". I think instead that life is more concentrated here. In the outskirts of the city few shops are open and I don't see many people on the streets, but the marketplace is thriving and there seems to be a bit of a night life. Or at least enough of a night life to draw a lively crowd at a hip hop show I attended last weekend. The group is called Dam, meaning 'eternity' in Arabic, and their signature song is 'Who's a terrorist?' I wish I could have understood more of their lyrics, but it was nice simply to be in a room with politically charged music and to witness the young Palestinian hip hop scene (young both in the sense that it's just beginning to develop and also literally the age of the crowd (mostly pre-teens and teenagers). Dam is from Lod, a town within the current borders of Israel (quite close to the airport) that is split between Palestinians and poor Jewish immigrants. There's apparently a wall between the Palestinians and the Jews in Lod, similar to the wall being built through the West Bank. I hear that people are shocked when they go there, which I plan to do with a delegation from Boston at the end of August.
Preparing for this Boston delegation has been one of my time-consuming projects, but one that I'm most excited about. The more I work in Palestine, the more convinced I become that people need to come here and see for themselves what is happening. To get acquainted with Palestinian life to some degree, and to experience what it means to live under occupation. Of course I will never feel exactly the way a Palestinian feels, but the closer I can get, the more effective I think I am in my work for justice. [Anyone who's interested in coming here, please contact me. I'd love to give you suggestions or help plan an itinerary for a group.]
I've been practicing for the delegation by playing tour guide a few times in the past couple days. A friend of mine from college just participated in the Birthright Israel trip (a free trip to Israel for young people who haven't been to Israel before). She and another participant were exhausted from the Israeli propaganda they received over the past week, and wanted to come see a bit from the other side. I showed them around Bethlehem (to the best of my ability), and told them a bit about the Wall and the settlements. Last night the other folks in the Palestine Summer Encounter program came to Dheisheh to take a tour with my host father. I didn't do all that much work beyond arranging the trip, but tomorrow I'll take the group to the Salfit region and really will act as a tour guide for the day.
I'm working with two Palestinian organizations here. Shiraa, the Laborers' Association for Studies and Development, is entirely run by volunteers and has no money, but does excellent work (Abu Rabia, my host father and director of Shiraa, actually attributes Shiraa's effectiveness to its lack of money, although at this point he'd be happy to have a bit of funding for some of the projects). Shiraa has taken a lead role in supporting the municipality workers in the Bethlehem area, who have been on strike for a couple weeks because they have not been paid in several months. The organization supports families as well, through English classes, a women's embroidery cooperative, a dabke troupe and other youth activities, etc. I plan to help with the embroidery cooperative for the short time that I'm here, specifically in regards to worldwide distribution (so if you have ideas, please let me know!).
The other organization I'm working with, the Arab Educational Institute (AEI), focuses on nonviolent education with both Christian and Muslim Palestinians. Their 'summer school' (a week of presentations and workshops about nonviolent change, cooperation, and more) is coming up next week, and I'm charged with preparing the icebreaking activities for the week. It's been interesting trying to convey my ideas to people from a different culture and in a different context than I'm used to. After the summer school ends, I hope to work on another project: conducting interviews with some of the young people from AEI who have traveled abroad to attend conferences or speak. I'll pose tough questions to them to see how they each choose to 'communicate Palestine,' and possibly offer some of my own thoughts at the end.
It seems I've written a full e-mail about work, but I'm learning just as much from my wonderful host family as I am from all the projects I'm trying to coordinate. The oldest kid, Rabia, is a good language study partner, and I've played card games and chess with the other three (although the youngest, Yazzin, is a 10-year-old clown who never misses an opportunity to cheat). I attended my first Muslim wedding a few nights ago, and while I didn't always appreciate being in a small room with about 75 women while the men were dancing outside, I did notice that the teenage girls danced freely with the older women, and the self-consciousness level was considerably lower than I've seen in mixed gender groups (in Palestine, the US, and everywhere else I've been).
More next week, but for now, that's my update from the holy land.
-Hannah
Thursday, July 15, 2004
Bethlehem: First Impressions
Dear friends,
I write to you from the Dheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem, where I’ll be spending my next month. I’ve been here for two nights and three days now, and I’ve already learned how to play new card games, roll grape leaves, and say “Go jump in a lake” in Arabic (who said Arabic classes aren’t useful?).
Before talking about my first impressions here, though, I’ll briefly address a question several of you have asked me: What impact did/will the International Court of Justice (ICJ) decision have in Palestine? For those of you who don’t know, the ICJ ruled on Friday that Israel’s construction of the Wall must immediately stop, that all sections already built must be dismantled, and that Israel must pay reparations to the Palestinians who have lost land and incurred damages. The vote was 14-1. Guess which country’s judge voted against it. I’ll give you a hint: the Marshall Islands didn’t have a judge.
So, what impact will it have? Well, I think it gave a bit of a boost to Palestinian activists and politicians with an awareness of international politics. Many of the villages have been working through the Israeli courts, so they’re probably paying attention to this as well. Do I think the UN will try to enforce the decision? Not at all. A few internationals and Israelis may try to enforce it in our own way, but I’ll save that for another e-mail. I do think that every bit of international pressure helps, and I’m guessing it’s no coincidence that the Israeli courts have granted temporary injunctions against Wall-building in many villages recently. I don’t know how long it will last, and the US certainly isn’t helping with its new resolution to condemn the court and support Israel’s continued building of the Wall, but the ICJ decision was a step in the right direction nonetheless.
But back to Bethlehem. I arrived on Tuesday and was greeted by a huge concrete wall with a Caterpillar bulldozer sitting in front of it. I asked the man who was trying to sell me a stuffed camel about the path of the Wall, and he pointed in every direction. Small sections have been built everywhere, and Bethlehem is completely surrounded by settlements, which doesn’t bode well for the rest of the Wall’s construction. On the other hand, there are already so many walls and restrictions in the area that people are unsure whether the Wall will even have much of an impact. My host father took me around Dheisheh my first day here, and every few minutes he’d point to the left or the right and say, “forest of concrete.” The paths are narrow, the walls are high, and there’s very little green. My family has a beautiful garden, though. The only problem is the lack of water (although it does keep the mosquitos away!).
Dheisheh is only 1 square kilometer in size, but over 13,000 people live here. They represent 49 different villages from pre-1948 Palestine. The camp was established in 1948 as a temporary camp (like in most refugee situations, they thought they’d be able to return soon). The tents turned into small shacks around 1956, and sometime in the 1980s the shacks became houses. Slightly more room inside now, but less room outside. There seem to be very few places in the camp where cars can drive.
On our way home, Abu Rabia (my host father – yes, he has the same name as IWPS’s landlord in Hares) stopped at a house that had been demolished the night before. At least 20 or 30 people were sitting outside, presumably all people who lived there or members of the family. Some young women and men were carrying furniture out from inside the demolished house, tiptoeing around the broken glass. I asked Abu Rabia why the house had been demolished. So many times I’ve asked ‘why’ in Palestine and simply been laughed at, but the privileged and naïve American in me still can’t accept that all of this happens for no reason, or at least with no justification. But often it does. Abu Rabia simply shrugged his shoulders and said, “Their son is in prison.”
I’ve noticed, to my surprise, that social norms are less conservative in Dheisheh than in Hares and the other villages I know up north. I’m guessing this is because of its proximity to the city of Bethlehem. The whole camp is Muslim, but many women don’t wear the hijab, and I’ve seen more young women outside than I do in Hares. Many of them probably work in the city – either Bethlehem or another one. My host mother, Najah, works in an elderly home in West Jerusalem. She’s been working there for 8 years, and before the Intifada she could get there in 15 minutes and had a permit to work. Now she’s technically working illegally and it takes her 4 hours to sneak around checkpoints and climb fences to get there. She gets up at 3 in the morning and leaves at 4 to get there at 8. She works until 1, and is home by 2 (it’s much easier to come out of Jerusalem than to go in). I honestly don’t know how she does it. Like most women in the world, her work doesn’t end when she leaves her paying job. I’m grateful that she lets me wash dishes and help her roll grape leaves, both because it makes her work a tiny bit easier and it because it makes me feel like this really is my home.
Yesterday the Holy Land Trust folks took us on a tour of Bethlehem. [The program I’m doing, Palestine Summer Encounter, is through the Holy Land Trust.] Bethlehem is one of the deadest cities I’ve seen in Palestine, and apparently this has been the case since the Intifada began, and specifically since the Israeli army siege of Bethlehem in 2002. Our tour guide took us to the Church of Nativity, where Jesus is said to have been born. On our way out, he pointed to the bullet holes left over from the siege, when a couple hundred people – militants and others – had taken refuge in the church. The blend of sacred history with current reality seems to be a constant here in Bethlehem. When our guide showed us the taxi routes on the map, he pointed to Rachel’s tomb. This holy site for Jews, Christians, and Muslims is now part of a military base, and Israel apparently plans to annex it with the Wall. The taxis currently go near Rachel’s tomb, and from there it is about a 7 minute walk to the checkpoint.
I’m still getting settled and still learning, but already I can tell how different this place is to where I’ve been before. I called IWPS today just to check in, and found out that the whole area has been closed for at least 2 days, that people have been stopped at flying checkpoints all day, and that the army was shooting in Mas’ha last night. Part of me felt a pang of guilt that I wasn’t there, but I also know there’s probably not much I could do if I were there, other than to tell you all a different story than what I’m telling now. So many stories to be told…
In the spirit of talking and listening,
Hannah
I write to you from the Dheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem, where I’ll be spending my next month. I’ve been here for two nights and three days now, and I’ve already learned how to play new card games, roll grape leaves, and say “Go jump in a lake” in Arabic (who said Arabic classes aren’t useful?).
Before talking about my first impressions here, though, I’ll briefly address a question several of you have asked me: What impact did/will the International Court of Justice (ICJ) decision have in Palestine? For those of you who don’t know, the ICJ ruled on Friday that Israel’s construction of the Wall must immediately stop, that all sections already built must be dismantled, and that Israel must pay reparations to the Palestinians who have lost land and incurred damages. The vote was 14-1. Guess which country’s judge voted against it. I’ll give you a hint: the Marshall Islands didn’t have a judge.
So, what impact will it have? Well, I think it gave a bit of a boost to Palestinian activists and politicians with an awareness of international politics. Many of the villages have been working through the Israeli courts, so they’re probably paying attention to this as well. Do I think the UN will try to enforce the decision? Not at all. A few internationals and Israelis may try to enforce it in our own way, but I’ll save that for another e-mail. I do think that every bit of international pressure helps, and I’m guessing it’s no coincidence that the Israeli courts have granted temporary injunctions against Wall-building in many villages recently. I don’t know how long it will last, and the US certainly isn’t helping with its new resolution to condemn the court and support Israel’s continued building of the Wall, but the ICJ decision was a step in the right direction nonetheless.
But back to Bethlehem. I arrived on Tuesday and was greeted by a huge concrete wall with a Caterpillar bulldozer sitting in front of it. I asked the man who was trying to sell me a stuffed camel about the path of the Wall, and he pointed in every direction. Small sections have been built everywhere, and Bethlehem is completely surrounded by settlements, which doesn’t bode well for the rest of the Wall’s construction. On the other hand, there are already so many walls and restrictions in the area that people are unsure whether the Wall will even have much of an impact. My host father took me around Dheisheh my first day here, and every few minutes he’d point to the left or the right and say, “forest of concrete.” The paths are narrow, the walls are high, and there’s very little green. My family has a beautiful garden, though. The only problem is the lack of water (although it does keep the mosquitos away!).
Dheisheh is only 1 square kilometer in size, but over 13,000 people live here. They represent 49 different villages from pre-1948 Palestine. The camp was established in 1948 as a temporary camp (like in most refugee situations, they thought they’d be able to return soon). The tents turned into small shacks around 1956, and sometime in the 1980s the shacks became houses. Slightly more room inside now, but less room outside. There seem to be very few places in the camp where cars can drive.
On our way home, Abu Rabia (my host father – yes, he has the same name as IWPS’s landlord in Hares) stopped at a house that had been demolished the night before. At least 20 or 30 people were sitting outside, presumably all people who lived there or members of the family. Some young women and men were carrying furniture out from inside the demolished house, tiptoeing around the broken glass. I asked Abu Rabia why the house had been demolished. So many times I’ve asked ‘why’ in Palestine and simply been laughed at, but the privileged and naïve American in me still can’t accept that all of this happens for no reason, or at least with no justification. But often it does. Abu Rabia simply shrugged his shoulders and said, “Their son is in prison.”
I’ve noticed, to my surprise, that social norms are less conservative in Dheisheh than in Hares and the other villages I know up north. I’m guessing this is because of its proximity to the city of Bethlehem. The whole camp is Muslim, but many women don’t wear the hijab, and I’ve seen more young women outside than I do in Hares. Many of them probably work in the city – either Bethlehem or another one. My host mother, Najah, works in an elderly home in West Jerusalem. She’s been working there for 8 years, and before the Intifada she could get there in 15 minutes and had a permit to work. Now she’s technically working illegally and it takes her 4 hours to sneak around checkpoints and climb fences to get there. She gets up at 3 in the morning and leaves at 4 to get there at 8. She works until 1, and is home by 2 (it’s much easier to come out of Jerusalem than to go in). I honestly don’t know how she does it. Like most women in the world, her work doesn’t end when she leaves her paying job. I’m grateful that she lets me wash dishes and help her roll grape leaves, both because it makes her work a tiny bit easier and it because it makes me feel like this really is my home.
Yesterday the Holy Land Trust folks took us on a tour of Bethlehem. [The program I’m doing, Palestine Summer Encounter, is through the Holy Land Trust.] Bethlehem is one of the deadest cities I’ve seen in Palestine, and apparently this has been the case since the Intifada began, and specifically since the Israeli army siege of Bethlehem in 2002. Our tour guide took us to the Church of Nativity, where Jesus is said to have been born. On our way out, he pointed to the bullet holes left over from the siege, when a couple hundred people – militants and others – had taken refuge in the church. The blend of sacred history with current reality seems to be a constant here in Bethlehem. When our guide showed us the taxi routes on the map, he pointed to Rachel’s tomb. This holy site for Jews, Christians, and Muslims is now part of a military base, and Israel apparently plans to annex it with the Wall. The taxis currently go near Rachel’s tomb, and from there it is about a 7 minute walk to the checkpoint.
I’m still getting settled and still learning, but already I can tell how different this place is to where I’ve been before. I called IWPS today just to check in, and found out that the whole area has been closed for at least 2 days, that people have been stopped at flying checkpoints all day, and that the army was shooting in Mas’ha last night. Part of me felt a pang of guilt that I wasn’t there, but I also know there’s probably not much I could do if I were there, other than to tell you all a different story than what I’m telling now. So many stories to be told…
In the spirit of talking and listening,
Hannah
Monday, July 12, 2004
Farenheit 120
Okay, so maybe it's not quite 120 degrees here (although I hear it's about that in Baghdad right now), but it certainly feels like it at times. Especially in Tel Aviv. That's right, I'm back in Tel Aviv for the day. I don't know how I went two months last time I was here with virtually no break, because now after only a month I'm desperately needing these few days I have before heading to Bethlehem.
The Salfit region has been relatively quiet recently, although I'm not sure exactly what I mean when I say that. Maybe it's just that there haven't been as many demonstrations, and most of the work on the Wall has temporarily stopped in our area, so when things do happen, I just don't know about them right away. The IDF invaded the village of Rafat last week, not far from us, but I was sleeping soundly in my bed in Hares. I went to take pictures and talk to families the following day, but by that time it was 'quiet.' Of course, the army came back every night that week to throw sound bombs from 11pm until 5am. Certainly not your typical definition of quiet, but I don't think anyone was injured or killed. Not there, anyway. Nablus and Gaza are a different story, of course. I think there were 17 Palestinians killed in one day last week. But I just read it in the news, like the rest of the world. It's amazing how close we really have to be, how much we really have to see with our own eyes, before true empathy can surface. Sometimes. I guess the pain might overwhelm us if the empathy were present all the time. But it does frustrate me. For myself, and for all of you who are out there reading and who I desperately want to understand aspects of my experience, of Palestinian experience, of Israeli experience.
I've been having more and more conversations with Israelis recently in which they've told me that they're completely depressed, that their country is suffering from a deep and unrecoverable psychosis, that they want to get out of here. These are people who have and haven't served in the army. Especially the ones who have served recently - kids whose political awareness and conviction were not quite strong enough at age 17 or 18 to stand against their families and their countries and refuse to serve. And I think of myself at age 17/18, spending a year in Israel before going to college, believing in peace as an abstract concept but not yet aware that the very things I'd been taught to love most were the things that most obstructed the possibilities of peace in this region. So these women tell me of their roles as commanders, training hundreds of soldiers to use weapons while they themselves are suffering nervous breakdowns and are heavily medicated for depression. One tells me that her brother used to come to all the peace rallies with her when she got out and he was still in high school. Now he's driving a tank in Gaza.
I think it will take longer for deep and lasting change from the Israeli side than from the Palestinian side. From what I've seen, the hatred is both deeper and more ideological. Palestinian hatred for Israelis gets expressed in very concrete and tangible terms of loss - my brother, my son, my house, my land, my job, my freedom of movement, etc. Israeli hatred for Palestinians gets expressed through fear, misconception, paranoia, racism. Not that Israelis have nothing tangible to fear, but I think the hatred comes from a different place and goes beyond reality in a way that I haven't seen as much from Palestinians. It's not easy to express what I'm trying to say. It's not easy to ascertain in the first place. And it's certainly not easy for me as a Jew to accept that the global representation of Judaism has strayed so far from any Jewish values I might want to identify with myself.
I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 last night here in Tel Aviv. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I have to say I wasn't impressed. Or let me say that a different way: I think the movie wasn't made for me. I think it was made for the 'mainstream American public' (whatever that might mean). The film plays on the same fear of terror in general, and Arabs in particular, as it tries to denounce. It could, however, prove to be an extremely useful propaganda tool; if Americans add Bush to their/our list of fears, maybe we really can get him out in November (now we just need a real candidate to run against him...). The point, though, is that Moore is a smart man who knows his audience, and he knows that the best way to affect the most people at this point is through fear. I personally would have preferred compassion - not only for the families of a few American soldiers (which he does quite effectively), but also for Iraqis, Afghanis, Saudis, etc. Compassion for 'the other.' Are we not there yet? When will be at a place where compassion can be as powerful and as effective as fear? Especially in America. Especially in Israel.
Still hoping somewhere deep inside that our creativity can see us through this,
Hannah
The Salfit region has been relatively quiet recently, although I'm not sure exactly what I mean when I say that. Maybe it's just that there haven't been as many demonstrations, and most of the work on the Wall has temporarily stopped in our area, so when things do happen, I just don't know about them right away. The IDF invaded the village of Rafat last week, not far from us, but I was sleeping soundly in my bed in Hares. I went to take pictures and talk to families the following day, but by that time it was 'quiet.' Of course, the army came back every night that week to throw sound bombs from 11pm until 5am. Certainly not your typical definition of quiet, but I don't think anyone was injured or killed. Not there, anyway. Nablus and Gaza are a different story, of course. I think there were 17 Palestinians killed in one day last week. But I just read it in the news, like the rest of the world. It's amazing how close we really have to be, how much we really have to see with our own eyes, before true empathy can surface. Sometimes. I guess the pain might overwhelm us if the empathy were present all the time. But it does frustrate me. For myself, and for all of you who are out there reading and who I desperately want to understand aspects of my experience, of Palestinian experience, of Israeli experience.
I've been having more and more conversations with Israelis recently in which they've told me that they're completely depressed, that their country is suffering from a deep and unrecoverable psychosis, that they want to get out of here. These are people who have and haven't served in the army. Especially the ones who have served recently - kids whose political awareness and conviction were not quite strong enough at age 17 or 18 to stand against their families and their countries and refuse to serve. And I think of myself at age 17/18, spending a year in Israel before going to college, believing in peace as an abstract concept but not yet aware that the very things I'd been taught to love most were the things that most obstructed the possibilities of peace in this region. So these women tell me of their roles as commanders, training hundreds of soldiers to use weapons while they themselves are suffering nervous breakdowns and are heavily medicated for depression. One tells me that her brother used to come to all the peace rallies with her when she got out and he was still in high school. Now he's driving a tank in Gaza.
I think it will take longer for deep and lasting change from the Israeli side than from the Palestinian side. From what I've seen, the hatred is both deeper and more ideological. Palestinian hatred for Israelis gets expressed in very concrete and tangible terms of loss - my brother, my son, my house, my land, my job, my freedom of movement, etc. Israeli hatred for Palestinians gets expressed through fear, misconception, paranoia, racism. Not that Israelis have nothing tangible to fear, but I think the hatred comes from a different place and goes beyond reality in a way that I haven't seen as much from Palestinians. It's not easy to express what I'm trying to say. It's not easy to ascertain in the first place. And it's certainly not easy for me as a Jew to accept that the global representation of Judaism has strayed so far from any Jewish values I might want to identify with myself.
I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 last night here in Tel Aviv. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I have to say I wasn't impressed. Or let me say that a different way: I think the movie wasn't made for me. I think it was made for the 'mainstream American public' (whatever that might mean). The film plays on the same fear of terror in general, and Arabs in particular, as it tries to denounce. It could, however, prove to be an extremely useful propaganda tool; if Americans add Bush to their/our list of fears, maybe we really can get him out in November (now we just need a real candidate to run against him...). The point, though, is that Moore is a smart man who knows his audience, and he knows that the best way to affect the most people at this point is through fear. I personally would have preferred compassion - not only for the families of a few American soldiers (which he does quite effectively), but also for Iraqis, Afghanis, Saudis, etc. Compassion for 'the other.' Are we not there yet? When will be at a place where compassion can be as powerful and as effective as fear? Especially in America. Especially in Israel.
Still hoping somewhere deep inside that our creativity can see us through this,
Hannah
Saturday, July 03, 2004
Pride, Fascism, and Roadblock Removal
Much has happened in the past week, but I’ve also had a bit of time in the house. I’m realizing that my first week here demonstrating and getting tear gassed every day was not typical. I knew that, of course, but I had forgotten. Not that this week was any more typical, just more varied.
Last Friday I took a day off, not only from demonstrations in Palestine, but from the West Bank altogether. I went to Tel Aviv’s gay pride parade, where the theme was apparently the same as it has been for years: family ("we want to get married, too"). That’s all fine and good, but I much preferred the Black Laundry contingency with which I marched. They wore all black and carried large black triangular signs saying, "Occupation is not a family value" and "Transgender, not transfer." I particularly appreciated their flyer, which explained why they were there in English, Arabic, Russian, and Hebrew:
"Because of all the families who lost their loved ones. Because of the families left homeless by the destruction of Rafah. Because of the families facing poverty and the loss of welfare and health in Israel and Palestine. Because parenthood in Israel is a tool in a demographic war. Because women are used to (pro)create cannon fodder for a military government. Because we want space for families that are not built on straight models in the service of the state."
You can see my pictures of the event online, but I have no pictures of the 'Queerifada' party held that night. I wasn't there, and even if I had been, it's likely the cops who raided the party would have stolen my camera. That's right, this is where the fascism part of my e-mail begins (to clarify, I'm using the word 'fascism' because my Israeli friends keep insisting that's the only appropriate word for what’s happening in Israel right now - although some of them also say 'police state' or 'Nazi state'). Apparently, two noise cops came into the party sometime around 3 am. They looked at the flyers that were on the tables, and after noticing they were political (and specifically anti-authoritarian and anti-occupation), they called for backup. Dozens of police officers apparently showed up and started violently pushing their way through the crowd with clubs. They beat and arrested several people (some of whom they arrested from their hospital beds after having beat them). My friends who were there were in shock the next morning. They hadn’t realized how much of a police state Israel had become, they told me.
Unfortunately, the day didn't get much better. We left for A Ram, a Palestinian village near Jerusalem that is being drastically affected by the Wall. The concrete slabs of wall are currently laid out along the road, pending an 'ok' by the government or courts to continue building in that area. Thousands of people gathered in A Ram on Saturday - Israelis, Palestinians, and internationals. We planned to march to Qalandiya, one of the largest and worst checkpoints that serves as a crossroads for most West Bank travel. Palestinians from Ramallah would meet us on the other side of Qalandiya. This was the plan, but things rarely go as planned.
People on our side began to march, and were immediately turned around by army or police (I wasn't in the front so I'm not sure exactly why we decided to take a different route). We marched another way, and the first 10 minutes of protest were peaceful and colorful: a marching band of Palestinian youth, Israelis with signs against the occupation, journalists running alongside with their cameras. Suddenly, the army showed up en masse at the top of the hill overlooking the road, and began to fire tear gas against the buildings. The crowd scattered and people took cover in stores and homes on side streets. I won't report the details of the ensuing confusion, because in certain ways it is similar to what I've written about village protests in the past couple weeks. The crazy thing to me was not that I was facing tear gas and sound bombs, but that I was facing those weapons in the middle of a busy intersection with hundreds of Israelis. Some Palestinian taxis continued to drive through, many of the stores remained open, and meanwhile there was a war happening in the middle of the road. At one point I saw a large white police truck drive through the intersection. I asked an Israeli activist about it, and she said, "You haven't seen that before? It's the water cannon." These trucks shoot water at high speeds to try to clear the road of people. Some say it's sewage water. Luckily it didn't hit me, so I can't confirm or deny that.
When all was said and done, the border police had beat up and arrested several people (mostly Israelis, including one journalist from Yediot Achronot, Israel's largest newspaper). The army had shot dozens of rounds of tear gas, sounds bombs, light bombs, rubber bullets, water streams, and possibly live ammunition. An hour later, life was back to normal in the intersection and at the nearby checkpoints. The fact that the situation didn't seem to faze people scares me just as much as what happened that afternoon. Because Jewish Israelis were involved, the 'incident' is being looked into by Israeli courts and organizations, but it's clear that the army and police are taking more liberties these days, even with the populations they claim to protect.
Now let us fast forward a week. We are back in the West Bank, at a village called Kafr Al Labad in the Tulkarem region. This village of 4,000 people has roadblocks preventing them from entering or leaving their village both from the west and from the south. The village's well is outside the western roadblock, making it extremely difficult to live, agriculturally and otherwise. So the village decides to act.
Yesterday I participated in my first roadblock removal, and my first tangibly successful action since I've been here. About 200 villagers (men, women, and children) marched to the western roadblock, accompanied by at least 30 internationals and Israelis. People began to dig and push rocks as the internationals looked out for the army. A few minutes later, the bulldozer showed up, carrying about 6 or 7 men in its crane. The men jumped out, the digging began, and the mood of the crowd became more jubilant and less worried with each moment that the army didn't come.
In the following 2 hours, the village managed to remove all the roadblocks to the west and south of their village. The first cars, horses, donkeys and tractors that rode through received huge rounds of applause, and spirits were high as we returned to the village for a feast that villagers had prepared for us (a feast that they called 'light food' - probably because they didn't grill any fresh meat and instead served homemade bread, cheese, and vegetables from their land).
One of the internationals, a woman from New York who came with the "Women of a Certain Age" delegation (they wear their 'WCA 2004' hats everywhere they go), phoned WBAI (New York's Pacifica radio station). They said they had to call her back, so she handed the phone to an English-speaking Palestinian as she looked for her number. Suddenly, they broke through their regular programming to put Mohammad on the air, and he gave an impromptu interview for the people of New York as we all stood by the cleared roadblock in Kafr Al Labad. Small world. And, thankfully, a world in which we have the tools to communicate with each other. If only we used them a bit more effectively. Thank you for engaging in this communication.
Wishing more pride and roadblock removal, and less fascism, to you all,
Hannah
Last Friday I took a day off, not only from demonstrations in Palestine, but from the West Bank altogether. I went to Tel Aviv’s gay pride parade, where the theme was apparently the same as it has been for years: family ("we want to get married, too"). That’s all fine and good, but I much preferred the Black Laundry contingency with which I marched. They wore all black and carried large black triangular signs saying, "Occupation is not a family value" and "Transgender, not transfer." I particularly appreciated their flyer, which explained why they were there in English, Arabic, Russian, and Hebrew:
"Because of all the families who lost their loved ones. Because of the families left homeless by the destruction of Rafah. Because of the families facing poverty and the loss of welfare and health in Israel and Palestine. Because parenthood in Israel is a tool in a demographic war. Because women are used to (pro)create cannon fodder for a military government. Because we want space for families that are not built on straight models in the service of the state."
You can see my pictures of the event online, but I have no pictures of the 'Queerifada' party held that night. I wasn't there, and even if I had been, it's likely the cops who raided the party would have stolen my camera. That's right, this is where the fascism part of my e-mail begins (to clarify, I'm using the word 'fascism' because my Israeli friends keep insisting that's the only appropriate word for what’s happening in Israel right now - although some of them also say 'police state' or 'Nazi state'). Apparently, two noise cops came into the party sometime around 3 am. They looked at the flyers that were on the tables, and after noticing they were political (and specifically anti-authoritarian and anti-occupation), they called for backup. Dozens of police officers apparently showed up and started violently pushing their way through the crowd with clubs. They beat and arrested several people (some of whom they arrested from their hospital beds after having beat them). My friends who were there were in shock the next morning. They hadn’t realized how much of a police state Israel had become, they told me.
Unfortunately, the day didn't get much better. We left for A Ram, a Palestinian village near Jerusalem that is being drastically affected by the Wall. The concrete slabs of wall are currently laid out along the road, pending an 'ok' by the government or courts to continue building in that area. Thousands of people gathered in A Ram on Saturday - Israelis, Palestinians, and internationals. We planned to march to Qalandiya, one of the largest and worst checkpoints that serves as a crossroads for most West Bank travel. Palestinians from Ramallah would meet us on the other side of Qalandiya. This was the plan, but things rarely go as planned.
People on our side began to march, and were immediately turned around by army or police (I wasn't in the front so I'm not sure exactly why we decided to take a different route). We marched another way, and the first 10 minutes of protest were peaceful and colorful: a marching band of Palestinian youth, Israelis with signs against the occupation, journalists running alongside with their cameras. Suddenly, the army showed up en masse at the top of the hill overlooking the road, and began to fire tear gas against the buildings. The crowd scattered and people took cover in stores and homes on side streets. I won't report the details of the ensuing confusion, because in certain ways it is similar to what I've written about village protests in the past couple weeks. The crazy thing to me was not that I was facing tear gas and sound bombs, but that I was facing those weapons in the middle of a busy intersection with hundreds of Israelis. Some Palestinian taxis continued to drive through, many of the stores remained open, and meanwhile there was a war happening in the middle of the road. At one point I saw a large white police truck drive through the intersection. I asked an Israeli activist about it, and she said, "You haven't seen that before? It's the water cannon." These trucks shoot water at high speeds to try to clear the road of people. Some say it's sewage water. Luckily it didn't hit me, so I can't confirm or deny that.
When all was said and done, the border police had beat up and arrested several people (mostly Israelis, including one journalist from Yediot Achronot, Israel's largest newspaper). The army had shot dozens of rounds of tear gas, sounds bombs, light bombs, rubber bullets, water streams, and possibly live ammunition. An hour later, life was back to normal in the intersection and at the nearby checkpoints. The fact that the situation didn't seem to faze people scares me just as much as what happened that afternoon. Because Jewish Israelis were involved, the 'incident' is being looked into by Israeli courts and organizations, but it's clear that the army and police are taking more liberties these days, even with the populations they claim to protect.
Now let us fast forward a week. We are back in the West Bank, at a village called Kafr Al Labad in the Tulkarem region. This village of 4,000 people has roadblocks preventing them from entering or leaving their village both from the west and from the south. The village's well is outside the western roadblock, making it extremely difficult to live, agriculturally and otherwise. So the village decides to act.
Yesterday I participated in my first roadblock removal, and my first tangibly successful action since I've been here. About 200 villagers (men, women, and children) marched to the western roadblock, accompanied by at least 30 internationals and Israelis. People began to dig and push rocks as the internationals looked out for the army. A few minutes later, the bulldozer showed up, carrying about 6 or 7 men in its crane. The men jumped out, the digging began, and the mood of the crowd became more jubilant and less worried with each moment that the army didn't come.
In the following 2 hours, the village managed to remove all the roadblocks to the west and south of their village. The first cars, horses, donkeys and tractors that rode through received huge rounds of applause, and spirits were high as we returned to the village for a feast that villagers had prepared for us (a feast that they called 'light food' - probably because they didn't grill any fresh meat and instead served homemade bread, cheese, and vegetables from their land).
One of the internationals, a woman from New York who came with the "Women of a Certain Age" delegation (they wear their 'WCA 2004' hats everywhere they go), phoned WBAI (New York's Pacifica radio station). They said they had to call her back, so she handed the phone to an English-speaking Palestinian as she looked for her number. Suddenly, they broke through their regular programming to put Mohammad on the air, and he gave an impromptu interview for the people of New York as we all stood by the cleared roadblock in Kafr Al Labad. Small world. And, thankfully, a world in which we have the tools to communicate with each other. If only we used them a bit more effectively. Thank you for engaging in this communication.
Wishing more pride and roadblock removal, and less fascism, to you all,
Hannah
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