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
