Dear friends,
I'm back in the U.S. My bags are not, but I am. I just read at least 20 e-mails with articles about what's going on in the West Bank and Gaza right now. Most of it is sad and enraging, some of it is hopeful and defiant. There are too many things for me to try to share any of them with you, so this is just a short check-in about my exit. I've been taking notes on other things to share with you about my last couple weeks (sorry I haven't written) but that will have to wait.
For now: The shared taxi picked me up at 4:45 am, and we proceded to drive around much of East Jerusalem and seemingly half the West Bank picking up settlers to take them to the airport. The Nesher taxis specifically drive people to and from Jerusalem. Since Israel keeps expanding its definition of "Jerusalem", it was not all that surprising that I found myself in the middle of the district of Ramallah watching the Palestinian villages pass by as people sat in the car with their orange ribbons signifying opposition to the Gaza disengagement plan. A woman in my car started talking to the driver. My Hebrew isn't great anymore, but from what I could make out, she was saying she was on her way to the airport to meet 2 full plane loads of American Jews who were making "aliyah" (moving to Israel under a racist policy that allows all Jews full citizenship rights in Israel, and denies that same right to everyone else, especially Palestinian refugees who are the only group that actually should enjoy the "right of return" in Palestine, according to international law). An orthodox man in the front seat said to the driver, "Why do they keep bringing outsiders in? This should be a place for Jews." "You don't understand," said the driver, "these are Jews. All the Americans who come are Jews. The Americans aren't the problem, it's the Arabs who are trying to say this is their country who are the problem." I wanted to throw up. Or to punch a hole through the window. I think I need to work on my anger, especially as I'm going to be spending time with USers now, and not Palestinians.
In any case, I arrived at the airport at 6:00 for my 8:00 flight. I made it through the first random pre-bag-checking questioning with no problems. ("What are you doing here?" "Traveling, visiting friends." "Have you been here before?" "Yes, a few times." "Doing what?" "Traveling, a couple programs with Habonim Dror, etc." And that's the clincher - As disgusting as it is, a Zionist past can get you through that part of the airport just fine.)
I arrived at passport control around 7:00, the woman typed my name into the system, and immediately called the police. I spent much of the next hour waiting around and following people from room to room. They didn't seem to have any interest in speaking with me, although a couple times I heard them ask each other to "make sure Arabs didn't give her anything." They took me to a back room and I got the strip search that my friends of Arab descent have been known to get in the past. They paid extra attention to the seams of my clothing. I wonder if they really think that Palestinian weaponry is sophisticated enough to fit in the seams of clothing (I recently found out that one of the reasons Palestinians don't blow up the Wall or buildings is that they don't have the bombs to do it - it's just not a population that has much access to real weapons). In any case, finally the head of security came in and said, "We've pulled your bags off the plane, and we have to keep your carry-on too. We need to check your stuff and your plane won't wait for you, so you can go now without your bags or you can wait here for 8 hours and go with your bags if the next flight has room for you." I remembered my friend who recently left without her stuff and had much of it robbed by airport security (including a couple thousand Euros), but I also had no interest in hanging out with security officials for at least 8 hours (probably longer, since I think all flights are overbooked these days). My bags were also out of my sight anyway (I never saw them), so I didn't see how I could prevent robbing either way. And finally, it did seem to me that they were more interested in checking for bombs in the seams of bags and clothing than in any materials I had or information I could give them (I think they're more interested in long chats and interrogation on the way in than the way out). The only thing I was reluctant to leave was my unchecked carry-on bag with my laptop in it. But in the end, I did leave it behind. They asked if there's anything I really need with me. I took out my purse, my water bottle, a book, and my glasses case. They took everything aside and a minute later brought me my purse and my book. My water bottle and glasses case could not come with me. They ran me to the plane, where I got a sympathetic look from the British Airways employees, who seemed to think Israeli "security" measures are as ridiculous as I think. And this was my exit from the god-forsaken holy land.
I'm hoping my bags come today. I'm still a bit worried about my carry-on (computer, cds, etc.), of which there is no record. I can't leave you all with this as my final message, so I'll write again within the next week or so. I'll be working on a number of projects this Fall, and am still interested in speaking, and also very interested in organizing speaking tours for Palestinians (and maybe Israelis as well). So let me know if you're interested in any of this.
Looking forward to hearing from many of you soon.
Love Hannah
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Happening Again
Dear friends,
The Israeli army has invaded the villages in the Salfit region every night for the past week, breaking glass, arresting men, beating women, shooting holes in framed verses of the Koran. My friends who are still at IWPS have seen all this, but I have not. Below I’ve written about experiences I have personally had, about topics and thoughts that have been particularly haunting me this week.
With as much love as I can muster up, Hannah
“This happened. And it could happen again.”
Houses demolished, villages unrecognized, not given water infrastructure or electricity or rights to their own land. The army had raided the village, had destroyed everything. And every person affected was an Israeli citizen. This particular story comes from a video filmed over 10 years ago, but the situation is the same today. Palestinians with Israeli citizenship do not have the same rights as Jews. Internally displaced refugees remain unrecognized in the communities they have tried to build after being denied the internationally recognized right to return to their original land. There is nothing complicated about the situation. There is nothing complicated about most of what happens here. “Complicated” is a word people use to excuse human rights abuses. “Complicated” is a word people use so they can be openly racist in thought and action, with no repercussions. After all, the Jews were victims once.
“This happened. And it could happen again.”
We visit Saffourieh, one of the largest Palestinian villages before 1948, one of the few that was actually bombed from the air. The village was then surrounded on three sides by Zionist militant groups, leaving the northern route open – and people took it, escaping to Lebanon and Syria. There is now a Moshav called Tzipori that sits on top of the destroyed village, along with 7 other Jewish settlements.
Our tour guide is from Saffourieh, which is to say his family is from Saffourieh, his father an infant in 1948 when his family fled. His dream is to move back and farm the land. Since he can’t, he does small projects, finding village remains and weeding around the cemetery so at least history doesn’t forget the village’s dead. He leaves work early to accommodate the schedules of a group of North American Jews, so he can share his story and show us the land.
And the pictures.
One picture from 1945 of a hill filled with hundreds of houses, a small castle sitting at the top. The castle remains, and the rest of the hill is now a pine forest, as foreign to this land as the American Jews who grew up paying for the trees quarter by quarter in our weekly tzedakah collection at synagogue. The trees a way to cover up any evidence of the thriving community that existed before. “How can the Jews remember 2000 years," asked a nakba survivor who spoke with us, “and expect us to forget 50 or 60?”
“This happened. And it could happen again.”
On a wall in the old city of Hebron, on a street that used to be the market and has been shut down by soldiers and settlers over the years, we find graffiti written in Hebrew, directed towards the Palestinians whose homes and shops are being defiled. “What’s the difference between an Arab and a trampoline?” it asks. And answers: “On a trampoline you jump without shoes.” I saw it last year, and again last week. It has chipped away slightly, but is still readable. From our group comes a question: “Why don’t Palestinians cover this up?” From our tour guide, a response: “If I had my say I’d frame it.” At that the questioner becomes emotional: “In the U.S. if we saw something like that on a wall we would cover it up. Why don’t you cover it up? Why don’t you paint over it and move on?”
Paint over it and move on? Paint over it and move on?! Is it really the responsibility of the oppressed to ignore what is happening to them so that members of the oppressor group can feel fine about themselves as long as they’re not the ones with the paint on their hands? Is it the responsibility of Iraqis to forget the American occupation, of people of color to forget hundreds of years of racism that continue to this day, of women to forget rape, of GLBTQ people to forget hate crimes perpetrated against them?
Sixty years after the Nazi Holocaust, Jews and others from around the world continue to visit the concentration camps and death camps and to study the structures of the Nazi regime. In Hebron, people are being driven out of their homes and jobs TODAY, Palestinian children being stoned as they try to get to their schools TODAY, Jewish stars scrawled across their shops TODAY (coming from Jews, this time; as a show of power, this time), racist graffiti becomes a tangible mark of what is happening TODAY. How could we ever dare to demand that the oppressed forget their oppression even as they are living it?
We remember because we need to, we remember so that when we see these structures emerging, as they have over and over again throughout history and around the world, we can stop the oppression. Must we wait until there are death camps before making any comparisons? Is comparison simply an intellectual exercise, or is it a human tool we can use to stop ourselves from hurting each other?
“This happened. And it could happen again.”
The Israeli army has invaded the villages in the Salfit region every night for the past week, breaking glass, arresting men, beating women, shooting holes in framed verses of the Koran. My friends who are still at IWPS have seen all this, but I have not. Below I’ve written about experiences I have personally had, about topics and thoughts that have been particularly haunting me this week.
With as much love as I can muster up, Hannah
“This happened. And it could happen again.”
Houses demolished, villages unrecognized, not given water infrastructure or electricity or rights to their own land. The army had raided the village, had destroyed everything. And every person affected was an Israeli citizen. This particular story comes from a video filmed over 10 years ago, but the situation is the same today. Palestinians with Israeli citizenship do not have the same rights as Jews. Internally displaced refugees remain unrecognized in the communities they have tried to build after being denied the internationally recognized right to return to their original land. There is nothing complicated about the situation. There is nothing complicated about most of what happens here. “Complicated” is a word people use to excuse human rights abuses. “Complicated” is a word people use so they can be openly racist in thought and action, with no repercussions. After all, the Jews were victims once.
“This happened. And it could happen again.”
We visit Saffourieh, one of the largest Palestinian villages before 1948, one of the few that was actually bombed from the air. The village was then surrounded on three sides by Zionist militant groups, leaving the northern route open – and people took it, escaping to Lebanon and Syria. There is now a Moshav called Tzipori that sits on top of the destroyed village, along with 7 other Jewish settlements.
Our tour guide is from Saffourieh, which is to say his family is from Saffourieh, his father an infant in 1948 when his family fled. His dream is to move back and farm the land. Since he can’t, he does small projects, finding village remains and weeding around the cemetery so at least history doesn’t forget the village’s dead. He leaves work early to accommodate the schedules of a group of North American Jews, so he can share his story and show us the land.
And the pictures.
One picture from 1945 of a hill filled with hundreds of houses, a small castle sitting at the top. The castle remains, and the rest of the hill is now a pine forest, as foreign to this land as the American Jews who grew up paying for the trees quarter by quarter in our weekly tzedakah collection at synagogue. The trees a way to cover up any evidence of the thriving community that existed before. “How can the Jews remember 2000 years," asked a nakba survivor who spoke with us, “and expect us to forget 50 or 60?”
“This happened. And it could happen again.”
On a wall in the old city of Hebron, on a street that used to be the market and has been shut down by soldiers and settlers over the years, we find graffiti written in Hebrew, directed towards the Palestinians whose homes and shops are being defiled. “What’s the difference between an Arab and a trampoline?” it asks. And answers: “On a trampoline you jump without shoes.” I saw it last year, and again last week. It has chipped away slightly, but is still readable. From our group comes a question: “Why don’t Palestinians cover this up?” From our tour guide, a response: “If I had my say I’d frame it.” At that the questioner becomes emotional: “In the U.S. if we saw something like that on a wall we would cover it up. Why don’t you cover it up? Why don’t you paint over it and move on?”
Paint over it and move on? Paint over it and move on?! Is it really the responsibility of the oppressed to ignore what is happening to them so that members of the oppressor group can feel fine about themselves as long as they’re not the ones with the paint on their hands? Is it the responsibility of Iraqis to forget the American occupation, of people of color to forget hundreds of years of racism that continue to this day, of women to forget rape, of GLBTQ people to forget hate crimes perpetrated against them?
Sixty years after the Nazi Holocaust, Jews and others from around the world continue to visit the concentration camps and death camps and to study the structures of the Nazi regime. In Hebron, people are being driven out of their homes and jobs TODAY, Palestinian children being stoned as they try to get to their schools TODAY, Jewish stars scrawled across their shops TODAY (coming from Jews, this time; as a show of power, this time), racist graffiti becomes a tangible mark of what is happening TODAY. How could we ever dare to demand that the oppressed forget their oppression even as they are living it?
We remember because we need to, we remember so that when we see these structures emerging, as they have over and over again throughout history and around the world, we can stop the oppression. Must we wait until there are death camps before making any comparisons? Is comparison simply an intellectual exercise, or is it a human tool we can use to stop ourselves from hurting each other?
“This happened. And it could happen again.”
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