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
Friday, July 23, 2004
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
Thursday, June 24, 2004
Trapped
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
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
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
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