A few days ago we met with Meydad Ashkenazi of the DCL (District Coordinating Liaison), one of the higher-ups in the military around here. Actually, he claimed that the DCL was more of a civilian body and that he had little to do directly with the military, which made us wonder why he wore an army uniform and carried a gun. Before 2000, there were two bodies : the DCO (District Coordination Office) dealt with the military, and the DCL dealt with the civilian population. People still refer to the DCO today, but in fact they both merged into the DCL in 2000, blurring the distinction even more between military and civilian.
The most interesting, honest, and disturbing thing Meydad told us is that the Israeli army’s official policy is collective punishment. He didn’t use these words, of course. We had asked him why there have been so many army incursions into Hares and Marda in the past few weeks, and his response was the following: The army strategy is to make our presence known in all of the villages in the area. We try to throw as many sounds bombs and as much tear gas as possible, because 98% of the people want peace and oppose stone-throwing, and we want those 98% to encourage all the children not to throw stones. Kate asked if he realized that he just said the army’s official policy was to violate international law by using collective punishment. ‘It’s not exactly collective punishment,’ he responded. ‘It’s more like pressure on the population.’
‘This is democracy,’ I thought, repeating the phrase I’ve heard so many Palestinians say in the same sarcastic tone every time the army throws tear gas and sound bombs, destroys homes, beats people at checkpoints, opens fire on peaceful demonstrations, and arrests and detains people indefinitely with no charges.
Today I went with our friend and landlord to the northern part of Jenin where his son Rabia was to appear in court. Rabia was taken by Israel’s secret police two months ago and his parents hadn’t seen him since. Today was the day the court was to present charges. The drive was absolutely beautiful, and the amount of bright green, in addition to the olive green of the rest of Palestine, surprised me. We had some good conversation on our way, and arrived at the gate of the military base around 9 :30 Palestine time, 8 :30 Israeli time (Israelis changed their clocks on Tuesday night, but Palestinians have not yet done so, causing much confusion in meetings that have both Palestinians and Israelis). The gate of the military base is also the gate of the Wall, which is a series of fences and roads in this part of Jenin. Women were passing through first, so I went to the front of the line to try to get through, though it is strict policy only to let family members into the court sessions. I talked my way through the first checkpoint using my new fancy IWPS ID (we decided that if we pretend to be official, the soldiers might not know the difference, so an Israeli anarchist friend of ours designed IDs for us). At the second security check, the soldiers didn’t ask me anything or take my ID for about 5 minutes, and then suddenly an officer handed me a phone. ‘Hello ?’ I said. ‘Hello ?’ the man on the other line replied. This went on for a minute until I said, ‘I don’t know why I’m on the phone with you.’ ‘Why are you here ?’ he asked. ‘For the court,’ I replied. ‘Oh, for the court ? Give me the soldier.’ I handed the phone back. Apparently the soldier didn’t think to ask me why I was there but assumed it wasn’t for the court (even though everyone else was there for this reason). There was a bit more hassle when they found out I wasn’t family, but finally let me through because Rabia’s mother was not visiting, only his father.
We all went to a new waiting area outside a small building we could only assume was the court. Several of the women were crying. Abu Rabia listened to people’s conversations and occasionally translated for me. One couple talked about how one of their sons had been in prison, and another son went to see him. When that son arrived, he was arrested. The family was now here to see this second son.
The soldiers finally started bringing the prisoners into the room, and a few people stood up to see if they could find their sons or husbands. ‘Sit down !’ the soldiers would yell in Arabic. The whole day was full of random commands that made me wonder if the soldiers had really lost all their humanity or if they were simply practicing the rude phrases they knew in Arabic. ‘Shut up’ was another big one, which one soldier barked at a woman who said to her son, ‘Alla maak’ (God is with you) on his way out of the courtroom.
The most frustrating aspect of the day was the setup of the courtroom and the placement of the prisoners and their families. The prisoners were all brought into a tiny pen in the corner of the front of the room. The judge (a military officer) and other soldiers and lawyers sat in the front. In the opposite back corner, the families were forced to squish together on benches. If someone tried to move to one of the empty benches that was closer to his or her relative, the soldiers would yell and threaten to kick the person out of the courtroom. Completely arbitrary.
Three of the prisoners were women, and the soldiers escorted them to a different part of the room. I have to say that even though I knew there were women prisoners, it was slightly jarring for me to see people who looked like ‘typical’ Palestinian Muslim women, hijab and all, in handcuffs and shackles. The number of female soldiers surprised me less, although when I saw that most were wearing sandals instead of boots, I wondered if these were the ‘cushy jobs’ that I hear women so often get in the army. The judge was also a woman, and she looked more like a movie star than anything. Come to think of it, she looked a little like Amy Brenneman of Judging Amy.
As expected, we learned very little in court today. Rabia’s lawyer was presented with papers in Hebrew ; presumably these are Rabia’s charges. His next court date is November 24. This means he’ll be in prison for more than 4 months before even being able to argue his case in a court. He has it better than the hundreds in administrative detention, but he’s certainly a victim and not a beneficiary of Israel’s supposed democracy.
Meanwhile, Palestine is attempting to prepare for its first general election since 1996, and Israel is doing everything it can to prevent democracy from taking hold here. Two of us met with an election commissioner in Ramallah a couple weeks ago, and I must admit I was more excited by the meeting than I had expected to be. I don’t usually have much faith in electoral processes, but this seemed very hopeful and forward-thinking to me. I take our system for granted in the US and have never quite realized what it takes to set up an electoral democracy. He explained all the issues to us, and ways they’ll accomodate people who don’t have Palestinian ID. Many Palestinians came back during the Oslo years from Venezuela, for example, and now have only their Venezuelan passports and expired visas. They can’t leave their villages for fear of being caught and deported by Israeli authorities, but they will be taken into account by this election process if they can prove residency. Abu Rabia also told me that prisoners will be able to vote by proxy. I explained to him that prisoners in the US cannot vote, and that even when people are freed, some of them are never allowed to vote again (convicted felons in many states). Democracy, eh?
The registration process is happening this month and is being heavily monitored by international observers. The list of eligible voters will be revised and elections will be held sometime next year (if Arafat ever gets around to setting a date for them).
Israeli authorities have raided several registration offices in the West Bank, and have specifically gone out of their way to break into and shut down centers all over the Jerusalem area, so as to deny Jerusalemites their Palestinian identity and intimidate them into not registering. Another excellent example of democracy.
I’ll end on a positive note with a story that exemplifies the democracy I truly believe in : citizen participation in society. A group of Israelis from Shalom Achshav (Peace Now) dismantled a settlement outpost last week. They used a crane to take a few containers in order to ‘demonstrate to the Israeli public that it is possible to dismantle outposts.’ Good for them !
Below I’m including an excerpt from a daily e-mail we get called ‘Today in Palestine,’ a compilation of articles from various media sources. To subscribe, e-mail Shadi at f_shadi@yahoo.com.
Today in Palestine (Sept 21):
U.S. to sell Israel 5,000 smart bombs The Pentagon told Congress that the bombs are mea! nt to maintain Israel's qualitative advantage, and advance U.S. strategic and tactical interests. Among the bombs the air force will get are 500 one-ton bunker busters that can penetrate two-meter-thick cement walls; 2,500 regular one-ton bombs; 1,000 half-ton bombs; and 500 quarter-ton bombs. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/479587.html
Three Palestinains shot in Anti Wall Protest in Budrus Three Palestinians were wounded in the village of Budrus in clashes with soldiers on Tuesday morning during a protest against the construction of the West Bank separation wall. Five left-wing Israeli activists were also arrested in the protest. Israel resumed construction on Monday, after a long halt forced by the High Court order to re-route the wall section http://www.imemc.org/headlines/2004/September/week3/092104/budrus.htm
Rasmi Sweity from Beit Awa/Um Khashrom: "This is Our Third Expulsion" Apartheid Wall which is being built by the Occupation steels land and property, and has taken all of ! my lands and leaves me nothing, not for my brothers nor for my family. This is the land that we live off of, our main source of income and we do not have another source. Where do we go? They expelled us one time (1948), and a second time (1967), and this is the third http://stopthewall.org/communityvoices/757.shtml
Six Palestinian Women Arrested by Israeli Troops in Nablus The Israeli occupation forces arrested in less than a month six Palestinian women from the West Bank city of Nablus, IPC correspondent reported. According to data collected by IPC, the Israeli troops arrested the women between August 26 and September 16, in separate incidents. http://www.ipc.gov.ps/ipc_e/ipc_e-1/e_News/news2004/2004_09/123.html
Syria says it supports intra-Palestinian dialogue "Syria wishes the Palestinian dialogue to be successful, because any dialogue would lead to unifying our positions, consequently, to achieve the natural aspirations of the Palestinian people," al-Abrash said. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=479646&contrassID=1&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
Egypt asks PNA to unite Fatah movement Palestinian sources said Tuesday Egypt had asked the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to unite Fatah movement led by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat before starting any expanded Palestinian dialogue. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-09/21/content_2004350.htm
Thursday, September 23, 2004
Thursday, September 16, 2004
Peace Begins at Home
I began thinking about a New Year’s message this week as Rosh Hashana approached. Last year during this time, the West Bank was under closure for the entire month of Jewish holidays, starting with Rosh Hashana. This year, closure has again been announced, although it does not seem to be as severely enforced yet. More flying checkpoints dot the roads, but Palestinian cars still seem to be able to drive on them.
Last year I sent a message calling for a collective New Year’s resolution to stop the Wall. I asked you to call your American officials to try to influence an upcoming vote. Since then, Bush has come out in full support of the Wall, pushed in part by Kerry to do so. The international community is playing around with opposition to the Wall, and even discussing sanctions against Israel, although I’m not sure anyone will have the courage to do it while the US continues its position. The International Court of Justice ruled that the Wall is illegal and needs to be dismantled. Meanwhile, the Israeli Supreme Court just ruled that the section in the town of Aram can begin again, and in no time, the Wall was erected in the middle of the road, separating Palestinians on one side of the street in Aram from those on the other.
So we haven’t stopped the Wall yet, we haven’t ended the occupation, and I’m not so sure what kind of New Year’s resolution to make at this time. What I do know is that we probably had the only Rosh Hashana dinner in a West Bank Palestinian village last night. We made eggplant parmesan. Dorothy, an Israeli friend, brought lasagna and grape juice (an acceptable substitute for wine considering we live in a Muslim village). And of course, we had plenty of apples and honey and other desserts. Fatima, the main Palestinian organizer who we work with, came over with her 5 kids, who all thought the food was quite strange but ate it anyway. That is, except for 9-year-old Baraa’, the youngest one. She liked the grape juice and the cookies, but didn’t eat much else.
We sat around eating, talking, playing a few games with the kids (actually, helping the boys connect to the internet games they wanted to play). The older girls have beautiful voices and sang a couple songs for us. The evening was simple and sweet. 6 Palestinians, 2 Israelis, 3 Jewish internationals, and 4 other internationals shared a beautiful meal together in Hares in honor of the New Year. Certainly peace begins at home.
A healthy, happy, inspiring, peaceful and just New Year to you all,
Hannah
P.S. Last year I sent you an Arabic phrase of the week in each report. I haven’t been doing it this time, but there’s one I want to share. On Rosh Hashana, Jews traditionally say, “Shana tova” to each other, meaning “A good year” in Hebrew. Fatima adapted a traditional Arabic phrase for the occasion, saying, “Kull sane w’inti taybe.” You can use it liberally this week.
Last year I sent a message calling for a collective New Year’s resolution to stop the Wall. I asked you to call your American officials to try to influence an upcoming vote. Since then, Bush has come out in full support of the Wall, pushed in part by Kerry to do so. The international community is playing around with opposition to the Wall, and even discussing sanctions against Israel, although I’m not sure anyone will have the courage to do it while the US continues its position. The International Court of Justice ruled that the Wall is illegal and needs to be dismantled. Meanwhile, the Israeli Supreme Court just ruled that the section in the town of Aram can begin again, and in no time, the Wall was erected in the middle of the road, separating Palestinians on one side of the street in Aram from those on the other.
So we haven’t stopped the Wall yet, we haven’t ended the occupation, and I’m not so sure what kind of New Year’s resolution to make at this time. What I do know is that we probably had the only Rosh Hashana dinner in a West Bank Palestinian village last night. We made eggplant parmesan. Dorothy, an Israeli friend, brought lasagna and grape juice (an acceptable substitute for wine considering we live in a Muslim village). And of course, we had plenty of apples and honey and other desserts. Fatima, the main Palestinian organizer who we work with, came over with her 5 kids, who all thought the food was quite strange but ate it anyway. That is, except for 9-year-old Baraa’, the youngest one. She liked the grape juice and the cookies, but didn’t eat much else.
We sat around eating, talking, playing a few games with the kids (actually, helping the boys connect to the internet games they wanted to play). The older girls have beautiful voices and sang a couple songs for us. The evening was simple and sweet. 6 Palestinians, 2 Israelis, 3 Jewish internationals, and 4 other internationals shared a beautiful meal together in Hares in honor of the New Year. Certainly peace begins at home.
A healthy, happy, inspiring, peaceful and just New Year to you all,
Hannah
P.S. Last year I sent you an Arabic phrase of the week in each report. I haven’t been doing it this time, but there’s one I want to share. On Rosh Hashana, Jews traditionally say, “Shana tova” to each other, meaning “A good year” in Hebrew. Fatima adapted a traditional Arabic phrase for the occasion, saying, “Kull sane w’inti taybe.” You can use it liberally this week.
Thursday, September 09, 2004
Too Much Death
Dear Friends,
I have a dilemma.
I know you’re all busy and can’t read several reports a day, but I’m afraid that nobody knows how many people are dying in Palestine every day. It saddens me and angers me to know that the Israeli army is literally getting away with murder day after day, hour after hour, and most people don’t pay attention. There are too few journalists and internationals in the area, but the ones who are here are carefully documenting the events, and I receive many accounts each day of little girls shot dead while sitting at their desks in school, boys dead because they’re on the wrong street at the wrong time, indiscriminate shooting and shelling of neighborhoods, and more. I read these reports and I think, “I can’t send them all, nobody will read them.” But then I know there still exists the myth that the Israeli army only kills ‘militants’ (whatever that means). The girl sitting at her desk was an accident, I suppose they’d say, but how many thousands of accidents must there be before we change our language and our consciousness? The old woman shot in Hares last month was ‘an accident’ also, and besides, says the army, it hasn’t even been proven that we’re the ones who shot her. How much history, or present reality, can be written and re-written before the world wakes up?
So I worry that if I only send one report every once in a while, or if I only send what I see with my own eyes, you’ll think, “Oh, that’s the exception.” After all, you do receive news of every Israeli killed. So maybe you assume that you also receive news of all the Palestinians killed, or at least the big invasions. In this past 6 months between the suicide bombing in March and the one in Beer Sheva last week, which the media is referring to as a ‘lull’ in violence, approximately 400 Palestinian civilians were killed by the Israeli army. 400! But of course I can’t send reports of them all. The truth is too much to accept, I think. Unfortunately, Palestinians are forced into acceptance every day.
Why am I writing this today? It hits me harder, I suppose, on a day when the army has invaded our village twice: the first time, breaking the door of the school’s courtyard and throwing tear gas and sound bombs at the children, and the second time throwing sound bombs and shooting live ammunition on the streets of Hares. How many times can we chase the army through the village trying to take pictures and get them to stop what they’re doing? How many times can we call our Israeli friends and ask them to call army officials to inquire about the army’s terrorism of these small villages?
I think it’s possible that our presence here still does something, that if the army sees us, it will mean the difference between shooting to kill and the simple everyday terrorism that they’re so fond of. The problem is that there are too few of us, and we’re in too few places. Palestine needs several thousand human rights observers, at the very least to try to reduce the number of deaths until the rest of the world wakes up to this craziness.
Many Palestinians have told me that if the rest of the world simply backed off, Israelis and Palestinians would be forced to solve this on their own. And even that they could. Of course, the power differential between them is still huge, but if the backing off of the rest of the world meant an end to US funding to Israel ($15 million per day, mostly to the military), there’s no way Israel could continue what it’s doing. This doesn’t seem to be forthcoming, however, so it’s our responsibility as US citizens to engage.
What else can I say? I have no hope to offer you today, but if you have any for me, feel free to send it. And for those of you who are older and wiser and have lived and worked through more human-caused disasters, I welcome any lessons in patience or effectiveness. All I can think of to do now is to make sure the people I know will never be able to say, “I didn’t know.”
Love to all,
Hannah
I have a dilemma.
I know you’re all busy and can’t read several reports a day, but I’m afraid that nobody knows how many people are dying in Palestine every day. It saddens me and angers me to know that the Israeli army is literally getting away with murder day after day, hour after hour, and most people don’t pay attention. There are too few journalists and internationals in the area, but the ones who are here are carefully documenting the events, and I receive many accounts each day of little girls shot dead while sitting at their desks in school, boys dead because they’re on the wrong street at the wrong time, indiscriminate shooting and shelling of neighborhoods, and more. I read these reports and I think, “I can’t send them all, nobody will read them.” But then I know there still exists the myth that the Israeli army only kills ‘militants’ (whatever that means). The girl sitting at her desk was an accident, I suppose they’d say, but how many thousands of accidents must there be before we change our language and our consciousness? The old woman shot in Hares last month was ‘an accident’ also, and besides, says the army, it hasn’t even been proven that we’re the ones who shot her. How much history, or present reality, can be written and re-written before the world wakes up?
So I worry that if I only send one report every once in a while, or if I only send what I see with my own eyes, you’ll think, “Oh, that’s the exception.” After all, you do receive news of every Israeli killed. So maybe you assume that you also receive news of all the Palestinians killed, or at least the big invasions. In this past 6 months between the suicide bombing in March and the one in Beer Sheva last week, which the media is referring to as a ‘lull’ in violence, approximately 400 Palestinian civilians were killed by the Israeli army. 400! But of course I can’t send reports of them all. The truth is too much to accept, I think. Unfortunately, Palestinians are forced into acceptance every day.
Why am I writing this today? It hits me harder, I suppose, on a day when the army has invaded our village twice: the first time, breaking the door of the school’s courtyard and throwing tear gas and sound bombs at the children, and the second time throwing sound bombs and shooting live ammunition on the streets of Hares. How many times can we chase the army through the village trying to take pictures and get them to stop what they’re doing? How many times can we call our Israeli friends and ask them to call army officials to inquire about the army’s terrorism of these small villages?
I think it’s possible that our presence here still does something, that if the army sees us, it will mean the difference between shooting to kill and the simple everyday terrorism that they’re so fond of. The problem is that there are too few of us, and we’re in too few places. Palestine needs several thousand human rights observers, at the very least to try to reduce the number of deaths until the rest of the world wakes up to this craziness.
Many Palestinians have told me that if the rest of the world simply backed off, Israelis and Palestinians would be forced to solve this on their own. And even that they could. Of course, the power differential between them is still huge, but if the backing off of the rest of the world meant an end to US funding to Israel ($15 million per day, mostly to the military), there’s no way Israel could continue what it’s doing. This doesn’t seem to be forthcoming, however, so it’s our responsibility as US citizens to engage.
What else can I say? I have no hope to offer you today, but if you have any for me, feel free to send it. And for those of you who are older and wiser and have lived and worked through more human-caused disasters, I welcome any lessons in patience or effectiveness. All I can think of to do now is to make sure the people I know will never be able to say, “I didn’t know.”
Love to all,
Hannah
Sunday, September 05, 2004
Simple Thoughts
Sometimes my thoughts are so simple that I think there may actually be some truth to them. Last night I went up to the roof of our house to try to make a phone call, and I stood for a couple minutes feeling the nice breeze, watching the stars and the moon, seeing the cars and lights on the road. Of course, I know the lights line only the Israeli-built bypass roads and the perimeters of the settlements, but in the split second before the politics entered my mind, I felt peaceful. And then sad. Wondering why we can’t all get along, why we can’t all agree to value justice and freedom and let the rest take care of itself.
We had gotten a call about a half hour earlier from a friend in Marda, who told us that the army had entered the village and was randomly throwing sound bombs. After the call we talked briefly in the house: do we go or not? This happens several times a week, we can’t always respond everytime the army enters a village. But what if they’re targeting somebody? What if there’s something we can do? We called an Israeli friend and asked him to call the army to check on it. Our phone rang again. Now the army had taken a 15-year-old boy from his home and left the village. Another house discussion. This also happens quite often, and what can we really do at this point anyway? Last time they took a 12-year-old boy from Marda, drove him around for a few hours, and brought him back. The family was happy to have IWPS in the village, as the mother was understandably freaking out. But did we do anything? What’s the measure of effectiveness? Tonight, they’re likely to drive the 15-year-old around, beat him up a little, and bring him back. We could go meet the family, let them know we’re working on it, that if he’s not back in the morning we’ll get a lawyer on it right away. Maybe a few phone calls now can alleviate some of the beating he might get later. We ended up calling the family and deciding not to go. Another 20 minutes passed, and another phone call: They haven’t brought the boy back, but now the army is back with bulldozers and they’re cutting down trees. We called a driver, and a few of us got dressed and went to spend the night.
When does it end? I think at times like these. The daily offenses, the measure of what becomes acceptable, or at least accepted. Yesterday we were driving on the road to Qalqilya, and I noticed a street sign for a settlement. In Hebrew and English was the name of the settlement. In Arabic the name had been crossed out and written instead, in Hebrew, was “Death to Arabs.” What struck me was not the blatant racism, but the fact that I see it so often and usually don’t even think twice about it. It may not be acceptable, but it’s certainly accepted. I think about it in other contexts, and I can’t imagine all this racist graffiti going unmentioned in the newspapers, uninvestigated by human rights groups, unnoticed by a society. It’s called hate speech in the US, incitement to violence, something I would associate with the Klan. But here it’s accepted, here it’s expected.
By the time our IWPS members arrived in Marda last night, the army had left. The tree-cutting operation was quick, as random tree-cutting at night tends to be (unless whole areas of land are being destroyed for construction of the Wall, which is not the case – yet – in Marda). One can only imagine that the army’s justification for cutting the trees, if they had felt inspired to give one, would have been that trees provide cover for boys throwing stones. The army’s arguments are becoming more and more circular these days.
IWPS: Why are you in this village?
Soldier: A boy threw a stone at us.
IWPS: If you weren’t here, he couldn’t throw a stone at you.
Soldier: We’re protecting our citizens.
IWPS: Your citizens shouldn’t be occupying other people’s land.
Soldier: Israel doesn’t recognize this as other people’s land. etc.
Everything is circular. As my colleague Kate has pointed out, their presence justifies their presence. Remove them from the situation and things would improve 100-fold. Many of the soldiers know this. These are the ones who use a different argument: “I’m just following orders, my boss told me to do this, don’t blame me, blame my government…”
I think about the stone-throwing. It’s probably true that kids in Marda occasionally throw stones towards the settler road that has been built next to their village, through their land. But has it really been happening any more in the past couple months than ever before? I doubt it. I think political motives are behind the targeting of Marda. It’s a village stuck between the settlement of Ariel and the road that was built to connect Ariel to Israel and bisect the West Bank into north and south. Nobody knows if the Wall will be built above or below Marda, if they’ll be in or out. Colleagues and I think they’re warning Marda (‘resistance is futile’), testing Marda (how much will they take, what will be their response?), and provoking Marda (if they can get the Israeli or international public to believe there’s a danger coming from the area, they’ll be able to justify the Wall much more easily).
But that’s neither here nor there. The real issue to me is how stone-throwing can be seen to justify sound bombs, tear gas, shooting, uprooting of trees, arrest, and torture. It’s one more reminder to me that the oppressed are always held to a higher standard than the oppressor, because they’ve already been dehumanized and thus have to prove they’re perfect in order to regain human status in the oppressor’s eyes. And in world opinion.
I’m tired of the politics. I have little patience for them these days. Instead, I find myself thinking my simple thoughts: Why can’t we all get along? Why can’t the settlers and soldiers just leave, and let these societies begin to heal? Why the hell haven’t we found a way to stop this crazy thing we call war?
We had gotten a call about a half hour earlier from a friend in Marda, who told us that the army had entered the village and was randomly throwing sound bombs. After the call we talked briefly in the house: do we go or not? This happens several times a week, we can’t always respond everytime the army enters a village. But what if they’re targeting somebody? What if there’s something we can do? We called an Israeli friend and asked him to call the army to check on it. Our phone rang again. Now the army had taken a 15-year-old boy from his home and left the village. Another house discussion. This also happens quite often, and what can we really do at this point anyway? Last time they took a 12-year-old boy from Marda, drove him around for a few hours, and brought him back. The family was happy to have IWPS in the village, as the mother was understandably freaking out. But did we do anything? What’s the measure of effectiveness? Tonight, they’re likely to drive the 15-year-old around, beat him up a little, and bring him back. We could go meet the family, let them know we’re working on it, that if he’s not back in the morning we’ll get a lawyer on it right away. Maybe a few phone calls now can alleviate some of the beating he might get later. We ended up calling the family and deciding not to go. Another 20 minutes passed, and another phone call: They haven’t brought the boy back, but now the army is back with bulldozers and they’re cutting down trees. We called a driver, and a few of us got dressed and went to spend the night.
When does it end? I think at times like these. The daily offenses, the measure of what becomes acceptable, or at least accepted. Yesterday we were driving on the road to Qalqilya, and I noticed a street sign for a settlement. In Hebrew and English was the name of the settlement. In Arabic the name had been crossed out and written instead, in Hebrew, was “Death to Arabs.” What struck me was not the blatant racism, but the fact that I see it so often and usually don’t even think twice about it. It may not be acceptable, but it’s certainly accepted. I think about it in other contexts, and I can’t imagine all this racist graffiti going unmentioned in the newspapers, uninvestigated by human rights groups, unnoticed by a society. It’s called hate speech in the US, incitement to violence, something I would associate with the Klan. But here it’s accepted, here it’s expected.
By the time our IWPS members arrived in Marda last night, the army had left. The tree-cutting operation was quick, as random tree-cutting at night tends to be (unless whole areas of land are being destroyed for construction of the Wall, which is not the case – yet – in Marda). One can only imagine that the army’s justification for cutting the trees, if they had felt inspired to give one, would have been that trees provide cover for boys throwing stones. The army’s arguments are becoming more and more circular these days.
IWPS: Why are you in this village?
Soldier: A boy threw a stone at us.
IWPS: If you weren’t here, he couldn’t throw a stone at you.
Soldier: We’re protecting our citizens.
IWPS: Your citizens shouldn’t be occupying other people’s land.
Soldier: Israel doesn’t recognize this as other people’s land. etc.
Everything is circular. As my colleague Kate has pointed out, their presence justifies their presence. Remove them from the situation and things would improve 100-fold. Many of the soldiers know this. These are the ones who use a different argument: “I’m just following orders, my boss told me to do this, don’t blame me, blame my government…”
I think about the stone-throwing. It’s probably true that kids in Marda occasionally throw stones towards the settler road that has been built next to their village, through their land. But has it really been happening any more in the past couple months than ever before? I doubt it. I think political motives are behind the targeting of Marda. It’s a village stuck between the settlement of Ariel and the road that was built to connect Ariel to Israel and bisect the West Bank into north and south. Nobody knows if the Wall will be built above or below Marda, if they’ll be in or out. Colleagues and I think they’re warning Marda (‘resistance is futile’), testing Marda (how much will they take, what will be their response?), and provoking Marda (if they can get the Israeli or international public to believe there’s a danger coming from the area, they’ll be able to justify the Wall much more easily).
But that’s neither here nor there. The real issue to me is how stone-throwing can be seen to justify sound bombs, tear gas, shooting, uprooting of trees, arrest, and torture. It’s one more reminder to me that the oppressed are always held to a higher standard than the oppressor, because they’ve already been dehumanized and thus have to prove they’re perfect in order to regain human status in the oppressor’s eyes. And in world opinion.
I’m tired of the politics. I have little patience for them these days. Instead, I find myself thinking my simple thoughts: Why can’t we all get along? Why can’t the settlers and soldiers just leave, and let these societies begin to heal? Why the hell haven’t we found a way to stop this crazy thing we call war?
Sunday, August 29, 2004
Hunger Strikes and More
Dear friends,
The Boston delegation has left and I have a couple days off before going back to work in Hares, so I guess there’s no excuse not to write. These two weeks have been stressful but truly incredible. The stress comes from helping to plan and lead a group of people around a place in which it is impossible to plan ahead or know how long it might take to get from place to place on any given day. I feel really blessed to have been able to do this, though, both to share my knowledge, experiences, and relationships with the folks from Boston and also to meet new people and see new places.
I think the condensed West Bank experience helps elucidate the real issues of occupation. Almost every place we went has been or will be severely affected by the Wall. In rural areas the loss of land is by far the most significant issue. Israel continues to operate with a policy of “maximum land, minimum people,” meaning that the Wall is often built between villages’ lands and their buildings, effectively annexing the land into Israel while leaving the people in the West Bank. Already farmers question the monetary value of harvesting their crops, in part because the system of roadblocks and checkpoints make it virtually impossible to transport Palestinian goods from place to place. Israeli trucks pass with no problem and Israeli goods flood the Palestinian market. Now, with the Wall separating Palestinians from their land and requiring them to get permits to pass through at designated times (which are not always respected) and with designated people (who are not always respected), farmers are almost positive that working their land will provide them with a net loss. The problem: if they don’t harvest their land for three years, Israel can “legally” claim it as state land, meaning Jewish-only land. Perhaps you can begin to see how the system works.
Urban areas face similar issues, although we hear the word “unemployment” far more often. The Wall is just one more obstruction to freedom of movement and thus access to employment, one more blow to a population who has received far too many blows already.
And of course, in both urban and rural areas, both Muslim and Christian areas, the prison issue is never far from people’s minds. Between 650,000 and 700,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967. This comprises about 20% of the population, and since a vast majority of them are men, this means that about 40% of Palestinian men have been in prison. Very few of them have had civil trials. Military tribunals are the rule of law here. The judges and lawyers are military officers who, until recently, were not required to have had any legal training to assume these posts. The defense lawyers are often not allowed to communicate with their clients and neither the lawyer nor the accused is allowed to attend the proceedings or see any of the evidence (if there is any) against the accused. In fact, no evidence is needed if two witnesses testify against someone. So if a 14 year old boy is arrested and the army can convince two of his friends to testify that he threw a stone at a jeep, the boy could spend a few years in prison. Then there’s administrative detention, where any Palestinian can be held without charges for a period of 6 months, and that 6-month period is indefinitely renewable. Sound familiar to any Americans out there? It seems like the US has been learning a little something from Israel (many people said this after the Abu Ghraib story broke, since the methods of torture used there were so similar to the methods of torture Israel has used against Palestinians for years).
The military orders themselves, upon which all of this is based, are constantly updated and not often publicized. For example, the military keeps a list of banned books for which Palestinians can be imprisoned for possessing. One of them is a list of UN resolutions on the issue of Palestine. No commentary, no analysis, just the list.
I’m writing so much about the prisoner issue here not only because it is one near and dear to my heart, but because the 7,500 Palestinian prisoners who are currently being held in Israeli jails are on their 15th day of a hunger strike. It overwhelms me when I really think about it, and makes me incredibly upset when I realize that the mainstream world press has virtually ignored this and I’m not even sure that most of you know about the strike.
The hunger strike is different than previous ones of years past. They have no political demands (for instance, their release), but instead a whole list of humanitarian demands. They want adequate food and water, they want the Israeli guards to stop throwing tear gas into their prison cells, they want medical care, they want their families to be able to visit them. Israel’s response has been, “Let them die.” The guards have taken to barbecuing meat in front of the fasting prisoners, and, more significantly, refusing to give them salt. Apparently a little bit of salt in water can prevent the human stomach from deteriorating completely. Many prisoners have been taken to the hospital already, and every day I wait to hear news of prisoner deaths. I don’t think there have been any so far, but it’s only a matter of time.
Our delegation visited the prisoner solidarity tents in many cities and villages, and found women, men, and children sitting and fasting from dawn to dusk as they held framed pictures of their loved ones in prison. Most of them want to tell us their stories. They tell us how the soldiers barged into their houses at night, beat them and/or their children, threw their food on the floor and stamped on it, poured water on their furniture, and, most importantly, took their sons away. Most have not been able to visit. The Red Cross is the only organization that can obtain visitor permits for relatives, and, in my opinion, they could be a bit more effective in this task.
I don’t know if all this information will be too matter-of-fact to affect you or if it will overwhelm you on a human level the same way it does for me everytime I hear a woman tell me her family’s story. Often I think of a Holly Near song in which she sings about a Latin American friend who had been disappeared and tortured. The only line I remember now is, “I cannot bear to hear your story.” (If anyone knows this song will you send me the lyrics?)
I had planned to discuss more people, places, and issues in this report, but I think instead I’ll try to get all my pictures up on my online photo album when I get back to Hares and then send you the link. Until then, please give a few moments of your time to think of those living under occupation here, and specifically those in prison and their families. And don’t forget those in the US – the thousands of people who have been in prison since September 11, 2001 or shortly thereafter simply for being from Arab countries, and the thousands of other political prisoners in our own midst (including 250 bicyclists arrested in New York yesterday and, I’m sure, many more to come in the next few days).
Love Hannah
The Boston delegation has left and I have a couple days off before going back to work in Hares, so I guess there’s no excuse not to write. These two weeks have been stressful but truly incredible. The stress comes from helping to plan and lead a group of people around a place in which it is impossible to plan ahead or know how long it might take to get from place to place on any given day. I feel really blessed to have been able to do this, though, both to share my knowledge, experiences, and relationships with the folks from Boston and also to meet new people and see new places.
I think the condensed West Bank experience helps elucidate the real issues of occupation. Almost every place we went has been or will be severely affected by the Wall. In rural areas the loss of land is by far the most significant issue. Israel continues to operate with a policy of “maximum land, minimum people,” meaning that the Wall is often built between villages’ lands and their buildings, effectively annexing the land into Israel while leaving the people in the West Bank. Already farmers question the monetary value of harvesting their crops, in part because the system of roadblocks and checkpoints make it virtually impossible to transport Palestinian goods from place to place. Israeli trucks pass with no problem and Israeli goods flood the Palestinian market. Now, with the Wall separating Palestinians from their land and requiring them to get permits to pass through at designated times (which are not always respected) and with designated people (who are not always respected), farmers are almost positive that working their land will provide them with a net loss. The problem: if they don’t harvest their land for three years, Israel can “legally” claim it as state land, meaning Jewish-only land. Perhaps you can begin to see how the system works.
Urban areas face similar issues, although we hear the word “unemployment” far more often. The Wall is just one more obstruction to freedom of movement and thus access to employment, one more blow to a population who has received far too many blows already.
And of course, in both urban and rural areas, both Muslim and Christian areas, the prison issue is never far from people’s minds. Between 650,000 and 700,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967. This comprises about 20% of the population, and since a vast majority of them are men, this means that about 40% of Palestinian men have been in prison. Very few of them have had civil trials. Military tribunals are the rule of law here. The judges and lawyers are military officers who, until recently, were not required to have had any legal training to assume these posts. The defense lawyers are often not allowed to communicate with their clients and neither the lawyer nor the accused is allowed to attend the proceedings or see any of the evidence (if there is any) against the accused. In fact, no evidence is needed if two witnesses testify against someone. So if a 14 year old boy is arrested and the army can convince two of his friends to testify that he threw a stone at a jeep, the boy could spend a few years in prison. Then there’s administrative detention, where any Palestinian can be held without charges for a period of 6 months, and that 6-month period is indefinitely renewable. Sound familiar to any Americans out there? It seems like the US has been learning a little something from Israel (many people said this after the Abu Ghraib story broke, since the methods of torture used there were so similar to the methods of torture Israel has used against Palestinians for years).
The military orders themselves, upon which all of this is based, are constantly updated and not often publicized. For example, the military keeps a list of banned books for which Palestinians can be imprisoned for possessing. One of them is a list of UN resolutions on the issue of Palestine. No commentary, no analysis, just the list.
I’m writing so much about the prisoner issue here not only because it is one near and dear to my heart, but because the 7,500 Palestinian prisoners who are currently being held in Israeli jails are on their 15th day of a hunger strike. It overwhelms me when I really think about it, and makes me incredibly upset when I realize that the mainstream world press has virtually ignored this and I’m not even sure that most of you know about the strike.
The hunger strike is different than previous ones of years past. They have no political demands (for instance, their release), but instead a whole list of humanitarian demands. They want adequate food and water, they want the Israeli guards to stop throwing tear gas into their prison cells, they want medical care, they want their families to be able to visit them. Israel’s response has been, “Let them die.” The guards have taken to barbecuing meat in front of the fasting prisoners, and, more significantly, refusing to give them salt. Apparently a little bit of salt in water can prevent the human stomach from deteriorating completely. Many prisoners have been taken to the hospital already, and every day I wait to hear news of prisoner deaths. I don’t think there have been any so far, but it’s only a matter of time.
Our delegation visited the prisoner solidarity tents in many cities and villages, and found women, men, and children sitting and fasting from dawn to dusk as they held framed pictures of their loved ones in prison. Most of them want to tell us their stories. They tell us how the soldiers barged into their houses at night, beat them and/or their children, threw their food on the floor and stamped on it, poured water on their furniture, and, most importantly, took their sons away. Most have not been able to visit. The Red Cross is the only organization that can obtain visitor permits for relatives, and, in my opinion, they could be a bit more effective in this task.
I don’t know if all this information will be too matter-of-fact to affect you or if it will overwhelm you on a human level the same way it does for me everytime I hear a woman tell me her family’s story. Often I think of a Holly Near song in which she sings about a Latin American friend who had been disappeared and tortured. The only line I remember now is, “I cannot bear to hear your story.” (If anyone knows this song will you send me the lyrics?)
I had planned to discuss more people, places, and issues in this report, but I think instead I’ll try to get all my pictures up on my online photo album when I get back to Hares and then send you the link. Until then, please give a few moments of your time to think of those living under occupation here, and specifically those in prison and their families. And don’t forget those in the US – the thousands of people who have been in prison since September 11, 2001 or shortly thereafter simply for being from Arab countries, and the thousands of other political prisoners in our own midst (including 250 bicyclists arrested in New York yesterday and, I’m sure, many more to come in the next few days).
Love Hannah
Friday, August 20, 2004
From Pain Comes Poetry
I've been with this delegation from Boston for almost a week now, and it's been incredibly intense, incredibly stressful, and incredibly wonderful. We're taking a day off in Jerusalem today to catch up on sleep and gather our thoughts together. The group is a fascinating mix of people with a high level of creative energy, and I've felt my emotions open and my creative juices flow more in the past couple days than in a long time. And so, I will share with you two poems that I've written, and hope that you can read them out loud (I wrote them with this intention).
The first is called "Khalil," the Arabic name for the city that in Hebrew and English is usually called "Hebron." The second is a response to a very painful (for me) visit to the settlement of Bat Ayin, a right-wing ideological settlement strategically placed in the Gush Etzion block between Bethlehem and Hebron (and still referred to as 'the Jerusalem area'). One of our delegates has family living there because her cousin's husband is studying at the yeshiva on the settlement. We met with the rabbi of the yeshiva, and my poem is a response to him. In the third poem, I refer to Yad Vashem, which is Israel's Holocaust museum, and to Al Naqba, meaning 'the catastrophe' in Arabic and referring to the killing and displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the war of 1948 (what to Israel is the 'war of independence'). And I think that's all you need to know.
Khalil
"What's the difference between an Arab and a trampoline?"
the question, the set up, the joke begins
in Hebrew, on the wall of a Palestinian home
or a Palestinian store
where once there were people
where once there was life
and how can the people not hate in response?
but somehow they don't
somehow the Arabic words on the walls say instead
"Congratulations to you on your pilgrimage to Mecca"
and "My store has moved to the market outside"
sometimes the truth is so clear that it hurts
sometimes no response is necessary
the answer, the punch line, the joke ends
"On a trampoline you jump without shoes."
To Rabbi Natan Greenberg of Bat Ayin settlement
Why do you think there are armed guards outside our kindergartens?
you asked it rhetorically, Rabbi
you asked it so you could answer it
so you, who have never set foot in your Palestinian neighbor's village, could tell me that if you did, you would be dead in an hour
so you could tell me that if a Palestinian came to your colony, he would be fine, and in the next breath tell me that if a Palestinian came to your door, you would have to assume he was there to kill you and thus take appropriate action
Why do I think there are armed guards outside your kindergartens?
I think there are armed guards outside your kindergartens
because it helps to feed your myth of fear
because it helps to feed your fear of reality
Do you feel safer with the guns?
Do you tell me Jews are not a warlike people?
Do you tell me you hope you have never killed an innocent person but you can't be sure?
Do you believe there are innocent people?
Do you believe there are any other kind?
Why do I think there are armed guards outside your kindergartens?
I think there are armed guards outside your kindergartens
because it is easier to demonize the victims than to stop victimizing them
because you feel more powerful with an illusion of control than a reality of trust
because you cannot see beyond the walls of your own ghetto and the limitations of your own understanding
because "never again" means only one thing to you and you've copyrighted the phrase and stolen the experience of suffering from every other group of people on this earth
in your mind
because you don't know quite what to do with power but you're damn glad you have it and you have no intention of sharing it
or dismantling it
because myth creates privilege
and privilege creates blindness
and blindness creates you
because when myth becomes reality
it is that much more difficult to disarm
Why do I think there are armed guards outside your kindergartens?
because the view from Bat Ayin is beautiful
and you don't know your neighbor's name.
A poem with no name
street signs marking settlements
Hebrew, English, and
when not crossed out or faded,
Arabic
crossed out or faded
crossed out or faded
whitewashing street signs
whitewashing history
a mockery of the land
a mockery of the people
i'm starting to understand the importance of naming
i'm starting to understand why every refugee can tell me the name of her family's prior village and why this is often the answer to "where are you from?"
i'm starting to understand why every mother of every prisoner wants to tell me her son's name, his age, the details of his arrest, the prison where he is being held
the prison where he is being held
the prison that she most likely does not have permission to visit
i'm starting to understand why every martyr has a poster in his name, with his photograph, on the walls of every city, village and camp
the same cities, villages, and camps that the street signs forget
the same cities, villages, and camps that have been erased from the Israeli consciousness as quickly as you can say 1948
the same cities, villages, and camps that have been forgotten by history because thus far, history has been written by the winners
and thus far, justice has not won
i imagine a new permanent exhibit at Yad Vashem like the one they have now
the room of mirrors and candles
(or is it one candle reflected hundreds, thousands, six million, twelve million times?)
the room where, as you walk through, you hear the reciting of names
victims of the Nazi holocaust
names that are so many that the tape has yet to repeat itself
i imagine a room a bit like this
but a room instead in which every destroyed village is named
and every victim of Al Naqba is named
and every refugee is named
and every prisoner is named
and every prison is named
and every uprooted tree is named
and every demolished home is named
and every town trapped behind the Wall is named
and every victim of the Jewish psychosis of fear and particularism is named
including ourselves
and i imagine every Israeli, every Zionist, every Jew walking through that room
and seeing herself
and seeing himself
reflected in the mirrors, in the names, in the light of the candle
reflected in hundreds, thousands, millions
as many times as it takes
until there is not one more rabbi who can look me in the eye and say
"this settlement was built on empty land"
The first is called "Khalil," the Arabic name for the city that in Hebrew and English is usually called "Hebron." The second is a response to a very painful (for me) visit to the settlement of Bat Ayin, a right-wing ideological settlement strategically placed in the Gush Etzion block between Bethlehem and Hebron (and still referred to as 'the Jerusalem area'). One of our delegates has family living there because her cousin's husband is studying at the yeshiva on the settlement. We met with the rabbi of the yeshiva, and my poem is a response to him. In the third poem, I refer to Yad Vashem, which is Israel's Holocaust museum, and to Al Naqba, meaning 'the catastrophe' in Arabic and referring to the killing and displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the war of 1948 (what to Israel is the 'war of independence'). And I think that's all you need to know.
Khalil
"What's the difference between an Arab and a trampoline?"
the question, the set up, the joke begins
in Hebrew, on the wall of a Palestinian home
or a Palestinian store
where once there were people
where once there was life
and how can the people not hate in response?
but somehow they don't
somehow the Arabic words on the walls say instead
"Congratulations to you on your pilgrimage to Mecca"
and "My store has moved to the market outside"
sometimes the truth is so clear that it hurts
sometimes no response is necessary
the answer, the punch line, the joke ends
"On a trampoline you jump without shoes."
To Rabbi Natan Greenberg of Bat Ayin settlement
Why do you think there are armed guards outside our kindergartens?
you asked it rhetorically, Rabbi
you asked it so you could answer it
so you, who have never set foot in your Palestinian neighbor's village, could tell me that if you did, you would be dead in an hour
so you could tell me that if a Palestinian came to your colony, he would be fine, and in the next breath tell me that if a Palestinian came to your door, you would have to assume he was there to kill you and thus take appropriate action
Why do I think there are armed guards outside your kindergartens?
I think there are armed guards outside your kindergartens
because it helps to feed your myth of fear
because it helps to feed your fear of reality
Do you feel safer with the guns?
Do you tell me Jews are not a warlike people?
Do you tell me you hope you have never killed an innocent person but you can't be sure?
Do you believe there are innocent people?
Do you believe there are any other kind?
Why do I think there are armed guards outside your kindergartens?
I think there are armed guards outside your kindergartens
because it is easier to demonize the victims than to stop victimizing them
because you feel more powerful with an illusion of control than a reality of trust
because you cannot see beyond the walls of your own ghetto and the limitations of your own understanding
because "never again" means only one thing to you and you've copyrighted the phrase and stolen the experience of suffering from every other group of people on this earth
in your mind
because you don't know quite what to do with power but you're damn glad you have it and you have no intention of sharing it
or dismantling it
because myth creates privilege
and privilege creates blindness
and blindness creates you
because when myth becomes reality
it is that much more difficult to disarm
Why do I think there are armed guards outside your kindergartens?
because the view from Bat Ayin is beautiful
and you don't know your neighbor's name.
A poem with no name
street signs marking settlements
Hebrew, English, and
when not crossed out or faded,
Arabic
crossed out or faded
crossed out or faded
whitewashing street signs
whitewashing history
a mockery of the land
a mockery of the people
i'm starting to understand the importance of naming
i'm starting to understand why every refugee can tell me the name of her family's prior village and why this is often the answer to "where are you from?"
i'm starting to understand why every mother of every prisoner wants to tell me her son's name, his age, the details of his arrest, the prison where he is being held
the prison where he is being held
the prison that she most likely does not have permission to visit
i'm starting to understand why every martyr has a poster in his name, with his photograph, on the walls of every city, village and camp
the same cities, villages, and camps that the street signs forget
the same cities, villages, and camps that have been erased from the Israeli consciousness as quickly as you can say 1948
the same cities, villages, and camps that have been forgotten by history because thus far, history has been written by the winners
and thus far, justice has not won
i imagine a new permanent exhibit at Yad Vashem like the one they have now
the room of mirrors and candles
(or is it one candle reflected hundreds, thousands, six million, twelve million times?)
the room where, as you walk through, you hear the reciting of names
victims of the Nazi holocaust
names that are so many that the tape has yet to repeat itself
i imagine a room a bit like this
but a room instead in which every destroyed village is named
and every victim of Al Naqba is named
and every refugee is named
and every prisoner is named
and every prison is named
and every uprooted tree is named
and every demolished home is named
and every town trapped behind the Wall is named
and every victim of the Jewish psychosis of fear and particularism is named
including ourselves
and i imagine every Israeli, every Zionist, every Jew walking through that room
and seeing herself
and seeing himself
reflected in the mirrors, in the names, in the light of the candle
reflected in hundreds, thousands, millions
as many times as it takes
until there is not one more rabbi who can look me in the eye and say
"this settlement was built on empty land"
Friday, August 06, 2004
A People Like Any Other People
The AEI (Arab Educational Institute) "summer school" is over, and the most important idea I’ve walked away with is that people really are the same everywhere, specifically when it comes to group dynamics and individual personalities. As I said in my last report, my job for the week was to keep the kids busy during parts of the morning and to run icebreaking activities for the larger group. The kids were adorable, and acted like every other group of children I’ve ever worked with - some of them latched on to me, others were too cool, some habitually helped others out of the goodness of their own hearts, others caused trouble.
I was a little nervous about the icebreakers with the larger group, even slightly more nervous than I usually am when I try to get a group of teenagers and adults to play silly games. And like in any group, there were people who participated unabashedly and others who stayed a bit quiet. Overall the activities went splendidly, and even the teenage boys got into the games (and started running them at times).
I’ve participated in four meetings in the past week that reinforce for me the thought that Palestinians are a people like any other people, wrought with all the complexities and variety that would be expected.
1) Ghassan
Ghassan, one of the Palestinian founders of ISM (International Solidarity Movement), spoke at AEI’s summer school about the meaning of international solidarity with Palestinian nonviolent resistance. He started by saying that anybody who comes here to ‘liberate Palestine’ or to ‘help Palestinians’ is coming from a colonialist perspective that implies superiority. We must work as partners, he said, with internationals taking the same risks as Palestinians. It was this last part that challenged me, and that I always find difficult to reconcile with the fact that internationals do still have some privilege as internationals. Part of what it means to be here, part of the power of witness, relies on this privilege. What is our role, then? It is the old question of how to use one’s privilege to dismantle it. And dismantling is exactly what Ghassan stresses. He talks about ISM as one of the few organizations that attempts to dismantle the Israeli systems of control, rather than providing services that serve as band-aid solutions at best. He goes so far as to say that most Palestinian NGOs and foreign government offices are simply doing the work that Israel is legally obliged to do as an occupying power: they are taking care of some of the basic human needs of Palestinians. This is not a new thought, but one that hits home after working with and seeing so many NGOs in operation this past month in Bethlehem. Are they an indication of a healthy civil society? Or are they simply reinforcing the occupation? Hard to tell.
2) Dawud
On Wednesday some of the folks in my program went to pick almonds with Palestinians on land south of Bethlehem near the village of Nehalin. The land is absolutely gorgeous, and the variety of crops impressive. If not for the settlements surrounding the area (on every hilltop and in half the valleys), the scene would be perfectly idyllic. Dawud, the man who met us, showed us the cave where his grandfather and even his uncle lived until their deaths (his uncle in 1987). By Israeli law, they are not allowed to build on their land, so Dawud’s family has been renovating caves and other underground areas that remain undetected by passing helicopters sent to survey the area. The family members mostly live in the city, but take turns staying on their land as they continue a thirteen year court battle to protect it. They have ownership papers from the Ottomans, the Brits, and even the Israelis, but settlement expansion threatens them nonetheless. In recent years, Dawud has made contact with the international community, and recently ran the first "Tent of Nations" (www.tentofnations.org) project whereby internationals came to live on and learn about the land for a few weeks.
Dawud mentioned that some of his Israeli friends in various peace groups have offered to bring hundreds of Israelis and organize a large protest on the land. Dawud’s response: why? He prefers to resist by the simple act of cultivating the land (creating facts on the ground), and not to draw too much army attention to the area while the court case is progressing. "Our problem as Palestinians," Dawud told me, "is that we react instead of acting." I agree with that general statement, but wonder about the strategy and its application to other situations. In his case, I think it’s probably true that this method of resistance is the most effective. When he told me that internationals should not be attending demonstrations at all, though, I had to challenge him. There are many kinds of nonviolent resistance, I said. When people march against the stealing of their land, it’s true that they’re reacting, but at this point, what else is there to do? I hoped he could really answer this, because the question is not rhetorical, and is something I’ve been wondering since I arrived this time. What proactive steps can we take? Ghassan says we can’t plan for the future in this situation, and that we must simply act in ways that are effective and just right now. Dawud says we must think of long-term results. They live with somewhat different realities, and their opinions are responses to their situations. I have seen both, and I am searching for the best way to bridge the experiences, the thoughts, and the methods of resistance.
Dawud continues to work his land, even though it’s not profitable to do so. Many of the farmers have stopped working their land altogether, which is extremely dangerous in this atmosphere of rapid land annexation. Under Israeli law (taken from Ottoman law), people who don’t work their land for 3 years lose ownership of it. But when people can’t live off their land, what are they to do? "We have no infrastructure," said Dawud. "Our leaders who tell us we’re close to the creation of a state are crazy." Let the Israelis annex us, said Dawud, and resume the responsibility of taking care of the population and the infrastructure that they’ve destroyed.
3) Yassir Arafat
Speaking of leaders and the creation of a state, our group took a trip to Ramallah last week which included, among other things, a visit with President Arafat in his compound. My first and very simple impressions: he is small (really, his size does not come through in pictures), old, and friendly. He asked at the very beginning if we had questions, which surprised us. Not only have I heard that he doesn’t usually take questions, but we had just been told by the Palestinian who accompanied us that if we have the opportunity to ask questions, we should be polite and not challenge him. So what to ask? We had plenty in our heads, of course, but it seemed Arafat himself would have to break the ice. He started pulling pictures and articles out of a folder to show us "the tragedies of the Palestinian people." The stories were from different places and about different topics, with no specific connection between them. Pictures of the statue of the Virgin Mary shot up with bullets during the army siege of Bethlehem in 2002; articles about the Israeli use of depleted uranium weapons against Palestinians; stories about the Wall. He kept asking, "Who can believe this?" and "Who can imagine this?" It seemed as though he was trying to convince himself of these tragedies as much as he was trying to convince us. And then it hit me: he has never seen the Wall! Imprisoned in his compound for the past 3 years, Arafat has not seen the new methods of occupation, land confiscation and displacement. He has seen pictures, read articles, and talked with people, but he has never seen these things with his own eyes. How can he help but be out of touch with his people?
Two thoughts occur to me that I cannot ignore. First, I’m not sure leaders who do have complete freedom of movement are really in touch with the people they represent either (I wonder if Bush has ever walked around the corner and visited the large tent city of homeless people just a neighborhood away). Secondly, it’s quite possible that even if Arafat were given the opportunity to be a real president, he would not do so (it’s not as though he’s completely without resources now, and his government is no less corrupt than any other government). But it did strike me that I have probably seen more of the Wall and its real effects on the Palestinian people than the Palestinian president himself.
I came home from the meeting and told my host family where I’d been. They were amused. Comments I heard from Palestinians I know well include, "I hope he dies this year" and "He doesn’t want to see us, only you." There’s definitely a healthy amount of criticism, as well as a healthy amount of support for him (I just don’t happen to be friends with the hardcore Fateh people here in Bethlehem).
4) Shereen and Mohammed
In my opinion, the most important people I met in the past week are Shereen and Mohammed. They approached me in the middle of the AEI summer school to thank me for leading the games - they had enjoyed them. "We like to talk to internationals and practice our English," they said. The conversation continued from there. Shereen (16) and Mohammed (15) are sister and brother and live in the Arroub refugee camp in the Hebron region. Shereen is the number one girl in her class, and Mohammed is the number one boy in his school. Both want to go to university in the US, Shereen to be a doctor and Mohammed to be a software engineer. Both want to be famous and help their people. Their English is incredible and the first word that came to me in our conversation was "superhuman."
We continued to spend time together throughout the week, and at the end they invited me to their house. Yesterday I went for lunch. The taxi dropped me next to an army watchtower and pointed across the street to the entrance of the camp. Mohammed came to meet me and took me in to meet the rest of the family. They have three other younger brothers and a sister (6 kids in total). Their mother is an English teacher and father is a civic engineer, so the whole family has an excellent command of English.
I don’t know how to describe how incredible these kids are. First of all, they both seem older than their years. They’re extremely precise with language, Shereen in particular. I’ve noticed often that Palestinians do the same thing in English that I do in Arabic - simplify their thoughts for the purpose of simplifying communication. Shereen does not do this. She communicates complete and complex thoughts, and is patient enough with herself to find the words she needs to do so.
Not surprisingly, their parents are tremendously proud of them. They explained that recently both kids had taken an exam to qualify to participate in an English program in Hebron. They had taken the exam in the beginning of June and as of last week hadn’t received the results, so Dad called up to find out what was going on. Apparently, both Shereen and Mohammed scored exceptionally high - too high, it turns out. There weren’t enough students to form a group at their level. Essentially, the organization said to the parents, "Your children are too smart to be in our program." Shereen was delighted, Mohammed disappointed.
We sat down for lunch. Shereen’s and Mohammed’s mother had made a plate of vegetarian food just for me, and it was delicious. I was sad not to be able to share with them - to eat from the same huge plate everyone else ate from - but it was a lovely meal and I stuffed myself enough to appreciate the walk afterwards. They showed me around the camp, starting with the bullet holes in the curtains and walls of their own house (from an army invasion of the camp 2 years ago, although there have been many since then). We walked outside and I noticed most of the walls on the main street had brightly colored murals. Mohammed told me they had been done by kids in the camp in coordination with a club. The murals were to beautify the camp, to cover up graffiti from various political parties and militant groups. Dad made sure to emphasize that most people are not involved in militant groups, that the graffiti saying, "Those who want peace are cowards" is not representative of the people.
We crossed the settler road in front of the camp and entered the farm on the other side of the street. The farm is owned by the Palestinian Authority, they said, and there’s an agricultural college located there. It was one of the few open green spaces I’ve seen in Palestine (other than the thousands of dunums of olive groves that is the landscape of this place). A kid rode his bike past us, we strolled through, and the cows seemed happy hanging out in the dirt designated for them.
On our tour of the camp, we stopped at the neighbor’s sculpting workshop across the street from Shereen’s and Mohammed’s house. At first I saw only stone bowls and vases, but when Abu Mohammed asked the man to show me something, he pulled a different piece off a shelf. I didn’t recognize the shape at first. "It’s a Palestinian woman," he told me. I saw it then: a pregnant Palestinian woman holding a basket on her head, with the sun on top. "She’s pregnant with peace," said the sculptor. He turned the piece around, and on the back was the same woman with a moon shape carved out of her stomach. "On this side she’s not pregnant," he said, "and there’s no sun." The meaning of the piece, he said, is that different people can see the same situation in different ways. As I stood on the main road in Arroub with a view of the kids in the camp, the farm, the settler road, and the army watchtower, I thought, "This couldn’t be more true."
I was a little nervous about the icebreakers with the larger group, even slightly more nervous than I usually am when I try to get a group of teenagers and adults to play silly games. And like in any group, there were people who participated unabashedly and others who stayed a bit quiet. Overall the activities went splendidly, and even the teenage boys got into the games (and started running them at times).
I’ve participated in four meetings in the past week that reinforce for me the thought that Palestinians are a people like any other people, wrought with all the complexities and variety that would be expected.
1) Ghassan
Ghassan, one of the Palestinian founders of ISM (International Solidarity Movement), spoke at AEI’s summer school about the meaning of international solidarity with Palestinian nonviolent resistance. He started by saying that anybody who comes here to ‘liberate Palestine’ or to ‘help Palestinians’ is coming from a colonialist perspective that implies superiority. We must work as partners, he said, with internationals taking the same risks as Palestinians. It was this last part that challenged me, and that I always find difficult to reconcile with the fact that internationals do still have some privilege as internationals. Part of what it means to be here, part of the power of witness, relies on this privilege. What is our role, then? It is the old question of how to use one’s privilege to dismantle it. And dismantling is exactly what Ghassan stresses. He talks about ISM as one of the few organizations that attempts to dismantle the Israeli systems of control, rather than providing services that serve as band-aid solutions at best. He goes so far as to say that most Palestinian NGOs and foreign government offices are simply doing the work that Israel is legally obliged to do as an occupying power: they are taking care of some of the basic human needs of Palestinians. This is not a new thought, but one that hits home after working with and seeing so many NGOs in operation this past month in Bethlehem. Are they an indication of a healthy civil society? Or are they simply reinforcing the occupation? Hard to tell.
2) Dawud
On Wednesday some of the folks in my program went to pick almonds with Palestinians on land south of Bethlehem near the village of Nehalin. The land is absolutely gorgeous, and the variety of crops impressive. If not for the settlements surrounding the area (on every hilltop and in half the valleys), the scene would be perfectly idyllic. Dawud, the man who met us, showed us the cave where his grandfather and even his uncle lived until their deaths (his uncle in 1987). By Israeli law, they are not allowed to build on their land, so Dawud’s family has been renovating caves and other underground areas that remain undetected by passing helicopters sent to survey the area. The family members mostly live in the city, but take turns staying on their land as they continue a thirteen year court battle to protect it. They have ownership papers from the Ottomans, the Brits, and even the Israelis, but settlement expansion threatens them nonetheless. In recent years, Dawud has made contact with the international community, and recently ran the first "Tent of Nations" (www.tentofnations.org) project whereby internationals came to live on and learn about the land for a few weeks.
Dawud mentioned that some of his Israeli friends in various peace groups have offered to bring hundreds of Israelis and organize a large protest on the land. Dawud’s response: why? He prefers to resist by the simple act of cultivating the land (creating facts on the ground), and not to draw too much army attention to the area while the court case is progressing. "Our problem as Palestinians," Dawud told me, "is that we react instead of acting." I agree with that general statement, but wonder about the strategy and its application to other situations. In his case, I think it’s probably true that this method of resistance is the most effective. When he told me that internationals should not be attending demonstrations at all, though, I had to challenge him. There are many kinds of nonviolent resistance, I said. When people march against the stealing of their land, it’s true that they’re reacting, but at this point, what else is there to do? I hoped he could really answer this, because the question is not rhetorical, and is something I’ve been wondering since I arrived this time. What proactive steps can we take? Ghassan says we can’t plan for the future in this situation, and that we must simply act in ways that are effective and just right now. Dawud says we must think of long-term results. They live with somewhat different realities, and their opinions are responses to their situations. I have seen both, and I am searching for the best way to bridge the experiences, the thoughts, and the methods of resistance.
Dawud continues to work his land, even though it’s not profitable to do so. Many of the farmers have stopped working their land altogether, which is extremely dangerous in this atmosphere of rapid land annexation. Under Israeli law (taken from Ottoman law), people who don’t work their land for 3 years lose ownership of it. But when people can’t live off their land, what are they to do? "We have no infrastructure," said Dawud. "Our leaders who tell us we’re close to the creation of a state are crazy." Let the Israelis annex us, said Dawud, and resume the responsibility of taking care of the population and the infrastructure that they’ve destroyed.
3) Yassir Arafat
Speaking of leaders and the creation of a state, our group took a trip to Ramallah last week which included, among other things, a visit with President Arafat in his compound. My first and very simple impressions: he is small (really, his size does not come through in pictures), old, and friendly. He asked at the very beginning if we had questions, which surprised us. Not only have I heard that he doesn’t usually take questions, but we had just been told by the Palestinian who accompanied us that if we have the opportunity to ask questions, we should be polite and not challenge him. So what to ask? We had plenty in our heads, of course, but it seemed Arafat himself would have to break the ice. He started pulling pictures and articles out of a folder to show us "the tragedies of the Palestinian people." The stories were from different places and about different topics, with no specific connection between them. Pictures of the statue of the Virgin Mary shot up with bullets during the army siege of Bethlehem in 2002; articles about the Israeli use of depleted uranium weapons against Palestinians; stories about the Wall. He kept asking, "Who can believe this?" and "Who can imagine this?" It seemed as though he was trying to convince himself of these tragedies as much as he was trying to convince us. And then it hit me: he has never seen the Wall! Imprisoned in his compound for the past 3 years, Arafat has not seen the new methods of occupation, land confiscation and displacement. He has seen pictures, read articles, and talked with people, but he has never seen these things with his own eyes. How can he help but be out of touch with his people?
Two thoughts occur to me that I cannot ignore. First, I’m not sure leaders who do have complete freedom of movement are really in touch with the people they represent either (I wonder if Bush has ever walked around the corner and visited the large tent city of homeless people just a neighborhood away). Secondly, it’s quite possible that even if Arafat were given the opportunity to be a real president, he would not do so (it’s not as though he’s completely without resources now, and his government is no less corrupt than any other government). But it did strike me that I have probably seen more of the Wall and its real effects on the Palestinian people than the Palestinian president himself.
I came home from the meeting and told my host family where I’d been. They were amused. Comments I heard from Palestinians I know well include, "I hope he dies this year" and "He doesn’t want to see us, only you." There’s definitely a healthy amount of criticism, as well as a healthy amount of support for him (I just don’t happen to be friends with the hardcore Fateh people here in Bethlehem).
4) Shereen and Mohammed
In my opinion, the most important people I met in the past week are Shereen and Mohammed. They approached me in the middle of the AEI summer school to thank me for leading the games - they had enjoyed them. "We like to talk to internationals and practice our English," they said. The conversation continued from there. Shereen (16) and Mohammed (15) are sister and brother and live in the Arroub refugee camp in the Hebron region. Shereen is the number one girl in her class, and Mohammed is the number one boy in his school. Both want to go to university in the US, Shereen to be a doctor and Mohammed to be a software engineer. Both want to be famous and help their people. Their English is incredible and the first word that came to me in our conversation was "superhuman."
We continued to spend time together throughout the week, and at the end they invited me to their house. Yesterday I went for lunch. The taxi dropped me next to an army watchtower and pointed across the street to the entrance of the camp. Mohammed came to meet me and took me in to meet the rest of the family. They have three other younger brothers and a sister (6 kids in total). Their mother is an English teacher and father is a civic engineer, so the whole family has an excellent command of English.
I don’t know how to describe how incredible these kids are. First of all, they both seem older than their years. They’re extremely precise with language, Shereen in particular. I’ve noticed often that Palestinians do the same thing in English that I do in Arabic - simplify their thoughts for the purpose of simplifying communication. Shereen does not do this. She communicates complete and complex thoughts, and is patient enough with herself to find the words she needs to do so.
Not surprisingly, their parents are tremendously proud of them. They explained that recently both kids had taken an exam to qualify to participate in an English program in Hebron. They had taken the exam in the beginning of June and as of last week hadn’t received the results, so Dad called up to find out what was going on. Apparently, both Shereen and Mohammed scored exceptionally high - too high, it turns out. There weren’t enough students to form a group at their level. Essentially, the organization said to the parents, "Your children are too smart to be in our program." Shereen was delighted, Mohammed disappointed.
We sat down for lunch. Shereen’s and Mohammed’s mother had made a plate of vegetarian food just for me, and it was delicious. I was sad not to be able to share with them - to eat from the same huge plate everyone else ate from - but it was a lovely meal and I stuffed myself enough to appreciate the walk afterwards. They showed me around the camp, starting with the bullet holes in the curtains and walls of their own house (from an army invasion of the camp 2 years ago, although there have been many since then). We walked outside and I noticed most of the walls on the main street had brightly colored murals. Mohammed told me they had been done by kids in the camp in coordination with a club. The murals were to beautify the camp, to cover up graffiti from various political parties and militant groups. Dad made sure to emphasize that most people are not involved in militant groups, that the graffiti saying, "Those who want peace are cowards" is not representative of the people.
We crossed the settler road in front of the camp and entered the farm on the other side of the street. The farm is owned by the Palestinian Authority, they said, and there’s an agricultural college located there. It was one of the few open green spaces I’ve seen in Palestine (other than the thousands of dunums of olive groves that is the landscape of this place). A kid rode his bike past us, we strolled through, and the cows seemed happy hanging out in the dirt designated for them.
On our tour of the camp, we stopped at the neighbor’s sculpting workshop across the street from Shereen’s and Mohammed’s house. At first I saw only stone bowls and vases, but when Abu Mohammed asked the man to show me something, he pulled a different piece off a shelf. I didn’t recognize the shape at first. "It’s a Palestinian woman," he told me. I saw it then: a pregnant Palestinian woman holding a basket on her head, with the sun on top. "She’s pregnant with peace," said the sculptor. He turned the piece around, and on the back was the same woman with a moon shape carved out of her stomach. "On this side she’s not pregnant," he said, "and there’s no sun." The meaning of the piece, he said, is that different people can see the same situation in different ways. As I stood on the main road in Arroub with a view of the kids in the camp, the farm, the settler road, and the army watchtower, I thought, "This couldn’t be more true."
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