Dear friends,
I feel like my mind is already halfway back home, which I suppose would put it somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic, but I’ll try to keep you posted on my next few weeks nonetheless. Before beginning this report, I want to ask you a favor. I’m wondering what questions and topics you’d most like to see addressed in a presentation from me about Palestine. I’ve started to think about what I’d like to share with people, and I want to make sure I have the right pictures, stories, and information with me before I go. So if you have any thoughts, please respond to this e-mail and let me know.
I picked my first olives of the season last week. It was nice to be out there again, to think about where I was last year at this time (only physically in the same place). I wonder if Palestinians use the harvest as that kind of marker for them – a time to reflect on the year as they bond with their land. Although I suppose they have an almost constant connection to the land, not only during the time of olive harvest… that is, when they can access their land.
So many physical, legal and mental barriers exist in this place that I think every olive picked by a Palestinian farmer (and not stolen by a settler or left to sit on the branches until dead) is an act of resistance. On Monday I picked olives with a family from Azzawiya who has land inside the settlement of Shaarei Tikvah. What I should say is that the settlement of Shaarei Tikvah has been built on land stolen from families of Azzawiya. Ah, the difficulties of language. In any case, the family was attempting to enter through a gate in the Wall (which is fence in this area) that has not been open in almost a year. The army opened it for the first time on Sunday, but only for people with permits. The people in Azzawiya do not have permits, so Ismail and his family did not get through on Sunday, but on Monday the border police who opened the gate in the morning decided to do the farmers a ‘favor’ and let them harvest their olives. The family entered the settlement with no problem, only to find that a new road had been built and the settlement parking lot had been expanded – destroying at least 20 of their olive trees. Additionally, a new fence had been constructed, blocking the family from reaching half of the trees that remained, and also confiscating a working water well. Perhaps the most offensive destruction, however, was the new landscaping along the main entrance road. The settlement had cut down Palestinian olive trees in order to plant imported palm trees along the sidewalk. The olive trees are native to this land; the palm trees have come from outside to replace them, they stand taller and look down at the remaining olive trees, and they’re a bit prickly. Draw your own parallels.
The reason internationals accompany farmers to their groves is to stand in solidarity and possibly to intervene or document abuses by settlers and soldiers. About an hour after we began picking on Monday, we noticed a settler and Ismail having a conversation. The settler’s wife came out to her porch as well. I walked a little closer, only to find that the settler was offering Ismail the olives from the 3 olive trees in his yard. He didn’t need them, he said, so Ismail was welcome to pick them and take the fruit. Ismail said thank you, but we have our own olives to harvest. I asked the man how long he had lived there. Twenty years. How old is the settlement? About twenty-five years. All of the land was bought, he insisted, and not stolen. Ismail said differently. Some of the land was bought, he admitted, but certainly not all of it, and not his family’s land. The woman then offered us water. Ismail accepted, and she brought a pitcher of cold water with cups. Ismail’s wife was approaching at this point, and turned to me to comment, “They take our land and give us a glass of water.” What to do? Many of the individual settlers are fine human beings, as Ismail was so intent on reiterating to me all day, but what good does it do when they’re part of a system that steals tree after tree, life after life? I think of the American parallel of a white person trying to disassociate her/himself from institutional racism by claiming, “I’m not racist; I have a black friend.”
Monday was actually a wonderful picking day. For the first time in the olive groves, I was able to have full and deep conversations in Arabic and to translate for a non-Arabic speaker. The family asked me what my work is in the US, which is even a more complicated question these days than “where are you from” or “where do you live”. I told them about the afterschool program I worked with last year, and that this time when I return I hope not to need much money and to speak about Palestine as much as possible to as many people as possible. They were curious about this, but their question was different than the first question I usually get from people. Usually people ask me, “What do you say about Palestine?” Perhaps this family trusted me enough not to ask that question, and instead asked, “What do people in America say when you tell them about Palestine?” I explained that there are activists and others who understand the situation, and they appreciate hearing more information. I also explained that I’m Jewish, and that I think it’s very important for me to talk to American Jews, but that it’s difficult. They immediately began giving suggestions: “You have to show them photographs and videos so they can really understand.” I responded that this is exactly what I do, and that certain people thank me and tell me they’ve never known anything about Palestine before, while others call me a self-hating Jew. [For those of you who speak Arabic – I was quite proud of myself for thinking of the following: ‘Inti yahudiyye, bass inti dud ilyahuud. Inti maa bithuubi nafsik.’]
David, the other international picking with us that day, commented that he had travelled through Israel about 20 years ago, before knowing too much about the situation. He could have sworn he was in the West Bank, he said, but he didn’t remember any checkpoints. I asked the family. No, they said, 20 years ago there weren’t any checkpoints. They could go to the beach in Tel Aviv and come back home at 1:00 am. They could go wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and easily make friends in Israel. The permit system was first introduced during the first Gulf War, they said. Early 1990s. The end of the first Intifada, the beginning of the Oslo process that turned out to be so disastrous for the Palestinian people. I’ve heard people talk about going to the beach late at night, even in the late 1990s. I suppose they had to have permits at that time, but the point is that they felt at least a bit more free than they do now. Abu Rabia told me recently that he doesn’t feel any differently now than he did when he was in prison for 13 years.
Often I wish I would have come to Palestine earlier, or had some of the awareness I now have when I spent a year in Israel in 1997-1998. I want to understand how things have changed in a way I can’t quite understand by reading and talking to people, or even by seeing pictures. What does it mean to have your land constantly disappearing before your eyes? I think often of Munira and Hani Amer, who live with their 6 children in the house in Mas’ha that is enclosed on all four sides by fences and walls not of their making. Recently I’ve looked through their photo albums at some incredible pictures taken just 5 years ago of the greenhouses in front of their house. There are no longer any traces of these greenhouses, and a monstrous concrete wall stands in their place. My favorite picture is one of Munira lying on a hill posing for the picture amongst flowers and grass. The picture was taken during her first week of marriage, about 20 years ago. Now the houses of Elkana, a settlement established in 1986, sit on that land.
There’s one amazing Israeli organization I know that goes back even further in history and confronts its nation’s own birth – Zochrot. Their brochure explains the name: “In Hebrew, ‘Zochrot’ is the plural feminine form for the words ‘remembering’ or ‘rememberers.’ Although Zochrot activists are men and women, we chose the feminine form of this word to represent an alternative, less militaristic, and more humanly inclusive conception of collective remembering.” Zochrot (www.nakbainhebrew.org) works to raise awareness of Al Nakba (‘the catastrophe’ – referring to 1948) by visiting and marking destroyed Palestinian villages within the current boundaries of Israel (although I can’t quite say ‘boundaries,’ since Israel is still the only country in the world that has not declared its borders).
A few of us in IWPS went with Zochrot to the village of Al Lajun on Tuesday. Megiddo kibbutz now sits on some of Al Lajun’s land, and the rest of the land remains unoccupied. We were joined by over 100 Jewish and Palestinian Israeli citizens, several of whom were born before Israel and remember being kicked out of their homes in 1948. They didn’t even know about the war until it came to them, the Palestinians told us. They had little awareness of Europe’s plans for the area, and simply lived their lives. They were mostly farmers, but were also quite ‘advanced’ for their time, running a bus company that travelled to all parts of Palestine – Jenin, Tulkarem, Haifa, Yaffa, Jerusalem, etc. Hearing about pre-1948 life in Palestine is a simple act, but one that remains so important for me. I still remember the Zionist education that taught me that no people, no towns, no civilization was here before the Jews came. I looked around at all the trees that had been planted on this ‘state land’ in the last 56 years in order to ensure that the Palestinians can never return. I wonder if any of my tzedakah money given to the JNF (Jewish National Fund) years ago planted any of these trees, or whether that money went to the theft of a different piece of land. (Over 90% of Israel’s land is considered ‘state land’ and is mostly owned by the JNF. Non-Jews are not allowed to purchase or build on this land.) I looked into the eyes of the men from the village who live only a few kilometers away now, but who still remember their childhood in Al Lajun and still have dreams of returning. And hope. Something I noticed among the Palestinian population of Israel that day, at least among the folks that joined us, was a true hope, and even a certainty, that things will change and that Palestinians and Jewish Israelis will live in peace someday. Perhaps the urgency isn’t as great as in the West Bank, perhaps there’s another explanation, but for whatever reason, a certain calmness (even if a little sad, even if a little eerie) filled the air of Al Lajun as we planted signs of recognition in the ground and listened to traditional Palestinian music. Zochrot has published an account of the day with pictures on their website: http://www.nakbainhebrew.org/index.php?id=168.
So what’s my conclusion? It’s all about land. Um Rabia asked me the other day if I can find her a copy of the Torah in Arabic. She wants to understand how much of this conflict is religious, to know whether the Jewish scriptures really tell Jews that this land is theirs and only theirs, and that removal of Palestinians by any means necessary is a religious mandate. I told her that people use religion in different ways, but that at its roots I think this conflict is more about land than religion. And goddamn, this land is precious.
Friday, October 08, 2004
Friday, October 01, 2004
Haikus from Palestine
Dear friends,
I can’t believe it’s October already, the month that I come back to the US. I’ve started to think about my presentation, so you’re welcome to start thinking about where and when you’d like me to present. :)
I think I’ve been boring myself with articles, but from boredom springs creativity, right? So for this e-mail, I’ve composed 17 haikus (they’re 17 syllables each, so it seemed an apt number). I’m afraid they’ll be quite incomprehensible to those of you who are not here with me, but hopefully you’ll understand and/or appreciate some of them. There are a few Arabic words in them. “Alhamdulilah” means “Praise God” and is said all the time here. “Nos nos” literally means “half half” but can be translated as “so-so.”
On a more serious note, I’ve included at the end only a few of the names and ages of those killed in Gaza in the past 48 hours. I just heard that Israeli security forces have dubbed the operation “Days of Penitence,” as they supposedly try to force militants to repent. I find this gross misuse of the Jewish tradition absolutely disgusting.
Enjoy the haikus, and please don’t ignore the growing list of victims of this war and occupation.
Child in Jayyus
She sings for us in English
“We Shall Overcome”
Demo in Budrus
All arrestees get released
Alhamdulilah
Does the donkey have
a name, I ask. “No,” she says.
He: “His name is Bush.”
Fatima comes in
Sheds her hijab and her coat
Sprawls out on our couch
Settler women
Called by soldiers at checkpoint
Come to harrass us
Bus stopped for hours
Why? I ask the soldier there
“Bureaucratia”
“Hamil.” Lovely word.
Pregnant. Used both for women
And the olive trees
Zajid sweeps the floor
Three years old, he’s almost four
Hope in Palestine
Border policeman
“How my English?” he asks me.
“Nos nos,” I respond.
Killing in Gaza
The army shoots randomly
Forty, forty-one…
On the birth of our friends’ twins:
Ward’s two new siblings
Cousin Zajid wants to share
“No, they’re both for me.”
Faisa brings home twins
Says to me about the girl
“Heba looks like you”
On Sounds:
Vehicle blares sound
In the village, jeep or truck?
Curfew or veggies?
Gunshots in Hares
A wedding or invasion?
Laughter. A relief.
On Yom Kippur:
Waiting for nightfall
Our landlord searches for stars
Asks, “Does the moon count?”
Houses demolished
Kate: “Did the soldiers repent
Before or after?”
Writing my haikus
Lesson in being concise
Palestine in brief
The following is a list of 18 people killed yesterday in Gaza. Overnight last night and throughout the day today, the toll has risen to 40-something dead and at least 130 wounded:
“The Ministry of health released the following list of residents killed in the military raid conducted on Thursday; the ministry said that the list is not final yet;
1. Tawfiq, Al-Sharafi, 24, Jabalia.
2. Saed Mohammad Abu Al-Eish, 14, Jabalia.
3. Mos'ab al-Barade'ey, 21, Jabalia.
4. Fathi Al-Sawaween, 23, Jabalia.
5. Khalil Abu Naji, 23, Jabalia.
6. Ahmad Madhi. 16 Jabalia.
7. Usama Al-Barsh, 21 Jabalia.
8. Abdul-Hai Al-Najjar, 21, Jabalia
9. Rafat Jadallah, 23, Jabalia.
10. Sofian Abu Al-Jedyan, 40, Jabalia.
11. Mohammad Al-Habal, 60, Beit Lahia.
12. Hamza Ahmad, 24, Jabalia.
13. Mohammad Al-Jabeer, 17, Jabalia.
14. Mohammad Al-Hilo, 60, Jablia.
15. Mohammad Al-Masrey.
16. Rami Thaher. Jablia.
17. Atef al-Ashqar, Jablia.
18. Sofian Abu Al-Jidyan, 33, Jablia.”
I can’t believe it’s October already, the month that I come back to the US. I’ve started to think about my presentation, so you’re welcome to start thinking about where and when you’d like me to present. :)
I think I’ve been boring myself with articles, but from boredom springs creativity, right? So for this e-mail, I’ve composed 17 haikus (they’re 17 syllables each, so it seemed an apt number). I’m afraid they’ll be quite incomprehensible to those of you who are not here with me, but hopefully you’ll understand and/or appreciate some of them. There are a few Arabic words in them. “Alhamdulilah” means “Praise God” and is said all the time here. “Nos nos” literally means “half half” but can be translated as “so-so.”
On a more serious note, I’ve included at the end only a few of the names and ages of those killed in Gaza in the past 48 hours. I just heard that Israeli security forces have dubbed the operation “Days of Penitence,” as they supposedly try to force militants to repent. I find this gross misuse of the Jewish tradition absolutely disgusting.
Enjoy the haikus, and please don’t ignore the growing list of victims of this war and occupation.
Child in Jayyus
She sings for us in English
“We Shall Overcome”
Demo in Budrus
All arrestees get released
Alhamdulilah
Does the donkey have
a name, I ask. “No,” she says.
He: “His name is Bush.”
Fatima comes in
Sheds her hijab and her coat
Sprawls out on our couch
Settler women
Called by soldiers at checkpoint
Come to harrass us
Bus stopped for hours
Why? I ask the soldier there
“Bureaucratia”
“Hamil.” Lovely word.
Pregnant. Used both for women
And the olive trees
Zajid sweeps the floor
Three years old, he’s almost four
Hope in Palestine
Border policeman
“How my English?” he asks me.
“Nos nos,” I respond.
Killing in Gaza
The army shoots randomly
Forty, forty-one…
On the birth of our friends’ twins:
Ward’s two new siblings
Cousin Zajid wants to share
“No, they’re both for me.”
Faisa brings home twins
Says to me about the girl
“Heba looks like you”
On Sounds:
Vehicle blares sound
In the village, jeep or truck?
Curfew or veggies?
Gunshots in Hares
A wedding or invasion?
Laughter. A relief.
On Yom Kippur:
Waiting for nightfall
Our landlord searches for stars
Asks, “Does the moon count?”
Houses demolished
Kate: “Did the soldiers repent
Before or after?”
Writing my haikus
Lesson in being concise
Palestine in brief
The following is a list of 18 people killed yesterday in Gaza. Overnight last night and throughout the day today, the toll has risen to 40-something dead and at least 130 wounded:
“The Ministry of health released the following list of residents killed in the military raid conducted on Thursday; the ministry said that the list is not final yet;
1. Tawfiq, Al-Sharafi, 24, Jabalia.
2. Saed Mohammad Abu Al-Eish, 14, Jabalia.
3. Mos'ab al-Barade'ey, 21, Jabalia.
4. Fathi Al-Sawaween, 23, Jabalia.
5. Khalil Abu Naji, 23, Jabalia.
6. Ahmad Madhi. 16 Jabalia.
7. Usama Al-Barsh, 21 Jabalia.
8. Abdul-Hai Al-Najjar, 21, Jabalia
9. Rafat Jadallah, 23, Jabalia.
10. Sofian Abu Al-Jedyan, 40, Jabalia.
11. Mohammad Al-Habal, 60, Beit Lahia.
12. Hamza Ahmad, 24, Jabalia.
13. Mohammad Al-Jabeer, 17, Jabalia.
14. Mohammad Al-Hilo, 60, Jablia.
15. Mohammad Al-Masrey.
16. Rami Thaher. Jablia.
17. Atef al-Ashqar, Jablia.
18. Sofian Abu Al-Jidyan, 33, Jablia.”
Friday, September 24, 2004
Yom Kippur message/action
Dear friends,
I won't be going to synagogue this year on Yom Kippur, but this morning I participated in what I think is the most powerful thing I could have done for the holiday. Please read below and share the prayer with friends, colleagues, rabbis, and congregations. (Make sure you read it all - my favorite part is the TAPUACH part, which comes at the end).
Hannah
24 September, 2004
IWPS brings message of repentance to settlers
On Friday morning, September 24, 2004, Jewish IWPS activists offered the settlers of Ariel and Tapuach a new penitential prayer for Yom Kippur.
The women posted copies of an alternative « Vidui » inside Ariel and in areas around Tapuach, naming for each letter of the English and Hebrew alphabet a sin committed by settlers in the name of the Jewish people. With this revision of the traditional prayer, the activists hoped to communicate to the settlers that their continued residence in the West Bank is an obstacle to peace.
Please find the text of the new prayer in English below. Visit our website at http://www.iwps.info/en/articles/article.php?id=143 for the complete flyer in English and Hebrew, along with photographs.
Ashamnu for Ariel and Tapuach – Yom Kippur 5765
We have Appropriated land
We have Burned olive trees
We have Constructed Apartheid walls
We have Dumped our trash on the village of Marda
We have Erased history of Palestinians
We have Falsified the teachings of the Torah
We have Generalized about Arab people
We have Hated people because of their race
We have Ignored the suffering of our neighbors
We have ‘Judaized’ Palestinian areas
We have Killed children
We have Lied about our history
We have Manipulated public opinion
We have Neglected our responsibility to work for justice
We have Obstructed the right of refugees to return home
We have Punished collectively
We have Quietly transferred Palestinians from their homeland
We have Restricted free movement of Palestinians
We have Stolen olives from Palestinian farmers
We have Thwarted peace initiatives
We have Unfairly accused people of anti-Semitism
We have Vandalized
We have Wrongly educated our children
We have eXpunged Arabic from road signs
We have Yelled racist epithets
We have promoted Zionism
We have Acquiesced in things we know are wrong
We have Refused to compromise
We have Initiated false beliefs
We have Encouraged home demolitions
We have Lost our humanity
We have Terrorized the Palestinian population in the name of G-d
We have Aggressively prevented Palestinians from working on their land in the name of G-d
We have Persecuted others in the name of our own persecution and in the name of G-d
We have Used guns and laws to facilitate ethnic cleansing in the name of G-d
We have Assaulted in the name of G-d
We have Colonized in the name of G-d
We have Harmed the Jewish people in the name of G-d
For all these sins we have committed against G-d and our Palestinian neighbors, forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement.
I won't be going to synagogue this year on Yom Kippur, but this morning I participated in what I think is the most powerful thing I could have done for the holiday. Please read below and share the prayer with friends, colleagues, rabbis, and congregations. (Make sure you read it all - my favorite part is the TAPUACH part, which comes at the end).
Hannah
24 September, 2004
IWPS brings message of repentance to settlers
On Friday morning, September 24, 2004, Jewish IWPS activists offered the settlers of Ariel and Tapuach a new penitential prayer for Yom Kippur.
The women posted copies of an alternative « Vidui » inside Ariel and in areas around Tapuach, naming for each letter of the English and Hebrew alphabet a sin committed by settlers in the name of the Jewish people. With this revision of the traditional prayer, the activists hoped to communicate to the settlers that their continued residence in the West Bank is an obstacle to peace.
Please find the text of the new prayer in English below. Visit our website at http://www.iwps.info/en/articles/article.php?id=143 for the complete flyer in English and Hebrew, along with photographs.
Ashamnu for Ariel and Tapuach – Yom Kippur 5765
We have Appropriated land
We have Burned olive trees
We have Constructed Apartheid walls
We have Dumped our trash on the village of Marda
We have Erased history of Palestinians
We have Falsified the teachings of the Torah
We have Generalized about Arab people
We have Hated people because of their race
We have Ignored the suffering of our neighbors
We have ‘Judaized’ Palestinian areas
We have Killed children
We have Lied about our history
We have Manipulated public opinion
We have Neglected our responsibility to work for justice
We have Obstructed the right of refugees to return home
We have Punished collectively
We have Quietly transferred Palestinians from their homeland
We have Restricted free movement of Palestinians
We have Stolen olives from Palestinian farmers
We have Thwarted peace initiatives
We have Unfairly accused people of anti-Semitism
We have Vandalized
We have Wrongly educated our children
We have eXpunged Arabic from road signs
We have Yelled racist epithets
We have promoted Zionism
We have Acquiesced in things we know are wrong
We have Refused to compromise
We have Initiated false beliefs
We have Encouraged home demolitions
We have Lost our humanity
We have Terrorized the Palestinian population in the name of G-d
We have Aggressively prevented Palestinians from working on their land in the name of G-d
We have Persecuted others in the name of our own persecution and in the name of G-d
We have Used guns and laws to facilitate ethnic cleansing in the name of G-d
We have Assaulted in the name of G-d
We have Colonized in the name of G-d
We have Harmed the Jewish people in the name of G-d
For all these sins we have committed against G-d and our Palestinian neighbors, forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement.
Thursday, September 23, 2004
Reflections on Democracy
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
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 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?
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