On May 18, after four weeks in prison, Jaber Dalany (the Palestinian man with meningitis who was arrested at Huwara checkpoint), was finally presented with charges. As expected, the charges are preposterous, not to mention the fact that they all refer to incidents that supposedly happened more than 2 years ago. The first two relate to membership in Hamas (which he and his family deny) and providing food, shelter, and cell phones to “wanted” men (his brother stayed at his house shortly before being arrested a couple years ago). The third charge is both the most serious and the most ridiculous, stating that Jaber and two others had “planned to introduce an explosive vehicle into the settlement of Ariel, near its movie theater. The plan, however, was not carried out when the defendant and his comrades discovered that Ariel had no movie theater.” It would be laughable if we weren’t talking about someone’s life here. I mean really, if I had planned to blow up Ariel’s movie theater and then found out it didn’t exist, I’d probably blow up their hotel. Or their mall. Or their college. Or the mayor’s office. Or the police station. Or the army headquarters. No cinema, no bomb? Doesn’t make much sense. The charges don’t even state that there was a bomb, just that they had “planned” something, meaning at most that someone could have thought about an action. As an Israeli friend said to me last night, “I can’t even count how many times I’ve thought about blowing up things in Ariel.” We talked about trying to organize 1,000 people to walk to the police station in Ariel to confess our thoughts about the place, but decided against it.
So Jaber is still in prison, with a trial date scheduled for June 27. His wife is due to give birth around that time, and his three children (a 4-year-old son and 1 1/2-year-old twin girls) continue to wake up every morning and say good morning to the picture of their father. I went to visit the family on Monday, and as Jaber’s brother pulled up to the house with me in the car, 4-year-old Kassam came running out, laughing and clapping his hands and chanting, “Ajaat Hannah, ajaat Hannah!” (Hannah’s here). I decided he’s my new best friend. He sat on my lap for much of the time I was there, and then took me around the yard on a tour of all the plants and trees. I marveled over his knowledge of the land. After only 4 years of life, he can point out to me olives, figs, apples, sage, thyme, cauliflower, tomatoes, cabbage, parsley, almonds and more. Khulud, Jaber’s wife, called us in for dinner: maklube, my favorite Palestinian dish, with extra cauliflower, my favorite fried vegetable. I was touched, and again amazed. I hadn’t even remembered telling her my food preferences, but she knew. And she didn’t even try to get me to eat chicken (although her mother-in-law did, insisting it’s not really meat).
This past week, my friend Fatima turned 47 and her youngest daughter Bara’a turned 10. We went to their house for a little party, complete with dancing, eating, singing, and crying – tears of joy, Fatima insisted. The atmosphere was mostly joyful, as the girls took turns tying a scarf around their waist and dancing, and then Shams organized a small dabke performance (Palestinian folk dancing is her favorite kind). Shams and her friend Lana were joking around with each other afterwards, and suddenly we heard Shams say to Lana, “Fuck you!” I looked up, shocked, and said, “Shams!” She covered her mouth and apologized, telling me she had just learned recently that “fuck you” and “damn it” weren’t the same thing. “It’s not my fault anyway,” she added with a smile, “it’s the American movies.”
On Saturday I stopped by an international friend’s house in Ramallah for a going away party. There were probably 10 internationals there, but what I noticed more were the number of Palestinians and Israelis, and their obviously close relationships with each other. Usually when I’m with Palestinians and Israelis together, we’re at a demonstration, so it was nice to see folks interacting with each other socially.
We left Ramallah around 8:30 pm to try to make it back to Jerusalem by 10, which under normal circumstances is no problem. When we got to Kalandia checkpoint, however, we saw a man being held with his hands cuffed behind his back. I quickly went around to a group of people watching him through a fence, and asked, “Do you know him?” A man who appeared to have been in tears (either that or extremely exhausted) responded, “He’s my son.” They had been coming from Ramallah on their way to a wedding in Aram about an hour before. Soldiers had glanced at everyone else’s IDs and waved them forward, but when they came to this young man (28 years old), they pulled him aside and told him to wait while they checked his ID. Fifteen minutes later they put him in cuffs. He had just gone through that checkpoint yesterday with no problem, his father told me, completely perplexed as to why the soldiers would want his son. The father began talking to the soldiers in English, saying he works for the UN and this is his son and they’re on their way to a wedding, etc. Finally they asked me to talk to the soldiers and I stepped forward with a few futile attempts at, “Excuse me, what’s the problem?” Finally the commander came out to our side of the fence and told everyone to go home. The father protested, and the commander said fine, you can stay, but the rest of the group should leave. “What are you doing with him?” asked the father. The commander replied, “We’re waiting for the police car to get here so we can take him away.” “Where are you taking him?” I asked. “We don’t know yet,” the commander responded. “Why are you arresting him?” I asked. “Because he needs to be arrested.” Trying to get information from soldiers can be one of the most frustrating and useless tasks. We gave the family the phone number for Hamoked, an Israeli organization that can sometimes help in these situations, and they called. Hamoked promised to make a few calls to the army. There wasn’t much else we could do. The soldiers were not being particularly violent and it didn’t seem they would start being violent in our absence, so we gave the father our card and continued to Jerusalem. About a half hour later, the father called to tell us his son had been released, and the whole family was told to go home. So they weren’t able to go to the wedding, but things could have been much worse. We were relieved. In the grand scheme of occupation here, this major injustice is a relatively minor hassle.
We met up with an Israeli and a Palestinian friend in the service taxi to Jerusalem. Just outside of Jerusalem, Yossi (my Israeli friend) said, “Here’s the racist Apartheid traffic light. Have you been here?” I had heard about the traffic patterns and city planning in Jerusalem that sets out to accommodate Jewish Israelis and inconvenience Palestinians, but I had never counted the length of the light. After sitting and watching traffic go by for at least 3 minutes (I want to say 10 but I know it always feels longer than it actually is), our light turned green for exactly 7 seconds. This is not an exaggeration. There was just as much traffic coming our way as the other way, but coming our way were Palestinians. The 4 cars in front of us went through the light, and we stopped for another 3 minutes, until our 7 second slot opened up again. Unbelievable, I thought. I can’t even imagine how much honking there would be if the times were reversed.
This week, like every other week in Palestine, has been full of stories of prisons and parties. I find myself not wanting to write these days, not being surprised by anything and not really seeing any changes on the ground. But I know the danger of forgetting. Just because injustice is systemized and commonplace does not mean we should ignore it. So here it is. And in that vein, below is a partial list of incidents this week, incidents you probably have not read about in the mainstream media.
Until next time,
Hannah
P.S. Many props to all the Israelis who are stepping up their activism and their risk-taking in a way that has been a long time coming. 26 Israelis were arrested at a demo in Bil’in last Friday, and then 32 in Hebron the next day as they attempted to visit Palestinian families who are terrorized by the settlers who keep taking over their homes and attacking them. There aren’t a lot of internationals in the country right now, but Israelis are taking over much of the work that internationals have been doing.
Published on Friday, 27 May 2005 – This week’s update from IMEMC (International Middle East Media Center)
A report prepared and published by the Information Center revealed that 347 violations to the truce were reported, including 57 shooting incidents against civilians, causing four deaths and 25 injuries.
27 invasions were conducted, and 57 arrests were made.
Soldiers closed roads and Separation Wall gates 113 times, and installed 52 portable checkpoints.
Israeli soldiers and settlers bulldozed and uprooted family orchards, especially lands planted with olive trees, 7 times over the last week, causing considerable losses.
19 attacks were conducted by the settlers against Palestinian homes and residents.
Soldiers annexed farmlands from the village in order to widen settlements and construct sections of the Separation Wall.
Soldiers broke into dozens of homes, detained residents and interrogated them after forcing them out of their homes.
Soldiers stopped a school bus near the northern West Bank city of Qalqilia on Thursday, forced the children out of the bus, punched and clubbed several students; at least five children were injured.
Checkpoints and crossings were repeatedly closed and border crossings were blocked, barring the residents from leaving or entering the country.
Video footage broadcast on the Israeli TV Channel 10 showed soldiers breaking into a Palestinian home in Hebron area and taking over the TV room in order to watch a soccer match. The footage showed damage in the home - broken windows and furniture - after the soldiers seized the TV room. The family reported that five soldiers broke into their home to view the Champions' League final between AC Milan and Liverpool. Anan al-Zrayer, a teenager from Hebron, said that he was walking down the street when the soldiers stopped him and asked him if his family has a TV set and a satellite dish. "I said yes, but we don't have Israeli channels, and after they entered our home, I gave them the remote control, and they carried out a search after kicking us out into another room", Anan said. A Hebron resident told Channel 10 that this is not the first time that soldiers had taken over Palestinian homes in Hebron to watch TV. The resident added that about two weeks ago, eleven soldiers broke into his home and stayed for the whole night while watching TV.
Friday morning, Israeli soldiers invaded the village of Beit Liqya, south of Ramallah, and arrested eight residents. Two weeks ago, Israeli soldiers invaded the village and fired at children; two were killed.
Sunday, May 29, 2005
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Journey to Jerusalem
At 6:30 yesterday morning, I embarked on a journey with Fatima and her oldest daughter Shams, to attend a 10:00 meeting about a summer camp Shams will be participating in this August in Denver, Colorado. I wish I didn’t have to call it a “journey.” When I’m traveling alone, the 40 miles to Jerusalem is usually no journey, just sometimes a hassle waiting for cars and passing through checkpoints. West Bank Palestinians, however, do not have this same luxury. Without permits, they cannot visit their capital, their holiest site in the country.
The organization sponsoring the summer camp had attempted to procure permits for the girls and their parents who were coming from the West Bank. Everyone got these permits – everyone except Fatima. No reasons were given for the denial. “You’re a terrorist,” I joked with her. “Like you,” she responded with a smile. Nevermind, Fatima decided, we’ll go to Jerusalem anyway. The occupation won’t give me a permit. That’s not surprising. But they can’t keep me away from Jerusalem.
So we headed south, from Qarawa roadblock to Huwara checkpoint, from Huwara checkpoint back out through Zatara checkpoint and towards Kalandia checkpoint. At Kalandia, instead of taking the regular bus I take to Jerusalem, we took a shared taxi towards Aram checkpoint, and just before the checkpoint everyone got out and walked around on a small path towards the right. We reached a bus, whose driver was hurriedly trying to file people in and depart before being noticed by soldiers. It was too late, though. About 30 seconds into our journey, three soldiers – one man and two women – jumped out from behind a building and ordered the bus to stop. The male soldier entered and checked everyone’s ID cards. Shams sat innocently, planning to tell the soldier, if asked, that she wasn’t yet 16 (she’s 17) and thus didn’t have an ID. He didn’t ask. She was the only one on the bus who he passed over, although most of the passengers were women and old men, who often are not checked at checkpoints. I had a valid visa, and a couple other people were “legitimate” as well, but the soldier removed everyone else from the bus and told the bus to leave. Fatima told us to go ahead without her, but we didn’t feel comfortable doing that, so we got off the bus. We stood for about 20 minutes, waiting for people’s IDs. Several people told the soldier, “Fine, I won’t go to Jerusalem, I’ll turn around, just give me my ID.” At this point, though, it was punishment and not prevention. The soldier kept saying his captain would arrive in 5 minutes.
During the time we stood there, we watched dozens of people walking on parallel roads a few hundred meters away, people who probably do this journey more often and know the best ways to walk without being stopped. I looked at the soldier, who was also watching the people in the distance. I wondered whether he would call his captain to report this, or just continue to do his particular task, which wasn’t to stop all people from reaching Jerusalem, but only the people on this particular road at this particular hour. He continued his task, holding onto the IDs and just watching the people in the distance.
Fatima went to the soldier and said, “I don’t need a permit to go to Jerusalem. I’m old, older than 40.” “Where did you hear that?” the amused soldier asked. “On the radio,” Fatima replied. “Do you believe everything you hear on the radio?” asked the soldier. “No,” said Fatima, “I don’t believe anything that comes from Israel, because it’s all political propaganda.” I couldn’t hold back a smile. Even (especially?) in a situation of extreme power differential, Fatima was in her element, stepping up to the challenge of holding onto dignity and freedom in the midst of humiliation and arbitrary restriction.
After a few more minutes passed, I asked the soldier why his captain wasn’t there yet, and why he needed to come in the first place. “He’s bringing some papers,” said the soldier. “These people broke the law by trying to go to Jerusalem without permission, and they need to sign papers.” Fatima was unimpressed, and decided she’d waited long enough. “Let’s go back,” she declared, “and go around another way. I don’t need my ID, I have another one at home.” Apparently she had lost her ID once, and after getting a new one she found her old one. Knowing that made me slightly less worried, but I still feared that the soldier would not be too happy to find that Fatima was no longer there when it came time to hand the IDs back. Nevertheless, Shams and I followed Fatima and we started to walk away, without being noticed by the soldiers. That is, until Fatima turned around and yelled, “Enough! Keep my ID – it’s yours!” I didn’t turn around, just looked at Shams and started laughing. “I can’t believe my mother,” Shams said laughing. The soldiers didn’t try to stop us.
“I’m free,” Fatima said a few minutes later. “I’m not afraid of them.” We walked for about 15 minutes until we reached a more major road. During the walk, we heard the captain finally arrive and start yelling through the jeep’s loudspeaker. I couldn’t tell what he was saying, and I don’t know exactly what happened, as we quickly got out of sight of that scene. I wonder how many times a day this happens.
Finally we caught a bus to Jerusalem, and then a taxi to the meeting, arriving at 10:15. It took us almost 4 hours to travel about 40 miles. I am reminded of an art exhibition I saw last year in Bethlehem, in which a woman had asked several people in Bethlehem, “How far is it from Bethlehem to Jerusalem?” Responses ranged from “two hours” to “10 kilometers and 4 years” to “I’ve never been to Jerusalem.”
From the balcony of the meeting place, we could see the Al Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock to the left, and to the right the Annexation Wall snaked through the landscape of Abu Dis and other Jerusalem villages. Shereen, a friend of mine from Arroub refugee camp in Hebron, who will also be participating in the summer program, walked out to the balcony and saw the Dome of the Rock. “Wow,” she whispered reverently. Shams looked up and smiled. “Is it the first time you’ve seen it?” she asked. “No,” said Shereen, “I’ve seen it twice before.” “Me too,” said Shams. They stood and stared for a couple minutes, and then continued to talk about what teenagers talk about, asking each other questions about families, where they lived, musical tastes, and more.
The meeting ended, we walked to French Square to join the end of the Women in Black vigil against the occupation and to meet up with someone who was coming home with us, we walked through the Old City for a few minutes, and we started on our way. Luckily, Fatima wasn’t asked for her ID (which she no longer had) during any of the ride/s back north. We reached home around 6:00 pm, hot and exhausted, with another story to tell. Another day in Palestine.
The organization sponsoring the summer camp had attempted to procure permits for the girls and their parents who were coming from the West Bank. Everyone got these permits – everyone except Fatima. No reasons were given for the denial. “You’re a terrorist,” I joked with her. “Like you,” she responded with a smile. Nevermind, Fatima decided, we’ll go to Jerusalem anyway. The occupation won’t give me a permit. That’s not surprising. But they can’t keep me away from Jerusalem.
So we headed south, from Qarawa roadblock to Huwara checkpoint, from Huwara checkpoint back out through Zatara checkpoint and towards Kalandia checkpoint. At Kalandia, instead of taking the regular bus I take to Jerusalem, we took a shared taxi towards Aram checkpoint, and just before the checkpoint everyone got out and walked around on a small path towards the right. We reached a bus, whose driver was hurriedly trying to file people in and depart before being noticed by soldiers. It was too late, though. About 30 seconds into our journey, three soldiers – one man and two women – jumped out from behind a building and ordered the bus to stop. The male soldier entered and checked everyone’s ID cards. Shams sat innocently, planning to tell the soldier, if asked, that she wasn’t yet 16 (she’s 17) and thus didn’t have an ID. He didn’t ask. She was the only one on the bus who he passed over, although most of the passengers were women and old men, who often are not checked at checkpoints. I had a valid visa, and a couple other people were “legitimate” as well, but the soldier removed everyone else from the bus and told the bus to leave. Fatima told us to go ahead without her, but we didn’t feel comfortable doing that, so we got off the bus. We stood for about 20 minutes, waiting for people’s IDs. Several people told the soldier, “Fine, I won’t go to Jerusalem, I’ll turn around, just give me my ID.” At this point, though, it was punishment and not prevention. The soldier kept saying his captain would arrive in 5 minutes.
During the time we stood there, we watched dozens of people walking on parallel roads a few hundred meters away, people who probably do this journey more often and know the best ways to walk without being stopped. I looked at the soldier, who was also watching the people in the distance. I wondered whether he would call his captain to report this, or just continue to do his particular task, which wasn’t to stop all people from reaching Jerusalem, but only the people on this particular road at this particular hour. He continued his task, holding onto the IDs and just watching the people in the distance.
Fatima went to the soldier and said, “I don’t need a permit to go to Jerusalem. I’m old, older than 40.” “Where did you hear that?” the amused soldier asked. “On the radio,” Fatima replied. “Do you believe everything you hear on the radio?” asked the soldier. “No,” said Fatima, “I don’t believe anything that comes from Israel, because it’s all political propaganda.” I couldn’t hold back a smile. Even (especially?) in a situation of extreme power differential, Fatima was in her element, stepping up to the challenge of holding onto dignity and freedom in the midst of humiliation and arbitrary restriction.
After a few more minutes passed, I asked the soldier why his captain wasn’t there yet, and why he needed to come in the first place. “He’s bringing some papers,” said the soldier. “These people broke the law by trying to go to Jerusalem without permission, and they need to sign papers.” Fatima was unimpressed, and decided she’d waited long enough. “Let’s go back,” she declared, “and go around another way. I don’t need my ID, I have another one at home.” Apparently she had lost her ID once, and after getting a new one she found her old one. Knowing that made me slightly less worried, but I still feared that the soldier would not be too happy to find that Fatima was no longer there when it came time to hand the IDs back. Nevertheless, Shams and I followed Fatima and we started to walk away, without being noticed by the soldiers. That is, until Fatima turned around and yelled, “Enough! Keep my ID – it’s yours!” I didn’t turn around, just looked at Shams and started laughing. “I can’t believe my mother,” Shams said laughing. The soldiers didn’t try to stop us.
“I’m free,” Fatima said a few minutes later. “I’m not afraid of them.” We walked for about 15 minutes until we reached a more major road. During the walk, we heard the captain finally arrive and start yelling through the jeep’s loudspeaker. I couldn’t tell what he was saying, and I don’t know exactly what happened, as we quickly got out of sight of that scene. I wonder how many times a day this happens.
Finally we caught a bus to Jerusalem, and then a taxi to the meeting, arriving at 10:15. It took us almost 4 hours to travel about 40 miles. I am reminded of an art exhibition I saw last year in Bethlehem, in which a woman had asked several people in Bethlehem, “How far is it from Bethlehem to Jerusalem?” Responses ranged from “two hours” to “10 kilometers and 4 years” to “I’ve never been to Jerusalem.”
From the balcony of the meeting place, we could see the Al Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock to the left, and to the right the Annexation Wall snaked through the landscape of Abu Dis and other Jerusalem villages. Shereen, a friend of mine from Arroub refugee camp in Hebron, who will also be participating in the summer program, walked out to the balcony and saw the Dome of the Rock. “Wow,” she whispered reverently. Shams looked up and smiled. “Is it the first time you’ve seen it?” she asked. “No,” said Shereen, “I’ve seen it twice before.” “Me too,” said Shams. They stood and stared for a couple minutes, and then continued to talk about what teenagers talk about, asking each other questions about families, where they lived, musical tastes, and more.
The meeting ended, we walked to French Square to join the end of the Women in Black vigil against the occupation and to meet up with someone who was coming home with us, we walked through the Old City for a few minutes, and we started on our way. Luckily, Fatima wasn’t asked for her ID (which she no longer had) during any of the ride/s back north. We reached home around 6:00 pm, hot and exhausted, with another story to tell. Another day in Palestine.
Friday, May 13, 2005
Thoughts on "Independence Day"
There is always too much and too little to write. Everything here is extraordinary, and nothing is new. This week Israelis commemorated the Holocaust and their fallen soldiers, and celebrated “Independence Day.” This week Palestinians lived another week under occupation, with an eye towards “Al Nakba” (the catastrophe), a commemoration of the tragedy that 1948 was for the Palestinian people. This week my Israeli friends were beaten and arrested by Israeli police officers in Tel Aviv while protesting the Israeli army killing of two Palestinian boys the previous day. This week I stood in support of Palestinian villagers in Assira who opened the roadblocks that the Israeli army had placed to block them from going to Nablus on this road for the past 5 years. This week a friend in Dheisheh asked my advice on whether he should accept money for his organization from US AID, which requires a signature on an “anti-terror” statement (“I’m against terror,” my friend told me, “but by my definition, not theirs. I’m against killing of Palestinian children and Israeli children...”). This week I asked the same friend what he thought of Jewish Palestine solidarity activists using Israel’s discriminatory immigration laws in order to do this work. He told me what many Palestinians have told me: you and hundreds of other like-minded people should get Israeli citizenship and vote the bastards out (paraphrased). But isn’t that a bit like the soldiers at checkpoints who tell me, “I’m serving in the army in order to humanize it. I’m the good soldier”? You can’t humanize a checkpoint, you can’t humanize the occupation, and you can’t humanize a state that was founded on someone else’s land (like the US, I realize, but I was born in the US and my citizenship there was not a choice), and whose existence is based on the concept of rights for only a small group of people. There is a larger number of non-Jews in Israel than non-Christians in the United States. What if the US were declared a Christian country? Some may argue that our current leadership is bringing us closer to that, but Bush would never dare say that non-Christians cannot buy land, or build additions to their houses, or enjoy other rights of citizenship granted to the ever-shrinking majority population.
I am increasingly frustrated by “left-wing Zionists,” people who believe in an end to the 1967 occupation and in the creation of two states, but who don’t question the character of those two states; people who admit to me that they’re not quite sure how Zionism and democracy can coexist, but that there has to be some way, and besides, their “bottom line” is that Jews need a state. They are not willing to think their thoughts to their logical conclusions. They simply end with their “bottom line,” while millions of Palestinians live in refugee camps all over the world waiting for that bottom line to change.
The uncomfortable truth I’ve come to is that Zionism and democracy are incompatible. This is not to say that Israel must be wiped off the face of the earth. This is simply to say that you can’t have a democratic state and a Jewish state at the same time. You can’t have a democratic nationalism that is based on religion and ethnicity instead of geography. I’ve heard people say Israel can be a “Jewish state” if it embodies Jewish values of justice and humanity. Fine, then let Israel be that kind of Jewish state, which will also make it a Muslim state, a Christian state, a Buddhist state, a secular-humanist state, ...
Israel has been pushing and pushing at the borders, expanding and expanding, cantonizing the Palestinian population and essentially making a two-state solution impossible. So some of the progressive thinkers on both sides may end up being right, and may find themselves living in the one state they’ve been calling for for so long. I think this is a likely scenario for the far future, that all of historic Palestine will be one state (whether it’s called Israel, Palestine, or something else), and that everyone in that state will have equal rights, at least under law. I don’t see a viable long-term alternative. This is an end to Zionism. The question is, how long will it take until people come to terms with this necessity? How long will it take until people realize that Zionism is only a pit stop in the history of the Jewish people? And, perhaps most importantly, how many Palestinians will lose their land, their homes, and their lives in the meantime?
These are my thoughts during this week of “Israeli independence.” Questions and comments are welcome. I realize this is incomplete, so maybe I’ll write a follow-up after seeing what you all have to say. The purpose is not to create a political doctrine or to advocate any particular vision for the future (ultimately I think that’s up to the people living here to figure out), but simply to offer a few thoughts (admittedly, not new thoughts) as honestly as I can. Also, for any of you out there who are believers in justice and democracy, and consider yourselves Zionists, please explain to me how this can work (I may not be convinced, but I would at least like to understand).
The following is an excerpt from a book I just read by Mourid Barghouti, called “I Saw Ramallah.” The passage begins with him describing his reaction to Rabin’s speech at the signing of the Oslo accords. I find it particularly powerful this week...
“I felt that tremor that I know so well and which I feel when I know that I have not done my best, that I have failed: Rabin has taken everything, even the story of our death.
This leader knew how to demand that the world should respect Israeli blood, the blood of every Israeli individual without exception. He knew how to demand that the world should respect Israeli tears, and he was able to present Israel as the victim of a crime perpetrated by us. He changed facts, he altered the order of things, he presented us as the initiators of violence in the Middle East and said what he said with eloquence, with clarity and conviction. ...
It is easy to blur the truth with a simple linguistic trick: start your story from ‘Secondly.’ Yes, this is what Rabin did. He simply neglected to speak of what happened first. Start your story with “Secondly,” and the world will be turned upside-down. Start your story with “Secondly,” and the arrows of the Red Indians are the original criminals and the guns of the white men are entirely the victim. It is enough to start with “Secondly,” for the anger of the black man against the white to be barbarous. Start with “Secondly,” and Gandhi becomes responsible for the tragedies of the British. You only need to start your story with “Secondly,” and the burned Vietnamese will have wounded the humanity of the napalm, and Victor Jara’s songs will be the shameful thing and not Pinochet’s bullets, which killed so many thousands in the Santiago stadium. It is enough to start the story with “Secondly,” for my grandmother, Umm ‘Ata, to become the criminal and Ariel Sharon her victim. ...
The houses built on top of ours gallantly declare their willingness to understand our odd predilection toward living in camps scattered in the Diaspora of gods and flies, as though we had begged them to throw us out of our homes and to send their bulldozers to destroy them in front of our very eyes. Their generous guns in Deir Yassin forgive us the fact that they piled our bodies high at the sunset hour there one day. Their fighter jets forgive the graves of our martyrs in Beirut. Their soldiers forgive the tendency of our teenagers’ bones to break. Israel the victim polishes its hot, red knife with the sheen of forgiveness.”
I am increasingly frustrated by “left-wing Zionists,” people who believe in an end to the 1967 occupation and in the creation of two states, but who don’t question the character of those two states; people who admit to me that they’re not quite sure how Zionism and democracy can coexist, but that there has to be some way, and besides, their “bottom line” is that Jews need a state. They are not willing to think their thoughts to their logical conclusions. They simply end with their “bottom line,” while millions of Palestinians live in refugee camps all over the world waiting for that bottom line to change.
The uncomfortable truth I’ve come to is that Zionism and democracy are incompatible. This is not to say that Israel must be wiped off the face of the earth. This is simply to say that you can’t have a democratic state and a Jewish state at the same time. You can’t have a democratic nationalism that is based on religion and ethnicity instead of geography. I’ve heard people say Israel can be a “Jewish state” if it embodies Jewish values of justice and humanity. Fine, then let Israel be that kind of Jewish state, which will also make it a Muslim state, a Christian state, a Buddhist state, a secular-humanist state, ...
Israel has been pushing and pushing at the borders, expanding and expanding, cantonizing the Palestinian population and essentially making a two-state solution impossible. So some of the progressive thinkers on both sides may end up being right, and may find themselves living in the one state they’ve been calling for for so long. I think this is a likely scenario for the far future, that all of historic Palestine will be one state (whether it’s called Israel, Palestine, or something else), and that everyone in that state will have equal rights, at least under law. I don’t see a viable long-term alternative. This is an end to Zionism. The question is, how long will it take until people come to terms with this necessity? How long will it take until people realize that Zionism is only a pit stop in the history of the Jewish people? And, perhaps most importantly, how many Palestinians will lose their land, their homes, and their lives in the meantime?
These are my thoughts during this week of “Israeli independence.” Questions and comments are welcome. I realize this is incomplete, so maybe I’ll write a follow-up after seeing what you all have to say. The purpose is not to create a political doctrine or to advocate any particular vision for the future (ultimately I think that’s up to the people living here to figure out), but simply to offer a few thoughts (admittedly, not new thoughts) as honestly as I can. Also, for any of you out there who are believers in justice and democracy, and consider yourselves Zionists, please explain to me how this can work (I may not be convinced, but I would at least like to understand).
The following is an excerpt from a book I just read by Mourid Barghouti, called “I Saw Ramallah.” The passage begins with him describing his reaction to Rabin’s speech at the signing of the Oslo accords. I find it particularly powerful this week...
“I felt that tremor that I know so well and which I feel when I know that I have not done my best, that I have failed: Rabin has taken everything, even the story of our death.
This leader knew how to demand that the world should respect Israeli blood, the blood of every Israeli individual without exception. He knew how to demand that the world should respect Israeli tears, and he was able to present Israel as the victim of a crime perpetrated by us. He changed facts, he altered the order of things, he presented us as the initiators of violence in the Middle East and said what he said with eloquence, with clarity and conviction. ...
It is easy to blur the truth with a simple linguistic trick: start your story from ‘Secondly.’ Yes, this is what Rabin did. He simply neglected to speak of what happened first. Start your story with “Secondly,” and the world will be turned upside-down. Start your story with “Secondly,” and the arrows of the Red Indians are the original criminals and the guns of the white men are entirely the victim. It is enough to start with “Secondly,” for the anger of the black man against the white to be barbarous. Start with “Secondly,” and Gandhi becomes responsible for the tragedies of the British. You only need to start your story with “Secondly,” and the burned Vietnamese will have wounded the humanity of the napalm, and Victor Jara’s songs will be the shameful thing and not Pinochet’s bullets, which killed so many thousands in the Santiago stadium. It is enough to start the story with “Secondly,” for my grandmother, Umm ‘Ata, to become the criminal and Ariel Sharon her victim. ...
The houses built on top of ours gallantly declare their willingness to understand our odd predilection toward living in camps scattered in the Diaspora of gods and flies, as though we had begged them to throw us out of our homes and to send their bulldozers to destroy them in front of our very eyes. Their generous guns in Deir Yassin forgive us the fact that they piled our bodies high at the sunset hour there one day. Their fighter jets forgive the graves of our martyrs in Beirut. Their soldiers forgive the tendency of our teenagers’ bones to break. Israel the victim polishes its hot, red knife with the sheen of forgiveness.”
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
From Jenin to Herziliya, from Bil'in to Afula
*As I’m getting ready to send this, I’m reading that two more Palestinian children have been killed by the Israeli army (at a demonstration against the Wall in the Ramallah village of Beit Liqya). I wonder how much longer this one-sided cease fire can last...
I just got back from visiting with my friend Um Fadi, who is preparing for tomorrow’s local elections in which she’s running. There are 33 people in Hares running for 9 seats on the village council, and then that group of 9 will vote for a mayor among them. At least 2 of the representatives must be women, and only 5 women are running, so Um Fadi has a decent chance of winning (besides, she’s great, so I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t vote for her!). In Hares, like a few other villages, everyone is running independently, with no stated political party affiliation.
I spent an hour or two chatting with her and her kids, sharing jokes and riddles, and practicing different languages. The youngest kids (8 and 11 years old) began to tell me all the words they knew in Hebrew: “meshugea” (crazy), “hamoor” (donkey/ass), “kelev” (dog), “bo” (come), “lech la’baytah” (go home)... I started to notice a pattern, and indeed, they confirmed that these are the most common words Israeli soldiers yell at Palestinians. Suddenly, 8-year-old Ali said in English, “Stop your game!” “Did the soldiers say that to you?” I asked. No. A few years ago, Um Fadi explained, soldiers were standing at the entrance of the village throwing gas and sound bombs into the village. One international was at Um Fadi’s house, and stepped out into the doorway to yell at the soldiers, “Stop your game!” The soldiers responded by throwing a sound bomb in her direction. The kids still remember the phrase.
Today I was on my way home from another visit to the university in Zebabdeh, Jenin, when a soldier stopped the taxi at a flying checkpoint. He looked at my passport and began asking questions: “Where are you going?” “Where do you live in Israel?” “Where will you sleep tonight?” I couldn’t tell if I should worry about saying the right thing or if he was just making small talk, but I answered curtly and vaguely. He started looking at other people’s IDs but kept talking to me: “What’s wrong? You don’t like soldiers?” “It’s difficult for me to talk to you when you have a gun,” I replied, stealing my colleague Anna’s line. I was glad to see that several Palestinians in the car understood what I had said, and nudged each other smiling. “You think it’s my gun?” asked the soldier. “It’s the government’s gun, the government gives it to me, I don’t choose it.” “You can refuse,” I replied. “If I came here with no gun,” he said, “there would be no me.” He then looked at one of the Palestinian men in the car and asked, “nachon?” (“correct?” in Hebrew). “Nachon,” replied the man absent-mindedly. “You don’t have to come here at all,” I said. “You can stay in Israel.” By this time he wasn’t paying attention to me anymore, but I was amused that he had tried to convince me that guns are necessary for occupation, when really my problem with his presence was the occupation itself, not merely the gun.
My visit to the university in Jenin was for a meeting primarily for members of Green Resistance, a new nonviolence club at the university, and the Israeli group Anarchists Against the Wall. The goal was to get to know each other and try to plan activities together. I was a little frustrated at the lack of concrete ideas generated by the group, especially the Palestinian students who have very little experience with any kind of resistance, until I realized that the meeting itself was a huge step. We introduced ourselves at the beginning, and one international who teaches English at the university said he came because he appreciated the courage of the Israelis to come there and the courage of the Palestinians to invite them. We broke into small groups to talk, and I sat back for a moment to watch the groups interact, knowing that this kind of cooperation is unusual these days. While the group didn’t agree on any one action (it seemed the Israelis were more into direct action against the Wall, while the Palestinians were more interested in joint lectures about nonviolence), they did agree to develop a joint statement and schedule a larger meeting in the near future that will be open to the whole campus. I wasn’t exactly sure what my role as an international was at the meeting, other than to observe and offer my support, but I must say it was nice to spend a whole day in a place where I didn’t hear the word “ajnabiya” (“foreigner”) whispered once. I walked around campus and nobody even noticed. They’re used to internationals teaching English, and also to female Palestinian students who don’t cover their heads, and I could have passed for either. Recently Palestinians have been telling me more and more that I look Arab. I take it as a compliment – “you’re one of us.”
I’ve traveled a lot this week, demonstrating, visiting, meeting, and relaxing. Last Thursday the village of Bil’in held a demonstration against the Wall. This is not unusual, as Bil’in has been one of the most persistent villages in their nonviolent resistance over the past few months, hosting demonstrations several times a week. What was different about Thursday was the presence of several hundred Israeli activists and the decision by the Israeli army to try new tactics and new weapons against the crowd. It started peacefully, even joyfully, as a Palestinian van blasted music and villagers carried the biggest Palestinian flag I’ve ever seen. There was also an impressive display of tear gas canisters, bullets, and other weapons that had been used by soldiers against villagers in previous demonstrations, and were now arranged on the ground to spell phrases like “No to the Wall.” We began to march towards the bulldozers. The wind was against us, so the tear gas quickly wafted our way. And then strange things began to happen. I turned around and saw what looked like two Palestinians fighting with each other. There was a crowd between me and them, so I didn’t see the rest, but according to eye witnesses and media footage, two men had begun throwing stones at the army. The Palestinian organizers tried to stop them, and quickly realized that something was awry. Indeed, as the men tried to stop the stone-throwers, the stone-throwers turned around, grabbed the men, and arrested them. They were undercover cops, apparently part of a unit used previously only to break up prison demonstrations. The Palestinian men who were arrested are still being held in a military prison camp, with charges of “assaulting a public service agent” or something along those lines, even though the cops wore nothing to distinguish them from civilians, and the “assault” was merely an attempt to get them to stop throwing stones.
After the main part of the demonstration ended, groups of Palestinian kids were collecting the weapons. I saw BBs for the first time at one of these actions, and then I saw a strange little plastic orange ball with a white powder inside. “Salt,” the boys were saying. Apparently, the soldiers had shot these salt pellets directly at people, causing welts and burns on people’s bodies. For photos and video footage of this, the undercover cops, and more, Gush Shalom is the place to go: http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en.
I left the demonstration exhausted, having inhaled more tear gas than ever before, and went with Dorothy, an Israeli friend, to her home in Herziliya. The next day, we were going to visit Jaber, the man with meningitis who was arrested at Huwara checkpoint the week before. He had been transferred to an Israeli hospital the Saturday before, I had visited him Sunday (as I wrote in my previous report), and on Tuesday he had been scheduled to be taken to court. The lawyer showed up at Salem that morning only to be told that Jaber still had a fever and the doctor had not released him. His lawyer told the judge that he planned to file a request to have him do his required bed rest at home. The judge said fine, we’ll be in touch, and the lawyer left. The next day the lawyer found out that the court session had gone ahead in both his and Jaber’s absence, and that the court had extended Jaber’s detention for another 15 days. He immediately filed an appeal, since the proceedings were blatantly illegal. He hadn’t seen Jaber since then, so he asked me to tell him, if I was able to see him, that he had another upcoming court date on Monday.
Dorothy and I were in the car on the way to the hospital when Jaber’s wife called to say, “Hurry up, get there quickly, they’re taking him away!” “How do you know?” I asked. “Did the doctor call you?” “No,” she replied, “another sick man who’s with him called me.” I called the lawyer and Physicians for Human Rights, who have been following the case, and neither knew anything about his being transferred. When we showed up, however, it was confirmed; he would be taken back to Salem within the hour. We did arrive on time, though, and walked directly into the room where the soldiers were sitting. Jaber smiled when he saw us, and I was immediately glad we had come. His health was infinitely better than it had been five days before, I was relieved to notice. I talked with him for a couple minutes, passing the messages that his lawyer and his wife had asked me to deliver, while Dorothy argued with the soldiers who were trying to get us to leave the room. I told Jaber I had seen his family, that they send their love, and that his 4-year-old son was so happy that I had seen his father that he stared at me and sat next to me almost the entire time I was at their house. Jaber smiled again.
Finally the soldiers forced us out and closed the door. We met the man who had phoned Jaber’s wife, and he told us he’d spoken to the family a few times this week, upon Jaber’s request. I spoke with the doctor, who said Jaber was physically, if not psychologically, ready to be released. He told me that in order to release him, he had to sign an army paper saying Jaber was healthy enough to be released to prison. He knows next to nothing about the prison conditions, he said, but signed the paper anyway. He seemed somewhat apologetic, but also said he understood that the army wanted him released from the hospital as soon as possible, since they were wasting precious resources guarding the hospital bed of a sick man whose legs were shackled together. It was Friday afternoon, and there were only a couple more hours before Shabbat began and Jaber would have to stay the weekend. So they took him. He started on foot, but the shackles made it impossible for him to walk properly, so they took him the rest of the way in a wheelchair, out to the parking lot and into a regular white car (not a jeep). I managed to sneak a few pictures of this process.
Tomorrow I’ll give the photos to the family, whom I’ve been trying to keep in touch with. Court dates continue to be scheduled and canceled, and his detention continues. According to his wife, he had a court proceeding today, and will have another hearing of some sort six days from now. Still no stated reasons for his arrest.
When I returned to Hares Monday, after several days away, I was greeted warmly by Um Rabia. Abu Rabia told me later that it was too quiet while I was gone, that without IWPS women upstairs, it seemed they had lost something, that something was missing. It’s nice to feel appreciated. I have no illusions about the effectiveness of our work these days, but I’m confident at least in the relationships I’ve formed with friends. We may not be getting any closer to an end to the occupation, but we’re getting closer to each other. For now, that will have to suffice.
I just got back from visiting with my friend Um Fadi, who is preparing for tomorrow’s local elections in which she’s running. There are 33 people in Hares running for 9 seats on the village council, and then that group of 9 will vote for a mayor among them. At least 2 of the representatives must be women, and only 5 women are running, so Um Fadi has a decent chance of winning (besides, she’s great, so I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t vote for her!). In Hares, like a few other villages, everyone is running independently, with no stated political party affiliation.
I spent an hour or two chatting with her and her kids, sharing jokes and riddles, and practicing different languages. The youngest kids (8 and 11 years old) began to tell me all the words they knew in Hebrew: “meshugea” (crazy), “hamoor” (donkey/ass), “kelev” (dog), “bo” (come), “lech la’baytah” (go home)... I started to notice a pattern, and indeed, they confirmed that these are the most common words Israeli soldiers yell at Palestinians. Suddenly, 8-year-old Ali said in English, “Stop your game!” “Did the soldiers say that to you?” I asked. No. A few years ago, Um Fadi explained, soldiers were standing at the entrance of the village throwing gas and sound bombs into the village. One international was at Um Fadi’s house, and stepped out into the doorway to yell at the soldiers, “Stop your game!” The soldiers responded by throwing a sound bomb in her direction. The kids still remember the phrase.
Today I was on my way home from another visit to the university in Zebabdeh, Jenin, when a soldier stopped the taxi at a flying checkpoint. He looked at my passport and began asking questions: “Where are you going?” “Where do you live in Israel?” “Where will you sleep tonight?” I couldn’t tell if I should worry about saying the right thing or if he was just making small talk, but I answered curtly and vaguely. He started looking at other people’s IDs but kept talking to me: “What’s wrong? You don’t like soldiers?” “It’s difficult for me to talk to you when you have a gun,” I replied, stealing my colleague Anna’s line. I was glad to see that several Palestinians in the car understood what I had said, and nudged each other smiling. “You think it’s my gun?” asked the soldier. “It’s the government’s gun, the government gives it to me, I don’t choose it.” “You can refuse,” I replied. “If I came here with no gun,” he said, “there would be no me.” He then looked at one of the Palestinian men in the car and asked, “nachon?” (“correct?” in Hebrew). “Nachon,” replied the man absent-mindedly. “You don’t have to come here at all,” I said. “You can stay in Israel.” By this time he wasn’t paying attention to me anymore, but I was amused that he had tried to convince me that guns are necessary for occupation, when really my problem with his presence was the occupation itself, not merely the gun.
My visit to the university in Jenin was for a meeting primarily for members of Green Resistance, a new nonviolence club at the university, and the Israeli group Anarchists Against the Wall. The goal was to get to know each other and try to plan activities together. I was a little frustrated at the lack of concrete ideas generated by the group, especially the Palestinian students who have very little experience with any kind of resistance, until I realized that the meeting itself was a huge step. We introduced ourselves at the beginning, and one international who teaches English at the university said he came because he appreciated the courage of the Israelis to come there and the courage of the Palestinians to invite them. We broke into small groups to talk, and I sat back for a moment to watch the groups interact, knowing that this kind of cooperation is unusual these days. While the group didn’t agree on any one action (it seemed the Israelis were more into direct action against the Wall, while the Palestinians were more interested in joint lectures about nonviolence), they did agree to develop a joint statement and schedule a larger meeting in the near future that will be open to the whole campus. I wasn’t exactly sure what my role as an international was at the meeting, other than to observe and offer my support, but I must say it was nice to spend a whole day in a place where I didn’t hear the word “ajnabiya” (“foreigner”) whispered once. I walked around campus and nobody even noticed. They’re used to internationals teaching English, and also to female Palestinian students who don’t cover their heads, and I could have passed for either. Recently Palestinians have been telling me more and more that I look Arab. I take it as a compliment – “you’re one of us.”
I’ve traveled a lot this week, demonstrating, visiting, meeting, and relaxing. Last Thursday the village of Bil’in held a demonstration against the Wall. This is not unusual, as Bil’in has been one of the most persistent villages in their nonviolent resistance over the past few months, hosting demonstrations several times a week. What was different about Thursday was the presence of several hundred Israeli activists and the decision by the Israeli army to try new tactics and new weapons against the crowd. It started peacefully, even joyfully, as a Palestinian van blasted music and villagers carried the biggest Palestinian flag I’ve ever seen. There was also an impressive display of tear gas canisters, bullets, and other weapons that had been used by soldiers against villagers in previous demonstrations, and were now arranged on the ground to spell phrases like “No to the Wall.” We began to march towards the bulldozers. The wind was against us, so the tear gas quickly wafted our way. And then strange things began to happen. I turned around and saw what looked like two Palestinians fighting with each other. There was a crowd between me and them, so I didn’t see the rest, but according to eye witnesses and media footage, two men had begun throwing stones at the army. The Palestinian organizers tried to stop them, and quickly realized that something was awry. Indeed, as the men tried to stop the stone-throwers, the stone-throwers turned around, grabbed the men, and arrested them. They were undercover cops, apparently part of a unit used previously only to break up prison demonstrations. The Palestinian men who were arrested are still being held in a military prison camp, with charges of “assaulting a public service agent” or something along those lines, even though the cops wore nothing to distinguish them from civilians, and the “assault” was merely an attempt to get them to stop throwing stones.
After the main part of the demonstration ended, groups of Palestinian kids were collecting the weapons. I saw BBs for the first time at one of these actions, and then I saw a strange little plastic orange ball with a white powder inside. “Salt,” the boys were saying. Apparently, the soldiers had shot these salt pellets directly at people, causing welts and burns on people’s bodies. For photos and video footage of this, the undercover cops, and more, Gush Shalom is the place to go: http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en.
I left the demonstration exhausted, having inhaled more tear gas than ever before, and went with Dorothy, an Israeli friend, to her home in Herziliya. The next day, we were going to visit Jaber, the man with meningitis who was arrested at Huwara checkpoint the week before. He had been transferred to an Israeli hospital the Saturday before, I had visited him Sunday (as I wrote in my previous report), and on Tuesday he had been scheduled to be taken to court. The lawyer showed up at Salem that morning only to be told that Jaber still had a fever and the doctor had not released him. His lawyer told the judge that he planned to file a request to have him do his required bed rest at home. The judge said fine, we’ll be in touch, and the lawyer left. The next day the lawyer found out that the court session had gone ahead in both his and Jaber’s absence, and that the court had extended Jaber’s detention for another 15 days. He immediately filed an appeal, since the proceedings were blatantly illegal. He hadn’t seen Jaber since then, so he asked me to tell him, if I was able to see him, that he had another upcoming court date on Monday.
Dorothy and I were in the car on the way to the hospital when Jaber’s wife called to say, “Hurry up, get there quickly, they’re taking him away!” “How do you know?” I asked. “Did the doctor call you?” “No,” she replied, “another sick man who’s with him called me.” I called the lawyer and Physicians for Human Rights, who have been following the case, and neither knew anything about his being transferred. When we showed up, however, it was confirmed; he would be taken back to Salem within the hour. We did arrive on time, though, and walked directly into the room where the soldiers were sitting. Jaber smiled when he saw us, and I was immediately glad we had come. His health was infinitely better than it had been five days before, I was relieved to notice. I talked with him for a couple minutes, passing the messages that his lawyer and his wife had asked me to deliver, while Dorothy argued with the soldiers who were trying to get us to leave the room. I told Jaber I had seen his family, that they send their love, and that his 4-year-old son was so happy that I had seen his father that he stared at me and sat next to me almost the entire time I was at their house. Jaber smiled again.
Finally the soldiers forced us out and closed the door. We met the man who had phoned Jaber’s wife, and he told us he’d spoken to the family a few times this week, upon Jaber’s request. I spoke with the doctor, who said Jaber was physically, if not psychologically, ready to be released. He told me that in order to release him, he had to sign an army paper saying Jaber was healthy enough to be released to prison. He knows next to nothing about the prison conditions, he said, but signed the paper anyway. He seemed somewhat apologetic, but also said he understood that the army wanted him released from the hospital as soon as possible, since they were wasting precious resources guarding the hospital bed of a sick man whose legs were shackled together. It was Friday afternoon, and there were only a couple more hours before Shabbat began and Jaber would have to stay the weekend. So they took him. He started on foot, but the shackles made it impossible for him to walk properly, so they took him the rest of the way in a wheelchair, out to the parking lot and into a regular white car (not a jeep). I managed to sneak a few pictures of this process.
Tomorrow I’ll give the photos to the family, whom I’ve been trying to keep in touch with. Court dates continue to be scheduled and canceled, and his detention continues. According to his wife, he had a court proceeding today, and will have another hearing of some sort six days from now. Still no stated reasons for his arrest.
When I returned to Hares Monday, after several days away, I was greeted warmly by Um Rabia. Abu Rabia told me later that it was too quiet while I was gone, that without IWPS women upstairs, it seemed they had lost something, that something was missing. It’s nice to feel appreciated. I have no illusions about the effectiveness of our work these days, but I’m confident at least in the relationships I’ve formed with friends. We may not be getting any closer to an end to the occupation, but we’re getting closer to each other. For now, that will have to suffice.
Monday, April 25, 2005
Freedom and Captivity
The past few days have been a whirlwind of joy and sorrow, freedom and captivity. Passover, my favorite Jewish holiday because it’s a celebration of freedom and a commitment to struggling for justice, has framed these days. At the same time, the story of Jaber Dalany, a sick Palestinian man who was arrested at a checkpoint on his way out of the hospital Thursday night, has also framed these days. I was encouraged at a Passover seder last night to reflect on what “my community” (however defined) has done to break apart other communities, what we must take responsibility for. Suddenly I was outside my role as an international. Suddenly the soldiers guarding Jaber’s hospital room were my community (the Jewish community), and the shackles on his legs were my doing. I started to cry, and then shared his story.
On Thursday afternoon, 31-year-old Jaber was leaving a hospital in Nablus where he had spent 5 days and been diagnosed with viral meningitis. He was stopped at Huwara checkpoint and detained from 12:30 pm – 10 pm, when the checkpoint closed and the soldiers officially arrested him. Jaber’s health deteriorated during that time. His wife, who is pregnant with their fourth child, was with him and reports that he became delirious after so many hours in the sun with no food or water. The army reports that after arriving at Salem detention center, he was given water through an IV. We heard nothing else for a couple days – no reason for his arrest, and only vague medical reports from the army whose doctors diagnosed him with everything from a stomach ulcer to heart disease, always with the same conclusion: “Medical condition does not bar arrest.” Finally after many phone calls from organizations and individuals around the world, they admitted he had something more serious and took him to Ha’emek Hospital in Afula. I called the hospital, and the first English-speaking doctor I found was also Palestinian. All the Jewish doctors had gone home for Passover, he told me, so the family could call the emergency room and speak Arabic with any of the doctors if they wanted to find more information. He was extremely helpful, calling me back twice to tell me as much as he knew.
Meanwhile, I kept getting phone calls from the family and friends, saying his wife was not doing well, the family was worried because he hadn’t seemed fully recovered when leaving the hospital in Nablus, etc. Everyone who heard about his arrest was shocked – he has no political ties, people kept saying. The family asked us to try to visit him, so Susy (an Israeli activist) and I went to Afula yesterday. We drove north through Israel, but not far from the Green Line. We passed countless Palestinian Muslim villages (I saw mosques everywhere) and Palestinians walking along the roads. I marveled over the fact that even after Israel’s destruction of over 400 Palestinian towns and villages, so many still remain. This drive made it seem like the 20% of Israel’s population that is Palestinian was more like 80%. For the first time inside Israel, I really felt, “This is Palestine. Some European tourists moved in and formed a state 57 years ago, and are still here, but the land still knows that it is Palestine, and the people still know...” Maybe that’s part of what makes Israelis so uncomfortable. They can build all the shopping malls they want, but Palestine isn’t going anywhere. There was something comforting about the drive, about this thought, about the land.
We arrived at the hospital and went directly to the ward where Jaber was being treated. His room was not difficult to find, since it was the only one with a closed door and two armed soldiers sitting outside. Susy tried to walk in and was stopped by the soldiers. They would not let us enter, but we were able to talk to the doctor, who had not yet received any information about Jaber’s prior medical situation. He seemed frustrated with the army’s lack of sharing information. We gave him the phone number of the doctor who had treated Jaber in Nablus, and just at that moment the faxed medical report from Nablus came from friends of the family. The doctor told us he had just done a spinal tap and would soon determine Jaber’s illness. The viral meningitis diagnosis was confirmed an hour later.
We paced back and forth in front of Jaber’s door a few times, knowing it was unlocked and we could just walk in, but that that probably would not be good for anyone. The soldiers became agitated when we got too close, and were disturbed by our presence. The hospital security guard, however, was somewhat more friendly, and called the DCO to see if we could go into Jaber’s room. Finally an answer came: “No, you can’t go in right now. Maybe after many hours you’ll be allowed in.” So we left the hospital and ran another errand, and came back an hour or two later. We were almost sure we would not be allowed in, but thought it was worth a try, another argument, whatever it would take. It didn’t take anything. We showed up at the entrance of the hospital and the guard said, “You have permission now.” It was surprising, but not unheard of – the army rules and decisions never cease to amaze me in their arbitrariness.
We returned to Jaber’s ward, and the soldiers let us in, but said one of them had to stay with us the whole time. When we entered Jaber was sleeping. I said his name softly and he opened his eyes and gave a little moan. I introduced myself, and even in his delirium, illness, and lack of control over his circumstances, he greeted me with the customary, “Ahlan w’sahlan” (welcome). He started to come to his senses a bit as he realized this was an opportunity to notify the outside world of his situation. He was so tired, and so sick, he told us. He kept saying “Biddi amoot” which could be translated as “I want to die” or “I’m going to die.” I’m not sure which he meant. Maybe both. He said the doctor was good, the hospital was good, but if he’s taken back to Salem detention center they might as well shoot him. He was in tears, half from pain and half from terror, as he told us he hadn’t eaten, drunk, or slept in three days. In Salem, he said, they threw him in a small cell with 9 other people, and did not let anyone out to go to the bathroom from 9pm – 8:30am. He spent the next two days on the floor in pain (there were no beds), where he said it was extremely cold at night. He told us he lost consciousness four times, but didn’t sleep at all. Nobody spoke with him while he was there, so if there is to be any interrogation, it has not yet begun. He still hasn’t had anything to eat or drink, he said, only the occasional IV to keep him from deadly dehydration. I had seen a full tray of food leave his room earlier, and asked him about it. “The doctor told me not to eat for a half hour after the spinal tap,” he said. The soldier argued, “The food came two hours later.” Jaber disagreed. I don’t know who was telling the truth. Possibly both of them. Jaber did not seem to be thinking clearly, so it’s possible he was not aware of the time, or he slept through it, or he was not strong enough to feed himself (he asked us to feed him when they brought more food, which is not something I would expect from a 30-year-old man unless he really was too weak to feed himself). Or maybe he didn’t eat because they served him matzah, which would have been disastrous for his throat. He told us to lift up the blanket covering his feet, and we saw the metal cuffs on his ankles, which seemed totally ridiculous. He was too weak to sit up or feed himself, and two armed guards sat outside his room, but he had to be shackled? One of the soldiers said, “It’s not our decision, we’re only the escorts. We don’t even have the key.”
Susy distracted the soldier for a minute while I dialed Jaber’s wife’s number. She picked up and I quickly said, “Hi Khulud, I’m with Jaber, hold on...” and handed him the phone. They talked for a minute before the soldiers noticed and then another minute while Susy argued with the soldier about why he should be allowed to talk on the phone. When he hung up, Jaber handed me the phone, thanked me, and smiled for the only time all day.
The doctor pulled me aside at one point to ask about my organization. When I told him about IWPS and what we do, he asked why. It was a personal question: Why do you come from America to do this? I told him I’m American and my tax dollars go to support Israel’s occupation of Palestine, and I’m Jewish and my name gets used to oppress Palestinians as well. “You’re Palestinian, right?” I asked. He smiled and said, “I’m nothing. I’m just me.” He was a nice guy, a good doctor, and obviously concerned about Jaber. He said if he were releasing him to his house he would do it almost immediately, but that he wasn’t sure about releasing him to prison. He seemed uncomfortable with the whole situation. Palestinians with Israeli citizenship are already in a peculiar position, and I think he was caught inside that, saying it’s none of his business what happens to Jaber after he’s released, but at the same time it was his responsibility to make sure Jaber was okay. At the end of the conversation he gave me his cell phone number and said, “Don’t give it out, I don’t want any trouble. But feel free to contact me if I can help with anything... that is, anything that’s not political.” I didn’t think it was a good time to get into a discussion about how everything is political, especially everything here.
We stayed with Jaber for over an hour, feeding him pudding, water, and juice (when I asked for a second cup for the juice, one of the soldiers said, “This is a hospital, not a restaurant”). Jaber asked for another blanket and pillow, which the nurses brought. He asked me what day it was, and I told him – Sunday, April 24. He begged us to go to the Finance Ministry in Ramallah, where he works, and see if they can do anything to help. He also stressed the importance of sending the photos that Anna had taken of him being arrested at Huwara to the newspapers, and giving them to his family. I told him people from all over the world already knew about the situation, that the army and hospital had been getting calls all night, that he had to hang in there for his family, etc. “Just don’t let them send me back to Salem,” he kept saying, “or I’ll die.”
I felt guilty leaving him, especially since there didn’t seem to be any time limit on our visit and I knew he may not see another person outside of prison for months. But it was getting late, I already knew I would be at least an hour late to the seder I was going to in Jerusalem, and I wasn’t sure there was anything else we could specifically do for Jaber at the moment.
We left, made our way through the holiday traffic to Tel Aviv, and I took a shared taxi to Jerusalem. It was nice to arrive at the seder to a group of progressive Jews, to meet new people, to sing. But I couldn’t get Jaber out of my mind. I was too tired to think critically about the meaning of celebrating freedom while Jaber’s legs were cuffed together in his hospital bed. I could only feel it, and share it, and try to be proud of what the Jewish tradition could mean if applied more compassionately.
At the end of the seder I read a paragraph I had written for the seder we hosted at our house on Friday night. Twenty Palestinians, Israelis, internationals, and people who cross all those identities had come together to tell the story of Exodus (which is almost exactly the same in the Torah and the Koran, we discovered), to sing songs of freedom, and to express solidarity with and gratitude for each other. We ate taboun (huge wonderful Palestinian bread) instead of matzah, drank grape juice from Bethlehem instead of wine, and covered our seder plate with a Palestinian flag. We ate maklube and sat on mattresses on the floor, the way so many Palestinians do during meals. The cultures, symbols, and people blended beautifully and naturally.
My closing paragraph follows:
“At the end of the seder, Jews have always promised each other: ‘L’shana haba-a bi-Y’rushalayim - Next Year in Jerusalem!’ This year, as we sit here in the West Bank with Palestinians who are not permitted to go to Jerusalem, the phrase ‘Next year in Jerusalem’ has new meaning. What was a dream for Jews and a reality for Palestinians has become a reality for Jews and a dream for Palestinians. This year, in a measure of solidarity with Palestinians, let us all say ‘Next year in Jerusalem – Il’sane il’jayye fil Quds.’”
For those of you who want and are able to do something for Jaber, please call Israeli authorities and demand to know why they continue to hold a sick man with no charges.
Israeli Army phone numbers (these numbers are what you dial from the US – those of you outside can hopefully figure out which number to dial from where you are):
DCO in Jenin: (011-972) 4-640-7312 or (011-972) 4-617-9207
DCO "Humanitarian Office": (011-972) 2-997-7733
On Thursday afternoon, 31-year-old Jaber was leaving a hospital in Nablus where he had spent 5 days and been diagnosed with viral meningitis. He was stopped at Huwara checkpoint and detained from 12:30 pm – 10 pm, when the checkpoint closed and the soldiers officially arrested him. Jaber’s health deteriorated during that time. His wife, who is pregnant with their fourth child, was with him and reports that he became delirious after so many hours in the sun with no food or water. The army reports that after arriving at Salem detention center, he was given water through an IV. We heard nothing else for a couple days – no reason for his arrest, and only vague medical reports from the army whose doctors diagnosed him with everything from a stomach ulcer to heart disease, always with the same conclusion: “Medical condition does not bar arrest.” Finally after many phone calls from organizations and individuals around the world, they admitted he had something more serious and took him to Ha’emek Hospital in Afula. I called the hospital, and the first English-speaking doctor I found was also Palestinian. All the Jewish doctors had gone home for Passover, he told me, so the family could call the emergency room and speak Arabic with any of the doctors if they wanted to find more information. He was extremely helpful, calling me back twice to tell me as much as he knew.
Meanwhile, I kept getting phone calls from the family and friends, saying his wife was not doing well, the family was worried because he hadn’t seemed fully recovered when leaving the hospital in Nablus, etc. Everyone who heard about his arrest was shocked – he has no political ties, people kept saying. The family asked us to try to visit him, so Susy (an Israeli activist) and I went to Afula yesterday. We drove north through Israel, but not far from the Green Line. We passed countless Palestinian Muslim villages (I saw mosques everywhere) and Palestinians walking along the roads. I marveled over the fact that even after Israel’s destruction of over 400 Palestinian towns and villages, so many still remain. This drive made it seem like the 20% of Israel’s population that is Palestinian was more like 80%. For the first time inside Israel, I really felt, “This is Palestine. Some European tourists moved in and formed a state 57 years ago, and are still here, but the land still knows that it is Palestine, and the people still know...” Maybe that’s part of what makes Israelis so uncomfortable. They can build all the shopping malls they want, but Palestine isn’t going anywhere. There was something comforting about the drive, about this thought, about the land.
We arrived at the hospital and went directly to the ward where Jaber was being treated. His room was not difficult to find, since it was the only one with a closed door and two armed soldiers sitting outside. Susy tried to walk in and was stopped by the soldiers. They would not let us enter, but we were able to talk to the doctor, who had not yet received any information about Jaber’s prior medical situation. He seemed frustrated with the army’s lack of sharing information. We gave him the phone number of the doctor who had treated Jaber in Nablus, and just at that moment the faxed medical report from Nablus came from friends of the family. The doctor told us he had just done a spinal tap and would soon determine Jaber’s illness. The viral meningitis diagnosis was confirmed an hour later.
We paced back and forth in front of Jaber’s door a few times, knowing it was unlocked and we could just walk in, but that that probably would not be good for anyone. The soldiers became agitated when we got too close, and were disturbed by our presence. The hospital security guard, however, was somewhat more friendly, and called the DCO to see if we could go into Jaber’s room. Finally an answer came: “No, you can’t go in right now. Maybe after many hours you’ll be allowed in.” So we left the hospital and ran another errand, and came back an hour or two later. We were almost sure we would not be allowed in, but thought it was worth a try, another argument, whatever it would take. It didn’t take anything. We showed up at the entrance of the hospital and the guard said, “You have permission now.” It was surprising, but not unheard of – the army rules and decisions never cease to amaze me in their arbitrariness.
We returned to Jaber’s ward, and the soldiers let us in, but said one of them had to stay with us the whole time. When we entered Jaber was sleeping. I said his name softly and he opened his eyes and gave a little moan. I introduced myself, and even in his delirium, illness, and lack of control over his circumstances, he greeted me with the customary, “Ahlan w’sahlan” (welcome). He started to come to his senses a bit as he realized this was an opportunity to notify the outside world of his situation. He was so tired, and so sick, he told us. He kept saying “Biddi amoot” which could be translated as “I want to die” or “I’m going to die.” I’m not sure which he meant. Maybe both. He said the doctor was good, the hospital was good, but if he’s taken back to Salem detention center they might as well shoot him. He was in tears, half from pain and half from terror, as he told us he hadn’t eaten, drunk, or slept in three days. In Salem, he said, they threw him in a small cell with 9 other people, and did not let anyone out to go to the bathroom from 9pm – 8:30am. He spent the next two days on the floor in pain (there were no beds), where he said it was extremely cold at night. He told us he lost consciousness four times, but didn’t sleep at all. Nobody spoke with him while he was there, so if there is to be any interrogation, it has not yet begun. He still hasn’t had anything to eat or drink, he said, only the occasional IV to keep him from deadly dehydration. I had seen a full tray of food leave his room earlier, and asked him about it. “The doctor told me not to eat for a half hour after the spinal tap,” he said. The soldier argued, “The food came two hours later.” Jaber disagreed. I don’t know who was telling the truth. Possibly both of them. Jaber did not seem to be thinking clearly, so it’s possible he was not aware of the time, or he slept through it, or he was not strong enough to feed himself (he asked us to feed him when they brought more food, which is not something I would expect from a 30-year-old man unless he really was too weak to feed himself). Or maybe he didn’t eat because they served him matzah, which would have been disastrous for his throat. He told us to lift up the blanket covering his feet, and we saw the metal cuffs on his ankles, which seemed totally ridiculous. He was too weak to sit up or feed himself, and two armed guards sat outside his room, but he had to be shackled? One of the soldiers said, “It’s not our decision, we’re only the escorts. We don’t even have the key.”
Susy distracted the soldier for a minute while I dialed Jaber’s wife’s number. She picked up and I quickly said, “Hi Khulud, I’m with Jaber, hold on...” and handed him the phone. They talked for a minute before the soldiers noticed and then another minute while Susy argued with the soldier about why he should be allowed to talk on the phone. When he hung up, Jaber handed me the phone, thanked me, and smiled for the only time all day.
The doctor pulled me aside at one point to ask about my organization. When I told him about IWPS and what we do, he asked why. It was a personal question: Why do you come from America to do this? I told him I’m American and my tax dollars go to support Israel’s occupation of Palestine, and I’m Jewish and my name gets used to oppress Palestinians as well. “You’re Palestinian, right?” I asked. He smiled and said, “I’m nothing. I’m just me.” He was a nice guy, a good doctor, and obviously concerned about Jaber. He said if he were releasing him to his house he would do it almost immediately, but that he wasn’t sure about releasing him to prison. He seemed uncomfortable with the whole situation. Palestinians with Israeli citizenship are already in a peculiar position, and I think he was caught inside that, saying it’s none of his business what happens to Jaber after he’s released, but at the same time it was his responsibility to make sure Jaber was okay. At the end of the conversation he gave me his cell phone number and said, “Don’t give it out, I don’t want any trouble. But feel free to contact me if I can help with anything... that is, anything that’s not political.” I didn’t think it was a good time to get into a discussion about how everything is political, especially everything here.
We stayed with Jaber for over an hour, feeding him pudding, water, and juice (when I asked for a second cup for the juice, one of the soldiers said, “This is a hospital, not a restaurant”). Jaber asked for another blanket and pillow, which the nurses brought. He asked me what day it was, and I told him – Sunday, April 24. He begged us to go to the Finance Ministry in Ramallah, where he works, and see if they can do anything to help. He also stressed the importance of sending the photos that Anna had taken of him being arrested at Huwara to the newspapers, and giving them to his family. I told him people from all over the world already knew about the situation, that the army and hospital had been getting calls all night, that he had to hang in there for his family, etc. “Just don’t let them send me back to Salem,” he kept saying, “or I’ll die.”
I felt guilty leaving him, especially since there didn’t seem to be any time limit on our visit and I knew he may not see another person outside of prison for months. But it was getting late, I already knew I would be at least an hour late to the seder I was going to in Jerusalem, and I wasn’t sure there was anything else we could specifically do for Jaber at the moment.
We left, made our way through the holiday traffic to Tel Aviv, and I took a shared taxi to Jerusalem. It was nice to arrive at the seder to a group of progressive Jews, to meet new people, to sing. But I couldn’t get Jaber out of my mind. I was too tired to think critically about the meaning of celebrating freedom while Jaber’s legs were cuffed together in his hospital bed. I could only feel it, and share it, and try to be proud of what the Jewish tradition could mean if applied more compassionately.
At the end of the seder I read a paragraph I had written for the seder we hosted at our house on Friday night. Twenty Palestinians, Israelis, internationals, and people who cross all those identities had come together to tell the story of Exodus (which is almost exactly the same in the Torah and the Koran, we discovered), to sing songs of freedom, and to express solidarity with and gratitude for each other. We ate taboun (huge wonderful Palestinian bread) instead of matzah, drank grape juice from Bethlehem instead of wine, and covered our seder plate with a Palestinian flag. We ate maklube and sat on mattresses on the floor, the way so many Palestinians do during meals. The cultures, symbols, and people blended beautifully and naturally.
My closing paragraph follows:
“At the end of the seder, Jews have always promised each other: ‘L’shana haba-a bi-Y’rushalayim - Next Year in Jerusalem!’ This year, as we sit here in the West Bank with Palestinians who are not permitted to go to Jerusalem, the phrase ‘Next year in Jerusalem’ has new meaning. What was a dream for Jews and a reality for Palestinians has become a reality for Jews and a dream for Palestinians. This year, in a measure of solidarity with Palestinians, let us all say ‘Next year in Jerusalem – Il’sane il’jayye fil Quds.’”
For those of you who want and are able to do something for Jaber, please call Israeli authorities and demand to know why they continue to hold a sick man with no charges.
Israeli Army phone numbers (these numbers are what you dial from the US – those of you outside can hopefully figure out which number to dial from where you are):
DCO in Jenin: (011-972) 4-640-7312 or (011-972) 4-617-9207
DCO "Humanitarian Office": (011-972) 2-997-7733
Thursday, April 21, 2005
The Real Terrorists
I never know when to send out a report, or when my next moment will be something I desperately want to tell people about right away. The day after I forced myself to sit down and write something to you all last week, I witnessed my first settler attack. “It was nothing,” my friend Arafat told me afterwards, and I know that he was speaking in comparison to other attacks, when people have been injured and even killed. Here, the Palestinian farmers were simply forced off their land. Too simply. Too easily. But what can they do? They don’t have any weapons (unless you count their farming tools, as one woman joked to me); only the Israeli settlers and soldiers have real weapons.
We went to AsSawiya (not to be confused with AzZawiya) because the farmers needed to plow their land that they haven’t been able to plow for four years, and they had permission from the army to go on Sunday. The entire situation is absurd. The village has been here for centuries, and in the past couple decades they’ve seen Israeli settlers move onto their land, destroying or stealing it and preventing farmers from continuing with their lives. In the past three years they’ve seen this new outpost from the settlement of Eli encroach even more upon their land, with the help of the Israeli government who, even according to their own expansionist laws, should stop new outposts from being built. When Palestinian farmers try to go to their land that is anywhere near any settlements or outposts, they are attacked, beaten, and forced off their land by settlers. No settler from this area has been prosecuted, and the police consistently refuse to accept statements and evidence, or to follow up on cases.
Now the Israeli army has decided to “protect” the Palestinian farmers. The way they do this is to give them permits to reach their land for a few days a year (why do people need permits to go to their own land, and what about the rest of the year?), and they promise to protect the farmers while they are plowing (why don’t they remove the settlers from their illegal dwelling place instead of trying to minimize the effects of the predictable settler violence against Palestinians?). Even the army’s protection is questionable. What happened to us on Sunday is similar, apparently, to what usually happens: settlers come and threaten or attack Palestinians, and the army responds by telling the Palestinians that they should leave their land in order to avoid being attacked.
But let me start at the beginning. We (four people from Rabbis for Human Rights and I) arrived in AsSawiya and met my friend Arafat, his mother, and a few other farmers. We walked up the mountain to the land, with Arafat pointing out their new water pipes that carry water to the village, and also pointing at the fresh water spring that the settlers had contaminated a few years ago by bathing and swimming in it. We reached the place where people wanted to work and could see the outpost in the distance. The army was nowhere to be seen (even though it was a designated army protection day). The farmers spread out and plowed for about 20 minutes before two armed settlers approached and began yelling at the families to stop working, to go down, to leave their land. Most of the farmers, knowing the danger, began to pack up right away. It wasn’t quick enough for the settlers, who kept yelling and running from family to family. A couple minutes later two more settlers approached, and more followed. These settlers were armed only with binoculars, not rifles, but their behavior was more aggressive and violent than that of the settlers with guns (who were apparently some sort of outpost security force, though they had no uniforms and were clearly self-appointed security guards). Some of the settlers began pushing the farmers. I saw one of them kick a donkey pretty hard, but the donkey seemed unperturbed. One man later showed me his ripped shirt and told me a settler had hit him on the shoulder. There were no witnesses, so the police would not take a report.
The farmers began walking down the hill, followed (chased) by the settlers. Finally, an army jeep pulled up. Most of the settlers temporarily left (although some came back later), and the Palestinians were relieved. The armed settlers approached the soldiers and began chatting. Their arms were on each other’s shoulders as one soldier asked where another settler was; clearly they knew each other. Arafat tried to talk with the soldiers, to say, “Where were you? This is our designated day to plow, and we were on our land plowing. Can we go back now and continue work?” The response was truly baffling: “You have to wait for the army to get here.” Weren’t they the army? Apparently there were other soldiers and commanders assigned to this task and they hadn’t yet arrived, so the Palestinians had to continue moving down off their land, because God forbid these soldiers would actually ask the settlers to walk up back towards their (illegal) homes.
When “the army” and police finally arrived, the settlers, Palestinian farmers, and Israeli accompaniers began negotiating. I sat with the women and talked, and time passed. We must have sat there for an hour before the army finally announced (or rather, asked Arafat to announce) that they would be allowed back to their land to plow for what was left of the day. Two catches: 1) They could not go to the land they wanted to plow, the land they had begun working earlier. They had to stay in the lower area, even further from the outpost. 2) All men (except children and old men) had to have their IDs checked. One soldier stepped forward and said he would check IDs, but the job was immediately taken over by a settler. That’s right, an armed Israeli settler from an illegal outpost of an illegal settlement held a notepad in his hand and proceeded to write down the ID numbers of every Palestinian man who had come to plow that day. Other settlers began taking pictures of the farmers. All of this was probably just a way to scare them, but who knows what they could try to do if they wanted to hurt the people – they have connections, and there are generally no repercussions to their actions.
Finally the farmers were able to plow on some of their land. I chatted for several hours with a couple Palestinian boys, one of whom told me he spoke fluent Hebrew. Usually only the Palestinian men who have worked in Israel speak Hebrew, so I asked him about it. “My brother is married to a Jewish Israeli,” he said, “and she taught me.”
One army jeep drove up to the outpost, and soldiers patrolled there for the next several hours, making sure settlers did not come down again. The farmers were relieved, and it was a minor victory, but I was disgusted that the ability to hurriedly and frightfully plow land, in a place that is not the place that most needs the work, is a “victory” in the context of occupation.
Perhaps the most difficult part of the day for me, on a personal level, was listening to attitudes of some of the Israeli accompaniers and watching one of them interact with all the parties there. Most people who come with Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR) are fine, but not everyone has the same political analysis or familiarity with the land and the people as Arik, the RHR director. At one point, after the men had all packed up their equipment and gone to where the army told them to go, a few women were still trying to stay on their land and argue with settlers and soldiers. One of the Israeli accompaniers (a man) said to me, “The women don’t understand the situation. The most important thing today is to plow the land, not make a political statement. If they don’t plow for three years, an old Ottoman law says that the land is not theirs anymore.” “I think the women understand better than everyone else,” I responded, “that playing by the rules doesn’t get Palestinians anywhere. Just because they work their land does not mean the settlers won’t build another outpost and steal it.” I heard the man talking with someone on the phone later, probably a man, and speaking in a condescending and amused tone about the women.
In a far worse example, another Israeli accompanier was acting exactly like the army – telling Palestinians not to go to the land where they wanted to go because that would be “provoking” an attack; stepping in the middle of an attack by facing Palestinians and yelling at them to move down the hill, rather than asking the settlers to move up; ordering farmers to go to certain places for their “protection” – even pushing Arafat at one point in the direction this man wanted him to go. I told him I thought he was being completely inappropriate, that Arafat knew exactly what he was doing and had far more experience with settler attacks than this man did, etc. He did not change his behavior. He came to me later and said, “I have seen too much death and tragedy in my own family, so I’m here to stop violent confrontations no matter what it takes.” “That’s fine,” I said, “and a completely appropriate attitude when you’re in Israel. But when you’re here, your job is to follow the lead of the Palestinians and do what they ask you to do, not push them around and tell them what to do. If you don’t want to listen to Palestinians, you should continue your work at home, not here.” I don’t think he had any idea that the farmers would perceive him as more of an oppressor than an accompanier. And honestly, I don’t think he really cared. His work had nothing to do with Palestinians; it was for himself. It’s the same thing that happens in so many situations of oppression, when a member of the oppressor group comes in and tries to dictate to the oppressed how they should act, to tell them what’s best for them. People can’t or won’t step out of their own heads. It reminds me of an e-mail I read last week that is more amusing than offensive. Someone had sent a message to an activist Israeli list serve entitled “Israeli presence needed in Yanoun on Sunday” (Yanoun is a small village that has been consistently terrorized by settlers from Itamar settlement). One Israeli responded to the whole list saying, “That e-mail title was a bit ironic, and almost funny. In fact, Israeli presence is absolutely what is NOT needed in Yanoun on Sunday.”
Where does all this leave us? More and more I’ve been hearing about settler attacks recently – rounding up men and threatening to kill them, poisoning land, unleashing wild boars in Palestinian gardens, and more. “And they call us the terrorists,” so many Palestinians have said to me recently.
I didn’t realize I would write so much about the settler attack, so I’ll stop now, but I hope to write again soon. Anna and I went to Jenin on Monday to meet with Palestinian women, a cultural center, and a nonviolence club at the American University of Jenin. I would love to write more about that experience, at the university in particular – it was interesting to hang out with middle class Palestinians my age whom I relate to socially better than most of the people I know here, but whose political views, academic and somewhat removed ways of thinking about the situation, and feeling that “we can’t do anything, we have to wait for others to make peace” were frustrating for me. But perhaps it could also be enlightening.
More later. For all of you celebrating Passover this weekend, Hag Sameach! It’s my favorite holiday, one I feel I don’t need to stretch at all to fit my political and human beliefs. We’re having a seder here at our house tomorrow night, and inviting Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals to participate. More about that later as well.
Love Hannah
We went to AsSawiya (not to be confused with AzZawiya) because the farmers needed to plow their land that they haven’t been able to plow for four years, and they had permission from the army to go on Sunday. The entire situation is absurd. The village has been here for centuries, and in the past couple decades they’ve seen Israeli settlers move onto their land, destroying or stealing it and preventing farmers from continuing with their lives. In the past three years they’ve seen this new outpost from the settlement of Eli encroach even more upon their land, with the help of the Israeli government who, even according to their own expansionist laws, should stop new outposts from being built. When Palestinian farmers try to go to their land that is anywhere near any settlements or outposts, they are attacked, beaten, and forced off their land by settlers. No settler from this area has been prosecuted, and the police consistently refuse to accept statements and evidence, or to follow up on cases.
Now the Israeli army has decided to “protect” the Palestinian farmers. The way they do this is to give them permits to reach their land for a few days a year (why do people need permits to go to their own land, and what about the rest of the year?), and they promise to protect the farmers while they are plowing (why don’t they remove the settlers from their illegal dwelling place instead of trying to minimize the effects of the predictable settler violence against Palestinians?). Even the army’s protection is questionable. What happened to us on Sunday is similar, apparently, to what usually happens: settlers come and threaten or attack Palestinians, and the army responds by telling the Palestinians that they should leave their land in order to avoid being attacked.
But let me start at the beginning. We (four people from Rabbis for Human Rights and I) arrived in AsSawiya and met my friend Arafat, his mother, and a few other farmers. We walked up the mountain to the land, with Arafat pointing out their new water pipes that carry water to the village, and also pointing at the fresh water spring that the settlers had contaminated a few years ago by bathing and swimming in it. We reached the place where people wanted to work and could see the outpost in the distance. The army was nowhere to be seen (even though it was a designated army protection day). The farmers spread out and plowed for about 20 minutes before two armed settlers approached and began yelling at the families to stop working, to go down, to leave their land. Most of the farmers, knowing the danger, began to pack up right away. It wasn’t quick enough for the settlers, who kept yelling and running from family to family. A couple minutes later two more settlers approached, and more followed. These settlers were armed only with binoculars, not rifles, but their behavior was more aggressive and violent than that of the settlers with guns (who were apparently some sort of outpost security force, though they had no uniforms and were clearly self-appointed security guards). Some of the settlers began pushing the farmers. I saw one of them kick a donkey pretty hard, but the donkey seemed unperturbed. One man later showed me his ripped shirt and told me a settler had hit him on the shoulder. There were no witnesses, so the police would not take a report.
The farmers began walking down the hill, followed (chased) by the settlers. Finally, an army jeep pulled up. Most of the settlers temporarily left (although some came back later), and the Palestinians were relieved. The armed settlers approached the soldiers and began chatting. Their arms were on each other’s shoulders as one soldier asked where another settler was; clearly they knew each other. Arafat tried to talk with the soldiers, to say, “Where were you? This is our designated day to plow, and we were on our land plowing. Can we go back now and continue work?” The response was truly baffling: “You have to wait for the army to get here.” Weren’t they the army? Apparently there were other soldiers and commanders assigned to this task and they hadn’t yet arrived, so the Palestinians had to continue moving down off their land, because God forbid these soldiers would actually ask the settlers to walk up back towards their (illegal) homes.
When “the army” and police finally arrived, the settlers, Palestinian farmers, and Israeli accompaniers began negotiating. I sat with the women and talked, and time passed. We must have sat there for an hour before the army finally announced (or rather, asked Arafat to announce) that they would be allowed back to their land to plow for what was left of the day. Two catches: 1) They could not go to the land they wanted to plow, the land they had begun working earlier. They had to stay in the lower area, even further from the outpost. 2) All men (except children and old men) had to have their IDs checked. One soldier stepped forward and said he would check IDs, but the job was immediately taken over by a settler. That’s right, an armed Israeli settler from an illegal outpost of an illegal settlement held a notepad in his hand and proceeded to write down the ID numbers of every Palestinian man who had come to plow that day. Other settlers began taking pictures of the farmers. All of this was probably just a way to scare them, but who knows what they could try to do if they wanted to hurt the people – they have connections, and there are generally no repercussions to their actions.
Finally the farmers were able to plow on some of their land. I chatted for several hours with a couple Palestinian boys, one of whom told me he spoke fluent Hebrew. Usually only the Palestinian men who have worked in Israel speak Hebrew, so I asked him about it. “My brother is married to a Jewish Israeli,” he said, “and she taught me.”
One army jeep drove up to the outpost, and soldiers patrolled there for the next several hours, making sure settlers did not come down again. The farmers were relieved, and it was a minor victory, but I was disgusted that the ability to hurriedly and frightfully plow land, in a place that is not the place that most needs the work, is a “victory” in the context of occupation.
Perhaps the most difficult part of the day for me, on a personal level, was listening to attitudes of some of the Israeli accompaniers and watching one of them interact with all the parties there. Most people who come with Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR) are fine, but not everyone has the same political analysis or familiarity with the land and the people as Arik, the RHR director. At one point, after the men had all packed up their equipment and gone to where the army told them to go, a few women were still trying to stay on their land and argue with settlers and soldiers. One of the Israeli accompaniers (a man) said to me, “The women don’t understand the situation. The most important thing today is to plow the land, not make a political statement. If they don’t plow for three years, an old Ottoman law says that the land is not theirs anymore.” “I think the women understand better than everyone else,” I responded, “that playing by the rules doesn’t get Palestinians anywhere. Just because they work their land does not mean the settlers won’t build another outpost and steal it.” I heard the man talking with someone on the phone later, probably a man, and speaking in a condescending and amused tone about the women.
In a far worse example, another Israeli accompanier was acting exactly like the army – telling Palestinians not to go to the land where they wanted to go because that would be “provoking” an attack; stepping in the middle of an attack by facing Palestinians and yelling at them to move down the hill, rather than asking the settlers to move up; ordering farmers to go to certain places for their “protection” – even pushing Arafat at one point in the direction this man wanted him to go. I told him I thought he was being completely inappropriate, that Arafat knew exactly what he was doing and had far more experience with settler attacks than this man did, etc. He did not change his behavior. He came to me later and said, “I have seen too much death and tragedy in my own family, so I’m here to stop violent confrontations no matter what it takes.” “That’s fine,” I said, “and a completely appropriate attitude when you’re in Israel. But when you’re here, your job is to follow the lead of the Palestinians and do what they ask you to do, not push them around and tell them what to do. If you don’t want to listen to Palestinians, you should continue your work at home, not here.” I don’t think he had any idea that the farmers would perceive him as more of an oppressor than an accompanier. And honestly, I don’t think he really cared. His work had nothing to do with Palestinians; it was for himself. It’s the same thing that happens in so many situations of oppression, when a member of the oppressor group comes in and tries to dictate to the oppressed how they should act, to tell them what’s best for them. People can’t or won’t step out of their own heads. It reminds me of an e-mail I read last week that is more amusing than offensive. Someone had sent a message to an activist Israeli list serve entitled “Israeli presence needed in Yanoun on Sunday” (Yanoun is a small village that has been consistently terrorized by settlers from Itamar settlement). One Israeli responded to the whole list saying, “That e-mail title was a bit ironic, and almost funny. In fact, Israeli presence is absolutely what is NOT needed in Yanoun on Sunday.”
Where does all this leave us? More and more I’ve been hearing about settler attacks recently – rounding up men and threatening to kill them, poisoning land, unleashing wild boars in Palestinian gardens, and more. “And they call us the terrorists,” so many Palestinians have said to me recently.
I didn’t realize I would write so much about the settler attack, so I’ll stop now, but I hope to write again soon. Anna and I went to Jenin on Monday to meet with Palestinian women, a cultural center, and a nonviolence club at the American University of Jenin. I would love to write more about that experience, at the university in particular – it was interesting to hang out with middle class Palestinians my age whom I relate to socially better than most of the people I know here, but whose political views, academic and somewhat removed ways of thinking about the situation, and feeling that “we can’t do anything, we have to wait for others to make peace” were frustrating for me. But perhaps it could also be enlightening.
More later. For all of you celebrating Passover this weekend, Hag Sameach! It’s my favorite holiday, one I feel I don’t need to stretch at all to fit my political and human beliefs. We’re having a seder here at our house tomorrow night, and inviting Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals to participate. More about that later as well.
Love Hannah
Saturday, April 16, 2005
Living More Than Working
Dear friends,
I realize I haven’t written in over a week, and while some of you may be enjoying a break from my reports, others may be wondering where I’ve gone. I’m still here, still in Palestine, still living and working with people under occupation. I think I’ve done more of the living this week than the working, though, and it’s been nice. I don’t know if it’s a result of last week’s tragedies, but this week I have found myself sitting and drinking tea with friends more than usual. I decided at some point that when I don’t have work outside the house, it’s better to hang out with people than to sit behind a computer (like I am now) looking for another task to do in the list of endless tasks.
And so I’ve been spending time with people. Issa was in the hospital for a few days this week, and came home today. It was wonderful to see him, although he says his infection is not completely gone and he’s not sure he’ll ever fully recover from this last sickness. He and his wife Faisa asked about our friend Karin’s wedding, which happened a couple weeks ago in Bethlehem. I told them it was beautiful, and that Karin and her husband made a nice speech afterwards thanking everyone for coming and saying, “The people who came from furthest are not necessarily the people from Austria and Germany, but those from Salfit and Gaza and even Jerusalem.” “That’s right,” said Faisa sadly, “because of the checkpoints and the soldiers. It’s all because of Israel. If it weren’t for Israel there would be no problem.” She paused, and then added, “But if it weren’t for Israel, we wouldn’t know you.” I cringe to hear this, knowing it’s true. What a strange relationship we have with people. What a strange situation, where people get to know us and want to see us, but know they’re likeliest to see us if there is a problem in their village.
Like the village of Yasouf. I haven’t visited Yasouf yet since I’ve been back, and when my friend Abu Srur found out I had been here for a month without calling and visiting, he was hurt. Tomorrow I’ll go, and I’ll see him, but I’m only going because doctors from Bir Zeit University will be there to talk with the villagers about safety precautions on their land. I wrote in my last report about poison that ideological Jewish settlers had placed on Palestinian land in the south Hebron hills, killing many of their sheep. Well, this same poison has shown up in Yasouf now. Small orange pellets of death. Announcements have been made on mosques throughout the region, but that cannot remove the poison or the system that refuses to prosecute those responsible for planting the poison.
Tomorrow’s visit may not help me change our image from people who show up in problem situations to people who show up because it’s nice to see people, but I’ve been working on it at least in this small part of Hares. Last night my friend Amal dyed my hair with henna. I slept with the dried mud on my head, covered in a head scarf and looking like any other woman in the village. Today I went to return the head scarf and she told me to keep it, that it looked nice on me. I told her she’d get more use out of it than I would, but that next time we dye my hair I’ll wear it again.
Yesterday I took my friend Fatima’s two oldest daughters to the Ibdaa Cultural Center in Bethlehem to record them singing for a project I’m working on. They were amazing, and had a blast. At the ages of 17 and 15, it was their first time traveling without their mother (except for school trips). I picked them up at the roadblock outside the village, where they were waiting hidden away in a car so nobody else in the village would see them leave without their mother. We snuck into another service taxi on the other side of the roadblock, only to find that the two men sitting in front of us were from the same village. We arrived at Zatara checkpoint and Shams noticed the posters plastered all over the bus stops by the settlers in the area. “Sharon,” she said, pointing at his picture. “Yes, it’s against Sharon,” I replied. She was surprised. I told her that many settlers now agree with many Palestinians, but for much different reasons, when they say Sharon is like Hitler. This sign was against the settler evacuation from Gaza. “They will put all the settlers here in the West Bank,” I said. Shams asked, “And the settlers don’t want to be in the West Bank?” “They want to be in the West Bank,” I replied, “but they also want to be in Gaza.” Shams sighed, “They want everything.”
The girls started to relax as we got further south, and we arrived at Dheisheh refugee camp three cars later with no problems. The people at Ibdaa’s radio station / studio thought they were simply doing me a favor by letting me record the girls there, but after the first song, one of them came into the room and asked the girls, “Where are you from?” He was clearly impressed. They opened up completely in the studio – they were in their element, for sure. We recorded five songs, and then one of the men asked if they wanted to read a couple excerpts in English from personal testimonies for the radio program. Shams played a young girl, and Mayisa an old woman. As they were reading, the producer said, “Damn, I wish they lived closer to here.” Apparently it takes some kids an hour to get a good version of just a few lines in English. Shams and Mayisa did everything almost perfectly on their first try.
After finishing and copying CDs, we went to visit the host family that I lived with for a month last summer. The girls had a great conversation with my host mother, Najah. They asked her about life in Dheisheh, how often the army invades, whether all the girls and women in the camp have to wear head scarves or not, and more. She asked them about their parents’ work, life in the village, what kinds of songs they sing, and more. They talked about resistance against the Wall (the girls argued it was necessary, Najah argued it was futile, they didn’t necessarily disagree with each other).
We returned the same roundabout way we came – through Wadi Nar. It would be much quicker, more direct, and less expensive to go through Jerusalem, but Jerusalem is forbidden for West Bank Palestinians, save for a lucky few with special permits. So we went through Wadi Nar, and I remembered the one spot in the turn where it is possible to see the Dome of the Rock – a tiny gold dot in the distance. I pointed it out to the girls, who looked at it in awe and with sadness. “We can’t go there,” said Shams. The whole way there and back we saw pieces of the Wall snaking through the land. In Abu Dis we watched the Dome of the Rock, slightly closer now, disappear like a sunset behind the Wall as we descended a hill.
We went through Ramallah, though it wasn’t the most direct way home, because the girls were in no rush to get back to their village and I thought it would be nice to extend our trip and return home as close to dark as possible. We arrived in Ramallah and Shams wanted to try to find the dabke (Palestinian folk dance) instructor she had taken a couple lessons from last summer. We stopped to ask someone for directions and Shams said, “I love asking people where things are.” “Why?” I asked. “Because it makes me think people are good,” she replied. “My mother always says people in this century are not good, not honest, and don’t help each other. But when I ask someone where something is, and he gets out of his car and walks me to the next street corner to show me, it makes me feel good about people.”
The cultural center that we were looking for was closed, so we headed back to the center of Ramallah to catch a bus north. Shams and Mayisa stopped at a flower and plant shop to find a gift for their mother. “We cleaned the house on Mother’s Day and cooked,” they said, “but we didn’t really get her a gift.” (Mother’s Day in Palestine was a few weeks ago.) So they went into the shop, and asked about a few things. Fifty shekels, thirty shekels, all too much. “I have 10 shekels,” Shams finally said, “and I want a bouquet.” So the man made her a nice bouquet, and off we went to catch a service taxi home. I crossed the Qarawa roadblock with the girls and we took a taxi towards their house, picking up Fatima on the way. She was so happy to see the girls (I forgot to mention that she called 3 times during the day to see where we were and how we were). So the day ended beautifully.
I don’t have much more to write myself right now, but I can share a couple links and a joke:
1. For those of you planning a Passover seder this year who haven’t yet seen the wonderful Love and Justice in Times of War Haggadah (written a couple years ago), check it out at http://colours.mahost.org/events/haggadah.html.
2. Shministim, the high school refusenik movement, continues to grow, and the number of high school seniors imprisoned for refusing to serve in the Israeli army continues to grow as well. For updates on the kids in prison and their statements to the court before being sentenced, visit http://www.newprofile.org/.
3. If you really want to read depressing and insightful reports about the occupation, since this one is probably neither, you can visit my co-worker Anna’s website at http://annainpalestine.blogspot.com.
4. The joke:
An old Arab lives close to New York City for more than 40 years. He would love to plant potatoes in his garden, but he is alone, old and weak. His son is in college in Paris, so the old man sends him an e-mail.
He explains the problem:
Beloved son, I am very sad, because I can't plant potatoes in my garden. I am sure, if only you were here; you helped me and dug up the garden for me.
I love you,
Your father
The following day, the old man receives a response e-mail from his son:
Beloved father,
Please don't touch the garden. It's there that I have hidden 'the THING'.
I love you too,
Ahmed
At 4pm the US Army, the Marines, the FBI, the CIA and the Rangers visit the house of the old man, take the whole garden apart, search every inch, but can't find anything. Disappointed they leave the house.
Another day later, the old man receives another e-mail from his son.
Beloved father, I hope the garden is dug up by now and you can plant your potatoes.
That's all I could do for you from here.
I love you,
Ahmed
I realize I haven’t written in over a week, and while some of you may be enjoying a break from my reports, others may be wondering where I’ve gone. I’m still here, still in Palestine, still living and working with people under occupation. I think I’ve done more of the living this week than the working, though, and it’s been nice. I don’t know if it’s a result of last week’s tragedies, but this week I have found myself sitting and drinking tea with friends more than usual. I decided at some point that when I don’t have work outside the house, it’s better to hang out with people than to sit behind a computer (like I am now) looking for another task to do in the list of endless tasks.
And so I’ve been spending time with people. Issa was in the hospital for a few days this week, and came home today. It was wonderful to see him, although he says his infection is not completely gone and he’s not sure he’ll ever fully recover from this last sickness. He and his wife Faisa asked about our friend Karin’s wedding, which happened a couple weeks ago in Bethlehem. I told them it was beautiful, and that Karin and her husband made a nice speech afterwards thanking everyone for coming and saying, “The people who came from furthest are not necessarily the people from Austria and Germany, but those from Salfit and Gaza and even Jerusalem.” “That’s right,” said Faisa sadly, “because of the checkpoints and the soldiers. It’s all because of Israel. If it weren’t for Israel there would be no problem.” She paused, and then added, “But if it weren’t for Israel, we wouldn’t know you.” I cringe to hear this, knowing it’s true. What a strange relationship we have with people. What a strange situation, where people get to know us and want to see us, but know they’re likeliest to see us if there is a problem in their village.
Like the village of Yasouf. I haven’t visited Yasouf yet since I’ve been back, and when my friend Abu Srur found out I had been here for a month without calling and visiting, he was hurt. Tomorrow I’ll go, and I’ll see him, but I’m only going because doctors from Bir Zeit University will be there to talk with the villagers about safety precautions on their land. I wrote in my last report about poison that ideological Jewish settlers had placed on Palestinian land in the south Hebron hills, killing many of their sheep. Well, this same poison has shown up in Yasouf now. Small orange pellets of death. Announcements have been made on mosques throughout the region, but that cannot remove the poison or the system that refuses to prosecute those responsible for planting the poison.
Tomorrow’s visit may not help me change our image from people who show up in problem situations to people who show up because it’s nice to see people, but I’ve been working on it at least in this small part of Hares. Last night my friend Amal dyed my hair with henna. I slept with the dried mud on my head, covered in a head scarf and looking like any other woman in the village. Today I went to return the head scarf and she told me to keep it, that it looked nice on me. I told her she’d get more use out of it than I would, but that next time we dye my hair I’ll wear it again.
Yesterday I took my friend Fatima’s two oldest daughters to the Ibdaa Cultural Center in Bethlehem to record them singing for a project I’m working on. They were amazing, and had a blast. At the ages of 17 and 15, it was their first time traveling without their mother (except for school trips). I picked them up at the roadblock outside the village, where they were waiting hidden away in a car so nobody else in the village would see them leave without their mother. We snuck into another service taxi on the other side of the roadblock, only to find that the two men sitting in front of us were from the same village. We arrived at Zatara checkpoint and Shams noticed the posters plastered all over the bus stops by the settlers in the area. “Sharon,” she said, pointing at his picture. “Yes, it’s against Sharon,” I replied. She was surprised. I told her that many settlers now agree with many Palestinians, but for much different reasons, when they say Sharon is like Hitler. This sign was against the settler evacuation from Gaza. “They will put all the settlers here in the West Bank,” I said. Shams asked, “And the settlers don’t want to be in the West Bank?” “They want to be in the West Bank,” I replied, “but they also want to be in Gaza.” Shams sighed, “They want everything.”
The girls started to relax as we got further south, and we arrived at Dheisheh refugee camp three cars later with no problems. The people at Ibdaa’s radio station / studio thought they were simply doing me a favor by letting me record the girls there, but after the first song, one of them came into the room and asked the girls, “Where are you from?” He was clearly impressed. They opened up completely in the studio – they were in their element, for sure. We recorded five songs, and then one of the men asked if they wanted to read a couple excerpts in English from personal testimonies for the radio program. Shams played a young girl, and Mayisa an old woman. As they were reading, the producer said, “Damn, I wish they lived closer to here.” Apparently it takes some kids an hour to get a good version of just a few lines in English. Shams and Mayisa did everything almost perfectly on their first try.
After finishing and copying CDs, we went to visit the host family that I lived with for a month last summer. The girls had a great conversation with my host mother, Najah. They asked her about life in Dheisheh, how often the army invades, whether all the girls and women in the camp have to wear head scarves or not, and more. She asked them about their parents’ work, life in the village, what kinds of songs they sing, and more. They talked about resistance against the Wall (the girls argued it was necessary, Najah argued it was futile, they didn’t necessarily disagree with each other).
We returned the same roundabout way we came – through Wadi Nar. It would be much quicker, more direct, and less expensive to go through Jerusalem, but Jerusalem is forbidden for West Bank Palestinians, save for a lucky few with special permits. So we went through Wadi Nar, and I remembered the one spot in the turn where it is possible to see the Dome of the Rock – a tiny gold dot in the distance. I pointed it out to the girls, who looked at it in awe and with sadness. “We can’t go there,” said Shams. The whole way there and back we saw pieces of the Wall snaking through the land. In Abu Dis we watched the Dome of the Rock, slightly closer now, disappear like a sunset behind the Wall as we descended a hill.
We went through Ramallah, though it wasn’t the most direct way home, because the girls were in no rush to get back to their village and I thought it would be nice to extend our trip and return home as close to dark as possible. We arrived in Ramallah and Shams wanted to try to find the dabke (Palestinian folk dance) instructor she had taken a couple lessons from last summer. We stopped to ask someone for directions and Shams said, “I love asking people where things are.” “Why?” I asked. “Because it makes me think people are good,” she replied. “My mother always says people in this century are not good, not honest, and don’t help each other. But when I ask someone where something is, and he gets out of his car and walks me to the next street corner to show me, it makes me feel good about people.”
The cultural center that we were looking for was closed, so we headed back to the center of Ramallah to catch a bus north. Shams and Mayisa stopped at a flower and plant shop to find a gift for their mother. “We cleaned the house on Mother’s Day and cooked,” they said, “but we didn’t really get her a gift.” (Mother’s Day in Palestine was a few weeks ago.) So they went into the shop, and asked about a few things. Fifty shekels, thirty shekels, all too much. “I have 10 shekels,” Shams finally said, “and I want a bouquet.” So the man made her a nice bouquet, and off we went to catch a service taxi home. I crossed the Qarawa roadblock with the girls and we took a taxi towards their house, picking up Fatima on the way. She was so happy to see the girls (I forgot to mention that she called 3 times during the day to see where we were and how we were). So the day ended beautifully.
I don’t have much more to write myself right now, but I can share a couple links and a joke:
1. For those of you planning a Passover seder this year who haven’t yet seen the wonderful Love and Justice in Times of War Haggadah (written a couple years ago), check it out at http://colours.mahost.org/events/haggadah.html.
2. Shministim, the high school refusenik movement, continues to grow, and the number of high school seniors imprisoned for refusing to serve in the Israeli army continues to grow as well. For updates on the kids in prison and their statements to the court before being sentenced, visit http://www.newprofile.org/.
3. If you really want to read depressing and insightful reports about the occupation, since this one is probably neither, you can visit my co-worker Anna’s website at http://annainpalestine.blogspot.com.
4. The joke:
An old Arab lives close to New York City for more than 40 years. He would love to plant potatoes in his garden, but he is alone, old and weak. His son is in college in Paris, so the old man sends him an e-mail.
He explains the problem:
Beloved son, I am very sad, because I can't plant potatoes in my garden. I am sure, if only you were here; you helped me and dug up the garden for me.
I love you,
Your father
The following day, the old man receives a response e-mail from his son:
Beloved father,
Please don't touch the garden. It's there that I have hidden 'the THING'.
I love you too,
Ahmed
At 4pm the US Army, the Marines, the FBI, the CIA and the Rangers visit the house of the old man, take the whole garden apart, search every inch, but can't find anything. Disappointed they leave the house.
Another day later, the old man receives another e-mail from his son.
Beloved father, I hope the garden is dug up by now and you can plant your potatoes.
That's all I could do for you from here.
I love you,
Ahmed
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