It has now been almost a month since I left Palestine, I traveled to Egypt and got lost in Cairo for a few days before heading for Libya to have the unique experience of, at the age of twenty, meeting my family for the first time. Amidst the chaos that resulted from an unannounced visit from the unknown American cousin my mind was submerged in the inevitable realities of my own identity, of the intricacy of every one of my cousins’ lives, of the current state of the Great Libyan Arab Socialist Jamahiriya and of finally reaching that place that I had dreamed of visiting ever since I knew it existed. And then the war on Gaza began. I fully realized that my position in the world could not possibly affect the offensive that was launched on December 26th, and yet the powerlessness commanded my thoughts, ripped through my consciousness and left me wishing only that I was back in Hebron, back organizing, back standing in solidarity with Um’Kamel Al-Kurd who is now widowed and living in a protest camp, back demonstrating against the beginnings of another Holocaust committed by the Israeli occupation forces.
What is so vitally important to understand about this conflict is that despite what the news will tell you, what is occurring in Gaza is not “fighting”, it is a massacre. The ceasefire that Hamas allegedly broke never truly existed, because violence in all definitions encompasses all manner of sins, and the forced starvation of 1.4 million people, the destruction of industry, denial of medical treatment and the occasional execution of fishermen and farmers by warships and border police in the name of security would most commonly be included. It was an essential element of the ceasefire that Israel opened the borders to Gaza that it controls, an event that was rare. The Palestinians of Gaza, living in decades old refugee camps, in an area that is roughly 87 sq miles, were still held hostage in their own homes, without electricity or water, realizing that no gears of democracy, no peace talks, would save them in the near future. It is the absent understanding of this situation that so effectively clouds our collective views on the issue, all we see is the result, of the quassam rockets fired, and we accept that these people really are terrorists, that their anger comes from some illegitimate desire to destroy Israel, instead of a rightfully angry people making an attempt to free themselves. Of course I disagree with the attack of any civilian, though I am left wondering when exactly in our history we decided that those who are oppressed and desperate should sit silently and wait for the world to sort their situation out, when the phrase revolutionary was wiped from our vocabulary and unilaterally replaced with terrorist, when the killing of civilians only became alright when it is carried out by an F-16 that we have produced. The Western world has forgotten that every one of our nations was based on a violent struggle against an occupying force. Even if my logic offends you, what cannot be denied are the facts about Hamas, that no matter how extreme their language may be, they are the democratically elected government of the Gaza Strip, that they were funded and supported by the Israeli government not so long ago when the group they were focusing on demonizing was the PLO and Yassar Arafat, that they also have a duty to defend their people. After accepting all of these realities on the situation what is left to understand is that in 17 days the Israeli government has killed more than 900 Palestinians, the majority of whom were civilians, hundreds of whom were children, and injured over 4000, and that even when the killing is over the Gaza ghetto is now a place almost beyond repair, a massive graveyard of civilization, so you can either admit that you value some human life over others and you yourself are a racist zealot or you can start demanding that our American made F-16s and our American made proxy stop the mass murder of a people they have already cleansed and oppressed for more than 60 years.
Since my return to our beloved land of the free my helplessness has become anger, disbelief and an overwhelming resolve that going to Palestine is not something that I did, not something that I will ever cleanly sum up with any finality, because what I witnessed was not just any humanitarian crisis, it was a first hand encounter with my own country’s war machine, with the reality of an occupation that we as Americans have everything to do with. I became acquainted with a movement, a people and a whole world of rejection and disobedience that, no matter how hard I try to phrase it in some other less cliché way, has changed me.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
On Thursday December 4th two armed settlers stormed the Palestinian neighborhood surrounding the illegally occupied Rajibi house which had just been evacuated and shot four men, point blank shot four Palestinians. Their actions were caught on film, the world watched, it sighed with shock, it forced Olmert to publicly recognize the pogrom that occured; these "bad" settlers would be punished. Unfortunately that is all the world resigned to do, the two men, who were given days to turn themselves in, were let free today, it was decided that they are not a threat, the real threat, apparently, are two Palestinians, who with no evidence were arrested on Monday under charges of throwing stones- Apparently a Palestinian defending himself is still wrong even in the midst of a decided pogrom. Mohammed and Fadi Jabari(22,20) have been accused of throwing the stone that caused the one hospitalization of an Israeli settler in the past weeks of rioting, though they each have alibies, it is unlikely they will get to use them, because what they also have are green IDs, their rights are not quite like the rest of ours. Israel, "the Middle East's only democracy" has done its job once again, assured Palestinians that in the eyes of Israel thier lives and their rights mean nothing, that even when the world is watching they will allow religious zealots and a corrupt government slowly cleanse them.
It is hard to put down in words what actually happened on that Thursday, partly because its all I have talked about, thought about, since, and partly because I don't really want to relay the facts about the violence instead of talking about the people effected. I wasn't actually in Hebron, I had been in Jerusalem to attend a demonstration where Um'Kamel was marching to her original home in West Jerusalem, and had just recieved news over the phone. Israeli army special forces arrived at around 2 o'clock to finally carry out the eviction of a few hundred extreme right settlers who had occupied a house on the road to the old city of Hebron two years ago. After the high court ruling to evict the occupants the settlers had repeatedly promised that they will make Palestinians "pay in blood" if they were actually evactuated. In the few weeks before the evacuation they lived up to that promise, every night Palestinian homes were barraged with stones and molotov cocktails, settlers from all of the surrounding illegal settlements would coordinate synchrinized attacks on the Palestinian neighborhood around the house, all while the Israeli army and police would sit and watch, waiting for an active Palestinian response that they could punish with excessive force. We spent many nights with the families in the neighborhood, dodging rocks as we tried to get some footage of the events, and tried even harder to get the authorities to respond to the settler violence. Over countless cups of tea and coffee we became very close with these families, ignoring the strange and sad circumstances of our meetings. It became evident that the authorities were not their to keep peace, but instead protect the settlers, to allow them to terrorize a neighborhood of families that were expected to sit and wait passively for their homes and lives to be destroyed.
The evacuation only took a little over an hour, the heavily armed settlers wanted their pictures for the press to look sad and desperate, many of them sewing gold stars of david to their sleeves, disgustingly exploiting the tragedy that was the holocaust. Though thorough in removing the settlers from the actual home, the special forces seemed to have no qualms about leaving a mob of angry settlers in the middle of the neighborhood they had already terrorized for weeks. Mobs of settlers lit fire to everything in sight, spray painted both the mosque and its adjacent cemetary with things like; "Mohammed is a pig" and "Death to the Arabs", and attempted to cause the largest amount of harm to any Palestinian in their path.
The next day it seemed that the settlers had accomplished their goals, the city looked like a junkyard, burnt cars and broken windows scattering every street, spray paint covering homes, seemingly every Palestinian man you saw wrapped in fresh white gauze. No one died on Thursday, by some miracle Hosne Abu Sa'afan, who was shot in the heart has survived the attack along with the three other Palestinians shot by settler fire, but what remains is instead a reality of massive realized fears. Anyone who had the unfortunate experience of even coming near the occupied Rajibi house knew that these people, a term I use loosly when referring to these maniacs, would want someone's blood on their hands when they were finally made to leave, but none of the predictions prepared the Palestinian families for what happened, no matter how prepared or resistant they were it didn't change the fact that every one of them had to watch their children suffer, watch their homes destroyed, and know that no one was there to stop it. As much as I want to stress how desparate this situation was, I would never want you to believe that any of the families I met were helpless, they are, like almost every Palestinian I know, strong and proud of their strength, united, and aware of the injustice being carried out against them, but sometimes all of the strength in the world can't help you when your home is turned into a war zone. A few days after the attacks, as I sat helping prepare cookies for Eid with his family, my friend Attif admitted that he now considers moving his family to Jordan, that after everything he and his siblings and children have gone through, it just isn't worth it anymore, he knows he will never sell his home, but as he watches his son run to the roof to shoot a toy gun at the looming settlement every morning, he knows that he can't stay. On top of the violence he must deal with he has to also face a harsh economic reality, the occupation is more than physical violence, it has ripped the heart out of any city in the West Bank, made it impossible for domestic goods to be transported or sold, for infrastructure to go up or for businesses to grow, the Israelis have capped the palestinian way of life so even if they want to stay eventually they wont be able to.
It is harsh realities like this one that sometimes make the work that I do here feel incredibly futile and impossible, because you are forced to see how institutionalized and thorough this occupation is, roads built to specifically cut off cities with the use of one jeep, settlements placed to hault urban expansion, water being stolen to cut off industry, strategic bombings of infrastructure and eventually the complete siege of the entire west bank with the wall that the world watched them take years to build. You attempt,for the sake of these realizations, to sometimes stop asking why, to stop allowing yourself to remember that this is not an accident, that the palestinians I have spent months with are meant to suffer in the exact manner that they are, its all written down in Israeli law. You start to feel yourself instead only thinking of the now, of the when where and how, trying to delay the inevitable, trying to find those few moments when the resistance makes sense again, when you see something other than resignation or defeat, and you remember why you are here, to support that, to stand behind that. One of the greatest lessons I have learned here is that true resistance is one of the most amazing things to witness, to watch someone completely disrespect and illegitamize an illegal force opressing them, by simply not being afraid anymore, by not just doing everything to gain freedom but simultaneously being free.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Mr. Arafat, may you rest in peace
Today marks the fourth anniversary of Yassar Arafat's death (murder), and as I sit in Hebron still hearing the shots of rubber bullets you have to think about what these past four years have meant. You have to wonder if when he signed the Oslo agreement he knew that PA cops would be standing in front of Israeli soldiers helping to disperse a crowd of his mourners. A crowd of young boys who largely grew up without fathers or brothers during the second intifada, who were made to carry their birth certificates with them at all time, or just to walk to school, who probably lived off of the red crescent for years when their neighborhoods were under siege, not because of their violence but because of the violence of the settlers who sometimes live only meters away. I would have to think that he is rolling over in his grave today, mainly because there are no leaders left in this country and certainly no fighters who can unite his people.
This morning, two blocks from the checkpoint to my neighborhood was the scene of a riot, Israeli forces found it necessary to stop a demonstration of school children for the anniversary and what resulted was a four hour(more seeing as I can still hear shots) exchange between rocks and firecrackers vs. a barrage of rubber bullets, tear gas, sound bombs and what we suspect was a few rounds of live ammunition. The weapons were, of course, common ground for Palestine, though the setting was not so much. We arrived to document and use our international status as protection, not in the usual olive grove but instead in the junction of two
parts of Hebron, the old city and Bab Azzawya(the center of the city roughly), surrounded by school children and shopkeepers. The border of H1 and H2. Two were arrested and atleast seven were injured. Sometimes we forget the reality of Hebron, seeing as our hours of roaming the streets are significantly cut because out apartment is actually in a closed military zone, but on mornings like this we are definitely reminded. I was able to visit a friend of mine in the middle of the day who owns a store run by a woman's cooperative that makes hand made kuffiyahs and other scarves and things and over a cup of tea discuss the disgusting display of the PA authorities, on this day of them all. Though more importantly the necessity of groups that are willing to absolutely deny the occupation, by force or by any other means, landing on the appeal of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, a point of view that I so clearly understand now. An hour or so later we decided that our presence was only encouraging the continuation of stone throwing from the not so serious shabab and so decided to sneak home to check the footage that we got and write reports.
The shocking nature of the day has hardly gotten to me at all because it seems like nothing compared to the weekend that proceeded it. I experienced my first real demo, the scare of possibly losing a good friend to deportation and my second detention in a police station, though most importantly I had to witness a family that I had grown close to evicted from their home as I stood helpless. I left Hebron on Thursday night for Ramallah so that I could go to a weekly protest against the construction of apartheid wall in Ni'lin on Friday. The first ten minutes found the demonstrators separated into two groups and being shot at from close range by tear gas canisters, not aimed to disperse gas, but instead to hit us. A friend of mine was hit in the arm from 20 meters and was rushed to Ramallah for 20 stitches in her arm, while a Palestinian boy was hit in the head with another. The next few hours were filled with countless tear gas canisters and rubber bullets, though the violence significantly lowered from the military. The shabab(young boys) had pushed the military back and had arrived at the valley in front of the construction sight as the sun began to set, most of the Palestinians had gone home and many of the others were just hanging around collecting tear gas canisters. That was when the military decided to storm us from behind. Five soldiers began to attack us with rubber bullets from the back and our crowd quickly fled, all of us with the exception of my friend who was standing further back on her phone. She was quickly surrounded as the rest of us fled with no chance of helping her, she was thrown to the ground, kicked and yelled at until she was dragged off towards the jeep. Her phone was taken from her quickly and with no identification on her person she remained strong and silent with no contact with anyone from the outside. In order to support her we all attended her trial the next day where the Israeli forces were asking for three days to investigate her charges for her deportation, she was charged with throwing stones, knowingly being in a closed military zone and participating in an illegal demonstation, all three charges were false. Unfortunately she was put back in jail for another night. We all left feeling nervous and defeated to sleep at the Al-Kurd family home in East Jerusalem, where I had spent a week before doing night vigils. With eight of us there for the night we joked that we hoped the eviction came that night because we were more than prepared, unfortunately that is exactly what happened, only we weren't prepared. At 430 sunday morning more than 25 border police and regular cops stormed our tent on the Al-Kurd family to forcibly remove us from the property. They came quietly and efficiently, I was on the night watch at the time and thought what i heard was only two security guards, until I was being carried away barefoot 30 seconds later. I had no time to block the door with chains or even take pictures, I only was able to see the police forcibly breaking open the door of the elderly Al-Kurd family, feeling helpless and angry. We were brought to the police station which ironically was connected to the prison where our friend sat awaiting her second trial, for questioning. They clearly would have no intention of arresting us, what they had done that morning was an illegal act condemned by every consulate in Jerusalem and whats worse is that they only carried out the eviction on the Palestinians, not on the settler family which had taken over half of their home seven years ago and was also set to be evicted. Though it was clear they were rather upset with that fact especially with me, being an Arab who was already previously arrested I was not the kind of person they wanted to let go, I was yelled at and not allowed to read my agreement(which i wouldn't have signed) being told "you're not gonna fucking sign it" by the woman who had previously claimed she didn't speak English. We were released a few hours later at the checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem with our things in garbage bags and left to find our way somewhere. Though the morning was a little nerve racking and certainly not fun, it was apparent to us that we were only being removed, pushed out of the way so they could commit the real crime against the Al-Kurd family. The Al-Kurd's recieved their home from Jordan in the fifties after they were made refugees in 48 in the Skeikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. In 67 when Israeli forces moved into East Jerusalem they claimed that the neighborhood had belonged to Jews during the Ottoman Empire and therefore all Arabs must leave, though the family stayed in their home. After multiple court cases and the annexation of half of their home which they had built to watch their grandchildren to grow up in, they were left this year with an eviction order due to the fact that a settler company had received ownership of the land at one point and that the family had refused to pay rent on their own property. Though the settler claim to the land was overturned in 2006 the Israeli high courts ignored this ruling. An appeal was set for the 14th of November, a fact which should have legally not allowed the authorities to seize the property, but of course the law doesn't even matter here and because of the political nature of the issue (both politicians running in Jerusalem would like to see a whole new settlement built where Sheikh Jarrah is) the family was pulled out in the dead of night when Israel hoped the world would not be watching. Fortunately they were wrong, the press has been enormous and every consulate has stood by their condemnation, including the US consulate who called to thank me for my solidarity work. But the fact still remains that M'Kamil, the woman of the house, and her sick husband are once again homeless because of the occupation, that two people who began their lives as refugees may very well end them that way. She is living in a tent in the Sheikh Jarrah at the moment, a fact that I try hard to not dwell on too often, while her husband is in the hospital. Its hard to think about the fact that after so many years of refusing to leave, of launching a campaign of amazing proportion, it all ended sunday morning. 27 more families are set to be evicted in the coming months to complete the plan for a new Israeli settlement, which is sick beyond belief. If any of you have contacts with senators that might be able to give the consulate here more power over the issue please contact them about your outrage at the issue. That took a lot of pride loss for me to say seeing as I have absolutely no faith in our congress and certainly do not believe that any change will come for Palestine through legislative means, but its worth a shot.
This morning, two blocks from the checkpoint to my neighborhood was the scene of a riot, Israeli forces found it necessary to stop a demonstration of school children for the anniversary and what resulted was a four hour(more seeing as I can still hear shots) exchange between rocks and firecrackers vs. a barrage of rubber bullets, tear gas, sound bombs and what we suspect was a few rounds of live ammunition. The weapons were, of course, common ground for Palestine, though the setting was not so much. We arrived to document and use our international status as protection, not in the usual olive grove but instead in the junction of two
parts of Hebron, the old city and Bab Azzawya(the center of the city roughly), surrounded by school children and shopkeepers. The border of H1 and H2. Two were arrested and atleast seven were injured. Sometimes we forget the reality of Hebron, seeing as our hours of roaming the streets are significantly cut because out apartment is actually in a closed military zone, but on mornings like this we are definitely reminded. I was able to visit a friend of mine in the middle of the day who owns a store run by a woman's cooperative that makes hand made kuffiyahs and other scarves and things and over a cup of tea discuss the disgusting display of the PA authorities, on this day of them all. Though more importantly the necessity of groups that are willing to absolutely deny the occupation, by force or by any other means, landing on the appeal of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, a point of view that I so clearly understand now. An hour or so later we decided that our presence was only encouraging the continuation of stone throwing from the not so serious shabab and so decided to sneak home to check the footage that we got and write reports.
The shocking nature of the day has hardly gotten to me at all because it seems like nothing compared to the weekend that proceeded it. I experienced my first real demo, the scare of possibly losing a good friend to deportation and my second detention in a police station, though most importantly I had to witness a family that I had grown close to evicted from their home as I stood helpless. I left Hebron on Thursday night for Ramallah so that I could go to a weekly protest against the construction of apartheid wall in Ni'lin on Friday. The first ten minutes found the demonstrators separated into two groups and being shot at from close range by tear gas canisters, not aimed to disperse gas, but instead to hit us. A friend of mine was hit in the arm from 20 meters and was rushed to Ramallah for 20 stitches in her arm, while a Palestinian boy was hit in the head with another. The next few hours were filled with countless tear gas canisters and rubber bullets, though the violence significantly lowered from the military. The shabab(young boys) had pushed the military back and had arrived at the valley in front of the construction sight as the sun began to set, most of the Palestinians had gone home and many of the others were just hanging around collecting tear gas canisters. That was when the military decided to storm us from behind. Five soldiers began to attack us with rubber bullets from the back and our crowd quickly fled, all of us with the exception of my friend who was standing further back on her phone. She was quickly surrounded as the rest of us fled with no chance of helping her, she was thrown to the ground, kicked and yelled at until she was dragged off towards the jeep. Her phone was taken from her quickly and with no identification on her person she remained strong and silent with no contact with anyone from the outside. In order to support her we all attended her trial the next day where the Israeli forces were asking for three days to investigate her charges for her deportation, she was charged with throwing stones, knowingly being in a closed military zone and participating in an illegal demonstation, all three charges were false. Unfortunately she was put back in jail for another night. We all left feeling nervous and defeated to sleep at the Al-Kurd family home in East Jerusalem, where I had spent a week before doing night vigils. With eight of us there for the night we joked that we hoped the eviction came that night because we were more than prepared, unfortunately that is exactly what happened, only we weren't prepared. At 430 sunday morning more than 25 border police and regular cops stormed our tent on the Al-Kurd family to forcibly remove us from the property. They came quietly and efficiently, I was on the night watch at the time and thought what i heard was only two security guards, until I was being carried away barefoot 30 seconds later. I had no time to block the door with chains or even take pictures, I only was able to see the police forcibly breaking open the door of the elderly Al-Kurd family, feeling helpless and angry. We were brought to the police station which ironically was connected to the prison where our friend sat awaiting her second trial, for questioning. They clearly would have no intention of arresting us, what they had done that morning was an illegal act condemned by every consulate in Jerusalem and whats worse is that they only carried out the eviction on the Palestinians, not on the settler family which had taken over half of their home seven years ago and was also set to be evicted. Though it was clear they were rather upset with that fact especially with me, being an Arab who was already previously arrested I was not the kind of person they wanted to let go, I was yelled at and not allowed to read my agreement(which i wouldn't have signed) being told "you're not gonna fucking sign it" by the woman who had previously claimed she didn't speak English. We were released a few hours later at the checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem with our things in garbage bags and left to find our way somewhere. Though the morning was a little nerve racking and certainly not fun, it was apparent to us that we were only being removed, pushed out of the way so they could commit the real crime against the Al-Kurd family. The Al-Kurd's recieved their home from Jordan in the fifties after they were made refugees in 48 in the Skeikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. In 67 when Israeli forces moved into East Jerusalem they claimed that the neighborhood had belonged to Jews during the Ottoman Empire and therefore all Arabs must leave, though the family stayed in their home. After multiple court cases and the annexation of half of their home which they had built to watch their grandchildren to grow up in, they were left this year with an eviction order due to the fact that a settler company had received ownership of the land at one point and that the family had refused to pay rent on their own property. Though the settler claim to the land was overturned in 2006 the Israeli high courts ignored this ruling. An appeal was set for the 14th of November, a fact which should have legally not allowed the authorities to seize the property, but of course the law doesn't even matter here and because of the political nature of the issue (both politicians running in Jerusalem would like to see a whole new settlement built where Sheikh Jarrah is) the family was pulled out in the dead of night when Israel hoped the world would not be watching. Fortunately they were wrong, the press has been enormous and every consulate has stood by their condemnation, including the US consulate who called to thank me for my solidarity work. But the fact still remains that M'Kamil, the woman of the house, and her sick husband are once again homeless because of the occupation, that two people who began their lives as refugees may very well end them that way. She is living in a tent in the Sheikh Jarrah at the moment, a fact that I try hard to not dwell on too often, while her husband is in the hospital. Its hard to think about the fact that after so many years of refusing to leave, of launching a campaign of amazing proportion, it all ended sunday morning. 27 more families are set to be evicted in the coming months to complete the plan for a new Israeli settlement, which is sick beyond belief. If any of you have contacts with senators that might be able to give the consulate here more power over the issue please contact them about your outrage at the issue. That took a lot of pride loss for me to say seeing as I have absolutely no faith in our congress and certainly do not believe that any change will come for Palestine through legislative means, but its worth a shot.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
It is only five here and it is already fridgid in the tent that I have subconciously begun to call home over the past week here in Jerusalem. Though it was my first inclination to violate my 15 day ban from the territories, it was brought to my attention that once again, my fate is all tangled up with some relative stranger. A very nice guy from one of the Israeli human rights groups had come to the police station last sunday to help out the french girls and had agreed to sign bail for me, in doing this he agreed that if I am found back in the territories before my fifteen days are up he will be arrested and owe something upwards of 5000 shekels. As much as I want to return, it meant a lot that this guy trusted me and I would hate to ruin that. Which means, until monday, I am still out of the territories. I have tossed around a lot of ideas of places within Israel I want to visit, but with no real travel companion I have little motivation to go to, say, the dead sea to float around alone. Here in Jerusalem I can make myself more useful, if in a somewhat passive way.
For the week I have been sleeping at a house in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood that I was at a month ago before I left for training. I get fed well and get to meet the many different people that roll through to see what is going on here, most important of that is the community group that meets here to discuss their plans for defending their homes. The group is almost completely dominated by women, which is so awesome, and those which speak english have been great to talk with. Also, about every other day a different set of activists comes to join me so I have been able to get more first hand accounts from the regions I haven't been able to go to yet. Though my stay here is also normally a time when I become incredibly frustrated, the settler family living in half of the home is American, a fact which makes it much harder to restrain from asking the woman and man, why on earth they would raise their four small children in a place where they are stealing someone elses home, why they would want this for their family. The restrain is necessary because confronting the settlers is not my place, I am here in solidarity with the Palestinian family in case the authorities come to evict them for not paying rent to the zionist millionaire who has stolen their home and given half of it away, not to pick fights with the family that, the way I see it, is being used as a tool in a much larger scheme. Also I have to remember, here and everywhere else I go that this is in no way my struggle, I am not a Palestinian, my home was not taken from me, my life is not a constant struggle and I do not live in an occupied police state.
When I am not here trying to actually accomplish some things while really lounging and trying to stay warm I have been visiting this nineteen year old Gazan fisherman in a Jerusalem hospital. About three weeks ago while fishing on his parents boat he was shot at by Israeli forces with a 15 mm bullet. The bullet completely entered and exited his shin, breaking both bones and taking with it most of the back of is calf. It was soon apparent that if he stayed in Rafah for treatment, he would have his leg amputated. The medical situation in Gaza is beyond bad, with supplies and equipment, along with doctors and technology being shut out by the siege Gazans have to seek serious medical attention elsewhere, which in many cases can be even more difficult. Since Hamas took over in 07 the Israeli government has decreased their number of medical permit allowances by 20%, 69% of people, many of them desperately ill will recieve a permit to leave the country. The permit itself can sometimes mean little, with lengthy checks at the border which many times include the Isralei government asking the Palestinians to trade information for their exit. But back to the story at hand, Mohammed, the boy I have been visiting, had to wait two weeks for a medical permit for him and his mom even though wether or not he kept his left leg depended on it. Finally, with some pressure from ISMers in Gaza and other human rights workers he was finally given a permit...for one day. Now that he is in the care of the doctors the time limit can be changed but still smacks of twisted israeli policy. Though my arabic is still very much in the beginner stages and Mohammed and his mother speak a few words of english combined I have really enjoyed my vists and according to our friends in Gaza they have said that knowing that myself, and those who come with me, care has meant a lot. I am always fed multiple cookies and atleast two cups of some fruit drink before I am allowed to leave the hospital room, seeing as Mohammed's mother has promised that she will make sure I want to come to Gaza on the next boat, most likely because she is planning me and Mohammed's pending nuptuals. Though many, if not all of the Israeli government's policies in Palestine are cruel and unusual, nothing really compares in my mind to the sick and twisted reality of limited health care, that while starving cities in the West Bank and Gaza of any means of medical advancement the authorities sit and watch Palestinians scramble, jumping through hoops when time is most definitely of the essence just to have a fair chance at survival sometimes.
On Sunday I was able to attend I demo at the Erez crossing about the medical situation in Gaza led by a large group of international physicians who were just denied visas to enter for the Gazan Mental Health conference. A handful of Israeli sources attempted to claim that the group was sponsored and funded by Hamas, an idea, even if it were true, should not have stopped people from being able to exercise academic freedom. The demo was in many ways a huge photo op and led mainly by the older American academics set to present at the conference but gained a lot of attention, I'm glad I went if only to see Erez, I huge compound of a crossing that really brings the phrase "open air prison" new meaning, because that is surely what it looks like.
Tonight will probably be my last night here at the house, I plan on going somewhere, probably haifa, until sunday when I will go back to tel aviv for this demo to support a conciencious objecter of the military and then on Monday its back to the territories. I will most likely be going to Hebron where the situation will be much different from what I saw in Nablus. The illegal Kiryat Arba settlement is basically on top of the old city and has terrorized citizens for years. Aside from settler violence the people both in Hebron and its surrounding villages are subjected to constant military raids and sieges which have effectively trapped Palestinians, sometimes for years at a time, forcing them to live off of the Red Crescent while watching their friends and family massacred and arrested. It is obvious that what has happened to Hebron is the Israeli plan for most West Bank cities, to starve them of any sort of livlihood and create an apartheid state in which Palestinian roads are even caged from above. There is currently an attempt at rehabilitation in many parts of the city and we are trying to re establish our international presence in the community and surrounding areas.
Tonight I will attempt to put a fitting ending to the relationship I have fostered with the neighborhood cats who have also taken up residence in the tent, though I admit that it is rather sad that I call what I have with them a relationship, I'm just being honest here. thanks for reading, until next time
ma'asalama
For the week I have been sleeping at a house in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood that I was at a month ago before I left for training. I get fed well and get to meet the many different people that roll through to see what is going on here, most important of that is the community group that meets here to discuss their plans for defending their homes. The group is almost completely dominated by women, which is so awesome, and those which speak english have been great to talk with. Also, about every other day a different set of activists comes to join me so I have been able to get more first hand accounts from the regions I haven't been able to go to yet. Though my stay here is also normally a time when I become incredibly frustrated, the settler family living in half of the home is American, a fact which makes it much harder to restrain from asking the woman and man, why on earth they would raise their four small children in a place where they are stealing someone elses home, why they would want this for their family. The restrain is necessary because confronting the settlers is not my place, I am here in solidarity with the Palestinian family in case the authorities come to evict them for not paying rent to the zionist millionaire who has stolen their home and given half of it away, not to pick fights with the family that, the way I see it, is being used as a tool in a much larger scheme. Also I have to remember, here and everywhere else I go that this is in no way my struggle, I am not a Palestinian, my home was not taken from me, my life is not a constant struggle and I do not live in an occupied police state.
When I am not here trying to actually accomplish some things while really lounging and trying to stay warm I have been visiting this nineteen year old Gazan fisherman in a Jerusalem hospital. About three weeks ago while fishing on his parents boat he was shot at by Israeli forces with a 15 mm bullet. The bullet completely entered and exited his shin, breaking both bones and taking with it most of the back of is calf. It was soon apparent that if he stayed in Rafah for treatment, he would have his leg amputated. The medical situation in Gaza is beyond bad, with supplies and equipment, along with doctors and technology being shut out by the siege Gazans have to seek serious medical attention elsewhere, which in many cases can be even more difficult. Since Hamas took over in 07 the Israeli government has decreased their number of medical permit allowances by 20%, 69% of people, many of them desperately ill will recieve a permit to leave the country. The permit itself can sometimes mean little, with lengthy checks at the border which many times include the Isralei government asking the Palestinians to trade information for their exit. But back to the story at hand, Mohammed, the boy I have been visiting, had to wait two weeks for a medical permit for him and his mom even though wether or not he kept his left leg depended on it. Finally, with some pressure from ISMers in Gaza and other human rights workers he was finally given a permit...for one day. Now that he is in the care of the doctors the time limit can be changed but still smacks of twisted israeli policy. Though my arabic is still very much in the beginner stages and Mohammed and his mother speak a few words of english combined I have really enjoyed my vists and according to our friends in Gaza they have said that knowing that myself, and those who come with me, care has meant a lot. I am always fed multiple cookies and atleast two cups of some fruit drink before I am allowed to leave the hospital room, seeing as Mohammed's mother has promised that she will make sure I want to come to Gaza on the next boat, most likely because she is planning me and Mohammed's pending nuptuals. Though many, if not all of the Israeli government's policies in Palestine are cruel and unusual, nothing really compares in my mind to the sick and twisted reality of limited health care, that while starving cities in the West Bank and Gaza of any means of medical advancement the authorities sit and watch Palestinians scramble, jumping through hoops when time is most definitely of the essence just to have a fair chance at survival sometimes.
On Sunday I was able to attend I demo at the Erez crossing about the medical situation in Gaza led by a large group of international physicians who were just denied visas to enter for the Gazan Mental Health conference. A handful of Israeli sources attempted to claim that the group was sponsored and funded by Hamas, an idea, even if it were true, should not have stopped people from being able to exercise academic freedom. The demo was in many ways a huge photo op and led mainly by the older American academics set to present at the conference but gained a lot of attention, I'm glad I went if only to see Erez, I huge compound of a crossing that really brings the phrase "open air prison" new meaning, because that is surely what it looks like.
Tonight will probably be my last night here at the house, I plan on going somewhere, probably haifa, until sunday when I will go back to tel aviv for this demo to support a conciencious objecter of the military and then on Monday its back to the territories. I will most likely be going to Hebron where the situation will be much different from what I saw in Nablus. The illegal Kiryat Arba settlement is basically on top of the old city and has terrorized citizens for years. Aside from settler violence the people both in Hebron and its surrounding villages are subjected to constant military raids and sieges which have effectively trapped Palestinians, sometimes for years at a time, forcing them to live off of the Red Crescent while watching their friends and family massacred and arrested. It is obvious that what has happened to Hebron is the Israeli plan for most West Bank cities, to starve them of any sort of livlihood and create an apartheid state in which Palestinian roads are even caged from above. There is currently an attempt at rehabilitation in many parts of the city and we are trying to re establish our international presence in the community and surrounding areas.
Tonight I will attempt to put a fitting ending to the relationship I have fostered with the neighborhood cats who have also taken up residence in the tent, though I admit that it is rather sad that I call what I have with them a relationship, I'm just being honest here. thanks for reading, until next time
ma'asalama
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Exiled
On Sunday around 1030 I was detained by Israeli authorities for five hours at the police station at the illegal Qedumim settlement in town of Kufr Kudum north of Nablus on charges of being in a closed military zone and interfering with police work. If you would have asked me at the time where I would be right now there is a definite possibility that I would have told you waiting for my deportation to be processed, though instead I am sitting on a corner in the immigrant neighborhood of Tel Aviv trying to steal someone's internet on the computer of one of my fellow arrestees.
These past few days have been some of my more confusing and unexpected, though I will try and sort them out in the name of the travel blog gods.
At around ten o'clock Sunday morning I was beginning to settle into another day of olive picking in Kufr Kudum, thankfully drinking a morning cup of tea while assessing the work load when in a strange combination of Hebrew Arabic and broken English I was informed that there were troubles with the army in an olive grove just above where I was picking. Accompanied by some fellow internationals and a few Israeli activists I, if somewhat hesitantly at first, grabbed my video camera and headed up the steep incline. There we were met by more than a handful of soldiers accompanied by, of course not in defense against, a group of male settlers. The situation escalated in a manner as fast as the circumstances would demand them to and soon there was a pushing war going on between the Palestinians joined by us and the army joined by the settlers that found two petrified donkeys trapped in the middle. I can safely say that I have never in my existence been in a situation fueled by so much rage, the justified rage of the two old Palestinian men who were, for the second time in two days being forced off their own land, just as they have been for years, and also the rage of the settlers, which I can only explain as true hatred, hatred which I can also safely say I have never in my life witnessed in such an intensity. The words of the younger settlers, though wrong and hurtful were nothing in comparison to this one older settler, who stared at the Palestinians and us with such a hateful intensity that it is the only time during my filming that I lost control of my shaky hands, it was another one of those moments when my paradigm was suddenly refocused, everything made real.
The army and settlers managed to push the family and us internationals down below where the trees were, though not without pushing the two old men and their sons and us the whole way down. As soon as I stopped recording my shaking promptly returned, if only fueling off of the anger of the family.
We all stood waiting at the bottom of the groves as the settlers yelled at us and inspected what they referred to as "their land", for the District coordinator office officials to arrive and show us the actual warrant for a closed military zone. The DCO, is a system that basically runs a permit system for Palestinians to go to their own land, even though under international law, as an occupying force they MUST provide protection. As we waited I showed the video I was able to get to the family and tried to get some details written down for a press release later. Suddenly it was not the DCO that showed up but instead the Israeli police. An older activist approached the cop and tried to reason with him, explaining that the family we were with was promised to be able to go to the land and that if they waited any longer there would simply be no harvest left. The cop took no interest in anything we had to say and instead told us that we had two minutes to vacate or he would arrest everyone. Myself and a few other backed off seeing as we were filming, but a young french activist decided that she was not going to leave quietly. She asked that the officer stop speaking in such a violent tone and took some time to walk down the slope we were on, though apparently her retreat came to late because the officer grabbed her by the hair and threw her on the ground. The next five minutes were a confusing mixture of screams and pleas, the Palestinians were backed off by soldiers as the two french girls were thrown to the ground repeatedly. Before I knew what I was doing I had thrown myself on top of one of the French activist who was crying on the ground in an attempt to de arrest her or simply stop the soldier from hurting her. I felt that I was not going to be the target for the arrest and simply could not stand and watch the french girls get carried away. Though the police commander was quickly fed up with my efforts and before I knew it he had grabbed my bag to drag me by my neck back towards the settlement. After some fight and the loss of my shoe I was being carried towards the settlement where two cop cars were waiting, they had clearly come looking for arrests and we had conveniently provided them. Hearing my screams the incredibly brave Israeli woman activist had come running back to the scene that she had been walking away from and basically got arrested in order to sit in solidarity with me, an act that, as it will come to light, I will forever be grateful for.
Once in the police station I was searched, screamed at and identified, and though it would have been wise for me to then be scared I was for some reason feeling as confident as ever, with my video tape stuffed in my underwear and our lawyer on the phone I felt strangely calm. What followed was four hours of a confusing interrogation/intimidation. I was offered within an hour an agreement in which I would sign agreeing to leave the country within five days, terms I was absolutely positive I would not sign, an act that quickly showed the police officers that my story of being a tourist may not have overwhelming validity, seeing as the alternative was going to jail until wednesday and waiting for a deportation trial. The french girls were not quite so ready to deny the terms, near the end of their stay and from a very different organization they were in no way ready to go to jail, and the police used this against me. two hours into my stay I was told that whatever I did, in terms of signing, the french girls would also have to do, that I was effectively deciding all of our fates. That calmness quickly faded at this point, I may have been ready to play hard ball in terms of my own future but not with two virtual strangers'. Luckily the Israeli activist was able to play the role of the UN and translated everything between the three camps involved and assured me that the choice was still my own and that if I felt I simply could not sign an agreement that I in no way had to and, much more importantly, that she would do the same, promising that we could go to jail together. After a few more hours of saying no, filled with persuassion from all parties with the exception of Yfat, my Israeli friend, I was able, by the skin of my teeth convince the officers that there was no way I was going to sign, and it was at that point that the officer, who had refused to speak english finally offered to me, in english, an agreement where I would stay out of the territories for fifteen days, broken down, and admittedly a little scared, I finally agreed. when me and Yfat were brought in to sign our agreements the officer, finally in a display of humanism complemented her on her unwavering support of me and she simply responded that as women, its our natural inclination to stand together.
I have now been in Tel Aviv staying with Yfat for four nights, resting and coming to terms with being on the other side of the green line. On Tuesday I went to an anrachists against the wall fundraiser with a group of ISMers who came out from the West Bank and was able to meet a lot of Israeli activists, a group that I have overwhelming respect for, both because of my experience and because of the realization that in their choice to not deny what their government is doing, they have virtually committed their lives to the struggle. As internationals we can only stay for short periods but for an Israeli activist they never leave, their life, their existance, is constantly in this strange rejection limbo. Yfat has explained to me how easy it is to live in Tel Aviv or anywhere else in Israel and remain completely oblivious to the human rights violations occuring only kilometers to the east, a fact that we both agreed is not an excuse, but still a reality, people are still trying to live with a semblance of a normal life, as warped as that may seem to an activist such as myself. As much as I have accepted these realities, I still am not happy to be here, mainly because it was not my choice, though also because randomly I will walk past a store selling kuffiyas next to IDF sweatshirts and feel an overwhelming urge to hurl on the street. I have gone to the beach, enjoyed a western style coffee shop experience, which I admittedly deeply needed, and read a good amount of my book, but definitely feel that I will be leaving here soon. There are plenty of things I can do from this side for ISM, or so I am told, particularly in Jerusalem.
When I think about what happened sunday I definitely feel that it was all for nothing at some points, though many have assured me that my refusal was an important act in terms of international activists, that by not signing I showed as many ISMers have done before, that we will not just leave the country at the first sign we may go to jail, though in terms of the struggle, as in most actions, there is always a question as to whether my actions made any difference, which they most likely did not. The farmers in Kufr Kudum were not allowed to harvest the next day due to the violence on the other side of the hill and the police intervention on our side, but most likely that would have been the case anyway. I really think the lesson I am most grateful to take away is that of real solidarity, the way in which Yfat stood up for me based solely on the fact that I stood by her and the Palestinians when the army forced them off the land was an act that reflected the epitome of solidarity and I am more prepared now to do the same for any Palestinian or international I meet who is here to reject this illegal occupation.
These past few days have been some of my more confusing and unexpected, though I will try and sort them out in the name of the travel blog gods.
At around ten o'clock Sunday morning I was beginning to settle into another day of olive picking in Kufr Kudum, thankfully drinking a morning cup of tea while assessing the work load when in a strange combination of Hebrew Arabic and broken English I was informed that there were troubles with the army in an olive grove just above where I was picking. Accompanied by some fellow internationals and a few Israeli activists I, if somewhat hesitantly at first, grabbed my video camera and headed up the steep incline. There we were met by more than a handful of soldiers accompanied by, of course not in defense against, a group of male settlers. The situation escalated in a manner as fast as the circumstances would demand them to and soon there was a pushing war going on between the Palestinians joined by us and the army joined by the settlers that found two petrified donkeys trapped in the middle. I can safely say that I have never in my existence been in a situation fueled by so much rage, the justified rage of the two old Palestinian men who were, for the second time in two days being forced off their own land, just as they have been for years, and also the rage of the settlers, which I can only explain as true hatred, hatred which I can also safely say I have never in my life witnessed in such an intensity. The words of the younger settlers, though wrong and hurtful were nothing in comparison to this one older settler, who stared at the Palestinians and us with such a hateful intensity that it is the only time during my filming that I lost control of my shaky hands, it was another one of those moments when my paradigm was suddenly refocused, everything made real.
The army and settlers managed to push the family and us internationals down below where the trees were, though not without pushing the two old men and their sons and us the whole way down. As soon as I stopped recording my shaking promptly returned, if only fueling off of the anger of the family.
We all stood waiting at the bottom of the groves as the settlers yelled at us and inspected what they referred to as "their land", for the District coordinator office officials to arrive and show us the actual warrant for a closed military zone. The DCO, is a system that basically runs a permit system for Palestinians to go to their own land, even though under international law, as an occupying force they MUST provide protection. As we waited I showed the video I was able to get to the family and tried to get some details written down for a press release later. Suddenly it was not the DCO that showed up but instead the Israeli police. An older activist approached the cop and tried to reason with him, explaining that the family we were with was promised to be able to go to the land and that if they waited any longer there would simply be no harvest left. The cop took no interest in anything we had to say and instead told us that we had two minutes to vacate or he would arrest everyone. Myself and a few other backed off seeing as we were filming, but a young french activist decided that she was not going to leave quietly. She asked that the officer stop speaking in such a violent tone and took some time to walk down the slope we were on, though apparently her retreat came to late because the officer grabbed her by the hair and threw her on the ground. The next five minutes were a confusing mixture of screams and pleas, the Palestinians were backed off by soldiers as the two french girls were thrown to the ground repeatedly. Before I knew what I was doing I had thrown myself on top of one of the French activist who was crying on the ground in an attempt to de arrest her or simply stop the soldier from hurting her. I felt that I was not going to be the target for the arrest and simply could not stand and watch the french girls get carried away. Though the police commander was quickly fed up with my efforts and before I knew it he had grabbed my bag to drag me by my neck back towards the settlement. After some fight and the loss of my shoe I was being carried towards the settlement where two cop cars were waiting, they had clearly come looking for arrests and we had conveniently provided them. Hearing my screams the incredibly brave Israeli woman activist had come running back to the scene that she had been walking away from and basically got arrested in order to sit in solidarity with me, an act that, as it will come to light, I will forever be grateful for.
Once in the police station I was searched, screamed at and identified, and though it would have been wise for me to then be scared I was for some reason feeling as confident as ever, with my video tape stuffed in my underwear and our lawyer on the phone I felt strangely calm. What followed was four hours of a confusing interrogation/intimidation. I was offered within an hour an agreement in which I would sign agreeing to leave the country within five days, terms I was absolutely positive I would not sign, an act that quickly showed the police officers that my story of being a tourist may not have overwhelming validity, seeing as the alternative was going to jail until wednesday and waiting for a deportation trial. The french girls were not quite so ready to deny the terms, near the end of their stay and from a very different organization they were in no way ready to go to jail, and the police used this against me. two hours into my stay I was told that whatever I did, in terms of signing, the french girls would also have to do, that I was effectively deciding all of our fates. That calmness quickly faded at this point, I may have been ready to play hard ball in terms of my own future but not with two virtual strangers'. Luckily the Israeli activist was able to play the role of the UN and translated everything between the three camps involved and assured me that the choice was still my own and that if I felt I simply could not sign an agreement that I in no way had to and, much more importantly, that she would do the same, promising that we could go to jail together. After a few more hours of saying no, filled with persuassion from all parties with the exception of Yfat, my Israeli friend, I was able, by the skin of my teeth convince the officers that there was no way I was going to sign, and it was at that point that the officer, who had refused to speak english finally offered to me, in english, an agreement where I would stay out of the territories for fifteen days, broken down, and admittedly a little scared, I finally agreed. when me and Yfat were brought in to sign our agreements the officer, finally in a display of humanism complemented her on her unwavering support of me and she simply responded that as women, its our natural inclination to stand together.
I have now been in Tel Aviv staying with Yfat for four nights, resting and coming to terms with being on the other side of the green line. On Tuesday I went to an anrachists against the wall fundraiser with a group of ISMers who came out from the West Bank and was able to meet a lot of Israeli activists, a group that I have overwhelming respect for, both because of my experience and because of the realization that in their choice to not deny what their government is doing, they have virtually committed their lives to the struggle. As internationals we can only stay for short periods but for an Israeli activist they never leave, their life, their existance, is constantly in this strange rejection limbo. Yfat has explained to me how easy it is to live in Tel Aviv or anywhere else in Israel and remain completely oblivious to the human rights violations occuring only kilometers to the east, a fact that we both agreed is not an excuse, but still a reality, people are still trying to live with a semblance of a normal life, as warped as that may seem to an activist such as myself. As much as I have accepted these realities, I still am not happy to be here, mainly because it was not my choice, though also because randomly I will walk past a store selling kuffiyas next to IDF sweatshirts and feel an overwhelming urge to hurl on the street. I have gone to the beach, enjoyed a western style coffee shop experience, which I admittedly deeply needed, and read a good amount of my book, but definitely feel that I will be leaving here soon. There are plenty of things I can do from this side for ISM, or so I am told, particularly in Jerusalem.
When I think about what happened sunday I definitely feel that it was all for nothing at some points, though many have assured me that my refusal was an important act in terms of international activists, that by not signing I showed as many ISMers have done before, that we will not just leave the country at the first sign we may go to jail, though in terms of the struggle, as in most actions, there is always a question as to whether my actions made any difference, which they most likely did not. The farmers in Kufr Kudum were not allowed to harvest the next day due to the violence on the other side of the hill and the police intervention on our side, but most likely that would have been the case anyway. I really think the lesson I am most grateful to take away is that of real solidarity, the way in which Yfat stood up for me based solely on the fact that I stood by her and the Palestinians when the army forced them off the land was an act that reflected the epitome of solidarity and I am more prepared now to do the same for any Palestinian or international I meet who is here to reject this illegal occupation.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Today is officially the one week anniversary of my coming to live in Nablus, a city in the north of the West Bank, though it feels like an eternity. Everyday the seven of us living in our apartment wake up at around 530, travel in all directions of the city and set off to spend the day becoming experts on the many methods of picking and collecting olives, and in many ways these days have been some of the best in my recent memory, and yet some of the most sobering. The purpose of the accompaniment program is to help to deter the possibility of settler violence, military violence and in general exercise solidarity in one of the most essential parts of a Palestinian's life in this region, or really in them all, in the land. Once we arrive in a village there is normally a period in which we have to wait for the magistrate representative to show up, or as we often suspect, wake up. We are then assigned to the family picking in the most dangerous area that day, normally nearest to the settlement which inevitably, for most villages, is never too far away, normally placed above on some hilltop ruining the horizon. Most days go on with no problem and aside for the mini war which those of the Islamic fate have across the board been waging for my half arab soul, or far more commonly the war Palestinian women wage for our hands in marriage for their available young sons, they are normally wonderful days, we drink a lot of tea, eat a lot of hummus, have the excuse to climb some of the most amazing trees and laugh more than anyone doing physical labor should. Many times the conversations are rather stunted seeing as most of us internationals are working on very low levels of arabic and a lot of the palestinians know very little english but somehow the most intricate messages can be conveyed, namely those of political and historical value. My british friend cannot escape a day without Balfour being brought up and I certainly will never escape one without mention of the israeli lobby in America, though the conversation definitely takes an interesting turn whenever it is discovered that I am Libyan, one based on the pretense that I am most certainly lying when I say that the green book is not hidden somewhere in my sidebag. On a side note I have recently discovered that one of my international friends has had dinner with good old Momar and somehow accidentally had the green book in her bag last time she came through Israeli security, but still got in.
In general our presence is graciously recieved and most people believe that our presence does deter settler violence, seeing as settlers have had to come to terms that they are fighting the PR war, that their cruel and violent attacks, mainly with no retributions, are starting to be noticed especially when internationals with cameras are present, but that doesn't mean that our job cannot seem frustratingly futile a lot of times. The Israeli Occupation Forces (otherwise known as the IDF) have come up with a plethora of warrants and decrees that stop us from entering the fields and effectively seem to make our presence more of a nuisance than anything else. Also with low numbers of internationals right now it is impossible for us to be everywhere that violence is likely to occur and many times organization is not always key to the Palestinians who understandably sometimes wish to not have to discuss with three different people their plans to go and harvest their own land. But in many ways that is the point, the army has made it so that even the land that the settlers have not already stolen is impossible to access outside of a few times during the year, farmers arrive to find trees that have been in their family for hundreds of years are burned to the ground, cut down, ruined by chemical and sewage waste from the illegal settlements or simply barren from forced neglect. Though not all of the farmers depend solely on the harvest for their economic stability, many of them do, and just as with all occupations, a strong sense of capitalism has been forced on what was once a different kind of society and a bad harvest can mean something far worse than it ever did before.
Its this dicotomous manner of living that has been so hard for me to wrap my head around, that a people with so much hope, even more pride and overwhelming kindness can live in such a harsh reality. I know it is nonsensical of me to expect that people do not go on living, but the palestinian people do it in a way that simply cannot go unmentioned.
In the past three days there have been a rising number of settler attacks in our area, all of which we were always just a little too far away from to respond any differently than a journalist could, and so there is a definite level of frustration in the air, both with one another and with the various other groups that we work with, but we continue to remind ourselves that we are doing our best and that the thing about detering violence by being a witness is that you do not witness, we never know when there was a real victory because a victory is a quiet day. What has added to the frustration though is the fact that in the Ramallah area three boys have been shot in the past three days by the IOF and every night this week someone has been beaten up at the Hawarra checkpoint nearest to our house, and every single death is used against the Palestinians in the news, every paper claiming that there is a renewed intifada, making their deaths sound necessary instead of the violent acts of military terrorism taht they most likely were.
We do all seem to find solace in one another in the apartment though, despite our overwhelming differences. My roomates are; a"professional" witch(actually, listed that way in the phonebook) from Iceland who has children older than me and is the epitome of delightful, especially when she recounts her sex life, a lone traveller of the middle east from Austria, an antifa lifer who describes himself as "the only nerd of the radical left in my country" from Finland, a lawyer/exdrug cartel/friend of the wu-tang clan from the UK, a very nice long termer from Australia and a maid from Quebec. Nightly discussions are not exactly what my expectations would have depicted them as but certainly always entertaining.
Beofre I came to Nablus I was staged for my entrance into the ISM world with a training in Ramallah, and though it definitely was straight forward on a lot of the facts, like, what ways are best to deal with industrial strength tear gas, how to effectively "de-arrest" someone, how to escape being detained and what actions will surely get you deported, there was also a lot of really great discussion of what ISM stands for that I think made everyone in the room feel that much more confident in why we had come here, that is with the exception of the psuedo ex hippie from veterans for peace who was the sole believer that throwing stones was a "violent act", insisted on patronizing me in every political discussion and knew so little about middle eastern culture that most of us tried to not listen to him out of embarassment.
On a final note, I was on Al Jazeera on Tuesday night, like arabic language Al Jazeera with a live interview, and am now recognized by taxi drivers and shop keepers alike, which is really fun and really annoying all at the same time. Alright so I am going to end this monstrous post and go try and cook some dinner for the people who had to pick all day seeing as through scheduling error I kind of had the day off.
In general our presence is graciously recieved and most people believe that our presence does deter settler violence, seeing as settlers have had to come to terms that they are fighting the PR war, that their cruel and violent attacks, mainly with no retributions, are starting to be noticed especially when internationals with cameras are present, but that doesn't mean that our job cannot seem frustratingly futile a lot of times. The Israeli Occupation Forces (otherwise known as the IDF) have come up with a plethora of warrants and decrees that stop us from entering the fields and effectively seem to make our presence more of a nuisance than anything else. Also with low numbers of internationals right now it is impossible for us to be everywhere that violence is likely to occur and many times organization is not always key to the Palestinians who understandably sometimes wish to not have to discuss with three different people their plans to go and harvest their own land. But in many ways that is the point, the army has made it so that even the land that the settlers have not already stolen is impossible to access outside of a few times during the year, farmers arrive to find trees that have been in their family for hundreds of years are burned to the ground, cut down, ruined by chemical and sewage waste from the illegal settlements or simply barren from forced neglect. Though not all of the farmers depend solely on the harvest for their economic stability, many of them do, and just as with all occupations, a strong sense of capitalism has been forced on what was once a different kind of society and a bad harvest can mean something far worse than it ever did before.
Its this dicotomous manner of living that has been so hard for me to wrap my head around, that a people with so much hope, even more pride and overwhelming kindness can live in such a harsh reality. I know it is nonsensical of me to expect that people do not go on living, but the palestinian people do it in a way that simply cannot go unmentioned.
In the past three days there have been a rising number of settler attacks in our area, all of which we were always just a little too far away from to respond any differently than a journalist could, and so there is a definite level of frustration in the air, both with one another and with the various other groups that we work with, but we continue to remind ourselves that we are doing our best and that the thing about detering violence by being a witness is that you do not witness, we never know when there was a real victory because a victory is a quiet day. What has added to the frustration though is the fact that in the Ramallah area three boys have been shot in the past three days by the IOF and every night this week someone has been beaten up at the Hawarra checkpoint nearest to our house, and every single death is used against the Palestinians in the news, every paper claiming that there is a renewed intifada, making their deaths sound necessary instead of the violent acts of military terrorism taht they most likely were.
We do all seem to find solace in one another in the apartment though, despite our overwhelming differences. My roomates are; a"professional" witch(actually, listed that way in the phonebook) from Iceland who has children older than me and is the epitome of delightful, especially when she recounts her sex life, a lone traveller of the middle east from Austria, an antifa lifer who describes himself as "the only nerd of the radical left in my country" from Finland, a lawyer/exdrug cartel/friend of the wu-tang clan from the UK, a very nice long termer from Australia and a maid from Quebec. Nightly discussions are not exactly what my expectations would have depicted them as but certainly always entertaining.
Beofre I came to Nablus I was staged for my entrance into the ISM world with a training in Ramallah, and though it definitely was straight forward on a lot of the facts, like, what ways are best to deal with industrial strength tear gas, how to effectively "de-arrest" someone, how to escape being detained and what actions will surely get you deported, there was also a lot of really great discussion of what ISM stands for that I think made everyone in the room feel that much more confident in why we had come here, that is with the exception of the psuedo ex hippie from veterans for peace who was the sole believer that throwing stones was a "violent act", insisted on patronizing me in every political discussion and knew so little about middle eastern culture that most of us tried to not listen to him out of embarassment.
On a final note, I was on Al Jazeera on Tuesday night, like arabic language Al Jazeera with a live interview, and am now recognized by taxi drivers and shop keepers alike, which is really fun and really annoying all at the same time. Alright so I am going to end this monstrous post and go try and cook some dinner for the people who had to pick all day seeing as through scheduling error I kind of had the day off.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Long Monday
It is now 4:05 am and it it the first time since my arrival that the has been a period of longer than five minutes that I have heard no car horns, instead just the call to prayer and silence. I am on my night shift at the house that I am camping outside of to currently help safeguard, and aside from the patrol of an Israeli officer a few times an hour it is rather peaceful. A little background on the house, in 2001 a three person Palestinian family live here in East Jerusalem, the mother and father in one half of the apartment, their son in the other. It was that year that the father had a serious heart attack and was hospitalized, naturally the mother and son were with him at that time. When it came time to return to their home they were shocked to find a settler family living in half of their apartment. It seems that an organization had given the family the rights to the home. Since then the Israeli government has offered the Palestinian family up to 11 million sheckels to leave the house, but the family resovled that under any circumstance, or for any amount, they would never leave the house. The house has therefore become sort of a symbol then, of solidarity, a place that holds community meetings to garner support and has so far been successful in a loyal battle against the much wealthier and influential settler's group. Hung around on the walls of the patio that we sleep on and the husband and wife often spend their days recieving people on plastic chairs with endless amounts of coffee and cigarettes, are posters and paintings announcing to all that come here that "we will never leave". In their lawsuit the family has tried to assure that the current settler isn't jailed because as I was explained today the settler families kind of become pawns in the game in this situation, being rotated out every other year or so anyway. The current eviction of the settler family is on the ninth of november, though there is a large chance that another family will simply move right into the house and begin the process again.
Overall the situation seems to be, like so many other situations here, an eternal struggle, though it has been successful in bringing together a community that cannot watch East Jerusalem get taken from the arabs who live here. I was able to watch one of their meeting tonight and even through the language barrior it was a powerful thing to watch.
Tomorrow night it is back to the hostel so that I can wake up early on Wednesday to be taken to Ramallah for training. Hopefully it proves to be as interesting as last night, which was an evening spent discussing the cyclic and rather fickel political state of German fascist and anti-fascist movements with a group of German anti-fascists from a commune style city center in Germany(the eldest of whom was the spitting image of Karl Marx), among other things. The conversation naturally shifted to the conflict, as I am sure most conversations held late night at the faisal hostel do.
Well, that is all for now
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