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.