Imaginary Worlds

Update #7: Imaginary Worlds
Date: Fri, 9 Apr 2010

Spring is evident in the warmer sun and longer days in Palestine, and I hope it is finding you as well.

I am celebrating a four-month extension to my visa, which permits me to continue working with ISM through August, and also reflecting on the astonishing scope of support and interest I have witnessed in my time here.

I strongly encourage everyone who receives these updates to consider ways of getting involved in anti-occupation/apartheid work. Involvement constitutes a broad range of activities.

Here are some ideas:

-- Self/group education: Books: The Lemon Tree, Sandy Tolan; Palestine: Peace, not Apartheid, Jimmy Carter; and An Israeli in Palestine, Jeff Halper. (Great places to start; there are an infinite number of books on the occupation)
Films: Occupation 101 and Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land are available at freedocumentaries.org

Discussion groups centering around a book or film are great ways to raise awareness and brainstorm further actions.

-- Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: bdsmovement.net

-- Write! To congresspersons and Obama, encouraging further pressure on Netanyahu regarding East Jerusalem settlements

To the New York Times regarding their article: www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/world/middleeast/07westbank.html?hp, which surprisingly suggests Palestinians are just now turning to non-violent resistance. More information/talking points here:

-- Keep informed: News from Palestine can be found at maannews.net/eng/Default.aspx and palsolidarity.org


I've included a recent piece I've written about life here.

Be well, keep in touch, forward, and get involved!

Shukran


Imaginary Worlds

Last week a friend sent me two pictures of Coney Island. An open boardwalk stretching into a vast and blank horizon, and the vibrant red and yellow bars of a carnival ride spanning the sky like a cherry-flavored steel spider web.
Imaginary worlds. I can scarcely remember the feeling of crisp ocean air and an open horizon; freedom.

Jerusalem and Ramallah are 15 kilometers (9 miles) apart. The trip can take over two hours. A sometimes daily commute, the trek includes Qalandia checkpoint terminal. Imagine a version of hell in which sadistic 18-year-olds control an airport security station with the climate of a slaughterhouse and the aesthetics of a prison. Imagine Palestinians of all types—grandmothers with shopping bags, teenagers in groups, men late for work--held up pointlessly in steel cages as teenage girls laugh and chat behind bulletproof glass.
The recent high school graduates, charged with controlling access to Jerusalem, show up to work with both their M-16s and the particular ennui and fanged apathy that only teenagers possess. I have watched, feet aching, having stood motionless in a narrow metal chute for thirty minutes, as a girl aimlessly brushed her hair with such disinterest I thought the brush would fall from her hand. I have peeked in the window to see what’s holding up the line, only to notice that the person charged with operating the scanner has dozed off. I have watched, almost in tears, as elderly women fought each other in a panic to get through the turnstiles in time for Friday’s noontime prayers. Friday mornings are always excruciatingly slow; during rush hours frequently fewer lanes are open.

Today the lanes are segregated by gender. Men run the men’s lane with relative efficiency; ours is frozen in time. Robin gets through in about 15 minutes. My line hasn’t moved by the time he’s back on the 18 bus headed to Sheikh Jarrah for a meeting.
We think it’s possible that they were drunk this particular evening. Maybe they always are. The loudspeakers, which are usually utilized to screech incomprehensible commands, are torture devices tonight. Childish songs, gibberish and direct taunting of those in line reverberate through the empty cages of bulletproof glass and cement. As the men are processed routinely, our line stands captive to their taunts. Mothers with several children, teenagers dressed up for a night on the town, grandmothers hunched over canes, and me.

Generally, groups of three are let into the scanning area at a time. Bags are passed through an x-ray machine, people walk through a metal detector, and IDs are shown to the automatic-rifle-armed children behind the glass. West Bank Palestinians must have special permits, such as family visit, medical, religious or work. Some must give fingerprints every time they pass through, and many have a small time window they must return by or lose their permit status.
The West Bank is routinely placed under “closure”, barring nearly all permit holders from entering Jerusalem. Closure causes people with severe medical conditions to miss appointments, turns back women in labor, and prevents religious Palestinians from observing significant holidays. The 10-day Passover closure prevented Palestinian Christians from entering Jerusalem to observe Easter.

This evening, closure means a nearly-vacant terminal. What should have taken twenty minutes is stretching infinitely, as the lane barely creeps forward. A metal click every five minutes or so allows three to pass.
Suddenly, an announcement screeches over the loudspeaker. Everyone looks up, sighs, and turns around. The lane’s closed. We shuffle back out of the corral and down to the now-open one. The line’s disrupted. The women who have been here the longest are now at the back. I feel conscious of my American passport and let everyone cut. The metal gate clicks, and three pass through.

Thirty minutes of tedium later, the line closes and we’re back to the previous one. Twenty minutes after that, it’s time to switch lanes again. Some women try standing in the men’s lane; I join them. After fifteen minutes, the first woman reaches the window. She’s turned back, and we re-join the end of the massive women’s crowd again.
At this point I’ve been standing still for over 90 minutes, watching girls younger than me torture a group of patient women and children who just want to reach their destinations. The tears of boredom and indignation are welling up when I glance at the window beside me. Above the forgotten pita crusts and coke bottles resting on the sill, someone’s attached a weathered picture. Two inches square with fraying corners, a professional soccer player beams at us. He’s just scored a goal. Fists pumped in the air, the expression of weightless jubilation smeared across his face is bizarrely foreign. It should serve as a reminder of the Palestinian-caliber burdens we’re shouldering.

Instead I’m transfixed. Gazing into that tiny portal, the cold industrial despair fades away. His pure jubilation is a concept I can’t quite grasp, but it tugs me further from the numb bitterness that was fogging my senses. I remember childhood soccer games; the adrenaline of sport suspending all reality. I remember winning cross-country races, staggering across the line into the embrace of friends and family. I remember weightless exhausted jubilation. I remember when nothing else mattered.
Was that really me? This same person who’s about to scream and smash bulletproof glass with a plaster-cast-club?

For most Americans, Palestine is an imaginary world. I still can hardly believe the evil that surrounds us. It’s a bit surreal; to hear that a random 21-year-old girl was deliberately hit and killed by a settler driving down the road. Summar Said Radwan. Guilty of being Palestinian. It’s a bit surreal to stare down at the cast on my arm and realize that I was targeted by a soldier close enough to see my face; close enough to see that I was armed only with my bones. A perfectly fragile human being.
It’s a bit surreal to stand for ninety minutes at the mercy of a few drunk 18-year-olds contemplating all of these things, and then to realize with a start that outside of this “moral supercollider”, freedom exists.

It’s hard to imagine that boardwalk now; to imagine that world where people have casts from falling out of trees and the newspaper doesn’t announce another round of soldier-defended settler brutality every morning. I remember that place. It exists. Inshallah Palestine’s children will live to see it too; for now it is only an imaginary world.

Four dead in 24 hours; and on being shot

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010
Subject: Update #6: Four dead in 24 hours; and on being shot

Dear friends,

It is through a fog of extreme grief and exhaustion--and with my left hand--that I write to you.

I am certain that no number of words can portray the past three days accurately; nor would I wish upon anyone the absolute hell that the holy land has become.

However, I ask you to listen. I know that bad news fills the press; that Palestine feels impossibly distant; that at some moments it simply seems that the only option is to look away. While riding the bus today, I considered how I could ask you to care enough to read this update that I sincerely wish I were not about to write.

What I want to say is that Rachel Corrie died seven years ago last Tuesday (the 16th). I was asked to deliver a speech on behalf of the ISM for a memorial attended by her parents. Rachel and I have a number of similarities, including being native to the Pacific Northwest and being students at Evergreen.

Three days after the speech, I was shot with a rubber bullet fired from four meters away. The bullet lodged in my arm, fracturing my wrist.

The following day, soldiers opened live fire on a crowd containing an ISM activist from Eugene, Oregon. Two boys from the crowd were killed. Within 24 hours, two more youth were shot dead.

Perhaps the names Mohammad, Ussayed and Saleh sound too distant to really care about. If so, read--because seven years after Rachel's death, young adults from the Pacific Northwest still care enough to enter the line of Israeli fire.

What Happened in An Nabi Saleh

The village of An Nabi Saleh is one of the smallest in the West Bank. The illegal Halamish settlement has stolen over half of their farmland since 1977, in addition to two springs. An Nabi Saleh began holding weekly demonstrations a few months ago, attempting to peacefully march to one of the stolen springs.

Each week, soldiers surround the village more completely before the march begins. Last Friday they had completely surrounded the route of the march. We cut across a field instead, ending up back on course by a road. As soldiers stood blocking the road from one direction and jeeps from the other, we decided to cross the road and walk down the hillside towards the spring. As I stood on the roadside in a group of 10-15 containing two teenage girls, a British ISM activist, two medics with First Aid vests and an older man, three army jeeps drove up and started hurling tear gas canisters at us. From about four meters away, flying canisters are far more frightening than anything they will emit. Some rest on the ground, then are propelled high into the air unpredictably.

We whirled around, trying to watch the soldiers, gas can trajectories and each other. Apparently rubber bullets were also being fired because in a startling blast of pain... well you can check out the x-rays for those details. Too many excruciating minutes passed as the relentless barrage of tear gas continued. My activist buddy Robin initially waved at the soldiers to stop firing (I was on the ground, obviously wounded) then gave up and helped me escape up the hill as the soldiers kept firing. ISM co-founder Huwaida Arraf was arrested along with two Palestinians for attempting to stop the firing. She was detained for over 30 hours; a much bleaker fate awaits the Palestinians.

In short, this type of thing happens to Palestinian demonstrators all the time. They don't have the luxury of a larger audience. If there's one thing I could say about the experience, it's that delaying ambulances/cars evacuating injured people seems cruel until you're the injured person. Then it's an entirely new level of insidious. The few minutes we waited for them to wave us down the obstructed road allowed for some of my clearest reflections on the incarnations of pure evil. This type of action is standard for Israeli military, and was used the following day in the fatal shootings of Mohammad and Ussayed.

And then the next day...

The village of Iraq Burin has lost access to much of its farmland to the nearby settlement (sound familiar?) Villagers typically gather on Saturdays, although they are prevented by the military from accessing their land. Robin and I spent last Saturday in the village, and the amount of tear gas used to disperse people who had gathered in the street was absurd. See our report about it here: http://palsolidarity.org/2010/03/11821.

In the place of tear gas, soldiers fired live ammunition at demonstrators this week.

Ussayed Qaddous, 19, and Mohammad Qaddous, 16 were killed.

The military claims that live ammunition was not fired, despite x-rays showing a live bullet in Ussayed's skull.

And the day after that...

ISM activists were at the Qaddous' funeral when they received the call that two more boys had been killed. Not much is known about the deaths of Mohammad and Saleh, both teenagers. They were headed to farm their land near the village of Awarta (close to Iraq Burin). According to some, they were killed by settlers. Others say the military. Media have reported at various times that they attacked (a) soldier(s) with either pitchforks or syringes, or that they had a bomb. I myself am not sure what to believe, but any logical person would be less inclined to believe a story about being attacked when the alleged attackers were armed with one of three very different and not easily confused weapons.

Based on my experiences here, I find it very easy to believe that soldiers or settlers killed them in cold blood. Regardless, Mohammad and Saleh are also gone.

Making sense of it

American media portray the Middle East in a very specific manner. The names sound foreign, and we expect this region of the world to be violent. Surely Palestinian youth are militant. Surely I am biased.

Maybe four fresh Palestinian graves isn't keeping you up at night. A few months ago, the news probably wouldn't have me bawling silently on the balcony at 2 am. What changed?

Playing peek-a-boo with little Sarah Gawi, the afternoon sun behind her angelic frizzy hair and lemony yellow popsicle juice smearing her beaming face.

Banyas and Samaa screaming and leaping into Robin's arms as we strode up the path for another homestay.

Spending infinite afternoons marching and demonstrating with teenage boys, laughing as they practiced 'where are you from?' again and again.

Climbing into a battered and decorated van two weeks ago in Iraq Burin, leaving the demonstration to heartfelt thanks for "sharing our suffering today".

If you were here, you would also see that Sarah shouldn't have to spend afternoons watching settlers come and go from her family's home. You would also remember that Banyas will someday face M-16s as he marches against the occupation that is bleeding his culture dry. You would also love those teenage boys, and go to the hospital when they are shot, and remember with their tormented mothers' faces that no culture willingly risks these things except in cases of grave injustice.

You would cry at 2 am when they are needlessly shot by soldiers. You would march through the fields of wildflowers in An Nabi Saleh. You would take a bullet in the arm, if the situation happened to arise. I know you would.

Shukran.

"This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don't think it's an extremist thing to do anymore. I still really want to dance around to Pat Benatar and have boyfriends and make comics for my coworkers. But I also want this to stop." -- Rachel Corrie

In memory of:

Rachel Corrie, 23
Mohammad Qaddous, 16
Ussayed Qaddous, 19
Mohammad Faysal, 19
Saleh Qawariq, 16


palsolidarity.org
bdsmovement.net


I have attached the speech I delivered for Rachel's parents, as well as two excellent pieces written by a friend and fellow activist, Robin.

A letter home

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010
Subject: Update #5: A letter home

I hope this letter finds you well.

A brief note: It has been brought to my attention that people were reluctant to forward or respond after news of the raids in February. Anything I send out is intended for as massive an audience as possible, and it’s really critical that people continue to do the great job that they have done of forwarding on. Similarly, I really appreciate hearing from people and your emails in no way endanger either of us.

I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to write a new update. To be entirely honest, things have been increasingly difficult and the thought of writing home has been too intimidating to even consider. This morning as I watched the sun rise over Sheikh Jarrah, I finally found a way of verbalizing what it is that’s been going on.

Events I reference: Bulldozer destruction near Bethlehem to build the apartheid wall: http://palsolidarity.org/2010/03/11629
The shooting of Ehab Bargouthi, age 14: http://palsolidarity.org/2010/03/11666
The destruction of Bidya’s natural spring: http://palsolidarity.org/2010/03/11679
The beating by riot police of five ISM activists (myself included) on Saturday night following a Sheikh Jarrah solidarity demonstration. We were standing on a sidewalk. This story hasn’t been published yet due to legal considerations; check the website in the next few days.

A Letter Home

There are moments where I just can’t take it in. Palestine—something tangible that you could hold in your hand—or more precisely, something slipping between your fingers before you can really know what it is you’re losing. Something beautiful. We are witnesses to more destruction than we will ever comprehend.

I watch the girls walking to school in their navy uniforms and I wonder how they fit into Israel’s 100 year plan.

I sit in the fig tree in Sheikh Jarrah and wonder if Saleh will be able to collect the fruit that ripens this autumn.

The al-Kurd house is in court tomorrow. When the petals fall from the roses blooming in the walkway, who will sweep them up?

Ehab’s chest rises and falls with the steady force of the ICU respirator. His olivey feet, scrubbed impossibly clean, reach beyond the wadded up sheets. Somehow they are perfect and human. A reminder of the entire person hidden behind the head swaddled in a manner reminiscent of playing “mummies” with rolls of toilet paper. Whether he will live or die is anyone’s guess. And I am told to approach his anguished mother with “Alhemdullileh, Allah salamtu”. Praise God. Thanks God everything is always ok.

On a live Rachel Corrie special for Tulkarem TV, I take a deep breath and promise the cameras that the American people are good. That we don’t know what we are doing and if we did, we would stop. In that moment and in every breath before and since, I am begging and pleading the gods I don’t believe in—please, somehow, could this be true. Would we stop? Can my home place, with its glacier-capped peaks and loamy farmland, ever understand the horror of bulldozers the size of two-car garages gently scooping ancient olive trees out of the pungent earth? Can my people ever see that they give $20 to Oxfam to rebuild the school their year-end taxes destroyed? No stack of Benjamins can reconstruct the children plucked from this god-forsaken holy land, each as fragile and loved as Ehab.

As the settler father leaves the house this morning, he carefully pushes his daughter’s stroller with one hand; closes the gate and then tugs his shirt over the pistol at his waist with the other. Who are those bullets for? The mother of five who sits in a plastic lawn chair across the street from her home? Her son, 20, who watches his father routinely arrested for refusing to allow his dignity to be swept away with last night’s bonfire ashes?

We can stand in the secluded basin, the sun beating down on the olive trees, but it’s too late to stop the five pale-legged Israelis dumping bag after bag of concrete into the village spring. The soldiers protecting the sun-hatted settlers make us close our cameras—it’s a Closed Military Zone. They stare, arms crossed, as I search their faces for an answer. Does any one of them truly believe that “security” justifies gratuitous vandalism? One dark-eyed boy is surely no older than I. If only he could know the hospitality which advises me, “You are welcome in your home”. If only he could hold sleeping five-year-old Samaa, her dark hair fanned out across the blankets, and wonder if she will live to see al-Aqsa. If only he could know that after the riot cops beat us Saturday night, someone produced a giant box of sandwiches. Would he ever again protect the destruction of something so simple and pure as a natural spring?

Palestine is slipping through our fingers. Every one of my International friends (family?) has dissolved in tears this week. Most of our friends in Sheikh Jarrah have been, or live in fear of, arrest for resisting the confiscation of their family homes. Four have been arrested in the past 36 hours.

I will never forget the feeling of being violently ripped from my friends, both Palestinian and International, as we were beaten to the ground that night. In a tangle of arms reaching for each other, being dragged by the hair as others’ heads were kicked like soccer balls, I realized I felt no concern for my own safety. The safety of the people I love; the communities we belong to; are frighteningly threatened. If there should be anything for little Samaa to grow up to; any figs for Saleh to collect this fall; any reason for Ehab to awaken from his coma; we must act in ways stronger than a few dollars carelessly tossed at erasing Israel’s destruction.

We must end systems that use bulldozers to smash swingsets in order to build walls of 25-foot-high concrete slabs. We must act to redirect your income from planting a bullet in Ehab’s skull. We must act because Palestine is slipping away, and there is no way to describe the beauty of an olive grove or a spring or a teenage boy. These are things that America destroys without knowing.

Shukran, Thanks

ISM reports: palsolidarity.org
What can you do? bdsmovement.net
Film showings are always a great idea. Occupation 101 and Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land are available at freedocumentaries.org

Every U.S. man, woman, and child, gives roughly $8/year for Israeli defense spending.
Every U.S. taxpayer gives roughly $18/year for Israeli defense spending.

The past 10 days with ISM

Update #4: The past 10 days with ISM
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010

Hope everyone's doing well. This email's quite lengthy but I feel strongly that to shorten it would be to exclude integral details.
Things have been rather exciting around here lately!

Recent Events

3 am Sunday (2/7): Three ISM volunteers awake in the Ramallah office to sounds of the door being broken open. Looking out the window, a line of army jeeps is visible in the street below. Upon destroying the door, 12 IDF (Israeli Defense Force) soldiers storm into the apartment wielding M-16s and dressed in full riot gear, complete with bullet-proof vests and kneepads. The soldiers arrest two Internationals on charges of overstayed visas and search the apartment, tearing down posters, filming extensively and taking one computer, two cameras and personal information for about 20 persons. ISM has reason to believe that phone and email surveillance were used prior to the raid. http://palsolidarity.org/2010/02/11224

6 pm Sunday (2/7): One week after a settler waved an M-16 wildly in the street, a group of settlers armed with another M-16 attempt to access the back half of the al-Kurd home, pointing the weapon in the chest of Rifqa al-Kurd, 87, and threatening to kill her. http://palsolidarity.org/2010/02/11251

Monday (2/8): Israeli Supreme Court finds the International arrests to be illegal under the Oslo Accords, which prohibit IDF activity in "Area A" of the West Bank. The detained Internationals are released on bail.
http://palsolidarity.org/2010/02/11257

3 am, Wednesday (2/10): Despite the court's findings just two days prior, Internationals again awake to soldiers and are held at gunpoint in the Ramallah office. In the second IDF raid in four days for the office, soldiers this time took our other computer and rifled through our previously-searched belongings.
http://palsolidarity.org/2010/02/11339

Saturday (2/13): Fatima Diab, 45, is arrested in a controversial altercation which occurs when a Zionist member of Knesset (Israeli parliament) provocatively tours Sheikh Jarrah. Diab is denied food and water while in prison, and, upon being released on bail the following day, is placed under house arrest for a week.
http://palsolidarity.org/2010/02/11435

1 pm, Sunday (2/14): Violent Zionists tour Sheikh Jarrah. It is hard to know what to write about this. Definitely the most discouraging experience I've had here. About twenty people stroll up to the block where we're sitting in the sun. We get out our cameras, they enter the al-Kurd yard while mocking and taunting the Palestinians watching on the side. Several attempt to grab our cameras and/or block us from filming. The guide delivers truly the most horrific presentation I have witnessed, referring to Palestinians as "robbers", describing them at times as misled and confused, at others as dirty thieves who know full well that they violating "divine will" by fighting to preserve the scraps of land they have lived on for millennia.
They end in song, jeering and dancing on the al-Kurd lawn as my Palestinian friends and neighbors watch. As they leave the yard, one woman begins screaming "Murderers! Murderers!" At this point, I become frightened since it is apparent that she is violently angry and uncontrollable. As people flood into the street, she continues to lunge at Palestinians (some elderly), screaming "Murderers! We're here to stay!" At one point, I see her break loose from the other tourists that have attempted to hold her back, and I move forward. Afraid she'll really hurt someone, I'm thinking only to get it clearly on camera since that's all a person can do. Catching a glimpse of me filming, she turns and lunges. Before I can react, my camera is flying through the air as the settlers and tourists present begin to clap and cheer. It's hard to know how to respond; that's all I can say.
http://palsolidarity.org/2010/02/11404

11 pm, Sunday (2/14): Settler and Palestinian youth exchange insults in the street. Although this type of altercation occurs every hour or so, tonight the police arrive in a blue-stripe van and arrest Tarek Gawi, 15. He's held for a few hours until ISM can arrive with footage demonstrating settler provocation, at which time he's released but banned from Sheikh Jarrah for 10 days.

Tuesday (2/16): Gawi camp is destroyed yet again. One Palestinian is injured when the municipality truck reverses spontaneously, trapping his leg between the curb and truck bed as he tries to move a couch.

Putting it in context

Although the past days have been dramatic and attention-grabbing, they demonstrate no break from the larger routine of life in occupied territories.

Raids

Just 5 weeks ago, ISM media coordinator Eva Novacova was similarly raided and arrested. Also before dawn, soldiers surrounded the building and were positioned on the roof of her Ramallah (Area A) apartment. The West Bank is separated into areas A, B and C as a result of the Oslo Accords (1993). Palestinians allegedly have full jurisdiction of Area A, while B is split and C is entirely Israeli-controlled.

Borrowing from the ISM website, "The Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Authority clearly forbid any Israeli incursion into Area A for reasons not directly and urgently related to security, even in “hot pursuit.” A raid on Area A on the ground of expired visas is therefore in direct violation of the accords." The now-routine raids demonstrate the little actual control that Palestinians have over their lives.

For some great maps showing the division of the West Bank, see http://www.israelsoccupation.info/gallery/west-bank


Night raids arresting the leaders of Popular Committees (local Palestinian resistance organizations) have been ongoing, and Stop the Wall has also experienced raids. The increased crackdown on non-violent resistance has been a challenge. While we're struggling to replace our electronics, Palestinians who involve themselves with resistance work face years in prison under the worst possible conditions. The recent attention by the IDF makes it clear that the ISM is a powerful organization in the fight to end occupation and apartheid. It's a little unsettling to feel targeted and watched, but we're collectively heartened that the Palestinian resistance is gathering momentum.

Arrests in Sheikh Jarrah

Life in the neighborhood is incredibly trying. Palestinians and Internationals sit chatting and sharing food in the al-Kurd tent and Gawi camp (most recently a few sofas on the sidewalk). To me, Sheikh Jarrah feels like home; the Palestinians like family. It's
increasingly difficult to tolerate the continual harassment by settlers who walk back and forth shouting, filming us, etc. However, I never lived in the homes the settlers now inhabit. The patience and grace of the Gawis, al-Kurds and other neighbors will forever astound me as I realize just how deeply it must hurt to live on the sidewalk outside of the home where you have both lived as a child and raised children. To compound the emotional trauma with continual harassment and cruelty by the inhabitants of your stolen home is more than I can comprehend tolerating. Indeed, there are moments where my Palestinian friends respond to the provocation.

It is now apparent that the settlers are manipulating this emotional limit as much as possible. As the arrests of the past week demonstrate, police need little provocation to ban an individual. Several have been banned for varying lengths of time since my arrival. This morning as the camp was demolished, several of the police casually chatted with the settlers and then entered the occupied home. Drinking coffee? Using the restroom? It's ever more absurd that police/military maintain the charade of neutral authority. Their only actions are in defense of the settlers, despite the frequency with which they are the party at fault.

Conclusion

As I mentioned above, truly the hardest part of all this was the tour. Primarily from the U.S., the tourists demonstrated a level of cruelty and inhumanity beyond what I could conceive, despite what I've already witnessed and heard here. I've abandoned all attempts to censor my writing for U.S. "neutrality.” The apartheid here is undeniable and horrific. It's responsible for the injury and imprisonment of my International friends as well as most Palestinians.

I have been personally confronted with violence and contempt by fellow Americans, and have had American-made weapons used against me. Everything I write home about has been made possible by the $3 billion in tax dollars the U.S. provides Israel with each year, as well as its vetoes of more than 40 U.N. resolutions regarding Israel's flagrant disregard for international accords.

I'll do my best to keep writing. Please, do your part to start raising awareness in the U.S. about the reality here. "Occupation 101" and "Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land", both available at freedocumentaries.org, are great places to start.

Please, ask questions! Forward!

Who are settlers?

Date: Sat, 6 February 2010
Subject: Update #3: Who are settlers? And some words on the first week.

Here's a continuation of yesterday's update about Sheikh Jarrah.

Some background on settlers

Settlers are Israelis who inhabit "settlements” -- illegal developments in the West Bank. The location of settlements is strategic, claiming access to the aquifer, separating Palestinian villages from each other, creeping onto Palestinian farmland, and effectively surrounding certain areas in a choke hold.

While Palestinians suffer severe water shortages in hot summer months, settlers enjoy swimming pools and green lawns. Travel to settlements occurs on Israeli-only bypass roads, which don't feature the same obstacle course of roadblocks, "flying checkpoints" and closures that Palestinians face. "Buffer zones" extend 50-75m on either side of the road, swallowing up large swaths of farmland.

Settler violence is a daily reality for Palestinians. Children are harassed while walking to school, farmers face violence when trying to reach their fields, and random acts of violence are routine. The Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture estimates that “a productive olive tree is uprooted [by the Israeli military and settlers] every minute in the occupied Palestinian territories”, totaling over 1 million trees to date. Settlers are largely responsible for the destruction of olive trees; both symbolically significant and a major source of income for Palestinians.

In my opinion, settlers are the single most frightening thing about being in the West Bank. Unlike the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), settlers aren't obliged to take orders or adhere to legal constraints on violence. They're typically extreme in Zionist and racist opinions, typically armed, and always defended by the IOF. Settlers rarely face legal repercussions for violence. For perhaps the most extreme example of this, read about the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_the_Patriarchs_massacre.

For more information about settlements, see http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article7

Settlers in Sheikh Jarrah

Sheikh Jarrah has been targeted for confiscation by Israel because, along with the neighborhood of Silwan, it would effectively complete Israeli control of East Jerusalem. East Jerusalem, "Al-Quds,” has always been envisioned as the capital of a sovereign Palestinian state, so its complete takeover demonstrates the systematic denial of a Palestinian future. For a map of settlements in East Jerusalem, see: http://www.fmep.org/maps/jerusalem/is_v19_6_map_expansion_plans.jpg/image_view_fullscreen
Sheikh Jarrah is number 11.

I arrived in Sheikh Jarrah about an hour after a violent and frightening confrontation that left the neighborhood on edge. A settler, after throwing stones at the tents from the settler-occupied Gawi house, entered the street with a loaded M-16 and grabbed a Palestinian boy. In the following moments, the man waved his weapon wildly at the gathering crowd and cocked the trigger, pointing it at Palestinian residents and internationals. The settler and Nasser Gawi, owner of the Gawi house, were both expelled from Sheikh Jarrah for 15 days.
For the ISM report and pictures, see http://palsolidarity.org/2010/02/11104.
For footage, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_noYAfW7dm4

Shortly after I arrived, the setter (banned for 15 days) returned with a police escort to collect his belongings. It's important to note that in most countries, any person waving a loaded M-16 at a crowd would face significant legal prosecution. If the man had been Palestinian, he would almost certainly face life in prison. It is also likely that major news sources would cover the story, and that terrorism would be mentioned or implied.

The first 48 hours

The first night, I "slept" in the al-Kurd tent, positioned in the walkway outside of the occupied section of their house. This means sleeping in a small three-walled gazebo-type tent, literally in a walkway used by setters to go to and from and the house. The al-Kurd house is across the street from the occupied Gawi house. While the Gawi's house is occupied by several settler families, the al-Kurd seems to be a hang out for gang-type settler youth. They enjoy (and are encouraged) to continually harass the Palestinian women and cause trouble. Sleeping there feels incredibly vulnerable, especially because the boys are traipsing across the lawn in front of the tent all night long. So the first night, I had a hard time even closing my eyes. In the early hours of the morning I lay paralyzed in my sleeping bag as a settler man paused in front of the tent, staring inside for what felt like several long minutes. I'm not sure if he knew I was awake and staring back.

Day 2

The Gawi tent, directly on the street, is where we keep night watch. Hearing the early call to prayer, watching the sun rise and nursing a mug of tea, there is a deep sense of calm and peace. This fades as the police drive slowly by (which happens more than once an hour during the night), and settlers and Palestinians leave for work and school.

My first morning was pretty calm. The mother of the Gawi family and her adorable 2-year-old daughter show up mid-morning (Nasser Gawi, the father, was expelled for 15 days). Women from the neighborhood congregate in both tents to visit. A Turkish TV station shows up and interviews a few people. Settlers stand in the doorway of the Gawi home and stare at us creepily.

The afternoon was a different story. As the Palestinian women chat in the al-Kurd tent, the settler boys perpetually harass them. This includes constant filming, shouted threats and insults in both Hebrew and Arabic, and a series of crude and offensive gestures (there's a lot of cultural implications to all of this as well). In particular, they like to target the 85-year-old grandmother of the al-Kurd family. This escalates in a pretty routine way until everyone from both sides is in the street, shouting and pushing until the police show up and casually separate the sides.

This day it lasted all afternoon. There's a cycle: harassment from settler boys leads to shouting, which moves from the yard to the street. ISMers follow the conflict as observers, filming and taking pictures. Police show up (or quite likely were present and observing all along), and after a while stand in the middle, telling both sides to give up and go home. The most frustrating part, in my opinion, is that the complaints of the Palestinians are never effectively addressed. Without any consequences, this cycle of harassment will only escalate. Witnessing and documenting is stressful and exhausting. Every time we sat down, the shouting would inevitably start again.

That night was quiet. I spent about four hours on watch, catching a few hours of tormented sleep. Sometimes I feel like trying to sleep there is more stressful than being awake. I was really bothered by how vulnerable it feels to be wrapped up in blankets and mummy bags. For some reason, I really couldn't get over not having shoes on. I think tonight I'll just leave them on. Every time I was able to nod off, my brain would immediately concoct a story about settlers invading the tent, and I'd sit up panicked and trying to climb out of the blankets and put my shoes on. I swear this is more exhausting than just keeping awake.

Day 3

I was dozing in a chair in front of the tent. When I picked my head up, there was a crowd of suit-wearing police and some settler men talking in a circle outside of the Gawi house. I hadn't seen police in suits before, so this was an immediate red flag. They walked down the street, more police arriving every minute, and continued to talk in huddle at the end of the block. Nasser's brother had been keeping watch with us, and as soon as he saw the men, he began taking the tent apart. I was really confused (some of this is surely extreme exhaustion), and he asked us (I was with two other internationals) to take everything from the tent into the al-Kurd tent. Why would you pack up your own tent? I really didn't get it. After that everything happened really fast. Nasser's brother asked us to call the press. An al-Kurd woman stood in front of her house, tearing up as we walked back and forth with sleeping bags and chairs.

The suit-wearing police walked back to the tent. Several normal police cars showed up, and two police pick-ups. I started filming, and then it all happened. With huge grin, the lead suit cop guy walked to what remained of the tent (the skeleton, the bed frames, a few chairs) and started dismantling. Maybe a dozen other cops joined in. It all happened so fast, and so seemed so surreal. Nobody was saying much, though one of the older al-Kurd women kept murmuring "Shoe? Shoe?" (literally, "what?" but in this context, I think, "why?"). The entire thing only took a few minutes.

Since then:

That afternoon, a new tent was erected in a well-attended ceremony. See: http://palsolidarity.org/2010/02/11164. This was the twelfth time that the Gawi tent had been destroyed. The following morning, police returned at the same time to confiscate it again, but internationals were able to mobilize quick enough to move everything into the al-Kurd yard. It is hard to figure out what to do at this point, since the police vow to come every morning.

I've been back and forth between the neighborhood and our apartment in another city where we can sleep in real beds, enjoy warm showers and take a luxurious deep breath. The weather was pretty rough for a few days, with near-freezing temps at night, torrential downpours that lasted for hours, and massive wind that threatened to collapse the tents. It was reminiscent of camping in Washington.

Life at Sheikh Jarrah continues with astonishing dignity in light of the situation. I am amazed at the humor and grace of the Palestinians we share tea and campfires with. While I am stressed to the max about settler violence and "what's gonna happen to the tent tomorrow morning?” the Palestinians (both the Gawis and al-Kurds and their neighbors) face eviction, arrest and imprisonment, and a whole slew of other grim realities. The Gawi family has three children under the age of 6. Somehow, they arrive at the tent daily with smiles and composure. This is what Palestinian resistance looks like, and there's really no way to understand until you spend a few nights in Sheikh Jarrah.

As usual, forward, ask questions, and keep doing amazing work in your communities.

My best to everyone!

The ISM and Sheikh Jarrah

Update #2: The ISM and Sheikh Jarrah
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2010

I hope February finds you healthy and warm, if a little sun-deprived. Winters here are surprisingly chilly, and I'm writing with a cup of tea and space heater close at hand.

I'm currently wrapping up my first week working with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). I'm pretty sure this is one of the most direct ways a person can involve themselves in the politics of Israel/Palestine, and it's a steep learning curve. I've spent three nights sleeping on a sidewalk, listened to the life story of an 85-year-old Palestinian grandmother facing her second eviction, filmed the demolition of the tent I had been living in, and learned to distinguish between four different kinds of police. There are a number of stories and observations I'd like to share about the week, but it seems necessary to begin with some background information.

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM)

Borrowing from the website: "Founded by a small group of activists in August, 2001, ISM aims to support and strengthen the Palestinian popular resistance by providing the Palestinian people with two resources, international protection and a voice with which to nonviolently resist an overwhelming military occupation force." The ISM is Palestinian-led, meaning that it provides an international presence when requested.

Currently in the West Bank, the ISM:

• Attends weekly protest demonstrations about the illegal apartheid wall. (http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/apartheidwall.shtml)
• Documents and hopefully reduces settler violence in several villages.
• Maintains a constant presence (including night watch) in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
• Partners with local leadership to provide a presence in many other situations such as olive tree planting and documentation of human rights violations.

ISMers in Gaza accompany farmers who face intimidation and shooting from the Israeli military, as well as many projects similar to those mentioned above.

For more information about the ISM, and to read news updates about our work, check out palsolidarity.org

Sheikh Jarrah

Some background:
• In 1948, Israeli forces expelled over 750,000 Palestinians from areas that became Israel. These Palestinians fled across the new border into Gaza, the West Bank, or other Arab states. Refugee camps established in the following years still house most of these people, known as “1948 refugees.” The Lemon Tree, by Sandy Tolan, provides an excellent idea of the implications of this expulsion.
• Borders established after the 1948 war divided Jerusalem into West and East (Israel and Jordanian-controlled West Bank, respectively). For a map of 1949 borders, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/world/2001/israel_and_palestinians/key_maps/5.stm
• In 1956, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the Jordanian government built 28 houses for 1948 refugees in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. The refugee families, from West Jerusalem and Haifa, traded their ration cards (refugee status) for the promise of legal ownership in 1959. Ownership was never granted.
• The Six-Day war of 1967 places East Jerusalem within Israel: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/world/2001/israel_and_palestinians/key_maps/3.stm
• Eviction orders for all 28 families were issued in 1972 by Israeli courts based on falsified land deeds provided by Zionist settler organizations.
• The legal battle, now in its 38th year, has failed to prevent the evictions of four families.

Currently:
• 60 residents of 4 houses have been displaced, including 20 children.
• In August 2009, the Hanoun and Gawi families were evicted from their homes. Settlers currently reside in the houses. The Gawi family has maintained a tent outside of their home since August, which ISM has staffs and provides night watch for. This tent has been demolished Israeli police twelve times in the past 5 months.
• In December 2009, the al-Kurd family was evicted from the front half of their home. Settlers now occupy this half, and the al-Kurd family maintains a tent in the front walkway, which also has a constant international presence.

For more background about Sheikh Jarrah, check out any relevant article on palsolidarity.org and scroll down to the “background" and “legal” sections.

What's it like to live in a tent in front of a settler-occupied house?

Stay tuned...I'm trying to break it down into digestible pieces (both for writing and reading) so expect several more updates in the coming days.

There is admittedly not much I miss about the U.S. right now, but friends and family are at the top of the list. I really hope everyone is doing well, and it's great to hear from people.

Salaam.

Environmentalism in Palestine

Update #1: Environmentalism in Palestine
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2010

Greetings from Beit Sahour, West Bank! I hope that 2010 has begun positively for everyone.

Vaguely stated intentions:
This is the first of what (hopefully) will be fairly regular updates about my experiences volunteering in the Palestinian Territories. The email list is somewhat lengthy at this point, and includes a diverse range of perspectives and knowledge bases about the current situation in Israel/Palestine. After a great deal of contemplation about precisely how one should approach the privilege of communicating with such a wonderful group, I've decided simply to try to honestly explain my experiences. I do this in the hope that people will ask questions and independently research as needed, will forgive explanations which are insulting to one's intelligence, and will generally accept my intentions to provide information, not persuade. Bias is clearly unavoidable, but I wish to operate from as balanced a perspective as possible. Always, always, ask questions! And forward these updates to anyone who might be interested!

Currently:
I'm wrapping up a brief stint volunteering on a permaculture farm in Beit Sahour, located in the West Bank of the Palestinian Territories. Beit Sahour is basically an extension of Bethlehem, which is just south of Jerusalem. This region is one of the quietest and safest places in Palestine, largely thanks to the high tourist traffic. In conversation with Palestinians here, they speak darkly about the current situation in other towns such as Nablus and Hebron. Towns most affected by the wall (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_West_Bank_barrier) are a different story entirely.

The farm was founded to address environmental concerns in the West Bank, which are largely overlooked due to the perpetual instability and basic humanitarian concerns which characterize life in Palestine.

The situation:
Bounded by desert to the East and South (Judean and Negev, respectively); facing increasing drought due to climate change; densely populated; and lacking basic control over natural resources, the environmental concerns of the West Bank cannot be overstated. A general overview of what I have learned at the farm follows.

Water:
• The Israeli water company Mekorot controls over 80 per cent of the water supply to the West Bank
• To ensure high water pressure in the illegal Israeli settlements during the heat of summer, water is frequently shut off entirely to West Bank towns. These shutoffs can last months, while settlements enjoy swimming pools and green lawns.
• Nearly 230,000 Palestinians lack access to the water network altogether, relying on expensive trucked-in water or contaminated local springs.
• Israeli settlements are strategically placed above access to the aquifer.
• For more information about the illegal settlements, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlements

Farming:
• The "West Bank Barrier Wall" (see wikipedia for more info) strategically separates farmers from some of the most fertile and desirable farmland.
• Capitalizing on support for environmentalism, Israel designates "nature preserves" throughout the West Bank which prevent Palestinians from farming or otherwise developing the land. In several cases, these "preserves" have since been developed as Israeli settlements, such as Ha Hamar.
• Settlers are well known for harassing and disrupting life for Palestinians in a variety of ways. These include uprooting olive trees (the traditional crop) and tearing out irrigation from farmers' fields.
• Farmers also face harassment and/or military obstruction while trying to access their fields and/or harvest crops such as olives.

The Farm:
• Maintains a nursery of drought-resistant trees, provided free of charge to Palestinians.
• Experiments with water-conserving practices to provide useful information to farmers interested in conserving water (or without access to water resources)
• Supports farmers facing eviction from their land
• Collaborates with youth organizations, planting trees and building sustainable structures
• Leads by example, harvesting and recycling rainwater and farming a particularly infertile patch of ground.

In Other News...
Crossing the border from Egypt was ultimately a simple process, because of my American passport and stated intentions to vacation within Israel. It may come as a surprise to some (as it did to myself), that a person will receive intense questioning and ultimately may be denied entry for carrying anything linking oneself to Palestine, including books with political content, relevant journal entries, an Arabic phrasebook, or any stated interest in the situation or plans to visit the West Bank.

To enter the West Bank, one must obtain a three-month tourist visa. The more tourist visas one receives, the more questioning one faces. Consequently, long-term volunteers/workers face the daunting challenge of increasingly elaborate fabrications about their exploits in Israel (it stands to reason that a person simply cannot be on vacation indefinitely). Israel has recently become much harsher towards internationals. A series of deportations in the past week has cost the West Bank several well-known journalists and other volunteers. Additionally, Israel recently stopped issuing Israeli work permits to persons employed by high profile NGOs such as Oxfam International. These persons are now faced with either the tourist visa conundrum, or applying for West Bank work permits, which are difficult to obtain, impractical, and too complicated to further explain here.

Closing:
Regardless of one's opinions about the current situation in Israel/Palestine, it cannot be denied that Americans face a specific responsibility to remain updated on the present reality. The United States annually provides Israel with between $2 and 3 billion, amounting to one-third of our total foreign aid. As the primary supporter of Israel's actions, the US plays an undeniable role in shaping the daily lives of both Israelis and Palestinians.

For more information, I cannot sufficiently recommend:

Films:
• Occupation 101 and Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land (to be viewed in that order), both available at freedocumentaries.org.
• The Lemon Tree, by Sandy Tolan

Overview: israelipalestinian.procon.org,

News: maannews.net

For a basic introduction to major points of contention: research Operation Cast Lead (Goldstone Report), the "West Bank Barrier,” Israeli settlements, and home demolitions (see icahd.org).

Please: ask questions, brainstorm ways to take action, share this blog and continue the fantastic work that everyone is doing in their communities.