Under Occupation

Unhappy New Year

2009-01-04T13:50:00.001+02:00

Making comments about Israel and Palestine on the Internet tends to be the most surefire way imaginable of getting loads of mad crazy people from the extremes of the debate from both sides to launch insane cyberhate campaigns against one.

But I cannot just sit here and say nothing about this appalling revolting vile murderous indiscriminate killing launched on the people of Gaza by the Israeli government. Not that it's any surprise that the Israeli government (any Israeli government) would decide to start killing Palestinians (apparently as a particularly disgusting murderous electioneering tactic, or perhaps just - just - a massive collective punishment). What is really sickening is the craven mealy-mouthed non-condemnations emanating from the so-called "International Community". All Bush has done is condemn Hamas for firing rockets, and has said nothing about the bombing of women and children in Gaza - like it's OK. They are only Arabs after all. (And the US has refused to sign a call for a ceasefire in the UN. Why? Because they actually want more deaths? I guess so. The EU has done sod all too, and where is that "envoy" Tony Blair? What the fuck is he doing?

And then there is the media coverage. I've watched this unfold on various TV channels, and all of them post the whole thing as some kind of Israeli "response", and just a self-defence. Why do we have to have the media (and I'm talking about the BBC, CNN, etc here) just parrotting the Israeli government line? We have that scumbag Mark Regev on our screens every couple of hours smoothly and calmly explaining that he sees the Gazans as victims too (well if you lifted the siege and stopped bombing and murdering them they might noit be quite such victims, Mark, you vile apologist for mass murder). It's not even remotely balanced, and anyway, why should there be balance? We don't ask our news channels to present the murderers point of view when there's a trial. Why now, when this massively heavily armed war machine is indiscriminately killing women and children, bombing mosques, schools, shopping centres, and universities, dropping bombs on one of the most overcrowded places in the world with no mercy, no thought for people as people, why now do we have to give prominence to the view of the aggressor? And of course Israel doesn't allow any reporters into the Gaza Strip, so we just have sanitized pictures from outside, of tanks massing.

It's disgusting, and barbaric and vile and a massacre. And the mass media is saying nothing. Nothing. Bastards, vile motherfucking bastards. I cannot watch TV anymore, it disgusts me so much.

I'd normally make an apology here for my intemperate language and for saying nothing light-hearted, but I won't. In fact I have moderated my language somewhat.

De Facto Terrorists

2006-06-29T08:14:00.000+03:00

Finally, an Israeli leader has admitted what has been obviously true for years and years - that he considers all Palestinians to be de facto terrorists:

Israeli military officials said that the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, had approved a "limited operation" for southern Gaza, aimed at "terrorist infrastructure".

Israeli planes also attacked three bridges and the main Gaza power station, knocking out electricity in most of the coastal strip.

(from yesterday's Guardian)

And what exactly has bombing a power station got to do with rescuing a kidnapped soldier? Clearly nothing. Even the IDF can't come up with an explanation for that one. (The bridges, they say, laughably, are being destroyed to stop the kidnappers moving him around). Although, finally, someone did provide an explanation (and it's actualy the real one):

An Israeli army spokeswoman said: "During the night, the Israeli airforce hit three bridges in central Gaza and a power station south of Gaza City. Israeli forces entered the south of Gaza near the village of Dahaniya and the airport and they remain there at the moment."

She said the operations were designed to stop the kidnappers moving the soldier. However, security sources told Israeli media that the attacks were also motivated by revenge. "To exact a price for the kidnapping incident and to restore deterrence," one official told the Israeli daily newspaper Yedioth Aronoth

Collective Punishment. And what do the "international community" do? They urge Israel to "show restraint". Woohoo. Is anyone ever going to stand up to this government, this army and tell it like it is? Convict people of war crimes, insist on UN resoluations, that kind of thing? I'm not holding my breath. Meanwhile, for the people of Gaza, more misery and pain and death and destruction.

But, at least somebody's happy:

Gazans have not begun to think how they are going to get through the coming weeks and months without electricity. The wrecked plant was only fully on line for three years and it will cost about £8m to buy and install new transformers.

There may be an interim solution. Israel provides about 40% of electricity in the Gaza Strip. It used to supply it all and may do so again, meaning that Israel's electricity company could make a handsome profit from the army's destruction

Chris McGreal

Double Standards

2006-05-30T15:15:00.000+03:00

The democratically elected Palestinian government are told they will not be talked to or supported or anything unless they “renounce violence” and recognise the state of Israel. Fair enough, perhaps. And I certainly have no time for Hamas and their tactics in the past. It’s clear there needs to be dialogue and discussion in order to get closer to some kind of just peace, and it seems unlikely that an organisation which doesn’t even recognise the right of the State of Israel to exist is going to be able to negotiate with it.

The new democratically elected Israeli government are welcomed to the table and feted by world leaders. Funding and investment is free to flow. Has this government been asked to recognise the State of Palestine? No. Has it, even more crucially, been asked to renounce violence? Has it bollocks. It is still as violent as ever, and the daily tally of Palestinians killed by the Israeli state mounts. Why are there these double standards?

No need to answer that question. We all know why there are double standards, and why there will continue to be double standards even if the Palestinians elect a party of neo-liberal Gandhis. The world will continue to shit on the Palestinians, and nobody in power will do the slightest thing about it. Indeed, it’s in Israel’s interests (and a fair few other countries) if Palestine dissolves in Civil War and implodes. It certainly looks like that’s the current intention of the “international community” (whoever they are).

Now Olmert wants to redraw the borders, ignoring the internationally recognised borders of the Palestinian State. As laid down in various UN Resolutions. How is this supposed to help anyone? Israelis fundamentally want safety and security (and I believe that while there are some scummers within Israeli society who want to annex Palestine and ethnically cleanse the territories and even commit genocide, the vast vast majority just want to live in safety). How is this supposed to help that? Israel will forever have on its borders a dispossessed angry bitter people, supported by tons of other people around the world who see the injustice of the situation, me included. Is that what Israelis want? It may be what Sharon and his ilk want, but it’s not, I suspect, what the average Israeli wants. Israel will always be a pariah state and the people living across the green line – fundamentalist settler or not – will always be hated by most of the world. Sorry guys, that’s your fate and that’s your future if you go along with this Olmert plan.

Blog resurrection

2006-05-30T15:14:00.000+03:00

I have decided to resurrect this blog as I can no longer sit idly by and say nothing as the world’s media seemingly bows down to the idea that starving Palestinians because some of them voted for the wrong people is kind of an OK policy, and that the Olmert proposal to steal even more Palestinian land is the best way forward. (Of course, Israel still claims that the world’s media is against them, which is laughable. Even the BBC is seemingly just ready to kowtow to the Olmert/Sharon line – though I was glad to see recently that an independent inquiry had discovered what most non-blind people had been able to tell for years, that the Beeb is actually biased against the Palestinian cause). Anyway, whatever’s below this post and written before 2005 is stuff I wrote when I was in the West Bank, and everything above this post and written in 2006 and beyond is stuff I am writing from elsewhere.

A note about this blog

2005-03-01T13:09:00.000+02:00

The pieces below were written and distributed by email and in some cases published while I was living and working in the town of Zababdeh, near Jenin, in the West Bank. I wanted to publish them on a website of my own creation, but lack of creativity meant that I never got around to it. However, my discovery and use of blogger.com (through my blog at http://szekely.blogspot.com ) made it clear that I could probably post them here with much less hassle.

I have posted them and datestamped them with the dates they were written originally. Unfortunately, that means they appear in the wrong order. I'd recommend reading them from bottom to top, starting with Patience.

Any comments would be welcome.

Macho Posturing

2003-05-23T13:31:00.000+03:00

It’s been years since I have been violently shoved in the chest. That peculiarly macho act of aggression, usually a precursor to a fight or flight, a statement of dominance, I’d left behind in the playgrounds of my youth. It is such a boyish thing to do.

Returning from Jenin yesterday, we happened upon a so-called pop-up checkpoint. Usually a tank or an armoured personnel carrier pulls up and blocks a road, while soldiers check IDs and decide on a whim whether to let people pass or not. This one was not accompanied by the vehicle, though as everyone in the area knows it is not far from a military encampment. This encampment is close enough to our house for us to hear the low pitched grinding of tank engines as they come and go every night, bound for points unknown. Approximately 6 soldiers were visible, two sitting down in the shade, relaxing, the other four checking ID’s and stopping traffic. We joined the long line of cars, trucks and taxis waiting in the midday sun to reach the front of the queue. As we waited, a bedouin man on a donkey ambled past, along the line, skirting the road. One of the lounging two soldiers stood to check his ID too, the odd sight of a very young man, dressed in body armour and weighed down with high-tech weaponry, holding out his hand to stop an whiskery old man, dressed simply with the typical bedouin headdress, atop a donkey weighed down with bags of vegetables brought back from the market. Truly the meeting of the old and the new.

As we inched forward it became clear that no-one was actually being stopped from passing this checkpoint, no-one was being turned back. It was maybe a show of strength, a reminder, as if reminder were needed, that the army was still here, and still had total control over the population. Ahead of us a shared taxi full of men, women and children had stopped and the soldier checking it was aggressively forcing only the women to get out of the car. Only 10 feet in front of us, Ziad, Suzanne and I could easily see the fear and distress on the women’s faces. I left our car and walked forward, to see if there was anything I could do to help. Sometimes the presence of a foreigner is enough for the soldiers to tone down their actions.

I got to the car and the women outside pleaded with me to help. The soldier, who I could now see was very young and very aggressive looking shouted at me in Hebrew. I asked if he spoke English, and explained that I didn’t speak Hebrew. He came round the car towards me and shouted again, looking very belligerent. I stretched out my arms in the universal gesture of non-understanding. That was when he transported me back to the playground, pushing me roughly in the chest back towards my car. I took a step back and tried again “Is there something I can do to help? Is there a problem? Do you spea…” Another forceful shove accompanied by harsh tones. “What’s the problem?” A third shove and a gesture with the gun intended to convey that the shoving may now be at an end. I slowly walked back to the cab, feeling a whole mixture of emotions, from anger to amusement, from bitterness to resignation. It’s difficult to imagine a worse person to hand out weaponry to than a teenage boy, but unfortunately, all over the world, it is precisely these people that do walk around tooled up.

As I reached our cab, another soldier, motioned us forward. He took our IDs and had just begun inspecting them, when my new friend, flushed, possibly, with the success of his antler bashing shoves earlier, came over to us. The solider with our IDs, an Ethiopian, said something to him in Hebrew and he barked back at him. Ziad, our cab driver and friend who speaks Hebrew, told me later that the Ethiopian has told him that he should return to the other car and leave this one to him. The kid told him to fuck off, in that tone that the superior reserve for their perceived inferiors. It was fairly clear to me that despite the Ethiopian’s greater age, it was his skin colour that made the white kid feel that he was in charge here. He snatched our IDs from the African’s hands and came over to the passenger door, where I sat. I once again asked what the problem was, and spat something back in Hebrew. “He wants to know why you were interfering in military matters” said the Ethiopian. I told him that I was only asking if there was a problem, and if I could do anything to help. The kid pulled the door open and put his foot on the seat next to me, pushed his face an inch from mine, his gun pressing against me, trying to intimidate me. Unexpectedly I did not feel intimidated so much as mildly amused. The posturing of macho teenagers is not so much scary as comical – even (to my surprise) when they are carrying a gun. I wish I could say the same about Ziad. He sat motionless in the driver’s seat. Having spent 3 months detained in an Israeli prison without being charged for a crime, he knows that these young boys with guns have the power to destroy the cab, take his keys and toss them in a field, imprison him – or shoot.

Susie, in the back seat leaned forward toward the soldier and interjected. She protested about him being so aggressive and told him that he needed to remove his foot, since this was not his car. He glared at her and hissed angrily. Now it was my male instincts which reacted.. I returned an equally hard stare and raised my voice menacingly for the first time, saying, “That’s my wife.” He muttered something in Hebrew (later not-translated by Ziad, as being too crude for him to say in front of Susie). Suddenly, he threw our passports back in the cab slammed the door and kicked the cab. The Ethiopian waved us through, and also the other cab that was still sitting next to us, doors open, abandoned by the kid. A brief smile played across his lips. Then I realised the reason for the unexpectedly abrupt end to this brief encounter. The captain was coming across to see what was going on. Suddenly the surge of power that he had felt around these unarmed people, and his black colleague, was coming to an end, and perhaps he didn’t want us to be there to see it Or maybe he just wanted to make sure we didn’t complain. Either way we left, soon to be passed by the other cab, beeping happily.

I was left with feelings of guilt for the trouble I could have caused Ziad, anger at this jerk and the situation that gives him control over peoples’ lives and puts a gun in his hand, and frustration that I didn’t have the skills necessary to deal better with the situation. My conflict resolution specialist in the back seat gave me pointers on what to do, next time. What the Israelis are now calling "interference" by foreign observers, is really just questioning injustice. But they hold the guns.

Eyeless in Gaza

2003-05-23T13:29:00.000+03:00

We wanted to visit Gaza to see Mostafa, a friend who we haven’t seen for 3 years. Israel and the Palestinian Territories are not that large, so in theory a long weekend would be enough to have a good amount of time there. Thus it was that on the Prophet Mohammed’s birthday, we set off for the Strip.

Initially everything went very well. We left Zababdeh, our village in the Northern West Bank, at 6.30 am and headed south. The trip from the Jenin area to Qalandya, which is the main crossing point between Ramallah and Jerusalem, can take anywhere from 3-8 hours. Before the current restrictions and Israeli shut down of occupied Palestine, it was a journey of just over an hour. Partly this is because Nablus lies between Jenin and Ramallah. Nablus has almost taken on an Atlantis-like mythical status. The only way in appears to be on muleback over a large mountain. I have begun to question whether or not it even really exists. So it is that one must skirt Nablus on the way south, which of course adds significant time to the journey. Then there are the ubiquitous checkpoints. There are three permanent checkpoints between Jenin and Qalandya, and an indeterminate number of temporary ones, set up in the middle of nowhere, for undisclosed time periods. This trip down was a breeze. Only the three permanent checkpoints were in operation, and at one of them we didn’t even have to get out of the minibus style shared taxi. At the second there was a few minute wait in the hot sun as the soldiers checked the van for whatever it is they check for. Always at these times, at least one of my Palestinian travel companions will turn to me and ensure that I am aware of what is going on “You see? You see what we have to go through?” Of course, I do and I don’t. I see and am appalled by the constant harassment and humiliation. But deep down, I know I can and will soon leave. I can’t imagine the thought that this life is indefinite.

Despite the checkpoints, though, and the circuitous route to avoid the Nablus-that-time-forgot, we were in Qalandya in two and a half hours. A new record. Maybe, just maybe, there really had been an easing of travel restrictions due to Colin Powell’s recent visit. It is difficult to know. The transportation hub of Qalandya was buzzing with life. I suspect it always does. It’s the main, and usually only way from north to south, from Ramallah, Nablus and Jenin, to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Hebron. If the Barak plan had gone into effect then the West Bank would be littered with Qalandyas – entrances and exits from every tiny bantustan set up under that offer, the offer that we are supposed to believe was incredibly generous. The mass of humanity shuttled themselves between minibuses coming and going from all parts of the occupied West Bank, watched over, ominously, by Israeli soldiers sitting high up in their tower in the middle of the action. We slithered down a hillside and crossed over to get a van to Jerusalem.

Qalandya Checkpoint

Only one checkpoint later and we were at the Damascus Gate to the Old City. A total door-to-archway time of about three hours. A miracle of sorts – although in reality only a relative miracle, a smooth journey that only took twice as long as it should have under normal circumstances, but half the time that it might have. We hadn’t expected to be here so early, but there is always plenty to see and do in the Arab quarter of the old city, so all was well. Plus we had a number of people to contact to ease our passage into Gaza, so now we had the chance to do it at our leisure. We called the Israeli border contact we had been given, to ask about how to skirt the long wait. His assistant told us that we would have to fax down our passport details. A bit of a hassle, but no major problem given the time we had available. We called again. “Gaza is closed today, but we’ll see if we can get you permission.” We waited, and then called again. “Only diplomats are allowed in today. I’m afraid you’ll have to try again tomorrow”

Damascus Gate - Jerusalem

We couldn’t give up so easily. We had lunch with two Israeli friends and then called a journalist acquinatnce who often goes into Gaza to report for the Dubai based TV channel MBC2. He told us that he too, along with all other journalists, had been denied entry that morning. A BBC camera crew had been stopped with him at the checkpoint and denied entry. All of them had protested, arguing that this was censorship and that the IDF must be planning to attack Gaza, and that as press they had a right to be there, to see what was happening. As a democracy and a supposedly free society, Israel ought to allow them access – unless of course they had something to hide. None of this worked and they were all turned away en masse. They had all contacted their various governments in order to protest, but were resigned to waiting until the next day to try again.

The next day we awoke in the Armeinan Quarter of the old city to the news that overnight there had been a major attack on Gaza City and Khan Younis, the two biggest cities in the Gaza Strip. Tanks, apache helicopters, F-16s in and above the crowded streets of the towns. The Gaza strip is one of the most densely populated places in the world – over a million people living in an area of a few square miles. The potential for “collateral damage” in any operation against such a place is huge. At least 15 people had been killed in the incursion, and countless people were injured.

We called our checkpoint contact again. Again we were told not to come that we wouldn’t get in. The only people allowed in were diplomats and medical personnel. A small but significant difference from the previous day’s restrictions. We called Mostafa in Gaza, who sounded exhausted. No-one in the city had slept the night before as the noises of open warfare raged around them. We explained that we had been told that we couldn’t get in. He sounded desperately disappointed. “Please try. We need people to see what is happening here. Perhaps you can get in through Egypt.” From Jerusalem it would have been about an eight hour bus ride to get down to the Egyptian border, and then back up through Egypt to Rafah. Plus of course there were the imponderables – the border crossings, the checkpoints, and the possibility that at the end of all of that, we still would be denied entry and have to make the reverse trip for another eight hours.

We went through every possible scenario. Should we go anyway and be denied access? Because it was closed, there would be no service (shared) taxis from Jerusalem to the Erez checkpoint. We’d have to take a long bus ride to the nearest Israeli town and then get a private taxi down. And then of course, with 99.9% probability, come all the way back again. The Egypt route was out of the question, we didn’t have that kind of time. We had, by this time, become a small ad hoc group of the disempowered. One of our number, A Swedish woman representing the World Council of Churches, actually lived in the strip and was just trying to get home.

By now we had also learnt that if we were ever allowed in, we would have to sign two pieces of paper – the first a waiver essentially giving the Israelis the licence to kill us, if they so chose, and the second a paper saying that we were not members of the International Solidarity Movement and that we had had no contact with that group. We weren’t quite sure what that meant, but of course every one of us had some contact with members of ISM. We had become friends with them. The first paper was as a result of the new apparent Israeli policy of targetting foreign observers – be they journalists like James Miller, or those, like the ISM, like Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall, who come to observe, stand beside injustice and try to relieve some suffering. The optimists amongst us saw this as the last flailings of a doomed occupation, the pessimists as the beginning of the end, the beginning of a concerted effort to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian Territories.

Ultimately we failed. Failed to get into Gaza, failed to see for ourselves what was going on there, and failed to provide the eyes that the world needs to observe the brutality of the occupation. Eventually, days later, and after a storm of international protest, journalists were allowed back. By that time I had returned to Jenin, after a short trip to Bethlehem. Jenin is seen by many as the wild end of the West Bank, the place where the struggle is at its most visceral. In Jerusalem, when I tell people where I live, I instantly gain a new respect, and a series of questions “How is it in Jenin?”, “What’s going on up there?”. It’s far from the cities of Ramallah, Jerusalem and Bethlehem and as such is out of the range of most. It’s also the home of the fiercest on the ground resistance outside Gaza. The resistance fighters in Jenin still have power and influence, and still defy the occupying army. To my mind though, the occupation is more visible and more depressing in Bethlehem. Yes, there is a semblance of normality in that city, yes there are restaurants, and cinemas, and a bustle on the streets, but as you look above the city, on every hill, in every direction there are the settlements, brand new California-style condos, standing guard over Palestine, rubbing the noses of the people in the loss of their land. In Jenin this is not the case. While Jenin may be underdeveloped, under-regarded, under curfew, it still feels like Palestine.

Settlement looming above Bethlehem

The way home was even smoother than the way up. One of the permanent checkpoints was even unmanned, and at the most difficult to pass, we were waved through with barely a glance at our IDs. Perhaps the army had been forced to redirect its resources, its front line to Gaza. It speaks volumes about the situation and how it has squeezed people’s hope from them, that on passing the last checkpoint, the mood in the van was not one of relief, or of happiness, but of trepidation. Why exactly was it so easy to pass? Was something being planned? It remains to be seen.

Beit Sahour

2003-05-09T13:24:00.000+03:00

Today, Friday May 9th at 12.30 p.m., more than 20 Israeli military vehicles drew up outside the offices of the International Solidarity Movement in Beit Sahour. Dozens of border guards, soldiers, and intelligence officers poured out of these vehicles and raided those offices. They took computers, discs, papers, every piece of data they could lay their hands on. They also arrested the three women who were in the office at the time. One, a Palestinian, works for the Palestinian peace organisation “Rapprochement”, whose offices ISM share. She has since been released. The other two women, internationals both, are still being held pending their deportation. One volunteers for ISM while the other works for Human Rights Watch and is in Palestine doing research on home demolitions. She was unfortunate enough to have been visiting the ISM offices at the time of the raid. In bare numbers, the loss to the organisation is 6 desktop computers, 3 laptops and countless discs. $10,000 and more than two years work. They don’t expect to ever have the computers returned to them. George, the Palestinian coordinator in Beit Sahour, told me that the information is of no value to the Israelis, but of course the loss of their office will have a temporarily paralysing effect on the organisation in the Territories. He affirmed that they will not stop working to observe and prevent army atrocities.

How is it that ISM, an organisation with 60 people currently volunteering in the Occupied Territories has managed to invoke such fear in the Israelis? What exactly are they afraid of? In less than two years of its presence here, the movement has welcomed over 1000 internationals from all over the world. From the USA, the UK, Canada, Denmark, Sweden, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, amongst others. 15-20% of the volunteers have been Jewish. The average age is over 30 – many are over 50 and there have even been volunteers in their 70s. They come from all walks of life, and come to support justice. Israelis too, have worked with ISM and have faced the same levels of violence from soldiers and settlers. It is this disparate collection of concerned individuals who have caused such consternation in the corridors of power in Tel Aviv.

Daily news comes in confirming the suspicion that the Israeli authorities want no more foreign witnesses to their actions in the Occupied Palestine. Yesterday a new policy went into effect that all foreigners entering the Gaza Strip must sign a waiver to absolve the Israeli army of any responsibility should they be killed or wounded while there. In effect giving the Israelis permission to shoot them. Three foreigners have been killed or critically injured by the Israeli army in the last two months. Now if we wish to go there we have to sign a piece of paper allowing the army to kill us. Of course the vast majority of foreigners entering the Territories are UN or NGO relief workers, teachers and journalists. One wonders how long before this policy goes into effect for the West Bank too, and how many of those relief workers and university teachers will decide to leave rather than give the army carte blanche to target them.

It seems difficult to escape the conclusion that the Israeli government is scared of non-violent resistance. Scared of witnesses to their crimes. Speaking to ISM representatives in Jenin and Beit Sahour itself this evening has been fascinating. Obviously downcast by the Israeli actions, they are still able to see the positive side of this development. Yousef, the Palestinian coordinator based in Jenin, is hopeful that this may result in a positive shift in Palestinian thinking towards the option of active non-violent resistance. After all if such a small organisation can have such a big effect, and can cause such disquiet in the higher ranks of the Israeli government, it must be doing something right. “Why?” Yousef asked me this evening, “Why are they afraid of peaceful resistance? We are not fighting, we are just writing”.

60 International observers and 10 Palestinian coordinators have scared the world’s 4th most powerful army into taking draconian measures to try and stop them. It’s a testimony to the effectiveness of their work. They will keep coming.

[Published on alternet.org at http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15868 ]

Law and Order

2003-05-08T13:23:00.000+03:00

Phase one of the “Roadmap” calls on both sides to halt violence. For their part, the Palestinians are asked to stamp out terrorist actions and to rein in the actions of the militant groups opposing the occupation. It seems, on the face of it, a fair enough request and condition for peace. In reality, however, it is hard to imagine how the Palestinians are supposed to actually accomplish this.

Jenin Police HQ

Today I visited the police headquarters of Jenin. The police headquarters of Jenin is a two story pile of rubble, and has been since Israeli F-16 jets bombed it into oblivion over a year ago. Nearby is a rock-strewn field where the jail once stood. A couple of blocks further away lie the ruins of the ministry of information and security. Most destruction happening from the air, finished off by shelling from tanks on the ground. Another building, the Jenin governorate offices, lies in a similar condition, official papers strewn around the rubble, the shells of computer terminals, a set of torn curtains blown into a tree by the force of the explosions when the air attack came. It is presumably through these mechanisms that the Palestinians are expected to weed out terrorists and bring them to justice.

Jenin Governorate Offices

Yousuf, the former policeman who showed me around his old place of work and the other buildings, was at a loss to explain how this could possibly happen. There are no police now in Jenin – to be a policeman when the Palestinian Authority had control here, was to be respected, and, of course, armed – and to be armed once the soldiers moved in again was to be a target. Small wonder that the policemen who survived lay down their weapons and uniforms and took up other lines of work, whenever work was available. Not only are there no police, but there is no judicial system, no jails. As we drove around the city, I asked him whether there was a lot of crime now. Ever the cop, he shook his head mournfully and pointed out a car driving the wrong way down a one way street “Look there. You see there is crime”. I asked whether there were other kinds of crime - robbery, violent crime - as well as traffic violations. “We are not an angelic society you understand, but we are all suffering together. I think in such cases there is a kind of collective consciousness that prevents most crime on each other”

Ground Zero, Jenin Refugee Camp

Yousuf and Salah, his friend, took me into the Jenin refugee camp, made famous last year as the scene of the biggest battle of the current Intifada. Depending on who you talk to it was either a massacre, an operation to weed out terrorists, or a heroic moment of truth when Palestinian fighters fought back against the might of the Israeli army. Whatever the reality, it has carved a huge hole out of the camp and out of people’s lives. Deep in the heart of the mazy streets and narrow alleyways, there is suddenly a huge open space. 13 months ago the space was occupied by 400 houses, stores, workshops. 400 families scratching out a living in the midst of the longest running unsolved refugee crisis in the world. The camp stretches up the hillside, reminiscent of the favelas of Rio, and looks north towards the hills around Nazareth. Most of the families who live here fled the land that is visible to them from this vantage point when they were forced out of their homes in 1948. Now 400 of those families have been made refugees once again, displaced and split asunder, families who lived together in small spaces divided between uncles, brothers, grandmothers in other parts of the camp or the city itself.

A new tank-sized road in Jenin Refugee Camp

There are half-houses too. Corners of buildings ripped off as the tanks made themselves tank-sized roads through the camp. In some cases, gaping holes in buildings are covered by blankets, tied down but buffeting in the wind, covering living rooms and kitchens from the intensely public world of the overpopulated camp. We said our Salaams to Salah’s mother who has lost a third of her house to the tanks - rooms that are now open to the world, used no more, hanging out on to the newly formed streets, wires and pipes leading nowhere.

They took me to the “martyr’s cemetery” where the dead from the incursion were laid to rest. Two of Salah’s nephews, twins, lay side by side, born on the same day as each other and killed on the same day as each other. One grave is of a nine-year old girl whose body was never identified. In another graveyard nearby, lie others who have been killed by the Israeli army. One of Salah’s brothers, killed at 20 in the first intifada, and near the entrance, a 17 year old boy who was killed just last week, the latest “martyr” in a long and seemingly never ending line.

Iain Hook's office and small memorial to him

At the United Nations compound a few hundred metres from the cemetaries, a small memorial has been constructed to another martyr of the occupation, Iain Hook, a British engineer who was in charge of the UN’s rebuilding efforts after last year’s events. He was picked off by an Israeli sniper hiding in a nearby building as he stood outside his makeshift office, the two bullets entering his back and exiting his abdomen. After his shooting, the IDF refused to allow an ambulance in, so his colleagues spent an hour creating a hole in the wall behind one of the huts so they could smuggle his body out for medical attention. They were too late.

The hole in the wall

Since I have been here Jenin has been closed down more than it has been open. An ever-present curfew that even when it is lifted can be reimposed at any time. Today it was open, people going about their business uncertain of when the next shutdown will start. It has been open now for two whole weeks, and the people of Jenin are starting to hope that things are slowly getting back to what passes for normality. As yet, there are no restaurants open in Jenin – cooking large quantities of food is just too much of a gamble - only falafel stands remain in operation. Another of Salah’s brothers owns one such restaurant, but a tank has been parked outside it for months now at an impromptu checkpoint. He doesn’t know when he will get to even visit it again.

As we drove back into the centre of the town, we witnessed a number of traffic violations in this policeless place. Yousuf tutted from time to time, holding back his grief at the breakdown in societal norms. For the roadmap to survive the inevitable Israeli calls for its scrapping, it is now up to Abu Mazen to somehow stop the terrorists. Yasser Arafat has already been discredited in the eyes of the world for his inability to stop the attacks, despite the obviously abundant security resources at his disposal. It’s hard to see how the new prime minister will have any better luck at preventing this roadmap going anywhere but the wrong way down a one way street.

[Published in The Brattleboro Reformer]

Blindfolding

2003-05-06T13:15:00.000+03:00

Every time I arrive in Israel – whether it be through Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, or a bridge from Jordan – I get the same grilling. Why am I here? What possible reason could I have for going to the West Bank? In some cases, it seems like I am being deliberately hassled for choosing to work there, in others I have detected a clear and innocent fear for my safety. As far as most Israelis are concerned, the territories are a terrifying place, a war zone in which no-one is safe. There is (in some cases) a genuine concern for my safety. “Don’t you know how dangerous it is there?”

They have power over me – the power to deny me entry, to deny me access to my workplace and to my students – and for this reason I bite my tongue, and concur that it is dangerous and that I am aware of the dangers. What I want to do is respond honestly. To agree with their assessment of the dangers to everyone living and working in Palestine – be they Palestinian or foreigner – but to tell them, honestly, where that danger comes from. Even during the early stages of the war in Iraq, when there was a concern that the justified anger at Americans and Britons would be taken out on citizens of those nations, neither I, nor any of my colleagues, felt threatened by anti-“coalition” violence from Palestinians. The danger to us comes not from Arabs, but from Israeli troops.

It is the stated goal of some members of the current Israeli government to ethnically cleanse Palestine of Palestinians (under the euphemism “transfer”). It seems increasingly like the new first goal is to rid the territories of foreign observers to this act. The first casualties of this war on witnesses were the International Solidarity Movement, a group of peace activists, working to protect and support ordinary Palestinian civilians as they desperately try to go about their abnormal lives. Rachel Corrie from Washington State was run over by a bulldozer while in clear view of the driver. Brian Avery from New Mexico was shot in the face by an Israeli soldier, while standing on a street corner. Tom Hurndall from the UK was shot in the back of the head by an Israeli sniper while shepherding some children to safety. These events have a number of aspects in common – they all took place in daylight, all three victims were wearing fluorescent vests that identified them as observers, and all three events took place without provocation – despite the Israeli army’s attempts to characterize them as happening as accidents during “gun battles”.

ISM have now been officially told that they are not wanted here. To get into the country they will have to lie about their intentions, as border guards and airport staff have been told to deny them entry. Those who are currently here are threatened with deportation. This has been done under the guise of an accusation of the organization working with terrorists, because one of the two British men who carried out the attack in Tel Aviv last week visited the office of ISM in Gaza. An office that sees a constant stream of human traffic, people asking for help escorting their grandmother to hospital or protecting their property from bulldozers, or assisting them in harvesting their crops.

Now it seems attention is moving towards journalists. A group of people that Israel would dearly love to see the back of. A group of people who, despite intense pressure from pro-occupation so-called “media watchdog” groups, continue to venture to the front line to report on the latest atrocities committed by the IDF – whether it be the murder of civilians, the open-air executions without trial of “suspected militants”, or the general day to day actions designed to make people’s lives as miserable as possible. James Miller, a Channel 4 documentarian was killed in similar circumstances to the ISM shootings. Clearly marked as a member of the press, at night, but under a light, so clearly visible.

Last night, I spoke to a friend, a British TV journalist working for a Dubai based station. The fear and exhaustion were evident in his voice. Sharon is no doubt banking on this fear to drive the witnesses to his crimes away. Who is next? Teachers? UN and humanitarian organizations? Now we are in the time of the “roadmap”. Perhaps by gouging out the eyes of the world, Sharon believes he can continue the brutal oppression of the Palestinians regardless of his supposed responsibilities. I don’t see the plan’s sponsors preventing him.

A Wall of Silence

2003-04-09T16:54:00.000+03:00

A wall is being built around Palestine. An eight-foot high steel barricade encircling the West Bank, with an accompanying patrol road. Of course this wall is not actually on the recognized (pre-1967) border between Israel and Palestine, but within Palestine itself. Even as it walls off the people, Israel cannot resist yet another opportunity to plunder more of this land.

As a passenger driving from Jerusalem north to Afula and my local checkpoint, I looked out at this monstrous wall, encircling the cities of Qalqilya and Tulkarem, a grotesque protrusion on the landscape, hiding Palestine from sensitive Israeli eyes, and from the prying eyes of the world. One only wonders how long it will be before brave Israeli and foreign tourists are led on safari behind this wall, while being warned not to feed the Palestinians.

At Jalame, the checkpoint, I was met with the usual incredulity and reluctance – why did I want to go in there? Didn’t I know it was dangerous? They checked my suitcases and let me pass, shaking their heads at my insanity. It was a hot day, and my taxi home was forced to wait half a mile down the road. I struggled to stay upright, heavily laden and sweat dripping into my eyes. Towards the end of this walk through what is effectively no-mans land (or, synonymously, Palestinian-mans land) I reached the scar in the landscape that marks construction on this section of the wall. Approximately 500 metres from the checkpoint, and right through the middle of a field. Pausing in my throbbing-hot walk I asked the construction worker who was sitting at the roadside taking a cigarette break, what he was doing.

“Building a wall”.
“But why here, exactly,” I enquired, “and not there?” I pointed back up to the checkpoint.
“This is Israel,” he pointed to his feet, “and that is Palestine.” he gestured down the road, baffled at my question.
“This is one field, though. This road and wall is going through the middle of one field.”
“Yes, this is Israel, that Palestine”.
“So the Israeli farmer and the Palestinian farmer share this field, planting the same crop in the same rows?”
He hesitated, uncertain of how to continue this clearly ridiculous charade. Behind him in the field, an armed guard had stirred, and was walking towards us. “This is Israel and that is Palestine”, he stated with finality, making it clear that this conversation, such as it was, was over.

In the town of Jalame, before heading off the few miles to the University where I work, we were first obliged to stop off at a student’s house and drink tea and juice. Ziad, our taxi driver entertained us with the story of repairing his car in Nablus. He had been near Nablus when his car had begun to make some ugly and fatal sounding noises. Thinking that he wouldn’t be able to get back to Jenin before the engine gave up the ghost, he instead headed for Nablus to get it repaired. As with most cities in Occupied Palestine, Nablus is effectively shut off from the countryside around it. Roads are closed, and in some cases dug up. Within the wall, the country has been divided up into increasingly small pieces of territory, travel between each being at the whim of the Israeli army. Unable to drive his ailing car into Nablus, Ziad was forced to stop at the base of a hill. The local population would leave their vehicles here and hike up and over the hill to the other side where they could be picked up and driven into the city. Clearly this was not an option in this case, so instead, he was forced to remove the engine from his car, and strap it to a donkey. The image of the donkey carting this engine up and over a hill to the mechanic had a blackly comic element to it, yet another oddly humorous story of living life through the occupation. A tragic and blackly comic farce.

After drinking our coffee, our tea, our juice and our water, a never ending supply of beverages, each successive drink appearing as we supped from the bottom half of our glasses, we headed back onto the road to Zababdeh, our home. We had heard that the village, a small, predominantly Christian community, had been closed and put under curfew. It seemed beyond bizarre that sleepy Zababdeh would be placed in such a situation, but then the actions of the Israeli army are rarely rational and compassionate. Along rutted farm tracks we drove, avoiding the primary roads which have been reserved for the illegal Israeli settlers. On one corner a car stopped and waved down our taxi. A heavily pregnant woman and her husband emerged and asked if our driver could take them to Jenin, as she needed medical attention and wanted to get to the hospital before her waters broke and urgency became emergency. Ziad agreed, although warned that he couldn’t drive all the way to Jenin as the roads were closed. He took us down another heavily potholed farm track until we reached the impromptu cul-de-sac so familiar in the West Bank. From here the couple needed to walk another half a mile, before they could pick up another vehicle. As we drove off I looked back to see her picking her way over a mud bank, leaning on her husband for support and assistance.

We turned and headed back towards Zababdeh, experiencing no more major problems or incidents on the way. The town was still closed, but the University campus was outside the line of curfew. As yet, soldiers have not been onto the campus, but I can only imagine it remains a matter of time. While the world watches Iraq and the Middle East correspondents remain embedded with the US Military, the Israeli government is stepping up its incursions into the lives of the Palestinians. Symbolically, the wall is supposed to make the Israeli civilian population feel more secure. For the Palestinians the symbolism is equally unmistakable – behind such a barrier, the already grotesque level of brutality can be stepped up, unseen by the eyes of the world.

(Published in The Morning Star)

Football with the Terrorists

2003-04-08T16:50:00.000+03:00

The casual news watcher living in the west might imagine that playing football with 13 young men from a country reputed to be full of terrorists and assassins, would be a little troubling. Particularly when that country is in uproar about the US and UK war on Iraq. As ever though, nothing in Palestine is as it presented from the outside.

The Arab American University of Jenin’s team was involved in one of their thrice-weekly practices, and somehow I had managed to wangle myself an invitation to join them. Like all forms of training and education in Palestine it is difficult to see the value in achievement. Just as our students continue to make the arduous trek through checkpoints and backroads every day to get to University, to study for degrees in Accountancy - in a country which has virtually reverted to a subsistence economy - and Law – in a country with no police force - so the AAUJ football team train regularly, even though internal travel is at such a standstill that they cannot actually play against any other of Palestine’s universities. Occasionally, the local community manages to come up with mini, highly localized, tournaments, but even these are at the mercy of closures and curfews arbitrarily imposed by the Israeli army. In the most recent of these tournaments, an eight-team knockout of local villages, AAUJ’s team were beaten in the final by a team representing the Jenin refugee camp, the scene of last April’s massacre by Israeli troops.

Palestinian hospitality is astonishingly intense. Despite not being here for long I have already lost count of the number of times I have been overfed and practically been offered the shirts off the backs of people who can barely afford to feed themselves. Not for nothing did the parable of the killing the fatted calf to feed the prodigal son, originate in this region. As I discovered yesterday, it also extends to the football pitch. Despite the incontrovertible evidence that I am a slightly overweight, very unfit, not especially talented, 37 year old, I was allowed to join in. At one point, I was even gifted a goal by one of my teammates who had run the length of the field beating practically every member of the opposition, including the goalkeeper, before passing to me. I contrived to miss. Not a single complaint was audible. Not understanding the system especially well (we were 14 people playing 5-a-side), I offered to start the match on the bench. “No, you are our guest. Welcome.”, I was told, forcefully. As it turned out there was a rotation system which enabled everyone to play equal time, so I needn’t have worried.

As my aching muscles and bruised ankles will attest, the hospitality didn’t necessarily extend to easing up on me on the field, unless of course they managed to do it so skillfully that I felt able to hold my own and yet not feel patronized. I wouldn’t put it past them. Aside from both goalkeepers, both of whom were incredibly brave and extremely talented, the level of play was not especially great – even, in case you were wondering, when I wasn’t on the pitch. I have yet to spot a full-sized pitch anywhere in Palestine, which, for those of twice than age of the rest of the players, not blessed with any pace, and with desperately low levels of fitness, is quite a relief. I know that were they to invite me to play on a real pitch that I would be run ragged within the first five minutes. There must be a pitch somewhere, but, sadly, I fear any large flat area of ground with the requisite soil quality and irrigation to support turf would quickly be occupied and “liberated” by Israeli settlers, supported by a phalanx of troops.

Oh, and one other thing: Nobody tried to kill me. Not even when I missed my second open goal of the night.

Brian

2003-04-07T16:49:00.000+03:00

The International Solidarity Movement is one of a number of organisations working in the Occupied Territories to provide protection and witness to the civilian population. Delegations work in a number of Palestinian cities – ferrying food and water to people kept inside under Israeli declared curfews, which can go on for months at a time; accompanying the sick and infirm to hospitals and medical assistance; helping farmers harvest their crops while illegal settlers look on with murderous intent. The organisation is staffed by Palestinians and foreign nationals from many nations, working to provide non-violent resistance to the worst facets of the occupation.

As internationals they have, until recently, been spared from the violent actions of the Israeli army directed at the local population. Three weeks ago that fact changed when Rachel Corrie, a young American woman, was crushed and killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza while attempting to prevent house demolitions. The Israelis say that the driver did not see her, an argument disbelieved by independent eyewitnesses. He, the driver, is now back at work after a brief internal investigation. Rachel’s death became a cause-celebre among anti-war groups and others working to end the occupation, but in the general Western media, their eyes firmly focussed on Iraq, it raised barely a murmur. Perhaps the Israeli army have taken heart from this.

Last night we were woken by a phone call at 4am. One member of the local Jenin delegation, and a close friend of Susie’s, Lasse was on the line. He was calling from Haifa, where he was waiting for news of his American colleague, Brian, who had at that point been in surgery for the last four hours.

Yesterday evening, just around dusk, the ISM delegation had been gathering on a street corner to head for the refugee camp, from where shooting had been heard. On one street corner, Brian was waiting with Tobias, the Swedish leader of the delegation, while the remaining four ISM members in Jenin were on their way. As they stood waiting, two tanks bore down on them. Both men stood their ground, safe in the knowledge that their reflective vests identified them as international observers, and therefore no threat to the soldiers. The tanks stopped, and a ten minute standoff developed. Just as the remaining four members of the delegation approached, a soldier sitting atop one of the armoured vehicles behind a mounted machine gun, opened fire on Tobias and Brian. 5 of the 6 delegates scattered. One didn’t. Lying face down and motionless in the road was Brian. Lasse turned and went over to him. Turning him over he saw that half of his face had been shot off by a bullet. Almost paralysed with shock, Lasse somehow managed to remove his own t-shirt and wrap Brian’s head in it.

As the armoured vehicles drove off, not stopping to check on the damage they had done, the ISM team called for an ambulance, the same ambulance that they are more accustomed to travelling around in as protectors, not as patients. Brian was whisked off to the local hospital, at which the doctors did all they could for him, but in the end said that he needed to be treated in a well-equipped hospital. That meant Israel. The closest town in Israel is Afula – less than 20 miles away on the map, but a lifetime away for many here. Before the ambulance could leave, though, permission had to granted by the Israeli forces. As Brian lay in the hospital bed, critically injured, the Israeli authorities delayed for well over an hour before granting the necessary permission.

Eventually allowed to leave, the ambulance took Brian to Israel and Afula. From there he was urgently evacuated to Haifa, where a better equipped hospital awaited. Ironically he was taken in a military helicopter, so often used to bring suffering to the local people, but here used to bring relief. Once again, as on many previous occasions, the treatment from Israelis within Israel proving to be humane and compassionate. One wonders whether any of these people who can be so warm and hospitable have any idea of what is done in their name in the semi-lawless military training ground that is Palestine.

Brian, I am happy to report, is recovering. Unable to speak, he has been able to talk to his parents in New Mexico by listening to their words and writing down what he wants to say so that Lasse can speak the words. The reconstruction of his face has, doctors think, been relatively successful.

It is not known what action, if any will be taken against the soldier who decided to rearrange Brian’s face. Already the Israeli army spin doctors are claiming that there was a gun battle going on and that they don’t know whether it was an Israeli bullet that hit Brian. No doubt they are hoping that by the time they admit that this is all a fabrication, the attention and interest will have moved on.

Arriving at Tel Aviv airport or at checkpoints into the West Bank, foreigners are greeted with suspicion and incredulity. We are told that it is very dangerous and that we shouldn’t go to “the Territories”. They are right. Quite apart from over 1000 Palestinian dead, in the past year 4 foreigners have been killed in Palestine and one, Brian, critically injured. 2 were killed by illegal Israeli settlers in Hebron, the other three were victims of the Israeli army. It is dangerous, but not because of the Palestinians.

The Mood of a Town

2003-03-08T16:45:00.000+02:00

It is sometimes said that cities have personalities. New York is brash and arrogant, Paris elegant and snobbish. It’s much less common that a mood or a feeling is ascribed to an entire town, but then it is rare that all the inhabitants of an entire town have the same feelings, simultaneously.

On the afternoon of March 5th a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up on a crowded bus in Haifa, killing himself and 15 Israeli civilians, many of them children, and injuring many others. When news of this terrible event came through I was in Hebron. As word filtered into the town, the atmosphere changed. From being just an average day in a war-zone, people trying to go about their lives despite the closures and the barricades and the soldiers, a cloud descended, a cloud of tension and of fear. Like the child of an abusive alcoholic father, who knows his dad will be home soon, drunk and angry. He hopes to lie low and remain unnoticed, torn between a desire to protect his siblings and a guilty hope that it will be one of them that is singled out for tonight’s beating.

As evening fell, still no group had claimed responsibility for the attack, and there was still no information on the identity of the terrorist. The city fell into a fitful and anxious sleep waiting for word to come.

In the morning, we woke to the news that the bomber was from Hebron itself. The mood changed again, not as dramatically as the previous day, but equally tangible. From a feeling of tension, the air was filled with deep foreboding, a black anticipation. We left our hosts’ house and travelled downhill toward the city centre in a taxi, the driver untypically subdued, his radio playing the news rather than music.

A crowd had gathered on one street we passed along, a large group of men milling around and blocking the way. We inched through the sea of gaunt faces, as our driver told us that this was the house of the bomber’s family. Contrary to popular myth this was no crowd exalting the memory of a new “martyr”, no Hamas delegation to thank the family for giving up their son – and, by association and in the near future, their house, their possessions, their freedom. At least in this particular snapshot moment, it was plain to see that this was nothing but mourning and grief. No doubt a scene not greatly different was being played out in 15 different homes in Haifa that same morning.

As we left Hebron the mood of the city was still dark. The storm clouds of revenge were gathering over the city, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

The Old City

2003-03-08T16:41:00.000+02:00

Walking into the old city of Hebron is like walking into some strange twilight world. There is the “new centre” – bustling market areas, all effectively evicted from their traditional spots, surrounded by chaotic honking traffic, daily redirected and forced into ever tighter corridors, as concrete blocks are placed across roads and tarmac is ripped up. Then there is the traditional centre, the heart of the old city, now effectively shut down by the Israeli troops.

From the former area, Susie and I suddenly found ourselves alone on the street, a surprising and eerie hush after the cacophony of before. A few people wander here, but it is very few, and as we walked further down the road, even those few dwindled away. We turned a corner and found ourselves confronted with a sandbagged and barbed wire encrusted barricade, about 50 metres away and not on our intended route. We continued walking, and began to turn down another street when a shout came from the barricade. Out stepped an odd looking figure. A man, we assumed, wearing a helmet, and so much body armour as to make him appear like some military version of the Michelin man. He was carrying the kind of large super-gun that I had only previously seen in Arnold Schwarzenegger movies and which, up until that point, I hadn’t been aware really existed. He stood behind the fence and shouted again – “asking” us to come over to the checkpoint. As we approached it became apparent that the figure buried under all that padding was in fact a bespectacled teenager who wouldn’t have looked out of place in a high-school chess team. Relatively relaxed with these two unthreatening foreigners, he merely checked our passports, asked us where we were going, and allowed us on our way.

Checkpoint

As we walked from the barricade, a young Palestinian man appeared in front of us. This time the shout from behind us was much louder, much more aggressive, and much more fear driven. We froze. The shouts came again, louder and more urgently. Then we realised that the man before us was more than just confused. He had a blank open-mouthed look and an apparent imperviousness to the shouts of the soldier. It was clear to us that he was mentally retarded, lost, completely ignorant of the danger he was in. Blissfully unaware of the ugly and deadly war around him. We turned to tell the soldier just as he began his shouts again. Even more aggressive and fearful, and this time accompanied by the loud and terrifying cocking of his gun. Terrifying to me that is, whereas I doubt it even registered on the man it was supposed to terrify.

The soldier had ventured away from his guard post and stood maybe 20 metres behind us. Another soldier stood at the fence, providing cover. We called to him, telling him that the man had no idea what was going on or what was happening, and passed on our on the spot psychological diagnosis. The tension was palpable on the soldier’s face. It suddenly occurred to me that my wife and I were standing directly between a scared teenager holding a high powered weapon and a man who in his eyes was very possibly a violent and unpredictable terrorist. It wasn’t the most comfortable feeling. Everything seemed to stand still for a long drawn out moment, until, to everyone’s relief, the Palestinian, maybe having a brief flicker of insight into his unwelcomeness in that place, turned and ambled off down the street. The soldier began walking backwards towards his post, his eyes not leaving the slowly departing man. I let out a long breath of relief, and only then realised that it had been a few minutes since I had last done so. Finally, we too, turned, and ambled, with tense and affected nonchalance down the same street that the Arab had gone. Some young boys had obviously heard the shouts and had emerged from somewhere to gently usher the man away to a safer part of town. Susie and I turned the other way and headed deep into the old city, past the empty houses, boarded up shops and rolls of barbed wire.

CPT

2003-03-06T16:35:00.000+02:00

In a small, rudimentary apartment up a flight of steps located between a fence and a roll of barbed wire in the heart of Hebron’s old city, live a small group of people who work for Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), a Mennonite organisation based in Chicago. Recognisable by their red caps and armbands, they daily brave the guns of the Israeli soldiers and the spitting and rock throwing of the Israeli settlers in the town as they go about the business of observing, documenting, and, as much as possible, stopping violence and illegal acts.

Every day Chris, a US Citizen born in South Africa, and full time CPT member, gets up early to lead a team of volunteers on school patrol, chaperoning the Palestinian kids who still live in the old city, through the checkpoints to their school. Frequently they are stopped by the soldiers and informed that they cannot pass. Chris talks to the soldiers and as gently as possible informs the soldiers that stopping kids from attending school is in violation of the Geneva Convention, and that they need to pass. Nearly always they do. If he were not there, it is possible that the kids would rarely get to school without being turned back by the soldiers or the gun-toting settler militias. Only by being there to observe and where necessary force the issue does CPT ensure that a semblance of adherence to international law takes place.

Susie and I walked with Art, a retired widower from Toronto, along the road reserved for the illegal settlers. Occasionally on this road CPT members are spat at or have rocks thrown at them by the settlers. This time, aside from a few hostile glances, we were not troubled. We walked along the road for about a quarter of a mile, passing a temporary military base stocked with armoured personnel carriers, numerous checkpoints, and sandbagged observation posts manned by nervous looking Israeli teenage soldiers weighed down by their bulletproof uniforms and unwieldy weaponry. We also passed a monument at a road junction, a shrine to Baruch Goldstein, the Israeli settler who, in 1994, walked into the Ibrahimi mosque and opened fire at the backs of the praying muslims, killing 29.

We arrived at the entrance to the very same mosque that Goldstein had turned into a slaughterhouse, the resting place of Abraham, the father of all three major religions founded in this region. On a platform housing four unused and seemingly brand new airport-style metal detectors, lounged a group of about 5 very bored looking Israeli soldiers. Their spokesman informed us that the mosque was closed. We asked why it was closed, and learned that it was part of the curfew imposed on the city. The day before our visit, the curfew had been relaxed for the first time in 110 days, but today it was back on. No-one really knew why, and no-one responsible for imposing it felt it necessary to explain. We were invited instead to visit the synagogue in the other half of the same building. We pointed out the absurdity of the fact that the mosque was closed because of the curfew, but that the synagogue wasn’t, and were told that the curfew was for Muslims.

The illogic and inequality of it all was not lost on the soldiers – at least the ones who talked to us. Their captain, a very personable Ethiopian Israeli, eventually showed up to participate in what was possible the only action his unit had seen all day – talking to us. Like the others, he was prepared to talk, joke, and privately admit the ridiculousness of the situation. Of the fact that Hebron has a battalion of over 2000 Israeli soldiers to protect approximately 300 illegal Jewish settlers. That it needs a buffer zone between the settler community and the Palestinian residents of the city, a buffer zone that takes in the heart of the old city, an area which is now a permanent twilight zone of boarded up shops and abandoned apartments, their owners evicted without compensation. However, when pressed, they all, without exception, resort to the time-honoured “just following orders” reasoning.

Later that afternoon, from the CPT rooftop in this once thriving and vital old city, we heard gunfire coming from the direction of the mosque where we had been earlier. Two percussion grenades rocked the quiet and were followed by four or five rounds of high velocity rifle fire. The Palestinians that remain in the area, desperately hanging on through the abuse and difficulty of living there under virtual permanent curfew, emerged onto their roofs and, like us, looked nervously in the direction of the reports. As abruptly as it had started, the shooting stopped. We learned later that they had apparently spotted a “suspicious bag” and were shooting at it in order to verify that it wasn’t a bomb. Judging by the level of inactivity and boredom I had seen earlier, it must have made their day.

It was time for us to move on, but CPT members will stay there until such time as they are evicted too, and even then will move to the closest place they can get in order to stop or limit the abuses here. The thinking in Hebron is that Sharon will wait until the US war on Iraq starts and then use the distraction to “deal with” Hebron - and that doesn’t involve removing the few illegal settlers who are responsible for the problem. Chris, the school patrol leader, grew up under apartheid in South Africa. He saw his brother killed by the police on the street in front of him when he was just 11. He saw his father tortured by the security services. He himself was arrested and held without trial for a year and half simply for being out after a curfew that he didn’t know had been called. In his opinion, the situation in the West Bank is four times worse for the Palestinians than the situation that he and the rest of majority black South Africa endured under apartheid. And of all the places in the West Bank, it is Hebron that is the most clearly the front line of this new apartheid.

(published in the Brattleboro Reformer as Eyewitness Hebron)

Confronting Racism

2003-02-28T16:34:00.000+02:00

The first time I visited sub-saharan Africa – Nairobi in this instance – I realised to my horror that the subliminal message carried by my media and by my culture, had influenced me much more than I thought. Black people were potential criminals, and one needed to be wary around them. Surrounded by Africans, my radar went into overdrive plunging me into uncertainty and nervousness. It took me a day to work out what was going on and to relax and let it teach me an important lesson. Here, for the second time in my life, I have been confronted with an aspect of my previously unconscious racism. Surrounded for the most part by young Arab men, I felt an air of violence. At best these men are presented as people who throw rocks at tanks. At worst terrorists. Of course, when it comes down to reality, the most I have to confront here is an aggressive hospitality. A fervent and fanatical desire to invite me for coffee and olives.

To give just one example, last night we were driving home in the university’s VW van. The route from Jalame (the village closest to the checkpoint) to the University is insanely and unnecessarily long. Everyone must take a long and convoluted route skirting the city of Jenin and the main roads which are now reserved for the illegal Israeli settlers. In some places this route uses potholed but paved minor roads between villages. In others, it leaves the road and crosses fields on farm tracks or drives along rutted and washed out valley floors. It would be comical that the great powers talk of a “roadmap” for this region were it not so tragic. The last week has seen rain storms of a magnitude not seen for many years here, rendering many of these back routes barely passable. As we drove along one of the farm tracks yesterday evening we became marooned in a muddy and deep puddle across the road. The engine went dead and we were at a loss. A car behind us managed to pass us and get through the mini-lake. We got out and they stopped. It was pitch dark, and we were only two in the van. It was impossible for anyone to see inside to confirm this. Momentarily , and understandably, uncertain as to whether we were settlers or not (I certainly don’t pass for Palestinian), once they heard us speak English, the family piled out of the car and in a mixture of hand gestures, basic Arabic vocabulary and a little English, the men got down to the business at hand of rescuing us. Having clarified that the engine was dead, the son waded through the mud, opened up the engine and started playing with the electrical system. Miraculously the car restarted, and I tried to drive it out of the ruts we had dug. No good. Son and father stood on the rear bumper attempting to give the car added weight and traction in the dirt, but still no luck. Eventually, the engine, filling with water, cut out again. The process was repeated, and this time, with me on the bumper, the son with his feet in the water and hands in the engine, and the father driving, we pulled free. We stood around for a moment, admiring their handiwork, smoking their cigarettes, and laughing about “the situation” (everything refers back to “the situation” here – the micro-situation of the car being stuck connecting to the macro situation of the reason we are on this track in the first place). Since the road is so convoluted and involves many unlikely turn-offs, I asked how far they were going and whether we could follow them, to which they readily agreed. Their village was about half way along our route and at the entrance to it they pulled over, and asked if we would like to come to their village for coffee and some food before continuing on. Regretfully we were forced to decline, already late for dinner at another Palestinian house. I’ve only been here for a week, and already that level of help and friendliness doesn’t seem unusual.

The more time I spend here, the more experiences I have, the more I am horrified that I have been fed this diet of racist propaganda towards Arabs and specifically Palestinians. Despite all of the problems, the pain and suffering, and the trying nature of everyday life in Palestine, the people here bear the situation with uncommon good humour, with incredible stoicism, and with an indomitable will to get on with their lives. Deep down, of course, they are suffering, they feel the pain and the damage engendered by the oppression, but despite this, they smile, they offer overwhelming help and hospitality, they make light of the problems they have to deal with on a regular basis. How they do this is beyond me. How they keep their spirits up, is almost unbelievable, and in some ways must be seen to be appreciated. This is not a people who respond to the daily violence (structural, physical, and systematic) with bombs and aggression. This is a people who for the most part respond with unheard of equanimity. In the west we hear one of two stories. At best the Palestinians are a people who respond to their suffering with violence directed at civilians. At worst, they are the ones initiating the violence and the actions of the Israeli government are merely a response conducted in self defence. We are misled. There is a very small minority of people here who commit horrific crimes in the name of the nation of Palestine. There is a huge majority of Palestinians who, abandoned and screwed over by Britain, by Jordan, by the Arab world in general, by the USA and , most pressingly, by Israel, continue to hope for peace, stability, independence, and a normal life. It’s a miracle in my eyes.

But I must also confront my racism towards Israelis. When I spend time in Israel, I am conscious of this antipathy towards the people I encounter. This is not a racism engendered by the media, by western propaganda. It’s from me, it’s from my anger at what the government of that country is doing and is equally wrong. Everyone I met there, from the immigration official who asked if I was likely to be visiting any Arab countries in the future, and would I therefore prefer if she didn’t stamp my passport so that I wouldn’t be denied entry, to the taxi driver who showed us the way back to the checkpoint from Afula, our local Israeli town, was helpful too, and possibly, given the problems faced in Palestine, would have been just as willing to perform impromptu repairs on my car or dig me out of a mud hole. While there are right wingers who believe in “transfer” (the Israeli euphemism for ethnic cleansing), and the continued policy of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, there are also many who are actively working for peace despite being fed daily propaganda painting the Palestinians as violent animals who wish to sweep them into the sea. It’s a prejudice that’s much harder to deal with, when one is confronted daily with the results of the actions of the Israeli government. But I must continually remind myself that these people too are damaged. Damaged by the misinformation of the media praying on their every fear. Damaged by the history of the Jewish people and the diaspora. Damaged by the constant barrage of lies and half truths designed to play on their sense of victimhood. Those that vote for Sharon do so for the most part out of a sense of insecurity and fear,not out of support for his racism and bigotry towards Arabs.

The black-and-white mongers – those who hold that the world is a series of binary questions, those who contend that “you are either with us or against us” - would hold that this feeling is one of anti-semitism. It’s a convenient and obnoxious label to throw at the liberal minded who feels anger towards a nation that practices state terrorism. Quite apart from the semantic question of what exactly constitutes “anti-semitism” (a greater proportion of Palestinians than Israelis are semitic), it’s patently not the case. I have nothing against Jews, per se, but the Israeli government and its army. To resort to cliché, many of my best friends are Jewish. But, while it is not “anti-semitism”, it is a prejudice, and one that I need to work on, however uncomfortable it may make me.

When the clouds lifted today, I walked to a ridge and looked out over the beautiful landscape spread out beneath me. Olive groves, fields, villages, valleys and hills, green and fertile all the way to the border with Israel and beyond. It is sometimes hard to step back and look out at this land, the fighting that goes on over it, and the people that have died here and see not only the big picture but also the trees in the forest, the people that make their homes here, make their lives here, not as warring factions but as individuals. Whole villages in what is now Israel have been lost and abandoned. When I drive through the thriving villages that continue to be inhabited here, I can’t help but think about what “transfer” would mean. Those who stand outside and talk about their “vision” for the Middle East, need to come here, to look at the human side of their vision and then, maybe, think again.

Patience

2003-02-23T16:29:00.000+02:00

Patience

This afternoon after class we set off for Jenin, the only town of any size in the area, a distance of about five miles.. Most roads have been dug up, ploughed into oblivion by tank tracks. A beautiful new two lane highway from Jenin to Nablus was built by a Scandinavian organisation. Within days of its opening, the Israeli army had destroyed it. In places it still exists, but today it was closed. Indeed, Jenin was “closed”. When a town is the local hub, closing it means closing off the entire region. The closure of Jenin was effected by the blocking off of all roads in and out. Only one way in remained – a road that had already been destroyed by the IDF. What I saw was a people of unbelievable patience, of indefatigable ingenuity, with an unfeasible ability to keep living their lives, against all odds.

The “service” (shared) taxi was stuffed with students, and filled with laughter and good humoured commentary on the lakes and rivers that had appeared in the potholes and tyre tracks in the recent heavy rains, as it took us on a roundabout route through surrounding villages, describing a semi circle around Jenin, as we headed for the entrance point. Then as we crested a rise, there we were, at what can only be described as a huge temporary transportation hub, set up on the side of the road – buses, taxis, cars, minibuses, vans, trucks, tractors. The Dunkirk flotilla brought to an olive grove a mile outside the city. We left our transport and joined the tide of people walking down the hill to where the road had been destroyed, people dressed for work, making the best of their situation staggering under the weight of boxes and bags down to the muddy and trampled valley floor. Women, men, students, children, whole families, making the journey in and out of the city. One of the students commented on how tomorrow they would put signs on the muddy pathways indicating “arrivals” and “departures”. Another waved in the direction of the town dump on the hillside and the human traffic walking past it and commented “This is the Holy Land”. Once we were over the swamp, it was back up the other side, back to where the road restarted and back to another honking, exhaust-fume stinking mass of vehicles, from which we could go the last mile into the city.

In Jenin, many stores were closed, unable to open, unable to get supplies in, their owners closing early in order to make the long arduous journey home to their homes as many as two or three miles away. Some market stalls were open, the city bustled with a kind of weary desperation, people warning us to make sure we left enough time to get home, as things were almost certain to get worse. Mohammed, one of the students, helped us out taking us to the store we were looking for (closed), and pointing out where we needed to go to get back, before going home to study circuit diagrams for his telecommunications degree, and to spend the evening with his mother. Only when we offered to take him to dinner, did he confess that his father had been killed by the Israeli army two months before and that therefore, apologetically, he needed to eat with his mother.

We bought a few vegetables, snacked on falafel, and then decided that we should probably get back. Once again we piled into a “service’ and headed off up to the human valve that had opened above the city, passing, as we turned off, a tank positioned in the middle of the road, in front of an ambulance, lights flashing. As we headed off the main road and into the rutted and potholed tracks, up into the hills, bumping through the trees, suddenly there was a crunching and fatal sounding noise from under the car. The eight passengers and driver piled out to see the gearbox on the ground, the “service” no longer in service. In the shoes of the taxi driver I can only imagine I would have sat down by the side of the road and wept. There is no money, there is no prospect of money. I have no idea if or when he will ever be able to repair his car, his source of livelihood. Instead, he hailed one of the other minibuses passing and asked the driver if he could take us the remaining half mile to the end of the road.

Back at the mud pit we struggled back with our groceries, passing other of the students coming the other way having finished their classes for the day. Jenin has been “closed” for two days now, and yet they still make the arduous journey back and forth to the University in order to study for a degree that many of them must have serious doubts about ever being able to use. Three trucks were attempting to drive through the mud in order to bring supplies and food from the market at Jenin out to the surrounding communities. The makeshift transportation department has brought in some tractors to drag them through the worst of it. One made it to a great cheer from the watching multitudes. The second, as we left, seemed less likely to succeed.

Zababdeh

The day was drawing to a close and the temporary bus-station was less busy than before. Many people leaving the city for fear of trouble to come. There is usually only one reason for closing off a city in such a way. Another helpful Mohammed was getting out to his parents’ village to be on the safe side. We piled once more into a cab, and headed back to the nearest village to the University, passing again the rural communities we had come through on the way in, honking at jaywalking sheep and muddy children. Tomorrow, I can stay here on the campus, safe and unhindered by the need to cross through whatever route needs to be taken in and out. Tomorrow, the students will again get up early in order to make the trek the five miles to campus, the villagers will head back into Jenin to work or to buy food for their families, and the whole process will repeat. If they are lucky.

(Published by the Brattleboro Reformer as Journey to Jenin)