Goodbye West Bank

Tonight I sit in my living room surrounded by three Palestinian women who are explaining to me, in a mixture of Arabic, English and gestures, the best way to make the traditional Palestinian dish of Makluba. Tomorrow I leave the West Bank for Gaza. My route will take me through the Negev Desert and across the Sinai Peninsula to Cairo where I will meet up with 1300 other internationals who are gathering for the Gaza Freedom March. Our plan is to travel from Cairo to Rafah where we will cross into Gaza. On December 31st we will join the 50,000 Gazans marching from the town of Abu Drabo, virtually flattened by Operation Cast Lead, to the Erez Crossing with Israel demanding the siege of Gaza end.

Israel’s attack on Gaza, targeted civilians, children, schools and factories and is clearly a crime against humanity. The ensuing year-long siege which has prevented basic humanitarian necessities, everything from medicine to cement from entering Gaza by land or by sea could not have happened without the tacit (and sometimes active) support of the Western international community. According to a friend of mine, paper, basic office paper, is in such huge demand that there is essentially a futures market in paper.

Unfortunately Egypt, most likely under Israeli and US guidance, has now, less then a week before our scheduled departure from Cairo decided to deny us access to Gaza. Hopefully in the coming days as internationals gather in Cairo their position will change, perhaps it will not.

So tomorrow morning I say goodbye to the West Bank and head, hopefully to another front of the occupation. I’m sure I’ll be able to muster something a bit more insightful at a later date. Perhaps during my 22 hour layover in Zurich? But I just wanted to post a little update before I head out. Keep the pressure on Egypt and the US to let us in. Talk to you soon.

-Jo

Palestinian Joke #134

Question: Where can Israel find the Palestinian Gandhi?

Answer: Exactly where they put him, in administrative detention.

Not that I’m in any way playing into the Palestinian Gandhi dialogue, I think its actually pretty diversionary/racist. But sometimes you have to laugh in order not to cry right?

Jamal Juma’, the director of the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, also known as Stop the Wall, was summoned for interrogation on the night of December 15th. Jamal has been detained by the Israeli military and has not had access to a lawyer since the 16th of December. I was in the Stop the Wall Office on the 15th of December. I said hi to Jamal. I’ve met him on a couple of occasions. He is a quiet man with a commanding presence.

I read the news of his arrest last night, sitting in the home of another non-violent Palestinian activist, Mousa Abu Maria of the Palestine Solidarity Project. He was not surprised to hear about Jamal’s arrest. He told me the story of his first arrest and time in prison. An IDF commander showed up at his home and asked him to come with him for a few hours to talk over a cup of tea. Musa asked if he could have a minute to say goodbye to his family. He knew what tea and talk were code words for. He was nineteen years old.

If past actions set precedence and they do. Jamal will likely not be charged with any crime (because he has not committed one) but will be held in prison for a long time (interrogated, tortured) without charges. Israel does this through a process called administrative detention that allows the state to hold Palestinians for periods of three months at a time (renewable indefinitely) without charges.

Mohammad Othman, another Stop the Wall executive member has been detained by Israel since September. His first administrative detention order expires this week. Jamal is set to be brought in front of a judge today.

Mohammad, Jamal and many of the scores of other Palestinian’s with orders of administrative detention, are in Israeli prisons not because they have committed a crime but because they are non-violent anti-occupation activists. Israel has begun to understand that non-violent activism in Palestine is a serious threat to the occupation. Those engaged in non-violent struggle often have an excellent analysis, they are determined and they are gaining traction domestically and platforms for spreading their message internationally. It scares the shit out of Israel so it is not surprising that they are responding with repressive military actions. This is a military occupation and it maintains itself by using the tactics of military oppression.

Originally posted on Mondoweiss @ http://mondoweiss.net/2009/12/where-is-the-palestinian-gandhi-in-israeli-prison-of-course.html

Persistent Memory

YOU CAN SEE THE SHOP AT THE VERY END OF THE STREET, BEHIND THE CHECKPOINT

Inside a Palestinian shop across from the Ibrahimi Mosque/Patriarchs Tomb. My friend and I (because she is Palestinian) have to walk halfway down the street on the narrow “Palestinian side” of the road before we can cross over and walk back to the shop. Inside is an IDF solider, full combat gear; huge gun, the works. I’m confused and a bit nervous. He’s trying to chat up a Palestinian girl from Hebron. It turns out he’s Druze, Israeli. He explains that he’d rather not be doing this. “This” being participating militarily in the occupation of Palestine. But that life is tough, especially if you are not a European Israeli Jew and that being in the military affords some benefits. He asks the Palestinian girl if he can come by and visit her later, no she says. He asks if he can come by if he takes off his uniform first. No, she says.

I wonder if she didn't walk on the right side of the street, would he arrest her?


WHEN I'M WITH A PALESTINIAN WE HAVE TO WALK ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE CONCRETE BARRIER

Settlers

THE SPACIOUS MANICURED STREETS OF THE ILLEGAL ISRAELI SETTLEMENT KIRYAT ARBA. (PHOTO: ALESSANDRA GOLA)

Originally published in Mondoweiss on December 5th at http://mondoweiss.net/2009/12/there-are-settlers-in-hebron-because-israel-wants-them-there.html

I’ve been to al-Khalil a number of times. I’m intentionally using the Arabic name for the city because every time I’ve visited it has been to the areas populated by Palestinians. I’ve visited on my own, with Palestinian friends and with the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) who maintain a presence in the old city. Every visit is a new lesson in the occupation.

Today for the first time I visited Hebron rather then al-Kahlil; the streets where Palestinians cannot drive and sometimes cannot walk and the illegal settlements of Kiryat Arba on the periphery of the city and the inner city illegal settlements of Beit Hadassah and Tel Rumeida with B’tselem an Israeli human rights organization.

Driving to Hebron from Jerusalem was mind blowing. Living in Bethlehem I associate “going to Israel” with a combination of checkpoints and slow public transport. This is not the case if you are Israeli or traveling with Israeli’s and are going to the West Bank. Driving from Jerusalem into the West Bank was seamless. We got all the way to Hebron and unless you knew what you were looking for there was nothing, no signs or road changes that would tell let you know that you had entered the West Bank.

We entered the old city of Hebron through the illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba. I know I am probably annoying you, maybe even alienating you, by prefacing all of these settlements with illegal but I don’t have a choice. International law and foreign consensus is pretty unanimous on this point. Israeli settlements within the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem, are illegal.

Traveling by private car or bus from Bethlehem the last part of the journey into the old city is always a set of narrow busy streets. Not so coming in through the settlement, it was easy to drive our huge tour bus right up to the convenient parking lot outside of the Ibrahimi Mosque/Cave of Machpelah.

Hebron is one of the largest Palestinian cities, home to 250,000 Palestinians. As part of the “Road Map to Peace” coming out of the Oslo Accords Hebron was supposed to be gradually turned over to Palestinian Authorities. As a step towards this in 1997, the city was divided into two parts – H1 and H2. The Palestinian Authority would control H1, and H2 would remain under Israeli military control. H2 is home to 25,000 Palestinians, 500-800 illegal settlers (shouldn’t we be a bit worried that no one will confirm the exact number) and at any given time around 1,000 Israeli soldiers. Check out this link for more information about Hebron including excellent maps: http://www.btselem.org/english/Hebron/Index.asp.

These numbers are bit misleading though. While there are only 500-800 settlers in the four settlements located in the old city of Hebron, the illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba is perched right outside Hebron and flows seamlessly into the old city. Kiryat Arba is home to 7,000 settlers and is part of the Gush Etzion settlement bloc. This large settlement bloc falls within Area C from the Oslo Accords, which is an area of land covering some 60% of the West Bank and is under complete Israeli control. When you look at the Hebron settlements in this larger context they appear not as wild outposts but as a continuous part of a larger colonial settlement system.

In H2 Israeli settlers are subject, as citizens of Israel to Israeli civil law, their Palestinian neighbors, as an occupied population, are subject to Israeli military law.


THE APARTHEID STREET SYSTEM IN HEBRON, PALESTINIANS CAN ONLY WALK TO THE RIGHT OF THE CONCRETE BARRIER WHILE ISRAELIS AND INTERNATIONALS ARE FREE TO WALK OR DRIVE IN THE WIDER LEFT LANE. (PHOTO: ALESSANDRA GOLA)

Walking within through the parts of H2 Hebron that are not illegal settlements was a heart wrenching mixture of post-war zone and ghetto. The former Palestinian markets were vacant, crumbling and desecrated with racist anti-Arab propaganda. There were posters of “Israel” that showed it occupying large chunks of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt. Palestinians unlucky enough to live in this area are subject to the worst living conditions I’ve seen in the West Bank. You can’t tell me this is not apartheid when Palestinians have fenced off lanes for walking. When Israeli settlers are allowed to drive cars on a street Palestinians can only walk down. When on certain streets Palestinians have to turn right, if they continue straight they will be arrested. When settlers can carry guns.

In the settlement of Beit Haddash we met with David Wilder. The name should be familiar to some of you. David is the “spokesman” for the illegal settler community in Hebron. A native of New Jersey, David has a degree in education a great Jersey accent and a leather jacket. He showed us around the settlement’s museum, a series of dark rooms with exhibits meant to establish a continuous Jewish history in Hebron and persecution of Jews (highlighted by the killing by Palestinians in 1929 of 67 members of the tiny, 500-700 out of a city of 20,000, Jewish community of Hebron during the early stages of the Zionist movement within historic Palestine)


A FORMER OPEN AIR MARKET NOW COMPLETELY OFF LIMITS TO PALESTINIANS. (PHOTO: ALESSANDRA GOLA)

David Wilder will not use the word Palestine or Palestinians. He refers to his Palestinian neighbors categorically as Arabs. Their lack of equal rights is to him, simply “the price of war” a phrase he repeated often. His line is that since “the Arabs”, all of them evidently in consensus (even Ben Gurion’s own diaries show this to be a lie, Israel was the undoubtedly the aggressor in 48) decided to attack Israeli in 48 and 67 and lost, they deserve what they get. Of course Israel as a benevolent nation has tried to give them “gifts”, he wasn’t clear as to the exact nature of these “gifts”, but “the Arabs” won’t shut up and graciously accept so what is to be done? He very clearly tried to build up Iran as a threat and link Iran to Palestinians.

The kicker for me though was when he framed the illegal settlements in Hebron as something, which is widely accepted throughout the world, civil disobedience. The irony of a man with a gun on his hip, part of a community that routinely physically and verbally abuses their Palestinian neighbors and their children (Please check out the photos and videos at B’tslem, CPT and even the NYTimes for examples of this) calling their actions civil disobedience was hard to stomach.

I had a very visceral reaction to visiting the settlements; fear, for myself and Palestinians and outrage, the kind I always feel when people try to put a PR spin on injustice.

However, that is not enough analysis. I’m not writing this to tell you that the illegal settlers deep inside of the 1967 green line are a bit off-kilter. You know that already, or you should. It was the Palestinian counterpart to the tour, Issa, who helped put the settler phenomenon in context. He met us the end of Shuhada Street. As a Palestinian he was not allowed to walk any farther to meet our group.

So you just met with David Wilder? He asked after welcoming us.

Yeah we mumbled warily

Did he show you his gun? Issa continued.

Which is really the perfect question to highlight the hypocrisy of a man who plays himself off as just this regular Jersey guy who hopes for a good life for his family and justice for his people. And Wilder as you can see if you goggle him does indeed wear a gun or at least poses for pictures with one prominently displayed on his hip.

You know, Issa said at the end or our tour (and I’m not quoting directly but basing this on my notes) David Wilder talked a lot about the Massacre in 1929, right? It was a horrible thing that happened to those Jewish families he said. Did he talk about the 19 Palestinian families who took Jewish families into their homes to protect them. By some accounts over 400 Jews were sheltered by their Palestinian neighbors. My wife’s relatives were one of those families, that Palestinian family living in a cage up near Tel Rumeida, they were one of those families. We have more of a connection to the Jewish community in Hebron then David Wilder does as an American from New Jersey. Yet we live under terrible conditions and he moves freely with a gun on his hip.

All of this is very true of course but nothing revelatory. But what he said next helped to remind me of the larger perspective and get past my own disgust.

I don’t hold the settlers responsible for this he said. This is not the settler’s fault. This is the fault of the Israeli State, they use the settlers as a political tool. Most of the new settlers now he said, they’re no religious fanatics, they’re poor people from Russia and now even from India. They don’t know that they are going to end up in this situation.

And I think this is an incredibly important point to remember. The settlers may or may not be crazy. But they do not have control over the Israeli state. Israel removed 8,000 illegal settlers from Gaza in less then two weeks. If there are settlers in Hebron, in the West Bank they are there because they serve a political purpose for Israel domestically and internationally. They are there because Israel wants them there. If the Israeli state did not want them there, they would not be there. When we reduce any aspect of the occupation to the rational or irrational actions of individuals we over look the fact that they are operating as part of and often in service of a system.

Because They Can

Bethlehem Checkpoint (photo courtesy of Alessandra Gola)

For two days in a row I’ve had to make the trip from Bethlehem into Jerusalem. It shouldn’t be a big deal. Bethlehem and Jerusalem are, depending on your map and politics, between 6 and 15 kilometers away from each other. However, the prospect of a shared taxi to a Palestinian bus to the checkpoint to an Israeli bus all combined with traffic and witnessing everyday oppression is always a physically and emotionally exhausting headache. Of course it is a headache I am privileged to have as my Palestinian neighbors can only travel to Jerusalem with a special permit or by sneaking in.

A word about Palestinians sneaking into Israel. It’s easy, very easy for them to do it. Any argument Israel puts forward that its wall is about Israeli security is completely undermined by how easy it is for Palestinians to get into ’48 (Israel) surreptitiously. And I’m not talking about people who are willing to use any means necessary and want to blow themselves up. No sneaking under fences in the night here. I mean folks who are separated from their family in East Jerusalem and have no desire to die or spend years in prison going in through the checkpoints. My friends do this, it causes them and their family anxiety and concern but they want to see each other. If these otherwise law abiding, normal, cautious folks can get in so easily (but not without risk of prison or fines)… The security argument is bull. Like I and others have said before: it’s not about security it’s about occupation.

But back to the checkpoints. Even though it is time consuming for me as an international to travel between Israel and the West Bank, that is usually all it is time consuming. When I go through the Bethlehem checkpoint after walking through the metal detectors and turnstiles the solider sitting in the bulletproof booth, usually with his or her feet up on the desk, just waves me through without even looking at my passport photo. At the Gilo checkpoint I get off the bus like all the other Palestinians, we stand in line, their documents are collected for inspection. My passport is given a cursory glance and we get back on the bus.

Today, at the Gilo checkpoint, when they saw my passport I was instructed to step out of line. What now? I thought with a slight bit of trepidation. A female solider was called over, glanced at my United States passport, asked if I spoke English and then proceeded to tell me that this checkpoint was no longer open to foreigners. She was so sorry but I would have to go back to the Beit Lahem checkpoint if I wanted to get into Jerusalem. It took me awhile to realize that Beit Lahem meant Bethlehem but once I figured out what she was talking about it still didn’t make sense. Since when, I asked her. It’s a new thing she said but its been a long time coming. That’s interesting I said I traveled through here yesterday. Yeah it went into effect today she said it’s a military order. Can I see the order? I asked. She skirted around the request and kept apologizing. I kept asking to see the order. It was in impasse, Palestinians on the bus were waiting, held up by this power play. I asked her where exactly I was supposed to go seeing as we were standing in the middle of the highway, was I supposed to walk back to Bethlehem? Oh no she said, just go stand by that hill there (the intersection of the busy highway) a bus going back to Beit Lahem will pick you up…

I didn’t want to make the Palestinians on the bus wait any longer so I began hiking my way back to Bethlehem. Of course there was no bus, they don’t come through that often because not that mnay Palestinian’s have permission to go to Jerusalem. A kind Palestinian family saw me walking after 10 minutes and offered me a ride back to town. I tried in my incredibly inadequate Arabic to explain my frustration to them. They listened kindly, clearly didn’t understand either my broken explanation or why I was frustrated (Israeli soldiers making your life difficult, what’s new about that? I imagine they might have said if they were less polite) and offered to drive me to the other checkpoint.

At this point although something seemed fishy, especially the part where they wouldn’t show me the military order, I thought that perhaps this was at least temporarily a real thing. The Israeli military does have a history of enacting orders which don’t stand up in Israeli courts of law which after they become public are quietly brushed under the carpet (see the incident of fining Palestinian farmers for inviting internationals to help them harvest their olives). I wondered if this meant there would be additional security at the Bethlehem container checkpoint, questions about why I was in the West Bank for instance.

This was not the case. I got to the checkpoint and wound my way though the caged maze and turnstiles to find the place empty. It was the middle of the day. The busy hours are in the morning and late afternoon when the lucky few with work permits wait in long crowded lines.

I wandered around awhile trying to find which lane was open. They all seemed closed. Another part of the “make life difficult” aspect of the occupation. How hard would it be in a multimillion dollar facility with state of the art “security” equipment to have a sign that says “open’ or ‘closed’ in front of the processing lanes? A Palestinian woman and I joined forces and eventually a solider opened up one of the lanes and I was waved through without much more then a glance at my passport.

When I mentioned this at my meeting, to which I was late, with Gershon Baskin director of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI) he was incredulous and managed to immediately confirm with someone very high up the military checkpoint chain that there was no such official order. I was very much within my legal rights to freely use either checkpoint.

So why was I turned away? Both my and Gershon’s guess is it was because I was traveling on a bus with Palestinians. And officially and unofficially Israel as a state and many Israelis want to dissuade internationals from visiting Palestine and Palestinians. And I’d add to that; because they can. Because when you create a racist, apartheid state what you create are many citizens who internalize those same traits. And then you give them a gun and a boring job. It is not surprising that they don’t strictly adhere to all the sanctioned forms of oppression but invent new ones of their own.


Bored with Guns

UPDATE 12/7/09; It's an actual operational order. I tried to go through the checkpoint again, they wouldn't let me. Would not show me the order. Soldiers tried to refuse to give me their identification information, which they are required to give by law. Threatened to arrest me if I tried to get on the bus. Gershon, from IPCRI drove down and talked with them/called lots of higher ups. Its a real thing. At the discretion on the area commander, or however the military chain of command goes, he/she can prevent foreigners from traveling through the checkpoint if they are in a car or bus with Palestinians coming from Bethlehem area. If I was in an Israeli bus or in an Israeli plated car coming from the direction of the illegal settlements I would be allowed through. Operational orders are supposed to be used in emergency situations. Evidently foreigners with Palestinians is an emergency for the Israeli military/state.

Any Given Friday

This article was originally published in the Electronic Intifada at http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10920.shtml on November 30th



Today we were clearing land in the Palestinian village of Um Salomona and it is a beautiful crisp, clear fall day. Um Salomona is located in the occupied West Bank's Bethlehem District and is one of nine villages, with a combined total of 9,000 residents, that borders the illegal Israeli settlement of Efrat. More accurately, Efrat borders the nine Palestinian villages, seeing as they outdate the illegal settlement by hundreds of years. Efrat is the largest part of the Gush Etzion settlement bloc and is the fourth-largest settlement in the occupied West Bank with some 9,000 Israeli settlers. Israel plans for its wall in the West Bank to tuck Efrat comfortably into Israel. A road for settlers which Palestinians are only allowed to use during daylight hours has already been built and cuts Palestinian residents off from their farmland.

Recently, after years of land appropriation and harassing Palestinian villagers, Efrat's residents have decided that they want to acquire more of Um Salomona's farmland separated from the village by the main road for a cemetery. Raed, a resident of the village, owns the land targeted by the settlers. He knows all too well that without strong action (and quite possibly, even with strong action) it is likely that his land -- like thousands of other acres of Palestinian land in the West Bank -- will be seized by the settlement.

So we as international volunteers have responded to his call and the call of the local Popular Committee to work the farmland. We provide a daily reminder that this land, like all the land in historic Palestine, is not, as the colonial Israeli narrative would have us believe, "without a people." Although our agricultural skills offer little help to this community of farmers, we bring a physical presence, foreign passports and cameras. It is a small degree of witness to curb Israel's policy of violence to dissuade Palestinians from accessing their land.

Still, the Israeli military comes every day. The green military jeep pulled up literally seconds after our taxi of internationals arrived. They were clearly watching us -- a task they perform very well. The soldiers watched us from the side of the road. They summoned Raed and asked him the same questions they ask him every day. Then they walked up to our small group and asked the usual questions: "Where are you from?" "Why are you here?" "How long are you staying here in Israel?" Notice the colonialist language of "here in Israel" -- when we are well within the West Bank, considered occupied territory by the international community and international law.

They didn't like it when I responded that I was "helping my friends clear their land." The solider asked incredulously, "They are all your friends?" It is clearly unimaginable that I, a young white American woman, could be friends with Raed's extended family of one grandfather, three middle-aged men and four boys who were with us that day. They left after ordering us not to burn anything, which makes our task more difficult since controlled burning is an essential part of clearing brush. The jeep returned later and the soldiers watched us again. On the spectrum of responses by the Israeli military, their actions were benign that day.

After a morning of work we headed over to the village next door, al-Masara, for their weekly nonviolent protest against Israel's wall. Since 2006, village residents accompanied by Israeli and international solidarity activists have been walking the few kilometers from their village to the main road where they are met with a line of Israeli soldiers and barbed wire. The Israelis claim that this show of force is needed to protect Efrat's 9,000 settlers living in open violation of international law. In reality it is the typical disproportionate Israeli military response to nonviolent Palestinian actions that is essential to perpetuating the occupation.

Soldiers and villagers alike know their role in the demonstrations well and the illusion of equality that this perpetuates is disturbing. There is no equality when only one side is holding the guns. The children of the village are able to take the most active role in the protest, mildly shielded from violence or arrest until they are a bit older. However, this is also dangerous as Israeli soldiers have shot and killed or wounded Palestinian youths under the age of 14 at similar demonstrations against the wall in other villages. Yet with children under the age of 18 currently in Israeli administrative detention, it's clear childhood is no real protection.

On this day, the kids used thick plastic cords to pull on the barbed wire blockade. In response, the Israeli soldiers cut their cords with small, colorful scissors. After an hour or so of speeches against the occupation, chanting and drumming, the protest was called to a close. The young Palestinian men who had been keeping an eye on the children hustled them away from the barbed wire. This day, the children had the freedom to protest in this small way. When they get older the very same behavior will likely get them beaten and arrested.

We headed back to al-Masara and the soldiers headed back to their jeeps. In a couple of hours the barbed wire will be removed from the road -- but the occupation will continue, as will the construction of the wall. Palestinian land will continue to be appropriated for the illegal expansion of settlements, and Palestinians will continue to resist through protest in the streets and on their land -- on any given Friday in Palestine on any given day of their lives.