Standing Witness

More on the New Checkpoints

2006-01-21T23:57:00.000+02:00

It's not all in the details
By Amira Hass

Each detail described here, every shred of reality, is liable to be
considered as a whole, which would dim its severity. Detail:
hundreds of people gather each morning at three narrow steel
revolving doors, and the gates do not turn because some unseen
person has blocked them by pushing a button. The number of people
crammed behind them grows and grows, and they wait for an hour, and
the anger at another day being late for work or for school is piled
on top of previous residual tensions brought on by anger, bitterness
and helplessness.

However, it is not the crowdedness and waiting and anger that define
the checkpoints and roadblocks, or in this specific instance, the
new Qalandiyah checkpoint. Nor is it the crowdedness and compressed
atmosphere of the rest of the inspection route, before the
magnometers and the closed rooms in which the soldiers sit and
inspect documents, or the other revolving doors. Or even the
other "details": the cameras that make the soldiers and commanders
seeing and unseen, the snarling voice in the speaker that issues
commands in Hebrew, the terrifying concrete wall above and around,
and the devastation left by Israeli bulldozers and planners outside
the cage that Israel calls a "border terminal," in what was once,
and no longer is, a continuous stretch of residential neighborhoods,
soft hillsides and the Jerusalem-Ramallah road.

Nor are the 11 "detainees" at the inspection route's exit an
adequate detail: nine teenage boys aged 18 and under, one adult, and
a 23-year-old university student, all of whom committed a serious
crime on Monday: After waiting in vain for the steel gates to turn,
which would lead them to the inspection route, on their way to
classes and work, they decided to jump over the fence - one hoping
to get to an English test on time, the other fearful of being fired
if he again arrived late to the printing press where he works. But
they were caught. The student was handcuffed from behind, and was
sat down next to a guard booth in the closed military compound. The
other ten were placed outside the compound, in the mud that became
thicker with every drop of rain. And the soldiers demanded that they
sit down. They could not sit, because of the mud, and only went into
a kneeling position. After half an hour, the bent knees begin to
hurt more and more, and the pants are soaked with water and grow
tight over the knee. The hands turn cold, but the soldiers don't
change their tune: "Sit, I told you. Sit."

But the cold and the rain are not the story, nor is the soldier
eating his combat rations and watching the detainees apathetically,
nor the telephone calls by this writer until after two hours they
are permitted, how compassionately, to stand up, nor their release -
including that of one individual whose frozen hands are imprinted by
deep red cracks from the handcuffs, nor the fact that the 14-year-
old in the group had to wait another 20 minutes after his release
until the soldier who took his birth certificate (after all, he does
not yet have an identity card) could be found. The question of
whether the detention would have continued longer had the writer not
been present is also marginal.

Also of secondary importance is the decision to open
the "humanitarian gate" (which is intended for the passage of those
in wheelchairs, parents with baby strollers, and Palestinian
cleaning workers employed by a contracting firm), in the morning to
women and men above the age of 60. Another detail that in itself
diverts one's attention from what is important.

What is important is that the army and the Israeli citizens who
design all of the details of dispossession - and the roadblocks are
an inseparable part of this dispossession - have transformed the
term "humanitarian" into a despicable lie.

Through the checkpoints, road closures, movement ban, and traffic
restrictions, through the concrete walls and barbed wire fences,
through the land expropriations (solely for the purpose of security,
as the High Court of Justice, which is part and parcel of the
Israeli people, likes to believe), through the disconnecting of
villages from their lands and from a connecting road, through the
construction of a wall in a residential neighborhood and in the
backyards of homes, and through the transformation of the West Bank
into a cluster of "territorial cells," in the military jargon,
between the expanding settlements - we Israelis have created and
continue to create an economic, social, emotional, employment and
environmental crisis on the scale of a never-ending tsunami.

And then we offer a little turnstile in a cage, an officer who is
briefed to see an old man, a bathroom and a water cooler - and this
is described as "humanitarian." In other words, we push an entire
people into impossible situations, blatantly inhumane situations, in
order to steal its land and time and future and freedom of choice,
and then the plantation owner appears and relaxes the iron fist a
bit, and is proud of his sense of compassion.

However, even the important matter - that is, the humanitarian
deception - is only one detail in a full set of details in which no
single detail is representative in itself. Isolated fragments of the
reality are read as being tolerable, or understandable (security,
security), or may make one angry for a moment and then subside. And
among all the details, the reality of colonialism intensifies,
without letup or remission, inventing yet more methods of torture of
the individual and community; creating more ways to violate
international law, robbing land behind the legal camouflage, and
encouraging collaboration out of agreement, neglect or torpor.

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/663138.html

New Beit Lehem Checkpoint

2006-01-21T21:58:00.000+02:00

New Years Eve I traveled from Beit Lehem back to Ramallah. I finally took some pictures at the new Beit Lehem checkpoint, so you can all see how awful these new border crossing terminals are. I was the last person to leave of the international conference staff, so I hit the checkpoint by myself. I got there around 10am, which is apparently a quiet time because I was the only person there. I took pictures of some of the signs around the checkpoint; my favorite is the one advertising for the Israeli Ministy of Tourism and is pasted ONTO the Wall. I also got a couple of good pictures of the turnstiles that people have to go through.

When I got to the turnstile, there wasn’t anyone in sight. No soldiers to be seen, no voices, nothing. And, of course, the turnstile is electronic and locked so that I can’t go through. These new terminals are creepy because the soldiers are completely kept behind bullet proof plastic – so you have no actual contact with them – but there are surveillance cameras everywhere. I knew that they could see me, even though as far as I could tell I was alone. So, I did what any American would do. I started yelling “Hello” at the top of my lungs after about 2 minutes of waiting patiently (and taking more pictures). When that didn’t get a response I tried “Shalom” (Hebrew) and finally, just for fun, “Marhaba” (Arabic).

Eventually an unseen finger pushed a button and the light above the turnstile changed from red to green, so I was allowed to pass through to the next section of the checkpoint. Next, I had to put my bags through an x-ray machine and walk through a metal detector. Only, the little conveyor belt on the x-ray machine wasn’t on. Now, I could see the soldier, sitting in her little plastic cubicle, ignoring me. So, I decided to walk through the metal detector with my bag. The soldier didn’t like that, so she told me to go back in Hebrew – I waited until she said it in English – then she turned on the conveyor belt. So, I put my bag through the x-ray machine and walked through the metal detector again.

As I was pulling my bag off the machine, I noticed a second plastic soldier cubicle. In this one, the only thing that you could see was feet in the window because the soldier was sleeping while on duty and using his desk as a footrest. I took a picture of him.

Needless to say, that didn’t go over well. There was a second set of turnstiles that I needed to go though, and the female soldier locked both of them and started yelling at me that pictures aren’t allowed. I thought that was interesting because she had been watching me take pictures on her surveillance camera since I entered the facility. So, I’m not supposed to take pictures of sleeping soldiers, I guess. Now she was pissed at me, so I had to wait almost ten minutes for her to unlock the turnstile.

After that turnstile, I finally got the area where they inspect your passport and visa. Again, there was total silence and no one around. I was seriously considering just jumping the barrier when I realized that there was a soldier slumped down in one of the booths, asleep. I was debating how I wanted to wake her up – the thought of landing in an Israeli jail the day before I was supposed to leave wasn’t really that appealing, so I opted against hopping the barrier – when the mean soldier from the previous section walked though and banged on the plastic separating me from the sleeping the soldier.

She sat up, rubbed her eyes, then waved me through after giving my passport a cursory glance.

This is security?

Once through the checkpoint I caught a bus to Jerusalem and said goodbye to city. Then I headed to the new Kalandia checkpoint, which is exactly the same as the Beit Lehem checkpoint except that it was crowded so it took forever to get through the damn turnstiles.

Then I went back to Ramallah. I had just enough time to pack up the rest of my stuff and finish my errands before it was time to celebrate New Years Eve.

Celebrating Nonviolent Resistance

2006-01-21T21:57:00.000+02:00

I wanted to write about the Celebrating Nonviolence Resistance conference in Beit Lehem – but all I can remember of it clearly is a chaotic endless blur of running, a freezing cold building, three days of working from 7 -11 and then drinking beer before turning around and doing the same thing again. It was good.

I think, overall, the conference was a success, although we definitely a few less than graceful moments that could have been avoided with better planning and a little foresight. I ended up working really hard – I was running the schedule and schedule updates for 300+ people by de facto . . . I was also creating/ running the film festival and then working as everyone else’s personal slave. I also became the coordinator between HLT and Abuna Marwan (Father Marwan) who was in charge of the facility we used for the conference. It paid off though, both literally and figuratively. Holy Land Trust decided that I did such a great job as a volunteer that they are going to pay me for my time – WOOHOO – and I was encouraged to apply for a paid internship when I get back to DC by the VP of the NGO. All in all, I think the slave labor paid off.

We had a good turnout for the conference, between 350-400 people, about half of the participants were internationals and about half were Palestinians. I managed to convince the ISM kids to come, even though there is bad blood between HLT and ISM (someone said something ages ago and no one can remember who said it or what it was but now they don’t get along), and I helped get two of them time on panel discussions, in order to inject the ISM experience into the dialogue of nonviolence resistance at the conference. After all, ISM utilized nonviolence in Palestine on a daily basis, and is arguably one of the best known movements in Palestine. It just didn’t make sense to have the conference without them.

We also had some big names: Gene Sharp (the academic heavyweight on Nonviolence), Bernard Lafayette Jr., Mary King, Cindy Corrie (Rachel’s mom), and Mubarak Awad. I didn’t get to participate in most of the conference activities because I was working, but I did manage to sit in on part of Gene Sharp’s workshop and all of the Corrie discussion. On the last day of the conference the participants marched from the conference hall to the main checkpoint in Beit Lehem and managed to march into the checkpoint without being stopped by soldiers. The next day, ISM managed to march completely through the checkpoint in Nablus. Funny, I don’t think any of this made the news.

High points

Satisfaction of a job well done, and getting paid for my efforts
Internship offer
Meeting Rachel Corrie’s parents
experience in planning/holding an international conference (now I know why everyone groans at the thought)
They used some of my photos of olive trees as the background for the program/ info booklet and all of the big banners and displays.
I know have the contact info of people in Gaza who can help me get inside the next time I am in Palestine
My Arabic was actually very useful on several occasions

Low Points

When the woman from the American Friends Committee screamed at me (so much for nonviolence) because her movie wasn’t on the film festival list).
When Michael Beer blamed me for a mistake that he made to the VP of the company that later told me to apply for an internship.
The building was so cold that by the last day my feet were swelling (lupus) and I couldn’t go on the march to the checkpoint
There were a lot of speakers that I wanted to see but couldn’t.
When I was told to stop speaking Arabic because it is easier for everyone if I stick to English. That really hurt my feelings. (it is frustrating because one minute I’m complimented on my Arabic, and the next insulted.)
I’m glad I was there, but I would have liked to spend my last couple days in Palestine traveling, and not working my butt off.

Honestly, I’m relieved the conference went as well as it did – I was envisioning total disaster (as was at least one employee at NI). It also makes me feel better about the status of my thesis – a positive professional experience was in order after all of my difficulties with Palestinian academics.

Some asked me recently

2006-01-03T22:20:00.000+02:00

where my favorite place in all of Palestine was. I've seen some heartwrenching landscapes and met amazing people, but this is my answer.
jersualem sunday
by Suhair Hammad

jeru
salem
sun
day

three muezzins call idan
where one’s allah begins another’s
akbar ends inviting the last
to witness mohammad’s prophecies

church bells ring the sky
an ocean shade of blue above
christ’s tomb and the stones
of this city witness man’s weakness

boys run by the torah
strapped to their third eye
ready to rock their prayers

the roofs of this city busy as the streets
the gods of this city crowded and proud

two blind and graying
arab men lead each other through
the old city surer of step than sight

tourists pick olives from the cracks
in the faces of young and graying
women selling mint onions and this
year’s oil slick on the ground

this city is wind
breathe it
sharp
this history is blood
swallow it
warm
this sunday is holy
be it
god

Christmas in Hebron

2006-01-03T22:07:00.000+02:00

On Christmas Day, we decided to go to Hebron. We were all eyeing the weather cautiously – none of us wanted another experience like the day before – but we decided to risk it. I had already visited Khalil (Hebron) once before, but I wanted to try and replace some of my pictures from that area (lost them when my computer got stolen). We took a service from Beit Sahour to Khadar and from there we picked up a second service to Khalil. This was my first time in Khadar, although I had heard of it before. It is the equivalent of a service bus station in the West Bank. By the time we reached Khadar it was pouring down rain again, and we trudged through the mud and between dripped vegetable stands to find our service to Khalil.

Now, I’ve been to Khalil before, but I wasn’t exactly sure how to get to the old city. As one does in these situations, I asked. The man who answered insisted that we visit his home, have tea with him and his family, and then he would show us how to get to the Hiram Ibrahimi. He also paid for our service ride (for all 5 of us). In order to get into his neighborhood the service had to drive on the sidewalk, just barely squeezing between a wall and the cement blocks that the Israeli Army out put in the street to stop cars. His house looked like it was falling apart from the outside, but was actually very nice on the inside (although cold). We had tea with him, his mother, and his five month old daughter named Noor (light). From his sitting room window we could seem the mosque and a big part of the old city of Hebron. Inside the sitting room, he showed us where stray? bullets had come through the window and chipped the marble stonework, the walls, and furniture. I guess that is the price you pay for a view of the old city in Khalil. He insisted that we have tea, then coffee before we left. While he was out of the room, I spoke with his mother about life in Khalil . . . she said it was hard to stay, partially because there weren’t any jobs. Her son, the man who paid for our service fare, has been out of work for months.

After thanking the family profusely, we left, heading for the Hiram Ibrahimi. We went the wrong way, and ended up walking towards a checkpoint with very unfriendly soldiers. As soon as they saw us walking from the Arab neighborhood they had their guns cocked and aimed us, and were screaming at us to stop. Sadly, after 4 months in the West Bank, having a gun pointed at me didn’t really faze me. After a few minutes of yelling that we were Americans the soldiers let us approach. They examined our passports and wanted to know how we had gotten into the Arab neighborhood. We lied and said that we had gotten lost. The soldier replied that we were lucky we didn’t get killed in there. The Arabs gave us tea and coffee, the soldiers pointed guns and screamed at us – yet we should be afraid of the Arabs?

They let us through without too much trouble and we walked towards the mosque. Unfortunately, we arrived at the mosque during prayer time and we weren’t allowed to enter. The guys went over to the Jewish side of the mosque, but I didn’t. I had been once before, and the last time I had to lie and say I wasn’t Muslim to get in. While I’m certainly not a practicing Muslim, I don’t like being forced to lie about my religious heritage either . . . So I went to an Arab gift shop (the only one still open) next to the mosque and waited for them. The men in the shop were very hospitable. They insisted I sit by the heater and gave me a cup of tea. I talked with them about the situation in Khalil while they were painting new pieces of pottery to be sold. I decided to buy a gift for my father from them. The least I could do is spend a little money for their kindness, plus my father can’t visit the Hiram because of his citizenship, so I thought he might like a present from there.

After I met up with the guys we went into the Muslim side of the mosque, and then walked through the old city. Everything was closed because of the weather, but at least they got to see the fencing above the souq to keep the trash from the settlers from hitting the Palestinian storekeepers. Some Palestinian kids took us up a treacherous stairway to their rooftops. From there we could see the settlements, soldiers in a stand less that 50 ft away (also on a roof), and the mosque. It would have been a fantastic spot for pictures if it hadn’t been pouring down rain. And, to be honest, I was a little nervous about taking pictures of soldiers in their little hut on a rooftop in Khalil. They probably wouldn’t do anything, but I didn’t want to find out . . .

I’m still amazed that I managed to climb down that slick staircase without falling and breaking something, but everything went well. We left the old city and caught a taxi back to Beit Sahour.

Later that night, I met up with some of the staff from Nonviolence International who had arrived in Bethlehem the day before in preparation for our conference: Celebrating Nonviolent Resistance. I’ve been working with Holy Land Trust for the last couple months, but I worked with Nonviolence International before I came to Palestine, so I’ve been working on this conference for a while. I was particularly excited because my friend Sean who is in my MA program was also in town. So, I had a chicken sandwich for Christmas dinner and caught with the NI folks for a while.

Christmas this year was certainly different from any previous year. It was the first time I’ve spend the holidays away from my family. It was also the first time that I didn’t spend December 25 opening presents, giving presents, cooking, eating and laying on the couch after eating too much food. This Christmas I was cold and wet and I spend the holiday showing other foreigners some of the realities of Israeli Occupation in Palestine. I feel good about that.

Come All Ye Faithful

2006-01-03T21:57:00.000+02:00

On Dec 23 my friend Ben, and three of his friends, traveled from Beirut to Ramallah. They got held up at the bridge for 6 hours, and were only given 7 day visas, but they made it eventually. On Christmas Eve we traveled to Beit Lehem – after all, where else would you spend Christmas Eve in Palestine? We stayed at the Arab Women’s Union Hostel in Beit Sahour, which is a great, cheap place to stay as long as you aren’t too picky about hot water. We walked from Beit Sahour to Manger Square in the early afternoon; at that point it was still sunny, although cold. We caught the end of the parade, which consisted of boy and girl scouts and a marching band. Unfortunately, you had to reserve tickets in advance to attend the midnight mass in the Church of the Nativity (they are free), and we didn’t realize that we needed reservations in time to get them. Our plan was to hang out in Manger Sq., enjoy the festivities and try to sneak into the church around midnight.

It was a good plan, until the weather changed. Freezing rain does not really promote standing outdoors for 8 hours. So, we alternated between sitting in coffee shops to thaw/dry out and hanging out in the Peace Center which is where the performances had been moved because of the weather. The Peace Center was also freezing, but it was dry, so we were all happy to settle down in there . . . until we realized that the Peace Center was only allowing internationals and VIP Palestinians inside to take shelter from the cold and wet.

(As an aside, I’m writing this in Amman, and I’m listening to the WORST call to prayer I’ve ever heard. Ever.)

Of course, I felt horrible about staying inside the Peace Center after that, so I went outside again. Around 8pm we decided to attempt to get into the church. We snuck around the side of the church and made it to the door of the church just before the security guards blocked that entrance. I was standing in line, in the rain, ticketless and with no idea if they would let me in. While I was waiting the people around me were pushing and shoving, swearing, calling the priests names for making them wait outside . . . I left. I’m not a religious person at all, but the idea of spending Christmas Eve with people who were acting that way on the doorstep of the Church of the Nativity made me sick. If I had stayed, I would have gotten in – or at least I assume so because my friend Anselm made it in.

Also, after my experience at the Peace Center, I noticed that most of the people waiting with tickets to the midnight mass were internationals. Again, Palestinians were not allowed to participate unless they were VIPs. So, I went and got a cup of chicken soup and a beer, and then we decided that after all that time in the rain we could at least try to get into the church, even if we weren’t in the mass. Luckily, they let us in just before midnight, so I hung out with my friends and a bunch of Palestinians in the main hall of the Church of the Nativity. We found a place were we could head part of the mass, and I was surprised to find that it was Arabic. I guess I thought that it would be in Arabic. Then we went down to the place where Jesus was born . . . After that we called it a night.

Calm before the Storm

2005-12-23T14:47:00.000+02:00

Things have been quiet this week. I finished my classes and I've moved to Ramallah, which is so much better than living in Birzeit. Right now I'm waiting for some friends who are studying in Beirut to arrive in the West Bank, then tomorrow we will all head to Bethlehem for Christmas. Unfortunately, I did not realize that you have to arrange for tickets to the midnight mass at the Church of the Nativity in advance, but we will spend Christmas Eve in Manger Square if we can't actually get into the church . . . I do, however, hope that it stops raining before then.

I'm a little concerned about traveling to Bethlehem tomorrow because they have opened the new checkpoint at Kalandia, and Bethlehem, which will probably add an hour each to the travel time. Also, I will be traveling with a big bag because I will be staying in Bethlehem for the conference, which means I'll probably have to unpack it twice -- hopefully not in the rain.

Things are going to get pretty hectic in the next couple days, so I am trying to enjoy my down time while I can. I'm not sure if I will be able to post from Bethlehem, so if not, happy holidays to everyone.

Peace,
Sahar

Pilgrimage to 48 Land

2005-12-21T11:18:00.000+02:00

On Monday last week, I traveled for the first time inside Israel (not including Jerusalem). I took a train all the way to the north of Israel, literally to the border between Israel and Lebanon. It’s not that I’ve been boycotting Israel exactly, I just felt that there was so much to see and do in the West Bank, that I could explore Israel next time . . .

The reason that I traveled all the way to Lebanon, practically, was to visit a village called Al-Bassa. Well, it used to be a village. It is in 1948 land, which means before 1948 Palestinians lived there, and after 1948 Israelis live there . . . I went to Al-Bassa, now called Scholomo, because a friend of mine from Syracuse is originally from the village, and he asked me to bring him back some soil, if I had time. Of course, I made time . . .

By the time I arrived in Al-Bassa it was already dark, but having been to southern Lebanon and from the train ride I can image how beautiful the area must be in daylight. My friend Bob accompanied me on the trip, so once we got to the closest train station to the area, we hailed a taxi and asked the driver if he had heard of Al-Bassa. He hadn’t, but he made some phone calls and drove around for a while until we finally found the right place.

It was obvious from the buildings around Al-Bassa that the area was very old, and we found the remains of both a church and a mosque, so apparently the Palestinian residents of Al-Bassa were both Christian and Muslim. Bob and I climbed down to the remains of the mosque, and I filled up my little plastic baggee with as much soil as it would hold.

The moment while I was scooping the soil with my hands and placing it in the bag was particularly poignant for me . . . I’m not Palestinian, but the thought of asking someone to perform this sort of pilgrimage, or ritual, for the sake of your family, your children and future generations touched something very deep in me. Sadly, this sort of trip is not unusual. There are many Palestinian families both in the West Bank and in the diaspora who have little containers of soil, old keys and ownership documention to houses that are inside Israel; and endless stories about their land, lives and homes before 1948.

A Little Christmas Cheer

2005-12-18T18:43:00.000+02:00

THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS (Occupation style)

On the first day of Christmas, Arik Sharon sent to me
An uprooted olive tree!

On the second day of Christmas, Arik Sharon sent to me
Two trampled doves
And an uprooted olive tree!

On the third day of Christmas, Arik Sharon sent to me
Three trench guns,
Two trampled doves,
And an uprooted olive tree!

On the fourth day of Christmas, Arik Sharon sent to me
Four falling bombs,
Three trench guns,
Two trampled doves,
And an uprooted olive tree!

On the fifth day of Christmas, Arik Sharon sent to me
Five settlement rings.
Four falling bombs,
Three trench guns,
Two trampled doves,
And an uprooted olive tree!

On the sixth day of Christmas, Arik Sharon sent to me
Six tanks a-rolling,
Five settlement rings.
Four falling bombs,
Three trench guns,
Two trampled doves,
And an uprooted olive tree!

On the seventh day of Christmas, Arik Sharon sent to me
Seven checkpoints blocking,
Six tanks a-rolling,
Five settlement rings.
Four falling bombs,
Three trench guns,
Two trampled doves,
And an uprooted olive tree!

On the eighth day of Christmas, Arik Sharon sent to me
Eight gun ships firing,
Seven checkpoints blocking,
Six tanks a-rolling,
Five settlement rings.
Four falling bombs,
Three trench guns,
Two trampled doves,
And an uprooted olive tree!

On the ninth day of Christmas, Arik Sharon sent to me
Nine smashed computers,
Eight gun ships firing,
Seven checkpoints blocking,
Six tanks a-rolling,
Five settlement rings.
Four falling bombs,
Three trench guns,
Two trampled doves,
And an uprooted olive tree!

On the tenth day of Christmas, Arik Sharon sent to me
Ten WALLS a surrounding,
Nine smashed computers,
Eight gun ships firing,
Seven checkpoints blocking,
Six tanks a-rolling,
Five settlement rings,
Four falling bombs,
Three trench guns,
Two trampled doves,
And an uprooted olive tree.

On the eleventh day of Christmas, Arik Sharon sent to me
Eleven homes demolished,
Ten WALLS a surrounding,
Nine smashed computers,
Eight gun ships firing,
Seven checkpoints blocking,
Six tanks a-rolling,
Five settlement rings.
Four falling bombs,
Three trench guns,
Two trampled doves,
And an uprooted olive tree!

On the twelfth day of Christmas, Arik Sharon sent to me
Twelve assassinations,
Eleven homes demolished,
Ten WALLS a surrounding,
Nine smashed computers,
Eight gun ships firing,
Seven checkpoints blocking,
Six tanks a-rolling,
Five settlement rings.
Four falling bombs,
Three trench guns,
Two trampled doves,
And an uprooted olive tree!

**I did not write this and can't take credit for it, this came from a forward from a friend

Arrests and Soldiers

2005-12-15T19:50:00.000+02:00

Feeling very overloaded today. After the protest yesterday, teargas, rubberbullets and all – I went to Jenin today. We just managed to slip out on a backroad as the tanks rolled into the main entrance of the city. Then, I found out that my friend, Omar, was arrested by the Israelis. Twenty years old, he had just found out that he won a scholarship to South America to go on a speaking tour for his church. He’s not at all religious, but he is very smart, and any way out is a way out . . . He was arrested because he is active in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Apparently the Israelis wanted him because he had been hanging posters for his organization and spray painting (in Ramallah and Birzeit). He won’t be going anywhere now. They grabbed him out of car traveling between Ramallah and Birzeit after a celebration for PFLP (this week is their anniversary week), in the afternoon. Two of his friends were arrested with him, and two had been arrested the day before. He was expecting it . . .This is the same kid that I wrote about before – the one who said that each Palestinian life is only worth about 1 shekel, the price of a bullet.

We don’t know what will happen, but he will probably be held in detention for a couple months, then get a year or two in jail. For hanging posters. I’ve had several discussions with Omar about socialist political theory and the role of the international community in the conflict here. He reminds me a lot of Abdulla – but I guess I see my little brothers in most of the young men that I meet here . . . At one point he told me (after I had cornered him a discussion) that I was smart and cute . . . never mind that I’m 6 years older than him . . .

I feel sick to my stomach right now thinking of him in the interrogation cells of an Israeli prison. Especially considering that there was a suicide bombing this week and a soldier killed at Kalandia two days ago. . . not a good time to be in an Israeli jail. I don’t know what to think about any of this anymore. I’m glad that I will be going home soon – I’m beginning to lose my focus.

After I wrote this entry, I decided to go bed because my head was pounding so badly . . . I’d been in bed for about 15 minutes when I started hearing shooting, very very close. My street is a steep hill that leads down into a valley of olive groves, and the shooting was coming from there. It didn’t sound like the usual rifle shots, either – this sounded like heavier artillery (although I’m no expert). M and I got out of bed and were trying to watch out of her bedroom window (which faces the valley). She saw Israeli soldiers before I got there. We waited a while, then got back into bed. A couple minutes later I heard footsteps running on the street directly outside my window, and a shot that was so close I rolled out of my bed and laid on the floor with my head down until I was sure the footsteps had passed.

Jenin, Jenin

2005-12-09T19:46:00.000+02:00

On Saturday I traveled to Jenin with R and D because I wanted to see explore the north parts of the West Bank, and because I wanted to visit the refugee camp in Jenin that is famous for the house demolitions and massacre that happened there in 2002. We knew that traveling to the north would be difficult, so we all met in Ramallah at 8am. Jenin is only about 1.5 to 2 hours north, but depending on checkpoints, it can take a very long to get there, and an even longer time to get home (as I found out).

I bumped into Tamer, a guy from Birzeit who studies at the Arab-American University in Jenin while I was waiting for R and D – talk about good luck – so we all traveled north together. This was great because Tamer new a taxi driver from the area, and we all got a good deal. It was interesting, because I learned that currently, Palestinians are only allowed to travel in the immediate vicinity of their IDs meaning that Tamer isn’t allowed to cross checkpoints heading to his university because his ID is from the Ramallah area. This meant we had to circumvent as many checkpoints as possible, and cross our fingers at the rest of them. Luckily, I thought to keep track of the checkpoints and military presence that we saw on our drive, and I even wrote down the exact times. Check this out:

9:10 – We passed through the permanent Atara checkpoint, just north of Birzeit.

9:20 – Flying checkpoint at the village of Turumus Aye. We literally turned right onto a path, drove around the checkpoint, and got back onto the main road. Most of the traffic was doing the same thing, and the Israeli soldiers watched us do it. So much for security.

9:27 – We passed through a permanent checkpoint at a roundabout (near a settlement). The didn’t even check our IDs

9:37 – Flying checkpoint in the village of Jeet

9:45 – Flying checkpoint at Deir Sharaf. Again, they didn’t check our IDs. After this checkpoint we left the main road and started driving down dirt paths and tiny villages to avoid more checkpoints.

10:15 – Kabati checkpoint

At this point we stopped at the Arab American University and Tamer gave us a tour of the campus. Then the driver took us to the refugee camp. We passed army jeeps on the side of the road on the way into Jenin, but they hadn’t set up a checkpoint yet, if that was their plan.

The refugee camp was very similar to the other camps that I’ve seen. Lots of houses stacked together in very close quarters, but there were a couple of unique elements. First, there is a huge statue in the center of the camp. It is a horse made out of scrap metal from all the cars and buildings that were destroyed by Israeli tanks during 2002. It is interesting because you can see license plates, shop names, and even an ambulance sign incorporated into the structure. Also, someone has been going around the camp and painting the walls with beautiful murals of nature scenes. Many of the scenes depict a crumbling wall with trees and flowers growing though the cracks. One of the murals was of an older woman wearing traditional Palestinian dress grasping the key to her family’s home in a fist held above her head, with blood dripping from her clenched palm onto the ground. I asked a local shop owner who the artist was, and he said he wasn’t sure, but that is was someone from the camp.

We also visited the area where the homes were demolished in 2002. No one is clear on how many people died – between 50 and 100 – a whole area of the camp was bulldozed (sometimes with people still inside the homes) and Jenin was under siege for several weeks overall. NGOs have donated money for the families to rebuild their homes, so the area has houses again, not just rubble. Interestingly, the shiny new homes are only marred by one thing – bullet holes. Throughout the camp you can see evidence of the IDF through bullet holes and broken windows. The new homes are no exception.

We walked from the camp to the city (not very far) and ate lunch at a little restaurant whose walls were covered with political posters, cartoons, and commentary. The chicken sandwiches were awesome, as was the cappuccino. We walked around the town, took some pictures, and I bought Meshari’s Christmas present while we were there. I asked the store owner to pack Meshari’s gift carefully because I was traveling back to Ramallah that afternoon. He paused, and said, “You can’t go to Ramallah today – the soldiers are closing the roads south right now. They are here in the city already.”

Oh shit.

R, D and I raced to the taxi stand to find that the store owner was right – the roads were closed. Now, I like to think of myself as a fairly average person in the bravery department – and I had absolutely no interest in staying overnight in Jenin. I’ve heard enough about what happens in Jenin when the soldiers come in that I knew I didn’t want to be there. So, after some panicked discussion, R, D and I decided we’d rather take our chances in Nablus than Jenin, so we got into a service headed that way (still south, closer to home). Suddenly a man starts calling for Ramallah – I guess one crazy driver decided to try to make it to Ramallah despite the closures. We hopped out of the Nablus service, and into the ancient station wagon that would navigate me safely down deer paths and up mountains in ways that I didn’t think SUVs could handle.

Our driver was a young guy from a village north of Nablus. He didn’t say much, but he was an amazing driver and he seemed very determined to get to Ramallah. We think there was a girl there waiting for him, but it is all speculation. We couldn’t leave Jenin the same way we came in, so we ended up driving on a road parallel to the main road, but quite a bit above it. This meant that I had a fantastic view of Israeli army jeeps and tanks that were scattered across the road and blocking the entrance to the city – I even got a picture. Our return trip was longer, with more off-roading and checkpoints than the trip up to Jenin. Lucky for you, I recorded it.

2:32 – Main entrance to Jenin is closed by Israeli soldiers
2:38 – Off roading in ancient station wagon.

3:15 – Try to return to the main road, but another car, trying to get off the main road, is blocking the exit from our path. Our driver gets out of the car and starts moving a pile of stones to make enough room to squeeze past the other car. Our driver gets stuck, everyone pushes.

3:25 – Back on the main road. Hit checkpoint traffic jam. Our driver wants none of it, so we start off-roading again, get around the checkpoint, then car gets stuck on the steep incline back onto the road.

3:35 – Everyone pushes, then jump into taxi and take off quickly before we get caught.

3:36 – pass an IDF jeep on the road

3:38 – Flying checkpoint. This one isn’t letting any cars through, at all. Our driver decided to take a chance and use the settler road, which is illegal for Palestinians, because he has three Americans in the car.

3:45 – Another flying checkpoint. No way around this one, so we had to wait.

4:02 – cleared the checkpoint

4:04 – the infamous Zatara checkpoint south of Nablus. At this point, I and all the smokers in the car just get out to have cigarettes because it is obvious that we won’t be going anywhere for a while.

4:38 – we clear the checkpoint, but our driver isn’t allowed to pass. His ID is from the Nablus area, so he is forbidden to travel to the Ramallah district. We tried to talk to the soldier. The soldier said our driver couldn’t pass because he might be a suicide bomber. I said, well, check him and the car and let us through. The soldier refused. At one point he almost agreed that the rule was ridiculous, but he wouldn’t let our driver pass. I felt really bad for him, in the end all we could do was tip him well.

4:48 – checkpoint.

4:55 – clear checkpoint.

I think I got home around 6pm, almost four hours after I left Jenin. Of course, I was lucky to get home at all. According to the newspapers, over 1,000 Palestinians were trapped on the roads at checkpoints that day.

Onions and Tear Gas

2005-12-08T19:05:00.000+02:00

Today, I participated in my first strategic nonviolent action. I’ve been to plenty of protests, rallies and marches in the US, but this was a whole new experience. After today, I have decided that I am going to start running when I get home – I got lots of running in today, and some climbing, falling and yelling.

Every Friday for the last year, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) stages nonviolent actions in the village of Bil’in which is about a half away outside of Ramallah. The Wall is being built directly next to the village, and has cut the residents off from their farmland and other resources. Once a week for the last year, the villagers have thought up different actions to implement at the protest. They have used different tactics like carrying mirrors so that the soldiers could see what they looked like . . . today the goal was to plant three olive trees in the area that has been destroyed by the Wall. The Palestinians are the one who think of the initiatives and carry them out; the internationals are there to provide a barrier between the Palestinians and the soldiers and to try and keep the level of violence down. Unfortunately, the life of an international is of higher value than a Palestinian life in the eyes of the Israeli government (or at the international media), so that is where we came in.

We (R, D, Dave and I) arrived in Bil’in a little after 11 and we met up with the ISMers. I had met some of them during the training or in other places around Ramallah, but there were a lot of people there that I didn’t know, including a big Israeli citizen presence, which impressed me a great deal. These are Israelis who oppose the Wall, and they were the ones who took the biggest risks during the protest, from what I could see. When the noon prayer ended, the internationals joined the locals and we all started marching towards the Wall. We were singing songs and chants in Arabic, clapping, and carrying signs, one of which said, “We are not your enemies”. As we marched down the road towards the Wall, we could see a group of soldiers standing and waiting for us.

We didn’t get very far down the road – we were still pretty far from the soldiers – when they started shooting tear gas canisters at us. Now, I’ve never experienced tear gas before, but the ISM training warned us about it so I was prepared. D and R and chopped about 4 onions into halves and put them in a plastic ziplock bag before we left Ramallah. The onions help cut the tear gas fumes. That said, the first round of canisters was close enough to me that I ended up with tears running down my face and I had difficulty breathing for a couple minutes, even with the onions. I guess some of the more experienced protesters said it was unusual for the soldiers to shoot the tear gas so early on in the afternoon . . . they were probably a little trigger happy because of the soldier that was stabbed and killed at the Kalandia checkpoint the day before – but that is another story . . .

We all sort of scattered when the soldiers started shooting the canisters (which can actually be really dangerous if you get hit by one, or if you are too close. Some people were vomiting from the fumes). But, after about 10 minutes we regrouped and continued with our march towards the soldiers. Now, I would be lying if I didn’t say that this is one of the scariest things that I have ever done. I was shaking from the adrenaline, the tear gas, and my fear of walking towards people carrying very big guns . . . the terrain was very rocky, and we had to climb onto an area that was basically a big pile of broken rocks – not the best time to be feeling shaky.

We climbed up onto the rocks, and some of the protesters started singing and chanting, and some of them were engaging the soldiers in conversation and debate. I hung back a little because I knew that if things got messy, a whole lot of internationals and Palestinians were going to come flying, falling, and slipping down the pile of sharp rocks. After a while, I noticed some of the young Palestinian boys, ranging between 7 and 12, were taunting one of the young soldiers. I started edging over towards the boys, climbing up onto the rocks, and pulled out my camera. I wanted to make sure that the soldiers saw me taking pictures of them and the boys. Eventually, one of the soldiers grabbed one of the boys (who was saying insulting things to him in Arabic, but hadn’t touched him or physically threatened him in any way) and before I could even move, one of the Israeli protesters was there, screaming at the soldier in Hebrew and dragging the boy away from him. It was a sight that I will never forget: an 18 year old boy in full soldier gear (helmet, camo uniform, guns) grabbing an 8 year old Palestinian boy and trying to push him down the sharp rocks. I especially won’t forget it because I got a picture of it.

The ISMers decided that it was time to try and plant the trees – and that is when things started to escalate. The soldiers wouldn’t let them plant the trees, so Palestinians were passing the trees between them, trying to get to a place where they could plant it; internationals were trying to keep between the soldiers and the Palestinians; and I was trying not to kill myself on the damn rocks.

Eventually, one of the soldiers grabbed one of the internationals and threw him down onto the the ground. The other internationals jumped in and grabbed him – they actually managed to pull him away from the soldiers. Then, another soldier grabbed another guy; he was hitting the man, and the man was trying to back up and get away – they both ended up falling down part of the rocks. Once the soldier landed on the ground he pulled out his gun and everyone started running. Fortunately (and I really mean that, I was lucky) I had moved slightly away from the place where the two guys fell down just minutes before this happened. R, D, and I found each other and started running together.

This is when the Palestinian boys started throwing rocks. It took R, D and I a minute to realize that we were running in the same direction as the rock throwers, and we were between them and the soldiers – not a good place to be. I figure when all the Palestinians are running for their lives, I should too, but I would prefer to not be between them and their soldier targets when they start lobbing rocks at them. The soldiers started shooting rubber bullets and tear gas canisters again. We crouched down behind a wall and an ambulance and kept our heads down for a couple of minutes. I guess the Palestinians started throwing rocks when the soldiers started following the running protesters to keep the soldiers out of the village.

Damages: one guy got hit in the foot with a rubber bullet, one protester got hit by a rock (friendly fire), and the Israeli guy who got between the soldier and the boy was arrested.

The internationals regrouped after a while and headed back towards the soldiers, but things were winding down by then. The Palestinians kept throwing stones, even though the soldiers were too far away to hit, and the soldiers kept throwing tear gas canisters at us. I think we managed to plant two of the trees, although I’m sure the soldiers ripped them up after we retreated.

The protest lasted about two hours, and R, D and I were back in Ramallah just after 3pm. I fully support what ISM is doing, and I knew that nonviolent resistance is hard, dangerous work, but I didn’t fully comprehend what it is like to voluntarily stand in front of someone with a gun – to stand between that gun and another person – until today. I’m not sure that I have the guts to do nonviolence resistance. I guess I’ll have to go back next week and find out.

Random Thoughts

2005-12-07T19:05:00.001+02:00

1. I want to make a bumper sticker that says: Jesus was Palestinian

2. I feel like I’ve been flying a fighter for the Rebellion during my time here, but when I go back and do my year service requirement with the US government I’ll be working on the Death Star.

3. Why is it historically inaccurate to make comparisons between the checkpoints in the Palestine and some of the techniques used by the Nazis pre-holocaust, but it is okay for Seinfeld to make an entire episode about the Soup Nazi? Why is it socially acceptable to use the term femi-nazi, but not to point out that color coded ID cards that state religion are reminiscent of Nazi Germany?

4. Why am I a foreigner to the Arabs, an Arab to the Israelis, and exotic to Americans?

5. Why do Palestinians love Celion Dione?

6. Why does being pro-Palestinian equal being anti-Semitic?

7. It is very important to enunciate the word al-Quds (the name for Jerusalem) in Arabic, because al –Cus means something else entirely.

8. How is the wall securing Israel when it is trapping over a million Palestinians inside the wall, on the Israeli side?

9. Why can I remember the words to hundreds of songs, but I can’t remember my weekly vocabulary words?

10. Why do these lists always come in tens?

Cycles of Violence and Retribution

2005-12-07T19:05:00.000+02:00

There was a suicide bombing near Tel Aviv a couple of days ago. Five people were killed, and about 50 injured. The bomber came from a village in between the cities of Tulqarem and Jenin, in the north of the West Bank. This is the area that the Israeli army has been focusing on the last two months. There have near daily arrests and weekly shootings/ killings/ assassinations for almost eight weeks. Funny how that doesn’t seem to make it onto the 11 o’clock news. Apparently the IDF has requested permission to bulldoze the home of the family of the suicide bomber, as a form of punishment. They have already arrested his father and brothers.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

The night of the suicide bombing (which happened around 11 am in a shopping mall) the IDF retaliated not only by arresting the family of the bomber, but also by shelling Gaza City. Now, I haven’t quite figured out the Gaza connection – Gaza is hours south of Tulqarem. This has become a new tactic since the Israeli settlers were removed from Gaza; whenever something happens in the West Bank, Gaza gets hit.

I wish that I could have visited Gaza during my time here, but it is nearly impossible to get permission to enter Gaza from the IDF without proof of sponsorship from a company that is employing you. Even then it is difficult. Gaza has very few international observers or journalists, so when things happen there no one knows what is going on. To be honest, I’m a little relieved that I couldn’t get into to Gaza, I’m not sure how well I would handle it.

On Friday I’m planning on attending a protest against the wall in a village called Aboud, then on Saturday I’m going to head up to Jenin. I’ve heard that the northern parts of the West Bank are absolutely beautiful, especially during the rainy winter season – I can’t wait.

Strange Bedpartners

2005-12-02T14:50:00.000+02:00

Today I feel sad. And no, it is not because of the Arabic midterm that I took today – although I would like to complain about having a midterm two weeks before the final . . . Today is Dec 1, and I will be traveling across the border to Jordan in exactly one month. I think that during the last three months, my emotions regarding the occupation have pretty consistently ranged between outrage, anger, frustration and helplessness. Now, I’m starting to feel worn out. I am looking forward to seeing everyone at home, but I am disappointed by how little I’ve done during my time here. I’ve been busy, but I feel that there is so much work that needs to be done . . .

I’d to share a story with everyone that another student told me about his teacher. One of the teachers at Birzeit wrote a poem that has been nominated to become the national anthem of Palestine if/when it becomes an independent state. The poem is about one of her experiences while she was imprisoned in an Israeli jail for three years. Apparently, the prison was overcrowded, so for a while she was sharing a cell with a Palestinian man. They each spent 12 hours in the cell, but never the same twelve hours. He had the cell during the day, while she was moved to a separate part of the prison, and she had it at night, while he was being tortured. She never met him during her time in prison, but she shared a bed with him, and she heard him screaming every night while he was tortured. At some point during their imprisonment, she starting singing Palestinian revolutionary and folks songs at night, so that he could hear her voice and know that he wasn’t alone.

Tonight I went to an art exhibit in one of the cultural centers in Ramallah. The artists were all local people who participated in a workshop this semester. During the workshop the artists were exposed to the stories of Palestinian women who suffered from abuse, both domestic and from the occupation. The students used the stories to create images around the theme of women and abuse in Palestine. There were some really moving pieces, especially since each print was inspired by a real woman’s story. I thought it was an interesting way to address the very serious problem of domestic abuse. Many of the artists concentrated on images that highlighted the strength of women survivors, although there were also images of pain and suffering. I bought a print that shows a line of women marching across the bottom of the page in single file. The women are vague stick figure shapes, and an ominous crimson sky is pressing down on them. I think the figures represent generations of women following in each others steps, and the sky represents the repressiveness of society on women’s individuality. Of course, I could be wrong . . .

Traffic Jam

2005-12-02T14:49:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I decided to skip my colloquial Arabic class and head down to Ramallah in the morning. Now, before you accuse me of being lazy, I’d like to explain that I was heading to Ramallah to use my friend’s high-speed internet connection to do research, work on conference stuff, and look for an apartment in DC (okay, and send out some emails, download some music, and just surf). Marcy had been staying with my for a couple days (she’s based in Amman at the moment) and she was heading back to Jordan, so we set off together. Because she had a huge bag with her, we decided to splurge and take a private taxi. . .

We got about 10 minutes outside of Birzeit before we hit a checkpoint. Well, we didn’t actually hit the checkpoint, we hit the traffic that was backed up for over a mile in each direction of the Surda area. This is one of the Israelis favorite places to set up flying checkpoints in the Ramallah area. Our taxi driver became very agitated and started insisting that Ramallah was closed (which was nonsense) and wanted to drive all the way to a town just outside of Jerusalem and try entering Ramallah from the other side. Most of the people in public transportation were just getting out of the taxis and services and walking. This is nothing new for them, last year or the year before this section of the road between Ramallah and Birzeit was closed by the Israelis for months. No cars were allowed to pass, and everyone had to walk 2 kilometers each way. My Arabic teacher told us that at that point, the value of donkeys increased dramatically because they were the only way to transport goods, the sick and the elderly between the two places . . .

I was in a bit of dilemma because my computer was already at R and D’s, and I knew that they had plans to leave Ramallah early that morning. If they left before I picked up the apartment key, my plans of a very productive day were going to be destroyed. After a few minutes of discussion, I said goodbye to Marcy and decided to walk through the checkpoint and hopefully catch a service on the other side to take me rest of the way. Marcy’s bag was much too heavy to walk (it was down into a valley and then back up) so she backroaded it with the taxi towards Jerusalem.

It was an absolutely beautiful morning for a walk, not too cold and sunny, and it would have been really enjoyable except for all the exhaust fumes from the traffic jam and weaving necessary to avoid cars and droves of people. On the way I ran into B, who lives in Ramallah and was walking to Birzeit – to attend the very class that I was skipping. We talked for a couple minutes, and he decided to ditch the class and walk back to Ramallah with me. We had a funny moment when he asked me where the checkpoint was, thinking it was closer to Birzeit, while I thought it was closer to Ramallah. While we were discussing this oddity, a truck crammed full of Palestinian police drove by. Palestinian police are never around when Israelis are around, so that was when we realized that it wasn’t actually an Israeli checkpoint, but was some kind of Palestinian Authority checkpoint/ security measure.

We walked along and eventually caught a service into Ramallah. Once there we stopped in a little store and I asked the owner what was going on. He started going off about the Israelis . . . so we stopped in another store and the owner there told us that the PA was checking all the services to make sure they only had seven passengers per van. No one seemed to know what was going on for sure, so B and I met R and D for breakfast, then I headed to their apartment and soaked up all the internet time I could.

On the way home that night, I noticed that the service I was riding in had removed one of the benches of seats . . . leaving only seven seats for passengers. I’m really surprised that the PA would set up a checkpoint, in the same place that the Israelis do, and hold up all the morning traffic just to check the number of seats in the services. I’m not sure if that is the whole story, but it seems pretty ridiculous if it is.

Mountain of Fire

2005-12-02T14:45:00.000+02:00

On Sunday I traveled about an hour north into the mountains to spend the day exploring Nablus. For those of you who have seen the movie Paradise Now, this is the city the movie is set in. Nablus is famous throughout Palestine for her kanafa, a traditional dessert. The city is nicknamed “Mountain of Fire” because of its citizen’s activism during and before Intifada and their resistance to the occupation. Nablus has paid dearly for her activism, being one of the hardest hit by the Israelis during this Intifada – literally by bombing and invasions into the city – and economically. The bombings in 2002 killed dozens of inhabitants and damaged over 500 buildings. Unfortunately, the bombing was concentrating in Nablus’ old city, Al Casbah, which is residential area, and it destroyed some of the oldest buildings in Palestine. Directly next to Nablus is Al-Balata refugee camp, the biggest refugee camp in the West Bank with most of its residents originally coming from Jaffa and the Galilee. Al-Balata is know as being a very rough place, even when the Israelis aren’t around . . . one of the things it is famous for is the number of stolen cars from Israel that seem to find their way there . . .

Nablus is also completely surrounded by settlements. There are seven of them dotting the hilltops around the city, and each of them has a checkpoint. Settlements are areas in the West Bank, on the Palestinian side of the Green Line, where Jewish Zionists squat on the land. They start out small, and it doesn’t take long for them to grow into cities, complete with barbed wire and electric fencing surrounding the settlements, soldiers stationed to protect them, and tax exempt status. Once settlers are in an area, the Israelis create special roads that only settlers can travel on (by taking more Palestinian land), reroute water supplies, and demolish homes and confiscate land that is too close to the settlement – for the safety of the settlers, of course.

I traveled to Nablus with three other students, one of whom is actually an American-Jewish student at Hebrew University who has described himself to me as a Zionist. I wasn’t sure what to expect from Nablus, but it wasn’t the incredibly warm welcome that we received. After walking through the infamous Hawara checkpoint, we caught a cab into the Old City and wandered around for a while. Hawara is infamous for the severity of the soldiers who man it. About a month ago a Palestinian woman attacked a soldier with a knife and cut her. The soldiers shot her in the legs and left her there to bleed to death. They wouldn’t allow anyone to help her.

After eating some falafel, we decided to go in search of one of the soap factories (another thing Nablus is know for). We asked for directions from a local man, and were led to the site where the 13^th century soap factory had existed before 2002.

While at the site (which is basically an empty lot) we met a local man at the adjacent site (an ancient hotel that had also been damaged in the bombing, but was still standing) who was doing restoration work. He gave us a tour of the site, in Arabic, then insisted that we join him in his office for Arabic coffee. After the coffee he assigned two of his students/ employees to give us a free tour of the city. The guys were between the ages of 18-20 and they gave us a three hour tour. They showed us two Turkish baths, one of which had a vividly colorful modern mural on the ceiling, a candy factory, and a pre-Ottoman palace that had been bombed during 2002. The ruins were pretty cool, we got to climb around and go exploring. Only two of us got to see everything because you had to climb over a narrow catwalk at one point to access the rest of the palace (the walkway had been damaged in the bombing). One of the guys was afraid of heights, and M is always more sensible than I am. But, I did get some awesome pictures. When is the last time you saw an orange grove growing in the middle of the ruins of a palace?

Our guides also showed us the memorial put up by the local people remembering the massacre of 2002. The plaque says in English and Arabic “Never Forgive, Never Forget”. It is across the street from a home that was bombed and a family was buried alive underneath the rubble. Because of the bombings and curfews, uninjured people weren’t allowed to help people trapped in destroyed homes. In the open area next to the plaque, a group of youngish boys were playing a pick-up game of soccer.

There aren’t a lot of foreigners wandering around the streets of Nablus at the moment (wonder why) so we were attracting attention everywhere that we went. At one point, an older man dressed in a suit and smoking a sheesha stopped us because he wanted to know where we were from etc . . . In near perfect English, he explained to us that while he wanted to be our friend, he couldn’t, because of what the US government is doing to his people. He talked about Condy, Chainey and Bush in great detail and how disappointed he was with the West for their continued financial and political support of Israel. At one point he pulled a 15 year old out of the growing crowd of listeners and he said, “This baby deserves the same opportunities, the rights to live as your babies in America.” I couldn’t have agreed with him more.

Next our tour guides led us to Al-Aqsa Sweets, which is the most famous kanafa restaurant in all of Nablus, and therefore Palestine. They insisted on buying kanafa for all four of us, and after we ate they took us across the street and showed us where an elderly man was preparing the trays of kanafa from scratch.

After a few pictures we parted with our guides to head to the summit of the mountain, the home of the Samaritans. Yes, I mean The Samaritans, as in the Good Samaritan, the ones from the story in the Bible. The Samaritans are an interesting group of people. They are Jewish, but consider themselves Palestinians. They speak Arabic amongst themselves, but they also speak both modern and ancient Hebrew. A very small community, they have a reputation for being a little odd – partially due to their isolation and partially due to a lot of inbreeding (although I can’t verify that). We climbed to the very top of the mountain and saw the site where Abraham supposedly brought his son to sacrifice him on God’s orders, according to the Old Testament. The view from the top of the mountain was one of the most beautiful that I’ve seen during my time here. I think I must type that line in every entry in my blog – but this was really breathtaking.

We stopped for tea, and G asked one of the Samaritans working at the restaurant how the relationship was between this community and the Palestinians. He didn’t even hesitate before responding, “Very Good”. When he was asked the same question about the settlement that is just past the Samaritan village, he said, “Very Bad”. The Israelis put up a checkpoint to protect the settlement on the other side of the Samaritan village, but instead of putting it between the Samaritans and the settlement, they put it between Nablus and the Samaritans. So far it doesn’t seem to have driven a wedge between the Palestinians and Samaritans, but who knows how long it will last.

We left the village just as it was getting dark, and none of us suggested staying in Nablus any later. The Israelis enter the city almost every night, so went straight down the mountain from Samaria to the Hawara checkpoint. Unfortunately, we bypassed the checkpoint because we on a settler road. I really wanted to experience Hawara first hand after all that I’ve heard about it . . .

Yesterday, the Israelis entered Nablus to arrest two Palestinians and ended up injuring 10, including a 14 year old boy who got hit in the head with a bullet. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was one of the kids that I saw playing soccer on Sunday . . .

Signs of Occupation

2005-11-25T14:55:00.000+02:00

Today I went to Jerusalem to check out a potential apartment for a friend of mine who will be working in Beit Hanina for the first three months of the new year. The trip was uneventful until we got onto the bus heading from the Kalandia checkpoint to Jerusalem (third transportation vehicle necessary on this trip). There is a checkpoint that the buses have to go through on their way to the city, and the length of time it takes to clear the checkpoint depends on the soldiers’ moods. There have been times when the soldiers just wave buses through. Other times, the get onto the bus, collect everyone’s passports and we sit for 20-40 minutes while they verify the paperwork.

I knew we were going to be waiting a while when the soldier climbed onto the bus wearing his mirror sunglasses with his regulation crew cut. He took his time collecting the passports, and then disappeared with them. One man got off the bus voluntarily – I don’t think that he had permission to enter Jerusalem (most Palestinians don’t) but he had some kind of special paperwork with him. I assume he got off the bus to try and protect that special piece of paper – it takes most Palestinians months to get special permission to enter Jerusalem – and he never did get back on.

While we were waiting I noticed a roadsign in front of the bus. It said something in Hebrew, then in Arabic lettering it had the Israeli name for Jerusalem (Yerushalom), then in small Arabic lettering in parenthesis it had the Arabic name for Jerusalem, (Al-Quds) and finally it had Jerusalem in English. Sometimes the systemization of the occupation here floors me. They won’t even let the Palestinians call Jerusalem (a disputed city) by their name for it – even in Arabic script.

Eventually our Tom Cruise wannabe soldier (think Top Gun) came back onto the bus and started to read off the names of the passports as he returned them. Mind you, he was mispronouncing the names so badly that the Palestinians were having a hard time figuring out who’s name he was calling . . . At this point the driver reached forward to volunteer to take the passports from the soldier and distribute them himself (and quicker). The soldier responded by clenching his hand into a fist and drawing back his arm as if he was going to backhand the bus driver. Then he continued to mispronounce names. As this painful process continued, the driver’s foot must have slipped on the break a little. Not much, but just enough that the bus rocked. Our friendly representative from the IDF turned towards him, clenched his hand again, drew back to backhand the driver and halted his movement before hitting the driver. Then he started yelling at him in Hebrew . . .

After that uplifting experience, M and I went to check out this apartment in the Old City, just inside the Damascus Gate. I’ve never seen anything like it. It is off one of the narrow alleyways that permeate the Old City; terribly romantic but a pain in the ass to move big things in and out of. Anyway, the entryway of the apartment is kind of low ceiling-ed and dingy, but after taking a couple of steps you walk into an open courtyard. There are a serious of doors surrounding the courtyard – a master bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living room and living room. It must be absolutely fabulous in the summertime. The living room area is very large, and has a little shower and small bedroom connected to it, so in the winter that part can be a cozy den, with fresh air just a step away. My new life’s mission is to live in this apartment and write a bestselling novel. Screw world peace. . .

Thanksgiving in the West Bank

2005-11-24T14:49:00.000+02:00

My American friends and I discussed how to celebrate Thanksgiving in Palestine for several weeks before the event, which is Eid al-Shukir (festival of thanks) in Arabic. At first we considered going to the swank American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem and shelling out serious money for a fancy meal, but in the end we decided it would be more fun to have a potluck Thanksgiving dinner at R and D’s apartment in Ramallah. We had a few discussions about how to work around the limitations of Palestinian supermarkets (from a Thanksgiving perspective) then we got to work. Wednesday I went to a fancy supermarket out of town and scored Betty Crocker pie crusts, brownie mix, and butter in stick form. Then I met R downtown and we went to collect the turkeys from the butcher. R had ordered the turkey’s previously, and they slaughtered fresh just for our consumption. When we picked them up they were hanging on hooks, de-feathered thankfully, but with their heads still attached. . . We transported the birds back to R’s apartment, then I went back to the fruit market and picked up two kilos of apples. I met MR at the center of town at 5pm, and then we went back to his place to make apple pie (‘cause I don’t have an oven). Turns out neither did he, but his landlady was kind enough to let us use her oven upstairs.

It is a bit challenging to make apple pie without any measuring utensils or pie pans. With a lot of guesswork and the help of a half full water bottle (needed a rolling pin) we created two rectangular apple pie type desserts. We did, however, burn the brownies a bit . . .

R and D had located a local bakery that agreed to cook our turkeys for us (they have big ovens) so that part of the dinner was out of our hands. Luckily, everything came out really well. We had stuffing (okay, it was rice stuffing but it was still good), green beans, sweet potatoes, couscous salad, mushroom salad, garlic mashed potatoes, pie, brownies, baklava, kanafa, and chocolaty marshmallow things. And a lot of beer, wine and arak. We invited most of our friends, so I think there were more people celebrating their first Thanksgiving than there were Americans, but it was a lot of fun. After some clean-up, we went to the only dance club in Ramallah for a little while, then called it a night.

Shabbat in West Jerusalem

2005-11-15T16:16:00.000+02:00

On Friday I had to choose between two itineraries: 1. Go to the Bil’in protest against the wall (a nonviolent resistance movement that has been taking place every Friday since this summer). 2. Go to my first ever Shabbat dinner. I decided to spend the morning working at HLT preparing for the nonviolence conference and then go to the Shabbat dinner in Jerusalem. I think that it is important for me to learn more about Jewish culture while I am in Israel, and I’m afraid I don’t get much of an opportunity to do that in the West Bank.

After working in Bethlehem I met G and A near the Damascus gate at 3pm. We walked around the old city for a while, then caught a taxi to take us to Meier’s apartment in West Jerusalem. Meier is a guy who I studied Arabic with this summer and who is currently taking classes at Hebrew University. I was a little nervous about going since I was pretty sure I would be the only Arab present and to be honest I have avoided West Jerusalem since I’ve been in Israel. Unfortunately, the cab ride into West Jerusalem did very little to alleviate my fears. Our taxi driver spent most of the ride telling us how all Muslims are bad and that Arab Muslims are trying to take over the world . . . We all pretty much ignored him until he started going on about how the Arabs/Muslims rioting in France are just ungrateful sods considering how the French were kind enough to let them immigrate. . . I couldn’t resist pointing out that the French colonized Algeria, killed thousands and thousands of people, destroyed the economy and were only driven out about 50 years ago. Of course, he didn’t want to hear any of that . . .

Needless to say I was very nervous by the time we got to the apartment. When we arrived Meier and his friend were running around doing last minute preparations before the sun went down. I didn’t get a full explanation of the Sabbath, but my understanding is that from sunset on Friday until sunset on Saturday observant Jews do not work . . . I think that this time is devoted for prayer, but I really need to read some more about this. The room slowly filled up with people, and I think there were 11 people in the end (I was, in fact, the only Arab). Most of the people at the dinner were American Jews studying at Hebrew University. Everyone was very curious about why on earth G, A, and I would want to study in the West Bank. The most common question was, “Aren’t you afraid for you safety living out there?” I said no, that I actually feel safer in the West Bank than in West Jerusalem, and then I bit my tongue before saying that there aren’t any suicide bombings in the West Bank . . .

All in all it was a little awkward, but the people were very friendly. We got some questions about life in the West Bank, but didn’t really talk politics until later in the evening after most of the people had left. Even then we all skirted around bigger issues . . . The Jewish prayers were beautiful to listen to and Meier was kind enough to explain the meanings of each one before they started. We drank a lot of Arak and wine and ate too much food and I generally had a nice time. Unfortunately, I never quite lost the feeling of being on guard, and watching what I said very carefully . . .

Below I have cut and paste a letter written by a guy I study with who went to the Bil’in protest. I thought it might be of interest . . .

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To my fellow Birthrighters on Kesher 4,I hope that you are all doing well. I’m writing to you from the West Bank town of Birzeit, north of Ramallah. I’ve been living in the West Bank for the past two and a half months, taking Arabic courses at Birzeit University and learning about the situation from the other side. I’m writing to you to describe an experience that I had yesterday in the>Palestinian town of Bil’in, which is northwest of Jerusalem in the West Bank. It was an experience that opened my eyes, and, to be honest, upset me and angered me. I think that it speaks directly to all of the things that we learned and discussed on our Birthright trip, which is why I’m sending this message to all of you.

For the last seven months, Bil’in has been the sight of weekly protests against the building of the separation wall, which, on its current route, will confiscate more than 50% of the villages land in order to allow for the expansion of a neighboring Israeli settlement. Many of you know that the International Court of Justice deemed the separation wall illegal in the summer of 2004, and ordered Israel to take it down (see http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0720-12.htm, see also www.amnesty.org, where you can find dozens of reports from Amnesty International. I worked in their Israel/Palestine office for two summers and can confirm the legitimacy of their research). The ruling was made precisely because the wall does not follow the border between the West Bank and Israeli, but travels deep within Palestinian territory. It cuts Palestinians off from vital resources such as water and, as in the case of Bil’in and dozens of other villages, takes their lands, and thus their livelihoods, from them. It also wraps itself around several settlements deep within the West Bank (putting them on the Israeli side of the wall), and completely surrounds several Palestinian towns and cities, cutting them off from rest of the West Bank.

Despite all of this, Israel’s high court rejected International Court’s ruling. I include this brief historical note so that, even if you support the building of the wall, you might understand why the people of Bil’in oppose it, and why they feel that they are in the right. Try to put yourself in their shoes for a moment. But back to yesterday in Bil’in. I attended the protest yesterday as a Jew who believes that continued violations of Palestinian human rights are not only despicable in and of themselves (and contrary to any non-fanatical interpretation of the Jewish religion), but are also contrary to the interests of the State of Israel and its people. The protest began with a march from the center of town to the site of the wall (which is not complete yet), about a ten-minute walk. Israelis and Jews from around the world made up one of the largest groups in attendance. Uri Avnery, a leader of the Gush Shalom (Israeli Bloc for Peace) was also in attendance. We marched down the road and then turned into a site where construction machines were working on the wall. The military was waiting for us. We chanted and cheered in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. Several of the Israeli and international activists sat down in front of one of the construction vehicles to temporarily stop its work as sign of protest. That's when the violence began.

The military threw stun grenades and began to severely beat the unarmed Israelis and internationals sitting on the ground in front them. I ran to try to help out, yelling at the soldiers that these people were unarmed, that they were participating in a peaceful and legal protest. I was met with batons, fists, and screams: “Fuck off!” I was hit in the face, I was grabbed and thrown and shoved and smacked. Those who were in front of the construction vehicle had their hair pulled, their faces scratched so badly that they bled, and their bodies kicked and beaten violently while they were lying helpless and terrified on the ground. They included many women and several elderly people. One young Israeli woman was hit with a baton in the throat and above the eye. She was in severe pain and almost in tears. The rest were dragged across ground (which in this particular place is covered in large, sharp stones) and thrown down towards the road, where the army had apparently decided they wanted us.

Once they got us there, calm was restored, though many of us were still in a state of shock. I can tell you without a doubt that not a stone had been cast, not a soldier or civilian threatened in any way, before we were attacked. However, we were not going to let the army scare us away, so we regrouped and started singing and chanting again, right at the soldiers line. The singing and chanting went on for 45 minutes, and once again, not a stone was cast, not a soldier threatened in any way. There is no way that our demonstration could have been called anything but completely peaceful. I was right there, a foot from the soldiers. Many of us were talking to them, having constructive political discussions as well as demanding to know why they had attacked a completely peaceful group. Many of them responded that they did not want to be there but were “just following orders.” I was absolutely dumbfounded. To say it was both to admit their fault, to admit that they opposed what was going on, and yet, at the same ntime, to admit that they didn’t have the courage to take a stand against it. But most shocking was that this “excuse” is, of course, the mantra that was used by those who oppressed and murdered Jews throughout the 20th century. I could hardly believe that these Jews had could bring themselves to say it to us. And yet, there it was, happening right in front of me.

As we chanted and sang, it became clear that the military was preparing something new for us. We saw the teargas canisters being loaded and the sound bombs being prepared. We saw attachments for rubber-coated bullets being clipped onto the end of M16s. And then, once again without any warning, not to mention provocation, they went mad. This time it was far worse. People were again thrown on the ground and beaten. Several people were hit with teargas canisters and were so consumed by the gas that they began to vomit and scream, and even collapase. This included the Mayor of Bil’in, who actually lost consciousness due to the gas. Those who were suffocating in the gas were actually beaten more and dragged along the ground. As we scattered, the soldiers began to cock their rifles and fire on us with rubber-coated bullets AS WE MOVED AWAY. Rubber coated bullets can be deadly at short range, and can severely injure people even at long range.

Then (and only then) the Palestinians began throwing rocks, an almost pathetic response in the face of the soldiers’ weapons. Scattering all throughout the olive grove, we ran for cover. The soldiers continued to fire. I watched as one of them cocked his rifle and fired live ammunition towards a group of Palestinian youth, though apparently he either missed or was firing over them. (We later found an empty shell casing where he had been standing, and I saw soldiers not more than a foot from me reloading their M16s with live ammunition about half an hour later). One Palestinian man was attacked by the soldiers, beaten and then carried away, while his wife sobbed and screamed at the soldiers to let him go. (Coincidently, he was released an hour later, which makes one wonder why he was arrested (not to mention beaten) in the first place.)

Before long, some of the soldiers had set up a sniping position on a huge mound of earth on the construction site. They fired on Palestinians who were so far away they could not possibly have posed any danger to them, and who, like all of us, were unarmed. Regardless, they had soon shot a 14-year-old boy in the head with a rubber-coated bullet. He was bleeding heavily from his head and was rushed in an ambulance to the hospital. (As far as I have heard, he has sustained no permanent injuries, though, had the bullet been an inch lower, he likely would have been blinded.)

Enraged and disgusted that anybody, but especially Jews, could act in such a disgusting way, I approached the hill where the snipers were and began to scream for them to stop. Every time one of them cocked his rifle, I yelled for him to stop. I was soon joined by a small group of other Israelis and internationals. And then something very strange happened. The soldiers not only un-cocked their rifles whenever I yelled, but they actually began trying to justify their actions to us. They were obviously embarrassed that what they were doing was being witnessed. They pointed down towards the group of Palestinian youth, whose stones (they had started throwing them at that point) never came within 50 meters of the soldiers. It was amazing that these soldiers, who despite the fact that they were firing on people with potentially deadly ammunition, were still so unsure of what they were doing that they felt that they needed to justify their actions to a bunch of protestors they had been beating and gassing only a few minutes before.

With all due respect to Joe (our tour guide), this was his “righteous” and “moral” army at work. This was the Israel “Defense” Force protecting the people of Israel. Of course, I have been reading and researching the abysmal human rights record of this so-called defense force for quite sometime, at Amnesty International, in the offices of the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq, at school, and on my own. By comparison to their past (and on-going) crimes against the Palestinian civilian population (many of which I also witnessed in Ramallah in 2002, while the city was under siege), what I saw this week was minor.

However, it was the first time I had ever seen a Jew beat another Jew, helpless and unarmed, with batons and boots and rifle butts for sitting on the ground in front of a truck or chanting and singing on a public road. It was the first time that I ever saw a Jew gas another Jew, throw him onto the ground, beat him more, throw a stun grenade at his feet, and then fire on him as he tried to get away. And as for the internationals and Palestinians who were similarly treated, I think what I have recounted speaks for itself.

I am writing all of you, as a Jew and as a friend, to think twice about what we were taught on our Birthright trip. As a student of Israeli history, I can tell you that the history we were taught was extremely misleading, and contrary to the research of even the leading Jewish and Israeli historians. For any of you who are interested, I have attached a copy of my thesis, much of which was inspired by our Birthright trip, to this message. I recommend that you take a look at the books and articles in the bibliography. I also encourage you all to come to the West Bank and see for your own eyes what is going on here. I know many people who would be delighted to host you and talk to you, and I would be more than willing to put you in contact with them. You will be welcomed by the Palestinians as internationals and as Jews with the courage to really explore what is going on here. My best to all of you, and many thanks for reading all of this.

--Peter

Bridging the Gap, Part II

2005-11-14T16:15:00.000+02:00

My trip to Kuwait was uneventful (thankfully). I spent my last night in Beirut drinking at a bar until about 3:30 am. My flight to Kuwait was at 8 am, which meant I had to be at the airport by 6 am – translation: I got about an hour of sleep and showed up in Kuwait reeking of cigarettes and probably alcohol just in time for the first day of Eid. There is nothing quite as awkward as showing up a family gathering when everyone else in the room is wearing brand new designer clothes and you come rolling in, unshowered, wearing the same clothes you’ve been wearing for the last two days.

To be honest I had several motives for going to Kuwait. First, I was hopeful that if I showed up in Kuwait my father would take pity on me and loan me a laptop. Secondly, I knew that another visit to the family in Kuwait was mandatory before I head back to the US, so I figured it would be easier if I could get it out of the way now, rather than later (meaning I would rather spend New Years in Bethlehem than in Kuwait, where alcohol is illegal), and I wanted to spend some time in a place where I didn’t have to hand wash my clothes (Birzeit) and there weren’t any cockroaches running my room (Beirut).

So, I had a nice couple days in Kuwait and then began the trek back to Palestine, via Amman. MA met me at the airport Monday morning and took me out for breakfast in the city before dropping me off at the place where the services leave for the Allenby Bridge. Now the bridge apparently closes at 2 pm on Mondays, so I grabbed a seat in what was probably the last service headed to the bridge that day. Myself and two Palestinian boys are sitting in service waiting for a fourth rider when the driver hops in and asks the boys if they speak English (he asks in Arabic, of course). When the boys say yes, he tells them to tell me – his actual words were “the foreigner” -- that the price to the bridge is double the regular price, and then we can all leave now instead of waiting for a fourth rider. You can imagine his expression when I asked him in Arabic why he expected me to pay a higher price for the same service . . . both boys started laughing at the driver who looked as if he had the shock of his life. I guess my Arabic has improved . . .

The bridge was a nightmare, as usual. I sat there for 4 hours and was the very last person to get permission to enter Israel. Even the cleaning people had come and gone while I was waiting. The soldiers weren’t particularly rude except for the guy who, when they finally decided to give me a two month visa, started yelling at the girl stamping my passport to only give me a week’s visa. Bastard. I arrived at the bridge before 2 pm and didn’t make it back to Ramallah until 7 pm. Ironically, even all the Palestinians got into the country before I did . . . I guess I shouldn’t complain too much since they didn’t dump my backpack or strip search me this time.

When I arrived at my apartment in Birzeit I was happy to see that my landlord had put bars up on all of our windows. Hopefully this will dissuade any future thieves. Insha’allah.

A Bombshell of a City

2005-11-14T04:13:00.000+02:00

Beirut is more a nighttime city, so when I arrived at 7 am on a Sunday morning, not much was open. John took Mic and I to a little restaurant near the American University of Beirut where we had pizza-like thingees for breakfast, and then we caught a service back to his apartment. Tourists can visit Beirut and never find the little neighborhoods that tucked away, like the one that John lives in in Ashrafeet. The damage from the civil war is still very much in evidence – bullet riddled and bombed out buildings are common. I can only imagine what the city must have looked like 15 years ago.

After arriving at his apartment John plied me with coffee and gave a brief rundown on Lebanese politics, of which I am woefully ignorant. Most of what I know about Lebanon is related to the Palestinian Refugees, and the Sabra and Shatilla massacre in particular. After his explanation I understood that I will never really comprehend the complexity of the civil war. It seems that most of the fighters switched sides, or at least switched targets in the course of the war, and I was surprised to learn what I thought was a war of Muslims against Christians ended up being Christians against Christians in the end.

The situation in Beirut is tense right now. I was there just after the Hariri Report had been released and most of the people that I spoke with said they were waiting to see what would happen. There is a lot of speculation about who killed Hariri with some people blaming the Syrians, some the Palestinians, and some international forces, and of course a variety of potential coalitions.

In spite of all of this, Beirut is very much a party city and the locals were out enjoying life every night that I was there. It was strange to be in Beirut during the last days of Ramadan because no one in the city seemed to be fasting. In Ramallah if you walk down the street during Ramadan eating or drinking you will be told (maybe politely, maybe not) to go inside if you want to eat/ drink/ smoke while the sun is up. Hell, one of the international students got yelled at for chewing gum, but in Beirut anything seemed to go.

I also have to report that what people say about the Lebanese country and her people is true – they are drop dead gorgeous. Admittedly, both seem to going through some expensive facelifts judging by the number of construction projects going on downtown and the number of bandaged noses (nose jobs) I saw at AUB. The people dress to kill and I gorged myself on some of the best mezza I’ve ever had.

Beirut feels more European than Middle Eastern but you don’t have to go very far out of the city to be reminded that you are not in Europe. The mountains and sea are stunning, however traveling between the two is extremely dangerous. I thought Palestinian and Egyptian drivers were crazy, but the Lebanese take the cake for their insane passing maneuvers: three lanes wide down a mountain road (that is supposed to be two lane, two way) that is so foggy you can’t see 10 feet in front of you, much less who is flying up the mountain at the same breakneck speed. Good thing I have death and dismemberment insurance . . .

I didn’t get to see half the things I wanted to while I was in Lebanon, mainly because my trip was plagued by the same bad luck I had at the border crossing. There were several instances of miscommunication, our rental car got towed for being parked in an inappropriate location (a promising sign of Lebanese civil infrastructure, even if there weren’t any signs labeling it as forbidden in English or Arabic), and I did not have nice enough clothes to make it into one of the famous Beirut dance clubs.

After the string of bad luck I had between having the apartment broken into, the difficulties at the border, and the frustrations of the Beirut trip I decided to skip Syria and head to Kuwait for Eid. It seemed like a good idea to chill out with my family for a couple of days. Besides, Syria isn’t really the place to be (particularly right now) if you’re running on a streak of bad luck . . .

Bridging the Gap

2005-11-14T01:09:00.000+02:00

I think that I’ve mentioned once or twice before that traveling in Palestine-Israel is always a bit of an adventure, but entering and leaving this place is even more of a hassle. Myself and a couple of other students decided to go to Lebanon and Syria over the Eid al-Fitr break and we had numerous discussions and debates regarding the best ways to handle issues like visa problems, which of the three bridges between Israel and Jordan to use, etc . . . Part of the problem is that it is very difficult to get reliable information about bridge closing times, visa requirements and other important details because these things change constantly.

We decided to leave Israel via the Allenby / King Hussein Bridge (the closest bridge to Amman). This is the obvious choice except for two small details: 1. We had been told that the bridge closed on Saturday at noon AND at 3pm, so we weren’t sure which was correct; 2. We didn’t have entry visas for Jordan. It is possible to get Jordanian visas at the Sheik Hussein bridge, which is more than an hour north of the Allenby Bridge (which means traveling an hour north in Israel to cross the bridge, to turn around and travel an hour and half south to get to Amman), but it is not possible to get entry visas to Jordan at the Allenby Bridge. However, one of the guys who was traveling with us swore that he had entered Jordan at the Allenby Bridge and had been able to purchase a visa there in the past (turns out he had Allenby and Sheik Hussein confused, but I’m getting ahead of myself). After much discussion and debate we decided to take our chances at the Allenby Bridge, but to leave very early in the morning, so that if we ran into trouble we would have time to travel north. This was very important because we had a 6 am flight to catch from Amman to Beirut Sunday morning.

Friday night, one of the guys who was traveling with us called and asked us to postpone leaving until mid-morning because he was still waiting for his second passport to arrive in the mail. You see, you can’t enter Lebanon or Syria if you have an Israeli stamp in your passport. This means you have to have two passports so that you can travel between the neighboring countries. Of course, if you travel overland from Jordan to Syria and you switch passports at the border, they will demand to know how you were traveling in Jordan without a Jordanian visa (which will of course be in the other passport). Thinking about this is like contemplating the paradoxes of time travel, if you dwell on it too long you end up with more questions than answers and a headache to boot. But I digress.

We decided to delay our departure in hopes that A’s second passport (without an Israeli stamp) would arrive. He called us around 10:30 to say that it had not arrived with the mail and that he had rescheduled his flight from Amman to Beirut so that he could wait for the passport. At this point the three of us who are still traveling are scrambling around looking for a taxi because we’ve realized that the bridge actually does close at noon and we might not have enough time to make it . . .

After an incredibly speedy taxi ride we arrived at the bridge at 10 minutes to noon. Surprisingly we cleared the Israeli side with very little difficulty. Unfortunately, the Jordanians turned us away because the other two people I was traveling with did not have the appropriate visa documentation. Apparently, because I had entered Israel through Jordan (and not the airport in Tel Aviv) when I arrived in September, I could have continued on to Jordan. Instead, like an idiot, I decided to stay with my friends.

Foolishly, I thought we would just reenter Israel, then catch a taxi to the northern bridge. I was not expecting to have to go through the entire border crossing process again. We had to reapply for visas, go through the interrogation process etc . . . It also didn’t help that when the soldier processing our information asked me what I had been doing in Israel for the previous two months, one of the guys I was traveling with chimed in and said that I was studying at Birzeit University. Mind you, this is the same guy who swore that we could get visas to Jordan at the Allenby Bridge . . .

We were the only people at the bridge at this point (because it supposedly closed at noon), and I guess the employees were pissed off that they had to stay because we got very thorough treatment. When the female soldier told me to follow her and entered a little curtained booth while pulling on plastic gloves I got a little nervous. Thankfully, it wasn’t a full strip search, just my shoes, jacket and shirt. This is especially lucky since I had my Kuwaiti passport in my money pouch beneath my jeans – I’m not sure what would have happened if I’d been caught with that . . .they probably would have decided that I was a spy and sent me away to molder in an Israeli prison. Next, they brought us to a big room where our bags were waiting for us and they proceeded to dump out everything in our backpacks and take it all into a separate room to be examined. Not only did they examine every article of clothing (my underwear got a lot of attention that week – first from the Birzeit police and then from the Israeli soldiers) in my bag, they also took swabs of all of my toiletries. I guess they were looking for chemical weapons?

All in all, we spent 2.5 hours trying to reenter Israel, just so that we could travel north and exit the country again. The best part is that we had never really left Israel since the Jordanians turned us away . . .

At this point we are all tired and hungry and it is probably around 3:30 in the afternoon. We grabbed the last taxi in the parking lot on the Israeli side of the bridge and headed to the Sheik Hussein Bridge (for $100). Once we arrived there, we had to go through the same process all over again. We sat at that bridge waiting for permission to leave for about 1.5 hours. We didn’t actually make it into Jordan until 7pm and didn’t get to Amman until 8:30. I would like to take this opportunity to point out that the trip that took me 10 hours would only take between two and three hours driving straight from Ramallah to Amman.

Thankfully, when I got to Amman MA met us at a restaurant and put us up for the night. After a shower and about 4 hours of sleep I was heading to the Queen Alia airport for my 6 am flight to Beirut (we decided to fly so that we could switch passports more subtly). I tottered off the plan at 7am and was greeted by my good friend John who was kind enough to drag himself out of bed to meet me at that ungodly hour.

Stay tuned for stories from Beirut . . .

Sahar and the 1(or 2) Thieves

2005-11-13T17:07:00.000+02:00

It is difficult to know where to start when this blog has been quiet for a couple weeks – It seems like so much happens in such a short period of time here . . . I guess that I will start with the story about why I’ve been so quiet for the last couple weeks. You see, I normally write my blog entries on my laptop, then upload them at an internet café . . .

On one of the last nights of Ramadan M and I decided to go down to Ramallah to meet up with some friends for post-Iftar tea. Ironically, I had not been feeling well earlier in the day and had almost decided not go, but since everyone was heading in different directions for the Eid, I decided to go anyway. Just after climbing out of our service in Ramallah, feeling slightly seasick fom the careening ride down the mountain, I looked at M and said, “I forgot my passport,” to which she replied, “Me too”. Now, I never, ever leave home without my passport, but we were already in Ramallah and late to boot, so we dwell on it.

After from tea with na’na (mint) we returned to our little apartment in Birzeit. As we were walking down the stairs to our apartment I commented that I had forgotten to bring my laundry in from the line. M said, “Well, at least you know that it is safe in Birzeit to leave it out all night,” HAA.

We walked into the apartment and I noticed one of the windows in our living room was open. Then I noticed that the screen on the window was ripped. The look of horror on M’s face was almost comical as we realized that our apartment had been broken into. The harami (thief – my new word for the week BTW) must have hit M’s room first because everything of value was gone – her birdwatching binoculars, her backpack with her passport, money, plane tickets home, credit cards, address book with all the important information that she needed, etc . . . They even took her cell phone charger. I assume they hit my room second, saw the laptop on the table and figured they hit the jackpot. They got my laptop and *sob* my iPod.

Luckily, they didn’t go through my room they way they did M’s or they would have gotten both of my passports, some cash, and my laptop case (which is where copies of most of word files, my USB memory, and my digital camera were). So, is when the fiasco began . . .

First, we tried to wake up our landlord, a very kind, very deaf man and his wife who live directly above us. After repeated banging and doorbell ringing, we abandoned that idea. Next we decided to call the police. Of course we didn’t know how to contact the police, or what our address was . . . so I called a Palestinian – Canadian friend whose family is here and asked him to help me figure out the phone number etc . . . Then I called a male friend who lived nearby because I knew that I did not want to deal with the local police at midnight without having a male figure with me.

Within 15 minutes our apartment was swarming with local police. We had about 5 officers, and then some random people who I think might have just been friends of the cops who decided to come and stare at the stupid foreign girls who had been robbed. We were asked questions like: What were we doing out so late? Who were we with? Why hadn’t we locked all of the interior doors in the apartment? (because we didn’t have a key). The police officers who came to help spent more time examining my underwear on the laundry line than they did the window that the thief had broken in through.

After a great deal of discussion, they decided we should all head back to the police station to give a report. They had 7 people pile into a little four door car and drive the three blocks to the police station. They sat us down, gave us tea, and proceeded to ask us the same questions they had asked us in our apartment about 4 more times. Admittedly the language barrier was a bit of a problem, but I did okay and Mat’s Arabic is as good as mine, so we were managing. While we sat there, the policeman who hadn’t already been to our apartment took turn standing in the doorway of the office we were sitting in, staring at M and I. After about 2 hours, they let us go. M and I spent the next hour and half canceling her credit cards etc . . . Luckily the thieves didn’t find the place where she had hidden her cc cancel info or her photocopy of her passport . . .

As far as my losses go, I lost all the research that I had done for my thesis to date, and the 300 some pictures that I had taken during my time here. And, of course, the iPod.

The second day of ISM training was scheduled for the following morning. Unforunately after dealing with the Birzeit Police (which may have been more traumatic than being robbed) and canceling all of M’s info I wasn’t feeling up to another 11 hour day of training on about 2.5 hours of sleep. Never mind that I was leaving for Beirut within 24 hours . . .

ISM Training

2005-10-26T19:44:00.000+02:00

Sunday I spent 11 hours at nonviolent resistance training with ISM. It was a very, very long day. The first half of it was pretty boring because it was all cultural awareness training – which is sort of unnecessary after 2 months of living in the Occupied Territories. The second half was very useful, we learned and practiced some techniques that might be useful with difficult soldiers at checkpoints and talked about power and privilege in our lives and as internationals in the Palestine. The training stressed the importance of not dehumanizing Israeli soldiers and of maintaining calm in all situations, if at all possible.

Another important point is that ISM only works in areas where they are invited by the local Palestinian community. All of the initiatives come from Palestinians and not internationals. It is not the place of an ISMer to criticize any Palestinian’s actions, even if they are throwing stones at a demonstration – it is their right to resist the occupation, according to international law. The trainers really focused on the point that we are here to support the Palestinians, PERIOD.

It was interesting to see how nonviolence techniques are taught, and which definitions are used by ISM. For example, ISM does not consider the destruction of the Wall to be a form of violence, but many other proponents and practitioners of nonviolence would argue that any destruction of property is violent. The second day of training should be even more useful because that is when the legal section will be covered which will include what our rights are as internationals as well as what Israeli soldiers rights are in dealing with us. For example, who can arrest us, who can take our passports, which threats are empty, which actions by soldiers are prohibited by their own laws, etc . . . This is the main reason that I organized this training session – I want to know what the rules are and what the consequences of breaking those rules are before I engage the Occupation Forces.

I would love to work regularly with ISM, but since I’m on a fellowship from the government at the moment it seems like a bad idea. So, this trip I will watch and learn and hopefully next time I will have the opportunity to be more active.

In unrelated news, I have decided to stay in Palestine for Christmas so that I can help with the preparations for the Nonviolence Conference in Bethlehem at the end of December. I won’t be back in DC until the end of the first week of January – probably. I was seriously thinking about staying here for the spring semester as well, but I have resisted the temptation. I know perfectly well that if I stay I will spend my time volunteering and not writing my thesis.

Freedom of Movement

2005-10-21T19:41:00.000+02:00

It is cold here. Not Syracuse in the middle of January cold, but cold enough to make me wish that I had brought more long sleeved shirts with me. Heat is luxury here, so we’ve just been adding extra blankets to the beds and wearing our jackets indoors for now. Eventually our landlord will supply us with little electric heaters, but in the meantime, it is chilly. I can deal with the cold, but I didn’t shower for two days because there wasn’t any hot water, or lukewarm water for that matter. Our water heaters are solar, so if there isn’t any sunshine, then there aren’t any showers either. On the third day our landlord stopped by and showed us how to switch the water supply from the solar water tank to the electric water tank, but he also warned us that it is extremely expensive to use the electric tank. By day three I was so happy to shower that I didn’t care how much it would cost. M and I were joking about checking into hotels bi-weekly during the winter just to take long, hot showers.

Otherwise, the week was pretty uneventful until Friday when I went to Bethlehem to meet with Holy Land Trust (an NGO) and see how I could help them prepare for their Nonviolence Conference in December. Turns out they need lots of help, so I should be very busy over the next two months. They actually asked me if I would consider moving to Bethlehem and volunteer full time. Although I would love to, I am already committed to my program at Birzeit, not to mention my thesis, so I had to turn them down.

As always, the most interesting part of my trip was traveling to Bethlehem. I crossed three checkpoints and had to show my passport 5 times between Ramallah and Bethlehem. I was on a bus at the second checkpoint (between Kalandia and Jerusalem), and the soldiers actually pulled a Palestinian woman and myself off the bus to question us. They let me back on after a couple minutes, but they kept the other woman and the bus left without her. I had to switch buses in East Jerusalem to head to Bethlehem, and I literally walk right past the Damascus Gate to old city on the way to the second bus stop. It was Friday morning, and droves of people we heading into the old city to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. In order to get to the gate you have to walk down steps arrayed in a half-crescent shape. Israeli soldiers were fanned out along the half-crescent so that you had to walk between them to head down to the gate. I had a little extra time, so I decided to go down to the gate and watch the flow of people. One of the soldiers stopped me as I was passing him and asked to see my passport (I must have FOREIGNER stamped on my forehead). I handed him the passport and he read my name out loud, then he asked me if I wanted to go inside. I looked at him for a minute then I said, “Well, I was headed in that direction until you stopped me – What do you think?” I was kind of surprised to hear the words come out of my mouth . . . he just handed me back my passport and waved me on.

After I poked around the old city for a couple of minutes I headed over to the Bethlehem buses and caught a bus. This bus was pulled over by Israeli police, who again demanded to see everyone’s passports. When I finally got to Bethlehem I walked through the checkpoint without any trouble, which is good because I was running a little late. As I walked past the checkpoint and towards the Wall, I could see about 60 people waiting in line to cross the checkpoint in the other direction heading towards Jerusalem, presumably to pray at Al-Aqsa. That line wasn’t moving at all.
After entering Bethlehem I caught a ride to HLT and ended up spending the entire day there working with the staff. In fact, I lost track of time and had to hurry to make it back to Jerusalem before Iftar (breaking of the fast). I was also fasting (albeit by default) and it was pretty cool to be in Jerusalem right before Iftar. Everyone was running around like crazy, so I popped back into the old city, thinking I’d find a seat and watch the show. I ended up wandering around and found myself at one of the entrances to the Haram Al-Sharif. It is the first time that I’ve been that close to it, and I could actually see the golden dome through the archway at the end of the passageway. I was just moving with the flow of traffic towards it, excited, and I didn’t see the soldier to my left. He grabbed my arm and told me that I wasn’t allowed to enter. I was so angry. I tried to argue with him, but he wasn’t hearing it, so I headed back towards the Damascus Gate and grabbed a seat on the steps (where the soldiers had been that morning) and watched the sun set. It was a really beautiful moment . . . the entire city was quiet while people were breaking their fasts and the Ramadan lights were lit around the gate. I was really enjoying myself until two teenage Palestinian boys sat on the steps directly behind me and started hitting on me by singing bits of songs in Arabic and using the word habibty (my sweetheart) over and over.

After that I stopped at the Jerusalem Hotel and broke my involuntary fast. While I was there I met a British activist named Glen and hung out with him for a while before heading back to Ramallah.

In unrelated news, I heard an unconfirmed rumor that the Israelis are planning to raid Bethlehem soon in retaliation for the three settlers that we killed this week. There were certainly more soldiers there than usual, and they’ve added two checkpoints at different entrances to the city . . . I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens.

Rabbis for Human Rights

2005-10-16T21:14:00.000+02:00

Sunday morning MA and I went on an olive harvest with Rabbis for Human Rights. We were in Bethlehem, so in order to get to Jerusalem by 6am (which was the obscene hour that the bus was leaving) we had to leave Dheisha Camp at 5am. I woke up around 4 am when the mosque (which sounded like it was in the same room with me) started the call to prayer. I fell back asleep for about 15 minutes, during which time I dreamt that I was standing at a soft serve ice cream machine, but when you pulled the little lever showerma and falafel came out and fell into a waiting pita pocket.

MA and I were at the Bethlehem checkpoint by 5:10, and we stood at the checkpoint for about 15 minutes watching the soldiers in their little stand smoke cigarettes and ignore the steadily growing line of people. No one is allowed to approach the soldiers until they call for you – trying is a good way to get shot. Eventually they decided to let us through and we walked about a half a mile until we could catch a cab to Jerusalem.

We found the meeting place for Rabbis for Human Rights with a little difficulty, but we still made by 6 am. We spent the next 3 hours on a bus heading for Yamoun, a village outside of Nablus. Now, Israel is not that big of a place, but because we were specifically trying to avoid the infamous Hawara checkpoint (known for long waits and pissy soldiers) we took the scenic route. Close to our destination we saw a big settlement on the top of the hills; we also saw orchards of olive trees that had burned by the settlers. Apparently this village has had a lot of trouble with the settlers, and with one in particular who the local Palestinians call The Sheriff because of his posturing and way he uses Palestinian farmers as target practice.

Rabbis for Human Rights sends internationals out to help Palestinians during the harvest season for two reasons: First, because the Israelis only give Palestinians a limited amount of time during which harvesting is permitted; Second, because settler’s are much less likely to shoot, beat or otherwise injure an international than they are a Palestinian. Thankfully, the day was uneventful. The only visitors that we had were the Israeli media who decided to shoot some footage of internationals harvesting olives. As for the actual harvesting, it wasn’t that bad. I mean, it was hard work, but the weather was nice, the countryside was beautiful and the conversation was diverse. I met a black man from South Africa who is working with the YMCA in Bethlehem. While we were working, I asked him what he thought of the situation in Palestine compared to the Apartheid system in South Africa. He said, in his opinion, the situation in Palestine is much worse than it was in South Africa, particularly in the area of freedom of movement. He also pointed out that the anti-apartheid movement had the support of the international community, which is something that the Palestinians do not have.

After about 6 hours of reaching up to pull olives off trees and crouching down to pick the fallen olives – mind you this is during Ramadan – I was ready to head home. To be fair, no one seemed to be observing Ramadan very closely, including the Palestinians who were with us, but I was still happy to head back to Jerusalem for a meal. Once back in the HC (Holy City) MA and I met up with a friend of hers and ate at a restaurant in East Jerusalem. I thought my adventures were over, but I’d only been on the bus heading towards the West Bank for about 5 minutes when MA called me from her taxi to say that 3 settlers had been killed in the West Bank that afternoon and that she’d heard the West Bank was being closed down. While I was talking to her our bus was pulled over by Israeli soldiers who came onboard and checked all of our IDs (this is common on the way into Jerusalem, but not on the way out). I called a friend in Ramallah to check on the situation, but luckily things were quiet in my direction and I made it home.

Since then things have gotten interesting . . . old checkpoints are being reinstated and the Israeli government was threatening to completely shut down Bethlehem and Hebron (that is where they think the shooters came from) but it hasn’t happened yet. I’m supposed to go to Bethlehem on Friday to meet with Holy Land Trust about working with them . . . hopefully I will be able to.

Strip Searches and Refugee Camps

2005-10-15T21:12:00.000+02:00

The last couple of days have been hectic, to say the least. My friend MA, who I met last summer at AUC, traveled across the King Hussein Bridge on Saturday and I met up with her at the Dheisha Refugee Camp in Bethlehem. She lived in Jerusalem this summer and worked with ISM, and is currently working in Amman. I spent the first part of the day just sort of hanging around, waiting to see if MA would make it across the border (she was arrested while working with ISM, so the chances of her actually getting into Israel were pretty slim). Luckily, she called me at 1:30 in the afternoon from the bus to Jerusalem – after 5.5 hours at the border and a strip search, to tell me that she made it.

It took me two hours to travel from Birzeit to Dheisha, and luckily I made it just in time for Iftar with a fantastic family in the camp. MA is sponsoring one of the daughters (S) in the family to study English at Georgetown University this January. She has already been accepted to the program, and a big part of why MA braved the border crossing was to sort out the visa paperwork and get everything in order for her trip.

I stayed the night with the family, and practiced my Arabic a lot. S’s father is a political leader in the camp and was deported to Jordan during the mid-80s. There were allowed to return to Palestine sometime in the 90s. He was been imprisoned more than 10 times. S has an older brother who has been in Israeli detainment for 22 months without a court date. Her grandmother was one of the first casualties of the First Intifada . . . you get the idea. In spite of all of these hardships, it is obvious that the family is very close, and also very open to outsiders.

There was a bit of a conflict going on between S and her father when I arrived regarding her upcoming studies abroad. In fact, they hadn’t spoken in a month because he was so angry at her. He was angry because she was beginning to have doubts about traveling to the US and was considering turning down the opportunity to study at Geirgetown. Now, S has traveled to the US before, she was in a documentary called Promises that was nominated for an Academy Award. This 18 year old from Dheisha Camp has been to the Academy Awards . . . I’ve never even been to LA.

MA and I talked to S for a while, trying to figure out exactly what the problem was with studying abroad. At first, I thought it was the distance from home; then I thought it was the cultural differences, but I was way off base. Turns out, the last time she traveled away from home was when the Israelis placed Bethlehem under curfew and had the siege at the Church of the Nativity. She was stranded abroad while all hell was breaking loose at home . . . the Israelis entered the camp repeatedly and at one point entered her home and shot it up. She is afraid that something similar will happen while she is studying abroad and she won’t be with her family when they need her.

After a while of talking – not persuading, just discussing options and fears and life in America – she decided that she wanted to go ahead with the study abroad. She will be arriving in DC in January if the visa process goes smoothly, and I have promised to show her around and introduce to the cool places and great people that I know in DC (translation: I will need people to show me cool places so that I can take her to them).

I also think it is really amazing that MA, who is only an Assistant Professor at a university in the US, has put aside enough money to fund S and her studies, not to mention arranging housing and dealing with the mountain of paperwork necessary to get a Palestinian student a visa, not to mention the paperwork necessary to get a Palestinian from Bethlehem permission to go to Jerusalem for an interview at the American Consulate. Did I mention that Bethlehem is less than 20 minutes away from Jerusalem, but most residents aren’t allowed to travel to Jerusalem? It makes me wonder about what other things I can do to help out, even if it is only helping one person at a time.

Jericho

2005-10-15T12:39:00.000+02:00

Sometimes I think the most interesting part of traveling in Palestine isn’t the places I’m visiting, but the actual process of moving from point A to point B. M and I went to Jericho Thursday afternoon, and returned today. We went to Jericho, aside from the obvious historical and tourist reasons, because M is an avid birdwatcher and the Palestinian Wildlife Society has a small conservation area in Jericho. Of course, first we had to get there . . .

Our little misadventure started with a miscommunication. M was under the impression that A, her connection to the subculture of Palestinian birdwatching, was driving to either Birzeit or Ramallah to pick us up. Unfortunately, he thought that we would to finding our own transportation. So, around 3pm we realized the problem and started the process of traveling to Jericho, and on Yom Kippur to boot.

First, the service from Birzeit to Ramallah, then another service from Ramallah to Kalandia, then a third service from Kalandia to Jericho. To add to the fun, it is Ramadan, which means we had to get to Kalandia and catch a service early enough that we would arrive in Jericho before Iftar, or the breaking of the fast at sunset.

Luckily, we made it to Kalandia in good time, and there wasn’t a flying checkpoint (I was worried because of the Jewish holiday that things would be even more complicated than usual) and we caught a service to Jericho in just enough time to make the trip and arrive before sunset.

Our service was a dilapidated old station wagon, but this is not unusual in the West Bank, so we just hopped in and hoped for the best. Unfortunately (I will be using this word a lot in this entry, btw) there was an accident blocking the only road from Jerusalem to Jericho. There are in fact other routes, but they are closed to Palestinians and reserved for Israelis and settlers. Our driver decided that instead of sitting in a traffic jam for two hours, it would be a better idea to go off-road in this decrepit, low riding station wagon. Now, I have become accustomed to the Palestinian service driver’s idea of safety, but poor M is still adjusting . . . so we were bouncing along this little sandy path next to the Wall and M is trying to tell to the driver to slow down in Arabic . . . it was pretty funny.

Our first path turned out to be dead end, so we reversed down the path – imagine a sheer drop to the left, the Wall to the right, and cars in front of and behind us reversing simultaneously – and then drove around the wall (so much for security) onto the Israeli side and around the accident. This part didn’t really faze me, but when we got onto the Israeli road and started passing other cars on the windy, uphill road (he was passing them by going off the road onto the sandy curb next to another sheer drop-off) I got a little nervous. I think this is the first time in about 10 years that I said the Lord’s Prayer (or what I could remember of it).

After surviving the scary part of our trip, I was able to enjoy the scenery. For such a small country, Israel/ Occupied Territories has amazingly diverse terrain. Driving through the mountainous desert region was beautiful in a distant, moonscape kind of way. Unfortunately, this was disturbed by the Bedouin encampments along the road. These Bedouins used to live in the Negev, but their land was confiscated by the Israeli Army for “military security” and is now occupied by settlements. The Israelis moved the Bediouns to a small, waterless strip of land next to the highway and overlooking a dumping site. That said, the descent from the mountain region into the valley and the oasis of Jericho is stunning. The climate in Jericho is sub-tropical, so the first things that you see when approaching Jericho are the palm trees and green areas. This is also a sad story because most of the Palestinians who live in the region used to make their living by farming various fruit crops, including bananas and dates. Now, Jericho is surrounded by three large settlements which have taken away a lot of the Palestinian farmlands. There used to be 84 wells in the region for Palestinian use (it is an oasis, after all) but now the Palestinians only have access to 17 of them. This means that many of the people who used to make a decent living from farming their own land now have to work as hired labor in the settlements to make ends meet.

Apparently Jericho is a little over a kilometer away from the Jordan River, and also very close to the Dead Sea and the King Hussein (Allenby Bridge) crossing to Jordan. Unfortunately, Palestinians aren’t allowed to go down to the Jordan River because it is a military zone. All traffic entering and exiting Jericho has to go through an Israeli checkpoint, and they checked my ID both times. This was a little weird because on the way in, the only ID they checked was mine . . . guess that is what you get being the only woman in the service under 30 – or maybe it was because the soldier couldn’t decide if I was Palestinian or not . . . who knows?

As for the actual purpose of the trip – birdwatching – I won’t bore you with recounting the events aside to say that I got out of bed at 5 am, ate stale bread that was crawling with ants (after knocking the ants off, of course) and wasted 4 hours of my life that I will never get back. M admitted that it was an extremely boring day, even by birdwatching standards. I can officially say that I am not now, nor will I ever be a bird watcher. I’m all about recycling, avoiding pollution, and animal protection, but I think I will stick to my current hobbies of politics, beer drinking and writing. We also visited Hisham’s Palace and a monostary, but honestly it was so hot and my mind was so numb from the birdwatching that I didn’t take much in.

In conclusion, my advice to anyone who is invited to go birdwatching is – DON’T DO IT. If you must, make sure your first trip will be a short one.

Village Excitement

2005-10-12T12:36:00.000+02:00

Today I had a surprisingly productive day – meaning I learned a lot about Critical Language Discourse, and I even did my Arabic homework the day before it was due. In celebration of my productivity, M and I went to the local bar for a pint. We sat at a table with the owner and his cousin and conversed in a bizarre weaving of Modern Standard Arabic, colloquial Arabic and English (this has become my specialization, btw). The bar was surprising full considering that it is Ramadan, but there is a large Christian presence in the village, and not all Muslims are observant anyway. We were just sitting there chatting when I noticed that about half the men in the bar (okay, maybe M and I were the only women in the place) were standing and looking out the window behind me. I like to think of myself as a moderately observant person, but Palestinians are very honed into their environment and particularly activity on the streets – it is a necessity for survival here.

So, like a good little foreigner I turned around about 3 minutes late and watched a rapidly growing group of young men walk up the street and around the corner. As the flow of men (most of whom were university students) increased, some of them started running. After about 30 minutes, the flow of men reversed and came back down the street – but now they looked like they were marching with a purpose.

Meanwhile I’m sitting having a conversation with J about the refugee situation in Palestine, and about his feelings regarding raising a son in Occupied Palestine. He is a born and raised Birzeiter, and his family has been here for hundreds of years. J said he didn’t think that the refugees would ever get their land back, and that the PA was just using the camps to soak the UN and the international community for money. He also said that he applies for a visa every year to the US or Europe in the hopes of getting his son out of Palestine before he becomes a teenager, and a target. He really dotes on his son, George, who just turned 4. Every time I see him he tells me about George’s latest adventure, whether it is requesting a disco cd or singing karyoke at the restaurant/ bar.

While we are having this conversation, I hear 5 or 6 gunshots, all coming from the direction that the mob of young men had marched toward. Apparently, one student stabbed another student. The stabbed student is from the north (Qalquilia). Within minutes, thanks to cell phones, the better part of the male student population from the northern parts of Palestine were in the streets, trying to find out what happened and looking for a fight. The student who did the stabbing is apparently from a Birzeit family with connections in the PA, so the mob of students marched to the police station to demand that he be moved from Birzeit to Ramallah, where his family connections are less influential.

Of course, this is all hearsay, but it highlights some pretty serious issues. First, successful Palestinians are leaving to raise their kids in safer places (not a shocker). Second, the refugee situation is viewed as hopeless by at least some Palestinians, and I would guess that most Palestinians who aren’t refugees don’t really think the refugees will ever get their right to return. Thirdly, there is a high degree of corruption in the PA and lawlessness in the streets. Fourth, violence is normal here. Gun shots don’t phase people – once the people in bar established that the excitement on the street wasn’t from the IDF, they settled back into their beers and conversations immediately. Even I wasn’t really fazed by the gunshots, aside from hoping that none of the students had been hurt. The normalization of violence here is amazing. I realize that I come from a privileged and sheltered background – but I can’t image trying to raise a family in this kind of environment. It makes me wonder what 4 year-old George who likes to sing karyoke will be like when he’s19 if he grows up here.

On a different note, I will probably be traveling for the next 5 or 6 days, so my blog and email will be quiet. I’m excited about my upcoming trip, and if it pans out I’m sure I’ll have some interesting stories to tell when I get back.

Khalil (Hebron)

2005-10-11T17:15:00.000+02:00

The next morning we visited the Church of the Nativity, then headed for Khalil. We heard that the Hebron checkpoint was completely closed the day before, but we decided to give it a try and see what happened – luckily we didn’t have any trouble. Khalil is one of the biggest, if the not the biggest city in the West Bank. It reminded me of Qalquilia in that all the women we saw were wearing the hijab and very modestly dressed. The economic situation was obviously not good. We headed straight for the Old City, which is really beautiful. Just full of windy stone alleys and tunnels – truly a hide and seek paradise. As we walked into the old city we passed a building on the right with Israeli soldiers and machine guns on the roof, watching us. To be fair, we stood out a lot since there weren’t many (any) other tourists.

After we passed the soldiers, we came to a fork in the road and you could see that the souq (market) used to be down both streets. Now, the street on the right was closed off and gated -- all the Arabs have left their stores and homes. Why, you might ask? Because of the harassment they received from the settlers and soldiers. Admittedly, the Israeli technique of occupation does not usually involve Israelis and Arabs living in the same city, but in 1967 one Jewish family came to Hebron to celebrate Passover, boarded themselves into the hotel they were staying in (in the center of the city) and refused to leave. Today the settlers control 1/3 of downtown Hebron, with about 500 settlers and 4000 soldiers to protect them (Christian Peacemaker Team figures). There are about 40,000 Palestinians in the remainder of the city.

Back to my story . . . so the road on the right is closed because there are too many settlers living in the buildings above the souq. This is a problem because they throw their trash, feces, and whatever else they can think of onto the Palestinians who work below them. So, that side of the souq was completely emptied. On the left side, the side we entered, there are also problems with settlers, but apparently it isn’t as bad as the other side. The locals have set up fencing above their heads to catch the trash, and in some places they have put boards over the fence which block out any liquid trash that might come their way, but also, unfortunately, blocks out the sunlight.

We walked along the souq, then we came to a checkpoint where they had set up more of the revolving metal cage thingees. I hate these things. They have them at Kalandia as well, and trying to get through them with a backpack is annoying, never mind with a suitcase or a small child. The soldier there didn’t bother to look at our passports, so we continued towards our goal, Haram Brahimi. Once we reached the base of the Muslim entrance to the mosque we went through another checkpoint. This time they searched our bags, we walked through metal detectors, and they looked at our passports. They also asked each of us what religion we are. The guide said that we were all Christians (which was not true) but I went along with it since I have no strong religious affiliation and I wanted to see the inside of the mosque. Then we had to go through another checkpoint before we could actually enter the mosque, which was more of the same.

Once inside, we took off our shoes and the women put on shapeless brown robes with hoods that covered our hair, bodies and hands. Finally we were able to enter the mosque. This place is important because it is believed that Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, Leah and Joseph are buried on this sight. It is also important because in 1994 a crazy settler, Dr. Baruch Goldstein entered the mosque during Ramadan and killed 29 Muslims while they were praying – most of them shot in the back. After the massacre a 24 hour curfew was imposed on the Arabs of Khalil, while the settlers were allowed complete freedom of movement. Muslims were not allowed to pray in the mosque for 9 months, and when they returned they found it had been partitioned into two sections: one for Muslims and one for Jews. The mosque is very beautiful, despite the bullet holes in the walls and the Israeli security cameras set up all over the place. BTW the settlers consider the nutcase who opened fire in the mosque to be a martyr and people make pilgrimages to the place he is buried. His wife actually tried to sue the Muslims who disarmed him and killed him after he had killed 29 people and injured close to 200 people.

We visited the Jewish side of the site as well, but in order to get there we had to pass through 2 more checkpoints. Again we were asked if there were any Muslims in the group, and again our guide said no. This time one of the Muslim girls got really upset with him, and almost refused to go into the Jewish side. I don’t blame her. I don’t even consider myself Muslim but I was offended as well. Both by the guide and by the fact that our religion is considered enough of a reason to discriminate against us. She was actually in tears as we approached the first checkpoint to enter the Jewish section, and I was worried that she was going to say something to the soldiers as they searched her bag. She kept her cool, but the internal struggle she was going through was obvious. I offered to wait with her instead of going inside, but she refused.

So we went inside, and saw lots of people praying – exactly the same as what we saw on the Muslim side . . . The irony of this conflict is just ridiculous sometimes. Next we walked through the section of the old city where the settlers lived. It was like a ghost town. Most of the homes are owned by Arabs who left after years of harassment and killings, although many of them refuse to sell their homes. It doesn’t really matter, settlers just move into the ones that they want. Our guide was very nervous (he is a Palestinian Christian) and we moved quickly through this part of the city. At one point we saw a group of Palestinian kids coming home from school. They are escorted to and from school by Christian Peacekeepers to try and protect them from the settlers and the soldiers.

After leaving the Old City we stopped at a restaurant to grab some shawerma and we heard that there had been shooting in the Old City, probably less than 5 minutes after we left. We finished our meal, and the rest of the group headed out to visit the Hebron Glass Factory, but I split off to talk to our guide some more and have my own adventure on the way home, which I talked about in an earlier entry.

Refugee Camps and non-bullet proof windows

2005-10-11T17:12:00.000+02:00

Last weekend I visited Beit Lehem and Khalil (Hebron) with my program. In Beit Lehem we visited two refugee camps and got spoke with a representative from the Rapprochament Center. At each of the camps we met with volunteers/ tour guides who showed us the camps and talked about life in the camps. One of the camps, Aida Camp, is literally right next to the wall – in fact, the wall cuts the refugees off from the only open area of land that was available to them. The land is owned by one of the local churches and was used as an area for children to play, students to study, and just as a place to get away from the camp, where people live stacked on top of each other. From the roof of one of the buildings in the camp and next to the wall, you can see over the wall, and all that empty space just sitting, unused.

On our way from the first camp to the second camp, Dheisha Camp, we passed an interesting sight. Rachel’s Tomb was on the end of the street that we were walking on, but it is blocked off by Israeli soldiers, so we couldn’t go to it from inside the camp. We noticed two Israeli soldiers roughing up a Palestinian man in handcuffs. We all stopped and watched, and the Israelis moved the man so that he was behind a concrete slab and we couldn’t see him. We stood there for another 5 minutes, and they finally let the guy go. Our guide called him over and asked him to tell us what had happened. I didn’t catch the whole story, but apparently they pulled him off one of the checkpoints at about 6 that morning. Then, the soldiers took him up to their watchtower and made him stand next to a sleeping Israeli soldier. The other soldiers apparently took turns calling the sleeping soldier’s cell phone until he woke up and found this Palestinian standing over him. Then, of course, he attacked him. When we met this guy, who was probably in his early or mid-twenties it was early afternoon. They’d been playing with him for at least 6 hours . . .

Dheisha refugee camp was twice the size of the first – it was something like 11,000 people living on a ½ square kilometer of land. We walked around the camp, whose roads are so narrow cars can’t fit down most of the streets. Both refugee camps have a type of welcome center, and they rent rooms out to internationals who are visiting or want to work with the camp . . . which surprised me. The welcome/student center at the second camp is full of beautiful murals depicting the lives of the refugees before and after 1948/1967. The camps sponsor trips where they send grandparents and their grandkids to the sites of their old villages, so that their true homes and history can be passed from generation to generation . . . Which is just heartbreakingly sad.

Before this trip I had considered the right of return to be something impossible for the refugees. I mean, how on earth can they go back to villages that aren’t there anymore, or are filled with Israelis? Seeing the way these people are living, and have been living for over 30 or 50 years while they wait for their chance to return to homes is truly an educational experience. And they have continued to live like this because they have to maintain their refugee status to qualify for right of return under international law. If they leave they give up on their past and the suffering their families have endured for the last 2 generations – if they stay they give up their futures. They are trapped by international law and the PA uses the refugees as a pity card . . . not helping them too much so that they can hold them up to the international community and say, “See how our people are suffering”. Meanwhile the PA officials live in style and comfort. The whole situation is just sickening.

At the Reapproachment center we learned about nonviolent methods of resistance the local people have organized. It was a slightly more upbeat note to end of the day on, but we were all pretty weary by the time we headed to the hostel. We stayed at the Arab Women’s Union, which I highly recommend to anyone who needs a cheap, clean place to stay while they are visiting Beit Lehem (although it is actually in Beit Sahour). The only problem with our room at the hostel was the bullet hole in the window, although the glass had been carefully taped around the hole. Just a reminder that Beit Lehem and Beit Sahour were under siege not so long ago . . .

my first attempt at nonviolent resistance

2005-10-03T19:44:00.000+03:00

This weekend I visited Beit Lehem and Khalil (Hebron) with some of the other students in my program. I saw a lot of things, some of them uplifting, but the majority of which were disheartening if not downright depressing. I’m not sure where to start, but I think I will start at the end and work backwards, because the end of the trip left the most lasting impression on me, by far.

After our tour of the Old City in Khalil, I split off from the rest of my group and returned to the souq with our guide, R. One of us was going to have to return separately anyway because there weren’t enough seats on the service we were using to legally pass through Israeli checkpoints (8 seats, 9 people), so I volunteered because I wanted to quiz our tour guide about the organization he works for, Holy Land Trust. I was planning on contacting HLT anyway, because I worked with their sister organization, Nonviolence International, in DC. So . . . R and I hung out a while, I think I made a new friend (he invited me to stay with him and his wife in Beit Lehem anytime) and then I caught a service headed from Khalil back to the Kalandia checkpoint.

The ride was fairly uneventful until the end – me crammed in the middle seat and the middle row of a station wagon, with a elderly Palestinian woman dressed in traditional clothing on my right, and a large Palestinian man on my left trying desperately to stay far enough over on his side that there was no bodily contact between us. Our driver chain smoked, played with the radio station, and navigated the incredibly steep and dangerous road we careened along simultaneously. This is the only road open for travel to Kalandia without going though Jerusalem (which is forbidden for West Bank vehicles), and I have no idea how anyone navigates it in the winter . . . it is narrow with hairpin curves, no guardrails, and it is ridiculously steep. Just before we reached Kalandia we were stopped at a flying checkpoint (not a permanent checkpoint, just a place where an Israeli Army jeep pulls over and starts checking IDs. No one knows if there is any rhyme or reason to when and why they set up the flying checkpoints. . .

There were three soldiers with the jeep: one sitting in the jeep smoking and talking on his cell phone, one who came to our car and asked for everyone’s IDs, and one up high in the back of the jeep with a machine gun. From my seat, I could see a Palestinian kid they had already pulled out of another car, sitting on a rock next to the jeep. He was wearing a red long sleeved shirt and jeans, and had his back turned to the soldiers and angled away from the road. He was nervously fidgeting, wringing his hands, putting his head in his hands, and talking to himself (I can only assume he was praying). He was about 16 or 17 years old and looked completely terrified.

After a couple minutes, the soldiers pulled a young guy out of our car, probably about 22 or 23 years old, and told him to sit on the rock next to the other kid. Before getting out of the car, he reassured his family that he would be okay and told them to just leave him. Then the pulled out the man next to me, but he returned to the car after a couple minutes. The boy from our car looked less scared than the other kid, and his sister who was in seat behind me with his niece said he had already spent 5 years in an Israeli jail. After about 5-10 more minutes, the soldiers waved our car on, but because they still had the boy, the taxi driver pulled over just in front of the flying checkpoint. The driver got out of the car to smoke a cigarette, and we just sat there in total silence.

I also wanted a cigarette, so I decided to take a gamble and I got out of the car. I sat on a rock, not next to the boys, but close to them, and I pulled out a cigarette. I knew the soldiers knew that I was American because they had already looked at my passport. I looked over at the two boys, one still obviously scared, and the other quiet and I smiled at them both and nodded, they both nodded back. The soldier on the jeep with the machine gun was watching me, with his gun pointed at me during this 20 second interaction.

I took a deep breath, lit my cigarette, and settled onto the rock as if I was completely comfortable. I hadn’t even taken the second drag from my cigarette when the Israeli soldiers released the boy who had been in my car and told us to drive away. I hesitated for a second, because I didn’t want to leave the other boy by himself, but the taxi driver started yelling at me to hurry up. I hadn’t even gotten into the taxi before a second Israeli jeep pulled up (I assume border police, but I’m not sure), and we drove away.

Once I was back in the taxi and we had driven away from the checkpoint, everyone wanted to know my name, where I was from . . . They knew, as I did, that the Israelis had let the boy go (or at least let him go sooner) because I, an international, happened to be in their service and because I made my presence very obvious to the soldiers. They obviously hadn’t picked him up for anything in particular, because they wouldn’t have let him go so easily if he was actually wanted for some crime or political affiliation.

The sad part is, I didn’t even do anything. I just got out of the car and started to smoke a cigarette – exactly what I would do at home if my car broke down. I didn’t try to approach the soldiers, or the boys . . . I considered doing both of those things, but I was afraid that I would make the situation worse for the boys and I wasn’t sure what I could/should say that might have helped. I am repeatedly struck by the lack of rights and power that the Palestinians have, and that I, as a foreigner, have more influence than the average Palestinian citizen and resident. It also scares me, because with that power comes a responsibility that I feel very clearly. I don’t know if I handled that situation well, or if there are other, better things that I could have done. I can’t get the face of the boy in the red shirt out of my head. He was younger than my youngest brother, and he looked so scared but was trying to be brave at the same time.

I think that I am going to try and get some ISM training. I want to participate in the olive harvest, and I think that it would be a good idea to talk to more experienced people about how to handle these situations. If I have a clearer idea of what my rights are, and what the boundaries are for the soldiers, maybe I will be more effective – and less scared – the next time I find myself in this sort of situation. Unfortunately, I don’t doubt that I will find myself in these situations, regardless of whether or not I want to be in them. I think that it is privilege to help Palestinians in these situations -- and a responsibility -- but I want to do it in the most effective way possible . . .

I have a lot of other things to say about my trip to Beit Lehem and Khalil, but I think I will save it for another day.

Qalauilia, qalquilia

2005-09-25T20:35:00.000+03:00

Today I went to Qalquilia for the second time. This time my roommate, M, organized a trip for interested students which was guided her friend and fellow ISMer. M worked with ISM two summers ago in Qalquilia, protesting the building of the wall. When she was there they were less than half-way finished with their construction of the wall around Qalquilia – now the city in completely encircled, except for two entrances which can be easily closed (one of which was recently opened). We weren’t sure if we would be able to travel to Qalquilia because the West Bank was sealed off yesterday, but we managed without any difficulty.

When we arrived, we met our guide at the southwestern edge of the city, by the wall. He explained that people in Qalquilia used to be able to enter Israel without any trouble, and that most of the people who lived in the town were either farmers or had worked in Israel. The wall has separated many farmers from their land (which is now a highway for Israelis only) and stopped many people from commuting into Israel to work. Also, I learned that a lot of Israelis used to come to Qalquilia to shop because of the produce and the prices, but this has also been stopped by the wall. I can’t get over how big, and how permanent the wall is. Peace groups have painted murals and sprayed slogans onto the wall – which is cool, but seems futile. I mean, it is still there. We could see the Israeli guard tower and the camera boxes that line the wall so that Israel can see if anyone approaches. We approached anyway, and took lots of pictures.

Next, we visited a site where a tunnel has been created to allow Qalquilians to travel to other Palestinian villages to the south. The tunnel, which is more like an underpass, goes beneath a settler road – which makes sure the settlers don’t have to come into contact with Palestinians. The tunnels all have gates, which means that Israel can control the flow of traffic much easier, and with fewer soldiers, than they could before. This is the second phase of the wall plan. These tunnels are being created to split the West Bank regions into little cantons that can be easily controlled. Perpendicular to the tunnels, deep trenches have been dug, so that Palestinians can’t climb up the sides to cross over the settler roads. Of course, in order to complete these projects more viable Palestinian land has been confiscated.

The last site we visited was a place where the Israelis have constructed large buildings, warehouse style. Apparently, this will be a new opening, where Palestinians who want to work in Israel will be allowed to cross over. Our guide said this will be the only crossing available in the north, and may be the only crossing for the entire West Bank, but they don’t know the details yet. This way, Israel will be able to maintain and control its cheap labor source.

We stopped for tea at our guide’s family’s house, where we learned about the fertile land in Qalquilia, and her rich water resources. Did you know that the Palestinians are not allowed to install new motors in their wells? They are still using equipment from the British colonial period, run by car batteries because Israel will not allow the permits to install modern equipment. When I asked why they don’t just smuggle in the new equipment, he said Israel sends inspectors to the wells. The Israelis have also installed meters on all of the Palestinian wells, and if the Palestinians overdraw their well (or have new equipment), the Israelis close them down. Now, this is all in Qalquilia, which is under the jurisdiction of the PA (supposedly). Meanwhile, settlements use 9-10 times the amount of water people in the West Bank use (or are allowed to use) per day, per person.

Our guide also told us about the nonviolent, Palestinian protests that the residents organized when the construction of the wall began. I guess, after three Palestinians were killed, they dropped the protesting until ISM and other international organizations became involved.

Despite everything, our guide was very positive about the effect that the nonviolent movement is having in the West Bank. He seemed hopeful that with increased media attention, the international community to realize what is happening here and become more involved. I suppose it could happen – I mean it worked in South Africa – but I am not as optimistic as he is. There is no doubt that the nonviolent movement is having an impact, but will it make enough of a difference? I hope so.

My First Look at Abbas

2005-09-24T20:34:00.000+03:00

Saturday I skipped my first Arabic class – I wish I could say that it was because I was doing something exciting, but to be honest it was because I hadn’t slept the night before and couldn’t stand the thought of 2 hours of my painfully boring colloquial class. I also wish that I could say I hadn’t slept because I had been doing something meaningful, or at least something fun, but the truth is I had a mosquito in my room that kept buzzing around my head until I finally killed him at about 3:30 am. I was still awake at 5:30, which is when I decided to just turn of the alarm and call it a wash.

So, I arrived at campus late, and missed part of the hub-bub. Apparently the Birzeit students decided to go on strike that morning in solidarity with the people in Gaza who had been killed/ injured during the Hamas parade. Last I heard, no one is quite sure what happened – Fatah is blaming Hamas, saying that they mishandled their explosives; Hamas is saying it was an Israeli attack . . . I don’t have a television at home, so I don’t mind not having one here, but it would be easier to keep up with the local news, especially since it can be important. For example, it would be nice to know when the Israeli’s decide to close all the checkpoints leaving the West Bank, which they apparently did Saturday morning.

Luckily, they didn’t close any of the paths within the West Bank, so I was able to head down to Arafat’s compound in Ramallah that afternoon to see Abu-Mazen (Abbas) address the Palestinian people. We arrived about 40 minutes before the show was scheduled to start, which left us plenty of time to have our bags searched twice, and elbow through the crowd to find a good standing spot. Now, this would not have been enough time at home, but since time is very relative in the Middle East, we didn’t have any trouble. A lot of people who arrived later weren’t able to get into the compound because it was full.

There were soldiers everywhere, standing on rooftops with machine guns, at the entrance, in the crowd and of course around the stage. I’m still not used to such blatant displays of weaponry, so it made me very uncomfortable. Lots of people were wearing t-shirts and holding signs demanding the removal of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. One of the big banners said, “Removing the Settlements in Gaza was easy . . . DO IT HERE NOW”. And of course there were signs demanding the removal of the apartheid wall. Lots of people were holding and waving Palestinian flags, especially children. I’m not even going to guess how many people actually turned out, but the compound was full and there were lots of people crowding the streets outside.

As internationals, the four of us kind of stuck out in the crowd. Many people greeted us, and posed for our cameras. After the usual pomp and circumstance Abbas came onstage and spoke for about 40 minutes. I didn’t catch most of what he said, but he talked about returning to the ’67 Green Line, removal of the settlements from the West Bank, and he definitely said that Jerusalem would be the capital of the Palestinian state. He talked about living in peace with the Israelis and about defying the wall. I think he said something about his Palestinian brothers and sisters being a strong people, and something about fighting for their freedom. Obviously, I have a long way to go with my Arabic.

I was not very impressed by Abbas as a speaker. The man has zero charisma and no idea of how to engage an audience. The whole thing reminded me of the communist Soviet Union – all the soldiers with big guns, a line of important men in suits, and an incredibly boring speech.

After he finished speaking, we decided to try and leave the compound through the one, relatively narrow gate. This was a mistake, we would have been much better off to just wait until the crowd had thinned out. As we approached the exit, we made a line with P and Mat in the front and back and M and I in the middle. It got a little crazy for a couple of minutes with people shoving and pushing but we managed to stay together. At one point I was pushed to my left and I rammed into the nozzle of one of the soldier’s guns. That is as close as I ever want to come to a machine gun. Once the soldiers saw us in the crowd, they actually cleared a path for us, the internationals. That made me feel bad . . .but I was happy for it all the same. Once we cleared the entrance we were fine, and caught a service back to Birzeit without too much difficulty.

That night we went to a pot luck dance party at P’s apartment. I had a very good time . . . we had about half international students and half Palestinians. I got to practice my Arabic a little . . . M and I brought tabouleh to the potluck, which was a big success (mostly thanks to M). Came home around 11 as the parties end early in Palestine, or at least they do when people live in apartments with curfews . . . Overall, I had a great day, and I was very glad that I decided to skip my class.

Film Festival, Part Two

2005-09-23T20:32:00.000+03:00

Today, for the first time, I felt unsafe in Ramallah. Not because of anything that happened to me, but because of two documentaries that I saw as a part of the Women’s Film Festival. The first documentary, called Massacre, is about the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camp massacre in Lebanon. Directed by a German woman, the documentary focuses on the stories of Lebanese men who participated in the massacre. These six men agreed to participate in the documentary on the condition that they would remain anonymous. Some were remorseful, and some were not – but the stories they told were chilling. I have seen similar accounts from Nazi soldiers about the realities of the atrocities they committed during WWII, and this was disturbingly reminiscent. What human beings are capable of is both terrible and terrifying. Several of the Lebanese men talked about being trained in Israel, and talked about the Israeli involvement in the Sabra and Shatila massacres. One of the men said that the Israeli army had planned ahead and provided the plastic bags and the chemicals necessary for the mass burial of the Palestinians that had been murdered.

I truly believe that most of the Lebanese soldiers didn’t know what they were getting into when they went to Sabra and Shatila. Obviously, once there, they had a choice – and some (not many) did chose to walk away. Those soldiers are responsible for their actions, but they were not the ones who planned the incident. Higher up Lebanese generals and Israeli army officials (including Sharon) planned the details of the massacre. They knew what was going to happen; the idea of people sitting in a room and coldly calculating the number of body bags they would need for the people they were going to kill makes my skin crawl.

After the full length documentary, we watched a 30 minute documentary about the siege of Ramallah in 2003. Of course I knew that Ramallah had been occupied and bombed during that time, but it takes a whole new meaning when you recognize the buildings that have been bombed and meet the director/ narrator who is still living in Ramallah. I am amazed at how good Ramallah looks now considering how trashed it was after the siege. Buildings were bombed, store fronts shot up, cars destroyed and used to block main streets. The woman who made the documentary works at the Ministry of Culture in Ramallah which was used to house Israeli soldiers during the siege. She filmed footage of the building after the Israeli soldiers departed – leaving behind feces smeared on walls and all over the floor, computers smashed and pissed on, furniture and windows broken, and threats written in Arabic and Hebrew on the walls. How does this secure the state of Israel? Of course I’ve heard of these things being done in schools and medical centers in Gaza, but again, it is something different to see it and to recognize the location of these acts.

So, I feel unsafe tonight because I’m not sure how fine the line is between the documentary I saw about Lebanon, and the documentary I saw about Ramallah. Those Lebanese men were “just following orders” same as the Nazi’s. How far will Israeli soldiers follow orders? At what point does the dehumanization of the other become so total that it is possible to “follow orders” in this manner? This is not just a commentary on the situation in Palestine – but more of a question about the human psyche. I think most people are capable of this kind of violence in the right circumstances . . . as much as I would prefer to think otherwise.

In response to some comments

2005-09-23T14:25:00.000+03:00

A note to my readers:

I received this anonymous comment regarding my blog entry about the building of the wall in Deir Ballout.

"Sahar! The Palestinians who are building the wall are being paid to do so. You may not agree with this policy, but it is their choice to participate in the walls construction! The Jews who were massacred by the Nazis were slaves!!! How could you make that comparison? "

This was in response to my words:

"I can’t image how awful it must be to have to decide to build your own prison because you so desperately need the money to feed your family . . . it reminded me of Nazi’s during WWII forcing Jews to dig their own mass graves before massacring them."

I wanted to clarify that I said it reminded me of the situation in Nazi Germany. I did not say that it was the same -- only that one thing brought the other to mind. I am writing this journal as a way to comment on my thoughts and experiences during my time here. I am sorry if this offends some people, but I have a right to think freely and to share those thoughts with others.

I will continue to write this blog about my experiences and my thoughts and reactions to those experiences. All comments are welcome, but I do reserve the right to comment on your comments.

Peace,
Sahar

Women's Film Festival etc . . .

2005-09-22T13:47:00.000+03:00

Today I went to the opening of the Women’s Film Festival in Ramallah, sponsored by an NGO called SHABBAT. This NGO focuses on identifying and changing stereotypes about women in Palestinian society. After a ridiculously long series of introductions, we watched a 90 minute film called Yasmin and 15 minute documentary called 25 kilometers.

Yasmin is about a British woman of Afghani descent who lives in a conservative family. The film is about her living the life of a normal British woman by day, and an Afghani, Muslim woman by night. The film is set in September of 2001, so the audience gets to see how her life is influenced by racism before and after the World Trade Center bombings. It was an uncomfortable movie for me to watch in many ways, not because I experienced the same kinds of situations that she did, but because the potential is there. I have certainly dealt with racism in the US since September 11, but I do not wear the hijab and most people don’t even recognize me as Arab at first glance.

The part of the movie that was most difficult for me actually dealt with Yasmin’s younger brother, who is in his mid to late teens. After the attacks he becomes much more politically involved and decides to join a group of freedom fighters who are going to Pakistan and Palestine to fight for their Muslim brothers. Her brother didn’t really remind me of my brothers, but her relationship with her brother really hit home for me. Just before he leaves Britain he comes to her and asks her to give him her blessing. She refuses, begging him not to go – but he leaves anyway.

Her brother became politically motivated as a direct response to the racism he was forced to live with every day. My brothers, one in particular, have also become motivated because of our reality as Arab-Americans in the US, as have I. I don’t think that this is a bad thing, but I worry about them anyway. As Arab-Americans they have less rights than other Americans today . . . political activities that most people take for granted can have far more serious consequences for us. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very proud of both of my brothers for their awareness and involvement . . . but I am scared for them as well.

After the film P, M and I headed back to Birzeit and grabbed a bite to eat. We also bought some kanafa and stopped at a corner store to pick up a couple beers. Outside the store we ran into Mike who told us that Israeli troops had just driven through town. There were a lot of youngish men hanging around the store, and Mike said they were waiting for the Israelis to come back through so that they could throw rocks at them. We took that as our cue to buy our beer and head out. After smuggling in our contraband (the alcohol and P) we settled down to enjoy our kanafa. As we sat, we heard gunfire and men yelling. I turned off the music and we all sat in silence and listened. P wanted to go out with his camera to get pictures, but I convinced him not to after the second round of gunfire went off. I don’t know if anyone was hurt, but I do know that the shooting started less than 10 minutes after we had been at the corner store where all the men were hanging around. . .

In unrelated news, there was a big Hamas rally today in Ramallah. I didn’t go, but one of my friends was showing me pictures of some of the Hamas posters. The posters feature very large guns, clenched fists, and the Dome of the Rock. The message is pretty clear – even without the Arabic words which translate into “I am coming for you, oh Jerusalem” (I think). Hamas only aggravates the situation with Israel, in my opinion. It’s like they are in a pissing contest with the Israelis, except the Israelis have a lot more money and much bigger guns . . . and a lot of innocent people’s lives are a stake.

English Lessons and Socialist Movements

2005-09-19T13:45:00.000+03:00

I don’t have class on Mondays, so I slept in and then puttered around the house hand washing clothes, etc . . . We do have a washing machine in our flat, but it is pretty crappy, so the best thing to do is wash smaller things by hand – it actually saves time, believe it or not. I had planned an afternoon of working on my Arabic and my thesis, ended up with a day of serving tea and protecting socialist radicals from the police . . . funny how things don’t go as planned around here.

When my roommate came home from class, early, she brought two of our classmates over for tea/ coffee. So we had tea and discussed the current political situation in Germany with MT, who, being German, gave me some new insights to the political system. After they left, I settled down to work on my thesis when Hung Soon knocked on the door. She is one of three S. Korean students in the program, and although she came to see M, I became involved because her English isn’t very good and M’s Manchester accent makes it even more difficult for the two of them to carry a conversation. She had stopped by to tell M that one of the Palestinian students in her building who is studying English literature wanted to meet M and practice her English with her. At the end of the conversation, we decided that M would meet this student the following morning on the walk to school (or so we thought). About an hour later, Hung Soon reappeared at our door, with the Palestinian student in tow. Meanwhile, mind you, I had been trying to studiously work on my thesis, but was failing miserably.

Once Hung Soon and Miriam were installed in our sitting room, I put on the water for tea, leaving M to negotiate carrying out a conversation with a S. Korean who barely speaks English and a Palestinian student who speaks English but doesn’t really understand it all that well. Turns out Miriam, whose father is a religious leader in her village, is in her final year of study and needs to prepare for her final presentations in English. She was wearing the hijab and the full Islamic dress, including gloves. Her English was decent, but I could see why she wanted to practice. Anyway, M was a little put off by her pushiness regarding the English lessons, so after about 40 minutes I steered the two of them towards the door. Apparently Miriam has three native English speakers in her class, but she said they have different “lifestyles” so she doesn’t study with them. Made me wonder what she was thinking coming to our den of sin for lessons . . . So, once we got rid of them we made dinner, then decided to head to a local restaurant for a pint. This is when things got interesting.

The owner of the restaurant joined us shortly after we sat down and asked us if we had heard about what happened at the university that day. I hadn’t been to campus, and M is beginner with Arabic, so of course we had no idea what had happened. Apparently, the prime minister had come to the campus to speak about the importance of students protesting against the wall. The student organizations of PFLP (socialist) and Hamas (Islamic), however, were busy protesting against his visit because he owns stock in the company that is helping to build the wall . . . which is pretty revolting in my opinion.

Of course, the owner of the restaurant couldn’t just tell us this story – first we had to move our seats because we were sitting too close to people who work for the security forces at the university. It was all very cloak and dagger. Turns out, one of the students who led the protest works at the restaurant, and was hanging out in back waiting for the Palestinian Authority forces from Ramallah to come and arrest him for his activities. He had been tipped off by a source that they would probably be coming for him that night. M and I, along with 3 other international students, decided to sit with him and wait. We figured we couldn’t do much to protect him, but having internationals present might help keep the situation from getting out of control.

While we were sitting with the guys out back, I learned a lot about the corruption in the PA, and how unhappy a lot of Palestinians are with the situation. I was talking to a kid named Omar, who is about 20, about political situation within Palestine. He was describing the fights that go on between the residents of my village and the people who live in the adjacent refugee camp – but he was doing it in a disgustingly gleeful manner. He actually offered to bring us along the next time a good fight breaks out.

After a little while of listening to this, I stopped him and asked him in Arabic why he loved violence so much. He replied that the only law in Palestine today is the law of the jungle, and that people have a right to protect themselves. I argued that it didn’t make sense for Palestinians to fight amongst themselves – the occupation has had a bad enough effect on the Palestinians, and the violence, both structural and physical since the second Intifada is inundating the entire society.

He replied, and I quote, “Every Palestinian life is worth about 3 shekels, which is the price of a bullet. Your life is worth a little more because you have a different passport, but you’re still in the West Bank.”

I really wanted to push him on this topic more, but I felt like I didn’t have a right to sound like I was judging him, so I dropped it. I wanted to say something about the number of Palestinians who are fighting the occupation nonviolently, about the different groups and organizations who working to help fix this mess, or at least ease some of the burden. It seems like this generation of Palestinians is growing up without hope and without dreams . . . it is heartbreaking and terrifying at the same time. This conflict is robbing both sides of their children and creating a generation of angry, violent, racist people . . . obviously I am exaggerating based on one conversation, but it was really demoralizing to hear this kid talk about life so hopelessly.

We got a phone call around 1 am saying that the PA was not going to come after all, so M and I headed home. The next day classes were cancelled at the university between 12 and 3 pm because of a clash between the Fatah students (support the PA) and the PFLP and Hamas.

Naively, I thought that I would spend most of my time here learning about the occupation and its effects on the Palestinians. Of course I had heard about corruption in the PA, but I didn’t really think that they would arrest a student for speaking out against a government official. I have a lot to learn.

Touring the Countryside

2005-09-18T21:15:00.000+03:00

Today I went on a tour to Deir Ballout, a village north of Ramallah that has been effected by the wall. We met at 8am at the post office (which was actually open for once) and then road a charted bus to the village. On the way we ran into a flying a check point (not a permanent structure, just something that appears and disappears at the whim of the Israeli’s. After two weeks of being here, I’m proud to say that my heart rate doesn’t accelerate anymore when I approach a checkpoint. P, a Canadian student, was filming from the window of the bus as we approached the checkpoint with a little handheld camcorder. When we stopped, the soldier approached the bus and immediately asked P to put down the camcorder in Arabic. P, playing stupid, replied that he didn’t speak Hebrew. Then the soldier made us all get out of the bus (P was still filming). He demanded to see P’s passport, and looked like he was going to give him a hard time, then A, another student, starting approaching the soldier with his camcorder asking if there was a problem . . . Luckily, the soldier decided not to make a big deal out of it and let us all get back on the bus and head out without even checking the rest of our passports.

I had noticed that there was a carload of Palestinian men who had been pulled over before us, and can’t help but wonder if the soldiers took out their annoyance at us on those men. Although most us on the bus were foreigners, our guide and our driver were both Palestinian, and the situation could have gotten ugly if they wanted it to . . .but P and A didn’t consider that in their moment of bravery.

(I can hear gunfire while I’m writing this in my apartment . . .)

We approached another checkpoint, this one permanent, at the entrance of the village we were visiting. This checkpoint blocks all traffic coming from and heading to Ramallah. Apparently, if the soldiers decide to close the checkpoint at night, people with medical emergencies from the village have to drive all the way north to Jenin or Qalquilia instead of the much shorter trip to Ramallah (which also has better facilities). At this checkpoint the soldier didn’t even bother stopping us once he saw P with his camcorder, so we headed into the village without any trouble.

We visited the town mayor, who explained how the villagers have been effected by the wall and the checkpoint (some of the villagers are actually outside the checkpoint) and how the village has been split into three separate territories: “A” controlled by the Palestinian Authority; “B” which is controlled by both the Israelis and the Palestinians; and “C” which is considered under Israeli control. I guess the village has about 5000 villagers inside the checkpoint, and about 1500 outside.

We visited the site that was being cleared for the wall, which will separate this village from its neighboring village, and the home of a man who refuses to leave even though the wall will cut right through his land. I also learned that the people who do most of the actual clearing and building of the wall are Israeli Arabs and Palestinians. I can’t image how awful it must be to have to decide to build your own prison because you so desperately need the money to feed your family . . . it reminded me of Nazi’s during WWII forcing Jews to dig their own mass graves before massacring them.

Next we visited a man whose home is in between the Wall and an Israeli settlement. He literally has the Wall to the left of his home a settlement on the right. In front of his house is a checkpoint that leads into the settlement. His house is completely fenced in on each side, either with the concrete wall or barbed wire and electric fencing. Even from the top of his two story house you can’t see over the 8 meter high wall to the rest of his village. The settlers are so close that they throw stones at this man and his family when they leave their house, and the stones have broken the solar panels on the house that provide hot water for him and his family.

ISM and Women Against the Wall came and painted murals on the family’s side of the wall, which helps a little, but the absurdity of the situation is unfathomable. The family has a key to the gate of their home, but only after many international groups lobbied for them. Even though they now have a key to the gate, they still have to go through the checkpoint to get into their town, so many times the children either can’t go to school, or can’t get home after school.

The man said that this is his fate, and his family will not leave this land. They were refugees from the 1948 areas, and he said they will not leave again. The Israeli government has offered the family an open check to buy the land (they don’t dare demolish it because of the international organizations that are involved), but the family has refused the money. The steadfastness of this man and his family is amazing and inspiring.

While we were there his 5 and 7 year old children came home from school. Not at all surprised by our group, they went around and shook everyone’s hand. They are obviously very used to curious internationals visiting, taking pictures, and asking questions.

We climbed back into the bus after about an hour and went back to the first village where we ate a traditional lunch then listened to a presentation from Women for Life, and the story of a woman who spent 11 years in an Israeli jail for being a member of Fatah. She was imprisoned in 1986 for supposedly killing a Israeli soldier. When she got out of prison, after years of torture and abuse, her son who had been 9 years old when she was imprisoned, was 20. She was not allowed one family visit the entire time of her imprisonment. She described horrible conditions where the food was contaminated with mice droppings, there wasn’t any clean water, and people were left in solitary confinement for months at a time. She said she was beaten, starved, tied up, sprayed with water and left tied to a chair in a room in the middle of winter with the air conditioning on. She described being shoved into a chamber like a dog kennel where you wouldn’t stand or lay flat for days at a time, expected to shit and piss on herself without any food or light, in complete silence or with a radio blasting in her ears.

She talked about 14 year old girls being in prison with her, and about a woman who has imprisoned while pregnant and was forced to give birth while tied to a bed.

Even after all of that, after losing 11 years of her life for a crime she didn’t commit, she is still willing to talk to groups of foreigners. American’s have so much freedom that they never use or appreciate and this woman who has lost so much is still willing to be politically active after all that she has suffered and lost.

I am so thankful to be an American and to have all the rights and privilidges that come with my dark blue passport – but at the same time I am ashamed of my country. I am embarrassed to admit that I am an American, and my country is the a huge part of the reason that Israel is able to maintain this occupation and torture these people.

Growing up under occupation

2005-09-17T21:11:00.000+03:00

We had a birthday party for one of the girls in the program on Wed, Chamila, who is Sri Lanken but was adopted and grew up in Denmark. The party was at a local restaurant, and Chamilia insisted on providing all the food, cake etc . . . While I was at the party I met an 18 year old Palestinian girl named Shadia who is ranked as the number two chess player in Palestine. She just started her first year at Birzeit and is studying computer science, although she really wants to study medicine. I guess there aren’t any good medical schools in Palestine and her scholarship paperwork got held up, so she’s studying engineering while she waits to find out if she can get accepted to a program abroad.

Aside from being incredibly intelligent, Shadia is also stunningly beautiful in the quintessential Arab way. We were talking about the situation in Palestine and she said something that really struck me. I don’t recall the exact context of the conversation, but it was something along the lines of: “There are no children in Palestine. We are all grown up our whole lives – we have to be.”

The long-term effects of the occupation on the children here are overwhelming. UN studies have shown that Palestinian children today are growing up with emotional and developmental problems; they are afraid to go to school, some of them afraid to leave their houses because of the violence they see. These kids are growing up seeing their friends killed, their father’s humiliated and their neighbors starving. Meanwhile, on the other side of the wall, they can see how the settlers live – in comfort with green grass, private highways, good schools and freedom of movement.

I was in Qalquila for the past two days visiting my cousin’s family, and the situation there is heartbreaking. The city, which used to be a big farming/ market area, is now completely surrounded by the wall. While we were walking around the city, B’s mother pointed out building that had been bombed by the Israelis, and she showed me pictures plastered on walls and building of children who had died during the fighting there. She pointed out one picture of a young boy, maybe 13, and said he had been her son’s best friend.

Two of B’s sister’s are handicapped, I think one has Downs syndrome and the other has a problem with her legs and although she can walk, it is with obvious difficulty. There aren’t any facilities in Qalquila for these children, so the family does the best they can at home. The younger sister, Areej, has a learning disability, but is fully capable of attending school and learning, or she would be if there was a school available for her.

It was obvious that B’s family is not well off. Although they were incredibly generous with me and wouldn’t let me pay for anything . . . it is clear that they are suffering from the occupation. Food that isn’t eaten is carefully saved, the girls sleep on mats on the floor. While we were sitting down for breakfast yesterday B’s father opened the refrigerator and a glass bottle of ketchup fell out and smashed on the floor. Her older sister carefully picked the glass out of the ketchup then scooped it into a small container, skimming the ketchup carefully so that she didn’t get any that actually touched the floor . . . I wanted to say something about the tiny shards of glass probably in the ketchup, but I didn’t dare for fear of offending . . .
B had asked me what my favorite foods are, and I said that Magluba was my all time favorite (which I happen to know isn’t too difficult to make). Her aunt’s had my over for lunch on Friday, and lo-and-behold, we had Magluba for lunch. Usually, Magluba is made with lamb or chicken, but we had it without meat. On the side, they served stuffed pigeon. Pigeon is a much cheaper meat than either chicken or lamb . . . and if there were serving Magluba without meat when a guest was present, I can only assume that the financial situation is not good.

Overall, I had a good time in Qalquila, although I was happy to return to my own apartment. It was certainly good practice for my Arabic, although I was exhausted by the end of each day from trying so hard to understand and communicate. Maintaining that kind of concentration and focus over a long period of time is difficult. Yup, definitely glad to be back in my little ejneby (foreign) haven.

Musings on the Wall

2005-09-14T19:45:00.000+03:00

Yesterday evening I hiked down into the Birzeit valley with P, just before sunset. The entire valley was terraced hundreds of years ago, and is now the home of some of Palestine’s famous olive trees. The countryside is stunning here, everywhere you look there are terraced hills with old, crumbly stone walls and olive trees. We settled onto one of the terraces, took some pictures and watched the sun set. There was plenty of light from the moon, and I was struck by the timelessness of the moment. Sitting in the olive grove, we were looking at the same view generations of Palestinians had admired. With the exception of the lights from the settlement which marred the otherwise beautiful night.

Luckily, we didn’t have any trouble climbing out of the olive grove, although I did manage to stick my hand in a thorn bush and now have several splinters.

After my hike I ran into my cousin, B, and I decided to level with her about my lifestyle. I figured that trying to keep so many secrets while she is practically my next-door-neighbor would be silly. She was very understanding, and I think that we understand each other better now. I met her for lunch today, and everything seemed okay, which I am very happy about. Tomorrow I will travel with her to Qalquilia to meet the rest of her family. Qalquila is one of the Palestinian cities that is completely surrounded by the wall, so hopefully I will be able to talk to people about the situation and their lives under occupation – we’ll see how well I navigate the language barrier . . .

This afternoon my program hosted a presentation on the Apartheid Wall by the Stop the Wall Campaign. I was already familiar with most of the information, but I did not know about Israel’s plan force Palestinian traffic in the West Bank through tunnels which can easily be closed by dropping a gate. Apparently this will significantly decrease the number of soldiers required to maintain the Occupation and control the Palestinian population. It is an incredibly clever plan. It never ceases to amaze me how creative humanity can be at solving problems, and how often the “solutions” we find are destructively aimed at other groups of people . . . At the end of the presentation our speaker talked about protest movements and what Palestinians are doing to try to stop the wall and the destruction of their land and their homes – but I have to admit it seemed a little hopeless. I don’t understand how the Israeli government can continue to implement their Wall – against international law – without suffering any consequences. Where is the international community?

Who knew I had family in Birzeit?

2005-09-12T19:44:00.000+03:00

Birzeit University caters to both Islam and Christianity, meaning that we don’t have class on Friday or Sunday, but we do have classes on Saturday. So, I showed up for class a little early on Saturday and popped into the international student office to say hello and check my email. You can imagine my surprise when one of the staff told me that a member of my family was in the lobby, waiting to meet me.

Turns out one of my aunts (father’s sister) is married to a Palestinian man from Qalquila, and one of his nieces is in her third year of study at Birzeit. Word got through the grapevine that I was here and her parents sent her over to the international student office to find me. Now, this is the opportunity of a lifetime because a lot of Middle Eastern culture centers around the family, and most foreigners have a difficult time penetrating that barrier. B doesn’t speak much English, or at least she is too shy to speak to me in English, which means I have a great opportunity to practice my conversational Arabic with her. So, we chatted for about ten minutes and agreed to meet after my class. She seems very nice, but maintaining a conversation with her is extremely difficult because of the language barrier. She invited me over to her flat for tea and it turns out she lives on the same street that I do, just two building down.

After an incredibly painful hour of tea drinking and stilted conversation, I headed back to my apartment to have a cigarette. Then the reality of my situation hit me. I need to be very careful about where I smoke and who sees me smoking if I want to maintain my reputation with my family. I also need to be extremely careful about drinking in Birzeit (which is fine for Christians, but since I’m supposed to be Muslim it is a bit of a problem). Not to mention the problem of having boys over to my apartment. Most of the international students are male, so I’ll have to be careful about who sees men leaving my apartment. Now, I am in “no-ass land” as Nathan so fondly calls it, which means there would be absolutely nothing going on with me and said boys – but technically (for a nice Muslim girl) it is inappropriate to have classmates over to study or for coffee if they are guys – even during the day.

The next day B called me about 4 times until I agreed to meet her later that afternoon for tea again. I had work to do, so I finished everything I could do without an internet connection and saved it on my flash drive, then headed over for tea. I figured I’d have tea then head to the internet café. Oh no. First we had tea, then she insisted that I go with her to meet her friend before we went to the internet café together. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t think of a polite way out of it, plus I figured it would be good for my Arabic . . .

This turned into a two hour trip to visit her friend, by the end of which I couldn’t even be bothered to go to the café. I know she was just trying to be hospitable and introduce me to her friends, but after two hours of sitting in a room full of 18-20 year old Palestinian girls speaking to each other very quickly in colloquial Arabic I was ready to shoot myself. It didn’t help that every once in a while someone would as me if I understood, and when I said no, they would tell everyone else that I didn’t understand in Arabic. Of course, I understood THAT part. Finally, I told her that I needed to get going because I needed to call my mother in America at a certain time. Later that night her mother called me to confirm that I was coming to Qalquila with B on Thursday after my classes. I had already agreed to this, but I didn’t realize that they expected me to stay until Saturday.

One the one hand, I know that this is the opportunity of a lifetime. On the other hand, I have a lot of work I need to get done this semester . . . and I don’t see how I can juggle B, my classes, and my thesis research. I have no desire to spend most of the day Thursday, all day Friday, and half of Saturday with a family that I don’t know, and who don’t speak any English at all. There is no way that I can turn down their hospitality, and I could just leave Friday on my own, but I’m pretty sure they would make B leave with me, and I don’t want to spoil her visit home . . .

I need to find a way to handle this that allows me to live comfortably without offending anyone . . . I must be the only Kuwaiti-American girl in the world who has family in Palestine. I mean, what are the chances?!

House of Meat, Return Trip

2005-09-10T19:40:00.000+03:00

I returned to my hotel without any problems and in the morning I wandered downstairs to the “continental breakfast”. Luckily they had Nescafe because none of the food looked very appealing. While I was sitting there (alone because the tourism industry in Bethleham is pathetic right now) another woman walked in and sat down at the table beside me. We started talking, in Arabic, and it turns out she was from Haifa but traveled between Beit Lehem and Al-Quds quite often for business. I asked her if she knew the best way to travel from Beit Lehem back to Al-Quds (Jerusalem) on a Friday. She tried to explain a way, but I didn’t understand, then Yousef the employee got involved . . . he called a cab company who wanted to charge me an exorbitant rate, and then Clara said nevermind, she would drive me to Beit Hanin and it would be very easy for me to get to Kalandia from there. She said it was on her way since she was driving in that direction anyway.

I thanked her profusely, and we agreed to meet at the hotel at 2pm as she had some business to take care off – this worked out beautifully for me because I wanted to visit the Church of the Nativity and Milk Grotto while I was in Bethleham. So, after breakfast we went our separate ways, and I started walking from the hotel to the Main Street where I could pick up a cab to Manger Sq. As I’m walking a car beeps and pulls over; it is Clara telling me to get in and she’ll give me a ride to Manger Sq. I really can’t get over how friendly the people here are.

After she dropped me off I wandered over to the church, and a Palestinian man asked me in perfect English if I wanted a tour of the grounds. Now, I had my guide book with me and would have been perfectly happy to wander around on my own, but even I could see how crappy the tourist industry is at the moment, so I agreed to let him be my guide. So, we wandered around and he showed me all the important things and told me the stories and myths that surround the church compound (most of which I’d already read in my guidebook). I had to admit that although I like visiting old buildings and churches I’m not a particularly religious person. However, there is something to be said for the atmosphere in a place like the Church of the Nativity. I don’t know if there is some kind of spiritual presence there, or if it just the energy millions of believers concentrated over centuries in tears, blood and prayers but even I was moved by the church.

When we had finished the tour my guide invited me back to his family shop for tea. I should have said no, but I went along and ended up buying two crosses – one of which is for Heather, and the other is for my mother neither of whom are at all religious, but I thought they would appreciate a cross from Bethleham. He tried to get to spend more money, and got increasing outrageous in his compliments in the process. I managed to leave without spending any more money, even though he said if he wasn’t already married he would want to marry me . . .

Next I visited the Milk Grotto Church where it is said to be a cave where Mary breastfed Jesus. Supposedly some of her milk spilled on the ground and turned the interior of the cave a milky white color. Inside the church there are letters from women who had fertility problems and visited the church asking for blessings. The women who wrote letters enclose pictures of their newborn babies and thanked the church for their babies. Of course, there aren’t any letters from women who visited the church but still don’t have babies . . .

I decided to walk back to the hotel, a pretty long walk, but I had time to kill so I meandered along the road and took some pictures. I stopped at a little place for lunch and while I was waiting for my lunch a man came over, introduced himself as a pastor, and asked if he could join me. Of course I said yes, so he sat and asked me where I was from . . . once he heard my name he asked if I Muslim or Christian. I answered this question the way I usually do: My father is Muslim and my mother is Christian and I was raised in both faiths. This gives people the opportunity to interpret as they wish and saves me a lot of hassle. His response was, “So no one in your family has accepted Jesus as their savior?” I sighed and replied that my mother was Christian, again, at which point he dropped it. After giving me his email address he said he had to leave for an appointment. As he was leaving he said that he would pray for me to quit smoking because it is not healthy for me. I suppose in a weird way it is comforting to know that people can be as obnoxious about their religion here as they are in America – it almost made me feel at home.

Went to the hotel, met Clara, and rode back Beit Henin with her. Now, I had no idea where Beit Henin is, but apparently it is the closest Jerusalem neighborhood to the Kalandia checkpoint. I thought she was just going to drop me somewhere on a bus route to Al-Quds, but she ended up driving me most of the way. It was a strange trip though . . . we stopped before the checkpoint leaving Beit Lehem and waited for about 10 minutes until a man pulled up in a shiny new truck (an oddity in the Occupied Territories). Apparently she was waiting for him and the talked for several minutes before he handed her a wad of cash. Then we left, heading for Beit Henin . . . got through the checkpoint without any trouble because she is Israeli-Arab and her car has Israeli tags. I didn’t even have to show my passport.

We got into Jerusalem, then we made some turns I didn’t recognize and pulled over on the side of the road and a man hopped in. He started giving Clara directions, and she handed him the wad of cash. We drove into East Jerusalem, down some narrow, twisty roads and eventually pulled over. The man we had picked up hopped out, met another man on the street and handed him the money. Our man came back to our car and the other man got into a waiting car and drove off. Hhhhhhmmmmmmmmm. Just a little sketchy.

They dropped me at the Beit Hanin checkpoint, and I walked over to the Israeli guard shack to show them my passport. I figured they wouldn’t care who was going into the West Bank, but, as usual, I was wrong. The soldier was speaking a combination of Arabic, Hebrew and English asking me lots of questions:
Why I wanted to go to the West Bank. I said I was visiting Ramallah.
He wanted to know why. I said why not?
He wanted to know where my family was – I said in New York.
Where was I from? New York.
Didn’t I have family in Ramallah (damn Arab name giving me trouble again). I said no. Why was I traveling by myself? I said why not.
Then we repeated all the questions. Twice.

Finally he let me through. I was starting to get nervous because it had never occurred to me that they wouldn’t let me back into the West Bank. I didn’t dare say that I was studying Arabic at Birzeit, so I just lied and hoped that he would let me through. I caught a cab for the 3 minute ride to Kalandia, and walked through that checkpoint without any trouble. No one was even checking passports. It took me less than half the time to return to Ramallah than it took to travel to Bethleham because I was in an Israeli car for the return trip

House of Meat, Beit Lehem, Bethleham

2005-09-10T17:50:00.000+03:00

In my first entry in this journal, I wrote about R, the friend of my family who ended up traveling with me from Jordan into the West Bank. R is Palestinian, but he lives and works in Kuwait and he was heading into the West Bank for his wedding. After our day of travel, he invited me to his wedding in Bethleham on Sept. 8 – of course it was an invitation I couldn’t refuse. Now, I wasn’t planning on attending any formal events during my time here, so on Wed I had to find something appropriate to wear to this wedding – that is a story in itself . . . So Thursday afternoon I began my travel to Beit Lehem. Now, Beit Lehem is not very far from Ramallah, but traveling in the West Bank is always an ordeal – the wedding was scheduled to start at 6pm (but apparently everyone shows up late) and I was told it could take anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes to travel to Beit Lehem depending on checkpoints etc . . . so I left Birzeit at 2:30 in the afternoon figuring that would give me plenty of time to get to Beit Lehem, find a hotel, and head to the wedding. Silly foreigner.

Traveling around here is a little complicated. First I caught a service (minivan that runs a regular route and much cheaper than a private taxi) to downtown Ramallah, then I walked a little ways down Jerusalem Road to find another service that would take me to the Kalandia checkpoint. Because I have an American passport, I was told it would be faster the travel though Jerusalem than to travel through the West Bank. Now, every Palestinian that I’ve met on this trip so far has been incredibly friendly and helpful, but this service driver was having a very bad day. When I opened the service door I hesitated because the way into the far back seat was blocked by a very large woman. So, the driver starts yelling at me in Arabic – I didn’t catch the words, but the gist of it was hurry up, stupid forgeiner. So I clamber into the back seat and the driver takes off, still muttering to himself.

Now, I’d never walked through the Kalandia checkpoint before. On my way into the West Bank, I’d been in a private taxi with Israeli tags, so we were able to just drive through without any difficulty. However, Palestinian vehicles are not allowed into Jerusalem, so I knew that I had to get out of the service at the checkpoint, walk across, and pick up another transport. Problem was, I wasn’t sure exactly where I was supposed to get off . . . So, when the last person climbed out of the service except for me, I asked the driver if this was where I was supposed to get out (no checkpoint in sight, mind you) and he starts yelling at me again, so I took that as my signal to exit, quickly.

Still not quite sure what I was doing, I just followed the other people on foot until I arrived at the Kalandia checkpoint, which is one of the ugliest manmade structures I’ve ever seen. When you walk up to it, there are four of five lines, separated by metal railings – kind of like amusement park ride lines, but not as nice. The men and women wait in separate lines, and the women move through much faster. So, when my turn came, I gave the Israeli soldier sitting behind his desk my passport and they let me through without any a trouble. I had to cut across the men’s line to follow the path through the checkpoint, then I hesitated because it looked like people were going in two different directions and I wasn’t sure which one I wanted.

A chubby Israeli soldier walks up to me, and seeing my American passport, says to me very politely while holding his large machine gun, “Do you need any help miss?” I pointed down what looked like a rat race path and asked him if that was the way I was supposed to go. He replied, still very polite, “Yes. Do you mind if I ask you what you were doing inside?”

Inside. Inside what? Hell? I just replied that I was studying and headed off towards the buses. At this point I needed to find the bus that would take into Jerusalem and then drop me at the bus station where I would pick up another service to Beit Lehem. Luckily, the first bus I picked was the right one, and the driver was very nice when I asked him in my terrible Arabic if I was headed in the right direction. So, I settled into my seat next to a young boy and we started driving. We reached another check point and the soldiers told the bus driver to pull over, then two soldiers came on board and collected all of the passenger’s passports. So we sat there for about 20 minutes while the soldiers cleared everyone’s travel papers. From my seat, I could see the soldiers kiosk, and they seemed to be doing a lot of laughing and not much else. Eventually, one of the soldier’s came back and then everyone had to sort through the pile of IDs to make sure everyone had theirs before we continued our travels.

As the bus drove through Jerusalem I was shocked by how different it looks from the West Bank. I’ve only been here for about a week, but I’ve already become accustomed to my new environment. It seemed very strange to drive past the ritzy Zion Hotel and to see all the men wearing shorts, women in sleeveless tops, and all the green grass. The West Bank sits on a resevior of water, but the Israeli’s control it, so there are water shortages in the West Bank every summer. In fact, we have to be very careful about the amount of water that we use in our apartment . . .

I arrived at the Jerusalem bus station and the driver explained to me where to find the service to Beit Lehem, which was fairly simple. The drive to Beit Lehem from Jerusalem is fairly short, and unenventful until we reached the checkpoint outside of Beit Lehem. Here, everyone had to climb off the bus because the road was closed and climb down a steep, dangerous path and stoop under a railing to get to the path to the checkpoint. There is a steep drop over the other side, and I was worried about the woman in front of me wearing heels and the little old woman who barely made it under the railing. I followed the path and ended up at a semi-permanent looking checkpoint. Apparently everyone lines up at the edge of the checkpoint and one by one people approach the desk with the soldiers to get permission to enter Beit Lehem. While I was waiting, I watched the soldiers yelling at the people to hurry up and to have their papers out and ready – I think that is what they were saying anyway, since they were speaking in Hebrew. When my turn came, I handed them my American passport and they got very excited. They were commenting on my name (which is Arabic) and decided that they had to call it in and have it checked out. So, I stood there for about 5 minutes while the line of Palestinians behind me continued to grow and the soldiers all sat around waiting for a response regarding my passport. Finally, I asked the soldier if she would like me to step aside so that the other people waiting to could pass. She looked surprised for a moment, and then said, “Oh. Well, I guess you could.”
So I moved, and the soldiers called for the Palestinians to come all together and to have their papers out. I sat on a bench and they offered me coffee or tea while I waited, which I refused. The woman soldier started yelling at one of the women that her papers were fake, and that she wouldn’t be able to enter Beit Lehem with them next time, and that the woman obviously knew they were fake. Then they started making fun of an older woman who was walking slowly and started yelling at her to hurry up.

After about 40 minutes they called me up to say that my passport had been cleared. They were very polite, and the woman soldier apologized and said they just needed to make sure that I was not one of the people who shouldn’t be allowed into Beit Lehem. The difference in the way the soldiers treated me compared to the Palestinians was horrendous. They acted as if the Palestinians weren’t even people, while I was one of them, just because of a passport. I can’t even describe how I felt when I walked out of the checkpoint – I guess a combination of angry, frustrated and relieved that I had been allowed in. Then I got my first look of the Wall in around Beit Lehem. It is heartbreakingly enormous and anyone who calls this a security fence is deluding themselves. The Israeli’s are build enormous ghettos, with American help. In fact, someone had spray painted, “American money, Israeli apartheid” on the wall, and I couldn’t have agreed more. It took me three hours to travel from Ramallah from Beit Lehem, a trip that would take 20 minutes without the checkpoints and if all the roads were accessible.

After I walked through the gap in the wall I asked for directions to the hotel where the wedding was being held. I only had about an hour before I was supposed to be there, but I knew that it was close enough to walk and I was already dirty and sweaty from traveling so I figured I might as well get a look at the city. I stopped in a small store to ask for directions, and the owner insisted on giving me a ride, which was very kind of him. So we talked in Arabic, and I tried to express how sorry I was for the situation in Bethleham and how terrible I thought the wall was. When we pulled up to the hotel I laughed out loud because it was a five star hotel, not something I was expecting after all the poverty I’ve seen in the West Bank, and certainly not a place I could afford to stay. I asked the man if he knew the name of a place that was cheaper where I could stay, thinking I’d hail a taxi and just be late to the wedding. Not only did he insist on driving me to the Beit Lehem hotel, but he also came inside with me and negotiated the price with the man at the desk . . . It is amazing how warm and hospitable the Palestinian people are considering the reality of the lives they live . . .

Once everything was settled at the hotel reception I ran up to my room and hopped into the shower, ironed my dress which had stuffed in my backpack for the last 4 hours and got ready to head to the wedding. I knew the wedding was Muslim, so I had been very careful about picking a dress that wasn’t low cut or too short. It was sleeveless, but I found a nice scarf in Ramallah to cover my arms . . . to be honest I was very proud of myself for finding such an acceptable outfit on short notice.

After putting on some makeup, I looked in the mirror to make sure I looked okay and noticed a big problem. The dress was white with a pink and tan floral design on it, and it had a slip built in underneath – but it was still transparent. I had even thought to bring white panties so that they wouldn’t show . . . but you could quit clearly see the outline of my underclothes . . . Big Problem. The only clothes that I had with me were the t-shirt and jeans that I had traveled in, some pjs and this dress. I figured the shawl would cover the top of my dress, but there wasn’t much I could do about the bottom. So, I did the only thing I could . . . I went to my first Mulsim wedding as an adult without any panties.

I arrived at the hotel just as the wedding party was arriving. R was wearing a tux, and his bride looked beautiful in a long white strapless wedding gown. Someoen was beating a drum and everyone was clapping so I joined in. R walked into the hotel, took his grandmother’s hand and started dancing with her, then his mother joined in – I couldn’t see where the bride had gone at that point. Then the wedding party moved towards the banquet hall with the guests trailing behind and clapping. Next, R and his bride disappeared to take pictures and everyone else entered the banquet hall. Now this was the most awkward part of the evening because I had no idea what the etiquette was for this sort of wedding, plus the language barrier, and the only person that I new at the wedding was the groom – and I was feeling very self conscious about the fact that I wasn’t properly dressed (no panties). So I walked over to a table with a youngish women and tried to explain that I was a friend of R’s from America and that I wasn’t sure where I was supposed to sit. She said I was in the right place (well I had already figured that part out) so I asked her if I could sit at her table where there were several empty seats, but she said it would be better if I found a different place.

So, I smiled and said thank you, took a deep breath and tried another table with some youngish looking girls, and this time I was more successful. Turns out I’d found one of R’s cousins who was very, very nice and invited me to sit with her and basically took me under her wing for the rest of the evening. After an awkward half-hour R and his bride appeared, and then the dancing began. It is funny how similar and different this wedding was to an American wedding. All of the same elements were present: bride in white, wedding party, bride’s and groom’s family seated separately, dancing, food and of course the wedding cake – and yet it was so different. The dancing was more enthusiastic – some of the men, including the groom, climbed onto the shoulders of other men and danced from up there. At one point the bride was lifted up on a chair to dance with R above the crowd. There was dubkeh (traditional Palestinian dance) and everyone seemed to be having a good time.

The dancing lasted for about two hours, followed by food, then more dancing and cake. The bride and groom danced all night and the men at the wedding performed some pretty impressive dance moves. Another big difference was that the men all danced together very comfortably, whereas at home they would be concerned about looking gay. Overall I had a lovely time and was invited to several peoples homes, and given lots of phone numbers. It was great practice for my Arabic, although it only reminded me that I have a long way to go before I will truly be conversational in colloquial Arabic. I was invited to stay the night with several people, but I had already checking into and paid for my hotel (thank goodness) I had a headache from trying to speak and understand the Arabic and desperately wanted a cigarette by the end.

Turkish Coffee etc . . .

2005-09-07T13:19:00.000+03:00

We found some Turkish coffee in our flat that had been left by the last inhabitants, so today M and I invited some of the other students over for coffee and biscuits. Luckily, the cupboard also contained the special metal coffee pot with the long handle and lots of Turkish coffee cups. Our coffee party was after we had registered for our courses and ran some errands/ explored Ramallah a little. I didn’t know how to prepare the coffee, but one of the other students, B, had done it a couple of times, so we decided to give it a whirl. I guess the trick is you boil the water first, then remove the pot from the heat and add in the coffee. Then you return the coffee to the burner and let it boil and remove it from the heat 3 times. Of course, we weren’t exactly sure how old the coffee was or how much to add to the water, so it was interesting. It came out pretty well, if a little weak.

After our coffee we met up with some other students for a tour of the village Birzeit, where we are living. I’ve been here for a couple days and thought I’d pretty much seen everything, but I was very, very wrong. Apparently the part of the village that I live in is the new part, but the old village is fascinating. Some of the houses are hundreds of years old, although most of them are now abandoned and falling apart. I guess the town is named Beir Zeit (Zeit = olive, Bier =well) because the homes in the old village have wells inside that they used to store olive oil. The town also has four churches . . . the biggest one is the Catholic Church, and I guess it is the biggest one in the Ramallah area, although one of our guides tried to claim that it was the biggest in all of Palestine – I guess his father helped build it . . . There is also a Greek Orthodox Church, and I can’t recall now if the third was Presbyterian or Protestant; this is an example of my glaring ignorance regarding the history of Christianity. Anyway, it was really interesting and I can’t wait to go back with my camera. Our guide said that Birzeit was founded by five tribes, three of which were Christian and other two were Muslim. The land is still owned by the families, but now they live in the newer part of the village. We also saw the original Birzeit University building, where it began as a secondary school before growing into one of the biggest universities in Palestine.

During our walk, our guide pointed out the Israeli settlement that is closest to Birzeit as well as the refugee camp that is right below it (most settlements are built on hills). He also showed us where the checkpoint is on the only road that leads north to Nablus and Jenin. It isn’t actually the only road, but the Israeli’s have closed the others for “security” or for settlement roads. He said the soldiers recently acquired (stole) more land because they are planning to build a permanent checkpoint on the road. We also stopped by the student center, which is a place where students can go to do work. There is a small coffee shop inside and a couple of computers with internet connection, and I think they’re free, so I will have to go back and investigate some more. Although since I’m on a government fellowship, I feel like I should spend the money in the town and maybe help out the economy a little since so much of US money goes to guns, military training, and general support for the IOF (Israeli Occupation Forces, which seems more accurate than Israeli Defense Forces). Most of the walls and building here have graffiti, a lot of which is politically motivated. One that stood out to me was a trash can where some kids had spray painted “Sharon” in big red Arabic script. We also saw the Women’s Clinic, which was open 24 hours for a while, but has run out of funding so is now open sporadically. I’d like to check it out and see what kind of services they offer and if they need any volunteers.

On the surface Birzeit and Ramallah seem like they are doing pretty well, but you don’t have to dig very far to find problems. There is a refugee camp that is basically a part of the village – but it is not technically a refugee camp because the homes were not built by the UN or with UN funding. I guess one of the local churches donated the land, but now they want it back to expand, but the refugees aren’t moving, so this could become a problem. There are a lot of businesses for a small town, and it seems busy since all northward traveling traffic has to pass through Birzeit, but there are a lot of young men without jobs and a lot of tension in the air. I suspect that I will find a very different reality when I travel to Bethlemham, Hebron, Nablus and Jenin; all places that have been hit hard by the occupation and the Wall.

Then we went for dinner at the local restaurant that serves alcohol, where the owner already knows my name, and apparently all the service staff do as well. I’ve only been there one other time, which means word has gotten out that there is an Arab girl in the International Student Program . . . Oh well, I hope the gossip is at least interesting.

Tomorrow my Arabic classes start. I have the afternoon free and since I now have an adapter and have charged my camera battery, hopefully tomorrow I will head back into the old village and take some pictures.

Settling In

2005-09-06T13:40:00.000+03:00

I'm in an internet cafe right now on Main St. in Ramallah. There is a nice little cafe near my apartment in Birzeit, but the connection was a little sketchy last night, so I decided to come here today instead.

Ramallah is very different from what I had anticipated. There are a lot more shops with English signs, western food, and near western prices than I expected to find -- not to mention that I didn't budget for living in an expensive place . . . The streets downtown are crowded with people going about their business and you have the mix of cars and pedestrians in the streets that I've learned is normal from my time living in Cairo.

Yesterday some volunteers from Birzeit University took the international students on a walking tour of the city, pointing out useful things like where the best money exchange places are and where to buy cell phones, but they also showed us where the theatre is and some of the cultural centers. You can see that there has been a lot of rebuilding in the city here, there are shiny white new buildings in lots of places, but there is an air of incompleteness here . . . a feeling like people are waiting before they commit to truly investing -- or maybe I am simply projecting my own feelings onto the city. For example, the water fountains that don't have water because of the water shortage; the library that is closed for renovations; the lighthouse square without a lighthouse. My favorite is the 4 lions in the center of the Manara (center of the city) which represent 4 old families from Ramallah. According to my young guide, these families have long since left Palestine for America or better places.

In fact, our guide Ibrahim, told us that most people today are just trying to get out . . . he didn't specify where but the did say that life would be better anywhere than it is here. He talked about his friends who have finished their education but can't find jobs and about how he hopes to go to America for graduate school and then we wants to work on Wall Street. He said he didn't care how long it took, or how hard he had to work, but he would find a way out.

This morning I was at the school to pay my registration fee (BTW I placed in level 3 Arabic, yay!) and I met with another volunteer Mohammed, who said very similar things about just wanting to leave the West Bank but that it is too difficult to find a way out . . .

On a different note, I learned from our program director that Israel has refused to give Birzeit University permission to set up wireless internet connections because, "it could be used for terrorist activities." What total nonsense.

All for now, but certainly more soon.

Travel and Arrival

2005-09-04T15:15:00.000+03:00

After months of planning and worry and excitement I have finally arrived in Birzeit! I’m sharing a flat with a very nice, very British woman named M, who worked with ISM last summer and is learning Arabic because of her politics and also because she has a half-Palestinian grandson. In other words, she is super-cool.

My travels across the Allenby Bridge were a bit nerve-wracking, but I’m getting a little ahead of myself . . . let me back up. I arrived at the Amman airport in Jordan around 12 am on September 2. I was supposed to arrive much earlier, but Jordan Royal Air decided to cancel the 5:30 flight and put everyone on a 9pm flight, which didn’t actually leave until about 10:40. I was traveling with my father, thankfully, because when we arrived in Amman, my bags didn’t come out on the luggage conveyor belt. Apparently they were headed to Cairo – now, I could have handled this problem in Arabic, but it would have taken me quite a bit longer than it took him, and my bags may well have been on their way to visit the pyramids by the time I made myself understood. Luckily, we were able to get them back before the other plane took off.

While we were waiting for my bags, my father bumped into a friend of the family, actually a good friend of two of my cousins who are about my age. Ironically, he was also traveling to Jerusalem that day, and he had made the trip several times before, so we agreed to travel together. This was a big relief for my father, and I have to admit I was pleased to have a travel companion. By the time we had sorted out all of our travel plans, and I had been reunited with my bags it was pretty late. I managed to get about 3.5 hours of sleep before it was time to get up and meet R. We met R at our hotel (The Four Seasons) and ate breakfast, then drove to the bridge with my father and a friend of his. I would just like to say that the women’s bathroom across from the dining room in the Four Seasons is larger than my entire apartment in Silver Spring.

When we reached the Allenby Bridge, instead of going through the main gate R insisted that we drive to the second, VIP gate which is apparently for people with European/American passports (he is Palestinian but has a Canadian passport). Once we arrived, he made all the arrangements, which involved a lot of pushing and shoving, a little baksheesh, and an $80 VIP fee (which I refused to pay, but my father insisted I stay with R, so he coughed up the cash). After about 1.5 hours we were herded into a small van and we drove across the border. We had to stop at three different checkpoints on the 10 minute drive, each time the driver got out with our passports, and had to be cleared to continue. When we arrived at the border station in Israel, R and I were pulled aside and separated, and our small bags were taken from us (the big ones had already been sent off in a different direction. This made me nervous because I had a lot of money in my bag, but I just kept my mouth shut and waited.

R and I had already prepared our story. I was traveling with him because he was getting married and I was an old friend (he actually is getting married), we had met in 1997 while he was a student at McGill, blah blah blah. I was purposefully not mentioning studying at Birzeit, because I’d been warned by my program they might not let me in if they knew why I was visiting Israel. To justify my desire for the 3 month visa, I said after the wedding I wanted to spend time visiting the Holy Land, the beaches in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, etc . . .

The questioning was pretty intense, and I was a little shaky by the end of it because they had asked me twice if I had another passport, and of course my Kuwaiti passport was hidden in my money belt in my jeans, but I did not share that information. Then we were escorted to the VIP lounge where we sat for about 2.5 or 3 hours, and were questioned again. In the end I got my three month visa, but I was pretty exhausted by this point. They stamped our passports (my piece of paper) then sent us into a very large room where everyone’s luggage had been chaotically thrown around. It took me about 10 minutes to find my stuff, but it was all there. Next we caught a cab into Jerusalem and dropped R off at his fiance’s family’s house, then I headed to the Kalandia checkpoint. Since it wasn’t too busy, and I was really tired, I stayed with the cab all the way to Ramallah and was dropped off at my hotel without any trouble.

The cab driver was very nice, and at one point he even pulled over so that I could get some beautiful pictures of Al-Quds. When we arrived at the hotel he gave me his number and told me to call him if I needed any help. . . I thanked him and took the number, but I don’t think I’ll be using it. Once at the hotel I called G and B who are both friends from previous Arabic courses and we agreed to meet for dinner. The hotel in Ramallah was certainly a far cry from the Four Seasons, but I could hear kids playing outside my window and there was a nice breeze, so I was happy. I was starving by the time I arrived, so I asked the man who showed me my room if there was a place nearby where I could get some food, but he insisted or ordering a pizza to be delivered for me. Turns out, they only deliver large pizzas, so I sat downstairs and ate my strange Palestinian pizza with corn on it, and made the employees eat with me. This was cool because I was able to practice my Arabic with them, and I did pretty well. I guess I did learn a thing or two this summer.

I met G and B, and we bumped in a woman in the lobby who was also in our program, M, who is now my roommate. So we all went out and grabbed some food, drank some local beer called Taybeh (which is much better than the Egyptian beer) and talked for a while. While we were sitting out in the garden behind the restaurant, shooting started. No one around us seemed concerned and one of the waiters came over and told us people were celebrating a wedding . . . From my room that night I could hear the Ramallah PA marching in the streets chanting Allahu Akbar while I was getting ready for bed.

Had my orientation at Birzeit the next day, and things look like they are fairly well organized. There are about 30 people in our program . . . 6 Germans, 4 Americans, and a interesting mix of other nationalities. Orientation took up most of the day and included a tour of the campus, which is very nice, and then we were picked up by our respective landlords. My landlord is very nice, and the apartment in much bigger than I expected – only M and I, each with a separate room, a nice big kitchen and a sitting area. I had requested to share a room, and this is a little above my budget, but I think I can swing it without too much trouble. We are in the village of Birzeit and very close to where the service buses pick up for the University or for Ramallah.

After settling in a little, M and I headed to a restaurant in town to meet up with some other students from the program. I’ve met three other Peace Studies students, there are quite a few journalists/ journalism students and a bunch of International Relations students. While we were at the restaurant last night some soldiers showed up in town and were driving around, so I guess the locals youths all ran out and started throwing stones at them. All the men in the restaurant ran outside to see what would happen, but I guess nothing did, so that was the end of that.

Today I went grocery shopping and cleaned up the apartment . . . I like sharing with M but I could do without the other roommates. So far I’ve killed about 6 spiders and a couple of bugs I couldn’t name. Tomorrow I have my language placement testing, then classes start Tuesday.