Sometimes trying to be in this place is too confusing. Confusing isn't quite the word that describes feeling overwhelmed, disgusted, disappointed, proud, excited, bewildered, awe-inspired, depressed and also humbled. I feel in almost every moment each of my identities clashing with one another. I think to myself, I'm a Jew, a woman, an American, a peace activist, and apparently some would label me a Zionist because I do believe in the necessity and success of a Jewish State. It's too difficult to reconcile these different points of view when, in order to not take any one side, I have to constantly pay attention to these conflicts within me.
I spend the weekdays in East Jerusalem with my Palestinian colleagues at the Palestine Israel Journal. There, I am constantly faced with the racist, occupation politics that Israel executes. I start to feel ashamed and so sorry for the continued suffering of a people who, as of right now almost at are civil war. I see how different they are from Israelis, from Jews-- differences that are beautiful: cultural, social, political and historical. And with all of my heart and soul I want for them to be a people with a country in which they can thrive. In those moments I quiet the voice that is suspicious of their ability to accomplish such a task, looking at the chaos of the Gaza Strip and the violence's gradual infiltration into the West Bank. I see a very divided people, the Palestinians: of Gaza, of the West Bank, of East Jerusalem.
In many ways these three sectors of the same people are living very different lives, very different experiences of Israel and so the urgency and method of fighting the Palestinian national struggle differs from place to place. In Gaza it appears that the accepted method of change is violent struggle. In the West Bank political, democratic process is being explored with pockets of "terrorist cells" in Nablus and Jenin, which the I.D.F. constantly works to root out through raids, middle of the night arrests, and barricaded neighborhoods, curfews and lockdowns. In East Jerusalem, Palestinian business owners, NGO workers and such are ekking out a living as best they can with limited access to customers because of the difficulties getting back and forth from the West Bank, the permit controls and the checkpoints. Israelis for the most part do not give them business because the fact is most Israelis fear their life is at stake if they walk through the Muslim Quarter of the Old City or venture into downtown East Jerusalem.
At this point I wonder if Palestinians who are relatively comfortable and secure wouldn't rather just stay that way instead of being involved in a collapsing unity government and aggression that is indiscriminate against their own people? I feel deeply saddened that their nationalistic process is at such a standstill because of internal and external obstacles.
Hamas is taking over Gaza as I write this entry and I wonder how long it will be before they defeat Fatah-- whatever that means, and then turn their guns, anger, frustration and efforts to Israel. And if that happens then what? What happens to my identity as a peace activist? Because if the I.D.F. has to fight Hamas to protect Israel, I will support that decision. I will consider collateral damage to people and property as part of war-- for the sake of preseving the Jewish State, the means justifies the end, that being the security of my people. In writing that I feel somewhat ashamed and exposed for not being the humanist I wish I could be. I wish for peace for all people but if it's a blind, naive peace that eventually compromises the safety and livelihood of my people, then only too quickly am I prepared to take a side.
How can I sincerely hope for the future of the Palestinians when the prominent leaders of their struggle always uses Israel as its raison d'etre, its invaluability to the Palestinian people against the evil occupational force-- Israel, backed by the U.S., the pillar of Western society and its inherent corruption. So, my mind does this thing where I can't quite get around how it is that I want to work with a people who have a political party that would perhaps harm me for being a Jew and an American if I were at the wrong place at the wrong time. That I could represent so much of what is considered the reason for their difficulties is frightening. Then I remind myself, because I have to after reading news and listening to radio, that there are individuals involved in this conflict that are not to be clumped with Hamas or any other hostile party.
Then, there's this crazy feeling inside of me that swells from the inside-out when, for example, I was sitting at a bar in Tel Aviv with Eitan the other night, watching an Israeli woman in her early 20s singing with her guitar, an unbelievable and soulful voice, her own songs, performed at a hip cafe on the happening Allenby Street. I get to thinking: oh my God, here I am in Israel, amongst Jews, this performer at some point mentions, "Baruch HaShem" -- Bless God-- because she' thankful for something (haven't quite gotten the language down, yet) a Jewish phrase of thanks and it is assumed we understand because we are all Jews.
I start thinking about the Jewish people, 60 years ago. Sixty, forty, twenty years ago, the parents and grandparents of the youngsters in this cafe may have been fleeing Nazi persecution, or escaping famine in Ethiopia, or leaving Morocco because living in a society that kept them segregated from the rest was simply unacceptable when not a few hours away by plane, a country had been established that would treat them, the Jews, as whole citizens.
There's an Arab-Israeli movement in Israel that calls for a one-state solution in which all of Israel's citizens are treated as equal under the law. That the Jewish characteristic of the state is hypocritical-- Israel can't be Jewish and a democracy, and that this contradiction must come to an end.
I don't know what to do with this. I understand that Israel cannot be, and is not fully democratic while being the Jewish State. It's true that in this country depending on your religion you are treated differently under the law. I know this is unacceptable in the name of democracy but it is unacceptable to me that there not be a Jewish State. A peace activist, a Jew-- I choose the Jewish State and take a side against equality of human rights-- that's difficult to swallow for me. But I don't have faith that a secular State of Israel would be healthy for the Jewish people. We are a people with a right to a State, a right to a religion, which is problematic in the face of democracy because it's more than just religion, it's culture, ethnicity. Furthermore, aside from the Jewish identity, there is a national identity that is not Palestinian, is not Arab, is not American, it is Israeli.
I find myself having thoughts such as: but there is no true democracy anyway. It is merely a fiction that strives to become a reality. No nation-state is innocent of some form of discrimination against sectors of its citizens based on color, class, religion or historical claims. I find myself saying, why must the Jewish State be perfect and rise above what all other countries are doing anyway? For me, this is a justification for policies that I'm not comfortable with in Israel. I delve into the complexities and find that I cannot determine right or wrong without specific context and the bigger the picture gets for consideration, the more difficult it becomes to decide on any concrete conclusions or sentiments.
Then I also get incensed by those in this country who are interested in simply being Jewish, or religious/observant in Israel. They close their hearts to the suffering of the Palestinians, they shut their eyes and ears to the inequalities amongst Jews in this State. They assume that God provides and to study Torah is most of what is needed. They do not face the reality of the Israeli, surrounded by several hostile countries. Twenty-two Arab countries constantly in identity crisis, beteween nationalistic leanings and Arab unity. And now there is the influence of Iran, a nation of people who do not identify with Arabs, but who now have a leader that will use the plight of the Palestinians, for example, to push his own agenda for regional dominance.
So where do I stand in all of this? I'm not entirely sure. The multiplicity of my feelings are unnerving. When I seek out Israelis or Palestinians to discuss some of these issues I find myself needing to speak gingerly, choosing my words carefully and wisely so as not to deny anyone's right to exist, or to be categorized as another, either: far left, anti-Israel lunatic, or a right-wing Zionist with imperialistic tendencies.
I am an American too, and I have this sense of justice and liberty for all even though in my own country I know these idealistic concepts are still dreams that have never fully been realized. But, I still believe in fighting for this.
There are moments when I'm disappointed in Israelis for not caring enough about what's going on in not too distant neighborhoods. But I also understand their apathy and helplessness in the face of a conflict that has so many sides to it.
I understand the hesitancy to jeopardize stability if your family enjoys it. Why would you do that if that's the only control you can exert in a region of chaos? Care for your family, enjoy the distractions of fashion, good food, exercise, steady work, music, is that such a terrible thing to want and maintain? These are commonplace, granted aspects of lifestyle for us, but luxury to those of whom we sit in judgment.
I think in Harper Lee's, To Kill A Mockingbird, Atticus Finch tells his daughter Scout that you don't really know a person until you've walked around in his shoes. There are so many shoes to walk around in here, none of which are comfortable. For me so far, there isn't one pair of shoes that necessarily fits.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Commemoration-Celebration
Riding the bus from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, shallow breathing and determined nail-biting, I found myself in a bit of a panic. I wasn't feeling quite ready to internalize the world in which I was going to once again immerse myself. A world in which the integrity of my identity as a Jew, a woman and an American are called into question based on whether or not I can speak or work out against the occupation of a suffering people.
I started to think about the newspaper headlines in the past few weeks: Hamas rockets barraging Sderot, Fatah and Hamas rendering Gaza a virtual war zone, x number of Palestinians murdered in an I.D.F. raid-- Jericho, Ramallah, Hebron...
Unfortunately since my last stay here I have become at best skeptical and at worst cynical that any real shift toward peace will occur in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Reading the newspapers the same names come up again and again-- Haniyeh, Abbas, Erakat, Olmert, Livni...I see them doing the same dance to nearly the same tune over and over. Either side using any signs of escalation as a rallying cry against an eternal enemy. If one is not fighting the occupation, then one is accepting the occupation. Both Israelis and Palestininans in that camp are trying as best as they can to live their lives around the elephant in the living room.
Which got me thinking...
I'm not comfortable being here and ignoring the fact that there are a few million people whose lives are classified as occupied, by the international community. Neither am I comfortable in a crowd in which each Israeli is demonized and assumed guilty of crimes against humanity simply for being Israeli. Basically I'm just not comfortable with the argument being either black or white.
What I understand at this point is that the public discourse on the Israel/Palestine conflict is primarily black and white in its coverage in the media. Instead of informing the public it polarizes the public and it alienates the public-- depending on which public it portrays as villainous or heroic. In my mind, this is problematic and moreover completely useless to the peace movement that believe it or not, DOES exist.
This is not an original thought or revelation but the fact of the matter is the media plays such a huge role in manipulating public opinion. The media in many ways chooses the reality in which we live.
This led me to another thought.
With respect to this blog and whatever perceptions or opinions are formed as a result of reading this stuff, as long as I seek out individuals who recount the stories of hate and separation, inequality and vengeful justice, I am not contributing anything different to that which is written on the conflict in the Middle East. However, if I seek out and write about those whose vision for peace is as strong and persistent as those who enjoy carrying out the endless violence, then I ask the readers to learn and share about the complexities of peace making and not the domino effect of violence making, which we all know so well. Would reading about peacemaking be more gentle on the eyes? Would it encourage more to read about the events here if suddenly the coverage was no longer predictable?
Would the rockets be as effective if they weren't on the front page of the newspapers of the world? What if instead, coverage of reconciliation circles between former Israeli I.D.F. soldiers and former Palestinian militants held the page-turning column on the front page of the New York Times on Sunday morning? What if Arab and Israeli musical collaborations in clubs showed up in the international section instead of bombed out discos? Is it possible that the "bad guys", the terrorists--- would reconsider their modus operandi? If they stopped getting so much attention for their bad behavior, would that behavior change for the better?
How many people here are working to create a reality of peaceful coexistence? Many. How many people are working to perpetuate a reality of violence and revenge? Also, many. But who gets the spotlight? Who decides?
We have the power to create our own reality.
It becomes a battle of truths. That the conflict will never end, that these people are incapable of living amongst one another. That is so, and that is not so. Why is one point of view more prevalent than the other? It is because of what we choose to read and then choose to believe and then choose to focus upon. As the center of our own universe, we design our universe on a day-to-day basis. We create the stories to our liking, to our moods, to our purpose. What would it take to try on a different reality?
Racism, classism, bigotry, anti-Semitism, anti-Islam. These are very real epidemics in these dueling societies. These human imperfections I identify as challenges to those who work to create a reality in which peace is possible. But these issues rest on one face of the peace and conflict coin. On the other side is tolerance, acceptance, reconciliation, healing, diversity, multiculturalism.
Last night I walked from the hotel in East Jerusalem to West Jerusalem. Leaving the hotel I spoke with my friends here, the family members who run and own the place: Jacob, Ro’ina and James were so happy to have me back. Jacob asked how I have been. James told me, “you look good.” Ro’ina said, “Habibti! Welcome back.” I adore these people, I felt home, as though I’d never left. I felt awful inside for the time I’ve spent away from here able to put these every day people, just like me-- an every day person, out of my heart, because of what I’ve been reading in the newspapers these past two months instead of living myself.
East Jerusalem in the summer time stays awake longer than in the winter, following the lead of the sun. Men and women are out and about. Little boys and girls run around in adorable outfits and sandals. Little girls' hair festooned with barrettes wearing big smiles. Little boys kicking soccer balls around, dripping popsicles down their shirts, artificial pinks and reds staining the perimeter of their mouths. In that moment life is beautiful for them. These little children aren't aware yet that today, June 5, is the anniversary of catastrophe in their people's history. The bitter has not yet found its way into their sweet, young lives. And I think, how can I help to prolong those moments for these precious babies? How can I keep the tanks and guns away from their eyes? How can I help to make those tanks and guns unnecessary?
In West Jerusalem the streets are decorated with hanging blue and white lights across the streets held up by buildings on either side. The city is celebrating the 40th anniversary of its unification. There are concerts, lively music followed by enthusiastic applause spills out from venues onto Jaffa Street. And I think, what will it take for the men, women and children on this side of the highway to feel safe enough to have a little more compassion for their counterparts on the other side? How can I inspire the Israelis and Jews to make some room in their hearts for all of those Palestinians who also want to sing and dance in celebration of their identity as well?
Can a reality be created in which both sides see that the other side wants to heal -- to no longer hurt, and is willing to work to make it happen?
I started to think about the newspaper headlines in the past few weeks: Hamas rockets barraging Sderot, Fatah and Hamas rendering Gaza a virtual war zone, x number of Palestinians murdered in an I.D.F. raid-- Jericho, Ramallah, Hebron...
Unfortunately since my last stay here I have become at best skeptical and at worst cynical that any real shift toward peace will occur in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Reading the newspapers the same names come up again and again-- Haniyeh, Abbas, Erakat, Olmert, Livni...I see them doing the same dance to nearly the same tune over and over. Either side using any signs of escalation as a rallying cry against an eternal enemy. If one is not fighting the occupation, then one is accepting the occupation. Both Israelis and Palestininans in that camp are trying as best as they can to live their lives around the elephant in the living room.
Which got me thinking...
I'm not comfortable being here and ignoring the fact that there are a few million people whose lives are classified as occupied, by the international community. Neither am I comfortable in a crowd in which each Israeli is demonized and assumed guilty of crimes against humanity simply for being Israeli. Basically I'm just not comfortable with the argument being either black or white.
What I understand at this point is that the public discourse on the Israel/Palestine conflict is primarily black and white in its coverage in the media. Instead of informing the public it polarizes the public and it alienates the public-- depending on which public it portrays as villainous or heroic. In my mind, this is problematic and moreover completely useless to the peace movement that believe it or not, DOES exist.
This is not an original thought or revelation but the fact of the matter is the media plays such a huge role in manipulating public opinion. The media in many ways chooses the reality in which we live.
This led me to another thought.
With respect to this blog and whatever perceptions or opinions are formed as a result of reading this stuff, as long as I seek out individuals who recount the stories of hate and separation, inequality and vengeful justice, I am not contributing anything different to that which is written on the conflict in the Middle East. However, if I seek out and write about those whose vision for peace is as strong and persistent as those who enjoy carrying out the endless violence, then I ask the readers to learn and share about the complexities of peace making and not the domino effect of violence making, which we all know so well. Would reading about peacemaking be more gentle on the eyes? Would it encourage more to read about the events here if suddenly the coverage was no longer predictable?
Would the rockets be as effective if they weren't on the front page of the newspapers of the world? What if instead, coverage of reconciliation circles between former Israeli I.D.F. soldiers and former Palestinian militants held the page-turning column on the front page of the New York Times on Sunday morning? What if Arab and Israeli musical collaborations in clubs showed up in the international section instead of bombed out discos? Is it possible that the "bad guys", the terrorists--- would reconsider their modus operandi? If they stopped getting so much attention for their bad behavior, would that behavior change for the better?
How many people here are working to create a reality of peaceful coexistence? Many. How many people are working to perpetuate a reality of violence and revenge? Also, many. But who gets the spotlight? Who decides?
We have the power to create our own reality.
It becomes a battle of truths. That the conflict will never end, that these people are incapable of living amongst one another. That is so, and that is not so. Why is one point of view more prevalent than the other? It is because of what we choose to read and then choose to believe and then choose to focus upon. As the center of our own universe, we design our universe on a day-to-day basis. We create the stories to our liking, to our moods, to our purpose. What would it take to try on a different reality?
Racism, classism, bigotry, anti-Semitism, anti-Islam. These are very real epidemics in these dueling societies. These human imperfections I identify as challenges to those who work to create a reality in which peace is possible. But these issues rest on one face of the peace and conflict coin. On the other side is tolerance, acceptance, reconciliation, healing, diversity, multiculturalism.
Last night I walked from the hotel in East Jerusalem to West Jerusalem. Leaving the hotel I spoke with my friends here, the family members who run and own the place: Jacob, Ro’ina and James were so happy to have me back. Jacob asked how I have been. James told me, “you look good.” Ro’ina said, “Habibti! Welcome back.” I adore these people, I felt home, as though I’d never left. I felt awful inside for the time I’ve spent away from here able to put these every day people, just like me-- an every day person, out of my heart, because of what I’ve been reading in the newspapers these past two months instead of living myself.
East Jerusalem in the summer time stays awake longer than in the winter, following the lead of the sun. Men and women are out and about. Little boys and girls run around in adorable outfits and sandals. Little girls' hair festooned with barrettes wearing big smiles. Little boys kicking soccer balls around, dripping popsicles down their shirts, artificial pinks and reds staining the perimeter of their mouths. In that moment life is beautiful for them. These little children aren't aware yet that today, June 5, is the anniversary of catastrophe in their people's history. The bitter has not yet found its way into their sweet, young lives. And I think, how can I help to prolong those moments for these precious babies? How can I keep the tanks and guns away from their eyes? How can I help to make those tanks and guns unnecessary?
In West Jerusalem the streets are decorated with hanging blue and white lights across the streets held up by buildings on either side. The city is celebrating the 40th anniversary of its unification. There are concerts, lively music followed by enthusiastic applause spills out from venues onto Jaffa Street. And I think, what will it take for the men, women and children on this side of the highway to feel safe enough to have a little more compassion for their counterparts on the other side? How can I inspire the Israelis and Jews to make some room in their hearts for all of those Palestinians who also want to sing and dance in celebration of their identity as well?
Can a reality be created in which both sides see that the other side wants to heal -- to no longer hurt, and is willing to work to make it happen?
Friday, May 4, 2007
Out of the Fray
I think I've been hesitant to continue writing because I've been in denial that I'm actually back at home going through the routine I had before I left, before so much more came into my life.
No longer walking the streets of East and West Jerusalem, taking in the sights and sounds of two peoples living side by side with so much tension in the spaces between and within, I find myself letting go of the intensity. What I mean by this is simply that when not embroiled with news of police beatings, random checks and arrests, and the faces of those going through such humiliation, it is easy to detach from it all.
In fact, being home in the States reading the news from Haaretz, Al-Jazeera, the Alternative News Center, and the Palestine News Network, I find my defenses going up in the face of a world that doesn't necessarily accept a Jewish State.
Just this weekend I attended a conference hosted by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). This is a Bay Area founded and spearheaded organization whose main mission is officially to work to end the occupation. (I'm still working on finding the JVP definition of occupation.) Unofficially, from what I gathered at the conference, its mission is to act as the counter, on the opposite end of the political spectrum, to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
JVP is easily classified as falling to the far left, or progressive as we call such leanings these days. AIPAC is traditionally perceived as representing the right on the political spectrum and the much-vilified in recent years-- neocons and other hawkish leaders and members of American society. I definitely have my issues with both organizations, while grateful that they both exist.
Back to the conference. Admittedly, I couldn't stay for the whole day long event. I was experiencing very visceral, unpleasant reactions to the materials presented. I suppose what I assumed going into it is that a Jewish organization allegedly one for peace, would be more forthright about the legitimacy and establishment and MOST importantly the reality of a Jewish State. However, as I sat in a small discussion section exploring options for statehood- two states, one state, federation, confederation, condominium (no joke)-- it was the "no-state solution" that really incensed me.
The "no-state solution" calls for no Israel and no Palestine and in those countries' stead, a system of municipalities, urban centers that would be managed by respective leaders of the majority of the area. In my mind, and I believe that I try to listen without judgment most of the time-- as much as humanly possible--- this proposal completely disregarded the past 59 years of Israel's existence, the people living there, the language spoken, the culture, the history, the very fact that Israel and Israelis are part of the international community distinctively and uniquely. Also, I felt it diminished the struggle of the Palestinians whose entire argument and rallying cry is to have a right to self-determination, a nation of their own. How could such a proposal be presented? And how naive.
At the beginning of the discussion a packet of proposals for the resolution to the configuration of future Palestine and present Israel was distributed for the participants to peruse. There were perhaps twenty different ideas. Speaking to this the one Israeli in the room, which I guessed from his name, Eitan, and his faint yet audible accent, commended the effort and added that it's a process in which Israelis and Palestinians must be involved. Furthermore, he supported this packet as a springboard for dialogue amongst people in the region. This statement was echoed by the others, Palestinian and Israeli participation!...But I really don't think Eitan's point was absorbed.
I felt most uncomfortable by the discussions around me because I felt as though those who spoke were acting as puppet masters. Israel is attached at the end of the strings pulled by America and the performance is chosen based on who is producing, i.e. putting up the money for the show. As though American Jews through JVP, and by extension other interested Americans have the power to end this occupation, end this struggle, end the conflict if only it can find more effective strategies to combat AIPAC.
If I think of the Israeli whom I am dating, and I think of his strong and distinct identity as Israeli, living in Israel, the only home he's ever known, and then I think of these people sitting in Oakland speaking as though they know what's best for all of Israel and Palestine, I laugh. It's not feasible, reasonable, and quite frankly it's hypocritical because most of these people claim to be anti-colonialist and other such noble and righteous identities when they are sitting there speaking of Israel as though it is a colony of the United States. And I know some people think this to be true but all you have to do is go to the country and see how it's just not. It is no more influenced by America than India or Singapore or Turkey...there are aspects of America's globalization influences that permeate but also the distinctive characteristics as well. Is this an American colony or merely another country in the world whose technological advances and innovation have allowed it to join the elite club of the Global North? I believe the latter, I'm happy to argue about it.
If one argues the amount of money, the billions of dollars that Israel receives annually from the States as proof of Israel as America's puppet theory, I recommend one to visit the Library of Congress website and search in the legislative annals for records of all funds allocated to foreign countries and programs by the United States, including funds to Palestinian organizations.
This is not to say that I agree with billions of U.S. dollars going toward Israel for defense budget purposes meanwhile Israeli schools have extremely poorly paid teachers, overcrowded classrooms and, I hear, some of the highest numbers of traffic fatalities every day. Conditions and negotations on this large sum of money ought to take place instead of carte blanche U.S. to Israel monetary transfers. However, I don't know that I'm accurate on this fact, I will probably have to research it at some point. Regardless, all policies require review and reform at some point in the trajectory of their implementation.
Beneath all of this frustration and anger however, there is fear. And I'm really not thrilled about fear surfacing in me with regard to the Jewish State of Israel. I admit to have criticized and questioned many a friend and elder on the issue of Israel and what I consider to be this Jewish community sense of urgency and ongoing threat to the Jews. In the past few weeks, I have come to believe that, if certain organizations like AIPAC and UN WATCH don't continue their work, the citizens of the world may forget that the Jewish people too, have a right to self-determination and the right to a nation. And while it may not be perfect as it exists at present, it is an international duty to see to its improvement, but not to its demise.
No longer walking the streets of East and West Jerusalem, taking in the sights and sounds of two peoples living side by side with so much tension in the spaces between and within, I find myself letting go of the intensity. What I mean by this is simply that when not embroiled with news of police beatings, random checks and arrests, and the faces of those going through such humiliation, it is easy to detach from it all.
In fact, being home in the States reading the news from Haaretz, Al-Jazeera, the Alternative News Center, and the Palestine News Network, I find my defenses going up in the face of a world that doesn't necessarily accept a Jewish State.
Just this weekend I attended a conference hosted by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). This is a Bay Area founded and spearheaded organization whose main mission is officially to work to end the occupation. (I'm still working on finding the JVP definition of occupation.) Unofficially, from what I gathered at the conference, its mission is to act as the counter, on the opposite end of the political spectrum, to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
JVP is easily classified as falling to the far left, or progressive as we call such leanings these days. AIPAC is traditionally perceived as representing the right on the political spectrum and the much-vilified in recent years-- neocons and other hawkish leaders and members of American society. I definitely have my issues with both organizations, while grateful that they both exist.
Back to the conference. Admittedly, I couldn't stay for the whole day long event. I was experiencing very visceral, unpleasant reactions to the materials presented. I suppose what I assumed going into it is that a Jewish organization allegedly one for peace, would be more forthright about the legitimacy and establishment and MOST importantly the reality of a Jewish State. However, as I sat in a small discussion section exploring options for statehood- two states, one state, federation, confederation, condominium (no joke)-- it was the "no-state solution" that really incensed me.
The "no-state solution" calls for no Israel and no Palestine and in those countries' stead, a system of municipalities, urban centers that would be managed by respective leaders of the majority of the area. In my mind, and I believe that I try to listen without judgment most of the time-- as much as humanly possible--- this proposal completely disregarded the past 59 years of Israel's existence, the people living there, the language spoken, the culture, the history, the very fact that Israel and Israelis are part of the international community distinctively and uniquely. Also, I felt it diminished the struggle of the Palestinians whose entire argument and rallying cry is to have a right to self-determination, a nation of their own. How could such a proposal be presented? And how naive.
At the beginning of the discussion a packet of proposals for the resolution to the configuration of future Palestine and present Israel was distributed for the participants to peruse. There were perhaps twenty different ideas. Speaking to this the one Israeli in the room, which I guessed from his name, Eitan, and his faint yet audible accent, commended the effort and added that it's a process in which Israelis and Palestinians must be involved. Furthermore, he supported this packet as a springboard for dialogue amongst people in the region. This statement was echoed by the others, Palestinian and Israeli participation!...But I really don't think Eitan's point was absorbed.
I felt most uncomfortable by the discussions around me because I felt as though those who spoke were acting as puppet masters. Israel is attached at the end of the strings pulled by America and the performance is chosen based on who is producing, i.e. putting up the money for the show. As though American Jews through JVP, and by extension other interested Americans have the power to end this occupation, end this struggle, end the conflict if only it can find more effective strategies to combat AIPAC.
If I think of the Israeli whom I am dating, and I think of his strong and distinct identity as Israeli, living in Israel, the only home he's ever known, and then I think of these people sitting in Oakland speaking as though they know what's best for all of Israel and Palestine, I laugh. It's not feasible, reasonable, and quite frankly it's hypocritical because most of these people claim to be anti-colonialist and other such noble and righteous identities when they are sitting there speaking of Israel as though it is a colony of the United States. And I know some people think this to be true but all you have to do is go to the country and see how it's just not. It is no more influenced by America than India or Singapore or Turkey...there are aspects of America's globalization influences that permeate but also the distinctive characteristics as well. Is this an American colony or merely another country in the world whose technological advances and innovation have allowed it to join the elite club of the Global North? I believe the latter, I'm happy to argue about it.
If one argues the amount of money, the billions of dollars that Israel receives annually from the States as proof of Israel as America's puppet theory, I recommend one to visit the Library of Congress website and search in the legislative annals for records of all funds allocated to foreign countries and programs by the United States, including funds to Palestinian organizations.
This is not to say that I agree with billions of U.S. dollars going toward Israel for defense budget purposes meanwhile Israeli schools have extremely poorly paid teachers, overcrowded classrooms and, I hear, some of the highest numbers of traffic fatalities every day. Conditions and negotations on this large sum of money ought to take place instead of carte blanche U.S. to Israel monetary transfers. However, I don't know that I'm accurate on this fact, I will probably have to research it at some point. Regardless, all policies require review and reform at some point in the trajectory of their implementation.
Beneath all of this frustration and anger however, there is fear. And I'm really not thrilled about fear surfacing in me with regard to the Jewish State of Israel. I admit to have criticized and questioned many a friend and elder on the issue of Israel and what I consider to be this Jewish community sense of urgency and ongoing threat to the Jews. In the past few weeks, I have come to believe that, if certain organizations like AIPAC and UN WATCH don't continue their work, the citizens of the world may forget that the Jewish people too, have a right to self-determination and the right to a nation. And while it may not be perfect as it exists at present, it is an international duty to see to its improvement, but not to its demise.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Detained at Qalandya
Nidal works two jobs. Each morning he crosses Qalandya en route to Ram where his computer/high tech office is located. Around 2pm he leaves that job, comes back through the checkpoint to East Jerusalem, and ends up on Al-Hariri by 4 pm. Sunday, Nidal did not show up for work.
On Monday, Najat and I were chatting, as we usually do throughout the day, when she stopped suddenly and remembered to tell me, "Nidal was arrested yesterday at the checkpoint, we don't know if he's coming to work today because we don't know where he is."
During late morning, the phone rang and Marwan picked up. Najat could overhear Marwan talking on the telephone, made out it was Nidal on the other end of the line, and said, "Nidal is not in jail, that was him calling for Marwan."
I asked Najat if she knew what happened. She told me we'd ask Nidal later on when he came to the office. Nidal came in around 4pm, the usual time, looking a little tired, but as always with a half-smile of amusement on his face.
I had to leave the office because Sammy Blumberg and I had an East Jerusalem shawarma at Al-Shu'leh-followed by a visit to the Kotel date. However, we finished around 5:30 so I headed back to the office to talk to Nidal about what happened.
At 3:20 p.m. Sunday, Nidal and a large crowd of people waited at the checkpoint turnstile for the light to turn green so they could pass through. Finally, the light switched red to green. The people pushed through to the other side of the turnstile. Suddenly, over the intercom a soldier's voice instructed everyone to go back through the turnstile to the other side. As Nidal speaks fluent Hebrew, he heard the soldier making the announcements also say, "you aren't humans you are animals."
"This thing really made me crazy, Heidi," Nidal said.
As Nidal passed by the soldier he said to her, "You are the animal, you don't know how to treat people."
Once again, the crowd of people were permitted back through the checkpoint. When it was Nidal's turn, the soldier took his identity card and told him he would not get it back. Nidal stopped and said he wasn't leaving until he had his identity card, what was he going to do without it?
She told him to step to the side and pointed him to a room of dimensions one meter, by one meter and a half. There he was told to stay without any other information. He asked the soldier to give him back his card and why was he being held? She gave him no response and so he started calling her names. In kind, she responded by calling him names and making obscene gestures like flicking him off, things like this.
With his phone, Nidal photographed and recorded the soldier in her fury, directed at him. Nidal then told the soldier that he wanted to see her supervisor, "someone bigger than her."
The soldier disappeared and Nidal waited another 45 minutes without any news.
"My legs were really freezing now," Nidal said.
He couldn't move, he couldn't get out and he didn't know when the requested supervisor would appear, if at all.
Finally, another soldier, a male, appeared and asked him what happened. Nidal told him his side of the story. The higher-up soldier told Nidal he had to delete the pictures of the soldier making faces, gestures, and calling Nidal names. Nidal refused and the man informed Nidal he was going to be arrested. He also told Nidal he wasn't allowed to eat, drink, smoke, or talk on the phone while being detained. Nidal was then taken outside and made to wait, minus his phone battery, which the soldiers confiscated after deleting the photos for him.
After an hour and a half, allowed only to move within a few meters of space outside, he was taken to the Makom HaKera, what I understand to be a detention center. In tow was the female soldier, Nidal and the supervisor. Arriving at the detention center Nidal was informed that he would be arrested for 24 to 48 hours, and was he in contact with a lawyer? Nidal replied that he had a lawyer and wanted to speak with him immediately.
The woman processing his case at the detention center asked him why he hadn't already called the lawyer to which Nidal responded, "Are you kidding? You told me not to eat, drink, talk on the phone, and my phone battery was taken. How do you expect me to make a phone call to my lawyer?"
Nidal was allowed to call to his brother, his lawyer, who came immediately to help. Once his brother arrived and established that he was in fact a lawyer, Nidal was informed that because he has a lawyer, he would be released but he may be called in a few days to appear in court. Nidal asked for the name of the soldier with whom the incident transpired. They refused to give him her name and asked why he wanted it. Nidal responded that if he had to go to court he wanted to know her name to make his case and to identify her. Again, the soldiers refused to give her name.
Before leaving, Nidal looked at the young soldier and said, "I have one question for you. Do you treat people like this at home?"
The soldier responded, "No".
Eight hours and ten minutes later, at 11:30 p.m., Nidal and his brother left and went home.
Nidal looked at me and said, "Heidi, I don't want to have a problem. Usually, this doesn't happen. When a soldier at the checkpoint says, 'good morning, please may I see your id., thank you, have a good day,' I respond in the same way: thank you, have a nice day. This girl is sick in the head. I know I am not the problem, she has a problem. What can I do? This is our life here, there is occupation, sometimes it affects my life, sometimes it doesn't. I was so angry, but I don't want to have a problem."
Nidal continued, "they put these kids at the checkpoints who don't know who they are talking to. At the checkpoints are women, children, engineers, doctors, lawyers, professors. I don't want to start a problem. I want to go through the checkpoint and go home or go to work because that's what I have to do. These people want to do the same thing. It's not right, what's going on here."
As for the young, female soldier, "they probably moved her so that if I see her again I can't get her name and the whole thing will never have happened."
Nidal is alright. I felt infuriated and ashamed, on my own behalf.
In response to this incident, I have heard a collection of other thoughts and stories from the office.
Marwan told me of a time he was at the checkpoint with his car. He showed his license, his registration and his identity card. The soldier inspecting his license told him his papers had expired and so he had to be arrested. Marwan, who also speaks Hebrew insisted that the soldier read the dates wrong, everything was current. The soldier repeated that he was under arrest and the car would be taken. At this point Marwan started yelling, which drew the attention of another soldier, again, a higher-up/supervisor type. He asked what was going on to which Marwan explained the misunderstanding. The supervisor took the papers from the soldier, gave them back to Marwan, and told Marwan to leave, everything was fine.
The soldier mis-read the dates on the license and registration.
Marwan says, "It's not that they're stupid, these people at the checkpoints, but they are very young, many do not even read Hebrew, they are immigrants. The smart people they send to the other parts of the army, but the most impressionable they send to the checkpoints. There is something wrong with these people, they are not normal and that's what we have to deal with."
This morning Mira told me she's had experiences with checkpoint guards that don't read Hebrew. "They take your id in their hands and then they ask you: where are you from, where were you born?"
These are the more recently arrived perhaps from Ethiopia or the Former Soviet Union. They still cannot read the language and yet they are responsible for verifying documents in the Hebrew language that determine the fate of thousands every day.
With regard to Nidal, Hillel believes that the authorities won't follow up on this case. Most likely, it's in the best interest of the checkpoint guards not to bring Nidal to court.
Najat believes this case isn't over, that Nidal may be called to court and find himself in a situation with little evidence to defend himself.
Knowing that a friend of mine experienced having an Israeli soldier, in uniform, representing the State of Israel and in theory, the Jewish people -- call him and his people animals -- is immensely upsetting for me. I feel a personal sense of guilt and embarassment and a helplessness because I have no answers and no way at this moment to improve the situation. All I can do is state that this was wrong and awful. It is a practice that I cannot understand.
It is a face of the army that is difficult to reconcile with the other faces I have encountered. My contemporaries that I have befriended, like my friend Eitan, who serves in the army as an engineer, ensuring the safety and efficiency of weapons and technology that the army utilizes, who welcomes me into his home every weekend and shares with me his life as a peer, and as an Israeli.
It is in sharp contrast to my reaction to the following story I read in Haaretz yesterday. IDF troops took into custody two Palestinian youths in possession of explosive devices inlcuding a bomb weighing 7 kilograms, a gas balloon and spraying material, "apparently intended to be used in suicide bombing", at the Beit Iba checkpoint in the Nablus area. The youths were detained and questioned by Shin Bet security service but it is not clear whether the individuals intended to carry out the attack in Israel or in the West Bank.*
In isolation, the outcome of this story comforts me. The IDF is doing its job to protect the safety and security of Palestinians and Israelis by preventing an act that could incite yet another cycle of violence. However, it is one part of the bigger picture which must be examined in its entirety. There exists a cause and effect dynamic to the violence here. Questions around cause and effect for me arise.
What are the psychological effects of occupation on societies, that of both the occupied and the occupier?
What aspect of human recognition and compassion shuts off or compartmentalizes when one is required to follow orders without question, as those at the checkpoints?
What is the balance between maintaining security and respecting humanity?
If this is a Jewish State, how is it upholding or denigrating the more noble principles of the tradition? How does it violate those through security measures, through prolonged conflict that has forced a country and its people into constant fear, defense, and now offense against an enemy that has been characterized and dealt with as monolithic and separate from the daily lives of most Israelis?
Can I trust the media? This story was in Haaretz but I found no reporting on explosive devices found on Palestinian youths in any of the Arabic publications that are in English. What do I need to learn about Israeli media when Palestinians feel that it is sometimes complicit with the government in keeping certain abuses and human rights issues out of the mainstream publications?
How much of this is simply human nature, human conflict, the way the world works, not unique to this region, just in focus because this is where I choose to be and what I feel the need to focus upon?
Najat, Mira and I sat at breakfast this morning eating ka'ek, zatar and cheese, discussing Nidal's situation. I looked at them and said, "you know, people just don't care. If it doesn't affect their lives, they don't want to be involved, for the most part. This stuff is happening all over the world, it's a problem throughout, it isn't just here, this is the world."
They both looked at me but didn't respond. In that moment I realized that while I believe what I said, I also believe that there are people like Najat, Mira and myself who don't want this to be the world. We want it to look, feel and be different, and so that's how we'll spend our days.
* "IDF Soldier wounded when bomb explodes near jeep in Nablus," www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=839030
On Monday, Najat and I were chatting, as we usually do throughout the day, when she stopped suddenly and remembered to tell me, "Nidal was arrested yesterday at the checkpoint, we don't know if he's coming to work today because we don't know where he is."
During late morning, the phone rang and Marwan picked up. Najat could overhear Marwan talking on the telephone, made out it was Nidal on the other end of the line, and said, "Nidal is not in jail, that was him calling for Marwan."
I asked Najat if she knew what happened. She told me we'd ask Nidal later on when he came to the office. Nidal came in around 4pm, the usual time, looking a little tired, but as always with a half-smile of amusement on his face.
I had to leave the office because Sammy Blumberg and I had an East Jerusalem shawarma at Al-Shu'leh-followed by a visit to the Kotel date. However, we finished around 5:30 so I headed back to the office to talk to Nidal about what happened.
At 3:20 p.m. Sunday, Nidal and a large crowd of people waited at the checkpoint turnstile for the light to turn green so they could pass through. Finally, the light switched red to green. The people pushed through to the other side of the turnstile. Suddenly, over the intercom a soldier's voice instructed everyone to go back through the turnstile to the other side. As Nidal speaks fluent Hebrew, he heard the soldier making the announcements also say, "you aren't humans you are animals."
"This thing really made me crazy, Heidi," Nidal said.
As Nidal passed by the soldier he said to her, "You are the animal, you don't know how to treat people."
Once again, the crowd of people were permitted back through the checkpoint. When it was Nidal's turn, the soldier took his identity card and told him he would not get it back. Nidal stopped and said he wasn't leaving until he had his identity card, what was he going to do without it?
She told him to step to the side and pointed him to a room of dimensions one meter, by one meter and a half. There he was told to stay without any other information. He asked the soldier to give him back his card and why was he being held? She gave him no response and so he started calling her names. In kind, she responded by calling him names and making obscene gestures like flicking him off, things like this.
With his phone, Nidal photographed and recorded the soldier in her fury, directed at him. Nidal then told the soldier that he wanted to see her supervisor, "someone bigger than her."
The soldier disappeared and Nidal waited another 45 minutes without any news.
"My legs were really freezing now," Nidal said.
He couldn't move, he couldn't get out and he didn't know when the requested supervisor would appear, if at all.
Finally, another soldier, a male, appeared and asked him what happened. Nidal told him his side of the story. The higher-up soldier told Nidal he had to delete the pictures of the soldier making faces, gestures, and calling Nidal names. Nidal refused and the man informed Nidal he was going to be arrested. He also told Nidal he wasn't allowed to eat, drink, smoke, or talk on the phone while being detained. Nidal was then taken outside and made to wait, minus his phone battery, which the soldiers confiscated after deleting the photos for him.
After an hour and a half, allowed only to move within a few meters of space outside, he was taken to the Makom HaKera, what I understand to be a detention center. In tow was the female soldier, Nidal and the supervisor. Arriving at the detention center Nidal was informed that he would be arrested for 24 to 48 hours, and was he in contact with a lawyer? Nidal replied that he had a lawyer and wanted to speak with him immediately.
The woman processing his case at the detention center asked him why he hadn't already called the lawyer to which Nidal responded, "Are you kidding? You told me not to eat, drink, talk on the phone, and my phone battery was taken. How do you expect me to make a phone call to my lawyer?"
Nidal was allowed to call to his brother, his lawyer, who came immediately to help. Once his brother arrived and established that he was in fact a lawyer, Nidal was informed that because he has a lawyer, he would be released but he may be called in a few days to appear in court. Nidal asked for the name of the soldier with whom the incident transpired. They refused to give him her name and asked why he wanted it. Nidal responded that if he had to go to court he wanted to know her name to make his case and to identify her. Again, the soldiers refused to give her name.
Before leaving, Nidal looked at the young soldier and said, "I have one question for you. Do you treat people like this at home?"
The soldier responded, "No".
Eight hours and ten minutes later, at 11:30 p.m., Nidal and his brother left and went home.
Nidal looked at me and said, "Heidi, I don't want to have a problem. Usually, this doesn't happen. When a soldier at the checkpoint says, 'good morning, please may I see your id., thank you, have a good day,' I respond in the same way: thank you, have a nice day. This girl is sick in the head. I know I am not the problem, she has a problem. What can I do? This is our life here, there is occupation, sometimes it affects my life, sometimes it doesn't. I was so angry, but I don't want to have a problem."
Nidal continued, "they put these kids at the checkpoints who don't know who they are talking to. At the checkpoints are women, children, engineers, doctors, lawyers, professors. I don't want to start a problem. I want to go through the checkpoint and go home or go to work because that's what I have to do. These people want to do the same thing. It's not right, what's going on here."
As for the young, female soldier, "they probably moved her so that if I see her again I can't get her name and the whole thing will never have happened."
Nidal is alright. I felt infuriated and ashamed, on my own behalf.
In response to this incident, I have heard a collection of other thoughts and stories from the office.
Marwan told me of a time he was at the checkpoint with his car. He showed his license, his registration and his identity card. The soldier inspecting his license told him his papers had expired and so he had to be arrested. Marwan, who also speaks Hebrew insisted that the soldier read the dates wrong, everything was current. The soldier repeated that he was under arrest and the car would be taken. At this point Marwan started yelling, which drew the attention of another soldier, again, a higher-up/supervisor type. He asked what was going on to which Marwan explained the misunderstanding. The supervisor took the papers from the soldier, gave them back to Marwan, and told Marwan to leave, everything was fine.
The soldier mis-read the dates on the license and registration.
Marwan says, "It's not that they're stupid, these people at the checkpoints, but they are very young, many do not even read Hebrew, they are immigrants. The smart people they send to the other parts of the army, but the most impressionable they send to the checkpoints. There is something wrong with these people, they are not normal and that's what we have to deal with."
This morning Mira told me she's had experiences with checkpoint guards that don't read Hebrew. "They take your id in their hands and then they ask you: where are you from, where were you born?"
These are the more recently arrived perhaps from Ethiopia or the Former Soviet Union. They still cannot read the language and yet they are responsible for verifying documents in the Hebrew language that determine the fate of thousands every day.
With regard to Nidal, Hillel believes that the authorities won't follow up on this case. Most likely, it's in the best interest of the checkpoint guards not to bring Nidal to court.
Najat believes this case isn't over, that Nidal may be called to court and find himself in a situation with little evidence to defend himself.
Knowing that a friend of mine experienced having an Israeli soldier, in uniform, representing the State of Israel and in theory, the Jewish people -- call him and his people animals -- is immensely upsetting for me. I feel a personal sense of guilt and embarassment and a helplessness because I have no answers and no way at this moment to improve the situation. All I can do is state that this was wrong and awful. It is a practice that I cannot understand.
It is a face of the army that is difficult to reconcile with the other faces I have encountered. My contemporaries that I have befriended, like my friend Eitan, who serves in the army as an engineer, ensuring the safety and efficiency of weapons and technology that the army utilizes, who welcomes me into his home every weekend and shares with me his life as a peer, and as an Israeli.
It is in sharp contrast to my reaction to the following story I read in Haaretz yesterday. IDF troops took into custody two Palestinian youths in possession of explosive devices inlcuding a bomb weighing 7 kilograms, a gas balloon and spraying material, "apparently intended to be used in suicide bombing", at the Beit Iba checkpoint in the Nablus area. The youths were detained and questioned by Shin Bet security service but it is not clear whether the individuals intended to carry out the attack in Israel or in the West Bank.*
In isolation, the outcome of this story comforts me. The IDF is doing its job to protect the safety and security of Palestinians and Israelis by preventing an act that could incite yet another cycle of violence. However, it is one part of the bigger picture which must be examined in its entirety. There exists a cause and effect dynamic to the violence here. Questions around cause and effect for me arise.
What are the psychological effects of occupation on societies, that of both the occupied and the occupier?
What aspect of human recognition and compassion shuts off or compartmentalizes when one is required to follow orders without question, as those at the checkpoints?
What is the balance between maintaining security and respecting humanity?
If this is a Jewish State, how is it upholding or denigrating the more noble principles of the tradition? How does it violate those through security measures, through prolonged conflict that has forced a country and its people into constant fear, defense, and now offense against an enemy that has been characterized and dealt with as monolithic and separate from the daily lives of most Israelis?
Can I trust the media? This story was in Haaretz but I found no reporting on explosive devices found on Palestinian youths in any of the Arabic publications that are in English. What do I need to learn about Israeli media when Palestinians feel that it is sometimes complicit with the government in keeping certain abuses and human rights issues out of the mainstream publications?
How much of this is simply human nature, human conflict, the way the world works, not unique to this region, just in focus because this is where I choose to be and what I feel the need to focus upon?
Najat, Mira and I sat at breakfast this morning eating ka'ek, zatar and cheese, discussing Nidal's situation. I looked at them and said, "you know, people just don't care. If it doesn't affect their lives, they don't want to be involved, for the most part. This stuff is happening all over the world, it's a problem throughout, it isn't just here, this is the world."
They both looked at me but didn't respond. In that moment I realized that while I believe what I said, I also believe that there are people like Najat, Mira and myself who don't want this to be the world. We want it to look, feel and be different, and so that's how we'll spend our days.
* "IDF Soldier wounded when bomb explodes near jeep in Nablus," www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=839030
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
What to think?
Monday evening my colleague, Nidal, the website manager for the Journal invited me out for an evening in Jerusalem. He picked me up at my hotel around a quarter to nine and we headed West.
Nidal's family lives in the Old City near the Kotel. Nidal speaks Hebrew fluently and he tries to teach me Hebrew more than Arabic, which is entertaining to me considering Nidal is Palestinian. Leading a very social life, Nidal goes out as much as possible with his friends in Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem. Although, I imagine his juggling of two jobs makes this passion for the nightlife rather difficult to pursue these days. Nevertheless, he was particularly excited to show me this place called Jan's in West Jerusalem, beneath a museum/theater, on the road to the German Colony. "Ya Heidi, it is SOOOO romantic," he told me.
In Hebrew, Jan's is spelled yud-alef-nun. Presumably then, the place is pronounced Yan's. I mention this only because Nidal kept referring to the place as Jan's, even though the Hebrew spelling was there, the whole thing was confusing. Anyway...
During the ride I asked Nidal why is it that he has no problem going back and forth between East and West Jerusalem, going out in the big cities of Israel?
"I have to live my life. I have to make the best of the way things are."
Fair enough, but in sharp contrast to other Palestinian contemporaries I have befriended in my time here.
We arrived at Jan's, a low-ceilinged, long room, with dark wood-paneled walls, covered in tapestries, portraits, and beaded ropes. The lamps were dim, Moroccan style, embossed with colored glass. There were tables and chairs but mostly cushions and floor couch-pads with low tables. Everything was muted in color, deep maroon, dark greens, browns, somewhat undistinguishable because of the lamps, casting a pale-golden hue as far as the light could reach.
Nidal and I chose a floor couch and a low table. He ordered hot chocolate with whipped cream, and I chose the warm "cinnamon drink" with pine nuts and walnuts floating on top.
Continuing our conversation about Nidal's life in the context of being a Palestinian, he said to me, "You know last week a man was killed near the post office on Salah-ah-Din. The police beat him up and he died."
Hearing this, my first reactions were shock and horror, and then my investigative dial got turned on.
"What do you mean Nidal? They killed him? They beat him up, why? Why would they do that?"
"I don't know, that's how it is here, these things happen," Nidal answered.
I decided not to pursue that topic of conversation because as much as I'm told not to ask why, for me it is necesary to not only ask why, but know "why" as well. From Nidal, I was not going to get the information I needed. I bookmarked the story in my mind.
We continued our evening, discussing various differences between Israel/Palestine and the rest of the world. Nidal is not convinced that I could live here because it is a hard life, hard to find work, the tension, the conflict, all the rough stuff that exists just below the surface. Around eleven p.m. Nidal returned me to the hotel, to prevent me from being locked out.
Now it is Tuesday morning. Najat and I are running errands. A stop at the pharmacy for one of her nephews, a birthday present for one of her brothers, a visit to the bakery for cookies, and a glass of date-rosewater juice for me.
While walking up on one of the side streets to Salah-ah-Din, en route to the bakery, Najat turned to me and said, "Heidi, did you hear a man was killed last week at the post office?"
She continued, "He was in an Israeli prison for many years. He had been married for 14 years and just one year ago he and his wife finally had a baby. Now there is a wife and baby boy with no husband, no father. He was a transport person, driving a van. They stopped him in his car, pulled him out and started beating him. They were kicking him and then brought him into the station, you know, next to the post office, and starting hitting him in the head. He lost consciousness and he never woke up."
I asked Najat, "They just pulled him out of his car and started beating him? Without reason? Why?"
"Don't asky why, Heidi. Maybe he said something to upset them. They found out he's an ex-prisoner and then they did this. This is how things are," she replied.
Now back in the office, I asked Lotahn if he had heard of this story. He had not.
I asked, "Lotahn, is it possible that for no reason they just started to beat him and it went too far? Does that really happen, with no reason?"
"For no reason, no. Maybe someone was having a bad day and yes, they got carried away. It does happen. But I don't know the story," Lotahn said.
I started searching on the internet for stories of a Palestinian man in East Jerusalem beaten to death by Israeli police. I found nothing on Google nor Al-Jazeera. Not until yesterday (March 14) did I think to look at Haaretz.
Below I have pasted three articles and corresponding links. From the Haaretz article I was able to find links to two other news sources covering the story, both Palestinian. Confusingly and distressingly, the Palestinian news sources cover the story entirely differently than Haaretz. The Haaretz article gives background on the man, the situation and the events leading up to his being at the police station here on Salah-ah-Din. The Palestinian sources state the alleged crime committed by the police officers and events during and after the beating. There are no eyewitness quotes in any of the articles, either Israeli or Palestinian. The case continues, as you can read in the articles below, with an autopsy called for by the deceased's family.
What bothers me is that there is a photo on the Palestinian news source articles that claims to be a photo of the man being beaten. This photograph, I believe, is NOT here at Salah-ah-Din street. There is no way to tell that it was taken at the scene described in the articles. You cannot see anything at all really. This photo is being used as proof of the event by readers commenting on the Haaretz website. In the photo there are two soldiers above a man on the ground, and figures looking like more soldiers in the background. The ground looks like dirt, no pavement.
Contrarily, where this event took place, there is only paved road, it is a busy intersection with lots of people during all daylight hours, and depending on the angle from which the photo was taken, one would see either: the wall of the Old City, the highway in either directions, or buildings with the numerous shops which the Palestinian articles mention. Also, the policemen here are dressed for full combat, with helmets, like the soldiers wear. The police I see every day at the station when I walk past are not dressed like this.
I could not include the photo but as of today it is still on the website pages, to which I have provided links.
For certain, a man was killed last Thursday. To what extent and why the police beat him is under investigation. I do not doubt that acts of brutality were committed and should be addressed. From the Haaretz article, it appears that there is a process under way that will penalize any wrong doing on the part of the law enforcement officers. I am perturbed by the use of such a photograph and the differences in coverage of the event.
It is problematic and alarming. It also indicates to me that one, or rather, I , cannot get a clear idea of what is going on here. Just when I think I'm beginning to understand the rules of the game here, I realize I absolutley do not. Reading the articles to put the pieces of the story together, I find I still have questions unanswered and an unclear image of what exactly happened.
Palestine News Network
Israeli police beat Palestinian man to death, family demands neutral autopsy
(Jerusalem)
Saturday, 10 March 2007
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1886&Itemid=29
Wa'el Yousef Karawi was from East Jerusalem's A-Tur neighborhood. Israeli police attacked him on a street popular for shoe, clothes and book shopping. Now the 32 year old Palestinian man is dead.
PNN's Jerusalem correspondent, Maisa Abu Ghazaleh, explained that the young man was driving on Salah Addin Street when the police stopped his car. Without any warning, the Israelis pulled Karawi out the vehicle and began severely beating him. There was
no reason offered at the time and Israeli forces still decline to comment.
Abu Ghazaleh also reported that Israeli forces have detained Karawi's body, refusing to release it to his family pending their own investigation and autopsy. The Israeli police are currently claiming that the man died as a result of falling on the ground. The family is demanding that the investigation and autopsy be performed by a neutral party.
On the end of Salah Addin Street that butts up against the walls of the Old City is the largest post office where Palestinians voted during the last presidential and Legislative Council elections. Next to that is an Israeli police station where several cruisers can be seen daily with officers milling about in the area.
from Jerusalemites.org
Israeli police beat Palestinian man to death
News In English ,,, March 2007
March 11, 2007
http://www.jerusalemites.org/News%20In%20English/english/2007/March/112.htm
(taken from IMEMC -- International Middle East Media Center
Israeli police beat Palestinian man to death
http://www.imemc.org/article/47347)
Wa'el Yousef Karawi was from East Jerusalem's A-Tur neighborhood. Israeli police attacked him on a street popular for shoe, clothes and book shopping. Now the 32 year old Palestinian man is dead.
PNN's Jerusalem correspondent, Maisa Abu Ghazaleh, explained that the young man was driving on Salah Addin Street when the police stopped his car. Without any warning, the Israelis pulled Karawi out the vehicle and began severely beating him. There was no reason offered at the time and Israeli forces still decline to comment.
Abu Ghazaleh also reported that Israeli forces have detained Karawi's body, refusing to release it to his family pending their own investigation and autopsy. The Israeli police are currently claiming that the man died as a result of falling on the ground. The family is demanding that the investigation and autopsy be performed by a neutral party.
On the end of Salah Addin Street that butts up against the walls of the Old City is the largest post office where Palestinians voted during the last presidential and Legislative Council elections. Next to that is an Israeli police station where several cruisers can be seen daily with officers milling about in the area.
Ha'aretz
Last update - 18:25 11/03/2007
Police, family clash over cause of death of Palestinian detainee
By Yoav Stern and Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondents, and Agencies
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/835739.html
Police and the family of a Palestinian who died in custody clashed Sunday over the cause of death of Wa'al al-Qarawi, 32, who died of unknown causes shortly after his arrest in East Jerusalem on Saturday.
Palestinians took to the streets in East Jerusalem on Sunday during al-Qarawi's funeral, hurling rocks at Jewish homes in the a-Tur neighborhood, Israel Radio reported. There were no casualties in the incident.
Al-Qarawi was initially believed to have died of natural causes as both Magen David Adom doctors and a Palestinian doctor who examined the body did not identify any unusual marks on the body. But the affair took an unexpected turn after signs of violence were found on his head and legs as his body was being prepared to be interred.
In light of the new findings, al Qawari's family is now demanding that an autopsy be carried out in order to establish the cause of his death.
Al-Qawari was detained for questioning in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of a-Tur, as he was caught transporting a Jordanian woman who is staying in Israel illegally.
Eyewitnesses and al-Qarawi's relatives say that he was beaten by the Border Policemen who detained him. Police sourced have said, however, that the officers who arrested the man made no physical contact with him.
Jerusalem Police have said al-Qarawi was instructed to drive over to the police station on Saleh a-Din Street in East Jerusalem, and complained he is unwell upon entering the station. According to police, officers alerted an MDA ambulance and shortly thereafter al-Qarawi collapsed and all attempts to resuscitate him failed.
Detectives from the Police Investigations Department were called to the scene and took testimonies from the police officers involved in the affair and from the passenger in his car.
The PID said Saturday they do not suspect that al-Qarawi had been beaten to death during questioning and that he appears to have died of natural causes.
Attorney Na'eela Atiya, who represents the al-Qarawi family, told Haaretz on Sunday that a Palestinian pathologist will conduct the autopsy. Should the Institute of Forensic Medicine at Abu Kabir agree to take the body back for examination, an institute doctor would also participate in the examination.
The body is currently being held at the al-Mekased Hospital in East Jerusalem.
Atiya said that the autopsy would be of value should the family seek to proceed with legal action against police.
Nidal's family lives in the Old City near the Kotel. Nidal speaks Hebrew fluently and he tries to teach me Hebrew more than Arabic, which is entertaining to me considering Nidal is Palestinian. Leading a very social life, Nidal goes out as much as possible with his friends in Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem. Although, I imagine his juggling of two jobs makes this passion for the nightlife rather difficult to pursue these days. Nevertheless, he was particularly excited to show me this place called Jan's in West Jerusalem, beneath a museum/theater, on the road to the German Colony. "Ya Heidi, it is SOOOO romantic," he told me.
In Hebrew, Jan's is spelled yud-alef-nun. Presumably then, the place is pronounced Yan's. I mention this only because Nidal kept referring to the place as Jan's, even though the Hebrew spelling was there, the whole thing was confusing. Anyway...
During the ride I asked Nidal why is it that he has no problem going back and forth between East and West Jerusalem, going out in the big cities of Israel?
"I have to live my life. I have to make the best of the way things are."
Fair enough, but in sharp contrast to other Palestinian contemporaries I have befriended in my time here.
We arrived at Jan's, a low-ceilinged, long room, with dark wood-paneled walls, covered in tapestries, portraits, and beaded ropes. The lamps were dim, Moroccan style, embossed with colored glass. There were tables and chairs but mostly cushions and floor couch-pads with low tables. Everything was muted in color, deep maroon, dark greens, browns, somewhat undistinguishable because of the lamps, casting a pale-golden hue as far as the light could reach.
Nidal and I chose a floor couch and a low table. He ordered hot chocolate with whipped cream, and I chose the warm "cinnamon drink" with pine nuts and walnuts floating on top.
Continuing our conversation about Nidal's life in the context of being a Palestinian, he said to me, "You know last week a man was killed near the post office on Salah-ah-Din. The police beat him up and he died."
Hearing this, my first reactions were shock and horror, and then my investigative dial got turned on.
"What do you mean Nidal? They killed him? They beat him up, why? Why would they do that?"
"I don't know, that's how it is here, these things happen," Nidal answered.
I decided not to pursue that topic of conversation because as much as I'm told not to ask why, for me it is necesary to not only ask why, but know "why" as well. From Nidal, I was not going to get the information I needed. I bookmarked the story in my mind.
We continued our evening, discussing various differences between Israel/Palestine and the rest of the world. Nidal is not convinced that I could live here because it is a hard life, hard to find work, the tension, the conflict, all the rough stuff that exists just below the surface. Around eleven p.m. Nidal returned me to the hotel, to prevent me from being locked out.
Now it is Tuesday morning. Najat and I are running errands. A stop at the pharmacy for one of her nephews, a birthday present for one of her brothers, a visit to the bakery for cookies, and a glass of date-rosewater juice for me.
While walking up on one of the side streets to Salah-ah-Din, en route to the bakery, Najat turned to me and said, "Heidi, did you hear a man was killed last week at the post office?"
She continued, "He was in an Israeli prison for many years. He had been married for 14 years and just one year ago he and his wife finally had a baby. Now there is a wife and baby boy with no husband, no father. He was a transport person, driving a van. They stopped him in his car, pulled him out and started beating him. They were kicking him and then brought him into the station, you know, next to the post office, and starting hitting him in the head. He lost consciousness and he never woke up."
I asked Najat, "They just pulled him out of his car and started beating him? Without reason? Why?"
"Don't asky why, Heidi. Maybe he said something to upset them. They found out he's an ex-prisoner and then they did this. This is how things are," she replied.
Now back in the office, I asked Lotahn if he had heard of this story. He had not.
I asked, "Lotahn, is it possible that for no reason they just started to beat him and it went too far? Does that really happen, with no reason?"
"For no reason, no. Maybe someone was having a bad day and yes, they got carried away. It does happen. But I don't know the story," Lotahn said.
I started searching on the internet for stories of a Palestinian man in East Jerusalem beaten to death by Israeli police. I found nothing on Google nor Al-Jazeera. Not until yesterday (March 14) did I think to look at Haaretz.
Below I have pasted three articles and corresponding links. From the Haaretz article I was able to find links to two other news sources covering the story, both Palestinian. Confusingly and distressingly, the Palestinian news sources cover the story entirely differently than Haaretz. The Haaretz article gives background on the man, the situation and the events leading up to his being at the police station here on Salah-ah-Din. The Palestinian sources state the alleged crime committed by the police officers and events during and after the beating. There are no eyewitness quotes in any of the articles, either Israeli or Palestinian. The case continues, as you can read in the articles below, with an autopsy called for by the deceased's family.
What bothers me is that there is a photo on the Palestinian news source articles that claims to be a photo of the man being beaten. This photograph, I believe, is NOT here at Salah-ah-Din street. There is no way to tell that it was taken at the scene described in the articles. You cannot see anything at all really. This photo is being used as proof of the event by readers commenting on the Haaretz website. In the photo there are two soldiers above a man on the ground, and figures looking like more soldiers in the background. The ground looks like dirt, no pavement.
Contrarily, where this event took place, there is only paved road, it is a busy intersection with lots of people during all daylight hours, and depending on the angle from which the photo was taken, one would see either: the wall of the Old City, the highway in either directions, or buildings with the numerous shops which the Palestinian articles mention. Also, the policemen here are dressed for full combat, with helmets, like the soldiers wear. The police I see every day at the station when I walk past are not dressed like this.
I could not include the photo but as of today it is still on the website pages, to which I have provided links.
For certain, a man was killed last Thursday. To what extent and why the police beat him is under investigation. I do not doubt that acts of brutality were committed and should be addressed. From the Haaretz article, it appears that there is a process under way that will penalize any wrong doing on the part of the law enforcement officers. I am perturbed by the use of such a photograph and the differences in coverage of the event.
It is problematic and alarming. It also indicates to me that one, or rather, I , cannot get a clear idea of what is going on here. Just when I think I'm beginning to understand the rules of the game here, I realize I absolutley do not. Reading the articles to put the pieces of the story together, I find I still have questions unanswered and an unclear image of what exactly happened.
Palestine News Network
Israeli police beat Palestinian man to death, family demands neutral autopsy
(Jerusalem)
Saturday, 10 March 2007
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1886&Itemid=29
Wa'el Yousef Karawi was from East Jerusalem's A-Tur neighborhood. Israeli police attacked him on a street popular for shoe, clothes and book shopping. Now the 32 year old Palestinian man is dead.
PNN's Jerusalem correspondent, Maisa Abu Ghazaleh, explained that the young man was driving on Salah Addin Street when the police stopped his car. Without any warning, the Israelis pulled Karawi out the vehicle and began severely beating him. There was
no reason offered at the time and Israeli forces still decline to comment.
Abu Ghazaleh also reported that Israeli forces have detained Karawi's body, refusing to release it to his family pending their own investigation and autopsy. The Israeli police are currently claiming that the man died as a result of falling on the ground. The family is demanding that the investigation and autopsy be performed by a neutral party.
On the end of Salah Addin Street that butts up against the walls of the Old City is the largest post office where Palestinians voted during the last presidential and Legislative Council elections. Next to that is an Israeli police station where several cruisers can be seen daily with officers milling about in the area.
from Jerusalemites.org
Israeli police beat Palestinian man to death
News In English ,,, March 2007
March 11, 2007
http://www.jerusalemites.org/News%20In%20English/english/2007/March/112.htm
(taken from IMEMC -- International Middle East Media Center
Israeli police beat Palestinian man to death
http://www.imemc.org/article/47347)
Wa'el Yousef Karawi was from East Jerusalem's A-Tur neighborhood. Israeli police attacked him on a street popular for shoe, clothes and book shopping. Now the 32 year old Palestinian man is dead.
PNN's Jerusalem correspondent, Maisa Abu Ghazaleh, explained that the young man was driving on Salah Addin Street when the police stopped his car. Without any warning, the Israelis pulled Karawi out the vehicle and began severely beating him. There was no reason offered at the time and Israeli forces still decline to comment.
Abu Ghazaleh also reported that Israeli forces have detained Karawi's body, refusing to release it to his family pending their own investigation and autopsy. The Israeli police are currently claiming that the man died as a result of falling on the ground. The family is demanding that the investigation and autopsy be performed by a neutral party.
On the end of Salah Addin Street that butts up against the walls of the Old City is the largest post office where Palestinians voted during the last presidential and Legislative Council elections. Next to that is an Israeli police station where several cruisers can be seen daily with officers milling about in the area.
Ha'aretz
Last update - 18:25 11/03/2007
Police, family clash over cause of death of Palestinian detainee
By Yoav Stern and Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondents, and Agencies
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/835739.html
Police and the family of a Palestinian who died in custody clashed Sunday over the cause of death of Wa'al al-Qarawi, 32, who died of unknown causes shortly after his arrest in East Jerusalem on Saturday.
Palestinians took to the streets in East Jerusalem on Sunday during al-Qarawi's funeral, hurling rocks at Jewish homes in the a-Tur neighborhood, Israel Radio reported. There were no casualties in the incident.
Al-Qarawi was initially believed to have died of natural causes as both Magen David Adom doctors and a Palestinian doctor who examined the body did not identify any unusual marks on the body. But the affair took an unexpected turn after signs of violence were found on his head and legs as his body was being prepared to be interred.
In light of the new findings, al Qawari's family is now demanding that an autopsy be carried out in order to establish the cause of his death.
Al-Qawari was detained for questioning in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of a-Tur, as he was caught transporting a Jordanian woman who is staying in Israel illegally.
Eyewitnesses and al-Qarawi's relatives say that he was beaten by the Border Policemen who detained him. Police sourced have said, however, that the officers who arrested the man made no physical contact with him.
Jerusalem Police have said al-Qarawi was instructed to drive over to the police station on Saleh a-Din Street in East Jerusalem, and complained he is unwell upon entering the station. According to police, officers alerted an MDA ambulance and shortly thereafter al-Qarawi collapsed and all attempts to resuscitate him failed.
Detectives from the Police Investigations Department were called to the scene and took testimonies from the police officers involved in the affair and from the passenger in his car.
The PID said Saturday they do not suspect that al-Qarawi had been beaten to death during questioning and that he appears to have died of natural causes.
Attorney Na'eela Atiya, who represents the al-Qarawi family, told Haaretz on Sunday that a Palestinian pathologist will conduct the autopsy. Should the Institute of Forensic Medicine at Abu Kabir agree to take the body back for examination, an institute doctor would also participate in the examination.
The body is currently being held at the al-Mekased Hospital in East Jerusalem.
Atiya said that the autopsy would be of value should the family seek to proceed with legal action against police.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Birzeit, Ramallah and Back II
Yellow taxi vans run back and forth from Birzeit to Ramallah from early morning until evening. For three shekel one is speedily transported from the peaceful and studious unversity atmosphere to the hustle and bustle of Ramallah's center.
Sitting next to me on the first bench of the taxi were two male students, Salim, tall, dark and thin, and Ashraf, shorter, blue-eyed and fair. Not knowing how much was the fare I asked Salim, could he tell me if the taxi went to the bus station?
Salim answered, "Three shekels. Yes. Where are you from?"
"Los Angeles," I told him.
"You are welcome," he replied.
Salim asked me what I was doing at Birzeit, if I was a student and what I studied. I explained to him my situation and asked him similar questions. In his third year of university, Salim studies psychology.
The rest of the short ride was quiet save for all the information swimming in my head from the meeting with Sonia. Pulling to a quick stop, the taxi door opened in Ramallah amidst produce trucks, vans filled with goods and cars. Narrow streets and tall buildings surrounded me. Hopping out from the taxi after Salim and Ashraf, I asked Salim if the bus station was nearby. As he was on a phone call, he motioned for me to follow him, covered the phone's mouthpiece, and told me he and his friend would take me there.
Jewelry, clothing, house supplies, shawarma, Palestine souvenir, book and tobacco stores were packed together, one after the other. Men wearing keffiyeh and more women in hijab than East Jerusalem hurried about their business, pushing past one another to the next errand. Street level nargile and tea shops looked out onto the activity, men sitting relaxed, water pipes in hand.
Downtown Ramallah sits around a traffic circle with a sort of monument in the middle, with a tall pole bearing the Palestinian flag. A cafe with green and white decor, called Star and Bucks Cafe sits at the highest point around the circle. My escorts walked left at the traffic circle, past colorful and overflowing shops, and uphill again. I saw green and white-striped bus number 18, the Al-Quds (Jersualem)to Ramallah bus, and prepared to thank Salim and Ashraf.
Ashraf, speaking to me for the first time said, "Do you have time for coffee? It is our tradition to invite visitors for something."
Sonia's parting words proved to be an accurate prediction.
I accepted. We turned left from the bus station and walked up a quieter road. The tall buildings cast a shadow onto the street, making the air quite cool in contrast to walking beneath the shining sun. Here there were furniture stores, electrical gadget shops and the occasional empty storefront. Once again we turned left. This time into a building with shiny marble floors and headed towards the elevator.
On the seventh floor the elevator opened directly into a sun-filled restaurant with large green plants and trees, a rather unattractive fountain in the center, a bar spanning one entire side of the venue, and tables and chairs similar to the those found at the Place St. Michel in Paris.
A server asked us to choose our table. We sat at a round one by the window in front and to the right of the bar. Outside were hills spotted with buildings whose rooftops were peppered with black water tanks and satellite dishes.
From the bus station to the restaurant I established that both Salim (21) and Ashraf (24) study psychology, but Ashraf also studies sociology. Most likely after graduation, both will continue university and pursue a masters degree. Ashraf and Salim's families come from Ramallah.
Sitting to my right, Ashraf asked, "So, what do you think of our state?"
"Well, I think you need a state," was my response.
Chuckling, they both smiled at me with tired eyes. Again they asked me what exactly I'm doing in Palestine, if I had ever been, that I am welcome, and if I need anything to call them.
A server approached the table, bringing with him a a dish of Cheetos, Fritos and pretzels. We ordered three Turkish coffees and resumed our conversation.
Salim and Ashraf seemed very defeated. Their words revealed a sadness and a helplessness for the situation of their people.
"Fatah represents the United States and Israel, Hamas does what Iran and Syria want," Salim said.
They both felt that the political parties in power fail to represent them and the needs of their people. And I felt as though they were asking me for the answers. I've never felt so useless in my life!
Ashraf continued, "America and Israel make us promises, but they never keep them. We continue to live under the occupation and it's a hard life."
"One of my brothers is shahid (martyred) and the other is wanted by the Israeli police for being a patriot," Salim said.
Ashraf continued, "there are two losers here, Israel and Palestine."
I agreed with this statement but added (and feel) that on a day-to-day basis, "there are two losers but the Palestinians are the bigger loser."
Ashraf and Salim were curious to know what I hear about Palestinians in the United States. They mentioned their concern for the media and how it directs the conversation in the United States, or lack thereof, about Palestinians.
I shared with them that it depends on which media one chooses to read. Some is very pro-Israel and some very pro-Palestine and that I try to read as much as I can to get a more full picture of the situation. However, dissatisfied with even that, "That's why I came here, to see and hear for myself, what is going on," I told them.
I got this general sense that these two boys were genuinely interested in what I could report to them from the world outside of their own. We discussed preconceived notions of Palestinians and Israelis for one another, the stereotype of all Palestinians being terrorists, and all Israelis as agressive settlers and abusive soldiers, and how these boys have never really interacted with Israelis. A curiosity to know came across from them to me. From this I was able to cultivate a morsel of hopefulness that these young would have the opportunity to make their society better, some may. Maybe that's part of my job to help figure out, or not, or something in between, I don't know yet.
In the opportunities that I have had thus far to speak with Palestinians, I am open and candid about my background and intentions. To me it is important for them to know that I am a Jew. Inevitably, this comes up when I am asked what I do for a living. As the answer to that question is that I am a second grade religious school teacher and a Hebrew tutor, this offers the perfect opportunity to divulge my religious background.
In the political discussions, I am sure to state my belief that there must be a Jewish state for the Jewish people because historically, the world has tried to disappear the Jews. I share that my grandfather is a Holocaust survivor and so I have a very personal connection to this belief and steadfastness in the present and future of the Jewish State of Israel. Usually I finish this spiel with the my heartfelt truth that because of my people's success (Baruch Hashem) in securing a state of their own, it is my obligation as a Jew and a human being to play a just role in seeing that my fellow human beings of different peoples enjoy that which I have privilege to enjoy: security and freedom of religion, language, culture and expression.
Ashraf and Salim appreciated this, although it didn't solve any problems and I still didn't have answers for them. Even now when I write this, I feel tired, a heavines settle over me. For now, it appears that power to make change does not rest with these young men who were children in the First Intifada and young adults in the Second. I suppose that to some extent their being at a loss for knowing what to do is encouraging. This signals they don't believe the violence is working.
The only thing I can do for now is stay in touch, learn more about them and offer them my views and my support as a friend. Also, I offer the distraction or excitement of a foreigner willing to listen, learn and work with them.
After coffee, cigarettes and cheetos Salim and Ashraf escorted me back to the bus station and verified with the driver of Bus #18 that I'd be delivered back to East Jerusalem via the Qalandya checkpoint. Once again they reminded me that I am welcome to Ramallah anytime and they'd be happy to answer any of my questions.
Boarding the bus I felt a sense of relief that I would soon return to the office, sit behind a computer, work and not have my emotional reserve further depleted.
Ten minutes from Ramallah I arrived on the other side of the separation wall at the Qalandya checkpoint. As a foreigner, and in possession of a U.S.passport, I did not have to get off the bus and walk through the checkpoint.
"You have a U.S. passport? You don't have to get off the bus, unless you want to see," said my bus driver.
With the rest of the passengers I descended from the bus, crossed the parking lot and followed those before me to the checkpoint. On that Tuesday afternoon the checkpoint was not crowded. The easiest thing to compare Qalandya to-- for me-- is an entrance to the New York subway system, sort of. As I walked toward the tall, bar columned-turnstyles, behind me was a covered area with metal benches. In operation were two lanes with approximately twenty people in each line. Voices over loud speakers were shouting instructions. I joined the line closest to me and watched those before me go through the turnstyle which revolves as long as the green light above is lit. Red indicates the turnstyle is locked. This went off and on every few people or so and without warning, stopping people short who tried to enter as the light switched.
After passing through the turnstyle I passed through a metal detector, an x-ray conveyor belt and two soldiers sitting in an office behind glass.
Everyone showed their identity cards. I was asked to slip my passport through a slot beneath the glass. After approval, I walked out another turnstyle and to the other side of the checkpoint, along a walk way, and into another parking lot where the bus waited. Once the bus was full, the driver continued the short ride back to Jerusalem, but only after a soldier briefly boarded the bus during which time the passengers once again pulled out their identity cards and held them up for the soldier to see.
As the sun descended onto the horizon and the scenery turned golden, I pushed the stop button and disembarked on Salah-a-Din Street and returned to the office.
Sitting next to me on the first bench of the taxi were two male students, Salim, tall, dark and thin, and Ashraf, shorter, blue-eyed and fair. Not knowing how much was the fare I asked Salim, could he tell me if the taxi went to the bus station?
Salim answered, "Three shekels. Yes. Where are you from?"
"Los Angeles," I told him.
"You are welcome," he replied.
Salim asked me what I was doing at Birzeit, if I was a student and what I studied. I explained to him my situation and asked him similar questions. In his third year of university, Salim studies psychology.
The rest of the short ride was quiet save for all the information swimming in my head from the meeting with Sonia. Pulling to a quick stop, the taxi door opened in Ramallah amidst produce trucks, vans filled with goods and cars. Narrow streets and tall buildings surrounded me. Hopping out from the taxi after Salim and Ashraf, I asked Salim if the bus station was nearby. As he was on a phone call, he motioned for me to follow him, covered the phone's mouthpiece, and told me he and his friend would take me there.
Jewelry, clothing, house supplies, shawarma, Palestine souvenir, book and tobacco stores were packed together, one after the other. Men wearing keffiyeh and more women in hijab than East Jerusalem hurried about their business, pushing past one another to the next errand. Street level nargile and tea shops looked out onto the activity, men sitting relaxed, water pipes in hand.
Downtown Ramallah sits around a traffic circle with a sort of monument in the middle, with a tall pole bearing the Palestinian flag. A cafe with green and white decor, called Star and Bucks Cafe sits at the highest point around the circle. My escorts walked left at the traffic circle, past colorful and overflowing shops, and uphill again. I saw green and white-striped bus number 18, the Al-Quds (Jersualem)to Ramallah bus, and prepared to thank Salim and Ashraf.
Ashraf, speaking to me for the first time said, "Do you have time for coffee? It is our tradition to invite visitors for something."
Sonia's parting words proved to be an accurate prediction.
I accepted. We turned left from the bus station and walked up a quieter road. The tall buildings cast a shadow onto the street, making the air quite cool in contrast to walking beneath the shining sun. Here there were furniture stores, electrical gadget shops and the occasional empty storefront. Once again we turned left. This time into a building with shiny marble floors and headed towards the elevator.
On the seventh floor the elevator opened directly into a sun-filled restaurant with large green plants and trees, a rather unattractive fountain in the center, a bar spanning one entire side of the venue, and tables and chairs similar to the those found at the Place St. Michel in Paris.
A server asked us to choose our table. We sat at a round one by the window in front and to the right of the bar. Outside were hills spotted with buildings whose rooftops were peppered with black water tanks and satellite dishes.
From the bus station to the restaurant I established that both Salim (21) and Ashraf (24) study psychology, but Ashraf also studies sociology. Most likely after graduation, both will continue university and pursue a masters degree. Ashraf and Salim's families come from Ramallah.
Sitting to my right, Ashraf asked, "So, what do you think of our state?"
"Well, I think you need a state," was my response.
Chuckling, they both smiled at me with tired eyes. Again they asked me what exactly I'm doing in Palestine, if I had ever been, that I am welcome, and if I need anything to call them.
A server approached the table, bringing with him a a dish of Cheetos, Fritos and pretzels. We ordered three Turkish coffees and resumed our conversation.
Salim and Ashraf seemed very defeated. Their words revealed a sadness and a helplessness for the situation of their people.
"Fatah represents the United States and Israel, Hamas does what Iran and Syria want," Salim said.
They both felt that the political parties in power fail to represent them and the needs of their people. And I felt as though they were asking me for the answers. I've never felt so useless in my life!
Ashraf continued, "America and Israel make us promises, but they never keep them. We continue to live under the occupation and it's a hard life."
"One of my brothers is shahid (martyred) and the other is wanted by the Israeli police for being a patriot," Salim said.
Ashraf continued, "there are two losers here, Israel and Palestine."
I agreed with this statement but added (and feel) that on a day-to-day basis, "there are two losers but the Palestinians are the bigger loser."
Ashraf and Salim were curious to know what I hear about Palestinians in the United States. They mentioned their concern for the media and how it directs the conversation in the United States, or lack thereof, about Palestinians.
I shared with them that it depends on which media one chooses to read. Some is very pro-Israel and some very pro-Palestine and that I try to read as much as I can to get a more full picture of the situation. However, dissatisfied with even that, "That's why I came here, to see and hear for myself, what is going on," I told them.
I got this general sense that these two boys were genuinely interested in what I could report to them from the world outside of their own. We discussed preconceived notions of Palestinians and Israelis for one another, the stereotype of all Palestinians being terrorists, and all Israelis as agressive settlers and abusive soldiers, and how these boys have never really interacted with Israelis. A curiosity to know came across from them to me. From this I was able to cultivate a morsel of hopefulness that these young would have the opportunity to make their society better, some may. Maybe that's part of my job to help figure out, or not, or something in between, I don't know yet.
In the opportunities that I have had thus far to speak with Palestinians, I am open and candid about my background and intentions. To me it is important for them to know that I am a Jew. Inevitably, this comes up when I am asked what I do for a living. As the answer to that question is that I am a second grade religious school teacher and a Hebrew tutor, this offers the perfect opportunity to divulge my religious background.
In the political discussions, I am sure to state my belief that there must be a Jewish state for the Jewish people because historically, the world has tried to disappear the Jews. I share that my grandfather is a Holocaust survivor and so I have a very personal connection to this belief and steadfastness in the present and future of the Jewish State of Israel. Usually I finish this spiel with the my heartfelt truth that because of my people's success (Baruch Hashem) in securing a state of their own, it is my obligation as a Jew and a human being to play a just role in seeing that my fellow human beings of different peoples enjoy that which I have privilege to enjoy: security and freedom of religion, language, culture and expression.
Ashraf and Salim appreciated this, although it didn't solve any problems and I still didn't have answers for them. Even now when I write this, I feel tired, a heavines settle over me. For now, it appears that power to make change does not rest with these young men who were children in the First Intifada and young adults in the Second. I suppose that to some extent their being at a loss for knowing what to do is encouraging. This signals they don't believe the violence is working.
The only thing I can do for now is stay in touch, learn more about them and offer them my views and my support as a friend. Also, I offer the distraction or excitement of a foreigner willing to listen, learn and work with them.
After coffee, cigarettes and cheetos Salim and Ashraf escorted me back to the bus station and verified with the driver of Bus #18 that I'd be delivered back to East Jerusalem via the Qalandya checkpoint. Once again they reminded me that I am welcome to Ramallah anytime and they'd be happy to answer any of my questions.
Boarding the bus I felt a sense of relief that I would soon return to the office, sit behind a computer, work and not have my emotional reserve further depleted.
Ten minutes from Ramallah I arrived on the other side of the separation wall at the Qalandya checkpoint. As a foreigner, and in possession of a U.S.passport, I did not have to get off the bus and walk through the checkpoint.
"You have a U.S. passport? You don't have to get off the bus, unless you want to see," said my bus driver.
With the rest of the passengers I descended from the bus, crossed the parking lot and followed those before me to the checkpoint. On that Tuesday afternoon the checkpoint was not crowded. The easiest thing to compare Qalandya to-- for me-- is an entrance to the New York subway system, sort of. As I walked toward the tall, bar columned-turnstyles, behind me was a covered area with metal benches. In operation were two lanes with approximately twenty people in each line. Voices over loud speakers were shouting instructions. I joined the line closest to me and watched those before me go through the turnstyle which revolves as long as the green light above is lit. Red indicates the turnstyle is locked. This went off and on every few people or so and without warning, stopping people short who tried to enter as the light switched.
After passing through the turnstyle I passed through a metal detector, an x-ray conveyor belt and two soldiers sitting in an office behind glass.
Everyone showed their identity cards. I was asked to slip my passport through a slot beneath the glass. After approval, I walked out another turnstyle and to the other side of the checkpoint, along a walk way, and into another parking lot where the bus waited. Once the bus was full, the driver continued the short ride back to Jerusalem, but only after a soldier briefly boarded the bus during which time the passengers once again pulled out their identity cards and held them up for the soldier to see.
As the sun descended onto the horizon and the scenery turned golden, I pushed the stop button and disembarked on Salah-a-Din Street and returned to the office.
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Birzeit, Ramallah and Back I
Awad is the roommate of my Arabic teacher from UCLA, Hassan. Back in December, Hassan invited our small class over to his and Awad's apartment for traditional, homemade Arabic food, Hassan being Iraqi, Awad being Palestinian. Perhaps it was the Araq (Arabic anise liquor akin to Sambuca), copious amounts of kebab, lebne (soft cheese with olive oil plate) and piles of grilled peppers, onions and zucchini, that fogged my memory to think that Awad told me of a professor-relative at Birzeit University who he wanted me to visit during my time in the Middle East. So when I e-mailed him last week to follow up on this offer, he informed that this was not true but in fact, a professor from Birzeit came to UCLA the week before. He got her e-mail and suggested I contact her.
Within a day, Professor Sonia Nimr of Birzeit University, Department of History, told me to give her a call to arrange an appointment. We set the time at 11 a.m. in her office on the second floor of the Higher Education Building.
Tuesday morning I found myself waiting to be fetched by the daugthers of a friend of Ziad's (Palestinian editor of the PIJ). At 8:04 am, Nafouz, Lana, and Nafouz's son Karim picked me up in front of my hotel and we headed north from Jerusalem to Birzeit. Nafouz was visiting from D.C. where she lives with her husband, a photojournalist for CNN, and her 3 year old, Karim. I asked her what she did in D.C. to which she replied, "Nothing, it's impossible to do any work with a kid."
About 15 minutes into our drive I noticed a high, concrete wall to my right that reminded me of the U.S.-Mexico border.
"I see that this is a wall, but is this THE wall?" I asked.
"Yes it is the wall, we are on the Israel side now, on the other side is Palestine," replied Nafouz.
Lana, a student of finance, remained quiet for most of our trip through Jerusalem past the Qalandya checkpoint, and onto the road leading to Ramallah and Birzeit.
Getting into the West Bank on a normal day isn't a problem. We drove by the Qalandya Checkpoint and entered the road to Ramallah -- on the other side of the wall.
The road is a mess--- uneven and eroded. At parts there are enormous speed bumps that barely slow down the taxis, trucks and cars racing along the road.
"Do you see this road? It's terrible for the cars," Nafouz said.
I asked whose responsibility it is to fix it. Nafouz mumbled something about it still being Israel's land and so the Palestinians aren't going to fund it and since Israelis no longer use it, Israel won't repair it.
On either side of the road there are several half-completed projects. Half-built buildings with Palestinian flags tied to metal posts sticking out of concrete columns, abandoned foundations, a smattering of car repair shops, furniture stores and the occasional fruit and vegetable market. Through my head, the thought kept running how the earth here looks the same as the outer parts of Jerusalem, the landscape hasn't changed, the gray rocks with dirt and green sandwiched between -- yet this is practically another country. Its people speak another language and in fact, there was only Arabic on billboards and signs, no Hebrew.
I recognized Birzeit from the photo on the website. The university sits upon a hill with buildings made of Jerusalem stone, sandy-white bleached. We drove toward the West Gate where Nafouz dropped us off.
Lana asked me which building I needed to go to so she could show the way. I could only remember History and Archaelogy and not the Higher Education part, which I realized nearly two hours later was crucial to locating the building. Lana thought the building was behind the finance building and pointed left from where we were standing.
Around us were several students visiting with each other before classes. Young men and women with notebooks and cigarettes, sitting, standing, chatting on benches and low stone walls. I had about two hours to kill before my appointment so I asked Lana to show me to the cafeteria so I could have a cup of coffee.
With 8 minutes to spare before her class, Lana showed me to the cafeteria, bade me farewell and I was on my own.
The night before my cell phone mysteriously stopped working. I could no longer make outgoing calls. When I tried, a very lovely, deep Hebrew-speaking woman's voice relayed a message to me which I could not understand. With my cup of coffee, I sat down amidst the students having breakfast to look over my paperwork.
I couldn't use my phone to call the cell phone help line, which was compounded by the fact that in the West Bank, Cellcom, my phone company doesn't have great reception. I needed to find some internet access to e-mail the company and also notify the office that I had made it to Birzeit, and that I hoped to be back in the afternoon for the second office shift. Somehow, perhaps student's intuition, I located a computer lab where the student attendant kindly offered me her account in order to sign into the network. I began the e-mails to the phone company and the office. Then, I purchased a phone card. I thought perhaps I could use a pay phone to call the phone company. This failed because after I dialed the number and was connected, I could no longer push any buttons on the keypad on the pay phone. This was necessary in order to navigate the automated answering service of the phone company. I took the opportunity to call the office, however, spoke to Najat who said she'd call me every half hour or so to make sure I was doing ok.
At this point, nearly an hour and a half had passed and I realized I still didn't know where I needed to be at eleven. Everyone I asked to point me to the history building was happy to help but no one had the right answer. I was directed to the media building, passed the law school, toward the library and then the campus museum. The woman working in the museum office knew the Higher Education part of the History and Archaelogy building title, told me the name in Arabic, which I have already forgotten, and I was on my way. I figured I could use the professor's phone to try to get through to the phone company.
I climbed one flight of stairs, turned right and arrived at a red door with a plaque that stated, "Professor Sonia Nimr, Lecturer." I knocked, turned the knob and found myself in a square office with high ceilings, white walls, few posters, three desks and computers, and a sitting area with a couch and two chairs facing each other, a coffee table between them. Sonia was sitting in a chair across from a blond young man, clearly a foreigner, looking over papers and discussing. Sonia rose from her chair, Gauloise cigarette between her fingers.
Sonia is about my height, thin, busty, with mid-shoulder length, red-orange, straight hair, deep wrinkles and a noticeable twitch in her eyes. In her thick accent she welcomed me and asked me to sit down, did I want some coffee?
Declining the coffee I explained the phone situation and she put me at her desk to call the phone company. The first person I talked to informed me that I had made "suspicious calls" and so my phone had been shut. To which I said, "suspicious calls? to who, how? but I need my phone!"
He gave me a number and people to talk to, which only rang and rang and rang. So much for that. I felt awful asking Sonia to let me keep making calls because each time she had to get up from her meeting, dial in a code and then let me use a phone. The young man working with her, Philipp, a German student writing his thesis on the role of Hamas in Palestinian politics, offered me his SIM card and told me I had to go outside and walk around a bit to find Cellcom reception.
Once again I called the phone company, this time I was transferred to an English speaking operator who suggested I turn the phone off then on again. I asked why this happened and she said, "You know, it's electronics, this happens sometimes, it's just a machine."
Ok.
The trick worked. My phone picked up the SIM card signal, or however the hell it works, and I made a few phone calls to the office and a friend to inform them of my whereabouts. Heading back into the building, I felt much better about being back in communication and prepared myself to interview Sonia Nimr.
Sitting across from Sonia, I pulled out my legal pad and pen, and flipped to the page with the questions I wanted to ask to get the conversation moving. First though, she needed to know a little about me, fine.
I told her a few things. I have been here for a month and I am an intern at the Palestine-Israel Journal. That I wanted to come talk to people here about the conflict because I was tired of hearing how it is and not being able to see it so that I may have an opinion of my own, from my own experience. I told her I'm a teacher at a religious school, I am a Jew who believes it is important, no, crucial that the Jews have a state because throughout history people have tried to wipe them off the face of the earth. However, it is important for me to first understand and then educate people about what is happening here. And hopefully, do so in a way that people can listen without being defensive, disbelieving and dismissive. That we cannot deny that Israelis, Jewish or otherwise, Jews from the Diaspora and Palestinians live here and no one is really going anywhere.
With that, she allowed me to begin.
What is your job here? What are you a professor of?
I teach history here. I am also starting an Oral History Center. Who is writing Palestinian history? We are under occupation and others are writing our history. So we need to start writing our own history and teach it to ourselves.
Who is stopping Palestinians from writing their history?
No one. That's why we have to start. That's why I'm starting this center here at the university.
What is your definition of occupation?
Occupation is someone occupying someone else's land, stealing their freedom. Israelis have to recognize that in this part of the world there will be no peace until we have our rights, with a state, for self-determination.
Realistically, what do you see in the future that will work, one or two states?
Two states where we can practice our own sovereignty without trespassing. Dreamwise- I hope for one state, like South Africa. One democratic state where both people elect a government freely, where both people's rights are guaranteed equally.
Israel does not recognize Palestinian rights. If so, then they would recognize rights to movement, school, life, water use, everything is restricted, everything has restrictions.
20% of the population in Israel is Arab-Israeli without equal rights. You have more rights if you go to the army but Arabs don't go to the army. They are denying our identity by mere fact that they call Israeli-Arabs Israeli. Palestinians are living on reservations today, like the Native Americans of the U.S. Our status and our rights are similar to Native Americans.
Let's talk about the elections and the Palestinian government, Hamas and Fateh.
I am an atheist but I am highly politicized. Let me tell you something, I'm going to fight for Hamas to enter the elections but I will fight more for Hamas to not win the elections.
People have to read the elections differently. Hamas did not win, Fateh lost. The number of votes were almost equal.
People are pissed with the West, they tell us to have a democratic election and they don't like the outcome. The boycott is unfair, it's not right to dictate to Palestinians, or to interfere by giving or withdrawing funds because of a political agenda, the political agenda of the West.
People in the West Bank are not happy with Hamas, they're not very religious, but more political than religious. Why do all the Palestinians have to be punished?
Why won't Hamas recognize Israel? It seems that all they have to do is make a few statements and the international funds will come through? Why not recognize Israel?
Hamas announced a truce, they haven't had operations in recent years. What about state-terrorism/Israeli terrorism? Who talks about that?
The West doesn't understand the East. Hamas cannot say they recognize Israel. They support/recognize Israel by making a truce. You can't have a truce with someone you don't recognize. Hamas has done it [recognized Israel] in many ways. Hamas has internal problems. There's "face saving", don't ask us to go naked all over the place.
Israel and the Quartet don't want peace. Israel only recognizes the P.L.O. to do deals and the people are not happy with them.
Do you make a distinction between Israelis adn their government?
There is no difference between the government and the people. Israelis are silent. Our children see violence every day. My son has seen his father on the ground, a soldier's boot at his neck and a gun pointed at him. You think this doesn't affect our children.
In the month that I have been here I have met many people who are working for peace, Israeli and Palestinian. There are Israelis who don't agree with the government and they are doing something about it.
Yes but we need more people to just say enough. I admire Women in Black who go to the wall every week and protest the occupation.
We're both stupid, Israelis and Palestinians, we should do something about the situation without the outside world. But the culture of fear in Israel is strong. Israeli security is one hell of an excuse to get more land and restrictions.
Would it be useful for Palestinian society to make a statement, take a public stand against suicide bombings, against terrorism and violence? I hear that as a great concern of Israelis, that Palestinians don't speak out against the violence and so they continue to justify and rationalize security measures for the protection and safety of their people.
Don't ask the victim to stand up against suicide bombings. I'm against killing civilians anywhere in the world. I don't know anyone who is "enemy" enough to be killed. If we weren't put into such a situation we wouldn't have suicide bombers, it's a reaction, I don't condone it or accept it but I understand.
But, if someone were to hurt my son, I don't know what I would do.
Israel controls the media and blows thing out of proportion. We are not equal, this is not an equal war. If we have a state, an army, self-determination, then talk to us about dealing with suicide bombers. We have nothing left for us to give up, nothing.
I went to Jenin this weekend. My mother lives there. I call her twice a day to make sure she is still alive. I went this time to bury my uncle who died. All week I worried that there would be curfew, or the roads would be closed. In my custom family and friends come to pay their respects to the family after someone dies. If there were any obstacles I worried I would have to stay another week, cancel my classes.
This time at the checkpoint we were stopped. I was in a van of men. I am not religious but in my people's way, it is shameful for a woman or a man to see another, a stranger without clothing. The men in my van were asked to remove their clothing, in front of me.
Sometimes there is a checkpoint between Birzeit and Ramallah. They stop the students, have them strip. Don' smoke, don't smile, don't fold your arms. This is not security, this is humiliation.
One time I saw one of my male students searched. He was asked to strip and saw me there. To this day he does not look me in the eye out of shame.
What do you see as your role a a professor of young Palestinians?
I try to make my students looks at things in a different way, not black and white, and not horizontal or vertical, either. I don't want any more fanatics, fanatics are bad news whatever religion they are. I try to make my students see the human perspective, look at ourselves and each other as humans, all of us as humans.
This world is like one piece of cake and everyone wants it, every generation that goes, there's a wave of destruction behind it.
And within my students there are many factions. I try to mediate the differences between them and their political affiliations.
How are the spirits of the students?
Students are depressed. As a people we feel our destiny is not in our own hands and not the way we like. It is frustrating.
At this point Sonia sat back, looked at me, cocked her head to one side and said, "I'm hungry. Let's eat lunch. Let's go. Philipp let's go have lunch I can't think when I'm this hungry."
We walked uphill from the Higher Education building, past students eating lunch, and to another building with a different cafeteria than the one I visited earlier in the morning. Climbing the stairs Sonia said to me, "You know, I teach U.S. History here at the university. All my students know about America is that it is a big evil, I teach them what is this big evil and how it came about."
Sonia treated Philipp and me to lunch. She insisted that I try a Palestinian specialty, Maskhan. It is a round piece of flat bread with tons of olive oil and chopped, grilled onions, with a large roasted chicken part on top. One eats this with plain yogurt.
We found a table and Sonia continued.
"I was in prison twice. I was tortured, I have several fake teeth," she said.
I asked why she was put in prison to which she didn't really respond. Rather she told me, "A Palestinian is guilty until proven guilty. Don't ask why. You can't ask why, there's no logic in this country. Don't ask why."
Somehow we got back on the topic of the checkpoints. Sonia shared that recently when the Israelis put up a checkpoint between Birzeit and Ramallah, the soldiers split the students into three lines. There were men, pretty women and ugly women. If a girl was standing in the pretty line and a soldier thought her to be ugly, he would ask, "what are you doing here, you're ugly."
Students were ordered to bark like a dog, make cat noises or stand on their hands.
Sonia asked if I had heard of the soldier's lottery. This is a tactic that has been used at the checkpoint to Hebron. A soldier fills his hat or helmet with pieces of paper and has a Palestinian pick out one of the paper pieces. On the paper may be written, "break a finger" or "brake fist through a windshield".
"The checkpoints are not for security, they are for humiliation," Sonia reiterated.
At this point Philipp mentioned that as a German, he participated in compulsory military service. He was trained to run checkpoints for the U.N. "These are not normal checkpoints," he said.
"The checkpoints are understaffed, there are no local language skills, there is constant yelling and there is no flow. Thousands of people go through these checkpoints every day and there are so few people processing them. You don't come into contact with a single human being, you just hear yelling. You'll see for yourself, Heidi."
At this point the conversation changed direction. Philipp told Sonia that his friend in East Jerusalem, whose home he stayed in the night before was recently released from prison. He was arrested without charge and stayed incarcerated for 15 months without trial, without a lawyer, and was released without explanation.
Philipp continued that he hears from his friends that no one sleeps alone anymore for fear of arrest in the middle of the night. You need a sleeping buddy because too often people disappear and at least, if someone else is in the room when the soldiers come there is a witness.
Before we finished, another professor stopped by to talk to Sonia. An engineering professor helping her develop something like a rickshaw for transport back and forth from the future home of the Oral History center, which will be at the old campus of Birzeit University. "A carless campus, that's what we hope for and so we are working on a prototype for it," she said.
We finished lunch hurriedly because Sonia, a high-energy type had yet to prepare for her 2pm lecture. Leaving the building, she turned to me and said, "I like Los Angeles, the ocean and the nice weather. I hope to go back there. They offered me a class to teach, on oral history, but maybe in 2008."
Back in Sonia's office I thanked her for her time. She gave me her brother's number as well, and suggested that I call him. He too is a professor at Birzeit and heads the campaign for the release of Marwan Barghouti, a political prisoner and a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC).
In parting Sonia said to me, "you always have a home in Ramallah. If you are ever stuck, if you want to meet for coffee or dinner, I'll make you dinner. Please call whenever you need, you are welcome. Now, when you go back through Ramallah, don't be afraid if someone invites you for hummus, join them and see what else you can learn."
Within a day, Professor Sonia Nimr of Birzeit University, Department of History, told me to give her a call to arrange an appointment. We set the time at 11 a.m. in her office on the second floor of the Higher Education Building.
Tuesday morning I found myself waiting to be fetched by the daugthers of a friend of Ziad's (Palestinian editor of the PIJ). At 8:04 am, Nafouz, Lana, and Nafouz's son Karim picked me up in front of my hotel and we headed north from Jerusalem to Birzeit. Nafouz was visiting from D.C. where she lives with her husband, a photojournalist for CNN, and her 3 year old, Karim. I asked her what she did in D.C. to which she replied, "Nothing, it's impossible to do any work with a kid."
About 15 minutes into our drive I noticed a high, concrete wall to my right that reminded me of the U.S.-Mexico border.
"I see that this is a wall, but is this THE wall?" I asked.
"Yes it is the wall, we are on the Israel side now, on the other side is Palestine," replied Nafouz.
Lana, a student of finance, remained quiet for most of our trip through Jerusalem past the Qalandya checkpoint, and onto the road leading to Ramallah and Birzeit.
Getting into the West Bank on a normal day isn't a problem. We drove by the Qalandya Checkpoint and entered the road to Ramallah -- on the other side of the wall.
The road is a mess--- uneven and eroded. At parts there are enormous speed bumps that barely slow down the taxis, trucks and cars racing along the road.
"Do you see this road? It's terrible for the cars," Nafouz said.
I asked whose responsibility it is to fix it. Nafouz mumbled something about it still being Israel's land and so the Palestinians aren't going to fund it and since Israelis no longer use it, Israel won't repair it.
On either side of the road there are several half-completed projects. Half-built buildings with Palestinian flags tied to metal posts sticking out of concrete columns, abandoned foundations, a smattering of car repair shops, furniture stores and the occasional fruit and vegetable market. Through my head, the thought kept running how the earth here looks the same as the outer parts of Jerusalem, the landscape hasn't changed, the gray rocks with dirt and green sandwiched between -- yet this is practically another country. Its people speak another language and in fact, there was only Arabic on billboards and signs, no Hebrew.
I recognized Birzeit from the photo on the website. The university sits upon a hill with buildings made of Jerusalem stone, sandy-white bleached. We drove toward the West Gate where Nafouz dropped us off.
Lana asked me which building I needed to go to so she could show the way. I could only remember History and Archaelogy and not the Higher Education part, which I realized nearly two hours later was crucial to locating the building. Lana thought the building was behind the finance building and pointed left from where we were standing.
Around us were several students visiting with each other before classes. Young men and women with notebooks and cigarettes, sitting, standing, chatting on benches and low stone walls. I had about two hours to kill before my appointment so I asked Lana to show me to the cafeteria so I could have a cup of coffee.
With 8 minutes to spare before her class, Lana showed me to the cafeteria, bade me farewell and I was on my own.
The night before my cell phone mysteriously stopped working. I could no longer make outgoing calls. When I tried, a very lovely, deep Hebrew-speaking woman's voice relayed a message to me which I could not understand. With my cup of coffee, I sat down amidst the students having breakfast to look over my paperwork.
I couldn't use my phone to call the cell phone help line, which was compounded by the fact that in the West Bank, Cellcom, my phone company doesn't have great reception. I needed to find some internet access to e-mail the company and also notify the office that I had made it to Birzeit, and that I hoped to be back in the afternoon for the second office shift. Somehow, perhaps student's intuition, I located a computer lab where the student attendant kindly offered me her account in order to sign into the network. I began the e-mails to the phone company and the office. Then, I purchased a phone card. I thought perhaps I could use a pay phone to call the phone company. This failed because after I dialed the number and was connected, I could no longer push any buttons on the keypad on the pay phone. This was necessary in order to navigate the automated answering service of the phone company. I took the opportunity to call the office, however, spoke to Najat who said she'd call me every half hour or so to make sure I was doing ok.
At this point, nearly an hour and a half had passed and I realized I still didn't know where I needed to be at eleven. Everyone I asked to point me to the history building was happy to help but no one had the right answer. I was directed to the media building, passed the law school, toward the library and then the campus museum. The woman working in the museum office knew the Higher Education part of the History and Archaelogy building title, told me the name in Arabic, which I have already forgotten, and I was on my way. I figured I could use the professor's phone to try to get through to the phone company.
I climbed one flight of stairs, turned right and arrived at a red door with a plaque that stated, "Professor Sonia Nimr, Lecturer." I knocked, turned the knob and found myself in a square office with high ceilings, white walls, few posters, three desks and computers, and a sitting area with a couch and two chairs facing each other, a coffee table between them. Sonia was sitting in a chair across from a blond young man, clearly a foreigner, looking over papers and discussing. Sonia rose from her chair, Gauloise cigarette between her fingers.
Sonia is about my height, thin, busty, with mid-shoulder length, red-orange, straight hair, deep wrinkles and a noticeable twitch in her eyes. In her thick accent she welcomed me and asked me to sit down, did I want some coffee?
Declining the coffee I explained the phone situation and she put me at her desk to call the phone company. The first person I talked to informed me that I had made "suspicious calls" and so my phone had been shut. To which I said, "suspicious calls? to who, how? but I need my phone!"
He gave me a number and people to talk to, which only rang and rang and rang. So much for that. I felt awful asking Sonia to let me keep making calls because each time she had to get up from her meeting, dial in a code and then let me use a phone. The young man working with her, Philipp, a German student writing his thesis on the role of Hamas in Palestinian politics, offered me his SIM card and told me I had to go outside and walk around a bit to find Cellcom reception.
Once again I called the phone company, this time I was transferred to an English speaking operator who suggested I turn the phone off then on again. I asked why this happened and she said, "You know, it's electronics, this happens sometimes, it's just a machine."
Ok.
The trick worked. My phone picked up the SIM card signal, or however the hell it works, and I made a few phone calls to the office and a friend to inform them of my whereabouts. Heading back into the building, I felt much better about being back in communication and prepared myself to interview Sonia Nimr.
Sitting across from Sonia, I pulled out my legal pad and pen, and flipped to the page with the questions I wanted to ask to get the conversation moving. First though, she needed to know a little about me, fine.
I told her a few things. I have been here for a month and I am an intern at the Palestine-Israel Journal. That I wanted to come talk to people here about the conflict because I was tired of hearing how it is and not being able to see it so that I may have an opinion of my own, from my own experience. I told her I'm a teacher at a religious school, I am a Jew who believes it is important, no, crucial that the Jews have a state because throughout history people have tried to wipe them off the face of the earth. However, it is important for me to first understand and then educate people about what is happening here. And hopefully, do so in a way that people can listen without being defensive, disbelieving and dismissive. That we cannot deny that Israelis, Jewish or otherwise, Jews from the Diaspora and Palestinians live here and no one is really going anywhere.
With that, she allowed me to begin.
What is your job here? What are you a professor of?
I teach history here. I am also starting an Oral History Center. Who is writing Palestinian history? We are under occupation and others are writing our history. So we need to start writing our own history and teach it to ourselves.
Who is stopping Palestinians from writing their history?
No one. That's why we have to start. That's why I'm starting this center here at the university.
What is your definition of occupation?
Occupation is someone occupying someone else's land, stealing their freedom. Israelis have to recognize that in this part of the world there will be no peace until we have our rights, with a state, for self-determination.
Realistically, what do you see in the future that will work, one or two states?
Two states where we can practice our own sovereignty without trespassing. Dreamwise- I hope for one state, like South Africa. One democratic state where both people elect a government freely, where both people's rights are guaranteed equally.
Israel does not recognize Palestinian rights. If so, then they would recognize rights to movement, school, life, water use, everything is restricted, everything has restrictions.
20% of the population in Israel is Arab-Israeli without equal rights. You have more rights if you go to the army but Arabs don't go to the army. They are denying our identity by mere fact that they call Israeli-Arabs Israeli. Palestinians are living on reservations today, like the Native Americans of the U.S. Our status and our rights are similar to Native Americans.
Let's talk about the elections and the Palestinian government, Hamas and Fateh.
I am an atheist but I am highly politicized. Let me tell you something, I'm going to fight for Hamas to enter the elections but I will fight more for Hamas to not win the elections.
People have to read the elections differently. Hamas did not win, Fateh lost. The number of votes were almost equal.
People are pissed with the West, they tell us to have a democratic election and they don't like the outcome. The boycott is unfair, it's not right to dictate to Palestinians, or to interfere by giving or withdrawing funds because of a political agenda, the political agenda of the West.
People in the West Bank are not happy with Hamas, they're not very religious, but more political than religious. Why do all the Palestinians have to be punished?
Why won't Hamas recognize Israel? It seems that all they have to do is make a few statements and the international funds will come through? Why not recognize Israel?
Hamas announced a truce, they haven't had operations in recent years. What about state-terrorism/Israeli terrorism? Who talks about that?
The West doesn't understand the East. Hamas cannot say they recognize Israel. They support/recognize Israel by making a truce. You can't have a truce with someone you don't recognize. Hamas has done it [recognized Israel] in many ways. Hamas has internal problems. There's "face saving", don't ask us to go naked all over the place.
Israel and the Quartet don't want peace. Israel only recognizes the P.L.O. to do deals and the people are not happy with them.
Do you make a distinction between Israelis adn their government?
There is no difference between the government and the people. Israelis are silent. Our children see violence every day. My son has seen his father on the ground, a soldier's boot at his neck and a gun pointed at him. You think this doesn't affect our children.
In the month that I have been here I have met many people who are working for peace, Israeli and Palestinian. There are Israelis who don't agree with the government and they are doing something about it.
Yes but we need more people to just say enough. I admire Women in Black who go to the wall every week and protest the occupation.
We're both stupid, Israelis and Palestinians, we should do something about the situation without the outside world. But the culture of fear in Israel is strong. Israeli security is one hell of an excuse to get more land and restrictions.
Would it be useful for Palestinian society to make a statement, take a public stand against suicide bombings, against terrorism and violence? I hear that as a great concern of Israelis, that Palestinians don't speak out against the violence and so they continue to justify and rationalize security measures for the protection and safety of their people.
Don't ask the victim to stand up against suicide bombings. I'm against killing civilians anywhere in the world. I don't know anyone who is "enemy" enough to be killed. If we weren't put into such a situation we wouldn't have suicide bombers, it's a reaction, I don't condone it or accept it but I understand.
But, if someone were to hurt my son, I don't know what I would do.
Israel controls the media and blows thing out of proportion. We are not equal, this is not an equal war. If we have a state, an army, self-determination, then talk to us about dealing with suicide bombers. We have nothing left for us to give up, nothing.
I went to Jenin this weekend. My mother lives there. I call her twice a day to make sure she is still alive. I went this time to bury my uncle who died. All week I worried that there would be curfew, or the roads would be closed. In my custom family and friends come to pay their respects to the family after someone dies. If there were any obstacles I worried I would have to stay another week, cancel my classes.
This time at the checkpoint we were stopped. I was in a van of men. I am not religious but in my people's way, it is shameful for a woman or a man to see another, a stranger without clothing. The men in my van were asked to remove their clothing, in front of me.
Sometimes there is a checkpoint between Birzeit and Ramallah. They stop the students, have them strip. Don' smoke, don't smile, don't fold your arms. This is not security, this is humiliation.
One time I saw one of my male students searched. He was asked to strip and saw me there. To this day he does not look me in the eye out of shame.
What do you see as your role a a professor of young Palestinians?
I try to make my students looks at things in a different way, not black and white, and not horizontal or vertical, either. I don't want any more fanatics, fanatics are bad news whatever religion they are. I try to make my students see the human perspective, look at ourselves and each other as humans, all of us as humans.
This world is like one piece of cake and everyone wants it, every generation that goes, there's a wave of destruction behind it.
And within my students there are many factions. I try to mediate the differences between them and their political affiliations.
How are the spirits of the students?
Students are depressed. As a people we feel our destiny is not in our own hands and not the way we like. It is frustrating.
At this point Sonia sat back, looked at me, cocked her head to one side and said, "I'm hungry. Let's eat lunch. Let's go. Philipp let's go have lunch I can't think when I'm this hungry."
We walked uphill from the Higher Education building, past students eating lunch, and to another building with a different cafeteria than the one I visited earlier in the morning. Climbing the stairs Sonia said to me, "You know, I teach U.S. History here at the university. All my students know about America is that it is a big evil, I teach them what is this big evil and how it came about."
Sonia treated Philipp and me to lunch. She insisted that I try a Palestinian specialty, Maskhan. It is a round piece of flat bread with tons of olive oil and chopped, grilled onions, with a large roasted chicken part on top. One eats this with plain yogurt.
We found a table and Sonia continued.
"I was in prison twice. I was tortured, I have several fake teeth," she said.
I asked why she was put in prison to which she didn't really respond. Rather she told me, "A Palestinian is guilty until proven guilty. Don't ask why. You can't ask why, there's no logic in this country. Don't ask why."
Somehow we got back on the topic of the checkpoints. Sonia shared that recently when the Israelis put up a checkpoint between Birzeit and Ramallah, the soldiers split the students into three lines. There were men, pretty women and ugly women. If a girl was standing in the pretty line and a soldier thought her to be ugly, he would ask, "what are you doing here, you're ugly."
Students were ordered to bark like a dog, make cat noises or stand on their hands.
Sonia asked if I had heard of the soldier's lottery. This is a tactic that has been used at the checkpoint to Hebron. A soldier fills his hat or helmet with pieces of paper and has a Palestinian pick out one of the paper pieces. On the paper may be written, "break a finger" or "brake fist through a windshield".
"The checkpoints are not for security, they are for humiliation," Sonia reiterated.
At this point Philipp mentioned that as a German, he participated in compulsory military service. He was trained to run checkpoints for the U.N. "These are not normal checkpoints," he said.
"The checkpoints are understaffed, there are no local language skills, there is constant yelling and there is no flow. Thousands of people go through these checkpoints every day and there are so few people processing them. You don't come into contact with a single human being, you just hear yelling. You'll see for yourself, Heidi."
At this point the conversation changed direction. Philipp told Sonia that his friend in East Jerusalem, whose home he stayed in the night before was recently released from prison. He was arrested without charge and stayed incarcerated for 15 months without trial, without a lawyer, and was released without explanation.
Philipp continued that he hears from his friends that no one sleeps alone anymore for fear of arrest in the middle of the night. You need a sleeping buddy because too often people disappear and at least, if someone else is in the room when the soldiers come there is a witness.
Before we finished, another professor stopped by to talk to Sonia. An engineering professor helping her develop something like a rickshaw for transport back and forth from the future home of the Oral History center, which will be at the old campus of Birzeit University. "A carless campus, that's what we hope for and so we are working on a prototype for it," she said.
We finished lunch hurriedly because Sonia, a high-energy type had yet to prepare for her 2pm lecture. Leaving the building, she turned to me and said, "I like Los Angeles, the ocean and the nice weather. I hope to go back there. They offered me a class to teach, on oral history, but maybe in 2008."
Back in Sonia's office I thanked her for her time. She gave me her brother's number as well, and suggested that I call him. He too is a professor at Birzeit and heads the campaign for the release of Marwan Barghouti, a political prisoner and a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC).
In parting Sonia said to me, "you always have a home in Ramallah. If you are ever stuck, if you want to meet for coffee or dinner, I'll make you dinner. Please call whenever you need, you are welcome. Now, when you go back through Ramallah, don't be afraid if someone invites you for hummus, join them and see what else you can learn."
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