Category: Journals

Volunteers with the International Solidarity Movement are encouraged to write personal reflections about the work they engage in with Palestinian communities, the events they experience, and the people they meet. These journals offer the human context often missing in traditional reports or journalism. These articles represent the author’s thoughts and feelings and not necessarily those of the International Solidarity Movement.

The olive doesn’t fall far from the tree

by Joey Weinberg

Photos by Pippi Lundgrensen

Today (Thursday, Nov 16) is definitely a good day to pick some olives; in fact, with the heavy rain from yesterday, it is even better that we are doing this as soon as possible. Too much rain makes problems for the harvest and for the olives harvested (I’m not sure why but too much water is no good), so it is good that we’re harvesting today. Full of early morning coffee and tea, we are going to pick olives with a couple of Faroun villagers in their olive groves, which lie across the street from the village (just south of Tulkarem). So, if you live in Faroun and have land that you want to get to, all you have to do is cross a street.

I rarely think of crossing a street as difficult, but our friend Yusef has to go through a lot of trouble to cross this street. Immediately on either side of the street is a tall fence loaded with electronic sensors; on either side of this fence is a wide pathway, then another fence, then a bunch of razor wire, and then a trench.

You see, like so many Palestinian villages, Yusef’s village, Faroun, is cut off from its agricultural land by Israel’s annexation wall. Just like Bil’in, Jayyus and many other rural communities, the main road through the village comes to a dead end at the annexation fence. Unlike the two other villages I named though, at the place where the main road through Faroun meets the annexation fence there is no gate through which to pass, so access is a bit trickier. So, early this morning, like we did yesterday morning, I, a few foreigners and our friend Yusef start our trek through the village of Faroun to Faroun’s agricultural land by walking around the village — yes, around the village.

The nearest point of access between Faroun the village and Faroun the agricultural land is off a road that goes around the village. This road around the village has a turnoff which comes to an end at an Israeli checkpoint. On the other side of this checkpoint is a road which goes directly to Yusef’s land, but the road is a restricted access road open only to Israelis and the few native Palestinians who hold Israeli work permits. To access the 4500 dunums (roughly 900 acres) of Faroun land which lie between the Green Line and Israel’s annexation fence, the Faroun residents must first get a permit from Israel, and those with permits must travel an additional 7-9km to the Jubara checkpoint to present their permit to the soldiers. Even with the permit, access ultimately depends on the discretion of the Israeli soldiers stationed at the checkpoint.

For the first time in two years, Israel has granted Yusef access to his land, and he now carries a permit good for one month. Even with this permit, there are some additional barriers: the nearest point of access to his land, where the village road meets the Israeli road, is at this checkpoint through which, technically, he is not allowed to pass.

You see, Yusef’s land access permit is meaningless at the nearest checkpoint, as it only allows him access to his land, not to the State of Israel, and the road to his land is officially claimed as part of the State of Israel. However, this morning we decide that, since Yusef has four foreigners with him, we’d try to pass through this checkpoint, hoping that, in the presence of foreigners, the Israeli soldiers would let everyone through. We successfully passed through with Jawad yesterday, so why not try again?

This early in the morning there is no line. As we reach the checkpoint, the casual interrogation begins. “Why are you here?”, “Where are you from, etc.” Yusef hands over his permit, and, after another soldier arrives to debate the status of this permit, the first soldier turns to me and says, “You can pass here, but he cannot pass.” To which we ask, “Why? He lives here — his olive grove is just 100 meters up this road. Why can foreigners pass and this man can’t? We think it’s ridiculous that we can go to his land and he can’t. What is the problem?”

To this the second soldier replied, “It is complicated, but…” and explained that, as mentioned earlier, only Israelis or those who have a permit to work in Israel can pass. After about thirty minutes trying to get the soldier to change his mind –“this is silly, we’re only going 100 meters down the road, can you call your superiors, etc.”– a commander offers Yusef a compromise. “You can escort them to the land, then you must return here and go around to pass through the proper checkpoint.” This is just too stupid to be real. Yusef heads back to catch a ride to the Jubara checkpoint, and the four of us walk up the restricted road to his land.

We arrive in the grove to find Yusef’s cousin and his mother pouring the tea, so we have some tea and get started right away. First, we lay plastic tarp on the ground, then some of us start stripping the tree of olives ether by hand or with a small, hand-held rake, letting olives fall to the tarp beneath the tree. Cousin Raed –who has a 3-month permit– and a family friend get in the trees to show us foreigners how real work gets done.

Some of these trees are so loaded with olives that it takes a group of five people one hour to finish one tree, but some of them are underdeveloped and don’t have much fruit. For the small or underdeveloped trees, we don’t bother laying a tarp, instead plucking the olives by hand and catching them with buckets or aprons. We get a pretty good rhythm going: as some of us finish one tree, others get started on another. We clear away two years of undergrowth and scrub brush to prepare the area to lay a tarp down, then start plucking, yanking, raking, and picking olives. We spend the rest of the morning repeating the process.

Occasionally one or two of us collect olives from the ground, and occasionally we pass around a bottle of water. Occasionally one or two of us gets a bit winded from the work or squints a bit too much from all the sunshine, and occasionally one of us will make the others laugh by making monkey noises from up in an olive tree. My role is not only to harvest but also to periodically munch on partially-dried olives. Only once did I almost fall from a tree.

We stop for lunch at around 11:30AM; I don’t know where it came from; Um Yusef must have carried it with her, because one minute she’s putting olives in buckets and the next she’s telling us to sit and eat, which is probably my favorite thing to do here. Maybe harvesting olives is a close second, but eating ranks pretty high.

People here like their guests to eat, and in this I fancy myself an overachiever. If only my appetite matched my enthusiasm, I would be a Palestinian children’s story or some sort of Saint for food-eaters. But it’s not only the food but the sharing — the culture of collectivism I’m slowly getting accustomed to. Cooking Arabic coffee over a campfire, sipping tea under an olive tree, and keeping such great company make it quite easy to forget the utter stupidity, casual inhumanity and naked brutality of the circumstances which have brought us here. At the moment I see no soldiers, no police, no weapons, no racism and hate… and I am truly happy to be here. Should I feel ashamed for having such a good time with Yusef, Raed, and the rest of our hosts? It really doesn’t feel like work.

As the Palestinian olive harvest nears its end, I consider the persistence of these farmers who continue to defy the theft and expropriation of their land: these farmers are the last line of defense for Palestine’s very survival. In fact, the olive harvest itself may be the biggest roadblock to a seemingly impending erasure of a culture.

Of course you can discuss perhaps the economics of the olive, the olive tree, olive oil and the region, but this resistance act is not an economic act. The travel restrictions which make import/export unavailable to Palesinians renders any such discussion almost pointless. The economics? There are none. Israel has pretty much managed to sever the economic ties between the Palestinians and their most famous domestic product –the olive– through travel restrictions. Under this occupation, farming your olives is much less a profit venture than a necessary way to be what you are. It is no longer profitable to maintain your groves, pick your olives, and simply be what you are — an olive farmer. Hell, in some circumstances it is not even possible.

So why continue? Why do these people bang their heads against the wall? Why spend all available time jumping through Israel’s hoops to get permits, then walking one or two hours out of the way just to work as an olive farmer and not make a living? You could say that many of these farmers have nothing to gain and everything to lose. The very fact that these farmers continue to work in their fields and on their lands may be the biggest act of defiance and complete noncooperation I have seen: they simply refuse to disappear. These people are as solid and as strong as the hundreds-year-old trees they care for, as persistent as the thousands-year-old traditions they keep. As they refuse to let the occupation kill their traditions and their lands, they refuse to let the occupation kill their spirits.

You could say that the olive doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Streets of Hate: a journal entry on attacks in Hebron

by aspiringnomad, November 20th

His panic-stricken little face lights up when he receives the information that we’ll escort him home, sending him skipping merrily down the road on an errand to buy potatoes. This is the Palestinian Authority controlled area of Hebron, and as we cross through Tel Rumeida checkpoint to the other side in order to wait for the Palestinian boy’s return, we soon discover the source of his fear.

We are confronted by around 100 ultra-orthodox Jews, who are gathered in Hebron to mark ‘Hebron day’, one of whom shouts “You know that Jesus is gay?”. None of us really react to this arbitrary taunt, however it does serve to focus the crowd’s attentions squarely on our small group of human rights workers. Another shouts “What are you doing here?”

“Tourists” I reply, believing this to be the safest response under the circumstances. The crowd then begins chanting in Hebrew “We killed Jesus, we’ll kill you too!” — we are quickly designated the ‘other’. The mob mentality takes on an oppressive and ugly turn; now almost a single entity justifying almost any excess as long as it is directed towards the ‘other’. The crowd edges forward “You love Palestinians” one of them shouts, spitting in a human rights worker’s face.

The first stone had been cast: saliva rains down on us and people jump above one another to be able to deliver their contempt. We are shoved and kicked repeatedly, and even though it is apparent that events are spiraling dangerously out of control, the soldiers who are standing just a few feet behind us at the checkpoint choose to look on impotently as the attacks intensify.

A man lunges from the crowd, smashing Tove, a 19 year old Swedish girl across the face with a bottle. She immediately collapses to the ground clutching her bloodied face in horrified terror. At this point the soldiers come forward and motion at the settlers, in a “ok… that’s enough guys…” motion, amid clapping, cheering and chanting from the crowd.

As Tove lay on the hard concrete floor, blood oozing from her wounds the crowd re-groups, fed by curiosity and growing in energy “We killed Jesus, we’ll kill you too!” I now felt a growing sense of apprehension as awareness dawned of the mob’s evil intent and the soldiers’ unwillingness to intervene in any meaningful way.

A religiously dressed Orthodox Jew then adds insult to injury by posing with a thumbs-up gesture over Tove’s bloodied face. The sight of this was so obnoxiously contemptuous I never gave the guy the satisfaction he sadistically craved by taking his picture. The decision as to whether I should have taken that picture has been discussed over and over by people I know, though I feel the impact of sharing that disgusting image I have etched in my mind, can serve no purpose other than that of breeding hatred.

The police arrived and an American girl who witnessed the event was taken into a police van and asked to identify who had attacked our group. Meanwhile the remaining police were telling me and another Englishman that if we didn’t move away from the scene we would be arrested as we were blocking the street. We remained.

A Jewish settler medic came to the scene about 15 minutes after the attack and immediately began asking us why we were in Hebron, telling us pointedly we had no right to be there. He refused to help Tove as she lay bleeding in the street .

Eventually Tove was helped onto a stretcher by some soldiers, amid jeers and clapping from the crowd. We escorted the stretcher through the jeering crowd to a military vehicle in which Tove and a close friend were transported to the hospital in Jerusalem.

As I walked back down the street I witnessed the police open the door of a van and release one of the attackers. Upon seeing this the crowd then began jubilantly celebrating his release. We were later told by the police that they had not even taken the names of those who were identified as having attacked us, and that one of the main assailants had simply told the police that he was due at the airport in two hours to fly back to France.

Two Englishmen and I then spent another half an hour or so escorting Palestinian women and children from the checkpoint to their homes. In doing so it is our aim to protect the Palestinians in such situations by deflecting the attention and hate away from them.

It was getting dark but the streets were still busy. We escorted one group of three boys, the oldest of whom was 9 or 10. We were followed closely along the street by a dozen or so Orthodox Jews who hissed and berated the Palestinian boys in Arabic with obscenities I am grateful of not understanding. “You like protecting the animals?”, they taunted us in English — “Nazis!”.

We reached some steps and turned off the main street and began to climb, the little boys nervously glancing back to see if we would be pursued. A couple of hundred metres further on the older boy made it clear they were OK to continue alone now. I asked the oldest boy if they were sure, he forced a smile and shrugged his soldiers in defiance as if to say “no problem this stuff happens every day”. He seemed so strong, but as I put my hand on his shoulder and looked into his teary eyes they gave out another message and I saw pain and fear.

I wanted to tell him that the world wasn’t really like this. But for him and the people of Tel Rumeida it is.

Earlier in the day at least five Palestinians, including a 3-year old child, were injured by Jewish settlers, who rampaged through Tel Rumeida hurling stones and bottles at local residents. Palestinian schoolchildren on their way home were also attacked. The Israeli “Defense” Force, which was intensively deployed in the area, did not intervene to stop the settlers.

See this ISM Hebron report on these events.

Stef’s Blog: settler road block temporarily becomes Israeli law

by Stef, Friday, November 10, 2006

On Wednesday I harvested in the village of Qaryot with another international volunteer and 2 Israelis, assisting 80-year-old Salimon, his brother Aziz, and his 27-year-old son Ahmed. We were greeted in the morning with a hearty “Buenos dias!” and warm smiles from the elder men. Both Salimon and Aziz spent 20 years working in Brazil, and during that time were unable to come home to see their children grow up. Between them they have a very large family and over 1,000 trees in the area, which is sandwiched between a few relatively new Israeli settlements. One is called Gilad — an extremist outpost that is illegal even by Israel’s standards.

Salimon and Aziz are friendly men of few words. We spent the day communicating through a bit of Arabic and also Spanish and Portuguese, which both men and some of the volunteers happened to speak. Salimon, whose hospitality is in true Palestinian style, watched us carefully and often re-lit the cigarettes he handed out, which must have gotten damp at some point. Aziz spent the day pruning the trees silently with his small saw, occasionally saying “Aaaiiii-wwaaa, tamam” (yes, good) and “Bueno” (good), when he cut a branch down and volunteers began to pick olives from it.

Earlier in the week Israeli settlers hiked down the hill to throw rocks at Palestinians harvesting in Qaryot, sending one man to the hospital with a head injury. Many families were afraid to return to finish picking, but the brothers who have land in the most dangerous area, were determined to finish.


The road-block made by the settlers.

We began the morning picking close to the settlement road. Within 10 minutes we were approached by three Israeli soldiers and three Israeli border policemen, who told us that we needed to stop for the day. Although we asked to see a court order that stated so, we were offered no explanation except “someone is coming with a map”. The brothers returned to picking and the volunteers attempted to join them. The soldiers demanded that we stop and not touch any olives until more of them arrived with answers to our questions.

Eventually more vehicles of soldiers, border police, and a military lawyer showed up. They also could not answer our questions, and as we stood around waiting and wasting precious picking time, they pulled out a map and started arguing over what to do. The founder of an Israeli human rights group with experience in the area showed up after our phone calls. He negotiated with them over an apparent land dispute that began recently when settlers created a dirt mound roadblock in order to claim some of the land as their own. One soldier even said: “It’s obviously Palestinian land, let’s just let them stay,” but it was decided that we were only allowed to harvest on the other side of the roadblock for the day, closest to the village.

Following the lead of the elders, we agreed and moved to an area that was not claimed by the settlers to continue picking. This felt frustrating since the trees are hundereds of years old like the village, and the settlement is only about 20 years old. Even though some of the soldiers and police disagreed with each other about who the land belongs to, the message this situation sends is pretty clear: it is possible for a simple mound of dirt placed in the road by Jewish extremists to throw legal borders into upheaval, effectively blocking the rightful owners from accessing and harvesting it.

The next day we met Salimon and Aziz again. After a successful negotiation on behalf of the human rights group, we spent the day picking olives beyond the roadblock, on the “disputed” land directly next to the settlement road. This time we brought more volunteers due to the high risk of attack. Throughout the day about two Humvess or jeeps full of Israeli soldiers and police watched us from a short distance. They claimed it was for our protection, but were clearly facing us and watching us with binoculars, not the settlement.

Eventually Aziz picked up his tarp and bucket and walked right over to the settlement entrance road, a couple feet from a guard dogs fence and about 200 feet from the nearest home. This is the closest to a settlement that any family I’ve been with over the last week and a half has dared to work. I get the impression that Aziz is not scared of anything, even though he said that most of his children are afraid to come harvest the land with him. The soldiers and police pulled their vehicles up right next to us, but we ignored them and continued picking until the brothers decided they were finished with the area for the day.

We returned to the village piled onto a tractor with large bags of olives. Aziz’s kaffiyeh blew in the wind as he smiled and waved to greet neighboring farmers. Salimon rode ahead on his donkey. Ahmad reported that we had picked a few hundred kilos of olives, and thanked us warmly for our presence. In the following days we will continue to have an international presence in Qaryot, until all of the olives are picked.

Photostory: The Old City of Nablus

by Bill Dienst MD, November 13th,

Nablus, population 113 thousand, is the West Bank’s second largest city: second only to East Jerusalem. Founded during the time of the Romans, it is over 2000 years old.

Here is a fruit market in the center of town.

The heart of Nablus is Al Dowaar Square, also known as Martyr’s (Shaheed’s) Square.

Since the second intifada, many have died defending Nablus from Israeli attacks.

On Friday we face Mecca, and pray for an end to our oppression.

For when cats are trapped in the alley, they will hiss and fight by all means necessary in order to survive; until Israel renounces violence and recognizes Palestine’s right to exist . . . with full and equal rights; just like the Israelis: in a sovereign and independent nation with full control of its borders, its air and sea space, and its economy.

We have no choice but to trust in God.

Palestine has the right to defend itself. Here are some posters of dead local fighters. Lebanon and Iraq have the right to defend themselves too: from brutal military invasions and colonial occupation.

Much of the ancient Old City of Nablus was bombed in the spring of 2002. It has since been rebuilt.

It is Friday, the day of worship for Muslims. That’s Al Harbell Mosque in the distance.

Young girls of Nablus.

These boys are crazy for their city, and are determined to free their city from Israeli occupation.

This is Mr. Eid, who is a tailor, making a comforter.

Most of the shops are closed today because it is Friday.

Negotiating Daily Life: Land Access and Checkpoint Encounters

by Steph, November 6th

During this last week while I’ve been picking olives in the Nablus area with Palestinian families and occasionally encountering/confronting soldiers, I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of negotiation in daily life here in Palestine, and also about the role of internationals in that. I often find myself in situations where Palestinians ask for us to talk with soldiers in order to help them gain access to a place, but I’m concerned about how this sometimes could be seen as accommodating the occupation.

Here are some examples of situations I’ve been in recently:

Aside from going through checkpoints, one of my first contacts with soldiers this week was during my third day of harvesting, in the village of Tel. Four of us internationals went to Tel because farmers there often have problems crossing the settler road that cuts between their village and most of their agricultural land. Although Palestinians have the right to access their land, this village had reported recent incidents of denied access.

In the morning, we headed down the hill towards the road, a large and lively group of families and donkeys. Just as we began to cross the road, a jeep of four soldiers pulled up and ordered everyone to stop. The 20-minute conversation between the soldiers and us internationals was something to the effect of them telling us they knew that the farmers had the right to cross the road, but insisted they needed to see IDs from the four of us, as well as from the young men in the group. We tried to reason with them, asking that they let the farmers go ahead, but they would not budge.

It went on and on like this for a while. The soldiers took the hawwiyas (ID cards) of two young men, and claimed they had to check on them. Eventually, the villagers decided to turn back and take another route to their land, through a drainpipe under the road. Some farmers explained that the soldiers often deny them the right to cross the street, telling them instead to go under it in this way. I don’t know what the point of this is, other than to make life more difficult for Palestinians.

When we were told that we were cleared to go, we informed the soldiers that we would stay with the 2 men whose hawwiyas they had taken, until they were finished with them. They seemed surprised by this and immediately returned them to their owners, clearly not actually needing to check up on them.

In this case, I wondered what might have happened if we weren’t there, and my question was answered the next day when our contact in Tel called to report an incident in which soldiers held some farmers who were not accompanied by internationals for over an hour, and dumped a few bags of picked olives onto the ground. I’ve learned this week, mostly through the incidents in which we were not present, that the high court decision about farmers’ rights to access their land safely is only selectively enforced. At the same time, it never feels good to try to negotiate with soldiers for rights that Palestinians already legally have, even if it works at the time.

On Saturday evening, on the way home from dinner, we got a call that Sabatash Checkpoint, on the outskirts of the city, was closed and about 200 Palestinians were waiting in the rain and cold. Thinking we might be able to change the situation, we headed over there at 8:45pm. We arrived to a tense situation of about twelve packed taxis and buses in line and over 100 men in the street waiting. Soldiers had blocked the checkpoint with razor wire and were just standing around. It was dark, raining and cold, and the watchtower was shining a spotlight all over the crowd. People who had been there since 2pm told us about an incident earlier in the day when a man was shot in the leg for verbally defending a woman who was touched by male soldiers after refusing to lift up her shirt. Nobody had been allowed through the checkpoint since.

The eight of us walked up to the checkpoint, and a few crossed the razor wire against the soldiers’ orders to go back. We began talking with them, asking why they wouldn’t let anyone through, and trying to appeal to them by explaining that many had been waiting for over five hours in the cold and rain. It took a lot of talking and complaining and negotiating, but within twenty minutes the soldiers agreed to allow the women through, then the university students on buses, the trucks, and finally, after two hours, the shebab (young men).

While it’s clear that the presence of eight American and European activists was a positive force in changing the situation (after nearly seven hours of closure, they reopened it within twenty minutes of our arrival and confrontation), it does not remain in my mind as a success. As we left, I felt uneasy, thinking about all the times we aren’t able to be there to make changes, and then reminding myself that relying on our presence as internationals in order to open checkpoints, grant land access and provide protection, also isn’t a solution to the problem. In fact, it makes me feel even more a part of this brutal occupation.

The next day we were called back to “Sabatash” and told it was once again closed. When we arrived, the lines of people were moving, but slowly. We decided to leave but then realized that the soldiers were not going to let a group of women walk through, claiming that only people in cars could pass. This is a difficult place to get a taxi and it was cold out, so we tried once again to negotiate them through. A soldier told us he needed to stick by his orders, and couldn’t in his conscience allow them through. Most of our responses to him went something like “But isn’t it worse to have on your conscience that you made a group of women with small children stand in the cold?” and “How would you feel if someone made your mother or sister do this?” Eventually, we suggested that the soldiers get a taxi so the women could go through, and they agreed. We left feeling infuriated that it took international activists relentlessly making suggestions and bothering them, to get the soldiers to actually do it. And once again our involvement made a small change in the situation, but not in the occupation or in this all-too-common process.

If I am in a place where I am asked by Palestinians to try to make a difference, and my negotiating or confronting soldiers can make a situation even temporarily better, I of course feel obligated to do it. Meanwhile, I struggle with my part in creating expectations that Palestinians (or internationals) must negotiate for rights that are either already there on paper, or should be. This is also not a sustainable solution, and I hope that we can all continue to use various tactics in order to directly challenge the occupation, even while trying to maintain a basic level of dignity here in daily life.