Category: Journals - Page 13 - International Solidarity Movement

A Tale of Zero Cities

11th November 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Um al-Khair, Occupied Palestine

Last month in northern Palestine brought stories of Israeli settlers from the illegal Yitzhar settlement that, however horrifying, all suffered an important shortcoming: the scope of the stories lent to individual scapegoats, and in doing so provided a vivid, but ultimately penny-deep look at the Palestinian condition. Today’s news is flooded with such dramatic examples.

This past month, I lived in and began to learn the story of Um al-Khair, a Palestinian Bedouin village in the South Hebron Hills. Again the case presented a challenge of conveyance – perhaps even more so. While it’s certainly every bit as troubled as the villages in the shadow of the Yitzhar settlement, Um al-Khair’s story is much less made for TV than the photogenic, headline-grabbing brutality of physical violence.

There’s no getting around it: it’s a small village, and reversing the injustices there wouldn’t move the needle on injustice in Palestine a whole lot.

However, it does offer itself as a worthy placeholder – an exemplary microcosm for the nation of Palestine, and what happened, is happening, and will happen to it if nothing is done.

Tariq (left) and Eid Hathaleen, with Tariq’s nephew Muhammad in his arms. Tariq’s house, which he shares with his mother, has been demolished 3 times already (’08, ’12, and ’14). Eid recently had both of his cars, one less than a week old, confiscated by the Israeli army. A tattered – but still standing – Palestinian flag waves behind them.

This isn’t to say that tragic physical violence doesn’t occur there. One of the first stories new visitors hear is that of a resident who, as his brother Tariq says, “lost his life without losing his life.” About 17 years ago the young man, Muhammad, was herding his goats and – so claimed a settler – ventured onto a far corner of settlement property. An Israeli soldier chased him down (after the fact and within his own village), and beat him most of the way to death for it. Today, the man who would’ve been one of the leading breadwinners for the village walks the roads mentally handicapped, unable to contribute to the survival of the community. As the soldier was leaving the village that day, he turned and pointed at Muhammad in the dirt – the young man already having left his body for the last time – and shouted “Look at your brother, let him be an example! I’ll make every single person in this village handicapped!”

As it turns out, the soldier didn’t have to. Seventeen years later, the pen would prove mightier than the sword, and the true kneecapping of Um al-Khair would come not in the form of an excessively forceful soldier, the optics of which might provoke international outrage, but rather bureaucratic, pseudo-legal land-grab policies.

To that end, in the 17 years since the martyrdom of Muhammad, by far the most high ranking targets of the Israeli army in Um al-Khair have been peaceful, inanimate objects – their traditional Bedouin oven, among the kind of objects Pierre Nora coined “les lieux de mémoire” in 1989, as well as a proposed community garden – the first of which has been built or rebuilt and subsequently destroyed 3 times over, and the other disallowed before construction could even begin (though there’s an international campaign to support it anyway).

As Tariq, a budding community leader, said, “The soldiers that try to break us aren’t enemies of terrorism. They don’t like us, but even they know we are not terrorists. They are enemies of life. They are enemies of our presence here. Look at the oven, the garden.”

The future of Um al-Khair. Their demands are simple: to live in peace, which means an end to the ongoing demolition of their homes, as well as an end to settler violence against them during the night.

Clearly the real threat isn’t any one person, but anything palpable for Palestinians to hold on to, and with it the motivation to continue resisting. Homes, homelands, even ovens and community gardens are brought to ashes – as Israel admits with shameless candor – to make room for people of a different ethnicity.

Taken together, what happened to Muhammad the individual and what’s happening to Um al-Khair’s lifeblood structures span the spectrum of violence, from physical to structural. Though they’re specific to Um al-Khair, they speak volumes about the post-1948 Palestinian story.

The notion that a bread oven or community garden could be threatening should be preposterously silly and, at the same time, make all the sense in the world when the very acknowledgement of a Palestinian people is threatening to an ideology whose implementation required their ethnic cleansing. After all, one of the most repeated go-to’s for stewards of Zionism – that Palestine was “a land without a people” – reveals itself as the only option short of confronting the question of what happened to those people, and who was responsible.

The result was that incorrect and racist revision: pre-1948 Palestine – a rich bastion of culture, cuisine, art, music, academia – was really a land of zero cities. After all, it didn’t even have a people.

Suleiman Hathaleen, the elder in Um al-Khair, himself 6 years older than Israel. Born in Arad, Palestine (now Arad, Israel), he was made a refugee in 1948, and has lived in Um al-Khair since.

Of course, any rational person knows that Palestinians do exist, and that they didn’t come to Palestine simply to meet the arriving Jewish immigrants with weapons. Sentient, living evidence for this – for the bustling Palestinian society and what happened to it – exists in refugee camps in- and outside of Palestine to this day.

Since 2007, roughly 20 families from Um al-Khair have joined them, after the State of Israel – not a rogue extremist, not an individual settler, but the real-life manifestation of Zionism – has come to their village to make them homeless. This, unfortunately, is what defines the struggle at large for many indigenous Palestinians – to stay and survive at all under the threat of expulsion and extermination. There’s been virtually no evidence even of an attempt to maintain a second-class, exploitable Palestinian population, making this – what’s occurring in the West Bank and Gaza as opposed to the State of Israel – not apartheid, but unvarnished ethnic cleansing.

The ruins of a family’s demolished home in Um al-Khair.

And so, ceding for a moment the possibility that Um al-Khair’s situation is controversial, the fact remains that the international community has yet to be told what justifies it. What justifies the fact that the people with the deed to the land, who’ve lived completely without sin and within the law, are forced to stand there crying out for help, physically weak from humankind’s deepest sadness – the gutting, emptying kind that you feel in your body – as a Caterpillar D9 military bulldozer thunders to life and starts towards their home.

When buildings break bones

1st October 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Urif, Einabus & Huwara, occupied Palestine

It was a somber trip through the villages of Urif, Einabus, and Huwara yesterday. Their peripheries continue to be threatened by the illegal settlement of Yitzar, which sits strategically on a hill above them, allowing for fast and terrifying raids on the Palestinians’ homes and cash crops below.

The mayor of Urif shows ISM activists where settler attacks have come from

In Urif we met the mayor, who walked us by the village school and within view of the illegal settlement houses perched above a hillside rich with olives. Finally, he took us to see a man named Munir al-Nuri, the subject of a tragic story about an April day that would change his life forever. It surely began like any other – with the handful of chores that keep his house up and running. On this day however, heavily armed settlers – in the company of Israeli soldiers, no less – would march into his village, enter his home, beat him, break his legs, terrorize his family in the process, destroy the family car, and as a final measure, slice his foot open with a knife, robbing him of any hope of working his land for the next year, possibly longer. Needless to say, the soldiers did nothing to protect Munir, discourage the settler from carrying out more attacks like it in the future, or provide justice or reparations to Munir’s family. It was a gut punch for us listening, and frankly we didn’t know whether to cry or scream at the injustice of it all.

Munir al-Nuri keeps printed photos of the extremist settler who attacked him in his home.

In Einabus, we sat in the office of a local council member, who again walked us through the terrors of the same settlers in his village. He began with the chemical poisoning of the Palestinians’ olive trees – a break from the settlers’ more commonly used tactic of simply burning them. Finally, he came to the story of a shepherd who encountered an invading settler out in the fields. The settler, heavily armed and primed for violence, stripped him of his clothes and sent him naked back to his village – an obvious form of cultural and psychological warfare in a modest society, and even further, one that conjures up remembrances of Abu Ghraib. The man had a heart attack and died a week after the event.

As we sat in his office, I felt a similar thought passing through all of us: ”How could I possibly convey the gravity of what I was hearing to people – particularly Zionists – back home?”. With the hill perfectly framed by the window behind him, the stories carried a certain resonance.

Short of people sitting there with us, however, and looking at the hillside, where you’re actually able to picture the death squads walking down the hill into the villages, I remain unconvinced that it will translate. But perhaps a start, for those who don’t understand just what the illegal settlements mean for Palestinians, or who yet don’t care, would be to emphasize that the buildings themselves are not the source of such primal terror felt by the villagers. It’s the settlers – barbarically violent and insulated from recourse – that constitute the more immediate danger.

While the land itself is pregnant with meaning, as is the Palestinian memory it summons, the truth of these settlements is that no matter how inanimate they may seem, they’re ultimately tantamount to neatly paved, artfully constructed gore. When Netanyahu, Danny Danon, and the like talk about “strengthening the settlements”, what they’re really advocating for is bloodshed. Not hyperbolically, and not anything less. Brick by brick, Palestinians are attacked, they’re murdered, their farms and olive trees and their livelihoods set on fire. Next year their kids will grow weaker with hunger, life savings will be tapped into just to make ends meet, and the flame of bright futures will be extinguished in an instant. And all of this will happen because of mere buildings, for the settlers are the settlements – terrorizing, functionally above the law, and quite literally a threat to Palestinian survival.

Masked settlers in Urif the day Munir al-Nuri was attacked, with Israeli soldiers protecting them. Credit: Institute for Middle East Understanding

Two nights in Umm al-Kheir: a journal

5th September 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Umm al-Kheir, south Hebron, occupied Palestine

Spent the last two days at Umm Al Khair, a Bedouin village in the South Hebron Hills enjoying the wonderful hospitality, generosity, and loving kindness. This was not my first trip there. And as much as I hate to say it, as with most things in Palestine, things are so much worse than my last visit. The illegal colonial settlement of Carmel belonging to the entity called israel surrounds the village on almost every side. Some of the tents and housing units are less than 20 feet from the “security” fence. Housing units in the illegal settlement have increased and more are being built with plans to take more of the land owned by the village to continue expansion.

Some of the newest settler homes in Carmel

The villagers sit day after day waiting for the illegal occupation soldiers to come with their bulldozers to demolish more of their housing. People speak openly about their discouragement for their future but still stand steadfast that they will not be moved or defeated. Our tent was one of those closest to the Fence and for two nights we sat up most of the night while zionists threw stones and rocks over the fence at the tent at anything that appeared to move. The village leader says the violence is increasing all of the time and fears that one of these night something much worse than rocks will be thrown. Fortunately no one was hurt (physically) the past two nights but there was little to no sleep for us or any of the men of the village who sat up keeping and open eye and ear to try to spot the thugs doing this. The commotion would wake up many of the villagers and you could hear the crying of many frightened small children throughout the night.

The “security” fence less than 20 feet from the tent

This is an every night occurrence and everyone is exhausted, all of the time, and can only catch a few hours of sleep after sunrise. Phone calls to the police of the entity called israel Police as well as the Palestinian Authority Police are a waste of time. No one will respond to the calls for help to make the settler violence stop. Many internationals, such as ourselves go for a few nights (when we have the people to do so) to help with a protective presence but it doesn’t stop the ever increasing settler violence. The Bedouins are very peaceful people and are committed to nonviolence but they are called the terrorists by the zionists, and most of the zionist supporting governments of the world (such as the United States). More International presence is needed and more of the world needs to know the truth.

Apartheid illustrated: Israeli soldier shoots another soldier in Hebron

6th July 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

On Tuesday, 4th July 2017, Israeli forces were conducting a ‘military training’ in a civilian Palestinian neighborhood near Gilbert checkpoint in Tel Rumeida in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron). The result of this ‘military training’ was a fatal shot by one Israeli soldier to the other. The injured commander was immediately evacuated to hospital by an Israeli ambulance, and was later confirmed dead. The Israeli forces immediately closed the whole area to Palestinians by closing all the checkpoints, collectively punishing the civilian Palestinian population. The army, after the incident, announced that these ‘military trainings’ will be suspended in al-Khalil.

The whole incident, though, needs to be contextualized: an occupying army conducted a ‘military training’ near a checkpoint installed for the control and humiliation of the occupied population, in a civilian residential neighborhood. Immediate medical assistance to the injured occupying soldier, with an ambulance that, without any problems, was granted immediate access to the injured.

Military trainings, under international humanitarian law, are prohibited in civilian areas. The Israeli occupying army in al-Khalil, and all over the occupied territories, though, conducts trainings in civilian areas. This serves two functions: for one, it is more ‘real’, a training in the area where the perceived ‘enemy population’ is living, and second, the intimidation of the population. Israeli forces in al-Khalil are sometimes seen ‘practicing’ the ‘neutralization’, as it is called in Israeli rhetoric, of Palestinians at checkpoints. In those cases, a Palestinian that allegedly carries a knife is seen as a threat to the life of the heavily armed and armored occupation forces – and thus has to be shot and, as documented in so many cases, left to bleed to death on the ground without any medical assistance. The idea is always to shoot to kill.

Whereas an Israeli soldier or settler from the illegal settlements would immediately receive medical assistance, as Israeli ambulance are free to pass, Palestinian ambulances, and actually any Palestinian vehicles (often including donkeys and bicycles) are not allowed to drive on one of the roads in al-Khalil – which conveniently connects the settlements in down-town al-Khalil with the Kiryat Arba settlement on the outskirts of the city. Palestinian ambulances, as they are not allowed on this street, instead, are often detained by Israeli forces at the checkpoints, denied to pass and thus denied access to give first aid.

Immediately after the incident, the Israeli forces closed all the checkpoints in the area, effectively putting the area under curfew – for Palestinian residents. Any Palestinian civilian inside the area, thus, was prevented from leaving, and anyone outside trying to reach their homes, was prevented from coming back home. This is clearly collective punishment of the Palestinian civilians, who are not involved in the incident at all – other than living in an area that the Israeli forces are trying hard to rid of any Palestinian presence. Whereas Palestinian movement was completely restricted and Palestinians trying to film the incident and it’s aftermath were stopped and harassed by soldiers. Settlers, however, from the illegal settlements, were allowed to move around freely. In a separate incident, a settler beat up a Palestinian young man, causing his face to be unrecognizable as it was covered in blood. The settler though, can be sure that he’ll enjoy full impunity under the protection of the Israeli forces.

These kind of military trainings in the aftermath were declared ‘suspended’ in the city of al-Khalil. However, only because a soldier was killed, not because of their illegal nature in civilian areas or a possible threat to the occupied population.

This incident illustrates the apartheid system installed by the Israeli occupying forces in al-Khalil, and all over the occupied Palestinian territories. An apartheid-strategy that aims to displace the Palestinian population from their homeland in favor of illegal settlements.

A day in Umm al-Kheir, threatened by demolition by Israeli forces

29th June 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

Our day in Umm al Kheir started with a common flying checkpoint, set up by the Israeli forces in Zif. Our mini-bus driver dind’t want to pass this control so we got out of the car and walked through the control and then waited for our friend from the village to pick us up. We had some spare time and bbserved the soldiers controlling nearly every vehicle trying to pass and wrote down their plate-numbers. After we got picked up we tried to enter the village, which is only accessible through one road. This road is directly next to the illegal settlement Karmel and therefore entirely under the control of the Isreali forces. An Israeli police-car was stationed directly at the entrance to the village to stop and control every passing car, so we made a u-turn to avoid yet another control and contact with the police and instead waited until the police had left to enter Umm al Kheir.

The fence separating Umm al-Kheir from the illegal Karmel settlement

Umm al Kheir is located in the South Hebron Hills in the south east of Yatta. The village is divided in different parts: on one side there is the bedouin village Umm al Kheir and a bit further the village itself with the mosque and around 1300 inhabitants. We visited the Bedouin part of Umm al Kheir. This part of the village is located directly next to the settlement: the playground for the children is surrounded by fences which separates the settlement from the village, the main road through the village leads directly into the settlement and is frequently used by settlers. The whole life in this beautiful peace of land is dominated by their settler-neighbours: except of one house in the village, every house has several times been demolished and is constantly threatened by demolition by the Israeli forces. The location directly next to settlement and in Area C is reason enough for the Israeli administration to reject building permits and thus ignore the villagers trying to live their every day lifes (The vast majority of building permits in Area C for Palestinians are denied). Umm al Kheir is not connected to any water or electricity supply system, and the Israeli government refuses those services for the village. Meanwhile the settlement directly adjacent to the village has electricity 24 hours a day. Umm al Kheir on the other hand is dark in the night, just lit by the light shining from the settlement and the chicken-farm on the other side. The Israeli administration build a mast system to ensure the power supply for the chicken-farm directly through the village. This power cable, cutting through the village, highlights even more how communities in the South Hebron Hills and anywhere else in Area C are humiliated by the Israeli forces and deliberately left alone in their fight for dignity and their basic needs such as water or electricity.

But Bedouins are strong people and so the people of Umm al Kheir remain to their land, raise their children, find love and happiness. A solar panel installation was installed to ensure at least the basic electrical needs. This plant was build on the only house in Umm al Kheir, which is, according to the Israeli administration not ‘illegal’ and thus not under threat of demolition.

The inhabitants, left without shelter after a demolition, rebuild their houses after a demolition. There is a community centre, a playground and even a library in this tiny village. Everything is build without a permission and was demolished several times but the will to fight for the land and their existence is bigger than the bulldozers.

Umm al-Kheir library and community-center

We met unbelievable warmhearted people, made new friends and had a delicious Iftar, made by the local women. Because of the bedouin hospitality we felt directly at home and enjoyed strolling around between the sheep and discovering which plants are growing in the garden.

But as mentioned before, Umm al Kheir is threatened by house demolitions, as every house has an outstanding demolition order. The army keeps coming to the village, taking pictures of the shelters. Also camera drones, controlled by settlers are appearing regularly to record any possible changes. Umm al Kheir fears demolition after the end of Ramadan and has requested protective presence in the village. We already spent a night there with a team, as are other groups such as CPT.

Rubble from a recent demolition by Israeli forces

This is not just about a few houses, this is about homes and the existence and Umm al Kheir, which shares its fate with so many small villages around the whole occupied West bank, which suffers under the Israeli occupation.