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.

Get off our Land

Protest Against the Toxic Chemical Factory on the edge of Tulkarem

Today’s Freedom Summer action was focused on the presence of a toxic chemical factory at the edge of Tulkarem. The Israeli-owned factory was originally located near residences in Israel, but was deemed to be polluting beyond acceptable legal levels and following a court case in Israel it was moved to the West Bank city of Tulkarem in the mid-eighties. The complex of factories has been expanding ever since, spreading like the cancer that the output from the factory induces. It represents a particularly dangerous dimension of the occupation for the Palestinian people. As I stood looking up at the chimney and IOF watchtower inside the factory compound it occurred to me that this was a large, ugly weapon, slowly but surely attacking the people around it.

Tulkarem has the highest cancer rates in Palestine, and people living near the factory also suffer disproportionately from respiratory tract diseases and other health problems. The land around the factories has been labeled unsuitable for agricultural production and farmers have faced extreme difficulties getting to it. One farmer has been shot at a number of times by the owner of the chemical factory. He has decided to convert his farm to organic production a decision which reflects the strength and resilience of the Palestinian people. No attempt is made to clean the surrounding environment or dispose of the chemical waste safely – it has been repeatedly dumped on nearby Palestinian land.

The protest began with a march from the centre of Tulkarem towards the factory. We wore blue surgical masks to highlight the danger of inhaling the factory fumes, but as we approached the factory and began to smell the foul stench in the air I was genuinely glad that I was wearing it.

As our group of Palestinians, Israeli, and ISM activists proceeded from the center of Tulkarem to the factory, located at the city’s edge, we carried signs in Arabic and English shaped like gravestones and proclaiming the death of the environment, justice, freedom, and human rights, as well as organisations like the World Health Organisation and the International Court of Justice.

Arriving at the factory, which is extremely close to the Apartheid Wall around Tulkarem, the demonstrators placed the gravestones outside the main gate and began to chant. Messages were sprayed on the wall and we banged on the gate with stones, but nobody responded and the military did not turn up.

I only hope that they do not punish the farmers involved in the protest later, when we have left the city.

Photos can be viewed at freckle.blogs.com/photos/no_more_poison/

The factories in Tulkarem are one of many sites throughout the West Bank where Israeli industrial complexes are situated. The companies are free to operate outside of Israeli laws regarding health and safety, the environment and the treatment of workers. The Palestinian
workers come from a pool of very cheap labour; they have no rights and, following the economic strangulation of Palestine over the last five years, are desperate to work, even if this means going to a settlement and working in unhealthy or dangerous conditions. The factories are built on stolen land and disfigure the beauty of the West Bank, causing environmental problems and flattening agricultural land with concrete.

These are some of the things I wish everyone knew

A speech by Kate Raphael at San Francisco Pride.

These are some of the things I wish everyone knew:

I wish everyone knew what an olive tree looks like when its branches are lopped off, heavy full ones they call ‘hamel’, which means pregnant.

I wish everyone knew how Caterpillar bulldozers uproot the trees to make room for a Wall that is twice as high and three times as long as the Berlin Wall.

I wish everyone knew that the Wall will not stop terrorism and that’s not what it’s for, but it does separate tens of thousands of people from their land and put 3 million people in prison which will increase the hate.

I wish everyone knew that the number of checkpoints in the Palestinian lands doubled during a time when there were no attacks against Israelis, and

I wish everyone knew that the number of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, which is another name for land theft, doubled during the last peace process.

I wish everyone knew that 4100 Palestinians and 1100 Israelis have been killed in the last four years, and

I wish everyone knew that 8000 Palestinians are in Israeli jails, and

I wish everyone knew that 2 million Americans are in American jails, and

I wish everyone knew that since 9/11 the US has disappeared people and secret prisons and 2000 immigrant detainees are held indefinitely without charges and is that how you spell PATRIOT?

I wish everyone knew that in 1970, the Iraqi constitution, under Saddam Hussein, declared all women and men equal before the law, and

I wish everyone knew that until 1991 women in Iraq were 38% of teachers and 31% of doctors.

I wish everyone knew that the Bush administration wants a quota of 25% women in the Iraqi legislature and women make up 15% of the US Congress and we have no quota.

I wish everyone knew that women in Palestine hold 18% of seats in local government and women in Israel hold 12%.

I wish everyone knew that the US state department says it has built 11 women’s centers in Baghdad and when was the last time they built a women’s center in Bayview? And

I wish everyone knew that Muslim women don’t need us to free them, but they do need us to stop oppressing them, and

I wish everyone knew that half of older lesbians depend on Social Security for most of their income, and

I wish everyone knew that under Bush’s social security plan the average retired worker would get less than half what they get now, and

I wish everyone knew that 12 million people are now held as slaves around the world, including some right here in San Francisco, and 80% of them are female and 50% of them are children, and

I wish everyone knew that Black women in the US are 20 times as likely to get AIDS as white women and AIDS is the third leading cause of death for Black women and

I wish everyone knew that marriage won’t help us get health care when 39% of people in this country don’t have health coverage from their job.

Most Americans think foreign aid is 24% of our budget but it’s actually less than 1%, and

I wish everyone knew that 22% of US children live under the poverty level.

I wish everyone knew that we’ve killed 25,000 Iraqi civilians since March 2003 and the US has 37,000 troops in South Korea and 16,000 in Afghanistan, and

I wish everyone knew that US women earn 76 cents to a man’s dollar but if they are Black they earn 66 cents and if they are Latina they earn 55 cents, and

I wish everyone knew that 25% of US women who become pregnant have abortions and 87% of US counties have no abortion provider, and

I wish everyone knew how it feels to watch gay people cross the picket line at Badlands to go drink half-price beer at a racist bar, and

I wish everyone knew that queers are a community and not a market sector, and

I wish everyone knew that the parade didn’t used to have barricades and used to be for everyone

I wish everyone knew about Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism and LAGAI Queer Insurrection, and

I wish everyone knew that Stop AIDS Now Or Else was the first group ever to block the Golden Gate Bridge, and

I wish everyone knew that the Bolivian people are rising up to throw out the gas companies and winning, and

I wish everyone knew about the Gay Liberation Front, and

I wish everyone knew that Stonewall was a riot, and

I wish everyone knew that revolution is possible.

Bil’in persists

By Rann

We arrived early for the usual Friday demonstration in Bil’in. The ISM flat in the village was full of Palestinians villagers and Israeli and international activists busily preparing the latest of the pieces of protest display this village is so well-known around Palestine for. This time it was a series of bits of fence, to be connected by activists covered in sheets reading “the wall tears us apart” and other such slogans in English, Arabic and Hebrew.

The demonstration proceeded along an alternative route to the one the weekly marches usually take. We spotted the soldiers waiting for us on the hill opposite and many villagers laughed at our successful bit of trickery. The joy was short-lasted as the soldiers spotted us and began running across the hills. They caught up with us near the road used by the construction crews working on the annexation barrier. The commander waved around a piece of paper and declared the area a closed military zone. We demonstrators stood our ground as many more came streaming over the hill. The situation was rather tense, and after around five minutes, the soldiers began throwing sound bombs and shooting their new ‘sponge’ bullets directly at demonstrators. I saw a soldier (who I recognized as one of the group who arrested me a few weeks ago) aim his weapon right at my face. I turned and ran. He fired, and hit me in the back of the neck with a ‘sponge’ from a distance of twenty meters. Turned out that was the least of six injuries that were to occur during the demonstration. One person was hit near the eye with what was probably a rubber-coated steel bullet. Four Israeli demonstrators were arrested, two of whom were released towards the end of the demonstration.

The army continued to shoot tear gas as demonstrators, as the latter moved up and down the hills. Palestinian youth responded with stone-throwing, and Israeli media later reported that one soldier was injured by a stone.

As the demonstration was coming to an end and many demonstrators were preparing to leave, the army invaded the village. Villagers had blocked the road with rocks, a trash can and a bathtub. An army jeep bypassed the barricades and entered the village. Soldiers shot many rubber-coated steel bullets, sound bombs and tear gas. One Palestinian boy was arrested. The boy apparently had not participated in the demonstration. His mother came to one of the village’s organizers in tears later on. Her boy needs medication and she was worried he would not be given access to drugs.

Bil’in is going to lose sixty percent of its land to the annexation barrier, yet every week the army exacts another toll from the villagers. This time it’s one more useless arrest, one more mother in tears among the injured. The price of non-violent resistance is huge, but Bil’in villagers persist, week after repressive week.

A Chat with the Shabak

by Rann

Around a week ago, I got a call from the Giv’at Ze’ev police, asking me to come in to `clarify some technical details’ about my arrest at a demonstration in the village of Bil’in a few weeks ago. By the time I showed up at the police station, on Sunday, June 26th, I had figured out that that interview would have nothing to do with the police. The shabak (Israel’s equivalent of the FBI) wanted to `have a chat’. That was, in fact, the exact phrase they used: `This is not an interrogation. We just wanted to have a chat and pass you a message’.

When I arrived at the police station, I was put in an interview room with a non-uniformed man, who stated his name was El’ad. After the usual body search, my phone and bag were taken away, though I was (generously) allowed to keep a drink I had bought earlier. Another non-uniformed man arrived and `El’ad’ passed him a note.

`El’ad’ proceeded to tell me that they know I am associated with the ISM and that I am in touch with `extremist’ Israelis, internationals, and Palestinians. He asked me for a response, and I stated that I am indeed an activist, but that I do not associate with any particular group. Apparently, the super-geniuses at the shabak had googled my name and found out otherwise. I was suitably impressed.

I was then informed that I was `on the brink of an abyss’ (later corrected to `you have one foot half-way down the abyss’), and that I was on the border of becoming a `danger to state security’. They seemed to think that I would soon be carrying bombs and ferrying wanted men into Israel. They brought up a case from 1986 when a woman was given a bomb by her Palestinian boyfriend. I was six years old at the time…

At one point, the other man in the room shouted at me for a while, more or less repeating what `El’ad’ had said, though in a much louder voice. He then proceeded to stare at me for the rest of the interview. While the effect was meant to be intimidating, I found it rather amusing. The entire `good-cop/bad-cop’ routine was entertainingly predictable. I seemed to throw the `bad-cop’ off a little when I asked for his name, which he gave as Eyal.

I was told that they were now taking me very seriously, that I am no longer an `ordinary activist’, that I had `gone up a couple of steps’, that I had `a large spotlight’ pointed at me, that not every activist gets invited to a shabak `chat’, that up to now I had been toying with the law, but they would no longer allow that. They advised me to `go to the beach for a while’.

The entire process took less than twenty minutes. I was shown out of the police station by a rather nervous-looking `El’ad’. I didn’t head to the beach…

Free Tomato in Jayyous

Dear Friends,
Last month Jayyous farmers let their crop of lemons rot, for the last three weeks the tomato harvest is laying unpicked. Today most of farmers in Jayyous announced to people “go and get tomato form the green houses for free”.

The reason for the farmers’ strange behaviour?

In Jayyous there are around 80 green houses and 400 dunum of open crops, and most of them are cultivated with tomato. The average annual product of green house is 30,000kg (30 tons). The farmers could sell one box of tomatoes or 15kg for 30 cents in the local market. While the cost of growing one box of tomatoes is $3.5!

No traders can come from the main cities to collect the harvest from the area behind the wall due to lack of permits. There is no possibility to send any produce to the Israeli market.

In addition to that, yesterday the bulldozers started cutting the olive trees adjacent to the eastern side of the wall close to gate 24.

All the best,
Abdul Latif