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.
26th June 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
As anywhere all over the world, Palestinian Muslims are celebrating the end of the fasting-month Ramadan with the 3-day feast of Eid. Eid usually is a joyous occasion, everyone dresses up nicely and the most important activity is visiting family. For Palestinians under Israeli military occupation though, it is a little more difficult. Countless daily movement-restrictions, navigating the maze of permanent and sudden, so-called ‘flying’ checkpoints is just one part of the methods of slow ethnic cleansing enforced on the Palestinian civilian population by the Israeli forces.
In the Tel Rumeida and Shuhada Street area in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron), receiving visits from family must sound something like a distant dream. A dream that will never come true. Since the area was declared a ‘closed military zone’ by Israeli forces in November 2015, any Palestinian that is not registered at the checkpoint, is not allowed to come into the area. The residents have been assigned numbers that are used to identify by the Israeli forces whether or not they are (theoretically) allowed to pass the checkpoint and reach their homes.
Surprisingly, on the first day of Eid on Sunday, Israeli forces actually allowed family members to cross the checkpoint and visit their family-members imprisoned in this ‘closed military zone’. Whereas the joy about the unexpected visits has been enormous – it is dimmed by knowing that this will be the only visit for at least a year. The unexpected visitors though, had to report of long queues, they had to give the name and the sure-name of the registered residents they are visiting at the checkpoint, and very strict ‘checks’ at the checkpoint. It has not been announced that any non-residents would be allowed to pass, instead of turned back just like it happens so often. Many that didn’t know, didn’t try.
Long queues outside Shuhada checkpoint on Eid
For Palestinians who had their lives incarcerated in this ‘closed military zone’, even the joy of suddenly and finally having family come for a visit, is still always strictly linked to the knowledge that the Israeli forces restrictions are only meant to drive them out of the area, to make life so hard and unbearable for them, that they would just use. It’s always connected to the simple fact that their fault is simply: being Palestinian.
ISM met with the founder of al-Khalil’s largest women’s cooperative to discuss business, the occupation and women’s empowerment.
Idhna is a small town to the west of al-Khalil, located less than a kilometre from the separation wall that divides Israelis from Palestinians. It is also home to the main workshop of Women in Hebron, a women’s cooperative which provides an independent source of income to 150 women in nearby villages.
The workshop is a simple four-room ground-floor apartment, with traditional weaving machines as well as modern sowing machines. The walls are lined with examples of the women’s work; patterned rugs and delicately designed dresses sit alongside hand-made wallets and pillowcases. There is even a room just for children’s clothing, which includes a crèche for the women’s children to sleep in as they work.
Nawaal is the founder of the cooperative, a middle-aged Palestinian woman from the area. Her gentle voice belies an energetic and determined temperament. Not content with her role in helping to coordinate the women’s work, Nawaal takes it upon herself to travel Europe and east Asia in order to spread awareness of the occupation, and to find a market for the women’s products.
Tourism in Palestine declined sharply after the Second Intifada ended in 2005. The construction of the apartheid wall discouraged both domestic and international tourism, and those that do continue to visit are more likely to come on short day-trips, giving little to the local economy.
The decline in tourism is just one part of the economic sabotage Palestinians have been subject to by the occupying power. Roadblocks and checkpoints impede freedom of movement, while settlers vandalise Palestinian farms and the Israeli government deliberately restricts access to basic services like water.
It was in this context that Nawaal chose to set up Women in Hebron to provide an independent source of income to local women, most of whom would not be able to find employment otherwise. ‘They don’t have university degrees, but all the women in the villages know embroidery – it’s traditional here’, she explains. It took three years until other women began to join, but now there are over 150 women producing items for their store in central Hebron.
Working in a cooperative rather than a traditional business allows the women to retain the full product of their labour. By contrast, many factories in the West Bank are owned by Israelis, with workers sacrificing a significant portion of their work to the profits of the, usually male, owner or shareholders. These profits are then sucked out of the Palestinian economy, contributing to a state of neo-colonial dependence which would threaten even an independent Palestinian state.
While the cooperative only employs 150 women so far, it has a significance far beyond the villages of the al-Khalil area. By integrating women who would otherwise remain unemployed into the labour market, the cooperative helps to liberate them from financial dependence within the family. By giving these women full ownership of their product, the cooperative helps to liberate them from financial dependence on factory-owners, who might hire or fire them at a whim. By dividing profits amongst the workforce, the cooperative keeps the money in the Palestinian economy, helping to build a viable Palestinian economy that serves as much more than a source of cheap labour for Israeli factory-owners and a market for Israeli products.
Nawaal recognises this wider importance of the cooperative, and has been in contact with feminist and socialist organisations in Europe. Though she is grateful for the steadfast support of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, she is hoping to find broader support among the European left. Nawaal plans to speak at Feminism in London this October, and is considering a visit to the Durham Miners’ Gala in July.
She hopes that bringing along Palestinian children to speak alongside her will help awaken her European audience to the reality of growing up under occupation. Women in Hebron’s main store is in al-Khalil’s Old City, run by Nawaal’s friend Leila. Even at the best of times, al-Khalil is not an easy place to grow up.
Israeli forces watch as two Palestinian children herd goats outside the Ibrahimi mosque
The city is home to 300-500 settlers, who are protected by 1,200-2,000 soldiers and border police at any one time. Twelve checkpoints dotted throughout the city put children in daily contact with soldiers, while routine armed patrols and frequent raids and manhunts see them frequently harassed, beaten and detained. The settlers are no better, with Palestinians suffering harassment, intimidation and sometimes violence. A local settler who murdered 29 Palestinian worshippers, including children, in 1994 is buried in the town, and his grave is still visited by settlers who consider him a martyr. The former leader of the fascist Kach party, which supported the massacre, is a local resident.
Unlike other cooperatives, Women in Hebron do not receive sponsorship from the Palestinian Authority, as they are based in the villages rather than the city. Nawaal is not concerned about this, however, and says that the women are proud of their independence.
Israeli soldiers interrogate a young Palestinian boy in al-Khalil
What is more of a concern to her is local corruption. Tour guides, including both locals and Europeans, have been demanding a 30% tribute from vendors in the Old City, with the threat that they will keep tourists away from shops that do not pay the fee. Nawaal says that the pressure from this form of corruption is causing great financial troubles for the cooperative.
The combination of financial pressure and the need to spread awareness of Palestinian experiences of occupation and methods of resistance have led to Nawaal’s decision to tour the UK this summer. If she can get a visa, she hopes that her visit can bring some much needed outside support to al-Khalil’s largest women’s cooperative.
You can visit Women in Hebron in al-Khalil’s Old City, or online at https://womeninhebron.com/
4th April 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
Shuhada checkpoint gate. To the left, the closed-off room through which one must deal with Israeli forces behind a bullet-proof screen before being allowed – or denied – passage.
Earlier this month, an international woman was ordered to ‘take off her clothes’ after setting off the alarm whilst passing the metal detector at Shuhada checkpoint, occupied al-Khalil (Hebron). This is a personal journal of the events.
Humiliation, harassment, intimidation – a daily occurance for anyone required by the Israeli occupying forces to pass through Shuhada checkpoint to reach their home. This is how the Israeli occupation makes it’s presence felt and enforces its inhumanity, and it rarely comes as a surprise anymore. Still, when the metal detector alarm sounds and the soldier nonchalantly tells a woman to ‘take off her clothes’, she’s is taken aback: Who gave them the right to even ask something like that? Do they not have the tiniest bit of decency? Do they think that their automatic weapons – ready to shoot at any time – give them the right to make such a request?
Inside the checkpoint – in a room closed to outside observation – heavily armed, stern-faced young soldiers ask a woman to undress. It is painfully apparent that this is not simply a bad joke. The small room begins to feel as though it’s getting smaller and smaller as more soldiers begin to enter from outside and gather behind the bullet-proof glass. With all their buddies present for this show of power and superiority, one of them claims that it’s just for “security” – to ask a person to remove their clothing in plain view of heavily-armed soldiers. It’s “just about security” when they tell you that, if you’re not willing to take off your clothes, you’re hiding a gun – all the while firmly gripping theirs.
How dare a woman have the audacity not to immediately follow an occupying soldiers’ orders? To even dare to call out their lack of decency? But occupation has never heard of human dignity. To the eyes of the occupation, having a number male soldiers and surveillance cameras watch at arms length whilst a female soldier commands a woman to get undressed in a checkpoint just another part of the routine treatment of the occupied population. Just another case of a heavily-armed Israeli soldier ordering someone to do as he wishes as a show of power: a power bestowed upon him by a machine-gun and the knowledge of the unfaltering support and impunity – both social and military – behind his actions.
When it is finally discovered to be the woman’s boots setting off the alarm (a daily and usually unproblematic occurance) and noone cares to check the boots nor the woman’s bag, it is clear that the objective here is not security but humiliation. But this is how the Israeli occupation operates: by inflicting the most humiliation possible on the occupied population to break its spirit. Humiliation, humiliation, humalition. Day in and day out.
Tucked within the antiquated corridors of the municipality of Bethlehem, there lies Aida Camp, established 1950. The densely populated cement structures, thinly outlined by narrow passageways, are a living summation of the occupation of Palestine itself.
Scraping elbows with the massive checkpoint pathway between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, hedged by the West Bank apartheid separation wall and situated nearby two large illegal Israeli settlement blocs, Aida camp sits on the front lines of the Palestinian struggle to exist in the grim face of an ethnic cleansing.
For the internally displaced residents of the camp, a predominant feature of life inside Aida is the near daily child arrests that occur. This specter links arms with prolific doses of teargas that are hurled by occupation forces over the wall, drugs being smuggled inside, staggering unemployment rates and regular military incursions.
Conflating the elements of imposed unrest in the camp, Aida has been termed a ‘gateway’ for drugs being that it is located in the space yawning from the physical intersection of occupied and occupier. Resident’s note a common scenario that unfolds in the camp. “The soldiers raid the camp and everyone goes running to hide. The outside drug dealers come once the soldiers scare everyone away and hide the drugs in the cemetery and then the local drug dealers retrieve the drugs and deal them inside the camp.”
From his office in the vibrant center of the non-profit Alrowwad, an “independent, dynamic, community-based” bastion of culture and empowerment in Aida, Dr. Adbelfattah Abusrour, Alrowwad’s founder, poetically unfolds the organization’s vision for the people of Aida camp. “We believe it is important to introduce creative elements for the children. Games, theater, photography, painting. I call this beautiful resistance. Children should have access to this experience.”
In the face of overpopulation and occupation, camp resident Dr. Abdelfattah knows the emotional pipeline that Aida’s youth faces, “Aida is a hotspot because it is so near the border. They want us to be silent on every level. They target the young to be collaborators. The high unemployment rates lead to despair. And when children feel despair, they feel unsafe. At that point, the best thing is to want to die.”
But with Alrowwad injecting an intoxicating blend of art and fire into daily camp existence, the trajectory manifests, colorfully so, “We want children to express themselves in the most beautiful ways. To want to live for Palestine. Not to die for Palestine. The issue is that people cannot tolerate injustice for eternity. It varies, our tolerance for injustice. For me, I can make a play or a painting, for someone else, he will blow himself up.”
“Home of Hope, Dream, Imagination and Creativity”
The Alrowwad center features a bright classroom area stocked with books on arts and history of various countries and cultures, a radio station, theater and more. With an arts unit, media center, women’s program and environmentally centered project, Alrowwad leaves no creative stone un-turned. They have taken their programs on international tour to share the beauty of their creations, as well as to “show the children what life in a free country is like.” However, the occupation, insecure with the world gaining view of expressive, dignified Palestinian life, has harassed and even gotten their international shows cancelled, “The Zionists have contacted our venues around the world and told them that we are terrorists and they need to shut down the show, and sometimes they have.” But Alrowwad presses on.
On this warm afternoon, children crowd around computer monitors while teachers and volunteers sweep busily through the room, guiding and interacting, a conference of cheerful sounds. Juxtapose this scene with the tragic display just over one year ago when 13-year-old Palestinian youth Abed al-Rahman Shadi Obeidallah, was shot in the chest by Israeli forces, “by mistake” as he made his way to his home in the camp after school. Abed’s murderer was held to no accountability.
Dr. Abdelfattah’s mission is to create safe, expressive spaces for the Palestinian youth of the camp, to abolish the pipeline and create a life not prescribed from the miseries of injustice. “The international community doesn’t care about our politics. Nothing is fine being reduced to a humanitarian cause, a political cause. This is more humiliating than occupation itself. And it’s challenging to change that. Arts and culture are not a priority. But this is what are pure bridges between us as human beings. It’s what brings us closer rather than marginalizes us.”
Through daily military incursions and the arresting theft of Aida’s children, the beautiful resistance that Alrowwad conjures and enforces is the importance of education as a weapon against oppression. But an education that is rewritten from traditional norms, “Education has always been based on dictation and memorization. It is up to the teacher to bring out the student’s excellence. We don’t want to be these gods of knowledge. We teach them to have fun. The essence of this is to give these possibilities and build the human before building the knowledge.”
With a nearby, illegal separation wall force-instilling a sense of otherness, along with the grinding oppression and onslaught against Palestinian tradition, life and identity itself, it is the beautiful resistance of Dr. Abdelfattah and the Alrowwad organization that is painting, for Aida’s youth, a dynamic and electrifying way forth.
Actually, personally, my family and I are well, Alhamdililah! But I can feel the intensified fire under our feet.
I know the feeling. And I know the explosion that comes after it.
This week alone the Israeli apartheid government has escalated its actions, bombing Gaza daily while tightening the already lethal siege around it, announcing that the PLO fund that provides support for families of Palestinian martyrs is illegal, while killing more young boys and men, escalating land theft through settlement construction and land confiscation, and promoting a law that will regulate that theft, announcing that colonial settlers will invade al Aqsa under armed guard during Ramadan while making the call to prayer from mosques illegal … The ground under our feet is burning.
I have felt this before. And I can only conclude that those in charge of the apartheid authorities know what they are doing. I have seen them do it before. They must know the Palestinian people will not just decide to roll over and die quietly. They must want a violent reaction in response to these actions, and I have no doubt that they will get one. Young people with no hope of being allowed to live with their dignity intact and with nothing to lose will sacrifice their lives in the hope that this situation will change for others.
And the apartheid authorities will then respond by doing what they do best: a torrent of death and destruction that they can then display at the international arms trade exhibitions, with clinically proven, effective weapons, tested live in the modern battlefield of urban warfare, on a besieged and imprisoned population. They will show your military and police force, “We got them where it hurts, we destroyed essential public infrastructure and killed x people in x days and, the best part is, we got away with it. If we can do it, you can do it too. All you need is a smart system of security cameras and a fleet of killer drones. All for the discount price of …” and your countries are literally buying this.
Now tell me again why BDS makes you uncomfortable?
