Category: Journals - Page 97 - International Solidarity Movement

Final Thoughts on Four Days in Palestine

by: -bat.

I know a number of people have started reading my journal in order to read the Palestine stuff. Thank you for reading, and I am flattered by the attention, but you are kind of in the wrong place. I only did three days out there, just visiting, and then came back. I am not (yet) an activist, and somewhere in the back of my head it’s hard not to hear an echo of John Lydon singing “A cheap holiday in other peoples misery”. If you really want to know about life out there, and want to read the journal of a genuine activist, then this is the place you want to be. That is Katie, whom I have talked about here, and whom I own a hell of a lot for inviting me to visit, putting me up and showing me around. She is many things, an artist, a cartoonist, and someone who cares about the situation to the point of ending up living out there. But to me she is also my friend, and I am very glad of that. Go back and read it from the beginning if you can. Another place you should really be reading is here which is Jonas’ journal and provides frequent updates on incidents out there.

So, if you came here to read about Palestine then time to de-friend me, as it’s back to my usual life now. But, for what it’s worth, here are a final few thoughts, and the answers to a few questions people have asked me.

Where is this all going to end?

This is a question I asked a lot of people when I was out there. Most of the time the answers I got were simply that they had no idea what would happen next and where things would end. I did get the occasional positive outlook, along the lines of what Rich said in his comment a few posts ago:

“One day maybe, there will be a nice small hotel or some self-catering apartments in Bil’in, and they will be able to take people to show them ‘where there used to be a wall’.”

Yes, maybe there will, but there’s another answer I got to the question, which looks far more plausible right now:

Palestine will be wiped out.

Melodramatic? Unfortunately it’s all too easy to see how this could happen. The west bank is already divided up into small chunks by a network of roads, settlements and checkpoints. There are areas where the Palestinians have been given autonomy, and areas where Israel is tightening it’s grip. Look at the depopulation in Tel Rumeida, and imagine that taking place everywhere that it is intolerable for the people to live. Already there are more Palestinians living abroad than there are in Palestine itself, and those that remain may be squeezed into smaller and smaller self-governing disconnected areas. “Like Indian reservations in the USA” as one person put it to me. Until eventually there is no such place as “Palestine” in any meaningful way, just a few scattered overpopulated pockets of people who once were identified as Palestinian.

What good do the internationals do?

This is one I get asked a lot – what’s the point of what the ISM does, and is there any real positive effect on the situation. To which the answer is a definite “yes”. The internationals observe and record, and report on human rights violations. A concrete example of this came during the weekend I was out there – video tape shot of soldiers using civilians as a human shield was distributed to the press, and the Israeli commander responsible was suspended. Just by having the people there makes it less likely that these incidents will occur too – it helps that someone is watching. I have also been told that the presence of internationals makes the Israeli’s less likely to use live ammunition. If you thought Bil’in was bad then imagine how it might have been had there been no TV crews, and no foreign nationals there. How restrained are troops who are happy to fire rubber bullets at children even with us present likely to be if there are only the local Palestinians present?

Sometimes, even the most unlikely of things can be helpful too. If you thought that the circus skills that so many of us seem to pick up on our way through university were pointless, then I suggest you go and read about Katie and Jonas’ checkpoint performances. Non-violent protest personified.

Ultimately the presence of the internationals is not going to bring an end to the conflict, but it helps make the lives of the people under the occupation better, and acts as a curb on some of the abuses being carried out. One person with a video camera in the right place at the right time can make a difference.

Passing through … or getting involved

I hope I haven’t given the impression over the last few sets of postings that it is difficult to go and visit Palestine. If you want to see it for yourself and are in the area then it is very easy. If you find yourself in the area then I would encourage anyone to go and do it. You don’t have to be political – go and see the tourist sights if you wish, and spend some money with the locals whilst you are out there. God knows the local economy needs it. I freely admit that I have an agenda here though – I think if people go and visit for themselves, even if they intend to avoid the political situation, then rubbing up against the reality of the occupation is going to change the way you think about the place. So if you have been diving in the Red Sea, or going on a visit to Petra or simply just happen to find yourself in Jerusalem, why not take a day or so and go take a visit to Jericho, Bethlehem, Hebron maybe? Names to conjure with, and I guarantee you will not be disappointed – and maybe you will come back with more than just a set of holiday snaps, maybe you will come back with an urge to actually go and do something about it.

If you already have the urge to go and try and help, as I know a number of you have, then get in touch with ISM. There is a London branch, and they can be found here. This year is the 40th anniversary of the occupation, and every warm body helps. All the information is up there, so I won’t repeat it here. If you want to actually do some good, then this is one way that you can.

And me?

It’s four weeks in my past now, and sometimes it feels somewhat unreal as I tell people about it. But if I go back and look at that first picture from Bil’in, there I am, in the middle of the crowd, marching with the rest of them (and almost none of you noticed that, did you?). Yes, it was real, all of it – the good bits and the awful bits. It’s a place which manages to simultaneously re-affirm your faith in human nature at the same time as it undermines it. I don’t think any other three days have had such a big effect on me – and you can probably tell that from the amount I have written about it.

Am I going back? Of course I am. Sometime later this year I am going to go out there for a lot longer, and actually get involved in what is going on rather than simply observing over a weekend. I only spent a fleeting time out there, which doesn’t do anyone any good, and I want to go out and do something to actually help. There is also a lot of other stuff I need to see as well.

As to these write-ups – I hope they have been useful to someone, mainly because the people reading it know me, and thus will have more faith in what I am saying than they might do in a media report. There are also so many news stories, and so many eyewitness accounts, that it all starts to wash over you. Which is why I made a conscious decision not to include 3rd party stories in what I wrote by and large (and I heard a number of them). This is the way I saw it, first person. If you know me then trust it because of that.

When I tell things which I have done or have happened to me, they usually have punchlines or funny conclusions somewhere. This obviously doesn’t. But it needs an ending, and having written the section above on what might happen in the future right now I am depressed as hell, so this is the one which springs to mind most readily. From 1984:

“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”

Don’t let it happen.
Free Palestine.

War Games in Beit Leed

Israeli military using Palestinian population for war games scenario
by Malaka 2, 10 May 2007

Beit Leed is a Palestinian village located between the cities of Nablus and Tulkarm. It is a village completely isolated. Whether you are coming from Nablus or Tulkarm, one must cross through a checkpoint, littered with young Israeli soldiers, metal detectors, cages, turnstiles, and lines of people just waiting and waiting and waiting for the Israeli soldiers to let them cross so they can get to their jobs or to take their exams or visit family members.

What has been happening in Beit Leed almost every Wednesday night for the past three months may be nearly unbelievable for many minds of the readers of this entry.

Imagine this: You live in Pennsylvania. Canada comes into your state and sets up these military installations throughout your state. These installations come in the forms of 25 foot high walls, trenches, fences, sniper towers. Then you have checkpoints, armed with Canadian soldiers. Many of them do not speak English but they speak French. And you have to explain to these Canadian soldiers why you want to cross from your Pennsylvanian neighborhood to the next Pennsylvanian neighborhood where your sick Pennsylvanian grandmother lives. Pennsylvania is hot in the summertime. You are caged in with hundreds of other Pennsylvanians, waiting in queue until it is your turn to explain yourself to the Canadian occupiers of your neighborhood. “No Smoking” signs are scattered throughout the cage in which you are waiting. Nerves are up. It’s hot. Soldiers are laughing in an air-conditioned booth and your physics test is already half over because you have been stuck like an animal in this fenced in area.

Now, imagine this as Palestine. This is the Huwara checkpoint leading into the main part of Nablus. Then you reach another one before the village of Beit Leed.

On these Wednesday nights, the Israeli military uses the village and villagers of Beit Leed to practice a war-games scenario. The army has chosen Beit Leed because it resembles Syria or Lebanon. This their practice ground so they don’t have another failed war like last summer’s.

This is what the mayor of Beit Leed had to tell us:

Mayor of Beit Leed

“In our town here in Beit Leed, people live peacefully. Most of the residents here are farmers or workers. They go to bed early because they have to get up early. You go to bed as a father and you wake up early from the screams and the yelling of the soldiers around your house and they scream really loud. They sound like animals and then your kids wake up. And you know that, as a father, you can’t protect your child, you try to comfort your child but you know that you aren’t even secure yourself. So, what do you expect from a child that grows up in this situation and wakes up every night to invasions and gunfire and soldiers going through our homes.”

“And also, I am not against anybody. I am not against Jews or Christians. But I want to ask a question to the western societies… Why is it that when I go to the mosque to pray, I am a terrorist? But when a Jew or a Christian goes to a synagogue or church they are called religious? Why is it that if I grow a beard I am called Hamas but some of you here have beards and you are not called this?”

“I respect all religions. Jews they have their own and I have my own. All these three religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, they all have the same God.”

“Why does the army came here at night to our town? Why do they come to our homes and at night? I believe that in Israel they have open wide areas where they can practice their training. So why do they come here and why at night if they are not here to terrorize people and make people get scared? Why don’t they do it inside Israel or somewhere else but not in a big population of Palestinian people?”

“The fear of the soldiers invading our homes in our town- of them being inside of your home, that at anytime they can come inside your home makes you very scared.”

“The number of traumatized children has increased recently. Usually they wake up at night from nightmares, especially from the recent military training. Also, in the morning, kids prefer to stay at home instead of going to school because they are scared of going outdoors and facing the soldiers. You can imagine that that’s for the kids- but for the old people, like myself, when I want to go to the mosque to pray, I prefer to do it at home. Or to go to work, i prefer to stay here because I am afraid. Imagine if this is how an old person feels, how these little children are feeling.”

“For the Palestinian child, the Israeli soldier is a nightmare to them. And if Israeli really wanted peace, and it is clear that they do not want this, they should at least want to give these young Palestinian a good image about Israel because our children only know these soldiers with a gun and in their nightmares. So, when they grow up, this is the only image they will have of the Israelis in Israel.”

Abandoned Palestinian home that army uses for training

“This training has been going on for almost three months. The army drops the soldiers by helicopters on the top of the hill. And early in the morning around 2 or 3am they invade the village. Of course, the army doesn’t announce anything. They do this because they want the psychological effect to be higher on people, for the Palestinians to be surprised by the army’s presence.”

“We tried to contact some legal organizations. We contacted human rights organizations inside Israel, contacted the Israeli media. There have been some reports on what is happening in our town. But our resources are no many. And the Israeli is above the law. They do not use the law in their invasions. And of course, if they were using the law, they wouldn’t be here. But according to international law it is illegal yet they still come.”

“In response to these reports that have been published about Beit Leed, a military commander has said, ‘The Israeli army has the right to come to the West bank and to trainings in Palestinians towns and villages.'”

. . .

So, with this in mind, with cameras in hand, with fluorescent jackets on our backs, we set out into Beit Leed around midnight to catch this breach of international law on tape.

The winds were strong and it was humid. Some rain arrived and with it went the street lights. Absent from the streets (starting at 10pm) were Palestinians, except for two guides and curious residents who questioned us about why we were there and to tell us their personal stories.

Maybe it was because the army knew we were there. Or maybe it was because the electricity was out and the weather was temper-mental. But the army did not arrive. We headed back to the home where we were staying around 4:30am, tired but ready in case we heard those US-funded jeeps come rolling through the village.

We found out the next day that a small Israeli army regiment actually invaded a nearby Palestinian village near the illegal Israeli settlement of Kedumim.

Regardless, at least Beit Leed had a better night sleep Wednesday night. But just like the army, we’ll be back. They’ll have the war games/state-sponsored terror practice book. We’ll have our cameras and our journals.

And you’ll all be sleeping comfortably. There is not Canadian Occupation. No checkpoints before arriving to work at the hospital. No 18 year old soldiers rummaging through your briefcase before reaching your second grade class where you teach social studies. No walls of Apartheid separating you from your favorite coffee shop across the way.

The road back to Ramallah

by: -bat.

Katie and I head out of Hebron in a service taxi, one of the large ones this time, and retrace the route I had taken the night before. It had been dark when I arrived, but now it is daylight, and I have someone to explain what’s going on beside the road as we travel. In daylight she points out to me just how many destroyed orchards we pass beside the road. Either side are fields containing the stumps of what had once been olive trees. I don’t know if they have also been burnt, but they look blackened to me as well. We are not talking about just a few rows close to the road where people could hide either – whole fields have been obliterated, and presumably the livelihood of the farmer along with it.

But where some things are being wiped out, there are also new things springing up. We pass a ramshackle group of mobile homes and temporary buildings on a hillside, surrounded by a high fence. This is how some settlements begin – as illegal outposts. That’s “illegal” in the sense of “under Israeli law” of course – all settlements are illegal under international law. But people can come out here, set up temporary buildings, arm themselves, and form a settlement. Eventually they become enough of a headache that the Israeli government legitimizes them, and a new official settlement is born. We pass other temporary structures on the way as well – very rough shanty town type constructions of corrugated iron and cloth, with animals running about amongst the people. I had seen these on the way down but not known what they were. Katie now explains that they are what has become of the local Bedouin. These people are traditionally nomadic, but with the restrictions of the occupation this is an impossible way of life. But Israel does not permit them to erect any permanent structures. So they build these tiny shanty towns, which then get periodically demolished by the army, leaving them homeless once more. To my eyes this looks like the worst living conditions of anyone in the west bank that I have seen so far.

Checkpointing

The journey grinds to a halt as we wind up the side of the valley which leads up to a checkpoint at the summit. A queue of stationary traffic stretches ahead of this. If you are going to get detained at any checkpoint then this is the best one. Not because of any different treatment you will get at the hands of the soldiers, but simply because the setting means that it has excellent views out across the valley. Might as well have something nice to look at whilst being held and interrogated, right?

Initially the service taxi sits stationary in the queue, and for a while we take the opportunity to get out and stretch our legs by taking a walk in the sunshine. Eventually though our driver gets exasperated with the wait, and decided to take matters into his own hands by breaking out of the queue, tearing up the nearside edge of the road and pushing in again right at the top where the soldiers are searching the vehicles. Surprisingly this doesn’t seem to bother anyone, not even the Israelis. If I was them and a vehicle broke out of the queue half a mile down the road and sped towards the checkpoint then I would be very alarmed, but this does not seem to phase them.

The soldiers finish searching the car in front and turn their attention to our van. They ask for papers from everyone. At the time time I did not really realize what was happening – I assumed the checks were to search people on their journeys to look for weapons and the like. What I did not realize is that Israel has divided the west bank into small fragments and does not permit movement between them without an appropriate travel permit. This is what was being checked here, and as Katie and I are obviously not Palestinian then we have to hand over our passports – her’s US, mine UK. It’s a tense moment – Katie has some passport problems and we have to hope the soldier does not realize. Luckily he takes far more of an interest in me.

“Where are you going ?” he asks

“Ramallah” I tell him.

“And what are you going to do when you get to Ramallah ?”

Erp! I wasn’t expecting that as the next question. I was busy thinking of a reply to “what are you doing here?” instead. I am completely unprepared and so I do precisely what I am always being told not to do in these situations. I open my mouth and tell him the absolute literal truth.

“I’m going to sit down and have a cup of tea.”

Just for once, it happens to be the right thing to say. The soldier stares at me, looks down at the visa in my passport, and hands both of them back without checking Katie’s. The service taxi lurches into life, and with a great sense of relief the checkpoint disappears into the distance.

Attending a wedding

If you has asked me what I thought I might find in Palestine before I went then I would have given you several answers; Arabs, settlers, soldiers, police, etc… but one of them would not have been “Anglicans”. Yet, a few hours later I find myself sitting in a church pew with Katie awaiting the arrival of a bride. It’s a pretty traditional pew, in a pretty traditionally decorated building. We have stained glass, flowers, a priest, an organ with the usual somewhat variable organist, and a congregation which could have been plucked from somewhere in the home counties. Had I taken a photo you would have been hard pressed to identify it as not being a modern church somewhere in Sussex.

It’s very hard to describe what it is like to watch what I would normally have referred to as ‘an English wedding service” being conducted by Palestinians, almost entirely in Arabic, including the hymn singing to organ tunes I know so well from school. I am English, and am used to the “decaffinated” version of Christianity we have in this country. I would never describe myself as a Christian – yet I realize that in Palestine I am one, despite my atheism. Belief doesn’t matter – these are my cultural reference points, this is the framework of my value system, and hence this is the visible social minority to which I belong. I can’t change that, it’s part of me, I just didn’t realize it before. Sometimes you need to see something out of context (or possibly in a better context) to understand things about it.

It’s a beautiful service too. I have a fondness for weddings – I have somehow managed to miss the cynicism regarding them which affects so many of my friends. They make me happy, and especially here, with all the misery being inflicted on these people, being able to see a couple doing something unequivocally positive is very welcome. I sincerely hope they carve out a happy life together.

Shopping in a five star prison

After the ceremony Katie has to go home and work – she draws political cartoons for a Palestinian newspaper – so I spend the rest of the afternoon with Katie’s friend Neta and her children. We go shopping for books, and then sweets for the children. Neta is great company, and an engaging person to talk to as she is the first actual Israeli I have met living in the west bank. She tells me how she grew up in Israel and met her future husband through a programme to try and get Israelis and Palestinians to mix face to face to encourage understanding and trust. In her case it worked rather better than expected as she now lives in Palestine with her husband and children.

It’s also the only chance I have to hear even a small part of the Israeli side of the story first hand. She talks to me about how growing up in Israel she was conditioned to be scared of the Arabs, to believe that they all wanted to attack and kill any Israeli, and that it took years for her to get over it, even after marrying a Palestinian and moving to the occupied territories. I have heard this from other people, but never directly from someone who grew up there. I tell her about what I’ve seen and we talk about the checkpoints, the occupation and the wall – how it seems to be an attempt to turn a whole country into a prison.

“Yes” she says, “Ramallah is nice, but it is a five star prison. Hebron is maybe a three star prison, and Gaza is a one star prison. But they are all prisons”.

I look around me, at the people bustling in and out of the cafes and shops. She is right of course. Life here may look OKish but without a permit to enter east Jerusalem they cannot cross through Qalandia to go into the city, and they certainly cannot go to the airport and leave the country. All require permits, and permits are virtually impossible to get without a very good reason. But I am not in prison, I can go and wave my UK passport like a magic card and pass through checkpoints with relative ease. Most importantly, I can get out of here any time I like.

The boys from the Mersea and the Thames and the Tyne

Eventually we tire of shopping and Neta and I go to an upstairs restaurant for some tea, where we bump into a number of other friends of hers who are also guests at the wedding. She knows a lot of people it seems. I feel somewhat foolish in retrospect actually – at the time I just assumed she was some friend of Katie’s, but upon coming back I have realized that she is actually one of the founders of the ISM, a high profile figure in Palestinian activism and also someone I have read numerous articles by on the internet when reading about Palestine before I went. Doh! Maybe, though, it’s better to meet someone that way, not knowing anything about them and just taking them as they are. To me she was just a really nice person whom I got to spend an afternoon and evening with.

So I sit there, and chat to the others round the table, including one person working with a human rights organization. One thing which I have skipped over in writing these accounts is the conversations I had with other activists I met out there. Katie once wrote in her journal that NGO’s in Palestine are like scenester bands in San Fransisco, and I now realize what she means. I had only really heard of ISM before I went, but in actuality there seem to be innumerable small organizations working out there and the first question you get asked is “which organization are you with?”. Trying to explain that I wasn’t “with” anyone per-se, I just happened to be out there visiting a friend for the weekend seemed to somewhat perplex people. They always seemed happier when I explained that my friend was with ISM, as if I didn’t quite make sense unless I could be attached to an NGO of some kind.

The west bank appears to be stuffed with internationals – including a sizable contingent of brits, to the extent that on two separate occasions I met someone who recognized me from back home. Small world. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some are what you might expect them to be, young, idealistic, and enthusiastic, whereas others are he opposite, retired older people doing something they see as a good thing, with determination. All the people I had met up to this point had one thing in common though – they were volunteers. Which was why I was very interested to meet someone who was a career human rights worker for the first time, and who had worked doing the same job in other parts of the world. We talk for a while, until she says, almost as a throwaway comment when discussing something else “Yes, but I am not out here for ‘The Cause’ or anything”.

Now there’s something to stop and think about. Because, despite my statements about visiting a friend, I am also most definitely out there for The Cause, as have been all the other volunteers I have met. I try not to see anything in black and white, but despite all the shades of gray I know who’s side I am on in the overall situation. It’s so obvious to me that what’s being done is wrong that it is hard to imagine anyone seeing it and maintaining a neutral point of view. At the time it irked me a little, but now I can see a bigger picture. There are a lot of trouble spots in the world, and a lot of people suffering. If you want to go in and try and alleviate that in all those places then you can’t afford to get involved in the politics, and you can’t chose sides. It’s not about a neutral point of view, it’s about maintaining a detachment which enables you to do the work, and then get up one day and move to Sudan to do whatever is necessary there. Concentrate on the people, ignore the overall battle.

I have a lot of respect for that, because it is not something I am capable of.

Dancing and singing

Inevitably of course I end up at the wedding reception. At this point I am starting to feel a bit self conscious. I am not really dressed for a wedding; the only footwear I have is my paraclogs, and due to the lack of my luggage I have been wearing the same clothes for rather too long and have four days worth of stubble. I look like something the cat dragged in, and gatecrashing has never really been something I was comfortable with anyway. But my new found friends insist that nobody will mind, and that I look just fine.

Hence I find myself lining up with everyone else in smart shirts to shake hands with the happy couple and their relatives in the wedding line and thence to the hall where places are set with food and refreshments. Unlike an English reception everyone starts dancing immediately. I decide to remain diplomatically seated and inconspicuous. This lasts precisely as long as it takes Neta to arrive. She’s having none of my wallflower act and immediately drags me onto the dancefloor with all the rest. So I try and copy everyone else and shimmy away clicking my fingers over my head. I hope I didn’t do too badly.

In actual fact it is great fun – an awful lot more fun than a number of weddings I have been to back home. People are friendly and enthusiastic about enjoying themselves. The cake arrives and is cut with a sword whilst tow roman candles of the kind you would have outdoors in this county do their best to shower everyone with sparks a few feet from the bride and groom. The DJ relays telephone messages from absent relatives to the room, and there is a very surreal moment where the local music is replaced with some English music, presumably for the benefit of some of the guests on the grooms side, and everyone sings along to “I will survive” followed by “YMCA”. Luckily for good taste the soundtrack returns to a more middle eastern beat within a few songs.

We even have alcohol – Taybeh beer, brewed locally in Ramallah and bearing the proud boast that it is “the finest beer in the middle east”. Now I suspect that there isn’t much competition for that accolade, but I sample a bottle and it is indeed good stuff. There is also an extremely potent spirit which I forget the name of but is very similar to ouzo. The food is excellent, and the people I meet are friendly and chatty so that I lose my ‘univited guest’ complex very swiftly.

Eventually the evening winds to an end and I leave to go back to Katie’s sharing a taxi with Neta and her children. If there was ever a day of contrasts then this was it – I went from the still grimness of Tel Rumeida in the morning to the noise and happiness of the party in the evening. The latter was a good antidote for the former, and I am glad I took part in it.

This was my last night in Ramallah. The next day would be my final day in Palestine.

“I pity you for having become murderers”

by Anna Baltzer, 5 May 2007

Five years ago, nine-month-old Mohammed and his grandmother were in their West Bank home when it began to fill with nerve gas from a nearby Israeli Occupation Forces military base. The Army had moved in on a hill near their home in the Skan Abu Absa suburb of Ramallah, and would frequently shoot all over the surrounding area, often retaliating against Palestinian gunfire from a hill away from the suburb. As the gas seeped into his living room, the baby Mohammed began to shake violently before suffering a stroke causing extensive paralysis. His grandmother ran to pick him up and also inhaled the gas, causing an intense burning sensation all over her body. When she realized her grandson had stopped moving, she pleaded with the soldiers outside to open the road out of her town and raced Mohammed to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with severe neurological deterioration resulting in a vegetative state. The Palestinian Ministry of Health and UNRWA conducted extensive tests on Mohammed and his parents to determine with certainty the cause of his condition. After a full genetic investigation, doctors confirmed that Mohammed’s state was neither hereditary nor due to a chromosomal abnormality, but a result of the poisonous gas.

I met Mohammed’s father Sami waiting at a checkpoint near Haris. He’d hesitated to publicize his son’s story for fear of harassment from the Army. He said his family was suffering enough – their personal tragedy only began with the gassing. After Mohammed’s injury, Sami’s father went from being a strong healthy 47-year-old to an emotional and physical wreck, and died one year later from stress and heart problems. Mohammed, now six, continues to suffer from severe neuro-developmental delay, poorly controlled seizure disorder, the loss of sight, and inability to eat normally. He eats via a G-tube (poking directly into his stomach) and is fed a special formula “Pediasure” that is not available in Israel/Palestine, so Sami travels to Jordan every three months to bring the formula and anti-convulsants that Mohammad requires. Each time Sami crosses back to the West Bank, he is forced to pay Israeli customs taxes on the formula, totaling hundreds of dollars a year. This is in addition to countless other expenses: land travel, adult diapers, maintaining his customized bed (to prevent bed sores), medicine, and round-the-clock care. Sami and his wife spend so much money taking care of Mohammed that they lack the remaining funds to take legal action against the Israeli Army for poisoning their son.

Tragic stories of Occupation-induced paralysis are common in the West Bank, so even if Mohammed’s family had the money for a lawsuit there’s little reason to believe it would be remarkable enough to bring the Israeli Army to justice. I recently interviewed Moussa, a young paraplegic who lost the use of his legs five years ago at the age of 19 when the Army shot him in the colon. One Monday in February, Moussa began experiencing severe pain from an infection in his wound, which a Red Crescent doctor warned could become systemic if not treated immediately. The infection risked reaching the bones in Moussa’s back, developing gangrene, and poisoning his blood, but even the best West Bank hospitals had sent him home because they were ill-equipped to treat such a serious condition. On Tuesday, Moussa’s doctor referred him to a hospital in Jordan, and in two days the family renewed Moussa’s passport and obtained a transfer from the Palestinian Ministry of Health to receive treatment in Amman. Then on Thursday, as the family was preparing to leave, Israel refused the sick wheelchair-bound young man permission to leave the West Bank for unspecified “security reasons.” When Moussa’s doctor explained that waiting could mean the difference between life and death, the Israeli DCO invited the family to appeal the decision, but only three days later, after the Jewish Sabbath.

We put Moussa’s family in touch with Physicians for Human Rights, who were successful in getting him to Jordan before his infection could become fatal. But Moussa will still never walk again, nor will my neighbor and friend Issa, who shot by soldiers outside his home in May 2001 as he ushered children in from the streets during an Army invasion. In spite of his handicap, Issa remains committed to working nonviolently against the Occupation. Last time we spoke, he quoted an Arabic saying: “You can’t clap with one hand.” He said Jews, Palestinians, and the world must work together to end injustice and oppression everywhere.

Almost three years ago, Issa wrote an open letter to the two anonymous soldiers who shot and paralyzed him. It was published in Haaretz and elsewhere and I’ve copied it below. It is worth reading:

“I remember you. I remember your confused face when you stood above my head and wouldn’t let people come to my aid. I remember how my voice grew weaker, when I said to you: `Be humane and let my parents help me.’ I keep all those pictures in my head. How I lay on the ground, trying to get up but unable. How I fought my shortness of breath, which was caused by the blood that was collecting in my lungs, and the voice that was weakened because my diaphragm was hurt. I won’t hide from you that despite this, I had pity for them. I felt that I was strong, because I had powers I didn’t know about before.

“That was exactly three years ago. I rushed out of the house in order to distance the village children from the danger of the teargas. They were used to playing their simple games on the dusty streets of the village while the pregnant women watched over them and chatted. I didn’t believe that your weapons contained live bullets or dum-dum bullets, which are prohibited under international law. I was able to protect the children and get them away from your fire, and I don’t regret that.

“I pity you for having become murderers. Since I was a boy, I have hated killing, hated weapons and hated the color red, just as I hate injustice and fight against it. That is how I have understood life since I was a boy, and that, in the same spirit, is what I have taught others. I gave all my strength for the sake of peace and justice and for reducing the suffering that is caused by injustice, whatever its origin. Yes, I pitied you, because you are sick. Sick with hate and loathing, sick with causing injustice, sick with egoism, with the death of the conscience and the allure of power. Recovery and rehabilitation from those illnesses, just as from paralysis, is very long, but possible. I pitied you, I pitied your children and your wives and I ask myself how they can live with you when you are murderers. I pitied you for having shed your humanity and your values and the precepts of your religion and even your military laws, which forbid breaking into homes and beating civilians, because that undermines the soldier’s morale, his strength and his manhood.

“I pitied you for saying that you are the victims of the Nazis of yesterday, and I don’t understand how yesterday’s victim can become today’s criminal. That worries me in connection with today’s victim – my people are those victims – and I am afraid that they too will become tomorrow’s criminals. I pity you for having fallen victim to a culture that understands life as though it is based on killing, destruction, sowing fear and terror, and lording it over others. Despite all that, I believe that there is a chance for atonement and forgiveness and a possibility that you will restore to yourselves something of your lost humanity and morality. You can recover from the illnesses of hatred and the lust for revenge, and if we should meet one day, even in my house, you can be certain that you won’t find me holding an explosive belt or concealing a knife in my pocket or in the wheels of my chair. But you will find someone who will help you get back what you lost.

“You will find a soft and delicate infant here, whose age is the same as the second in which you pulled the trigger and who will never see his father standing on his feet but who is full of pride and power, even if he has to push his father’s chair, having no other choice. Even though I have reasons to hate you, I don’t feel that way and I have no regrets.”

Issa is Arabic for Jesus, who is also revered as a prophet in the Muslim faith. Some would say it’s a suitable name for a man who believes in responding to injustice with passionate nonviolence and forgiveness. Mohammed and Moussa (which means Moses, also a prophet in Islam) never wrote a letter like Issa’s, but they and their families welcomed me, a Jewish American, into their homes with gentle kindness and openness. Struggling for peace and survival in spite of great personal tragedies, the three prophets’ namesakes and their families, like so many Palestinians paralyzed physically (as well as emotionally, spiritually, and economically) by the Occupation, are some of the true – albeit often forgotten – heroes of Palestine.

Denial of Dignity, Denial of Entry

Eccerpts from by Nadia’s journal 3 May 2007

What happened to me yesterday is something I couldn’t imagine possible, not because I didn’t think I could be refused entrance into Israel. There always was a possibility I would be interrogated, but not in the way they did.

I landed in Tel Aviv at 7 am, and handed my passport over to passport control. After less than 2 minutes, three men came up saying they were waiting for my arrival. They took me plus all my stuff to a big room, where more than 20 people started checking every single thing. First, they took my mobile and wrote down every phone number and name that was in it, checked my SMS, plus the latest calls I had made and received, then checked pictures on my camera.

After that, they checked my body, my clothes, my hair, and my ears, even my nails.

One guy introduced himself as Sami (i don’t remember the last name). “I am Sami, from the Ministry of Defense. I have been waiting a few days for your arrival, I will work on you today, and we will put everything on the table. I will be hard on you, because I am not a nice person. I am mean, which is why they chose me for you. You are a special person, Nadia, and you will get the toughest security system we have. If you collaborate with us we will help you”.

Sami took me to a room very far from the main center of the airport. The office has the logo of Ministry of Defense. One woman was with us all the time (according to him, it was to make me feel more comfortable. He told me “I know Arabs girls don’t want be alone with a man. We respect you, don’t worry”.

First of all, he took several pictures of me, then opened a file in his computer. He started asking me about my family, phone numbers, professions, number of children, addresses, everything. He took copies of my credit card, saying he must check the previous activities on it, then took copies of my ID, driver’s license, the pictures of my family I have with me, all while writing down who is who.

After all this he started asking more questions, “I am not here to check on what you did in Nablus, or if you worked or not, or if you stayed longer than the permitted time, or if you did anything illegal. There are people already working on that. My job is to check about TERRORIST ACTIVITIES YOU CAN BE INVOLVED IN. For that we need to check on the people you are related to, because WE KNOW that you know five people, terrorists, the worst people here. We know they are your close friends. If you give us their names (despite the fact that we already have it) you will enter Israel. If you collaborate with us, we will help you Nadia.”

Then, the show started.

He started with people listed in my mobile, one by one, the 163 numbers I have. Who is he/her, how did you meet this person, are you in touch with him, and on and on. Every single person in my mobile (the Palestinian numbers and Jordanian numbers) was checked on his computer, and every person’s picture came up on the computer. I saw Sam’ s picture, Anita’s picture, Yusra’s picture, Sumaida’s picture. At one point, he asked me about people in Balata and Askar Camp, people I’m supposed to know, so he was waiting for me to mention them.

He told me that he’s been checking on me for months. “Many people you know in Nablus were interrogated, and almost all of them gave us the same five names we’re looking for, saying you are a very close friend to them. Many people in Nablus know you Nadia; we contacted all of them. Now you must start speaking.”

I didn’t know who they were looking for, as you can imagine. The guy then called someone by phone asking for more things, and immediately, new pictures of people showed up on his computer. He then asked me about most of these people, many I had never seen. Some of them, however, I did know, and their numbers were in my mobile.

I told him that I can’t be blamed for what someone else did or didn’t do, that I don’t know what he’s talking about. He continued saying that I was not telling him the truth, because he already knew the truth, and I will not enter Israel ever again, if I don’t collaborate with him by providing him with more details.

After he checked my mobile again, he asked me why, with 163 numbers on it, only 13 are from people in Jordan, while all the rest are from Palestinians. “How is possible, Nadia, that a woman like you, smart, good looking, attractive, doesn’t have more relationships with people in Jordan? What are you planning to do, why do you insist you want to enter Israel, how are you related to these terrorists? They asked you to make something, didn’t they, they asked you for money, and they asked you to get married to them, what are you planning to do with them as soon you enter here? We know the truth, but he want hear it from you, and again, if you don’t collaborate with us we cannot helping you.”

After a few minutes another guy, Amir, entered the room, and he looked at me and told me, “Stop lying, you are hiding something, and we know it, you have bad friends and your relationship with them makes you related to their activities, I don’t trust you, and you will not enter Israel because of that”.

After he left, and I was alone again with Sami, I started crying, like a baby, and I told him that I want this interrogation stopped, go ahead, send me back to Jordan, because I don’t know what they are looking for, and I am not involved to anything.

Sami sat next to me and kindly told me “You are a nice person, a strong woman I can see that, well educated, so don’t make mistakes, this is your opportunity to tell the truth, we will help you, give me the other three names, and don’t cry anymore. Why are you so nervous, why this is so important to you? I don’t understand, and if I don’t understand, I only can think the worst about you… I WILL NOT LET YOU ENTER IF I DON’T KNOW EVERYTHING, BECAUSE I WILL BE RESPONSIBLE, WHEN YOU BLOW YOURSELF UP IN TEL AVIV”.

The interrogation continued, he made copies of all the pictures I have and started writing down next to each person their names, then looking in his computer. He said, “Nadia, maybe you have clean hands, but if any person has put their hands in dirty water, your hands will be dirty, and your hands are already black”.

Finally, he told me “Your situation here is not good, you have a strong connection with bad activities. This world is not safe any more, because of MUSLIMS (Nadia, remember what happend on September 11 because of Muslims). You are a big risk to the security of the Israeli people, and all of the visitors in this country. Israel is a democracy, one of the best countries in the world, not like the Arab ones, and we work hard to prevent any terrorist activities, and you are not helping us with our mission.”

He left me saying, “My team will decide now about what we will do with you, but I don’t think you will be able to enter here again. You are a risk to yourself and others. You can do whatever you want, go to COURT, if that’s what you want to do. But, if you do, I will be happy to go there personally and make sure YOU WILL NEVER ENTER HERE AGAIN.”

This interrogation lasted from 7:20 am until 4:15 pm. Downstairs the Chilean consul was waiting for me. I was allowed to speak with him and go out with security to smoke a cigarette. I never saw Sami again, he didn’t come back to tell me the results of the meeting, but the people from security had already told the consul I was not allowed to enter Israel, even before the interrogation was ended.

They asked me to go again to the checkroom where they again checked all my bags and me, then put me on a plane back to Amman at 7 pm.

I will finish writing this by saying to all of you that I did my best yesterday. I think nobody is really ready to face something like that, at least not me, because I am not used to being treated as a terrorist. I feel sorry for all the people who are related to me, now these people have all their names and phone numbers; they can check on them because of me. I feel like the worse collaborator in the world, and I am so sorry for making the life of others harder than it already is.
The Palestinians face enough injustices since the day they were born.

Salaam to all
Nadia