Category: Journals - Page 98 - International Solidarity Movement

59 Years Ago: Deir Yassin

Remembering Deir Yassin
by Anna Baltzer, 1 May 2007

Um El Fahim town in present-day Israel, home to 48,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel, mostly internal refugees denied services equal to Jews or the right to return to their homes.

59 years ago this month, the militant Zionist Irgun and Stern Gang systematically murdered more than 100 men, women, and children in Deir Yassin. The Palestinian village lay outside the area the UN recommended to be included in a future Jewish State, and the massacre occurred several weeks before the end of the British Mandate, but it was part of a carefully planned and orchestrated process that would induce the flight of 70% of the native population to make way for an ethnically Jewish state.

Deir Yassin was just one of more than 400 Palestinian villages depopulated and destroyed by Jewish forces in 1948 (or shortly before and after). I recently visited the ruins of a Palestinian village called Kafrayn in present-day Israel on a tour with Zochrot, “a group of Israeli citizens [both Jewish and Palestinian] working to raise awareness of the Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948.”

Our group met in the home of Adnan, a refugee from another village called Lajjun who now lives in Um El Fahim town in Israel. A well-dressed man in his late sixties, Adnan welcomed us into his living room when we asked to hear his story. His grown son brought around fresh strawberries and fancy chocolates before sitting down to translate as his father began to speak:

“I remember Lajjun as if in a dream. I was only seven years old when the men with guns came, but I still remember certain things so clearly. I remember my school, and the name of my teacher. I remember we had a community center for visitors, and the village was very excited because an English ambassador was planning a visit. We worked for weeks renovating the big gardens in anticipation. I remember our village had a strong spring and a sophisticated water system. Israel has succeeded in convincing the world that Palestinians were primitive and uneducated until the Zionists arrived, but that is propaganda. We even had developed agricultural tools like trucks to turn corn. We were well-educated and we had good relations with our Jewish neighbors living in a kibbutz several kilometers away.

Adnan holds a map of his village Lajjun, which he and his family were violently expelled from in 1948. Although they are Israeli citizens, they have never been allowed to return.

“Then the soldiers came. I remember them shooting from atop a mountain, bullets flying over my head as we ran. We fled to a town called Taybi, taking nothing with us – we had no time, and assumed we would be back when the war was over. In Taybi we had to borrow woolen tents to live in. Eventually we found our way to Um El Fahim with thousands of other refugees, and we’ve been here ever since. Our village had 44,000 dunums of agricultural land and they took ever last one of them. We are citizens of Israel, but never allowed to return to our land and our homes nearby. We are refugees in our own state.

“Between 1948 and 1966, Palestinians in Israel lived the way Palestinians now live in the West Bank and Gaza. We were prisoners in our homes in Um El Fahim, under constant curfew, controlled by checkpoints, etc. Although certain restrictions have been lifted, as non-Jews we are still generally refused from more than 93% of the land in Israel, owned by the state or the Jewish National Fund. That includes my land, my village. They’ve surrounded it with a fence and won’t even let us go pray in the mosque, one of the only structures still standing. The mosque belongs to the nearest kibbutz now, so Jewish kibbutzniks can visit it when they please.

“How can Israel call itself a democracy when I cannot go to my land simply because I am a different ethnicity from my old Jewish neighbors? What kind of a democracy is this where political parties can’t challenge the Zionist exclusivist framework, but they can challenge the rights of the indigenous population to stay here? Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman came from Russia a few years ago, and now he’s talk about sending Palestinians away, we who’ve been here for hundreds if not thousands of years! The Jewish people know catastrophe and suffering. They work for justice in their own lives… why not in mine?”

Almost all the residents of Um El Fahim are internal refugees from 1948 like Adnan. They live as second-class citizens, receiving fewer services than their Jewish counterparts. Israel spends an average of 4,935 shekels ($1,372) for each Jewish student per year, compared to 862 ($240) per Arab one. In the words of the Israeli parliamentarian Jamal Zahalka, “Israel is a democratic state for its Jewish citizens, and a Jewish state for its Arab citizens.”

Driving around with Nakba survivors trying to find villages that no longer exist.

Several elderly Um El Fahim residents accompanied us on our tour to Kafrayn. It was a strange thing, driving around in a bus looking for a village that no longer exists. Before we’d reached Kafrayn, one elderly Palestinian named Muneeb jumped up and began motioning outside the window: “That’s it! That’s my village!” I turned to see several hills covered with trees. Like so many others, Muneeb’s village (near Kafrayn) had been emptied of Palestinians and then planted over with fast-growing Jerusalem pines by Zionists who would later brag about “making the desert bloom.”

Muneeb pointed excitedly towards one part of the hill: “That’s where I used to walk to school! And that’s where we’d go to fetch water! And that – that’s where my house was…”

Nakba survivors and their descendants commemorate their destroyed village with Zochrot.

Suddenly Muneeb’s voice cracked and he looked down, embarrassed. “I shouldn’t have come here today,” he confessed after he’s regained his composure. “It’s too emotional. You were here thousands of years ago and you miss your land,” he spoke to the Jews in our group, “I was here fifty years ago and I miss my land.”

What most struck me about our drive was how bare everything was. Nobody was living in Muneeb or Adnan’s villages, or anywhere near them. Their villages had been turned into forests, military bases, and grazing land, controlled by kibbutzim sometimes many miles away. One Israeli on the tour explained to me that Israel typically develops large land-intensive projects to maintain control over empty areas where it doesn’t want Palestinians to settle. When we arrived in Kafrayn, we found several empty fenced off areas. One was labeled “Welcome to military base 105.” Another posting said “Danger: Firing Area – Entrance Forbidden!” A third sign read “Cattle-grazing land.”

“So they let cows live here but not Arabs?” I asked my new friend.

“Cows don’t have nationalist aspirations,” he smiled. “Besides, do you even see any cows around here?” He was right – there were no cows in sight, nor soldiers for that matter.

One common misconception about the Palestinian refugees’ right of return is that its implementation would create a new refugee crisis by displacing most Israelis. In fact, according to Dr. Salman Abu Sitta, a former member of the Palestine National Council and researcher on refugee affairs, “78% of [Jewish Israelis] live in 14% of Israel. The remaining 22% of [Jewish Israelis] live in 86% of Israel’s area, which is Palestinian land. Most of them live in a dozen or so Palestinian towns. A tiny minority lives in Kibbutz… Thus, only 200,000 Jews exploit 17,325 sq. km, which is the home and heritage of 5,248,180 refugees, crammed in camps and denied the right to return home” (See Dr. Abu Sitta’s highly recommended Nakba Map, available HERE.

The issue is not about space, it’s about demographics. Allowing Palestinian refugees to return would threaten the ethnic character of Israel. Rather than being the state of the Jews, it might have to become the state of the people who live in it, some of whom are Jews, some of whom aren’t. But until that happens, the most people like Muneeb and Adnan can look forward to is an occasional tour with Jewish fringe activists every few decades. Some of the Kafrayn expulsion survivors who accompanied our tour had not been back since 1948 – almost 60 years. They wandered around, as if in a dream, pointing out where the old cemetery and school used to be. One survivor, Abu Ghasi, recalled his story for the group:

“We had all heard about the Deir Yassin massacre a few days before, so when the Zionist forces arrived and began shooting, we all ran. Those of us who survived took shelter in a nearby village, and soon we heard the blasts that we knew were our homes being exploded. After the Jewish forces had moved on, we returned to find our village completely obliterated. It was clear we had no alternative but to move elsewhere, and eventually we settled in Um El Fahim.”

An old woman from the nearest kibbutz spoke with the survivors and all agreed that their communities had gotten along well before the expulsion. They reminisced about a school bus driver they had shared, and the woman confirmed their story about the Zionist forces razing and bombing Kafrayn. The tour ended with a communal lunch between survivors, kibbutzniks, and the rest of the group next to Kafrayn’s old springhouse and main water source.

Nakba survivors and their descendants commemorate their destroyed village with Zochrot.

Somebody had painted “Death to Arabs” in Hebrew on the springhouse before we arrived, but we didn’t let that keep us enjoying the spring’s natural beauty as several people got up to speak. One Jewish woman who had immigrated from Canada to Israel 27 years ago said it took her the first 20 to really understand the truth about Israel’s past and present. One man asked the kibbutznik woman if she thought her Palestinian neighbors should be allowed to return, but she was unwilling to give a straight answer, saying it was complicated. An Israeli man responded to her with frustration, saying, “We are here on 100,000 dunums of empty land. We have in Israel many internal refugees from this land that lies empty. Why not give families just one of their thousands of dunums to let them come back to their homes?”

A Kafrayn survivor addressed the kibbutznik as well: “Look, we all want peace. It’s very easy to say, but peace requires making an effort. I’ve lost 60 years on my land. How can you expect me to live in peace with the Jews if they refuse to give me back my land and my rights?” Another refugee echoed his sentiments: “Peace does not look like one type of person enjoying land and others forbidden. If you want peace, let’s share everything. Let’s live together.”

The Palestinian refugees on our tour are the lucky ones. Unlike the two thirds of Palestinians who are in the diaspora, Adnan, Muneeb, and Abu Ghasi are still here, in historic Palestine. And although not as privileged as Jews, they are at least not living under Occupation like their West Bank and Gaza refugee counterparts. This year, I spent Deir Yassin day in Izbat At Tabib, a village of 226 Palestinians refugees from 1948 whose families resettled in the West Bank and have been facing repeated attempts by Israel to expel them a second time. Almost the entire village is under demolition order to clear the way for settler roads and the Wall.

Not only have the massacres and expulsions of the past never been officially acknowledged, but the Nakba goes on in some form or another for all Palestinian refugees today, whether in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, or the diaspora. This is not ancient history – this is now, this is urgent. The Nakba continues. Deir Yassin continues.

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CALL TO ACTION:

The injustices must not remain unrecognized. This year, remember that May 15 is not only Israeli Independence Day… Consider organizing a Nakba Day commemoration event!

Join activists across the country in remembering the Nakba. Here’s a simple, interactive, moving action you can organize in your city. Zochrot, an Israeli activist organization, has already created it, but we need YOU to put it on. Please take a look HERE.

If you are interested, email Hannah at hmermels@hotmail.com with confirmation and questions. She can also tell you if anyone else in your city is already planning a similar event.

In peace,
Anna

Anna Baltzer is a volunteer with the International Women’s Peace Service in the West Bank and author of the book, Witness in Palestine: Journal of a Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories.

To Azmi Beshara:

To Azmi Beshara
by Juliano Mer Khamis, 29 April 2007

Azmi, My Brother,

You had the good sense to see what was coming – the security forces in cooperation with the judicial system of Israel decided to take steps against, what they call the “strategic threat”, of the Palestinian citizens of Israel, and to do away with their leaders. They want to return us to the days of martial law – to fear, to the permits, to the dark cells of the security forces, to the era in which only collaborators could claim at least some of their rights.

Inside the 1967 borders, Israel was not yet employing the methods it now uses in the occupied territories. It did not execute people without trial, condone mass arrests, cause starvation, or destroy infrastructures. Now, as “the only democracy in the Middle East”, Israel claims to function according to just and lawful means.

But “the law” is the security forces and the police; the judicial advisers to the government and the judicial system are its full-time employees. Your sentence was passed even before the accusations against you were announced, and you have no way of establishing your innocence before these war criminals. They speak a language different from ours – in their eyes, anyone who is against war and aspires to the peaceful coexistence of two nations is classified as a criminal, and persecuted. You cannot conduct a political struggle from the witness box. They will not allow you to insist that you are fighting for both nations. In the courts of the police state, they will tie a rope around your neck.

The agonizing failure of the Israeli Army against the Lebanese Resistance maddens them. In the face of such a defeated and cruel establishment we must act wisely, intelligently. After all, it is more sensible for a freedom fighter who is cut off by a military unit to withdraw, or to escape, and to wait for a more favorable time to return fire – and here I am not speaking of live fire, but of the “fire” of thought and the written word.

Azmi my brother – THEY ARE AFRAID. The terrified commanders and their soldiers are afraid. I encounter them frequently in Jenin Refugee Camp where they fire on children who dare to glance from an upstairs window, or from round the corner.

Apparently you represent a ‘strategic threat’ to the “Jewish State”. It seems that your vision of a ‘state for all its citizens’ is a threat to the actual existence of Israel, a country that has been created out of force, control and discrimination of another nation. Ideas of equality or of the coexistence that the Balad Party represents, deprive the government of Israel of the main ideological elements it uses to justify its existence – power, despotism, segregation, racism, barriers and fences.

Azmi my brother, you did not run away!

You made clever use of conditions and circumstances, and managed to evade the execution squad with which the ‘judicial system’ confronted you. As a seasoned warrior you dodged the bullets of the security forces and went underground. And it makes no difference whether it was to the caves of the Galilee or to Qatar, Dubai, or Cairo.

Many will urge you to return. Many others would rejoice to see you rotting in the cells of the security police. There will be others who would sacrifice you – your courage concealing their helplessness and fear. All sorts of mud-slingers will sprout like mushrooms after rain, insisting that leaders do not abandon their flock. They will call you a coward and many other things. Ignore all their remarks about ‘courage and sacrifice’. Do not listen to your political opponents at home, who will call for stringing you up in the Town Square. Carry on with your struggle from abroad, like so many illustrious others. What is exile if not sacrifice!

And be assured – the day will come when you can return, borne on the shoulders of your comrades.

We have always praised the freedom fighters who succeeded in escaping the dungeons of the security forces. We rejoice when guerilla fighters are released by their comrades from behind prison bars. We applaud your successes in this puppet government and in revealing its true face.

You did not escape from arrest. You avoided being executed without trial – “targeted elimination” in the local jargon. Bless you for that!

Yours,

Juliano Mer Khamis
Freedom Theatre

Prelude to the Third Intifada?

Prelude to the Third Intifada?
by Anna Baltzer, 30 April 2007

Atara Checkpoint in early April: Passover—the Jewish holiday celebrating freedom from oppression—is accompanied by tightening restrictions on Palestinians in the West Bank, resulting in checkpoint waits of many hours. Photo by Anna

It’s been more than three weeks since I last wrote. The reason is simple: things have been awful on the ground here in Palestine, leaving little time for reflection. As usual, Passover—the Jewish holiday celebrating freedom from oppression—was accompanied by tightening restrictions on Palestinians. While Jewish Israelis were feasting nearby, travel within the West Bank became difficult if not impossible, except of course for settlers who would breeze by the hundreds of Palestinians waiting for hours at checkpoints on their way home, to work, to the hospital, or elsewhere. Calling the Army was no help since most offices and services were closed for the holidays. Palestinians urgently requiring permits to reach hospitals were forced to wait as well.

A quick look at the Palestinian Center for Human Rights’ weekly report shows that Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF)—among other activities—killed 9 Palestinians (including 2 children and 4 extra-judicial assassinations), injured 20, conducted 30 incursions into West Bank Palestinian communities, arrested 44 Palestinian civilians (including 8 children), demolished 8 houses rendering more than 48 people homeless, and continued to impose a total siege on the Occupied Territories… all in the past week. This is about average. In the past few weeks, Israeli settlers have also moved back into an evacuated settlement in Nablus.

Hani Abu Hakel’s car torched by Israeli settlers, Photo: ISM Hebron

Meanwhile, several hundred Jewish settlers took over a massive building in the heart of Hebron, and Israel immediately deployed soldiers to protect the new Jewish-only colony. The nearby Abu Haykal family, friends whom I visited last month in Tel Rumeida, had their car torched by Hebron settlers who want nothing more than for them to leave so that a new Jewish settlement can be set up next to the already existing ones.

The ongoing brutality and harassment are fuelling a growing tension that I predict will one day explode into a third intifada (Arabic for “uprising”). The signs are there—intense frustration but an even stronger determination to throw off the Occupation’s yoke. Demonstrations have been happening all over the West Bank, sometimes several per day. Israel’s excessive force and continued colonization are unsustainable, because the Palestinians will never stop resisting. To stop resisting is to have no future—it is national suicide. The worse the Occupation gets, the stronger the resistance.

Although it is not reported as such, most of the current Palestinian resistance has been nonviolent. At the Arab American University of Jenin, the “Green Resistance” student group succeeded in banning the Israeli-produced Tapuzina fruit juice from the AAUJ campus, part of a growing Palestinian campaign to support local products rather than paying for their own Occupation. My neighbor Abu Saed in Haris, whose trees have been uprooted by settlers three times over the past month from his land near Revava settlement, continues to replant them week after week, with support from Rabbis for Human Rights and IWPS.

Israeli Forces prohibit bike race to Jericho, Photo by Jonas

And about a month ago, more than 350 people—Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals—gathered for the first-ever Palestine International Bike Race from Ramallah to Jericho, an event organized by the East Jerusalem YMCA for people from all over the world to protest human rights violations in Palestine, demand freedom of movement for Palestinian civilians, and “support the values of peace and tolerance in the area.” The event was projected to be the longest ever international sporting event protesting the Occupation, but Israeli jeeps cut the race short by closing traffic to two-wheelers and the “Bikes not Bombs” enthusiasts were forced to turn back.

Near the Quaker Friends School where the bike race commenced is a cultural center where dozens of Palestinian youth come together every week to make short films and dance together. After watching an intensely physical and emotive modern dance rehearsal when I visited one day, the students explained that for them “art is not a luxury—it’s a must.” The Occupation not only threatens Palestinians’ homes, land, livelihoods, time, and future, but also creativity and expression. The cultural center is tool to prevent Palestinian culture from being lost or distorted, and students described how they would meet in secrecy to practice quietly during invasions and curfews as their own form of creative nonviolent resistance.

In the Salfit region where we live, a new center has been established to conduct trainings and workshops in strategic communication, peace-building, conflict resolution, and techniques of nonviolent resistance. I spoke with the director Fuad, who explained that nonviolent resistance in Israeli jails (hunger strikes, etc) has recently increased, and that many Palestinians—particularly those returning from prison—have been building what he called “a nonviolent movement for freedom, equality, democratic values, and human rights.” His organization aims to develop programs suitable for each section of Palestinian society, as well as human rights and democracy awareness workshops and resistance trainings, but they lack the proper funding to do so. Fuad told me his own story of transformation from a soldier in Arafat’s “Sabahtash” Army to a committed nonviolence advocate after his brother was killed. Fuad was particularly inspired by the first intifada, during which all parts of Palestinian society joined in nonviolent civil disobedience to demand freedom with one loud voice. When I told Fuad that IWPS could offer no financial support (although you could—please contact fuad_alramal@yahoo.com if you can help), he replied, “We have no money, but our strength is in our beliefs: our commitment to nonviolence. Violence kills the spirit, pushing it towards more violence or submission, but nonviolence will always prevail in the end.”

Fuad said he chose to work in the Salfit area because of its history of nonviolent resistance. Indeed, the past few weeks have seen a number of major actions in our oft-forgotten rural region. On Land Day, hundreds gathered in Rafat village to protest the Wall that is slowly enclosing their village, but when they found the cage unguarded they grabbed hold and began to rock it, back and forth, all together, until finally the gates exploded open. When the soldiers arrived, protesters retreated to their homes, not a single stone thrown. They had made their point: Rafat will not accept collective imprisonment.

Demonstrators from Salfit remove the electric sensory wire lining the Wall that has cut their town off from their main road and land.

The next day in Salfit town a group of demonstrators found the Wall unguarded and began removing the electric sensory wire that lines the fenced sections. Soldiers arrived quickly and began shooting into the air, but protesters held their ground and raised Palestinian flags above the cage that cuts off their main road and annexes much of their land. Salfit, too, will not accept collective imprisonment.

Protesters raise the Palestinian flag above the Wall that encages them.

Nor will the rest of the West Bank, where many other actions took place on Land Day weekend. In Qaffin town in the north, thousands of demonstrators gathered and marched, danced, and drummed their way to the Wall to show their spirit and resolve to resist the illegal barrier and Occupation.

Nablus residents march to Beit Furik checkpoint

In Nablus, hundreds marched to Beit Furik, one of the six city exits—all Army checkpoints—through which men 16 to 45 years old are not allowed to pass without a special Israeli-issued permit that can only be obtained outside the city. The march, organized in part by the Nablus Women’s Union and a society for local handicapped people, continued through the checkpoint past stunned soldiers unable to hold the cheering protesters back.

After succeeding in pushing through Beit Furik checkpoint, Nablus residents occupy the checkpoint, climbing up onto the waiting pens and hanging freedom signs around the base.

The group then occupied the checkpoint, first by sitting down and later by climbing atop the waiting pens and hanging Palestinian flags and freedom signs around the base.

Injustice is unsustainable. It cannot be normalized, because there will always be resistance. The third intifada will come. It may be nonviolent as the first, or it may be more like the second. Is it a coincidence that Israel began construction at the Temple Mount holy site in Jerusalem just as warring religious and secular Palestinian factions were coming to a truce? Israel prefers that Palestinians resist one another rather than their oppression, but Palestinians in the West Bank and at the negotiating table have shown their resolve to work together against their common enemies: Zionist racism and the Occupation. United, they will prevail. If the third intifada does not succeed, there will be a fourth. And then a fifth… As many as it takes, until justice is served.

Taking the piss out of war games in Hebron

by: Yifat Appelbaum

Israeli soldiers in Hebron sometimes do exercises to practice for combat situations. Ok, I can accept that. They need to always be on their toes in case there is a terrorist, right? *wink wink nudge nudge* But when they do it around Palestinian homes it is just a form of harassment, the purpose of which is to scare and intimidate the residents. Remind them who’s boss, so to speak.

Last night we were walking down the street at about 9pm and we saw about 10 Israeli soldiers playing their war games in the street. They were prancing around, running, ducking, hiding and pointing their guns at all of us. But you have to put your foot down when they enter onto Palestinian property and start doing this thing in people’s front yards.

When they entered a yard, we followed, wondering if they were going try to force their way into the house. I asked the commander how he would feel if 10 armed Palestinians started raising hell at the front of the door to his home. He told me he could not talk to me. So I let him sniff a rose my friend Issa had given me. Because everyone needs to stop to sniff the flowers, even if you are a commander performing a military exercise, right?

At this point, one of our activists, lets call him “Snufkin” decided to take the piss out of the war games and began dashing about, performing somersaults on the ground in front of the soldiers, hiding, pointing an invisible gun all over the place and yelling “where are the terrorists.” He climbed up on walls, got on a roof, where he was joined by another “soldier.” They waved their guns around and then Snufkin jumped off the roof, ran down the street and dropped down with his stomach to the ground in front of an Israeli police jeep which had just pulled up.

This performance continued for a few minutes and the soldiers left the Palestinian yard and went out onto the street where they sat huddled in a corner watching the parody of their military exercise.

The cop questioned Snufkin for a few minutes and then let him go. I guess there’s no law against taking the piss around here, thankfully.

I wish I had photos or video of this but unfortunately I don’t.

The city in two pieces

by: -bat.

There are no other events in this account which are violent and dramatic in the way Bil’in was, but in the days since I have been back I have had some bad dreams about the trip, and it hasn’t been that which comes back to haunt me. Violence is shocking, but for something really disturbing that you just can’t shake off you need a more subtle but all pervasive atmosphere of menace. Hebron provides this in abundance.

On the subject of settlements

As I have described in earlier posts, settlements in the west bank are a very obvious feature of the landscape. They sit on the hilltops as little isolated enclaves of Israeli’s. Surrounded by fences, and connected by their own road systems they are an obvious example of the colonisation process taking place in Palestine. I imagine it as the infrastructure of one country stretched over the top of another like a net or a web. They may be ‘towns’ in the the literal sense, but they are separate, not mixing with the population centres around them.

In Hebron, however, all the ideas of separateness go out of the window, as here are two settlements in the form of accommodation blocks, right in the centre of town. One at the top of the hill and another at the bottom, they are embedded in the heart of Hebron’s old city. When the Oslo accords were signed giving autonomy to the Palestinian towns, Hebron was divided up into two parts; H1 as the main body of the Palestinian town, with an area H2 carved out of it containing the settlements and under Israeli military rule. When I say “carved out” I mean that it is sealed off from the main body of town. Access in and out is on foot through the checkpoint I described yesterday, and no Palestinians are allowed to drive vehicles inside H2. This applies to ambulances and emergency vehicles as well. They are not allowed to walk along certain roads, and have to take to the back paths and skirt round to get where they are going. The settlers, meanwhile, can drive where they want and are free to roam the streets, protected by the presence of Israeli police and army everywhere.

The Palestinian population here numbered thirty thousand when the division was drawn up. The army and police force sent in to protect the settlers numbered three thousand, one for every ten residents. How many settlers was all this in aid of ?

Four hundred.

Welcome to the infamous Tel Rumeida.

Meeting the police

I wake up early on the floor in the front room of the ISM flat in Hebron. It is halfway up the hillside in Tel Rumeida, and the steep slope gives a superb view out across the city, which stretches up the opposite side of the valley. The densely packed coverage of flat roofed white buildings means that the outside is dazzlingly bright to my eyes, and it is a while before I realise that rather that being a bright sunny day it is actually grey and overcast. Some of the other ISM volunteers are also up, grabbing video cameras and heading out of the door. I don’t catch quite what is going on, but some phone call has been received requesting the presence of ISM. If you wonder what the point of the presence of internationals here is, it is to support the Palestinian population as requested by observing and recording when the settlers try something against them. As with any illegal activity (and the intimidation *is* illegal under Israeli’s law, despite the fact that the police often turn a blind eye), the presence of observers with recording equipment helps puts a limit on how far the perpetrators can go.

It doesn’t take long after leaving the building for us to have our first brush with authority. Katie and I are standing just outside the door of the flat showing her presents from the night before to some of the local children when an Israeli Police vehicle pulls up and stops. Katie hasn’t been here in a while and the policeman recognises her. He is acting in a very creepy way, being all smiling, but saying how he saw Katie the previous evening and how dreadful it is to see her surrounded by all those arab men. It is blatent racism, so blatent in fact that initially I am thinking that he must mean something else as nobody would be so upfront about their prejudices, surely? Try and imagine an english policeman saying how awful it is to see a nice white girl surrounded by all those black men and you get the effect.

“Those people are my friends” she acidly points out. The policeman scowls and the vehicles pulls away up the hill. “It’s because he knows I am Jewish”, Katie tells me, “He’s so unpleasant, all sleazy smiles one moment and then threatening the next. One time he was alternating between asking me out and saying he was going to have me arrested all in the same conversation.”

Black flowers and empty places

We walk up to the top of the hill where one of the settlements is, and cut across to head for some open ground. We are the only people around – the place is like a ghost town, yet this is a saturday morning. As we reach the brow of the hill the police come back down. This time they are very direct and to the point. Katie is not allowed out of H2 and if they see her entering H1 they will arrest her. So much for the charm.

The fields at the top of the hill stretch down round the back of the buildings, and we walk down a rough path. It was presumably once an olive grove of some kind, but is heading more towards wasteland these days. Alongside the path are some jet black flowers – what appear to be lilies to me. Next to the plants coils of razor wire have been embedded into the fence which marks the boundary of the buildings. The flowers are very fitting in-situ, and I take some pictures (though they end up being ditched).

We walk on down the slope, and past an abandoned building. A lot of the buildings in the area have been abandoned. I said at the beginning that when the are was divided there were thirty thousand Palestinians living here alongside only four hundred settlers. The use of the past tense was deliberate – under continual harassment over the years the people have started to leave, unable to stand it any longer. They leave empty buildings behind them and the settlers try to move into these buildings, despite the fact that this is illegal. It’s a colonisation process in miniature, driving out the indigenous population and replacing them when they leave. This particular building has been declared ‘unsafe’ to prevent anybody moving into it. Though this prevents settler occupation, it does, of course, also prevent the legitimate owners from returning to live in it. As far as the numbers game is concerned this is a win for the settlers, as it is one less Palestinian family living in the area.

Writing on walls

We cross in front of the house, picking our way through more razor wire, and meet a man coming the other way up the path. He is the only person we have passed on foot so far. He has a gun slung over his shoulder and I assume he is a soldier rather than a settler, though the settlers are allowed to carry weapons as well. Down the path he has come up is an overgrown tangle of abandoned buildings. Here some steps go down next to a wall where Katie painted one of her murals when she first came here. The mural was to cover graffiti left by settlers – it is of children playing under a blue sky. The message it covers read “DIE ARAB SAND NIGGERS”. Enlish graffitti as hebrew cannot be read by the Palestinians. The mural has been defaced, and on the corner of the same building more english text reads something like “ARAB, WE WILL RAPE AND KILL ALL YOUR WOMEN”. I can’t remember the exact text, but that’s the gist of it.

The abandoned building at the base of the steps used to be someones home as well, but is now derelict as well. The Israeli army have converted it into an observation post, by the addition of netting and a prefabricated watchtower sitting on the roof. A soldier with a gun eyes us as we shuffle along the concrete wall at the back of the house, and into another building behind it. Katie has brought me here to show me some more graffiti. It’s a grim place, there is a smell of decay in the air, and the first room we enter has a dead dog stretched across the floor, sightless eyes staring at me as I enter the room. Turning round, on the wall where I came in, is a large spray painted cartoon of a Palestinian being hanged. His neck is stretched by the noose, and his tongue hangs out. Being jabbed into his shoulder is the bayonet from a machine gun levelled at his chest.

We do a tour of some of the other rooms, and it is all equally grim and really doesn’t require describing in detail. Anti arab and islam sentiments dominate, and there are the logo’s of an extreme right wing Israeli group. By it’s nature the settlements in Tel Rumeida attract militants and extremists, and in the writing they have left here it shows. The air of menace is disturbing and I am glad to leave the building into the relative cheerfulness of the world of derelict concrete outside, with the solider watching from above. You can, of course, find extremist graffiti all over the world (London has it’s fair share) as it only takes one person with a spraycan to fill a wall with hate. But here it feels different, because I know the people who wrote this are here backed up by troops and police, and are free to act out a watered down version of the violent intent displayed in the messages, and do so every day.

The school by the road

Out from the buildings we come onto the road which runs along the base of the hill, meeting Tel Rumeida street that we started on at the portacabin checkpoint that I passed through the night before. This is Shuhada Street, which runs directly down to the Beit Hasassah settlement. Palestinians are allowed to walk down this road to a certain point, but no further. At this point they have to take to a path on the grassy bank on the side away from the settlement, halfway down this is a small Palestinian school, which is where we walk to.

This is the school where Katie teaches the children art classes. I have heard a number of stories about the place, and seeing it brings them to life. The proximity of the school to the settlement means that the children and staff are prime targets for harassment by the settlers. Sometimes actively, and sometimes simply in a passive aggressive way. She tells me one story of how one day a group of them blocked the path by standing on it tightly together so it was impassable without actually pushing them aside. The police did nothing, so to enable the children to use the path they escorted them through one at a time. At which point the police *did* do something; they took Katie in and said the had been accused of assaulting one of the settlers by pushing past them when taking a child down the path. Thus justice is metered out Tel Rumeida style.

At the school the children are on a break, and seeing Katie a number of them run out and surround her chattering excitedly. It always strikes me how different the children here are compared to children at home. Despite the conditions that they are living under they seem happy and vibrant. We spend a while with them showing off the birthday gifts from the night before. These include one fluffy bear which, when supplied with batteries, has glowing red eyes and starts singing happy birthday in arabic loudly. It’s an instant hit with the kids. Eventually, however, we leave them as we are asked to go back down the road to see something which happened in the night.

Just another small incident

Back past the point where Palestinians are allowed to walk on Shuhada Street again a man takes us to the front door of a house. A family lives here and the lock to the door is completely smashed. During the night some settlers came to the house and sealed up the locks somehow. Upon waking the family found that they were trapped inside. Eventually they manged to attract the attention of the soldiers, who got them out by simply smashing the locks. Now the door is unable to close and unable to lock, and the family are scared in case the settlers return that night as they have no way of locking the door to keep themselves safe. The soldiers, having broken the lock, have no further interest in persuing the original perpetrators. The inhabitants are left to worry about what the coming night might bring.

I wish I could tell you how this ends, but as I had to leave that afternoon I do not know what happened that night. But is is just another small incident, one of many. ISM can monitor and photograph and report to the police, but there are few of them, the settlers smash their cameras (I saw camera which had been broken the night I arrived) and when incidents are reported then the police take no interest. Living in a crime ridden neighbourhood is one thing, but when the police are on the side of the criminals then the tiny things build up day after day until the people eventually can’t take it any longer and move away. The emptying neighbourhood is the result.

Whilst we are talking to the house owner two more young children appear, whom Katie also knows from the past. They come and hang out for a while and talk to her. She tells me that one of them is saying that they were playing football, but the settlers came and stole the ball so now they have nothing to play with. Replacing the lost football is one of the few small things which it is possible to do, so we set off to get one from the market.

How the other half lives

It is very quiet as we walk up Shuhada Street back to the checkpoint, a few This used to be one of the main shopping streets. All along either side there are shops closed with shutters. It has been this way for a number of years, there are promises to re-open it, but it has never happened. So it remains empty. The few people who are around are soldiers and police, plus a settler couple. taking a saturday stroll up the middle of the road, with a pushchair and their children. I wonder where they are going – in it’s own way they have made this place a prison for themselves too. They have nowhere to expand to, and are trapped in this area, unable to leave and go out into the main town. They can take a walk past the empty buildings and closed shops, under the eyes of the soldiers sent there to protect them, and then they can go home. I do not understand why anyone would chose to put themselves into that situation, let alone choose to enforce it on their family.

At the top of the road the portacabin checkpoint sits wedged into the space between the buildings. As I said before, no Palestinian vehicles are allowed to drive in H2. Having a heart attack and need an ambulance ? Unlucky – you need to be carried down the road, through the checkpoint and one called for you the far side. Chances of survival are not good – one of the attendees at the party the night before had a relative die this way. Similarly if you are having a baby. No lift to the hospital, it’s a walk across the neighbourhood and though the metal detectors, even if you are in labour. No exceptions.

The policeman from earlier is not around, so we pass through the checkpoint and at the end of the road we walk from from the stillness of Tel Rumeida into the noise and bustle of a market at mid-day. The contrast is stark. From the ghost town atmosphere beyond the barrier I find myself immersed in stalls of all kinds packed with produce and goods, the area packed with people buying and selling. It is noisy, colourful and above all vibrant. This is what Shuhada Street used to be like before it was closed. We push further into the market (the same place I had fruit pressed upon me the night before) and down to a stall selling footballs. Then it is back to the checkpoint. I go through alone, just in case anyone is the far side. For some reason they make me empty all my pockets, remove my belt and jacket and pass in and out of the gate three times before they let me though on this occasion. I only want to go to the far side for a few seconds to hand over the ball.

In and out. Silence and noise. People unable to walk their own streets compared to a crowded market place. Two halves of a city.

The occupation, in miniature

I said at the top that this was the thing which gives me bad dreams. I don’t know if I have succeeded in explaining why – cliched as that may sound it may be one of those places you can’t imagine unless you have been there. I had heard a lot of stories, and I heard more whilst I was there, but seeing the places, walking the streets and examining the buildings brings them all to life in an acute way. Nobody whom comes here remains unaffected by it. Katie trains people before they come here and she recommends that nobody does more than a couple of months as it messes with peoples heads so badly.

But if you want to see a microcosm of the conflict, then here it is. What is happening across the entire west bank is duplicated here on a tiny scale. Settlement towns become settlement blocks. Areas of the west bank divided up by checkpoints with restricted movement become individual parts of town or even streets. The settlers come in knowing that the police will turn a blind eye and that they are protected from reprisal by the military. Eventually life becomes too miserable for the Palestinians and and they move on. Once there we thirty thousand Palestinians in H2, today they number a few thousand at the most. To me it felt like a ghost town.

I can’t think of a good way to finish this one. Writing it all up was depressing as hell, and googling to check my facts was even worse as it kept turning up new stuff which I was not aware of. Unremittingly bleak.

I’ve run out of stuff to say 🙁