The weekly non-violent protests against the Israelis Apartheid wall continued today in Bil’in, when Palestinians from the village displayed their resistance to the ongoing theft of their village’s land. At least one Palestinian was injured by a tear gas canister which was fired directly at a group of three non-violent demonstrators as they stood with their hands raised in the air. One Israeli protester was detained by the Israeli Military, and another Israeli was hit in the head by a tear-gas canister and taken to hospital; many others also suffered from the use of tear gas and force by the soldiers. The one year anniversary of the struggle of Bil’in is fast approaching, on February 20th, and their will to resist the Occupation and the Apartheid Wall has not diminished since then.
Despite heavy rain, the crowd of approximately 150 Palestinian, international and Israeli activists marched to the construction site of the Apartheid Wall, which is gradually cutting off the village from much of its land. The Israeli Army and Border Police were on hand to prevent the unarmed demonstrators from reaching the construction site through the use of force.
At the site, demonstrators chanted slogans and some Palestinian national songs. A decision from one of the local committee against the Wall was made to move to the other side of the village. The Israeli Military attempted to prevent this by the use of force, but the people were able to prevail and remain unmoved.
After half an hour, activists observed the soldiers shooting rubber-coated metal bullets and tear gas at the young boys of the village at very close range. The decision was then made to return to the village, however, it was interrupted in order to de-arrest an Israeli activist. This was done successfully by Internationals, Israelis and Palestinians together, but soon after that another Israeli was taken and detained by the Israeli Military.
(Israeli soldier seen aiming his rifle at unarmed Palestinian children)
When the demo was declared over by the Popular Committee, the activists moved towards the village. The Israeli Military then used the activists as cover, so that they could get closer to some of the young Palestinians of Bil’in, which led to more shooting of tear gas and rubber-coated metal bullets. From this point on, the army continued to use disproportionate and unnecessary force against unarmed Palestinians, shooting tear gas canisters directly at them and coming very close to the village itself.
Later in the evening, the Palestinians of Bil’in and internationals watched a film, Rachel Corrie An American Conscience, directed by Yahya Barakat. The director was present in Bil’in for the screening of the film, which is about the death of Rachel Corrie, who was killed on March 16 2003 by the IOF in Rafah. The film will be screened again for the Bil’in Conference, which will take place February 20 & 21, 2006, which will be the beginning of a Spring 2006 ISM campaign.
for more information on the film, go to
http://www.palestineonlinestore.com/films/american.htm
The High Court of Justice on Thursday ordered the state prosecutor to explain why Israel won’t alter the route of the separation fence where it passes over land belonging to the West Bank Palestinian village of Bil’in.
The state was given three weeks to explain why the fence can’t be moved west, toward the Upper Modi’in settlement, so that it won’t pass over Bil’in agricultural lands.
The High Court issued the preliminary injunction at the request of Bil’in residents, who are petitioning the court to order the state to alter the fence route in the area.
On Wednesday, lawyer Michael Sfard told the court the current fence route was not determined by security considerations, as the state maintains. Sfard said the fence route was designed to allow the eastward expansion of Upper Modi’in.
He also said the fence route allows the building of the new Matityahu East neighborhood. As was first published in Haaretz, illegal construction, without any building permits or legal building plan, is currently underway on the neighborhood.
“We had thought that the fence administration was building a fence,” Sfard said. “But now it is clear that the fence administration is building new illegal neighborhoods in settlements.”
The fence separates the village of Bil’in from a large portion of its agricultural lands.
The Matityahu East neighborhood has 750 housing units and another 2,000 are planned. The lands on which the neighborhood is being constructed belong to Bil’in residents. Portions of the land were obtained using documents suspected to have been forged.
(Israeli settler after assaulting a Human Rights Worker. Behind the car is the settlment of Suseya)
by Jon
Qawawis is a village in the south Hebron Hills, very close to the green line, and surrounded by settlements and settlement outposts. In Qawawis are about 5-6 families, all of whom have roughly 10 kids (the kids, however, are scattered about the region depending on their age & schooling; some are close to home, some in Yatta or Al-Khalil/Hebron). They have been tending their sheep and goats their for generations, carving and digging from the rocks of the hills caves & wells, which they use for shelter and sustenance for both themselves and their flocks. Some of them, such as my dear friends Hajj Khalil have built small homes for themselves, and Hajj Mahmoud has a clay walled home. But Hajj Ibrahim, he lives in one of the caves, which is a great place; the light almost always seems to be filling the cave, no matter what time of day. And aside from their kindness and hospitality, the people of Qawawis are renowned for their sweet tea; and oh so much of it! I have never drank so much tea in my life!
Within the last two years the people of Qawawis were evicted from their lands and homes, only to return after a year due to an Israeli court ruling & the support they received from organizations such as Taayush and the ISM. Since their return, we have tried to keep a near constant presence of internationals in the village due to the presence of numerous violent and unpredictable settlers in the region. On my last visit, December 12th, we found that 6-7 olive trees had been cut down in the night by settlers. The most basic tactic of Zionism, at just about every stage of the colonization of Palestine, is to acquire as much territory as possible with as few Palestinians as possible. One sees this pattern very clearly in the South Hebron hills, with small villages such as Qawawis being surrounded by expanding settlement blocs while being terrorized and harassed by the presence and impunity of the settlers and the army.
So, despite what has been weeks of either bitter cold or rain (or both), I went to Qawawis via Al-Khalil/Hebron, along with a new ISM volunteer from the bay area. We did the usual, packed up with food & essentials such as candles for the required nighttime reading once the lights go out, and off we went. To get there, one takes a service/bus from Al-Khalil to Yatta first, but this time we had to take a different route. Previously, we had been able to pass through the Al-Fawwar refugee camp, but that route, most likely due to the elections, has been closed, so instead you now take a bus about 15 minutes down the road until you reach a truly ridiculous Israeli-made assemblage of large rocks, dirt and concrete. Its only purpose is to block direct transit between Al Khalil and Yatta, making life just that more difficult for Palestinians.
So, we cross the wasteland barrier of sorts, get another service ride, and luckily, this one takes us all the way to Yatta & beyond the next town of Al-Karmil, which is cut off to the east by a settler highway. We go down the hill, cross the highway, and that’s it, we are back in Qawawis!
I was slightly nervous about our reception there, because it has been difficult to keep every place we have committed to covered with an international presence, and Qawawis has been on its own lately. This is a truly critical area that is obviously coveted by the Israeli settlers and government; the first wall route planned cut off almost all the villages east of the settler road, annexing numerous settlements and outposts into Israel (for a great map and report on the area, go to http://www.btselem.org/English/Publications/Index.asp ). Qawawis is hemmed in by the road, and a number of settlements, such as Suseya, Mizpe Yair and Avigayil; seriously, you can stand in front of Hajj Khalil’s house and see all three of them, and the road.
But, with their usual hospitality and welcome, I was home again with no worries. They did relate to me some incidents, mostly having to do with being too close to the road and the army yelling at them, but no one had been hurt and no property had been damaged, so all was good. There are three brothers that rule the roost, and they are Hajj Khalil, Hajj Mahmoud, and Hajj Ibrahim (and of course, along with their spouses, the Hajjas; Hajja Aime, Hajja Fatmi, and Hajja Aeshia). Then there and the sons, the daughters, just so so many kids! While we were there, the kids of Ibrahim and Aime (different Ibrahim) were there, tending the goats, making meals, playing marbles, you know the usual.
Yes, I’m back in Qawawis, drinking insane amounts of sweet tea and getting up at the crack of dawn to take out the goats and sheep for some walking and eating. The land seems more green since I was last there, possibly due to the fact that we haven’t been around as much, so they haven’t taken them out much for grazing. With the loss of so much land due to settlements and roads, they have to bring in food for them to eat.
The first night back, we are in our room but cannot sleep; from the nearby settlements we can hear the sound of rifles firing, and loud noises and people speaking. I’ve heard similar things there before, but the shooting, that is something new in my experience of this area.
So, the first morning, I am up at around 6 am, I take a few pictures, talk with Hajj Khalil, drink some tea, and then wander over to the house of Ibrahim, who is taking his goats out at that moment. But, in the distance I see Hajj Khalil taking his sheep up the hill, right near the settler highway leading to Mizpe Yair. Being an area prone to confrontation with settlers, I asked the other ISMer to stay with the other sheep in the village while I catch up with Khalil.
So off I run, trying not to twist my ankles (again), and I reach Hajj Khalil. We take the sheep up the hill, and he does his usual combinations of clicks, whistles, commands and grunts to tell them where to go; and when that doesn’t work, just throw a rock at them, no problem!
While we are walking with the sheep, we can hear more of the rifle noises we heard the night before, this time coming from Mizpe Yair. After about nine-o clock, I noticed a white van sitting at the intersection, which is closer to Suseya settlement, but didn’t think anything of it. A little later, I saw a person slowly walking up the road from the intersection, on his own, and walking very slowly. He was heading in our direction, but at that point, I had no idea what to expect. Then, I noticed that Mahmoud was bringing his goats near to where we were, and the other ISMer was with them as well. I was really hoping that the man would pass up harassing them, which he did, but then he started to get close to where I was. He immediately turned off the road and headed straight for Khalil’s sheep, yelling at them and kicking them. He had a kipa on, so he was obviously a settler, but thankfully he had no weapons. So I did what I thought was best, I moved between him and the sheep stating calmly “sir, this is not your home, please leave, this is not right,” and such. He screamed at me “Go back to Europe!” and shoved me a couple of times with his shoulder.
Being a bit bigger than me, I was knocked about a few times, but not hurt, and the sheep were able to take care of themselves. But then the man turned from me and headed straight for Hajj Khalil, who is about 80 years old. He got right in his face, screaming at him, while Hajj Khalil simply replied “Marhabah, Ahlen Whasalen,” that is, hello, welcome. It was a remarkable sight that I wish could have been photographed; this young, unstable, angry bully face to face with a man old enough to be his father’s grandfather, that stood his ground, not moving an inch, and returned his insults with nothing but kindness and a firm rootedness in his place, his home… his land.
So, without thinking, I rushed over and got myself in between the two of them; one body check to Khalil and he could be seriously hurt. So I got shoved a again, at which point I repeated the things that I had already been saying, along with “I am calling the police.” I don’t know if that worked, but then the man turned back towards the road, where there was a white car waiting for him.
At this point, with the threat of violence subsiding, I took some pictures, as did the woman driving the car; she also screamed at me “Nazi,” Nazi dog!”
As I got closer, I noticed two small children in the back seat. Hmmm… is this a settler family outing?
After getting into the car, they drove away towards Suseya, while I spoke to the police. They came back, stopped the car for a minute, and then drove to Mizpe Yair. Then after five minutes, a police jeep shows up, with 2 men in the front and 1 in the back. I walk over to them, as they declined to get out of their jeep, and I described the incident. I showed them the pictures, 2 of which had the car’s license plate on it. In an incredible display of unprofessional police work, they looked up the number on their computer in front of me and said out loud the name it was registered to. After that, they told me “you must go to the Kiryat Arba police station and file a report.” I said, “ok, maybe I can go tomorrow, it is far from here,” to which they replied “NO, you must go TODAY!” Ummm… ok! Even worse, the police inform me that the land of that area “belongs to the people there,” as he pointed to the settlements, which of course are all illegal under international law.
Now, just stop and think about this for a moment. I was attacked, and Hajj Khalil was threatened with violence by a settler that is only there because the Israeli government subsidizes his residence and provides the military force to make it possible. But when this person is to be reported for an act of violence (as if his presence in itself is not enough violence; road construction, land confiscation, occupation, etc), one must go to the police, who happen to be located in one of the most extreme, racist, and violent settlements in Palestine. Sometimes, when confronted by such ugly realities, I think that Kafka and Orwell must be either laughing or weeping in their graves; probably both.
The police leave, and I talk with my fellow ISMer and the others, but as soon as they leave the army arrives! Yes, a humvee and about 7 soldiers or so arrive and could not care in the slightest about the settler attack. All they want to do is enforce some arcane military order which says that the sheep must be 200 meters from the road, end of story. So, I talk to them, try to stall them, keep the situation de-escalated, while calling anyone and everyone I can. I’ve already called Hamoked (human rights group), so I call Ezra fro Taayush (Israeli/Palestinian anti-occupation group) to see if he knows what to do next; although the settlers are more unpredictable than the army, the army can arrest people, and a lot more too. Ezra answers the phone saying, to my surprise, “I’ll be there in a few minutes.” Oh, this is going to get good!
Ezra arrives just in time, as more soldiers and other military functionaries have arrived, and he does what Israeli peace activists do best; scream and yell at the army in Hebrew!
It is really just a joy to watch, and it allows me to be the good cop and stay cool, because there isn’t really much I can do at this point. If they want us back from the road, we’ll probably do it, but we will put up a fuss. The minutes ensue with either Hajj Mahmoud arguing with the soldiers in Arabic, along with Ezra, who tells me in front of the soldiers “You should be here every day by the road, make them work, hell, make them arrest you if they want!” Hmmmm… ok, Ezra, I’ll see you at my deportation hearing!
After the scene begins to settle, I query a few soldiers as to why they need large guns to deal with the oh-so dangerous sheep of Qawawis. Then I get a ride from Ezra north to the Kiryat Arba police station… or at least close to it. We stop once in Tuwani, another village in a similar situation, and then they leave me at a checkpoint where I take a taxi through the surrounding towns.
I am left at what I assume is a building, although hidden behind blocks of concrete, fencing, and walls. There is a phone to call in, but the instructions are in Hebrew, and there is a water fountain turned towards the fence; but the fence makes it impossible to use, unless one shoots out the water into one’s hand, and then slurps it from there. When I get there, a Palestinian man and woman are already there, to get information about a friend who has been arrested. When another man leaves the police station, he explains to me that he was there to sign a statement swearing that he has no intention to kill a certain settler… who had filed a complaint saying that this man was going to kill him… ahh, it’s good to be the king! (sarcasm alert, part II) He asks me why I am trying to get in, and I tell him the story; he waves his hand and says to me “don’t bother, these people (the settlers) are above the law.”
Finally I am let inside the compound (after calling a few times) and I wait a bit until I am called in to file my report. I could list the details of this, but the important thing is that it was so surreal. The (I assume) detective, had no idea what or where Qawawis is or was, or the name of the smaller settler outpost Mizpe Yair, or even what I could possibly be doing there. The whole recounting of the event was dealt with as if I was describing my latest foray into the jungles of the Congo. But it was right in his backyard, I mean, he’s the police, shouldn’t he know that?! That, however, is just part of the apartheid reality of this place; many different peoples and communities, all of the living in close proximity, but according to very different rules, with the threads of connection between them tenuous, if there at all.
So, after writing many facts down, they ask for my pictures of the man. I show them, and then they want to take my camera to copy them, which I decline to do. After some haggling, it turns out they don’t have the right connections to hook up my camera anyway, so another police man says, “come back tomorrow with the pictures.” The last thing I want to do is take all day to come back to this place when I could be drinking tea with my dear friends in Qawawis, so I leave the station trying to think of what to do. After a bit of walking, I realize that I am very close to Baba Zawya, in Hebron, and I know a great photo store there that could probably burn the pictures to disc. Soon enough, I am there, getting the pictures copied and burned, seeing some friends, eating a bit, and heading back to the station.
I get there, and to my dismay, the same Palestinian couple that were there hours earlier are still waiting outside the fortress of gates, fences & disembodied voices. When my cop comes to let me in, I say to him, “could you please see that these people get some help, they have been here all day.” They talked a bit, and then we went inside. I have no idea if I helped them at all, but it is so excruciating to see just how thoroughly degraded and humiliated a Palestinian can be by just about every facet of the occupation. I, on the other hand, have white skin, speak English, have one of those Euro-american passports, and can pass for the Chosen People, which makes all the difference.
Back in the station, they fill out more paperwork, and I am asked at least 12 times if all 6 pictures are on the 1 disc. Yes, they are I say…again. Then they have me look at a book of pictures to see if I can id the man.
While waiting, I find myself looking at the display of pictures behind the desk of another cop. There is the usual combination of friends and family, along with other ones of a quasi-military nature. One of them I can still remember; there he is, in a t-shirt, green army pants, and wearing sunglasses. In the background are sheep, and slung around his shoulder is a large rifle. I still wonder whose sheep they are, where he was & what he was doing. Could it be his friend’s kibbutz in Israel? Or maybe he was in one of the many Palestinian villages and stopped for a photo op. Was he in the army? Or as a policeman? Or, dare I ask, policing the natives on his own initiative?
So they put the book of Jewish Israeli settler felons in front of me and I peruse. I really don’t think that I have seen such a collection of maladjusted, freaked out & scruffy people in my life. Half of them were staring into the camera with a confused malaise of anger in their eyes; of just wanting, needing, to let loose and project some serious violence. The other half smile like it’s their yearbook picture, kind of “look at me mom, it’s my first arrest! I’m a real settler now!” After looking through 2 books of these pictures, I had had enough, and more importantly, I could not identify the settler.
So, that was that. There was a brief discussion of getting Hajj Khalil to come and testify, but that was just ridiculous. I told them, why don’t you just drive your shinny jeeps 30 minutes down your settler highway and talk to him yourselves? I also was unwilling to put him through the humiliation of the Kirayat Arba police station, all in regards to a complaint that won’t be followed up by the police anyway. At one point, a cop was talking to me and seemed surprised when it was clear that I didn’t think they would do anything to follow up my complaint. He said to me “Do you think that we just take our salaries?” No comment, sir (sarcasm alert, part III, in 3-D).
Soon enough, they were done with me and I was on my way back to Qawawis via Al-Khalil. This time, the service driver from Yatta got some bad directions from my fellow travelers, and I was dropped off near the village of Tuwani. Now, as the crow flies, it’s not far from Qawawis, but the sun was going down, and the terrain is very tricky. I had to manage walking near the highway, but not too near so the army jeeps driving down wouldn’t notice me. Also, I had to make sure to give a wide berth to the outpost of Avigayil, so they wouldn’t see me, and keep an eye out so that any Palestinians I would see would not think that I was a settler going out for a night time stroll. All in all, a great time and place for a relaxing walk!(sarcasm alert, part IV, the Final Chapter)
After making it through, I was back in Qawawis, exhausted, physically and mentally, but missed by the village. But finally I was back, and the day’s ordeal, which really wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been, was over.
The next few days at Qawawis were calm, no problems or events to report. I’ve been away for a little while now, but I am already feeling the need for some sweet tea and the company of Hajj Khalil… and his sheep & goats, of course! See you soon, Qawawis inshalah, inshallah.
Following the recent release of new video footage of the four Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) members being held hostage in Iraq, Palestinian leaders united again to appeal for their release.
With the election behind them, representatives of Fatah and Hamas, along with religious leaders, have come together to appeal for the release of the hostages, political prisoners and all those working for Justice. The two Hamas representatives, in calling for their release, refered to them as friends of the Palestinians, stating that “These people support us against the occupation,” and named each one of them; Harmeet Sodeen and James Loney from Canada, Tom Fox from the USA, and Norman Kember from the UK.
CPT have been working for peace in Palestine for many years and are much valued by the Palestinian communities they support. The speakers emphasized Islam as a religon of peace, even in such difficult times. They spoke of the suffering of the Palestinian and Iraqi people, and that they should release those who work with them under occupation in Iraq.
Speakers were:
Dr. Mahmoud Rahmahi, newly elected member of the legislative council representing Hamas
Azam Al Ahmad, newly elected member of the legislative council representing Fatah and previously Palestinian Ambassador to Iraq
Abdel Aziz Ahmad, newly elected member of the legislative council representing Hamas
Abu Hassan, representing the Muslim scientists (Rabata Olama Al Muslimin)
(Abu Hassan, representing the Muslim scientists (Rabata Olama Al Muslimin))
(Dr. Mahmoud Rahmahi, newly elected member of the legislative council representing Hamas)
They were also joined by Jerry Levin a current CPT delegate who himself was held hostage for a year by Hezbollah in Lebanon. He said, ” We are all under one god, Allah, so please, let our brothers go, let your brothers go.”
Tyseer Tamimi, Imam of the Al Aqsa Mosque, was unable to attend due to being delayed for 2 hours at an Israeli checkpoint near Maale Adummim. He has attended numerous other press conferences for the kidnapped CPTers, as well as many non-violent demonstrations against the Apartheid Wall and Israeli Occupation, such as at the villages of Aboud and Bil’in.
The speakers reiterated their calls for releasing the CPT captives, as well as all political prisoners. They emphasized the solidarity of the CPTers with the suffering people of Iraq and Palestine, and condemned the occupations of Iraq and Palestine.
Finally, after several years of wanting to go to Gaza, Dunya and I managed to spend two days there under the auspices of election observation. It didn’t take very long for Dunya to observe that the elections in Gaza City were far cleaner than those in Ohio in 2004, where she was working at the time. Lack of democracy is not Palestine’s problem.
We stayed in Gaza City with Khaled Nasrallah and his family, one of the two families who had been living in the house in Rafah that Rachel Corrie was killed defending in March 2003. They now live in an apartment in Gaza City while a new house is being built, with the help of the ‘Building Alliance’. Most of the people in Gaza who have been displaced by home demolition have been displaced at least once before – in 1948 – and some of them more than once. They’ve lived in a constant state of terror for the past five years, and according to some, it got worse after the “disengagement”. Israeli shelling is not uncommon, not to mention the sonic booms that only started since the settlers have left. A 9-year-old girl was shot and killed by the Israeli army on Thursday in Gaza, probably just a few miles from where we were.
The Gaza International Airport is really something else, like any other airport, but with more beautiful design. And it is deserted. The control towers have been bombed by Israeli Apaches. The runways have been bulldozed every couple hundred meters. According to security at the airport, the only employees currently working, it was opened in 2000, and was forced by Israel to close early in 2001. Israel still forbids Palestinians from even beginning to reconstruct the runway. Palestinian Airlines only flies now between Egypt and Amman.
And then there’s Rafah. The row of houses along the border of Gaza and Egypt, are shot up thousands and thousands of times. That is, the houses that are still standing. More of them are in rubble. With bullet holes through the windows, doors and walls… it looks more like war than anything I’ve ever seen. Our hosts described to us some of the terror of their last two years in Rafah: never knowing which rooms were safe to be in, Israeli bullets flying through their windows at all hours, the young daughters waking up in the middle of the night and screaming. The girls are still affected, their mother Samah told us. The oldest, now five years old, remembers a story from Rafah. The family had been sleeping in the garden because it was safer than the house. At one point they were all in different places, someone in the garden, someone in the house, someone on the stairs. The shooting started, and young Mariam remembers the bullets flying towards their house, hitting a tree, and watching a guava fall off a tree and hit her father on the head. Her mother told the story laughing, saying “alhamdulillah” – thank god we weren’t hurt any more than we were.
Hope looks different, too, as Dunya pointed out during our visit to the former settlements. At every turn our driver explained that the Israelis used to be here, and here, and here. This is where this person was killed, this is a school that was bombed, this is an old checkpoint. And then we entered the old settlement of Netzarim. The scene looked remarkably similar to me to demolished Palestinian homes. The Israelis are good at destroying things, we joked to each other. They destroy Palestinian homes, and they also destroyed the settlers’ homes. This is hope, I suppose. Can rubble be hopeful?
Gaza City is bustling. We arrived our first evening, met the family, ate dinner, and then Khaled asked, “Do you want to walk around the city?” We were shocked that he would go out at night, especially with two female internationals, but it was completely normal to him. The shops were open, everyone was buying ice cream at the local ice cream parlor, last minute campaigning was subtle (campaigning is banned for 24 hours before election day, but nobody can be prevented from driving their cars, vegetable trucks, or donkeys with party flags on them). Apparently Gaza City is the Ramallah of Gaza, a thriving city where poverty is somewhat less apparent than other parts of Gaza.
Gaza is beautiful. I’ve heard about it being the most crowded place on earth, so I wasn’t prepared for the open space, the parks of palm trees, the plazas with monuments and wide roads that are pedestrian friendly. In contrast, while driving south along the road with the Mediterranean to the right, we could look left and see refugee camps that look more like I expected refugee camps to look before coming to Palestine. The camps in the West Bank have slightly narrower streets than cities and villages, and a few more visible signs of poverty. Some of these camps in Gaza are different, and with their tiny buildings and narrowest of streets they certainly look like they could be described as the most crowded places on earth.
You couldn’t be in Palestine and not be doing some sort of “election observing” during these past couple weeks. In an American context where civic engagement is among the lowest in the world, it excites me to be somewhere where even with such difficulty living under occupation, at least 75% of eligible voters voted. I know too that 8,000 Palestinian political prisoners can’t vote from Israeli prisons, that the Israeli government only permitted 6% of Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem to vote in the Palestinian elections, and that the 2/3 of the Palestinian population that lives outside of Palestine, do not have any say in who will be representing them and potentially negotiating away their right to return to their land. Not that negotiations will be happening any time soon here, since Israel refuses to negotiate with a Hamas that doesn’t disarm. I wish Hamas would refuse to negotiate with an Israel that doesn’t disarm.
The most common joke I’ve heard made in the past couple days, if it can be called a joke, is that I’ll have to start covering myself fully. A man joked today that he’s already starting to grow his beard. I was in Dheisheh refugee camp yesterday where the kids were discussing the election, and the teenage girls unanimously decided they would never wear hijab, even if Hamas legislated for it. We had a vote on the title of the exhibit that we’re putting together with the children about the trips we took them on, with suggestions like “Life Within Two Days,” “New Life”, and “Destroyed Villages”. At the end of the voting one of the kids suggested, “Hamas won!”.
And there is still occupation. I was able to meet my friend Fatima’s mother in Rafah, who hasn’t seen her daughter since 1997 because people in Gaza can’t get out and people in the West Bank can’t get to Gaza. A 20-year-old man we spent some time with in Gaza did not go an hour without saying, “Take me with you to the West Bank.” He’s never been there. Our crossing out of Gaza showed us firsthand for the first time what can only be described as indentured servitude. Thousands of Palestinian workers – those lucky enough to have permits – were standing shoulder to shoulder, waiting for hours to be allowed to cross back home to Gaza after a long day at work in the fields or building construction.
The occupation and injustice goes on in all of Palestine, regardless of its status. In Gaza, in the West Bank, and in Israel, Palestinians do not have equal rights. Someone tried to convince us yesterday that while Palestinians inside Israel don’t have equal rights, at least they have some rights. Unequal rights are not rights, Dunya pointed out. I know the Gaza “disengagement” caused people around the world to start thinking that occupation is over and everything is okay but Palestine still needs all the support it can get.
Photos from my trip to Gaza: http://community.webshots.com/album/546824389rbKVnd
