Epilogue: Get Out and Stay Out

By Katie

This is the “and Stay Out” part.

Friday morning I left Ramallah for Egypt to see Jonas in Sinai and to give him some of his stuff. I road a bus from Jerusalem to Eilat and was going to cross the border from Eilat, Israel into Taba, Egypt. I gave Jonas a ballpark time of when I would be there, because you never can tell what will happen at these border crossings. The first time I ever crossed the border from Israel to Jordan, I was delayed there for 3 hours because of a bomb scare. That was back in 2001, my first Israeli “security” experience. I was simultaneously scared and intrigued at the same time. “What kind of god-forsaken place is this,” my 25 year-old-self wondered.

So there I was at the Eilat border crossing, wondering how long I would be detained this time. The border policewoman punched my passport number into the computer and I watched her face turn from almost-pleasant to suspicious and hostile. She made phone calls and I waited for the stone-faced security to arrive and tell me “Please come with us.”

“Please come with us,” they told me.

I followed them to the metal detector where they ran both my bags through the x-ray machine and made me walk through the metal detector twice. On the other side of the x-ray machine they began opening one of my bags. My sketchbook with my cartoons and drawings was in this bag. I had debated taking this with me or not, knowing it might cause a problem. But hey, Israel is a country of freedom of speech, right ? I should be able to draw as I please without being a threat to security, right ? So I took it, and now I was watching a bunch of pissed off border police flip through and ask me why do I draw like this ? After they thoroughly searched one bag, they asked me if all of the stuff with me was mine. “Some of it is my friend’s stuff that I am taking to him in Egypt.” The border police looked at each other with raised eyebrows. “But don’t worry; it’s all been with me, at my house, for the last 3 months. I know what all of it is and I can show it to you. He stayed with me, left some of his stuff and now I am taking it to him.”

At that point they took me away from my possessions and put me in the strip search room. I was thoroughly strip-searched and when I was allowed back out, I began to realize something was very wrong. All at once, after being alerted to something, about 8 of the security people all freaked out and ran off somewhere, quite an unsettling thing to see. I asked one who was still me what was going on. He told me not to worry and that everything was ok. “How can you tell me not to worry when 8 of your people just freaked out like that?” I asked. No answer. I waited for a while and then I was given one of my backpacks and my passport. At this point, if I had wanted to, I could have just left the terminal and gone to Egypt. Nothing and nobody was preventing me. But they had the other bag and I wanted to wait for it, of course.

I was made to wait inside the entrance to the Israeli side of the terminal. There were about 8 border police blocking the door. They would not let anyone in or out. I asked one of them about my other bag, he said the police had to come and check it but I could have it back after they checked it.

I waited. Other people crossing from Egypt to Israel were lining up to leave inside. The border police would not let them leave. I saw a police van outside. At first there were maybe 15 people waiting inside. Then 30, then 100. There was a public announcement in Hebrew and English saying there was suspicious package that the police were checking out and that this was the cause of the delay. I heard an explosion. I began to feel uneasy. Then I heard another one.

Neta called me. I told her “Neta, the police have one of my bags. They aren’t letting anyone leave the terminal, there’s a police van parked outside and I just heard two explosions, I’m afraid they exploded my bag. “Don’t worry,” she reassured me, “if they really thought you had a bomb, they would have arrested you by now.” She’s right, I though… I have my passport; I could just leave if I wanted to. No one spoke to me; no one asked me a single question about where I was going or what was in my bag.

After about an hour, a police officer informed me they had exploded my bag.

“YOU WHAT ? YOU DIDN’T ASK ME ANYTHING, I WOULD HAVE OPENED THE BAG AND SHOWED YOU EVERYTHING INSIDE IT, ALL YOU HAD TO DO WAS ASK. INSTEAD YOU WASTED THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS OF AMERICAN TAXPAYER MONEY TO EXPLODE MY GODDAMED BAG WITHOUT EVEN ASKING ME WHAT WAS IN IT. YOU RAN IT THROUGH THE X-RAY MACHINE YOU CAN SEE EXACTLY WHAT WAS IN IT”

I was crying at this point. Some of the female border police began laughing at me.

The officer told me I would be reimbursed for the cost of the stuff that had been exploded.

“How do you know how much it was worth??? You EXPLODED It BEFORE YOU EVEN HAD A CHANCE TO LOOK?”

“Don’t worry,” he told me, “Just go to the Eilat police station and they will give you a report and you can get money back.”

Well there was nothing I could do at that point. There was some of mine and some of Jonas’s stuff in that bag. Some of my original artwork too that I was giving him as a gift.

I made a list of everything:

Laptop
Ipod
Original art
Rainbow kuffiya
Watch
3 books
Tea
Fire poi
Bike light
3 shirts
Cds
Lens cap for camera
Sandals

I’m sure they feel like they thwarted a terrorist plot. All they did was waste a lot of people’s time and money. Maybe it was because they didn’t like my cartoons ? I don’t know.

Details of Last Week’s Demolitions in Al-Hadidya with Short Video

Demolitions in Al Hadidiya

On the 13th of August in Al Hadidiya, Jordan Valley, two bedouin
houses and two farmyards were demolished by the IOF. The demolisions
took place at 9 a.m. One bulldozer accompanied
by six jeeps from the IOF and the police carried them out.

The soldiers only gave the inhabitants between 5 and 10 minutes to
collect their belongings before demolition began. The operation was
led by the Officer of the Military Civilian Administration in the
Jordan Valley, who also remarked that they intend to come back in two
weeks to demolish all the remaining houses in the village. Two
families with a total of 27 people lived in these houses were left homeless.

For one of the families, this was the sixth time their home was
demolished, the first time being in the 1970’s. The other family had
their tractor and watertank confiscated by the IOF two weeks earlier.

At 1 p.m, members of ISM and stopthewall.org arrived at the scene,
noting that the victims were already restoring their farmyards.

According to the stopthewall.org’s Jordan Valley coordinator, these
demolisions are part of a bigger scheme to demolish a few houses every
week in different parts of the Jordan Valley, to finally force all the
Palestinians to leave the Jordan Valley area.

The stopthewall.org coordinator said that their organisation aim to
support the rebuilding of the houses as a kind of resistance to the
occupation in line with their motto, ‘to exist is to resist’.

Haaretz: Berlin Protesters Demonstrate Against Israeli Products

Berlin Protesters Demonstrate Against Israeli Products

By Assaf Uni , Haarerz Correspondent

BERLIN – The opening of “Israel Week” at the Galeria Kaufhof department store in Berlin spurred a demonstration Saturday against Israeli food products originating in the
territories.

Protesters held signs reading “No to settlement products” and “Stop the Israel-EU Association Agreement.”

Groups protesting included The Jewish Voice, a Jewish-German organization opposed to the occupation, and Solidarity with Palestine, German teenagers affiliated with the radical left.

A counter-group of pro-Israel radical leftists waved Israeli flags and ate Israeli food.

“We have to encourage the Germans to be more critical of the Israeli occupation,” said Ruth Fructman, a Berlin journalist who was demonstrating.

“Right now it’s still hard for them, especially because every time they criticize Israel, they’re accused of anti-Semitism,” she said.

Martin Vorberg, of the Middle Eastern Workgroup, said the demonstration was aimed at Osem Industries, which he said has a factory in the territories, and spices from Amnon and Tamar, a company located in Alfei Menashe.

Gulf Times, AFP: Four Hurt During Anti-Barrier Rallies

Four hurt during anti-barrier rallies
Published: Saturday, 11 August, 2007, 01:10 AM Doha Time

Gulf Times

Demonstrators scuffle with Israeli soldiers during a protest against Israel’s barrier near the West Bank village of Umm Salamouna, south of Bethlehem, yesterday
BILIN, West Bank: Two Palestinians and two Israeli policemen were injured yesterday during protests against the controversial separation barrier being built by the Jewish state on the West Bank.
The Israeli military said the two policemen were hurt by stones hurled by demonstrators near the Palestinian village of Bilin, near Ramallah.
Around 150 people, including Israeli pacifists and foreigners, took part in the protest – an event occurring almost every Friday.
Two Palestinians were also injured during a similar demonstration against the barrier in the Bethlehem area, further south, witnesses said.
Some 500 acres of land in Bilin has been seized for the barrier, and thousands of olive trees uprooted, according to the Palestinians.
The Jewish state says the barrier, extending more than 650km, is needed as an anti-terrorist measure. The Palestinians term it an “apartheid wall”.
Encroaching on the West Bank, the barrier makes the creation of a viable Palestinian state extremely problematic. – AFP

Umm Salamona: Soldiers Get Rough With Protesters

On Friday afternoon August 17th over 150 Palestinian landowners and their families were accompanied by Israeli and international human rights activists to protest against the Apartheid wall in Umm Salamona and W’laga on the outskirts of Bethlehem.

The demonstration has become a weekly event as residents become more and more determined to draw attention to and prevent the annexation of their land for absorbtion into the Illegal Israeli Settlement of Efrat. The Apartheid wall is currently under construction in the area. Many hectares of olive groves, pine trees and other vegetation have already been destroyed by the Israeli Occupying Forces with significant amounts further set to be up-rooted. Consequently it will financially and culturally impoverish the local Palestinian communities in the area, taking away their means of economic survival and forcing them to change their way of life that they have undertaken for generations.

At the beginning of the demonstration locals hung up banners at the entrance to the site which bulldozers use daily. They clearly outlined the community’s opposition with slogans stating ‘Our land is the key issue,’ ‘We are nothing without land,’ while on the march they chanted ‘No to occupation,’ ‘No to house demolitions,’ ‘No to tree destruction.’

The local community-led non-violent action commenced with an address by a local community leader in Arabic and English about the history of the local area followed by prayers conducted on the roadside, observed at close quarters by over 25 Israeli soldiers.
There was a peaceful march towards the area, which is being leveled in order to make way for the building of the wall. Local Palestinians gave further speeches about the devastation that is taking place despite local opposition. Human Rights Activists initiated a non-violent direct action by building a stone barrier to stop the path of the bulldozers on the valley that faces the illegal Israeli settlement of Efrat.

The protestors proceeded uphill towards the Apartheid Wall but were blocked by Israeli soldiers and jeeps. After a non-violent attempt to get to the wall the soldiers stopped the march by aggressively pushing the activists and unsuccessfully attempting to arrest a number of Palestinians and Internationals. Demonstrators were violently grabbed and pushed to the ground, while one Irish activist was kicked in the head. Mainstream and independent media present were also deliberately pushed and obstructed from recording the soldier’s violent behavior.

The demonstrators maintained their nonviolence throughout the march and peacefully dispersed at about 2pm, confident that they manifested their dissent towards the annexation of Palestinian land by the Israeli State. A Spanish activist who attended the demonstration was arrested at a checkpoint as he left the area soon after the demonstration ended. Video evidence shows that he participated in a legal and nonviolent manner on the periphery of the protest.