Rally……….

So, one thing I realized soon after moving over here to Ramallah is that Palestinian guys LOVE cars and they love to drive them fast. Most of my close friends are or were at some point racing in the rallies, so every few months we all go to watch the rally in one of the West Bank cities.

This time, the rally was right outside of Ramallah, in Betounya district in a parking lot right next to Ofer Checkpoint. The wall –or fence since its unfinished right now– is right beside the rally, complete with razor wire and watch towers. It provides a certain type of atmosphere I guess, ha.

The whole rally, there were three Israeli army and police jeeps with about a dozen people watching from the other side of the fence.  I dont know whether they were there –for security reasons– or there to watch, but Im pretty sure they were enjoying it.

The rally drivers come from all over the West Bank and some Palestinians who live in Israel. The most impressive cars have doors that open vertically, make the most noise, or have the most stickers on them–and they get surrounded by teenage boys taking pictures and videos with their phones.

A friend of mine was driving in the race so my roommate and I went to find him. He had already done his first turn and would go again in half an hour so we watched the other cars race.

In the background, dabke music was blasting.

The drivers have to follow the course marked with cones–they drift, do donuts, and try not to hit any of the cones because they would get a 3 second penalty. There was a group of girls racing called Speed Sisters. They beat a lot of the guys who were racing and got most of the western media attention.

On the way out after it finished, the winners sat on the tops of their cars with their trophies, blasting music, and getting photographed by the media and teenage boys.

From Jail to Jail: Life of a Palestinian Mother

From Jail to Jail: Life of a Palestinian Mother:

photo by lazar simeonov

Omm Ahmad Khadeash is a mother and grandmother who has spent most of her life living in Balata Refugee Camp, near Nablus in the West Bank.  She is around 70 years old and has seen everything from the Nakba in 1948 to the brutality of the second Intifada. 

Omm Ahmad was born in a village called Ejzem, near Haifa.  Her village was expelled and destroyed by the Israeli military in 1948.  Her family fled to Huwarra, near Nablus, and then moved to the Balata Refugee Camp when it was created in the 1950’s.

Balata Refugee Camp is known for being very political, the heart of the resistance.  Many Fatah resistance leaders in the Intifada came from the camp.  For this reason, the Israeli military has been especially hard on the people of Balata.  Imposing curfews, conducting nightly raids of the camp in which they break down doors to the houses and destroy things inside, beat people—men and women, arrest, and sometimes kill people for being active in the resistance.    

Omm Ahmad married at 15 and has seven sons and five daughters.  Every one of her sons has been imprisoned.  She has never experienced a time where all of her sons were at home together. 

At the moment, she has six sons out of prison.  One was released two months ago and another, Khaled, is still in prison—with a sentence of over 1000 years for being one of the Fatah leaders in Balata.  He has four children, the youngest, Aboud, was born on the day his father was imprisoned.

Now Omm Ahmad takes care of Khaled’s wife and family—just as she has taken care of all of her sons’ families while they were imprisoned. 

Omm Ahmad is well-known in Balata for intervening when the Israeli soldiers raid the camp and try to arrest anyone.  She will run out and get in the middle of the fight; screaming, and saying “this is my son! This is my son!”—no matter who it is that they are trying to arrest.

She will “give the signal” to the other mothers around the camp and they will all run down and scream at the soldiers, and others will join in; screaming or throwing stones. 

One time, Omm Ahmad saw Israeli soldiers running after a young girl.  They caught her and started beating her. 

“I began screaming and brought all of my daughters with me to where the soldiers were.  Some other women heard us and joined us, screaming.  We created a big chaos and the soldiers left the girl.”

Another time, Omm Ahmad saw soldiers running after a teenage boy who was carrying a flag.  When he ran past her house she grabbed him and took him inside.  When the soldiers came to the door she blocked them from getting in, and started screaming.  Soon, other women started screaming and people began throwing stones. 

She had a real fight with the soldiers and even took a gun from one of them.  But because there was so much chaos around them from the screaming women and kids throwing stones, the soldiers decided it wasn’t worth it and left.

During the second Intifada, when the Israeli soldiers would impose a curfew on the camp for being active in the resistance, Omm Ahmad would ignore the curfew and take food and other supplies around to all her sons and daughters and their families. 

“It was dangerous, but I did not care”, said Omm Ahmad.

Omm Ahmad has spent most of her life traveling from one prison to another visiting her sons. 

“I have never had all of my sons at home at the same time.”

Her only son in prison now, Khaled, has a sentence of over 1000 years.  His only chance to be released from prison is if the prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel is successful.  Hamas, who is holding the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, is trying to reach an agreement with Israel.  In exchange for releasing Shalit, Hamas is asking Israel to release 450 Palestinian political prisoners—the prisoners who have consecutive life sentences—and Khaled is on that list. 

Omm Ahmad was only recently given permission to visit Khaled; once a month—before that she was not allowed to visit because she is known as a “trouble-maker” by the soldiers.  Khaled’s wife is only allowed to see her husband once or twice a year.

Visiting her sons in prison is like a “trip to hell”.  Khaled’s prison is in southern Israel, on the border with Egypt.  So when Omm Ahmad makes the trip to visit her son, she must get up before 3am and go to the special bus station in Nablus that has buses specifically for taking family members to different prisons.

The visitors must go through many checkpoints, getting rigorously searched at each one.  Another humiliating process they must go through before they can visit their family members is being stripped naked. 

The trip is exhausting, humiliating and takes an entire day.  After all of this, Omm Ahmad is allowed to see her son for less than an hour.

Recently, Omm Ahmad and all of the families of the prisoners on the exchange list received more bad news.  The talks between Hamas and the Israeli government failed, once again.   

Hamas requires that all of the prisoners are released to the West Bank or to Gaza.  But Israel has rejected some of the prisoners on the list and has also said that the only way they will release the remaining prisoners is by deporting them to other Arab countries.  Omm Ahmad is worried that Khaled may not be released while she is alive.

“They took our sons.  They took our land.  They stole it from us…they have this belief that this is their land and we should not be here.” 

These days, Omm Ahmad does not intervene when the soldiers come to the camp.  She says that the soldiers do not care whether they beat a child or an old woman anymore. There is nothing she can do to help, and she said she is losing faith that things will change.

“We have tried everything.  We tried the non violence in the 1^st Intifada—just throwing stones.  In the 2^nd Intifada we tried violence, with the guns.  It was very brutal.  Now we have tried the negotiations—the peace process.  Israel does not respond to anything.  Why must the Palestinians respect the agreements, but not Israel?  We have tried everything and each time we make a little progress but in the end we are always back at zero.”

And every time the Palestinians actively form a resistance, peaceful or violent, they always end up losing something in the end.  More Palestinians are expelled, more settlements, and the wall are built. 

“It’s too much”, says Omm Ahmad.  “The Palestinians are arguing with each other over power! For what? For a chair?  For a state that actually does not exist?  We are in a very difficult situation.”

“Release the prisoners, let our sons come home! Take Palestine, we don’t want it anymore.  We just want to live our lives—this is not life”, says Omm Ahmad.  “At the end it’s really not worth it.  I’m tired; I’ve spent most of my life going from jail to jail.  There was never a time when all of my sons were at home together.  It’s too much!”

As Omm Ahmad tells her story, she also makes sure to explain that this is not just her story.  This is the story of many other mothers in Palestine.  Boys are imprisoned for consecutive life sentences.  Their parents die, waiting for their children to be released from jail.

In the end, it sounds like Omm Ahmad has lost hope for a solution to her problem, or for Palestine.  But she says, “The hope remains, it is always there, like our faith in God.  But I am a human being, a woman, a mother.  I have a right to feel this way.  I have to take care of my grandchildren and the wives of my sons while they are in prison.  It’s too much.”

Life in Area C…..

Oslo Accords and the Creation of “Area C”

After the 1993 Oslo Accords, the final status of the West Bank was deemed to be subject to “upcoming” agreements between Israeli and Palestinian leadership. In the meantime, the authority of the West Bank was divided between Israeli and Palestinian through the creation of three different types of “areas”—A, B, and C.

Area A, which makes up 17% of the land in the West Bank, and is home to 55% of West Bank Palestinians, was put under the control of the Palestinian Authority. Area B, 59% of the land and 41% of the Palestinians, was put under joint Israeli-Palestinian control—civil authority for the PA and security for the Israelis. Area C makes up 59% of the land and 4% of the Palestinians, is under full Israeli control. There are 150,000 Palestinians living in Area C and 400,000 Jewish settlers living in 120 official settlements and 100 illegal outposts.

Area C contains all of the Israeli settlements, settler roads, security buffer zones, strategic areas, and Israeli military bases and zones. The places in the West Bank that make up most of the Area C are the Jordan Valley, East Jerusalem, and the Judean desert.

While the majority of the Palestinian population lives in Area A and B, much of the land around these Palestinian built-up areas, villages, and cities is defined as Area C. Therefore, many Palestinian communities have lost farmland—vital to the economy of many villages, and the land that their communities would naturally expand into as the population increases. The Israeli military retains full control of the land, roads, water, airspace, security and borders for the land in Area C.

Ethnic Cleansing Via Bureaucracy

Life is made almost impossible for any Palestinians living in or near Area C because of the complex bureaucratic system the Israelis set up for that very reason. Palestinians in Area C need a permit from the Israelis in order to repair their own homes and infrastructure, to build new homes on their own land, to access water, and to access their own farmland. Needless to say, these permits are not given out in a timely manner, if at all.

The Palestinians in the Jordan Valley, especially the bedouin communities, have been facing the most intense Israeli policies aimed at cleansing the area of Palestinians so that Israel can take over full control of the resources there. Another Israeli aim in taking over the Jordan Valley (30%  of the West Bank territory) is to unilaterally establish an eastern border of the West Bank that would isolated it inside Israel–without any borders leading to other, more friendly countries.

Since 1967, Israel has been carrying out a “creeping” ethnic cleansing on the residents of the Jordan valley through its permit system and other policies–taking the Palestinian population down from 320,000 to only 56,000 today. 

One example of the irrationality of the permit system is in Jiftlik, a village in the Jordan Valley—which is almost entirely Area C. In Jiftlik, they have had to put electricity poles in concrete blocks which are placed above the ground instead of digging a hole for them because according to the Israelis, digging holes more than 40 cm in the ground is illegal.

Sometimes you will see corrugated tin roofs camouflaged with plastic covering because building a roof out of metal counts as “building a second storey” in the Israeli system. And of course, they would need an impossible-to-get permit for that.

“Breathing is the only thing we don’t need a permit for—yet!” Said Abed Kasab, one of the residents of the village.

Economic Damage in Area C

The economies of the villages and cities in or near Area C have been very negatively affected by the restrictions placed on them. It is the same for Palestinians living in communities near the Separation Wall—which has isolated them from other cities making economic trade and travel to access services such as health care almost impossible. By 2008, over 3,000 businesses were forced to close in the West Bank because of the Separation Wall’s construction through or near their communities.

Qalqilia and Tulkarem

In Qalqilia,  the Separation Wall has completely surrounded the city, leaving just one Israeli-controlled gate to allow any people and goods in or out. The isolation of Tulkarem due to settlement blocs and the Wall has also been significant. 37% of the West Bank agricultural land is found in the Jenin, Tulkarem, and Qalqilia governorates.

The damage done to the land in these areas by the Separation Wall is severe. At the beginning of its construction, 83,000 olive and other fruit trees, 615 dunams of irrigated land, 37 km of water networks, and 15 km of agricultural roads were destroyed systematically.

In addition, 238,350 dunams of land were isolated between the Green Line and the Separation wall, 57% of which was cultivated and is now almost inaccessible to the Palestinian farmers.  The worst effect of this land confiscation is poverty—by isolation and fragmentation.

 Nablus

Economically, Nablus has been under siege since the beginning of the Second Intifada. Huwwara checkpoint, just outside the city of Nablus, was the only way to get in or out of the city. This made trade and business almost impossible for years, strangling the economy.

To make matters worse, the Israeli military would arbitrarily close the checkpoint for different amounts of time—causing normal life to stop in Nablus. When Huwwara checkpoint is operating “normally” the line of cars waiting to leave or enter Nablus can be kilometers long, and the people must wait for hours.

Hebron

In Hebron, the Israeli settlers took over apartments right in the middle of the city. This area is now referred to as H2—and has caused extreme damage to the economy of Hebron because it is located in the central market of the city. Here, around 800 Jewish settlers live among 30,000 Palestinians.

The settlers’ presence has been slowly choking the economy of Hebron. The settlers are protected by the Israeli military—who have set up checkpoints throughout the marketplace to ensure the safety and freedom of movement for the settlers while denying both to the Palestinian residents.

More than half of the shops in the central marketplace have been forcibly shut down, or gone out of business due to the presence of settlers, military, and checkpoints in the market. Palestinian shop owners have to put chain link fencing above the alleyways outside their shops because the settlers, who have taken over the upstairs apartments, routinely throw garbage, glass bottles, and even sewage water down on the shops and people below.

Violent Effects of Settlements on Area C Palestinians

Hebron

The settlers in Hebron are the most violent in the West Bank, they systematically attack their Palestinian neighbors with complete impunity. Of course, they are allowed to carry automatic rifles and are protected by the IDF, so they can beat any Palestinian they want, or rip the veil off of any woman with no consequences.

South Hebron Hills

In the South Hebron hills, which are in the middle of Area C, the settlers constantly attack the Palestinian villagers. Sometimes they send dogs on the Palestinians, other times settlers wearing hoods or masks wait for the school children or shepherds to walk home where they stone them, beat them, or steal from them.

Recently, a 6 year old child who was grazing his sheep in an area isolated by the barrier near the settlement of Shani, was physically assaulted by a settler. Also, the settlers destroy olive and fruit trees as well as burning entire agricultural fields.

Nablus

Nablus is surrounded by settlements—which are built on the tops of the hills around the city. These settlers are constantly attacking the Palestinians in villages near settlements. Recently, West Bank settlers have been following a “Price Tag” policy in response to international pressure on Israel to freeze settlement construction and dismantle illegal outposts.

This policy requires that for every outpost or building in a settlement demolished, the settlers will organize an attack on neighboring Palestinian communities. This policy has been very obvious in the Nablus area.

Recently, Israeli settlers from the Yitzhar settlement entered Huwwara village near Nablus and vandalized the municipal park—damaging the park lights, sound amplifiers, children’s toys, and olive trees near the park. They also threw stones at a nearby house, breaking several windows.

In addition, on May 4^th, settlers set fire to a mosque in Lubban Al Sharqiyya—one day after the Israeli civil administration demolished 5 structures under construction in the settlement of Shave Shomron; a clear Price Tag policy attack. This was the 3^rd act of vandalism targeting mosques reported in the northern West Bank since December 2009.

Salfeet

In Salfeet, a city which is surrounded by 17 settlements (built on land confiscated from the city and villages around it), the settlers prefer to send wild boars down on the Palestinians below. These wild boars are huge and very dangerous—in addition to destroying farmland and agriculture, they could also seriously injure or kill anyone who gets in their path.

Environmental Damage Caused by Settlements

What’s more, the surrounding settlements are causing a great deal of environmental damage in the West Bank. Israeli factories that are not within the standards of environmental and health protection of Israel move to the West Bank to bypass these regulations.

Near Salfeet, settlements and factories are causing major environmental damage. They dump chemical waste from factories onto Palestinian fields—which contaminates the produce. The settlers also drain their sewage water into nearby villages and land—causing severe health effects on the people.

Water War

Water availability is another complex issue in Area C. The wells in Area A & B are not completely under Palestinian control, and the ones located in Area C are not available at all to Palestinians. Israeli use of West Bank water is 7 times what the Palestinians use. Area C contains 280 out of 597 wells, and of these only 51 are owned by Israel.

Yet, somehow, Israel’s annual yield of water equates to over 66% of the total water yields in Area C. This is why the Israeli settlements have green grass in every yard, swimming pools, etc…while in Palestinians cities and villages, people can go weeks without water in their homes–especially now, during the summer.

Ban of Settlement Goods in the West Bank

According to the Karama Pledge, the purchase of  settlement goods by Palestinians in the West Bank has been officially made illegal by the PA. Anyone caught dealing in settlement goods will be sentenced to 2-5 years imprisonment and up to a $15,000 fine. Youth supporters of the settlement goods boycott have been running a Door-to-Door Campaign around the West Bank handing out information about the boycott, including a list of over 500 banned settlement goods to avoid in the stores.

Surprisingly, Palestinians spend 3 billion dollars annually on settlement goods. Because of this, the boycott has already made a huge impact on the settlement economy–promting settlers to call this move “economic terrorism.”   Since the beginning of the boycott campaign, at least 17 companies in one of the largest illegal Israeli settlements, Ma’ale Adumim, have been forced to close.

The Israeli government claims that the PA is violating its economic trade agreements (according to the Oslo Accords), and the decision has put a strain on the proximity peace talks that recently restarted. However, the move to boycott settlement goods has been supported by the international community, and does not violate the Oslo Accords because the ban is not against Israeli goods in general, but just those produced in illegal settlements.

The main drawback of the boycott for Palestinians is the fact that it is also illegal for them to work in the settlements now–which means thousands of Palestinians will be unemployed. Adding this to the already high unemployment rate in the West Bank will be problematic but Palestinian leadership counters that this boycott is part of a larger, nonviolent resistance to the occupation, and that the effect on the settlements’ economies will be worth the sacrifices.

(President Abbas has just declared his home free of settlement goods, ha.)

“Unoccupied” Israeli Settlements

Although more and more people in the West are hearing about illegal Israeli settlements in the media and the problems they are causing for the peace process, most people don’t know that there are reasons other than political and religious ones for occupying someone else’s land.

“Quality of Life” Settlers

This term is used for those Israelis who decide to move to settlements for economic reasons, instead of political or religious ones. They tend to live closer to the Green Line (the internationally recognized 1967 border between the West Bank and Israel).

Ideological Settlers

Israelis who use religious and nationalist reasons to defend living in West Bank settlements—most of these live right in the middle of Palestinian territory and cause the most problems for their Palestinian neighbors.

Ultra-orthodox Settlers

Could be under the category of “quality of life” settlers, because they live in West Bank settlements because of the cheap and segregated (ultra-orthodox only) housing that is close to the Green Line. (Ultra-orthodox housing in Israel is expensive and overcrowded).

Short History of the Settlement Movement

The settler movement was started, as would be expected, by religious ideologists who were and still are fanatically attached to “reclaiming” the biblical Land of Israel as a state for Jewish people. What Israel consists of right now is only a small part of the larger “Land of Israel”—who’s border varies according to which ancient scripture you read but could extend as far as the Nile River in Egypt to the Euphrates River in Iraq.

Shortly after the settlement movement began, the Israeli government began to heavily subsidize the settlements for political reasons, to cater to settlement leaders and to support the right-wing national-religious groups inside Israel. Ideologically, the subsidization of settlements supported the settlement of key areas in the West Bank that had historical connections in Judaism (including the Etzion bloc) and that were in strategic locations (Jordan Valley and anywhere that is high elevation).

Because there weren’t enough fanatical Israelis to populate the necessary areas inside the West Bank for purely ideological reasons, the government decided to motivate settlers economically. Because of this, a new group of Israelis became  drawn to the settlements because they could find cheap housing, tax breaks, subsidies on transportation, education, etc…

“Unoccupied” Settlements

According to a Peace Now survey, about 77% of the almost 500,000 Israeli settlers living in the West Bank said they had moved there mainly for economic reasons. There is a large percentage of these “quality of life” settlers who register themselves with the government as living in West Bank settlements, but who do not actually live there full time.

If you visit some of these types of settlements during the middle of the day, you will find that the schools and streets are empty. There are actually not many people who live there full time. Instead, they enjoy the economic benefits of being registered as living there without the hassle of commuting from Israel to the settlements for work and without the security risk of living in occupied territory.

Palestine Monitor (Palestinemonitor.org) is currently working on a story to find out how many settlements are actually inhabited full time. So watch for the story in the next couple of weeks.

 

Summary of Israeli Actions in Bil’in in 2010:

Detained:

 (While most international and Israelis who are detained are released after a few hours of questioning, the Palestinian detainees, especially from the village, usually are held without being charged for 5 or more months before being released on 10,000 shekel bail.)

1.Ranu Ayub

2.Mohammed Ali Yasin

3.Mohammed Khateeb (Popular Committee member)

4. American activist, “Stormy”

5.Hamdi Abu Rahmeh (Israeli Arab, B’tselem volunteer)

6. Ashraf Abu Rahmeh

7.Haitham Al Khateeb (cameraman, B’tselem volunteer)

8.Muheeb Al Barghouthi

 (Al Haya Al Jadida photojournalist)

9-14. 6 other unidentified protestors detained during same protest

15. Unidentified Israeli woman

16.UnidentifiedPalestinian male

(3) Al Jazeera Crew members:

17.Majdi Banura

18.Nader Abu Ze

19. Unidentified Irish crew member

20.Unidentified female Israeli  activist

21. Ashraf Abu Rahmeh (2^nd time)

22. Abed Al Fattah Burnat

23. Haitham Al Khateeb (2^nd time)

24. Roy Vackner (Israeli)

25. Uri Baytman (Israeli)

26. “Stormy”, US activist (2^nd time)

Home Raids:

 There are Israeli raids in Bil’in almost nightly, here are the reported home invasions since January 2010:

 –Home of Ranu Ayub (twice)

–Home of Muhammed Ali Yasin (1, multiple raids in last half of 2009)

 –Home of Muhammed Khateeb (twice)

  –Home of Abed Al Fattah Burnat

 Masked Soldiers enter the village at night and post signs declaring  Bil’in a “closed military area”—meaning it is illegal for any International or Israeli activist to be at the location of the protest on Fridays…effectively making protests illegal and arrest likely.

Injured Palestinians:

 (other than teargas inhalation…which is dozens of “injuries” per week)

At least a dozen unidentified protestors were struck by teargas canisters and rubber coated bullets without being reported.

 1.Abbas Al Maimuny (journalist, struck by teargas canister)

2.Dr. Rateb Abu Rahmeh

(Popular Committee member, struck by teargas canister)

3.Fadi Aljause (cameraman)

4.Haron Amira (reporter)

5.Bassem Ahmad Yassin

6.Ibrahim Burnat

7.Nayif Ghazi

8.Harun Amaieyarah (Palestine TV correspondent)

9.Fadi Al Jayusi (Popular Committee member)

10.Samir Burney (Popular Committee member)

11. 70 year old Palestinian man struck with teargas canister

12.Haitham ___ struck in chest with teargas canister

Injured Israelis: 

Half a dozen unidentified Israeli activists were struck by teargas canisters or rubber coated steel bullets without being reported.

 1.Eydo Medix

2.54 year-old Israeli solidarity activist

3.Emad Rezqa (from Jaffa—shot in the forehead with a teargas canister)

Killed: 

Since Bassem Abu Rahmeh was killed after being shot in the chest with a high velocity teargas canister over a year ago, there have been no fatalities in Bil’in.

 ————————————————————————-

 In the last half of 2009, 5 members of the Bil’in popular committee against the wall (including Abdullah Abu Rahmeh, Adeed Abu Rahmehwere arrested on charges of “incitement”, stone throwing, and collecting exploded teargas canisters shot at them by the IDF

In addition, over 30 other residents of Bil’in were arrested, 94 residents of Ni’lin were arrested in 2009. Seen as part of an arrest wave that targets activists and organizers throughout the West Bank

Jamal Juma, Wael Al Faqee and Mohammed Othman of the Stop the Wall NGO have also been arrested—both are being held without being charged and on “secret evidence”

“A Cloud Over Jerusalem”—Uri Avnery

EVERYONE HAS the right to change his or her mind. Even Danny Tirzeh.

Colonel Tirzeh was responsible for planning the wall that “envelopes” Jerusalem – the one that cuts the city off from the West Bank in order to turn it into the United Capital Of Israel For All Eternity.

And now, suddenly, Tirzeh pops up as the main opponent of the wall he himself planned. He wants to move it, so as to leave the lands of al-Walaja village on the “Israeli” side.

The Colonel has ceased acting on behalf of the Israeli army and now represents private entrepreneurs who want to build 14 thousand housing units for 45 thousand Jewish souls. All this, of course, for the greater good of Zionism, the Jewish people, Israel’s Eternal Capital, and many tens of millions of shekels.

COLONEL TIRZEH is not just anybody. He is a symbol.

For years I kept meeting him in the halls of the Supreme Court. He had become almost a fixture: the star witness, the expert and the moving spirit in scores of hearings dealing with the Separation and Annexation Wall.

He knows everything. Every kilometer of the Wall and the Fence. Every hill, every stone. He always carries with him a large bundle of maps which he lays before the judges, earnestly explaining why the Wall must pass here and not there, why the security of the state demands that the Palestinian villages be separated from their land, why leaving an olive grove in the hands of its owner would expose Israeli soldiers to mortal danger.

Generally, the judges are persuaded. After all, he is the expert. He is the man who knows. How can they take upon themselves the responsibility for changing the route of the Wall, if this could result in Jews being killed?

There are exceptions. At Bil’in village, the court was convinced that the Fence could be moved a few hundred meters without causing the security of the state to collapse and heaps of Jewish bodies to litter the landscape.

So the Supreme Court accepted the plea of the villagers and decided to move the Fence and — nothing. The Fence has remained where it was. The government and the military just ignored the court order.

In vain did the President of the Supreme Court admonish them that her decisions “are not recommendations”. Like dozens of other court decisions concerning the settlers, this one, too, is gathering dust.

The case of Bil’in is especially conspicuous, and not only because protesters – Palestinians, Israelis and others – have been killed and injured there. It is conspicuous because the motive trying to hide behind the Fence is so striking.

Not Zionism. Not security or defense from the terrorists. Not the dreams of generations. Not the vision of Theodor Herzl, whose 150th birthday is being celebrated now.

Just money. Lots of money.

The area lying between the present Fence and the alternative path has been earmarked for the Orthodox settlement Modi’in-Illit. Giant corporations are to build many hundreds of “housing units” there, a business worth many millions.

Everywhere, the areas stolen from the Palestinians immediately turn into real estate. They pass though mysterious channels into the jaws of land sharks. The sharks then build huge housing projects and sell the “housing units” for a fortune.

HOW IS this done? The public is now receiving a lesson in the form of the Holyland affair, a lesson in installments – every day new details emerge and new suspects turn up.

On the site of an old and modest hotel by this name, a giant housing project has sprung up – a line of high-rise apartment buildings and a skyscraper. This ugly monster dominates the landscape – but the part of the project which can be seen from afar is only a fraction of the whole. The other bits have already received the blessing of all the relevant municipal and government authorities.

How? The investigation is still going on. Almost every day, new suspects are being arrested. Almost everybody who has had anything to do with the authorization of the project, up to the highest level, is suspect – ministers, senior government officials, the former mayor, members of the municipal council, and municipal officials. At present, the investigators are trying to trace the bribe money all over the world.

Holyland is located in West Jerusalem (in what before 1948 was the Arab neighborhood of Katamon).

The question naturally arising: if things are done this way in the West of the city, what is happening in the East? If those politicians and officials dare to steal and take bribes in West Jerusalem – what do they allow themselves in East Jerusalem, whose inhabitants have no representation in either the municipality or the government?

ONLY A few minutes drive separate Holyland from the village of al-Walaja.

One could write volumes about this small village, which for more than 60 years has served as a target of abuse.

Briefly: the original village was occupied and annexed to Israel in the 1948 war. The inhabitants were expelled and founded a new village on the part of their land which remained on the other side of the Green Line. The new village was occupied in the 1967 war and annexed to Jerusalem, which was annexed to Israel. According to Israeli law, the houses are illegal. The inhabitants live in their own houses, on their own land, but are officially considered illegal residents who can be evicted at any time.

Now the land sharks are ogling this succulent piece of land, which is worth a lot of money for building projects. They follow the proven Zionist routine. First of all, the Arab name of the place is replaced with a pure Hebrew one, preferably from the Bible. Much as nearby Jebel-Abu-Ghneim became Har Homa, before the eyesore monster housing project was erected there, thus al-Walaja has now become Giv’at Yael. Clearly a place called Hill of Yael must belong to the Jewish people, and it is a divine duty to build another settlement there.

So what if this necessitates the moving of the Wall? One can always find a used army officer who will justify this on security grounds.

FOR YEARS now I have been suggesting that this side of the settlement enterprise should be examined more closely.

The public debate was always about lofty ideals. The divine promise as against the human vision. Greater Israel as against the Two-State solution. Zionist values as against the value of peace. Fascism as against humanism.

And somebody was laughing all the way to the bank.

The settlements are growing rapidly all the time. All over the West Bank and East Jerusalem settlements spring up like toxic mushrooms, poisoning the prospects of peace. In this matter there was never any difference between Golda Meir and Menachem Begin, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon, Shimon Peres and Binyamin Netanyahu.

Among the settlers there is a hard core of ideological zealots. But many of the builders are just clever businessmen, whose only god is Mammon. They easily make friends with the leaders of Likud and the chiefs of Labor, not to mention the Kadima crowd.

The massive settlements in East Jerusalem – those already existing and those still planned – are proceeding along the same lines as the monster on Holyland hill, and they need the same permits from the same municipal and government authorities. Jerusalem, after all, has been united. Therefore, the same dark cloud is hanging over them.

What is needed is a judicial board of inquiry to investigate all the permits issued in Jerusalem in recent years, certainly from the beginning of Ehud Olmert’s term as mayor. Olmert fought like a tiger for the establishment of Har Homa and the other large settlements in East Jerusalem. All for the sake of Zionism and Jewish rule over the Holy City. Now he is Suspect No. 1.

Everything must be investigated from the beginning. And every new project must be stopped until its propriety has been established beyond any doubt.

THESE THINGS are grave enough in themselves, and they are even more serious when they are located at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Israel-US crisis.

For the sake of the Israeli housing projects in East Jerusalem, the Netanyahu government is endangering our lifeline to the US. The extreme-right mayor declares that he doesn’t give a damn for government orders and will continue to build all over, whatever Netanyahu may or may not say. The Palestinians understandably refuse to negotiate with the Israeli government while building activities in East Jerusalem go on.

Shall we endanger the future of Israel for generations, just so that land sharks can make more millions?

Do the patriots who are sharing out East Jerusalem include elected and appointed officials hoping for large bribes from the builders?

Is there a connection between the rampant corruption, of which the Holyland affair is only the tip of the iceberg, and historic national decisions?

In short, will we allow the future of the holy land be sacrificed on the unholy altar of the profits of corruption?

Mosque Burned Down by Extremist Settlers in the West Bank

A mosque was burned down by extremist Israeli settlers  in Libban Al Sharqiya, near Nablus, on Tuesday. Of course, the Israeli authorities who were investigating the fire have so far found “no proof” that the settlers were the cause of the fire, the fact that settlers in the West Bank have attempted to burn down mosques in the past points to their involvement.

Because attacks on religious sites are more of an incitement  for the majority of Palestinians than the occasional murders of Palestinians by the Israeli military in the West Bank—emotions are running high. Also adding to the tension is the fact that “proximity talks” are about to begin this week between Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Villagers say “there is no doubt that those who committed this act are settlers” because before the mosque was burnt, the arsonists arranged the mosque’s Qurans neatly in the middle of the fire—and in Islam, a Quran can never be destroyed (instead they are buried, or hidden in the space between walls, etc…).

They also pointed out past attacks by the nearby settlers including burning an olive press and cars in the area. Other places in the West Bank, settlers have set fire to whole Palestinian fields, destroying the crops, cutting down olive trees, and even releasing wild boars on nearby Palestinian villages.

Some of the more radical settlers living in the West Bank have a policy called “price tag”—where any attempt by the Israeli military to dismantle illegal property in settlements or outposts is followed by aggressive acts against the nearby Palestinian communities. On Monday, several structures in the settlement Shavei Shomron were destroyed because they were being built in violation of Israel’s partial settlement freeze.

Contemporary Dance Festival:

Dance Festival Website

From April 19th -May 8th there is a Contemporary Dance Festival going on in the West Bank (Ramallah, Hebron, Bethlehem) and Jerusalem. There are dance groups visiting and performing from all over the world including USA, France, Norway, Tunisia, Switzerland, Hungary, Germany, and more.

Last night I went to a performance that included the dance group “Leyya Tawil’s Dance Elixir”  and the group that is the organizer and owner of the Contemporary Dance Festival, Bottega, from Italy. It ended with a performance by Amal Khatib, a student at the Sireyyat Ramallah Dance Group.

My favorite performance was Bottega. Their style was hip-hop breakdancing with a little bit of ballet influence. They were breakdancing to Opera music–it was actually a really amazing combination. There were two women, who had the more ballet style of dancing and two men who were excellent breakdancers.

They ended with one of the men performing a dance as “Handela” (Handela is a cartoon character that is very famous in Palestine, it is a little boy who you can only see his back, and his arms are always crossed behind his back–He represents the Palestinian refugee, he was made a refugee in 1948 when the Palestinians were driven out of their homes so Israel could be established, and he never grows up, he remains the same age until he can return to his home) to an Arabic song that had Palestinian poetry about the land in the background. It was very powerful.  And he did the entire dance with his back to the audience, including breakdancing and stalling. It was amazing and the crowd loved it.

There are just a few performances left this year, but they will be back again in 2011.

Weekly Post:

Sinai Visa Trip:

I just got back to Ramallah from my travels. I spent 2 weeks in Sinai, the original plan was to spend a few days in Nuweiba at the Bedouin camp I always stay at, Sababa, and then go to mainland Egypt to see Luxor and Aswan. That didn’t work out as planned because of the visa bureaucracy involved with entering Sinai from Israel through the Taba border. Egypt gives out 2 types of visas, one just for Sinai and one for mainland Egypt. If you come into Sinai from Taba, they automatically give you the Sinai-only visa—I think because they are trying to keep the Israeli tourists in a small area so they can better keep track of them (for their safety….).

So even though I’m not Israeli, I still came from Israel so they gave me the Sinai only visa. My friends Chris and Julian and I tried to get the Egypt visa from the Egyptian consulate in Eilat but since it was Friday the consulate was closed for the next 2 days. We didn’t want to wait in Eilat for 2 days so we decided that there must be another way to get the Egyptian visa from Sinai and we crossed the border. At the Egyptian side, we asked about the Egyptian visa and a man told us we could get it only if we paid 50 dollars to get a letter from a travel agency taking “responsibility” for us. We didn’t want to pay that bribe so we decided to try and find it in Sharm El Sheikh at the ferry to Hurghada (mainland Egypt).

Sababa and the Egyptian Visa Fiasco:

We went to Sababa camp in Nuweiba for a few days and relaxed on the Red Sea beaches, snorkeling and laying out in the sun. After a few days we took the first of 2 trips down to Sharm to try to get the visa to Egypt. Long story short—it’s impossible to get the visa on the ferry. You have to have the visa even to buy the ticket for the ferry. In order to get the visa, you have to do three things: First, pay 15 dollars to buy the Egyptian visa sticker, then pay 50 dollars bribe to get the letter from the travel agency, then go to the Sharm airport, go out of immigration like you are taking a flight, and then turn around and come back in and get the official stamp on the visa sticker.

On the first trip, we didn’t know about that whole process, so we just went straight to the ferry and tried to get on without the visa—hoping we could get the visa when we arrived in Egypt (like any normal visa process…) but they wouldn’t let us. So we drove all the way back to Nuweiba (2 ½ hour drive north) and decided to try again the next day—following the instructions we got from the officials at the ferry.

We drove back down to Sharm the next day—went to Thomas Cook travel agency to get the 15 dollar visa sticker. We asked them if they would write the letter for us so we could get the visa stamped at the airport. They told us we didn’t need it, the sticker was all we needed and that we should go to the airport to get the stamp.

So we drove to the airport (all the while the taxi meter is running….ughh) and went to Terminal 1. We went out immigration and tried to get the stamp. The guy told us we needed the letter, after arguing for a bit about what Thomas Cook told us, we asked where we could get the letter in the airport. He said there was a travel agency in the same terminal. So we went to information, and after being passed from person to person (taking about 45 minutes…) they said we had to go to Terminal 2.

We ran over to Terminal 2 and asked around about travel agencies. After the same, “Go ask this guy” process of being passed from person to person so they wouldn’t have to help us, someone finally told us there was no travel agency in Terminal 2 but there was one in Terminal 3. AHHHHH!

So off we went to Terminal 3 (meter is still running in the taxi…) and saw what looked like a Russian refugee camp. The entire terminal was packed solid with Russian tourists camped out sitting on the ground surrounded by luggage. We had to fight our way through them to find the information desk. When we finally made it to the desk, the man said there was no travel agency in Terminal 3 that could write the letter, but he knew a guy in Terminal 1 that could write it for us.

Back to Terminal 1, and we waited by the information desk for this guy to find us for about 20 minutes. Finally, a guy in a shiny suit, gelled hair, with a used-car salesmen vibe found us. He told us he could write the letter for us for 100 dollars each—all the while with a smirk on his face letting us know he knew exactly what he was doing and that he was our only chance for getting this visa so he could bribe us for as much as he wanted.

I decided to screw the Egyptian visa and the whole Luxor-Aswan trip because I was not about to pay 100 dollars to THIS guy—especially since I had spent most of my budget for the trip on the two trips down to Sharm trying to figure out how to get the stupid visa. So we returned to the taxi and asked him to drive us up to Dahab.

Dahab:

Dahab is a city on the Red Sea about mid-way between Sharm and Nuweiba. It’s more developed than Nuweiba but not as touristy as Sharm (which is mostly just huge glitzy resorts and nothing else…) so it’s a nice place to spend a week or so.

After my friend and I got to Dahab, another friend of ours from Ramallah, Lazar, arrived and we spent the next week in Dahab snorkeling and hanging out with the locals Lazar and I had met in previous trips to Sinai. Dahab was really busy because of the ash-cloud from the Iceland volcano—most of the tourists were British and the rest were European so their flights were all cancelled for a week. So we met a lot of people, relaxed on the beaches, and saw some really cool coral and fish.

Israeli Border:

Lazar was planning to stay in Sinai for a few weeks, but I had to get back up to Palestine for my work so Chris and I went back up to Nuweiba for one night before crossing the border back into Israel. The next day we went through the border. Chris got a three month visa after a thorough security check where the border guards opened all of his luggage and x-rayed everything individually. I didn’t even get that security check but at the passport control I was unlucky and got a soldier who wasn’t very accommodating.

She saw my previous Israeli visas (almost a year’s worth already) and asked what I was doing “in Israel” all this time. I played the tourist card and when she asked more questions about why I wanted to be in Israel so long without being Jewish I told her I had a Jewish boyfriend. This kind of convinced her but she ended up only giving me a one-month visa (usually signaling the end of the ability to get more visas in the future) and telling me if I needed a little longer to wait for my “flight home” I could go to the Ministry of Interior in Tel Aviv and apply for an extension. The Ministry of Interior is probably one of the scariest places in Israel, but I will have to go there in a couple of weeks and hope they take pity on me—my family is finally coming to visit me and see the region in June, so I need to be here for at least a month after my visa runs out.

Anyways, I took my passport and one month visa and took the bus ride from hell back up from Eilat. We met an American guy at the exit of the border—he asked us if we wanted to share a cab to the bus station. We got to talking and it turns out he had just come out of 3 hours of Israeli interrogation in the border (thank God—if it wasn’t him it might have been one of us….). He made the terrible mistake of mentioning “Ramallah” to the border guard. For the record, you cannot mention anything related to Palestine, Islam, or Arabic anything when you are talking to the border guards if you want to get in the country without problems. Since he mentioned Ramallah—which I’m not even sure he knew was in Palestine, he got 3 hours of interrogation before they realized he wasn’t a threat to Israel and gave him a visa.

When we got to the bus station we realized that we had missed the last bus to Jerusalem because of the surprise one hour difference between Taba and Eilat, so we had to get the bus to Tel Aviv instead. That means adding an extra 2 hours at the least onto an already excruciating journey. So we got that bus, after 5 hours arrived in Tel Aviv and looked for a sherut (minibus) to Jerusalem outside. To our surprise, the sherut driver was Arab Israeli and agreed to take us all the way to the Qalandia checkpoint instead of just central Jerusalem.

West Bank:

At Qalandia, the driver didn’t know exactly where to park so before we could stop him he drove all the way into the car lane for entering the West Bank before he stopped. He was very worried with all the soldiers carrying M-16s around. We got out quickly to grab our bags and let him get out of the wrong part of the checkpoint. As we were opening the back, the soldiers started yelling at us in Hebrew to get out of there. We told them just wait one minute and he will leave. Then the soldiers in the watch towers started screaming at the driver to go, so he started driving off in a panic with the back door open and half of our bags in his trunk. Ha.

We managed to get him to stop for 10 more seconds before he sped away from the madness and we got all of our bags. Jason, the American guy we met at the border, had agreed to come straight to Ramallah with us instead of spending a night or two in Jerusalem first. So he got a pretty crazy first impression of the occupation. We dragged and pulled at our bags to get them through the THREE turnstiles we have to walk through in Qalandia checkpoint to get into the West Bank, and caught a cab home on the “other side.”

We agreed to meet the next morning in the center to go to the protest against the wall in Bil’in—Jason would have a very interesting time in the West Bank. Haha.

Bil’in Conference and Protest:

The next morning we got to Al Manara (the central square in Ramallah) and took a service (minibus) to Bil’in. This week was the annual Bil’in conference—they had three days of workshops and tours for internationals and Israelis coming to visit Bil’in to learn about their nonviolent struggle. So there were a lot more people than usual, including important politicians and the representative from the EU for Palestine.

We marched to the wall, and for a little bit the soldiers didn’t shoot at us. Then, they pulled up the skunk water truck and most of the crowd disappeared in a few seconds. They never shot it though, so some of the braver protestors began making their way back up to the front.

After that, the soldiers started shooting a new kind of teargas canister—it is high velocity and SILENT. You can’t hear when its shot—which is what most people use to determine whether they need to run or duck or whatever. So by the time you see it its either passing right by you or hitting you. It was the craziest thing—and the soldiers were shooting them straight at head level instead of up into the air in the legal way to disperse nonviolent crowds.

I was going nowhere near the front because those crazy silent teargas canisters were appearing out of nowhere in all directions. A friend of mine that I work with, Rafke, was in the front though. A few seconds later I heard a lot of yelling for an ambulance, and the ambulance sped up to the front. I couldn’t see what was going on through the crowd surrounding whoever had been hit. Then I started seeing the blood….on people’s hands, clothes, and all over the ambulance door as it sped away towards the hospital (which is 30 minutes away, and not the hospital you want to be taken to in critical condition).

I heard what happened—a man from Jaffa (near Tel Aviv) had been hit in the forehead with one of the silent, high velocity teargas canisters. It broke open his skull—which explained the blood everywhere and the speed with which the ambulance drove away. Then I saw Rafke, looking pretty shocked, with some other of our friends walking quickly down the hill away from the front.

Turns out she was standing right next to the guy who was shot—shoulder to shoulder almost. She said she didn’t hear or see the canister; the guy was standing next to her one second then the next he had a metal teargas canister sticking out of his forehead, with blood spilling everywhere.

She said the guy was conscious when he was put in the ambulance, and actually he stood up and kind of walked into the ambulance. When a person is injured that traumatically, they don’t feel the pain at first—because they are in shock I guess. Not as traumatic for sure, but when I was shot in the leg with a high velocity teargas canister I didn’t feel any pain for an hour. But after that I couldn’t even stand up—and I still have a bruise in the shape of the canister on my leg almost a year later.

During this whole time, the sadistic Israeli soldiers were still shooting these canisters at the crowd—while the guy was being taken into the ambulance, and while the rest of us were trying to get out of range after we saw this guy who everyone thought was going to die before he reached the hospital. I was really scared because I was standing next to a short stone wall and these silent teargas canisters would just appear next to me out of nowhere. I couldn’t avoid them because I couldn’t see or hear them, and they were being shot from 2 directions—the fence at the front of the protest, and the fence that runs alongside the protest. So I grabbed my friend Barbara who was standing upright and we crouched down in these thorn bushes behind the wall to avoid being the next one shot in the head.

Then gas canisters were flying everywhere, and everyone panicked and tried to run away back to the village. But the road that leads back to the village is parallel to the side-fence (with soldiers shooting at us from behind it) so the whole time we were running back the teargas canisters were being shot at us from all directions—at head level.  As we ran along the road in panicked groups, teargas canisters were flying through the olive trees in the field beside the fence.

I took cover behind the trunk of an olive tree with a couple other people—piled on top of each other so that we were all covered by the small tree, and canisters were appearing from nowhere and flying past us. So we took off again down the road, through clouds of teargas, choking and running. I finally made it to the safe spot where a lot of the protestors were gathering to watch what was happening. Then the soldiers shot the long range teargas canisters at us and we had to move further back.

We were all really shaken up, still being teargassed every now and then, and waiting for news of the man who was shot in the head. Most people were saying that he was going to be dead before he got to the hospital. Finally we heard that he made it to the hospital and was in critical condition, but stable, and he was going to live—even if that meant a yearlong coma and brain damage like the American protestor Tristan Anderson who was shot in the head with the same kind of teargas canister in Ni’lin (another village that does weekly protests against the wall).

As we were recovering, the soldiers climbed over the fence and started charging at us and shooting teargas. Usually when they do this, they run at us for like 50 meters just to scare us further back, and then they turn around. This time, they didn’t stop so we all had to sprint away up the hill—lungs full of teargas and choking. In the end they arrested 4 people that they caught.

I decided enough is enough, and we went back to my friend Jaber’s house in the village to decompress on his roof in the sun—away from soldiers and teargas. His mom had made an amazing lunch for us—musakhan (bread covered in oil, onions, and spices) and chicken. We ate until we couldn’t eat another bite and then laid out in the sun for a while before going back to Ramallah.

Settlers in Hebron:

The next day, we found out, there was going to be a new spot for weekly protests—Hebron. They would be protesting against the illegal Israeli settlement right in the middle of their old city. One of the most violent places for interaction between Israeli settlers and Palestinians is in the middle of Hebron. The settlers have taken over the central marketplace by getting all of the upper apartments over the Arab stores below. From their apartments, the settlers throw stones, glass, sewage water, boiling water, etc…down on to the Arab market below. For this reason, the Palestinians have had to put chain link fencing over the alleyways to catch projectiles thrown at them and tourists by the settlers.

The Israeli military protects the settlers by putting checkpoints all over the old city marketplace and putting bases and lookouts on the roofs—so there is a very heavy military presence in the center of this Palestinian city. I heard from one soldier that being assigned to Hebron to protect the settlers is almost a punishment in the Israeli army—because they know how crazy and uncontrollable the settlers are. If a settler gets the urge, they can beat up any Palestinian they come across, or grab the veil off of an old Palestinian woman, and have a soldier grudgingly protect them from any repercussion.

The settlers in Hebron walk around with M-16’s slung casually over their shoulders, and when the settlers need to go anywhere, the military closes the roads they will walk on to Palestinians, and escorts them with soldiers and M-16’s—causing lots of chaos for no reason.

The Palestinians in the old city decided that it was time to start weekly, nonviolent protests there as well since the other villages like Bil’in and Ni’lin were getting so much press and the Palestinian Authority had started recommending mass nonviolent protests around the West Bank.

So we all decided to go support them in their first protest—knowing that it would probably be crazy because of the reputation of Hebron’s settlers. We got to the marketplace and couldn’t see any groups gathering, and no one seemed to know about any protests. So we walked further down the market place and found the protest. It was mostly Palestinians and Israeli activists (which is how it should be…) along with press.

Hebron Protest:

The protest was right in front of the gate that blocks Shuhada Street—a street the military closed to Palestinians because the settlers wanted it. The closures and checkpoints in the marketplace have had a devastating effect on the economy in Hebron—by forcing Arab shop owners to close their shops and scaring tourists away with violence and guns. If a settler wants an Arab shop to close, they will threaten them by marking their store up with racist graffiti and warning them not to open again (does that sound familiar? World War II and the Holocaust….?). It’s sick.

We stood there in front of the gate—which had a watch tower to the side of it, 3 soldiers standing outside the tower with guns, and one inside taking pictures and video of the protestors to make it easier to arrest them later…on the left side of the gate is a huge Yeshiva (Jewish religious school) and the settlers were standing on the roof watching us with smirks on their faces. There were military posts on all the roofs surrounding us—full of heavily armed soldiers and other soldiers taking pictures of our faces.

We chanted slogans for about an hour, attracting more Palestinian protestors from the old city, before marching down through the old city to a closed street. In a narrow alleyway, the protestors came face to face with a group of settlers and soldiers. They stood facing each other and chanting for the end of settlement in the old city for a while before about a dozen heavily armed Israeli soldiers ran at them from behind.

Everybody scattered to avoid being arrested. Then the situation calmed down a little bit and we walked back to the gate where the protest started, side by side with the soldiers who had just charged at us to disperse us. There were more of us than them, although they had M-16s and other weapons, we were surrounding them as we walked back to through the alleyways, and they kept looking over their shoulders and seemed very uncomfortable—as if we would do anything!

We got back to the gate and heard that one Israeli activist had been arrested, and he was being interrogated and “processed” behind the gate. Then we heard that a group of settlers was moving through the old city with a military escort and would be going in through the gate. So we tried to do a sit-in style protest to block the gate, but the soldiers started pushing all the protestors back before they could even sit down. Then some protestors (mostly Israeli) started pushing and shoving the soldiers.

I was watching from a distance because if an Israeli activist gets arrested, they get a slap on the wrist and are released within an hour, whereas if an international gets arrested, they get deported and banned from Israel (and therefore Palestine) forever. (Of course, the worst is still if you are Palestinian and arrested, in which case you get a severe beating and are thrown in jail for months without even being charged with anything—at the end of which they have to pay a huge fine to be released).

I saw an Israeli activist and an Israeli soldier fighting each other—then the soldier got behind him and wrapped his arm around the activist’s neck and was choking him down to the ground violently. After that, the other protestors went to stop the soldier and started a huge brawl where dozens of protestors were pushing and shoving with the soldiers. After that, the Israeli soldiers dragged off a few more people (2 Israeli and 1 Palestinian from the Hebron Popular Committee—who organized the protest) behind the gate to be arrested.

After this, the soldiers locked arms to make a wall to block the protestors from getting too close to the group of settlers that were coming through the old city to go through the gate. A few dozen teenage settlers walked casually behind the wall of soldiers with their military escort, smirking at us arrogantly. Then they went through the gate and disappeared into the Yeshiva. The soldiers went in behind them and closed the gate. We saw that the soldiers on the rooftops were preparing to shoot teargas to finish off the protest so the organizers decided that we should leave so the Palestinians who lived in the area would not get teargassed because of us.

Road Trip–Golan Heights:

After the weekend of protests, some friends of mine invited me on a trip to the north in Israel to see the Golan Heights, Galilee and the North West coastline (Haifa, Akko, and Caesarea). I decided to join them on the first night only which was camping in the Golan.

The Golan Heights was Syrian until it was occupied by the Israeli military in the 1967 war. Since then it has been an extremely contentious issue between the Syrian and Israeli governments and is used as a bargaining chip by Israel to blackmail Syria into establishing better relations with Israel. The territory is scattered with mine fields leftover from the beginning of the occupation—most of the mine fields are marked by barbed wire fences and skull and bones signs, but every now and then lost tourists and locals stumble into them accidently.

We were going to stay in official campsites only for this reason, ha. The north of Israel has a lot of national parks but according to the guidebook we had only a couple had sites for overnight camping. We chose one called Hurshat National Park, which is almost to the Lebanese border (called the “Good Fence” by Israel, hahaha). It was supposed to have the Dan River running through it so we thought it would be nice.

Armageddon (Megiddo) City:

On the way there, we drove through Megiddo (also called Armageddon…) which is an ancient city, and national park now, which is mentioned in many End Times prophesies in the Abrahamic religions. It is supposed to be the place where the final battle of Armageddon starts. So since we were driving through it, we decided to stop and see the ancient ruins of the city. After we passed the MacDonald’s (ahahahaha) we found the signs pointing to the museum and ruins.

The ancient city of Megiddo had been destroyed 25 times in its history because of its strategic location on the main travelling road between Egypt and Mesopotamia. It was established (as far as we know) in 7,000 BC and destroyed for the last time in 586 BC. It has as many archaeological layers that have been uncovered that tell its history. We parked outside the museum and ate some hummus and bread while looking out over the wide plains that stretch for miles where the End Times battle is supposed to take place. It looked very peaceful to us…

We paid the 25 shekel admission and watched a short film about the history of the site, browsed the museum, and walked around the ruins. Because the city was destroyed so many times, there were huge walls surrounding it to keep the people safe. But their water source was outside of the walls. To reach the water source without leaving the safety of the walls, they dug a long tunnel that began in the city and led to the underground spring outside the city.

They have excavated the tunnel and we walked through it. It’s really amazing, you walk down these stone steps deep underground, and then there is a very well made, uniform in height and width, tunnel that leads to a spring that still has water in it.

Nazareth:

After Megiddo, we headed on north to Nazareth. Nazareth (like the rest of the “Arab Triangle”—the area to the north of the West Bank in Israel that has a high Arab population) is a very Arab town, but mostly Christian Arabs, not Muslim. Over the hill from the center and Old City is the Jewish Israeli part of town.

Because it was Sunday, the Christian holiday, the Old City was completely closed along with most of the restaurants and shops in town. Luckily, the Church of the Annunciation (where Mary received the message that she would be the mother of Jesus) was open for tourists and we were at least able to take a look around inside before we headed north.

The church is very big and the architecture is modern—and very gray except for the bright stained glass windows. There are three levels to the church, the bottom is the ancient church that archaeologists have uncovered, the 2^nd is a silent chapel, and the 3^rd story is a Catholic church. Outside the church is the most interesting part for me—there is artwork sent from many different countries portraying Mary holding the baby Jesus. It’s interesting because each is done in the cultural style of the country that donated it…and they are all either mosaics or made with ceramic tiles.

Sea of Galilee:

About half an hour from Nazareth is the Sea of Galilee/Lake Tiberius and the Israeli city Tiberius. The sea is where Jesus is said to have walked on water—and archaeologists have recently discovered a boat dating from Jesus’ time almost fully preserved in the sea that you can see in a museum there. We stopped there and sat by the sea for a while, ate some gelato, and then continued on to the Golan Heights.

Hurshat National Park:

We got to the park around sunset, and the camping ground turned out to be a very unnatural park looking place with part of the Dan River diverted through the middle of it. It was nice, but definitely not an authentic camping experience.

We set up our site and made a fire and cooked hotdogs and roasted marshmallows. Most of the people in the park were Arab Israelis and Druze—Arabic music was blasting from every site and the smell of kebab was everywhere.

We walked around the campsite and came to a group of young men smoking arghile, listening to Arabic music, and dancing dabke. We joined them for a little bit and started talking to them in our broken Arabic about how we came from Ramallah—where we worked. They didn’t believe us, and started laughing. Then they said something about Israeli soldiers in the campground. We looked around, and then they were like “No. WE are Israeli soldiers.”

We looked at them confused, and asked if they were joking as Amr Diab sang “Habibi, Habibi…” in the background. Then they said they were Druze, not Arab. There are some small Druze communities in northern Israel, especially in the Golan Heights since Syria has a pretty large Druze community. The Druze, unlike the Arab Israelis, are allowed by the Israeli government to serve in the Israeli army—since they don’t identify with the Palestinian cause and are not Muslims.

We talked for a little bit about our work in Palestine, and joked about them being the soldiers who shot at us in the protests in Bil’in and Hebron. Then the guys realized we weren’t joking about being from Palestine and they started getting uncomfortable. Soon after, they shook our hands as we sat there and said “BYE! BYE!” with the intimidating look of Israeli soldiers we all knew so well.

We took the hint and left their site and returned to our own corner.

Golan Heights:

The next morning we left camp early and drove around the Golan Heights. We stopped by a beautiful lake called Lake Ram, which was next to a Druze village. It was so beautiful that we sat there for about an hour and ate lunch at a little covered seating area we came across. Soon after, some Druze men came over in traditional clothing (black billowy pants and white square shaped hats) and said welcome and told us about the fish that they catch in the lake, and the cherry and apple trees they grow on the terraces on the hills that surround the lake. It was very idyllic and the people were so friendly and welcoming.

We continued on to Nimrod’s Castle—which is a large stone fort on top of a mountain that is said to have been built by Nimrod (a character from the book of Genesis) but was actually built by the Crusaders in the 12^th century.

As we drove on, we passed more mine fields that were marked by barbed wire fences.

We were trying to find the Quneitra viewpoint where you can see Syria and the disengagement zone (a few kilometers wide) that separates the occupied Golan Heights from Syria. We found a nice spot to see it and there were some Druze men selling Za’atar, honey, olives, and other things. There are some spots in the Golan Heights where Druze can call across the disengagement zone to their families on the Syrian side who have been separated since the occupation—and not allowed to physically meet each other unless they decide to give up the right to ever come back to Golan.

Druze Villages:

There are two famous Druze villages in the Golan Heights which have held onto their Syrian identity and are fiercely anti-Israel. They are called Mas’ada and Majd As-Shams. We drove through Mas’ada and continued on to Majd As-Shams which is the larger and more authentic of the two. You could see women in the traditional white, semi-transparent veil and long black dress and the men with their square shaped white hats.

We stopped to get coffee at a restaurant and when we went up to pay the man wouldn’t take any money from us. He was so friendly and welcoming, along with all the other people we came across in the town. I definitely recommend visiting these Druze villages—they are very different than the confused Druze who serve in the Israeli army. ha