Friday, July 13, 2007

What Kind of Life: Photos






What Kind of Life?

“So this is life?” he said, gesturing at the cracks in the walls, at the light shining through the tin roof that covered his living room. He stormed into the kitchen, turned the faucet in the sink violently to left, to the right, to the left again.

“You see? No water.” He threw his arms in the air, exasperation dripping from all of his movements, from all of his words, from his very thoughts. He took two long strides and jerked open the refrigerator door. Several flies flew out, leaving only empty shelves in their wake.

“No food, you see?” He slammed the door shut, grabbed a pot off the stove. He opened the lid and with a large spoon scraped hardened instant spaghetti to the left, then back to the right.

“My daughter make for us last night. All we eat today.” He tossed the pot back on the burner and returned to the fridge, opening the freezer this time. He lifted a bag of frozen pita and dropped it. It thunked and echoed in the empty space.

“What kind of life is this??”

We had been talking with Abu for the last half hour. He spoke about the “disengagement,” about the surrounding twenty-seven-foot concrete walls, about living in an open air prison, how everyone had lost work. As he spoke, he inched forward in his seat, his arms flying in and out of the frame, his voice steadily increasing in volume. The grey hair that shot out near his temples and the crowfeet wrinkles around his eyes were the only signifiers that Abu was born in 1956.

“You see this?” he asked us, pointing vaguely into a dark bedroom with a single mattress on the ground. His outstretched finger made our eyes fall on a mass of tangled sheets and blankets covering what appeared to be a sweaty Palestinian boy. Only the crown of his head and the dark skin near the nape of his neck poked through.

“Sleeping all day, he is! Twenty-two! No work, no make money for family, no wife. He just lay here all day!” Abu huffed and pushed past me, walking out the back door. He turned the handle of a low faucet, beneath which was a small bucket filled with murky water. Nothing fell from the faucet to the bucket as he flipped the handle back and forth.

“What kind of life?”

I wondered why he was living life in this way, why he had no work, no money, no food, when no more than ten kilometers away, people were living lives of blissfully ignorant decadence. Was the concrete barrier that kept him from that dream really a measure of security, or was it yet another means to create the end that is a Jewish state?

I suspect the latter.

And security from what anyway? From archaic rockets and suicide bombers? This is not to downplay the pain these things have caused, but to segregate an entire people for the misguidance of a few? To “retaliate” by slowly but surely removing Palestinians from their homeland? Just another step in the “War on Terrorism,” I suppose.

And what is terrorism? According to the American Heritage Dictionary, terrorism is “The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.”

In the West Bank, IDF (IOF, IAF) soldiers shoot bullets made of steel encased in rubber that carry enough force to, if they hit in the right place, pierce the brain and make people bleed from the eyes. They have fully automated tear gas guns that shoot red hot canisters of debilitating inhalants that cause every orifice on your face to run. This gas also causes vomiting, and if exposed long enough, throat closure. They shoot these at non-violent demonstrators. These same soldiers enter people’s houses in the middle of the night and arrest people suspected of collaborating against Israel; they arrest children suspected of joining groups that aren’t approved of, throw them in administrative detention—a prison in which Palestinians are not granted the right of a lawyer, where they are not given even the luxury of a reason for their arrest, much less a fair trial—for throwing stones.

In Gaza, F-16s approach speeds so high at so low an altitude that it creates a force loud enough to shatter glass and powerful enough to knock people off their feet and even break people’s legs. Tanks fire on groups of children playing marbles in the street, killing seven, eight, eighteen at a time under the guise that the children were involved in “suspicious activity.” Mothers have to watch as their children lose both arms and both legs, as they die, basket-cases in plastic-covered hospital cots, and there is nothing they can do to stop it. People live in constant fear that one day, they will be too close to a targeted assassination, that the anonymous unmanned Israeli drone buzzing high above their heads will hit them this time, and all they will have heard is that ominous

…buzzing.

Can you imagine hearing that noise? Knowing that somewhere, something is flying high enough that you cannot see it; but that it can watch your every move. Knowing that this thing is completely unmanned, run by a person a world away, on the other side of an impenetrable barrier, just staring at a screen. That buzzing would be the only sign that someone around you, or you, might soon be blown to smitherines.

I heard once that when people are blown up, the bomb squads call it “pink mist,” because that is all that is left of what was once a living, breathing person.

Of course people leave, run to refugee camps in the surrounding Middle East countries, hoping that one day they too will be granted the right of return. It is no wonder that there are some four or five million Palestinian refugees. How can you live somewhere in that sort of fear?

If fear inspired coercion defines terrorism…well, there you have it.

Monday, July 9, 2007

Visit to Gaza: Photos










Visit to Gaza: Thoughts and Reflections

As some of you may know, Meg and I spent four days in Gaza last week. It was delightful and sickening. It was fascinating and exciting. Yet the suffering we saw and heard about broke our hearts—it is truly unimaginable—massive stretches of demolished houses, whole families killed as they lounged on the beach, a mother who lost all four of her sons to tank fire as they played in the street, poverty to the point of starvation, walls peppered with overly eager snipers, the desperation of hopelessness. At the same time the generosity and warmth with which we were received softened our angry hearts and opened our eyes to the atrocity that is the Gaza strip.

Please hear these words and consider them carefully. First, it is important to understand a few things. Gaza is a tiny piece of land—less than two miles wide at points and around 15 miles long. One and a half million people live in the massively overcrowded territory. Gaza is under a brutal external Israeli occupation. This means that NO ONE (foreign or Palestinian) can travel in or out of Gaza without a permit from the Israeli government that is nearly impossible to get. Of course the territory is surrounded by massive concrete walls. Fishermen are shot if they venture too far out into the Mediterranean where the healthy schools of fish swim. The people of Gaza are subjected to nearly daily violent Israeli incursions which many times come in the form of heavily armed flying robotic drones which constantly patrol the skies over Gaza. In addition to all of this, sanctions and general economic stagnation has created poverty extreme enough to be labeled a humanitarian disaster. Life in Gaza is without hope.

At least until the markets and warehouses run out of food and goods life in Gaza is closer to "normal" than it has been in a long time. The calm that has settled on Gaza with Hamas in control feels delicate. It is precious and fleeting. There is a sense of baited excitement. For the first time since the clashes began between Fatah and Hamas people all over Gaza are out to restaurants, markets, lounging on the beach. The security is readily apparent, while tense. No one denies that things are enormously better in Gaza with Hamas in control. Yet not everyone is convinced that under such harsh restrictions from Israel and sanctions from the International community Hamas can maintain the level of competent administration that they have since ousting Fatah. Hamas has never been given a chance. They have never been allowed the space to move towards moderation. Amazingly though they have, moved towards moderation.

The recent release of Alan Johnston (BBC journalist held for over three months in Gaza city by a local mafia family calling themselves the Army of Islam) has some interesting implications. First, it exposes the falsehood that Hamas is in any way equivalent to more extreme Islamists groups like al-Qaeda or Fatah Islam in Lebanon. Hamas is certainly an instance of political Islam yet one that has turned out to be fairly democratic in its domestic policy and administratively competent in its domestic, regional, and international dealings. Hamas simply is not a fanatical terrorist organization out to kill infidels. Second, the release of Alan Johnston makes exceedingly clear the level of control Hamas has in Gaza. Even the most optimistic expected there to be clashes if Hamas applied direct military pressure on the Army of Islam. There wasn’t a shot fired and Alan Johnston was released. What this means is that in spite of how well armed and perhaps radical Army of Islam is they know clearly who’s boss in Gaza. This could be said for other armed mafia families in Gaza as well. Third, it proves that Hamas is willing to work towards moderation even without a clear incentive. Israel and the West and even Fatah are now presented with these realities. The UK has already responded. There is a bipartisan motion in the House of Commons signed by a number of parliamentarians calling for direct engagement with Hamas.

It seems clear that Hamas has no intention of acquiescing to Fatah and the International community and has proven its competence in managing everything from traffic to factional fighting in Gaza. However it seems equally clear that Israel and the US are committed to literally and figuratively starving Hamas and the Gazan people to a point of desperation. What will come out of this desperation? No one is certain. The people of Gaza will not abandon Hamas and yet Hamas, while fully capable to govern the West Bank as well, has been abandoned by Israel, the West, and even a large portion of the Palestinian people (predominantly in the West Bank). Hamas' administrative competency and willingness to negotiate if taken seriously may mean very little in the midst of a quickly approaching humanitarian disaster in Gaza. It is sad to see but characteristic of the Israeli occupation and systemic demonizing of the Palestinian people alongside blatant Western media bias and blind American support for Israel’s policy of apartheid and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and Gaza. What do I think will happen? I have little hope...Gaza will probably remain as is—overcrowded, subjected to regular wanton Israeli violence, under harsh inhumane sanctions from the West and Israel, surrounded by walls and water patrolled by Israeli gun ships, and systemically starved to a point of desperation that will understandably result in increasingly frequent qassam rocket fire into Israel and perhaps suicide bombings, thus giving Israel the needed excuse to continue its policy of disproportionate violence and coercive occupation. This will break Hamas down slowly but surely. From there I think there are two possibilities. One, internal conditions in Gaza will get so bad that violence will once again break out. Two, Fatah with the help of Israel and the West will establish, through a military coup, a pro-Western dictatorship in Gaza unrepresentative of the people. I know this seems grim but I see little hope without a major shift in Israeli and Western policy.

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

A bit of Jerusalem

Selling grape leaves in Old City Jerusalem
Praying at the Wall

The Western/Wailing Wall

Church of Mary Magdalene

Temple Mount (bad day for pictures though)

Monday, July 2, 2007