What Kind of Life: Photos II

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.

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.

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)

Red Chair Beauty

Defense? Occupation? Apartheid?

“As soon as [language] functions it offends or reconciles, attracts or repels, breaks, dissociates, unites or reunites; it cannot help but liberate and enslave.”

~Michel Foucault

The very notion of a solution suggests, necessitates the reality of some kind of disruption. A peace process entails a correspondent rupture of peace—war, violence, separation. Yet identifying the reality of some kind of violent disruption only acknowledges the negative lack of peace; it does not, by itself, get to the complexity of positively identifying exactly what kind of violent disruption is taking place. Acknowledging that Israelis and Palestinians are in “conflict” is necessary for understanding the need for peace; its usefulness ends there. Getting beyond the acknowledgment of violent disruption to the source of the conflict demands that one do the complex and controversial work of deconstructing the mythologies, stereotypes, and misinformation that so often characterize the many existing narratives concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This process of deconstruction is important because it is the only way to illuminate a potential for peace. Like a virus, violent conflict cannot be properly treated until it is accurately diagnosed.

There exists a body of terminology used in popular media and conversation to describe the historical and contemporary situation here in Israel and Palestine. Perhaps the most common term is “conflict”—the “Palestinian-Israeli conflict.” Other increasingly common and more useful terms include: “occupation,” “defense,” “apartheid,” “security,” “Al-Nakba” (the catastrophe), “ethnic cleansing” and “intifada” (uprising). What I mean when I say that these terms are more useful is that they, by nature of their particularity, break through the simplistic crust, the painfully obvious reality that there is a lack of peace—conflict—and begin the complex task of classifying the conflict. Seeking such linguistic particularities is important for its ability to focus and disrupt.

They focus because they differentiate between parties, suggesting a victim and a victimizer. An oppressor and an oppressed. They serve up blame in unequal portions, thus avoiding the farce of neutrality. In thinking about peace there is no room for neutrality…objectivity for sure but not neutrality. It is indeed a difficult and touchy matter to attempt to identify which side is more to blame when faced with the tragedy of death on both sides but it is nevertheless a process indispensable to thinking about how to rectify injustice and achieve sustainable peace. One must place conflicting sides on the scales of justice and weigh one against the other. To distort or ignore the prescriptions of justice is to be complicit in the injustice being weighed.

The point here is not to demonize one side or ignore either side’s violence but rather to strip away the distorting myth that the conflict is too complex to identify a victim and a victimizer. That is not to say that those roles do not flex and periodically swap but rather to focus the terminology enough to have some sense of the fleshy reality beneath the stagnant shell of neutrality.

Linguistic particularities like “defense” and “apartheid” disrupt insofar as they bring nuance and disorder into the vague, colorless sea of generalities and presumption. For instance, the moment one applies the term “apartheid” to the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories they disrupt and confuse vague stereotypes about the conflict like “all Arabs are Jew-hating terrorists” or “Israel is doing what she is doing in the West Bank and Gaza in order to protect her citizens.” Whether one agrees or disagrees objectively with the application of the term “apartheid” to the Israel’s actions in the West Bank and Gaza it, at least, interjects badly needed disorder into the stale order of simply calling the situation a “conflict,” forcing one to support the accusation or refute it. And thus nuance and complexity is created where there was once only presumption; that is assuming one thoroughly supports or refutes the accusation of apartheid.

In order to apply some of this jumbled abstraction I would like to open a discussion here. The questions: Exactly what kind of “conflict” are we dealing with here in Israel and Palestine? Is it useful or possible to identify a victim and a victimizer? What exactly is the extent and kind of power imbalance between the Palestinians and Israelis? What implications does this power imbalance posit into the possibility for peace? How can we be faithful to the reality and scope of suffering in both societies and yet maintain a rigid devotion to confronting the facts head on and considering their implications without fear of coming off as biased? To preface the discussion I would like to introduce the topic within the framework of three of the terms mentioned above: “defense,” “occupation” and “apartheid.” Specifically I am interested in exploring distinctions between the three terms as they apply to the Israeli military force that controls the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Before I came to Israel and Palestine this summer I referred to the Israeli military force in the West Bank the same way the media and Israel herself does: the “IDF”—Israeli Defense Force. Yet soon after arriving in the West Bank I began to hear the term “IOF” used often—“Israeli Occupation Force,” a snide suggestion that Israel’s military presence in the West Bank and her control over Gaza may in fact have nothing to do with “defense.” And as the trip has gone on I have increasingly began referring to the Israeli military as the “IAF”—Israeli Apartheid Force. My bias is readily apparent, I know.

The “IDF” (Israeli Defense Force) is the most commonly used term to refer to the Israeli forces in the occupied Palestinian territories. The underlying suggestion is that the Israeli people are victims of Palestinian terrorism. Thus the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is an occupation of necessity. An occupation arising out of a situation of terror so extreme that it necessitates that Israel occupy its Palestinian neighbor in order to defend its citizens. Furthermore, it insinuates that there exists a Palestinian force powerful enough to threaten the existence of Israel.

The “IOF” (Israeli Occupation Force) is a taboo reference to the Israeli forces in the West Bank and formerly in Gaza simply as occupiers. It is important to understand that no one or no existing terminology denies the reality of occupation. Rather the term “IOF” accentuates occupation as the driving incentive. Its novelty is in its dismissal of defense as a legitimate basis for occupation.

The term “IAF” (Israeli Apartheid Force) goes beyond dismissing defense and acknowledging occupation suggesting an active Israeli campaign of separation of peoples within the West Bank in order to annex land and systematically control natural resources, effectively making life in the West Bank and Gaza, outside of isolated cantons, unlivable. In addition to suggesting a more active, malevolent Israeli role in the occupied territories, it vividly identifies with the historical apartheid in South Africa. Its connection to apartheid in South Africa is meant to create an automatic and strong aversion to Israeli control over the West Bank and Gaza.

What do you think? Which term seems most fitting? What are further questions you might have about the situation? Thus far we have been conveying our thoughts and experiences to you, yet now we would like to hear what you all think, to invite you to become involved in our learning process and to engage this important issue.

Bil'in Pictures

Bil'in

As many of you already know we participated in a nonviolent demonstration against illegal land confiscation in a village called Bil’in, northwest of Ramallah. We didn’t know exactly what to expect. What we did know was that each time we heard Bil’in mentioned it went something like: “What? You want to go to Bil’in? …Bil’in’s crazy.” So we went.

The demonstrations at Bil’in have been taking place on a weekly basis for the last two years. The issue is the ongoing confiscation of local farmland that the Palestinians of Bil’in depend on. Many farmers have been unable to get to their farms for the last two years as a result. And remember this is well within the West Bank. Land confiscation is extremely common in the West Bank. It comes in many forms…sometimes to expand settlements, sometimes as a “security barrier” around settlements, sometimes to facilitate the building the apartheid wall well within the 1967 green line (i.e. well within the West Bank), and still sometimes generically for “security” without explanation. What makes Bil’in unique is the fact that the Israeli High Court has declared the land confiscation and ongoing blockade of the road that leads to the land illegal. Why this is not enforced remains unanswered.

As we (About 100 Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals) marched to the road where the IOF (Israeli Occupation Force) has been blocking farmers from getting to their land Palestinian children chanted “La la le-jeedar. No no not the wall”. The IOF had parked a number of military vehicles just up the road and placed barbed wire to block our advance. About a hundred meters behind the barbed wire there were maybe 30 IOF soldiers in a line across the road, guns drawn. We negotiated with them for a while and then after they refused to let us pass we began removing the barbed wire from the road. Around ten seconds into this they opened fire with tear gas and rubber bullets.

Needless to say, we scattered. I think more unsettling than my eyes and lungs burning was the whizzing sound the metal tear gas canisters and rubber bullets made as they passed by our heads. As we fled the smoke the sound of retching filled the space in between the pops of tear gas fire.

The shooting continued for a few hours as heavily armed IOF soldiers clashed with children who threw stones—as far as I’m concerned a form of nonviolent resistance when facing full armored soldiers and vehicles. A number of people were injured—one child passed out because of the tear gas, a man was hit in the stomach by a rubber bullet, another in the head. I learned that sniffing onion helps with tear gas. Something similar to this takes place every Friday. When we asked some of the Palestinians we met there why they risk their lives to demonstrate each week when the IOF has made it so clear that they have no intention of abiding by Israeli law they looked at us and responded as if it was obvious: “What else can we do? It is our land. We must resist. There is no other way.”

We stood there in the heat, watching, at times running through the olive groves to avoid the tear gas and the rubber bullets. Do we go forward and face the soldiers? Can we? It seems we can’t because the closer we get the more likely we’ll get hit with something violent. Would it be worth getting hit? Getting injured? Could this contribute to a positive change? Maybe…

[If you'd like to see a video clip of the demonstration we were at, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WmeOdfIyRw and if you'd like to see more video clips from past and more recent demonstrations, go to http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/category/bilin/]

(B'tselem Map)

Jenin fields

Here you can see a hint of the wall dashing across the field

Just a nice colorful field
The previous field from above

Jenin

Women's Group

Checkpoint
Checkpoint
Walking to and from Checkpoint
Martyrs graves

Jenin

The landscape in Jenin is beautiful, vast tracts of farm land and hills with a tinge of a desert look. Grape vines, olive trees, corn, tomatoes, zucchini, and other greens abound in the fields. Like many other places in the West Bank, the scene is broken by the presence of a wall or electric fence.

From a distance one can follow the path of this wall, simply by following the cut line of earth on the mountain or valley. It’s easy to see.

The wall, as you know, separates Israel and Palestine. To some degree one could say that Israel has the right to protect itself, so building a wall is fine. But what about when Israel builds the wall several kilometers beyond the border, confiscating vast tracts of precious Palestinian farm land and aquifers? (That’s mostly the case; Israel builds the wall far beyond the Green Line taking land from Palestine.) And what about solving the conflict? It’s not possible to solve the conflict without dialogue, without contact. The wall cuts this direct contact, the possibility of contact.

All of the people we visited told us stories about how their village was reduced in size from 50,000 dunums (donum=1,000 sq. meters) to 5,000 dunums, from 36,000 dunums to 3,000 dunums. Then, when the wall was built, another 700 dunums were confiscated. Then, there’s not water in the village.

“Why?” we ask.

“Israel took control of the wells we had. Now we have to buy water from them. If we don’t buy water from the wells that were once ours, we have to buy water from water companies, which are Israeli anyway. Now our harvest is only 15% of what it used to be, and most of our land is on the other side of the wall.”

“But, why don’t you dig another well?”

“You need a permit from Israel to do that. And I don’t know of a single case where a well permit was approved.”

As you know, there are a lot of checkpoints in Palestine. In Jenin, all entrances and exits to Jenin city are controlled by Israel. Then there are a number of flying checkpoints. In all of Palestine there are roughly 200 flying checkpoints. These flying checkpoints consist of a few Hummers and several soldiers who decide when and where to set up a checkpoint.

Ali told us a story, a sad one. Five years ago his wife was pregnant and she needed to get to the hospital to get an operation (C-Section?). At this time it was forbidden to go to Jenin. “I tried to reach the hospital many times. But the Israelian soldiers forbid us. What I will do?”

“I failed.”

“When I felt that my wife would die, I went through the mountains…
…we reached the hospital and they checked my wife and said the baby was dead.”

“Return before two days and we will do the operation and save your wife.”

“After one day they made the operation… I took the baby back to the land to put it under the earth. My wife stayed at the hospital. Then she was not allowed to return. I was in my village, she was in Jenin, and we could not see each other.”

“I don’t hate the Israelian people; I don’t hate anyone in the world. I believe in peace.”

“I have a message. Don’t be closed-minded. Search the facts. Most of the people in the Middle East hate your people. Why is that? Because, what happened in Iraq, what happened in Palestine, here. I know you people didn’t do anything. But it’s bad for us. For that I don’t hate. Because I know the fact. I can’t be foolish… I can’t be foolish.”

Jenin coming soon...

Qalandiya Checkpoint