BostontoPalestine
Boston support group for the International Solidarity Movement

Home
About us
News from Palestine

Contact
    Email
    Subscribe
    Donate

Current Delegation
    Summer 2005

Past Delegations
    Olive Harvest 2004
    Freedom Summer 2004
    Past Campaigns

Events
Photos
Videos (ISM)
Rachel Corrie
Links
Speakers
Be a Delegate
Press
faq
Actions!

July 29th, 2005 "Occupation has corrupted and bloodied every aspect of daily life"

August 9th, 2005 "My last week in Palestine"

---

August 9th, 2005 "My last week in Palestine"

Being back in Boston seems so surreal right now. I know that
particular phraseology is bandied about quite liberally, but it
expresses what I feel just about now.

The last 9 days or so in Palestine were probably the most intense of
all. Demos where Palestinians were specifically targeted by soldiers;
getting my back and head kicked by soldiers while at a demo; feeling
acute sadness at leaving friends that I made while I was there, both
Palestinian and international; linking arms with fellow activists;
thinking of nothing else but returning; not knowing whethere I will
ever see the friends and comrades I found in Palestine ever again; not
knowing how the hell to deal with everything here in Boston...

I'd like to leave aside politics for a brief period and talk about
friendship and comradeship...about friends and comrades. I have been
desperately lucky to have found this particular bond of strength all
my life with different people, in different places, and Palestine was
no different. I found it in such abundance and potency there. Feeling
a bond of many years come alive with people I had never met before in
my life. Feeling so proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with people,
resisting, defying authority...however symbolic. Feeling so much love
in so little time.

The worst, most gut-wrenching part is that I don't know who I will see
again and who I won't. I know I'll be back in Palestine, but will I
see them again? I don't think I was mentally prepared enough for this
particular aspect of the trip. I expected racism and violence from
Israeli soldiers and sure enough it was there (in abundance), I
expected to get enraged at seeing a people suffering under a brutal
occupation and indeed I did, I expected to feel inspired and hopeful
at the spirit and tenacity of the Palestinian resistance and the
goosebumps still continue when I think about it, I expected to feel
like my skin would be on fire every time an Israeli sodier looked at
me and it happened, I expected to see the greyer shades of the
resistance, the aspects that are not romanticized about and I did.

But I don't think I expected to find love in such abundance. Oh, I
knew I would find kindness, generosity, hospitality...enough people
had told me about these famed Palestinian traits and find them I
did...but what I found there wasn't just all that, it was love, love
between friends, love between comrades, the shoulder-to-shoulder type,
the I-would-take-a-bullet-for-you type, unbridled, harsh even. I have
felt this love before in India, and it was heady to feel it again.

Maybe this love comes alive because in Palestine living under
occupation, fighting it every day intensifies things to a much higher
level. One only has to compare the Arabic chants with the English
chants to understand the difference. The English ones went like
"1,2,3,4...Occupation no more, 5,6,7,8...Stop the killing, stop the
hate" while the Arabic ones, translated, went like "Millions of
martyrs to the gates of Jerusalem" or "We will die but Palestine will
live"

Powerful, intense love...just like the resistance.

I know I will be back, and I know that regardless of where I am there
will always be a battle to wage.

But I realize now that a part of me, obviously a very selfish part,
also wants to wage this battle because I want to feel this love again.

July 29th, 2005 "Occupation has corrupted and bloodied every aspect of daily life"

Politics here seems to be food, air and mother's milk. Everywhere one goes,
the discussion, however seemingly unrelated, sooner or later gets steered
towards the political situation and the occupation. Whether it is buying tea
from the vendor or having a particular sight being shown by a Palestinian
friend, the occupation is inevitably attached to it, even to the most basic
functions of life. It is only the willfully ignorant or the occupiers
themselves who can fail to see it clearly.

Everywhere in Palestinian cities are pictures or drawings of people martyred
by the Occupation forces, the walls are replete with posters of various
political outfits, political graffiti are everywhere, and, of course, there
is The Wall, and there are the soldiers and checkpoints.

In order to travel from Jerusalem to Bethlehem (which is probably like going
from Boston to Cambridge, maybe Somerville in distance), one needs to go
through at least 2 fixed checkpoints and maybe 1 or 2 moving checkpoints,
each time soldiers making the passengers get down and display their id. As I
came in to Damascus Gate in Jerusalem from Bethlehem this morning (after
visiting H again the previous night), I saw 5 Israeli soldiers laughing and
harassing a 60 year old Palestinian man on his bicycle, poking him with the
butts of their rifles, pushing his cycle around...for fun! I asked them what
was going on and they said that this is none of my business. They then ask
me for my id, and I show them my passport. By this time a crowd has gathered
around, and, not wanting any more trouble, they let the man go after
snarling at all of us and shouting at us to leave. Revolting how they can
derive such jocularity from humiliating another human being. This was not
about security, this was not about anything but blatant dehumanization. Even
during the Intifada, these soldiers, armed with M16s, rocket launchers,
Apache helicopters, and tanks faced a bunch of kids and youth armed with
rocks and sling shots. Where's the courage in that? What kind of so-called
warrior's honor is there in that?

Also today, in the afternoon, as I returned from an ATM, I saw 2 soldiers
moving a kid along by the scruff of his neck. The kid couldn't have been
more than 12 or 13. I followed at a safe distance, and found out that the
kid was being held at Jaffa Gate Police Station [in the Palestinian Old City
section of East Jerusalem].

Under the guidance of our delegation leader, I called an Israeli human
rights group, who said that they will do all they can, but that the soldiers
can, by law, detain the kid for a certain period of time.

They genuinely do all they can, and register a complaint with the civilian
authorities and the police station. The human rights groups here, more often
than not, are up against a wall (pun intended)

And therein lies the reason for the inevitable attachment to the political
situation and the occupation in every living moment of daily life...the
occupation has corrupted and bloodied EVERY aspect of daily life for
Palestinians. As a Palestinian friend said a few days back, "Soon we're
going to need permits just to live."

A couple of days ago, I visited the home at Balatah Refugee Camp in [the
West Bank city of ]Nablus that Steph was staying in, after meeting Steph and
F, the oldest daughter of the house, at Al-Najah University where she
studies. As we wound our way through the camp F showed us memorials of young
boys martyred during the Intifada. Her own two brothers, 17 and 13, are in
an Israeli prison and her father was shot dead by Israeli soldiers.

She and her family were to go the next day to court for the sentencing of
her younger brother. The elder brother has been sentenced to 8 years. I
later found out that the younger one has been sentenced for one year, and
this was reason to celebrate in F's house...only 1 year in prison!

Everybody, barring none, had stories of suffering and oppression. But they
all pick themselves up and move on to another day, always defiant, always
hopeful. Life here seems to be lived one day at a time. It seems that
sometimes just living alone is a form of resistance.

Water, the wall and slow murder:

The last week, as a result of my placement, the focus of learning for me has
been on water and the devastating effects of the Wall on Palestinian
villages and communities.

The situation can be described as nothing less than the slow murder of an
entire people. With the wall and the military, Israel controls over 80% of
the water resources in the West Bank, within the 1967 Green Line, and this
is soon to become around 95% when the building of the wall is completed in
2007. This is, of course, excluding the water resources and land of
Palestine occupied in 1947.

Sewage and waste from Israeli settlers flows into Palestinian villages and
communities sending water-born disease rates sky high. Many wells and
springs belonging to villages and communities which took care of local water
needs were either destroyed or captured by the Wall.

Jayyous, a village I stayed in for 3 nights, had 6 wells that satisfied the
water needs of the community. It was producing vegetables in plenty, for
consumption and for selling in other places, apart from being
self-sufficient in water.

After the construction of the Wall it now has to wait for food aid and buys
water from the neighboring village of Azzoun, which gets water from Mekorot,
the national Israeli water company. All 6 wells were captured by the Wall.
So essentially Israel steals Palestinian water and sells it back to them at
a hefty price.

The average Israeli uses around 5 times more water in liters per capita per
day than the average Palestinian in the West Bank. The average Israeli
settler in the West bank uses around 6 times more water in l/c/d than the
average Palestinian. Palestinians in rural places use around 80 l/c/d. In
some places it can be as low as 10 or even 7...Seven liters per person per
day!  This is to cover all purposes of a rural household. The WHO recommends
a bare minimum of 100 l/c/d for rural communities.

In Jayyous, out of around 500 families, 150 were dependant on agriculture.
With the construction of the wall, over 75% of their land has either been
destroyed or occupied, rendering these families, and the rest of the
village, helpless. Indeed, Jayyous is representative of most Palestinian
villages and communities that have been devastated by the Wall and the
Occupation.

Occupying land, stealing water, preventing sick people from receiving
medical care and letting them die, dehumanizing an entire people...if this
is not slow murder, then I don't know what is.

***Humanity is all***

---

July 25th 2005 "A week getting to know the Occupation"

I had wondered whether I was guilty of over-romanticizing the Palestinian
struggle as so often happens when working in solidarity with peoples'
struggles and movements. After coming here, and actually hearing stories
firsthand, seeing the pain and the courage, the sadness and the humor, the
loss and the determination, I now realize that what seemed like
over-romanticizing was merely an attempt at being descriptive of the
struggle.

There are many moments that stand out in the whirlwind week that has been
the first part of our little educational tour of the Palestinian struggle.

Take, for example, Saleem of ICAHD, who has had his house destroyed 5 times
only to rebuild it again. One line he said stood out as he was showing us a
house being rebuilt. He said that even though it is likely to be destroyed,
it had to be built again, as rebuilding, more than anything, was a form of
resistance.

Another example is Salah, whose family has been divided by the wall, a wall
that now prevents him from going to work, and has resulted in 5 people dying
in the last few months waiting to pass the checkpoint for medical treatment
and dying at the checkpoint. He lives barely a few meters from an Israeli
security post.

Ziad at Ibdaa, in the Dheisheh refugee camp, gave the most hard-hitting,
honest and educational talk of all. He talked about how the international
community had completely let down the Palestinian cause. He talked about how
in the Western world activism seemed like a fashionable thing to do, the
cause itself seemed less important. He talked about how there were million
people marches but nothing much after. It was personally inspiring to hear
this.

The night we spent at H's place is likely to be the most mind-blowing
experience of the trip for me. H is a young man of 23, yet mature and tough
beyond his years, with a strength brought on by experiences that no one
should have to go through. He poured his heart out. He had 12 friends at the
beginning of the Intifada in 2000, and within about 2 years it was down to
4. Tanks in front of his house shelled the Dheisheh camp. One day he was
supposed to meet his friend at 11am. He went only to find his friend's
funeral taking place after being killed by Israeli soldiers. He talks of a
shell exploding in his friend's house across the street, and him going to
collect his friend's body's pieces. He himself was shot twice, his younger
brother was beaten when he was 10 years old by Israeli soldiers for playing
on the street. He talked of his friend's wish to have Palestine written in
his blood when he died, which H had to soon fulfill. He talked of pride in
dying. He talked about how that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
He talked of smiling and laughing, because if they didn't smile and laugh
they would die from thinking  about the horror and injustice. He talked of a
ferocious love for his country. Soon his friend and cousin arrived and just
like that we shifted to making merry. Amazing spirit, great humor, smoking
"argeelehs" (hookahs).

First, his friend left and then his cousin. His cousin came running back a
couple of minutes later, saying that IDF soldiers where at his house,
smashing the house up and breaking up the car. They had come to arrest the
neighbor on fallacious charges, and took the car with them.

There were many more moments, too numerous to list in fullness: the blatant
racism and bigotry of IDF soldiers; Fatima's amazing strength and the spirit
of her daughters; the students of Ta'awon; the forgiving spirit of Issa who
had been put in a wheelchair by soldiers; the amazing humor of J in Ibdaa;
and Ziad in Nazareth; the graffiti on the wall; the popularity of Che...

It was obvious that many had repeated their stories to many people, yet the
grief in each is tangible. I guess one can only normalize things so much.
But the spirit of resistance still stood strong. It had obviously been mixed
with cynicism, rage, humor, and maybe even a little hopelessness, but it was
there. That is probably all there is to provide strength.

What else can one do but hold on with hope at their words of defiance
against the oppression? What else can one do but see the picture of Che on
so many walls and hope that the resistance will ultimately triumph? What
else can one do but see the slogans on the wall screaming for freedom and
equality, and hope that the spark will turn into many brush fires? Maybe one
is hoping against hope, but not to do so simply cannot be. I don't think I
was over-romanticizing the struggle.