"Today, together, we freed the carts.
Tomorrow, together, we free Palestine."

Carl and Chris Williams

August 13/14/15th, 2002

Tuesday, August 13, 2002

We left the Dheisheh Refugee Camp on the outskirts of Bethlehem on
Tuesday. We traveled to Beit Sahour which happens to also be a suburb
of Bethlehem. We went there to meet up with a new set of activist. The
reason was 2-fold : First to get some people to stay in the one of the
Palestinian homes we had just left (the home was under demolition
orders from the Israeli Army) and second to possibly get a few new
activist to join our affinity group (which lost members because one
went home and another was going to be doing other work).

After a long series of discussions we divided up and we came to the
decision that Chris, myself (Carl) and Susanne would go to Qalqilya
(pronounced "Qual - Kill - E - ahh), Palestine. A small team of
activist have been based in Qalqilya doing a lot of work around
checkpoint monitoring and accompaning Palestine Red Crescent Society
ambulances.

To get to Qalqilya we had to go to Jerusalem (and through a
checkpoint), then to Nablus, and finally to the checkpoint outside of
Qalqilya. Qalqilya is basically under a sort of silent siege. It is
very difficult to get in or out, and impossible unless you have the
proper paperwork and identity card. All this for a town of about
35,000
people. We had a story fabricated to get into Qalqilya and what we
were
going to be doing. The Israeli Army wouldn't appreciated us telling
them that we were coming to Qalqilya to monitor the treatment of
Palestinians at this very checkpoint. Anyway, we made it in, but
others
international activists have had to sneak around the checkpoint which
it a quite dangerous adventure.

Once in Qalqilya we met with local NGOs and the Palestine Red Crescent
Society (PRCS, which is affiliated with the International Committee of
the Red Cross and runs an ambulance service for Qalqilya and the
surrounding villages and towns). We also met the international
activists that have been working in Qalqilya for some time (Garrick,
Susan, Eli, Dave, Ester and Laura). We found out that they work their
asses of too.

Basically, they have 2 or 3 people on duty at the PRCS for ambulance
accompaniment 24 hours a day (which is divided into 3 shifts). In
addition to that they also have 3, 4 or more people on duty at the
checkpoint from 8 AM to 4 PM to monitor the Israeli army's treatment
of
the local Palestinians and the assist Palestinians in trying to pass
through the checkpoint. We you do a bit of quick math you'll find out
that this crew sometimes works 18 hour a day! All this in 90+ degree
heat.

We (Carl, Chris and Susanne) were quite inspired by this sturdy group
of activists and were eager to join in with them. After a good night's
sleep of course. We slept the sleep of the dead that night, except for
when we did a call-in to a group of activists in Boston to talk about
our work with the International Solidarity Movement and out
experiences
in Palestine.


Wednesday, August 14, 2002

We awoke in the morning and had several actions planned for the day,
the long day. Chris was to visit some local schools and a summer camp.
The school was for the children of victims of Israeli attacks, there
were scores and scores of kids at the school.

Carl was on checkpoint duty, pulling a double-shift from 8 - 11 am and
from 2 to 4 pm. It is astonishing to watch the Israeli military at
work. The face of the Israeli army is that of an 18 year old kid with
wraparound mirrored sunglasses. In this specific case the image was
completed with a fading hickey on the neck, which seemed to punctuate
the boy's youth nicely. The soldiers would shout at the waiting
Palestinians to line up this way or that way, back here or over there
in an almost laughable manner. Periodically pointing an M-16 machine
gun (US made and paid for in case you were wondering) at a middle aged
woman or more likely a teenaged boy.

We had brought about 6 1.5 liter bottles of water with us to share
with the Palestinians waiting in the scorching sun. We were emptied
out of water ("Mayy" in Arabic) in about 2 hours. A tom-boyish girl,
about 8 or 9 years old, still seemed thirsty. While she was trying to
communicate with us, one of the Army boy's came by to push the
Palestinians back, seemingly where we were standing was no longer
acceptable even though we had been there for about an hour. When the
soldier approached the girl looked at him in a way that can only be
described as sternly and said "Mayy!". I was baffled. So was the
soldier. The girl repeated her demand "Biddi mayya!" ("I want water!"
in Arabic). The soldier had wandered back to his cement block station
at this point. He still seemed astonished at the girl's request but
there was a bottle of water standing on the cement block between him
and the girl. A bit of a staring contest ensued. The girl grasped the
neck of the bottle of water but didn't move it. The staring
continued. She seemed to be non-verbally saying, "I am going to take
this water for me and my family, is that OK? And you are not really
allowed to say 'no'". They she just took the bottle spun on her heel
and walked off to her family. She chugged about a cup full before
handing it to her younger sister. The family finished the bottle and
the girl marched back to the cement block to politely return the
empty bottle.

Astonishing. About half an hour later she asked the same soldier for
more water. He seemed resigned to the fact that this girl was going to
get her way and promptly produced a canteen from inside of him
uniform.

I love kids!

Thursday, August 15, 2002

Meanwhile back at the 'ranch', Chris was on overnight ambulance duty
(early Thursday morning). He was sleeping at the headquarters of the
Palestine Red Crescent Society when a call came in to pick up a
pregnant woman about to go into labor in the neighboring village of
Azzun at around 5am.

Chris headed out with on of the PRCS rivers Munthir and another
paramedic in the back. It took the soldiers at the Qalqilya
checkpoint about 7 minutes to even come out to the ambulance. A
clarifying note here, it is against the Geneva Conventions to impede
ambulance traffic in any situation. However the PRCS drivers know
that they would be shot at if the even attempted to drive through
the checkpoint without submitting to the Israeli military. The
soldiers told all of the occupants of the ambulance to get out. For
better or worse they did not think Chris was a foreigner.
They probably thought that he was a Palestinian. Everyone was told to
lift their shirts to see if they had any explosives belts on. This
whole exercise took 10 minutes. It was raining that night which is
bizzare weather for this time of year. This didn't deter Munthir, the
driver. About 5 minutes later they pulled up to the checkpoint outside
of Azzun. The family had a car but the Israeli military would not
allow them to drive out of Azzun to the UN hospital in Qalqilya.

The woman and her husband were loaded into the ambulance and they took
off. The woman was screaming from her labor pains.

Chris smelled the woman's water breaking, Munthir drove faster in the
rain. He pulled over for a second just outside of Qalqilya thinking
they would have to deliver there but the continued on to the Qalqilya
checkpoint. Again the soldiers took more than 5 minutes to even show
up. This time they did not take quite as long in searching the
ambulance, however they did take just long enough that the baby's head
came out and the delivery was starting. Munthir told the soldiers that
he would have to deliver right here outside of the checkpoint gate.
The soldiers, who seemed to be of North African or Druze backgrounds
looked very similar to Chris. The soldier told Munthir that he could
not stop here but would have to continue through the checkpoint. He
drove through the gate about 10 feet past, stopped and went in the
back to assist in the delivery.

It was a quick delivery. 14 minutes later Munthir was driving to
the UN hospital and we had a baby boy in the back, with his mother and
father. There is a kind of running joke in Palestine that lots of
children are named Mahsoom, which means "checkpoint" in Arabic.

Arriving at the UN hospital at 5:37 am, Chris waited outside while the
Munthir and the paramedic took the woman and child in to the hospital.
Interestingly, a couple of guys outside the hospital greeted Chris
with several phrases in Arabic, presumably believing him to be
Palestinian.

Chris finished his shift at 8 AM and promptly went to sleep. Carl
started another day of duty at the checkpoint, again having
volunteered for a double shift. The first shift team was Carl,
Susanne and Jennie and they were armed with 9 bottles of water, a
digital video camera and a notebook. When the team arrived at the
checkpoint there was moderate activity. About 30 - 40 people
waiting in the morning sun. The group waiting included men, women,
children and more that a few infants. The Israeli army institutes
random policies at the checkpoints. Many times not allowing residents
of a town to leave that town, only letting people who are in Qalqilya
from somewhere else to go home, this is further complicated by the
point that usually you cannot get INTO Qalqilya unless you are from
Qalqilya. If you are confused at this point you are beginning to
understand. Palestinians get in line as early as possible to try to
cross the checkpoint before the rules change.

One of the other astonishing things that happens at checkpoints is
that the Israeli military impounds horses, donkeys and their carts.
There seems to be no possible explanation for this. They take the
carts away and leave them next to the checkpoint tents housing the
officers. If the army thought there was some kind of bomb threat they
certainly wouldn't leave the carts there.

One man, Lutvie, that we met had been at the checkpoint all day
everyday for most of the past week. He was trying to get his cart
back, since it was an integral part of his livelihood. He and his son
approached us and asked if we could help him. We told him that we
could.

Throughout the day we had approched the army to request they let
people thought the checkpoint for various reason, a mother needed to
visit an ailing child, a father needed to return to his family after
a week of work in Qalqilya and the like. We told Lutvie that we
needed to wait a bit before asking the army for any more 'favors'. He
agreed. At about 10:30 AM Carl and Lutvie approached on of the
soldiers and asked if they could speak to the captain about the cart
and horse situation.

The soldier was hesitant but when pressured he allowed us to pass and
approach the commander's tent. Outside the tent a young soldier
asked, in a mish-mash of Hebrew and Arabic what Carl and Lutvie
wanted. Carl asked if he spoke English.

"Yes, I speak English" was the reply.

"My name is Carl and I am an American citizen, this man's name is
Lutvie and his horse and cart have been taken. Is there someone we
could talk to about getting them back?"

"Yes."
"Ummm, who?"
"Me."
"OK, can we have the horse and cart?"
"Yes, not now, come back, 6."
"At 6 o'clock?"
"Yes."
"To whom should we speak at 6?"
"To me."
"O, OK, and what is your name?"
[Long pause]
"Doesn't matter, speak me at 6."
"OK, thank you."

Lutvie and Carl were annoyed and pleased at the same time. This was
the first direct answer Lutvie had in three days regarding the horse
and cart. But the arbitrariness of waiting until 6 PM was difficult
to be happy about. Carl told Lutvie that he would certainly be at the
checkpoint at 6 to try again.

After finishing the first shift Carl, Jennie and Susanne went home for
a bit of a rest.

The second shift (from 2 - 4 usually, but due to circumstances this
one would stretch to past 6) team was made up of Carl, Chris and
Jennie. The soldiers were up to their usual pushing people around
(they seem to always make a point of pushing people, sometimes
with their M-16s).

The day seemed to drag on. We made a few interventions on behalf of
people who asked for our help, provided water to people (and even to
a horse!). And generally waited for 6 PM to roll around.

At about 5 PM Lutvie returned to the checkpoint (he had gone home
earlier in the day). We waited until a lot of the people and trucks
were out of the way and they approached the soldier at the gate. We
told him we had horse and cart related business at the commander's
tent and could we be allowed through to discuss the matter. "No" was
the answer. In situation like this we kind of learned to use the Jedi
mind trick with the younger Israeli draftees.

"I am an American and I am going to talk to someone at the
commander's tent."
"Oh."
"Is that OK?"
"Umm, oh, OK."

At the commander's tent the same young soldier was at the lounging on
a pile of sandbags (he looked turtle-ish at about 5-foot-2 and with
his olive drab uniform, battle helmet, battle flak jacket, and
vest pouches loaded with sound grenades, half a dozen extra clips of
ammunition and an M-16 slung around his neck). I asked about the
horse and cart. To my astonishment he just pointed to an
area behind the tent. Lutvie and I briskly skipped around the tent
worrying that the decisions like this one can and very often are
revoked at the slightest whim. I turned the corner to see about 25
battered carts.

Hmmm, "Terrorist donkey carts ... for terrorist donkeys, no doubt."

I would have laughed at the thought if it were not for the fact that
something like this thought was probably their reason the Israeli
military first impounded the dozens of carts (and does so regularly
and continually I have been told).

Lutvie and I grabbed the cart. I was in the donkey-position, that is I
grabbed the poles in the front that would normally be tied to the
animal. We navigated the cart out of its parking spot and onto the
road as we approached the soldiers at the checkpoint about a half
dozen men were shouting and running about. I thought they were happy
to finally see Lutvie get his cart. Not exactly. They had impounded
carts and wanted them back too. That is the problem with justice when
people see tiny bits of it, everybody wants some. Hard to argue with
though. So I left Lutvie to his horse-less (and Carl-less at this
point) to re-request cart releases from the military. Seemingly an
order had been made to allow all the carts to be released. About 6
people some men and some pre-teenaged children where
grabbing carts and wheeling them out. Then the rule changed. "No carts
out", quickly became the unspoken order. How or why was anyone's
guess. One can imagine that the Israeli commanders getting an encoded
radio message from Shin Beit (Israel's Secret Service) at the crucial
moment:

"Islamic Jihad amassing donkey carts... stop ... North West Judea ...
stop ... Dangerous situation ... stop ... Israel's existence at
risk ... stop ... disallow movement of said carts ... stop ...
immediate and urgent ... stop ..."

Anyway, including Lutvie's cart, 3 were released. I was beaming with
pride. Three people had their carts back. Granted they had no animals
to go with the carts and they should have never been taken in the
first place. Further the very existence of the checkpoint is
an injustice, but the minor victory of the free carts was
overwhelming. I kind of came to a tiny understanding. When asked
about the military occupation Palestinians will invariably say "What
can we do?"

Insha' Allah -- it is God's Will.

People here feel helpless and any miniscule victory or resistance to
the Israeli occupation is a gift from God. I, in my agnosticism, felt
the same way.

Today, together, we freed the carts.
Tomorrow, together, we free Palestine.


For information on how you can work for a free Palestine check:
http://www.israel-divest.org/
and
http://www.freepalestinecampaign.org/

-------------------

Carl and Chris are part of a bostontopalestine delegation to the

International Solidarity Movement's (ISM) Palestine Freedom Summer. 

For more information, vistit www.bcpr.org and click "Freedom Summer"

or see the ISM page at:  www.palsolidarity.org