In Their Own Words

I have met some fascinating people in the last few days. Here are snippets of the conversations I've had with them, or quotes I wrote down.

Johara is a West Banker who married a Jerusalemite (a Palestinian with Jerusalem residency) who was driving to work. She got stopped at the checkpoint, presented her American lisence, but was told as a Palestinian she had no right to drive in her own country. "This lisence is valid" she told them, to which he said:

"You can't drive. You shouldn't even be here"

"What should I do, divorce my husband?" Johara asked

"Go back to America!" was the reply. (Unlike Helen, this soldier was not a key media figure. Also being anti-Arab or plain old racist is hardly as harsh an accusation as being anti-semitic)



"Kill as many Arabs as possible and talk as much as posssible about peace." The formula of political strategist Reuven Adler used to lead Sharon and Olmert to power and repeated in Livni's successful election campaign of 2009



"We're a fascist state. It gets worst every day"- Maya, a 20 year old Israeli who was released from 4 months in prison this April after having refused, along with 9 others, to go into the army for the simple reason that they did not want to participate in the occupation.



"Anyone who throws a stone, break their arm or leg" - Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin talking about Palestinians during the first intifada



"Maximum land, minimum Palestinians"- The theory behind the zoning for the Jerusalem municipality according to Maya



"Rule of law is not enforced in Israel when it comes to Palestinians" -Maya after explaining that of the 36% of land tax taken from Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, only 7.27% of the tax is allocated to East Jerusalem for roads, repairs, trash cans, etc.



"I wake up in the morning and look to see if there's a bulldozer outside. If there isn't it's a good day, I feed the kids, I clean the house and I go on." -Palestinian mother quoted by Maya. There are 22,000 houses in East Jerusalem that are built "illegally" which is to say without the building permits Israel refuses to give. Of those 6,000 already have demolition orders. There are about 100 demolitions a year and no one knows if their house will be demolished in a day or twenty years. They live in constant apprehension. (In 1967 the Israeli government drew circles around the main Palestinian cities and created zoning for those areas. Since then population has grown but no rezoning has been done, and hence no more building permits can be given out. Interestingly enough there seems to be no problem in creating zoning almost instantly when a settlement is being built.)



"Economic activism is the way to go... I ask you, as an Israeli, boycott. Because there's no other way for this to end."- Maya