How Can We be Silent? 3 Villages, 1 Occupation

Shabat shalom. Today was neither a day of rest nor of peace for me. There's so so much I want to write about, but I think perhaps what's best is to give you a small snapshot of three different villages I've visited in the last 2 days.:

Al-Waleja

A Palestinian village near Jerusalem, Al-Waleja is slowly giving up hope. We went to their "protest" on Friday which was really just a few people with flags, Palestinian media, me, two other international activists and an Israeli. In 1967 when Israel expanded the borders of the Jerusalem municipality half of Al-Waleja was considered part of Jerusalem and half was in the West Bank. Nobody informed the residents and so those who could have applied for Jerusalem IDs did not do so. In the late 90's, however, many villagers found out as the Occupying Forces (as some call the "Isreali Defense Force", quite a misnomer) told them they were illegal inhabitants of Jerusalem. Their houses hadn't moved, they hadn't changed, simply a border was decided without their input and they were now illegal residents in their own homes. The protest in Al-Waleja is against the construction of the wall which is again taking land from the village. 70% of their agricultural land, in fact. Though the Green Line is in the valley, the already-begun wall construction is taking place way up the hill into Al-Waleja thereby annexing land which is already earmarked to become a settlement. In fact the settlers intending to move there have also lodged a complaint against the construction of the wall....because it's not giving them ENOUGH land. So I guess no one is happy. Least happy of all is perhaps our host for the afternoon, AbuSaber. Last week 88 of his 100 olive trees were uprooted to clear a path for the illegal wall. Of those, a few were kindly replanted on an upper level. Except of course that they were put in a dry location and moved when their roots could not handle it so all of the few replanted trees are now dead. AbuSaber offered us plums and olives and tea, but told us, smiling, "It is not a beautiful life". When asked if he would take Jerusalem ID if it was offered (which it won't be) he said " I just want to be here. I love my land. Jerusalem...Palestine...I just want to be on my land. But I love Palestine."

Beit Ommar

We were marching into Abu Islam's olive grove. The intetion was to commemorate the 6th anniversary of the International Court of Justice's ruling of the "Seperation Fence" as illegal by having a mock trial near the offending structure through which one could see the rest of the olive grove, now annexed to Galad Asa, a settlement. Before we got very far six or so Israeli soldiers stopped us and said "This is a closed military zone, go back now. You can come back to cultivate your fields tomorrow but you can't be here today" So we tried to start the trial then and there, there was some shoving and "go back!" that continued. Meanwhile some of the Israeli activists tried to engage in conversation, as did Moussa, a main Palestinian organizer. "You can't be here" the soldier told him, "Why, this is my land!" said Moussa, "You can come back tomorrow" said the soldier "It's my land on the other side of this fence too. Look-- there are settlers on that side walking around freely, why can't I walk freely on my land?" The soldier had no reply and so walked away. After about 20 minutes or so we were still in various stages of conversation, speeches, shuffling about, staging a temporary sit-in, when all of a sudden I looked down at my feet where something had just landed. It looked kind of like a tear gas cannister so my very first thought was, of course, "Oh, SHIT!" right after which I heard a huge boom and then nothing else, saw a flash of light and felt little bits of dirt and pressure pushed through my body centering at my ankle. A flash-bomb. Awesome. "Go back!" the soldier next to me said "What the..." I said, right as a tear gas cannister exploded behind me, where we were supposed to be "Go back"ing to. "Why are you shooting bombs and tear gas where you want us to go?" I asked logically if not altogether dispassionately to the same soldier "Go back!" he insisted. So we did. We all started to run, trying to keep an eye out for the flash bombs that were going off at an alarming rate and the tear gas flying overhead. One journalist was hit at close range with a tear gas canister and had to have the ambulance take him, a kid also got hit at the back of the head and was bleeding. Other than that no casualties were had. Probably the most terrifying moment for me was not when bombs were being thrown, but the eerie moment when I saw a settler dressed all in white and carrying an AK47 walking along his side of the fence, looking at us. Because you don't know what settlers will do. They're already in violation of international law and sometimes Isreali law and so really, they're above the law. Plus they have huge guns and everyon is terrified of them. The good news from Beit Ommar is that the israeli activist i met two years ago when her fiance was in jail is still in Beit Ommar except her husband, Moussa, has been released and they now have an adorable baby girl together and are still organizing the resistance!
I was supposed to go straight to Hebron from Beit Ommar but ended up joining a group of 8 other activists/students/internationals who knew someone in the neighborhood so we had tea at Abu Islam's house. He told us about his 6 dunnums of land he had not been allowed to go work for six years, how all his trees are dried up and dead now. He told us abot his son who is serving 2 years in jail for throwing a rock during a demonstration, and he offered us more tea, smiled and showed us his granddaughter, and objected everytime we started to leave.

Hebron

I went to the "Open ShuHada Street" protest a second time in Hebron. I'll skip over the actual demonstration which was slighly more disturbing and difficult than last time (mostly due to some kicking and general violence by the soldiers at one point, and the settlers throwing not just water but bleach down on the demostratotrs) and talk about the settler tour afterwards. Ironically that which we had been demonstrating for was acomplished soon after we ended-- the soldiers opened up the barrier to ShuHada street...to let in a long stream of settlers, all dressed in white, and flanked by a veritable army. The point of these tours, ostensibly, is to tour "historic" sites and see where Jews used to live in Hebron before 1929 (it is true that Jews and Arabs cohabitated quite nicely in Hebron prior to that, however the settlers who are trying to "reclaim" this land are totally unrelated to the Jews who once lived alongside their Palestinian neighbors in peace) but effectively is just another way of becoming familiar with territory one is lookinig to take over. At this point it's around 6:30, 7pm, I've been up and going since 8am, I've been bombed, tear gassed, yelled at, chased, ignored, horrified, and I, along with my fellow travelers, just want to get home. But there's no way through this blockade. Some people try to talk to the soldiers, I'm done with that mostly for the day. Instead, I opt to sing a meddley of "War, huh, what is it good for?" (with the occasional "settlements, huh, what are they good for? Land expropriation...") with "How can we be silent" and "When I get older, they'll call me freedom, just like a wavin' flag" with a little "We shall overcome" just to bring it all together. There was also a great moment of remixing a Celine Dion song to question the Apartheid state. Finally we got through, but stopped, horrified, as we caught some of the tail end of the settler guide's speech. "Look at them in the eye", he said, referring to the Palestinians "and you will see they are not human." And there, in a nutshell, is the problem.

There are so many small anectdotes, quotes, facts and figures that are piling up within me, that I can't get down here, that are available to anybody that will just ask questions and see what's going on. I've asked the Israeli leftist I've met, all of whom impress me in so many ways, "So, how did you get into this?" and invariably their answer is something the line of "I just started to question...so I started to read...I started to think..." These are three very incomplete narratives. This is barely two days of my life. There's more, trust me. Something an Isaeli activist said during the demonstration really made me think: "Look at these soldiers" he said "in a few years they will be out of the army and they will whine and cry and tell all the world about the horrible things they did, they will join Breaking the Silence...but then it will be too late" It reminded me of the conversation I had with the soldier in Hebron earlier this month. He said he knew being in Hebron was wrong, but he couldn't do anything about it while he was a soldier, so he might join Breaking the Silence later. I think Breaking the Silence is a great organization, but the point that struck me was the idea of courage in timing.

How do we do that? As Americans, we are being called on by the Christian community, Palestinian civil society, Israeli peace groups and voices within our own societies, churches and schools to supporte boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) of the occupation, specifically relating to settlements. And what are we doing about it? Are we waiting until others make the step first? Are we so scared of creating division, of taking a "political stand", of puting our own careers, or our institutions reputation on the line that we fail to do that which is right?

I came home to Jerusalem, to Mt. Zion, and I took a much needed shower. Now I am clean and safe and could very well never think about the occupation ever again in my life. There's something tempting about that. But AbuSaber, AbuIslam, Moussa, the kids in Beit Ommar and in Hebron, they would still have to live it every day. My government would still be paying for the bombs thrown at people like me, the bullets shot at Palestinians, the expansion of settlements. So, "How can we be silent?"

Anyway, I couldn't do it, I would miss their smiles and their tea too much.