Leaving it all behind

As with Syria, when leaving Israel or the Palestinian Territories (whose borders are controlled by Israel), a departure tax is levied. I begrudgingly handed-over the equivalent of $10 every time I crossed Syria’s border into a neighbouring country, but here, I accepted it with even more bitterness. The tax is exorbitant and I was handing it over to the country whose occupation I had been opposing for the past month.

The fee for leaving at the King Hussein crossing is 169 shekels, the equivalent of nearly fifty U.S. dollars. At other Israeli borders it is just over half of that. The King Hussein crossing is the only border the West Bank shares with the outside world, and is therefore the only means of leaving the country for its Palestinian citizens. The discrimination goes to the edges of the country.

Besides, I wasn’t really ready to leave the West Bank when I did. I wanted to stay to fight the uprooting of olive trees for the construction of the West Bank barrier in Beit Jala. Things were heating up in Jerusalem and I wanted to witness events unfolding.

But at the same time, I had to consider my original objectives for this trip, part of which included crossing Sudan, and elections were planned there for early April. To be sure to be able to cross the country, I wanted to to secure my visa & arrive before then, in case there was any trouble and the country “closed down”, à la Iran. And a part of me, if possible, wanted to witness the elections themselves.

So I boarded the mini-bus to the border. I had prepared myself to be interrogated when leaving; my face had been photographed by Israeli soldiers at several demonstrations, and if the strength of the Israeli intelligence force is to be believed, my own photographs documenting the unrest there would lead to several awkward questions. We had been briefed on the interrogation we could receive.

With my jaw clenched, I was slightly phased when the only question I was asked was “do you have any weapons?”.

In the taxi I shared with an elderly Arab lady and an Italian nun, I breathed a sigh of relief as we negotiated the winding roads of the Jordanian hills back to Amman. I had not been detained at the border, and nothing had been confiscated. But I did feel that I was deserting those who I had met over the past few weeks, and the cause for which they were fighting.

And regarding the route: it would have been much easier to go straight from Jerusalem to the Egyptian border at Eilat. But with my trip taking me through Sudan, evidence of having traveled in “Occupied Palestine” (as the stipulations state) would bar my entry. And so I retraced my steps back to the Jordanian capital, then taking a bus to Aqaba, from where the ferry to Egypt departs.

West Bank Protests

Sunday is the “day of rest” in most Western countries with their Christian roots. But as friends back home would be looking forward to their roast-dinner, it is the day to go back to work in the Middle East. The Jewish Sabbath means that Israel takes its day of rest on Saturday, and Friday is the Muslim holy day.

But in many villages across the West Bank, Friday is not a day of rest, but a day of action. Elected Popular Committees organise resistance to the specific aspects of Israeli occupation that directly affect their village. Whilst an end to the occupation is the ultimate aim, this is something that requires international mediation, and is something that will be conducted on a level far beyond the reach of most Israeli or Palestinian citizens.

Following the Friday prayers, whole communities join in protest against the route of the Israeli Segregation barrier, the theft of local land by Israeli settlements, the uprooting of residents’ olive trees or the failure to comply with court-rulings. All of these are matters than can be successfully fought on a local level, brought-about by non-violent protest and direct-action.

Bi’lin recently garnered a lot of international media coverage, and the following week parts of the segregation barrier were removed as the protest celebrated its fifth anniversary. Through Israeli courts, and supported by protest, Palestinian residents of An Nabi Salih have won-back access to some of their agricultural land from the nearby Israeli Hallamish (Neve Zuf) settlement.

Whilst the large majority of Palestinian protests here are strictly non-violent, the force used by the Israeli army to repress them is highly aggressive. At every, single protest I witnessed, Israeli forces used tear-gas and sound grenades to disperse relatively small groups of protestors within minutes of their opening; those demonstrators often included small children. On the one occasion where I did see Palestinians retaliate, this was after the Israelis had immersed the demonstrators in clouds of tear-gas.

Further violence is prevented by the presence of international- and Israeli- activists; the (human) rights that are afforded to us are much greater than those with whom we stand in solidarity. We can prevent the use of live-rounds and provide protection against six-month, unwarranted detentions of Palestinians, as well as physical brutality by the soldiers.

But these risks are ever-present. Over the past few weeks, several Palestinians have been killed; shot by Israeli soldiers. At the time of writing, the leader of the Palestinian political group, Fatah, was held in Israeli captivity. I have witnessed soldiers use physical force to violently push demonstrators to the ground.

I often questioned whether what we were doing here actually achieved anything, and what else could be done to change things. Seeing Israeli citizens joining in solidarity, in protest, and taking action against their own government was encouraging. Israeli public opinion will play a large factor in their future policy.

But the international community needs to step-up. Should internationals laws be floundered with such disregard by any other government in the region, sanctions and embargoes would be swiftly forthcoming. Had any other government used such disproportional force as the IDF used in Gaza, including the destruction of a major UN aid compound, the condemnation would be more than just verbal. But we stand by and let this happen.

As citizens, we can push our government for greater engagement to end the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories. We can boycott Israeli goods. The UK government has recently issued guidelines dictating the labelling of food coming from the Palestinian Territories, differentiating between that which is produced by Palestinians, and that of Israeli settlements.

Boycott. Divestment. Sanctions.

Quote of the Day

I ain’t no Fatah dog, I ain’t no Hamas bitch

— Rapping at Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem

Sheikh Jarrah: Part II

Prologue

A strong storm had been blowing through Jerusalem for two days. The road towards the Qalandiya checkpoint, to Ramallah, was flooded and so cars crawled along in queues as the rain hammered down. Police stood knee-deep in water as they ushered through the creeping cars.

I was on shift in Sheikh Jarrah that night. The street was devoid of life; the fire that normally burns in the street had been dragged under the gazebo next to the al-Kurd house, which is where I would spend the next sixteen hours. A group of internationals, Israelis and Palestinians huddled under the tarpaulin, choking on the smoke from the fire, huddled against the biting, piercing wind that howled through the gazebo. This was going to be a long night.

At 3am I woke-up the luckless volunteer who had the next shift. Handing over the sodden blanket, I crawled into my ash-covered sleeping bag, sealing myself in as I shivered uncontrollably. I felt guilty from having dragged my comrade from her sleep, from inflicting this upon her; but as I lay on the make-shift bed, my contrition swiftly left me as my eyes found solace in the respite from my task.

As sufferers of Seasonal Affective Disorder become depressed during winter, I found that meteorological conditions would influence my feelings towards the settlers who inflicted this situation on us all. I had been sat around the fire on a pleasant night when they had thrown fire-crackers at us and could laugh this off. On more charitable nights I would try to engage them in discourse about their reasons for doing this, although become disillusioned when the only argument they can give is their “Biblical right”, or the “dreams that [their] people have had for generations”, for this land.

But during those long, cold, wet hours, my attitude towards them was as bitter as the night.

The Loss of Youth

A few days later, I was back in the neighbourhood. Clouds were still looming overhead but the rain had stopped. A small boy stood crying against a wall. This was the same boy who had been hit by a settler throwing a rock a couple of weeks before. Life takes a hard toll on the children of Sheikh Jarrah; the freedom and opportunities I had whilst growing up would not be afforded to this boy who has been forced out of his house by the government that is occupying his country.

That afternoon, I taught him to ride a bicycle. I jogged alongside him as he rode his brother’s two-wheeler up and down the street; he was laughing in delight the first time I let go. This is the sort of experience that youth should be composed of.

That evening was the weekly community dinner in Sheikh Jarrah. Families arrived with steaming plates of food and the street was filled with a sense of joviality as Palestinians sampled western cooking and we gorged on their local delicacies. Sydney, an ISM volunteer, has established the tradition of these weekly get-togethers, and the atmosphere she had installed in the street was amazing as Palestinians, Israelis and internationals all had a small party.

We had been playing football in the street when the Israeli police showed up. Waving their rifles around, the game was to be quickly disbanded. They first claimed that it constituted an “illegal demonstration”, and later cited that it “wasn’t safe” with the traffic. Virtually the only traffic this cul-de-sac receives is their frequent patrols. One man was arrested as he threw a football, thus ruining another young life. The police tried to arrest another young boy, but we weren’t about to let them ruin another. He was smuggled away.

When I was little, one particular neighbour would often complain when my friend and I would play football in the street; I suppose he feared for his car, or his windows. But he would shoo us off and we would play elsewhere. End of story.

Here, this little distraction from the daily threat of eviction received no complaint from the neighbours. Instead, the Israeli police were waving around loaded rifles and threatening arrest as they violently disbanded the game.

With children growing up in this kind of environment, is it any surprise that they become disaffected and turn to more desperate means of struggle? And Israeli force in the West Bank is relatively “civilised” compared to the stories that come out of Gaza. Israel must be conscious of what they are doing, so are they actively trying to create a further generation of resistance?

On Stone Throwing

The demonstration at An Nabi Salih forced me to face certain questions about what was a legitimate form of resistance… In previous demonstrations, I had seen Israeli soldiers use completely unnecessary aggression to repress what were peaceful demonstrations. When faced with physical force by soldiers, the demonstrators protected themselves, and stood their ground, but did not fight back.

However disproportionate the use of military force — rubber-bullets & tear-gas — is against youths throwing rocks, it could be argued that the use of weapons by the Israeli army, at this point, does become somewhat more legitimate. Or it is at least, legitimised. (Despite the fact that the rocks were thrown in response to IDF aggression.)

This then puts into question the legitimacy of the non-violent demonstrations throughout the West Bank. Are these demonstrations achieving anything?

In many cases, yes.

The weekly demonstrations at Bi’lin have caught both the attention of the international media, and served to challenge court rulings about the route of the Israeli West Bank Barrier. Here at An Nabi Salih, a court has ruled in favour of the Palestinians against one of the settlers’ fences.

When is violent struggle acceptable? The ANC urged South African blacks to mount a “people’s war”, rendering townships ungovernable. But it is the violence inflicted upon the Israelis by Hamas-fired rockets that has caused so much death in Gaza, for example, as Israeli collectively punishes the whole of the Gazan population. By using violence, the use of retaliatory force becomes somewhat more permissible, and the Israeli government is not known for moderation when sending in tanks and bombers. This massive use of force has garnered much criticism from the West, but little, or nothing, has been actively done to stop it. Do things like stone-throwing reduce the sympathy the West has to the Palestinian cause?

Last week, a Palestinian boy died after having been shot by a live bullet at a demonstration. The Israeli forces claimed that they were not using live rounds, but an x-ray of the boys head clearly shows a bullet lodged inside his brain. With this sort of force used against stone-throwing, what would Palestinians face if greater resistance was used?