Check-In From Palestine

Hello from Ramallah, Palestine.

We are a team of eight proponents of peace, six on the ground and two in the US supporting our outreach efforts. We have our individual unique stories, and a united goal of peace for Palestine.

witness4peacepalestine is our handle and can be found across numerous platforms.

After training for three months online, we finally met in person earlier this week for additional, on the ground training at Ecce Homo Convent in the Old City of Jerusalem. Our team believes in peace and wants to witness life in Palestine in this time of war. What is daily life like? What is the mood? How does one thrive in the midst of war? Can joy be found?

When we walked in Jerusalem, we saw quiet streets, and gaping spaces across the Temple Mount. There are very few visitors to the Dome of the Rock, the Wailing Wall, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

We enjoyed dinner at a restaurant that previous to October 7, 2023, had 28 employees. Today, only the owner prepares the food, cooks, serves, cleans, and welcomes guests. The owner told us, “Since my father opened this restaurant in 1979, my family has served many important people including you now.” As an aside, one of those important people is Jimmy Carter, American President, who turns 100 years old today.

This morning we traveled by bus from Jerusalem to Ramallah. We arrived at a guest house for volunteers and will be trained along with other internationals that have come to provide peaceful accompaniment. 

After two days of training, a decision will be made about where we serve. We only go where we are invited and we take the lead from our Palestinian hosts. Our team will blog regularly and provide a snapshot of the reality of daily living for people expressing their dignity in an apartheid society.

We have already served as a peaceful presence. We smile and look each person in the eye, greeting them with good morning or Allah Salam, the source of peace. We have compassionate and energetic encounters in the streets. People in Israel and Palestine are surprised to see American citizens traveling here during a time of orchestrated violence. Today, a Palestinian Professor of Political Science helped us select olive oil for the rooming house. He was delighted to interact with us and to discuss US politics.

Yesterday in Jerusalem, we were shopping at a Palestinian book shop. Again, the owner wanted to discuss US politics. Who would we vote for? Where is peace on the political agenda? What is our experience? It is humiliating to be a US citizen, knowing that we represent war and destruction.

Two people on our team are members of the organization, Veterans for Peace; these two men were drafted to fight in the Vietnam War. Thanks be to God that these men survived and are able to stand against war and for peace. The burden on the hearts and souls of soldiers creates a life-long smolder of regret.

Each of us is here for our own reasons, however, we are united in our desire to take personal action in support of peace. Follow us on our journey as we train, engage and witness.

We are Witness for Peace in Palestine 

1. A

Our Perspective on the Conflict in Palestine/Israel

The Current Crisis between Israel and Hamas

 The violence since the first week of October 2023 has been heart-wrenching and breathtaking. More than a thousand Israelis and guests of Israel (mostly non-combatant civilians) were killed, and more than 200 were taken hostage in the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.  Immediately following that attack, more than 11,000 Palestinians, the vast majority civilian - including more than 6,000 children - have been killed by Israeli military airstrikes and attacks.  Tens of thousands more have been injured.  Water sources have been destroyed and hospitals and other critical infrastructure in Gaza have been rendered unusable.  Attacks by armed settlers and Israeli military forces in the West Bank are on the rise. Both the Hamas and Israeli attacks have shown a brazen disregard for international law and norms of human decency.  The Israeli military has killed more journalists and United Nations workers than any other recorded conflict.  The Israeli/Palestinian conflict has long been a spiral of violence, which was accelerating before October 7, 2023 and now threatens to engulf the Middle East region.  As a peace and justice organization, we call for an end to the violence, and call for the processes that encourage all people in the region to recognize their shared humanity and the right to peace with justice.

 DATA UPDATE – Oct. 3, 2024

Meta Peace Team’s Perspective on the Conflict in Palestine/Israel

•  We recognize the right of both Palestinians and Israelis to live in justice, peace, and security.
•  We do not advocate any particular solution to the crisis but support a just solution agreed upon by both Palestinians and Israelis.
•  We support an end to violence by all parties in all forms so that peace can take root.
•  We recognize the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people.
•  We reject all forms of religious hatred and racism that may manifest themselves in this crisis, whether the source is an ally or an opponent.
•  We recognize the Occupation of Palestine as an act of ongoing violence that must end for peace to come to fruition in the region.
•  We recognize the daily humiliations and restrictions that Palestinians experience at the hands of armed settlers and the Israeli Military (IDF) as a form of violence.
•  We recognize the pain, terror, and long-term psychological distress that the attacks on innocent civilians inflict on the Israeli people as their own form of violence.
•  We recognize the pain, terror, and long-term psychological distress that home demolitions, land confiscation, and attacks on innocent civilians inflict on the Palestinian people as their own form of violence.
•  We recognize the pain - emotional and physical - caused by military service in the Occupied Territories by Israeli soldiers as a form of violence.
•  We support international law and the United Nation Resolutions regarding the right of return, opposing the existence of Israel’s “security wall”, and opposing Israeli settlements in Palestine. 
•  We recognize the role of the US government in perpetuating and shoring up this violence through economic and military support.
•  We recognize that our own (U.S.) history of colonialism and genocide of the indigenous peoples of the Americas impacts the way we view the realities of Palestine and Israel.
•  We recognize the generational trauma experienced by the people in the region has implications for generations to come, and needs to be addressed if there is to be healing.
•  We recognize the anguish of parents raising children in the midst of this conflict and the need to instill hope for the future.
•  We recognize and affirm nonviolence as a way of life and as a powerful, strategic tactic that can serve a central role in the resolution of the conflict over the occupation of Palestine and security for Israel.

 

West Bank Team Cancelation

The MPT International Team Committee regretfully decided to cancel the October trip to the West Bank because of uncertainty about the delta variant and the increase in covid hospitalizations. Israel has been slow to open its borders to tourists and it still seems that a two week quarantine is needed upon arrival. If that were still to be the case in October, it would cut greatly into a month long deployment which would be prohibitive; or even worse, Israel could decide not to allow entry to people from the US because of our high rates of covid cases. Due to such uncertainties, we did not think it would be a good idea to give the team the go-ahead to start making flight arrangements. 

The team of five had already started the mandatory team training. We are now providing that as a weekly two hour session on Zoom rather than requiring all team members to come to Michigan for a week of face-to-face training. This allowed a team member from Cameroon to be on this team. In the time that we've been doing the Zoom team training together we have seen that this is a very strong team. Now, all five team members hope to be able to join the April team as long as their lives permit and perhaps we will be able to recruit a few more team members by then. 

If you are interested in joining our next scheduled Peace Team to the West Bank call 517-489-2607 or visit https://www.metapeaceteam.org/international-peace-teams

What does a burning car mean?

burned cars

burned cars in forground.  The terrorists came from the ilegal Israeli settlement at top of hill.

No one likes to see a car on fire. Imagine that the flaming car is right next to your house. And imagine it happens in the middle of the night when you think your family is safely asleep.  And the attackers came into your door yard to start the fire.  Bad as that is, it takes on an entirely new feeling when graffiti is sprayed on the wall saying “We will return.” This was not part of some organized crime scene.  This is what innocent Palestinians face when they simply continue to live their ancestral life in their own village after an Israeli settlement is built near them. 

In this case the attacking Israeli settlers came from the Yitzahar Settlement. They sneaked down under the cover of night to terrorize the village of Urif. These attackers were determined enough to climb down more than a kilometer of steep cactusy hillside just to spread their venom of hate.

When we arrived, some 24 hours after the fire had been put out, there was a group of women gathered around the remains of the cars.  As they shared their feelings among themselves, my eye was drawn by the obvious heat, power, and destruction displayed by the burnt out remains of the cars.

The residents of Urif have faced years and years of attacks. I personally have witnessed attacks in Urif for 5 years - from stealing live stock, attacking the boys school while school was in session, to the use of fire and tear gas. The village has been attacked so many times with tear gas that one enterprising teenager had a business collecting the spent teargas shells for scrap metal.

To deliver a message of threat and hate attacks like this do not have to come from everyone in the illegal Israeli settlement, just one or two individuals.  It does not have to happen every day, or every week, or every month to create a terrorized life in the community. It just has to happen enough that the fear and threat feel omnipresent.  Especially when the terrorists take time to sign their work with the Star of David and the message “We will return.” 

We will return

Slow motion attack on Asair al Qibliya

The village of Asair al Qibliya clings to the west slope of the mountain. It is so steep it feels like every step you take is either up or down. Like many old Palestinian villages the history and the structures go back to Roman and Ottoman times.

People wanted us to see how the illegal Israeli settlement of Shalhevet Farm was encroaching on the the village of Asair al Qibliya.  The word encroach disguises what is actually happening - attack or displacement might be more accurate expressions. My first clue that the encroaching settlement buildings were not some benign encroachment came when I realized that the reason our driver had turned the car around and backed up the hill was so he could be prepare for a hasty escape if the settlers attacked us.  Even with the car headed down hill away from the settlement the driver cautiously stopped his car several houses before the end of the street. When we got out of the car the new settler buildings stood out against the horizon, only a thousand feet or so up the hill.

Actually these Israeli settler buildings are an “outpost” not a “settlement.”  Technically the Israeli “settlements” are communities that are in violation of international humanitarian law but that are recognized by the Israeli government.  On the other hand the “outposts” are in violation of both international and Israeli law. Outposts are the efforts of zealous advocates of settlement expansion who just take other people's land.  Their strategy is to take Palestinian land by just building and living on it.  They know that if called the IOA will not arrest them for violating the law, but instead will defend them and their illegal seizing of Palestinian land.

Back to the reality on the ground in Asair la Qibliya. Between the top of the village and the outpost was a stone structure from which a blue and white flag was flying in the gentile breeze.  This had been the spring that supplied water to the village, but the outpost residents had stopped the water flowing from the spring to the village and would not let anyone go up the hill to restore the flow of water.  So instead of using their own spring water the village residents had to have water brought in by tuck. 

We saw this insidious slow but steady illegal forcing Palestinian off their land take many forms. But in Asir al Qibliya the settlers used denying people access to water, physically threatening their well being, and just occupying their land to squeeze the village.

You can see he road in forground, the spring is the gray area, right center behind tree, the outpost buildings are against sky

Looking out overAsair al Qibliya

 

Water access as a tool

In the morning occupying Israeli soldiers arrived in the Palestinian village of Bardala with excavation equipment and a team of contractors.  Soon they had water gushing from water lines and the village's water shut off.

It was no mistake. It was not a construction project. It was a destruction project. They cut up and removed 2000 feet of 6” steel municipal water pipe. They ripped up plastic water lines on private property and piled it in the road.  They dug up streets.  And all the while 20 soldiers, guns at ready, held that part of town including a major intersection and a bridge in a “security perimeter”, denying access to vehicles or pedestrians and generally threatening the residents.

The soldiers and contractors claimed this was all justified because the village has been stealing water.  Of course there was no explanation why a simple court case and fine would not have resolved the issue rather than sealing private and public pipes, cutting off the water, and generally terrorizing the community.  All this was a shock to me - I have run a municipal water system where people stole water and didn't pay their bills. We, the officials, would have been behind bars if we had done anything close to this. And rightfully so.

The village residents said Mekorot (the Israeli government water company) had taken over their municipal well guaranteeing them 250 cu meters of water. This was way more water than the village needed or used, but was less than their well produced. In 2006 Mekorot starting cutting back on the water going to village allowing them less and less. Now it only allows the village 62 cu meters. During the same time Bradala has gown from 200-300 to 3,000 people and with the day workers during working hours the village supplies water to 5,000 people.

Restricting the water that is allowed to flow

While Mekorot restricts water in Bardala its water lines carry water from Bardala's 4 water wells to supply to the illegal Israeli settlements of Mehola, Sdemot Mehola, Nahaf Rottem, Maskiyyat, and 4 military bases.

With their wells and traditional springs taken over by Israel's Mekorot Company the native Palestinians resorted to building rain water collection facilities, water conservation projects, and rain water storage tanks; only to have them destroyed by the Occupying Israeli Army - repeatedly. The justification for destroying them seems to always be that they do not have the proper Israeli issued permits.  But the UN says Israel denies 97% Palestinian permit allocations in theJordan Valley.  Where as near by the illegal Israeli settlements have no problem getting permits or water.

There is a bigger picture than just the water lines in Bardala.  It involves water access throughout the Jordan Valley in Palestine. A pattern of restricting water for the native Palestinians and giving water to the illegal Israeli settlements and their imported residents.

As a result the illegal Israeli settlements have green lawns, swimming pools, and lush thousand acre irrigated farms. Whereas in the Palestinian villages water is always at risk. Crops are limited by water availability. Goat and sheep herds are limited by water availability. Palestinian farmer Khalid Ahmad Ali Fahamni puts it simply, If there is no water there is no farming.

Meanwhile no one knows the future of Bardala. With their water mains ripped up and they only have about 3 days supply of water for their herds and crops.

Fifteen Kilometers from the Sea

          Everyone in the city of Tulkarem seems to have a sea story. Of not being able to go to the sea. Just 15 kilometers from the Mediterranean, on the border between the West Bank and Israel, Tulkarem is as close to the sea as its residents can get. From the outskirts of the city you can see Netanya, the Israeli seaside town which many Palestinians remember visiting as children. But since 2002, in response to the Second Intifada (popular uprising) access to Netanya has been denied. “I have forgotten how to swim,” one man complained to us. Another said that now that his wife has turned 50, she can go to Netanya without breaking Israeli law, but even though he is 55—the legal age for men—he can’t, because of a five-year jail sentence he served in his twenties for student activism. Israeli treatment of Palestinians is often brutal, but sometimes it can be as elegantly cruel as a stiletto wound; imagine having to tell your child, in the blazing heat of a West Bank summer, that she can’t go to the sea! The people of Tulkarem who inspired me are as elegant in their defiance of the occupation as Israel is in its cruelty.

          The first thing you notice about Hassan (not his real name) are his movie star good looks. For those who remember Dr. Zhivago, he evokes a taller, leaner Omar Sharif. Then there is his stride. For an activist, it’s decidedly non-purposeful. Lounging down the street, he has the air of someone with all the time in the world. But Hassan is leader of the International Solidarity Movement, the organization with the biggest, strongest, and most vocal presence in the West Bank. He turns unruly young people who bring all their issues with them to Palestine into effective advocates for human rights. As founder of the Society of Social Work Committees in Tulkarem, he coordinates efforts to help the city’s homeless and disabled. His secret? Charm, of course, but to say that Hassan is charming is like saying that LeBron James plays pretty good basketball. His eyes dance when he is talking with you, his voice is soothing—I  heard him scold one of his Palestinian volunteers for not using English in a tone more appropriate, I thought, for comforting the boy. But all this is superficial. What makes Hassan compelling is that when you are with him you have the sense of being in the presence of a free human being.  

          Like virtually all the activists we have met in Palestine, Hassan has spent time in jail. He showed us pictures of him and his wife at their engagement party, then mentioned that the next day he had to go to jail for 11 months. “It was a cheap engagement!”  Before meeting his wife, he had been a political prisoner for 5 years. “For the first year it is difficult, but then it becomes a life,” he shrugged, “there is always work to do.” I thought of Daniel Berrigan saying to me once that inside or outside prison, it was the ministry that was important. And then I realized the source of Hassan’s freedom. He has let go of his private dreams and ambitions and has surrendered himself to “the work” –ending the occupation of his beloved country. When you do that, you live beyond fear, beyond pettiness, caught up in the power of a love that embraces us all. As I grumble about how my hair looks in the West Bank heat or how it’s been three days since I’ve taken a shower, thinking about Hassan makes me gasp with admiration.

          Another inspiration in Tulkarem was a whole group of people, an artist’s collective, founded in 2003 under the hopeful name of Dar Qandeel, or Lighthouse.  The building they rent is from the Ottoman period, with elaborate stone work, high ceilings and a patio in the rear with flowering trees and a chicken coop. As we headed to our meeting on the patio, we passed paintings, sculptures, posters, and banners (“Evolution begins with R”) all created by the young people who take classes at the studio. Officially an NGO sponsored by the Anna Lindh Foundation, Dar Qandeel  “believes in the power and enlightenment that culture and arts can bring to the people as an instrument to foster social changes and peace.” http://www.annalindhfoundation.org/members/dar-qandeel-arts-and-culture

Three staff members and a cadre of volunteers teach painting, digital arts, music, dance, sculpture, and taekwondo after school and during the summer holiday. While we drank tea or coffee in little cups, a young man (nominated for the TV show, Arabs Got Talent, from Tulkarem, his friends told us) performed magic tricks and another demonstrated the traditional dance ( dabka.)  

          As we went around the circle, which included a Tulkarem native back with his family after 35 years in Saudi Arabia, you could feel the openness of the place (they are proud of teaching “mixed” or coed classes) and the gentle spirit I always associate with artists. But then one of the speakers got angry as he listed all the injustices done to farmers in the area by the occupation. Israel controls imports and exports, he explained. Palestinians grow the best oranges and lemons, but they’re not allowed to sell them in Israel, whereas Israel floods Palestinian markets with their produce. Now farmers who can’t make a profit are forced to work as day-laborers in Israel. As he went on an on, I was moved by his passion. Once again I could see that beneath the surface of these warm, hospitable people who joke and laugh easily is a fierce attachment to their land, which is based not on ideology—as the Israelis’ is—but on generations of working it to sustain themselves. Where are they to go if they are pushed off their land? How can Israel do to the Palestinians what has been done to them down through the centuries? As I ponder these questions, I realize that the Palestinian people and their cry for justice have worked their way into my heart. And I will never again take a trip to the ocean for granted.

         

 

         

            

          

         

Khan Al Ahmar in the cross hairs

Khan Al Ahmar school

opposing views line up

No room for discussion, just a show of force

New road cuts with in inches of village edge

Building a road along the edge of town

Across Palestine the Israeli policies work, below the radar of world attention, to move the native populations off of their land and fill it with Jewish immigrants. One microcosm of this process is in the village of Khan Al Ahmar, located between Jerusalem and Jericho, where we have gone a number of times.   

A Road That Divides

July 4th we joined demonstrations, protests, and arrests as the occupying military started building a road next to Khan Al Ahmar.  The road is an important tool of control of the land and removal of the traditional population in the West Bank.  The illegal Jewish settlements Kfar Adumim and Mishor Adumim, which are really small cities with industrial parks, shopping centers, schools, etc, want to expand but the village of Khan Al Ahmar is in their way.  The planned road cuts diagonally from the existing 4 lane highway along the very edge of the village up to an outpost road on the way to the illegal Kfar Adumim settlement. This road will be a barrier keeping Khan Al Ahmar herders away from thousands of acres of their traditional grazing land. It will leave the community penned into a small pie shaped piece of land between the new road and Route 1. It will simply make it impossible for them to carry on their herding lie style. And their whole culture is built on thousands of years of herding.

Eliminating the residents of Khan Al Ahmar from this large piece of land gives the developers from the illegal settlements unencumbered access to developing that land. Of course the goal is not just that large piece of land; the goal is obliteration of the village. Clearly the Israeli intent is to make life in Khan Al Ahmar so untenable that the residents will be ready to just leave their traditional lands. Since the occupying Israeli government has passed the orders to forcefully remove the residents and eliminate the Village, they could just back up trucks and forcibly remove the residents. But they are afraid of the bad PR associated with public images of soldiers herding citizens onto trucks, reminiscent of what happened in Nazi Germany.  Whether they do it gradually or all at once the outcome is the same - the illegal moving of an occupied population and the illegal importation of another population into an occupied territory. 
    
Israel Targets a Local School Built of Recycled Materials 

Why would anyone, let alone a government, want to demolish a school?  Especially an elementary school serving several villages that have no other available education.  This school was built only after these Bedouin communities requested and were denied that the Israeli school buses which went by their villages stop and pick up their children too. At first the school was just a couple of rooms, but as the children advanced in grades more class rooms and teachers were needed until now the school is more that 14 rooms. Since building materials were scarce they built much of the school with recycled materials like stacking old car tires filled with concrete. Despite its humble beginnings this school has been providing education to Bedouin children of several villages, something the occupying Israeli government has refused to provide. Making education available locally is especially critical for the girls.  Incongruous as it may be the Israeli authorities are spending tens of thousands of dollars just to be sure this little school is demolished. For them it is not just a school, it is a symbol of the determination and resistance of the Palestinian people to stay on their traditional land. The occupying Israel hopes that demolishing the school will break the village's will to resist. But it is doing the opposite - the village is organizing materials and labor to rebuild right away if the school is demolished.  Our team has spent nights and days in the school to offer a protective international presence which the community leaders see as important for delaying demolition and maybe even saving this school.
 Education the Victim of Politics

The Khan Al Ahmar elementary school is caught up in the internal politics of the two illegal settlements Kfar Adumim and Mishor Adumim which are built on                     traditional Bedouin lands. In the master plans for the illegal settlements they plan to get rid of the traditional Bedouin villages there. One of the settlement politicians is fueling his political base by saying he will see that the school is demolished as a symbol for forcefully removing the villages.  But some others living in the illegal settlements are having second thoughts. For example one settler realized that a leader in the Khan Al Ahmar village is the man who built his house, and the settler is asking “How can I demolish the house of the man who built mine?” 

There is also a group of settlers who apparently don't mind the villagers being forcefully removed but feel the planned place of relocation is intolerable for three reasons. 1) The plan calls for relocating Khan Al Ahmar from their traditional herding grounds and putting them on little plots of land where herding is out of the question. Those little plots are in a sliver of land along a 4 lane highway and hemmed in on the other side by an existing Bedouin community.  2) The existing community says the relocation plan takes their land, land they need for subsistence, and plunks the Khan Al Ahmar residents in it.  3)The relocation place is directly down hill from a major industrial dump and that studies have shown that people already living there have very high rates of birth defects.

It seems the future of Khan Al Ahmar may depend on the internal politics of illegal settlements which are built on land stolen from Khan Al Ahmar.

Why would a government care about the location of a tiny community?

The village of Khan Al Ahmar is on the “Israeli side” of the planned apartheid wall. The purpose of the wall is to separate the Jewish population from the local population and letting a Bedouin village stay on the “Israeli side” defeats this.  Khan Al Ahmar is caught in this position because the wall at this point will be deep inside the West Bank. The wall at this point will be about 13 kilometers from the internationally recognized green line. In fact the wall will be about half way across the entire West Bank.

In addition Khan Al Ahmar is one of the Bedouin villages in the way of expansion of the illegal settlements Kfar Adumim and Mishor Adumim (which are built on the traditional lands of Khan Al Ahmar). At the same time that Khan Al Ahmar residents live under demolition orders, contracts have been signed to build a new 96 unit  expansion of Kfar Adumim on the traditional grazing lands of Khan Al Ahmar.

Removal of the little village fits in with another aspect of the Israeli expansion.  The E1 plan calls for the expansion of illegal settlements in a continuous band from Jerusalem to Jericho dividing the West Bank into two separate pieces. With an apartheid wall to the north of this band and another apartheid wall to the south there will be no connection between the northern and the southern parts of the West Bank. Many people describe this as creating two new Gaza like open air prisons.

Another Night in Hebron (from David)

I got the call at 9:00 o’clock in the evening, maybe 9:30. I could barely make out the words; the burner phone pushed up against my ear did nothing to help decipher the accented voice coming over the line. “There is an incident in Tel Rumeida,” the voice said a second time, referring to the Hebron settlement where Arabs and Jews lived side by side in an uneasy truce. “Can you come now?” As it happened, John, Laurie and I were already in Tel Rumeida. We showed up in a matter of minutes.

We knew we were in the right place when we saw the Israeli soldiers. At least two dozen were standing in an intersection on a steep hill. They would have created a traffic jam, but there weren’t enough cars on the road to cause one -- there never are, because Palestinians aren’t allowed to drive on it. In the middle of the soldiers, alone, stood an elderly Palestinian man looking dignified but somewhat vulnerable. “Are you alright?” Laurie asked the man. He nodded his head, then told us what had happened. From what we could gather, a woman settler alleged that someone – no one knew who – had thrown rocks at her. In response, the settler’s family came to the eminently reasonable conclusion that the best thing to do was to sit out in front of the house where the rocks had been thrown. This brave act of defiance against unarmed civilians was tainted only slightly by the presence of the heavily-armed soldiers, including two that could be seen on the roof. Their presence essentially barred anyone from entering or leaving the house, which was home to five families.

I started talking to one of the soldiers. “Does any of this seem right to you?” I finally asked him, waving my arm in the direction of the settlers. “I don’t deal in right or wrong,” he retorted. Another soldier, another conversation. “If you want to talk with someone, talk with him,” he said, nodding in the direction of the only two police officers at the scene. The three of us walked over to where they stood and promptly began peppering them with questions. “Look, this is Hebron,” the smaller of the two officers said. “Twelve soldiers have died at this intersection. Don’t be naïve.” Laurie asked about the timeframe in which the soldiers had been killed. “Since the beginning,” he replied.

The police asked to see our passports. We all obediently handed ours over to them, which we had explicitly been told not to do during our training. The officer handed mine back to me without looking at it. We were then told to stand away from the soldiers, where a group of young Palestinian boys sat on flattened cardboard boxes smoking hookah. They appeared only mildly interested in the night’s entertainment. I fixed my gaze on the settlers. The men wore kippahs, the women long skirts. One of the men held a baby in his arms; another was absorbed in his smart phone. A few Jewish children were working on setting up a tent. It didn’t look like they would be going home any time soon.

Eventually, some of the Palestinian boys approached one of the soldiers. We watched in quiet surprise as they began to chat in a relaxed manner, laughing easily at each other’s jokes. Nearby, some of the soldiers relieved themselves of their boredom with light horseplay. One of the Palestinians who had been talking with the soldier came up to us and introduced himself as Ahmed (not his real name). “Ahmed?” I interjected. “So it was you who called us.” He smiled and told us that he has been involved in grassroots resistance for several years, a statement incongruous with his youthful appearance.  John asked him what he had been talking about with the soldier. “He told me that I am too young to be married and have a child,” Ahmed said. “I told him that things were different for me; he lost his virginity at 16 or 17, while I lost mine at 22.”

Ahmed seemed the ideal activist. He was charming, seamlessly transitioning across language and cultural barriers to engage with friend and foe alike. He also had a rebellious streak. He told us that he had recently met with a senior member of the Israeli security forces, who had threatened to arrest any protesters in Tel Rumeida. “I told him that we are already in prison. My friends and family who live outside the settlement can’t come to visit me here to have a cup of tea. People have died waiting for an ambulance to get the clearance to pass through checkpoints. But we still have to pay for our food, our phone, our house. At least in jail we don’t have to pay for those things.”

By now more than two hours had passed since we first arrived, but there was no sign of the settlers packing up and leaving. A new batch of soldiers had replaced the talkative ones, and most of the Palestinians were now kicking around a soccer ball. Ahmed suggested that we go home, telling us that he would call us again if we were needed. That didn’t seem likely given how calm everyone was acting. I wasn’t surprised when I woke up the next morning to no missed calls.

We bid farewell, and slowly began to walk down the hill past the soldiers. Down past the settlers, who still had their young children out with them at this late hour. I could only wonder about those children. Children who would grow up thinking they had a God-given right to this land. Who would grow up fearing and thinking they hate Arabs. Who would grow up thinking the most natural place to pitch a tent is on the cement floor outside their neighbors' house. 

Four Sisters (from Laurie)

Four Sisters (from Laurie)

        A day after we arrived in Um al Khair, one of the Bedouin villages south of Hebron which are constantly threatened by house demolitions, Linda and I had a meeting with four of the village women. We had already heard from the men, who had given us a history of the village, from their grandfather’s forced move off the Negev at the time of the Nakba to their current situation of harassment by settlers and the Israeli military, but we wanted to hear from the “other half” of the village, the Bedouin women we had seen moving silently about in their traditional veils and long dresses, even in the scorching heat. The meeting was arranged through their husbands, who seemed to be in charge of everything in the village, so I was prepared to encounter shy individuals who might be reluctant to share their stories. As soon as they started talking, however, I realized my misconception: these were strong women, thoughtful and articulate about their lives as Palestinians and their hopes and fears for themselves and their children.

          Maria (34), Nina (33), Jasmine (31), and Sarah (25) (not their real names) are all sisters. They teased and joked with each other as they made their introductions, but became serious when I asked what they did all day. “We are professionals,” Sarah said. As she continued, I was surprised to discover that they had all graduated from college and were employed: Maria as a nurse, Jasmine as a social worker, Nina as a teacher, and Sarah as an intern for World Vision, an international non-profit headquartered in Bethlehem. “Palestinian women are the best educated in the Arab world,” Sarah said, as I was still trying to reconcile the impressiveness of their credentials with our surroundings: a collection of buildings, some made of concrete blocks with corrugated tin roofs, others no more than cloth and poles, sharing space with sheep and goat enclosures on a few acres of rocky, arid land. For a while, Linda and I had the same kind of conversation with these women that I could have with my friends sitting in my living room in South Burlington, Vermont. 

          I envied the women the communal nature of their lives; they see each other every day and their mother takes care of their children when they’re at work. (The children of the village, who are all cousins, run around during the day in age-cohorts, delighted when a group of internationals, like us, appears on the scene to break the monotony of village life.) When we talked about their religion, again, I found I could relate to these four sisters. Sarah, especially, emphasized the importance of Islam in their daily lives. She said that she derives peace from her relationship with God and prayer yields the solution to “any problem” that she has. However, Islam allows men to have more than one wife and none of them liked that. It was clear that they had discussed this subject among themselves, because Sarah could report on what each of them would do if their husbands were to exercise their patriarchal prerogative. She and Nina were the most radical: Nina would do the unthinkable in Bedouin society—get a divorce—while she would refuse to live in the same house as the second wife.

          Finally, we came to the topic on everyone’s mind: the demolitions. Um al Khair, with its tents and shacks, abuts the relatively small Israeli settlement of Karmel, where residents enjoy comfortable lives subsidized by the Israeli government. (It was surreal to us, sleeping in the desert in the “guest tent,” with its canvas cover flapping in the breeze, to realize that just 50 feet away, settlers were spending the night in air- conditioned bedrooms.) Since 1980, when the settlement was established, the village has been targeted for removal—the settlers want to expand throughout the region. Israeli law allows the demolition of any structure which has been built without a permit and this community is excluded from the permitting process. This makes all the structures on their land, including the lavatory and communal oven, illegal. When soldiers come in with bulldozers to demolish their homes, the villagers rebuild immediately (often with aid from the European Union) only to have the new structures demolished as well.

          We had heard from the men about the harm to the community caused by its close proximity to the settlement (one of them, as a youth of 17, had been shot by settlers and is now brain damaged; he roams the village always looking for food, communicating with no one.) Uppermost on the women’s minds was the impact of the settlement and the demolition orders on the children. Sarah, who runs an informal school during the summer vacation, said that whenever she asks them to draw a picture, they all draw houses. Nina broke down when she described the effect of a demolition on her daughter.  She was at work when she got the call that the bulldozers had appeared; by the time she got home, the house was down and the 3 year old was crying and had wet herself. For the next six months, she told us, her little girl “shook.” She would not go outside, but either watched TV or slept. The other women talked about their children having nightmares and the one little boy who hides in the closet whenever he sees a car.

          “We are living in a big prison,” Sarah said, a sentiment that was echoed by a resident in the Hebron settlement of Tel Rumeida later in our trip. The Bedouins’ only hope of retaining their land is through the courts. They have the title to the property which is under demolition order and court battles have prevented its “transfer” to the Israeli government until now. But what of the future? How long can these people hold out against the tide of Israeli expansion? Nina told us that she and her husband are making plans to move—either to Canada or Germany—as soon as they can make the arrangements. “It will be hard,” she said, “but I have three girls. I want them to have a different life.” I looked at all four of these lovely, vibrant women. I wanted them, not just their children, to have a different life. With their intelligence and determination (Sarah taught herself excellent English by watching TV) they could do so much with the freedom that would come with an end to the occupation. I thought of another Palestinian we met, Hani Abu Hakel. Whenever you ask him, “How are things?” he replies, “It’s good,” meaning, whatever Allah allows to happen is good. These women have become strong having had to face so much adversity in their lives and their love for each other is palpable. But people need freedom to really flourish. I have a bone to pick with Allah.  

(The sisters would not allow their photo to be taken, so you will have to imagine for yourselves how beautiful they are.)