Health and Human Rights Project

2012 Delegation: Applications Being Accepted

2011-10-21T17:43:00.000-07:00

The Health and Human Rights Project (HaHRP), a project of American
Jews for a Just Peace (AJJP), announces its next delegation to
Israel/Palestine, and we encourage all who are interested to apply!

Who:
Approximately 15 people interested in traveling, meeting, and/or
working in Palestine for two weeks and bringing their experiences home
to work for justice in their own communities.

What:
A 2-week program organized with Lubna Alzaroo and Ryvka Barnard (a
colleague and friend of Hannah Mermelstein), during which we will meet
with Palestinian community leaders, activists, doctors, lawyers,
farmers, families and more. During the first week, we will be
traveling in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and inside Israel,
deepening our understanding of Israeli apartheid in all of these areas
through meetings with Palestinian and Israeli people. While we are
unable to travel in Gaza as a group, we will attempt to have contact
with colleagues there through video conference. During the second
week, participants will have the opportunity to work directly with
community organizations according to their skills and the needs of the
local population.

When:
January 1-January 15 (includes travel time)

Why/History:
We started the project 8 years ago, organizing yearly delegations to
lend our support and expertise in the medical field, document facts on
the ground, and work in coalition with Physicians for Human
Rights-Israel and the Palestinian Medical Relief Society. Over the
years we have broadened our scope to include meeting and working with
Palestinian and Israeli human rights activists and participating in
international solidarity work with Palestinian people and
organizations. We have been asked to join in Palestinian-led
nonviolent resistance on the ground; to witness daily life under
occupation and share our experiences with our own communities; to
participate in the growing global movement for boycott, divestment,
and sanctions against Israel; and to amplify Palestinian voices in the
West, where they have historically been silenced. As such, we have
designed the trip to facilitate participants in developing
relationships with Palestinian and Israeli activists on the ground
which will inform and strengthen our work at home for peace and
justice.

Application:
Please write to healthandhumanrights@gmail.com to request an
application. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis through
November 14, 2011. Please let us know ASAP if you’re interested, as
spots fill up quickly!

Costs:
-All accepted participants will pay a $300 non-refundable registration
fee. This fee will go towards funding for the trip organizers and
materials.
-Upon arrival, participants in the first week of travel will pay $750.
This covers all lodging, transportation, food, and tours for the
week. For the second week, we will split costs amongst the group as
we go. Since we will be traveling less, we estimate costs for the
second week to be approximately $300.
-You are responsible for your own airfare, which may range from
$1,000-$1,500 round trip.

Delegation members are encouraged to fund-raise before and after their
trip, both for their own expenses if needed, and to help fund HaHRP.
We look forward to hearing from you!

Summer 2011 Delegation!

2011-03-03T10:16:00.000-08:00

The Health and Human Rights Project (HaHRP) announces its next delegation to Israel/Palestine and we encourage all who are interested to apply by March 15, 2011!

Who:

Approximately 15 people interested in traveling, meeting, and/or working in Palestine for two weeks and in bringing their experiences home to work for justice in their own communities.

What:

A 2-week program organized with Hannah Mermelstein and Lubna Alzaroo, during which we will meet with Palestinian community leaders, activists, doctors, lawyers, farmers, families and more. During the first week, we will be traveling in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and inside Israel, deepening our understanding of Israeli apartheid in all of these areas through meetings with Palestinian and Israeli people. While we are unable to travel in Gaza as a group, we will attempt to have contact with colleagues there through video conference. During the second week, participants will have the opportunity to work directly with community organizations according to their skills and the needs of the local population.

When:

* June 24 - July 10, 2011 (includes travel time)

Why/History:

We started the project 8 years ago, organizing yearly delegations to lend our support and expertise in the medical field, document facts on the ground, and work in coalition with Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and the Palestinian Medical Relief Society. Over the years we have broadened our scope to include meeting and working with Palestinian and Israeli human rights activists and participating in international solidarity work with Palestinian people and organizations. We have been asked to join in Palestinian-led nonviolent resistance on the ground; to witness daily life under occupation and share our experiences with our own communities; to participate in the growing global movement for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel; and to amplify Palestinian voices in the West, where they have historically been silenced. We hope to develop relationships with people on the ground, and in so doing, to strengthen our work in our own communities.

Application:

Please write to healthandhumanrights@gmail.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to request an application. Applications are due March 15, 2011. Acceptance is on a rolling basis.

Costs:

* All accepted participants will pay a $300 non-refundable registration fee. This fee will go towards funding for the trip organizers and materials.
* Upon arrival, participants in the first week of travel will pay $750. This covers all lodging, transportation, food, and tours for the week. For the second week, we will split costs amongst the group as we go. Since we will be traveling less, we estimate costs for the second week to be approximately $300.
* You are responsible for your own airfare, which may range from $1,000-$1,500 round trip.

Delegation members are encouraged to fundraise before and after their trip, both for their own expenses if needed, and to help fund HaHRP.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Dread and loathing at the airport

2011-01-17T18:45:00.001-08:00

1/16
Final thoughts

Dread and loathing at the airport

Last night I purged my belongings of almost all evidence that I had been on the West Bank or that I had associated with NGOs or dissidents in Israel. I took the battery out of my camera and hid my memory cards and minidisc cassettes in rolls of socks. I emailed myself all the contact information contained in the many cards people had pressed into my hand. I permanently deleted everything I had written with a handy program called file shredder. When I packed, I strategically placed , “Let’s GO Israel!” on top of all my clothes (which smelled suspiciously of the bags of zetar wrapped in my sweaters). The guide to boycotting settlement products and cards from the Al Rowwad Children’s Theater, were on the bottom, concealed in a bag with shoes. I needed to look “clean,” to look like a nice Jewish lady on a nice visit to the nice country of Israel.

The cab driver picked me up at 3:15 am from a lovely Palestinian friend in Ramallah, a graduate student in the US whose father lost his Palestinian ID during a university sojourn in America. My friend has a US passport and is fighting to get a Palestinian West Bank ID which ironically will make it impossible for him to go to Jerusalem or fly out of Ben Gurion airport, but will guarantee his right to return to his home, family, and friends in Ramallah.

The cab driver (who is from East Jerusalem) said we would avoid Kalandia checkpoint where I would be required to get out and go through security, despite his green license plate, and we circle around and sail through Hizma with a quick shalom. He immediately starts advising me what to say. “Do not say you were in Ramallah. I picked you up at the Ambassador Hotel in Jerusalem, you were visiting Jewish friends. Do not say you were in Nablus, Tulkarem, Qalqilyia.” He keeps rehearsing the script with me and at the first security check near the airport I stick to the story. I even name my Jewish friends, (pretty good for 4:00 in the morning).

There are multiple security checks within the airport where I could have tripped and ended up with vigorous questioning, various levels of strip searching, and other aggravations. All my Palestinian friends have had to take their clothes off to get out of Israel. I have often been asked to recite a Hebrew prayer, name my synagogue, list Jewish holidays, etc, etc; what I call the incredibly offensive, “Are you Jewish enough to be trusted?” screening. But I was lucky and I had rehearsed my lines: tourism, visiting friends, volunteering with a medical group, smile my nice Jewish smile and say my respectable Jewish last name. I am sure a few gray hairs worked in my favor as well. The intense racial profiling in this country should at least work in my favor here.

And so it was “no problem,” as Palestinians frequently say in moments of extreme disaster. But I am left wondering, what kind of country requires someone like me to scheme and lie in order to leave without being harassed?

1/14/11 An NGO is not a health care system

2011-01-17T18:44:00.001-08:00

Posted by Alice Rothchild:

1/14/11 An NGO is not a health care system

For the second week of the delegation, we divide into different interest groups and the medical folks are based in Nablus, working with Palestinian Medical Relief Society. On the second day we are standing in the waiting area of the Community Based Rehabilitation offices when a staff member, a beautiful somewhat demure woman with large black eyes and a graceful white hijab framing her face, beams and offers us chocolates. I decline, (I am still recovering from breakfast), but she insists. “You must, my father just got out of prison and we are celebrating.” We learn he was imprisoned for four years. I take the chocolate.

A nurse practitioner, another ob-gyn and I spend four days working and observing in PMRS clinics in Qalqilyia, Tulkarem, and Mythaloon (near Jenin). PMRS provides 40% of the health care in the Occupied Territories and as I have previously described, is a major NGO working on empowerment and education issues as well. This experience provides us with the opportunity to work in solidarity with Palestinian colleagues and to bear witness to their lives, as well as to see a very intimate picture of health care and women’s lives in this society.

The daily morning van or car rides involve bumpy travel through stunning scenery, terraced hills, rows of olive trees and other crops, checkpoints that are rarely staffed, and Jewish settlements perched on hills, surrounded by barbed wire, walls, and security apparatus. There are massive USAID road building projects which I am told ironically legitimize the double road system in the West Bank, one for Israelis (Jewish settlers) and this one for Palestinians.

The incredible fragmentation of care between PMRS, the Ministry of Health, UNRWA (for refugees), and the private sector is staggering. Pregnant patients may get free care at an UNRWA clinic, but stop in at PMRS for a prenatal ultrasound. Labs are done at a variety of locations (with variations in quality) so communication and follow up are problematic. Some of the private care that patients reported is best described as creative and unrelated to general medical practice, but clearly lucrative. A 42 year old woman was given a fertility drug to treat abnormal bleeding because her ovaries were “too small.” Bizarre. There is no preventive care outside of pregnancy. Drugs prescribed are often not taken due to cost and lack of insurance. Patients may deliver in an UNRWA hospital, Ministry of Health or private hospital. Fortunately PMRS, in conjunction with a number of other NGOs and organizations, created a prenatal record that each patient carries with her and theoretically contains all her critical information and testing. This is totally dependent on the clinician. They do not get delivery summaries from UNRWA hospitals. There are a variety of protocols for care which seem to be followed differently in each center.

The women all wear hijabs, occasionally their faces are totally covered except for their eyes, and they flip back the cover when they enter the office. The patients sometimes come alone or often with children, a sister, mother, mother-in-law, or husband, and their level of empowerment is reflected in the interactions that even I can understand. For the exam, the relevant body part is revealed and there is a general reluctance to have pelvic exams. There are no clean drapes and the general level of hand washing and office hygiene is fairly third world, and there is minimal privacy. It seems that IUDs are popular for family spacing, with some women also choosing birth control pills. Condoms and withdrawal are also occasionally mentioned. Tubal ligations are forbidden for religious reasons and permission is sometimes sought from the local mufti who usually refuses. In the more rural areas, some women are second or third wives (I am told the maximum is 4, but Bedouins may have more, official and unofficial wives) and this seems to be a complex societal phenomenon, frowned upon by the more educated.

I observe that women are valued primarily as wives and mothers and there is intense social pressure to be married and pregnant, sometimes as young as 15. I am told that a young wife is more easily controlled by her husband and mother-in-law. Then there is the expectation that the woman will produce sons, and if there are daughters, infertility, or multiple miscarriages (which are common as many marry close relatives and have genetic issues), a man may take another wife. I am told that in Hebron, each wife actually chooses the next one. (There seems to be a lack of understanding as to who is really responsible for the gender of the child.) In some areas there is a shortage of available men due to deaths in the Second Intifada and marriage may appear to offer a young woman freedom from her father and her brothers and financial security. Then there are economic reasons for more wives and children, commonly seen in rural agrarian populations. In general the women we see are having large families. To me, the newly married women look very young, often unprepared for sexuality, childbirth, and parenting, but they exist within an enmeshed and involved family system. It seems to be that sometime in their early thirties, women often appear to age rapidly, a combination of many pregnancies and their enormously difficult lives.

The three doctors we work with are very different: one from Rumania, who married a Palestinian when they were both in training, one Palestinian born in Kuwait who spent years getting a Palestinian ID and lived illegally in Tulkarem, one from the area and trained in Jordan. The Rumanian doctor has a gentle caring style and her patients clearly relate well to her. She travels every day from Tulkarem and describes the daily checkpoint feeling of humiliation “like an animal in a cage, I feel like a cow,” as if her soul was branded by this experience. In the past she has waited for hours at these checkpoints, or hiked through orchards to get to work, but lately the checkpoints have been easier. She does antenatal and postnatal care, gynecology, family planning, and treats sexual problems, occasional domestic violence, and bedwetting in children. She is trained by UNRWA to treat children if they come with their mothers. She says that it is very difficult for women in this society to be open about their family problems.

This doctor has lived in Palestine for more than 20 years and arrived as a young wife, totally unprepared to be greeted by the First Intifada and a strict mother-in-law. She was determined to work and described herself as “a kangaroo,” bringing young children to the office and seeing patients and mothering simultaneously. She has three children: a doctor son in London, a doctor son in Egypt, and a daughter studying architecture in Tulkarem. She talks about Palestinian men’s “stupid proudness.” She has a Palestinian ID and has retained her Rumanian passport, “my only chance for freedom.” She also works with her gynecologist husband in a private clinic in Tulkarem. There is a wistfulness in her voice, a sense of pain, frustration, resignation, and perhaps a profound ambivalence about the life choices she has made and the patriarchal society in which she has found herself. She talks about her “Romeo and Juliette” experience in Rumania as a young woman. She keeps shaking her head and reiterating that her family comes first and that she has done everything for her children.

I have described the other two doctors more extensively in my book, Broken Promises, Broken Dreams.

The first two women do more listening and explaining, the third is very business-like and sees a large volume of patients efficiently. They are all dedicated and hardworking and have faced many struggles as working mothers. The style of medicine is this strange combination of first and third world with the restrictions of occupation and poverty added to the mix. I learn that much that I am seeing is called the “syndromic approach,” developed by WHO for resource poor areas. Nonetheless, I find it somewhat bewildering that almost every woman receives and expects an ultrasound exam, (very first world), but there are none of the very inexpensive materials needed to correctly diagnose vaginal infections. Basically the recommendation is to treat for everything that is likely and if that doesn’t work, to do a “high vaginal swab.” I wonder what the risks are of such an overuse of antibiotics, suspect that it would be cost effective to diagnose and treat more accurately, and I still do not understand the high vaginal swab concept. Clearly coming from the first world, I am trained in evidence-based medicine whenever possible, quality improvement programs, and closer monitoring and training, which clearly are not possible here.

We learn that breast cancer is common amongst Palestinian women and is seen in women sometimes in their 20s. Good statistics are nonexistent. Because there is no preventive care, diagnosis usually occurs when the disease is advanced, and mastectomy is done most commonly. There is no radiation treatment available in the West Bank as the Israeli government does not allow radioactive medical materials to enter the region, another example of health care being highjacked by the occupation. Treatment is hard to get in Israel and expensive in Jordan. Chemotherapy is available but there are limited supplies and frequent shortages. Five months ago USAID brought in a mobile digital mammography van which is supposed to do widespread screening. I am told that there have been problems with patients getting their results and it is unclear how successful this program is, although it is promising. The Ministry of Health is also developing mammography programs in the major cities.

One of the most uplifting experiences is meeting with two health workers. These women seem feisty, savvy, and well trained; their job is to make home visits and do family care, addressing both physical as well as mental health needs. One who describes herself as a political activist, smiles and says, “The women are ruling these days.” The other talks about how she has to build a relationship with the family in order to understand their issues. She describes a young boy who developed bedwetting, personality changes, phobias and stuttering when his home was invaded twice by the IDF when they arrested two of his older brothers. She mentions a case where a young boy was sexually abused by a 15 year old cousin, and a big problem with crystal meth in Qalqilyia. She has had success in treating all of these patients.

We leave the clinic in Tulkarem and decide to have lunch in a local restaurant that looks like a cave with a huge mosaic/three dimensional clay relief of the Old city. There is a large family enjoying themselves in the restaurant as well. When we are finished, one of the men comes up to us and asks if we are from Machsom Watch, the Israeli women who monitor checkpoints. We explain what we have been doing and he explains that he is a member of the Bereaved Parents Circle, Jews and Palestinians who have lost family to violence and who come together to heal personally and within their own communities, educating about the need to end violence. Despite our protestations, he insists on paying for our meal, thanking us for caring about Palestine, bearing witness and hopefully making the lives of invisible people more visible to the international community.

1/15 My last quiet day

2011-01-17T18:43:00.001-08:00

Posted by Alice Rothchild:

1/15 My last quiet day

I thought my last day in Ramallah would be a reflective, low key day to catch up, finish blogging, look at my 700+ emails, and pack, when my host asks me to join him and the US student he is mentoring on an extraordinary visit to the village of Al Walajeh near Bethlehem. Soon we are in a taxi hurtling along Wadi El Nar Road, with hair-raising rollercoaster curves and more USAID road building projects. My friend reflects on the changes underway in the West Bank: in particular a huge NGO, donor, and governmental focus on security. I have noticed the PA forces in their fresh new uniforms standing on many corners. He tells me that under the guise of “law and order, justice, and building prisons,” there is now one Palestinian policeman, security agent, or intelligence officer for every 50 West Bankers. Prime Minister Fayyad, the World Bank trained technocrat, is getting everything under control. During Eid this year, my friend reports that every kid wanted a plastic gun, wanted to be powerful.

The village of Al Walajeh originally was 17,000 dunams in size. In 1948, the location of the Green Line split off 11,000 dunams for Israel. The settlement of Gilo took 152, and more has been seized for the expansion of Har Gilo and the separation wall which is being constructed through the village, leaving 2800 dunams for the original Palestinians. The local villagers had given land to a convent and when the placement of the wall was announced, the nuns did not protest and are now on the Israeli side, living on their donated land. We arrive at the home of a woman I will call Suha, her house perched on the edge of a rocky road, the separation wall under construction across the street.

Suha is spunky, energetic, smart, went to Najah University and holds a masters degree in peace and development and another masters in human rights. She was working for the UN on gender, race, and violence in Sudan, and is currently between jobs and working at the local children’s Ansar Center. The student wants to talk with her about justice and the right of return.

Suha tells us her family story while pouring tea and stuffing us with delicious spinach pies. After news of the Deir Yassin massacre which occurred close to this village, in 1947 the women and children went to Jericho for safety. Gradually they trickled back to the village, but then war broke out, they are forced to leave again and went back to Jericho, spending six months in the Alarroub Refugee Camp. She describes her grandmother as a “wild spirit” who married reluctantly at the age of 28 as a last resort. The grandmother left the refugee camp and returned back to the village which is mostly rocky uncultivated land used for sheep. After 1948 the family lived in a cave down in the valley for 12 years. Then her mother, another free spirited woman, decided to take her children to family in Jerusalem, renting a house in Beit Jala so the children could get a good education. In 1961, the grandfather started building two houses in the village for his two sons. During the 1967 war the family fled back to the cave as the adjacent land was a Jordanian army station.

During this conversation, cherubic young nieces and nephews keep popping in with their plastic back packs, looking for hugs and then running out. Suha explains that like all of her village, she has refugee status, but she also has a Jerusalem ID, and her Israeli travel document states that she is Jordanian. She is at risk of losing her Jerusalem ID by living in the village, but she uses her father’s and brother’s addresses in the Shafat Refugee Camp. As an unmarried woman who is not demanding any services, she is pretty invisible to the authorities.

So on to the question of justice. Suha explains that there is a word in Arabic that means: justice is purely give me what is mine at any cost, justice is undoing the injustice even if that means creating an injustice to someone who had nothing to do with the original offense. In this context, she argues that there is an individual and collective right of return for Palestinians and that what she does with that right is her problem. Having the right does not necessarily mean exercising it, “I do not think we can undo Israel but Israel does not have the right to exist on Palestinian land. They gained the right by the fact that they exist.”

She moves on to the question of compensation which she sees as not only payment for seized land, but also payment for suffering, both individual and collective. She states that Israelis used Palestinians for construction projects like the port of Haifa, that the British took Palestinian gold when they left. There are lots of questions that need to be addressed.

She continues saying, “There is an Israeli state. I do not want to fight all these fights and then be an Israeli.” She points out that Palestine does not exist on any official national or international form. “I want to exist.” She adds that symbolic gestures are important and that Israeli acknowledgement of the Nakba and the creation of the refugee crisis are critical. “Jews invented this concept. What applies to you, applies to us.” She is not sure an apology actually matters, “I don’t know if I will accept an apology.”

Suha says that she never lost a relative in the conflict, but she lost 12 friends in the Second Intifada. She describes the pain of erasing their numbers from her phone and her inability to attend their funerals because of lack of permits. “What is not natural is our daily life. I do not want to live this life.” She wants to be working on legislation, women’s rights, or just watching TV, but she cannot even decide where she will go tomorrow, if she can keep an appointment. “This is what I can’t forgive. I couldn’t study law, so Israel decided my life…I don’t think I can forgive for that. I even gained weight because of them,” she adds laughing. “If I am sad and angry, I need sugar. They made me angry all my life.”

Suha has thought extensively on how to actualize the right of return. She states that refugees need to be offered options and they need to be in control of the decision making. Firstly, “You are allowed to go back and you can get compensation.” She thinks this would be a gradual process, maybe 20,000 allowed per year on some time schedule. Those who choose to stay where they currently are would get more money. Those who choose to move to a different country would get less. She adds poignantly, “Coming back is another leaving.” Clearly she is thinking of a comprehensive and regional solution. She also explains that nobody wants to be a fighter all their lives, “This is burden.” She believes that the number who would choose to return would be minimal, mostly those who are fighters or people with deep emotional attachments to what they had, and experimental types who want to try it and will probably leave. This was also documented in research done by the Khalil Shikaki Center in approximately 2005. She feels that living in Israel will be too problematic for most Palestinians given the racism and economic hardship. People in refugee camps will most likely want to go to a better place like Canada or Australia. “Palestinians are exhausted.”

This solution needs to be funded by those who are responsible: Israel, the British, and the international community. She also blames the Palestinian leadership who have failed the refugees miserably. She thinks that the refugees themselves should come up with meaningful solutions, present these to the international community, and step out of the victim role. “We are lucky that Jews are news. Otherwise we would have been dead a long time ago.”

Suha also points out an interesting possibility for Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. She explains that in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrar, the Israeli courts have established the precedent that a Jewish family can claim ownership of a house bought in the 1920s (many claim the documents are bogus) and throw out the current inhabitants. She proposes that Palestinians with Israeli citizenship use this precedent and go after their stolen property.

The interview is over and I am filled with more questions, but instead we discuss which checkpoints we can pass through, apparently some are not open to people with foreign passports, (another one of those weird unexpected quirks). Back in the cab, my friend continues the conversation about the new Palestinian security forces. Apparently Palestinian police working in Area A (Palestinian control) have to cover their flashing lights if they have to travel through Area B (“joint” control) to another Area A and get a permit from the Israeli DCO, thus the police are effectively emasculated by their occupiers. It seems that Fayyad is busy building a pretend state. As my friend explains, the prisoners are polishing their beds and folding their clothes, but they are still in prison.

Passing the Jalazon Refugee Camp and an UNRWA school on the left, we end up in a wealthy village outside Ramallah where Palestinians who emigrated to the US and did very well have come back and built huge Disneyland mansions. We are invited to a “barbeque” where a staff of four has prepared a magnificent and generous meal. I count five living rooms and one elevator but never got an official tour. I look out across the family land to the imposing Jewish settlement in direct view. I am told that the family has good relations with the settlers, they pay them to leave them alone.

The Day After Zionism

2011-01-14T09:03:00.001-08:00

The Day After Zionism

January 12, 2011

As we trudge through the terraced land, ducking under branches of olive trees and trying to avoid prickly bushes, I think about landscape, consciousness, and memory. We are walking through the land because Israeli soldiers are blocking the road ahead. They are blocking the road ahead so as not to allow people to arrive in the Palestinian village of Bil’in. We are going to Bil’in in order to protest the confiscation of the village’s land for settlement and wall construction. At Bil’in’s demonstration a week earlier, 36-year-old Jawaher Abu Rahme inhaled a lethal dose of tear gas. Her brother Bassem was shot and killed by an Israeli soldier at a protest in the village just under two years ago.

So we traipse through the olive groves, only slightly out of view of the soldiers on the road, and a line by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish comes to mind: “If the olive trees knew the hands that planted them, their oil would become tears.” Bil’in has become a battleground, the surrounding landscape a stage for a risky game of cat and mouse. What kind of consciousness does the land have? What would it say if it could? The wall is often described as a scar through Palestine, but right now it is more of a fresh wound. When the wall falls, will the scar left be permanent?

Two days before this protest, our group wakes up at the Yafa Cultural Center in Balata refugee camp, Nablus. We eat breakfast, thank our hosts, and get in a bus with the right color license plate, driven by a driver with the right color ID card, and head towards the city of Yafa. The Yafa Cultural Center is thus named because the vast majority of people living in Balata refugee camp come originally from Yafa and the surrounding area. Most of these people have never seen their original villages, or have not been back since their displacement in 1948. I am hesitant to tell our hosts where we are going, knowing that my visit to Yafa – and their inability to join us – is emblematic of the injustice I try so hard to fight.

On the way, we encounter another fresh wound / scar-to-be. We have split into two vehicles, and I am driving a small rental car with two Palestinian women from the West Bank, and two of our whiter and blonder American group members. When we see the checkpoint ahead, we take a deep breath, but we have no reason to believe this will be any different than the many other times I have used my undeserved privilege to “smuggle” Palestinians into parts of their own country that they are not allowed to visit. But this time is different. A soldier or security guard (it’s hard to tell the difference these days) signals for us to stop, and my trick of waving and continuing to drive is thwarted by a new metal bar that the soldiers operate. It looks like a toll booth, only the highway employees are armed and the context much more insidious. When she asks for our passports, we stumble a bit before saying we left them in a hotel in Tel Aviv. We say we are five American tourists. She is skeptical.

We are ordered to pull over and get out of the car. It continues from there: questioning, searching, rapid fire questions to the two Palestinian women about their names, their parents’ names, where they are from, whether they speak any languages other than English. It is maddening and terrifying, and I am standing there wishing we had prepared better, wishing my privilege-driven arrogance – which is often what helps me get through checkpoints – had been mitigated at least enough for us to have had a plan, a story, a mindset that might help us get through this. We tell the guard we had been in the Israeli settlement of Ariel, visiting a friend. I am making it up as I go along. She wants my friend’s name and phone number. I quickly call an old Israeli friend who doesn’t even know I’m in the country. He is surprised and happy to hear from me and asks, “When did you get here?” “There’s a security guard here who wants to talk to you about our visit to your house in Ariel,” I say. “I don’t live in Ariel,” he says, confused. “We’re at the checkpoint on our way from your place to Tel Aviv,” I respond. He catches on.

At this point I’m only trying to get us out of here, not even to get through, but with every question from the guards/soldiers, our story has more and more holes. Finally we talk our way out of the situation and are allowed to “return” to Ariel (where we have not been). Hearts are pounding. I am feeling guilty for my arrogance, and my Palestinian friends are feeling humiliated. They are not entirely surprised by the way they have been treated, but are deeply upset at the degree to which it has affected them.

We drive south, towards another checkpoint that is easier to get through, and I think about how much pain and injustice a people and a place can hold. None of us share exactly what we are feeling – probably none of us are able – but we make a tentative plan for the next checkpoint. We drive through without stopping, and have a small celebration in the car. But we feel uneasy. We are still nervous about being caught. My friend who would at this point usually take off her hat and put back on her head scarf does not do so quite yet. We feel the occupation in our bodies, in our minds. I am not experiencing anything close to what my Palestinian friends are, yet my visceral reaction offers a fragment of understanding of how this system is able to function.

We arrive in Yafa and go first to the sea. One friend has not seen it since she was a child – except as a reminder from the hills of Nablus on a clear day – and her eyes immediately fill with tears. She thanks me. I am speechless. The last thing I want at that moment is to be thanked for bringing a friend to her own land.

As we walk around Yafa and Tel Aviv, I am struck by a sense of permanence. Although I know that the Jewish presence in this city is only a hundred years in the making, while the Palestinian presence is thousands of years deep, it is hard now to imagine the undoing or even the transformation of this place. There are other parts of the country in which it is hard to imagine the continuation of an exclusively Jewish state, but in Tel Aviv, I often feel an overwhelming sense of the opposite.

A couple days ago I was talking with an Israeli friend who works with Zochrot. The organization raises awareness about the Nakba (“catastrophe” in Arabic) of 1948. They visit destroyed villages and place signs there with the villages’ original names; organize art exhibits and lectures; facilitate workshops for school children; and engage in other activities to affect the Israeli collective memory. My friend was telling me that he will soon start to focus even more on outreach to the Israeli public. A few minutes later the topic turned to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. He excitedly told me that he has hope in this movement, that it’s clear from his perspective that the international movement is growing, and that only pressure from the outside can change the reality on the ground. “Then why do you want to focus more on the Israeli public?” I asked. He thought for a minute, and then responded: “My work is not going to have an immediate effect on the political situation here. What I’m doing is preparing for the day after Zionism.”

1/6 Who profits from the occupation?

2011-01-14T06:01:00.000-08:00

1/6 Who profits from the occupation?

As we learn more about the BDS movement, a critical question emerges: what companies are involved with which activities that ultimately sustain the occupation? In Tel Aviv we meet Dalit Baum, an Israeli member of the Coalition of Women for Peace and specifically, the group Who Profits? She explains that the organization was developed to understand the economics of the settlement project. A short haired woman with intense black eyes and an ironic sense of humor, she states that the project aimed to investigate corporations directly involved in the occupation, to figure out the specifics, the financial interests, and who is making money from whom. After meticulous research, four years later they have a website, whoprofits.org, that has a partial data base listing approximately 1000 companies.

The criteria for inclusion on this list involves work in building settlements, marketing settlement goods, using industrial space within settlements, providing crucial services to settlements such as transportation, and providing equipment to the military such as for building walls and checkpoints. She notes that Israel has exploited the Palestinian labor pool and the Palestinian market, it is a captive market where Israeli policies have shut down much of the competition. For example, Palestinians are only allowed to grow agricultural products that are not as profitable as Israeli products and do not compete in European markets when compared to Israeli goods.

Who Profits is a unique grassroots organization that does impeccable economic research with careful documentation using concrete proof with governmental and company documents. They are very careful to stay within the letter of the law, as any suit for damages would be disastrous in the Israeli courts. An example of their work involves “Crossing the Line,” a fast train from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem that crosses the Green Line into the West Bank in two sections. The Israeli neighbors did not want the train and noise near their property so the project was moved and this will entail almost the entire destruction of the Palestinian village of Beit Iksa. Painfully there is now a petition to the world from the Palestinian village to put the train on land that is ALREADY expropriated. The train is being built by European and American companies.

Then there is the issue of financing of the occupation. All six Israeli banks are directly involved in supporting settlements. Dalit reminds us that you cannot separate the economy of the occupation from the economy of Israel from the economy of the US for that matter. For instance, Soda Stream, an Israeli company that makes carbonated water, just went public on Nasdaq.

She turns her attention to what does it mean to boycott settlement markets. She describes 18 tycoons that control the large corporations that are involved and notes that if they start losing money, they will pull out of the settlements. She describes living in Israel both as frustrating but “We feel effective.” As an example, her group will go to a checkpoint, they will document the infrastructure, the telecommunications, etc, and then google the companies, do the appropriate research, and put the information on the website. “Direct action with no gas! We use our privilege to see the occupation.” They also go to security industry exhibitions and meet with people eager to sell a host of weaponry. She focuses on crowd dispersal, what is called in the business, “nonlethal weapons” although everyone knows that these weapons can be lethal in high enough doses or with direct impact. For her she feels this is personal, as an activist who has been faced with tear gas and other methods used at demonstrations.

Another aspect of this macabre business Dalit describes is weaponry produced in the US. Because the US gives Israel an enormous amount of money to buy American military equipment, there are now Israeli entrepreneurs who establish companies in the US and then benefit from the largesse of our tax dollars. Thus there are many forces within the US that have strong economic interests in maintaining this lucrative arrangement where the US is basically financing its own war industries. This lead a group of activists, after a demonstration, to return empty tear gas canisters to the US ambassador. They were promptly arrested for possession of weapons, but the charges were later dropped.

Dalit reminds us that there is a lot to be done in the US and any effort contributes to the cause. It is important to pick strategic targets that also involve an educational component. She feels boycotting computer companies or generic drug companies, for instance, are not strategic activities. She is very optimistic, both because this movement is lead by Palestinian activists and because there is a response in the Israeli Knesset that implies that people in power are worried. The Anti BDS law in process will make individuals personally liable for any damage to companies. The Association Law aims to outlaw any NGO that provides information to foreign entities that might lead to charges of war crimes against Israelis. The Fighting Terrorism Law targets any Israeli or Palestinian activist who does any activity against Israeli soldiers or State symbols, and vaguely and obscurely defines all of these activities as terrorism. This could include nonviolent, legitimate resistance to the occupation. The Prohibition on Instituting Boycott Law will criminalize Israeli citizens who support local and international BDS activities. Recently the Knesset began an investigation of the funding of NGOs.

Dalit sees these rightwing trends as plunging into fascism and of particular concern is that these anti-democratic assaults are originating in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, which is supposed to be the cornerstone of a democratic society.

I leave this meeting with the sense that there is a tremendous amount of work to be done in the US which is actively enmeshed with the military machinery and corporations that make the Israeli occupation possible. In addition, the “only democracy in the Middle East” seems to be heading rapidly in an dangerous direction; I wonder how many “Israel right or wrong” supporters fully appreciate this and when will supporting the actions of the Israeli government become untenable to a wider group of people. I am impressed that a small group of thoughtful and dedicated activists can have such a significant impact on the process. I only hope that the next time I visit Israel, I will not be visiting them in prison.

1/6 The skeletons in the closet

2011-01-14T05:15:00.001-08:00

Posted by Alice Rothchild on the HaHRP delegation:

1/6 The skeletons in the closet

I have been reading about the Israeli governmental criticism and talk of censorship of left wing academics in Israel and I am eager to meet a professor who has been under fire. Professor Yehouda Shenhav of Tel Aviv University has a way of exploding the assumptions that frame many of our understandings of the conflict. A brilliant and provocative thinker and author of “Bounded by the Green Line,” he describes himself as a member of the radical left. An older man in a light blue sweater and jeans, he starts out stating that peace negotiations are useless, the two state solution is a menace to Jews and Palestinians, and he believes in one space, (not necessarily a state) for two people.

He has definitely caught my attention. He argues that there is no political theory on which to base the end of the conflict except the symbol of the Green Line which was an arbitrary ceasefire line that most use as a litmus test for further conversation. He notes that the Green Line has been erased by settlements, yet leftist political theory is founded on this vanishing line. He asks rhetorically, can you evacuate 500,000 Jews, or if you leave out Jerusalem, 350,000 Jews, or if you make border corrections, 135,000 Jews. Not going to happen.

The concept of a Jewish state is problematic as long as a Jewish state is a recipe for the future transfer of Palestinians. He explains that these racist, fascist tendencies are a continuation of 1948. The Jewish state was based on ethnic cleansing, with the destruction of villages, massacres, and dispossession of hundreds of thousands of indigenous Palestinians. This is the Israeli skeleton in the closet. “Whoever holds on to ’67 as the beginning of the conflict is hallucinating and this is the Israeli left.” They participate in masking the atrocities of ’48 and thus keep that particular skeleton deep in the closet.

He further explores the ubiquitous refusal to deal with the refugees from 1948 and the anomaly of having Arab citizens of Israel who do not have equal civil rights with their fellow Jewish citizens. Israel is thus an ethnic/racial state which denies the rights of the Palestinian national collective within it. Sovereignty, territory, and identity are all interconnected. He then tells us this painful story of a Palestinian student of his who bought a house in a Jewish settlement on the Green Line. She asked Professor Shenhav if he would be the formal landlord so that she will be safe in case there is land transfer; she wants to be sure her children have access to their home.

Professor Shenhav reminds us that within the origins of Zionism there was tremendous debate on how to emancipate the Jews and the meaning of a Jewish homeland. He emphatically states that Jews have a right to live in this region. He notes that in 1942 in New York at the Biltmore Convention, the Zionist movement for the first time, clearly stated that it wanted a sovereign Jewish state. That decision led to ethnic cleansing and to the homogenization of identity, but Palestinians and Jews remained entangled. He adds, we live in one state with apartheid, not only in the Occupied Territories, but also within Israel, and this critical point is not understood by the Israeli left. This is a grave mistake. He questions, “What is the difference between a settlement in and out of the Green Line? Nothing.” He does not suggest that all Jews return to Europe, he is in fact from Iraq, but he feels it is important to acknowledge that these are all settlements as well. Israeli is a “wannabe” democracy, based on a state of exception with emergency rules, a legacy of British imperialism and Jewish legislation. He reminds us that from 1948-1966 Palestinians within the Green Line lived mostly under a military regime, with permits to move, do business, etc. This is colonialism. Since 1967 the colonialism has extended into the West Bank and Gaza, so Israel cannot exist as a democratic state without military rule of Palestinians. As examples he cites a series of racial laws that are percolating through the Knesset: the rules against teaching or commemorating the Nakba, the loyalty oath to the Jewish state required of all citizens, demographic laws such as family reunification that prevent partners of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship from moving into Israel. He argues that this is a continuation of the 1948 war by other means.

He asks, “How does a Jewish racial state cope with non-Jews? There is no difference between Meretz and Lieberman except in degree of sincerity. When threatened, all Jews become [Avigdor] Lieberman. In his analysis, many progressive intellectuals speak from a position in the map of Israeli identity politics as “white Jews.” Meanwhile 60% of settlers are from the lower strata of society. A few months ago in Sweden he was asked what is the best welfare state and he replied, “West Bank Jewish settlements.” They have full employment, housing, education, health care; this is a very attractive deal for Mizrachi and Orthodox Jews. Should these folks then pay the price for peace when the Israeli government has sent them there and supplied them with electricity, housing, internet, etc? He argues that the liberal Israeli community defines itself through “othering” the settler community that is supported by the government.
Provocatively, he also believes that while Israeli liberals are proud to be secular, being here is not a secular decision, a Zionist inherently cannot be secular. Jewish nationality is by definition religious and Hebrew is a religious language. In his classes he teaches that there is no “Jewish secularity,” even Barak was not willing to give up “the Holy Places” although he probably did not believe in them.

He begins to explore the Arab Jewish story, and states that the Zionists used violent methods to get people like his parents to leave Iraq. In 1951 an agreement was made between Israel and Iraq to “denaturalize the Jews of Iraq,” as they had little interest in coming to Israel. Ultimately six bombs went off in five months (one placed in a synagogue) and ultimately the 120,000 Jews of Iraq left; there is a lingering theory that the bombs were placed by Zionists, but the government of Israel claims these files are confidential. The Iraqi Jewish property was subsequently confiscated (somebody profited from this forced migration) and the immigrants arrived in Israel to find themselves second class citizens. The Jews of Iraq were highly educated, even more so than the Europeans, but after ten years of life in Israel, they were at the bottom of the Israeli educational ladder. This discrepancy has only gotten worse and he notes that in Tel Aviv University, 9% of the faculty is Mizrachi and 0.5% Palestinian.

He then explores the strange case of the recent Russian immigration which has unexpected consequences and shows that it is difficult to divide nationalism from religion. “What does it mean to be a Jew?” Professor Shenhav queries. Today some 300,000 people who came from the Soviet Union are not Jews but where brought here by the Law of Return. Professor Shenhav states that this is the mirror of the Nuremberg Trials: Hitler declared that if a person had 1/6 Jewish ancestry then he was a Jew. Ben Gurion used the same criteria. So now in Israel there are women from Kazakhstan who are Jewish by nationality and Muslim by religion! He hypothesizes that this may create fissures between nationality and religion as well as strange alliances. He sees right wing Mizrachi Jews in alliance with left leaning but ultranationalist Barak and wonders why the Israeli left supports an apartheid system? “If I have a right of return to a Jewish settlement, then why can’t a Palestinian have a right of return from Nablus to Jaffa?” He thinks it is important to rethink sovereignty, a 17th century concept that began with national borders. He claims this concept does not apply here, instead we have a continuous civil war. He speaks of a shared sovereignty that crosses borders, land, and populations where populations and territories can be in a space together with “horizontal sovereignty;” where for instance, a Palestinian in Galilee picks one or dual citizenship. This sounds intriguing, even if this is a bit hard to comprehend.

I am even more amazed when he states that he doesn’t like identity politics, but he thinks that we have to be focusing on what are the rights of Jews in the region. We all know that the rights of Palestinians are being violated, but who has defined the rights of Jews? He sees that the Israeli right has a totally military solution to that question. But, he states, we need to reverse this. How do we protect Jewish rights when the space is democratically organized? This was first discussed by Martin Buber who famously warned that the first victims of the Jewish state would be the Jews themselves. Professor Shenhav wonders if Jews are much like the crusaders, arriving like crusaders for a limited time, terrorizing the local population with no intention to integrate, and ultimately destined to be kicked out. The white supremacist aspect of Israeli Jews believe that Israel is a branch of Europe. “How many Jews speak Arabic?” he demands. This is all about power relationships.

Out time is up and we are filled with questions. Clearly this man has many provocative and exceptional observations that rile up Israeli authorities and lead me to want to read his books and understand his views further. If he loses his right to work or to speak and is branded a traitor, then that will be a sad day for whatever will be left of free speech in Israel.

1/6 The nuances of BDS, How can Israelis boycott themselves?

2011-01-13T03:30:00.001-08:00

1/6 The nuances of BDS, How can Israelis boycott themselves?

Because most Israelis are opposed to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanction movement, I am very interested in hearing from Kobi Snitz, a thin, intense man active with Boycott from Within and Anarchists Against the Wall. Meeting with the delegation in Tel Aviv, he states that the Palestinian BDS guidelines are clear in principle, refined and legalistic, but the applications are subtle. For a supportive Israeli, what can he do? Quit his job? Stop eating? Obviously not, but there are many nuanced decisions to be made, for instance in the world of universities. Kobi outlines some of the intricacies:

International academics can work with Israeli academics but not build institutional cooperation.

If an Israeli academic wants to publish in an international journal, this always includes his or her institutional affiliation which then lends prestige for the institution, but this is OK if the article is more about the academic than the institution.

Internationals can hire individual Israelis but not build cooperative alliances between two institutions.

Giving a scholarship to an individual Israeli is OK, but allocating a general fund for Israeli students is not advised.

The Boycott from Within group also turned its attention to the cultural boycott, writing letters to individual artists urging them not to perform in Israel. This turned out to be much more successful than expected. Sometimes artists highlight why they refuse to perform, although usually artists make various excuses to cancel their tours. Like the Pixies, the Tindersticks and Elvis Costello, we only hear of the artists who have already advertised their tours and then cancel. Although the reaction to cancellations is often to call the performers anti-Semites, the political connection (ie, this show was cancelled due to the attack on Gaza) is being made more often. While he expected the cultural boycott to be much harder as artists are not usually particularly politically brave and are concerned with their reputations, this aspect of BDS has become a leading edge. Kobi claims that every artist now knows that coming to Israel is a political decision and it might just be easier not to come.

A handful of academics employed by universities have signed the BDS call. Kobi explains that there is now a letter in the Israeli Higher Education Council addressing this issue. The letter talks of the sanctity of intellectual freedom but states that the call for academic boycott goes beyond the limits and institutions should act appropriately (ie get rid of those faculty). Kobi notes that no one who supports BDS can get tenure and tenured faculty find their lives made unpleasant, do not get promotions, are given the worst courses, cannot get to conferences, (a kind of passive transfer for Jews I wonder). In general, universities are proud of their contributions to the security industry. He explains that the Technion is really an extension of Rafael, a big security company outside of Haifa. Tel Aviv University has a Shabak headquarters (otherwise known as Shin Bet, the Israeli FBI) on the edge of campus. The Middle East department is actually an extension of Shabak, doing political research and intelligence.

The group Who Profits? does economic research into the involvement of Israeli companies in profiting from the occupation. Kobi notes that not only is this easier to do, but this gets to the heart of the Israeli economy as practically every company has some involvement, especially the big high tech and construction companies.

The Knesset has recently formed a committee of inquiry into the sources of funding for leftist organizations, so “things will be interesting.” The Boycott from Within is mostly interested in letter writing campaigns and research, they don’t expect to convince most Israelis, and are looked at very negatively. He finds the media hostile but interested. He has learned to approve all written interviews prior to publication and to do only live radio and TV interviews, in order not to have his opinions misrepresented. They are now approaching Zionist groups, moving into the world of socially responsible investing, hoping to add Israeli settlement companies to the non-kosher screen along with tobacco and guns. He argues that the settlement economy is the same as the economy of the occupation and wants letters of support from organizations like Peace Now that publically want to end the settlements. If 60% of Israelis support evacuating the settlements for peace, will they be willing to support a socially responsible investing screen that includes settlement products?

I wonder about Tobi’s personal life as he is a mathematician who works at the Weizmann Institute in neurobiology. His family is supportive and his colleagues are not hostile. The Weizmann Institute was involved in security in the 1950s with the nuclear program, but now does not have that focus. He is excited by the growing BDS movement and finds his work dynamic and hopeful, a refreshing comment from someone on the often discouraged Israeli left.

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1/4 I am here to save the Jews from Israel

2011-01-12T12:40:00.000-08:00

Posted by Alice Rothchild on the HaHRP delegation:

1/4 I am here to save the Jews from Israel

Saed Abu Hijeh, an intense Palestinian human geographer, poet, and radio host, greets us in his garden in Nablus, explaining that this is where is mother, well known peace activist Shaden Abdel Qader Al Saleh Abu-Hijleh, was assassinated by Israeli soldiers in 2002 while sitting on her veranda embroidering. His father Dr. Jamal Abdel Al Kareem Abu-Hijleh was also injured and Saed was hit with broken glass. He still keeps the fractured glass door taped, as if this tragedy happened yesterday, and a larger than life portrait of his mother is one of the few paintings in his living room. The case of his mother’s murder is now working its way through the Israeli court system. Saed says he was not granted a permit to go to court and now is in the ludicrous and maddening situation where he has to get a permit to get a permit to go to court to testify. She bled to death in his arms.

Educated in Iowa Universities, Saed teaches at Al-Najah National University in Nablus and is the founder of the Center for Global Consciousness. Our delegation and several university students sit in a circle in his bare living room and he begins to talk. The siege of Nablus lasted eight years with repeated Israeli incursions and Palestinian resistance, but now things are calmer, “the economic peace of Netanyahu.” I have heard this from others; if the noose is loosened a bit, the checkpoints within the West Bank are relaxed, the economy improves just enough, then Palestinians will not complain about everything else and there will be less talk of resistance. This is sustained by cooperation between the PA and the US (General Dayton training PA security in Jordan) and the financing of the security system. There are now 60,000 people working in all kinds of security, policing, intelligence, etc, and “they are fed and happy” while Jewish settlers continue to attack Palestinians with impunity. He points to the Jewish settlements of Bracha and Yitzhar and the villages of Iraq Borin, Awarta and Agraba as examples of continued settler violence.

With a burning intensity he explains that this cannot continue; 62 years of ethnic cleansing have led to both an “apartheid state” and a “settler colonial state.” When he examines what to do, he reviews the unsatisfactory results of both armed struggle and negotiations, and believes that boycott, divestment, and sanctions are the only options left. He is clearly angered that “Israel feels above the law,” the US constantly appeases the Israeli government, Obama “couldn’t stop a single house in a settlement…we are massacred by American weapons, we need to pressure the US.” He also notes that the European Union has done nothing to stop Israel from sabotaging the two state solution. He now sees the goal of this struggle as a democratic, secular state. Saed has been politically active since he joined student demonstrations against the occupation at the age of ten. He stops to show us his wounds; in 1982 at the age of 15 he was seriously wounded by Israeli soldiers when they opened fire on a student demonstration in Nablus. He lifts his shirt to reveal a large abdominal scar.

His students are passionate and articulate as well, schooled in the isolated and violent world of Nablus after the beginning of the Second Intifada in 2000, stimulated and outraged by the massacre in Gaza, and committed to the BDS struggle as their form of resistance. In 2007 they started to develop a free zone on campus, with removal of Israeli products, and they have been working on educating their peers. Like student activists in the US, they complain of the apathy of their fellow students, who just want to study and graduate. They are unaffiliated with any political party. Although they are now able to travel more freely within the West Bank, they still fear daily continued attacks and arrests. They note that some factories in settlements have moved within the border of ’48 Israel to avoid the boycott. Their goal is encourage a boycott of all Israeli products whenever there is an alternative.

Saed takes us on a walk through Nablus which includes a cemetery near the old campus of the university, crowded with graves, including Saed’s mother and many friends and relatives. Since 2000, 1/5 of the Palestinians who have died are from Nablus. The old city is pock marked with bullet holes and evidence of tank activity and tributes to the deaths of “martyrs.” He personally has witnessed five targeted assassinations, including cars being blown up in front of him. He used to love walking in the hills of Nablus, but for years he has been afraid he will be shot. He is deeply committed to the memory of his mother, whose name in Arabic means, “a young gazelle that is now strong enough to walk independently next to her mother.”

We have dinner together where he reflects on his political passion, his desire to slow down and find a wife and a normal life, and the burning injustices that he continually confronts. His only release is prayer and I notice he is constantly rubbing his prayer beads. He also compulsively feeds us, stopping for sweet hot slabs of kenafe, sesame cookies, and then giving us all prayer beads as well. Like many Palestinian men, he has been jailed five times, “whipped by the only democracy” in the Middle East; his analysis is both smart and blunt, “I am here to save the Jews from Israel.” The distinction is critical for him.

Over the years I have heard Palestinian civil society activists like Saed, many having experienced tremendous personal trauma and loss, deeply committed to nonviolent resistance. Repeatedly I hear a general consensus that the two state solution is no longer possible. The actions of the Israeli government have created a Greater Israel with enclaves of Palestinian cities and villages, “full-fledged apartheid.” In addition, the steady growth of the settlements and the brutality of the occupation have earned Israel the dubious distinction of a “settler colonial state.” It is time to open our eyes to these painful realities and urgently join forces with activists who are committed to nonviolent struggle.

1/8/11 Pieces of the puzzle

2011-01-12T07:40:00.001-08:00

Posted by Alice Rothchild with the HaHRP delegation:

1/8/11 Pieces of the puzzle

This is a cozy scene. Three members of the delegation are bent over a Ravensburger Puzzle, Crystals of Enchantment, sorting through the thousand tiny pieces with 11 year old Ahmed and 17 year old Sundus (who loves languages and speaks excellent English) and their mother Fatma. Their father Hisham is smoking a cigarette and watching a football (soccer) game between Egypt and Uganda. To everyone’s pleasure, Egypt wins by one goal. Fourteen year old Jusef is playing computer games on his cell phone and the five year old sister, Aisha, is asleep. Another sister is studying in Jordan. We have started by looking for edges and corners and the project feels daunting, much like the day. This week school exams start and the children have spent hours studying. When puzzle pieces fit together, there is a collective cheer of satisfaction. We have just completed a tasty and filling meal of Maqluba, eating from plates on the floor with newspaper spread out as a “table cloth.” We sit around the edges cross legged, trying not to drip yogurt on our pants. When we feel we cannot eat another bite, Fatma brings out the sweet tea with mint and her homemade pound cake. There is a relaxed, loving warmth between the children and their parents and frequent laughter and physical affection. When I think the feeding frenzy is over, Fatma comes in with a tray of dense Arabic coffee in tiny cups.

The normalcy of this family is a miracle to me because they are living in Hebron, in H2, in the neighborhood of Tel Rumeida where 45,000 Palestinians are held hostage by 600 very racist, armed, and violent Jewish settlers. Their neighbor up on the adjacent hill is Baruch Marzel, a well known Kahanist leader who they tell us brags about two signs in his house: “I already managed to kill an Arab, and you?” and “God gives us the right to kill Arabs and we love it.” He has threatened all of the family members and has said to Hisham, “One day I will kill you. Every dog has its day.”

Before dinner Hisham told us that in 2006, Baruch attacked nine year old Yusef and smashed his teeth with a stone. The family brought a complaint to the Israeli courts and 40 days ago (please note over four years after the attack) finally got to the Supreme Court in Jerusalem. The case was postponed and when they returned to Hebron they were stoned by waiting settlers again.

Relaxing after dinner, (now bananas and apples appear) Hisham mentions casually that in 1992 some Palestinians placed a flag on an electrical tower. Israeli soldiers threatened Hisham and told him that he had to climb the tower and remove the flag or they would kill him. He scaled the tower and was severely electrocuted with major damage to his left arm and hand; he fell to the ground and the soldiers fled. He was taken to the local Allia Hospital and then transferred to Augusta Victoria Hospital where he was hospitalized for 1 ½ months. As his arm developed gangrene, the doctors wanted to amputate, but his brother asked that they wait until he regained consciousness. He awoke and refused, “From Allah, the blood returned.” He was then transferred to Mokassed Hospital in East Jerusalem where he underwent ten reconstructive surgeries to restore hand function with moderate success. In 2007, internationals in Hebron saw his hand and arranged for him to be treated in Tel Aviv at Tel Hashomer Hospital where a surgeon performed four reconstructive surgeries using tendons from his leg. She explained that he then needed physical therapy and when he told her that he cannot easily return to Tel Aviv, cannot afford PT, cannot get assistance from the Palestinian Authority, and has no such opportunities in Hebron, she started to cry. He found the hospital staff welcoming and helpful. Now he works in a dress shop, “It’s our life, what can we do?” His wife brings in a large bowl of hot salty popcorn smiling graciously.

I remind myself that while the majority of Israelis are appalled by the settlers in Hebron, the Israeli government and soldiers provide them with full support and protection and thus are fully complicit in their dangerous fascistic behavior. Last night the IDF broke down the door of a family in Hebron, surprising his wife who was praying, and shot her sleeping husband multiple times in his own bed. The IDF subsequently issued an apology, it turns out they were on the wrong floor and killed the wrong man. They did not apologize for their policy of extrajudicial assassinations. This is a democracy?

This morning feels like it began several days ago, in a funky hotel in the Old City of Jerusalem. We took a taxi to French Hill to meet up with volunteers for the Saturday Mobile Clinic run by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel in conjunction with Palestinian Medical Relief Society. We join a larger gathering of volunteers at a gas station in Tayibe, a Muslim village on the Israeli side of the Green Line not to be confused with the Christian village of the same name in the West Bank that is famous for Tayibe beer. This mobile clinic is always fascinating on multiple levels. First there is the issue of getting to Tayibe which involves traveling down Highway 443, sometimes called the apartheid road. This highway passes through the West Bank between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and can only be used by vehicles with yellow license plates (read Jewish only roads), except following a Supreme Court ruling, there is a segment of the road, book marked by checkpoints, that Palestinians can use to get to their own towns and parallel set of roads. (Apartheid come to mind?)

The medical volunteers include a dedicated nun and nurse who has devoted herself to work with PHR Israel and Bedouin issues. She explains that PHR’s latest focus is on refugees from Sudan and Eritrea. 10 to 15 new arrivals appear at the PHR Open clinic two times per week and there is increasing evidence of human trafficking, torture and rape (with requests for abortions) by a combination of the Egyptian army, IDF and Bedouin smugglers involved in an international network of traffickers. (see the PHR Israel website)

There are four US medical students from the Sachler School of Medicine, a program at Tel Aviv University for US students, taught in English. Many do not ever study Hebrew. They are incredibly ebullient about the wonders of Tel Aviv, the unique opportunity to live and study abroad for four years, and the lower levels of stress at this med school compared to the US (note author’s amazement). They have come for a variety of reasons ranging from, “This was the only place I got in,” to an unblemished love for Israel. Their MD degrees will be fully recognized by the US medical board and they are not treated as other foreign medical students are with special requirements and testing in order to qualify for residencies in the US. (please note author’s amazement). There are three Israeli medical schools that have this arrangement and I presume that it is another facet of our “special relationship” with Israel. The students are enthusiastic, but I suspect fairly oblivious to the political realities, so I think that it is important that they join the clinic. I am afraid though, that without context, they may be coming to help the poor Arabs in Palestine who cannot fend for themselves, a form of occupation tourism.

We spot a rainbow arching through the dark clouds as we drive out heading toward a tiny town in the most northeast corner of the West Bank. I sit next to an acupuncturist, (originally Israeli, lived in London for 20 years and then came back) and a massage therapist (originally from London, came to Israel “because I needed a change.”) They have both worked in Barta’a, a Palestinian village located in the seam zone, the area between the Green Line and the separation wall where thousands of people are virtually trapped without services. We are unable to settle our disagreements about BDS but have a lively exchange.

After a massive traffic jam in Jenin, and miles of huge patchwork farms, we arrive in Faqua’a, a village of 4,000 that lost acres of land to the wall and has an unemployment rate of 60%. They have a small clinic staffed by a physician once or twice a week, but their main health/public health/agricultural challenge is lack of water. The multilingual nurse on the mobile clinic translates: their water source is now located on the Israeli side of the wall, during the summer they are dependent on expensive water tankers, in the winter they are dependent on rain. The amount of water is inadequate and the quality is poor so they have high levels of gastrointestinal disease.

Located in a school with an Israeli ob-gyn in the next room, we set up an office, one desk, a circle of chairs and a mattress on a table. I have brought a flashlight, hand sanitizer, and some minor surgical instruments. The women mostly have back and pelvic pain, vaginal discharge, and bladder concerns. They tend to have many children and are embarrassed about pelvic exams. We have endless negotiations about the exam, but the most difficult issue for me is that here we are, a few miles from a country with one of the most advanced medical systems in the world. By contrast, in this village, I have none of the tools that a modern physician needs to provide optimal treatment, starting with the most basic tests for gynecology. For instance, I have access to an ultrasound, but I cannot do any microscopy, preventive health care, or mammography. The right to health is both a basic human right and one of the cornerstones of the work of PHR Israel and PMRS. This right is one of the many casualties of the occupation.

Posted by Jake Harris travelling with the HaHRP delegation:

2011-01-12T07:20:00.000-08:00

Posted by Jake Harris travelling with the HaHRP delegation:

I am in the Land of Milk and Honey, and as I eat delicious Knafe (a blend of Palestinian Cheese and sugar cooked over an open fire) in the 5,000 year old town of Nablus I have a greater appreciation for what this means. This land is some of the most fertile agricultural land on the planet. It is quite evident as we have driven through the West Bank, exactly why this land is so desired. Near the cool mountainous Hebron we find orchards of Pecans and Grape vines, along the coast we find the famous Jaffa Orange and meyer lemons. in the northern regions of Jenin there are fields of wheat and greenhouses full of strawberries, tomatoes and eggplants. In the warm Jordan River Valley home to the ancient 10,000 year old city of Jericho we find acres of date palms, and banana groves. And of course in every landscape dotting hillsides we see the resilient Olive tree.

The Olive tree is such a poetically relevant symbol of the people of Palestine. Olive oil trees need very little water, and little soil, to produce a valuable product that is a critical ingredient in every meal that I have eaten. Their gnarled branches are resilient to drought and even fire. In Sofyia a town near the fabled sea of Galilee, we witnessed the remains of a recent massive forest fire that burned over five million European pine trees that were planted by the Jewish National Fund, using the slogan “making the desert green”. What remained of the European pine trees was ash and snags, while many olive trees had burnt bark, most already had fresh green leaves only months after this massive fire. Some Olive oil trees in the region are over 2,000 years old and are nicknamed “Romans” after the ancient Occupiers who supervised their planting. Like the Palestinians Olive trees are native to this land, Christians will recognize the Arab word for Palestinians “Filistinis” as the biblical Phillistine people that Jesus and many prophets spoke with. Like the Palestinians these ancient trees have seen the occupation of this land by the Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians, the Turks, The Ottomans, the French, the British and now the Zionists. And like the Palestinians, the olive tree continues to bear fruit no matter how harsh the conditions.

I have become quite taken with this landscape and its people in the 2 weeks I have traveled here. The Palestinians are as generous as the soil that nutures their livelihood. When you are invited for dinner food is piled high, and a clean plate means you have room for more no matter how much you decline a Palestinian mother will continue to pile more delicious rice, chicken and yogurt or squash stuffed with lamb, and every meal is ended with sweet sage tea or Arab coffee. We have had many adventures and experience here and at this point I could write a book about these two weeks alone, but tonight I will limit my story telling to three farmers I have visited and how their lives have been affected by the occupation of their lands.

Today I visited the Town of Jiftlick in the Jordan River Valley. This visit was arranged by Lifesource a water rights organization that seeks to improve water access and reclaim water rights for Palestinians. The dryness of this region is already a challenge to farming and daily existence, but it has been made even more complicated by Israeli policy and the Zionist settlements it supports.

Hazem and Hajj are business partners on a produce farm in Jiftlick and their families have been farming this land for generations. They are old enough to remember a time when the Jordan River would flood the valley and make crossing impossible, and are saddened by the mighty river that is now a trickle. The Jordan River is the western border of the West Bank and separates Occupied Palestine from the country of Jordan. Israel took control of this land in 1967 and has since blocked any Palestinian from accessing this river by designating it Area C, which means the land around the river is “Arab free” and under military control. Even if Hajj or Hazem could get to the river they would find a phantom of this once proud river. After the 1967 war Israel began a massive infrastructure project that redirected the Jordan River into what is now Israel. Now 90% of the water that used to flow goes southeast through northern Israel and into the industrial regions near Tel Aviv supporting Israeli economic activity. This has left the aquifers of the region depleted a situation made worse by Israeli laws that prevent well enhancements. It is Israeli law that forbids Hajj and Hazem from digging deeper than four feet in the earth and Israeli law that denies them receiving even the pipes to improve their wells. Whats worse is that Israel monitors their water access and implements fines if they go above water quotas that were set 40 years ago. According to Hajj they have 700 dunums (dunum=1/4 acre) of land and only have enough water to farm 200 dunums, which has left many fields fallow and destroyed their once prized water loving banana grove.

These same rules do not apply to the Zionist colonizers near by who not only stole an entire farm of grapes from a neighbor of theirs (who was out of the country in 1967 and could not defend his farming right), but enjoy unrestricted water access from their much deeper well that feeds their water loving date palm orchard.

What makes life even more difficult for Hajj and Hazem has been Israeli destruction of their products. Hajj and Hazem used to sell produce all over the world with a “Grown in Palestine” label through open borders with Jordan, When Israel took control of the border now all produce must pass through Israeli military checkpoints. Part of Israeli security inspections meant digging a thumb into their eggplants, presumably to check for explosives, than turning off the refrigeration unit on the truck, sometimes up to a week as it sat in shipping. When it reached its destination in Europe those eggplants became a rotten moldy mess spoiling the entire shipment. This loss made them change their labels and sell exclusively to Carmel Agrexo (an Israeli company that with the help of Israeli soldiers is run like the mafia) now all products say “grown in Israel” erasing their proud heritage.

Down the Road from Hazem and Hajj is the Shedeh-Dais Family. The Shedeh-Dais Family is a mother and father and seven sons and all of their wives and kids, 150 people total (Palestinian farmers have lots of kids). Normally I would have been overjoyed to visit their livestock farm which had several hudred sheep, goats and cows, but today was much more somber occasion. Across the street from their livestock was another Zionist Settlement which began forty years ago by stealing their farm land. They too had lost a valuable grape farm to the settlers which was now surrounded by ten foot high fences with barbed wire, I imagined working every day with the livestock and staring at my families livelihood that was taken by an invasive neighbor. Like I said I wanted to run around and look at all the sheep but our first stop was their former well. Water is more valuable than gold in this region and their well was one of six in this town that had been destroyed by the Israeli Army. They came unannounced 15 years ago with a Caterpillar Bulldozer and destroyed the well that provided sustenance for them and sixty other families in the region. Once the well was destroyed, one by one each family left leaving only the Shedeh-Dais’s. What’s more is a month and a half ago the bulldozers returned. Since Israeli Military law in the region does not allow Palestinians to dig more than four feet into the ground, no foundations can be established, all construction is done with mud bricks on top of soil or tin shacks. Five years ago the Shedeh-Dais Family constructed two such shacks to house their sheep . Even though thy abided by this disgusting law, the Israeli army came to bulldoze their sheep sheds. Once again a Caterpillar was used to smash them down killing 20 of their sheep in the process. As I took photos of the mangled wreck, my translator told me why the father and brothers had an anguished look in their eyes. When the Bulldozer came two of the brothers stood in front of it to block the destruction, they were promptly arrested as a security threat and are still imprisoned today, with little hope of timely release. I have a hard time containing my anger at this injustice, and cannot imagine what it must feel like for the family as they bear the full force of policies designed to make them so miserable that they leave their land.

The final story I will share this evening from my experiences is on the one hand devastating and the other inspiring. This is the story of Hanni Amer, a resident of Ma’ Sa. The Town of Ma’ Sa is near the Green Line which is the internationally recognized border of Palestine and Israel. Every Zionist settlement in the West bank is determined illegal by UN law because an occupying force is not allowed to colonize an occupied territory. Still they are being built, and the Ku-Foqasam settlement is one of those illegal settlements. The Village of Ma’ Sa had 20,000 Dunums of farmland, that they subsisted off of, after the Israeli Occupation began in 67, the settlement of Ku-foqasm was built on their farmland leaving them only 3,000 dunums of farmland. What’s more is that the remaining farmland is separated from the village by the settlement itself, so in order to reach the farmland the villagers have to go through 4 checkpoints and apply for yearly permits to access their land. What used to be a fifteen minute walk for Hanni Amer, now can take 6 hours as Israeli soldiers are slow to allow them to pass especially when they are bringing fertilizer for their soil. Israeli law prohibits the best fertilizer from being used by Palestinians based on an extrapolation that they could be used to make bombs so Hanni has to use a sub standard Israeli product, and even than is limited to the amount he can bring through the check points at one time. What’s more is that they only permit the famers to be on their land until 5pm, meaning if it takes 6 hours to get through the checkpoints Hanni may only have 2 hours to do all the work he needs to do on the farm including repairing their water pump which is frequently vandalized by the Zionist settlers.

Earlier this decade Israel became construction of what it calls a “security fence” to delineate the border of Israel and Palestine. By international law this wall should have been built along the Green Line which is the established border, but since Israel is continuing its colonizing of the West Bank the fence has snaked into the west bank and is seizing 20 percent more of the remaining land of Palestine. This gradual colonization is at the heart of the conflict. The wall was set to run right through Hanni’s home as his family lives on the border of Ma Sa village and the Ku Foqasam settlement. A common sight in Palestine is the bulldozers set to demolish a Palestinian home and all would have been lost for Hanni Amers Home if international peace activists had not stepped in. They waged a media campaign and around the clock sit-ins to prevent the destruction of the Amer family home. The small Amer family took on the seemingly beyond the law state of Israel and were able to protect their home from demolition. This glimmer of hope, is followed by an equally disgusting act though, as Israel instead surrounded the Amer home with four walls. Now in order to enter his home Amer must pass through a locked gate that he only recently received the key to. We visited him in his home and felt the feeling of being imprisoned by Israel as his wife served us tea and his grandson played with the Frisbee I gifted him. The situation for Hanni is one of desperately holding onto his rightful land. The farming is long since profitable, and he continues to farm his land knowing that If he is gone for even one week he could find his land taken by the settlement. Existence is Resistance.

Tomorrow I will meet with the Stop The Wall Campaign and with the Ramallah Farmers market association, and than on to Jenin where I will meet with Canaan Farms and the Palestinian Fair Trade association. I will be making my way back to Seattle this weekend and am looking forward to educating others about this critical food justice issue as well as launching myself into the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement that I think is the strongest way to hold Israel accountable for its disrespect for international law and basic human decency.

Love and Happy Growing

Jake

1/10/11 Qalqilyia: On a clear day I can see Tel Aviv

2011-01-12T05:25:00.000-08:00

Posted by Alice Rothchild on the HaHRP delegation:

1/10/11 Qalqilyia: On a clear day I can see Tel Aviv

Qalqilyia, a bulge of land protruding westward against the Green Line, was the first city in 2002 to be fully enclosed by the separation wall, with one checkpoint, like the neck of a bottle, emptying the inhabitants into the West Bank. Once known as “the city of peace,” Israelis from Kfar Saba used to shop in Qalqilyia and there was a vigorous commercial and agricultural relationship between Palestinians and the nearby Jews. I first visited the area in 2005 and I am happy to see Suhad Hashem again who offers to take us on another tour of the area.

Her personal story touches me deeply, a human face on painful political realities. Dipping into distinctively spiced foul and humus, smoking an Imperial cigarette (made in Palestine), she reminds us that 2002 and 2003 were very difficult times as the Israeli military invaded much of the West Bank and the city was largely under closure or curfew. She remembers empty shops, patients unable to get to doctor’s appointments, and cars unable to leave the city. Suhad, who grew up in Qalqilyia, was living in Nablus at the time, when her 62 year old mother had a heart attack in Qalqilyia and was taken to the local UNRWA hospital. She needed to be transferred to a higher level hospital but this was not possible. “One week later, she died.” Suhad took a Palestinian Medical Relief Society ambulance to be able to get to the funeral. On 3/21 her family gathered to mourn, and she then found herself trapped in the city for six weeks.

The day Suhad finally got out, she trekked through the mountains at 4 am, was caught by an Israeli patrol who took her IDs and made her sit on the side of the road next to snarling black dogs. She and her young daughter were released, continued their hike through the mountains, sometimes walking and sometimes driving off road through the rocky hills in a car. Once they reached Anon they took donkeys, were stopped again in Jit by the IDF, took more donkeys and the entire effort lasted six hours.

She later returned to see her grieving father in Qalqilyia, again in 2002, got caught up in the closure, and did not return to her flat in Nablus for one year. After these terrible experiences, she decided to devote herself to working in Qalqilyia on political issues and educating internationals about the conditions. Her underlying hopefulness led her to purchase an elderly childless aunt’s land which is beyond the wall and currently inaccessible. She wants her daughter, now 17 and taking exams for university, to have clearly documented land that she will inherit Her elderly father, a former citrus grower and merchant has only one wish: to see his land before he dies. She adds that she spent her childhood playing in those fields so the Israelis “have confiscated my childhood…My story is everyone’s story.”

So what was happened in the last five years? The poverty level in Qalqilyia is second only to the Khan Younis Refugee Camp in Gaza. Many families have lost their land or their ability to work in Israel so there is a “passive transfer” occurring with families moving deeper into the West Bank cities or sometimes outside of Palestine. She pointed out one house where the owner is forbidden to go up to his roof because it allows him to see over the wall. Qalqilyia is 12 kilometers from the Mediterranean and now surrounded by 12 settlements, so the Jewish settlers are now than half the population in the Qalqilyia Governate. Because the city is on top of the largest water aquifer in Palestine and has rich agricultural land, Suhad fears that the Israelis are squeezing Qalqilyia so that in a future land swap this area would go to Israel.

Suhad is involved in the boycott, divestment and sanction movement supported by NGOs, working with Al Mubadara, (the Palestinian Initiative). She pulls out a collection of documents and animatedly tells us that the West Bank is the second largest market for Israel. She works with students and adults to increase awareness that “even one shekel” is important. Her message is to buy Palestinian whenever there is an alternative. For instance, Israelis sell $35 million of milk, $17 million of ice cream, $6 of Acamol (like Tylenol), $25 million of cigarettes, and $8 million of cosmetics to the West Bank annually, but there are alternative products. The numbers are impressive. She argues that even a 5% decrease in consumption of Israeli goods will create the opportunity for 100,000 new jobs in the West Bank and will impact the financing of the military machinery of the occupation as well.

We hire a cab for a driving/walking tour of the city: the busy souk filled with brilliantly colored piles of fruits and vegetables, the zoo (now open), donkeys trotting briskly by, goats, cages of chickens and doves, acres of cabbage, cauliflower, Jawafa fruit, avocado and thick, wet, red dirt. Suhad takes us to the latest development in this walled city. The Israelis have built a worker terminal, rows of chutes where workers from all over the West Bank come, starting at 4 am, to wait on the slowly winding lines, and to pass through the turnstiles and three security checks. 5,000 day laborers make this journey every morning, many working in the black market in Tel Aviv where they need to be by 7 am. The checkpoint is intermittently closed and the laborers are largely seasonal, without job benefits or security. As we photograph the familiar barbed wire fences and yellow gates, a soldier yells at us from a guard tower. “Who are you? You can’t be there.” Five years ago, annoyed IDF soldiers shot live ammunition over our heads, so I guess you could call this an improvement.

The iconic eight meter high concrete wall is surrounded by demolished homes and farms, but since 2005 there is a new development. A farmer living in the southern neighborhood of Qalqilyia can now go to an administrative office in northern Qalqilyia, and apply for a permit (separately for himself, his car, or his donkey) to farm his lands that are often visible from his home, but inaccessible due to multiple electric fences, barbed wire, and bypass roads. If successful (often only the grandfather or one member of the family gets a permit), he then has the unique privilege of returning to the southern area and taking a tunnel under all of the previously described obstructions into the equally inaccessible town of Habla. In Habla there is a checkpoint (two metal fences, barbed wire, yellow gate, turnstile) that is open briefly and somewhat unreliably three times per day that allows farmers to reach their vegetables and fruit trees imprisoned between the walls. Suhad points out her family’s land and the land she bought for her daughter. She has no permit and mentions that whenever she takes a delegation here, she feels a choking sensation in her neck. This arrangement is apparently more efficient than the long trip through the main checkpoint on the east.

I am haunted by new graffiti on the concrete wall. There is an enormous snarling pig (Ariel Sharon) growling at a huge baby in a bottle (the children of Qalqilyia). I think of the many Israelis I know who have told me they are really sorry the wall has “inconvenienced Palestinians” but security comes first. I would like to invite them to Qalqilyia to feel the consequences of that thinking and to meet this dynamic and hopeful woman.

What is this, delusional?

2011-01-10T03:53:00.000-08:00

From Alice Rothchild on the HaHRP delegation

1/9/11 East Jerusalem

What is this, delusional?

We were in the midst of a political tour of East Jerusalem with journalist and activist Abu Hassan, trying to comprehend the bizarre realities in the Sheikh Jarrar neighborhood. We stand in front of the house of the evicted al-Ghawi family who I met last year living in a tent outside their property. In 2009, 800 soldiers and police evicted 37 members of this family from their homes. We watch a man with a large black hat and long black coat rush, head tilted down, (is he feeling shame or fear?) into the apartment which is topped by a gigantic menorah. The Palestinian family still receives the water and electricity bills as they refuse to change the registration. What kind of insanity is this?

An elderly Palestinian woman has been evicted from her home where she lived for many decades with her family, extending the one story building to accommodate her children and grandchildren. During the recent eviction, Jewish settlers were moved into the front portion of her house, now draped with a large Israeli flag with Stars of David painted around the front window. This poor woman is now forced to live in the back portion of her house with her son and grandchildren. They are watching cartoons when we arrive and a deadly depression weights the air. Their case is in the Israeli courts where there is little chance they will be treated favorably. At any time this family, like others in the neighborhood, can be evicted forcibly by Israeli military and put out on the street with their meager possessions. An International Solidarity Tent stands in the garden, so it seems they have some international support but the tent is empty.

A friend of Abu Hassan’s arrives and shows him a photo on his cell phone. A demolition is underway nearby at this very moment. Abu Hassan explains that the former house of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem which then became a hotel and then a center for the Shin Bet and collaborators, is being demolished in order to build 500 homes for Jewish settlers. We hustle back into the bus and drive to the area which is crowded with cars and press. The scene is absolutely surreal. A metal fence topped with barbwire partially hides the multi-story building, but the large yellow Volvo bulldozers can be seen smashing at the walls, creating clouds of debris. Peaking through metal bars in a gate, I see a crumbling old structure set back from the road. A crowd of reporters, cameramen, and angry protestors quickly gathers. An older woman with a purple hijab talks and gestures animatedly to a white haired man, Elisha Peleg, a member of the City Council. The general tone of the crowd is one of frustration and rage at yet another land grab in East Jerusalem, another violation of international law, another nail in the coffin of a Palestinian state. Elisha argues that this demolition is all totally legal, citing a variety of administrative procedures. “We have a right to have Jewish families in this unified city. I am very proud of what we are doing.” He says Arabs can easily get permits to build in West Jerusalem (not) and then accuses the protestors of racism, of being paid to come, and angrily questions if any Arabs have papers to prove they were evicted from properties in Jerusalem, had gone through the proper channels, etc etc, very legalistic. (Does he actually believe himself?) This provokes hostile responses from a number of Arab men who clearly had personal experiences with dispossession and experience with the Israeli permitting and court systems. People start chanting, “Shame, shame” and I notice heavily armed security guards in civilian clothes (thugs?) moving closer. At one point a women yells,” You are delusional!” He looks at her and said, “What is this, delusional?”

Violations of international law or the Judaization of East Jerusalem are very intellectual concepts, but to see it happening in real time, surrounded by the people who are watching the Israeli government irreversibly colonize their land which the international community recognizes as occupied territory, is a sobering and emotional experience. The future will clearly be built by the steady march of Israeli construction. The silence of the international community is particularly deafening.

But let me take you back to the beginning of this extraordinary tour. Abu Hassan meets us in front the Jerusalem Hotel for a walking/bus tour. He notes that he has been trying unsuccessfully to get a tour license and his case is now almost at the Supreme Court. Consequently he operates his business under the aegis of the Hotel. Palestinians from East Jerusalem are residents of the city, not citizens of Israel, are allowed to vote in municipal elections only. In 1967 when they were occupied by Israeli forces, they refused to accept Israeli citizenship as that would have negated their political rights to the city. Israeli law then became more restrictive and any Palestinian in East Jerusalem has to prove that he actually lives within the Jerusalem borders to retain his residency ID. In 2004, the Israeli government stopped all residency applications. This has caused a host of problems; for instance, if a man from East Jerusalem marries a woman from the West Bank, she cannot legally live with him in East Jerusalem and if he moves to the West Bank, he will not be able to return to East Jerusalem. Hundreds of Palestinian families have “weekend relationships” with each partner retaining residency in his or her place of origin, shuttling themselves and their growing families back and forth.

Abu Hassan’s family has lived in Jerusalem for generations, but an uncle of his lived in the neighborhood of Abu Dis and in 1967, the Israeli government declared his part of the neighborhood as part of the West Bank and he lost his East Jerusalem ID and is unable to return. The Palestinian towns of Aram and Deiht Albareid were among the five East Jerusalem towns that were declared part of the West Bank as well.

We are now on #1 Road (formerly Mandlebaum) which was the border between east and west. Since the Israeli government established East Jerusalem in 1967 as part of a “unified city,” 40% of the land has been confiscated as a military zone or as green space which is then developed as a Jewish settlement or colony. The disappearance of Palestinian visibility continued with the building of a bridge 13 years ago so that Jewish settlers could avoid traveling through a Palestinian area; a tram is now being built to shuttle settlers in East Jerusalem to West Jerusalem, ostensibly to “unite” the city, but in actuality to avoid contact with the Palestinian population.

Abu Hassan points out the settlement of Pisgat Ze’ev, established in the 1980s and now one of the biggest colonies in East Jerusalem with 34,000 Jewish settlers, built on land from the villages of Shu’fat and Beit Hanina. The separation wall near Pisgat surrounds villages and the refugee camp of Shu’fat; 60,000 people have one entrance and they need to have an East Jerusalem ID to pass. In this bizarre and complicated world, 20% of the inhabitants within this curve of the wall have West Bank IDs and are married to East Jerusalemites so they have two options: stay on that side of the wall or move to the West Bank. Passive transfer in action. Make life miserable.

I feel like this is some nefarious Alice in Wonderland world run by some crazed Queen of Hearts masquerading as a double headed Netanyahu- Lieberman monster. East Jerusalemites pay the same taxes as the West but receive 20% of the public services. The Jewish Quarter of the Old City is clean and well kept as opposed to the grime, garbage and disrepair in the Arab sector. Abu Hassan points out the roof tops: Jewish houses have a white water tower for hot water, Palestinian houses have the white tower, but also a black water tower because their water supply is not reliable. In addition, they pay five times as much and in the West Bank, Jewish settlers get more water for their animals than Palestinians get for themselves. Racism anyone?

We drive into the expanding Pisgat, rows of neat well groomed apartments, a mall and good transportation, modern local services, playground and swimming pool. On the contrary, Palestinians are faced with a severe shortage of schools and have applied to build another school. For the last 2 years, 150 Palestinian children have been unable to find schooling. The Catch 22 is that when the child is 16 and applies for an East Jerusalem residency ID, the parents have to prove that the child attended school within the Jerusalem borders by providing a yearly diploma and documentation that both parents are from East Jerusalem.

To bring this up close and personal, Abu Hassan explains that he is married to a German woman. He struggled for 12 years to get her a residency ID. For the first five years she was not allowed to leave the country or work and thus had no health insurance as well. After five years, the residency laws changed and he had to start the process all over again. The lawyer’s fees amounted to $15,000, but now he is assured his four children will be able to get their IDs. This feels like an attempt to wear people down by sheer aggravation.

1/7/11 Breaking the siege of Gaza with SKYPE

2011-01-08T14:37:00.001-08:00

A torrential rain sweeps through Nablus, the city of hills, and the street is briefly turned into a rushing river as we come to meet Dr. Allam Jarrar, our friend and partner at Palestinian Medical Relief Society. He looks fit and cheerful, but I notice rivulets of sweat beading on his face as he discusses “the situation” which has grown increasingly difficult, especially over the last 6 months with the failure of the Obama “peace process” and the explosion in settlement growth.

Allam reviews the usual disasters:

1 ½ million people in Gaza are completely cut off from the world with the Rafa checkpoint in the south controlled by Egypt (with Israeli blessings) and the Erez checkpoint in the north controlled by Israel; maybe 12 Gazans are allowed to enter daily into Israel, mostly for extreme medical needs and sometimes forced to become collaborators in exchange for the permit. (This is well documented by multiple sources.)

There are now 500,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank and ever expanding Jerusalem, and over 200 settlements, with Israeli control of 60% of the area. The Palestinian Authority “controls/administers” the remaining areas A and B, but in actuality everything is under Israeli control. Twelve Israeli governmental Ministers currently reside in settlements and the Israeli government is increasingly right wing.

Some 600 checkpoints (according to the UN OCHA) damage the geographic and social integrity of the West Bank.

Palestinians have been divided into three political, social, and economic entities:

1. East Jerusalem with 220,000 “residents” who carry an East Jerusalem ID,

2. West Bank where Allam describes a pass system reminiscent of South Africa. This does not include the areas around the Dead Sea and Jordan Valley as those areas are a closed military zone (where a Palestinian was recently killed at a checkpoint )and includes 2 million people

3. Gaza with 1 ½ million people

He explores the various social movements around the separation wall, settlements and in East Jerusalem and the growing nonviolent resistance that is becoming a major feature of the Palestinian struggle. There was even a recent article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz about reviving the pacifist movement based on ethical values within Israel to join Palestinians. Allam is also encouraged by the BDS movement which is now supported by Palestinian NGOs as a strategy that will make the Israeli policies more visible. “Israel can’t hide; there is a price for its behavior.” He worries about the talk of Israel launching attacks on Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, and Iran.

Allam explains that Palestinian Medical Relief Society was established in 1979 by volunteers to address the needs of marginalized communities and to build an infrastructure of resistance and steadfastness against the occupation. It is now the biggest health related NGO with 25 health centers and focuses on direct care, women’s empowerment, disability, health education, youth development, school health programs, training first aid workers, emergency interventions, support during curfews, and more. I notice in the office a woman receptionist with severe scoliosis and another working in a wheelchair. They practice what they preach. Funding comes from European and US NGOs. Allam notes that Palestinians have the worst record for international dependency, approximately $800 per capita of foreign aid. This is the end result of the occupation and the repeated destruction of the infrastructure of the society and economy. A painful example is the destruction of the Gazan fishing industry by the Israeli’s repeatedly shrinking the miles that fishing boats are allowed to go out to sea. These families then become dependent on international aid.

And then we begin our meeting with colleagues in Gaza. SKYPE is set up and the images are projected on the wall, faces flickering, sometimes fragmented Picasso –like, but definitely present and in conversation with us in Nablus. Amjad from the International Seige of Gaza and PENGO (a Palestinian civil society organization) outlines the horrific consequences of Cast Lead and the siege of Gaza. Thousands of houses cannot be rebuilt due to lack of materials, the recent opening to construction materials is for UNRWA construction only. 20,000 people remain homeless and 100,000 housing units are needed. 80% of the population depends on international agencies for basic needs, 40% of the population lives in severe poverty. UNRWA schools run 3 sessions per day and sometimes use containers for classrooms. 3,800 factories are not functional and there are no exports, 35% of agricultural land has been confiscated by the IDF often for “buffer zones,” the once vigorous flower and strawberry industries are decimated. 90% of the water is undrinkable. He notes that there are still daily incursions, 140 people have been injured in the past few months with several deaths, and the IDF arrested 3 fishermen today for fishing 3 miles from shore, well within the latest limits and well beyond years of previous regulations. He adds that Israel is trying to demonize Gaza and make them totally dependent. Tens of thousands of university students are now graduating with no possibilities for work, so there is also a brain drain along with no hope and no unity. His first priority is ending the siege and he strongly supports the BDS movement.

Aed Yaghi, an administrator for PMRS, then discusses the failing health sector. There are currently 180 essential medications unavailable, equipment cannot be maintained due to lack of parts, there are frequent losses of electricity, patients are unable to leave for advanced medical therapy and hundreds have died due to lack of referrals. PMRS is trying to cover the needs of patients with chronic illness. Since June 2010, some patients are able to leave via the Raffa crossing in Egypt (250-300 people per day) which is open five days per week, 8 hours per day, for the eight hour trip to an Egyptian hospital. (Imagine being critically ill, having to jump through hoops to obtain a permit to leave Gaza, getting to and waiting at the Raffa Crossing and THEN, making an eight hour trip to reach a hospital. This almost sounds like a death sentence to me.) The rare patients that get permits to leave through the Erez checkpoint are interrogated, may be forced to become collaborators in exchange for passage, can still be denied access and if traveling by ambulance, there are 400 meters between the Palestinian and Israeli ambulances. (Can you imagine when you are in pain, have cancer or severe heart disease, or you are a child whose mother could not get a permit and you are traveling alone? And let’s say you are receiving weekly chemotherapy treatments in Israel, you have to do this each time and if you are delayed and miss your appointment there is no recourse.) What ever happened to the universal right to health or the Geneva Conventions regarding health care personnel and access?

600 NGOs were destroyed or damaged during Cast Lead, including the Gaza Community Mental Health Center. Food enters from Israel day by day, there are bread shortages and malnutrition and only Israeli agricultural products are permitted. The tunnel system between Raffa and Egypt was built out of sheer desperation and provides basic food, cooking gas, medications, sheep, cows, etc. Even the fish is now imported from Egypt through the tunnels. 150 people have been killed from tunnel collapse. Aed claims that the Israeli government uses the tunnels and the products that then end up on the shelves of local markets as proof there is no problem. But there is a corruptive black market, high priced, often low quality, that only contributes to a small number of Gazans enriching themselves and the lack of a viable economy. He reminds us that a humanitarian crisis needs a political solution and this particularly applies to Gaza.

While this information is readily available on a variety of websites, there was something so powerful for me that we were actually talking with colleagues in Gaza despite the intense siege, listening to their concerns, asking questions, bearing witness, promising to bring their voices to our communities, verbally and visually breaking the blockade . Who ever thought SKYPE could be such a powerful political tool?

Tear Gassed in the Holy Land

2011-01-07T15:09:00.001-08:00

From Alice Rothchild on the HaHRP delegation.

1/7/11 Tear gassed in the Holy Land

If you are going to be tear gassed, I strongly suggest you rub Vicks Vapor Rub in your nostrils, bring an onion to smell, or alcohol swabs although fragrant baby wipes work fairly well, and don’t forget to bring a scarf and good running shoes. Needless to say, this was not on our delegation itinerary.

As you may be aware there have been weekly Friday demonstrations in the village of Bil’in seven miles west of Ramallah since 2005 to protest both the course of the separation wall and the stealing of village land by Israeli settlements. This protest has attracted international attention as a symbol of Palestinian resistance and Israeli brutality. Last week a woman named Jawaher Abu Rahmah died after a toxic exposure to tear gas at the demonstration. Her brother had been shot dead by Israeli soldiers a few years earlier, also at the Friday protest, and there was a call for people to come this week to express their outrage at her death and to support the continued struggle of the people of Bil’in.

Despite my strong aversion to physical danger, my aching back and less than optimal knees, this felt important to do. Our group reviewed the dynamics of previous protests, possible IDF responses to young Palestinian men throwing rocks, the consequences of tear gas and the real risk of physical injury. Everyone wanted to come. My plan was to stay at the end of the march. Way at the end.

Our bus started out on a main road, traveling though stunning countryside, white stone terraced olive orchards, small villages, and occasional villas, but came to a flying checkpoint ( a jeep parked across the road) early on. We backed up and turned onto a bumpy dirt road through an old olive orchard on the edge of a steep rocky hill, the gorgeous views marked by a large Jewish settlement, Modi’in Illit, on the next major hilltop with over 46,000 people. Again we were met with a road block and had to turn back. Our driver was constantly on his cell phone and talking with others on the road about strategies to penetrate the Israeli blockade. It dawned on me that a grassroots struggle means that the bus driver and every local Palestinian participates in some way, there is a tremendous sense of unity of purpose. Bil’in youth telephoned that they would lead us through the fields into the town. Once again we were winding up a rocky road, passed men praying at a mosque, more consults with a truck driver and then we could see another Israeli military vehicle ahead.

We backed away and then parked the bus out of sight and quietly got out, clambering into an old olive orchard, rows of twisted gnarly trees with silver-green leaves, rich red soil, tiny begonias and daffodils erupting in little crevices. We were breathless and climbing uphill over each terrace and on to the next rock wall, the next row of trees and then up again over the piles of stones. We are joined by local Palestinians leading us ultimately to a paved road beyond the checkpoint.

Ahead of us lay the small village of Bil’in, graced by the minaret, and the expansive Jewish settlement to the left. A taxi picked us up and drove us into the village. The march to the separation wall had already begun and we could hear boisterous political Arabic music from a loud speaker. I started meeting up with friends from the US, the Coalition of Women for Peace, Combatants for Peace, Arik Ascherman from Rabbis for Human Rights, Mustafa Barghouti from Palestinian Medical Relief Society, as well as hundreds of Palestinians and Israelis of all ages carrying banners and flags and wearing political T shirts. There was a significant press presence, including camera men and reporters in gas masks. Two ambulances awaited the injured. At least one person was taken out later.

The march went down the hill from the town to a valley and then up towards a wide loop of metal fencing. In the distance, Israeli soldiers were amassed on the right and left arms of the loop and the protesters were approaching the soldiers. I heard the pop of the tear gas firing and suddenly my eyes began tearing, my throat started to burn and there was a searing acrid smell wafting up the hill. I can only imagine how this felt to the protesters in the valley and up on the hill, directly challenging the soldiers, shouting, and throwing rocks. Tear gas canisters were sometimes shot into the air, spiraling down to hit the ground creating a huge white cloud of gas. Sometimes the soldiers shot directly at protesters, I could see them crouching and taking aim. There was also a large white truck that repeatedly sprayed a huge arc of white liquid that smelled like a cross between skunk and feces and is apparently difficult to get off one’s body once sprayed. (I suppose this is what the defense companies mean when they say weapons are “field tested.”) When the tear gas was too thick, everyone moved back up the hill and then down again for more defiance and more tear gas. The more active protesters were directly in the line of fire, running, ducking from canisters, coughing, eyes running and red. A reporter from FOX news was even on the edge of the action and when someone handed him an onion to smell, he started chewing on it and then rubbed his eyes with it, clearly he hadn’t gotten the directions right. At one point the soldiers came through the fence as a wedge and as the protesters then retreated, some of the press got up close and personal with the soldiers. Protesters coming back from the direct interactions brought back empty tear gas canisters labeled “CST," a weapon made in the US.

I was crying from the tear gas and from my sorrow and rage at the Israeli government (with US support, thank you Mr. Obama) for its continued endless land grab and brutality towards its Palestinian neighbors and for Palestinians resiliently and bravely fighting back despite endless losses. They are desperately in need of international recognition and more importantly international pressure against the behavior of the Israeli government. I was particularly pained by the many Palestinians wearing yellow stars with the word Palestinian inscribed on it, evocative of the Jews in the ghettos of Europe forced to wear yellow stars. So now in the modern western democracy of Israel, Jewish ghettos dot the West Bank landscape while Palestinians themselves are further ghettoized by the machinery of occupation and colonization.

What have we learned?

How I became a human smuggler

2011-01-07T03:49:00.001-08:00

Posted by Alice Rothchild travelling with the HaHRP delegation

1/6/11
How I became a human smuggler

I have to confess, we were not prepared. We were not even aware of the white-faced American mostly Jewish privileged skin in which we were living. Our bus left the tiny village of Mas’ha, heading past Ariel to the municipality of Tel Aviv-Jaffo, or Jaffa as our Palestinian friends say. We had a yellow license plate, the seats were comfortable and the seat belts functional. Life was good.

In a smaller car, 3 Americans (one tall bearded guy who could be mistaken for a settler and one very blond woman) and 2 Palestinian women, university students, who had not successfully obtained permits to leave the West Bank and were passing as Americans, drove in front of us. One of them had done this several times before without getting caught. The other had never seen the Mediterranean Sea. You might call this an exercise in human smuggling Israeli style.

A private security company pulls the two vehicles over at a checkpoint near the settlement of Ariel for a “routine security check.” I wonder, is it the obvious Arab face of our driver or just part of the mechanics of control. Why would a group of non-settlers be driving down this highway? We watch with trepidation as our friends get out of the car and are led into the checkpoint. A smiling woman in uniform enters our bus, “Who is the tour guide?”
“Me (gulp).”
“What are you doing?”
“Tourism.”
“Where have you been?”
“Nablus.”
“What did you do?”
“We like old things, we toured the Old City.”
“Where did you stay?
I know I cannot say the Balata Refugee Camp. “Yaffa Guest House.”
“OK, passports, come with me.”

I step out of the bus and a snarling dog, a Belgium malinois known for good scent detection, is chewing on the leash with its handler next to the bus. I discover that this little checkpoint, is fully equipped with x ray equipment, FAX machines, and computers. All our bags are x-rayed repeatedly as suspicious items like books, notebooks, tape recorders, etc. are removed and re x-rayed. The questioning keeps up and I have no idea if the group will keep its story straight. I am acutely aware that in my bag are BDS stickers (we all have them), materials about BDS, brochures from the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee and two copies of my book which would instantly get me in trouble. I keep turning them over so the title is not visible. And then there are pages of incriminating notes and hundreds of easily accessible photos. Usually before any security check, I “cleanse” my belongings and make the evidence difficult to find. I have been careless. The other wild dynamic I observe is the white, clearly Ashkenazi woman who is in charge, and the younger Ethiopian woman who receives her barking orders and unpacks and repacks our bags obediently: race and class in action.

As anxious as we are, our main focus is on the two Palestinians who are insisting they are from the US, have quickly made up names and fake histories, and are acting their parts flawlessly. They are aided by the performance of our group leader who plays the innocent but helpful Jewish tourist, so apologetic about the forgotten passports. The main problem is of course the issue of identities. Oh we forgot our passports in our hotel in Tel Aviv, we didn’t know we had to have them, etc, etc. A quick phone call to a fellow activist, Hello, so wonderful visiting you in Ariel, would you talk to security about our visit….The story is being fabricated in real time and the fear and anxiety in the group for the two brave Palestinian women is gripping us all. As we sit in the waiting room, we pretend we do not know each other as that would definitely blow our cover. While maybe I might face an angry security guard, a fine or deportation, these two women could get arrested and go to jail for the crime of visiting Jaffa with a group of activists.

The bus finally passes inspection and we have to drive off not knowing the fate of our friends. After a prolonged interrogation and much dancing around, I think the head security woman knew something was not right, they are turned back. We all cheer when we learned by cell phone that they sailed through Hizma checkpoint without being stopped.

When the group is finally reunited for a tour of Jaffa, one of the Palestinian women runs down the beach and into the water, soaking her boots and pants, crying, breathing in the smell of the sea for the first time in her life.

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Balata Refugee Camp

2011-01-07T03:48:00.001-08:00

Posted by Alice Rothchild on the HaHRP delegation

Balata Refugee Camp, Existence is Resistance 1/6/11

The Yaffa Guest House in the Balata Refugee Camp just outside of Nablus is new. There are quarters for men and for women, a well equipped kitchen with refrigerator, microwave, washer/dryer and a living room with WIFI and piles of magazines that leave a record of previous guests. Ironically, there is a “Cosmopolitan” on top of the pile with the alluring article “Secrets of Male Sexual Arousal.” We climb into our bunk beds, crank up the heat and collapse into deep sleep.

In the morning after a breakfast of Mu’ajanat, a dough with eggs, cheese and zetar, we meet with a thin young man named Faisal. He was born in Saudi Arabia in 1986 where his father went for work. His family came from a small village near Jaffa and escaped to the mountains near Nablus after 1948 until they came to live in the Balata Refugee Camp in the early 1980s. Faisel went to UNRWA schools and studied journalism at Najah University in Nablus and now works in public relations for the Yaffa Cultural Center.

Balata was founded in 1952 and 90% of the refugees are from Yaffa and surrounding villages. The UN announced the establishment of the camp by loudspeaker and in an area 1000 square meters, set up rows of tents, one tent per family, 5-6,000 refugees, with scattered public bathrooms. Because everyone was sure this was a temporary arrangement, they lived in tents for eight years until the UN started building housing, one room for each family. Sewer systems, water, and electricity were finally established in the 1970s. As the population grew, people expanded their homes vertically, literally on top of each other in a maze of winding dirt and stone paths and stairs, second floors jutting out into the airspace of the paths, no fresh air, no privacy. Residents can hear and smell everything. Balata is now the largest camp in the smallest space in the West Bank with more than 25,000 residents, UN offices, a cemetery and market. The land is rented by UNRWA from the village of Balata for 99 years.

After 1967 60% of Balata workers became laborers in Israel. Balata also has the reputation for resistance. In 1987 the First Intifada started in this camp. In 2000 there were many clashes in the camp, 230 people were killed, many in their homes, and thousands were wounded. Israel closed the border and now only 3% are able to work in Israel. This has all resulted in high levels of frustration, depression, psychiatric problems, violence, and trauma. Faisel discusses the damage done by IDF soldiers breaking into homes, through walls to the next house, Palestinian children losing their childhoods to war and teenagers seeing no opportunities.

The cultural center was established by Balata residents to encourage children to release their energy in a positive fashion through the arts, Dabke dancing, theater, drawing, reading, storytelling, etc. The teenagers are involved in programs for leadership, women’s rights, photography, journalism and there is a recently built theater facility. Faisel says education is the main vehicle; sometimes there is no hope, but there is a need for optimism. “I am very optimistic because I believe in young people.”

We ask why people stay in Balata and he replies that they have no place to go, no financial resources, and the UN helps them with education, housing, and health care, although these supports have been diminishing in recent years. Food distribution is less frequent and there is one medical clinic with one doctor and one nurse. UNRWA covers 1/3 of the medical care if a patient needs to go to the local hospital. As we hear over and over again, refugees also still dream of return to their former villages. Faisel talks about the seven million Palestinian refugees all over the world and the international laws that guarantee the right of return and compensation. I have had these conversations before, the need for the Israeli government to recognize its role in the displacement of refugees and its responsibility to engage in creative solutions for return and compensation.

We begin a walk through the camp where 70% of the population is less than 18 years old. We look down on the school yard where hundreds of little girls in blue uniforms and pants are playing and when they see us, waving enthusiastically and yelling hello. The paths between the grey concrete houses are often two to three feet wide with uneven surfaces and I try to imagine the disabled children who must be carried to school, the laboring pregnant woman or critically ill patient physically carried by two men through the maze to an ambulance waiting on the street, the difficulties bringing anything from food to furniture into the homes. Laundry hangs from windows and balconies and the poverty is obvious. There are patches of brightly painted graffiti: Love Palestine, Hate Racism, 1 People, 1 World, Those who make peace impossible make violence inevitable, Existence is resistance, if you are not willing to die for it, take the word freedom out of your vocabulary. Posters for political factions plaster some areas.

I think about the many conversations I have had about Palestinian refugees and the many generations that have known no other life. Clearly Balata is bursting with people, there is tremendous unemployment, a huge focus on education and youth, but the future is bleak unless there is some resolution to this unsustainable situation. As I recently heard, humanitarian crisis require political solutions. I wish my friends who refuse to discuss the plight of refugees could walk these winding streets and look into the eyes of these children. They deserve a better life than this.

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From Alice Rothchild, travelling in Palestine:

2011-01-04T05:23:00.001-08:00

1/3/11 Ramallah Fragments

The dangerous qanun and the intoxication of power

We leave the taxi at Qalandia checkpoint and for 50 shekels grab a ride in the back of a truck with Israeli license plates. The truck doors advertise flooring and construction, three scruffy men sit in the front seat, and soon we are staring through dusty windows at the imposing separation wall, massive amounts of construction and garbage, new cream white apartment and office buildings, and a disarray of cars all heading in opposing directions. In Ramallah, people do not give you their addresses; we are in search of Supermarket Baghdad. After a dizzying tour of the rainy, foggy city (it seems that men in this culture do not ask for directions easily), we find the supermarket and discover that Israeli Orange phone cards are no longer sold in the West Bank, (first sign of boycott). After a quick call on the one remaining functional phone, Ali Amr, a student at Berklee College of Music in Boston who is home to see his family after a year, meets us a block from the market. The son of a Moroccan mother and Palestinian father and a talented musician, Ali’s journey home was infinitely more torturous than ours.

He explains, as a Palestinian he has to enter through Jordan via the Allenby Bridge. He is required to renew his Jordanian Military service papers annually in Jordan, in order to enter Palestine or travel back to the US. Arriving several days ago, he and his father headed to the border from Amman at 4 pm, got through the Jordanian border without difficulty after a brief interrogation. It seems that studying music in the US is not an entirely legitimate excuse for avoiding the military, but Ali was armed with paperwork from the music school. They then waited in line for an hour to get on a bus to the Israeli border. Half an hour later, squeezed together with other travelers, “like they do for animals in a cage,” Ali and his father reach the line for the soldiers. I should mention that Ali’s father is a law professor at Al Quds University; he usually dresses formally in a suit and tie, and when I met him I was struck with his dignity as well as good humor. After half an hour, the soldiers checked Ali’s bags and threw his bags and qanun, an Arabic lap harp with 72 strings and delicate inlaid carvings, onto the x ray machine. Everyone was allowed to pass but Ali and he was separated from his father.

Ali was interrogated for a second time, “Where they asked me just the same questions…Seems like they have a list of questions that if you answer one wrong, trouble.” Ali remembers his rising fear and nervousness, and finally stepped outside. ”It felt just like I got out of prison.” They let him go with papers that “me the 19 year old kid that's coming from America is clean and not terrorist,” but then the terror began. His luggage arrived, but no qanun. After endless waiting, Ali asked for his musical instrument and was told to come for further questioning. The soldiers knew the qanun was from Syria, (imported to the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music when Ali was a student there) despite no evidence on the instrument, and insisted that Ali pay a large tax to bring it back into Palestine. Ali and his father where shocked. Ali has traveled all over the world with his qanun and come back home and has never been asked to pay.

The soldiers insisted that he planned to sell it in the West Bank, despite the certificate confirming Ali as a student at Berklee College of Music, his work as a professional musician, and his instrument. He pleaded, he argued, the soldiers started threatening him. “You wanna pay to take it or we take it.” They took his ID and told him to wait. More pleading and arguing and then the soldier yelled, “It’s your decision.” He grabbed the qanun and threatened to smash it if they did not pay. At this point, Ali’s father said, “Wait!” He asked for the bill and the soldiers came back, 866 shekels ($220). Ali remembers sweating with fear and then took out his emergency money that was supposed to pay for his travel expenses and for repairs on the qanun, and handed it all over. The two hour incident left Ali shaken, fearful, and crying. “But the situation is that there is no way we can get the money back from them…There is no one to talk to. No one to sue. The only paper I have is the receipt that they will never consider when I visit again and they will make me pay again and put it in their pockets and go get drunk with it in some Israeli bar. They are all 19 - 20 years old kids...holding guns.” And so one of Ramallah’s most talented young musicians is welcomed home.

Today an Orchestra tomorrow a State

We are warmly received by Ali’s parents, but the family is in a bit of a frenzy. Ali’s older brother Mohammad has just arrived from Switzerland to play viola in the first performance of the Palestine National Orchestra. Classically trained professional Palestinian musicians from all over the world had converged on Ramallah, often requiring special visas from Arab countries, and after three days of rehearsals, the concert was starting in an hour. Would we like to come?

We found ourselves in a massive traffic jam in front of the impressive Ramallah Cultural Palace where hundreds of Palestinians had come to witness the historic birth of this orchestra, a tribute to the arts and cultural identity of the city. The concert logo featured a cello with a red flower in the center and the profile of a woman’s face wrapped in a keffeya. The program announced: Today an Orchestra tomorrow a State. The hall must have held 1500 people, and young people sat on the stairs down to the stage. As the orchestra played a very respectable Ligeti, a Mozart Exsultate featuring a Japanese/Palestinian soprano, an Allegretto by Arnita for oboe and strings, and Beethoven’s 4th Symphony, dark suited VIPs arrived surrounded by heavy security. Although cell phones rang, people whispered in hushed conversations, and clapped between movements (which is not the custom in classical music), Ali said later, “People need to be educated.” For me the most moving response was the tears, probably a mix of pride and pain, a palpable yearning to be whole, to be able to live normally like cultured people all over the world, to celebrate national aspirations without the accompaniment of tanks and apache helicopters. Ramallans were holding their heads high and I could see it on their faces.

Dancing in the prison

There is something uncomfortable for me about having too much fun in a place where there is so much suffering, but it was New Year’s Eve and a friend from the Kennedy School at Harvard who had returned home to Ramallah to do his field work, invited us to a party. We couldn’t resist this opportunity and found ourselves in a lovely apartment near the Bank of Palestine with his gorgeous sister who is studying at Swarthmore, an Israeli friend from University of Pennsylvania, and his aunt, a brilliant sociologist (among other things) with a wildly irreverent tongue. After tea, the aunt went to her party and we traipsed to a local restaurant hired for the evening.

Long tables were set with humus and baba ganoush, rows of party hats, blowers, masks, and a smattering of Christmas decorations. Crowds of 20 and 30 somethings arrived. The women in tight slinky dresses and dizzying high heels, movie star beautiful, shimmered and danced with handsome young men. (My fashion statement tended towards “haute schlep,” but I was old enough to be everyone’s mother and for the record, I held my own on the dance floor). The DJ blared music way beyond my auditory comfort level, but the throbbing beat was inspirational and the hookah smoke mixed with the fog machine creating an other worldly sensibility. Although I got fairly tipsy on a few sips of Arak, I knew I was rubbing shoulders and hips with the educated upper class of Ramallah, graduates from the Friends School, many schooled in the US, sophisticated, upwardly mobile, famous fathers and high expectations. To add to my general confusion, in between the celebrating I had intense conversations with journalists and activists about Gaza and BDS and one state solutions and getting tear gassed in Bi’iln. My friend spent much of the evening dancing, laughing, and enjoying himself with an exuberance I rarely experience. He explained the contradiction: we must never forget we live in a prison, but we cannot behave like we do. We have to put on our clothes and clean our houses and dance with abandon on New Year’s Eve.

Bullets in the kitchen

New Year’s day, Ali’s parents, his father a law professor and his mother a practicing lawyer, take us for a tour of Ramallah. I am struck by the amount of construction, the huge mansions next to empty lots, the roller coaster hills, the fascination with English: “Henny Penny Fried Chicken,” “Yummy Mummy Pastries,” “Birth Café.” His parents came from Morocco for better opportunities for their children who would have been unable to work because they are Palestinian. From 1997 to 2001 they lived in an apartment on the edge of Ramallah and experienced shelling from a nearby Jewish settlement, from 9 pm til morning. “I didn’t see bullets until I came here,” his mother remarked. A bullet through the kitchen window forced them to move to a safer place.

The most striking stories that emerged were from the invasion in 2002. When the invasion started all the children were at the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music and Ali’s mother ran to bring them home. The family experienced 28 days of total curfew followed by 2 months where they were allowed to leave the house for 2 hours once a week to buy food. Ali’s mother was sure they would be killed so she stayed close to her children at all times so they would die together. Men slept at night fully clothed as they could be awoken at any time and hauled off to prison. At one point 60 neighbors in Al Bireh were placed in one house while soldiers occupied the others.

After the invasion, soldiers were still very present. In 2003 when Ali’s paternal grandmother died in Hebron, the family traveled for seven hours in five different cars, changing at each checkpoint before they got to the funeral. They described Ali’s sister studying at Al Quds University, getting up at 4 am to get to school “before the soldier’s opened their eyes,” running through the hills to get there unnoticed. One time she slept at Al Quds for 2 weeks rather than risk returning home. Before an exam in mathematics, soldiers confiscated her calculator.

For me, the most painful moment came when we drove along a city road and looked down a hill at Area C, to the Jewish-only settler roads, and a settlement looming on the nearby hilltop. At another point, the barbed wire, guard towers, and rows of caravans came right up against the road and Palestinian homes, some now abandoned. Ali’s usually cheerfully gracious mother became clearly anxious and upset as his father’s voice rose with exasperation and frustration, the past merging with present as painful memories filled the car. Even the mythical city of Ramallah cannot escape the fact of occupation.

From Alice Rothchild

2011-01-01T13:21:00.001-08:00

12/29-12/31

Two agnostic Jews, a recovering Catholic, and a Druze walk into a monastery….

I am always jolted by the contradictions of Ben Gurion airport, a bastion of modernity and normalcy, evocative art and posters celebrating the Israeli national mythos. I know my Palestinian friends cannot walk these corridors, my heart lurches when the 20 year old Israeli soldier asks me: “So what are you doing in Israel?” My travel plans and contacts have all been emailed to friends in country because I do not want to expose my true identity: detective, critical observer, activist. Indeed I have been called “a danger to the Jewish people” merely because I report on what I see and I refuse to be silent. Come see what I see.

The train from the airport to Akko is sleek and double decker, reminding me of Europe, except for the number of soldiers chatting and dozing and the increase in Arab looking faces as we head north. We are met by Basel in his new BMW, a 30 year old Druze Palestinian from the tiny village of Al Maghar in the western Galilee. He stayed with us in Boston last summer, teaching in a tennis program for inner city youth. So this is the next contradiction in the contradictory “democracy” that is Israel. There are Jewish towns and Arab towns, Jewish schools and Arab schools, Jewish funding and Arab funding. An Arab town is “mixed” in northern Israel when the inhabitants are Christian, Muslim, and Druze.

Walking down a steep driveway to a cluster of homes built on a hill, his family comprises 10% of the 2000 inhabitants of the village, most living in this extended family enclave. We immediately enter another world: heavily ornamental brocaded couches, white gauzy curtains decorated with gold patterns, and a long table piled extravagantly with taboule, chopped parsley seasoned with lemon, stuffed grape leaves and squash, fresh salad, 4 different breads flavored with chicken, meat, zetar, and tomatoes, and four over-the-top desserts. While much of the family eats separately in the kitchen, we gradually meet the many handsome sons and their wives and the one daughter who is the main cook and also a graphic artist. I sense that the wives have formed a warm sisterhood, supporting each other with cooking and childcare. Clearly the proudest family moment comes with the arrival of 3 volumes of the most recent wedding photos, airbrushed movie star poses, happy relatives pinning money on the groom, parades of aunts and uncles and cousins. This family of barbers, car mechanics, career army cooks, teachers and young people still looking for work, knows how to celebrate like the rich and famous; they have these mythical pictures to prove it.

Basel finds this all encompassing warmth and closeness both grounding and stifling and keeps a bachelor apartment in a nearby town where he teaches physical education and develops tennis programs. He is both a village boy and an adventurer, thinking of buying land in Al Maghar, yet wanting to travel, study guitar, avoiding “the prison” of marriage and children. Fluent in Arabic and Hebrew, he Is at once very identified as an Israeli, could easily “pass,” served in the IDF for a year, but went to prison after refusing to serve in the Occupied Territories. The following day he reverently takes us to the tomb of the Druze prophet Shueib, a mosque with rows of graceful arches and an elegant garden where sweet water pours from the mountains. At the same time he mentions, “Jewish villages look better, more money more services.” He talks about recent news that orthodox rabbis have announced that Jews should not sell to Arabs, or even speak to Arabs. He mentions that the separation of towns “is not comfortable,” that sometimes the Israeli government does not allow Arabs to build on their own lands because they build horizontally rather than vertically and thus use too much space.

The following day we drive to a Carmelite Monastery for the stunning views of the valley below and the Dr Seuss-like cactus gardens. On the roof we thread our way through a tour of Arkansas Christian Zionists, singing with a guitar and praying earnestly. There is talk from the Book of Revelations of the end of times, the valley below is where “people from Africa, China, and all over will come because it can support everyone; the top soil is 10 feet deep.” The Southern accents, the absolute beliefs, and the palpable delusional religious passion make me giddy. I keep thinking…. “Two agnostic Jews, a recovering Catholic, and a Druze walk into a monastery….” I can’t figure out the punch line, but one man with a cowboy hat and friendly drawl walks up to me and says, “I’d like to hear the end of that one.”

Basel wants to show us the area of the recent terrible brush fires that resulted in tens of deaths, including a bus filled with prison guards trapped by the flames, and the destruction of acres of forest and houses. The hills of blackened skeletal trees, grey soil washed by the rain, swaths of fiery destruction slashed across the landscape are humbling. If I believed in a wrathful God, I might wonder why the Jewish National Fund forests were burning? What is the price of destroying Palestinian villages and planting hundreds of thousands of non-indigenous pine trees which grow quickly and make excellent tinder in this dry Mediterranean climate? Or perhaps this is the cost of building a massive military infrastructure and ignoring firefighting equipment and personnel. Basel reassures us that the trees will be replanted. I do not think he understands the destructive role of the JNF; after all, he was educated in Israel and that history is not in the textbooks.

HaHRP 2011 Trip Leaves January 3, 2011

2010-12-12T13:38:00.000-08:00

Our next Health and Human Rights Project delegation to Palestine will be leaving on January3, 2011. Please follow our delegation through this blog.

Living in hell

2010-01-14T14:04:00.000-08:00

Alice Rothchild

On January 12th, we drive to the southern West Bank city of Hebron. This city is literally drowning in a complex, traumatic, and violent history, that has given birth to the outrageous situation we see today. Most people start the story with the burial of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their wives several thousand years ago, followed by multiple invasions, the Arab massacre of Jews in 1929 one week after Zionists raised a Jewish flag at the Wailing Wall (with many question regarding the role of the British in this catastrophe), and Baruch Goldstein's massacre of Moslems praying at the Ibrahimi Mosque in the middle of Ramadan in 1994.

We are touring Hebron with Hisham Sharabati, the uncle of our local co-leader, Lubna. He explains that he went "to the college of the Israeli prison during the First Intifada' and that after a barrage of tear gas and rubber bullets, he was shot in the leg and sustained a fracture, requiring crutches for 1 1/2 years. He is clearly articulate and educated; suffering has made him strong.

We start in a central open area of the market, old stone buildings with green metal doors on the ground floor, a small square with a palm trees, women in colorful hijabs sitting on poured concrete seats under umbrellas, and a steady circle of traffic and rambunctious young boys, racing around, playing, and harassing us, with unrelenting requests to purchase a variety of Palestinian trinkets. On quick inspection, I notice multiple security cameras and a few guard towers mounted on the tops of the buildings as well as an IDF checkpoint with a swinging yellow metal gate and a solid metal gate guarding the entrance to a Jewish settler area with a soldier perched above. All the ground floor doors, formerly markets, are closed, some welded shut by the IDF, and there is a second floor apartment completely encased in wire to protect the windows as well as the inhabitants from rocks thrown by Jewish settlers. .

As we sit down for the usual lunch of felafel, hummus, pita, and a collection of vegetables, Hisham begins to speak, his style sincere and serious with an ironic sense of humor. Shortly, we notice a commotion at the checkpoint site and it appears that a number of the teenage boys have been apprehended by the soldiers, their intimidating automatic weapons ready, and are being taken one by one inside the metal door for questioning after their bags are checked. We move closer and can only peak through a crack in the tall concrete blocks around the checkpoint. The local population does not seem to pay much attention to this encounter, it is clearly an everyday affair. I do not know what happened to the boys, although several were released and came out, tucking in their shirts and resuming a slightly subdued teenage swagger. The little boys watched with curiosity and at one point, two Israeli soldiers came out from their bunker, wearing what appeared to be a significant amount of battle gear, hands always on their weapons, and spoke with the little boys. I suspect this is the only kind of interaction these children have with Israeli Jews.

Hisham explains that after 1967 a group of very right wing Jewish settlers came to a hotel in Hebron and declared they would never leave. A deal was struck with the IDF that they could settle next to a military facility. There were further deals and expansions and ultimately the settlement of Kiryat Arba was officially established in 1971.These settlers have a history of particularly violent, racist, ugly attacks against their Palestinian neighbors, often observed and sometimes even promoted by the local Jewish soldiers. These are the settlers that spray paint: "Death to the Arabs!" or "Gas all Arabs," on the walls of Palestinian homes and taunt children and women, calling the women "Whores." Much of this has been well documented by Palestinians with video cameras, many provided by the Israeli human rights organization, B'tselem in their "Shoot Back" campaign. It is soldiers from Hebron who started "Breaking the Silence," when they felt guilty and haunted by their violent racist behavior patrolling this city. The local Palestinians have responded with repeated nonviolent resistance, including strikes and demonstrations, and some of the local leadership have been arrested by Israeli authorities and deported. In the 1970s and 1980s there were also armed attacks against the settlers as well as an attack on a nearby settlement called Beit Haddassah.

In the 1990s, a group of 400 settlers, (which included 250 yeshiva students), decided to move into the old city, into homes that they claimed were originally Jewish and these settlers have repeatedly attacked the local Palestinians and destroyed their market and ability to live a normal life. There are 150,000 Palestinians in all of Hebron and 35,000 in H2, the area of the city under strict Israeli control, "taken hostage on behalf of the settlers." The UN OCHA has documented 98 different kinds of restrictions of movement in an area that is just one square kilometer. 512 Palestinian stores, spray painted with red and black dots, have been closed by military order, there are repeated prolonged closures and curfews, and Palestinians are only allowed to walk on certain streets, even if their homes are on these streets. These people access there homes by traipsing through other backyards or by walking from roof to roof, up and down ladders, to get to their homes. The central bus station was taken for "security" and given to settlers and the Yeshiva was built above the Palestinian market on top of a Palestinian school.

We wander through much of the market, some of it ghostly quiet, some bustling with vegetables, fruit, clothes, and crowds of people. Above the market Hisham points out a metal wiring creating a protective barrier as settlers living above, throw garbage, bricks, stones, plastic bags of urine and feces, and other offensive items down upon the Palestinians. At one stand he points to a plastic covering with a ragged hole above the market area. Here the Jewish settlers threw acid which burned the plastic and caused havoc below. Suddenly we see three Palestinian young men spread eagled against the wall, one kicked by a solder, and several soldiers, patting them down. We move closer, hoping our presence may contain the violence, and after what feels like an endless harassment, the young men are set free. Welcome to the daily Hebron patrol and as one delegate said, the mass psychology of fascism.

The most painful part of this tour is the visit to Hisham's friend, Hashem Aza, who not only can not access his house from the main street, but also lives next to one of the most rabid anti-Palestinian settlers. He has been told, "If you want peace, go to Gaza, Egypt, Saudia Arabia," been cursed viciously, and particularly after the severe curfews from 2000-2003, many of his neighbors gave up and left. He states that there is a 90% poverty rate and minimal available employment. We clamber up a rocky hill, through several back yards and back stairs until we reach his home. He points to the stone stairs and garden that once were his backyard, but this has been repeatedly destroyed by his Jewish neighbors who not only have attacked his home and his family, but they have also cut his fruit trees, water and electricity lines. They too throw garbage and once hurled a washing machine that we see rusting amongst the trees. Only recently has he acquired water again and we see a new bright blue pipe snaking through the various backyards. His little boy comes scampering outside chasing a pink ball, watched carefully by his wife. In his home he shares more horrifying personal stories, shows us a series of videos documenting racist, violent attacks against Palestinians, primarily women and children, often by settler women and children, with no response from the police or IDF nearby. A committed nonviolent activist, he and his wife and nephew have been personally attacked, their home repeatedly trashed, his children suffer from bedwetting and other signs of PTSD, and he has unsuccessfully pursued his case in Israeli courts. He is determined to persevere, to document the realities in his beloved city, and bring this to the attention of the international community. We listen stunned and drowning in shame, outrage, and heartbreak.

Our sobering taste of life in Hebron includes other devastating stories and experiences with Israeli guard towers, camouflage netting, checkpoints, a wall spray painted with graffiti that includes a tribute to the Golani brigade, one of the IDFs most aggressively violent units and to Betar, a right wing youth organization. I pass a concrete block obstructing the road, spray painted with an arrow and the words: "This is apartheid." There are occasional Palestinian Authority police, but the consensus is that they are mostly useless.

So what do we do with this shameful reality? While most Israelis do not support these settlers, they receive full support, protection and encouragement from the Israeli government and military, and this has not changed in the past 42 years, no matter who is in power. They have made the lives of the Palestinians in Hebron a living hell, and they have never been held accountable. This does not happen by accident. From the moment Goldstein massacred the Palestinians in the mosque, it was a political decision by the Israeli government to put the Palestinians under curfew and protect the Jewish settlers who now celebrate his murderous actions. While these settlers are clearly the most racist, religiously fanatic, possibly deranged, and fascistic element in Israeli society, they both use and are used by the government as a wedge in the never ending land grab and Judaization of the West Bank.

Given the blather that mostly passes for news about the settler issue in the US and Netanyahu and Leiberman's blatant support for the settlement project and utter disregard for the the welfare of Palestinians, BDS is looking more and more like a reasonable imperative. I take my inspiration from the nonviolent activists who shared their painful reality with us. Such is the impact of a day in Hebron. .

We still have hope

2010-01-12T13:33:00.000-08:00

It is 7 am and I am surrounded by a large, warm, welcoming Hebron family that can't stop feeding me. Foolishly I thought if I got up early enough, I could blog discretely by myself, but this is not the way of the surround-sound/love/talk/prayer/eat that is the norm here.

So, a bit of information about the issue of refugees. (Quick confession: I am learning how to write with the din of human activity all around me and I am beginning to reach toxic levels of hummus which may affect my ability to think clearly.)

On January 11, we visit with Mohammed Jaradet of the BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights. He speaks in a deep, resonant voice and has sparkling olive green eyes that twinkle as he presents. He explains to the delegation that today 2/3 of Palestinians are refugees, mostly from 1948, and some from 1967. The more than seven million displaced Palestinians constitute the world's largest and longest standing case of forced displacement; thus any political solution must include a solution to the refugee crisis as well as other well known issues.

Mohammed has been involved in a variety of technical teams, campaigns, and conferences, beginning with Oslo and moving forward. He notes that in the 5000 pages of the Oslo Accord, only one sentence focused on the question of the refugees. "If you want to kill a tree, you dig up the roots." Thus he sees that one of the primary problems, Palestinian refugees, has repeatedly during the "peace process" been left to be dealt with later or is entirely out of the conversation.

In 1994 a popular campaign was begun and in 1995, the first popular conference was held in the former detention center, Al Faran, where many of the attending Palestinians had previously been imprisoned. 1500 people attended from Israel, the West Bank, and the diaspora, and this conference established the principle that the Palestinian struggles are not really about statehood, but rather about human rights.

In 1998, BADIL, (which means alternative), opened its first office in Bethlehem to focus on:
1. campaigns (education, youth, boycott, divestment, sanctions)

2. development of intellectual resources

3. legal and advisory work.

Mohammed easily admits that he does not care about sovereignty, but rather about human rights and international law, including UN Resolutions. He explains that the right of return, enshrined in UN Resolution 194, states that refugees who wish, have the right to return and/or to compensation. Clearly he has explored the realities of such an option. He explains that return or restitution is a human right. On the other hand, the options to integrate into the host country or to integrate into a new host country are a privilege that is granted by the host country. He understands that most Israelis find this argument crazy and say something to the effect that we have one small country and the Arabs have 22 countries, let the Palestinians go there. He replies that Palestinians have one hope and no state and they have clearly not been welcomed in Lebanon, Egypt, many of the Gulf States, and so forth.

He also notes that Israel is largely vacant. 84% of Jewish Israelis live on 16% of the land defined by 1948. So there are options for return. Palestinians could build new towns at the sites of destroyed villages that are not inhabited; they could live near the sites of their previous homes; they have no desire to destroy what has been built since they left or to create new injustices for the generation born in Israel. And he is ready to be creative. He suggests that the descendants of the town on which Tel Aviv University was built be given free tuition as compensation. His focus is on people rather than institutions, and he notes ironically that states have been built and destroyed over the centuries but the people remain; he has dedicated his life to people, prosperity, and living together equally.

This sentiment leads him directly to the boycott, divestment, sanction (BDS) struggle which is occuring in the context of this conflict. He explains that boycott involves individual consciousness around issues of state aggression and apartheid and the avoidance of products that are produced by the Israeli state. Divestment involves ethical behavior by companies that refuse to profit at the expense of destroying another people. Sanctions occur on a governmental level and he notes that George Mitchell just recently stated something to the effect that the US will freeze grants to Israel if there is not movement on negotiations and the freezing of settlement growth. As the Israeli government is very sensitive to public opinion and very dependent on international support, this kind of talk is extremely threatening and indeed these comments created an uproar. He also refers to the Goldstone Report and remarks that if not for US protection, much of the Israeli leadership could end up accused in International Criminal Courts. I remember hearing that some Israeli leaders are cautious about traveling outside of the country for fear of arrest or international accusations of misdeeds.

The Palestinians themselves are also in crisis with two devastated, fragmented leaderships, neither of which represents the consciousness of their communities, which Mohammed reminds us includes the diaspora. This is a "schizophrenic situation." People say the Palestinians "elected Hamas," but neither the Palestinians in exile nor the 1.5 million in Israel voted. The consensus of election analysts is also that this vote was primarily a revenge against Fatah, rather than a vote for Hamas. Mohammed states that he was on the election committee and when he saw Christians and secular people voting for Hamas, "Part of my hair turned white." Palestinians are proud of their secular democratic society. If there had not been international interference and blockade of Gaza, Mohammed predicts that Hamas would have failed at governance in two to three years as they are primarily a charitable organization for their members rather than a service organization for the whole people. He found himself forced to defend Hamas because they were the peoples' choice (not his) and also notes that Abbas is not the worst of leaders. "Even a genius in this conflict would look stupid because he is weak and has huge pressures from Israel, the US, Europeans, and the quarter of a million employees of the Palestinians Authority who went without salary for two years due to the international boycott.

He notes that civil society organizations are increasing in power and BADIL has "a very argumentative relationship with the Palestinian leadership." They helped change Abbas' mind regarding his dismissal of the Goldstone Report "in 24 hours." He also notes that Hamas is not an authentic Palestinian movement, but
rather a part of the Moslem Brotherhood and accountable to outside pressures.

Mohammed continues to review the conditions on the ground. He states that the Oslo Agreement in 1993 forced Palestinians to cooperate with the Israeli authorities on security, but there was no attention to social affairs, development, etc. The Occupied Territories were divided into Area A (18% of the West Bank, under Palestinian Authority control), Area B (22% of the West Bank, under Palestinian Authority civil control, Israeli military control) and Area C (60% of the West Bank, Israeli control), but functionally the entire area is under Israeli military control and the Israelis reserve the right to invade at any time and the "Palestinians stand like good boys turning their face around. This is a humiliation." In another instance he notes that if their is a business dispute between a Jewish Israeli and a Palestinian, the Israeli court can ask the Palestinian Authority to arrest the Palestinian, but the Jewish businessman can never be arrested by the Palestinian Authority. He also sees that the US only pushes "democratization of the Moslem world" when it suits their political and security interests, but they readily support a repressive leader like the Egyptian President who works closely with Israel, the CIA, and the US military when it comes to the Egyptian/Gaza border at Rafa. He adds that Hamas leadership in Gaza are living well, but the people are paying the price and ultimately, they will not submit to this kind of leadership.

After our discussion, I remember that an old friend, Shawqi Issa, a human rights lawyer who spent time at Harvard several years ago, has an office upstairs. Luckily for me, he welcomes me into his office, and I remember his big picture window with a view of the large Jewish settlement of Gilo covering the horizon. We are soon sipping thick Arabic coffee and talking about his growing children and his latest legal cases. Two things he says are particularly disturbing. First he explains that in 2000 the Palestinian Authority contracted with Israel to provide for all the expenses of Palestinians housed in Israeli prisons. An Israeli company provides goods for the prisoners at exorbitant prices and the PA pays, thus the Israeli authorities are making a profit from the Palestinian prisoners. In addition, if a prisoner makes any mistake (like shouting at a guard) then the prisoner is fined and the PA pays the fine to the tune of millions of shekels per year. The profit made from this arrangement then funds the expenses of the military courts, judges salaries, etc. So the very people who put Palestinians in jail financially benefit from their imprisonment. Shawqi is working to end this corrupted relationship with a number of civil society groups and he feels that if this can be changed, the population of prisoners will drop dramatically. The difficulty is that the PA also provides the prisoner's family with a subsidy, so this is a difficult topic for Palestinian politicians to touch. Shawqi argues that the Israeli authorities should be responsible for the upkeep of their prisoners.

As we move on to other topics, Shawqi mentions that he is working on the Goldstone Report, "great!" and the upcoming presentation for the UN. He then notes something very disturbing. The news in the US has lately been about Netanyahu's willingness to halt settlement growth (except for East Jerusalem and a list of other exceptions), but Shawqi notes a dramatic increase in settlement activity and Palestinian house demolitions in the past two months. His phone rings continuously as we talk, many of them reports of new demolitions or settlement trouble.

He smiles warmly, his hair prematurely greying (surely one of the effects of the occupation I think) and states, "But we still have hope." He notes that BDS is now the most important activity that needs to be developed in order to encourage Israel to change its behavior. He shrugs his shoulders and gestures, "War is stupid, shouting is useless, law is useless, BDS works."

As I head down the seven flights of stairs, my head is spinning and I am trying to imagine, why is this so difficult to discuss in the US? And I realize this all comes down to the Zionist dream which by definition privileges Jews over Palestinians, and thus, by definition does not treat Palestinians as equal human beings with rights and dreams and mistakes and aspirations. It feels to me that it is this first step that is the hardest to take, and the obvious consequence of taking that first step, is the questioning of the concept of a Jewish state which by design can never be truly democratic, is committed to maintaining a Jewish majority at any cost despite demographics to the contrary, and by design will always be in conflict with the indigenous people that paid the price for its existence. Spending hours with Palestinians active in civil society, committed to democracy and human rights, continuing to work against all odds for justice and the implementation of international law is an uplifting and mind-altering experience. I wish I could explain this to my cousins in New York who think Amnesty International is an anti-Semitic organization or to my anxious friends in Israel who think I should be traveling with an armed guard as "these people are dangerous." They are really missing out on some incredible partners for peace.

Take me back to my homeland, even as a rose

2010-01-09T13:14:00.000-08:00

Today in Israel, a center for culture and science, medicine and high tech, religious revival and literature, famous nature reserves and gorgeous beaches, I learned how to step across coils of barbed wire. It is critical to walk cautiously, to place your foot firmly at the intersection of several coils simultaneously to avoid the spring-like action in the wire, or the grip of the rows of sharp knife points, waiting like shark's teeth for a hapless victim. As you move forward, you must lift your foot slowly to avoid catching the back of your leg or ensnaring the person behind you when the coils spring into place. This is not the kind of skill that makes me particularly proud to be a Jew, but I am getting ahead of myself because I neglected to explain that the large curls of wire were placed around a mosque in El Ghabsiya, just south of the Lebanese border in northern Israel.

But why, you ask, does a mosque need to be wrapped in barbed wire?

I have just taken the train from Tel Aviv to Nahariya to meet with two attorneys, Wakeem Wakeem and his brother Salim, their father Elias, and colleagues Dahoud Badr and Suhail Miari. In Wakeem's office just beyond the train station there is a poster with the caption: "Take me back to my homeland, even as a rose." And so the story begins. These men, all Israeli citizens, work with groups including the Arab Association for Human Rights in Nazareth and the Association for Defense of the Rights of Internally Displaced Persons in Israel and I am here to document some of their story.

As we drive through the area, they point out various Jewish towns and cities, such as Shelomi and Shlumit, as well as Palestinian villages that were destroyed in 1948. They point to a crumbling mosque and palm tree, formerly the Arab village of Zeeb. The mosque has been closed since the war, but the local Jewish population uses the land adjacent to the mosque for festivals, parties, alcohol is served, and as one man explains, this feels like a deliberate desecration, "It hurts the feelings."

I am well aware that during war, many ugly events occur, but there is a painful personal reality to the stories that I am told. The older man, Elias, explains that in 1948, the town of Al Bassa contained 3000 people, 2/3 Christian, 1/3 Muslim, and was a famous village and transit point on the border with Lebanon, for people and goods. "In 1948 we thought we can give up to make agreement with the Israelis to enter the village peacefully and we also thought to them, we can give up our weapons." Agreements were made and broken, collaborators misled the villagers, and in May, soldiers attacked, leaving only the northern border open so most of the villagers fled to Lebanon. During further negotiations, Elias reports the Palestinians were told, "We ask the Jewish settlers why you attack us and they said 'We want the land without the people.'" The Palestinians became further victimized in Lebanon and have endured generations of suffering, with the the Christians moving to the Rashidia Refugee camp, the Muslims to the Dbaya Refugee Camp.

Elias tried to return three times because his mother and aunt had fled to Nazaria. "I ask the Israeli authorities when they arrest me [for the third time], will you give me my mother and aunt or give me permission to stay here?" He was granted permission "on humanitarian grounds," married in 1952, moved to nearby Miilyia, and had eight children. We drive to the sight of Al Bassa and I expect to see fragments of ruins and clusters of spiky saber cactus, but the area is completely built up with industry and the local kibbutz has confiscated large tracts of farmland. What is left is a crumbling neglected church, a Christian cemetery, also poorly maintained, family crypts with gaping holes, fragments of bones visible, a mosque surrounded by barbed wire and tall white metal fencing, also in disrepair, and a neglected Moslem cemetery. For years the mosque was not closed and the Jewish Israelis used the building for goats, cows, and sheep. It seems that one sheep has found its way into the grassy area beside the mosque and blankly stares at us as we peek over the fencing. Despite multiple legal and political efforts, the Israeli authorities have forbidden the local residents to maintain or to use any of these facilities. It seems that even the dead cannot escape the consequences of the Nakba.

We are now standing in front of the mosque from the town of El Ghabsiya where I have just had an intimate acquaintance with the perils of barbed wire. Daoud Bader explains that the story of the town of El Ghabsiya is slightly more complicated and has become a symbol of the failure of justice for Palestinians living in Israel. He speaks deliberately with a quiet passion, I am afraid he will start to weep. In 1948, the village had 700 inhabitants and a prominent town leader made an signed agreement with the Haganah that they would cooperate in exchange for a promise not to attack. In May 1948, the Jewish forces entered the village and as the soldiers approached, Daoud Zaini climbed to the roof of the mosque waving a white flag. The Jewish soldiers shot him dead and killed eleven other residents despite the lack of any resistance. The inhabitants fled, not even having time to bury Daoud.

In most cases like this, Palestinians who were expelled from their villages but remained within the borders of the State of Israel were declared "present absentees," a Kafka-esque category that designates villagers as internal refugees, people and their descendants who were driven from their homes in 1948 and thus considered "absent" when the determinations of land ownership were made by the Israeli authorities. Often present absentees who are Israeli citizens live a few miles from their original homes and farm lands which are now state land and made available only for Jews.

Unlike most internally displaced Palestinians, the residents of El Ghabsiya were allowed to return less than 12 months later. In August 1951, Prime Minister Ben Gurion declared the village a closed military zone and the residents were expelled for a second time. For six years the residents fought to return through protests and legal petitions in the Israeli courts. In November 1951 the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the residents had a right to return to their village. As the residents prepared to enter their town, they were met by Israeli military forces who refused to honor the Court ruling. In 1955 and 1956, Israeli bulldozers leveled the town, leaving only the mosque standing. In 1995 former residents of El Ghabsiya began weekly efforts to pray in the long neglected mosque. The Israeli Land Authority responded by sealing the windows and doors, erecting a two meter high barbed wire fence, and finally a metal wall.

Today various parts of the metal sheets lean at odd angles and with a bit of chutpah and caution it is possible to penetrate the barbed wire and enter the ruins of the mosque, crumbling stones, trees growing in the courtyard, the school dark and filled with rubble. Treading along the top wall, we look out on the former village, now lush green trees, and beyond we can see the farmlands claimed by the local kibbutzim.

For me, there are so many upsetting aspects to this fragment of Israeli history, the first being the utter lack of respect for religious institutions and cemeteries that are not Jewish. I can only imagine the international uproar that would occur if I was describing a synagogue or a Jewish cemetery. And then I am constantly appalled by the underlying racism that is such a prominent feature of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians. Lastly, I suspect that Israeli authorities are fearful that if internally displaced refugees are allowed their "right of return" this will open the flood gates to Palestinian refugees everywhere. I am impressed as I talk with these men that while they have moved on, become well educated, well traveled, and lived full and challenging lives, they remain dedicated to their commitment to their right of return. But they are also extremely reasonable and practical.

First they are working to have access and control over their religious institutions and cemeteries, surely this is the mark of a tolerant and democratic society, a standard to which Israelis publicly aspire. Secondly as the land of El Ghabsiya is now forest, they want the right to rebuild their village on land that is not inhabited, seemingly not an unreasonable request. But this is the point where the tortured Israeli land policies, the long history of deception and dispossession, and the inherent contradictions of building a state for Jews when 20% of the population are Palestinians become painfully obvious.

I wonder, perhaps, if this is the place to start a new chapter for these decent and resilient Israeli citizens.

Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions

2010-01-08T13:50:00.001-08:00

Two years ago I stood on corners all over Seattle collecting signatures for I-97, an initiative calling for the city of Seattle to divest from institutions affiliated with the State of Israel. Although I knew that divesting was an important action towards ending the occupation of Palestine, I did not believe that Seattle would even humor the idea. Sure enough I was right. Before our team could even collect the necessary signatures to get I-97 on the ballot, the opposition crushed our case and for logistical reasons, the city ruled that our specific call for divestment was illegal and could not be brought to a vote.

I walked away disheartened but not surprised and other then my own personal boycott of Israeli goods and services, I did not pursue additional actions in the divestment movement.

My perspective has drastically changed after meeting with multiple Israeli and Palestinian organizations all calling for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) of Israel as a crucial means of resisting Israeli occupation and the brutalization of Palestinians.

The call for BDS was formally issued in July 2000, signed by the majority of Palestinian civil society organizations to be applied until Israel:
1) Stops the occupation of the Palestinian territories
2) All people, including Palestinians enjoy equal rights within Israel
3) Israel acknowledges the right of return as stipulated in UN Resolution 194

10 years later, this movement is growing and organizations all over the world have endorsed the Palestinian BDS call. "We should send a clear message [to the Israeli authorities] that there is no more business as usual", argues Ronnie, an Israeli citizen and member of Boycott: Supporting the Israeli BDS Call from Within. For him, "BDS is a no brainer."

The Palestinian call clearly states that this action is not against Israeli people, it is against Israeli policies and the occupation of Palestine. It is about institutional not individual boycott. Of course, argues Yonaton, another Israeli activist in favor of BDS, " we want to stop the Israelis from killing and harassing innocent people, but we don't want to shoot the soldiers." Yohan, a member of Who Profits? shared Yonaton's concern and fear of negatively affecting Israelis; however, the role of occupier is psychologically and socially more destructive and both agree that without a drastic change in Israeli policy, the citizens of Israel will suffer far greater harm.

I return home with a terrible fear that my community will reject the idea of such a movement while Europe, Arab countries, and Israelis definitively demonstrate their support for BDS. How can I help to show my community how destructive this occupation is on Israeli society and the longevity of the State of Israel and all it's people? How can I convince my community of Americans and Jews who fear the word anti-Semite and stand with Israel without question, that their blind support is far more destructive then taking a stand? How do I help them see that it is with our tax dollars that this bloody, illegal occupation is carried out? I must remind them that it was the BDS movement of South Africa that brought an end to apartheid. "Money speaks."

On January 10th, 2010 the Cairo Declaration was issued by citizens from 42 different countries calling for BDS. I add my name to the long list of individuals who support BDS and I accept my responsibility as an American, as a Jew, and as a human being who has witnessed horrible suffering to guide my community to support BDS out of love for all humankind.

Nablus - Alan, 7 January

2010-01-08T12:02:00.000-08:00

We’ve just finished our three-day visit to the Farah Center, the Palestinian Medical Relief Society’s outpatient rehabilitation facility in Nablus. Nablus is the home of Dr. Allam Jarrar, PMRS’ director of rehabilitation for the northern West Bank, and our good friend. He briefed us on our arrival and coordinated our itinerary. Alice, Ellen, and Peter headed off to Tulkarm to work in the PMRS polyclinic there; Jon, Marc, Sonia and I worked at the Farah Center.

This is the only such resource for disabled children in the northern West Bank, and an example of how civil society organizations are working to change Palestinian society. They not only care for the disabled, they advocate for their rights and for their acceptance into the wider society. They are very clear about their mission; they recognize the tendency for Palestinians to isolate the disabled, to ignore their basic human needs, let alone their special needs, and they work to change it. Across town, PMRS operates a training center for Community-Based Rehabilitation (CBR) workers, young women who come from villages around the West Bank for training, then return to their communities where they identify and outreach to the disabled, connect them to services, and advocate for them. The eagerness of the CBR workers and the Farah Center staff to learn is striking. On Tuesday, Jon led a discussion of PTSD at the CBR center with about 20 staff and CBR workers – participation was lively.

Today I presented an overview of child development to the group – this was really fun, as all these women had lots of experience with small children, and some of the concepts were new to them, and with Allam and Haya translating for me, it lasted over three hours.

The Farah Center staff includes physical, occupational, and speech therapists, a psychologist, and a pediatric neurologist. As always, they were warm, welcoming, and appreciative. They had arranged for us to see particularly problematic patients: for me, developmentally disabled children with nutritional problems, and for our mental health group (Jon, Marc, and Sonia) individuals and families with psychosocial issues. I saw a series of children with devastating conditions: severe brain damage from birth anoxia (lack of oxygen); genetic disorders; a four-year-old girl who at 18 months had choked on food while in the care of a babysitter and was left blind, spastic, unresponsive.

There were some unifying themes here: the families I saw were devoted to these children and were spending enormous amounts of time and energy trying to adequately feed and care for them. But all of them were seriously malnourished, and none

of the families knew how much their children needed to support normal growth. Most of them would benefit from a feeding tube placed directly into the stomach; it would allow for adequate nutrition, which would maximize their developmental potential, and would make life much easier for their families. I raised this with each of the families and their responses were varied: some could not bring themselves to consider it, some thought it was a good idea but felt that other family members would reject it; and some welcomed it. A seven-year-old boy, devastated by birth anoxia, had had a gastrostomy tube placed, and his father was quite comfortable with it. He told me that many Palestinian families would be ashamed of such a disabled child and hide them away, but he loved his son and kissed and hugged him throughout the visit. Most of them had serious sleep disturbances and severe constipation. All were seeing doctors outside the Farah Center, but it appeared that they weren’t getting the kind of care they needed, care that could make their lives a little easier. This presents a problem, since the Farah Center is not a primary care facility. I asked each of the parents if they’d like to meet other parents with children who had similar kinds of conditions, and all were positive. One mother told me she already did talk with other mothers while in the waiting room at the Farah Center, and it was very helpful. We discussed this with Allam and the staff; they were planning to begin such groups this year, they all agreed this was an important means of providing psychosocial support, and they were going to include this in their plan for the new year.

En route from Nablus to Tel Aviv, we passed through a checkpoint that in the U.S. would be taken for a toll plaza. Our van was pulled aside and we had our passports examined and our baggage scanned; it might have been an airport but of course there were no planes around. Security men and women in plainclothes were everywhere, toting automatic weapons and shades. This is an example of how Israel is attempting to normalize a very abnormal situation: privatizing their security operation, making it appear like other civilian institutions – toll booths, airport security – tempting the casual observer to overlook the underlying dynamic of repression and control.

If only the Palestinians had a Gandhi

2010-01-07T14:37:00.000-08:00

Alice Rothchild

Part Three

On January 4th, the health and human rights delegation is scheduled to meet with Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, Legislative Council member, former Palestinian Authority Minister of Information, and founder of Palestinian Medical Relief Society. We arrive at the modern PMRS offices in Ramallah, only to be informed that he is attending a rally at the Ofer Prison to call attention to the case of Jamal Juma, Coordinator of the Palestinian grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign. Jamal Juma is a human rights activist from East Jerusalem who was arrested approximately three weeks ago and has yet to be charged. In East Jerusalem Palestinians have Israeli residency cards, but not Israeli citizenship. This was to be his first hearing in the process.

We are told that Israeli authorities have moved Jamal's hearing outside of Jerusalem where a more accountable legal system exists, to a military court in the Ofer prison which we can see through the wire fencing and yellow sliding barrier as a long, ominous, concrete building in the distance. We have heard that conditions at Ofer have been compared to Guantanamo.

Approximately 50 people mill about, chanting in Arabic, waving Palestinian flags and holding a large sign demanding Jamal's release, as well as other anti-wall prisoners. They urge Abbas and Hamas to work for the release of prisoners and ask the prisoners to have patience. Dr. Barghouti adds his voice to the chants and talks with reporters. Two well-dressed men in suits urgently plead with the soldiers to allow their cars entry through the checkpoint that leads to the prison. They are both lawyers. A woman in a hijab and long dress anxiously waits to pass through the gate as well. I wonder if she is a prisoner's mother or wife. We learn that at this point, no charges have been brought against Jamal although documents have been collected in a secret file, and ultimately the hearing is postponed until January 7, (and on January 7 postponed again), a common tactic in these situations.

In the U.S., this demonstration would have been an example of free speech, the right to assembly, the right for peaceful groups to join together to make their voices heard. But this is Israel, "the only democracy in the Middle East," and for Palestinians, much of what is happening this morning is not only immensely frustrating and dangerous but also illegal.

Ala Joradat, the program manager of Adameer, a Palestinian human rights organization that focuses primarily on prisoners, legal aid, and monitoring, meets with our delegation and tries to unravel the complex civil and human rights issues that face Palestinians, particularly those who choose to protest the conditions of the Israeli occupation. He explains that the prisoners are both a product of the conflict and a cause for the conflict. Since 1967, 800,000 Palestinians have experienced detention, representing more than 53% of the population over 18. Because mostly Palestinian males are targeted for arrest, 60-70% of adult males have been to prison. To me this feels somewhat parallel to the disproportionately large number of African-American males currently incarcerated in the US.

I wonder if this reflects a huge number of militants and fighters in the OPT, or are there more subtle political forces at work. Ala explains that arrest and detention are based on military orders that have been in effect since 1967. The military commander issues and cancels orders, heads the civil administration, and assigns the prosecutors, judges, translators, etc, so the entire "justice system" is collegial and the military court is a division of the Israeli Defense Force. Ala emphasizes that military orders are designed to control the population, ranging from what road a Palestinian can use to whether he can dig a well for water. I am stunned at the list of mind boggling potential security offenses which include:

1. reading the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, the Palestinian national poet who gave voice to the anguish of dispossession and exile
2. reading "The Collection of UN Resolutions on the Question of Palestine 1948-1982"
3. associations of parties, factions, charitable societies, NGOs, unions, and student associations. (After Oslo, defacto the PLO and Fatah were legitimized, but in Israeli law they are still listed as "illegal terrorist organizations.")
4. wearing political symbols, including the cartoon character "Handala"
5. carrying a Palestinian flag (which is the flag of the PLO which is technically still an illegal organization)
6. protesting the seizing of your land
7. throwing stones at the separation wall (destruction of state property)
8. throwing stones at a soldier (attempted murder)
9. assisting an injured person at a demonstration, including medical workers, (assisting a terrorist)
and the list goes on.

Functionally what this means is that the IDF can control the lives of people and organizations and use the thousands of potential security offenses in an unpredictable and arbitrary manner. According to Ala, an Israeli soldier, policeman, or even civilian can detain a Palestinian for 8 days without a specific reason, no legal review, and and at the end of this initial period, Palestinians appear before a military judge where they can be released, prosecuted and charged, placed in administrative detention, or most likely sent for interrogation for up to 180 days, with no access to a lawyer for up to 90 days. Ala notes that the interrogation centers are located in police stations or prisons, are controlled by the Shin Bet, and report to the prime minister without external monitoring. Most of the torture that has been well documented by a variety of Israeli and Palestinian organizations occurs in these settings. The methods have changed over the years, but any statements obtained under torture are admissible in court, even if torture is proven. The prisons are also rife with collaborators; if a prisoner denies he has committed any crimes, then other prisoners suspect he is a collaborator. If the prisoner boasts of criminal activities true or false, to prove himself to the other prisoners, this is all reported back to the Israeli authorities and held as evidence without any external investigation.

These are the kinds of cases Adameer has represented for years. Ala further explains that charges are also often so vague, without clear times and places, they are difficult to disprove. He sites an example of a case where three men were accused of shooting an Israeli vehicle north of Ramallah. Two confessed and one did not and Adameer took the case. During the trial, it was revealed that the event occurred in July, 2004. The prisoner stated he was in Jordan for the month of July. This information was brought to the attention of the military judge. Because the Israelis control all the borders, the judge could have easily accessed the security computer systems and determined if this man had left the country in July. Instead, the judge asked the Adameer lawyer to prove that the prisoner was in Jordan. The lawyers then brought evidence of stamps and papers that revealed that the prisoner was telling the truth. The military judge then demanded that the lawyers prove that the stamps were not fake. The man was subsequently found guilty in what sounds to me to be a kangaroo court.

Another dark side to this military justice system is the well documented use of collective punishment, demolition of the homes of prisoners, prohibition of family visitation, isolation of prisoners, and neglecting to provide adequate health care to prisoners. Ala also urgently wants us to understand administrative detention, an unlimited detention that can be renewed for months at the judgement of the military commander. If a military judge deems that a prisoner is a potential threat, his source of information is a secret file that neither the prisoner or the prisoner's lawyer has access to, and there is no limit to how often the administrative detention can be renewed. Ala describes cases where the detention was renewed just as the prisoner was leaving the prison, or even once he got home. What this means is that all people "of suspicion" can be imprisoned without evidence indefinitely. In the past 21 years, one Palestinian man has spent 17 years on and of, in administrative detention, effectively destroying him as well as his family.

The most significant point for me in this legally and ethically disturbing discussion is that the vast majority of people in administrative detention are nonviolent civil society activists. Additionally the IDF has a history of assassinating or imprisoning the more moderate Palestinian leadership.

So what are the implications of this system? Clearly the Israeli authorities are very threatened by nonviolent resistance and a powerfully organized civil society movement. This concept challenges the very idea of the unrelenting Arab threat that is the foundation of the Israeli security industry and foreign policy. Judging from the legal system in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, a tortured and unjust legal system is strangling the leadership as well as the foot soldiers in the nonviolent movements that continue to persevere and sometimes flourish under the most difficult of circumstances. I can only wonder how many Gandhis and Martin Luther Kings, and Mandelas are rotting in Israeli jails today.

Coming Home

2010-01-06T14:41:00.000-08:00

Tonight I sleep in the home of two feisty Israelis. Their water runs hot. Their electricity powers the television, computer, fridge, phones, lights, clock, heat, stereo. There are thick walls and big glass sliding doors that look out onto a green veranda and I can see stars in the clear Yaffa sky. This is one home I have visited today.

Earlier this afternoon I found myself in a different home, a ghost of a home. This house did not have running water or electricity. It's walls were drafty and instead of a ceiling above my head I saw nothing but tops of trees. My guide Mr. A, a resident of the town Al-Lajjun in the north of Israel lead our group into what appeared to be a beautiful wooded area with yellow dandelions and blood red tissue paper poppies studding the florescent green grass. Without my guide I would have stopped to enjoy the fresh smell of the air and the tall trees, removed from the busy highway and congested city of Ramallah, Nablus, Yaffa, but Mr. A painted another picture of this land. "We built a meeting room here. I remember it well because it was beautifully decorated". Prior to 1948, on this site stood the village Al-Lajjun with 480 plots owned by 480 Palestinians. There were schools, a mosque, a cemetery, animals, families, and homes. In 1948, the townspeople of Al-Lajjun were violently driven from their houses and took refuge in the fields surrounding the village with plans to return to their homes as soon as it was safe. They took very little with them, only what they could carry, and they fled. Despite Palestinian legal ownership of the land, Israel has confiscated all 480 plots, bulldozed every single building and used the cemetery as a dump, an action denied by the Jewish Israeli authorities. Megiddo kibbutz was built on the land and the kibbutzim plow and sow the fields. There is a fence around the mosque and no Palestinian Israeli is permitted to enter. Finally, to cover up the scars of this demolished village, the Jewish National Fund has planted hundreds of non-native fast growing evergreens to create a man-made forest that erases the recent history of this farming town.

The residents of Al-Lajjun were granted Israeli citizenship after 1948, and fled to the neighboring city of Um il Fahm. They have been subjected to countless home demolitions (11 in 2009 alone), lack of infrastructure, curfews leading to the subsequent loss of jobs and land, and general harassment by the Jewish Israeli authorities. They have been continually denied the right to return to their land and compensation for the loss of property, despite aggressive court cases. Tonight they do not sleep at home.

This morning I crossed the border between the West Bank and Israel with our fearless and unstoppable Palestinian guide. Mr. M has West Bank residency and travel outside of the Israeli controlled boarders requires a permit which is very difficult to acquire. Mr M's permit was granted the night before our departure; however, the travel dates were wrong making the permit useless.

This morning Mr M pulled a hat over his face, pretended to sleep, and chose a seat in the far corner of the bus. Half of our group left their passports in the trunk. After intense anxiety, we smuggled him across the border. As the Israeli soldier checked my passport and waved us through, I fumed over the ludicrous injustice; me, a tourist moving freely at my whim, my peaceful guide who has committed no crime is restricted from coming and going from his own country, a prisoner in his own home.

Tonight as you drift off to sleep take a moment to appreciate your house and consider those here who are struggling for their right to go home.

If only the Palestinians had a Ghandi

2010-01-06T14:10:00.000-08:00

Alice Rothchild

Part Two

As I continue my journey into the West Bank, I find examples of Palestinian nonviolent resistance in the most unexpected of places. At the Palestinian Heritage Center in Bethlehem, I wander into a lushly decorated traditional living room, floor to ceiling photos and artifacts, a furnished Bedouin tent, a collection of priceless traditional wedding dresses, an exhibition space for old artifacts and a gift shop. Posters attest to the many awards the Center has received for its continuous efforts to revive Palestinian heritage and to promote Palestinian culture., There is even a picture of the Pope wearing a robe embroidered by Bethlehem women.

I find the founder of this center, Maha Saca, juggling customers, visitors, and me with a generous and focused manner. Maha is the kind of glamorous woman wearing beautifully embroidered clothes and jewelry, who just laughs when I ask her how old she is. Finally we sit alone in the decorated living room at the back of the Center and she begins to tell me her story. She was born in Beit Jala just south of Jerusalem, the oldest of six, to a politically active household. Her father, Jires Saleba Rumman, fought the British, the Jordanians, and then the Israelis, "Never with guns. All struggling by culture and heritage, no weapons." Her mother, Elaine, served as the unofficial social worker of Beit Jala, frequently volunteering to care for people in need, especially children. Her family had an elegant house with gardens, Cypress trees, fruit and olive orchards. Some of the olive orchards have more recently been declared part of Jerusalem and are now surrounded by the Jewish settlement of Gilo. Maha can visit her olive trees if she can get a permit, but last year she hired an olive picker who slept in the orchard and awoke with a gun in his face, harassed by an armed settler, and she has not returned to the land this year.

As a young woman, Maha developed a love for her home, "It is part of paradise," she smiles warmly, and was politically outspoken at school demonstrations against the Jordanian occupation before 1967. Her father became a major figure in the PLO, but was expelled from the country in 1967 and moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan. When her father died in 2002, Maha recalls asking for a permit from the Israelis to fly from Ben Gurion Airport in Israel to attend his funeral. She was informed that permits were granted for illness,not funerals. There was no time to arrange a cumbersome exit through the Allenby Bridge and Jordan and she still deeply regrets missing his funeral.

Her siblings left to live with their father and Maha stayed behind with her mother and youngest brother until 1969 when an ambitious young engineer, Nader Saca asked the Rumman family for the hand of the 19 year old Maha. They first met on their wedding day and are happily married today with three grown children.

Maha became interested in researching the traditional Palestinian embroidered dresses as a key to maintaining cultural roots and identity in the face of expulsions, refugee camps, and an extensive diaspora. She explains to me that she found 40 different villages represented at the Deheisha Refugee Camp in Bethlehem and interviewed the older women, documenting their particular dresses and embroidery styles, their pill box shaped hats lined with gold and silver coins, mostly prepared for weddings. "Each dress tells a story." She shows me one hat where much of the gold is replaced by silver; the mother would remove a gold coin every time the family had a financial emergency and replace it with silver.

She is still upset that so many Palestinians sold their treasured dresses, hats, and jewelry to Israelis after the '67 war, out of desperate poverty and a lack of appreciation for the value of their cultural heritage. In 1987 during the First Intifada, Maha opened a Palestinian cultural heritage center in Bethlehem "as part of the struggle." She continued to be politically active in the anti-occupation movement and shows me a scar on her leg where she was shot in a demonstration by an Israeli soldier in 1988. She recounts the protests and the tear gas, "many times, even in the Nativity Church and Manger Square." In 2000 during an Israeli incursion, she remembers being home alone with Israeli F 16s bombing nearby and shattering her windows on impact. She describes the occupation, "I feel myself in jail."

Despite all of these challenges, over the years she has built this cultural museum and shop, continued her research, taught countless women embroidery skills, and employed women in the refugee camps. "This is good work for women, They do it in their house."

We continue the interview in Maha's family home after a tour of the grounds which includes a cold cellar where 100 people hid under the house for 3 days during the 1967 war. She recounts the fear and the terrible conditions, the Israeli loud speakers urging people to flee to Jordan or face death, the stream of poor desperate refugees moving eastward. She remarks forthrightly, "It is better to die in your house than to leave." She has learned the lessons of 1948 well. She keeps picking herbs for me to smell and explaining the various teas and recipes she loves. She stops to smell a white rose bush in full bloom.

Maha Saca laughs easily, her hair is beautifully coiffed and honey blond, and she is feeding me an excessive amount of tasty stuffed grape leaves and zucchinis which I am happily consuming. A Christmas tree twinkles beside the couch and her home is wall-to-wall treasures, mostly Palestinian and Syrian. Despite all the trauma and the losses she has experienced, she is clear, "I don't believe in weapons. You are more strong by speaking than by the bullet...We can be friends with the Jewish people. We are against the occupation. Israel is very lucky to take [over] half of Palestine." She urges Israelis to stop seizing land, destroying houses, and imprisoning the Palestinian people. "If they do not do this, then one day there will be no State of Israel."

Working with the Palestine Medical Relief Society in Tulkarem

2010-01-05T22:58:00.000-08:00

Posted by Peter Sporn

5 January 2010

Today, the second full day with the HaHRP delegation in Palestine, I went to assist in providing medical care to patients at the Palestine Medical Relief Society clinic in Tulkarem. A small city of 60,000 people in the northwestern section of the West Bank, Tulkarem sits at the border with Israel, hemmed in and divided at its western edge by the Israeli Apartheid Wall. The Palestine Medical Relief Society (PMRS) clinic in Tulkarem is located near the city center, above a dress shop, whose manikins in brightly-colored garb line the staircase to the clinic entry. It is a modest facility, run by Dr. Mohammed Shaban, a specialist in chronic diseases (similar to a family physician or internist in the U.S.) and a dedicated, cheerful staff. I was accompanied by another member of our delegation, Dr. Ellen Isaacs, an internist and cardiologist from New York.

After introductions and a brief orientation from Dr. Shaban, he, Ellen and I began seeing patients. We worked as a group, with Dr. Shaban translating to and from Arabic. Together, we saw a whole range of patients, mostly adults and a few children, some well-known to Dr. Shaban, and many new, including patients who had come to the clinic to be checked the “doctors from America.” At least half of the patients who came had respiratory complaints, which suited me fine, since my specialty is pulmonary medicine. Out of about 15 patients we saw, 5 (3 adults and 2 children) had bronchial asthma, which was poorly controlled in all of them. While a variety of factors may have contributed to their difficult-to-control asthma, I learned from one of the patients about a major problem in Tulkarem that adversely affects them all. Mr. O.A. (not his real initials), a 43 year-old journalist who has never smoked (unlike most Palestinian men his age), reported suffering from chronic wheezing and breathlessness, despite being on a combination of medicines that should work well for his asthma. In fact, he had already been prescribed (and was taking) a trio of inhaled medicines nearly identical to those used to treat severe asthma like his in the U.S.

Mr. O.A. explained, however, that he lived downwind of the Gishuri chemical plant, which released chemical pollution into the Tulkarem air that continually exacerbated his condition. He also explained that many people living near the Gishuri plant suffered from respiratory ailments. He told me that the plant had been built by the Israeli company years ago in Palestinian territory at the edge of Tulkarem, after it was determined that it would be too toxic for it to built within Israel. Later, after finished with our patients and being treated to a delicious lunch by the clinic staff, we were taken on a driving tour of Tulkarem by our PMRS driver, Abdul (not his real name). Abdul drove us by his house, which sits just across the road from the Gishuri plant, and from the Apartheid Wall, which runs along the outer perimeter of the factory. When I got out of the van to look at the plant (see picture at right), the foul and irritating chemical smell was strong indeed. While I have no idea what the chemicals were that I smelled, the strong sulfur and organic odors left me with little doubt of their toxic potential for the respiratory system, and likely other body systems as well.

Back at the hotel in the evening, a quick Google search revealed that the Gishuri facility was built in Tulkarem in 1984, after the company was denied a license to build it inside the Green Line in Telmond, Israel because it was considered too dangerous for the environment and human health (according to the Wafa News Agency, cited in a report by the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel; http://www.eappi.org/en/news/ea-reports/r/article/4566/between-a-wall-and-toxic.html). Since the plant began operating in Tulkarem, in addition to sickening the nearby population, it has devastated much surrounding farmland due to the toxic effects of airborne and effluent chemicals on trees and crops, and seriously polluted groundwater. And Gishuri is not the only factory built by Israel in the Tulkarem district that has polluted the area. Other factories include for a solid waste recycling facility and an oxidation plant, both relocated from inside Israel, and a liquid fertilizer facility, all built in the nearby village of Irtah since the late 1980s (PENGON/Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign; http://stopthewall.org/latestnews/819.shtml). Each of these facilities has severely affected health and the environment in the Irtah region.

A little more about our experience at the PMRS clinic. All the patients we saw and their family members were very grateful for our care. And after we finished seeing Mr. O.A., a cameraman suddenly appeared, and Ellen and I were interviewed for the local Tulkarem TV news. I expect that means even more patients will come to the clinic to be seen when we return tomorrow morning. I’m looking forward to it.

If only the Palestinians had a Gandhi

2010-01-05T09:11:00.000-08:00

by Alice Rothchild

Part One

As I travel in the West Bank and see the ravages of the Israeli occupation and the disintegration of much of Palestinian hope as well as a functional political process, a question keeps haunting me. In the US, people who know only about suicide bombers and militant resistance, who only see Hamas violence on CNN and hear Israeli anxiety about the inexplicable rage of "those people," often ask me, "Why don't the Palestinians have a Gandhi? A Martin Luther King? Some civilized leadership committed to nonviolence?" But on the ground, I see a totally different picture that is much more from the grassroots and deeply woven into people's consciousness.

At the Al Rowwad Children's Theater in the Aida Refugee Camp in Bethlehem, the founder Abed Abusour, talks determinedly of "beautiful resistance," of fighting hopelessness and violence with childrens' theater and dance, women's sewing and embroidery groups, classes in aerobics and yoga, computer labs, a study hall and library. The center sits a few blocks from the grotesque separation wall with garbage piled high, skinny cats darting in and out. One entry to the camp is framed by an enormous key with the words in Arabic and English, "NOT FOR SALE." Of the 4000 inhabitants, all descendants from the 1948 expulsion from Palestine, over half are children. There are no playgrounds or green spaces, the UNRWA school is poorly funded with often 40-50 children in a class, a lack of books and supplies, many of the men are unemployed. There are bumpy winding open streets and narrow alleyways, newer housing in pink/orange carved stone with wrought iron gates and graceful balconies, and more austere apartments desperately in need of repair with multiple families and generations living in close quarters. Bullet holes and fractured solar panels attest to earlier Israeli incursions. Al Rowwad has built an open air theater adjacent to the wall. At the base of the platform someone has spray painted a welcome sign to the Pope who recently came to see the children's performance. The Israelis insisted the actual stage be located slightly distant from the wall, as if turning one's head could possibly hide its ugliness and implications.

Abed refers to himself as "a social entrepreneur," working 7 days a week, his desk piled with reports, several computer screens, and cups of tea. When we visit, he is meeting with accountants and bankers trying to plot the upcoming annual budget at a time when funding is scarce and an Ashoka grant has just ended. His business plan feels part hope, part luck, and mostly sheer perseverance. When he speaks, his vision of beautiful resistance is passionate and solid, but the desperation in the camp, his fear of losing another generation of children, and the crisis in funding are clearly weighing on his mind.

Abed's wife, Nahil, a science teacher with an East Jerusalem ID and a second family home in East Jerusalem, is upstairs working with a group of women to create a display of the camp's exquisite traditional embroidery: bags, jackets, small zippered cases with delicate stitchery in reds and blacks, deep blues, greens and yellows, patterns reflecting the Star of Bethlehem. There is a warm camaraderie amongst the women. They are clearly proud of their work. My daughter and I stay with the Abusours in their newly built home about 1 1/2 miles from the camp, which is overcrowded with no room for growing families. Abed refers to the cluster of families in this new neighborhood as "the extraterrestrials, no one wants us." The house was started 8 years ago and is not quite done; a full apartment on each floor, a modern kitchen with attractive cherry cabinets Nahil picked out of a US catalogue and then had built locally. There is heavy, dark upholstered Palestinian furniture and embroidered pillows. The house echoes with the sounds of five boisterous children, 1 1/2 to 9 years old, drawing, laughing, watching TV (Their favorite movie is "Shall We Dance?") fighting, jumping on beds, and taking care of each other. The bathroom has a cup with 5 little toothbrushes and animal stickers on the mirror. The 1 1/2 year old toddles around pointing and chirping, wearing her coat most of the time, which seems to be her security blanket. We are presented with a collection of drawings: butterflies, neat houses with rows of flowers and a bright yellow sun, a boat in the sea surrounded by fish. I note that the children have never actually seen much of these scenes. This is the globalization of TV imagery, the Disneyfication of the childhood imagination, but as the parents remark, better than the drawings a few years ago, of guns and tanks.

Nahil maintains an incredible serenity in this organized chaos, chopping various greens, preparing traditionally spiced chicken and rice with toasted almonds and the ubiquitous olive oil, setting herbs to dry, throwing in yet another load of laundry. She sits for a moment to strategize how we could help to find catalogues to order experimental kits to start a science club at school, "bugs and things, no explosions." Earlier in the day she tried a Flamenco class led by a Japanese volunteer, but she admits she really preferred the yoga class my daughter taught later. "More relaxing, less difficult."

I am unprepared for how healthy and normal this family feels. They have an additional layer of stress beyond their refugee status. Due to Israeli family reunification laws, Abed was unable to obtain a permit to legally live with his wife and growing family in East Jerusalem for six years. His wife and children do not want to lose their precious Jerusalem IDs because it gives them access to better health care, schools, work, and extended family. Abed describes years of harrowing attempts to sneak into the city, beatings, and an occasional arrest. Now the family splits its time between East Jerusalem and Bethlehem but Abed has to travel separately through the Bethlehem Terminal while his wife can take the children through in her car with the yellow Israeli plates. At this point the children still think this is normal.

I can never fully walk in the shoes of the Palestinians who share their stories with me, but it seems obvious that Abed and Nahil, and the invisible people living in the Aida camp must make a powerful committment to nonviolent resistance every day of their lives under incredibly challenging and harsh conditions. CNN, when will this make headlines?

Caution: Vehicles from Both Sides

2010-01-03T10:58:00.001-08:00

Welcome to Israel

For me, a flight to Israel is fraught with an intense mixture of excitement, angst, despair, and a powerful feeling of political solidarity. The Delta flight from New York catches me by surprise with pot-bellied bearded men praying in the aisles, their wives with wigs or tight scarves in a bun, negotiating flocks of children, a large Hassidic black hat stowed in the overhead luggage. Arguments break out between the steward and several passengers, and I feel that strange sense of belligerence and entitlement that has become a caricature of Israelis today.

I struggle for tolerance; slow breathing, two glasses of wine, and massive fatigue finally descend. Eleven hours later the overhead announcements morph into Hebrew. We are entering Israeli airspace and can no longer leave our seats. I wonder if a full bladdar could mean certain death. I feel as though everyone passively accepts that these security measures protect us from the ubiquitous "terrorist threat." I think of my friend who observed that Israeli security is the" best," but it tends to collide with human rights. As I sit passively in my seat, (wondering, am I a threat?), I understand that this double vision is a guiding principle for me.

On the walkway from the airplane, there is a poster of the first Italian (a smiling Mona Lisa), the first Dutchman (a troubled Van Gogh), the first Israeli (a big green Sabra cactus), sharp and prickly on the outside, sweet on the inside. In the dazzling Ben Gurion airport, "Welcome Brightright" flags greet us. Clearly some people are more welcome than others. My daughter and I take the sleak new train to the Hahaganah station where a friendly, slightly agitated Jewish taxi driver tells us he was born in India, his family made Aliyah in 1949. He describes living in a tent for seven years, when the government finally moved his parents and their two sons to a two room house, with no electricity or water for another year. He keeps stressing that life in Israel is very hard; but he is pleased to have produced three children, six grandchildren, with two on the way. We search for a lighter topic and he offers that he loves the Boston Celtics, watches the game in the middle of the night, US time. Offering an friendly response, I say, "I hear Israel has a good football team." He retorts with bitter irony, "Israelis are not good at sports. We are only good at war."

Bridge 4 Peace

The next day we find the bus to Bethlehem across from Damascus Gate in the Old City. The conversation is all Arabic, chattering on cell phones, women in hijabs, breaking off chunks of "kayk," or Jerusalem Bagel, covered in sesame seeds. Young boys offer older women their seats; there is a sense of graciousness as well as resignation as we wait in traffic and take on more passengers. A street sign catches my eye: "Caution: Vehicles from Both Sides." I cannot help but feel the metaphor. Perhaps the next sign should read: "Caution: Collision Ahead."

A sign at the Bethlehem terminal announces: "Pilgrimage to the Holy Land: Bridge 4 Peace." The terminal is an intimidating, ugly affair, with its concrete walks lined by barbed wire and narrow turnstyles. I have a brief interaction with an anonymous young Israeli behind a wall of bullet proof glass, glancing at my US passport. We go down another long narrow corrider lined by barbed wire on one side and the concrete wall on the other, into the arms of the hungry taxi drivers.

On the way to Aida Refugee Camp we keep confronting the eight meter high graffiti convered wall, now made famous through the internet and Youtube. We are clearly now in prison with omninous watch towers breaking the undulating concrete wall. We turn into Aida Camp and the Al Rowwad Childrens Theater. After introductions and settling in, we return to East Jerusalem to celebrate New Years eve with two physician friends and their five week old baby.

This time the Bethlehem terminal has a long line snaking back and forth at the first turnstyle, roughly dressed laborers, elegant women, a variety of head scarves and long robes. After a delay, the light flashes green and one person is allowed through. A certain resigned camarderie develops, a young woman and an older man share the nightmare of being married to a spouse in East Jerusalem, of being unable to get permits to live together or to travel together with their families. The young woman receives a phone call, her children are crying in the car with yellow license plates owned by her husband, waiting for her on the other side. She says, "This life is like heaven on earth, only the opposite." She explains that she runs an arts festival in East Jerusalem and is interested in my daughter who is a dancer. Two men get into a shouting match, one cut into the line, tempers escalate, others shush and implore, patience. The word pressue cooker comes easily to mind as I think of the Palestinian workers lining up at 3 am to get through the checkpoint for their jobs at 8 am in Jerusalem. When my turn comes, I am ready, shoes off; bracelets, earrings, hair clips, coat, scarf, jacket, everything under the x- ray machine. But my body keeps setting off the metal detector. With a mixture of anxiety and frustration, I start removing more: is it my glasses? wedding ring? spare change? The crowd from the other side of the turnstyle are amused but encouraging. The turnstyle will not open for them until I am cleared. Finally I remember my money belt tucked safely under my pants, fling it off, and then I am free. Fifty minutes waiting at one turnstyle on one late afternoon. Welcome to Israeli security.

The Greater Jerusalem Agenda

My friends live in Beit Hanina, a Palestinian neighborhood of 40,000 now part of "Greater Jerusalem," high on a hill with a glorious view. They explain that the Jewish settlement of Ramor, built on the Palestinian village of Beit Iksa, is visible from their balcony as well as Ramallah in the distance and the nearby community of Shu'afat. Shu'afat Camp has many Palestinian refugees expelled from East Jerusalem in 1967 and is a center of poverty, drugs, and criminal activity, often called "The Chicago Camp" after our own Mafia run city. Poverty and occupation have a terrible price.

The post 1967 stretching of Jerusalem boundaries eastward towards Jericho, to create a Greater Jerusalem that blurs the boundaries between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, is a complicated and personal affair. As we drive down the Ramallah/Jerusalem Highway, once a major connector and now a small secondary road, Dr A, a very well respected physician in East Jerusalem, points to a major highway stretching over the road. This highway divides Arab neighborhoods and also is a spot that is easy for Israeli security to create a checkpoint and lock down the entire area, a common occurrence on Jewish holidays he explains. He also comments that here, Jewish youth come to stone the Palestinians. The Jewish and Palestinian neighborhoods are multi-layered politically and historically. We drive through Jewish French Hill, once a well-to-do Palestinian neighborhood, and the new dorms of Hebrew University, all formerly the Arab village of Lifta, pass the Mormon University on the Mount of Olives, and Ammunition Hill where the Arab League built tunnels to fight the Israelis in 1967. This is now a park and Israeli army museum. After a huge municipal police headquarters and then another headquarter for the border guards, it is clear the Israelis are ready to defend their claims here. As we emerge through a tunnel, Dr. A points to a large house in the former neighborhood of Jorat Al Ennab. He explains this was his grandfather's house. It is now an Israeli cinemateque. Each street and home feels like an intimate puzzle piece in the struggle for an Israeli "Unified Jerusalem," or a Palestinian" future capital." Traveling with a Palestinian, each neighborhood breathes with a story of loss, yearning, and defiance.

A Kind of Resistance

I have known Dr. K since she was a medical student at Al Quds University, smart, feisty, ambitious. She began attending Seeds of Peace as a young teenager and is well- versed in the art of dialogue and reconciliation. She did clinical rotations at Columbia University in New York and Harvard University in Boston and obtained a Masters in International Health Managment at Brandeis University in Waltham after a residency in Beirut evaporated in a war. She dreams of becoming an ophthalmologist, but cannot train at Saint Johns Eye Hospital in East Jerusalem because the Israeli Medical Association does not recognize her MD. She tried again to train in Beirut in 2008, only to be defeated by the outright hostility towards Palestinians that she faced in the hospital. Palestinians face a host of barriers in Lebanon, including restrictions against work and owning property.

Her husband, Dr. A, is an accomplished obstetrician-gynecologist, has worked with numerous NGOs, Palestinian governmental hospitals, Israeli hospitals, private clinics, headed ob-gyn departments, trained for five years in England, and had further training in the US. When we talked just before he left Beirut with his wife in 2008, he expressed despair at ever having a family, "We would be raising Bedouins."

Both of these physicians are deeply committed to their work, to the betterment of Palestinian health care and society, and to creating a hopeful life for their five week old daughter. From my vantage point, any hospital would be lucky to have them.

But their dream now is to leave Palestine, to turn their backs on the governmental corruption and cronyism they find rampant in the Palestinian health care system. The checkpoints, the restrictions, the IDF raids, the difficulties over water and electricity, have poisened their hopes and their futures; they are now living in a state of suspended rage and despair. They also cannot tolerate working in the Israeli health care system which feels like one arm of the monster that is destroying their lives. Dr. A admits to "a kind of PTSD. I can't take it any longer." In a few weeks, Dr A leaves for a long awaited interview in Australia.

If successful, he will take his wife and baby thousands of miles away from her close knit family, from the familiarities of language, food, spices music, and cultural expectations. She is already applying for training programs and prerequisite exams. They talk about return in the future with Australian citizenship.

Dr. A gestures emphatically, "You know, this is a kind of resistance." The refusal to be destroyed.

2010 HaHRP Delegation Is In Palestine

2010-01-02T18:02:00.000-08:00

The 2010 HaHRP Delegation is in Palestine. Please follow the delegation on this blog.

Last Day Of Delegation

2008-10-31T01:30:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day of our delegation's travels. Several of us met yesterday at Jeff Halper's home to discuss furthering the partnership between AJJP and ICAHD. We talked about joint education efforts, coordinated campaigns and joint delegation planning. Our delegation has been a great success in terms of connecting with our friends in the West Bank, Gaza and inside the Green Line. On this trip, more of our members learned about the complicated legal, social and economic discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel. After our visit to the large Arab city of Umm Al Fahm, we read a story about the Israeli Supreme Court's decision to allow a march of ultra rightists through the city. THis is a provocative and hostile act intended only to provoke Palestinian citizens.

on the Wall

2008-10-29T09:22:00.000-07:00

Our itISapartheid.org campaign now resides on a bit of the Apartheid Wall between East Jerusalem and Ramallah. Two school-age Palestinian boys were sitting on the curb as I painted it. When I was done, they approached me and one asked, in halting English, whether this was Internet. I said yes, and he asked me to write it down. I did, then asked them if they knew what apartheid was, did they know about South Africa? That black and white people had been kept apart there, it was like in Palestine. I'm not sure that they had the English skills to entirely understand, but they both shook my hand. And I guess later they'll check out the site.

Dr. Hasan Matani

2008-10-28T04:16:00.001-07:00

Jeff and I have had the great pleasure, for the fourth year, of staying with Dr. Hasan Matani at his home in Qalansuwa. Dr. Matani is a board member of Physicians for Human Rights Israel and has regularly participated in PHR's mobile clinics in Palestine for the last 19 years. Dr. Matani is a family physician and active in the Hadash Party, the party in Israel of Arabs and Jews, trying to give voice to Palestinian citizens of Israel. Dr Matani is a leader in his village and brings his warmth and humility to all of his interactions. He is a man of many talents, fluent in Arabic, Hebrew, English, Czech (where he studied medicine) and conversational in Russian and Spanish. His home is a gathering place for local politics and he is close to the leaders of his party on a national level. His 18 year old daugher, Asil, is on the national Youth Committee of the Israeli Communist Party. Last night, Dr. Matani gathered 10 high school students to engage with us in a discussion of local politics, organizing for social change and a quick game of "truth or dare." As is typical of his daily life, as we were having an another amazing dinner at his home last night, he received a call from a father in Gaza whose fourth son has been diagnosed with brain cancer and he was seeking Dr. Matani's help to gain entry into Israel for treatment. Dr. Matani made a flurry of calls to the staff of PHR Israel and has continued his efforts during the day today on the child's behalf.

2008-10-27T09:13:00.000-07:00

I’m sitting at the Ramallah Cultural Palace at the opening of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program’s international conference, Walls vs. Bridges. This is a modern facility with a large auditorium, in which are seated over a hundred internationals, all mental health professionals, physicians, and academics. We’re looking at a projection of the conference platform in Gaza City, with Dr Eyad El-Sarraj at the podium. Some technical problems with the audio hookup are being worked out. I write during these interruptions. So far we have seen several presentations, including video messages from Luisa Morgantini, the Italian vice-president of the European Parliament, and just now from Roselyn Carter (wife of Jimmy C.).

The absurdity of this situation is painful. It would be hard to imagine a group of individuals less threatening to the state of Israel. I was asked by a reporter for Israeli radio yesterday, by phone, if we were a security threat. I replied that, on the contrary, we were the kind of people you would want to have nearby in a crisis. Of course, the people of Gaza have suffered far worse deprivations than the absence of a group of international conference attendees, but it is heartbreaking, in its way, that our colleagues in Gaza have been planning this meeting for a year and looking forward to some direct contact with their counterparts from the outside world, and now they are deprived even of that. We had been planning on getting into Gaza and spending the better part of the week there, seeing the operation of their health facilities under conditions of siege, interviewing clinicians and patients, perhaps seeing some patients with our colleagues, and now that’s all gone. We’re making the best of it, and for sure it is a great opportunity still to meet our counterparts from around the world. Yesterday we – the international participants – held a press conference at an East Jerusalem hotel, which went well albeit the participation of the press was scant. As luck would have it, we were in direct competition with the very first soccer match of the Palestinian team on Palestinian soil, held at a newly-built stadium outside Ramallah. The president of FIFA was here and there was a press frenzy around it. Following our press conference we boarded buses and traveled to the Erez checkpoint into Gaza. I was surprised; when our group had entered Gaza in 2005, this facility was a small low building, you walked in the door, presented your credentials at a desk, sat in a small waiting room. Now it has been replaced with a monstrous stone-and-glass structure resembling the new terminal at Ben Gurion Airport, surrounded by a security fence which prevents any approach but through a locked gate. About 50 or 60 of us internationals, joined by a number of Israeli activists, young and old, and some Palestinian citizens of Israel, marched and chanted, then approached the gate and banged on it with everything we had. We kept it up with a lot of energy. The handful of uniformed, armed police and security people on the other side of the barrier looked at us impassively. No one would come and talk with us. After a while – presumably they tired of listening to our racket – some blue-uniformed police emerged from behind the fence and gently pushed us away from the gate. It also became clear that the handful of Palestinians who were sitting patiently on a bench outside the gate would not be allowed through until we moved away. So we marched some more, then gathered for some impromptu remarks from our ranks. The press was, in fact, there – perhaps a dozen or so photographers and videographers, though I don’t know for whom they were working.

We have had a very good trip so far, but it’s a trip through a landscape of despair. We are all impressed by the number of Palestinians who tell us they are tired, they are hopeless, they want to leave. This outlook seems, to our anecdotal experience, to be increasing. Prior to arriving in Ramallah for the conference, I and others from the health/mental health track of our delegation – especially Jim Deutsch and Mark Etkin, both Canadian psychiatrists – were at the Farah Center in Nablus, which is the Palestinian Medical Relief Committee’s facility for outpatient rehabilitation, mostly for children. We saw a number of patients and families with our Palestinian colleagues; Mark saw several adults disabled by IDF gunshot wounds, Jim worked with families whose children had a variety of disabilities and behavioral problems, and I saw kids with some general pediatric issues and psychosocial and developmental problems as well. This felt very natural to me – much like seeing patients at home. Fortunately, we had a good amount of time with each patient. The first child I saw had life-threatening malnutrition superimposed on developmental delay and brain atrophy. Although the Farah Center is not set up for this kind of medical care, and they have no nutritionists available to them, we developed a refeeding plan based on WHO protocols and the therapists will supervise. We saw several children with developmental disabilities and seizure disorder.

This is 8-year-old Khefaya, who lives with her parents and 3 siblings in Nablus’ Old City. She has a seizure disorder and does poorly in school. Her mother brought her to see us because of her aggressive behavior. She often hits her siblings upon awakening, and “quarrels with everyone, everywhere.” Sometimes she refuses to take her seizure medicines. We spent at least a half hour eliciting her medical and behavioral history, and thought we had heard all the relevant background when Jim asked the therapist who was translating for us to ask her what were her fears: what was she afraid of? She answered, the Israeli (“Yehuda”) soldiers, who have broken into her bedroom at night and sent her screaming into her parents’ room. One one occasion they took her father outside, and she was terrified that they would arrest him, and she would never see him again. She reported a recurring dream: the soldiers are upstairs in their house, and the family runs outside and stands in the rain. We asked her to draw a picture of this dream:

She explained to us that she had drawn the Israeli soldiers at the top, as cats. Why cats? She didn’t say, but we know that Nablus is full of cats, many feral, and that at night they fight and scream. She drew them with no arms, and explained that that was so that they could not carry guns. Below she drew her family – though they appeared to be smiling, she explained that they were afraid, that this was something more like a grimace. Her mother told us that the last invasion of their home was about nine months ago, and that Khefaya is still afraid to go outside at night. Their home has been invaded 20 times in the past four years. Asked why, she replied that “they don’t want anything from us, they are always searching for someone else". Clinicially, this reminds us of a couple of important points. Traumatized patients do not always offer accounts of their trauma until asked - as Dr Ruchama Marton, the psychiatrist co-founder of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel pointed out to me some time ago, such painful experiences may not be held in the forefront of their consciousness, since it is too threatening; and secondly, the conditions of occupation are often inextricably linked to the health, mental health, and public health of the Palestinaian population. Sometimes this is obvious, sometimes not.

Yahoo Canada

2008-10-27T08:45:00.000-07:00

The right place at the right time.

Erez Checkpoint Demonstration 10.26.08

2008-10-26T08:03:00.000-07:00

Demonstration At Erez Checkpoint

2008-10-26T07:55:00.000-07:00

At 2:00 pm today, two busloads of demonstrators, the participants who were denied access to the Gaza Community Health Center Conference in Gaza, arrived at the Erez Checkpoint for a demonstration to protest the Israeli Army's refusal to permit entry to Gaza. The buses brought participants from many countries, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Israel, Great Britain, and the United States. Almost our entire delegation of 15 attended the demonstration. After marching around the Erez parking lot and speaking with press from around the world, we marched to the Erez terminal gate and changed "Let Gaza Live" and "Build Bridges Not Walls" and "Let the Doctors In" and "Let the Gazans Out." After the first half hour, the security forces on duty pushed the demonstration away from the gate and the demonstration took up another area to continue chanting and speaking with the press. We have been told that the story has been running on local Israeli news all afternoon. Pictures to follow. Kudos to Alan Meyers from AJJP, the staff of PHR Israel and the Conference.

AJJP in Jerusalem Post: Gaza Demonstration

2008-10-26T01:06:00.000-07:00

Alan Meyers was successul in getting coverage in today's Jerusalem Post. The link is www.jpost.com.

Qalansawa

2008-10-25T08:44:00.000-07:00

Today, Jeff Klein and I arrived in Qalansawa, a Palestinian village in the Little Triangle just north of Tel Aviv. Qalansawa is one of the Palestinian villages that remained west of the Green Line after 1948. Its citizens are part of the 20% Arab minority population of Israel. The story of Qalansawa is a study of the expropriation of Palestinian property that resulted from the Israeli military victory. While the people of Qalansawa were not driven from their village in 1948, primarily because of the presence of the strong Iraqi military forces, their village lands were greatly diminished by a combination of tactics. As is the case with many Palestinian villages, the people live in the village and their land surrounds the village. When the Israeli military pushed closer, the people were afraid to farm the land and pulled back to their village; using the absurd but effective concept of "present absenteeism", the Israeli government declaredd the farmlands abandoned and immediately moved new Jewish settlers, mostly from Yemen, onto the land. Also, after the armistice was declared, the Israeli government pressured landowners to "sell" their land at very low prices or "traded" smaller plots of land close to the village for the larger tracts outside. The Israeli government convinced the people that they would never be able to return to farm those lands because of the new settlements and the new borders of the Israeli state. The Israeli governement also sent teams of "buyers" to refugee camps in Jordan to get deeds signed for small amounts of cash that the refugee owners desperately needed for survival.

The Farrar Center in Nablus

2008-10-25T08:38:00.000-07:00

For the past few days, the delegation has been visiting the Farrar Center in Nablus, a special child rehabilitation treatment center operated by our partner organization, the Palestinian Medical Relief Committee. Our medical delegation has been seeing and treating patients and our non-medical members have been interviewing families about their struggle to obtain treatment for their children with special needs. The Occupation has caused severe restrictions on access to treatment for these children that is simply heartbreaking. But, the one constant that we have all observed is the extraordinary dedication of the families to caring for their children, made infinitely more challenging by the lack of resources imposed upon Palestinian society by the Occupation.

2008-10-25T08:34:00.000-07:00

Dr. Allam Jarrar

2008-10-23T12:06:00.001-07:00

The entire delegation, the human rights track and the medical track, met together in Nablus tonight with our dear friend Dr. Allam Jarrar of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society. Dr. Jarrar is active in civil society activism and the Palestinian Initiative. Dr. Jarrar provided us with a detailed lecture on the current state of both the resistance to the occupation and internal Palestinian politics. Above all, Dr. Jarrar emphasizes that Israel maintains more control over the daily life of Palestinians than ever. He emphasizes that the combination of the military occupation of the West Bank, the continuing colonization of the West Bank--approaching 500,000 settlers in the West Bank--and a regime of racial discrimination that includes Palestinians living in Israel, paints a bleak picture for any hope of achieving a just resolution to the ongoing conflict. Despite this, he continues to work within the framework of civil society to build support for an infrastrucure of democratic institutions outside of the Palestinian Authority and promote non-violent resistance to the Occupation.

Al Aqaba: A Village Theatened For Demolition

2008-10-23T10:58:00.000-07:00

Today, we traveled north of Nablus to visit the small village of Al Aqaba. Al Aqaba is one of the few Palestinian villages in the West Bank in what is known as "Area C" which means that it is subject to full military and civil control by the Israeli Army. There are only 300 people still living in the village and 35 of the 45 buildings and homes in the village have been issued notices of demolition, meaning that the Israeli military authority can demolish and almost wipe out the town at any moment. We met with the courageous and strategically brilliant Mayor, Sami Sadeq and Rawhia Sadeq, director of the Kindergarten and Women's Sewing Cooperative. Together, they have helped bring in significant international funding to build a working textile factory and a school building, as well as obtaining funds from the Palestinian Authority to build up the village's infrastructure. By creating "facts on the ground" of a living and working village, they are resisting the demolition threat. Paradoxically, the textile factory, is contracting with Israeli companies for the materials that it turns into clothes, the products are shipped back to Israel and a label saying "Made in Israel" appears on the clothing and is sold under an Israeli label. As with everything in Palestine, things are very complicated.

2008-10-21T09:20:00.000-07:00

Bethlehem

2008-10-21T09:11:00.000-07:00

The Human Rights Track spent Monday in Bethlehem. We met first with Sami Awad of the Holy Land Trust, an organization devoted to building a popular movement of non-violent resistance in Palestine. Sami explained that they are comitted to building a new leadership structure by organizing popular committees inside Bethlehem and focusing on defining issues that will enable resistance and that will also empower the local committees. He acknowledged the challenge of buidling the confidence of the grassroots amidst the general sense of desperation in the general population but believes that they must build a new infrastructure to prepare for whatever form the post occupation period brings.

Days 1-2

2008-10-20T21:43:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, Alice and I flew into Amman, Jordan. The airport was much more a third-world scene than Israel's (including the old Ben Gurion airport), and we soon learned that Alice's baggage had not arrived - this was not a problem originating in Amman, but rather at Delta's JFK operation. Alice was assured that the bag would be delivered to our lodging in East Jerusalem the next morning; as yet it hasn't appeared and we've been unable to determine where it is.

So, a bit lighter than planned, we headed for the bridge across the Jordan River and into the West Bank - known in Israel as the Allenby Bridge, and in Jordan as the King Hussein Bridge. A taxi from the airport gets you there in a half hour or so. On the Jordanian side of the river, we had our passports stamped, waited a bit, then boarded a bus to take us to the Israeli side. This took some time, as the passengers included the members of a Dutch cycle club who were biking from Rome to Tel Aviv, and they had to fit their bikes under the bus. When we got to the Israeli side, we got a taste of what West Bank Palestinians experience whenever they leave the country - since they are forbidden to enter Israel to board a flight at Ben Gurion airport, they must travel to Jordan over this bridge and fly from Amman. Thus, our bus was filled mostly with returning Palestinians and a handful of internationals. At the Israeli immigration terminal, the scene was far different than the airport - disorganized, a bit chaotic. Random pieces of our baggage were taken away for inspection and we began an obstacle course with no clues offered as to what we were expected to do. We waited an hour in a passport control line for internationals that only had ten people in it. We finally gave up and went to another window, answered the usual questions several times, and after a total of a half-dozen checks of our passports along the way, we got through and took a cheroot (minivan) to East Jerusalem, where we met up with the rest of our group.

Today, Monday, the medical group (Alice, Ellen, Jim, Mark, me - we're still awaiting Gene and Judy) traveled to Tel Aviv to meet with Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, specifically Miri Weingarten, director of their oPT projects; Hadas Ziv, executive director; and Dani Filc, president of the PHR-Israel board (and a pediatrician and professor of political science at Tel Aviv University). On Friday, the day before we left the U.S., we had been informed by the organizers of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program conference ("Siege and Mental Health", co-sponsored by the World Health Organization) that the GoI (government of Israel) authorities had denied permission for all 150 international participants to enter Gaza. No reason given. This group is largely made up of mental health and other health professionals from all over the world, who are traveling to I/P specifically for this conference, many to present there. There is a site that GCMHP set up in Ramallah for a video-link where people unable to enter Gaza will be able to participate in the conference at long range, so the conference will go on. Why this blockade? Surely a group of psychiatric social workers, psychiatrists, psychologists etc are not a security threat. Our PHR-Israel colleagues felt this was simply a case of the GoI not wanting us international academics to physically see Gaza and meet some of its inhabitants/prisoners. In the 48 hours after we learned this, there has been a flurry of email activity amongst the group of internationals expressing a desire not simply to go quietly to Ramallah, but to do something in response. What has been organized so far will include all of us presenting ourselves at the Erez Crossing into Gaza at noon on Sunday 26 October, the day before the conference is scheduled to begin, and press our case for entry. If nothing else changes in the interim, we will surely be denied, and then we will stage a protest. The GCMHP people are working in concert with Israeli peace organizations to build press interest, and tonight we spent most of our time with our PHR-Israel friends making plans, phone calls, sending emails etc to develop the strategy further. They are going to put out a press release in advance of a press conference, to be held the morning of the protest, which we, the internationals, will hold for the international and Israeli press denouncing this action by the GoI. During the rest of this week we will be contacting our various national embassies/consulates in Israel to demand that our governments support us and advocate with the GoI, and with our governmental representatives at home as well. We are all profoundly distressed at our being denied entry into Gaza, but we are energized by the opportunity to make trouble for the GoI and hopefully blacken their eye a little, if the press cooperates, which our PHR-Israel friends feel is likely. So stay tuned. Personally, I'm happy to get a chance to make some signs.

Tomorrow the medical group heads for the Deheisheh refugee camp outside of Bethlehem, where we will meet with members of the camp's Health Committee, perhaps see some patients, and visit the Maher Center, a volunteer organization that supports families of children with cancer being treated at the only hospital in the oPT that offers this care, and which has developed a relationship with the Cambridge-Bethlehem People-to-People Project.

more to come…

alan meyers

View From the Schmidt House in Jerusalem

2008-10-20T00:10:00.001-07:00

First Day In Jerusalem

2008-10-19T23:57:00.000-07:00

Our delegation arrived in Jerusalem on Sunday night to stay at the Schmidt School For Girls across from the Damascus Gate. We walked over to the Jerusalem Hotel for dinner and a planning meeting. The human rights delegation leaves for Bethlehem and the Dheishah Refugee Camp and the medical delegation leaves for meetings in Tel Aviv with Physicians for Human Rights. Stay tuned for pictures.

HaHRP's 2007 Delegation

2008-10-13T09:33:00.000-07:00

2008 HaHRP Delegation: October 18-November 1

2008-10-13T09:29:00.000-07:00

The 2008 HaHRP delegation will be leaving the United States on October 18 for a two week trip to Israel/Palestine. Please check back with this blog regularly during our trip to read about our experiences and to view pictures of our work.