Blog # 4 June 14, 2014 ICAHD Jerusalem A blurring of boundaries and conscience

Blog # 4  June 14, 2014, ICAHD Jerusalem
A blurring of boundaries and conscience
I have been on a number of tours of Jerusalem with staff from the Israel Committee Against House Demolitions and I never cease to feel this wave of disbelief, shock, and deepening horror. Chaska Katz, a high energy 30 something from a progressive apolitical family, (“my parents were hippies.”) came of age in the small circles of the Israel left, refused to serve in the army, started agitating for animal rights, and ultimately found her way to defending the rights of migrants, refugees, and Palestinians. ICAHD’s focus on fighting Palestinian home demolitions provides her with a concrete nonviolent activity that is often a symbolic resistance, but sometimes produces life changing results. She is fluent in English, Hebrew, and Arabic.
We leave the Old City on Hebron Road towards the Jewish settlement of Talpiot and gather on a lookout in the neighborhood of Jabal al Mukabbir. In stifling heat, to our far left we can see West Jerusalem, characterized by tall high rises, apartments, hotels, 14 huge cranes, swaths of green, parks, gardens; a constantly expanding city pushing its boundaries with massive construction. A Jewish success story! The cranes represent not only high rises, but also an exploding public infrastructure, highways, bridges, tunnels, solid “facts on the ground,” ie THIS BELONGS TO US.
My eye moves east to the Old City with the gleaming gold dome and two adjacent crowded Palestinian villages cascading down the hill, Silwan and Wadi Joz, (dotted with recent Jewish settler homes) and then further east, the scattered grey-white Palestinian houses topped by black water towers, now tending to vertical growth as there are no legal places to spread horizontally. The contrasts are stark: no parks, no green space, no cranes, empty patches of barren dry hills.  Remember, these folks pay the same city taxes as the happy Jews in West Jerusalem with their sidewalks and garbage collection and street lights. More than half of Palestinians in East Jerusalem have no sewerage or water connection and often tap into existing pipes, thus dropping the water pressure. Mekrot, the Israeli water company, refuses to lay more pipe and many Palestinians have no water 2-3 days per week. I see a Palestinian boy biking in small circles on his roof, another swinging back and forth, also on a roof. Those are obviously their play grounds. Because there is no garbage collection, Palestinians burn their garbage, so these little boys are playing in air that is directly polluted by the neglect and racism of Israeli authorities. The numbers are stark. The Jerusalem municipal budget allots 8-10% of its finances to 1/3 of its population.
On a more distant hill is the Mount of Olives and the tower of Augusta Victoria Hospital, a major tertiary care hospital in East Jerusalem, and then to the southeast, the neighborhoods of Abu Dis and Azaria, now separated from Jerusalem by the eight to ten meter high concrete separation wall, cutting through the fabric of life and community and its access to the holy sites and medical care of East Jerusalem.
Further in the distance is the expansive Jewish settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, stretching its borders eastward to Jericho with the hope of ultimately bisecting the West Bank in two.
Intellectually I know all of this, but the visual reality is breath taking. Chaska reviews the history of 1948, 1967, the various displacements of Jews and Palestinians during the wars, and the ultimate annexation of Jerusalem as the “undivided capital of Israel.” (So much for the two state solution, FYI). She explains that for Palestinians to maintain their treasured East Jerusalem ID, they have to constantly prove that East Jerusalem is the center of their life and work and this requirement creates enormous hardship. There was a massive panicked influx of East Jerusalemites living in suburbs like Hizmeh and Abu Dis when the wall was built and they feared getting stuck on the wrong side. Study abroad? Risk losing your ID. Work in Ramallah because there is no work at home? Risk losing your ID. Build a house just across from the wall because your eight children are now married and having children and there is no place to build and permits are impossible? Risk losing your ID.  And the list goes on. I often feel that Israeli authorities are ethnically cleansing East Jerusalem one Palestinian at a time.
 A new piece of information for me is that 60-80 % of the land seized in Jerusalem in 1948 was Palestinian agricultural land. Even more was taken after 1967, so that Palestinians have continuously lost their source of income and employment and have migrated in large numbers into the cities, providing Israel with a source of cheap, easily exploited labor.  (Remember Israeli labor laws do not apply to these folks).  And now (after the intifadas) this exploited labor has returned to the Israeli labor market by the tens of thousands, cleaning the streets, planting the gardens, building the roads and apartments that only displace them further. 
With Oslo in 1993, the rapid growth of Jewish settlements in Palestinian neighborhoods began in earnest and the Judaization of East Jerusalem and its ever expanding boundaries.  I found it helpful to understand that Jerusalem actually has three boundaries:
1. The 1967 Municipal boundary includes East Jerusalem; Palestinians with East Jerusalem IDs must live only in East Jerusalem
2. Greater Jerusalem includes the settlement blocks of Giv’at Ze’ev in the north, Ma’ale Adumim in the east, and Gush Etzion in the south forming a giant Jewish ring around East Jerusalem
3. Metropolitan Jerusalem was approved in 1995 and includes Ramallah (!!!), Bethlehem (!!!) and Beit Shemesh.  This boundary is about zoning, development, and of course, ultimately settlement growth.
The net effect is that Palestinian neighborhoods as well as cities are surrounded and constricted by growing Jewish settlements and thus unable to expand; each settlement brings with it an infrastructure of bypass roads and military bases. Palestinian freedom of movement is even further eroded and the areas of Palestinian life are thus reduced to isolated enclaves. Coming here year after year, I am bearing witness to this crushing reality.
Similar patterns exist within East Jerusalem where the Palestinian population has grown from 66,000 in 1967 to 300,000 in 2013, but only 13% of the land is zoned for residential use and no new Palestinian neighborhoods have been built. This contrasts to the 52% of the land that is Green Zoned, ie for open space, infrastructure, and ultimately Jewish settlements. This is in addition to the 35% of East Jerusalem already zoned for Jewish settlement development. Apartheid anyone?
This is a long and myth shattering tour. We visit the Jewish settlement of Ma’ale Zeiteim, built by the US doctor and casino magnate, Irving Moskowitz.  During the Shalit negotiations, the settlement hosted two large banners: “Kahani was right! Death to the Arabs!” and “One Jew equals 1000 Arabs.” I look at the manicured lawns, the recycling bins, and the lovely baby carriages, the flowers blooming in charming gardens planted in this desert community. And of course the security cameras, the guards, and remember that this is place is actually a bunker overlooking the angry residents of Ras al ‘Amud. There are more settlements like this strategically dotting the hills and gradually the pieces are coming together, the segments of wall are linking up, the massive prison for Judea and Samaria is completed.  Palestinian villages like Beit Iksa and Biddu are trapped in tiny enclaves, surrounded by loops of wall, isolated from their communities.  Some like Anata and Shu’fat have residents with East Jerusalem IDs that just ended up on the wrong side of history. Some now are devoid of any services and basically lawless areas with drugs and arms trafficking and no police force. The bureaucracy of occupation is in full force and it is mean spirited and physically destructive. Meanwhile the permitting system in the West Bank has become more severe, there are increasing physical, social, and emotional barriers, more collaborators drawn from the ranks of the young, the frightened, the desperate.
I peer over the ridge into a deep blue artificial lake built at Ma’ale Adumim and learn of the three olympic size swimming pools and marvel at the series of rotaries graced by thousand year old olive trees uprooted from some ancient village that probably does not have a regular water supply. I remember the poverty stricken Jahalin Bedouin encampments off the highway leading to this paradise in the desert.  I think of the nightmare permitting process for a Palestinian who wants to expand his house and has to prove that it is part of some master plan (there are none), that there is proof of ownership by Israeli standards (never mind the land deed from the Ottoman Empire and the generations of family who have lived there), and then the demolition orders, and the legal maneuvers and the bulldozer in the middle of the night with the fully armed soldiers and the helicopters overhead and the rubble and screaming children, and then of course the fine and the bill for demolition. Half of suicide bombers experienced their homes demolished as children. Trauma, hopelessness, rage anyone?
I wonder: What kind of society have we become?  What kind of people do this to each other, then kiss their children and sleep without nightmares? Do the nice Hadassah ladies, the American tourists having a spiritual moment on the Via Delarosa, the sun burned Birthright teens playing frisbee on a Tel Aviv beach care? What are the ugly consequences of grabbing everything over and over again and then only wanting more?

Blog # 3 East Jerusalem June 13, 2014

June 13, 2014, East Jerusalem

The social and political determinants of health care: ie. Don’t get sick while Palestinian

So this is my current understanding of a fragment of Palestinian health care, (take a deep breath and suspend any concepts you may harbor regarding the right to health):

A Palestinian family calls an ambulance in East Jerusalem, the call goes to the Magen David Adom, (Israeli ambulance service which is by the way, bound by international agreements).  If the MDA determines that this is a “high risk” neighborhood, they demand a police escort and will not enter the area until the police arrive. The (Palestinian) Red Crescent ambulance (they are not allowed to use Palestinian in their title in East Jerusalem and are also tracked by GPS) can also be called directly but that is a different not-so-well known number. If the police do not come, then the Red Crescent is called, but if the situation is determined to be too dangerous, depending on the location, the Palestinian Medical Relief Society ambulance is called. 

But PMRS ambulances are based in Al Bireh on the West Bank and must pass through check points and inspections and cannot reliably enter East Jerusalem. Palestinian ambulance drivers must have permits to drive the ambulance and personal permits to enter East Jerusalem; the permits last six months and they are often given with dates that do not entirely overlap, so there are months when the drivers are unable to work.  Palestinians in need of critical care from the West Bank face huge barriers, often have to walk (OK imagine chest pain, leg fracture, bleeding wound, emaciated and weak from cancer, and walking) across checkpoints or be transferred by gurney between two back-to-back ambulances at a checkpoint. (I have seen this with vegetable produce, it can ruin a shipment of tomatoes, but human beings?) A Palestinian living in East Jerusalem is covered under Israeli insurance which does not pay for the Red Crescent ambulance which is often the only one that is able to come, thus the ailing patient (should he or she survive) is also out 150 shekels for the crime of being sick while Palestinian in a racist society.

Ambulances get to Jewish Israelis in an average of seven minutes.

In the case of a motor vehicle accident in the West Bank, ambulance pick up is determined by the identity of each victim; Magen David transports the Jews (ie settlers), Palestinian Red Crescent transports the Christian and Muslim Palestinians. (The unaffiliated I suppose are clearly out of luck.) But if the doctor determines that the Palestinian needs high level care that is only offered in East Jerusalem, the patient is transported to Kalandia checkpoint where a “humanitarian line” is intermittently open, there are huge traffic jams, and an East Jerusalem ambulance is supposed to meet the patient there for a back-to-back transfer, if appropriate permits are obtained which are ultimately determined by the Shin Bet, the Israeli General Security Services.

These medical decisions are reportedly made by the Israeli health coordinator, Dalia Basa, an Iraqi Jew who speaks some Arabic, has worked in the West Bank since the 1970s, and holds immense power around issues of patient permits. There is another COGAT (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories) which is by the way, under the Ministry of Defense, for the Erez checkpoint in Gaza.  The barriers to obtaining permits also include lack of phone availability, inadequate communication with Israeli hospitals, broken FAX machines, the moods of young Israeli Defense Force soldiers or privately hired security (sometimes referred to as thugs) at checkpoints who are the ultimate arbiters of passage and who sometimes do security checks (even on ambulances and UN cars which is illegal) and sometimes don’t.  I am told that these 18 to 21 year olds with large guns and no medical knowledge decide if a case is medically “severe”: Is there blood? Burns? Is the woman in labor or just “fat”? The sister of a friend, in labor with a real pregnancy, when faced with the obstacles at the checkpoint to Jerusalem, just gave up, turned around, and delivered in Ramallah rather than face the risk of a dangerous checkpoint delivery. 

Forgive me if I sound angry. It is stunning what one can learn just listening to health care providers and administrators chatting over a cup of thick Arabic coffee in an office in East Jerusalem.  There are so many injustices, some imposed by occupation, racism, fear, and some by internal dysfunction.  There is a growing drug problem in East Jerusalem (think poverty, hopelessness, no police protection or functional court system, dealers running out of an Israeli crime network), currently mostly young men on heroin and three small NGOs working on drug rehabilitation. Abu Dis, (a neighborhood of East Jerusalem divided by the separation wall), just developed its first forensic center and one is now just developing in Ramallah, so solving crimes is still a bit of a mystery.

Jerusalemites pay the same taxes as West Jerusalemites and get minimal to no municipal services.  There is not enough garbage collection, rare playgrounds, and until two months ago, Palestinians did not even have addresses! There are now apartment numbers and street names, but they are not the names that people have used for years and everyone has a post office box anyway. In Beit Hanina, a neighborhood in East Jerusalem, the water supply is connected to Ramallah but the sewer is connected to the Israeli system.  Recently residents were hit with a bill for seven years of sewer service charges. The municipality charges an occupancy tax (Arnona) which is based on the size of the houses.  Arab houses tend to be bigger, house large extended families; Jewish Israeli houses tend to be smaller, more urban. As a consequence Arab families have been penalized with greater taxes since 1967.  As one public health worker noted, “This causes hypertension.” I wonder if this qualifies as torture by sheer constant aggravation.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel recently documented the absence of mental health clinics in East Jerusalem, there was also a petition about the inadequate number of post offices in East Jerusalem. These deficiencies do not happen by accident. One woman involved in health advocacy noted, as Jerusalem, (and Israel as well with its expanding ultra-Orthodox population and steady flight of the alienated and disenchanted), grows more traditional, more tribal and family based, both for Jews and Palestinians, patriarchy grows stronger and women pay the price.  There is a “de-modernizing influence,” a constriction of the space in which women can breathe, grow, and explore. When civil law does not adequately protect the population, people turn to social family law. I see so many ramifications to these distressing trends, from the health of the individual to the health of the overall society.

And in case you forgot:

Geneva Convention IV, Article 56

The occupying power has the duty of ensuring and maintaining with the cooperation of national and local authorities, the medical and hospital establishments and services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory… Medical personnel of all categories shall be allowed to carry out their duties.”

International Human Rights Law

“The Right to Health is composed of four essential, inter-related elements (1) Availability; (2) Accessibility, both physical and financial; (3) Acceptability; and (4) Quality. 

CESCR, General Comment No. 14

Where do we begin?

Blog # 2 Disneyfication of the Old City June 12, 2014 part two Jerusalem, Bethlehem

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Blog # 2

June 12, 2014, part two, Jerusalem, Bethlehem,

Disneyfication of the Old CityJune 12, 2014, part two, Jerusalem, Bethlehem,

Disneyfication of the Old City

The sherut drops me in front of the dusty Jerusalem Hotel, a former Arab mansion, where I stop for a bottle of water and a deep breath. A breeze wafts through the grape vines that cover the outdoor restaurant and the smell of sweet tobacco and soft conversation calm my exhausted brain.  The #21 bus to Bethlehem is a few blocks around the corner, through dusty construction and open markets, across from Damascus Gate and the grey/cream walls of the Old City.  A woman helps me with my bag, everyone says “sleecha” (excuse the Hebrew transliteration of excuse me), and young men repeatedly give up their seats for older women. The bus driver stops for a late passenger and opens the door. Folks talk in a low hum and Arabic music pulses from the radio.  Forgive my stereotyping again, but I feel a sense of respectfulness and basic decency towards each person. The lady sitting next to me and my pile of back packs and computer case works as a cook in Jerusalem and commutes from Beit Jala every day. She asks how can she help me (I surmise that I look like someone who needs help) and offers me a candy.  We pass signs for the City of David where a massive highly politicized archeological excavation and park development is underway, designed to prove that the Jews were here first and thus can toss out the several thousand years of subsequent ownership and history.  We pass Silwan and Sheikh Jarrar where there is an active program to dispossess the local Palestinians and turn property over to right wing Jewish settlers.  As the bus fills to standing room only, my new friend points out a tunnel which goes under a no-man’s land she explains between Arab and Jew.  I notice a new somewhat more ominous version of the separation wall, large concrete panels with vertical elements that meet another wall extending out at an angle, clearly constructed to deflect thrown objects or humans attempting to  scale the barrier.

I am met by a friend outside of Deheisha Refugee Camp in Bethlehem where he is working on a three year project titled Builders of Peace, funded by the EU and organized by the Lagee Center in Aida Camp. He is working with 72 college students all over the West Bank and they are now discussing issues of Identity and Memory. He is showing my documentary film, Voices Across the Divide, (www.voicesacrossthedivide.com) which tells the story of the Israel/Palestine conflict through the stories of Palestinians living in the US.  This is complicated on so many levels and I am both humbled and excited. The screening at the camp was met with lively conversations and many questions about the motivations and messages of an American Jew.  I cannot blame them.

  

We head to the village of Al Walaja, a small town northwest of Bethlehem located on the seam zone where there is an active struggle over the separation wall and the continuing loss of land in the shadows of the Jewish settlements of Gilo and Har Gilo.   In a small community center, the eleven students listen politely, I am washed with a sense of amazement and wonder that my documentary, (with Arabic subtitles), carefully designed for US audiences, has made its way to this remote and resilient place; of what use could it possibly be? How will the students feel about a Jewish woman presenting their story? Have they heard their own histories or has that been swallowed in the memories of the traumatized and the Israeli occupation. I am relieved to hear the students are well versed in history; two are upset that I refer to the war in 1948 as a civil war as that implies that the Jewish immigrants have equal claim to the Historic Palestine as have indigenous Palestinians.  They all want to know what is my message? How do I describe Israel?  We talk and talk. I am glad I have come.

I return to East Jerusalem that evening in a car with Israeli plates rented in East Jerusalem by the Palestinian American wife of my friend who is working on the EU project. She also has Israeli citizenship through her father who is an Israeli Palestinian, but spends the summers with his family in the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem. We are stopped at a checkpoint, two white appearing ladies, maybe Jewish who knows? Middle aged. Yellow plates, that’s kosher, and waved through.  I always forget the intensity of ethnic profiling in these parts.

Instead of a quick trip, we are soon stuck in massive amounts of barely crawling traffic; it seems that tonight is part of the festival of lights in Jerusalem.  There are all sorts of gaudy, sparkly, twinkly light sculptures and over the top multi-colored light displays, but I am completely appalled by the light show projected on the magnificent, ancient Damascus gate and the stone walls on each side that surround the Old City, supposedly a hotly contested, ancient, sacred site to the three Abrahamic religions. To the accompaniment of rousing movie score music, the stones are bathed in multicolored displays, covered with Persian (ie Iranian) tapestries, large eyes blink and hands move turrets, curtains sweep open, the walls are striped, plaid, bathed in flames, water, cob webs, ancient figures, and monumental machinery, a massive gyration mish mash of bad Disney movies: Arabian nights meets The Little Mermaid, My Little Pony, and the Lion King.  It is awesome and awful, tacky and tasteless. I am too amazed and sleep deprived to wrap my brain around this, (fanatic Jewish settlers are plotting to blow up Al Aqsa Mosque and build the third temple while a tacky Hollywood display cheapens the entire place? Really?) and head off on the cobbled stones and dark alleys to the Via Delarosa and the Austrian Hospice where a clean bunk bed and a large cross on the wall await me. I fantasize that I am joining a convent and this is only the beginning of a life of simplicity and austerity when sleep finally sweeps me away into the land of official insanity.   

Welcome to Israel, Bien Venue June 12, 2014 Blog # 1

Blog # 1   June 12, 2014

“Welcome to Israel, Bien Venue”

I often encounter some metaphorical weirdness on my flights to Israel and true to form, on my layover in Toronto, my flight leaves from gate E69, but arrows point in opposite directions and the obvious glass doors to the indicated area are locked shut. Alice in Wonderland? Where is the white rabbit when I need him? A helpful info lady explains that that section of the airport is locked until shortly before check in.  Ahhhh. I settle into an anxious, watchful stupor, and once the doors open, I notice that E69 is also cordoned off and that another (mild Canadian style, sweep of the wand across my potentially explosive laden palms) checkpoint is required to entire the now safe-from-terror zone that is the flight to Tel Aviv. 

The passengers are an eclectic group: a number of Christian religious tours, gold crosses draped around necks, tee shirts quoting Isaiah and scripture, a “Walk with the Bible” group, folks on the “Jesus Trail,” lots of prayer and blessings in general conversation, a large unnaturally enthusiastic Taglit Birthright-Israel team complete with name tags and youthful happiness, eager to fall in love with the great Zionist outdoors. Families wearing yarmulkes, kids alternating “Daddy” and “Abba,” tee shirts in Hebrew, a woman in a hijab with five children, a man with thick grey hair reading a Russian newspaper.

Eleven plus hours later, at passport control, the lines are full, hot, sweaty and slow moving. A US family behind me is coming for a wedding. The father is insisting that Israel is an egalitarian society and his determined teenage daughter argues intently that he is indeed wrong.  There is a bank of security devices all made by Hewlett Packard, a US company.  Two little Chinese ladies in big hats chat with another Asian woman on yet another Christian Holy Sites tour. They are inexplicably turned away from passport control and led away to some unnamed place.  I watch my passport official carefully; she takes her job seriously, asks lots of questions and is constantly on the phone.  An ominous sign for me. I review my spiel: nice Jewish lady, loves Israel, meeting friend who speaks Hebrew, plus check out my last name. Rothchild. It  seems to me that almost everyone sweating in the foreign passport queue is on some kind of pilgrimage: looking for Jesus, or for a love of Zion and a tan muscular Israeli soldier to play with in the great outdoors, or for family connections; and then there is me, looking for the contradictions in this booming, high tech, flawed, complicated so-called democracy.

I am trying to resist stereotypes, but as I board the sherut, (the shared taxi to Jerusalem), the bulky probably Russian driver and an elderly Orthodox Jewish woman began what appears to be a pretty intense argument with loud, angry yelling.  She is soon joined by her bearded husband in a long dark coat and yarmulke with wire rimmed glasses, and this noisy argument continues for a good 15 minutes into the drive. What happened to civility and “using inside voices” as I used to tell my children? (My slightly sleep deprived fantasy is that he does not want to sit next to a strange woman and I have already decided to take a moral stand: I will not give up my single seat, but that apparently was not the issue. My paranoia relaxes but the tension in the van is still palpable.)  I can feel this peculiar cultural insanity creeping into my pores. Shortly thereafter the couple begin chatting (loud but friendly) with another older man in a mix of Hebrew and Yiddish. It seems all the personality disorders are now under control.

The heat is thick and there is a haze over the landscape, tall cities cluster like stark giant grey legos, the fields and hills are turning from green to straw-brown. We turn onto highway 443, past Modi’in, acres of Jewish National Fund pine forests, (often covering destroyed Palestinian villages), young Israeli soldiers wait at bus stops, gigantic cranes and concrete cities mushroom everywhere. We are soon on the segment that it is actually in the West Bank (does anyone else on the sherut know this???) The metal fencing begins, Palestinian houses in the distance have black water tanks on their roofs due to the erratic water supply, looming grey Israeli guard towers flash by.  The ancient hills are terraced, bleak and magnificent, rugged, graceful olive trees hug the soil. The separation wall is now concrete, there is more rolling barbed wire. We stop briefly at an Israeli checkpoint and then are waved through. I guessed we passed the ethnic profiling test. I see the ominous grey prison just near the turn off to Ramallah, probably Ofer Prison.  I think of all the Palestinian hunger strikers protesting in Israeli jails.  The walls along the highway are now turning more picturesque, patterned brick designs, (making the occupation pretty?) and then more imposing and concrete as we near the Holy City.

We return to highway #1 and head into Jerusalem and begin a brief tour of the Jewish settlements.  The two older “yellers” are met in Ramat Shlomo by their happy family and four grandchildren, all modestly attired. They leave their Yiddish buddy with a friendly, “Yalla” which is Arabic for “Let’s go.” We are then off to the Jewish settlements of Pisgat Ze’ev and French Hill, a former Arab neighborhood, an older Orthodox man shouts at a car that has stopped in the cross walk, gesturing fitfully.  We pass the refugee camp of Shufat. More opaque walls. I watch with my x ray vision, all the history, the conflict, the players, the demons, are all here in living color, if one only stops to look.  Is anyone looking?

One rock at a time 6-29-13 #19

I am sitting in Ben Gurion Airport watching all the Christian pilgrims leaving the Holy Land.  We are traveling on the Sabbath so we are avoiding the ultra Orthodox Jews and yes, I am doing my own racial profiling, but they look like goyim, have southern accents, are smiling in that unambivalent kind of way, and this is, after all, Israel.  So forgive me. Last night I shredded all my computer files, hid my camera memory card, placed anything from the West Bank at the bottom of my suit case under the dirty underwear, all in preparation for the are you Jewish enough and politically kosher testing that often occurs in the multiple layers of Israeli airport security. As we approach the airport, we are stopped and the taxi trunk is searched.  Our driver explains this always happens when the driver is Palestinian (which is totally determined by the face, the accent, the look in the eyes, since the car has yellow license plates). In the airport, a sincere young man explains to me that someone may have put a bomb in my suitcase, (how about in my brain?) and wants to know if I know anyone in Jordan, but with my nice Jewish face and nice Jewish name, and a few gray hairs, I have no trouble. I spent the last three days in the West Bank working/observing in three Palestinian Medical Relief women’s clinics in Qalqilya, Kufor Lakef, and Tulkarem, where medicine and occupation and the fragmentation of health care all come together. One doctor is a lovely Romanian woman who met her Palestinian husband when they were studying in Romania, another is a Russian with a similar story and the third is a West Banker who studied in Bulgaria, also with her doctor husband.  They all have children and challenging lives.  Tragically the first doctor’s husband was sitting on a balcony last year when it collapsed, leaving him a paraplegic.  The Russian woman, who is seeing all the men, women, and children who show up because the family doctor did not make it, introduces herself and then states, “I am not happy.”  I cannot tell if that is a comment about her impossible day or her impossible life.  I get the sense that the women who came here for love, all got much more than they bargained for, and their perseverance and dedication is impressive.  Last year, many clinicians were not paid for months when the Palestinians were punished for daring to ask for recognition in the UN.  That can be demoralizing as well as financially catastrophic.   “We cannot plan for our futures.” The clinics are all a strange mix of first and third world medicine and the medical problems are like health care issues anywhere with an overlay of occupation and cultural traditions. The scale is prehistoric, obviously not calibrated, and the women are weighed with all their multiple layers.  How accurate can that be? There are many pregnant women and just about everyone pregnant or not pregnant, gets an ultrasound.  The ultrasound machines are all ancient, some covered with grime and gel, the doctors quite skilled but rushed, (no one has a full bladder which is imperative for a quality exam), the indications seem more social than medical. Women frequently present for vaginal issues, refuse a pelvic exam, then get an ultrasound and a script for yeast medication.  This seems somewhat dependent on how the doctor presents the need for an exam, but, from my first world vantage point, this is practicing gynecology without the data for a correct diagnosis. Mostly it feels to me like a waste of resources and a prescription for incorrect diagnoses and repeat visits. I also notice an overuse of antibiotics, a mix of patient expectation and best guessing. On the other hand, since patients pay for testing and for medications, the doctors are making financial decisions in terms of how to give the most care for the least shekels.  So it is complicated at best and I can see that the essentials are covered: pregnant women are taking folic acid and iron, they have prenatal records they bring to each visit wherever that may happen, IUDs are inserted using sterile technique, etc. There are various protocols (women with IUDs are expected to have an ultrasound every six months), and problems related to the upcoming Ramadan, as women do not want to have their menses during Ramadan because they will not be able to fast while bleeding and then have to fast to make up after the holiday.  Progesterone and birth control pills are dispensed freely to bring on early menses or to delay menses according to where women are in their cycles.  A teenager is seen wearing a tee shirt, “Honolulu Wild Surfing is a Way of Life.”  I am sure he has never seen the sea and I want to cry.  A young boy comes in covered with healing chicken pox pustules and then the next patient is a two week old baby.  I jump up and say that we must put a clean drape on the table.  Chicken pox can kill newborns. The clinic has no scale to weigh the newborn, (critical data in terms of adequate weight gain and breast feeding), but the mother is clutching a scrap of paper with the baby’s weight taken two days ago at a Ministry of Health clinic.  Big sigh.  Another woman was seen at a Ministry of Health hospital, was told she had a urinary tract infection and given Xanax, an antianxiety drug rather than an antibiotic.  Another women made the probably arduous trip to a Ministry of Health clinic for a mammogram and was turned away after being told that mammograms are only done on day five of the menstrual cycle! (Really?) There are certainly big issues here with medical standards, quality of care, and coordination. Most women wear colorful hijabs, some with all sorts of decorative sparkles, matching shoes and coats,(there is actually a lot of fashion going on),  a few are covered with a niqab which they flip back on entering the room, some come with mothers or aunts, or an occasional husband.  I study each face, the young often heavily made up and gorgeous, the prematurely older women mostly look tired and weary. One totally covered woman with a sweet, very pale face asks me, “How is America?  Is it comfortable?”  She wants to go live with relatives in Michigan. Exactly what can I tell her? There are tragic stories of long term infertility (very bad in this culture), labs of dubious quality, medications are costly and sometimes just not available.  In the midst of one visit, a slick male drug representative drops in and dumps a pile of free samples on the desk; these will go to the very poor. At the mobile clinic in Kufor Lakef, one of the community based workers is leading a breast feeding support group.  (Yeah!) There are no prenatal classes (that is what mothers and grandmothers are for), no pain relief in labor, and lots of advice from village women, (like taking birth control pills for polycystic ovarian syndrome will cause infertility rather than treat the underlying disease). PMRS has piles of excellent patient education handouts and the doctors do their best given the time available. There are postpartum home visits if women do not live too far from the city.  At the clinic in Tulkarem, we are offered a steady stream of juice, water, tea, coffee, and finally a huge plate of hot manakish, delicious dough that is baked with zetar and cheese, piled in the midst of the charts and medical paraphernalia. In our journeys to these three clinics, most of the checkpoints have hot, bored looking soldiers but we are not stopped.  At Anabta checkpoint at 9 am we see the traffic slowing as we approach the guard tower. The soldiers are setting up “slow down” signs, they are loaded down with all sorts of guns and gear ready for mortal combat amongst all these civilians trying to live their ordinary lives, and mostly we sit and wait for no particular reason.  Maybe because this is a good way to disrupt people trying to get to work?  After 12 minutes, we are waved through without even checking our passports.  I count 52 cars and trucks waiting in the opposite direction.  This is how the IDF maintains total control; because you never know when you will be stopped, turned back, for how long, etc, etc; planning anything is basically a crap shoot.  Our last day with PMRS ends with a discussion and reflection on how to support the Farrah Rehabilitation  Center where my other colleagues have been working for three days with an amazing dedicated staff and devoted parents, and then we go to a “barbeque.”  This involves a bouncing ride to Beit Furiq, a rural village maybe 30 minutes outside of Nablus where the brother of one of the PMRS staff is building a magnificent stone house, all hand carved.  We wander around the unfinished three floors, gasp at the stunning views in all directions, and marvel at the love, skill, and craftsmanship that he is pouring into his future home.  He is an incredibly skilled stone mason. The house has already been spray painted by nearby settlers as part of their “price tag” policy.  They want him to know they are watching; they are offended that he is building on his family property, they may come back, burn his car, trash his house, who knows?  The family remains, undaunted by this threatening behavior. The brother has a zareb, an oven that is a deep pit in the ground where he has created a bed of coals and then lowered down a many layered basket holder, each filled with aromatically flavored chicken, potatoes, carrots, and onions.  They cover this with a concrete top and seal it with dough along the edges.  After 2 ½ hours of baking, this is all opened up and we watch and taste and smell the magnificent meal as it emerges. Then we pile into the cars, shock absorbers challenged, gears grinding, and arrive at another family home where tables are pushed together and the barbequed food is added to an extraordinary array of bread, pickles, and salad and a most amazing Basmati  rice/almond/carrot/corn/onion thing all steamed in chicken broth dish.  (Big wow) The mood is generous and happy, we are repeatedly welcomed and fed and fed some more.  We soon discover there are no plate boundaries and more food than the crowd of guests and family can possibly consume.  Three sisters live here with 18 children and two husbands.  The third husband left for another wife who could provide him with sons.  (Traditional society still hasn’t figured out that the sperm carry the “x” and “y” genes, but I digress.) His first wife is clearly a survivor; she opened a minimart, anchored herself in the bosom of her extended family, and raised her daughters.  Her face is both warm and proud and she looks much older than her 50 years. The men retire to the living room to smoke argila, talk men talk, and the women rearrange the tables and chairs for our coffee klatch and kanafe, a famous Nablus concoction. Children of all ages are constantly in and out, sitting in laps, taking care of each other, sharing candy, crying, laughing, playing.  There is lots of love and physical contact with the little ones.     Back at the airport, there is always a fascinating exhibit of large photos after customs and security, as travelers walk towards the food court.  This year, the exhibit highlights Israeli sports, “A story in pictures.”  There is the tribute to the eleven slain athletes in the Munich Olympics and lofty text about how sports are part of the “national ethos,” part of the Israeli culture of struggle and winning. The images are inspirational and multicultural: women swimmers and weight lifters, girls in hijabs playing football, various wheelchair athletes, coed rowing, but mostly strong, handsome, powerful men doing great athletic feats. This is the message the Israeli tourist authorities want us to leave with: a vibrant, struggling, modern, democratic country that knows how to win and win big. On the other hand, I am thinking about the meaning of resistance: the kind that involves getting up every morning, taking care of your children, picking your olive trees, celebrating every wedding, waiting at checkpoints without losing your mind, refusing to bend.  I think about the Palestinians and Israeli supporters who are stubbornly working on the boycott, divestment, sanction movement, (McDonalds just announced that they will not open shops in the settlements); the students I met in buses and guest houses, studying English literature or communication at Birzeit University, getting their masters degrees, plotting PhDs in London, refusing to be hopeless; the film makers telling the stories over and over again. I think about the women coming for prenatal care, IUDs in, out, creating the next generation that will live on this land, deeply connected to place and history.  This is a powerful stubbornness. I fully understand that the political and societal issues for Palestinians are vexing and complicated. Everyone I talk with speaks of the current political leadership with a mixture of disgust and cynicism and there is definitely a weariness and hopelessness present much of the time, but there is also joy and creativity and determination.   For me, being on the ground, bearing witness, and joining in solidarity work, this refusal to bend is really inspirational.  Today, I notice that I do not have my usual gut gripping airport anxiety, maybe because I have chronicled this struggle each day, hit the cathartic “send” button, using my voice as the most powerful weapon I have.  My traveling partner is wearing a tee shirt she bought that is emblazed with “Free Palestine” and a big graphic of Handala, the symbol of resistance.  She has it on inside out so security will not find it in her suitcase, but she is standing proudly in line and I know it is there.  Another piece of resistance.  I deeply believe that every bit counts; this is about moving mountains one rock at a time; about using these rocks to build bridges rather than walls, about using our American privilege to support the people that are engaged in a struggle that is far more critical to the survival of everyone in this region than the sky diving, archery, and acrobatics highlighted in the image making that bids us goodbye.

Qalqilya: The Ariel Finger 6/25/13 #18

After seeing patients in a PMRS clinic in Qalqilya, a northern West Bank city located against the Green Line, I join Suhad Hashem, an extraordinary, feisty activist, for a “wall tour” of the city, the first city to be completely encircled by the separation wall in 2002.  This is my third tour in nine years and the “prison” has certainly evolved. We pass a shabby UNRWA hospital, and she informs me that the people of Qalqilya were given refugee status even though they were not technically refugees, because they lost so much of their land located on the wrong side of the Green Line in 1948.  They also have the only zoo in Palestine! (All sorts of metaphors spring to mind: the animals in a cage, the zoo keepers also caged; my bet is the animals receive better treatment.)

We walk towards the North Gate through a bustling souk filled with fruits and vegetables. From 2002 to 2005, no permits were given to allow workers to leave the city to work in Israel, a form of collective punishment to the entire population. In 2006, it became possible for workers to leave through this military terminal: metal corridors like cattle chutes, much barbed wire and fencing, a guard tower, then a security building, a total of eight turnstiles, and Israel on the other side.  5,000 laborers from all over the northern West Bank line up at 3 am to get through, every day.  This was all built inside of the West Bank, annexing 12 kilometers of Qalqilya to Israel.  The men must present permits, their bodies are checked and a handprint is taken every time.  Suhad has gone through this gate and found it utterly humiliating.  She reports that usually there are young female soldiers to increase the humiliation for the older Palestinian men.  The laborers are picked up by an Israeli bus, for Arabs only, (think Selma, Alabama), and then are taken to the Tel Aviv industrial areas, or to black market industries, or to sorry no work today.  The workers have no protections from trade unions and there are many stories of terrible abuse, but people are desperate for work, any work. At the Azzun Atma crossing, a different bus also stops at the Israeli settlement of Oranit but the settlers objected to the presence of Arabs on the bus, so the police enter the bus, take all the Palestinians’ IDs, throw them off the bus, and the men are forced to walk a distance to another site where their IDs are returned.  (What century are we living in? Liberal Zionist folks in the Tel Aviv bubble, is this OK with you? Apartheid anyone? )

Suhad reports that 50% of the Palestinian permit requests for access to their own land are rejected by the Israeli authorities, or permits are only given to one family member when it takes the whole family to work the land. Where the wall is a fence, it consists of barbed wire, a military road on each side, a trench and then more barbed wire, again more land seized to create a no man’s land.  Recently the Israelis have allowed Palestinians to farm right up to the wall area, so I see neat rows of crops and plantings now where there used to be rubble.  Before the wall, this was a major greenhouse area, Israelis shopped in Qalqilya, and there was a vigorous agricultural export business. That abruptly ended with the wall and that area is now a parking lot and the garbage strewn souk we are standing in.  Thus wealthy families have been reduced to poverty.  Suhad’s family owns land on the other side of the wall and she remembers the lush lemons and orange groves; it pains her now to buy these in the market because she cannot reach her own trees.

We walk down Western Street, once a vigorous commercial area, now dead, and visit the Asharqa School which has the misfortune of being located adjacent to the wall (the eight meter high, three meters under the ground concrete version).  She tells us stories of Jewish settlers dumping sewerage into the yard of (?another) school adjacent to the wall, and destroying part of the school yard. The children in these situations live with the wall shoved in their faces; they are the first to see the IDF incursions, the first to choke from the tear gas, and they have predictable psychological difficulties.  The Israelis have added electrical fencing on top of the wall and security cameras every few hundred feet. On the other side of the wall, the land in front of the concrete has been filled in and planted with trees so the wall is virtually invisible to those who choose not to see. 

Qalqilya has flooded twice since the wall was constructed and the rain and sewerage mixed together to create an awful soup, so there are now some grated drainage openings at the base of the concrete.  As we walk along the military road, trying to grasp the ugliness and consequences of this imposing prison, there are pools of open sewerage and the foul odor of dormant puddles.

Suhad speaks with a mixture of urgency and outrage.  The big reason for all of this land grabbing, she explains, is that Qalqilya sits upon the largest water aquifer in Palestine, (52% of the water in Palestine), and the Israelis want to control the water sources. (People say that water is more important than oil and gold in these parts). We are looking at the latest graffiti on the towering cement walls.  There is the famous one of a child in a bottle (Qalqilya) and a snarling pig (Ariel Sharon) and a giant hand with keys and chains dangling from the fingers. There is an elegant mansion opposite this site, (after all the olive samplings in the no man’s land), and the house is under demolition orders because it is too close to the wall.  The owner’s child died of a chronic illness because he was unable to get a permit to continue the child’s high level treatments in Israel. The authorities have punished the home owner and he is no longer allowed to be on his roof, (where he is able to look over the wall at the flourishing settlements and bypass road).  Suhad herself lost her 60 year old mother, a vigorous woman who had a heart attack and died when she could not get through the checkpoints to a high level hospital in Ramallah or Nablus.

There are two newer developments she explains with a pile of maps and lots of pointing and squinting into the sun.  The Israelis have built a tunnel from the walled city of Qalqilya to the walled city of Habla that goes under the wall. Life is further complicated for some Palestinians, like the village of Arab Abu Fardad, who live on land in between the loops that encircle the settlements,  keeping the Jewish settlers with full access to Israel and modern bypass roads and totally isolating the Palestinians who are living on “the wrong side”  of the loops of the wall. She then gives a detailed explanation of the bypass roads that have been built to link the settlements deep into the West Bank with Israel, (like the “Ariel finger,” I can only think, so which finger is that???).  These fingers are then linked up so that they extend all the way to the Jordan Valley on the east side of the West Bank, dividing the territory in two. The Palestinians trapped in these fingers of land and roads are under threat of dispossession; then have no water, no schools, cannot bury their dead, are severely restricted in terms of what they can bring to market, etc, etc.  In other words, they are being targeted for silent transfer: making life so unbearable that they are forced to leave in order to survive. Such a nice liberal democracy, this Israeli state.

We are now on the road towards the walled town of Habla which is three kilometers from Qalqilya.  Under international pressure, the Israelis not only built the tunnel, but also a gate that is open three times a day for 30 minutes to 1 ½ hours.  We get there at 5:30 and children, laborers, tractors, are gathering for the ritual of crossing over.  I can see the high rises of Tel Aviv in the distance.  Suhad tells us of a man who tried to cross, but the computer in the security terminal indicated that he was already on the other side (a soldier had failed to enter his data) and he was forced to prove that he was actually on the side that he was actually on.  (How is this different from mass psychosis?) She says if you argue, you lose your permit for one year, so everyone is fairly subdued.  The IDF arrives on the other side in a jeep and one man and two young women, fully armed for combat, get out.  One of the women has long blond hair cascading down her back, flowing out of her menacing helmet. They are laughing and kicking the locks and clearly taking their time while the prisoners on each side wait patiently.  They finally open the gates and tell us we cannot stand in the road (where the photographic opportunities are optimal).  When Suhad asks why not, the woman replies, “Because it’s the rules.”  I look at the size of her gun and decide now is not the time for an argument.  

In the taxi back to the service to Nablus, I ask Suhad where she finds hope.  She speaks eloquently of the power of survival, of refusing to leave, of replanting the crops, rebuilding the homes, educating the children. She also talks about the critical importance of international attention and pressure and the power the boycott movement, which is her other focus of activity.  Clearly, she does not have the privilege of despair.

Nablus Resilience and Resourcefulness 6/24/13 #17

The drive to Nablus is uneventful, unlike the experience of two of our delegates who got stuck in a massive four hour happening at a checkpoint that involved many IDF and tanks and lots of waiting and cigarette smoking and no clear explanations. The Al Yasmeen Hotel, on the edge of the old city, seems to have perked up since our last visit, with many more guests and meetings, although, despite an attentive and friendly staff of attractive young men, and five separate attempts to book our rooms, they managed to screw it up anyway.  Small potatoes in the occupied territories.

I have been looking forward to my day with Dr Khadejeh Jarrar, the head of women’s health care from Palestinian Medical Relief Society.  We are going to three villages with a team from Medical Relief, UNDP (United Nations Development Program), a representative of the Palestinian Authority, and members from the local community councils to discuss how to create a more organized system of health care between three towns that are trying to collaborate.  Since I am always stunned by the disorganization of health care delivery in these parts, the NGOization of different compartments of care, and the consequences to patients living in this disjointed and confusing world, this should be interesting to see in action.

Nablus is a gorgeous old city built on the palm and up the fingers of mountains that hold it like a giant cupping of hands. The traffic is of the chest pain variety, there are billboards for all sorts of international companies (two happy, handsome guys drink Coca Cola, blond women with hair flying sell all sorts of products including sexy wedding dresses to the covered women in the streets), and Israeli military bases dot the hilltops.  There are mountains of pita bread and water melons on every corner and a clear feeling of being watched by the guys above us.

We head to the town of Burin, population 10,000, where part of the mosque is in area B and part in area C so there is a threat that it will be demolished, (this kind of humiliation and downright meanness takes real creativity). We enter the local community health center where the hallway is lined with mostly women who represent the community or work professionally in the clinic, plus the representatives of the previously named organizations.  The Director of the Burin Charitable Association seems to be chairing. The clinic is trying to provide services to the towns of Burin, Madama, and Asira al Qiblia. It seems that there is a lot of physical community support for the center, (painting, curtains, etc) but there are many complaints and conversations of the following types:

1. The doctor comes to the clinic two times per week, which is an inadequate number of days and which results in a stressed out doctor, crowded clinic, short visits, and inadequate care, patients get angry, urgent patients cannot be seen quickly and there is a high level of frustration. The UNDP representative explains that their role is to support marginal communities to get access to care and given the occupation, perhaps they can build on the capacities of PMRS and the Ministry of Health working together. The nurse suggests that many services do not need a physician and that, for instance, the clinic had figured out how to provide vaccinations.  If fact much of primary care that involves monitoring, height, weight, etc can be done by a nurse or midwife.

2. For pregnant women, there is no female doctor, no reliable ultrasound; Burin currently is seeing 35 pregnant patients, but they predict that number should be 75, so women are going elsewhere.

3.  There is a lack of available medications (I think back to my trip last October, when I was told there was no digoxin, a basic cardiac medication, available in the West Bank).  A patient who is on the council tells the story of her epileptic son who was unable to get his (not sure if free or inexpensive) medications from the Ministry of Health, she was told to drive to Nablus, so she just paid for it herself in a local pharmacy.  Another person discusses the lack of insulin to be found in the Ministry of Health pharmacies.  Once a medication arrives, it is distributed to all the Ministry of Health clinics but how does it get to the patients?  The clinic uses a computerized data base and can easily organize home visits and screening.  Another person talks about how time consuming it is to make a referral to the Ministry of Health and wonders if they could have direct computer access to their appointment system.  (I have certainly had many conversations back in the US non-health care system that remind me of this one.)

4. Several complain that there is no ambulance, no public transportation, and private transportation is expensive.  If someone fractures a bone or goes into labor, it is difficult to get all the way to the Ministry of Health hospital in Nablus.  One diabetic, hypertensive man called an ambulance which never came.  He was taken in a private car and died on the way to the hospital. It seems there is little coordination between the Red Crescent and the Ministry of Health. One elderly lady was hit by a settler and injured; the IDF told them she was stable, but the Red Crescent ambulance took her anyway.  Yesterday, a motor vehicle killed two people and injured four on the main road of Nablus.

5.  Then there is the special issue of the nearby Jewish settlements that frequently block access between the villages, burn farms and olive trees, grow wild pigs that get released into the Palestinian farms and cause massive destruction and no one knows how to get rid of them. The biggest complaint is the frequent Israeli settler attacks; the lack of available ambulances, the PA police are paralyzed and afraid to do anything, safe transport is desperately needed. I discover that the clinic does not even have a phone line.  

Everyone agrees that the health committees should empower the local people to demand their rights for quality services and PMRS supports this idea.  On the positive side, the Director of the Charitable society proudly shows off his computerized records for all the activities in the center: the monthly visits monitoring patients with chronic diseases, the educational consults for the kindergarten teachers, the cooking and breakfast programs, the theater that is being built, safety awareness programs, summer camps, the machine that is available for villagers to make honey. The PA representative is from the fire department and talks about the civil protection, safety courses, first aid and CPR courses, the volunteer teams that support the villagers during settler attacks, the training for evacuating the entire village in case of emergency. We visit a room filled with handmade soap, handicrafts and pickled fruits. This is a pretty impressive and well organized village.

Madama, on the other hand, is in crisis.  Their main source of water has been taken over by settlers and they are reduced to carrying water of questionable quality from a well in the town in large plastic buckets by hand or on donkeys.  We meet with the village council and besides the water disaster, contamination from the sewer system, and the prevalent infectious diarrheal diseases, all the complaints are worse.  Although PMRS and the Angelican Hospital both have clinics two days per week, they are on the same two days, there is little coordination between all the players, the Ministry of Health is hopelessly bureaucratic, there is little available medicine, and no capacity for supports such as fire departments and ambulances. The stakeholders at the meeting agree to set up a committee, create an action plan, and learn from the more successful experience in Burin.

Asira al Qiblia is the poorest and most marginalized of the three villages, a small, dusty, crumbling town. It seems that there are no health councils, paved roads, or water.  They suffer from daily settler attacks and attacks on their water system and infrastructure, so the villagers have lots of injuries and a generation of traumatized children. Of the 3,500 villagers, (350 households) approximately 100 families have health insurance.  They buy water at exorbitant prices, (a tank of 3,000 liters for 30 shekels which lasts 5 days.)  The monthly cost of water per family is more than their total monthly incomes and many have sold their cattle because of the lack of water.  In addition there are three nearby stone quarries so there is the issue of dust related respiratory diseases and allergies as well as large trucks loaded with stone.

This is where I tend to shake my head in utter despair, but instead we are all invited to one of the women’s homes for a feast. Palestinian resilience is always a source of inspiration for me.  The living room is filled with stuffed couches and chairs, and decorated with intricately embroidered pillow cases, lamp shades, and scenes of traditional weddings.  We are soon sitting around a long table facing enormous platters of mujadara (some kind of fabulous grain and lentil combo) and thin cigar shaped yalanji (grape leaves) along with the usual labneh (yogurt) flavorful salads, pita, pickled vegetables, water, Sprite, aromatic tea flavored with mint, and small cups of Turkish coffee and a crowd of women all encouraging us to eat more, (sounds of my grandmother).

These village women are warm and tough.  One speaks good English, went to college, and tells us that women in the countryside want to improve their lives and have projects like making honey, growing herbs, and raising sheep.  Many of the women attended university and many of their men are unemployed. In Asira on 1/14/13, 70 women formerly registered an organization called The Palestinian Foundation for Women; they are fixing up a donated house that has no water, electricity, or plumbing facilities, and they are creating a women’s center for training in crafts such as embroidery and knitting as well as how to use more modern methods to make olive oil soap.  She tells me most married women are working, particularly as teachers, and they all giggle and kvell about the new Arab idol from Gaza.  The older woman who cooked the vast quantity of food will not let us leave without doggie bags for the road and will not take no for an answer (like I do not have a refrigerator).  I give her a thank you gift of an olive oil hand cream made in Davis, California by a friend of my daughter’s and she gets out her local version in a plain white bottle but smelling fragrantly of almond and apricot oil which is pretty divine.  Despite the challenges this village is facing, it seems that the self esteem and integrity of the women is solid.  They are not looking for charity; they just want the opportunity to raise their families and live productive, creative lives which seems utterly reasonable.

Just as I am promising myself never to eat again, I discover that tonight’s social activity is a family dinner with one of the main organizers of the Farrar Center in Nablus where many of the delegates are spending their clinical days. A few hours later I am in the arms of another warm and welcoming Palestinian family, four lively children, a stunning view of the sun setting over the Nablus hills as lights start twinkling in the dusk, and of course a tasty dinner of overwhelming proportions.  We laugh and joke into the evening playing a (goofy, fast paced) card game called Uno.  Another resilient family refusing to be silenced in the midst of occupation.