Blog # 26 July 1, 2014 Airport hasbara

Blog # 26 July 1, 2014

Airport hasbara

The talk on the cab radio is all about the murder of the three settler teens, their bodies were found.  I am too disconnected to know the awful details but I recognize the outraged voices and the words Hamas and Philistini over and over. A great sadness and fear settles over me.  I worry about my Palestinian friends and feel for the mothers’ of the dead boys and tremble at what wave of rage Netanyahu will unleash now. I suspect he will use this catastrophe to make a big attempt to destroy Hamas and eliminate the unity government, but that is a private speculation.

The airport feels remarkably normal, as Jonathan Cook noted last week, there are no more security attack lines and I feel less under siege.  One female security guard asks me if I received any gifts in Israel and I brain scan the contents of my bags and decide to say, “Yes.”

“What?”

“Embroidery.”

“Embroidery?”

“You know, handicrafts.”

“Where from?”

“Jerusalem”

“From whom?”

My tired mind freezes, what would be a reasonable answer? Why did I say yes? In that split second, the security officer goes on the offensive.

“You do not know her name?” Is she really accusing me of accepting a gift from a stranger, (something really dangerous like an embroidered wall hanging that says “Welcome to our home.”) or is the tone and aggressiveness just cultural or both.  I come up with a safe and reasonable friend with an Italian name and American citizenship.  My bags are tagged, I check other bags and they have the same tags as me. Either we are all in trouble or we are all okay. I sail through the security check, it fascinates me that liquids, water bottles, and shoes are not a threat here. Does anyone know what they are doing?  A repeating video reassures us that the baggage screening in Ben Gurion Airport is the most modern, high tech in the world so no worries.  We have everything under control. Passport control is a piece of cake, apparently I am not in their system, as it should be.  After all, I have not done anything illegal.

There is always a major photo exhibit on the long ramp into the duty free zone and food court and this year it is on civil aviation.  I study the framing and language, after all, this is Israel’s final chance at hasbara (propaganda messaging) for all the happy tourists going home to spread the word about the miracles of Zionism.

As would be expected, the tone is heroic, nationalistic, and full of struggle and victory: “Hundred years after the first airplane touched the ground of the Promised Land, the Israeli Airports Authority makes revolution in the aviation world….” My quirky brain asks, “Promised Land” for whom exactly? It all started with a French aviator landing on a Tel Aviv Beach in 1913. There are frequent references to “’Eretz Yisrael’” (Israel),” again the actual translation would be the Land of Israel and the real name of the place at that time was inconveniently Palestine.

The makers of the exhibit understand the vast arc of history: “Evolution of the civil aviation in the 1930s didn’t skip the Jewish population in ‘Eretz Yisrael’ (Israel). The Jewish national institutions’ leaders fully understood the economic and security importance of the Jewish aviation for the future of the Jewish population.”  It is interesting that Palestine Airways was started in 1937 in what is referred to as “Lydda (Lod),” an unexpected nod to an Arab city now renamed and transformed. On the other hand, the messaging is clearly reflective of Zionist mythology building, “From its first days, the civil aviation in Israel was interlinked with the Zionist ethos and symbolized the technological progress.” Of note, the early aviation clubs and flight schools in the 1930s were linked to the Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary organization, and to the Irgun, described as ““The national military organization of the land of Israel.”  No mention of who they were fighting and the political assumptions of Jewish exceptionalism and justified violence undergirding the effort, (wrong story).

There are archival photos of the Yemenite “Operation Magic Carpet” in 1949 and the Ethiopian Jews arriving with the “Moses Operation” from 1984 to 1985, flown from refugee camps in Sudan through Belgium to Israel. A document reviews the many clandestine flights from Yemen and Iraq from 1948 to 1952, from the Soviet Union from the 1970s to 1990s, and then the Ethiopians in the 1980s.  The language fascinates me: the references to some mythical Arabic tale or biblical exodus. This was all demographics disguised as rescue from what I can see.  We need more Jews, the Holocaust decimated the preferred type, so now we will take Arabs and Blacks and even not exactly Jewish Russians.  Am I being too cynical?

The archival photos reveal pilots who are all white Ashkenazi men, and then there is the Arab worker with some kind of machine labeled “aerospace industry production worker,” probably Yemenite.  The racial and class differences already apparent if you care to look.

The airplanes were called the “Iron Birds”  and the pilots, “the Knights of the Skies,” again the messaging is all strength and heroism that leads to the establishment of modern Israeli companies, now celebrating 10 years after the construction of this current snazzy terminal, “One of the most modern security inspection systems in the world.” Israel will keep you safe.

Passengers are left with messaging that is full of nostalgia without all the messy details, reflections on past struggles and victories to come. Tell the world the glorious story of Israel as you head towards the glittering Duty Free zone.  There is no occupation, no Apache helicopters in Gaza, no dead settler children, no Palestinian resistance or for that matter, Palestinian anything.  As I said, with my binocular vision, a great sadness and fear settles over me.  Obviously, I didn’t get the message.

Blog # 25 June 30, 2014 part two How do you say shalom in Tigrenya?

Blog # 25 June 30, 2014 part two

How do you say shalom in Tigrenya?

Ran takes me into the Open Clinic for some reality based learning.  The rooms are basic health center with shelves of paper charts and two volunteers engaged with their computers.  The dress is casual shorts and tank tops, the waiting room rows of black plastic chairs.  Today is appointments only with the specialist, so I will not be seeing the usual flood of humanity, the human refuse as Lady Liberty would say.

Ran explains that in Israel, much like the US, if someone presents with a life threatening emergency to a hospital, they must receive care. (Good!) But everything else, including things that are in the long term life threatening, like out of control diabetes, is turned away if the patient has no insurance. (Health care as a privilege not a right.) And of course long term rehabilitation, mental health, medical follow up for chronic disease, is hindered by access, language, poverty, and culture.  Since 1998 the Open Clinic has seen 35,000 patients and many travel from far to be seen. PHR used to serve mostly migrant workers, (after Palestinians from the territories were no longer permitted to work in Israel and employees started importing low level workers from Thailand, the Philippines, and the rest of the Third World.) Now PHR is mostly seeing asylum seekers and these folks are different: their communities are weaker, their leaders are under arrest; they are usually not working and suffer from all the ills of poverty.  They are alive often because they are basically physically resilient young men.  While much of the medications are donated and thus free to the patients, they often need shekels to get home, to eat.  They are a more desperate population than the migrant workers. The clinicians are seeing more diabetes and hypertension, there are 3,000 volunteers, but 800 or so are really active in the organization doing regular clinics. 

The Open Clinic sees 5,000 patients a year, “less patients but bigger problems than before,” and includes general medicine, ob/gyn, pediatrics, and mental health. I sit down with the clinic coordinator, a feisty, dedicated young woman, former engineer, masters in international relations, and now a paid employee.  Her job is to negotiate for the patients, to find the least costly most possible appointments for specialists, labs, hospital procedures, surgery, and cancer therapy.  Working with Assaf, a social care organization, they address medical as well as social issues like homelessness. She also is involved with UNHCR and helps refugees resettle in countries like Sweden, Denmark, or Norway, obtain citizenship, and then medical care for severe chronic illnesses. I try to imagine fleeing something horrific in Sudan, running/hiding/walking across the Sinai, detention in Holot, some terrifying disease in a strange country, and then you end up in a place where everyone is blond, there is no sunlight half the time, winters are really cold, and the language is beyond comprehension.  And you are sick and alone? This is staggering; the coordinator admits to many sleepless nights and desperate phone calls.

She talks about how the clinic is seeing many young patients with kidney failure and diabetes, maybe a consequence of toxic pesticide use, of Africans dying of AIDS in Israel in 2014, “This is ridiculous.” And then in 2010, Sister Azezet who volunteers at the clinic noticed many pregnant women coming in asking for late term abortions, with unusual injuries and trauma.  The Sister interviewed 1,300 women and discovered the rape and torture camps, the human trafficking in the Sinai, and brought this to international attention.  “No one asked, what happened to you?”  This is health care in its broadest social context.

The law in Israel now states that if an employer hires a migrant worker, they have to pay for health insurance. But when the employee gets sick, they get fired, and poof, no insurance.  So the Open Clinic sees many Eritreans (they now have an interpreter), as well as migrant workers from the Philippines, China, and India.  And then there are the folks from Nigeria, the Congo, Ivory Coast, and Guinea who have overstayed their work permits and live in the shadows, at risk for deportation at any time. Add to that a small number of Russians who arrived with the big migration but are not recognized as Jews and thus have no health insurance, (really? Insurance for Jews only?) and the Palestinian women from the territories who married Palestinian men with Israeli citizenship and are unable to obtain legal status.

PHR is doing advocacy work on behalf of the asylum seekers now detained in Holot, they have gone to the Supreme Court applying for release from the center, stressing the illegality of detaining these men. She notes that public opinion is definitely against the refugees who have been defined by Israeli government mind makers as “infiltrators,” PHR is accused of supporting criminals, rapists, and disease carrying Africans, the scary faceless black other. “It is hard to humanize them.”

The first women the coordinator sees today is a 55 year old Pilipino woman who has been in Israel for 11 years, has had no contact with her family during this time, speaks fluent Hebrew, and has recently had surgery for metastatic uterine cancer.  She needs further treatment and the coordinator and I understand that she will most likely die alone and unhappy in Israel.  I look at the pack of Marlboros next to the computer and the jumbo size bottle of Coke; this is burnout kind of work and the coordinator pours her heart into each case. The next patient, an Eritrean woman with a four year old son, also speaks Hebrew fluently, has a mass in her neck, brings lab results, and gets sent off to an ENT doctor. She is followed by an Eritrean man who speaks sort of English, has back pain and is unable to work, now is dizzy.  She asks him to come back tomorrow for the general doctor.  I suggest we check his blood pressure and it is significantly elevated.

I then join the GI specialist; he is a good hearted soul who is more in the classic doctor mode.  He assesses each patient to see if there is anything life threatening or GI and does not sink his time into the vast psychosocial morass that is probably the source of much of the medical complaints.  The first patient surprises me, a friendly well organized with lists and notes African-American woman from Kansas City, Missouri, who made aliyah with her family three years ago and is now living in Ashkelon, awaiting citizenship and health insurance.  She has multiple medical problems including a life threatening liver disease and her granddaughter whose name is Aliyah is having her Bat Mitzvah in a week.  “Can I drink wine for the blessing?”  I would love to know the rest of her story!

She is followed by a series of Sudanese and Eritrean men with various levels of disease, lots of stress, experiences in the Holot detention camp, working or out of work, worrying about deportation, “I am not guilty, why keep me there?” Some speak Hebrew or a variant of English or Tigrenya.  They are all thin, frightened, obviously depressed and sometimes angry; their eyes give them away.  They are trying to negotiate a system that they do not understand, a language they do not speak, and a country that wants them to go away.  The doctor does the best he can given the limited resources, the lack of communication between institutions, the need to beg and borrow to get medications, testing, results. No one is happy and I am haunted by the pained expressions and sorrow framing these difficult interactions.  They say a society is only as strong as its weakest link and this link is clearly broken.

Blog # 24 June 23, 2014 part two Water and salt

Blog # 24 June 23, 2014 part two

Water and salt

We meet with Randa Wahbe, the dedicated and articulate advocacy officer at Adameer, on the 61st day of the longest hunger strike by administrative detainees in Israeli jails.  The strike is a political strike, ie. not for improved prison conditions, but for ending the Israeli policy of detaining people without charges or adequate access to a lawyer, sometimes for years, six years or more is not uncommon.  At the time of our meeting, there had been no negotiations, but as I write this a week later, the strike has ended, some secret deal has been met, and there is mostly speculation: What was decided? Did the hunger strikers feel that this was not the right time when the public is obsessed by the three missing settlers and the World Cup and Ramadan? Who knows?

Whatever the outcome, prisoner issues are central to Palestinian liberation; 800,000 Palestinians have been arrested since 1967, 40% of the male population. Thousands of Palestinians are held in this limbo land of administrative detention. The striking prisoners are put into isolation, cannot go outside or have family visits, (they often do not see their families because of permitting and travel issues anyway).  The prisoners receive monetary fines taken from their canteen account. Sometimes they have limited to or no access to lawyers or they are transferred around to different prison hospitals so the lawyer cannot locate them.  At the time of our visit, there were at least 130 hunger strikers, the movement was growing and may have reached 300.  The hunger strikers are beaten, denied medical care, and are only treated by prison doctors, (who clearly have lost their ethical compass), who are known to be abusive, dangle food or force feeding tubes in their faces.  Prisoners are shackled 12 hours per day and as you can imagine, the conditions are pretty horrific.

The prisoners were drinking water and salt for 14 days; Randa reports the Israeli authorities then denied them salt, some may be taking some unknown supplements that “barely keep them alive.  As an organization we are very concerned because of the lack of negotiation between the Israeli prison service and the prisoners, will there by martyrs?” A lot of administrative detainees are older than 60 and not striking, but other prisoners are striking in sympathy.  There appears to be a trend to arrest Palestinians shortly after their 18th birthday as they can be tried as adults. The youngest hunger striker was arrested five days after his 18th birthday, “He is still a child, but he has been in prison for two years.” There have been over 400 arrests since the 12th of June, 77 are in administrative detention.

And then there is the heart breaking issue of child arrests.  Although Israel technically changed its policy and has child courts, Randa reports that children are treated like adults. They are often arrested between midnight and five am, families don’t know where they are going.  They are interrogated without a lawyer, not allowed to see their families.   The military court judge is the same as for adults and Randa explains that the children are routinely tortured by their interrogators.  This is mostly psychological torture, threats that they will be killed, sexually abused; they are put into solitary confinement, have florescent lights on 24 hours per day, placed in stress positions, and beaten.  The forced confessions are then used to arrest adults in the community. So imagine you are an 18 year old boy, you have seen your father and grandfather humiliated at checkpoints, you have watched settlers steal your land and water, and very possibly, you have thrown stones at a passing Israeli jeep that has arrived to make your life a living hell.  And then you crack in prison and are responsible for your own brother’s arrest. Many children never return to school, develop bed wetting and behavioral problems.  With these brutal policies we are witnessing the slow destruction of Palestinian society and the creation of environments that will create more angry, hopeless, militant men seeking revenge. In Silwan, there is a 14 year old who has been arrested six times, mostly for throwing stones according to IDF soldiers or settlers. So why are we doing this Mr. Netanyahu? Palestinian parents pay fines to release their children and last year, Palestinians paid 13 million shekels into the Israeli military court, in a bizarre sense, financing their own imprisonment. And did I mention that prisons are increasingly privatized, sort of like the US?

In general, Randa explains, administrative detention under universal law is allowed if an individual is threatening the security of state.  This should be used rarely.  But in Israel, the military claims the Shin Bet has “secret files” that show that this person is a threat to the state.  “This is used arbitrarily, there are obviously no files. Let’s look at who gets arrested: prominent activists, academics, regular folks. Recently a political scientist was released, after 2 ½ years without any charges.  He has no idea why he was arrested this time, [suffice it to say that] he is an academic who writes about resistance, attends demonstrations, and has been in and out of prison for years. One of the hunger strikers is a prominent community member, part of an agricultural union who promotes farmers rights; he has been in and out of administrative detention for years and was rearrested in February.”

At the time of our visit, a bill to allow forced feeding was to be voted on in the Israeli Knesset, although forced feeding is regarded as a form of torture, people have died during the procedure, and it is used to break the strikers.  Even the Israeli Medical Association is against it.  The bill did not pass, but today (June 30, 2014) the Knesset is voting on another bill that would permit doctors to do forced feeding without risk of punishment. Netanyahu has framed this as an issue of internal security: forced feeding is for the safety of Israeli citizens, because if a prisoner dies, “it will threaten security of Israelis in Judea and Samaria.” And then they play with words, artificial (not forced) feeding, moderate restraints (rather than the full shackling that is used), etc etc. The doctor has to recommend forced feeding “for the benefit of the prisoner,” this is signed off by a district court which gives the whole process the air of legality.

In the last month there have been other worrisome bills: one is to deny amnesty to prisoners who are released in exchanges, (Israel has released 70 prisoners arrested before Oslo in 1993); this perpetuates the definition of prisoner as automatic permanent terrorist. Pro-prisoner demonstrations were suppressed by the Palestinian Authority and the IDF, especially in Hebron where there was a demonstration by mothers of prisoners.  Since June 12th five Palestinians have been killed and in addition to the 400 arrested, there have been 800 house incursions, lots of injuries and road closures.  The Palestinian Authority has security coordination with Israel which is facilitating the siege on Hebron.  Two nights ago in Ramallah, Palestinian Authority officers shot demonstrators storming police station.  Currently this is the largest military operation since the Second Intifada, and for me, the strangeness is that it is largely happening under cover of darkness.  By the time the sun comes up, most of the Israeli forces are out of the villages and homes and universities and everything looks deceptively normal unless you live in Hebron.  The world community may not even notice, there are no tanks and no phosphorus bombs to catch anyone’s attention.
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Randa talks about a host of other human rights concerns and the picture is grim.  Children born to mothers in prison are kept in prison for two years with no extra space, food, or medical care, they are basically born with a prison record.  Pregnant Palestinian women who are arrested get no prenatal care, no special food, etc, and give birth shackled. The prisons are dirty, prisoners have to purchase their needs from a canteen, there are often no family visits; it is an utterly dehumanizing climate.  There is a case now that won’t allow a granddaughter to visit her grandfather, the courts say they have to prove their relation to each other or mothers are asked to prove their relationship to their children in prison.

When people are released, there is some support from the ministry of prisoner affairs, dedicated to legal aid, financial and medical assistance, but not much resources available for rehabilitation.  The prison experience is so normalized within the community, there is lots of community support, but not much treatment for PTSD, (posttraumatic stress disorder) which just about everyone has. Interestingly, there is no housing or employment discrimination, the community views these as largely political arrests.

If arrested, there is a higher rate of re-arrest, the IDF targets former prisoners which basically destroys their lives.  There are students who have been attending Birzeit University for eight years because they are repeatedly arrested around exam times and their education just drags on, or students arrested during the final year of high school so they cannot take the exams critical for university admission.

So why do people get arrested? For starters, there are 1,600 military orders that govern life under occupation.  (Yes Virginia, there is an occupation, the place is not administered or liberated or whatever euphemism you may hear.) Organizations like student unions and all political organizations are illegal including technically the Palestinian Authority.  This gives the IDF very broad discretionary powers. People get arrested because they are activists like those in Stop the Wall or because they do volunteer work to empower youth.  Basically the charges are used to suppress Palestinian resistance in all forms.  Randa notes that there have been three arrests of Addameer colleagues in the past year, charged with giving legal advice to youth about interrogation, which is after all part of their job description.  “We are all in jeopardy… Going to a demonstration today we could be charged, this is the climate.”

Randa was studying at a US university and was involved in their Students for Justice in Palestine. She moved to Jordan to learn Arabic, came for a conference, Adameer had an opening and she took the job.  While her family in still in California (and it is often hard for Palestinians to get a visa), she believes that it is important for Palestinians to come back and to do the challenging work of ending the occupation and its immense hardships.

You can read the Addameer website for further depressing details about the realities of military occupation.  Think about how Palestinians are portrayed in our media (the boy with the sling shot, why exactly is he throwing that rock and why not portray university students arrested during exams?  Doesn’t fit the stereotype?) Think about the meaning of resistance and the unchecked power of an occupying force.  And the next time you pay your taxes, think about our US military industrial complex that provides the weaponry and machinery that makes this military power possible.

Bog # 23 June 30, 2014 Zionist doctors and Jewish values

Blog # 23  June 30, 2014

Zionist doctors and Jewish values

It is probably not a good idea to write a blog after two glasses of wine, particularly after three weeks of abstinence (except for that lovely Taybeh Beer), but sometimes drastic measures are needed.  I have checked into a funky old hostel in Jaffa that was clearly a Palestinian home before everything happened and I am sitting in a café watching the flow of beautiful people: the hipsters and the yuppies and the old-lumpy-young-at-heart like me.  The sidewalk restaurant spilling into the street feels like a cross between Soho and San Francisco; gentrification on steroids and delicately rolled cigarettes, (have any of you gorgeous people ever heard of lung cancer?); a stream of beautiful millennials with tattoos and fancy dogs and partially shaved heads.  I feel like I am back in the good old USA where our troops are off doing Allah-knows-what in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc, etc, and we are obliviously obsessing about our lattes.

After two weeks mostly in the West Bank, the women look pretty naked, there is more than enough cleavage and thigh, men are stroking their lady friends in overtly sexual ways, and I am taking a long hard look at “Western norms.” I order a shrimp and eggplant dish drenched in garlic and olive oil as a metaphoric culturally transitional meal. I must admit I have a strong urge to just get up and walk away without paying the overpriced bill, just charge it to the occupation I will say, (this is my version of civil disobedience), but I don’t.  Most of the folks I have been sharing lives and humus with cannot legally be here, let’s not even mention their yearning for a little dip in that gorgeous Mediterranean water, waves cresting, stretches of white sand, (“they” do like to swim you know)…. and I have to admit I kind of got used to being called “Habibti,” and my Arabic “pet name, Alusi,” (my spelling with apologies).

The day started in the Old City in the Austrian Hospice with a predictable conversation with two lovely older guilt ridden Germans who talked about how hard it is to say anything critical of Israel because…(the HOLOCAUST) is literally screaming at our table between the German Rye and the labneh, and I am trying to introduce the concept that it is actually okay.  In fact, as a Jewish American, I think that it is imperative; the Germans (after the unforgiveable horror) have done their share of breast beating and reflection and reparations; as some Israeli wrote, The Holocaust is Over. They take my website enthusiastically and I assure them that my book was translated into German, though of course I have no idea what the actual title was given the wild world of publishing.

Last night I tried to make small talk with my first-in-a-while Jewish Israeli cab driver.  Me: “It’s been really hot here.” Him: “No it’s not.” Oh right, the people who do not know how to say I’m sorry. Unfortunately this morning I was bullied standing on line for my train ticket, got yelled at by some pretty girl at a counter at the central bus station in Jerusalem when I asked for directions, and got no reassurance from the bus driver that this was indeed #480 to Arlozoroff in Tel Aviv.  When I finally worked up my courage to confirm my hopes about the bus, this blond something said abruptly, “Of course.” We all have our psychopathologies, but really?

I spent the afternoon at an extraordinary organization called Physicians for Human Rights Israel. Ran Cohen was somewhat more optimistic than usual. Although the Knesset is probably about to pass the force feeding bill, the prisoners’ hunger strike ended (resolution unclear) and this has taken a lot of energy.  “We won the battle but lost the war.”  For the first time in history, “We got the Israeli Medical Association aboard and this is surprising. They were vocal and said clearly physicians do not do this and discussed this [force feeding] as torture.” The IMA was clear that force feeding actually involves the cooperation of doctors and that they would not be able to protect them in a court or even the International Hague.  This change in attitude may be related to a new head of the medical ethics committee, Dr Tami Karni, as well as intense international pressure.  Ran was very excited to see the commitment on the part of the doctors, the understanding that medicine and doctors were being used as political tools. The new law that is being argued in the Knesset today states that each case of forced feeding will be brought to a civil regional court (like Tel Aviv) and then if it is allowed, a doctor may participate without risk of punishment.  The Israeli government is framing this as a desire to save lives, (not). On a TV program, when some big macher said that there will be no doctors willing to do forced feeding, the government’s legal advisor replied, “We will find the Zionist doctors who are concerned of Israeli security.” So much for Zionism. Framing is obviously the key.  The US does it so why not Israel?

Last week, PHR Israel had a big success when a committee (that had seemed hopeless) decided to take private health services outside of public hospitals.  Until now, in public hospitals, there were private patients that doctors would see and charge, using the hospital facilities, thus creating a boutique type practice on the back of the public system.  There was a long campaign against this and, “We succeeded, after it lost in the supreme court!  This was a public campaign, seven million citizens will benefit with a more equal health care system, oriented towards the public,” as well as bucking the Israeli trend towards privatization, (as I say, learning the worst from the American health care system).

Another recent PHR I success involves the citizenship law.  Since 2003, Palestinians in the West Bank and  Gaza who married Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, were not allowed what is called family reunification, ie, they could not get legal status to live in Israel with their spouse. The implications of this cruel bill is that one of the couple, usually the woman, is left with no status, either cannot live with her husband or more likely is here illegally. Their children born in Israel are Israeli citizens. This is reminiscent of the undocumented in the US.  At this point, since 2003, 20 to 25,000 couples got married and did not get status for the spouse who could be deported at any time, has no health care, cannot enter most bus stations, malls, or any place where racial profiling increases the risk of being asked for an ID.  They cannot drive legally, attend university, or obtain welfare benefits.  After the NGOS in the human rights community took the battle to the supreme court and failed, PHR I started a long campaign to promote social residency, which separates legal status from social rights.  This allows people access to health care and welfare regardless of their status.  The State of Israel will not give one new Palestinian citizenship due to the demographic war, but PHR argued that the Palestinians are here, they are not temporary, they are married to Israelis, and they are human.  PHR became of aware of this issue when they started seeing desperate Palestinian women in their open clinic. Now with ACRI and Kayan (a Palestinian feminist organization, they have “a foot in the door;” they won a court case that allows spouses with permits but no status to register for health funds.  This covers 8,000 families, “so this is beginning, from nothing to something is big.”  This work is part of PHR I’s advocacy for the right to health for all.

The refugee issue also keeps PHR busy.  Since 2003 50,000 refugees or asylum seekers (or if you are Netanyahu, “infiltrators”), have crossed the Egyptian Sinai into Israel, mostly from Sudan and Eritrea.  Many of them, (an estimated 25% of the Eritreans) were kidnapped, tortured, raped, or held for ransom in the Sinai by a Bedouin clan. The Israeli response, wrapped in the hysteria of the threat to the Jewish nature of the state by these disease carrying, Muslim criminal elements, was to build a fence along the border with Sinai, so new refugees are no longer entering and the border is sealed.

They also built a detention center called Holot, which means Sands, where asylum seekers and refugees are sent without a trial or judicial review for an indefinite period of time.  It is “open” in that they can step out into the desert, but they need to be there for three roll calls per day, and from 11 pm to 6 am. It is an utterly miserable place.  Two days ago, 600 men defiantly marched to Egypt, stating they want to go someplace where they can move their lives forward. They were brutally arrested again and sent back to prison, all documented on video and PHR I was there to help the injured. Ran explains that the Israeli government is working to make these people miserable and has actually sent a few hundred to Sudan where many are reported to be detained, in danger, tortured, or imprisoned.  Thirteen families have reported their loved ones missing ?imprisoned, ? murdered. A few have been sent by plane to third countries, mostly Rwanda and Uganda; Israel has some unofficial agreement with these folks. In Rwanda a few have been detained as documented by the UN commissioner for refugees.

At this point Ran notes, there are 50,000 refugees here, this is not a demographic catastrophe.  Israel is a first world country, it could be a model for refugee absorption and it has done it before with one million Russians (many of whom were not Jewish, but at least they were white).  Meanwhile, Lebanon and Syria are both faced with one million Syrian refugees each with much less resources.  The least the Israeli government should do is to investigate each person’s refugee and asylum issues and protect them until it is safe for them to return.  Ran notes ironically that the whole discussion about protecting the “Jewish nature of the state” really leaves out the nature of Jewish values, this is all about numbers.  PHR is once again working on the separation of legal status from social rights and they have had some successes.  In January 2014, the government adopted a plan to treat HIV positive refugees and established a small mental health clinic for these deeply traumatized people, so there is a glimmer of recognition regarding the right of health, even for people who are African and poor and so desperate they will walk across deserts and endure unbearable suffering to come to a place that might provide work and opportunity.

PHR I also focuses on the occupied territories, and Ran describes a report that will be published in a month investigating basic health indicators for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and comparing them to Israelis.  Let’s just say that everything looks bad, even basic life expectancy is divergent by more than 10 years, as well as maternal and infant mortality, availability of medications, clinicians, specialists, etc, etc.  This gives PHR the opportunity to talk about responsibility and control; if the Israeli government  controls the territories as the occupying force (which it is) then it is responsible for the health needs of the population under its control.  Netanyahu brags that, “Israel saves lives of Palestinian children while Palestinians are kidnapping teenagers; this is nonsense.  The Palestinian Authority is paying for the care in Israel, and for decades, the Israeli government has prevented development and actually ‘dedeveloped’ the Palestinian health care system as well as controlled and reduced access to the major East Jerusalem hospitals.” The facts speak for themselves as we say.  

And then there are all the other projects: “torture always an issue, the victims are refugees and prisoners.” There is work on the freedom of movement of doctors and patients in the occupied territories, the Saturday mobile clinic as usual,  the Tel Aviv open clinic and much efforts to educate Israeli students in universities on the right to health by taking them on tours of East Jerusalem, the Negev, Bedouin villages, south Tel Aviv, Lod, Ramle.  Ran notes, “The students are more and more open to it, the problem was with faculty not wanting us to come and talk, but things are getting better.”

Blog # 22 June 23, 2014 Tarnishing the Israeli Brand

 Blog # 22  June 23, 2014    Tarnishing the Israeli Brand

Our meeting with Omar Barghouti, one of the leaders of the boycott, divestment, and sanction movement, starts in a stairwell since the office where we are meeting is locked. (Palestinian time runs, how do I say this? with less urgency? perhaps related to the cycles of the moon? Still trying to figure this out as an obsessive Westerner.) He is talking about how the Palestinian Authority is “existentially necessary” for Israel, how a single democratic state is the long term goal, not ideal, but a more ethical solution than anything else.

We get ushered into an open office and Omar starts officially talking; words just pour out of him so rapidly, succinctly; I struggle to keep up. Things have really changed in the past year.  What many do not realize is that BDS is now a mainstream Palestinian movement that is supported by almost everyone, it is not an isolated fringe activity.  Even Fatah supports BDS. The strategy is anchored in international law and Omar explains, “Targets Israel because it is a regime of occupation, and apartheid. This is not about being Jewish.” The Israeli establishment clearly considers BDS a strategic threat. Netanyahu mentioned BDS 18 times when he gave his talk to the UN; second only to Iran (but who’s counting?).  Omar states, “Israel does not know what to do with nonviolent movements.” This defeats the narrative of the Palestinian as terrorist.  I think of the Israeli official who admitted, “We do not do Gandhi well.”

While there are well funded, well organized efforts to Brand Israel as a “beacon of democracy” (to quote Netanyahu), to highlight Israeli artists, academics, gays, to present a “pretty face,” all this “washing [ie pink washing, green washing, etc] gets wiped out by one massacre.”

In 2014, Omar asserts BDS is in a different place: the financial, economic sphere.  The Gates Foundation recently divested from G4S, a private security company which is known to torture prisoners, builds the Israeli security apparatus, and is deeply involved in the occupation.  The CEO committed not to renew the contract with Israeli prisons, the first time such a public statement has been made.  It does not matter that BDS was not mentioned.  It does matter that a large company decides that it is too (economically? politically? strategically?) costly to do business with the Israeli state. Obviously, pressure will continue until the company comes through on its promise.

Omar informs us that major banks and pension funds in Europe have divested from the top five Israeli banks involved in the occupied territories.  Apparently the Dutch are saying that if these banks have operations with companies in the territories, they will divest from the entire bank.  “Do not punish the crime, punish the criminal.”

It has always been difficult to figure out which products come from the settlements, and Omar agrees that it is too hard to boycott settlement products.  They are often disguised or relabeled, (like from the Netherlands), but it is very realistic to boycott companies that operate in the occupied territories, so the tactic should be boycotting companies rather than products.  I take note of this development. 

Unlike my Massachusetts governor who is swooning over high tech ventures with Israeli companies, the German government announced that it will not work with all high tech Israeli companies including those in East Jerusalem. The European Union is not joining the BDS movement, but implementing their own guidelines in response to grassroots pressure, so they will not give grants for research in the territories. The Luxemburg pension fund divested from the top five Israel banks.  The Norwegian pension fund divested from Israeli companies involved in settlements, but then they took Africa Israel off the list because the company denied involvement.   The Israeli group, Who profits? went to the Jewish settlement of Gilo and documented their presence, but Africa Israel said that Gilo is not in the occupied territories (you know, just part of the expanding Jerusalem neighborhoods.) Organizers demanded that they consult the UN who might know a bit more about international law, and the Norwegians got the message and divested. From 2013-2014, four US academic organizations endorsed BDS. These are all major developments. Really big.

Omar has a subtle kind of sarcasm.  He says that the Israeli government has been totally high jacked by the settler movement and this is new.  The labor party is a kind of “smarter Zionism,” but the leadership is now a “dumber Zionism.” Israel is no longer even pretending to stand for peace, co-existence, etc.  The academic and cultural boycotts have tarnished the Israeli brand.  Even John Kerry acknowledged that there was something seriously wrong with settlement building. In much of Europe, people choose not to buy Israeli products. “We rely on the grassroots to build pressure,” even though in the international world, “the Israeli government is untouchable,” is not held accountable for obvious unjust practices. So, “do one church, one university at a time.”

The delegates want to talk about the nitty gritty, on-the-ground issues that come up.  Omar is asked if there are any mutual funds that are BDS compliant. “Not yet, but it is in process.” He explains that SRIs (socially responsible investing), do not use BDS language (though they traditionally avoid military and environmentally damaging companies), but the change is coming.

We then engage in a fascinating discussion that speaks to Jewish privilege and Jewish power on the left.  At the Jewish Voice for Peace conference last year, Omar spoke.  He notes that supportive Jewish voices on the BDS issue give it legitimacy and fends off the accusation of anti-Semitism. On the other hand, Jewish voices run the risk of expropriating Palestinian voices, thus entrenching Jewish exceptionalism and maintaining the belief that only Jews are “allowed” to criticize Israeli policy.  This actually is a form of anti-Semitism, a promotion of the fear of Jews; of Jews as powerful, who will destroy you if you criticize Israel (thus you need the cover of left wing Jews). This is not good for anyone, but many Zionist groups thrive on this fear.

Omar maintains that while Jewish voices are critical, it is equally critical to work in coalition, such as with the American Friends Service, the Presbyterians, Adalah NY, etc. Jewish Voice for Peace, who initiated the TIAA CREF divestment campaign, pressuring the company to divest from companies that profit from occupation in their SRI portfolio, now works in a wider coalition called WE DIVEST; they are careful not to monopolize the movement but are ready to counter the charge of anti-Semitism.  The recent success in Boston with Veolia is related to a large coalition that included union groups as well as Jewish and other faith based organizations who brought a wide variety of complaints against the company, one of which included its behavior in the occupied territories.

Another delegate wonders how to work in academic institutions like Brandeis that are largely hostile to the BDS movement where there are something like eight “pro-Israel groups,” (I would like to redefine what it means to be pro-Israel but that is for another conversation.) Omar explains that he went to Columbia University in the 1980s where there were 20 “pro-Israel” groups from right to left, and six “pro-Palestinian students.” They felt completely isolated, so they found coalitions with Blacks, Latinos, feminists, liberal Zionists who were opposed to the occupation (which was a radical idea back then).  They worked on mutual interests such as opposing war, improving the environment. He reminds us that now as well as then, it is important to select a target that makes sense within your community, look for levels of complicity in international law, for instance, and potential for cross movement work; the company’s offenses have to go beyond oppressing Palestinians. Thus it makes no sense to go after a company that makes some great cancer drug in Israel or the settlements, but it makes a lot of sense to link the activities of G4S in building the US/Mexico wall and walls in the territories.  “Trying and failing is not okay unless it leads to education, otherwise it is not strategic.”

But what if there are no Palestinian led BDS organizations, like in Boston where there is a lot of BDS activity? Omar advises that we must fill the vacuum until the Palestinian community becomes more active.  There are lots of challenges that discourage Palestinians in the US, from fears related to targeting post 9/11 to Islamophobia.  Omar remarks that many in that community are not politically active, but their sons and daughters are.  He notes that campus based Students for Justice in Palestine (SJPS) are no longer having Jewish leadership and that leadership is often coming from Palestinian women. “I understand having Palestinian voices up front, but this is a universal issue. I do not believe in identity politics.  The anti-apartheid movement was my movement. I was doing something right as a human, I own this as my own struggle.” Focus on effectiveness, the quality of the work, anti-racist principals.

In response to another question about how to work in progressive community organizations that partner with Israeli groups on community development, racial and economic justice issues, etc, Omar suggests that we need to open the conversation, to “South Africanize the issue.”  As an example he asks, what would we have done if Boston University was working with a South African university on cancer treatment during the apartheid era?  Yes, that is good for humanity, but the research institution is also complicit within an apartheid system and this collaboration would have been inappropriate. He suggests we ask Palestinians about joint research projects with, for instance, Tel Aviv University.  It is fine to do research with Israelis, but not with Israeli funding (ie institutions). So in our hypothetical case, Boston University should fund the research not Tel Aviv University, thus not legitimizing a university that is complicit in the occupation. In the same vein, Israeli film makers, artists, and poets can be invited to festivals in a “BDS friendly way.”  For instance at the Edinburgh festival, the Israeli embassy in London paid a film maker to screen her film.  The festival was told that if they accepted this money, people will boycott the festival.  The festival returned the money from the Israeli film maker, and paid for her to show the Israeli film; “there must be no institutional links.” In another example, Omar explains that a Canadian LGBT artist in a Scottish festival found out that an Israeli artist was sponsored by the Israeli foreign ministry. The Canadian put pressure on the festival, wrote a letter to every artist.  The Israeli embassy said the artist is pro-Palestinian, this is a dissenting voice, etc. “But
we do not care about content; this is not about censorship, it is about funding.” The Israeli sponsorship was cancelled and artist came to the festival.

A particular challenge involves communities of color who often come to Israel on religious pilgrimages or as cultural exchanges.  Omar explains, “It is easy to get a free trip to Israel, so South Africanize the issue.” If you want to come on a “fact finding mission, then do it without complicity, do not cross the picket line. This is happening more and more. Israel helps us to convert people, if they come on an honest fact finding mission, they see what is going on.” We talk about our African-American Governor Duval Patrick as a particularly challenging case. Omar advises that the “the black community is key to BDS, we need to win them.” There is already a high conversion rate among young Jews (see the work of Peter Beinhart) who at this point are largely somewhere between apathetic about Israel to supportive of Palestinian rights, but clearly different than their Zionist parents and grandparents. The Israel machine focuses on African-Americans, Native Americans, the Asian community, framing the issue as, “Jews are the indigenous people!” Join us in our struggle. Colonialism in conveniently overlooked.  African Americans, students, women leaders, are invited to Israel to promote an historic Jewish Black alliance, we led the civil rights movement and we can do it again.

Friends of Sabeel, the Kairos document, Christian liberation theology, work to counter this Zionist ideology, but it is a frustratingly slow process. Omar advises us that, (thinking of the recent alliance between Cornell and the Technion), the Israeli establishment will continue to score big successes at high levels; the US establishment is profoundly “pro-Israel,” (in the classic use of that word). “Forget the big elephants, chip away, and attack smaller things.  The Technion was not selected because it was the best, there was a well-planned conspiracy and work was done before to make it happen.”

I am beginning to feel like a white civil rights activist, working in the south in the 1960s.  The parallels are striking and the historical connection revives me. Time to take all of this conversation home.

Blog # 21 June 28, 2014 part two In the container

Blog # 21 June 28, 2014 part two   In the container

The bus station in Bani Nayi is hot, humid, and thick with exhaust fumes from idling vehicles that have seen better days in the seat and shock absorber department.  The service has to fill with passengers before it leaves and we are in a holding pattern.  I am sitting next to a young woman wearing a hijab with sparkly threads, a long coat, long sleeves and leggings.  I cannot imagine how hot she feels cradling an infant and trying to keep a one year old in his seat. As she negotiates the crying baby, the discrete breast feeding, and attempts to pour mango juice into a bottle while it drips over the infants plump thighs,  I feel like we are mothers everywhere and it is time to mobilize for the tasks at hand.  Chocolate wafers appear magically from my bag and the little boy stares at me with large brown eyes; he never blinks, ever.

I am wheezing from all the dust and pollution and marveling at what passes for advertising in the local markets.  While most of the signs are in Arabic, I am mystified by a clothing store called, “White Woman,” another “Lady Chic,” the “Golf Plastic Industrial Company,”  “Four Seasons Furniture” (do they have four seasons here?) There is clearly a lot lost in translation which seems to be a metaphor for much that is happening in these parts.

We jolt by fields of vineyards and then there is a lush green vineyard that is surrounded by a wire fence and coils of barbed wire.  It is the only fortified field I see and it is owned by a Jewish settler who has bought this land and comes, armed with military guards, to harvest his grapes.  This is another metaphor.

My understanding is that there is some Israeli law/directive that mandates the use of seat belts in the occupied territories but that Palestinians view this as another oppressive Israeli directive, rather than some really good advice, so I watch the on/off seat belt dance as we drive, a quiet (self defeating?) act of resistance.  I have not seen any car seats for children, so the mother buckles in her toddler, more as an attempt to restrain him in the back seat. The much to loose belt soon comes off and she wraps her arm tightly around him, trusting herself more than those Israeli laws. He turns a bag of pretzels upside down and we are both back in mothering mode. A honey toned woman’s voice croons on the radio, I can pick out the word “Allah,” but remain mostly lost in translation again.

We pass mountains of watermelon, car skeletons piled in junk yards like corpses, overflowing garbage bins, and soon find ourselves zigzagging up and down the Container Road, a vertiginous highway built specially for Palestinians that takes travelers miles out of their way, keeping that area “clean” for settlers. (see the language of racism, entitlement, and fear)  The service slows to a halt as we approach a massive traffic jam at the Container Checkpoint. Passengers get off and the driver asks me to move forward.  I cannot tell if this is part of the checkpoint strategy. White American lady nearer to front? I decide to check the time and see what happens.  It is a useful distraction and keeps me from total aggravation.

10:05 traffic slows

10:10 full stop, cars and trucks everywhere

10:14 more aggressive honking, we creep forward, the driver offers us water, we are unbearably hot, I picture myself melting into the warm sticky seat like some kind of Wicked Witch of the West

10:16 a large truck traveling in the opposite direction needs to make a wide hairpin turn and the vehicles on the opposite lane cluster together to give him space, a truck with sheep stops next to us and the sheep is panting rapidly and looks deathly ill and thirsty, the drivers keep looking back at the suffering animal with clear concern but no water

10:19 we pull ahead in the breakdown lane on the right and now there are four lanes of traffic that need to merge into two, annoyance and frustration is rising and there is more talking and yelling between drivers

10:20 full stop

10:22 driver negotiates a merge into lane number three

10:24 driver asks for my passport and pours through my history of travel, Cambodia? There is thick black smoke beyond the checkpoint, a mix of burning garbage and tires adds to the smell of exhaust, I ponder how the occupation increases global warming

10:27 two soldiers are working the checkpoint and they glance into the service, do not check any documents and wave us through

Really?

Suddenly passengers start laughing, joking, the driver pulls out a bag of wafers and passes them around.  A victory over the oppressor, time for celebration. There is almost a sense of unity built on the experience of common, indiscriminate, mindless suffering. The official Israeli line is that checkpoints are necessary for security, a holy cause that is used to justify the oppressive minutiae of occupation.

As we approach the village of Kalandia with its arched entry, I see a rotary and a dead olive tree. I think of the gorgeous watered (stolen) olive trees at the entrance to the Jewish settlement of Ma’ale Adumim and I want to weep. Perhaps the Kalandia tree has died of sorrow as well as neglect. As we skirt the Kalandia checkpoint, the traffic once again backs up in a crazy jumble of vehicles, some trying to get through, some trying to get around, and everyone trying to survive.

I imagine doing this every day, morning and evening, to get to work or school, or to meet a friend in Ramallah. The endless waiting and uncertainty, the never knowing when and if you will get where you are going. This kind of brutality is powerful and suffocating and it is the universal experience of the people who are living in this prison, their lives effectively under total control at the hands of young Israeli men and women with little life experience, their minds filled racism, boredom, fear, and the power that comes with the gun.

Blot # 20 June 22, 2014 part three Naqab "What do I know? I am just a Bedouin?" A lot.

Blog # 20 June 22, 2014 part three  Naqab

“What do I know? I am just a Bedouin?” A lot.

My glasses (somewhat symbolically) have broken; perhaps my brain does not want to see any more, but there is so much to witness. Even with my eyes closed I can hear the military jets overhead as we drive towards the unrecognized Bedouin village of Alsira in the Naqab (Negev).  My old emergency glasses leave me with a headache, double vision, and a sense that the world I am experiencing is intensely out of focus, which in reality it is.

Khalil al-Amour greets us and invites us up to his shaded patio for water and juice. He has a sun brown, open face with laughing eyes and a quirky sense of humor.  He points to the demolition order glued on his door, dated September 2006.  It is addressed, “To the house owner,” has no checks next to the list of grievances, and is signed by some official who clearly cannot distinguish one Bedouin from another.  The form is a photocopy. Khalil is a math and computer teacher and just received his law degree.  He works with Adalah, a legal group that advocates for Bedouin rights in Israel and is leaving soon for Geneva for a UN conference on the rights of indigenous peoples. He is busy preparing for his son’s wedding and for the upcoming month of Ramadan. Have I challenged any of your preconceptions yet?

Clothes pins clip a map of the Naqab onto the grating over a front window where rows of socks are also drying.  He explains that Bedouins used to live in the entire the Naqab, 13 million dunams, (approximately three and a quarter million acres). They had no major problems during 400 years of Ottoman control and 30 years of the British mandate and then came 1948. 90,000 were expelled, most fleeing to the Egyptian Sinai desert, some went to Jordan, and 11,000 remained.  The Israelis “relocated” them to an area called the Siyag, a fenced in reservation and closed military zone. The Bedouin were traumatized by the massive expulsion and by the confiscation of 90% of their land.  The Israelis kept shrinking the land available to the Bedouin and expanding the southern city of Be’ersheba.  They took 80,000 dunams to build a huge military airport nearby.

I start counting the number of planes roaring overhead.  More Jewish cities were built in the area, but the Bedouin stayed and married and made babies, so now there are more than 200,000. “We are a big surprise.” The Prawer Plan (a plan to dispossess the remaining Bedouin and transfer them to townships) is currently frozen, but it will squeeze the population which represents 30% of the Naqab population into 2% of the land. Dimona, the Israeli nuclear reactor, (the one that Israel has officially denied for decades), is located in the southeast area of the proposed relocations. (Health hazards anyone?)

Khalil remarks in a disconcertingly cheerful manner, “It really drives me crazy sometimes.  Most Israelis are very stupid, listen to the media, the lies.  How do we have these smart people, Jewish people are not stupid, [but] their behavior towards Bedouin and minorities is very strange.  I expect more understanding with the Holocaust…. And it is worse and worse.”

Bedouin have repeatedly rejected efforts to push them into poverty stricken, crime ridden townships.  “We are not good friends with cities!” Khalil explains, “I am half Polish and half Bedouin!” His daughter interrupts for his iphone. He explains that he was studying in Be’ersheba at the teacher’s college and sleeping in the park.  A gas station offered him a part time job, but it was not enough money for rent as his family was very poor. He laughs and says this Polish couple who had lost their own child, adopted him and took care of him for three years.  When they got older, Khalil took care of them until they died and then he returned to his village.

His son is a physiotherapist, studied in Jordan, works in Be’ersheba, but returns home every day. Another son is studying medicine in Moldavia, but he will also return.  “We love the desert, this is our life.” He explains that not only does he have a demolition order on his house, but also on his animal bins and his generator. The orders are created from an aerial map and he is #67. He remarks ironically that being #67 reminds him of the Holocaust. “Nazi is a behavior. They created this regime.” Khalil has good Jewish friends who also get very angry.

He explains that there are 45 unrecognized villages; everyone of them is named, some are new, some are old. The Israelis took the fertile lands; Ariel Sharon had a large ranch in the Naqab. The Bedouin have limited access to water, pay very high rates, have no electricity, no nearby schools or clinics. We drove into the town partly on the road to the airport. “We paved the road, connected to the water system, made solar energy, established two daycares for the children. We take care of ourselves.”

In the townships, they are offered high mortgages and a small plot of land, (remember this is a traditional agricultural society with goats, cows, and sheep to herd).  He says this life is particularly hard for the women.  They can’t make cheese, can’t do their traditional farming, can’t weave rugs. “They have no value.” They are given a microwave and washing machine, (Israelis talk of modernization and improved living standards), and are “humiliated, no respect.”

“We have lived marginalized and neglected, no problem, we can live the next 60 years.  They won’t even let us do that. Let the Bedouin live.”  He takes us on an extraordinary tour of his property and at every stop he smiles and explains how much he loves his solar panels, loves his chickens, loves his mulberries, olives, sage, fresh eggs, the man is deeply in love with the land he lives with and he is deeply happy.  His friends thought he was crazy, but he researched on the internet and learned how to set up solar panels; his friends were finally convinced when they noticed his refrigerator was working 24 hours per day. He traveled to Canada and the US, (even went to Las Vegas and is happy he does not smoke, gamble or drink), to learn about solar energy.

Every year he would make 50 liters of olive oil from his trees, but he noticed they were dying from lack of water. Back to the internet and youtube and he developed an ingenious system for collecting grey water, with pipes, collecting tanks, pumps, and filters, and providing drip irrigation to his rejuvenated trees. He is beaming as he shows us the lush clusters of happy olives. “I am not a genius, I am regular.” But he loves his chickens and scoops up three eggs, he eats two fresh eggs every morning and only feeds the birds natural grains. We look across the brown rolling desert to the huge military area where he used to go to school and where his people used to bury their dead.  He visited for the first time in 32 years with a group that went to maintain the cemetery.

And then he is back picking white mulberries for us, (the taste is a cross between blackberries and strawberries). He remarks that he traveled to the US with the Tree of Life Conference and laughs, “I was almost converted to Christianity!” He was hosted by Christians and Jews. We look up at the antennae for his phone and internet and the router attached to the corner of his house. He jokes that a bird sometimes nests there and so he also has twitter. As we leave his house in points to a large collection of ants and he assures us (cheerfully) that he never kills them. “They were here before me.” Apparently they are co-existing quite successfully.

We wander through the dry dusty neighborhood, women are cleaning, cooking, children scatter about; there are manually rotating solar panels, a “white house” for community gatherings and celebrations, other homes of varying sturdiness.  The village put up an ironic sign denoting the location of the town.  In Arabic it says “Alsira,” the English is misspelled as “Alsra” and in Hebrew it says, “Established in the Ottoman Empire.” Like I said, the guy has a sense of humor. Below the sign is a triangular warning sign, again tongue in cheek, with a house and a bulldozer, warning the hapless visitor that they are now entering a demolition zone.  Such dangerous, uneducated, unimaginative people these Bedouins!

This village has no sheikh, but rather a local committee of five people that provide leadership.  There are two big clans and five family groups representing 70 individual families and over 100 children. There is also a Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages.  There are no women in leadership, but two that are very active.  Khalil reminds us that this is a conservative community, there is some polygamy, but “I am an open minded guy.” Now a days, girls do not get married before 18.

Last year our delegation visited the village of Al Araqib, north of Be’ersheba. Khalil explains this village has “the saddest story,” which includes expulsion in 1948, repeated land confiscations, returning to the village, Israeli military spraying fields and animals with Round Up, multiple legal cases, repeated demolitions.  (see blog from 2013) Last year the villagers were living in the cemetery (“First time in history the dead people protect the live ones,”) and the Jewish National Fund had planted the Ambassador Forest on their land, rows of water hungry Eucalyptus trees. Last week the Israeli forces demolished everything in the cemetery, approximately the 70th demolition. Now the villagers are under the trees, using blankets for cover, they are “upset and nervous,” and the sheikh who was “warm and happy,” is feeling “angry.” Rabbi Arik Ascherman was arrested at the cemetery site and the demolitions have attracted attention from international NGOs and the UN.

Khalil asserts, “Our voice will be heard.” In the past, a delegation of Native Americans came and wrote an urgent letter to the Israelis. “I am optimistic.  We don’t have the privilege to give up.  This is racism.”

I have counted twelve military planes screeching overhead, breaking the desert silence.

As we drive back to Ramallah passing near Hebron, we see Israeli forces marching with flags in some kind of military formation, we see a group of soldiers breaking into a house, our eyes burn from tear gas wafting from the city. Later we learn that Palestinians have been killed in Nablus, Hebron and in Ramallah where an Israeli sniper shot an unarmed man watching from a roof top. Later that night the IDF conducts an incursion into Ramallah, (remember area A under control by the PA???) in front of the Palestinian Authority police station, the PA does nothing to protect its people (it is in obvious collusion with the IDF), and when the IDF leaves, the enraged crowd attacks the police station and the PA attacks the crowd.

The media and the streets are filled with stories about the missing boys, (Yeshiva students? Armed right wing settlers? Paramilitary? Everyone has a theory) and Netanyahu’s blind rage. The entire Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza is under attack because three young men are missing, because Hamas and Fatah are talking, because the farce of the peace process has been laid bare, because, well because they are here and they are Palestinian.  And that, it seems, is a crime in itself.