I have been in Palestine for two weeks and one hour now, and I still have very few words todescribe what I see. It is most difficult for me to think about what’s going on here when I sitdown to write back to the United States–something about the virtual portal into luxury. Idon’t know if many of the children here have ever existed without tank-shell holes in theirwalls and the towers of an occupying army surveying them constantly from the near horizons. Ithink, although I’m not entirely sure, that even the smallest of these children understandthat life is not like this everywhere. An eight-year-old was shot and killed by an Israeli tanktwo days before I got here, and many of the children murmur his name to me, “Ali”–or point at theposters of him on the walls. The children also love to get me to practice my limited Arabic byasking me ” Kaif Sharon? ” ” Kaif Bush? ” and they laugh when I say ” Bush Majnoon ” ” Sharon Majnoon” back in my limited Arabic. (How is Sharon? How is Bush? Bush is crazy. Sharon is crazy.) Ofcourse this isn’t quite what I believe, and some of the adults who have the English correct me:Bush mish Majnoon… Bush is a businessman. Today I tried to learn to say ” Bush is a tool ” , but Idon’t think it translated quite right. But anyway, there are eight-year-olds here much moreaware of the workings of the global power structure than I was just a few years ago–at leastregarding Israel.
Nevertheless, I think about the fact that no amount of reading, attendance at conferences,documentary viewing and word of mouth could have prepared me for the reality of the situationhere. You just can’t imagine it unless you see it, and even then you are always well aware thatyour experience is not at all the reality: what with the difficulties the Israeli Army wouldface if they shot an unarmed US citizen, and with the fact that I have money to buy water when thearmy destroys wells, and, of course, the fact that I have the option of leaving. Nobody in myfamily has been shot, driving in their car, by a rocket launcher from a tower at the end of a majorstreet in my hometown. I have a home. I am allowed to go see the ocean. Ostensibly it is stillquite difficult for me to be held for months or years on end without a trial (this because I am awhite US citizen, as opposed to so many others). When I leave for school or work I can berelatively certain that there will not be a heavily armed soldier waiting half way between MudBay and downtown Olympia at a checkpoint—a soldier with the power to decide whether I can goabout my business, and whether I can get home again when I’m done. So, if I feel outrage atarriving and entering briefly and incompletely into the world in which these children exist,I wonder conversely about how it would be for them to arrive in my world.
They know that children in the United States don’t usually have their parents shot and theyknow they sometimes get to see the ocean. But once you have seen the ocean and lived in a silentplace, where water is taken for granted and not stolen in the night by bulldozers, and once youhave spent an evening when you haven’t wondered if the walls of your home might suddenly fallinward waking you from your sleep, and once you’ve met people who have never lost anyone– onceyou have experienced the reality of a world that isn’t surrounded by murderous towers, tanks,armed ” settlements ” and now a giant metal wall, I wonder if you can forgive the world for all theyears of your childhood spent existing–just existing–in resistance to the constantstranglehold of the world’s fourth largest military–backed by the world’s onlysuperpower–in it’s attempt to erase you from your home. That is something I wonder aboutthese children. I wonder what would happen if they really knew.
As an afterthought to all this rambling, I am in Rafah, a city of about 140,000 people,approximately 60 percent of whom are refugees–many of whom are twice or three timesrefugees. Rafah existed prior to 1948, but most of the people here are themselves or aredescendants of people who were relocated here from their homes in historic Palestine–nowIsrael. Rafah was split in half when the Sinai returned to Egypt. Currently, the Israeli armyis building a fourteen-meter-high wall between Rafah in Palestine and the border, carving ano-mans land from the houses along the border. Six hundred and two homes have been completelybulldozed according to the Rafah Popular Refugee Committee. The number of homes that havebeen partially destroyed is greater.
Today as I walked on top of the rubble where homes once stood, Egyptian soldiers called to mefrom the other side of the border, ” Go! Go! ” because a tank was coming. Followed by waving and “what’s your name? ” . There is something disturbing about this friendly curiosity. Itreminded me of how much, to some degree, we are all kids curious about other kids: Egyptian kidsshouting at strange women wandering into the path of tanks. Palestinian kids shot from thetanks when they peak out from behind walls to see what’s going on. International kids standingin front of tanks with banners. Israeli kids in the tanks anonymously, occasionallyshouting– and also occasionally waving–many forced to be here, many just aggressive,shooting into the houses as we wander away.
In addition to the constant presence of tanks along the border and in the western regionbetween Rafah and settlements along the coast, there are more IDF towers here than I cancount–along the horizon,at the end of streets. Some just army green metal. Others thesestrange spiral staircases draped in some kind of netting to make the activity withinanonymous. Some hidden,just beneath the horizon of buildings. A new one went up the other dayin the time it took us to do laundry and to cross town twice to hang banners. Despite the fact thatsome of the areas nearest the border are the original Rafah with families who have lived on thisland for at least a century, only the 1948 camps in the center of the city are Palestiniancontrolled areas under Oslo. But as far as I can tell, there are few if any places that are notwithin the sights of some tower or another. Certainly there is no place invulnerable to apachehelicopters or to the cameras of invisible drones we hear buzzing over the city for hours at atime.
I’ve been having trouble accessing news about the outside world here, but I hear an escalationof war on Iraq is inevitable. There is a great deal of concern here about the ” reoccupation ofGaza. ” Gaza is reoccupied every day to various extents, but I think the fear is that the tankswill enter all the streets and remain here, instead of entering some of the streets and thenwithdrawing after some hours or days to observe and shoot from the edges of the communities. Ifpeople aren’t already thinking about the consequences of this war for the people of the entireregion then I hope they will start.
I also hope you’ll come here. We’ve been wavering between five and six internationals. Theneighborhoods that have asked us for some form of presence are Yibna, Tel El Sultan, Hi Salam,Brazil, Block J, Zorob, and Block O. There is also need for constant night-time presence at awell on the outskirts of Rafah since the Israeli army destroyed the two largest wells.According to the municipal water office the wells destroyed last week provided half ofRafah’s water supply. Many of the communities have requested internationals to be present atnight to attempt to shield houses from further demolition. After about ten p.m. it is verydifficult to move at night because the Israeli army treats anyone in the streets as resistanceand shoots at them. So clearly we are too few.
I continue to believe that my home, Olympia, could gain a lot and offer a lot by deciding to make acommitment to Rafah in the form of a sister-community relationship. Some teachers andchildren’s groups have expressed interest in e-mail exchanges, but this is only the tip of theiceberg of solidarity work that might be done. Many people want their voices to be heard, and Ithink we need to use some of our privilege as internationals to get those voices heard directlyin the US, rather than through the filter of well-meaning internationals such as myself. I amjust beginning to learn, from what I expect to be a very intense tutelage, about the ability ofpeople to organize against all odds, and to resist against all odds.
Thanks for the news I’ve been getting from friends in the US. I just read a report back from afriend who organized a peace group in Shelton, Washington, and was able to be part of adelegation to the large January 18th protest in Washington DC. People here watch the media,and they told me again today that there have been large protests in the United States and “problems for the government ” in the UK. So thanks for allowing me to not feel like a completepolyanna when I tentatively tell people here that many people in the United States do notsupport the policies of our government, and that we are learning from global examples how toresist.
Michael
ISM Media Coordinator
Beit Sahour
Occupied Palestine
Phone: +972-2-2774602
Cell: +972-67-862 439
web: http://www.palsolidarity.org“>http://www.palsolidarity.org