Sunday, May 29, 2011

Chain of Thoughts

Well.  Apparently it gets really hot in the Middle East right around this time of year. Who knew.


There's been a huge gap between my last post and this one, due largely to the fact that so much has been happening that I wasn't sure where to begin. As the big revelation or understanding that I've been waiting for has yet to come...I'm just gonna go for it.


Hebron
At the beginning of the month, I made my first trip to Hebron to attend an Israeli-Palestinian conference.  Myself and a few friends ducked out after lunch in order to see the rest of the city.

So here's the thing: Everything I saw I was expecting to see and everything I heard I was expecting to hear. Store shops welded shut, fencing above areas of the market (those areas that have managed to remain open) littered with glass bottles, rocks and trash that have been hurled by settlers, Palestinian children blinded by acid thrown in their faces, routes to schools cut off by settler homes, Palestinian homes that have been burnt or otherwise damaged by settlers...

In truth I didn't imagine that Hebron would affect me in any great way. I went knowing the situation there and I suppose I'd grown cocky and fancied myself an expert on....who even knows what. Suffering in general? Regardless, Hebron was a nice, smart, smack in the face. Perhaps more of a punch in the face because it just really (for lack of a better term) sucks to be Jewish and see Hebron. 

H2 is the area of Hebron in which about 500 settlers live amongst thousands of Palestinians.  The army controls the area, and there are massive restrictions on movement for Palestinians. The main road, where there were once bustling storefronts now feels like an eerie ghost town. Kind of like the Wild West but minus the moonshine. The welded shut storefronts are graffitied with stars of David, menorahs, and I swear to you I saw a dreidle.  I suppose its really these things that got me the most upset. For me, a menorah has never meant anything but eight days of presents coming my way. Full stop. A dreidle means I'm about to win a lot of chocolate off of my younger brother. These are not symbols meant to be acts of aggression, theft, oppression and occupation.  And seeing a star of David spray painted onto a destroyed store front brings up very specific images of the past. Images that should be strong enough to make the settler who spray painted them take a step. back. and. think.

Nakba Day

May 15 was the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba. This year, rather than being a day of commemoration, it was a day of action. Nonviolent civil disobedience demonstrations took place across Palestine and its borders. A man from Syria made it all the way to Tel Aviv! Almost all of these demonstrations quickly turned into clashes when the Israeli army responded with tear gas, sound grenades, and in some cases rubber bullets and live ammunition in order to disperse the crowds.
Tear gas

Soldier and Palestinian activist at Nakba weekend demonstration
I spent the first few hours of Nakba Day at a demonstration, and the last 10 hours being detained by the Israeli Army at a military compound in Jerusalem.  Myself and a few other internationals with whom I was arrested were actually preparing to leave the village when the army entered the area (we were now far from the clash point where the demonstration began), threw tear gas into the streets, entered homes and arrested everyone they thought might have been at the demonstration. We were arrested while sitting on a curb, and we were not charged with anything for the first nine hours. In the end we were released, though the Palestinian activists who'd been taken from the same demonstration were held for two more nights.


For more information please see...
I've received some requests from family and friends for good sources for information on Israel and Palestine. Here are a few of many.


Breaking the Silence--in addition to other incredible reports and events, they've launched a video project or short clips of interviews with soldiers.


DCI-Palestine--has a new website!  (That I've personally watched my supervisor slave over). Amongst a lot of other great information, there are monthly bulletins with case studies of settler violence and detentions against children.


B'Tselem--is an Israeli organization that reports on human rights violations in the occupied territories.  They also have great reports etc but I think one of the most powerful things that they do is their camera distribution project.  They have provided cameras to Palestinians living in clash point areas so that they can document what is happening.


BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian and Refugee Rights -- has very good background/historical information as well as new publications.