Highlights this week:
- Encountering Settlers in Hebron
- A Young Student and the environment
- Activist work
- Gardening
- A real danger of being in Palestine
- Update on the tortoise(s)
- Entertaining the locals: Patricia learns Arabic
- Ethnic Cleansing
Encountering Settlers in Hebron
Last Sunday we attended a protest near a Hebron-area house illegally occupied by Israeli settlers (these were the same settlers who had defaced the Muslim cemetery as noted in our last report). We joined several other internationalists and a lot of Palestinian kids waving flags, chanting and holding signs saying Free Palestine. The Israeli army arrived, followed by the Israeli police; the settlers came out and were yelling at the demonstrators and also at the soldiers and police. One of the women, probably in her late 30s or early forties yelled “Auschwitz” at us and grabbed a Palestinian flag from one of the kids – she then gave it to one of the settler kids who burned it. The army and police pushed the Palestinian demonstrators back; after a hour or so, the demonstrators left. The next night the settlers attacked Palestinian families, beating them up in their homes.
The settler woman’s reference to the Nazi holocaust underscores the blindness and hypocrisy the Israeli occupation. We heard later of some settler graffiti in Hebron which said: “Arabs to the gas chamber” and we saw graffiti in Hebrew, which one of the people we were with translated: “What is the difference between a trampoline and an Arab? When you jump on the trampoline, you take your shoes off.”
On Tuesday, we went to the center of Hebron where some years ago, Israeli settlers illegally took over the second floor of buildings above the city’s historic market marketplace. The Israeli army came in to protect the illegal settlers; they closed off the streets, preventing shop keepers from coming to their stores. The army later opened the area, but most shop keepers have not come back as they and their customers are afraid of the settlers who are still there. The settlers throw garbage and rocks on the Palestinians who walk by; the locals have hung nets across the very narrow streets to protect themselves. We have some pictures of this that we hope to post on the internet soon.
See Ethnic Cleansing below.
A Young Student and the Environment
We have been experiencing and learning about environmental issues this week, including solid waste disposal, air pollution, and lack of water and water treatment. On Thursday, Maggie took the bus to Ramallah to meet with an environmental toxicologist who talked about both the issues and how the Israeli occupation has made it very difficult to go forward with solutions. On the trip home, smoke from burning garbage wafted through the bus while she chatted with a young woman who was majoring in environmental studies at Bier Zeit University.
This young woman said that she and her friends wanted to make their homes more “green”. She was very interested in bioremediation for grey water, composting, and sustainable agriculture. Her youthful energy was exciting to observe. Then, at some point she lowered her voice and said, “But, you know it is very hard for us Palestinians”. The conversation turned to the occupation, the wall, and then the impact on young people. She said people study hard but then can’t find jobs. The occupation has a stranglehold on the Palestinian economy; this is another part of Israel’s ethnic cleaning by making life intolerable for Palestinians. She invited us to visit her village, Wade Fukeen, which is surrounded by illegal Israeli settlements and faces constant harassment by settlers.
FMI on environmental issues here, go to: www.arij.org
Activist Work
Ush Ghrab - We have been working with other local activists in maintaining a community presence in Ush Ghrab, an area on the outskirts of our town, Beit Sahour, which is being threatened by settlers from illegal settlements in the area. Our local group has painted over the settler graffiti. Today they held a successful family oriented gathering there. Patricia attended and said it was very hopeful: lots of Palestinian families enjoying themselves on their land: kids were flying kites over the old military buildings on the site; and no Israeli settlers or soldiers showed up. FMI: www.advocacynet.org/blogs/index.php/2008/10/14/beit-sahour-residents-take-action-to-sav?blog=145
Editing – Thanks to spell check, we have been able to expand our editing of news releases and articles for some local NGOs. They have invited us to write our own articles as well.
Social Work Proposal – We may be helping with a project through the social workers union focused on continuing education, licensing and other issues. Any social workers who are interested in this, please let us know!!
Gardening
Patricia spent a couple of days this week helping with the new community garden at the SOS Village in Bethlehem (one of our Sister City projects). With kids from the village, the village gardener, two German young men who are doing their alternative to military service by volunteering at SOS, and other volunteers, they were able to get most of the trash out of the plot selected for the garden. They have planted some favas, lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli, and arugula. She will be going with the gardener to visit Bustan Qaraqa, a permaculture project started by some Brits on the east edge of Beit Sahour.
Our own garden is coming along slowly; the favas we planted are about 3 inches high. We are watering it with grey collected from our sinks and shower.
A real “danger” of being in Palestine
When we left to come here, we vowed that we would both shed some unwanted pounds. Upon arrival, our peace activist friends in Jaffa made us scrumptious meals. The first weekend we were here in the West Bank, the mayor of Bethlehem and his wife took us out to a lovely 3-hour meal, the beginning of the end of our diets (as well as our introduction to Arak – a delicious licorice drink). In this last week alone, we have been invited to two Palestinian homes for huge dinners AND have been taken out twice to delicious meals. It took Maggie several minutes to convince her Ramallah host that she simply could not be trusted with a large tray of pastries. As soon as she sat down on the bus back from Ramallah, the young student mentioned above, offered her a falafel. Fortunately, we have also made friends with produce vendors, so we do have lower cal options. (However, today Patricia is supposed to visit a nearby family to learn to make a special kind of bread laced with olive oil and stuffed with Zatar and cheese.)
Update on the tortoise(s)
At a conference last week, we met a young woman from California who is interning with the Environmental Education Center located in nearby Beit Jala. She took us on a tour of the site, where they have a native garden, a natural history museum, and historic terraces planted with fruit and nut trees. (Terracing is how Palestinians have farmed for years on the steep stony slopes – the terraces hold the water, making efficient use of the rain and holding top soil in place.
When we came to the Center, we immediately thought of our tortoise and what a great home it would make for her (instead of being penned in a small area of essentially bare dirt.) Our landlord agreed that she could go and the Center agreed to take her. Friday morning, a woman from the Center stopped by to pick her up. When we crawled into her hiding place, we discovered she was not alone! So now both tortoises have gone to live in this more natural setting.
Entertaining the locals: Patricia learns Arabic
Patricia has found a good Arabic instructor, a retired gentleman who half of Beit Sahour seems to have had as a high school teacher! She is learning more every day, to the amazement and amusement of those we encounter. The family we visited the other night was teaching her to use the word headache and she said to one of them (in Arabic): “Your head is hurting me” which sent them into peals of laughter.
Ethnic Cleansing
The Israeli army and the settlers are the essential enforcers of Israel’s unspoken policy of ethnic cleansing. When Israel unilaterally declared itself a state in 1948, it took more land than would it would have been granted under the UN partition. As we have noted in previous emails, the new state immediately engaged in a massive ethnic cleansing, driving an estimated 800,000 Palestinians from their villages. In 1967, Israel attacked its neighbors and illegally seized land from Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. This was the beginning of the occupation of the West Bank (where we now live) and also the Golan Heights in Syria. Since then, Israel has continue ethnic cleansing through its military occupation, the building of illegal settlements, supporting settler invasions, building the apartheid wall, and militarily controlling the all Palestinian movement inside the occupied lands and between those lands and other countries.
To learn more: read Israeli author Ilan Pappe’s book, the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine; www.decolonizing.ps
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