I send greetings from the end of a massive week. We've traveled all
around the southern part of the West Bank, into the Negev desert, out
to a tiny village, through grape fields and checkpoints, and
underneath a church or two. We've sat on mats on the floor, plastic
chairs under tents, small pillows, conference chairs, and futons.
We've had more cups of tea and coffee than I've had in the previous
four years combined. Before leaving, I was concerned about finding
any computers with the internet so I could send regular updates.
Turns out the technology isn't in short supply here. (I'd heard that
Muslim women typically walk with their eyes turned down - actually,
they're just dialing.) No, the difficulty has been time and energy.
When I have a moment to spare, I seem to wind up sleeping or eating.
Nonetheless, I'm really excited to pass along a bit of this experience
if I can. An attempt to cover everything we've done would just be
absurd. We've seen so much and talked with so many people, that it
could never do any of it justice to try covering it all here. I would
simply end up giving you such an abbreviated version, that the most
important element would be completely lost - the depth and complexity
of this land, this people, and this conflict. In fact, one of the
biggest problems with the treatment of Israel & Palestine is just that
- it gets skimmed over too quickly and we have to make rash judgments.
So I'll try to narrow it down a bit, hoping to give you a taste of
this experience, and I'll save most of the information and stories
we've heard for my return.
First of all, I have to say that this is not what a lot of folks
(including me) expected me to encounter. I think I subconsciously
envisioned some sort of burned out war zone where walking down the
street to a restaurant required a stroll between AK-47-toting
Palestinian protesters and Israeli attack helicopters. Turns out that
instead of dodging bullets I'm dodging swarms of 7-year-old kids in
the marketplace practicing their three words of english on me over and
over and over "Hello! Welcome! Howareyou!" In fact, I've noticed a
number of things about Hebron that remind me very much of my
small-town North Carolina upbringing. Indeed, West Bank life and U.S.
country life seem to be surprisingly similar in a number of ways:
- Everyone honks and waves as they pass on the road.
- Drivers have no qualms about stopping their vehicle in the middle of
the street to carry on a conversation with one another.
- Children have no fear when it comes to climbing on top of dangerous
places - dumpsters, buildings, moving vehicles...
- Drivers don't let little things such as potholes, curvy narrow
roads, or oncoming traffic keep them from living out their Nascar
dreams.
- The dogs have no names.
- The tea has enough sugar in it, even for a southerner. (It just
happens to be served hot instead of iced.)
- You will not leave a house hungry.
- In a given valley, every household is related to one another.
- The family web of relationships is still the way business gets done
(see the story about the Hebron police below...)
- One may occasionally pass someone who is carrying a really big gun.
Yes, amongst all this familiarity is the reality of the occupation. A
green humvee, a building in downtown surrounded by high fences and
armed soldiers; it's all just another piece of daily life in Hebron.
We spent some time with the full-time Hebron CPT team as they walk
with schoolkids through the military checkpoints to school. They
stand there to make sure the schoolkids aren't harassed by either
soldiers or settlers, who also use this one stretch of road. This
morning was pretty quiet. Only one settler who passed by acknowledged
our presence (which he thankfully did by only spitting toward our feet
instead of toward other, more saliva-sensitive body parts.) My
U.S.-born tongue briefly considered offering him some good ol'
southern sass, until the semi-automatic assault rifle slung over his
back convinced me otherwise. I watched him shuffle quickly on down
the road, like a middle-age businessman late for an appointment, and
as the gunbarrel bounced merrily against his back pocket I thought,
Yes, it's a crazy situation here.
We've met with a leader from a refugee community (and slept in his
flat with his family inside the camp), a Jewish family in a settlement
outside Bethlehem, Bedouin families uprooted in the desert, a woman
running a preschool in her apartment (against ALL the odds), many
human rights and nonviolent resistance organizations, and a village
elder from one of the worst areas of violence with local Israeli
settlements. A couple of highlights have been the local Hebron police
and the nonviolent grapefield action.
We had the chance to meet with the local Palestinian police force in
the Old City of Hebron. This isn't the occupying Israeli force - it
was established as an observation team about 12 years ago, and became
a real police force not long after. The problems of crime and drugs
were on the rise in the old city, and this police force has been
successful in lowering crime and making the old city market a safe
place again. The trick is, they did it all with NO WEAPONS. That
blew me away. Since they're Palestinian, they aren't allowed to have
any weapons whatsoever for their police work. Cops with no guns. I
asked how they did it. Turns out, since everybody knows everybody
(and their family), they use the web of relationships. If they find
out who just broke into a storefront, they call his grandmother. No
kidding. Then the family addresses the problem, maybe helps the young
man find a job, or just uses that grandmotherly influence to
straighten everything out. It seems that organized crime is still no
match for the organized grandmama network. If I had any professional
television production skills at all, I'd be back here in a heartbeat
to film "Hebron 9-1-1." Sitting in that small, smokey police office,
listening to these strong, confident men and drinking the coffee they
offered us - definitely one of the trip highlights for me.
The other quick peek into our delegation came last Friday. We went to
the Holy Land Trust, a center for nonviolent resistance to land
confiscation and the occupation, where we spoke with the staff for
about 30 minutes. Then, we piled on a bus with about 20 other people
and drove to the outskirts of town. There were about 60 people in
all, Palestinians and internationals, standing in a gravel road
looking across the valley at a small grove of trellised grapevines.
At the bottom of the valley was a newly-graded gravel road, which was
to become the foundation for the separation barrier. When I looked
toward the top of the hill and saw the small silhouettes of soldiers,
I admit my heart skipped a beat. Our plan was to walk across the
barrier and into the confiscated grape field, accompanying the farmer
who owned the land while he tended his crops and picked some of the
leaves. Our team discussed at length the action, emphasizing that we
should only participate in the illegal parts if we were comfortable
with it. Nearly half our team remained behind (somebody needs to be
there with cameras and bail money, you know), and the others walked
with the group down the hill, across the gravel boundary, and up the
other side. We were followed closely by a camera crew, since a big
part of this kind of action is to make public the injustice of the
barrier construction as it winds through the countryside, cutting this
farmer off from his remaining cropland. The soldiers moved a little
closer, but still remained near the top of the hill. I was kind of
annoyed. You see, a big purpose of such an action is to encounter
these soldiers face to face, which meant we had to trudge our way all
the way up that dang hill. Turns out they allowed us to spend a
couple of hours in the field without any sort of harrassment.
Apparently, after weeks of similar nonviolent actions, this was the
first time there had been no conflict. After a little while, the mood
had lightened significantly, and some of the soldiers pulled out their
cell phones to get our picture. The protest leader and the lead
soldier knew one another on a first-name basis, and they chatted for a
while. Some smiles broke out among the soldiers, and I began to feel
sorry for them, standing there in all that gear in the heat. You
could tell that most of them, by the looks on their young faces, would
much rather be at home talking about baseball with their pals, and
they don't like this situation any more than we did. A few settler
boys showed up at the top of the hill and taunted us in Hebrew, but
they eventually wandered away. After this day, I had no doubt that
strong leaders exist in Palestine, and given enough time, they will
successfully overcome the occupation and create a place where the two
cultures - Arab and Israeli - can live together peacefully. I'm just
hoping that everyone doesn't blow one another to pieces before we can
get there.
Okay, it's now late. I'm 7 to 9 hours ahead of you folks, so I'm
going to hit the sack. Thanks again for everyone's prayers and well
wishes - I don't take any of them for granted!
God's peace to you,
Andy
PS - I put up just a couple of pictures at
www.johnstonontheweb.blogspot.com the other day. Hopefully I can get
more up soon!
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