On Children

Last Sunday was Purim, a Jewish holiday which is celebrated in ways that are very similar to Halloween. Even the very religious play loud music, wear costumes, and get drunk, as doing so is considered a mitzvah (loosely translated, a good deed). I was in Tel Rumeida for the day, and the settlers there held a parade. To get an idea of what it's like, I put up a brief video.



What was heartbreaking about the parade was the response of the Palestinian children to it. What kid doesn't want to go eat candy, get a balloon, and see all the fun costumes? The kids though could only stand on the roofs with their parents and watch the parade from a distance. The youngest ones didn't even understand why.

Later that afternoon, a settler kid ran down the street throwing rocks first at Palestinian homes, and then the Palestinian children who had gathered to watch. The boy was maybe eight years old. The soldiers eventually stopped him after being yelled at by the internationals, but really what can you do with a kid that age? I can't sit him down and talk to him and neither can/will the soldiers. As for his family, he's just modeling what he's seen his parents and older siblings do. What happens when I find myself hating an eight year old? These need to be something beyond rhetorical questions. The day before I had watched as two toddlers, one the child of a settler and one a Palestinian, stood in the street and stared curiously at each other as their parents pulled them back. Even one year olds can't talk to each other.

On Wednesday I went with other internationals to go check on the land of Abu Jabber Soleiby. Three weeks ago, we had joined him in planting olive trees on his land in Beit Ommar. The Soleiby land is located near the Beit Ain settlement, and in the past settlers have uprooted and burned his trees, and beaten members of his family. Soleiby was worried that settlers had once again destroyed his trees, and was scared to go check that part of his land because it is directly below the settlement and settlers had shot at him the day before. When we got there, we found that the settlers hadn't uprooted his trees, but instead had gathered sharp weeds from the mountains and wrapped them around the trunks of the young trees. There is constant harassment such as this which can only be read as attempts to make Palestinian farmers lives more difficult in hopes that they'll abandon their land.

This weekend, I joined the people of Qawawis in rebuilding their homes, which were demolished by the Israeli Army just over three weeks ago. The four homes were demolished using the premise that they were "new structures" built without a permit. Bulding permits are almost impossible to obtain by Palestinians . The reason that these particular houses were relatively new is that the small community used to live in underground homes. They were forced out of these four years ago by violent settlers who attacked them in their sleep, poisoned their wells and livestock and covered the entrances with rubble.



In Arabic, there is a concept called sumoud. The word doesn't quite translate, but basically it means steadfastness. People here remaining on their land in the face of intimidation, violence, economic strangulation, and forced displacement is an act of resistance. It's a thought that's both uplifting and depressing.