Travels in Palestine

Support my friend - Free Mousa Abu Maria

2008-04-16T07:11:00.000-07:00

April 17 is commemorated in Palestine as Prisoner’s Day. On that day, family members and friends of the more than 11,000 Palestinians currently imprisoned by the Israeli occupation government gather in cities throughout Palestine to demand their release. Around 800 of these prisoners are held without trial in "Administrative Detention."

This year on Prisoner’s Day, my friend Mousa Abu Maria, a Palestinian activist, was placed in Administrative Detention indefinitely. According to B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, "The authorities use administrative detention as a quick and efficient alternative to criminal trial, primarily when they do not have sufficient evidence to charge the individual… Administrative detainees are not given the reasons for their detention or any opportunity to refute the suspicions against them."

Mousa was clearly targeted because of his role as a main organizer with the Palestine Solidarity Project (PSP). PSP is dedicated to opposing the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land through non-violent direct actions, such as removing illegal roadblocks, cutting fences that separate Palestinians from their land, and demonstrating against the Annexation Wall. The group was founded in the village of Beit Ommar in the Southern West Bank during the summer of 2006.

Early in the morning on April 11th, Israeli army troops broke down the door and invaded the home of the Abu Maria family. Neither Mousa nor his family were told the reason for the arrest or where he was being taken. Two days later, his lawyer finally managed to locate him in the Ofer military jail, but still no reason for his arrest was given. Another day passed before his lawyer was finally told that he was suspected of membership in a terrorist organization. His interrogation turned up no evidence, and even the Israeli prosecutors admitted in writing that there was not enough evidence to put him on trial. For Palestinians, when there is no evidence for a trial, they are simply jailed without one.

This is not the first time the occupation has violently affected Mousa and his family. Mousa was last in the custody of the Shabak (Israel’s version of the FBI) in 1999. He was severely tortured and spent more than a week in the hospital. After serving five years in prison, his mother died three days after his release. This January, Mousa was shot in the head with live ammunition while standing on a rooftop watching an army invasion of his village. He survived with surprisingly little damage, though has shrapnel remaining near his eye. This is just a portion of the tolls the occupation has had on one life.

It is important to remember that his story is not atypical. Mousa’s case is unique only in that he has many Israeli and international friends through the work that he’s done. In less than 48 hours, we collected over 350 letters of support from more than 12 countries on 5 continents. Most Palestinians obviously do not have this assistance.

ACT NOW to support Mousa.

Register your outrage to imprisonment without trial. Please write to the Chief Military Attorney,

Brigadier General Avihai Mandelblit , and demand that Mousa AbuMaria be released immediately.

Below is a suggested draft of a letter addressed to the Chief Military Attorney. Your own version should be emailed from gmail, yahoo hotmail or riseup to:

+97236080366@fax.tc

This will then be faxed to the Chief Military Attorney’s office. Please cc PSP so we can keep track of the letters of support: palestineproject@gmail.com

Those who have a fax machine or do not have an email account at either gmail, yahoo, hotmail or riseup can fax the Chief Military Attorney’s office directly at

972 3 608 0366

Sample letter:

——————————————————————————————————–

Chief Military Attorney

6 David Elazar Street

Tel Aviv

Military postal code 9605,IDF

Fax: +972 3 608 0366

Monday 14th April, 2008

F.A.O: Brigadier General Avihai Mandelblit,

I am writing with regards to the arrest of Mousa AbuMaria on Friday 11th April, 2008 in the village of Beit Ommar, West Bank, Occupied Territories. His lawyers have informed the international community of the conditions surrounding his arrest and said that although there is currently not enough evidence to put him on trial, he may soon be placed in administrative detention.

I would like to highlight my concerns and call on you, the Chief Military Attorney of Israel, to ensure that Mousa is not administratively detained without charge or trial.

Mousa has for many years been a lead organizer in peaceful, non violent protest and worked alongside hundredss of international and Israelis activists in resisting the illegal occupation of Palestinian land. He is well known as a passionate advocate of non violent resistance and has many Israeli and international friends who can vouch for his peaceful political commitments and his character.

I, the undersigned, would like to see this issue addressed through the appropriate channels and ensure that he is released immediately.

Thank you for you time.

Yours sincerely,

(Insert name)

A Presentation I gave on Palestine

2008-03-16T13:09:00.001-07:00

Philly Remembers AL-Nakba: 60 Days for 60 Years

2008-03-09T19:36:00.000-07:00

Check out the work I'm doing in Philly these days.

http://www.phillyalnakba.org and http://sustainphilly.blogspot.com.

A year of Palestine

2008-01-23T14:45:00.000-08:00

A year ago I was boarding a plane to go to Palestine. At the time I had no idea what I was getting into, no idea how it would change me. On a personal level, I was seeking to make things "real." I'd been doing social justice organizing work since my teens and that work had come almost exclusively from a place of anger. My anger was faceless, both towards those I was fighting in solidarity with, and those I was fighting against. An older activist who I greatly respect once wrote an email to me which she signed off with "warmth and revolution." The phrase struck a chord with me, both because of how much I appreciated the sentiment, and how far it was from my reality. I was beginning to feel how unsustainable organizing out of pure anger was, that movements too needed love to survive. For me this meant that I needed faces and voices and stories.

I chose to focus my work on Palestine because, as a Jew, I felt profoundly lied to and profoundly responsible. I grew up with the common Zionist mantra of "a land without people for a people without land." I was 18 and in college halfway across the country before I heard anything contradicting this. Though resistant at first, I finally began to explore just who these "so-called Palestinians" were and why they wanted "to push us into the sea." The answers I found were shocking. 531 villages were destroyed and 750,000 people fled or were expelled for the founding of Israel. Israel was currently building a wall twice the height of the Berlin Wall and 400 miles long to keep Palestinians out. Over a million Israeli bullets were fired in the first few days of the second Intifada.

Still, these were all just numbers. Quickly those numbers became real people.

Each time something bad happened, despite all I had read, I would be surprised, and each time my Palestinian friends would go out of their way to tell me it was normal. I think there were a lot of reasons why they did that. The most obvious is that they didn't want me to be able to see things as exceptions. The news always portrays atrocities as isolated occurrences, simultaneously glorifying and denouncing them so that nobody has to recognize patterns or examine root causes. I also think that saying "this is normal" to an outsider recognizes that it shouldn't be, and that's an important thing to constantly affirm. There was always a certain calmness about it that I didn't know what to do with. It wasn't quite jaded, or even angry. It was more of a blase toughness – something that just was and that people had to keep fighting through. People talk all the time about suicide bombings, about the violence of Palestinians, and all I could keep wondering while I was there was how there wasn't more violence.

In Arabic, there is a concept called sumoud. The idea was stressed to me throughout my stay. The word doesn't quite translate, but basically it means steadfastness. People remaining on their land in the face of intimidation, violence, economic strangulation, and forced displacement is an act of resistance.

We've all probably heard about what's going on in Gaza right now. Israel has the area under a full blockade. Nothing is being allowed in, including fuel, medicine, or water filters. There is a vast humanitarian crisis underway. Two days ago though, there was a bit of hope. Palestinian militants, in an act of refusal to resign their
fate to the hands of governments, destroyed the majority of the border fence that separates Gaza from Egypt. Over 200,000 Gazans entered Egypt, bought supplies to sustain themselves and their families and, for the most part, returned home. That's sumoud.

Today I have more faces and stories than I sometimes want. I certainly have more love, but I also have more rage. For the first few months after returning home the stories would constantly haunt me. My only two impulses were to either sleep constantly or burn everything I saw remotely relating to the occupation. Bulldozers,
which I now associated with the destruction of houses and trees, made me shake.

My friend Yousef got arrested soon after I came home, and it took all my self control, and lectures by a few good friends, to convince me that the best course of action was not to buy a plane ticket back there. A few days before I left to go to Palestine, I wrote, "One thing I would like to do upon return from my trip is to use my voice to begin to break down the mirage that there is a monolithic Jewish opinion on Israel and its actions." Ultimately, I know I am more useful here. I also would like to hope that when I get the call that the bulldozers have come to Beit Ommar, the village where I lived for three months, bringing with them the long dreaded wall, that I will
drop whatever I am doing and go fight beside my friends.

This May is the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel, what Palestinians call Al Nakba - The Catastrophe. I am working with a group of people here in Philly to organize 60 days of action leading up to the anniversary. The conflict did not begin with the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. It began with the violent dispossession of people from their homes, and it will not end until this is recognized and rectified.

Minneapolis Al Nakba Day Recognition

2007-05-17T15:10:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, May 15, 2007 in front of the Minneapolis Central Library at 12:00pm, members of JFAETTO (Jews For An End To The Occupation) joined the international commemoration of Al Nakba Day, or "Day of Catastrophe". Just as in other cities in around the world.--Boston, San Francisco, Philidelphia, and Tel Aviv, we mapped out a grid and outline of the state of Israel and Occupied Territories and asked passersby to help us put the names of the 531 Palestinian villages destroyed in 1948 back on the map.

After one hour of setting up the event, we were stopped by library security officers for "Defacing Library Property" with sidewalk chalk and electrical tape. Not letting this--or the cold wind--deter us, we moved our event across the street and recreated the map. Over a span of 4 hours, we spoke to many people and placed 100 Palestinian villages on the map. Many people who we asked to help us, did. Some people stopped to argue politics, but most who stopped showed interest and appreciation for a creative way to share important information. A group of high school students stayed for 15 minutes to ask questions and put villages on the map. We were happily surprised by the support from Minneapolis bus drivers who asked questions en route, and yelled variations of, "Keep up the fight!" as they passed. Even after we packed up our things and left, the maps, messages, and names of villages remained, baring witness to the haunting reality of Al Nakba for hundreds more to observe.

International Nakba Day is commemorated annually on May 15th in recognition of the totality of the destruction of Palestinian life in the area that became the state of Israel in 1948 – Palestinian localities, culture, and people. During the 1948 War that led to the creation of the state of Israel, 531 Palestinian villages were destroyed and nearly 800,000 people were expelled. They and their descendents have grown to become the largest and longest-standing refugee population in the world.

If you're interested in learning more about JFAETTO, email jfaetto(at)riseup(dot)net.

PALESTINE: An Evening of Short Films and Discussion

2007-04-24T14:58:00.000-07:00

Check out this event, featuring a few of my films.

My Friend is Out

2007-04-19T15:05:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,

Just wanted to follow up and let y'all know that my friend Yousef is out of prison on $750 bail, and is doing okay. He is being charged with destruction of property, but no trial date is set yet from what I could find out. Thanks to everyone who gave money or sent words of support - this isn't over yet though. The cost of the lawyer to appear at his first hearing was $500, and if he goes to trial it will be another $2000. To donate, go to http://palestinesolidarityproject.org/donate.

I also finally got the rest of my pictures back. To see the pictured of the fence around the Karme Tsur settlement that farmers must pass through to work their land, go to www.bubbleshare.com/album/154067.

For those of you in Minneapolis, there is a conference coming up I'd highly recommend you check out, especially if you're looking to become more involved. I am involved in the Cafe Intifada in the evening, which is an interactive theatre piece definitely worth checking out. I might also be speaking a bit at the conference, but I'm not sure about that yet.

Thanks again for all your support. It means a lot to me and my friends.

My Friend is in Jail

2007-04-13T15:03:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,

I got back to the States a week ago and have been trying to gather the energy to write a final update. The first thing I want to say though is that a friend of mine, Yousef Abu-Maria, was arrested today at a demonstration in Um Salamuna. He's an organizer with both PSP and the Popular Committee of Beit Ommar. He was the only person at the demonstration the soldiers made any attempt to arrest, and was clearly targeted because he's an organizer. Yousef is being held at the police station in the Gush Etzion settlement. They are refusing to tell his lawyer what what he is being charged with and will not permit her to meet with him until Sunday. It will take at least 4 days before he can see a judge and any action can be taken. PSP, the group I worked with, is raising money to support legal costs. We will need approximately $2000. Online donations can be made at: http://palestinesolidarityproject.org/donate (please include a message that your donation is to cover Yousef's legal costs). Checks can be made out (with "legal" in the memo line) to Brecht Forum, our fiscal sponsor, and mailed to:

PSP-NYC
P.O. Box 721234
Jackson Heights, NY 11372

This is tax-deductible, but they take a bigger cut and it's slower.

Because I'm very upset at the moment and relatively shameless in general, I'm attaching a picture of Yousef's two kids, Reem and Obay. Please help out my friends.

Here's what my normal update was going to say:

The last week that I was in Beit Ommar we removed an illegal roadblock that the army had set up in the village. The roadblock was prohibiting traffic from the vegetable market to Route 60, the main thoroughfare to Betlehem and Hebron. Because of this roadblock, it was very difficult for vegetable trucks to carry produce from Beit Ommar to surrounding areas. The right to freedom of movement is recognized under international law and therefore all roadblocks put in Palestine by the Israeli Army are illegal. These roadblocks are often used to funnel all traffic from a village or area through one entrance, making it easy to seal off the village at will. Approximately 2 years ago this was done in Beit Ommar; the IOF built a watchtower and gate at the main entrance of Beit Ommar, blocked all other access roads, and then closed the gate. For nearly one month Beit Ommar was a virtual prison; the gate was opened irregularly for only a few hours every week.

My final week, I also attempted to accompany farmers from Beit Ommar to their land near the Karme Zur settlement to prune their grapevines. Last summer, the Israeli Army built a fence through the farmers' land, for "security reasons". However, after an Israeli Supreme Court decision, the farmers were granted access to their land on the other side of the fence once a week if coordinated with the DCO (the district representative of the Israeli Army who is the 'liason' to the Palestinians).

When the farmers arrived at the gate at a pre-arranged time, an Israeli Humvee and an armed settler informed the farmers that they would not be allowed to access their land. First, they claimed that the farmers did not have the required paperwork, and then later claimed that only a limited number of people are allowed in at a given time. After about an hour and a half of waiting, the DCO arrived and most of the farmers were allowed in. The farmers were all made to show their I.D.s and physically searched before they were allowed access to their own land. It's interesting to note that though the fence was built by the Israeli Army, it was the settler who had the key to the gate.

I'm in Minneapolis, so give me a call and lets catch up.

Settler Roads

2007-03-22T12:01:00.000-07:00

The Palestine Agricultural University, the only one in Palestine, is a few minutes away from Beit Ommar. It was founded in 1962 (five years before the Israeli occupation began) and has 800 students from throughout the West Bank. In the next few months, the Army is going to be building a settler-only road through their campus. The road will connect the Gush Etzion settlement bloc to the settlements in Hebron, and will be closed to Palestinian cars. The university will lose four or five major greenhouses and a water-treatment plant. These greenhouses are used to cultivate all of the school's plants, and the loss of them will have a devastating effect on the University and thus agriculture in Palestine.

This is all not even so that settlers can drive faster, but just so they don't have to share the road with Palestinian cars. The University wasn't even told – they read about it in the newspaper, and had to file a court case to even receive a copy of the preliminary map.

Two days ago another house was destroyed, leaving ten people homeless. I wasn't there – we only found out about later and could only go and document the rubble. This is also for the building of the settler road. One person was shot in the head with a rubber bullet while trying to stop the demolition. He's still in the hospital, and there's two more homes in the village slated to be demolished.

Yesterday was mother's day in Palestine. In recognition of this, there was a demonstration against the wall in Um Salamuna which featured speakers from the women's organization there. The demonstration itself was pretty standard and non-confrontational. What got to me was the end though. As we were walking back to the village from the bulldozers, one of the army jeeps followed us part way driving on a narrow stretch of grass between two Palestinian fields. In the process, they knocked the branches off of one of the olive trees. It's small things like this that get to me. The wall is huge. It's over 400 miles long. I don't know how to begin to process 400 miles of violence and racism and starvation. Driving through someone's fields is smaller. It's less organized, but in many ways it's more personal.

On Children

2007-03-11T07:52:00.000-07:00

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.

The Wall in Um Salamuna, Daily Life in Tel Rumeida

2007-03-03T05:32:00.000-08:00

For the past week I have been living in Tel Rumeida, a neighborhood of Hebron. Tel Rumeida is essentially a prison. Palestinians are only allowed to enter the area by walking through a checkpoint. This means that they must go through metal detectors, have their bags searched, and often show their ID. Showing ID isn't a simple question of flashing a picture. It means that the soldier takes your identity card and calls in the number to make sure you're not wanted by the Israeli government for any reason. Depending on which of the various human rights groups you ask, it's "reasonable" to detain someone for between 20 to 45 minutes while they do this "security" check. Often it's much longer. Within the small neighborhood, there are two other less formal checkpoints. One of them is to keep Palestinians from walking on the part of the street that has been declared to be only for Israeli settlers. The other is placed at the top of the hill that nearly everyone has to walk up to get to their homes. At this checkpoint, the soldiers routinely make the men lift their jackets and spin around. I can see no reason for this except perpetual humiliation and control. Soldiers and police patrol the streets constantly.

Some settlers also walk around with guns. I saw one the other day with a baby on his hip and a gun slung over his shoulder. The settlers in Tel Rumeida are some of the most violent on the West Bank. The night I arrived, a mob of 50 settlers attacked a Palestinian home. They ripped the front door off its hinges and stole it, broke a water pipe, pulled off the doorbell, tore down part of the railing on the stairs, and smashed some stairs. The family called for help but when we attempted to leave our house, we found a mob of another 30 standing outside throwing stones at us. Eventually both mobs left, and we were able to get down to the Palestinian home. Two of us spent the night with one of the families because their mother had been detained, and the children were scared to stay there alone.
This is the first place I've been on the West Bank where it's hard for me to feel hope. Just being there is exhausting because you never know what's going to happen. For no apparent reason, things will suddenly explode. The main protection that the Palestinians have from the settlers is the army and police, who are comparatively much less violent. It feels dirty and horrible that this is who people must often turn to for help. They are forced to make a choice of whether to maintain relationships with their occupiers that aren't openly antagonistic, or to risk not having anyone to call to interfere with the frequent settler violence. Often the police and army do nothing either way.

Most doors to people's houses have been spraypainted with the Star of David, and their is graffiti everywhere with messages such as "Gas the Arabs," an especially scary sentiment given it's reference to the gas chambers used by the army during the Holocaust.

The army has started bulldozing for the wall in Um Salamuna, a village near Beit Ommar that I've written about previously. The first day the bulldozers came there was little international presence. Three Palestinians, including the mayor, were arrested for trying to block the destruction of their land, and many were severely beaten. Here's a story and pictures from that day.

The next day the people again went to the bulldozers. Internationals and Israelis, directed by the local Palestinians, climbed on top of two bulldozers while they were on break. For two hours we prevented them from working. Eventually, soldiers and military pulled us from the bulldozers. Six of us were arrested and taken to the Gush Etzion prison. See a video and pictures .

We were released after a few hours on the condition that we would not return to the site of our arrests for 15 days. The bulldozers kept working, the people are planning to go confront them daily.

The Wall

2007-02-24T04:27:00.000-08:00

The other day we were called to the village of Wadi An-Nis. When a family there had gone out in the morning to work their land, they were greeted by soldiers from the Israeli Army who informed them that they would not be allowed on their land that day because Israeli engineers had to survey it for the pending Wall. Two engineers, accompanied by six soldiers and two private security guards from the nearby illegal Efrat settlement, tromped through the family's olive groves marking the wall's proposed path with blue spray-paint. Some of the markings of the path were spraypainted directly on the olive trees. Though engineers have come to the village of in the past for the same reason, the people have yet to be provided with a map detailing the wall's exact path. It is clear, however, that the Efrat settlement will gain hundreds of dunums of land extra-judicially if the wall is completed. Since legally (even under Israeli law) the settlements are not allowed to expand, the wall is one way to bypass this rule. What struck me most that day is that the Palestinians had called us to accompany them so that they could work their land, and this work would happen knowing all the while that a big portion of the land would likely soon be destroyed and taken from them. They farm it in the hope that they'll be able to harvest this year's crops before the path is bulldozed, and labor with the knowledge that their work might literally not come to fruition.

Yesterday I went to a demonstration in Bil'in against the wall that has been built there. The people have been protesting every Friday for the past two years, and this was the anniversary. The march included about 1000 people, including about 200 Israelis and internationals. Palestinians from all over the West Bank came to support the people of Bil'in. Israeli anarchists attempted to pull down the razor wire fence, while Palestinians from the village tried to pass through it to their land. These groups were both sprayed extensively with a water cannon, and beaten with clubs. 16 people were injured in the demonstration, mostly by rubber bullets and teargas projectile. Four of them had to be evacuated to the hospital. The most serious of the injuries was a man hit in the kidney by a teargas canister, causing internal bleeding, and a man shot in the chest with a rubber bullet. This is someone else's video of the demonstration.

I have decided to stay an extra month here, meaning I won't be coming back until the first week of April.

Four Homes Demolished, 35 People Homeless

2007-02-16T09:18:00.000-08:00

We went to visit Eyad Sabarneh, the boy who was shot last Friday directly through his upper thigh. After two surgeries in which a metal plate and external pins were inserted, the doctors are determining whether his leg will have to be amputated. He will be in the hospital for at least five weeks. I'm posting pictures of his leg taken in the hospital here. The whole time we were there, Eyad's four year old brother sat on the bed holding his hand.

From Beit Ommar 2-16-07

On Sunday, the army entered Beit Ommar again and another child, Kamil Mohamed Awad, age 11, was shot with a dumdum bullet in his upper arm. Because dumdum bullets are designed to break apart upon impact to inflict the most damage, he now has pieces of metal lodged throughout his upper arm and torso. He was taken to a hospital in Hebron and released later in the day. The next day he attended school, demonstrating the normalization of these assaults. The shooting occurred after a funeral of two men who had passed away the night before. The cemetery is near the entrance to Beit Ommar and therefore where the soldiers hang out. The Israeli Army pushed mourners back away from the street, which runs close to a settlement, and people responded with an impromptu demonstration.

On Wednesday, we got a frantic call that the Israeli Army had come to a small village called Amelkhar, near the Carmiel settlement, and was trying to demolish 4 homes as part of a string of home demolitions in the wider Yatta region. The residents of Amelkhar have lived on the land in permanent and semi-permanent homes for centuries. Recently, the Carmiel settlement was built on their land and a program of displacement of the Palestinian residents began. Yesterday, two bulldozers were accompanied by over 50 soldiers and additional private security. We joined the Palestinian residents as they resisted the bulldozing, first by blockading ourselves into one of the homes with the residents, and then, after being forcibly dragged from the home, sitting down in front of the bulldozers along with the women of the community until the Israeli soldiers violently dragged us all away.

The community was made up of 6 homes, one of which was a concrete building and one of which was an open tent. These were the only structures left standing. Two homes made of stone and two homes made of corrugated tin were razed to the ground. When I asked one of the soldiers for a reason, I was told that "the story dates back 4000 years." Residents were given 10-15 minutes to pull their belongings from their homes before the bulldozers destroyed them. One woman, Tareed Al-Hathaleen, and her 1 and half year old son were left with a partially damaged home. Her husband, Majed Al-Hathaleen, was arrested trying to protect his house. Another Palestinian man, Jima'a Al-Hathaleen was also arrested while trying to retrieve money that was left inside his home. Both have been released

The soldiers threw sound grenades into groups of people that included very small children, and beat an elderly man and his wife, Saluman Al-Hathaleen, 55, and Maliha Al-Hathaleen, 50, who were transported by ambulance to Hebron. Soldiers kicked an elderly man's leg that he had recently had surgery on as he sat in front of his home. He already walked with a cane, and was sitting on the ground when the soldier kicked him. Several Palestinian women and older men were thrown to the ground as they attempted to protect their homes. The soldiers also punched myself and another international activist, and threw both of us to the ground. Don't worry - I'm fine, and my small bruises aren't the point.

In all, over 35 people, including many small children and babies, were left completely homeless. When I told a group of soldiers that they should at least watch what they were doing, watch the bulldozer demolish someone's home as they cried, one soldier told me that if I liked Arabs so much I should give them a place to sleep.

When the soldiers left, when it was all over, people went right to work trying to rebuild and salvage what they could. We stayed and helped clean up for a bit, but in the end we got to go home, and that's where what I know of the story ends. We're told that homes in at least four other villages were demolished the same day.

All of this was caught on video tape. I've edited it down to 8 minutes, and you can watch it here.

Six Youth Shot in Beit Ommar

2007-02-10T16:32:00.000-08:00

On Friday morning, I went on a tour of Tel Rumeida, a neighborhood in Hebron where the Israeli settlers are notoriously violent. Local activists took us around, showing us things such as closed markets that had been destroyed by settlers and then literally welded shut by the Israeli government, who deemed them "unsafe" and refused to allow people to repair their ruined businesses. One major street through Tel Rumeida, Shuhada Street, has been closed to Palestinians for the past six years. Recently, the army said that the six year long closure had been a clerical "mistake." However, the street is still not open. Here are some pictures of the neighborhood, with captions telling what each one is.

Yesterday morning after prayers, residents of Beit Ommar (the town I'm living in) held a non-violent demonstration against the Israeli construction work that is threatening the structure of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. There were similar demonstrations across the West Bank in what has become a growing movement protesting Israeli excavation of the holy site. I had been out visiting the city of Hebron and missed the first 3 hours of the conflict. When I arrived, at least three Humvees and four jeeps had entered the village and were attacking the demonstrators. The army uses young people throwing stones at fully armored vehicles (the stones literally bounce off) as an excuse to attack them. For most of the shooting I witnessed though, soldiers were using the scopes on their weapons to shoot long range. The youth weren't even in view, making even the weak excuse of stone-throwing non-existent. For six hours, the army shot large amounts of teargas, rubber-coated steel bullets, and live ammunition. They stopped Palestinians in their cars in the street and used the cars, with Palestinians trapped inside, as shields while shooting. Six children between the ages of 9 and 16 were shot with live ammunition, including one straight through the thigh and another in the head. As of last night, both of them were in critical condition, and there was no report as to the status of the other four. One of the Palestinian men I am staying with was shot in the leg with a rubber-coated bullet from close range while helping Eyad Sabarneh, age 12, the child who had been shot through the thigh. Dozens of other people were also injured by rubber-coated steel bullets. The video includes footage of Eyad being shot.

I'm finding it hard to describe all this in anything other than clinical terms. I don't know how to make the extent of it real to people who aren't here. Here all of this is normal, as I was told by one man last night when he asked why I looked unhappy. "This is nothing." By night the village was quiet and today most people – though I'm sure not those whose children had been shot – got up and worked as always. As the soldiers were attacking there was nothing I could do to stop it. The best I could do was film what was happening and hope that the presence of my white skin and American accent near the soldiers somewhat mitigated their violence, and that my telling the story encourages others people to work to stop what Israel is doing.

Some days here in Beit Ommar are surprisingly calm. You don't see soldiers or settlers. You don't hear gunshots or smell teargas. There's always some small reminder of the occupation though. The other day, while walking around town with a Palestinian friend, he pointed out to me tire tracks running through a field. The tracks had been made by an Israeli army jeep, and their shortcut had destroyed someone's trees.

Um Salamuna and Al Khadr

2007-02-04T08:17:00.000-08:00

Since Thursday, I have been living in a town called Beit Ommar, which is located on the West Bank between Hebron and Betlehem. I am working with a group called the Palestine Solidarity Project (PSP), which is a Palestinian-led project dedicated to opposing the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land through non-violent direct action. I am living with a Palestinian family active in this group, as well as two other international activists, and from them I am slowing learning basic Arabic.

On Friday, I attended a demonstration held by the people of Um Salamuna against the theft of their land for the construction of the Wall. The Army says that the Wall is being built in the area to protect the Israeli settlement Efrat, which was constructed on Um Salamuna's land over a decade ago. Settlements such as Efrat are Israeli communities built within the occupied territories, and their open purpose is to incorporate the land they're on as part of Israel and force the Palestinians to leave. The establishment and expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has been declared illegal by four UN Security Council resolutions. In Um Salamuna, as in many other places, the Wall is not being constructed along the edge of the settlement land, but rather snakes through the land of Um Salamuna, taking about 75 acres of agricultural land and cutting off one resident's house from the rest of the village. Every week for the past 5 weeks the people of this area have been praying on their land in defiance of the Israeli governments' attempt to confiscate it.

Yesterday, I was one of about 10 internationals and 10 Israelis who accompanied approximately 50 Palestinians to plant olive trees in a town called Al-Khadr. The land we planted on was adjacent to the illegal Israeli outpost of Sde Boaz, made up of approximately 5 temporary homes. The settlers there have continuously harassed and attacked the Palestinian farmers when they attempted to access their land. After a few hours of planting, two soldiers from within the settlement approached and informed us that they "thought" that the Palestinians were not allowed to be there. Israeli activists contacted the District Coordinating Office (DCO), which verified that not only was the land we were currently planting on private Palestinian land, but that the land occupied by the outpost was as well. Everyone continued to plant as two settlers approached, one of whom was American.

After a short period of time, the two original soldiers were joined by two army jeeps, one police jeep, and one jeep from the DCO. The soldiers began interfering with the planting, stepping on trees and harassing the Palestinians. When one Israeli activist attempted to drive some Palestinians on the road near the settlement to pick up more trees, he was told that "only Jews" were allowed to ride in his car. Soon after, the Israeli army declared the area a Closed Military Zone, and ordered all of the people to leave or risk being arrested. After determining the range of the Closed Military Zone, we all moved to a new field and began to plant there. After just a few minutes of planting, 3 soldiers grabbed a young Palestinian man in an attempt to arrest him. A Palestinian woman, and then myself and other international and Israeli activists, intervened by getting between the police and the teenager they were trying to arrest. One soldier grabbed the youth by his neck and sweatshirt, tearing the sweatshirt. One soldier pulled me back by neck and stomach. In the end, the Palestinian man was not arrested. 500 trees were successfully planted on the land of four different farmers. Though the farmer with land closest to the settlement was concerned that the settlers would simply pull out the trees once we all left, it was an important precedent for the Palestinians to demonstrate continuous use of their land. Settlements have often expropriated land by claiming that Palestinian owners had "abandoned" it by not working it. More importantly, it was a statement that the Palestinians will not give up their land willingly.

Everyone here as been incredibly welcoming to me. Many Palestinians have come up to ask that I tell people back home what is really going on here, and what Palestinians are really like, and that is what I am trying to do.

I'm in Israel

2007-01-29T12:10:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to let you all know that I made it to Israel okay. Getting through security was quite easy, despite my buildup. I was asked what I was going for (vacation), what I had heard about Israel (you can float in the Dead Sea and Tel Aviv's a lot of fun), and whether I had been before (nope, first in my family!). All of my stuff got searched and sniffed for bombs. This was a bit more than most people got, but I expect that it was because my second flight was changed from British Airways to El Al, so my boarding pass was different. On an ironic note, a 20 year old stockbroker in the same situation as me got his luggage searched to the level of them going through the songs on his ipod, stripped to his underwear, and wasn't allowed to walk around the London airport without an escort.

So far I've been to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and the Dead Sea. Tel Aviv feels like any other city. There's nothing to hint at the violent military occupation taking place only an hour away. I've been staying with some nice anarchist kids here, and everyone is quite friendly. Nobody seems at all perturbed by the suicide bombing in Eilat this morning. The people I've asked have shrugged and said that it's pretty normal, that more people probably died in car accidents today so there's no reason to be scared, and that Israel will now bomb the city of wherever in Gaza the bomber is from in retaliation. The Old City in Jerusalem is full of checkpoints, similar to going through security at a US airport. You walk through a metal detector, and then your bag is scanned. The difference is that the person scanning the bags sits and reads the newspaper so long as you're white. There is no pretense that anything besides racial profiling is occurring. The checkpoints, as far as I can tell, simply exist to maintain a culture of fear - fear of the "terrorists" and "Arabs" by the Israelis, and fear of government violence by the Palestinians. In both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, there are armed soldiers hanging out everywhere, most of whom are clearly off duty. They are almost all visibly younger than me. Seeing a group of 18 year-olds sitting on the curb and smoking while holding rifles is a strange sight for me. I'm sure it will quickly become normal.

The Beginning

2007-01-21T11:45:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I begin my trip. I'll be taking an overnight bus from Chicago, and from there fly into Tel Aviv via Heathrow. Once arriving at Ben Gurion airport, the first challenge is to pass through customs. This is more difficult than it sounds. Israel has an unspoken policy of denying entry to foreign pro-Palestinian activists. In the past four years, over 130 people seeking to work with the non-violent International Solidarity Movement have been denied entry into Israel. These activists are deemed a security threat by the government, which does not want images and stories of the violent occupation to reach the outside world.

What I should have going for me though is that I am a Jew and, unlike Palestinians actually born on the land, I have a right of "return." I was raised with stories that any Jew became a citizen of Israel just by stepping foot on the soil. Though this is a slight exaggeration, Israel as well as many Jewish organizations actively recruit Jews to move to the country. A simple Google search bring up numerous such organizations, many of which offer financial incentives. It seems, though, that Israel only is interested in a certain kind of Jew - a Zionist - which I am not. Wish me luck.

One thing I would like to do upon return from my trip is to use my voice to begin to break down the mirage that there is a monolithic Jewish opinion on Israel and its actions. The much abused discourse that to oppose Israel's actions is anti-Semitic and minimizes the horrors of the Holocaust makes many people afraid to speak out against Israel's atrocities. Beginning to challenge this notion within the United States, a country which provides $3 billion of aid to Israel yearly, is a small step in the right direction.