March 4, 2008
"Genocide in Gaza"
The Israeli Ministry of Defense has warned of a "holocaust" if the homemade Qassam rockets that are fired into southern Israel do not stop.
Why was that statement not reported on the vast majority of news stations? Why are the Gazans immediately – and always -- referred to as militants? And why is the international community remaining silent in times of a humanitarian crisis?
In the last four days, 91 one Palestinians have been killed. At least 12 are women and 18 are children. The youngest casualty last reported on Al Jazeera's Arabic channel was a two-day old child. More than 250 have been severely injured. People are climbing on to the roofs of their homes to create human shields so that the Israeli Army won't attack.
It hasn't worked so far.
What's worst, though, is that the government is divided in two over this issue. Over here in the West Bank, the Fatah-controlled government blames Hamas for bringing this on to its people and Hamas blames Fatah for not offering support. This is a time when the Palestinian people must – MUST – show solidarity and a will to come together. It is not about one party's ideals versus another, but the fact that Israel is aiming for genocide.
The Qassam rockets are not a good selling point; however, this conflict is not one-sided. If Apache helicopters are shooting people down every moment, what does Israel expect? Yet, Hamas's leader should not have stated that the Qassam rockets will never stop.
Strikes have begun in the West Bank. Meaning, cities like Ramallah, Bethlehem, and Nablus have closed their shops, restaurants, cafes, supermarkets in solidarity with the Gazan people.
A friend of mine took me for a drive around Ramallah yesterday because we were curious just how fast people would react to the horrifying news (Keep in mind all of this news is in Arabic – I am not even going to start with the crap that the English channels put on. Pure mindless garbage.). Within moments, most of the city had shut down. I went with him and his friends afterwards to do some shopping and everywhere, people were fixated on Gaza.
Last night, that very same evening, we were having dinner at a friend's place and what was supposed to bea relaxing night before I came back to Nablus turned out to be a horrific, bloody mess. At first, because half of us were foreigners and the other half Palestinian, we started off with Al Jazeera International. Yet, only the Arabic Al jazeera truly covered the complexity of the situation. What is frustrating about this is that the people outside of the region need to learn and understand the situation more than the people within the conflict. We're an emotionally invsted group here, we know the facts, the numbers, the background. All the guys could only curse as we watched Minister after Preseident after Political Leader blame one another. After hearing what they were saying without recognizing the true problem, I couldn't blame my friends.
Curse away.
It's only a short distance away, and yet, it feels like another country, maybe even another world. Gaza is the world's biggest prison, with 1.5 million people living in those few kilometers. And to shoot at them under already horrid circumstances of limited electricity, food, and supplies – might as well herd them around like cattle and shoot them dead.
Just a few weeks ago, the last catastrophe, when Gaza blacked out for days, seems like a simple little problem, in retrospect.
People are saying that Nablus is next. I don't think that is the case, but things are a bit off in the West Bank in general. As I came home this morning from Ramallah, more Israeli jeeps were around than usual. We were shot at this morning around 9 a.m., but I was the only one who flinched, and all I could think was, "If anyone gets shot, they get shot. So what?" Every time I looked out of the window, an M-16 was pointed in our direction.
Israel starts a new war, and the Palestinians are in danger.
At this very moment, there is an official strike for the next few hours and no one is allowed to work at the University. I have to go because we are showing solidarity with the Gazans, and almost everything in the West Bank has shut down.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Everything is Acceptable in Palestine
January 25, 2008
"The Gazans can walk They don't need oil."
Too bad they don't show this kind of family fun telivision in English and in the Western Media. That gem of a quote is from a press conference by the Israeli governement this morning.
This time, I wanted to send you a cheerful, cheesy email that would give you insight into anything besides conflict and occupation. Unfortunately, daily life infringes on the humor of random conversations and the culture of romance via text messages and coffee.
Another time, another time.
After my first three day experience of Israeli incursion – the evening incursions occur every eveingin in the Old City – it remains difficult to keep a level concept of human rights and justice. Also, I never thought I was such an angry person.
Karam comes in to tell me that two students have dropped the class. Before I can think of what I have done wrong, she says, "They've been arrested and don't know when they'll be let out. Some of their friends will take their places."
The worst realization comes when the information does not affect me, and I give her a "what can you do?" look and walk back into the classroom. Only later, when I am alone, I have to force myself into understanding that, no, this is daily life in Palestine, but it is not normal.
Not for any country, territory, or people.
After the curfew is lifted and the Israeli tanks have left Nablus in its psuedo-peace, the numbers and stories come out. Saed's friend, a man on his way to Friday prayer, has been shot in the back of his three times. All I can think is how are the Israeli soldiers going to defend themselves in this situation? Shooting a man in a non-curfew street and in the back of the head, too. Even some of the Israeli newspapers have picked up the story, and while it is not justice, it's something.
At this point, I've figured out that this is the best Palestine can hope for. Something.
I can't imagine living my life every single hour, every single day, every single year this way. Strangers and friends laud Maria and me for living in Nablus – aka the Gaza of the West Bank – but we're nobody. We're outsiders, hoping for a glimpse, hoping for that one moment of frustration to show solidarity. But I think that is shallow, and I refuse to pretend that I have experienced something or that I am one of them. I don't think that I wille ver be as great as any single Palestinian.
Yet, as I watch an 80 year old man being shoved by a nineteen year old teenage soldier, the tears begin to fall. First, make him wait an hour to leave his city, when he gets to the front of the line, tell him he must go somewhere else to wait, and then shove him when he is slow because he is tired and cold. Then you wonder why the foreigner with he American passport looks like all she wants to do is give you a swift kick where it hurts the most.
"You from America? Go back to America!" The aformetioned teenager tells me as he sees me wiping away the tears. And then he throws my passport at me, as if that will hurt my feeling and I will leave.
Shows how much that rug rat knows.
Anotehr day, because I am reading a book in English and I look Palestinian, I am summoned off the servis. The Ethiopian-Israeli female soldier starts snapping questions me in horrid Arabic, I decide to play her game. I laugh at her and tell her I don't understand a word. She grabs me and starts grabbing my body and my clothes.
"What is this? What is this?" She says as she grabs my side and the bow on my shirt. The angler bubbles up now and I want to tell ehr where she can take her acne-ridden face and shove it, but instead, I look at one of the male soldiers and ask if they speak English.
After a few moments where the female soldier stands in bewilderment, the guys wish me a nice trip and allow me to enter the servis again. I apologize to my fellow passengers and laugh hystericallyas the vehicle leaves the checkpoint because I am sure this is the first time a foreighner has been the reason for a stop.
I'll stop with the hideous bashing here because I don't want you to see this situation as completely black and white. This is what has started the whole Occupation and sixty year conflict.
Every time I cross paths with an Israeli soldier or Israeli, I try my best to put myself in his or her position. At the age of eighteen, you are forced into two or three (depending on whether you are a female or a male) year military service. Most of the soldiers, therefore are in the 18-20 age range.Imagine, on New year's Eve, you are standing in the biting cold, checking identification in the West Bank,when you could be in Tel Aviv with your friends and partying like a rockstar. Or, you are allowed contact with girls for the first time in days, and even if they are Palestinian and/or Pro-Palestinian foreigners, you can't help but flirt or try to extend the conversation a bit.
Ostensibly, not all Israelis are bad, just as all Palestinians are not good people. However, my dear, dear Israel, how do you expect me to feel sympathy for you?
I've spent an evening walking through the cemetary with two dozen men while they light candles for the martyrs. I've met parents who have sent their sons away to Ireland as they have no hope for happiness here. My friends have been beaten and harrassed. My friends cannot come with me to visit Jerusalem, their capital, nor can they even come to a party of mine in Ramallah.
What do you want me to say to you? That, as an American, of course we're friends!
Get real.
Right now, at this very moment, 1.5 million Palestinians are sitting in Gaza without water, oil. electricity, a shortage of food, and heat. Hospitals incubators are being shut off and newborns are dying by the minute. There is no medicine, and no one is allowed to leave or come in. Meaning, there is no chance of food or supplies.
Last night, I had received messages from my friends in the Arab World whileI had taken my four minute shower. We have to strategically plan our baths in our flat because there is no hot water for longer than four minutes in every hour, and I was thinking to myself, "Gosh, I am such a saint not to complain."
As I checked my phone, I had four messages. All of them were asking me what I thought of the situation in Gaza. As I let the air out of self-righteousness, I couldn't describe my emotions. What was that feeling?
Did I feel...guilty?
Of course I felt guilty. We're in the same country, and I have hot water. The sewage and dirty water is not flooding the city. I can eat bread without hoarding it. Best of all, Israeli neighbor is not (tonight, anyway) shooting at me in the dark, hoping to wipe out a million people.
Anger is exhausting, but so is pain. So much for a carefree email
As a friend of mine says,"Everything is acceptable in Palestine."
----
January 5, 2008
It's nearly midnight on the third, and hopefully, final day of the current curfew on Nablus. Three days only and there's a quiet desperation in the flat.
The pair of us is itching to get out, rejoin this patient society that has been locked up while the Israeli army searches the city and its inhabitants for whatever it is that they need to find. Some of the longest curfews have lasted three months. As neither of us is close to fluent in Arabic, the only snippets of information that we have gathered in the past seventy-two hours are from friends we have called to check up on and vice versa.
And the ten second news headlines on Al Jazeera and occasionally, the BBC or CNN.
What has to happen in the West Bank so that the rest of the world sits up and listens? Is it that we expect horrible things to happen in this region that when it does, it is not newsworthy any more? Has suffering become the norm?
Three days with constant attention on the news strikes the sudden realization of how little we in the West are given insight into the world. Sure, I'm just as glad as any youthful Democrat that Obama breezed through the Iowa caucuses, but three days coverage of only that and Kenya's unrest? For shame, Al Jazeera. I had more hope for you than that.
Most importantly, this region is real. It is not solely war, casualties, and the military. There is a life here besides conflict, and it matters. It does, it does. It must.
Feeling for these people is out of the question because first, people must see, read, listen -- learn. The same information of "One child shot and ten injured in the West Bank during Israeli incursion" has been the only source of English information the first two days. And it's not correct. Someone was shot, but it was not a child. A man, on his was to Friday prayer on a
street outside of the curfew, was shot in the head three times. Today, even when the Israelis have supposedly left, as friends have called in to explain, Al Jazeera flashes the bottom of its news page with " Nablus under curfew as Israeli incursion continues."
Too late, Al Jazeera. Too late.
Eight hours until freedom is the only thought that passes through my mind. What a strange concept that is: freedom. Freedom for me means that I am once again to traipse through the West Bank at ease because I am a foreigner, uninhibited by the officials, restrictions, wall, and checkpoints. For the Palestinian, freedom is the cautious passage of day to day, night to night until another outsider tells him to turn back, to live life within a boundary defined by someone who has no right to impose a lifestyle on another human being.
You want freedom, you Palestinian?
Fine, line up at the checkpoint with the eighty year old man next to you, the pregnant woman in front of you, and the toddler that weaves between legs, impatient and unaware of the life that she will lead. Let a 19 year-old Israeli Occupation Soldier bark through the window of your servis Taxi in broken Arabic and demand to know where you are from and where you have the right to travel within your territory. Have another soldier physically assault a man that looks like your grandfather, and then reach for a Western passport and smile flirtatiously at some girl as he asks why she would ever, ever consider visiting a city like Nablus. I live here, you spineless man, she fumes over as she fights the urge to scream obscenities in his naïve face. Watch the construction of a wall that destroys your economy, job opportunities, and the right to a successful and normal life. While you're at it, usher in the tanks and jeeps from the occupier to shoot at restless children throwing pebbles at you who have been confined to their homes and know no other life. Of course it is fair to crush cars and invade home in the middle of the night, threatening and imposing intentions of security.
No need for food, diapers or toilet paper. You didn't stock up "just in case" there might be an invasion?
Too bad, Palestine .
On the first day of the curfew, I remain blissfully unaware as I wake up on the first day of the weekend and stretch languidly as my phone rings. M. has woken up just an hour before and has gone to one of the University campuses to do some personal things that cannot be finished during work schedules. She calls to tell me of the jeeps and tanks that she passed and warns me to be careful because she knows I have similar plans to wander the streets and finish some work.
Of course, I throw on some clothes and run out to see the Israelis.
As I waive down one of the few taxis on the street, I tried to downplay my excitement as the driver remains unshaken by the sudden invasion. I think I am annoying him with my barrage of questions, and instead, turn to the window and wonder which alternate route he will take since most of the streets seemed to be shut down. I wonder if we will even be able to reach the University without being told to turn back.
As he is about to drop me off, he looks at me and asks if I am Khushbu. Surprised, I answer yes, and he tells me that his daughter is always talking about me. He refuses to take my money, but his daughter's voices floats through my head, recounting her father's daily wages and I am almost violent in my demands that he take the money. I want to give him more than the usual, but I know that will insult him. As I step out of the back, he warns, "Remain careful. Allah Maak."
God be with you.
Even during a time like this, the people are humble and kind.
No wonder the need for God is so great. What else is there to believe in? Every living generation in this territory knows no other life than one of occupation, invasion, submission, and the restriction of life.
I don't want this to be a political message, but one of humanity. Of course, for me and for the millions of refugees, displaced, and occupied populations, there is an obvious direction that this frustration is angled toward, but for today, I want you to think in terms of humanity. Make your own decisions, form your opinions, but try and learn more of the situation before forming that final conclusion.
A mother on Christmas Day speaks of watching her sons be bullied from adolescence to adulthood. As single tears roll down her cheeks, she speaks of multiple times that she has had to stand in the way of soldiers and her sons because she knows they are less likely to harm a woman. She sneaks through cities, across the Israeli-Palestinian border because the Israelis will not give her permission, even though she needs to, no, she must visit the Irish Embassy in Tel Aviv for her son's visa and has every right to enter Israel.
Days and nights of fear and hope culminate into a mother's resignation to the fact that she must "sneak" her child around checkpoints, through valleys, and into fields so that he may find a way out of this life. As her husband refills tea cups, she sighs into the silence before she continues. Of course no mother wants to know that her country, their country, cannot keep her children happy and alive.
However, as her oldest son went blind from trauma and shock during the second intifadah, and was cured miraculously in his first few days in Ireland, what is a mother to do?
A little boy of two or three runs in and out of the line at Huwara while his mother holds their place in line. He laughs as he waves to people in the line up, and runs father and farther away from the organized procession as his restlessness grows. I watch him zig zag his way out of his mother's reach and laugh as he brings back universal recollections of childhood and dodging parents.
As the line shuffles forward, the laughter catches in my throat. There is nothing universal or remotely normal about this. Yet, this child will grow up to think that this is a standard, a way of life. When his mother finally makes a successful grab for him, I shudder and look away. Hopefully, he will enjoy a few more years of innocence.
Some think that the lone sound of the ehzaan from the mosque in the middle of the night sounds eerie and lonely. I beg to differ. Tonight, in all its still calm, Nablus sounds eerie to me. No gunshots, no bombs, no drone of the plane. A few straying lights flash but to the unconscious observer it is any other city waiting for its inhabitants to wake.
I wonder how Palestine will feel once only memories of snipers, tanks, and the drone remain. In a matter of months, it has become a way of life. Just imagine lifetimes of the same.
What a sad, sad realization.
There must be phases of this situation that newbies go through. First, I was appalled, shocked, outraged, angry. On New Year's Eve, after going through an empty Huwara to reach the Ramallah servis, I laughed in the face of a soldier at the second checkpoint. Everyone turned to look at me, but I couldn't stop my giggling, no matte how embarrassing or threatening to someone's life.
Hatred is not the sole definition of my relationship with the IOF and their country. I consider myself too informed and realistic to be one of those that only see the situation as black and white. Pity resonates through the past few months, as well. What else can I feel when watching ten kids throwing stones and insulting two dozen soldiers standing guard and suddenly attacking these boys with tear gas? Is this what your life is? Is this how you define life and the patriotic defense of your country: Shooting a child in the head with a rubber bullet as he utilizes the only means of coping with a stranger on his territory?
"The Gazans can walk They don't need oil."
Too bad they don't show this kind of family fun telivision in English and in the Western Media. That gem of a quote is from a press conference by the Israeli governement this morning.
This time, I wanted to send you a cheerful, cheesy email that would give you insight into anything besides conflict and occupation. Unfortunately, daily life infringes on the humor of random conversations and the culture of romance via text messages and coffee.
Another time, another time.
After my first three day experience of Israeli incursion – the evening incursions occur every eveingin in the Old City – it remains difficult to keep a level concept of human rights and justice. Also, I never thought I was such an angry person.
Karam comes in to tell me that two students have dropped the class. Before I can think of what I have done wrong, she says, "They've been arrested and don't know when they'll be let out. Some of their friends will take their places."
The worst realization comes when the information does not affect me, and I give her a "what can you do?" look and walk back into the classroom. Only later, when I am alone, I have to force myself into understanding that, no, this is daily life in Palestine, but it is not normal.
Not for any country, territory, or people.
After the curfew is lifted and the Israeli tanks have left Nablus in its psuedo-peace, the numbers and stories come out. Saed's friend, a man on his way to Friday prayer, has been shot in the back of his three times. All I can think is how are the Israeli soldiers going to defend themselves in this situation? Shooting a man in a non-curfew street and in the back of the head, too. Even some of the Israeli newspapers have picked up the story, and while it is not justice, it's something.
At this point, I've figured out that this is the best Palestine can hope for. Something.
I can't imagine living my life every single hour, every single day, every single year this way. Strangers and friends laud Maria and me for living in Nablus – aka the Gaza of the West Bank – but we're nobody. We're outsiders, hoping for a glimpse, hoping for that one moment of frustration to show solidarity. But I think that is shallow, and I refuse to pretend that I have experienced something or that I am one of them. I don't think that I wille ver be as great as any single Palestinian.
Yet, as I watch an 80 year old man being shoved by a nineteen year old teenage soldier, the tears begin to fall. First, make him wait an hour to leave his city, when he gets to the front of the line, tell him he must go somewhere else to wait, and then shove him when he is slow because he is tired and cold. Then you wonder why the foreigner with he American passport looks like all she wants to do is give you a swift kick where it hurts the most.
"You from America? Go back to America!" The aformetioned teenager tells me as he sees me wiping away the tears. And then he throws my passport at me, as if that will hurt my feeling and I will leave.
Shows how much that rug rat knows.
Anotehr day, because I am reading a book in English and I look Palestinian, I am summoned off the servis. The Ethiopian-Israeli female soldier starts snapping questions me in horrid Arabic, I decide to play her game. I laugh at her and tell her I don't understand a word. She grabs me and starts grabbing my body and my clothes.
"What is this? What is this?" She says as she grabs my side and the bow on my shirt. The angler bubbles up now and I want to tell ehr where she can take her acne-ridden face and shove it, but instead, I look at one of the male soldiers and ask if they speak English.
After a few moments where the female soldier stands in bewilderment, the guys wish me a nice trip and allow me to enter the servis again. I apologize to my fellow passengers and laugh hystericallyas the vehicle leaves the checkpoint because I am sure this is the first time a foreighner has been the reason for a stop.
I'll stop with the hideous bashing here because I don't want you to see this situation as completely black and white. This is what has started the whole Occupation and sixty year conflict.
Every time I cross paths with an Israeli soldier or Israeli, I try my best to put myself in his or her position. At the age of eighteen, you are forced into two or three (depending on whether you are a female or a male) year military service. Most of the soldiers, therefore are in the 18-20 age range.Imagine, on New year's Eve, you are standing in the biting cold, checking identification in the West Bank,when you could be in Tel Aviv with your friends and partying like a rockstar. Or, you are allowed contact with girls for the first time in days, and even if they are Palestinian and/or Pro-Palestinian foreigners, you can't help but flirt or try to extend the conversation a bit.
Ostensibly, not all Israelis are bad, just as all Palestinians are not good people. However, my dear, dear Israel, how do you expect me to feel sympathy for you?
I've spent an evening walking through the cemetary with two dozen men while they light candles for the martyrs. I've met parents who have sent their sons away to Ireland as they have no hope for happiness here. My friends have been beaten and harrassed. My friends cannot come with me to visit Jerusalem, their capital, nor can they even come to a party of mine in Ramallah.
What do you want me to say to you? That, as an American, of course we're friends!
Get real.
Right now, at this very moment, 1.5 million Palestinians are sitting in Gaza without water, oil. electricity, a shortage of food, and heat. Hospitals incubators are being shut off and newborns are dying by the minute. There is no medicine, and no one is allowed to leave or come in. Meaning, there is no chance of food or supplies.
Last night, I had received messages from my friends in the Arab World whileI had taken my four minute shower. We have to strategically plan our baths in our flat because there is no hot water for longer than four minutes in every hour, and I was thinking to myself, "Gosh, I am such a saint not to complain."
As I checked my phone, I had four messages. All of them were asking me what I thought of the situation in Gaza. As I let the air out of self-righteousness, I couldn't describe my emotions. What was that feeling?
Did I feel...guilty?
Of course I felt guilty. We're in the same country, and I have hot water. The sewage and dirty water is not flooding the city. I can eat bread without hoarding it. Best of all, Israeli neighbor is not (tonight, anyway) shooting at me in the dark, hoping to wipe out a million people.
Anger is exhausting, but so is pain. So much for a carefree email
As a friend of mine says,"Everything is acceptable in Palestine."
----
January 5, 2008
It's nearly midnight on the third, and hopefully, final day of the current curfew on Nablus. Three days only and there's a quiet desperation in the flat.
The pair of us is itching to get out, rejoin this patient society that has been locked up while the Israeli army searches the city and its inhabitants for whatever it is that they need to find. Some of the longest curfews have lasted three months. As neither of us is close to fluent in Arabic, the only snippets of information that we have gathered in the past seventy-two hours are from friends we have called to check up on and vice versa.
And the ten second news headlines on Al Jazeera and occasionally, the BBC or CNN.
What has to happen in the West Bank so that the rest of the world sits up and listens? Is it that we expect horrible things to happen in this region that when it does, it is not newsworthy any more? Has suffering become the norm?
Three days with constant attention on the news strikes the sudden realization of how little we in the West are given insight into the world. Sure, I'm just as glad as any youthful Democrat that Obama breezed through the Iowa caucuses, but three days coverage of only that and Kenya's unrest? For shame, Al Jazeera. I had more hope for you than that.
Most importantly, this region is real. It is not solely war, casualties, and the military. There is a life here besides conflict, and it matters. It does, it does. It must.
Feeling for these people is out of the question because first, people must see, read, listen -- learn. The same information of "One child shot and ten injured in the West Bank during Israeli incursion" has been the only source of English information the first two days. And it's not correct. Someone was shot, but it was not a child. A man, on his was to Friday prayer on a
street outside of the curfew, was shot in the head three times. Today, even when the Israelis have supposedly left, as friends have called in to explain, Al Jazeera flashes the bottom of its news page with " Nablus under curfew as Israeli incursion continues."
Too late, Al Jazeera. Too late.
Eight hours until freedom is the only thought that passes through my mind. What a strange concept that is: freedom. Freedom for me means that I am once again to traipse through the West Bank at ease because I am a foreigner, uninhibited by the officials, restrictions, wall, and checkpoints. For the Palestinian, freedom is the cautious passage of day to day, night to night until another outsider tells him to turn back, to live life within a boundary defined by someone who has no right to impose a lifestyle on another human being.
You want freedom, you Palestinian?
Fine, line up at the checkpoint with the eighty year old man next to you, the pregnant woman in front of you, and the toddler that weaves between legs, impatient and unaware of the life that she will lead. Let a 19 year-old Israeli Occupation Soldier bark through the window of your servis Taxi in broken Arabic and demand to know where you are from and where you have the right to travel within your territory. Have another soldier physically assault a man that looks like your grandfather, and then reach for a Western passport and smile flirtatiously at some girl as he asks why she would ever, ever consider visiting a city like Nablus. I live here, you spineless man, she fumes over as she fights the urge to scream obscenities in his naïve face. Watch the construction of a wall that destroys your economy, job opportunities, and the right to a successful and normal life. While you're at it, usher in the tanks and jeeps from the occupier to shoot at restless children throwing pebbles at you who have been confined to their homes and know no other life. Of course it is fair to crush cars and invade home in the middle of the night, threatening and imposing intentions of security.
No need for food, diapers or toilet paper. You didn't stock up "just in case" there might be an invasion?
Too bad, Palestine .
On the first day of the curfew, I remain blissfully unaware as I wake up on the first day of the weekend and stretch languidly as my phone rings. M. has woken up just an hour before and has gone to one of the University campuses to do some personal things that cannot be finished during work schedules. She calls to tell me of the jeeps and tanks that she passed and warns me to be careful because she knows I have similar plans to wander the streets and finish some work.
Of course, I throw on some clothes and run out to see the Israelis.
As I waive down one of the few taxis on the street, I tried to downplay my excitement as the driver remains unshaken by the sudden invasion. I think I am annoying him with my barrage of questions, and instead, turn to the window and wonder which alternate route he will take since most of the streets seemed to be shut down. I wonder if we will even be able to reach the University without being told to turn back.
As he is about to drop me off, he looks at me and asks if I am Khushbu. Surprised, I answer yes, and he tells me that his daughter is always talking about me. He refuses to take my money, but his daughter's voices floats through my head, recounting her father's daily wages and I am almost violent in my demands that he take the money. I want to give him more than the usual, but I know that will insult him. As I step out of the back, he warns, "Remain careful. Allah Maak."
God be with you.
Even during a time like this, the people are humble and kind.
No wonder the need for God is so great. What else is there to believe in? Every living generation in this territory knows no other life than one of occupation, invasion, submission, and the restriction of life.
I don't want this to be a political message, but one of humanity. Of course, for me and for the millions of refugees, displaced, and occupied populations, there is an obvious direction that this frustration is angled toward, but for today, I want you to think in terms of humanity. Make your own decisions, form your opinions, but try and learn more of the situation before forming that final conclusion.
A mother on Christmas Day speaks of watching her sons be bullied from adolescence to adulthood. As single tears roll down her cheeks, she speaks of multiple times that she has had to stand in the way of soldiers and her sons because she knows they are less likely to harm a woman. She sneaks through cities, across the Israeli-Palestinian border because the Israelis will not give her permission, even though she needs to, no, she must visit the Irish Embassy in Tel Aviv for her son's visa and has every right to enter Israel.
Days and nights of fear and hope culminate into a mother's resignation to the fact that she must "sneak" her child around checkpoints, through valleys, and into fields so that he may find a way out of this life. As her husband refills tea cups, she sighs into the silence before she continues. Of course no mother wants to know that her country, their country, cannot keep her children happy and alive.
However, as her oldest son went blind from trauma and shock during the second intifadah, and was cured miraculously in his first few days in Ireland, what is a mother to do?
A little boy of two or three runs in and out of the line at Huwara while his mother holds their place in line. He laughs as he waves to people in the line up, and runs father and farther away from the organized procession as his restlessness grows. I watch him zig zag his way out of his mother's reach and laugh as he brings back universal recollections of childhood and dodging parents.
As the line shuffles forward, the laughter catches in my throat. There is nothing universal or remotely normal about this. Yet, this child will grow up to think that this is a standard, a way of life. When his mother finally makes a successful grab for him, I shudder and look away. Hopefully, he will enjoy a few more years of innocence.
Some think that the lone sound of the ehzaan from the mosque in the middle of the night sounds eerie and lonely. I beg to differ. Tonight, in all its still calm, Nablus sounds eerie to me. No gunshots, no bombs, no drone of the plane. A few straying lights flash but to the unconscious observer it is any other city waiting for its inhabitants to wake.
I wonder how Palestine will feel once only memories of snipers, tanks, and the drone remain. In a matter of months, it has become a way of life. Just imagine lifetimes of the same.
What a sad, sad realization.
There must be phases of this situation that newbies go through. First, I was appalled, shocked, outraged, angry. On New Year's Eve, after going through an empty Huwara to reach the Ramallah servis, I laughed in the face of a soldier at the second checkpoint. Everyone turned to look at me, but I couldn't stop my giggling, no matte how embarrassing or threatening to someone's life.
Hatred is not the sole definition of my relationship with the IOF and their country. I consider myself too informed and realistic to be one of those that only see the situation as black and white. Pity resonates through the past few months, as well. What else can I feel when watching ten kids throwing stones and insulting two dozen soldiers standing guard and suddenly attacking these boys with tear gas? Is this what your life is? Is this how you define life and the patriotic defense of your country: Shooting a child in the head with a rubber bullet as he utilizes the only means of coping with a stranger on his territory?
We suffer from an incurable malady: Hope -- Mahmoud Darwish
December 10, 2007
I'm woozy by the time we reach Bethlehem and I can tell my green-tinted friends feel the same. However, the beautiful Old City and the huge chunk of religious history better known as the Nativity Church remedy the nausea.
Palestine has been a surprise for me; a newfound passion, really. History, religion, culture, language: in essence, everything that fuels conflict, politics, and individuality.
No need to be jealous, though. My time here isn't as exciting as most of you think it is. Mostly, it is loads of thinking mixed in with tiny bits of experiencing, observing, and an array of emotions that makes me feel schizophrenic at times.
My visa ends January 24, and I have to make a decision (something I'm not terribly good at doing). Either I can extend my visa through a consulate in the West Bank, which by the way, most of us never knew existed, or I can risk leaving the country and trying to return. I prefer the latter, although I am pretty sure I might be rejected, mostly because I would like to go back to Jordan for a few days and see some people. As horrible as this is, a little part of me hopes that I may be rejected so that I can head off to Morocco for a month to visit someone and spend a languid, lazy month in Rabat before finally heading home.
As usual, nothing will be decided until January 23.
Anyway, I am writing to let you know that I am OK, and I have been the worst at keeping in touch these last 7 weeks, and will be even worse the next two weeks. I am going to Ramallah this weekend so that a couple of friends and I will be able to go to Qalqilia (one of the most 'dangerous' cities in the West Bank) and get a good look at the hideous wall and concrete zoo. Saturday, I will go to my second Palestinian wedding, and Eid Al-Adha begins in about a week and a half.
We're going to Jerusalem on a tour with a man who speaks twelve languages and ending the day with dinner in a cave. The next day, half a dozen of us will head off to Bethlehem and spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day there. Maria and I are still debating if we will join the others for Mass on Christmas Eve, which begins at midnight and lasts until 3 or 4 a.m.
Even Jesus can't hold my interest that long.
To end our holiday, Deirdre, Aline, Maria, and plan to take a road trip through Tel Aviv, Haifa, Akka, and Golan Heights. Mostly, I'd like to the territory Israel captured from Syria – the Golan Heights – and life in Haifa 18 months after the 2006 war. The damage, socially and physically, probably wanes in comparison to southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut.
As for work, let's see. I work on a University campus, with a Human Rights campaign fueled through the Public Relations department of An-Najah National University (aka the "University of Terror"), located in Nablus (aka the "City of Terror").
When I am not writing reports, entertaining foreigners, giving presentations, running a long-term workshop on journalism and editing, and teaching diplomatic forms of rhetoric to a group of students that plan to travel abroad, I talk.
I talk to girls in niqaabs, flocks of students in hijaabs, the rebel boys in flashy clothes, the select few students that have been outside of Palestine. Actually, I listen. Never have I experienced so much of life through words. Words of frustration, anger, hope, and resignation.
The highlight of my time is the interaction with these students, people who are not much younger than me, but who have been stunted from expanding their knowledge and maturity, literally, by a wall. And occupation. And checkpoints. And raids. And gunshots. And curfews.
Picture Nablus: one of the oldest cities (and the most dangerous) in the West Bank cut off from the rest of the West Bank, let alone Israel, by three checkpoints, nightly Israeli raids in the old city and clashes in the refugee camps. Can you imagine not having the right to travel within your own country? Having to hear about cities in
your country from foreigners? They can't even go to Jerusalem, the city that should be their capital (By the way, Google Earth is wrong. The official Israeli capital is Tel Aviv). Checkpoints to go to school every single day, hours and hours of interrogation, and worrying because you are in Nablus with a Jerusalem ID card.
Yet, somehow, the students let me forget. When I am in the office, they stop by to say hi, ask if I'd like to take a walk, and chat. The girls tell me about problems with their parents, love interests, and how their aunt just called because some decent man would like to marry her. A guy walks in late to my rhetoric class and when I give him 'the nasty teacher' look, he merely grins and hands me a cup of coffee. The guys are all wannabe Casanovas, and I love every single one of them.
Then there is life outside of Nablus and the University. Maria and I spend most of the weekends with the girls in Ramallah, either by staying in the city or traveling to Jerusalem, Hebron, and Bethlehem, thus far. Sometimes, they come visit us and we walk around the old City and eat kanafah. Aline has an Arabic teacher, Ahmed, who is our age, and usually, we end up going out with him and half a dozen of his best friends when we stay in Ramallah. These are the moments, sitting around a table with six Palestinian men and our new friends, laughing and joking, and hopefully, they are able to forget.
Even if it is just for a few hours.
Maria turns to me on one of these nights and whispers, "You're right. I'm glad we don't live here. I would forget where I was if we did this every weekend or every night."
It's true. Ramallah, although encased in a shabby shell, has all the comforts and internationals of any other major city. I prefer Nablus.
I don't know what made me feel guilty, but all of a sudden, I turned to Ahmed and blurted out, "Don't you feel bad that we are here doing this," pointing to the smoke-filled room and laughing crowds, "When all of that is going on out there?"
Instantly, I slap my forehead. What a stupid and shallow question to ask!
But Ahmed has always been my favorite, and since the first moment we met, we get along smashingly. He just smiles and says, "Khushbu, I've mourned my whole life. I've mourned the last seven years [since the intifada]. I've learned that if I don't enjoy my time, I might die. Just die."
Then Kilany asks me to go dance to some Amr Diab, and that pathetic question is forgotten amidst the laughter as I try to convince Mohammed that he will regret this decision.
---
It's been nearly seven weeks since Pedro and I sat on the steps on the Damascus Gate in East Jerusalem and then wandered over to the Wailing Wall. My aforementioned Portuguese friend has been traveling the world for three years, and we met in a chance encounter on the bus from the Jordanian border to the Israeli border. We both waited four hours at the security checkpoint, him because he had been to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, and Jordan. I had to wait because I had been to Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon.
While my list was not nearly as long or as 'complicated' as his, we waited the same amount of time because 1) honestly, he doesn't look Arab (and supposedly, I do) and 2) the IDF soldiers, who are all girls, at the border, could not get over his ridiculous good looks.
I just pretend that the girls wanted to help the good looking Latin man because the discrimination from that day still haunts me. It's only one thousandth of what happens to Palestinians on a daily basis, and I can barely think on that day without my blood boiling.
I don't how to end this, and honestly, I am telling you this because I don't know what perception I want you all to have of Palestine. Resignation? Hope? Curiosity?
I hope that it's the last one. I want you all to learn about the wall that 'separates' Palestine from Israel. I want you to know that there is a University (Al Quds University) that is separated by that very same wall. Imagine not being able to go to a class because it is on one side of a wall that your occupiers have built for 'safety' purposes. Instead, imagine a stifled economy and incomprehensible poverty. If all I can do for you all over there at this time is one thing, I would want it to be to make you think. Just think.
I'm woozy by the time we reach Bethlehem and I can tell my green-tinted friends feel the same. However, the beautiful Old City and the huge chunk of religious history better known as the Nativity Church remedy the nausea.
Palestine has been a surprise for me; a newfound passion, really. History, religion, culture, language: in essence, everything that fuels conflict, politics, and individuality.
No need to be jealous, though. My time here isn't as exciting as most of you think it is. Mostly, it is loads of thinking mixed in with tiny bits of experiencing, observing, and an array of emotions that makes me feel schizophrenic at times.
My visa ends January 24, and I have to make a decision (something I'm not terribly good at doing). Either I can extend my visa through a consulate in the West Bank, which by the way, most of us never knew existed, or I can risk leaving the country and trying to return. I prefer the latter, although I am pretty sure I might be rejected, mostly because I would like to go back to Jordan for a few days and see some people. As horrible as this is, a little part of me hopes that I may be rejected so that I can head off to Morocco for a month to visit someone and spend a languid, lazy month in Rabat before finally heading home.
As usual, nothing will be decided until January 23.
Anyway, I am writing to let you know that I am OK, and I have been the worst at keeping in touch these last 7 weeks, and will be even worse the next two weeks. I am going to Ramallah this weekend so that a couple of friends and I will be able to go to Qalqilia (one of the most 'dangerous' cities in the West Bank) and get a good look at the hideous wall and concrete zoo. Saturday, I will go to my second Palestinian wedding, and Eid Al-Adha begins in about a week and a half.
We're going to Jerusalem on a tour with a man who speaks twelve languages and ending the day with dinner in a cave. The next day, half a dozen of us will head off to Bethlehem and spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day there. Maria and I are still debating if we will join the others for Mass on Christmas Eve, which begins at midnight and lasts until 3 or 4 a.m.
Even Jesus can't hold my interest that long.
To end our holiday, Deirdre, Aline, Maria, and plan to take a road trip through Tel Aviv, Haifa, Akka, and Golan Heights. Mostly, I'd like to the territory Israel captured from Syria – the Golan Heights – and life in Haifa 18 months after the 2006 war. The damage, socially and physically, probably wanes in comparison to southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut.
As for work, let's see. I work on a University campus, with a Human Rights campaign fueled through the Public Relations department of An-Najah National University (aka the "University of Terror"), located in Nablus (aka the "City of Terror").
When I am not writing reports, entertaining foreigners, giving presentations, running a long-term workshop on journalism and editing, and teaching diplomatic forms of rhetoric to a group of students that plan to travel abroad, I talk.
I talk to girls in niqaabs, flocks of students in hijaabs, the rebel boys in flashy clothes, the select few students that have been outside of Palestine. Actually, I listen. Never have I experienced so much of life through words. Words of frustration, anger, hope, and resignation.
The highlight of my time is the interaction with these students, people who are not much younger than me, but who have been stunted from expanding their knowledge and maturity, literally, by a wall. And occupation. And checkpoints. And raids. And gunshots. And curfews.
Picture Nablus: one of the oldest cities (and the most dangerous) in the West Bank cut off from the rest of the West Bank, let alone Israel, by three checkpoints, nightly Israeli raids in the old city and clashes in the refugee camps. Can you imagine not having the right to travel within your own country? Having to hear about cities in
your country from foreigners? They can't even go to Jerusalem, the city that should be their capital (By the way, Google Earth is wrong. The official Israeli capital is Tel Aviv). Checkpoints to go to school every single day, hours and hours of interrogation, and worrying because you are in Nablus with a Jerusalem ID card.
Yet, somehow, the students let me forget. When I am in the office, they stop by to say hi, ask if I'd like to take a walk, and chat. The girls tell me about problems with their parents, love interests, and how their aunt just called because some decent man would like to marry her. A guy walks in late to my rhetoric class and when I give him 'the nasty teacher' look, he merely grins and hands me a cup of coffee. The guys are all wannabe Casanovas, and I love every single one of them.
Then there is life outside of Nablus and the University. Maria and I spend most of the weekends with the girls in Ramallah, either by staying in the city or traveling to Jerusalem, Hebron, and Bethlehem, thus far. Sometimes, they come visit us and we walk around the old City and eat kanafah. Aline has an Arabic teacher, Ahmed, who is our age, and usually, we end up going out with him and half a dozen of his best friends when we stay in Ramallah. These are the moments, sitting around a table with six Palestinian men and our new friends, laughing and joking, and hopefully, they are able to forget.
Even if it is just for a few hours.
Maria turns to me on one of these nights and whispers, "You're right. I'm glad we don't live here. I would forget where I was if we did this every weekend or every night."
It's true. Ramallah, although encased in a shabby shell, has all the comforts and internationals of any other major city. I prefer Nablus.
I don't know what made me feel guilty, but all of a sudden, I turned to Ahmed and blurted out, "Don't you feel bad that we are here doing this," pointing to the smoke-filled room and laughing crowds, "When all of that is going on out there?"
Instantly, I slap my forehead. What a stupid and shallow question to ask!
But Ahmed has always been my favorite, and since the first moment we met, we get along smashingly. He just smiles and says, "Khushbu, I've mourned my whole life. I've mourned the last seven years [since the intifada]. I've learned that if I don't enjoy my time, I might die. Just die."
Then Kilany asks me to go dance to some Amr Diab, and that pathetic question is forgotten amidst the laughter as I try to convince Mohammed that he will regret this decision.
---
It's been nearly seven weeks since Pedro and I sat on the steps on the Damascus Gate in East Jerusalem and then wandered over to the Wailing Wall. My aforementioned Portuguese friend has been traveling the world for three years, and we met in a chance encounter on the bus from the Jordanian border to the Israeli border. We both waited four hours at the security checkpoint, him because he had been to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, and Jordan. I had to wait because I had been to Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon.
While my list was not nearly as long or as 'complicated' as his, we waited the same amount of time because 1) honestly, he doesn't look Arab (and supposedly, I do) and 2) the IDF soldiers, who are all girls, at the border, could not get over his ridiculous good looks.
I just pretend that the girls wanted to help the good looking Latin man because the discrimination from that day still haunts me. It's only one thousandth of what happens to Palestinians on a daily basis, and I can barely think on that day without my blood boiling.
I don't how to end this, and honestly, I am telling you this because I don't know what perception I want you all to have of Palestine. Resignation? Hope? Curiosity?
I hope that it's the last one. I want you all to learn about the wall that 'separates' Palestine from Israel. I want you to know that there is a University (Al Quds University) that is separated by that very same wall. Imagine not being able to go to a class because it is on one side of a wall that your occupiers have built for 'safety' purposes. Instead, imagine a stifled economy and incomprehensible poverty. If all I can do for you all over there at this time is one thing, I would want it to be to make you think. Just think.
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