< Reflection Five: From Immersion to Action!
November 2015 Delegation to Palestine/Israel
Co-Sponsored with American Jews for a Just Peace/Jewish Voice
for Peace Boston's Heath and Human Rights Project
Read reflections from this delegation:
- Olive Harvest Delegation Home
- The Power Imbalance is Palpable
- Share Their Story
- This is a Beautiful Land
- So Much I Didn't Know
- From Immersion to Action!
_______________________
Overview: The final set of reflections from the 2015 Olive Harvest Delegation include stirring calls to action from several participants. Carolyn K. starts off this collection with her call to "See You in the Streets"; Barbara B.-L. says she is ready to "do something"; and Wendy L. tells Americans that "they need to know the truth."
The final days of the delegation featured meetings on the Palestinian refugee experience and Sandra Y. and Bud H. write of a visit to the depopulated Palestinian village of Lifta, near Jerusalem.
Finally, Haniel G., Renee K., and Barbara B.-L. offer direct reflections on the nature of the injustice they witnessed. A powerful reflection by Bud H. appropriately ends the reflections from this delegation by reminding us of the bigger picture.
SEE YOU ON THE STREETS | Carolyn K. - Orinda, California
Our last few days in Palestine were impactful for me. We visited the Aida refugee camp outside of Bethlehem. We were forced to go in the "back" entrance due to soldiers throwing tear gas in the camp as a response to a protest. We saw small fires here and there and could smell the tear gas. The murals on the Wall were beautiful and made very powerful statements. The Wall separates the Jewish settlements from the Palestinian neighborhoods but also separates many of the Palestinians from their agriculture lands. Standing on one of the building's roofs, we could see the wall weave its way through the area like a snake.
We walked very quickly to Lajee Center in the camp. The building houses an organization that is providing refugee youth with cultural, educational, social and development opportunities. The crafts and artwork were beautiful and some of the children played their musical instruments for us.
At one point, we climbed to the roof so we could look down on their garden below. As we stepped on the roof, tear gas was shot over our heads as a warning. It was very frightening and burned our eyes, throats and noses. I saw someone running below to escape the onslaught. I thought how horrific it would be to never know when you might encounter tear gas or soldiers carrying powerful weapons.
The following day we traveled to a village outside of Jerusalem that was destroyed by the Israelis. Many of the buildings are still standing as a witness to the destruction. Even now, it is beautiful, located on hills looking out over what was once beautiful landscapes but now house Israelis in settlements.
As I walked through the village, I reflected on how life might have been when it was inhabited by its people. I thought about the different ruins I have seen in Greece, Italy and Turkey. The difference is that those cultures died away but this one was expelled. One of our delegates mentioned that she felt "spirits" as she walked. I believe the spirits are the hearts of the Palestinians who have been displaced hoping to return someday. I hope to be able to experience their return.
I vow to do everything in my power to end this oppression. See you on the streets and in the trenches.
RIGHT OF RETURN | Barbara B.-L. - Sebastopol, California
I can envision Jesus and his family and followers in this land, trudging among rocky hillsides, moving from one village to another, talking and deciding and thinking as they walk. Houses fit into the hills, some atop caves, ancient and youthful olive trees absorb sunlight and warmth. It exudes a stark and enticingly calm beauty.
"How Far Is It To Bethlehem? Not Very Far" sings lightly through my mind; I hear the melody, remember singing it in Oneonta, oh so many years ago. In a bus, it is not far and we passed the field of where Angels sang. I bent to enter the doorway of the Church of the Nativity, then joined somber happy pilgrims to stand at a 14 pointed silver star marking the place where "Jesus was born". There is so much desire to "get there", to be in such a holy place, to kneel and touch, even kiss the sacred mark that the spiritual energy is overwhelming and it felt to me like a tourist attraction. I felt a presence in the tiny stable-cave nearby, and then quietly departed.
Not far away is Aida Refugee Camp, home now to about 5,000 refugees, displaced from their traditional villages. It opened in 1950, with 800 residents living in tents on just over 16 acres.
Today there are many two and three storied buildings, jammed together. So there are generations of Palestinians who have been removed from their land, separated from their families. We visited a project which teaches children music and art, supports them living in ghetto-like situations, hoping that we, from the outside world, will care and understand this grave injustice.
We took photos of the huge wall the Israelis have built to contain these people and one of the mist/smoke of teargas shot off near the Lajee Center's building as we watched from the roof. It is very unpleasant! Later I picked up a cartridge from the street and hope I can bring it home. There is no marking showing where the cartridge was manufactured.
One of the bases of any resolution to the conflict and hatred between Israelis and Palestinians has to be the Palestinian concept of "right of return." It refers to their right to have their traditional family lands or equivalent returned to them, reparations paid. When I was in Gaza years ago the concept of "Right of Return" seemed to mean return to and possession of their actual family farms or land.
Today there seems to be a realization that Israelis living on those farms/lands are not going to leave/move and that there can be a compromise. (Today, in Israel and in Occupied Palestine, Palestinians have been and are still being removed from their lands for which they have legal paperwork as well as tradition.) This is a glimmer of hope for ending the conflict.
The main group has just left for the airport and tomorrow I will head off, with one or two colleagues, to work with women and children at a mobile clinic which goes out from Hebron to tiny villages.
It has been a good trip but I'm overloaded with information and am ready to "do something".
THE THIRD INTIFADA? | Wendy L. - Bath, Maine
We visited the Aida refugee camp near Beit Jala. There have been many clashes between the Palestinian young people and the Israeli soldiers in Aida. There have been many Palestinians injured or killed by the IDF throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem since October. Nearly every day, there are clashes. The 27 years of the US lead peace process has only resulted in more oppression, more land grabs by the Israeli government, more Israeli settlements on Palestinian land, the building of more of the separation wall, more isolation and poverty for the Palestinian people. The young people here are losing hope so they are rising up.
In Aida, Saleh gave us a tour through the camp. There, 5,000 people live on 16 acres of land and have not been allowed to expand beyond those 16 acres since 1948. I thought of Dover Foxcroft, my hometown in Maine. It too has a population of 5,000 but it is hundreds of acres in size with fields, and forests and lakes and fresh air. Most of all, the people have their freedom. I hope my mother and brothers will read the delegation reports.
As we walked through Aida, we saw many youths in the streets burning tires and throwing stones towards the wall and the soldiers. We heard multiple blasts from the tear gas launchers and many white trails of tear gas crisscrossing the roof tops. The gas billowed up from the streets and reached above the houses.
We gathered on the roof of the Lajee Center with Saleh. As we were photographing the clashes and the separation wall, our building came under a tear gas attack. The IDF does not want us here documenting what is happening in Palestine. We rushed down the stairs to the relative safety of the center to escape the gas and some of us needed to cover our noses and mouth with scarves.
As darkness fell, the streets began to calm down. Still, as our hosts spoke about Aida, we could hear more blasts from tear gas volleys throughout the camp.
The people of Aida are steadfast and despite the difficulty of living under the weight of oppression, education of their young people is one of their highest priorities. They have built an education center and have a program building hydroponic gardens on the roof tops, since there is no land to have gardens below.
Our hosts welcomed us warmly and were calm, despite what was going on in the streets. But then, I realized that the violence was something they live with every day.
Earlier when the group first arrived at Aida and we were walking around the camp, the children followed us and were saying in Arabic "they take photographs but do nothing."
I do not want to be an "occupation tourist "on this trip. How will I do my part to change the hearts and minds of my fellow citizens when I return? How can I convince people to tell our government to stop sending military ''aid" to Israel that is used for oppression and human rights violations of the Palestinian people?
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN | Sandra Y. - Durham, New Hampshire
I was deeply and surprisingly moved by our visit to Lifta, the ruins of a Palestinian village abandoned in 1948 when Israel was born. The villagers left because there was a massacre in a nearby town and they feared the same treatment. Lifta was a gateway village to Jerusalem for centuries. It was built on a steep hillside. The 60 or more houses that are still standing were constructed of limestone, at least two hundred years ago, stunning architecture with arched windows and balconies overlooking the valley. The remaining buildings include a mosque and a school.
The terraced hillsides still have olive and enormous fig trees growing where they were planted over sixty years ago. There had also been apricot and apple trees here. This area is believed to have been inhabited since prehistoric times. It has a lush feel to it that we had not seen in our two week visit to Israel/Palestine. This verdant place exists because of a spring which comes down the hillside with two wells and spilling into two constructed pools making this area so inviting to people and vegetation alike.
I kept imaging living in this village 60 years ago, one hundred years ago, two hundred years ago, and today. The place was magical, spiritual, and calming in spite of its recent history. It awakened in me the vision of what Palestinian life could be without occupation and colonization. The tour guide then told us that there is a demolition order for these historic and beautiful ruins. Some Israeli NGOs are trying to stop this demolition. I was overcome with sadness and I resolved to work even harder for justice for Palestine.
THE STORY OF LIFTA | Bud H. - Arlington, Virginia
During my tour of Lifta, I heard a different narrative of history. In I947 the United Nations approved the foundation of the State of Israel. The Jews approved the decision, the Palestinians rejected it.
Tensions flared immediately. In January, 1948, the Israeli militia attacked the upper portion of Lifta, a Palestinian village of 3,000 Muslims. Several Muslims were killed, and their neighbors fled down the hill to the homes of their neighbors. During the ensuing weeks, Israelis fired shots into the homes of the petrified Palestinians, many of whom left the village. Tensions remained high. Then, on April 9, Israeli militia massacred hundreds of men women and children in the neighboring village of Deir Yassin.
The remaining Lifta villagers fled to East Jerusalem or Ramallah. During the war of 1948, in which Egypt, Syria and Jordan, Arab countries which also rejected the UN decision, attacked Israel, Israel routed the Arab armies and continued their campaign of ethnic cleansing to rid the area of as many Palestinians as possible.
At war's end, only 100,000 Palestinians were left in the new Israel, and another 40,000 were included in a sliver of land given to Israel although not included in the UN agreement. Between 750,000 and 900,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes. They fled to Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza and to the land occupied by Jordan that became the West Bank. They were not allowed to return when hostilities ended. Their descendants, 7 million strong, are stateless refugees to this day.
This is quite a different story from the one we learned as children, that is, that Israel was a land without a people for a people without a land.
 |
BUY FAIR TRADE OLIVE OIL & MORE
DIRECT FROM PALESTINE! |
TEMPORARY INSANITY | Haniel G. - Washington, DC
It’s a fact that violence in Israel-Palestine comes from both sides of the conflict. But the mainstream Western media gives the impression of reverse causality; that Israeli violence is a mere reaction to Palestinian violence. We hear reports of Palestinian attacks on both Israeli soldiers and civilians. Entirely unreported are the acts of violence, often fatal, by Israeli soldiers and settlers on Palestinians in occupied territories. The overwhelming majority of the victims of these attacks are unarmed and often women, including pregnant women, and children. Such attacks generally precede Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
To make a long story short, Palestinian attacks on Israelis are generally immediate responses to prior Israeli attacks on Palestinians. But the Western media thoroughly ignores this and presents to audiences an opposite reality.
Also, as much as I hate to engage in a numbers game, when it comes to the number of victims on both sides, I find it necessary to point out that the Western media’s reportage tends to also obscure the disproportionality in the number of victims. Palestinian victims of Israeli violence are much greater than the other way around. One can easily consult Israeli human rights organizations like B’Tselem for confirmation. It is important to acknowledge this disproportionality in violence to see which side really is the underdog, to say the least.
More importantly, recognizing who commits the greater violence impacts the way we conceive about terrorism. The term has been associated by the mainstream press to Palestinians acts of violence. I haven’t found in the mainstream Western media using the term state terrorism as applied to Israel. Yet, its killing machine is much more deadly and murderous. It’s known to torture Palestinian prisoners, uses children as target practice and uses various other ways to harass Palestinian activists and their families, to mention just a few acts worthy of the label ‘terrorist.’
Yes, violence is done on both sides but there’s a big difference. Palestinians are held accountable and punished severely -- not just the alleged perpetrators (alleged because many that are arrested turn out to be innocent), but also their families, nay the whole community. When two Israeli youths were kidnapped and slain Israel went on a rampage and attacked Gaza, killing over 2,000 civilians. On the other hand, Israeli assailants receive only a slap on the wrist.
The perpetrators of the kidnapping of a Palestinian youth in East Jerusalem who was then burned to death were indeed arrested, but spent only 12 hours in prison. They were released because of a condition an Israeli court calls "temporary insanity." Israeli settlers on illegal settlements and soldiers commit acts commonly considered as crimes with impunity.
Watch out, then, for more cases of "temporary insanity." While at this, perhaps the notion of "state temporary insanity" may not be long in coming.
ISRAEL IS A LAWLESS COUNTRY | Renee K. - Cambridge, Massachusetts
Having now spent time in the Hebron area in the past few days I am left with some outstanding images. Primarily visited by tourists to visit the tomb of Abraham, our guide Said declared, "l'm Abraham, I'm living in a ghost town."
Daily in its center are continuous skirmishes between Palestinians and the IDF. As a result the Israeli army ordered the shops closed as a form of collective punishment. Above the marketplace one can see garbage raining down from above where Israeli settlements have encroached on Palestinian land. Our local guide, Issa, who runs a media center is a bold Palestinian who grew up in the center of Hebron. He repeatedly said that Israel is a lawless country. They are under Israeli military law which, according to him, "They don't respect Israeli laws nor international law. There is no accountability even after the blatant killings of young Palestinian children."
We Americans must insist on making Israel accountable by withholding our billions yearly that support this arbitrary military law that inflicts daily terror on Palestinians, just by their existence.
BULLIES ON A PLAY GROUND | Barbara B.-L. - Sebastopol, California
While in Jerusalem I took a couple of hours to visit Israel's Holocaust Museum. The architecture is stunning, stark, dark concrete hunched down in the ground.
The exhibits, as I expected, are shattering. They show the whole plan and its development, to rid Germany, then Europe, of Jews.
- Identifying
- Ghettoizing
- Limiting movement
- Taking land and possessions
- Killing
- Exterminating
While the world watch and did nothing.
The horrifying facet of these exhibits is that this is what Israel has done and continues to do, day by day, month by month to Palestinians. For over 60 years.
And we continue to stand by and let it happen, even supporting Israel's behavior. There are laws, definitions of various levels and varieties of citizenship, walls, soldiers with automatic weapons, huge spying balloons in the sky, courts, police ... many things which can be elements of community, but which are, in Israel and the Occupied Territories, ways to humiliate and mark the "other".
And then there are the Palestinians who constantly play awful TV programs glorifying violence and vilifying the Israeli forces. For good reason (see above) but it is a cycle of terrorism on both sides. Israel's actions are rising up generations of children who return the Israeli hatred.
They are reared with the concept of "Right of Return" and it appears to mostly mean return to their specific acres, no matter what has happened in the intervening years. They don't have the physical power to take the land and respect back, but they do have the anger and hatred fueling each other.
Were Israel/Palestine a school playground, I see Israelis as the bullies. With our help, they have all the equipment, run the schedule of who plays when and don't seem to realize that bullies don't win in the long haul. The Palestinians may be acting the part of local ruffians, but if they were included in this country, with respect, even friendship as time goes by, everyone might share the playground. And Palestinians' hatred would diminish. Some might, over generations, become a kind of community.
THE BIGGER PICTURE: THE ARC OF JUSTICE | Bud H. - Arlington, Virginia
America and Europe are awakening to the issue of social justice for Palestinians. This is different from the issue of one state or two states or any description of a possible political solution. The Oslo Accords and peace talks of the past twenty-two years have failed. The situation in Gaza is intolerable. The West Bank continues to shrink and the frustration of the Palestinian people continues to grow.
Israel is flourishing but appears to be blind to what is happening around it. Perhaps because of its own history of persecution and because it has from the beginning been surrounded by enemy states and peoples, it is unable to see what it has done and is doing to the people who have lived here before Israel existed as a state. The narrative, "a land without a people for a people without a land" has shown itself to be intellectually bankrupt.
It can no longer be hidden that Israel drove tens of thousands of Palestinians out of their homes and destroyed their villages in what we today call a campaign of ethnic cleansing. And through its military occupation of the West Bank with its highways and settlements, and with its discriminatory laws against Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem and its own large Palestinian minority in Israel, it continues to try to squeeze Palestinians out of their homes, off their land, and out of what many Israelis would like to call "Greater Israel."
To anyone familiar with American history, this appears remarkably similar to what we Americans did to Native Americans with our own narrative of Manifest Destiny. While Palestinians have shown themselves to be politically inept and unable to pull their people together, they have also shown themselves to be tough and accustomed to resistance. So something new is happening. Today most nations and peoples at least try to promote human rights and liberties. The civil rights movement in America and the battle against apartheid in South Africa have shown that it is possible to work towards social justice. And now the world is waking to the plight of Palestinians and adopting their cause.
Two issues demand special comment. First it is critical to separate the issue of social justice for Palestinians from anti-Semitism or opposition to the existence of Israel. It is true that many Jews and Americans, who have grown up with the narrative that Israel is a divinely mandated state, and that Israel bloomed in the desert without the ethnic cleansing involved in driving out Palestinians, will have a hard time adapting to how historians and world public opinion is describing the reality of the West Bank and Gaza. It will take time. But it is urgent that the discussion take place in earnest.
Second, the issue of social justice for Palestinians must be separated from the violence and extremism afflicting other Arab peoples. They are separate issues driven by different causes. That is not to say that Palestinians are free from the threat of growing extremism in their midst. But, for the moment at least, it is should be possible to help bring the Palestinian people into the community of free peoples without having to subject them to the violent extremism represented by ISIS, Al Qaeda and other radical Islamic movements. In fact, it is in Israel's interest to do everything in its power to ensure that a free Palestine emerges while there is still time.
Finally, we must address the question of what can be done. Whatever a solution will look like, the Israelis and Palestinians must find it themselves. It is also clear that at the present time Israel is incapable of overcoming its past, its sense of victimhood and its belief that the only way to manage Palestinians is to view them all as potential terrorists and to subject them to an oppressive and humiliating regime that itself breeds violence. While it may sound trite, Israel needs help from its friends. Call it tough love if you wish. But something needs to be done to shake Israel from the smug self-righteousness that has blinded it to what is happening in its own backyard.
First of all, the United States must stop its complicity in the suppression of human rights and social justice for Palestinians. It is time to support, instead of vetoing, UN Security Council resolutions critical of Israel's behavior. And far from approving Mr. Netanyahu's request for increased US aid, Washington should stop all financial aid to Israel until it brings its policies towards Palestinians into accordance with international law. Third, the American public can take action today to help bring social justice to Palestinians tomorrow by supporting the growing movement of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions and it will prove to be in Israel's own self-interest. It is the single most effective thing citizens can do today.
We invite delegation participants to comment on and react to the experiences they have during our Israel/Palestine delegations in written Trip Reflections.
Individual delegates contribute pieces to these reflections. As such, reflections are not comprehensive accounts of every meeting or experience, but impressions of those things that most impact individuals. Submitted reflections may be edited for clarity or brevity. Trip reports do not necessarily reflect the views of Interfaith Peace-Builders, trip leaders, or delegation partner organizations. We hope you enjoy reading and we encourage you to share these reflections with others.
DONATE: Support IFPB in sending more trips
TRAVEL: Sign Up To Learn About Future Trips