< Reflection Three: From the Wall to the Wall and Back Again >
May 2016 Delegation
Incarceration, Detention, and Political Prisoners
Co-Sponsored with the American Friends Service Committee
Read reflections from this delegation:
- May 2016 Delegation Home
- Notes of Arrival and Return
- Complexities
- From the Wall to the Wall and Back Again
- Finding Hope, Committing to Action
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Overview: The third collection of reflections from the delegation keeps it 100 (that's 100% real). Martin Friedman kicks it off with powerful reflection on internalized superiority. Such superiority is on blast in Katie Huerter's video from Hebron and Emily Sedgwick's sharing of Omran's story.
Elizabeth Rucker reflects on the leadership of youth in the Palestinian village of Atouf; a theme Jennifer Susskind also touches on in her recounting of the delegation's overnight in Nabi Saleh. Christy Wise shares her thoughts on the overnight at Tent of Nations. Salem Pearce's reflection cuts to the core of questions around religion and identity in Palestine/Israel. Last but not least, Cathy Sultan and Johanna Jozwiak reflect on steadfastness - captured by the Arabic term "sumoud."
Internalized | Martin Friedman- Seattle, Washington
From the wall to the wall and back again. This reflection is less about specific activities on specific days and more about overall reflections especially as it pertains to racial disproportionality in Israel/Palestine and in the US. We have been from Jaffa and south Tel Aviv to the Aida Refugee Camp in the West Bank to Jericho and Ramallah, Hebron and Nabi Saleh.
Walls. Everywhere I turn there are walls. The giant physical wall that separates, annexes, isolates and relocates. The wall that we are told to wail and pray at. These physical walls defined by Israelis dominate Palestinian life.
And what about the walls we can't see, the internal walls, the wall of traditions and interpretations. The wall of fear and the Shoah and never forget and "not what will happen to kill us but when". For so many Jews; the wall of "a land without people for a people without land". Internalized.
We Learned that in Jaffa there is a special school for Jewish boys that preps them for military service. There, they are taught to walk like "lords of the land" with upright posture and shoulders pulled back. Heads held high. Gazing towards an all Jewish Israeli future. Internalized.
We learned that there are 2 separate courts for Israelis and Palestinians. For Israelis there is civilian court. For Palestinians there is only military court. And in detention they are bound and bowed and humiliated in small chairs to literalize the sense of less then. Internalized.
Israel doesn't follow international law (and often not even Israeli law) and is not held accountable for violations of international sanctions. What would be internalized if the world said you were right but nothing changed?
The wall of racism: institutional, systemic, and structural. In other words, it's everywhere in everything and inescapable. And racism here is both different and similar to the American racism I'm so familiar with. In Israel, Jewish is synonymous with white and Palestinian is black, regardless of skin color. In Israel, Jewish is a nationality/race. So the darkest skinned Jewish person will have more institutional privilege then the lightest skinned Palestinian.
This plays out similar to how Jim Crow existed in the US. The law here is separate and surely not equal. In education there are separate school systems. In criminal justice there is civilian criminal court for Israelis and military court for Palestinians. Military court allows for administrative detention, being held without charges and without notification to the family. A huge percentage of these children are tortured. We hear their stories, see the trauma in their eyes and hear from an Israeli Jewish physician who's witnessed it.
These structural inequalities extend to rights to water, sewage and even cell phone frequencies and bandwidth. Internalized.
What becomes internalized? It all becomes internalized. When we stood in a busy area in west Jerusalem with the Women in Black most of the shouts were “what occupation?” “What Palestinians?” “There are no settlements, there is no Palestine.” Internalized.
Similar to racism in the US there is also a huge color dynamic in the Israeli Jewish community. With white Ashkenazi on the top and Ethiopian and other Arab Jews on the bottom. This plays out in every system. In the criminal justice system, for example, we were told that 80% of the Jews who are incarcerated are Jews of Color (Ethiopian and Mizrahi Jews mainly of Arab and Persian heritage). In the military, the Mizrahi Jews work the checkpoints in the West Bank and fight more on the front lines.
The bottom line is whether race is color based or ethno-religious nationality based it is a created concept used to separate people (like a wall?) and hold power for some while intentionally oppressing others (like a wall!). And it is always held in place by the complacency of the majority and the internalization of false superiority. Lords of the land? Make sure your gaze captures everything.
VIDEO: ISRAELI SOLDIERS QUESTION ISSA AMRO IN HEBRON | Katie Huerter - Omaha, Nebraska
Issa Amro and Youth Against Settlements hosted the delegation in Hebron and was stopped and questioned by the Israeli soldiers occupying his community. The incident was captured on film by Katie Huerter.
Click here for more videos and photos from the delegation on Instagram
Omran’s Story | Emily Sedgwick - Boston,Massachusetts
On Saturday morning, we left the comfort of the Holy Land Hotel in Jerusalem for a three-day road trip. We had a number of incredible experiences hearing from people who are subjected to discrimination, harassment, and brutality on a daily basis just for standing up for their rights as human beings. One of the many stories really hit home to me. We had a "water tour" by Omran from Al Haq, a Palestinian non-governmental human rights organization.
The bus stopped at a dry stream bed next to an Israeli pumping station. Omran described to us how the dry stream used to be a river with plenty of water to make the whole area green and create the Palestinian bread basket, growing many crops. Then he described how when he was a boy his family used to come there on holidays to swim and fish in the river; To a beautiful place full of fun and adventure. Then in 1995 Israel built a pumping station there, taking the water from the river for a nearby Israeli settlement. I have always loved river swimming, both when I was a kid, and then later with my own kids. It is a small thing compared to all the indignities suffered by Palestinians, but it still broke my heart to hear Omran's story.
Youth to the Front | Elizabeth Rucker - Allston, Massachusetts
On Monday and Tuesday, I had the privilege of hearing the stories and dreams of 10 Palestinian young people. The mornings were full of adults describing the horrors of child detention, but in the bright afternoon sun, I heard Nawab speak.
Nawab stood, fully 15 years old, in a warm conference room in Atouf, a small town a spitting distance from a former youth detention center, and told us about her work documenting human rights abuses with Defense for Children International - Palestine. This young woman reminded me that the other side of child detention and torture is youth moving to the front of their society, taking power back from the military and police, and leading the movement for human rights and peace with justice.
Nabi Saleh | Jennifer Susskind - Berkeley, California
Oh, where to start? The visit to this village with its 600 residents has been the most inspiring experience of my trip. The descendants of these villagers have lived on this land for at least 400 years. Bassem Tamimi, a member of the town’s Popular Committee, says, “My grandfather was a Christian, and my great grandfather was a Jew”. Meaning, that they do not perceive Jews as their enemy, but rather, the State of Israel.
The town has been practicing creative resistance against the occupation and the Israeli military since 2005. While the houses are in Area B (partial Palestinian control) 97% of their land is in Area C (controlled by the Israelis). Bassem’s house is in Area C and has been under a demolition order for years.
Across the highway, we can see the neighboring Jewish settlement, established in 1976. The settlement uses 5 times the amount of water per capita as the village. The land around Nabi Saleh is brown and barren due to settlers repeatedly cutting and burning down their trees and occupying their water source.
Bassem says, “Our duty and our dignity is to resist. We’ve studied Gandhi and Martin Luther King. We want to act as an example of nonviolence" (note: they don’t consider throwing stones to be a violent act, but rather an act of self-determination. This appears the perception among political Palestinians, and the slingshot and stone is a universal symbol of resistance.)
The town holds a nonviolent protest most Fridays against the occupation. The IDF drives their tanks up the road to the village and shoots rubber bullets and tear gas canisters at the protesters. They spray “skunk water” at the homes and water tanks, which apparently, leaves a horrible smell and taste. They shoot live ammunition at the protesters' thighs, to sever their nerves. Two villagers have been paralyzed from this. They raid homes (Bassem’s home has been raided over 100 times!) and arrest men, women and children.
350 villagers have been wounded, 50 are permanently disabled, and 2 have been killed, including close members of Bassem's family. Over 200 have been arrested. Over 80% of the men and 10% of the women have gone to prison. Many, repeatedly, mostly for “administrative detention” and throwing rocks. Bassem has been arrested 9 times, in prison a total of 4 years.
We walk through the village with Bassem. The children play freely in the streets. They do not appear traumatized. They string sound bomb and tear gas canisters, like Christmas tree lights, around their homes, like art displays. They are symbols of their fortitude and resilience. During the demonstrations, the children are present in the streets with their parents.
They say “we want to grow a generation for freedom. It is not true that we do not love our children [for letting them participate in the demonstrations]. We teach them to defend themselves, like the Indians allow a snake to bite them to give them a little venom, we [inoculate] them."
The villagers prepare a wonderful meal for us. We drink coffee and Bassem translates for the extended family. The children read their poetry. The children are experts in social media. One 11-year-old journalist has over 35,000 Facebook friends (I am now one of them).
We ask them if they have questions for us. A child asks us, “How did the Indians feel when you occupied them?” and “Why is there racism against the Blacks?”
Bassem explains that social media has been a revolution for their community. The media used to be controlled by the Zionists, but now they are able to share their message. Are they anti-Semitic? No, because they are educated and internationally connected.
According to Bassem, Israel isn’t even the problem. “The problem is the United States. Israel is the guard and the market for industrial capitalism of the USA.”
Also, he says, “Everyone comes from the land. The Zionists stole Judaism like ISIS stole Islam. I believe we can all be together. We can globalize our way of thinking for all of humanity.”
Stay at Tent of Nations | Christy Wise - Washington, DC 
I’m grateful for the opportunity to visit the Tent of Nations. It’s a completion, of sorts, for me. Our Palestinian Olive Oil ministry, benefiting Palestinian olive growers and Tent of Nations, brought me into this movement and then led to my position on the advisory council for the Friends of Tent of Nations of North America, but I’ve never been on the land.
It was incredibly meaningful to step onto the soil of the farm, smell the air, hug Daoud, hear him tell his family’s story while at his home, and share a meal.
Conversely, it was devastating to see the settlements so close to the farm, and expanding even closer, and to be awakened by the sound of settlement bulldozers and earthmovers this morning.
May You Be Free | Salem Pearce - Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts
Today was Hebron, a place I’ve been hearing about for a long time. It’s cited as one of the worst examples of the effects of the occupation on the Palestinians. And that’s just the everyday conditions: When parshat Hayei Sarah comes around each fall, it is somehow able to get worse, when thousands of right-wing, fanatically religious Jews make pilgrimage to the area and there are inevitably clashes between and among the settlers, visitors, Palestinian residents, and Israeli security forces. In response, a couple of friends started Project Hayei Sarah, using the Torah cycle to raise awareness about what is happening in the city that is the supposed burial place of Avraham, Sarah, and their descendants.
The trip started with visits to the Tomb of the Patriarchs and the Ibrahimi Mosque. I decided not to enter either: The latter because Jews aren’t allowed inside (I could have entered by lying or under cover of the rest of the delegation, whom the guide identified as “a Christian tour group,” but didn’t want to do either) — and the former because I don’t want to ascribe holiness to a place that has been violently wrested from the Palestinians and used to justify military and settler violence. (Plus, I’m pretty sure that “the patriarchs” aren’t buried there.) I am clear about my reasons, but it was a hard decision to make, and I was feeling overwhelmed with emotion. So while most others visited both places, I sat on a bench in the sun and meditated, doing a blessing practice I learned from one of my teachers. I repeated in my head, “May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. May you be free,” sending the mantra to all the residents of Hebron.
It came into my head while I was meditating last week: “There is enough compassion.” So I’ve been trying to remember and to act in ways that illustrate that compassion (particularly in myself) is not a finite resource. Compassion for the occupied does not preclude compassion for the occupier, and vice versa. That’s been hard to hold on to these past eight days.
Then began the walk with Issa, our Palestinian guide, who is from Hebron. He led us through about 10 blocks of what used to be a Palestinian neighborhood. Well, not all 10 blocks: He had to leave us for about 3 or 4, to go around another way to meet us on the other side. As a Palestinian, he is not allowed in this part of the city, where he was born and grew up.
The streets were almost completely empty of . . . everything. Empty apartment buildings, shuttered businesses, deserted roads, abandoned mosques and schools. There were only paths of egress blocked with stones and graffiti like מות לערבים , “death to Arabs.” Indeed, the Arab presence has been exterminated.
Two Israeli soldiers asked to look at our passports as we continued. There’s no official checkpoint — just two kids with enormous guns blocking the street. As the delegate in front of me passed by, the soldier, recognizing his typical Jewish name and seeing that he was born in Ohio, asked him in perfect, American-accented English, where he grew up. He explained, “I’m from Columbus.” As he handed the passport back he added softly, “Don’t believe everything you hear.”
When we met up with our guide after walking down the three empty blocks that merited a passport check, the soldiers who just stood and listened as we began the tour were replaced by soldiers who followed us as we walked. They were a few feet behind, guns at the ready, talking on the phone or writing on their hands (?). I did not feel safer — which I guess was the point.
Also following us were small kids (and not-so-small kids), begging for money and trying to sell “Palestine” bracelets and small embroidered bags. This hasn’t happened anywhere else we’ve traveled in the West Bank or East Jerusalem. Our guide noted, “I don’t approve of what they are doing, but families rely on them for income. The unemployment rate for Palestinians in Hebron is over 70%.”
This was the first time in a really long while that I actually didn’t give change when asked for money on the street. I always give at least something when asked in the U.S. But I didn’t have any coins, and I was scared that I would be overwhelmed by kids. I sure didn’t hold on to that compassion for very long.
After our guide was harassed by the police and we were all turned away from continuing up the street, we entered the heart of the Old City of Hebron through a huge grey metal gate structure with turnstiles controlled by a guard. It completely filled the tight space that was the entrance to the narrow paths and low ceilings of the Old City, and it was completely incongruous with the dirt road that led us into it and the smooth cobblestones that met us as we exited. And that’s when the permanence of the occupation — and my complicitness in it — really hit me.
It felt like walking into a prison in the U.S., and those seem to me immovable. They only expand, never contract. For the first time on this trip, I began to despair about whether any of this can be undone. I think it’s a bell that can’t be unrung; for me it’s certainly something I can’t unsee. The destruction seems irrevocable. I heard in my head the question full of anguish: How can we ever make this right?
And what I’m terrified of is the possibility that Hebron, in all its extremity, is actually the logical result of the occupation. If Zionism is about the displacement of one people with another, then Hebron is a success story (albeit an inchoate one). It is not an aberration. In Hebron, the state is doing exactly what its ideology dictates.
When we met with the IDF refusniks (Israeli military refusers) on Friday afternoon, the woman who spoke to us said something that was so revelatory and also so obvious: “The point of having a Jewish state,” she said, “is to have a Jewish army.” And so we do. And so here we are .
Hard to Stop and Process | Johanna Jozwiak - Midland, Michigan
It has been hard to write about the last few days. The experiences in Nabi Saleh, a former child prison turned youth center near Al-Faraa Refugee Camp, Tent of Nations, the village of Attouf and the Old City of Hebron, were, once again visits that were so hopeless and yet hopeful at the same time that the constant swing in emotions has made it hard to stop in one place long enough to process.
Such courage and steadfastness are humbling and hard to digest in the face of the knowledge that it is my money helping to place these families of husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, children, and siblings, who are no different than any other family in the United States, in such horrifying situations.
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