< Reflection Four: Finding Hope, Committing to Action
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
_______________________
Overview: Most members of the delegation have returned from Palestine/Israel this week, but they took the time to submit this final set of reflections before doing so. Casey Aldridge kicks it off with a stirring summation and a commitment to solidarity; Nawal Musleh, Thomas Banyai, Laila Liddy, and Cathy Sultan comment on the situation facing Palestinian children and youth; Cecilie Surasky's submission is a collection of photos featuring faces of the delegation; Noble Larson writes about the delegation's visit to Hebron; David Young shares his notes from Lifta; and Jennifer Susskind writes eloquently of the hardships faced by the Palestinians Bedouin population living in the Negev Desert inside Israel.
We hope you've enjoyed reading the reflections from this fabulous delegation! Use the menu at right to see previous submissions and click here to find out more about upcoming IFPB delegations!
Time to Get my Hands Dirty | Casey Aldridge - Charlotte, North Carolina
On the first day of our four day, three night stay in the West Bank, our delegation met with Sam Bahour in Ramallah. Sam gave us his story, but the thing he said that I remember most was a particular observation about the post-Oslo situation in Palestine.
Sam remarked that the West Bank in particular has become a "scrambled egg" that we cannot ever unscramble. That model makes sense out of the way the West Bank is carved up into zones A, B, and C, and how Palestinian, Druze, and Bedouin communities still exist across Israel. It helps put some perspective too on how settler colonialism has and does operate against Native Americans back home, both in terms of territory and reservations, and in terms of racial identity. It makes sense of the fact that the annexation and separation wall falls mostly in the West Bank and not along the green line, and it makes sense of how settlements attempt to choke out Tent of Nations and towns like Nabi Saleh.
We can and must fight for right of return for displaced Palestinians, but the war and occupation means that Palestine cannot be returned to as it was. The occupation has made Palestine into a new creation. The Palestinians have suffered injustices that cannot be merely swept into history, even if the occupation were to end tomorrow; the occupation has simultaneously cultivated incredible courage, solidarity, compassion, and a beautiful militancy for justice amongst the people we met in Nabi Saleh, Hebron, Ramallah, Jerusalem, and beyond. As such, and as Sam touched on, the sobering truth that Palestine has fundamentally become a "new creation" calls for resistance that constantly reinvents itself, drawing on the lessons of the past all the while looking towards the future.
The occupation has grown so pervasive that - after having seen what I've seen on this delegation - I'm no longer convinced that it can be "shaken off" in one climatic moment, in a third intifada. The struggle for liberation in Palestine is operating on so many different levels now, and in so many different forms. The struggle for what Palestine will look like after occupation is one that is being fought slowly and painfully, but also diligently and creatively. The struggle Sam described emerges from within Palestine, but still makes space for those of us outside, especially in the BDS campaign outlined by our next speaker, who we were privileged to meet later that day, Omar Barghouti.
Barghouti laid out the case for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel, for which he has been denied exit from the country as recently as a few weeks ago. I think most of us in the delegation were familiar with BDS already, but it was still very helpful to hear just how we might be most effective in our home communities in working towards Palestinian liberation.
BDS of course is not the only avenue to carry this fight, such as working with the No Way to Treat a Child Campaign, but one of the many other ways to get involved that we were exposed to. What is clear in returning home is that there is a moral and political obligation to be involved.
Palestinian solidarity, for me, is one of those political litmus tests of our time, not unlike anti-apartheid efforts in South Africa or the response to HIV/AIDS in the 1980s and 90s. We can all wax poetic theology or political theory in the abstract all day long, but every age seems to raise critical issues that I think test our theologies and ideologies in real, material contexts. If our theology or theory speaks beautifully of freedom and equality and justice in the abstract, but can't reject the logic of the occupation, then it's worthless in the real world at best, and at worst it's complicit with war crimes.
Theology that's worth anything must be able to recognize injustice, must speak truth to power, and must act to end those systems that perpetuate hierarchy and harm.
I already miss Palestine, but it's time to get my hands dirty here in North Carolina against settler-colonialism in this land, and in the land I just returned home from.
The Future of a Free Palestine | Nawal Musleh - Chicago, Illinois
When I signed up for the IFPB delegation back in February I was more than thrilled this year's focus was on child detention, incarceration, and political prisoners. I work on the No Way to Treat a Child Campaign, which focuses on Israeli military detention of Palestinian children. I worked closely on a film, Detaining Dreams, showcasing the reality of four Palestinian youth who were detained in 2014.
When I saw on our schedule that we would be meeting with Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCI) and touring Al-Aroub Refugee camp I felt an overwhelming feeling of gratitude. What an opportunity to meet with the amazing individuals who direct DCI in Palestine and tour the village where some of the Palestinian youth in the film are from.
At the DCI office in Al-Khalil we met some of the most inspiring youth. Here is Mohammed. He is the president of the Youth Protection Team at DCI. He is 16 years old and despite all the hardships and obstacles of the Israeli occupation we have witnessed on this trip, I left him feeling hopeful and empowered to continue to demand change for the treatment of Palestinian children. It is the children of Palestine who lead the future of a free Palestine.
Youth in the Jordan Valley | Thomas Banyai - Decatur, Georgia
Aside from a bruised knee or a broken arm, a kid growing up in the Atlanta suburbs where I live do not have to deal with unexploded military ordinance. This is part of the normal life for many children in the Jordan Valley.
For example, I was shocked to learn that there are many areas populated by Palestinians in the Jordan Valley where the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) regularly hold their military exercises. At those exercises, the military use live ammunition. This was described to me in the Palestinian village of Attuf & Al-Raas in the Jordan valley. I had the rare opportunity to meet and hear the stories of six youths from that area talk about their lives.
In addition to their lack of educational resources, I was amazed to learn that many of the friends of the youths were injured by military ordinance left by the IDF military after they had their exercises. Also, if their houses were damaged as a result of those exercises, the IDF would not compensate the residents for the repairs. Furthermore, if those homes were damaged beyond repair, those homes would be demolished without any support from the IDF. The residents from those homes would need to find lodging elsewhere in the community.
So, an uncertain present and future awaits the the youths not only from the Jordan Valley but throughout the Palestinian territories.
Traumas Children Face | Laila Liddy - Tuscaloosa, Alabama
On June 1, we met with a representative of the Palestine section of Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCI). We learned there currently are more than 230 children, children innocent of any crimes, in Israeli prisons. The majority of the children are between the ages of 14-16.
When Israeli soldiers arrest children, they usually do so between midnight and 5:00 a.m. The home is ransacked, and photos are taken of all the children before the arrest is made. While in prison, the children are tortured physically, as well as psychologically. The prison experience leads children to be mistrustful of others (even close friends) and damages the relationship between them and their parents.
Our speaker shared with us that his own 15-year-old son had been arrested. Soldiers came to his home at 2:30 a.m., broke down the door, and began asking for his son. When soldiers saw the son, he was thrown onto the floor, and a soldier put his foot to the boy’s chest, holding him down. At that point, the father tried to pull soldier off his son, but the soldiers beat the father.
The soldiers pulled his son up, and, as they pulled his arms behind him to handcuff him, the son looked at his father as though pleading for help. The father could do nothing, and the soldiers took the boy off to prison.
Situations such as this are quite difficult, especially given that children expect that their home is a safe place, a refuge, and that their fathers can protect them. Parents of Palestinian children can do nothing to protect them in these instances. Consequently, these experiences place a strain on the relationships between children and their parents.
Imagine | Cathy Sultan - Eau Claire, Wisconsin
How do you tell your five-year-old son that you can't protect him from being pulled out of his bed in the middle of the night by Israeli soldiers who might bash his head against the wall then beat you, his father, when you will try to intervene.
Like his four brothers before him, he will be blindfolded, his hands tied tightly with a plastic cord that will cut into his wrists at the slightest movement. His mother's protests will not deter the soldiers who will forcibly drag him to the waiting Jeep, taking him to the nearest settlement police station before transferring him to prison where his official interrogation (often with torture) will begin.
His crime? Being Palestinian.
Faces of the Delegation | Cecilie Surasky - Berkeley, California
Cecilie Surasky posted these profiles on her facebook page. They feature people the delegation met, as well as delegates themselves. Click here for more photos from the delegation.
.jpg)
The Tour of Hebron | Noble Larson - Arlington, Massachusetts
Issa Amro gave us a harrowing tour of this beleaguered city: a focal point of settler attacks and harassment. Before that, our redoubtable guide, Said, gave us a tour of the Tomb of the Patriarchs and the Mosque. The Mosque was the site of the infamous 1994 attack by settler, Baruch Goldstein (a Brooklyn native) on worshippers attending the dawn prayer, in which 29 were killed and 200 wounded. The "punishment" was to section off part of the mosque as a Jewish synagogue.
The tensions and desperation in this city are palpable. It's the only place we visited in Palestine where children were begging in the streets. Part of the city is a boarded up "no man's land", which happens to include the home where Issa was born (and which he cannot visit). H2 has around 500 shops that are closed under Israeli "security orders". The description "hell on earth", which I had heard before, was accurate.
Issa is fearless and spoke out boldly to nearby Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) soldiers - no doubt at considerable personal risk. At one point in our walk, he was pulled aside by an IOF commander. We tried to surround him (following our contingency plan), but the soldiers had already cut us off. He was released a few minutes later, and the confrontation ended without further incident, but I'm sure it's just a taste of what Issa lives. One soldier (a young black man) yelled at Issa "you are a liar!" (A very brave "liar", I thought.)
Perhaps the ugliest thing we witnessed was in the Palestinian market area, where a screen has been installed by Palestinians, to protect them against rocks thrown down on them by residents of the settlement situated above. Even more grotesque is another screen installed to block garbage thrown down by the settlers.
My reflection on this is: When one person tries to dehumanize another person, he may or may not succeed in this objective, but will definitely succeed in dehumanizing himself.
For me this encapsulates much of what we saw during our 2 week stay in Palestine.
Brief History of Lifta | David Young - Shawnee, Kansas
Umar Al-Ghubari is part of a group called Zochrot, which means “remembering”. He talked about how Israel is trying to erase the original Arab names of villages and streets.
Lifta is typical of this, along with many others. He told us how a group from South Africa donated money to the JNF to plant trees near the village and later came back to apologize after they realized how they JNF had used their money. The JNF (Jewish National Fund) was founded in 1906. Many forests in Israel are planted on top of old Arab villages.
Lifta is a Canaanite name. The village goes back to the time of the Romans. During the Ottoman Empire in the year 1600, 100 people were registered with the government. Many of the homes have a bottom structure built about 200 to 300 years ago and an upper structure built in the 20th century (mostly in 1930’s).
The campaign to rid Lifta of its Palestinian inhabitants began in 1948 with a massacre of 6 people in a coffee shop. At first, there was no Palestinian resistance to the attacks. Families started to go away, beginning with women and children. In February and March of 1948 there were repeated attacks.
The massacre in the nearby town of Deir-Yassin resulted in many people leaving their homes. That led David Ben Gurion to famously announce: “Lifta and other villages are free of strangers”.
After the Palestinians left, Jewish immigrants from other Arab countries came to live in Lifta. There is a cemetery where people come every year to tidy up and commemorate the Naqba. Our group visited a mosque in Lifta that is about 1000 years old.
The Israeli Knesset (Parliament) and the High Court of Justice are built on Lifta’s land.
The Israeli government plans to totally take over Lifta and convert it into residences for Israeli Jews seems to have been given final approval after many objections.
Bedouins in the Negev | Jennifer Susskind - Berkeley, California
In 100 degree weather, Khalil Alamour, our guide, brings us to a rocky point overlooking the town of Hura in the northern region of the Negev Desert. Established in the ‘90s, Hura is one of seven “recognized” Bedouin towns, and is home to 10,000 people.
The town is dusty and grey, practically treeless, with nondescript industrial looking two story apartment buildings, placed haphazardly across the landscape. The apartments house large families and also, surprisingly, their ancestral sheep and goat herds. He points to a vacant plot of rubble and explains that this spot is slated for the soon-to-be displaced villagers of Um Elheran and Attir.
We get back in the tour bus and drive 10 miles to a small village that is not on any official map. This village, Um Elheran, was founded by refugees of ’48, who left voluntarily after being promised that they could return at the conclusion of the war. Sixty years later, in spite of no recognition by the government, no running water or electricity, they have planted olive trees and built their homes in the desert. The same tribe also live in the nearby village of Attir. In addition to herding and farming, they have helped the Jewish National Fund plant a forest of 28 million trees in the adjacent hills.
Both towns have received demolition orders. In Um Elheran, they are being displaced to make room for an Orthodox Jewish settlement. Attir villagers are being displaced to make way for a million more tree plantings. Both communities are surrounded by vast acreages of land, much of it more arable and hospitable. The communities have exhausted all legal recourse. They will be forced to move to their designated area of Hura.
Khalil describes these events with a repeated ironic laugh. “Can you believe it? This is crazy.” I am reminded of our own country’s history of ethnic cleansing, but I laugh ironically along with him, because it’s so difficult to believe that these kinds of blatant, racist injustices are occurring in the 21st century, especially in a place that I had been taught that “never again” was a value applied to all humanity.
Khalil grew up in the neighboring village of Al Sira, which also faced demolition orders, but unlike Attir and Um Elheran, after 8 years in court, his village has won their legal appeals and can stay — for now. We walk around his home, with its solar panels, his well-tended olive trees irrigated with greywater, and organic chickens. Like the other villages, they receive no services and a single pipe the size of a garden hose provides water for the entire 500 person population.
Sitting on the breezy patio, we learn more about the Negev and its indigenous residents. Historically, the Ottomans and then the British Mandate honored Bedouins’ land and civic rights, because in truth, according to Khalil, no one else wanted to live there. In ’48 there were 90,000 Bedouins in the Negev, of those only 11,000 and their descendants remain.
Now there are 200,000, half of them living in “recognized” and half in “unrecognized” communities. Thirty percent of the region’s population is Bedouin, but they own only 2% of the land. The official plan is for all 200,000 to be relocated to the seven “recognized” towns, even further exacerbating this discrepancy.
Khalil has little confidence in the current Israeli administration. He believes Israeli society has moved 90 degrees to the right, and also believes even Netanyahu is facing pressure from the far right. Like all of the other Palestinians we talked to, Khalil urges us to educate the international community, and particularly Americans, whom he believes have the most capacity to end the policy of concentrating the maximum number of Bedouins in the minimum amount of space.
 |
BUY FAIR TRADE OLIVE OIL & MORE
DIRECT FROM PALESTINE! |
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
| Select a report to view: | DELEGATION home | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |