July 14
We went to Jerusalem for a tour. It was supposed to be a calm day. But it was not calm.
At the checkpoint from Bethlehem to Jerusalem Shareen pointed out that people driving private cars just had to slow down going through the checkpoint. A soldier examined them. If they looked Jewish or foreign, they went right through. If they looked Palestinian, they were stopped and asked for their papers. State of the art security.
We went around the old city as a group led by a man named Mustafa. When we entered the Al-Aqsa mosque area we had to split into two groups - Muslims and non-Muslims. In 2000 Ariel Sharon went up to the al-Aqsa mosque and Dome of the Rock area, inciting the second intifada. Since that time the wafq, which administers the site, made an agreement to not allow non-Muslims in the area during times of prayer. Non-Muslims were supposed to not be up there after 11am. We arrived at about 11:05am, but the man in charge said that we could have half an hour, because prayer time was still not for a while.
Then the man changed his mind, afraid that the Israelis would push him out of his job for breaking the agreement. He told Mustafa and Shareen that we all had to leave, except the Muslims. Mustafa told him that these are the people who suffered at Ben Gurion airport for our cause, and we should be proud of our Muslim heritage and show it to them.
There was a lot of arguing, and eventually the Israeli soldiers came and there was even more shouting. Eventually we left one of the gates, where we saw two soldiers pushing around a man, arguing about something. One of the members of our group took a picture and another soldier grabbed the camera and erased the photo.
We then learned that we were to meet French press and Associated Press at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In order to get there Mustafa decided to go through the Jewish Quarter of the old city. We rested for a little bit at this place where you can overlook the Western Wall. A member of our group named Vanessa was wearing a scarf with a Palestinian flag. An Israeli Jew saw this and got a police office, and he was pointing at her and yelled at the officer to do something about it. (I've heard a lot of yelling since I've gotten here, but I can't understand most of it). The officer kind of shrugged and put his hands up. So the man stayed with us. Shareen reminded us that just because the press is calling us Flightilla we are not Flightilla (that is kind of a silly word). This man heard who we were and his eyes opened wide and he jumped up.
Until 1967 what is now the Jewish Quarter was called the Mahgrebi quarter. During the war, the Israeli army razed a large section of the area, including the land right around the wall, making what was a narrow corridor into a large open area for prayer and events. Shareen's family used to live in that area until they were forced out - most of the former inhabitants went to the Shufat refugee camp just outside of Jerusalem.
We then went to Silwan, a Palestinian neighborhood just south of the old city. Like the old city and Sheik Jarrah to the north of it, Silwan is dotted with fanatical Jewish settlers who take territory house by house. There are cases where people leave their homes for just a few hours and when they get back, the home is occupied. The authorities always side with the outsiders. The settlers than put an Israeli flag on the house and stay. In the old city Palestinian homeowners are so paranoid they never leave their home without someone in the family staying to guard it.
A man named Musa al-Souri told us how 80 homes are slated for demolition in Silwan in order so that Israelis can create the King David`s archeological park. He said that he supported the Oslo agreement in the 1990s and he always told his children that peace was better than fighting. Now things are much worse and his own home is set to be demolished. He now feels like a loser for teaching these things to his children.
The settlers often shoot guns at the residents of Silwan. Musa`s teenage son was shot by settlers - that´s why he walked with a limp when he gave us Silwan hats.
During our visit to Silwan the Associated Press was there with a TV camera. I did an interview. The guy doing the interview was an Israeli and he asked me some questions about why I was here, and I told him some of things I had witnessed, and how people shouldn´t discriminate against other people on the basis of race the way they do in Israel. He then asked why I came here and not to Syria. I told him that as a Jew the criminal actions of the State of Israel were being done in my name, and as an American they were being done with the support and resources of my government. He then asked if I supported why the Syrian government is doing to its people. It told him of course not, what Assad is doing is terrible and needs to end.
When we were done I asked him if he had ever visited Syria. He looked surprised and said of course not, why would I ask? I told him that I came to Palestine and you kept asking me about Syria, so maybe you have some special interest in the place. He said he doesn´t understand why I think it’s so great in Syria, and I told him that he was putting words in my mouth.
It’s a diversion tactic. That´s the Israeli line - point to another country doing something bad and say, look, why are you singling us out. But it is an illogical argument. Why would the Syrian suppression of protest justify Israel´s systematic ethnic cleansing of the native inhabitants of Palestine? This week the State of Israel made it a criminal offence for its own citizens to support in any way the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israeli goods and services, even by just posting a Facebook page. There is legislation pending to get rid of all road signs in Israel that mark Palestinian towns. The more racist and dictatorial Israeli policy becomes, the more Netanyahu has to keep talking about Syria.
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