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| "Welcome to Palestine" organizer Mazin Qumsiyeh being arrested for nonviolently protesting land confiscation in Al-Walaja village last year |
This will be kind of long, but I think I need to get this all out now.
July 9
We began the day with our group of 20 people who made it through the airport preparing to go to Bil'in from the Bethlehem Hotel. We meet up at the Hotel with Mazin Qumseyeh. He is a biologist who was a professor for years in the United States (I believe Yale, I could be wrong). He wrote Sharing the Land of Canaan, Popular Resistance in Palestine and also a book on the mammals of the Holy Land. He is also the person who thought of doing this "Welcome to Palestine" fly-in event, and the events chief organizer.
He said that he hadn't slept in 3 days doing press work on the event (at this point I don't think I had slept for around 7 days). He briefed us for the first action and said he believes that he might be targeted by the Israelis not just for arrest, but to be beaten badly. This event has left them with egg on their face.
We drove to Bil'in. It is near Ramallah. Without the wall and checkpoints it would take 30 minutes to go from Bil'in to Ramallah, but it takes us over one hour and forty minutes because we have to go way east, around the area that Israel has defined as greater Jerusalem. (They built a giant wall around this entity - they plan to expand this wall to encompass the settlement of Ma'ale Adunnim, which would make travel between the north and south sections of the West Bank almost impossible.)
In Bi'lin years of protest persuaded the State of Israel to move the location of the Aparthaid wall a little bit west of its original location - allowing the villagers to have less of their land stolen.
We stay in Bi'lin for a few minutes and then head to Nabi Saleh, with the idea being that all the press releases said we were going to Bi'lin so the Israeli army and police would be waiting for us there.
Nabi Saleh is a town a little northwest of Ramallah. In this town an Israeli settlement has stolen the town’s main spring, leaving the villagers without enough water.
Israeli military somehow got wind of the action and blocked the road to the town. They left their vehicles and immediately started shooting tear gas and sound bombs.
Here the tear gas is much stronger than any tear gas I've encountered in Bolivia or the United States. It reminded me somewhat of being maced. It makes you gag and then you briefly feel like you can't breathe. Your eyes and skin burns. The sensation starts to dissipate in around 30 seconds and goes away in a few minutes.
The demonstration was completely peaceful and the barrage of teargas was unprovoked.
Four were arrested - one man from a foreign country and 3 Israeli activists including Anarchists Against the Wall founder Kobi Snitz.
During the action some kids ran into the fields around the road. The teargas landed in fields when the soldiers shot gas at the kids. With the heat and dryness of some weeds, the gas started fires that spread - burning weeds and quite a lot of crops.
Someone from the group talked to a young Israeli soldier if he felt good about what he was doing, protecting the right of settlers to steal water from a village. He said he felt terrible. He did not, however, break ranks.
Attempting to leave the area soldiers blocked our way out. A soldier approached Mazin speaking Hebrew. Mazin told him that he didn't speak Hebrew, that he should find someone who spoke English. They sent the same young soldier who had felt bad. Mazin told him that he looked really young, younger than his son. The soldier said he was 19. They let us through.
A few minutes later Mazin got a strange call. Someone called and said he was Mazin's friend. He said that he probably shouldn't be going to demonstration to demonstration because people are ready for him at checkpoints.
After eating lunch in Ramallah we went to an area of the Wall near the Qalandia checkpoint. This is the largest checkpoint there is - it is in between Jerusalem and Ramallah, next to the Qalandia refugee camp. It is like a full international border area. There is a lot of building going on in Ramallah now, because of increased economic activity. This boom comes largely at the expense of East Jerusalem, which is separated from the rest of the West Bank by the Wall and the Qalandia checkpoint. It is the Israeli plan to make Jerusalem a large, united and largely Jewish capital of Israel. It is the Palestinian desire to have Jerusalem as their capital also, but presently Ramallah is the de facto capital of the Palestinian Authority.
At the part of the Wall we were at we went with some Palestinians and internationals from all over and walked through some alleys through a dense series of apartment buildings. There was construction going on all over, right next the ditch right before the Wall. This was actually a place where a concrete section of the Wall ends and the double barbed wire section begins. So you have one row of electrified barbed wire fence, then an Israeli military road, then another series of electrified fence.
On the other side of the fence was a field containing a man with sheep, and from there you can see a long strip of concrete. This is the Jerusalem airport. It was begun in the 1960s by the Jordanians and was supposed to be the Palestinian airport. The Israeli air force used it for a period, but now it is not used.
It seems pretty clear to me that the Wall / Fence snakes the way it does there not to separate this one Palestinian man and his sheep from Ramallah but rather to keep the airport firmly in Israeli control.
Somebody knew how to stop the flow of electricity to the section of the fence. This was done and some people started cutting the wire. When they got to the military road they did the same in the second fence. Then people planted flags all over both fences. The Israeli military did not come - there was no response. This is maybe because it was Shabat (the Jewish Sabbath) or maybe someone in the Israeli military had enough sense to not respond. It is hard for me to believe that they didn't know it was happening.
At the action I talked to a Palestinian reporter. He told me that he used to be a journalist for the Palestinian Authority and that he was in the Ramallah compound with Arafat during the 2002 Israeli siege. He says he likes working for Reuters more than for the Palestinian Authority because then he has more control over what is reported. He also thought that these non-violent demonstrations would only work if people joined them by the hundreds of thousands instead of by the hundreds.
I interviewed with Reuters and AP. Later that evening Mazin asked me if I would talk with Ha'aretz. He recommended that I speak anonymously so that I do not get deported. But I don't think that is important now - apparently the AP report has gone viral and I guess the cat is out of the bag. A pseudonym might have been useful, but I hate lying about my name to the press.
It is clear to me that I don't face any great danger here - tear gas and sound bombs are awful things but generally don't injure. Generally when foreigners are present soldiers don't shoot any bullets. I do face deportation - so I will let you know that I plan to remain here for the time period between now and now and now and July 30.
On the bus during the day I met a Palestinian man who lives near a hill where you can see Tel Aviv and the sea. But because they live in the West Bank, nobody can actually go to the sea. He told me that of 80 members of his extended family, six have been able to go to sea, all either in Egypt or the Persian Gulf. None have been granted permission to visit the sea that they see every day.
I spent the night in Aida refugee camp. The camp was a tent city in 1948 consisting of people who fled the 27 different villages that now make up Israeli West Jerusalem. They were not allowed to return. The camp was found in 1951 by the United Nations Work and Relief Agency. It started with 1200 people and now has 5000. Inhabitants cannot travel to Jerusalem without a permit which is quite difficult to get. The main entrance is blocked by an Israeli military base and the Wall surrounds the camp on three sides. Its youth center was destroyed by the Israeli military in 2002 and has recently been rebuilt. It contains the biggest key in world in front of the camp - the key represents the right of return for refugees.
Pope Benedict came to visit and a stadium was built at the wall so that all the media would film the reality of the awful wall during the visit. Israel threatened to stop the Pope's visit unless the site of the visit was moved, and it was.
There are a lot of stray cats running around in this camp too.
July 10
We had a very good breakfast of hummus, falafal, lebnah and pita bread after I slept for over 7 hours, the first full night sleep I've had in days.
We first went to Beit Sahour, a largely Christian town next to Bethlehem. It is the place of the Shepard’s Field where the magi were supposed to have spotted the star announcing Jesus' birth (I think that is the story). It is also Mazin's hometown.
There was a short march there, and then we went back to the camp and took and saw a video on the camp. Then we went to the village of Al-Walaja. It is a land on the western edge of the West Bank. It is right next to the western sprawl of West Jerusalem. In fact, most of its land was taken in 1948, owing to a secret deal between Israel and Jordan (according to one of its residents). Right now the Israeli military is building the Wall right through town. There are demolition orders for six houses, in addition to the 30 already destroyed. The town would have almost no land and would be physically isolated if the Wall is completed there, surrounded on all sides but one. Israel now controls 18 of the town’s original 20 springs and these 2 remaining springs have run dry.
We march up to where they are building the wall. The soldiers drive up and block entrance to the area. The demonstration again is completely non-violent. The soldiers to not shoot any projectiles, but they threaten to. One soldier offers water to a demonstrator, who refuses to take it.
On the way back we learn that border police have blocked the road. We send a vehicle through with a few people who aren't afraid to be deported. They get through - we wait for around a half hour and then the rest of us go through
It seems that there might be a policy in order to look for foreigners in the West Bank who entered Ben Gurion on July 8. The July 8 stamp may be a kind of mark of Cain.
I will let you go now - this whole situation is crazy.
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