[It’s been a while since my last post! I will tell you about some of the things I’ve been doing in a few of the upcoming posts. Here are a few stories about our recent trip to Israel-Palestine. It also gives me a chance to plug my latest book, Like Birds in a Cage, which describes life in Aida camp more extensively.]
It had been nearly 5 years since we last visited our friends and loved one’s in Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem. So, we planned a return visit in early May and spent the rest of the month in our home away from home. We returned to the USA on May 31st. (Whereupon I was struck down by a long-menacing sinus infection. Ugh. But I am much better now, thank you.)
We had returned to the embrace of our Aida Camp family for no more than 10 days when 3 teenage boys were shot by Israeli soldiers, which is the standard punishment for throwing rocks towards heavily outfitted, helmet-wearing soldiers in body armor. Five years’ absence had not changed anything about daily life in Aida camp.
Actually, one of the boys was not shot by a living, breathing soldier but by a Terminator-style, automated, robotic, high-powered rifle. Only the night before a deadly device had been installed on top of the Apartheid Wall segregating Aida from the encroaching Jewish-only neighborhoods of SE Jerusalem. This new, robotic, high-powered rifle now rules over the main entrance to the camp; its field of fire covers the main Aida thoroughfare, several community centers, 2 playgrounds, 1 soccer field, a cemetery, and scores of apartments.
No one knows when or why the new installation may fire again. But this is nothing new. Palestinians have always served as unwilling guinea pigs for Israel’s cutting-edge military gadgets, whether it’s new teargas formulas, other “non-lethal” munitions, or facial recognition technology at checkpoints. No one has yet to inform Aida’s community leaders about the military’s rules of engagement for the new Terminator gun. But this is to be expected. Did Custer ever explain his military tactics to Sitting Bull?
Going to Massafer Yatta
On the first Friday of the month, we traveled with about 100 members of the Aida Youth Center to help an aged farmer work his land in a highly contested area south of Hebron known as Masafer Yatta.
Last year this Palestinian farmer was attacked by Jewish settlers from a nearby Jews-only settlement encroaching on this man’s agricultural land. The settlers broke both of the farmer’s hands. He was then jailed for 10 days without medical attention. [Nope, none of the settlers were arrested. “Law enforcement” in the West Bank exists to serve the purposes of Zionist settlement not to safeguard the Palestinians being displaced.]
My friend, Munther, had been in contact with this farmer and made arrangements for the young people of Aida Camp to replant his fields and rebuild one of the boundary markers along the border of a dirt roadway.
As the Palestinian teenagers picked up their farming tools, the disabled farmer welcomed everyone to his village. With his black and white kufiya blowing in the wind, he gave us instructions about where to plant the hundreds of starter plants we had brought along with us: grape vines, olive trees, as well as peach and apricot seedlings.
After a hard day’s work, planting and watering hundreds of new seedlings, we moved across a large stretch of rocky ground in order to rebuild the small rock wall demarcating the side of a narrow dirt road, running parallel to the edge of the field.
Now for Some Politics
It did not take long for Jewish settlers to emerge from the nearby Jewish-only settlement. They immediately set about destroying our wall, taking down the rocks we had put into place. They were soon followed by Israeli soldiers determined to chase us out of the area.
You see, Masafer Yatta has been declared an Israeli “military firing zone” which means that civilian occupation and agricultural development are prohibited. Palestinian villages have all received demolition orders, their long-time residents told to evacuate the area. Expulsions and demolitions have been ongoing for a long time.
Israeli authorities insist that the Palestinian residents, most of whom have lived on this land for many generations, often going back to the time of the Ottoman Empire, do not have the proper building permits necessary for them to stay where they are.
It’s a perfect Catch-22. Israel refuses to issue the very permits it requires of Palestinian residents, while also refusing to recognize the Ottoman-era title deeds the people still possess. The Mad Hatter couldn’t have devised a more insanely oppressive system.
The height of Israeli hypocrisy appears in the growth of Zionist, Jewish-only settlements in the very areas from which Palestinians are now being expelled. Declaring regions like Masafer Yatta a “closed military firing zone” is an old tactic used by the Zionist state.
It provides a cover story for the expulsion of the indigenous people who have lived here for generations, while simultaneously making room for more and more Jewish settlers who are apparently immune to the dangers of military firing zones. (Because no firing takes place.)
So a Palestinian farmer is beaten, his hands broken, and his land pillaged, while white settlers descended from recent European immigrants take over the region, building their shiny colonial startup cities with the help of Israeli state funding.
Eventually, we were all forced to leave the area as the Israeli soldiers fired tear gas and a stun grenade into the group of panicking teenagers. Munther, the group’s leader, is committed to nonviolent resistance. He was hectically moving from one spot to another, grabbing stones out of boys’ hands, trying to prevent anyone from throwing rocks at the soldiers.
The young people quickly loaded onto the bus that would take them back to Aida camp. Terry and I rode with Munther who was happy to avoid arrest and Israeli detention.
I wondered how long our plantings would survive. Are any of them still growing? Or have they all been ripped out of the ground by settlers?
Thank you for these more detailed updates David. Are you back? Indeed it seems these ongoing injustices and human rights abuses show no sign of abetting.
Indeed, Michael, if anything things are becoming worse. We found a deepening sense of hopelessness among the people who, in the past, have always impressed us with their optimism. One friend said she only feels hopeful at work — she is a nurse — because there she is helping people. But once she gets home, she only wants to pull a blanket over her head and sleep through the rest of her life. I am working on an article about my efforts to learn about inter-racial worship services between Jews and Palestinians. Preview: they were equally discouraging.
We got home early this month, whereupon I was laid low by a sinus infection. But I’m good now. How are you doing?