Different points of view

Who were here first? Who did what to whom? The land was taken by “Arabs”, but Arabs have also been murdered throughout the course of history, as well as land being taken by “Jewish”. The territory is now occupied by Israel, but according to the Oslo Accords it is to befall the Palestinians. Who’s property is it?

Security or scary? Soldiers overtaking a playground where Palestinian children are playing, to protect settlers on a scenic tour through the historical Hebron.

Friends or enemies? Dangerous or fun? Israeli soldiers playing football together with Palestinian children. Each others adversaries or neighbors? 

Some wounds never heal

“I was tortured” are not the words you expect to hear from an 85 year old woman. “They arrested me together with my sons, hoping that my presence in jail would either encourage them to talk, or that I myself would supply information of their activities. It was 1987, and they were active in the PLO. In jail they kept on moving me from room to room, and every time I would find my sons bloody clothes intentionally left behind.”

An old woman, we can call her Um Naser, is sitting in the shade telling me a story dating 25 years back. The story is told slowly, her son is translating, and he is also visibly upset. He feels guilty for being the only one of the brothers not present in jail at the time. Although she has requested to talk to me, I feel guilty for making her relive her memories. She is twisting and turning a tissue she has used to wipe her tears, and I am sitting clenching the handmade patterned bag she has made for me.

She is reliving her eighteen days in detention. Together with three of her four sons, she was held in jail the year 1987. She was forced to listen to her son being beaten, as an attempt to pressure her to tell about their activities to make his suffering stop. She was herself spat on and beaten, with her sons in the next cell, asking if she was ok. She refused to give in, saying to her sons that the screams they were hearing were not from her.

Um Naser says “It is easy to suffer pain for me, but it is torture to be the cause of my children suffering, and it breaks my heart to see them suffer, to hear them be tortured. The pain never goes away.”

Hebron -"Welcome to evil"

”Welcome to evil”

These were the words used by a shop keeper in the Souk to greet me in Hebron. Weapons are nothing uncommon on the West Bank. Neither is to get a machine gun pointed straight at your chest, when I am in the old town of Hebron. Yet the weekly settler tour, where a group of approximately 80 people get a guided historical tour of old Hebron, heavily guarded by the Israeli military, is more extreme than I am used to.

Our job is to give protective presence, so that the Palestinians living in the area are not harassed. During the tour, a Palestinian man get his door kicked in, and six Israeli soldiers march in to his home, in full combat gear to secure the area in advance for the settler tour. He says this happen daily, and that the family of 14 is often forced to stay all in one room for several hours. To see streets sealed off, with soldiers storming playgrounds, guards on the roof tops and doors kicked in; it all feels like something out of a movie.

“It’s like we are still under siege” an old woman says, sitting outside on a bench.  Still everything remains calm, the soldiers, the weapons, the occupation, it has all become a part of normality. Even for me, living in Bethlehem, I was expecting something else, more extreme. I realize the difference between Hebron and other places on the West Bank, is not so much in the events but rather the difference is in regard to Hebron being a compact area, where all the problems are condensed, settlers, soldiers and Palestinians living side by side.

 Hebron is the biggest Palestinian city on the West Bank, it has few tourists and the wall is not an obvious part of everyday life. There are 6000 Israelis living in settlements outside of the city, illegal according to international law. Another 600 live in settlements inside Hebron, in an area called H2, which is overlapping with Palestinian houses, where 30 000 Palestinians live. Most of the settlements have started with Israelis overtaking apartments of Palestinian houses, forcing the Palestinian owners to live in smaller areas, and eventually often choosing to leave their homes rather than living under the straining conditions.  The Israeli military is present to protect the settlers, and have sealed off streets such as Shuhada street, created checkpoints to control who is coming into the area, and watchtowers around and on top of the houses, to ensure their presence is known.

The Israeli military control the area, and even school children’s backpacks are searched, at Checkpoint 56 controlling the entrance to Shuhada street. Three boys are standing facing the wall, their arms and legs spread, being body searched by one soldier, whilst the other is pointing his gun at their backs. They stand there, their arms and legs spread, silently waiting for the soldiers to check their id papers with their commander.

Still everything remains calm, normal.

Welcome to Hebron, or “welcome to evil”.

The unholiness of Easter in Jerusalem

You would think that a city that experience a high number of tourists every year, would have worked out a logistical plan for how to deal with the masses that enter its gates. Not having done so may be a flaw, but does not necessarily constitute a breach of human rights. However what I see and experience on the ground the 14^th of April 2012, with excessive violence by the police and military forces towards the people inculding old women, the refusal to let priests and nuns enter their convents, and the restriction in movement of its citizens as well as visitors – all of these point towards lacking human rights standards.

Standing by the New Gate’s entrance to the Old city of Jerusalem, queuing together with several hundreds of other Christians, I start to wonder on who is let in through the gate? I can see Orthodox Jews passing in both directions, squeezing through the masses and let in without any questions. Those who can address the security forces in Hebrew are also let in, much to the dismay of the tourists who have travelled to the country to experience the holiday. I hear Polish, Russian, Bulgarian, Greek, an Australian accent of English, as well as Italian and Spanish.

My first intention was not to enter, but rather observe and understand some of the mysteries of the Orthodox Church. The soldier closest to me has been standing singing “Hakuna Mata”, and even made up his own song with the words “I wish I could do more, but please wait a while, I don’t want to be here, but please I am doing my best”. Maybe he is because I feel relatively safe there, especially when there is plenty of shoving in the crowd. People desperately try to get through, but also the soldiers are physically forcing the people back; pushing nuns and old priests so hard they hit the ground. Unfortunately the crowd is so big, it is impossible to take a step backwards, and I am literally holding on to the barricade to assert my place. Opposite side of the New Gate, several men start to yell at the soldiers and police, and suddenly they are held through a strangling grip, and detained.

Yet after two hours of queuing I am so tired and frustrated with the system that I ask the soldier to let me pass. I squeeze in together with a 78 year old Rumanian woman, who tries to communicate with me. We find a common ground in my College  level Italian, and I understand she has lost her group of cousins. Apparently this was a lifelong dream of her and her husband, who sadly passed away a couple of months earlier, before having the chance to visit. When we after a couple of blocks reach the next barricade she is tired and we find her, Rhanyia is her name, a chair. However as the masses fill up behind us, the police starts to scream “Move back”. To explain that it is impossible to move even an inch backwards due to the people pushing from behind is fruitless. He pushes everyone back, we are falling and trampling on each other, and my newly adopted grandmother is sitting further back on her chair. He walks up to her, push her chair so it falls over, falling on top of her. I am furious at this point, why would anyone deliberately try to hurt an old frail woman? Perhaps it is for the best that I am busy trying to help her up from the hard cobble stone, and make sure she is OK, because otherwise I could easily have gotten into trouble.

Eventually, we are let through and walk towards the next barricade, where we find her cousins. We do not get further than past that barricade though, before the clock turns one o’clock and the holy fire is lit in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. An old Armenian man, who lives in the old city, angrily try to push through us, and a Greek orthodox Australian waste his energy trying to explain that it is impossible, they are not even letting the Scouts in charge of the holy fire through. His wheel chart, above his head, the old man charges the masses, dropping the chart on top of me and Rhanyia. I fail to understand the holiness in these events, but Rhanyia is light up as the sun when she can eventually light her candles from the holy fire. I become more concerned with ensuring that the flames are not caught in my hair, as the crowd is waving candles, singing and dropping wax around them. For them this is the symbol of how there are still miracles in the holy land, how God is still present, and it is a symbol of hope.

For me the day becomes a symbol of how the people in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory are still suffering. How excessive force and a lack of respect for other’s religious practices ruin much of the holy experience of the Holy land. But I take comfort in the fact that despite bruises Rhanyia and I are both OK, and I managed to provide some protective presence for her to ensure she had a good experience. As I walk back through the old city, I ask myself:  if it is this bad on a Christian holiday, what will it be like on Ramadan, when the streets instead of international Christians are full of Muslim Palestinians?

Gaza - another voice of battling fear

“I can be sneered at, I can be hated, but I cannot risk my life. That is not the case for the peace activists in Gaza…They are risking so much when they work for peace, and it is not always we can help them. Sometimes there is a question in our mind, are we doing good or are we doing bad?”

Rani is a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a Jewish woman and a peace activist. Originally she is from the United Kingdom, but she has lived in Israel for most of her life. She says:

“I believe this is my country. I am not willing to leave. But the people in Gaza, they believe this is their country too, and they also want to be able to live on their land in peace… I will do anything to help them have that, because only then can we live together as neighbors; because we are neighbors. We are here to stay, and they are here to stay, and we could have a wonderful life together and we both have the same rights to have that.”

 “We want to send another voice from this region, trying to find a roof of communication. It is not necessarily who are right and who is wrong, but talking to issues that concern people on both sides of the border. We need people to listen to each other, without judging. This is what is so important, and what we do not know how to do. We both share a history, the same history, we just look at it through different set of eyes.”

Rani has five children and eighteen grandchildren, and admits that life is not always easy in the area, where they live so close to Gaza.

“When I go to walks with my grandchildren, I wonder where I am going to run if a rocket is coming, because I would have fifteen seconds to get to it (the bomb shelter). There was this one day I really felt like I was losing it. My grandson was on his bike going back from our place to his mother’s house, and my husband was in the greenhouse. I heard the alarm. I was first running towards the bomb shelter, but then I wanted to go out again to make sure my family was safe. But I stopped. I was thinking you silly idiots, what are you doing? You know that the airplanes will be up in air in five minutes, and retaliate with bombing Gaza. It all felt so pointless. Then I did calm down, but for some of us it does not work, and we are traumatized.”

 “Yet the immediate phone calls I get when we are bombed are from our friends in Gaza, calling to see that we are all safe. And that nourish my hope. ..I cannot accept this life for me or my children.”

“Find a way to stop the rockets, because we have seen this does not work. Let’s think of another way, because there are solutions! Try harder, think harder! There is a solution of two states for two people, there is a solution of one state for two people. If we try to tolerate each other, we can find a solution for peace." 

Standing next to the border, looking out over Gaza from the top of the hill, I am struck by the automatic machine guns controlled by remote from Tel Aviv, and the wall surrounding Gaza like a prison. Rami is standing there next to me, talking about the situation from her perspective, saying how one of the biggest threats they face are the tunnels dug under the wall, used by Palestinians in Gaza to sneak into Israel. I admire this woman, living in a region scarred by conflict, who despite all obstacles is promoting another voice and working for peace for everyone, Palestinian or Israeli alike.

"Be my friend for Peace"

Israel’sPresident Shimon Peres is now saying “I want to hear your voice.”

The last two weeks I have spent more time in Israel than in Palestine. I have had the same idea in mind, wanting to hear the voices of normal people in Israel, to understand the sentiments in the Israeli society. Sitting at a hotel in Tiberias, Lake Galilee, the hotel manager tells me “I do not think the leaders of this government are ready for peace. It is not in their interests.”

In Israel there is no homogenous group of people. President Peres for example, was born in what is now Belarus (then Poland), his family was Jewish, and they spoke Russian at home. The taxi driver, taking me from Tiberias toNazareth is an Israeli Arab and a Muslim. “What you will see is that we are worse off than the Palestinians actually. This is the new Nazareth there, up on the hill, and this is our land, but we live down here in Khana. We were the first to be occupied, because at first they came here to the Galilee, Tiberias, Haifa, Acra and Nazareth.”

Being an Arab Israeli, I ask him if he has any Jewish friends, thinking that perhaps it is easier to interact and understand one another here, where there is no wall separating the two people. However the answer I receive is a testament to the contrary.  “We meet Jewish, we have to in our work. But to be friends that’s bullshit. In Israel without Jewish you can’t work, without Arab you can’t work. It is only one country that is still occupied, all the other are free countries. It is only one country, the Palestinians  that are still suffering. Before the politicians, such as Prime Minister Nethanyau and President Peres, said the Palestinians were not ready for peace, then Hamas was elected and they refused to recognize the government. It does not matter if it is Hamas or PLO, they will always find an excuse not to have peace.”

“It is difficult with this government. For sure we need a Palestinians state, if the government is ready, we could be living side by side and that’s it. Of course I would rather live in Palestine. Here we pay a lot of money here, everything is very expensive, and in particular it is very difficult to build houses. To get a license for a house, they will never give it to you here, they make you crazy, and you need to pay a lot of money to apply for one. But it is easy for the Israelis who are Jewish to get a license. Why do the people who are Jewish from all around the world have the right to come here, and they give them half price on houses and land. We are equally consumers, we are Israeli, why do you take our land. Why do we not have the same rights? If they do not treat us equally, how can we believe they want peace?”

Before once again entering the West Bank, I was in a taxi with an Israeli, Jewish taxi driver. As I ask him to drive me to the Checkpoint 300,  I thought I would have a second try, so I asked again if he had any Muslim friends. “No, I cannot, it is not accepted in our society, the leaders are not interested in those who want peace. We are taught that Palestinians do not want peace, they are only making trouble. We should give them their own state, so we can be left alone without their violence. It is not safe, that is why our leaders say they cannot work for peace, they are waging a war. Do you want to know what I think? It does not matter who is right or wrong, we all have a right to exist, and we need to be friends.”

He had not seen or heard President Peres call for peace, and when I asked if he could not speak up and change the world, as his President asked him to, he said: “The leaders may pretend to want peace, but we are profiting from the war, they have built their careers on conflict, what would they do if there were peace? They meet each other, but forget to listen to the normal people, like me.”

If you take the time to watch President Peres authentic movie, you will see him meeting with the U.S. President Obama, The British Queen Elizabeth II, as well as movie stars and famous football teams. If all of these people are a testament to his long career of peace making, why is there more internationals than Palestinian included in the movie? And why are the voices I am hearing from his citizens, not aware of his long time efforts for peace?

I do believe the message is good we should seek peace, we need peace among the people. "share peace, speak up and change the world."

The outlook of a settler

”If we are determined and try to tolerate one another, if we are true about living in peace we have to compromise and stop the violence in both directions, on all sides. Violence is never acceptable.”

Violence is not the first thing that comes to mind when you enter the settlement, which is guarded with heavy security. There are twenty two kindergartens, three high schools, 25 synagogues, 2 shopping malls and medical facilities. The streets are very clean, everything looks planned and there are buses going directly to Jerusalem passing us by. The houses all look the same, and an apartment costs between 150 000 to 200 000 USD, and a house goes for between 300 000 to over 1 000 000 USD. It looks like any other prosperous, gate community similar to those in other Western states, and the contrast is huge in comparison to the nearby villages. We are there as guests of Bob Lang, spokes person for the settlement.

“To the best of my knowledge none of the Gush Etzion communities have been based on private owned land. The outmost care is done to protect private land here in Israel the same cannot be said for the other side.” “When there is a private ownership the land is not taken over, and here in Judea and Samaria approximately 50 per cent is owned by private ownership, and has a deed. If there is no deed, it is constricted what you can build by the army.” 

When asked why the settlements are allowed to build, but not the nearby villagers classified since the Oslo Accords as being in Area C, Bob Lang says: “It is bureaucracy, I cannot deny or hide a political influence on the agenda. We need peace and understanding, first then will it become easier for everyone. By UN definition this is not an occupied state, understand that the last sovereign, the British by mandate handed over the land in 1948 and left. The UN said there should be a two state solution, and an international city in Jerusalem. The Arabs did not accept whilst the Jews did. A Palestinian state was not established, what you call the West Bank was taken over by Jordan and annexed, whilst Gaza was occupied by Egypt. These settlements are not on occupied land, they are not illegal, as they have been built on government owned land in accordance with accepted standards of international law. We have not taken anyone out of their land.”

When asked by an EA if he himself has ever experienced a checkpoint, the reply is swiftly “there are no checkpoints.” There is a shift in the conversation, and instead of peace, understanding and tolerance the word ‘security’ instead starts to dominate the discussion. “All of those things happen for security” says Bob, who explains that there have been two suicide bombers attempting to attack the settlement. The checkpoints have also accordingly been established to prevent suicide bombers and terrorists, and the security concerns is justified because

To hold a different perspective is not necessarily wrong, and according to Bob Lang the settlement of Efrat is not an illegal settlement breaking international law. Instead he says: “Here in Gutsh Etzion there is no question that we are a suburb to Jerusalem. You see the hill over there? It is the neighborhood of Har Gilo, and strategically a crucial location, where you on a good day can see both to the Mediterranean Sea on your left and to Jordan on your right.”  

Har Gilo is a recent settlement, and next to the village of Al Walaja. As a consequence of the settlement, the people of Al Walaja is about to be surrounded by a wall, with one gate allowing them entry and exit, and the territory is partly now incorporated in to Greater Jerusalem by the Israeli authority. Hence the Palestinian people are losing access to their land, and the freedom of movement, whilst the settlements in the Gutsh Etzion block have easy access to Jerusalem and Israel through the bypass road solemnly for their use. The people of Al Walaja hold peaceful non violent demonstrations to raise the awareness of their struggle, but the military often respond with teargas and recently a bus of Harvard students were detained.

“We need to hold this land for security reasons” says Bob, explaining why the territory of Al Walaja is so crucial.” Holding up a map of the area, Bob says: “There is no good map of Israel. Why it is not a good map you may ask? Well it includes the Golan Heights, and Israel in the context of the Middle East is not visible. It is only just a sliver of land, and Israel is not a large country.” Instead of referring to our position on the map as being in the West Bank, Bob insist on calling it: “Judea and Samaria, because by using the term the West Bank you have taken away a part of the Jewish history, and you should not deny that the Jews find this place the holiest in the world.”

“The first and most important thing for the government is to protect its people. It needs to be done better and if any human rights are violated that is not acceptable and I would like to change that.” “Anyone who is Jewish, or in fact who is Israeli can move here…the fact that you live here in Israel, means that there is certain things that come with it. There are certain things that happen in a country, because you are here in a country.”

It is this contrast between the outlook of a settler, and the meanings he fails to mention that is the biggest challenge for me during our meeting. I was so determined to understand and respect the other perspective, but it is so cold heartedly undermining the Palestinian people’s suffering. And even after our meeting I fail to understand why the land must only be exclusively precious to one people and human rights in practice only afforded to a small proportion of the people present on the land?

For me the outlook of the settler is still unsympathetic and unsettling.  

The dreams of young Palestinian women

“I have a dream”

Those famous words still echo around the world. Today I stumbled across the dreams of young women of the village of Nahhalin. They were hanging on thin fragile cotton threads in the women’s group’s meeting room, cut into different shapes and painted in different colours. Some were dreaming in English, and some had written their dreams in Arabic.

In Palestine it is easier for us in our role as EAs to come in contact with men, and they are the majority of our contacts. To balance we try to interact with the women as well as, and having conversation classes in English for young women is one fora for reaching this vulnerable group in the Palestinian society. It is not primarily about the language, but rather about meeting these lovely young women. The women’s centre is driven by the Tent of Nations, and one very fierce yet kind woman named Jihan is the heart and soul of the centre, serving as our translator and facilitating our dialogue with the women. Observing their high spirits, their reflections on life and sometimes also sharing our own stories is a very rewarding experience.

What are the dreams of these young women?

The notes said “I hope to finished university and find a job,” “I hope the olive trees I planted in Palestine will grow well,” “I hop continuo learn and study something I like,” “Visit to Jarasalem,” and “My dream to visit Turky and all the world.”

Today we spent time talking about these dreams, and heard even more. One girl wanted to compete in a biking completion, another take care of others and become a nurse, a third wanted to become a powerful woman, who could wear suits and work in business. One wanted to be a car mechanic, another dreamt of becoming a hairdresser and another who holds a degree in geography wanted to work as a cartographer.

What they all had in common is their courage to dream.

That the dreams of these women come true, is all that I could wish for. The girls would in Arabic be saying “Inshallah”, and hopefully, God willing, they can do more than just dream.

"Hope is a national duty"

”Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the time you spend with our people.”

The weight and significance of these words for me, gives me the strength to continue working with human rights in this region. After almost two months it is daunting at times with the lack of immediate impact we can achieve on the ground. Yet being recognized by the Prime Minister of the National Palestinian Authority, Dr Salam Fayyad, was a very encouraging experience.  He said: “We are very grateful that you are here and that you are working with us for peace and human rights.”

The Prime Minister was visiting the villages of Al Walaja, Nahhalin and Al Khadr in the Guzh Etzion block, in danger of being annexed by Israel. There were flags hanging in the air, women out baking the Palestinian bread Zartas under the olive trees inviting us to eat, and olive trees ready to be planted towards the border of the ultra orthodox settlement Beitar Illit. There was even a presence of Palestinian soldiers, despite them being in Area C, which is controlled by the Israeli military. It all contributed to a sense of national pride, happiness and peace, albeit momentarily.

The settlements remained visible reminders in the background, and the knowledge that the very land we were standing on has several demolition and cease of cultivation orders, was the very reason for the visit to the Tent of Nations run by the Nasser family. The Prime Minister admitted having first heard about the Tent of Nations through a Christian delegation of the World Council of Churches recently, proving how important it is that we all care and share our stories from Palestine.

He spoke of “the strong, positive, nonviolent defiance that the Nasser family symbolises.” By exercising their “right to stick around” on the land which they own, and how the Tent of Nations is one of the best example of this. “We live, we build, in the face of an occupation that has ravaged territory and highly fragmented it.”

The Prime Minister said that “hope is a national duty”, inherent in the Palestinian culture. Without hope for the future, it is difficult to motivate ourselves to care for others, to try to make a difference and to experience life in the process of our failures and successes. In response to hearing of Swedish, German, Swiss and British people being present, he also said that: “We are confident that great nations will be with us, holding hand, crossing the finishing line to freedom.”

Therefore I would prefer to press even further, and say that “hope is an international duty.”