Eric Levine, 27, a longtime Bolinas resident and a student at
Yale University, looked forward to spending time with his mother
this summer.
The two traveled to the Middle East as part of an international
peace delegation.
Before their sojourn ended, Rae Levine would be standing on the
balcony of a home in Jenin, snapping photos of a soldier striking
her son on the head with a club before arresting him. Eric Levine
was released from an Israeli jail in the early morning hours last
Monday, after having been arrested by the Israeli military in
the Palestinian city of Nablus along with reporters from the Associated
Press and Reuters.
"Before I came here, I thought I had an idea of what was
happening, but being here in person, I see that the situation
is so much more extreme than I could imagine before," she
said in one of many e-mail dispatches home from Nablus.
The Levines are among a growing sector of the American Jewish
public who have sought to build bridges between Israel and the
Palestinians - and questioned Israel's human rights record in
regard to the Palestinians, whom they see as an oppressed population.
Their missives from the West Bank city of Nablus have reached
the Marin-based organization "If Americans Knew," a
cross-cultural group which has criticized Israel for what it terms
"its discriminatory system."
With the conflict intensifying, debate has intensified within
the Jewish community over public criticism of Israel. Some have
castigated those who call the Jewish state's policies into question
at a time when suicide bombings have taken innocent lives.
Others say it is healthy for Israel's supporters to scrutinize
its behavior and to maintain compassion for Palestinians.
The Levines and seven international observers went to Nablus to
document the Israeli military sweeps of residents' homes, which
Eric Levine said typically occurs from 2 to 6 a.m., and to get
food and medicine to people who are prevented by the curfew from
leaving their homes.
They sent home startling dispatches detailing life in a war zone.
"Today I rode in the ambulance again," Rae Levine wrote.
"(A) soldier signaled for us to turn around and go away.
There was no talking to him, reasoning, saying that we needed
to go pick up a patient down this road. Forget the Geneva Convention
that specifies that ambulances are to have free movement even
in war zones. Last night, we - the driver, a doctor, three Americans
- were made to get out holding our arms up over our heads."
With Associated Press and Reuters reporters in stride, the group
prepared to squat in front of a home that had been occupied by
soldiers, its inhabitants locked inside. They had been trying
to communicate with soldiers, one of whom stuck an M-16 out a
side window at them. Levine, two Americans, a Canadian and a Pakistani
sat down in the street, holding hands to block off the street,
sipping the tea that residents of a nearby house had made for
them.
"Three large military vehicles bristling with guns (came)
rolling towards us up the street," he said. A driver stuck
his head out of an armored personnel carrier at a distance of
about 20 feet.
"We informed him that Brazil had just won the World Cup,"
Levine said. "A soldier gave us a thumbs-up for Brazil. Without
warning, the soldier in the APC threw two canisters of tear gas
at us and a percussion grenade."
As residents ran, "a jeep comes roaring down a side street,
soldiers jump out, stuff two of the three press in the back of
the jeep. The captain hits me on the shoulder and side of the
head, and he and another soldier grab me by the arms and drag
me on my stomach 20 feet toward the jeep over the dirt and gravel."
A car ride through an army base included "proselytizing by
various soldiers, ranging from calling me an anti-Semite to comparing
me to Osama Bin Laden," Eric Levine said. "It was explained
to me by the police captain that I had rights in Israel, but that
he wasn't going to explain them to me because he didn't have to
and because he could 'amend' them at any time."
The Levines also describe scenes of panic as curfews are briefly
lifted - or mistakenly believed to be lifted.
"My second day in Jenin about 10 a.m., all the tanks withdrew
to the periphery of the town," Rae Levine said. "Thinking
this as a sign that curfew had temporarily been lifted, people
ran out of their homes to the market to get badly needed food
and water," Rae Levine said. "The tanks automatically
moved in and opened fire into the civilian crowd at the market,
wounding many and killing three children and one old man."
But Rae Levine's account of another ambulance ride to a shooting
victim suggests how confusing it may be to try and accurately
peg the danger of any situation, for Israelis or the residents
of Nablus.
"The dead man had one leg and part of his face blown off,"
she said. "Next to him was a Kalashnikov rifle on top of
a carrying bag. The soldiers said he had shot at them from the
taxi he was in. A man shooting at a tank from a taxi seemed unlikely
to me, but they seemed to feel genuinely threatened."
If Jews are engaged in a spirited debate of Israeli's policies,
Palestinians are also engrossed in a struggle, one of profound
emotion. During the Levines' visit, 55 prominent Palestinian leaders
and intellectuals, including Hanan Ashrawi, an adviser to Palestinian
Authority President Yasser Arafat, signed an appeal to their countrymen
published in the Arabic language newspaper Al Quds to renounce
violence in Israel, and "stop pushing our youth to carry
out these operations."
The ad ran for several days, reportedly gathering hundreds of
backers. But a smaller number of detractors have registered their
disapproval, according to press reports.
On June 19, the day the ad first appeared, a suicide bomber took
the lives of six people in Jerusalem.
Two days later, the Israeli cabinet announced the Israel Defense
Forces troops will enter Palestinian cities in the West Bank and
operate in them for "as long as it is required," according
to the Israeli newspaper, Ha'aretz.
