Greetings
friends and family,
Thank
you all you your letters or support. I am sorry I have not written
back in such a long time.
General
Update
The general
shituation in the occupied territories is one of uncertainty and
mixed messages. Most major cities have been under curfew for about
1 week. Yesterday, curfew in Bethlehem and Hebron was lifted during
the day. One student who needed to take exams in Bethlehem said
he had no problems going and returning. Students who tried to
go to their exams in Hebron were met with fire from Israeli snipers.
Apparently they were just joking about lifting curfew in Hebron.
Similar stories have been told about other cities when curfew
is lifted. Everyone goes out to try to do the things that they
could not do before, and are met with unprovoked gunfire and even
death. The curfew in Bethlehem and Hebron has been reinstated
today.
A number
of people including a woman and two children have been killed
by the military in Gaza and several young men have been killed
in Nablus.
All of
this without 1 suicide bomb in almost 1 month.
There
seems to be much disillusionment, sadness, frustration and fear
in the Palestinian population (shaby falastiny). With the PA destroyed
and the reinstitution of Israeli occupation, people do not see
any hope in sight. Most people just want to work and provide for
their families. There seem few options for proactive resistance,
let alone for anything beyond sitting, talking, watching television
and trying not to think about the dark possibilities that might
lie ahead.
My
Update
Upon
invitation, our group of 4 internationals left Hebron on the 7th
with a Christian Peacemaker Teams reservist to a Hebron suburb
called Beit Ummar.
(Christian
Peacemaker Teams are a solidarity group that has been working
in the Hebron District for more than 15 years. For more information,
please see www.cpt.org)
At over
3000 ft above sea level, Beit Ummar is one of the highest points
in Palestine. From the town you can see the lights of Jaffa (Tel-Aviv)
and can dream faintly of the Mediterranean as the sun sets in
shades of sentiment.
Beit
Ummar is a farming community and produces some of the best fruit
(ghogh) in all of Palestine. I have never tasted fruit in the
States that comes near to the fruit in Palestine. Watermelon (batiech),
canteloupe (shamaa), and so many types of plums and peaches it
is difficult to keep track of them all.
Beit
Ummar is a town of about 12,000 and about half as many tractors
(by far the most stylish way to ride around the town). The people
are unbelievably generous and friendly and it’s difficult
to find the time to sit and drink tea with everyone who invites
us.
The surrounding
lands of the town are farms and orchards where the people go to
work in the morning and evening. These farms have been in families
for many years and I have had the privilege of seeing their families’
land deeds and receipts of sale from the Ottoman Empire and British
Occupation. Houses are terraced with grape vines, everything is
green and the air is sweet.
Many
people from Beit Ummar have relatives in the States (especially
in Chicago) and (sadly) as in most of the world, even the children
know a little English.
Just
like any small town, everyone wants to know who we are. There
is an initial suspicion that we are Israeli soldiers, especially
amongst the children. Many of the younger children become very
afraid and cry when they see us. When we tell people we are American,
they want to know about Bush and what Americans think about Palestine.
There is a sense that the American people hold all of Palestine
in their hand and can crush it in one sneeze. They are confused
about the way Bush
speaks about the situation and this causes them much stress. They
ask why America supports the Israelis and gives them weapons.
When they talk with us longer, many tell us that to Palestinians,
America is the great devil.
We try
to put the people at ease by putting our politics out in the open
from the start. That we are against our government’s policies
and sad that people support the beast that is 'America.’
This puts them at ease to discuss their feelings about the American
government. Despite their feeling about what America does, most
people would like to go to America and regard it as a great country.
Many people ask us if we can get them a visa or if they can visit
us. There seems to be a deep pull for them toward 'America' but
a relative misunderstanding about the realities in America. When
we tell them that there are thousands of homeless in our cities,
they are astounded. When we tell them about the size of our country,
they cannot imagine. When we tell them we don’t like the
Backstreet Boys, they wonder why. When we tell them that the dreamlike
images of beautiful people and happiness that they see on television
are lies, they do not believe us.
Beit
Ummar is in the north of the Hebron district and sits between
two Israeli settlements: Karmet Sur to the southwest and Gush
Et-zion to the north. To the west, the town runs into and over
Route 60, a major Israeli settlement highway. The road that once
connected the town to Highway 60 is closed with a big mound of
dirt and rubble (maksum) and a fortified military position that
was made in a Beit Ummar family's confiscated home. No cars can
enter or exit the town except for the petrol truck, the driver
of which must supply his own bulldozer to remove and replace the
maksum when he makes a delivery.
The garbage
trucks cannot enter the town, nor can trucks or cars leave the
town unless they take dirt roads in creative ways trough the fields.
Ambulances
cannot enter the town and must carry patients over the maksum
when they pick them up or drop them off. The first night we were
in Beit Ummar, a young child drank poison and because the ambulance
could not get into the town (and had to navigate checkpoints and
soldiers from Hebron), the child did not get to
the hospital in time and is now in a severe coma. If the children's
hospital were not close by in Hebron, the child probably would
have died.
Military
Aggression
The people
of Beit Ummar are under attack in many ways. The first is direct
military aggression and terror. Twice in the last week, the military
has entered the town at sunset and shot hundreds of rounds. The
army shoot the windows in the houses, put holes in the water tanks
that supply the people with water and have damaged electricity
lines.
They
provoke confrontations with the youth by shooting and beating
and then demonstrate their dominance by forcing their way through
the streets with gunfire, both live and rubber coated metal, military
grade tear gas, percussion grenades and armored vehicles.
On the
second evening of this aggression, our group went out into the
streets to make our presence known to the army, with the hope
that seeing internationals might dissuade them from doing anything
too atrocious or at least to confuse and distract them from their
project of terror.
We walked
in the street and took a place at a corner where we knew the army
would pass and watched up the street. We saw them advance and
without provocation one soldier (jundi) seized a young man in
front of a closed store and beat him with his fist, boots and
gun. Youth tried to come to his defense with stones and were met
with live fire from an M16.
We moved
around the corner and asked the help of a young man to get to
a place from which we could see but that was not in the middle
of children and soldiers.
He led
us to an alley that cut into the main street where the soldiers
had arrested the man they were beating and were holding a position
against the youth throwing stones. We took pictures and were discovered
by the soldiers.
The shooting
ceased and the soldiers tried to decide who we were and what to
do with us. One soldier told us to leave. ‘Where?’
we asked naively. "There is shooting all around, we are sacred."
They stopped
conversation and one soldier was placed at the corner to watch
us. Another soldier came and yelled at us to move back, this time
pointing his gun at us. We moved back out of sight and waited
as the soldiers retreated from the youth and moved down another
street.
We migrated
with the people into the main square and talked with them to get
information about the beating and to keep watch because we knew
the soldiers would return that way again.
After
about 10 minutes of some tense decision-making, we decided the
most strategic and safe place to be was in the main square and
took seats on the steps of a shop there. An armored Landrover
screeched into the square and the children scattered into the
alleys and behind corners. The Landrover sat, perhaps confused
and watching us, perhaps waiting for reinforcements or to survey
the situation, perhaps challenging the children to do something.
BOOM. A skull-sized boulder
broke the armored windshield of the Landrover and put a huge dent
in the hood. Two soldiers jumped out and began firing into the
houses and stores. We stood up and slowly walked out of the square
and around the corner where we sat at an open sweetshop.
Soon
we were overcome with tear gas and took refuge with the store
patrons in the back. We returned to watch the soldiers shooting
the windows in houses as they advanced up the street - 6 footsoldiers,
two armored Landrovers and 1 armored personnel carrier.
There
are no armed people in Beit Ummar, only children with stones and
a community which is hungry, without income, tired of intermittent
curfew and living under military occupation. People ask why the
soldiers behave in this way, but it is difficult to come to any
conclusion other than spreading terror amongst the people. There
is no security threat to the Israelis, it seems like that they
are only trying to assert their dominance. Many people try to
rationalize this as military training or boredom.
Structural
Violence
This
military aggression is not the most heinous attack upon the people
of Beit Ummar. More inhumane physical violence is structural violence.
Economic
strangulation is the predominant Israeli policy in Beit Ummar.
On June 24th, 12 Trucks from Beit Ummar, along with 8 trucks from
other areas in the Hebron district, carrying over 300 tons of
fruit for export, were stopped at the Tarkamian checkpoint and
detained until the 30th. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of fruit,
representing a whole year’s work for many families, were
destroyed that week.
Beyond
closure, unemployment and curfew, Israeli settlers continue to
pose a significant and seemingly immovable threat to the community.
The settlements were initiated following the 1967 war in which
the West Bank and Gaza were taken by the Israeli army. Despite
international law and United Nations Resolutions, Israel has begun
to settle its population into the occupied land. The land for
these settlements was not empty, but was part of towns and people’s
farms. Since 1967, the settlements have expanded continuously
and every year, despite numerous peace agreements including the
Oslo Peace Accords, Karmet Sur has taken farmland from the people
in Beit Ummar.
Land
Confiscation
Last
week, the settlement reclassified about 30 acres of land as a
'closed military area' under the auspices of security for the
settlement, and barred the owners of the land from harvesting
their fruit.
We accompanied
a number of farmers to their land with the hope of helping to
deal with the soldiers and settlers. We arrived to the land at
about 7am ready for the day’s work. We began to pick plums
and peaches from the trees, but only worked for about 15 minutes
before armed settler security made a round and sped off to the
settlement to get the soldiers.
Within
5 minutes, the settler security returned with a soldier who told
us to leave. We talked with him and tried to persuade him that
we were obviously not a security threat and that these farmers
had a right to farm their land. The settler yelled and waived
his Uzi at us while we calmly tried to discuss the matter with
them. The soldier became angry and threatened arrest. As we left
with the farmers, more soldiers arrived and watched us as we walked
back to the town.
The farmers
have opened a formal legal complaint with the government, but
have been deferred for some time. The settlement has already begun
construction of a fence and security lights around the seized
land. Because they are in a directly Israeli controlled area and
that there is functionally no more Palestinian government, there
is no place for the people to go to pressure the authorities.
The only place that has been suggested to them is the police station
in Kiriat
Arba, the settlement of Baruch Goldstein and the only way is by
the settlement road. This precludes the people from engaging in
any type of governmental process. People tell us that the settlers
used to be
held accountable and sometimes were even arrested by Israeli police,
but this seems to be a thing of the past. The settlers seem almost
untouchable now.
The International
Solidarity Movement has decided to take an apartment/office near
the settlement and has committed to work with the people in Beit
Ummar for at least 1 month against the military and settlement
aggression. We will be working closely with Christian Peacemaker
Teams who also have an apartment there.
We saw
last night on Al-Jazeera that 'our great country America' bombed
Iraq and we are afraid that a larger campaign in Iraq will increase
tensions here as it did in the Gulf War, and, as a friend said,
'turn Sharon's green light to neon.' Insh’allah this will
not happen.
Please
keep the people of Palestine (and in all the world) in your thoughts
and prayers. Keep working to educate and resist American support
for this constant catastrophe. The people here are happy to know
that people care and are trying to help. I do not have internet
in Beit Ummar, so don’t be angry if I don’t write
very often.
Horia
falasteen
Freedom for Palestine
Matt
