Wow I feel as though the last 3 months have been one long, rainy blur. I have never before in my life experienced the kind of rain that I’ve seen here. Because of all the hills, the water just flows down the streets in literal rivers. Kind of amazing, but not if you have to walk to work…
There are just so many things I feel like I could say about this part of the world at the moment. Well, to start with I suppose I should say that I am safe! Things were brewing and bubbling, that’s for sure, but we’ve gone back to a decent level of stability. But maybe I’ll get to all that later on…
The teaching has kept me busy. We’ve had a lot of concerts this past month: two concerts in mid-March, one in Bethlehem and the other in Ramallah. Our programme was the Schumann “Trout” Piano Quintet, and the Beethoven Second Piano Trio. One week later we traveled up to the Occupied Golan Heights and played another concert consisting of the Beethoven Trio, the first movement of the Beethoven “Kreutzer” Sonata (me on piano, my sister on violin), and two movements of the Brahms Piano Quintet. Finally, the following weekend we played a concert in Jerusalem (Beethoven Trio, Brahms Quintet) and then Ramallah (Beethoven Kreutzer, Brahms Quintet).
We were so badly hoping to play the Schumann again in Golan and Jerusalem, but since our bass player is Palestinian he requires special permission to travel through Israel. Due to the heightened tension here, all applications for permissions were postponed.
The trip to Golan was made with some other Conservatory colleagues to play a concert. Golan is incredibly beautiful! The Golan Heights used to belong to Syria before Israeli forces invaded and took over in 1967. As such, the Golan Heights contains many Israeli settlements with the purpose of securing land for Israel and boosting the Jewish civilian population in the area. Israel makes life hard for the Arabs who continue to live in the Golan by taxing them heavily on water: the Arabs have built water tanks to collect rain; the Israelis measure the rainfall and then tax the Arabs accordingly (can anyone say ridiculous?).
Golan is also full of land mines put in place during the 1967 war. These mines were generally placed surrounding the civilian populations and on agricultural land. In one instance, on a hill in the middle of the village of Majdal Shams, there is an Israeli military outpost surrounded by land mines. Heavy rains push these land mines down into the yards of the houses at the bottom of the hill. Despite Israel’s support and initiatives in cleaning up land mines in other countries, they are incredibly lackadaisical about removing mines in their own country (supposedly due to risk of injury to Israeli soldiers). Israel is not even prompt about erecting a fence to keep children or animals from wandering into dangerous areas – which is interesting, remarked one of my colleagues, considering how good Israel is at putting up fences!! Unfortunately, human rights organizations and the UN are both similarly uninvolved with this situation.
In these last three months I have been introduced to a really interesting concept: couchsurfing. There’s a website you can check out: www.couchsurfing.org and the idea is that you stay on people’s couches for free while you are traveling around! My roommate told me about the idea and asked how I felt about it. I figured, “Why not?!” So since January we’ve hosted almost 15 people from Sweden, Spain, Ireland, France, USA, Belgium, and the Netherlands! It’s really kind of neat to open up your home in this way. Nothing is expected of you as a host, and oftentimes your guests will cook you dinner or bring over a bottle of wine to be shared – always a plus! Anyway, if you like what you see after checking out the website, I urge you to open your doors and your hearts and experience something really cool.
At the end of February I attended the Idan Raichel concert in Jerusalem. Idan Raichel is an Israeli musician who I started listening to just before I moved to Palestine. I quite enjoy his music even though I don’t understand at all what he’s saying since it’s usually in Hebrew or Amharic (he’s heavily influenced by Ethiopian music). The concert was really entertaining, and I enjoyed myself despite being alone. Raichel is a self-proclaimed messenger of peace and tolerance and yet I wondered how many of the Israeli attendees that night, let alone Raichel himself, truly know what their government is doing to the Palestinian people! I hate to paint everyone with the same brush, but I wanted to share this thought that crossed my mind.
I had mentioned in my previous email a tour I took when I was with my parents. This was a tour through the area of Silwan. This small “village” is just outside Dung Gate of the Old City. Many Palestinians live there, or used to live there before they were forced out of their homes by Israelis. We met with one family whose home was slated for demolition. It was heartbreaking to think that these people are facing the possibility of losing everything they own.
(An excellent explanation of the evictions of Palestinians in neighbourhoods such as Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, and more can be found at: http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2010/03/12/expecting-a-third-intifada/ I strongly urge you to read this article. I will quote a brief paragraph to give you a taste of what is included:
“…government-backed Jewish organisations, mostly funded by wealthy Jews from the United States, have been creating a foothold in the Arab neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah where Palestinian families have been forcibly evicted from their homes in coordination with the police apparatus. Settlers claim that some homes belonged to Jews prior to 1948 while others were purchased in secret deals. When aggrieved Palestinians go to Israeli courts for redress, the Israeli judge routinely sides with the settler squatters.
Settler lawyers often claim that homes in such towns as Hebron and Jerusalem belonged to Jews during the British Mandate era. The same lawyers overlook the fact that tens of thousands of homes in what is now Israel belonged to Palestinian families whose members were either massacred, as in Deir Yassin, or ethnically cleansed and forced into exile, as happened in Jerusalem’s neighbourhoods of Lifta, Ain Karm, Talbiyeh and Al-Malha, to name a few.
When this writer asked an Israeli lawyer involved in efforts to arrogate Arab real estate in East Jerusalem why it was legal for Jews to reclaim their presumed property in the West Bank while it was not for Palestinians relative to property in what is now Israel, the lawyer said, “because we are strong and you are weak”. ”)
Our tour guide (an young Israeli pacifist who spent time in prison for leaving the military and who is an advocate for Palestinians and peace) also showed us an “archaeological” dig that was happening just outside the Old City walls. The dig is sponsored by ElAd, a dodgy right-wing Jewish organization. Now, of course, there are no problems with archaeological projects. There are, of course, problems with archaeological projects that force people to leave their homes (home evictions and demolitions), their livelihoods (taking over an area where locals used to sell their wares to tourists), or endanger life (weakening the ground to the extent where homes and schools have actually caved in). As well, this archaeological project has a specific agenda: discover evidence that supports Jewish presence eons ago so that the Jews can lay claim to the village of Silwan and take it over, saying this used to be the city of King David.
A good informative article on this issue can be found here: http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/news/1/5453-archaeology-becomes-a-curse-for-jerusalems-palestinians-.html
Okay I think it’s time to include a funny story at this point…So I had just finished shopping at the fruit market one day and was headed home when I walked by a fairly bedraggled man sitting against the side of a building. He was holding a grapefruit and he offered it to me. The sight of this just made me laugh and I shook my head “no” and walked away. On my way home I stopped in at a grocery store and before I entered the store I looked behind me and saw that the grapefruit-man had followed me all this way. So I ducked into the store, bought some eggs, and contemplated asking the store owner to tell this guy to beat it, but since it was the middle of the day I wasn’t too worried. I exited the store and just down the street is a road that goes sharply uphill on the left. As I walked past the intersection I looked up to see the grapefruit-guy standing a ways up the hill. I turn away but then hear something and what do I see…a grapefruit rolling past my feet. This guy had sent the grapefruit rolling on down to me. I didn’t pick it up, just kept on going, and fortunately the grapefruit man took off in the opposite direction…Very strange.
My sister left just this morning after spending the last three weeks here. She loved her time in Palestine. Together we spent time in Nablus, Ramallah, Golan, Jerusalem (including seeing the Israel Philharmonic and meeting Itzhak Perlman), Tel Aviv, Haifa (Baha’i Gardens – utterly beautiful), Jericho/Wadi Qelt (a lovely 6-hour hike), and a brief trip to Greece to renew my visa.
As I mentioned at the outset of my email, things were bubbling here for a while. This was due to a “lockdown” on the West Bank. Israel was not letting people into Israel even if they had the proper papers to enter, screening people before allowing them to enter the Old City in Jerusalem and restricting access to Al-Aqsa to men under the age of 50. The lockdowns occurred after Israel let it slip while Joe Biden was visiting that the Netanyahu government plans to build 1600 more Jewish apartments in East Jerusalem – this news greatly upset Palestinians and incited protests against the plans for the new settlements. Israel also declared the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron as a Jewish Heritage Site, provoking huge riots from the Muslim world.
For more info see this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/opinion/16iht-edcohen.html
I do wish these emails were less political in nature. However, the situation here cannot be avoided in conversation or in my thoughts and feelings. It makes one feel angry, useless, and bewildered! You want to help but have no idea what you can do. So in my own way I hope that these small insights into the reality of life for Palestinians can cause one to start asking questions and looking for answers!
Other good times: watching the Superbowl in Tel Aviv at 1:00 a.m.; performing the Brahms Piano Quintet with four amazing ladies; knafeh with Dani in Nablus; patches of poppies among rocks and olive trees; freshly squeezed orange juice; wearing sandals in March; perfecting banana muffins.
It’s been a great six months and I’m so happy I have another three months to continue to explore this amazing place. At the same time, I miss Canada so much and am yearning to go home.
Much love to all,
Hillary
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Ramallah: 2010
Happy Holidays!! …belated greetings everyone. So it’s been a while since my last personal update – sorry for that. Things have been incredibly busy out here.
At the end of November was the Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Adha, or “Greater Eid” – a celebration of the pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj). This meant a 5-day holiday for the teachers at the Conservatory! For the occasion, I traveled to Tel Aviv with a fellow colleague. This was my first time in Tel Aviv since landing at Ben Gurion so I was excited to see the city.
Tel Aviv is so different from both Ramallah and Jerusalem. It reminds me of Miami with a twist of Edmonton’s White Ave thrown in. There are fabulous little cafes and shops everywhere you go plus a giant shopping centre reminiscent of downtown Toronto. And of course there’s the beach! Fortunately the weather was beautifully warm all weekend and I took full advantage of this fact by going for a dip in the Mediterranean – idyllic!
Following the holidays we had student exams. And a few short weeks after that the teachers put on a concert at the Conservatory. It was my first public performance in quite some time so I was definitely nervous. I also wasn’t sure what kind of a crowd we would have since I didn’t know how keen people around here are towards Western Classical music. So it was a pleasant surprise that we packed the house and everyone absolutely loved the show.
And then it was time for my big holiday: two weeks off from work. Almost all of my friends here were leaving to go visit friends in Europe. And since it was too expensive for me to go home, home came to me – my parents came out for 2.5 weeks, and what an amazing 2.5 weeks it was!
Honestly there are so many stories to share that I hardly know where to start. Well I’ll begin by telling you the general outline we followed: Tel Aviv – Jerusalem – Ramallah – Hebron – Jerusalem – Jericho – Nablus – Jerusalem – Eilat – Petra – Eilat – Ramallah – Jerusalem – Tel Aviv.
The trip to Hebron was an incredible experience. For those who don’t know, Hebron (also known as Al-Khalil) has a Jewish settlement in the middle of the city. The 500 settlers in Hebron are “protected” by about 2000 Israeli soldiers. The settlers are known to walk around on the Sabbath to make their presence known. At this time they have been known to shout at Arabs and spit on people. The settlers are also free to carry weapons: I will never forget a picture that my roommate took when she went to Hebron - an Orthodox Jewish family, the man with sidelocks and a kippa, the woman with a long skirt and her hair covered, pushing a baby in a stroller. The man had a machine gun strapped around his back. Unreal.
In the Old City of Hebron, where the Arabs have their shops, the streets have a fence above your heads because the settlers throw their garbage down upon the Arabs. When you look up you see things like chairs, diapers, plastic bags and bottles, etc. The settlers have also been known to throw bags of urine onto people walking below – a friend of mine had the unfortunate experience of witnessing this firsthand.
In Hebron a family invited us up to their roof where several Palestinian children were playing. A solider was standing on an outpost approximately 20 metres away, guarding a settlement house. The destructive nature of the Hebron settlers was made evident by the water tanks on the roof of the Palestinian house: there were several bullet holes in each one at the base of the tanks, rendering them completely and utterly useless.
My friend, S, a Palestinian, traveled with me and my family to Hebron since he was from there. S is a clean-cut, well-dressed and articulate young man (and traveling with 3 Canadians), so it was a surprise when he was pulled aside at the checkpoint to enter the Ibrahimi Mosque. S was asked to present his papers. My family was told that we could proceed but we made it quite clear that we would be waiting with our friend. The soldier took S’s documents, stood aside, sipped a coffee for 20 minutes, spoke into his radio for about one minute, called S over, dismissed him, continued to drink his coffee, spoke into his radio again for a minute, called S over and told him he was free to enter the mosque.
While my family and I were waiting for S to be “cleared”, one Israeli soldier came up to me and said “You have really beautiful eyes, you know that.” I hardly knew what to say. Here I am waiting for my friend to finish being humiliated and this is what a soldier comes up to me and says?! It was seriously mind-boggling.
Later on in Hebron, after my family toured the Mosque and the Synagogue on the other side of the mosque (where the same Israeli officers pleasantly greeted us with a “Shabbat Shalom!”…) I witnessed something special: Two young Jewish men were seated with a Palestinian shopkeeper apparently discussing the situation at hand (S told me this since they were speaking in Arabic). It was an interesting and hopeful sign that people in this tense city were willing to enter into a civil conversation about things.
When my family went to Jericho, we also made a stop at the Dead Sea. We went to Kalia Beach which is surrounded by old decrepit army barracks of the Jordanian military. When we arrived we were told that we would have to wait about 20 minutes before going in the water because there was going to be an explosion on the beach. We were puzzled by this but stood around waiting like everyone else. As my family and I were talking to a very nice brother and sister from Australia we were cut off by a huge explosion across the water. You could feel this explosion in your chest and in the ground. Looking over the distance you saw a huge cloud of smoke rising from the earth. Not ten seconds later we saw another cloud begin to rise and we all covered our ears before we heard the second explosion. I’m not entirely sure what was being detonated but it’s possible that the army had discovered some dormant land mines. Some 20 minutes later, after everyone was back in the water, there was a third explosion!
I have to admit I was nervous to go to Nablus. On December 26th, the Israeli army invaded the city and killed three men ( http://palsolidarity.org/2009/12/10000 ). The men were apparently wanted in connection with the death of a settler. I urge you to read the article. If you do, you will see that the army did not attempt to question or detain the unarmed men – instead they shot them pointe blank after confirming their identity. The army also shot a pregnant woman in the foot. The houses of the families were completely destroyed by live ammunition and rockets. Each man left behind a wife and several children.
I had never really been afraid of the military presence before I read about this incident. It really rang home to me that the guns I see everyday actually get used. I sincerely hope I never have to witness it, though…
Despite this tragedy and a feeling of anxiety, my family and I visited Nablus. I teach in this city every week but this was my first chance to actually walk around. Nablus is an incredibly beautiful city. It is located in the valley between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal (for those familiar with the Biblical narrative). We drove up one mountain (not entirely sure which one…possibly Gerizim) and were given an amazing view of the valley. Then one of my students led us around the Old City. Nablus is famous for producing sweets and we were taken into a few shops that were making things like Turkish Delight and knafeh. We went to the oldest sweet shop and had truly amazing knafeh – the tradition in Nablus is to put the knafeh into a piece of pita bread and eat it that way, but that seemed like way too many calories at a time!
After Nablus we headed South for our trip to Petra! We spent one night in Eilat (where we saw the latest blockbuster, Avatar – quite a good movie, even if it did steal the core of its story). The next day we headed to the border and then on to Petra. It takes an hour and a half to drive to Petra from the Arava crossing, but it took us much longer since the climb up to Petra/Wadi Musa was so entrenched in a cloudy fog that we had to crawl along at about 20 km/hr for quite a while.
Highlights of Petra: our great taxi driver, Mohammed, who really took a shine to our family and accompanied us all through Little Petra (he said he usually doesn’t spend time with his customers because he doesn’t usually like them); Petra by Night, which involves walking from the entrance of Petra to the Treasury (about 2 km) on a path lit by candles, followed by a concert of traditional Bedouin music while being served sweet tea (truly a beautiful evening and made even more special because when the clouds cleared they revealed a full moon! Also, my dad stretched out on the mats and when he did, a friendly cat came and parked itself on my dad’s chest where it stayed for about 45 minutes); Big Petra - WOW! This place is truly amazing…there are so many caves and paths to explore and mountains to climb. I got myself into some very crazy places which definitely put my parents on edge, but fortunately I survived; riding a camel; enjoying the truly beautiful Bedouin men (dark skin, white teeth, long curly hair, and these amazing eyes that are dark and light at the same time); singing with my dad in a chamber with fantastic acoustics; and last but certainly not least, being invited to dinner by a lovely young girl (Sahar) who sold my mom some socks (and we did go to dinner and were served the traditional and amazingly delicious dish of Maklouba)!!
I was extremely nervous about crossing the border to get back into Israel. My heart was beating like crazy, but fortunately I kept my cool and my family and I were permitted to pass (although the guard seemed quite suspicious of me). The officer stamping my passport said she wasn’t supposed to give me another Visa because I should really go to the Ministry of the Interior if I want to get my tourist Visa extended (ya right). She said she would give me the Visa but since she wasn’t supposed to, I shouldn’t do it again (do what again? Leave your country and then come back!?) . Getting a Visa here is such a gong show because it seems there are really no clear-cut rules for renewing tourist visas (or at least each border crossing guard will tell you a different story!), and it’s really and truly all about who is sitting behind the desk and their mood that day.
Some more brief highlights over the last few weeks: going to see the Tel Aviv Philharmonic (brilliant); attending a reform synagogue on Shabbat, followed by Shabbat dinner at a new friend’s house; eating bagels and cream cheese with my mom in the Old City; a tour of Silwan with an Israeli pacifist (more on this next time, Inshallah); enjoying my growing Arabic vocabulary; riding a camel in Petra; having a fantastic holiday with my wonderful parents; and tea with mint, tea with mint, tea with mint!
Well, I do have more to say but I think this post has been sufficiently long enough!
Okay one more short story: So I wanted to find some new bags to put in my vacuum (“hoover”, as my French roommate calls it). I was walking around Ramallah and stopped in at a spice store and decided to ask the owner if he knew of a shop that sold vacuum bags. He said that his friend had some. He walked me down the street to a hole-in-the-wall-store that had remote controls in the window. He spoke to his friend in Arabic and the man reached underneath a shelving unit to pull out several different kinds of vacuum bags. Unfortunately they weren’t the ones I needed, but it’s just an example of the random assortment of things people sell in their shops!
I hope everyone is happy and healthy and enjoying Canadian winter. As one of my friends reminded me, you can always feel alive when you inhale a deep breathe in a winter on the prairies!
Things I miss: family and friends (always), driving a car, running/going to the gym, Indian food, my bed, and hoar frost in the morning.
Things I continue to enjoy: the muezzin’s call to prayer, warm weather, cheap fruit and vegetables, the endless challenge of teaching and creating music, and the mere fact that I am living in such a different world – I am always amazed at this when I think about it.
Salaam – Shalom
Hillary
At the end of November was the Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Adha, or “Greater Eid” – a celebration of the pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj). This meant a 5-day holiday for the teachers at the Conservatory! For the occasion, I traveled to Tel Aviv with a fellow colleague. This was my first time in Tel Aviv since landing at Ben Gurion so I was excited to see the city.
Tel Aviv is so different from both Ramallah and Jerusalem. It reminds me of Miami with a twist of Edmonton’s White Ave thrown in. There are fabulous little cafes and shops everywhere you go plus a giant shopping centre reminiscent of downtown Toronto. And of course there’s the beach! Fortunately the weather was beautifully warm all weekend and I took full advantage of this fact by going for a dip in the Mediterranean – idyllic!
Following the holidays we had student exams. And a few short weeks after that the teachers put on a concert at the Conservatory. It was my first public performance in quite some time so I was definitely nervous. I also wasn’t sure what kind of a crowd we would have since I didn’t know how keen people around here are towards Western Classical music. So it was a pleasant surprise that we packed the house and everyone absolutely loved the show.
And then it was time for my big holiday: two weeks off from work. Almost all of my friends here were leaving to go visit friends in Europe. And since it was too expensive for me to go home, home came to me – my parents came out for 2.5 weeks, and what an amazing 2.5 weeks it was!
Honestly there are so many stories to share that I hardly know where to start. Well I’ll begin by telling you the general outline we followed: Tel Aviv – Jerusalem – Ramallah – Hebron – Jerusalem – Jericho – Nablus – Jerusalem – Eilat – Petra – Eilat – Ramallah – Jerusalem – Tel Aviv.
The trip to Hebron was an incredible experience. For those who don’t know, Hebron (also known as Al-Khalil) has a Jewish settlement in the middle of the city. The 500 settlers in Hebron are “protected” by about 2000 Israeli soldiers. The settlers are known to walk around on the Sabbath to make their presence known. At this time they have been known to shout at Arabs and spit on people. The settlers are also free to carry weapons: I will never forget a picture that my roommate took when she went to Hebron - an Orthodox Jewish family, the man with sidelocks and a kippa, the woman with a long skirt and her hair covered, pushing a baby in a stroller. The man had a machine gun strapped around his back. Unreal.
In the Old City of Hebron, where the Arabs have their shops, the streets have a fence above your heads because the settlers throw their garbage down upon the Arabs. When you look up you see things like chairs, diapers, plastic bags and bottles, etc. The settlers have also been known to throw bags of urine onto people walking below – a friend of mine had the unfortunate experience of witnessing this firsthand.
In Hebron a family invited us up to their roof where several Palestinian children were playing. A solider was standing on an outpost approximately 20 metres away, guarding a settlement house. The destructive nature of the Hebron settlers was made evident by the water tanks on the roof of the Palestinian house: there were several bullet holes in each one at the base of the tanks, rendering them completely and utterly useless.
My friend, S, a Palestinian, traveled with me and my family to Hebron since he was from there. S is a clean-cut, well-dressed and articulate young man (and traveling with 3 Canadians), so it was a surprise when he was pulled aside at the checkpoint to enter the Ibrahimi Mosque. S was asked to present his papers. My family was told that we could proceed but we made it quite clear that we would be waiting with our friend. The soldier took S’s documents, stood aside, sipped a coffee for 20 minutes, spoke into his radio for about one minute, called S over, dismissed him, continued to drink his coffee, spoke into his radio again for a minute, called S over and told him he was free to enter the mosque.
While my family and I were waiting for S to be “cleared”, one Israeli soldier came up to me and said “You have really beautiful eyes, you know that.” I hardly knew what to say. Here I am waiting for my friend to finish being humiliated and this is what a soldier comes up to me and says?! It was seriously mind-boggling.
Later on in Hebron, after my family toured the Mosque and the Synagogue on the other side of the mosque (where the same Israeli officers pleasantly greeted us with a “Shabbat Shalom!”…) I witnessed something special: Two young Jewish men were seated with a Palestinian shopkeeper apparently discussing the situation at hand (S told me this since they were speaking in Arabic). It was an interesting and hopeful sign that people in this tense city were willing to enter into a civil conversation about things.
When my family went to Jericho, we also made a stop at the Dead Sea. We went to Kalia Beach which is surrounded by old decrepit army barracks of the Jordanian military. When we arrived we were told that we would have to wait about 20 minutes before going in the water because there was going to be an explosion on the beach. We were puzzled by this but stood around waiting like everyone else. As my family and I were talking to a very nice brother and sister from Australia we were cut off by a huge explosion across the water. You could feel this explosion in your chest and in the ground. Looking over the distance you saw a huge cloud of smoke rising from the earth. Not ten seconds later we saw another cloud begin to rise and we all covered our ears before we heard the second explosion. I’m not entirely sure what was being detonated but it’s possible that the army had discovered some dormant land mines. Some 20 minutes later, after everyone was back in the water, there was a third explosion!
I have to admit I was nervous to go to Nablus. On December 26th, the Israeli army invaded the city and killed three men ( http://palsolidarity.org/2009/12/10000 ). The men were apparently wanted in connection with the death of a settler. I urge you to read the article. If you do, you will see that the army did not attempt to question or detain the unarmed men – instead they shot them pointe blank after confirming their identity. The army also shot a pregnant woman in the foot. The houses of the families were completely destroyed by live ammunition and rockets. Each man left behind a wife and several children.
I had never really been afraid of the military presence before I read about this incident. It really rang home to me that the guns I see everyday actually get used. I sincerely hope I never have to witness it, though…
Despite this tragedy and a feeling of anxiety, my family and I visited Nablus. I teach in this city every week but this was my first chance to actually walk around. Nablus is an incredibly beautiful city. It is located in the valley between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal (for those familiar with the Biblical narrative). We drove up one mountain (not entirely sure which one…possibly Gerizim) and were given an amazing view of the valley. Then one of my students led us around the Old City. Nablus is famous for producing sweets and we were taken into a few shops that were making things like Turkish Delight and knafeh. We went to the oldest sweet shop and had truly amazing knafeh – the tradition in Nablus is to put the knafeh into a piece of pita bread and eat it that way, but that seemed like way too many calories at a time!
After Nablus we headed South for our trip to Petra! We spent one night in Eilat (where we saw the latest blockbuster, Avatar – quite a good movie, even if it did steal the core of its story). The next day we headed to the border and then on to Petra. It takes an hour and a half to drive to Petra from the Arava crossing, but it took us much longer since the climb up to Petra/Wadi Musa was so entrenched in a cloudy fog that we had to crawl along at about 20 km/hr for quite a while.
Highlights of Petra: our great taxi driver, Mohammed, who really took a shine to our family and accompanied us all through Little Petra (he said he usually doesn’t spend time with his customers because he doesn’t usually like them); Petra by Night, which involves walking from the entrance of Petra to the Treasury (about 2 km) on a path lit by candles, followed by a concert of traditional Bedouin music while being served sweet tea (truly a beautiful evening and made even more special because when the clouds cleared they revealed a full moon! Also, my dad stretched out on the mats and when he did, a friendly cat came and parked itself on my dad’s chest where it stayed for about 45 minutes); Big Petra - WOW! This place is truly amazing…there are so many caves and paths to explore and mountains to climb. I got myself into some very crazy places which definitely put my parents on edge, but fortunately I survived; riding a camel; enjoying the truly beautiful Bedouin men (dark skin, white teeth, long curly hair, and these amazing eyes that are dark and light at the same time); singing with my dad in a chamber with fantastic acoustics; and last but certainly not least, being invited to dinner by a lovely young girl (Sahar) who sold my mom some socks (and we did go to dinner and were served the traditional and amazingly delicious dish of Maklouba)!!
I was extremely nervous about crossing the border to get back into Israel. My heart was beating like crazy, but fortunately I kept my cool and my family and I were permitted to pass (although the guard seemed quite suspicious of me). The officer stamping my passport said she wasn’t supposed to give me another Visa because I should really go to the Ministry of the Interior if I want to get my tourist Visa extended (ya right). She said she would give me the Visa but since she wasn’t supposed to, I shouldn’t do it again (do what again? Leave your country and then come back!?) . Getting a Visa here is such a gong show because it seems there are really no clear-cut rules for renewing tourist visas (or at least each border crossing guard will tell you a different story!), and it’s really and truly all about who is sitting behind the desk and their mood that day.
Some more brief highlights over the last few weeks: going to see the Tel Aviv Philharmonic (brilliant); attending a reform synagogue on Shabbat, followed by Shabbat dinner at a new friend’s house; eating bagels and cream cheese with my mom in the Old City; a tour of Silwan with an Israeli pacifist (more on this next time, Inshallah); enjoying my growing Arabic vocabulary; riding a camel in Petra; having a fantastic holiday with my wonderful parents; and tea with mint, tea with mint, tea with mint!
Well, I do have more to say but I think this post has been sufficiently long enough!
Okay one more short story: So I wanted to find some new bags to put in my vacuum (“hoover”, as my French roommate calls it). I was walking around Ramallah and stopped in at a spice store and decided to ask the owner if he knew of a shop that sold vacuum bags. He said that his friend had some. He walked me down the street to a hole-in-the-wall-store that had remote controls in the window. He spoke to his friend in Arabic and the man reached underneath a shelving unit to pull out several different kinds of vacuum bags. Unfortunately they weren’t the ones I needed, but it’s just an example of the random assortment of things people sell in their shops!
I hope everyone is happy and healthy and enjoying Canadian winter. As one of my friends reminded me, you can always feel alive when you inhale a deep breathe in a winter on the prairies!
Things I miss: family and friends (always), driving a car, running/going to the gym, Indian food, my bed, and hoar frost in the morning.
Things I continue to enjoy: the muezzin’s call to prayer, warm weather, cheap fruit and vegetables, the endless challenge of teaching and creating music, and the mere fact that I am living in such a different world – I am always amazed at this when I think about it.
Salaam – Shalom
Hillary
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Copenhagen's Failure
Retrieved January 10th: http://www.radiohead.com/deadairspace/
hey-
i guess this time of year is a time for serious reflection and i have been doing a lot of that since coming back from copenhagen.
you know what has stunned me coming back is the anger you can taste in the air about this, everybody i meet wants to talk about it.. everyone is angry and despairing and i have tried to remain positive when i talk to them about it.. it has perhaps awakened something in the back of the mind of sane people throughout the world who perhaps naively assumed that something positive would come of these talks.
with such a strong reaction i hope perhaps that people are starting to join the dots and our unquestioning worship of an unlimited gluttonous carbon based economy could unravel in just enough time.
sane people in government, in the media, and on the streets are being shaken reluctantly from a dream looking at the children around them and are getting angrier than they have ever been before.
but this energy needs a constructive channel.
i have been trying to write something about my impressions of being there etc, but then Ben Stewart from Greenpeace happened to send me something he wrote on the last night which is so much better than anything i've done so far so i'll leave it to him for now
and wish you a heartfelt joyful christmas.
"The most progressive U.S. President in a generation comes to the most important international meeting since the Second World War and delivers a speech so devoid of substance that he might as well have made it on speakerphone from a beach in Hawaii. His aides argue in private that he had no choice, such is the opposition on Capitol Hill to any action that might challenge the dominance of fossil fuels in American life. And so the nation which put a man on the moon can’t summon the collective will to protect men and women back here on Earth from the consequences of an economic model and lifestyle choice that has taken on the mantel of a religion.
Then a Chinese Premier who is in the process of converting his Communist nation to that new faith (high-carbon consumer capitalism) takes such umbrage at Obama’s speech that he refuses to meet – refuses, in fact, to do much of anything beyond sulking in his hotel room, as if this were a teenager’s house party instead of a final effort to stave off the breakdown of our biosphere.
Late in the evening the two men meet and cobble together a collection of paragraphs which they call a ‘deal’, although in reality it has all the meaning and authority of a bus ticket, not that it stops them affixing their signatures to it with great solemnity. Obama’s team then briefs the travelling White House press pack – most of whom, it seems, understand about as much about global climate politics as our own lobby hacks know about baseball – and before we know it the New York Times and CNN are declaring the birth of a ‘meaningful’ accord.
Meanwhile a friend on an African delegation emails to say that he and many fellow members of the G77 block of developing countries are streaming into the corridors after a long discussion about the perilous state of the talks, only to see Obama on the television announcing that the world has a deal. It’s the first they’ve heard about it, and a few minutes later, as they examine the text, they realise very quickly that it effectively condemns their continent to a century of devastating temperature rises.
By now the European leaders – who know this thing is a farce but have to present it to their publics as progress – have their aides phoning the directors of civil society organisations spinning that the talks have been a success. A success? This deal crosses so many of the red lines laid out by Europe before this summit started that there are scarlet skid marks across the floor of the Bella Centre, and one honest European diplomat tells us this is a ‘shitty shitty deal.’
Quite.
This deal is beyond bad. It contains no legally binding targets and no indication of when or how they’ll come about. There isn’t even a declaration that the world will aim to keep global temperature rises below 2 degrees C – instead leaders merely ‘recognise the science’ behind that vital threshold, as if that were enough to prevent us crossing it. The only part of this deal anyone sane came close to welcoming was the $100bn global climate fund, but it’s now becoming apparent that even that’s largely made up of existing budgets, with no indication of how new money will be raised and distributed so poorer countries can go green and adapt to climate change.
Not all of our politicians deserve the opprobrium of a dismayed world. Our own Ed Miliband fought hard on no sleep for a better outcome, while President Lula of Brazil offered to financially assist other developing countries to cope with climate change and put a relatively bold carbon target on the table. But the EU didn’t move on its own commitment (one so weak we’d actually have to work hard not to meet it) while the United States offered nothing and China stood firm.
Before the talks began I was of the opinion that we would only know Copenhagen was a success when plans for new coal-fired power stations across the developed world were dropped. If the giant utilities saw in the outcome of Copenhagen an unmistakable sign that governments were now determined to act, and that coal plants this century would be too expensive to run under the regime agreed at this meeting, then this summit would have succeeded. Instead, as the details of the agreement emerged last night we received reports of Japanese opposition MPs popping champagne corks as they savoured the possible collapse of their new government’s carbon targets. It’s not just that we haven’t got to where we needed to be, we’ve actually ceded huge ground. There is nothing in this deal – nothing – that would persuade an energy utility that the era of dirty coal is over. And the implications for humanity of that simple fact are profound.
I know we greens are partial to hyperbole. We use language as a bludgeon to direct attention to the crisis we’re facing, and you’ll hear much more of it in the coming days and weeks. But really, it’s no exaggeration to describe the outcome of Copenhagen as an historic failure that will live in infamy. In a single day, in a single space, a spectacle was played out in front of a disbelieving audience of people who have read and understood the stark warnings of humanity’s greatest scientific minds - and what they witnessed was nothing less than the very worst instincts of our species articulated by the most powerful men who ever lived.
I will leave the last word to the late Kurt Vonnegut Jr., who would have given voice to the insanity of Copenhagen better than I ever could, and whose poem Requiem is perhaps appropriate at this moment: ‘When the last living thing, has died on account of us, how poetical it would be if Earth could say, in a voice floating up, perhaps from the floor of the Grand Canyon, “It is done. People did not like it here”.’
hey-
i guess this time of year is a time for serious reflection and i have been doing a lot of that since coming back from copenhagen.
you know what has stunned me coming back is the anger you can taste in the air about this, everybody i meet wants to talk about it.. everyone is angry and despairing and i have tried to remain positive when i talk to them about it.. it has perhaps awakened something in the back of the mind of sane people throughout the world who perhaps naively assumed that something positive would come of these talks.
with such a strong reaction i hope perhaps that people are starting to join the dots and our unquestioning worship of an unlimited gluttonous carbon based economy could unravel in just enough time.
sane people in government, in the media, and on the streets are being shaken reluctantly from a dream looking at the children around them and are getting angrier than they have ever been before.
but this energy needs a constructive channel.
i have been trying to write something about my impressions of being there etc, but then Ben Stewart from Greenpeace happened to send me something he wrote on the last night which is so much better than anything i've done so far so i'll leave it to him for now
and wish you a heartfelt joyful christmas.
"The most progressive U.S. President in a generation comes to the most important international meeting since the Second World War and delivers a speech so devoid of substance that he might as well have made it on speakerphone from a beach in Hawaii. His aides argue in private that he had no choice, such is the opposition on Capitol Hill to any action that might challenge the dominance of fossil fuels in American life. And so the nation which put a man on the moon can’t summon the collective will to protect men and women back here on Earth from the consequences of an economic model and lifestyle choice that has taken on the mantel of a religion.
Then a Chinese Premier who is in the process of converting his Communist nation to that new faith (high-carbon consumer capitalism) takes such umbrage at Obama’s speech that he refuses to meet – refuses, in fact, to do much of anything beyond sulking in his hotel room, as if this were a teenager’s house party instead of a final effort to stave off the breakdown of our biosphere.
Late in the evening the two men meet and cobble together a collection of paragraphs which they call a ‘deal’, although in reality it has all the meaning and authority of a bus ticket, not that it stops them affixing their signatures to it with great solemnity. Obama’s team then briefs the travelling White House press pack – most of whom, it seems, understand about as much about global climate politics as our own lobby hacks know about baseball – and before we know it the New York Times and CNN are declaring the birth of a ‘meaningful’ accord.
Meanwhile a friend on an African delegation emails to say that he and many fellow members of the G77 block of developing countries are streaming into the corridors after a long discussion about the perilous state of the talks, only to see Obama on the television announcing that the world has a deal. It’s the first they’ve heard about it, and a few minutes later, as they examine the text, they realise very quickly that it effectively condemns their continent to a century of devastating temperature rises.
By now the European leaders – who know this thing is a farce but have to present it to their publics as progress – have their aides phoning the directors of civil society organisations spinning that the talks have been a success. A success? This deal crosses so many of the red lines laid out by Europe before this summit started that there are scarlet skid marks across the floor of the Bella Centre, and one honest European diplomat tells us this is a ‘shitty shitty deal.’
Quite.
This deal is beyond bad. It contains no legally binding targets and no indication of when or how they’ll come about. There isn’t even a declaration that the world will aim to keep global temperature rises below 2 degrees C – instead leaders merely ‘recognise the science’ behind that vital threshold, as if that were enough to prevent us crossing it. The only part of this deal anyone sane came close to welcoming was the $100bn global climate fund, but it’s now becoming apparent that even that’s largely made up of existing budgets, with no indication of how new money will be raised and distributed so poorer countries can go green and adapt to climate change.
Not all of our politicians deserve the opprobrium of a dismayed world. Our own Ed Miliband fought hard on no sleep for a better outcome, while President Lula of Brazil offered to financially assist other developing countries to cope with climate change and put a relatively bold carbon target on the table. But the EU didn’t move on its own commitment (one so weak we’d actually have to work hard not to meet it) while the United States offered nothing and China stood firm.
Before the talks began I was of the opinion that we would only know Copenhagen was a success when plans for new coal-fired power stations across the developed world were dropped. If the giant utilities saw in the outcome of Copenhagen an unmistakable sign that governments were now determined to act, and that coal plants this century would be too expensive to run under the regime agreed at this meeting, then this summit would have succeeded. Instead, as the details of the agreement emerged last night we received reports of Japanese opposition MPs popping champagne corks as they savoured the possible collapse of their new government’s carbon targets. It’s not just that we haven’t got to where we needed to be, we’ve actually ceded huge ground. There is nothing in this deal – nothing – that would persuade an energy utility that the era of dirty coal is over. And the implications for humanity of that simple fact are profound.
I know we greens are partial to hyperbole. We use language as a bludgeon to direct attention to the crisis we’re facing, and you’ll hear much more of it in the coming days and weeks. But really, it’s no exaggeration to describe the outcome of Copenhagen as an historic failure that will live in infamy. In a single day, in a single space, a spectacle was played out in front of a disbelieving audience of people who have read and understood the stark warnings of humanity’s greatest scientific minds - and what they witnessed was nothing less than the very worst instincts of our species articulated by the most powerful men who ever lived.
I will leave the last word to the late Kurt Vonnegut Jr., who would have given voice to the insanity of Copenhagen better than I ever could, and whose poem Requiem is perhaps appropriate at this moment: ‘When the last living thing, has died on account of us, how poetical it would be if Earth could say, in a voice floating up, perhaps from the floor of the Grand Canyon, “It is done. People did not like it here”.’
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Top Ten Brands to Boycott this Christmas
"Top Ten Brands to Boycott this Christmas"
Posted by Right Of Return Coalition on Thu, 12/03/2009 - 13:05
USCBI (U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel)
While there are many Israeli and multinational companies that benefit from apartheid, we put together this list to highlight ten specific companies to target.
Many of these produce goods in such a way that directly harms Palestinians — exploiting labor, developing technology for military operations, or supplying equipment for illegal settlements. Many are also the targets of boycotts for other reasons, like harming the environment and labor violations.
1. AHAVA
This brand’s cosmetics are produced using salt, minerals, and mud from the Dead Sea — natural resources that are excavated from the occupied West Bank. The products themselves are manufactured in the illegal Israeli settlement Mitzpe Shalem. AHAVA is the target of CODEPINK’s “Stolen Beauty” campaign.
2. Delta Galil Industries
Israel’s largest textiles manufacturer provides clothing and underwear for such popular brands as Gap, J-Crew, J.C. Penny, Calvin Klein, Playtex, Victoria’s Secret (see #10) and many others. Its founder and chairman Dov Lautman is a close associate of former Israeli President Ehud Barak. It has also been condemned by Sweatshop Watch for its exploitation of labor in other countries such as Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey.
3. Motorola
While many of us know this brand for its stylish cellphones, did you know that it also develops and manufactures bomb fuses and missile guidance systems? Motorola components are also used in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or “drones”) and in communications and surveillance systems used in settlements, checkpoints, and along the 490 mile apartheid wall. The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation has launched the “Hang Up on Motorola” campaign.
4. L’Oreal / The Body Shop
This cosmetics and perfume company is known for its investments and manufacturing activities in Israel, including production in Migdal Haemek, the “Silicon Valley” of Israel built on the land of Palestinian village Al-Mujaydil, which was ethnically cleansed in 1948. In 1998, a representative of L’Oreal was given the Jubilee Award by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu for strengthening the Israeli economy.
5. Dorot Garlic and Herbs
These frozen herbs that are sold at Trader Joe’s are shipped halfway around the world when they could easily be purchased locally. Trader Joe’s also sells Israeli Cous Cous and Pastures of Eden feta cheese that are made in Israel. QUIT, South Bay Mobilization, and other groups have targeted Trader Joe’s with a “Don’t Buy into Apartheid” campaign.
6. Estee Lauder
This company’s chairman Ronald Lauder is also the chairman of the Jewish National Fund, a quasi-governmental organization that was established in 1901 to acquire Palestinian land and is connected to the continued building of illegal settlements. Estee Lauder’s popular brands include Clinique, MAC, Origins, Bumble & Bumble, Aveda, fragrance lines for top designers, and many others. They have been the target of QUIT’s “Estee Slaughter Killer Products” campaign.
7. Intel
This technology company that manufactures computer processors and other hardware components employs thousands of Israelis and has exports from Israel totaling over $1 billion per year. They are one of Israel’s oldest foreign supporters, having established their first development center outside of the US in 1974 in Haifa. Al-Awda (the Palestinian Right to Return Coalition) has urged action against Intel for building a facility on the land of former village Iraq Al Manshiya, which was cleansed in 1949.
8. Sabra
This brand of hummus, baba ghanoush and other foods is co-owned by Israel’s second-largest food company The Strauss Group and Pepsico. On the “Corporate Responsibility” section of its website, The Strauss Group boasts of its relationship to the Israeli Army, offering food products and political support.
9. Sara Lee
Sara Lee holds a 30% stake in Delta Galil (see #2) and is the world’s largest clothing manufacturer, which owns or is affiliated with such brands as Hanes, Playtex, Champion, Leggs, Sara Lee Bakery, Ball Park hotdogs, Wonderbra, and many others. Similar to L’Oreal (see #4), a representative of Sara Lee received the Jubilee Award from Netanyahu for its commitment to business with Israel.
10. Victoria’s Secret
Most of Victoria’s Secret’s bras are produced by Delta Galil (see #2), and much of the cotton is also grown in Israel on confiscated Palestinian land. Victoria’s Secret has also been the target of labor rights’ groups for sourcing products from companies with labor violations, and by environmental groups for their unsustainable use of paper in producing their catalogues. That’s not sexy!
Remember, it’s also important to let these companies — and the stores that sell them — know that we will not support them as long as they support Israeli apartheid!
Friday, December 18, 2009
What is Jerusalem?
What is Jerusalem ?
Ibrahim Alloush
The Star, Monday, Dec. 7, 2009
http://www.star. com.jo/main/ index.php? option=com_ content&view=article&id=16706&catid=17:op- ed&Itemid=111
While in the U.S.A, an Arab or a Muslim may hear many an American protest: "but the Christians have the Vatican , and the Muslims have Mecca . So why can't the Jews have Jerusalem ?!" The implied condemnation in that rhetorical question naturally turns Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, and supporters of the Palestinian cause everywhere into contemptible fanatic poachers, "anti-semitic" to be sure, who are conspiring with the rest of the world to deny Judaism a holy center of faith of its own!
By extension, the following question is also frequently posed: why are Arabs and Muslims so incensed that the Jews are digging for the Temple of Solomon beneath Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock?! Read: what do you have to hide? Are you afraid that the Temple of Solomon would be found, practically proving that those Arab Islamic and Christian holy places were built on stolen Jewish property by “an Arab occupation? Let them dig for their long-lost temple for goodness sake, and if they find nothing, what do you have to lose?!
Mind you, the excavation has delved so deeply and extensively underneath Al Aqsa Mosque, reaching the pre-Hebrew Canaanite Epoch, dating back several millennia, still without hitting any Temple of Solomon or even a shred of Jewishness!
More importantly, the earth beneath the structure of Al Aqsa Mosque has been so disemboweled, which made the grounds beneath it so shaky, a somewhat powerful underground explosion or an earthquake would probably bring the Holy Muslim edifice down altogether like a crumbling house of cards.
Thus, there is no longer any doubt in the minds of concerned people everywhere what the real purpose of the digging is. The massive underground network of tunnels, inroads, and state-sponsored synagogues is simply meant to physically undermine Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock; that is, it is meant to usurp the Arab identity of Jerusalem , and to make Jewish history out of nothing at all!
Consequently, contrary to what may seem at the surface, those issues are not purely about religion as much as they are about the identity of the land and whether it's Arab or not. For archaeological and religious issues here are nothing but thin veneer for a vexing contemporary and worldly question: is Jerusalem , and by extension Palestine , Arab or Jewish? Whose birthright is it? And, hence, who gets to keep it and rule over it? THAT is the crux of the matter that secularly-minded individuals in the West and the East gloss over when they gloat or grumble about fanatics on both sides killing each other over slabs of earth and stone.
For example, in the movie The Kingdom of Heaven (2005) by Ridley Scott, that many mistook for an atypically pro-Arab picture, the hero Balian of Ibelin (Actor Orlando Bloom) wonders before the invader community of Crusaders in Jerusalem as it braces for the impending Arab attack: What is Jerusalem ? Your holy places lie over the Jewish temple that the Romans pulled down. The Muslim places of worship lie over yours. Which is more holy?... The wall? The Mosque? The Sepulchre? Who has claim? No one has claim! All have claim!
So, if no one has claim, certainly the Arabs don't! And if all have claim, certainly the Arabs can't claim that Jerusalem is Arab, can they? In the end, we're talking about the question of who wields political power here, and about the need to justify the presence of invaders in Palestine , as rulers, not as pilgrims passing through for example. Certainly we are not talking about freedom of worship here (which was guaranteed under Muslim rule in the life of Jerusalem more than any other). We are talking about falsifying history to rationalize foreign occupations. If Arabs are an occupation, then they shouldn't complain about another which replaced them, especially if it allegedly predated them.
But after more than six decades of Zionist occupation, no Jewish Temple was ever found, and if there ever was one in Palestine, who is to say it used to lie exactly where Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are today?! Never mind that alleged Jewish archaeological remnants in the land have been extremely scarce and suspect. Never mind that even according to the Torah the Canaanites existed in Palestine long before, during, and after the Hebrews allegedly came through. Never mind the fact that the Canaanites descended upon the land from the Arabian Peninsula and that their tongue is an ancient Arabic one. After all, this is not some abstruse academic debate on history.
Yet when some claim that Palestine belongs to no one, we have to insist that it has been Arab since time immemorial, in the face of all transient foreign occupations, and that we have the historical and cultural ties to prove it, including Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.
Palestine is not a land without an identity any more than it is a land without a people. Jerusalem belongs to the Palestinians and Palestine belongs to the Arabs just like Le Seine belongs to the French and Shanghai to the Chinese. Furthermore, when those who tell us that Jerusalem belongs to no one and to all declare their own countries as belonging to no one and to all, we promise to solemnly consider their propositions for Jerusalem seriously.
Setting questions of history and identity aside, the point remains that Jerusalem in modern times has become the locus of festering political contradictions at many levels. For the Arabs, Jerusalem stands as a symbol of Arab defeat before Western colonialism. For Palestinians under occupation and in the diaspora, Jerusalem represents the essence of the conflict with the Zionist movement over the right of ownership to the land here and now. For the Islamic World, Jerusalem signifies another crusader incursion at the cultural and religious levels. Finally, for anti-imperialists worldwide, Jerusalem pertains to the liberation struggle against Zionism and imperialism on the very front where that two-headed monster has thrown all of its colossal might. Although Jerusalem might mean more of this and less of that to different people, there is no question whatsoever that the demise of Israel and the liberation of Palestine will mark a watershed in human history, as it will help spell the end of the imperialist order everywhere.
Surely, Jerusalem is not a substitute for Palestine . It's just the mascot of the cause of Palestinian liberation. Neither are Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock a substitute for Jerusalem . They are but its crowing jewels along with all the other Arab Muslim and Christian Holy places in the city. The southwestern wall of Al Aqsa Mosque, the alleged "wailing wall", what we call in Arabic the wall of the "˜buraqâ", is definitely not a substitute for Al Aqsa Mosque either. Therefore, it's no wonder on the eve of the 1967 occupation of the eastern sector of the city, where Al Aqsa Mosque is located, that Moshe Dayan, an overtly a-religious former Israeli Minister of Defense, led a bunch of Rabbis to pray at the Wall of the Buraq. He understood the significance of that wall to be more than religious, for it condenses the fragments of the Arab-Zionist struggle into one bloc, literally.
To highlight the connection delineated above, it should be pointed out that the whole of Jerusalem and vicinity today, not only Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, is being subjected to a process of forced Judaization. The infamous "Wall of Separation" meandering through the West Bank has actually separated Jerusalem from the West Bank and subdivided Arabs within the city into three semi-isolated cantons. The Wall has severed the city from Arab villages in its vicinity, and has cut off Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem from the Old Town where Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock lie. In the meantime, hundreds of Jerusalemites get their identity cards withdrawn by Zionist occupation authorities every year. Dozens of Arab houses are either confiscated or demolished, while locations are given Hebrew names instead of Arab ones, for example "Har Homa" for Mount Abu Ghnaim.
In the meantime, Zionist settlement and construction in the city continues to expand and grow at the expense of the Arabs, as it has since the first half of the Twentieth Century. As a result, Arab Christians have effectively been evacuated from Jerusalem , with only a few thousand left. Now the Zionists are working on thinning out Arab Muslims. This is why preserving the Arab identity of the city requires all concerned to support Jerusalemites remain steadfast in their city, at least until liberation comes.
The Free Arab Voice www.freearabvoice. org
Ibrahim Alloush
The Star, Monday, Dec. 7, 2009
http://www.star. com.jo/main/ index.php? option=com_ content&view=article&id=16706&catid=17:op- ed&Itemid=111
While in the U.S.A, an Arab or a Muslim may hear many an American protest: "but the Christians have the Vatican , and the Muslims have Mecca . So why can't the Jews have Jerusalem ?!" The implied condemnation in that rhetorical question naturally turns Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, and supporters of the Palestinian cause everywhere into contemptible fanatic poachers, "anti-semitic" to be sure, who are conspiring with the rest of the world to deny Judaism a holy center of faith of its own!
By extension, the following question is also frequently posed: why are Arabs and Muslims so incensed that the Jews are digging for the Temple of Solomon beneath Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock?! Read: what do you have to hide? Are you afraid that the Temple of Solomon would be found, practically proving that those Arab Islamic and Christian holy places were built on stolen Jewish property by “an Arab occupation? Let them dig for their long-lost temple for goodness sake, and if they find nothing, what do you have to lose?!
Mind you, the excavation has delved so deeply and extensively underneath Al Aqsa Mosque, reaching the pre-Hebrew Canaanite Epoch, dating back several millennia, still without hitting any Temple of Solomon or even a shred of Jewishness!
More importantly, the earth beneath the structure of Al Aqsa Mosque has been so disemboweled, which made the grounds beneath it so shaky, a somewhat powerful underground explosion or an earthquake would probably bring the Holy Muslim edifice down altogether like a crumbling house of cards.
Thus, there is no longer any doubt in the minds of concerned people everywhere what the real purpose of the digging is. The massive underground network of tunnels, inroads, and state-sponsored synagogues is simply meant to physically undermine Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock; that is, it is meant to usurp the Arab identity of Jerusalem , and to make Jewish history out of nothing at all!
Consequently, contrary to what may seem at the surface, those issues are not purely about religion as much as they are about the identity of the land and whether it's Arab or not. For archaeological and religious issues here are nothing but thin veneer for a vexing contemporary and worldly question: is Jerusalem , and by extension Palestine , Arab or Jewish? Whose birthright is it? And, hence, who gets to keep it and rule over it? THAT is the crux of the matter that secularly-minded individuals in the West and the East gloss over when they gloat or grumble about fanatics on both sides killing each other over slabs of earth and stone.
For example, in the movie The Kingdom of Heaven (2005) by Ridley Scott, that many mistook for an atypically pro-Arab picture, the hero Balian of Ibelin (Actor Orlando Bloom) wonders before the invader community of Crusaders in Jerusalem as it braces for the impending Arab attack: What is Jerusalem ? Your holy places lie over the Jewish temple that the Romans pulled down. The Muslim places of worship lie over yours. Which is more holy?... The wall? The Mosque? The Sepulchre? Who has claim? No one has claim! All have claim!
So, if no one has claim, certainly the Arabs don't! And if all have claim, certainly the Arabs can't claim that Jerusalem is Arab, can they? In the end, we're talking about the question of who wields political power here, and about the need to justify the presence of invaders in Palestine , as rulers, not as pilgrims passing through for example. Certainly we are not talking about freedom of worship here (which was guaranteed under Muslim rule in the life of Jerusalem more than any other). We are talking about falsifying history to rationalize foreign occupations. If Arabs are an occupation, then they shouldn't complain about another which replaced them, especially if it allegedly predated them.
But after more than six decades of Zionist occupation, no Jewish Temple was ever found, and if there ever was one in Palestine, who is to say it used to lie exactly where Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are today?! Never mind that alleged Jewish archaeological remnants in the land have been extremely scarce and suspect. Never mind that even according to the Torah the Canaanites existed in Palestine long before, during, and after the Hebrews allegedly came through. Never mind the fact that the Canaanites descended upon the land from the Arabian Peninsula and that their tongue is an ancient Arabic one. After all, this is not some abstruse academic debate on history.
Yet when some claim that Palestine belongs to no one, we have to insist that it has been Arab since time immemorial, in the face of all transient foreign occupations, and that we have the historical and cultural ties to prove it, including Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.
Palestine is not a land without an identity any more than it is a land without a people. Jerusalem belongs to the Palestinians and Palestine belongs to the Arabs just like Le Seine belongs to the French and Shanghai to the Chinese. Furthermore, when those who tell us that Jerusalem belongs to no one and to all declare their own countries as belonging to no one and to all, we promise to solemnly consider their propositions for Jerusalem seriously.
Setting questions of history and identity aside, the point remains that Jerusalem in modern times has become the locus of festering political contradictions at many levels. For the Arabs, Jerusalem stands as a symbol of Arab defeat before Western colonialism. For Palestinians under occupation and in the diaspora, Jerusalem represents the essence of the conflict with the Zionist movement over the right of ownership to the land here and now. For the Islamic World, Jerusalem signifies another crusader incursion at the cultural and religious levels. Finally, for anti-imperialists worldwide, Jerusalem pertains to the liberation struggle against Zionism and imperialism on the very front where that two-headed monster has thrown all of its colossal might. Although Jerusalem might mean more of this and less of that to different people, there is no question whatsoever that the demise of Israel and the liberation of Palestine will mark a watershed in human history, as it will help spell the end of the imperialist order everywhere.
Surely, Jerusalem is not a substitute for Palestine . It's just the mascot of the cause of Palestinian liberation. Neither are Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock a substitute for Jerusalem . They are but its crowing jewels along with all the other Arab Muslim and Christian Holy places in the city. The southwestern wall of Al Aqsa Mosque, the alleged "wailing wall", what we call in Arabic the wall of the "˜buraqâ", is definitely not a substitute for Al Aqsa Mosque either. Therefore, it's no wonder on the eve of the 1967 occupation of the eastern sector of the city, where Al Aqsa Mosque is located, that Moshe Dayan, an overtly a-religious former Israeli Minister of Defense, led a bunch of Rabbis to pray at the Wall of the Buraq. He understood the significance of that wall to be more than religious, for it condenses the fragments of the Arab-Zionist struggle into one bloc, literally.
To highlight the connection delineated above, it should be pointed out that the whole of Jerusalem and vicinity today, not only Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, is being subjected to a process of forced Judaization. The infamous "Wall of Separation" meandering through the West Bank has actually separated Jerusalem from the West Bank and subdivided Arabs within the city into three semi-isolated cantons. The Wall has severed the city from Arab villages in its vicinity, and has cut off Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem from the Old Town where Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock lie. In the meantime, hundreds of Jerusalemites get their identity cards withdrawn by Zionist occupation authorities every year. Dozens of Arab houses are either confiscated or demolished, while locations are given Hebrew names instead of Arab ones, for example "Har Homa" for Mount Abu Ghnaim.
In the meantime, Zionist settlement and construction in the city continues to expand and grow at the expense of the Arabs, as it has since the first half of the Twentieth Century. As a result, Arab Christians have effectively been evacuated from Jerusalem , with only a few thousand left. Now the Zionists are working on thinning out Arab Muslims. This is why preserving the Arab identity of the city requires all concerned to support Jerusalemites remain steadfast in their city, at least until liberation comes.
The Free Arab Voice www.freearabvoice. org
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Beauty and Apartheid in East Jerusalem
A friend of mine posted this same article on her blog so I'm doing the same.
I credit her with the title of this post.
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=5299
David Shulman
Taayush
July 2, 2005
Ankle-deep in the pungent, turbid water of Silwan, we stand in the old, ruined aqueduct, hoes and pick-axes in our hands. It is 9:30 in the morning and already hot. We have come to clean the aqueduct and make it functional again; so we scrape away at its muddy bed, filling buckets with sandy clay and rocks to be emptied out on the hill below, where a new terrace is being built by our Palestinian friends. The task is Sisyphean; the Palestinian locals keep reassuring us that we will hit bottom after 15 centimetres or so, but as the day progresses the channel becomes deeper and deeper, with no bottom in sight. The water flows downhill from an ancient spring somewhere up-mountain—so we are told—a spring older than King David, who lived here in Silwan, older even than the Jebusites from whom he captured the city 3000 years ago. The Silwanis think the spring was here from the beginning of time.
In the old days, the aqueduct carried this clean spring-water in a carved stone channel just under the wall of heavy stones that lines the road; in this way water reached down into the village for drinking, washing, irrigation. At some point in the last years, the Jerusalem municipality blocked it at one end and built a large concrete cess-pool just below it. So now the water still emerging from the ancient spring mostly stands stagnant in the aqueduct, evaporating in the hot sun of the Jerusalem summer. The people of al-Bustan have long wanted to unblock the channel, to clean it and let water flow back toward their neighborhood; but they have been afraid to do this on their own, knowing very well that the police or the Border Guards would almost certainly intervene to prevent them. Only our presence here today, some 100 volunteers from Ta’ayush, Bat Shalom, Machsom Watch, and the Committee against House Demolitions, has given them the freedom to put their ready plans into operation.
We are here, however, not just for the water and the terrace but mainly because of the Municipality’s plans to demolish 88 houses in al-Bustan—in fact, to wipe out the neighborhood altogether, ostensibly in order to create an “archaeological park” in the heart of Silwan. In fact, the intention is very different and altogether transparent: al-Bustan will fall victim to the latest attempt to Judaize east Jerusalem, pursuant to the settlers’ stated goal and the government’s clear policy of making the lives of Palestinian Jerusalemites as miserable as possible. The sheer scale of the current attempt—some 1000 people will be rendered homeless—has sparked considerable protest as well as this collaborative venture between Israeli peace-groups and the local committee. We have come in the hope of drawing international attention to what Israel is planning, and thus of forcing the government to back down. We have come in solidarity with innocent victims. And we have come to work.
There is a lot of press, including a Korean TV journalist making a film about life in Israel-Palestine, a reporter from the Berliner Zeitung, and a Chinese crew; if they manage to get a few seconds on the evening news in China, possibly many millions will see this happy moment. Several video crews are filming continuously, and indeed the hillside looks, to my eyes, strikingly photogenic. There are teams of volunteers cleaning up the debris of decades—rusted spikes wrapped in barb-wire, blocks of concrete, huge broken branches, and moldy piles of tin and plastic; others are breaking up the caked top-layer of soil just down from the aqueduct, readying it for the grassy terrace it will soon become; some are filling buckets with rocks and earth and pouring them out on the hill below to build up the emerging terrace. The whole hillside is alive with color and movement; young men from the village, and some children, work side-by-side with the Israelis, and the site is changing rapidly, minute by minute, the long neglect over at last. Amnon, only recently recovered from a broken shoulder, is working heroically with his one uninjured arm, hoeing and raking and carrying buckets and branches and heavy stones.
I am not alone; three Sanskritists from our group at the Institute for Advanced Studies have joined me, along with R., my Tamilist friend and colleague from New Zealand; also P.—my closest friend in the world—is with us for the first time. Thirty years ago we were in the army together; an irrevocable bond. He is working—hard-- on the Sabbath; he rode the bus down to the village with the rest of us; he is an observant Jew. How does it feel, I ask him? “Like Shabbat Bereshit,” he says: the Torah reading about the creation of the world.
From the start, the police are also with us, seeming, on the surface, rather benign—at first two blue jeeps, reinforced later by a detachment of Border Guards. They have promised that we would not be stopped on our way down into the village, and they do not appear to be unduly troubled by the notion of this work-day. It is not, after all, a demonstration. But around 11:00 a settler appears, dressed in his white Shabbat clothes, with conspicuous skull-cap and fringes and a well-fed belly. He looks scornfully at the Jews working beside Palestinian Arabs. He lives in a house seized from one of the Silwanis, overlooking this hillside. He stops for a word with the police commander. It is not allowed, he claims—and, as usual, the settler calls the shots—to pour earth to make a terrace, or to plant a tree, or to repair a stone wall, without specific permits. We are intending to do all of the above, but now the officer informs us, bowing to the settler’s mysterious authority, that we can go on working so long as we refrain from these clearly criminal acts. They will stay here to make sure we keep within bounds.
The man working beside me says to me in Arabic: “He—the settler—is living in my house. He took my house.” He is, of course, enraged. “All the problems,” he says, “come from them; only from them. They won’t let us live. They won’t let us breathe.” Another Silwani bursts out in a torrent of curses, and for a moment the rhythm of our hoes and buckets is rent by the pulsations of rage. The moment passes. We will wait a while before deciding about the tree.
Amiel has brought it, a huge mulberry, tut in Arabic and Hebrew; he and Ezra scoured the nurseries of Jerusalem looking for it, because this place was years ago known as “Tut Junction”, after a famous, ancient mulberry tree. That tree is gone, and we intend to replace it today, also to restore the street signs with the original names. Ezra, meanwhile, has been imprisoned by the army for visiting our friends in the south Hebron caves; tonight he will be brought before a Jerusalem court for an extension of his remand. They seem, this time, intent on punishing him. Nothing, truly nothing, threatens the army more than a man of peace.
From my position inside the aqueduct, I wonder out loud with P. at the hate that has risen up within me at the sight and sound of the arrogant settler. I can’t deny its existence. I can call up not even an iota of empathy, and I refuse to try to imagine his warped inner world. Hate, I say to P., is a part of us; like love. Better to acknowledge it. Is that why you are here? he asks me. Is that why you act? Of course, he agrees, this settler is hateful: look at his swagger, look at the stolen house, look at the hate coursing through him. Who, after all, would try to stop a man from planting a tree in his own garden? But is that a reason to act? No, I answer. I mostly seem to act from some other, obscure place. Maybe it is a need to be outside, away from my professor’s desk. Maybe it is a hunger for the intense connectedness of days like this, days of crossing the borders, one by one. Maybe it is love—for these people working beside me. Maybe, very likely, it is pure, uncontainable outrage at the immense injustice inflicted on them, day by day, and a refusal to let the Jews, or anyone else, perpetrate it without protest: being Jewish, so I thought, was mostly about just such a refusal. The prophets who lived here in Silwan, when David was king, sang mostly about that. If we had been alive in those days, I tell P., I would have been a ragged street urchin, mad with poetry, and you would have been one of those prophets. That is why you are here today.
Never before have I been so needed as a medic: there is a host of minor cuts and wounds which require cleaning and bandaging. I almost exhaust the medical supplies I brought with me; it is time to refresh my medic’s pouch. By now I am covered in mud and reeking of the stagnant water; will the stench ever leave my shoes, my jeans? I am also very thirsty, as the day wears on, an endless and relentless thirst no liquid can quench.
After lunch I climb with P. into the Roman antiquities farther up hill—a bath-house in the shadow of an overhanging cliff. Ta’ayush, P. says, reminds him of our days in the army; there is the same stark, unfamiliar eros of body and sun and smell, of the group living its life as a collective, of the simplicity of eating and working and using your hands. Yes, I say—suddenly memory cascades back to Shomron and basic training, I can smell it again—but there we were slaves, and here we are free.
They ask us to climb up into the cemetery above the road for a few photos, for the Arabic newspaper Al-Quds. Only men—women should not go into this space. We somewhat comically, artificially play at cleaning the grave-stones, mostly marked as children’s graves, for the sake of the picture. Why didn’t they photograph us working furiously downhill? Perhaps the sight of Israelis cleaning Muslim tombstones will have some power. Pictures over, we go back to work. A little later someone climbs the tall electricity pole and ties a newly painted signpost on it, in Arabic and English, another fruit of today’s labors: maqbarat al-atfal above, and below, an unconscious touch of poetry: “Children’s Symmetry.”
By now it is 3:00, the day begins to wane. Time to wind down: and time for the tree, come what may. Amiel carries it into the newly hoed plot. It is a splendid specimen, and within minutes it stands embedded in the soil, lightly tied to an iron stake; wrapped around the stake, covered in plastic, is a huge enlargement of an aerial photograph of the village, with a bright circle tracing the boundaries of this neighborhood threatened with extinction.. We pour buckets of water over the base of the tree, and a cheer goes up: “Silwan! Silwan!” People clap and sing and shout. But now the police wake up, since we have at last broken the law. They march back and forth on the road, barking into their cell-phones. The Border Guards look restless, or agitated, as well, and for a few moments I wonder if at this final moment we will have to face a fracas, a police charge, or the arrest of some of our friends. In a way, I don’t much care. There is something about planting a tree that stands outside and beyond all other categories. It is always and ever auto-telic: its own intrinsic justification. I am glad we have planted this mulberry tree here, glad to have been part of it, glad also for the defiance. And now, as the policemen look on with anger, apparently hesitant to move, the Silwani spokesmen rise to speak through the loudspeaker to all of us who have worked here today.
“This is the day of Silwan,” says M., in Arabic, “a famous day, a day of peace. I thank you on behalf of the people of Silwan. You have come from all over, even from distant countries, to help us, who have been targeted by the Israeli authorities—one thousand men, women, and children from al-Bustan. I thank you for the sake of peace. Let all people know. In Silwan we are not free. We want our liberty, we want our livelihood, we want an end to our agony. Make sure that the Israeli government knows, and the Jerusalem municipality knows: we will never give up our homes. Make sure for the sake of peace, the peace we all want.”
Again the cries: “Silwan! Silwan!” Mixed in with them is another shout, almost a rhyme: “Salaam!” Now Khulood speaks for Ta’ayush in a swift, crystalline Arabic, every syllable a promise of human hope. “We are not afraid,” she says, “not afraid of the Border Guards or the Police or the soldiers, not afraid of anyone. We came here to stand beside you, and we will never abandon this struggle. Your struggle is ours.” Someone suddenly thrusts the loudspeaker at me, I try to escape it, try to push it back at Amnon, at anyone, but they insist and I can see there is no choice. They want someone to say something in Hebrew, and it will have to be me. I have no idea what to say, but I press the button and start, without thinking. “We had the honor, and the pleasure, of working here today as your guests. Thank you for inviting us. We loved this day, as we love and honor peace. We want you to know that we are with you and that we will never allow anyone to destroy your houses. We will come whenever you need us, whenever you invite us here, as your friends.”
I stop, the loudspeaker mercifully passes on to another, but one of the young Silwanis hurries over to me, takes my arm. “You don’t need an invitation,” he says to me, speaking of all of us, his eyes full of light. “Silwan is your home.”
I credit her with the title of this post.
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=5299
David Shulman
Taayush
July 2, 2005
Ankle-deep in the pungent, turbid water of Silwan, we stand in the old, ruined aqueduct, hoes and pick-axes in our hands. It is 9:30 in the morning and already hot. We have come to clean the aqueduct and make it functional again; so we scrape away at its muddy bed, filling buckets with sandy clay and rocks to be emptied out on the hill below, where a new terrace is being built by our Palestinian friends. The task is Sisyphean; the Palestinian locals keep reassuring us that we will hit bottom after 15 centimetres or so, but as the day progresses the channel becomes deeper and deeper, with no bottom in sight. The water flows downhill from an ancient spring somewhere up-mountain—so we are told—a spring older than King David, who lived here in Silwan, older even than the Jebusites from whom he captured the city 3000 years ago. The Silwanis think the spring was here from the beginning of time.
In the old days, the aqueduct carried this clean spring-water in a carved stone channel just under the wall of heavy stones that lines the road; in this way water reached down into the village for drinking, washing, irrigation. At some point in the last years, the Jerusalem municipality blocked it at one end and built a large concrete cess-pool just below it. So now the water still emerging from the ancient spring mostly stands stagnant in the aqueduct, evaporating in the hot sun of the Jerusalem summer. The people of al-Bustan have long wanted to unblock the channel, to clean it and let water flow back toward their neighborhood; but they have been afraid to do this on their own, knowing very well that the police or the Border Guards would almost certainly intervene to prevent them. Only our presence here today, some 100 volunteers from Ta’ayush, Bat Shalom, Machsom Watch, and the Committee against House Demolitions, has given them the freedom to put their ready plans into operation.
We are here, however, not just for the water and the terrace but mainly because of the Municipality’s plans to demolish 88 houses in al-Bustan—in fact, to wipe out the neighborhood altogether, ostensibly in order to create an “archaeological park” in the heart of Silwan. In fact, the intention is very different and altogether transparent: al-Bustan will fall victim to the latest attempt to Judaize east Jerusalem, pursuant to the settlers’ stated goal and the government’s clear policy of making the lives of Palestinian Jerusalemites as miserable as possible. The sheer scale of the current attempt—some 1000 people will be rendered homeless—has sparked considerable protest as well as this collaborative venture between Israeli peace-groups and the local committee. We have come in the hope of drawing international attention to what Israel is planning, and thus of forcing the government to back down. We have come in solidarity with innocent victims. And we have come to work.
There is a lot of press, including a Korean TV journalist making a film about life in Israel-Palestine, a reporter from the Berliner Zeitung, and a Chinese crew; if they manage to get a few seconds on the evening news in China, possibly many millions will see this happy moment. Several video crews are filming continuously, and indeed the hillside looks, to my eyes, strikingly photogenic. There are teams of volunteers cleaning up the debris of decades—rusted spikes wrapped in barb-wire, blocks of concrete, huge broken branches, and moldy piles of tin and plastic; others are breaking up the caked top-layer of soil just down from the aqueduct, readying it for the grassy terrace it will soon become; some are filling buckets with rocks and earth and pouring them out on the hill below to build up the emerging terrace. The whole hillside is alive with color and movement; young men from the village, and some children, work side-by-side with the Israelis, and the site is changing rapidly, minute by minute, the long neglect over at last. Amnon, only recently recovered from a broken shoulder, is working heroically with his one uninjured arm, hoeing and raking and carrying buckets and branches and heavy stones.
I am not alone; three Sanskritists from our group at the Institute for Advanced Studies have joined me, along with R., my Tamilist friend and colleague from New Zealand; also P.—my closest friend in the world—is with us for the first time. Thirty years ago we were in the army together; an irrevocable bond. He is working—hard-- on the Sabbath; he rode the bus down to the village with the rest of us; he is an observant Jew. How does it feel, I ask him? “Like Shabbat Bereshit,” he says: the Torah reading about the creation of the world.
From the start, the police are also with us, seeming, on the surface, rather benign—at first two blue jeeps, reinforced later by a detachment of Border Guards. They have promised that we would not be stopped on our way down into the village, and they do not appear to be unduly troubled by the notion of this work-day. It is not, after all, a demonstration. But around 11:00 a settler appears, dressed in his white Shabbat clothes, with conspicuous skull-cap and fringes and a well-fed belly. He looks scornfully at the Jews working beside Palestinian Arabs. He lives in a house seized from one of the Silwanis, overlooking this hillside. He stops for a word with the police commander. It is not allowed, he claims—and, as usual, the settler calls the shots—to pour earth to make a terrace, or to plant a tree, or to repair a stone wall, without specific permits. We are intending to do all of the above, but now the officer informs us, bowing to the settler’s mysterious authority, that we can go on working so long as we refrain from these clearly criminal acts. They will stay here to make sure we keep within bounds.
The man working beside me says to me in Arabic: “He—the settler—is living in my house. He took my house.” He is, of course, enraged. “All the problems,” he says, “come from them; only from them. They won’t let us live. They won’t let us breathe.” Another Silwani bursts out in a torrent of curses, and for a moment the rhythm of our hoes and buckets is rent by the pulsations of rage. The moment passes. We will wait a while before deciding about the tree.
Amiel has brought it, a huge mulberry, tut in Arabic and Hebrew; he and Ezra scoured the nurseries of Jerusalem looking for it, because this place was years ago known as “Tut Junction”, after a famous, ancient mulberry tree. That tree is gone, and we intend to replace it today, also to restore the street signs with the original names. Ezra, meanwhile, has been imprisoned by the army for visiting our friends in the south Hebron caves; tonight he will be brought before a Jerusalem court for an extension of his remand. They seem, this time, intent on punishing him. Nothing, truly nothing, threatens the army more than a man of peace.
From my position inside the aqueduct, I wonder out loud with P. at the hate that has risen up within me at the sight and sound of the arrogant settler. I can’t deny its existence. I can call up not even an iota of empathy, and I refuse to try to imagine his warped inner world. Hate, I say to P., is a part of us; like love. Better to acknowledge it. Is that why you are here? he asks me. Is that why you act? Of course, he agrees, this settler is hateful: look at his swagger, look at the stolen house, look at the hate coursing through him. Who, after all, would try to stop a man from planting a tree in his own garden? But is that a reason to act? No, I answer. I mostly seem to act from some other, obscure place. Maybe it is a need to be outside, away from my professor’s desk. Maybe it is a hunger for the intense connectedness of days like this, days of crossing the borders, one by one. Maybe it is love—for these people working beside me. Maybe, very likely, it is pure, uncontainable outrage at the immense injustice inflicted on them, day by day, and a refusal to let the Jews, or anyone else, perpetrate it without protest: being Jewish, so I thought, was mostly about just such a refusal. The prophets who lived here in Silwan, when David was king, sang mostly about that. If we had been alive in those days, I tell P., I would have been a ragged street urchin, mad with poetry, and you would have been one of those prophets. That is why you are here today.
Never before have I been so needed as a medic: there is a host of minor cuts and wounds which require cleaning and bandaging. I almost exhaust the medical supplies I brought with me; it is time to refresh my medic’s pouch. By now I am covered in mud and reeking of the stagnant water; will the stench ever leave my shoes, my jeans? I am also very thirsty, as the day wears on, an endless and relentless thirst no liquid can quench.
After lunch I climb with P. into the Roman antiquities farther up hill—a bath-house in the shadow of an overhanging cliff. Ta’ayush, P. says, reminds him of our days in the army; there is the same stark, unfamiliar eros of body and sun and smell, of the group living its life as a collective, of the simplicity of eating and working and using your hands. Yes, I say—suddenly memory cascades back to Shomron and basic training, I can smell it again—but there we were slaves, and here we are free.
They ask us to climb up into the cemetery above the road for a few photos, for the Arabic newspaper Al-Quds. Only men—women should not go into this space. We somewhat comically, artificially play at cleaning the grave-stones, mostly marked as children’s graves, for the sake of the picture. Why didn’t they photograph us working furiously downhill? Perhaps the sight of Israelis cleaning Muslim tombstones will have some power. Pictures over, we go back to work. A little later someone climbs the tall electricity pole and ties a newly painted signpost on it, in Arabic and English, another fruit of today’s labors: maqbarat al-atfal above, and below, an unconscious touch of poetry: “Children’s Symmetry.”
By now it is 3:00, the day begins to wane. Time to wind down: and time for the tree, come what may. Amiel carries it into the newly hoed plot. It is a splendid specimen, and within minutes it stands embedded in the soil, lightly tied to an iron stake; wrapped around the stake, covered in plastic, is a huge enlargement of an aerial photograph of the village, with a bright circle tracing the boundaries of this neighborhood threatened with extinction.. We pour buckets of water over the base of the tree, and a cheer goes up: “Silwan! Silwan!” People clap and sing and shout. But now the police wake up, since we have at last broken the law. They march back and forth on the road, barking into their cell-phones. The Border Guards look restless, or agitated, as well, and for a few moments I wonder if at this final moment we will have to face a fracas, a police charge, or the arrest of some of our friends. In a way, I don’t much care. There is something about planting a tree that stands outside and beyond all other categories. It is always and ever auto-telic: its own intrinsic justification. I am glad we have planted this mulberry tree here, glad to have been part of it, glad also for the defiance. And now, as the policemen look on with anger, apparently hesitant to move, the Silwani spokesmen rise to speak through the loudspeaker to all of us who have worked here today.
“This is the day of Silwan,” says M., in Arabic, “a famous day, a day of peace. I thank you on behalf of the people of Silwan. You have come from all over, even from distant countries, to help us, who have been targeted by the Israeli authorities—one thousand men, women, and children from al-Bustan. I thank you for the sake of peace. Let all people know. In Silwan we are not free. We want our liberty, we want our livelihood, we want an end to our agony. Make sure that the Israeli government knows, and the Jerusalem municipality knows: we will never give up our homes. Make sure for the sake of peace, the peace we all want.”
Again the cries: “Silwan! Silwan!” Mixed in with them is another shout, almost a rhyme: “Salaam!” Now Khulood speaks for Ta’ayush in a swift, crystalline Arabic, every syllable a promise of human hope. “We are not afraid,” she says, “not afraid of the Border Guards or the Police or the soldiers, not afraid of anyone. We came here to stand beside you, and we will never abandon this struggle. Your struggle is ours.” Someone suddenly thrusts the loudspeaker at me, I try to escape it, try to push it back at Amnon, at anyone, but they insist and I can see there is no choice. They want someone to say something in Hebrew, and it will have to be me. I have no idea what to say, but I press the button and start, without thinking. “We had the honor, and the pleasure, of working here today as your guests. Thank you for inviting us. We loved this day, as we love and honor peace. We want you to know that we are with you and that we will never allow anyone to destroy your houses. We will come whenever you need us, whenever you invite us here, as your friends.”
I stop, the loudspeaker mercifully passes on to another, but one of the young Silwanis hurries over to me, takes my arm. “You don’t need an invitation,” he says to me, speaking of all of us, his eyes full of light. “Silwan is your home.”
Thursday, November 12, 2009
The Next Installment of Life in the Middle-East
I’ve spent some time in Jerusalem lately and I have to say that I love that city. The Old City is so intriguing and magical with its small streets and shops. There is so much flavour to that city. And it’s really fascinating to think about all the people who may have walked the very paths I myself wander upon. Then there is West Jerusalem which has an amazing market called Machane Yehuda and sells pretty much everything and anything you could want. I’m definitely going to hit it up next week and get some delicious breads and halwa!
When I was in Jerusalem last week I encountered some interesting people. I walked halfway across the city to get to an Indian restaurant where I had a pretty good buffet lunch (nothing even close to the deliciousness of Spices of Punjab - to everyone who knows my love for that place!) and paid through the nose for it. Oh well – a month without curry is way too long! I was practically the only patron in the restaurant which meant the waiter stood next to my table and made conversation throughout my meal. I didn’t mind except that it was a little awkward when the conversation died and he just stood there watching me eat. When he found out I was living in Ramallah he gave me the name and phone number of his friend who I should “definitely call because they’ll help [me] out a lot.”
Having random people give me their phone number "just in case" happens quite regularly here. Even my bank teller, Mohammed, gave me his number - fortunately he was a good-looking guy and not an old married man. So as a matter of fact we went out for a beer!
But back to Jerusalem...Prior to heading over to West Jerusalem (the Jewish area), I bought an Arabic language book in East Jerusalem. Upon entering one shop in Machane Yehuda, the shopkeeper could hardly take her eyes off the glaring script that read “Lets Speak Arabic!” I think she was a little put off that I was wandering around the "Jewish area" of the city boasting a bright purple book that promoted learning Arabic. (The book I bought is really wonderful - I'm learning Arabic, slowly but surely!)
On my way back to the Old City, I stopped to looking at an interesting mural and was approached by a young man asking if I understood what I was looking at. I summarized the little plaque next to the mural. He asked how I knew all that and I told him that I was really just reading the description. He then launched into a convoluted explanation of some additional meanings of the mural. I tried to make a polite exit at one point but he said “Wait I’m just getting started! What’s your name – tell me about yourself!” So I stayed a little bit longer and found out that this guy was John from Denmark and he had been in Israel for about four years. Finally I was able to make my leave after John gave me his email address to stay in touch. Do I have any intention of emailing John? Not really…Sorry, buddy. “A” for effort, though!
As I was walking towards Jaffa gate a man stopped me and asked me if I spoke English. When I replied that I did, he told me that he would be available to give me a tour to Hebron or Bethlehem or a few other neighbouring cities. I told him I would be working for the rest of the week. He asked where I worked, and when I told him it was in Ramallah, he simply said “Have a nice time” and walked away. It definitely made me laugh. Further on the same path I was pleasantly surprised when a young Hasidic Jew smiled at me – most of the young Jewish men I walk past in Jerusalem give me a rather spiteful look, and I make sure that I’m pretty covered up in Jerusalem since I’m more likely to be frequenting religious sites.
(On a side point - since I was admonished more than once in the replies to my last email to watch what I wear (including from my older brother saying he didn't really feel like flying across the world to avenge my honour), I have started wearing pants longer than my knees and shirts that cover my shoulders. Fortunately the weather has cooled off slightly, but to get to work from my *new* apartment I have to walk up a 70 degree-incline hill and then two gigantic sets of stairs which means I'm pretty hot and sweaty when I get to work, especially in jeans and a T-shirt...And interestingly enough it really doesn't matter what I'm wearing - people stare anyway. I could be wearing the least-flattering outfit and look like a disaster and I will still turn heads...welcome to being a foreigner in the middle-east apparently...)
Anyway, back in the Old City of Jerusalem, as I was walking around I encountered several large church groups including one that was carrying a giant wooden cross! It was pretty intense to witness such a display of…of I don’t even know what to call it, to be honest. A few minutes later I came across the filming of a movie. I have to say the acting looked pretty bad. I wanted to stay a bit longer and watch what was going on but the film crew was sort of pushing people out of the way.
When I found a public washroom I walked into the female section and saw a man in there. I backed out and checked the sign again. He called to me and said he knew it was a female washroom. So he left and when I came out of the stall I saw he was cleaning. I must have looked a little tired because as I was washing my hands he asked me if I was alright. Then he asked me if I was Arabic. I told him my mother was part-Lebanese. He said he could tell from my face that I was an Arab. Then he said I was “very nice”. I have had quite a few people tell me that I have an "Arabic face" - I guess I am back in my homeland haha.
I’ve been trying to do some more reading up on the situation here so that I don’t sound like a complete dunce when the conversation turns towards that subject, which it inevitably does. In my humble opinion, the way Israel was created was...well, to be blunt it's a little ridiculous. But due to my Jewish studies, I have to admit that I can still understand why it was created. Although in a way it's pointless to discuss the circumstances of Israel's creation because it was created and it exists today - that is a fact. What is most pressing is how to deal with the situation!
As I was reminded, there are always two sides to every story and so for the past few weeks I tried to see the situation from both perspectives: Israeli and Palestinian. But to be quite frank, the conflict here is entirely reminiscent of an apartheid. The fact that the majority of Palestinians are not allowed to go to Jerusalem merely because they are Palestinian is truly racist and discriminatory. I sincerely do not know another way to describe it. The worst part is that the Palestinians are essentially at the mercy of the Israelis in so many ways.
As an example: One of my best friends here received permission to go to Jerusalem for a few days and he is completely thrilled about it. He has not set foot in Jerusalem for 5 years. I have to say that I was almost as happy about it as him – just to witness his joy at being able to travel 27 km is a pretty inspiring thing! So we did a gig together on Sunday night, the first day he was allowed back. He was visibly nervous about going through Qalandia checkpoint since a bad day for an Israeli guard means any Palestinian can be denied entry. Fortunately my friend made it through and when I congratulated him on it he said "Congratulations - bullshit. This is my home." It honestly made me want to cry because it's true - you don't congratulate someone for returning to the city they used to live in.
When you go to Jerusalem by bus you aren't given a very good chance to check out the wall that encircles the city. You can see some of the (amazing) graffiti painted on the Ramallah side, but not the full effect. When my colleagues and I returned from Jerusalem after our gig, we were taken by one of the drivers of the Conservatory. In a car you are really given the full effect of the prison-like setting that the wall creates, especially at night. There are watchtowers set up with guns in small windows - fully adorned with the Israeli flag, I might add. The wall - a good 20 ft. high - is topped with another metre of barbed wire. There are soldiers and military units parked all over the place. Honestly it's a little...unsettling.
Anyway - those are some of the thoughts that have been going through my head as of late.
November 11th is the anniversary of Yassar Arafat's and as such there was a huge parade and some demonstrations that happened in Ramallah. The city was PACKED with people from all over the country. As interesting as it would have been to stay and experience the fervour, I had to teach in Nablus so I missed out on all the action. Included in the attached pictures is one from the parade. The others are the Dome of the Rock, Abu Qash (I think), me with an olive tree, and the last one is the city of Nablus.
Inshallah everyone is doing well! I miss you all and urge you to reply - even if you think I might not want to hear from you, think again!! I want to know about all the little things going on back home. As normal as it feels to be living here and working as a teacher, I like to be reminded of all the interesting things from Canada.
I still miss Canadian beer (someone have a Keith's Red in my honour, please), pizza, Indian food, CFL/NFL (big congrats to the Roughriders for snagging the top spot in the West!), traffic laws, Cold FX, and the crisp air of Canadian fall.
When I was in Jerusalem last week I encountered some interesting people. I walked halfway across the city to get to an Indian restaurant where I had a pretty good buffet lunch (nothing even close to the deliciousness of Spices of Punjab - to everyone who knows my love for that place!) and paid through the nose for it. Oh well – a month without curry is way too long! I was practically the only patron in the restaurant which meant the waiter stood next to my table and made conversation throughout my meal. I didn’t mind except that it was a little awkward when the conversation died and he just stood there watching me eat. When he found out I was living in Ramallah he gave me the name and phone number of his friend who I should “definitely call because they’ll help [me] out a lot.”
Having random people give me their phone number "just in case" happens quite regularly here. Even my bank teller, Mohammed, gave me his number - fortunately he was a good-looking guy and not an old married man. So as a matter of fact we went out for a beer!
But back to Jerusalem...Prior to heading over to West Jerusalem (the Jewish area), I bought an Arabic language book in East Jerusalem. Upon entering one shop in Machane Yehuda, the shopkeeper could hardly take her eyes off the glaring script that read “Lets Speak Arabic!” I think she was a little put off that I was wandering around the "Jewish area" of the city boasting a bright purple book that promoted learning Arabic. (The book I bought is really wonderful - I'm learning Arabic, slowly but surely!)
On my way back to the Old City, I stopped to looking at an interesting mural and was approached by a young man asking if I understood what I was looking at. I summarized the little plaque next to the mural. He asked how I knew all that and I told him that I was really just reading the description. He then launched into a convoluted explanation of some additional meanings of the mural. I tried to make a polite exit at one point but he said “Wait I’m just getting started! What’s your name – tell me about yourself!” So I stayed a little bit longer and found out that this guy was John from Denmark and he had been in Israel for about four years. Finally I was able to make my leave after John gave me his email address to stay in touch. Do I have any intention of emailing John? Not really…Sorry, buddy. “A” for effort, though!
As I was walking towards Jaffa gate a man stopped me and asked me if I spoke English. When I replied that I did, he told me that he would be available to give me a tour to Hebron or Bethlehem or a few other neighbouring cities. I told him I would be working for the rest of the week. He asked where I worked, and when I told him it was in Ramallah, he simply said “Have a nice time” and walked away. It definitely made me laugh. Further on the same path I was pleasantly surprised when a young Hasidic Jew smiled at me – most of the young Jewish men I walk past in Jerusalem give me a rather spiteful look, and I make sure that I’m pretty covered up in Jerusalem since I’m more likely to be frequenting religious sites.
(On a side point - since I was admonished more than once in the replies to my last email to watch what I wear (including from my older brother saying he didn't really feel like flying across the world to avenge my honour), I have started wearing pants longer than my knees and shirts that cover my shoulders. Fortunately the weather has cooled off slightly, but to get to work from my *new* apartment I have to walk up a 70 degree-incline hill and then two gigantic sets of stairs which means I'm pretty hot and sweaty when I get to work, especially in jeans and a T-shirt...And interestingly enough it really doesn't matter what I'm wearing - people stare anyway. I could be wearing the least-flattering outfit and look like a disaster and I will still turn heads...welcome to being a foreigner in the middle-east apparently...)
Anyway, back in the Old City of Jerusalem, as I was walking around I encountered several large church groups including one that was carrying a giant wooden cross! It was pretty intense to witness such a display of…of I don’t even know what to call it, to be honest. A few minutes later I came across the filming of a movie. I have to say the acting looked pretty bad. I wanted to stay a bit longer and watch what was going on but the film crew was sort of pushing people out of the way.
When I found a public washroom I walked into the female section and saw a man in there. I backed out and checked the sign again. He called to me and said he knew it was a female washroom. So he left and when I came out of the stall I saw he was cleaning. I must have looked a little tired because as I was washing my hands he asked me if I was alright. Then he asked me if I was Arabic. I told him my mother was part-Lebanese. He said he could tell from my face that I was an Arab. Then he said I was “very nice”. I have had quite a few people tell me that I have an "Arabic face" - I guess I am back in my homeland haha.
I’ve been trying to do some more reading up on the situation here so that I don’t sound like a complete dunce when the conversation turns towards that subject, which it inevitably does. In my humble opinion, the way Israel was created was...well, to be blunt it's a little ridiculous. But due to my Jewish studies, I have to admit that I can still understand why it was created. Although in a way it's pointless to discuss the circumstances of Israel's creation because it was created and it exists today - that is a fact. What is most pressing is how to deal with the situation!
As I was reminded, there are always two sides to every story and so for the past few weeks I tried to see the situation from both perspectives: Israeli and Palestinian. But to be quite frank, the conflict here is entirely reminiscent of an apartheid. The fact that the majority of Palestinians are not allowed to go to Jerusalem merely because they are Palestinian is truly racist and discriminatory. I sincerely do not know another way to describe it. The worst part is that the Palestinians are essentially at the mercy of the Israelis in so many ways.
As an example: One of my best friends here received permission to go to Jerusalem for a few days and he is completely thrilled about it. He has not set foot in Jerusalem for 5 years. I have to say that I was almost as happy about it as him – just to witness his joy at being able to travel 27 km is a pretty inspiring thing! So we did a gig together on Sunday night, the first day he was allowed back. He was visibly nervous about going through Qalandia checkpoint since a bad day for an Israeli guard means any Palestinian can be denied entry. Fortunately my friend made it through and when I congratulated him on it he said "Congratulations - bullshit. This is my home." It honestly made me want to cry because it's true - you don't congratulate someone for returning to the city they used to live in.
When you go to Jerusalem by bus you aren't given a very good chance to check out the wall that encircles the city. You can see some of the (amazing) graffiti painted on the Ramallah side, but not the full effect. When my colleagues and I returned from Jerusalem after our gig, we were taken by one of the drivers of the Conservatory. In a car you are really given the full effect of the prison-like setting that the wall creates, especially at night. There are watchtowers set up with guns in small windows - fully adorned with the Israeli flag, I might add. The wall - a good 20 ft. high - is topped with another metre of barbed wire. There are soldiers and military units parked all over the place. Honestly it's a little...unsettling.
Anyway - those are some of the thoughts that have been going through my head as of late.
November 11th is the anniversary of Yassar Arafat's and as such there was a huge parade and some demonstrations that happened in Ramallah. The city was PACKED with people from all over the country. As interesting as it would have been to stay and experience the fervour, I had to teach in Nablus so I missed out on all the action. Included in the attached pictures is one from the parade. The others are the Dome of the Rock, Abu Qash (I think), me with an olive tree, and the last one is the city of Nablus.
Inshallah everyone is doing well! I miss you all and urge you to reply - even if you think I might not want to hear from you, think again!! I want to know about all the little things going on back home. As normal as it feels to be living here and working as a teacher, I like to be reminded of all the interesting things from Canada.
I still miss Canadian beer (someone have a Keith's Red in my honour, please), pizza, Indian food, CFL/NFL (big congrats to the Roughriders for snagging the top spot in the West!), traffic laws, Cold FX, and the crisp air of Canadian fall.
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