Palestine diary
On arriving at Tel Aviv airport, the security cannot understand why anybody would want to come to Israel for a holiday.
For the first two days I stayed in Jerusalem, waiting for training. So I walk around the old city looking at the various religious sites. This is extremely difficult because the traders are desperate for customers, and I appear to be the only tourist. So I elicit a Palestinian tour guide.
We reach a position overlooking the Wailing Wall, and as we look at the Al Aqsa mosque an Israeli man, seeing that I was accompanied by a young Palestinian, said "That is where we are going to build our Third Temple". Since this would mean knocking down the third most important Muslim religious site, this was quite a statement.
Apart from all the soldiers walking about the Palestinian part of the city, there are also armed settlers, with their hands on their Uzis.
Later on, as I walk past Damascus Gate, I notice some soldiers have lined up a group of Palestinians, and occasionally kick them, whenever they seem to protest. Apparently this is because they have the wrong colour identity cards. Palestinians from the West Bank are not allowed into Jerusalem. Never mind the importance to them of this city.
I then head for Beit Sahour, for training. The International Solidarity Movement training involves agreement on our activities being non-violent, on avoiding cultural offence, and making it clear that we’re here to support the Palestinians, and not tell them what to do. It also involves measures to maintain our own safety. We are all assigned to affinity groups, who look after each other, and we each have a buddy, who specifically watches the other, in demonstrations or other activities.
One thing I learned, whilst here is that there are large number of Christian Palestinians, something you never hear in the media – obviously because this goes against the idea of some kind of cultural war.
We make a visit to Deheishe camp. Here we visit the home of a suicide bomber: the Israeli army is threatening to knock it down. It is a large house with the mother living on one floor, and three brothers each having a floor with their families. In these refugee camps the houses are built together, with only a narrow roadways between. If the house is knocked down, at least six other houses will be heavily affected. Even the neighbours have moved some of their furniture away, because when the Israeli army comes it only ever gives 20 minutes’ notice to get out. So the residents have no time to take their possessions.
When we talked to one of the brothers, he said that if he had known his brother was going to do what he did, he would have stopped him, as would their mother. But he also explained the mental state that his brother had been in: it was at the time of the Jenin attacks by the Israeli army. He himself said that he was in favour of discussing with the Israelis to achieve a peaceful settlement, as he would still be even if they knocked down his house.
As we looked from the roof of this house at the surrounding hills we could see two large Jewish settlements. But he also pointed out a caravan parked on the hill facing us: he explained this was the start of a new settlement, and it was on Palestinian land. There was nothing they could do about it. Our guide explained that he had a piece of land, that he had been trying to get building permission for seven years .
The settlements dominate everything. In the area of Bethlehem these settlements used 87 per cent of the water, and during summer the Palestinian areas have varying periods of water shutdown. This of course never applies to the settlements, which continue to use their sprinklers, swimming pools etc. Special roads, which only the settlers are allowed to use, are built to the settlements.
Whilst I was there, there was a case reported in the newspapers, in which some Palestinian families had gone to court to try to stop the Israeli army knocking down their houses, for a road to a settlement. The judge argued that the fact the settlement was illegal was irrelevant, that the army had a duty to provide security for Israeli citizens, and therefore could knock down these houses.
All the settlements are illegal, but the Israeli state defends them on the grounds that they were gained in a war of legitimate self-defence, from Jordan and Syria, and they are kept on the grounds that they are part of the "historic lands". UN resolutions have been passed, demanding the return of the land that was taken in the 1967 invasions. Not only does Israel continue to ignore these resolutions, but it lays claim to the land. What a difference here from the way the US and other countries treat Iraq’s attitude to UN resolutions.
On the Saturday, 10th August, we attended a demonstration of 700, in Bethlehem, next to the Church of the Nativity. This was meant to be a joint demonstration, for peace, with a Jewish group, Ta’ayush. The 300 Jewish demonstrators were stopped at the Beit Sahour checkpoint, and fire hoses used to stop them getting through. The Israeli state regularly tries to stop joint demonstrations.
We then left for Nablus. We as well as many Palestinians, including a woman with an obviously sick baby, were held for about an hour at the checkpoint outside Beit Sahour.
NABLUS:
We went through the checkpoint at Nablus without too much problem. The town had been under a 24 hour curfew for 55 days at that point. The curfew was only lifted for a couple of hours every few days.
It has wide streets, and looked like one of those movies after a nuclear holocaust, deserted. Then the children started coming out to greet us, asking the question that was nearly to drive us mad "What’s your name"?
Then came a deafening noise, and as it came closer the streets cleared again. This was tanks, which ignored us, and thundered past.
We met up with the ISM organisers, and were allocated various duties. The following day I nd two young Americans were to go to a village, and hear about their problems.
New Nablus, which contains the University, is on the way to the village. Here we encountered a road block, by a military vehicle. This was mounted 24 hours a day, and was designed to stop villagers from several surrounding villages entering Nablus. The soldiers stopped us, took our passports, and kept us for one hour.
Two Palestinians were stopped for a similar length of time: the elder of them was only 100 yards from his mother’s home. The soldiers were only 18 or 19 years old, with the man in charge not much older. He argued he was just doing his job, didn’t want to be there, and didn’t believe that politics should be mixed with the military. It was strange to hear this argued by a man with a machine-gun pointed at Palestinians … a situation which is at the centre of world politics.
To reach the village, we have to go over an earth barricade. The village is called Iraq Boreen. Iraq means big rock, which is what it is built on. A dramatically beautiful place. We met our contacts, and were fed and accommodated for the next two days.
The problems of the village were not exactly the same as Nablus. The people could walk in the streets, but not really leave the village. The Israelis had blown up their well, and so they had to get their water from another village. But the Israelis had built two earth barricades between the two villages, and so they were desperate for water.
The people with work in Nablus could not go to work. Most of the workers are farm workers and so relying on the sale of their fruit in Nablus, they took the cactus fruit and figs by donkey. But they are not allowed to take the donkeys past the checkpoint, and had been made to sit out in the sun for two hours that morning. This fruit was being ruined.
If people are sick, they can’t get medicines, the village has no doctor. Ambulances cannot get to the village, and on one occasion we saw a sick man who had to walk miles to meet an ambulance. Children have to walk through checkpoints to get to school, and they are often stopped. Students from the villages who go to university have to get rooms in town, with the added expense, to be sure of getting to their courses.
Freedom of movement is denied to Palestinians. This is the starkest of the problems, and cannot be understood unless you see it. We saw its meaning at the checkpoints, people unable to visit their fiancé, or their mother in hospital, or go to a wedding. Such things as eating out, going to the cinema, theatre or music are out of the question. One is imprisoned in one’s home, or village. No wonder many homes have satellite TV: and what a surprise see Mr Bean so popular.
Another problem is the difficulty of having any kind of family life. One woman described how her husband goes away for 4 weeks at a time, to work, then comes back for one day. Another man told how his wife had a Jordanian identity card, and went to visit her parents in Jordan 2 years ago, but was not allowed back, he has not seen her since. (Compare this to people only having to claim Jewish grandparents, to come from anywhere in the world to Israel.)
Threat to houses. At the end of June two villagers from Iraq Boreen, and one from nearby Tell, were shot dead by IDF forces. They had been working away, and were returning to their families: one was 21 and another 20. As they were returning the IDF forces were carrying out an operation, and took them for fighters, and shot them dead.
They then did the usual cover-up, putting guns alongside them, and claiming the dead men were fighters. But everybody I spoke to in the village assured me that they were not – and people tend to be proud of fighters. The Israelis are now threatening to knock down their family houses.
It should be explained that the Palestinians consider anybody killed by the Israelis as a martyr, while the IDF threaten to knock down the houses of anybody known to resist, though the media presents it as though they are only threatening the houses of suicide bombers.
That evening we sat and drank tea on the roof of a house from which, on a clear day, you could see the Mediterranean. We watched the sun go down, and realised how beautiful this would be if the Palestinians were free.
On the Tuesday morning we went, with the donkeys, down to the checkpoint. The soldiers would not let them through. A fire engine arrived, to pick up a worker from nearby. The army stopped it, and made the workers all get out, and open up the sides. The driver said he had permission from the area commander. They were still made to wait for 20 minutes.
Community workers like these, ambulances, refuse workers, are supposedly allowed to function, but the previous day a power worker had been stopped in Nablus, and when he got out of his vehicle was shot in the head. This was one of the few times the IDF said they had made a "mistake".
At the checkpoint the soldiers had said to us that while we just saw four Palestinians, they saw four potential bombers. Could there be a clearer statement of collective punishment? It seems no one is innocent until proven guilty!
When we arrived back in Nablus we learnt that the army had come to one of the houses in Balata camp, that internationals had been sleeping in, at 2.30 in the morning. Ever since the Israeli court judgement that cleared the IDF to destroy houses, the ISM had been allocating people to martyrs’ houses, to try to stop them being destroyed, or at least publicise the IDF’s activities.
The particular house was that of the Atiti family. One brother had been killed on a mission in Israel, and the army was searching for Allah, another brother. They had started by firing against the walls, and then had sent in a human shield, a neighbour.
The army had agreed to stop this practice, in the Israeli high court, 3 months earlier. All they did was to change its name to "neighbour practice". (Three days later a 19 year-old Palestinian was shot dead, when the IDF used this technique to protect themselves, they also bulldozed the house with the militant inside it).
The IDF had told the Atitis that they would be back to destroy the house. So the next night 15 of us were allocated to this house. Techniques were devised, such as some agreeing to be chained to the walls, to make it difficult for the IDF. The newspapers were informed about our plans, and the army decided not to return. I stayed the remaining three nights in that house.
In the morning about a dozen of us returned, with picks and shovels, to Iraq Boreen. With the help of villagers we knocked down the two earth barriers between that village and Tell. It was great to sit in the village and watch the water lorries. It took two lorries 5 days to resupply the village.
We then returned to Balata. It should be said that the IDF could not enforce the curfew within the camp. So the market stalls continued, and the cafes, chemist shops etc. opened. Every so often the tanks would come to the entrance, fire in the air, and the kids would come out throwing stones. The nights were different, there was firing throughout the night on the Tuesday night, sometimes as close as two tiny streets away. Nearly every night somebody was shot dead in Nablus: one night three were killed.
A demonstration of young people within Nablus took place without incident. A lot of the internationals’ activities were with the young people. One particularly symbolic activity took place on the Thursday. One of the few things that young people can do in their houses, from the roofs is fly kites, and every night the skies of Nablus are filled with kites. So an event was organised, in a large field next to Balata, flying kites.
The Israelis tried to disrupt the start of this breach of the curfew, by sending tanks, and drawing out the kids to throw stones. But a group of internationals chased them away. For the rest of the afternoon a large crowd of children, and their families came out, with the food vendors, a great family day. The internationals stood in the way of any returning tanks.
As a group of us left Nablus on the Friday morning, the internationals had just completed knocking down a barricade between Balata, and another refugee camp Asker.
RAMALLAH:
On the Saturday morning I set off for Ramallah, from East Jerusalem. This involves getting a shared Taxi to Qualandia checkpoint, getting out, then getting through, after queueing, then a shared taxi in to Ramallah. Here the curfew is lifted between 6 am and 6 p.m., on most days, but not always, so nothing can be planned. I checked in to hotel, and set about phoning and meeting people.
First stop was the Democracy and Workers Rights Centre. Over their front door was a banner calling for the release of Marwan Barghouti, and all the Palestinian prisoners. Many of the people I have met have spent time in Israeli prisons, and, particularly young males are still being put away without charge. (This is using British Mandate legislation brought in during the war.)
Here I met Hasan Barghouti. He described their work, as mainly being legal cases, for compensation for loss of jobs, mostly against Israeli employers. These employers claim they are not to blame for workers not being able to get to work, that it is a political decision that closed the checkpoints. The DWRC also train workers, and campaign for better social services.
The previous day a demonstration of more than a thousand workers in Gaza had demanded better Social Insurance. The trade unions had called the police, because they saw the demonstration as being against the Palestinian Authority, as the Israeli media tries to present it. But the problem is that the PA controls the purse strings, so who do you go to if you are desperate?
Some, such as teachers, and bank workers have workers’ committees that act for that workplace, and some have got together, but not many. Obviously with the level of unemployment (figures between 55 and 80% were quoted at me) not much "normal" trade union activity can take place.
But the centre believes in trying to train people for this activity, they have had relations with Ruskin College in Britain and the Trade Union International Research and Education Group, in the past. They hold courses, some just for women. They also try to support working class students. I agreed to send Trades Council addresses, and keep in touch.
Next stop was the Media group, HDIP, but unable to get interview with Mustafa Barghouti, as he was too busy. This is one of the problems of the present situation, the inability to plan as to where you will be, and when.
Next stop Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions. My host Mohammad Aruri, who is on the Executive of the union, runs the Ramallah office, and is in charge of their legal affairs department.
This small office is incredibly busy, with people queueing in the mornings: this again is to deal with masses of legal cases, and with payments. The IDF had broken the doors in April, taken all their computers, printers and records. Now they have just one computer, but luckily they had kept copies of their records.
Mohammad has been imprisoned seven times by the Israelis, and was at the Madrid Peace talks, since when he has not been picked up. He explained the difficulty of functioning, when you can’t move about. The Executive can’t meet, he can’t go to their head office in Nablus, he can’t go to Jerusalem, where they have 14 lawyers acting for them, dealing with 3,500 cases. The lawyers can’t come to Ramallah.
The unemployment is by far the biggest problem. Places are closing all the time, or they are saying to workers come back in a month, with no money.
The logistics of functioning a workplace, with the checkpoints, and curfews is a nightmare. First you have to get your raw materials, from a source in the West Bank, that may not be able to farm, or produce it, or from Israel, which controls all borders and therefore can make you buy expensive Israeli goods. Then you have to get your workers in, and back out if a curfew exists; sometimes the workers have to go through checkpoints, and therefore change shared taxis, thus making it too expensive, and time consuming for them. Finally you have to distribute your commodity, either locally with great difficulty, or through the borders, and make tax payments to the Israeli state. No wonder the unemployment is so high. The PA employs about 150,000, without this it would be catastrophic.
The PA has decided to distribute most of its aid to workers through the unions. So although the unions don’t touch the money, they issue the cheques. This involves aid money, and donations from Arab countries etc. Whilst I was there they were issuing 500 Shekel cheques (about £70), and they sometimes issue food vouchers. But Mohammad tells me that they don’t get enough to do this frequently enough for people to survive on this money.
They also issue health vouchers, which mean their members get free basic treatment in state hospitals. For 25 shekels a year membership, it is no wonder that he can claim that union membership has gone from 30% to 90% in the last 2 years.
The union also runs courses on the new Palestinian Labour Codes (the first they have had), ten in Ramallah this month, and get the people to them. They want help with a project to teach staff, and legal dept. about International labour laws, ILO conventions, and labour rights. Had coffee with Mohammad in beautiful art cafe. Then back to hotel.
In the morning a guide took me around. Went to Arafat’s compound, and back past bombed school, then in to centre. Here there was a demonstration, complaining about the continued encirclement. Consisted of several dignitaries, including interior minister, and Moustafa Barghouti.
JERUSALEM:
I returned to Jerusalem, where I arranged a discussion with a radical Jewish activist. He was quite defeatist, believing the present regime was rolling down a slope, with nothing to stop it, and receiving the backing of the US.
He said that many of his friends were considering leaving Israel, or at least sending their children away. He said that on previous occasions their had been sizeable opposition to some of the state’s activities, but this was now very small.
I walked back through West Jerusalem, where the shops and cafes are functioning normally, albeit with guards at their entrances.
In the morning I had a last look around the old city, there you could buy tiny IDF jackets for small children, as well as hats. Will this be on the front of the Sun?
Then off to the Airport and home.