The War on What?

"If I non-violently and creatively act for peace,

          I am black-listed; a terrorist.

If I blow myself up and kill innocent civilians,

          I am black-listed; a terrorist.

*laughing...*

So what? What do they want from me??"

 - a Palestinian alternative tour-guide working to help inform people travelling the region.

...the biggest threat to war: peace.


A "Defensive" war:
Really?

 "The War on What?"

Terror,

     A war on terror.

Terror caused by "security."

Terror caused by zionism =

Terror in the name of Yahweh - 

Terror in the name of Allah - 

Terror in the name of God - 

Terror in the name of me over you...

Terror inflicted by capitalism;

Terror stirred by individualism;

the Terror of normalization.

Fight terror -

not with terror -

but with...

...?

with what?

"Fight the War with what?"

?!

Resourceful! And Beautiful..? :s

Though many of these tactics (which governments all over the world are learning from Israel, which is funded mostly (and then bought back) by the States) are not life threatening in of themselves (although tear gas canisters have killed, caused permanent and temp injury, and alternate affects from the poison of gas over years) - the constant gas, noise, stench several times a week, in addition to night raids and arrests, and abuse, all amount to civilians being oppressed day-in-day out - not just threatened with death, but with living itself becoming hard to move on normally...

Sun Rising on village of Nabi Saleh

Nabi Saleh

Population: 550ish

Location details: 

 - The village of Nabi Saleh is bordered by the illegal settlement of Halamish (Neve Tzuf) to the south.

 - 25% of Village's total area under Area B (military control with Palestinian civil admin)

 - 75% of Village's total area declared under Area C (military control) 

(side note: only 18% of Palestine is under Palestinian security and civil admin - and even that is still under military occupation... Israel has almost all of the land: 

"The division of the West Bank into areas A, B and C was agreed upon in order to facilitate a gradual transfer of contra over the West Bank and Gaza strip to the Palestinian Authority.  However, on the ground, it was in actuality used to strengthen Israeli control over strategic areas.  Since the signing of the Oslo Accords, land classified as Area C has seen increasing Israeli control through land confiscation, settlement expansion, house demolitions and other methods... building permits in Area C are issued by Israel, and are nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain."[1])

Information provided by: Popular Struggle Coordination Committee

Israeli Defence Force... Defence?? Interesting choice of words as they invade, attack and oppress children, women, men of a variety of ages, races and religions, in a civilian village that is trying to walk to their water source on their own land, just across the road, where illegal homes are perched on the stolen land... 

Settlement of Halamish (pictured left, view from NS town as we walk down the road) occupies nearly half of the lands belonging to Nabi Saleh...

"Since the establishment of Halamish in 1977, its land confiscation strategy follows a distinct pattern.  First the land is made unavailable for the Palestinians through the declaration of 'closed military zones' by the army or through barriers set up by the settlers themselves.  Then the land is either officially announced as 'state land' and made available for settlement expansion or unofficially taken by the settlers themselves."

Also, some of the land that is still accessible to Nabi Saleh farmers, is frequented by settler harassment of those who are trying to work what little land remains.

Waiting for us to get close...

"In addition to the settlement, Nabi Saleh's lands are also occupied by the Neve Tzuf military base and a pre-military yeshiva.  The settlement is located on a hilltop, positioned in a way that cuts off villagers' access to their land even if it is not directly occupied by the settlement."

Regular creative, non-violent popular resistance has resulted in success stories (to be celebrated with while keeping in mind the price of arrests, and settler and military harassment over the years):

 - partially successful shutting down of Israeli leather treatment factory that polluted the area in addition to being built on Nabi Saleh land (partial success because the factory was replaced by an Israeli stone cutting factory)

 - movement of a fence built unnecessarily far away from the border of the settlement (which is already unnecessarily built!) just to take even more land

Today Nabi Saleh represents a beacon in the expansion of nonviolent popular resistance model in Palestine. Many women in the village participate and organize the regular weekly demonstrations. the popular grassroots mobilization comprises all segments of their community, and is collectively led.


We in Canada have much to learn from villages like this - in addition to those already moving creatively and powerfully within Canada :).

"The Israeli military's response to these protests has been particularly brutal.  It includes regularly blockading the entire village, accompanied by the declaration of all of Nabi Saleh, including the built up area, as a closed military zone.  Prior and during the demonstrations themselves, the army often completely occupies the village, enforcing an unofficial curfew or martial law.  Military nighttime raids and arrest operations are also a common tactic in the army's strategy of intimidation, and they often target minors."

"In order to prevent the villagers and their supporters from exercising their fundamental right to demonstrate and march tot heir lands, soldiers regularly use disproportional force against the unarmed protestors.  The means utilized by the army to hinder demonstrations include, but are not limited to, the use of tear-gas projectiles, banned high-velocity tear-gas projectiles, rubber-coated bullets and at times, even live ammunition."

"In complete disregard to the army's own open fire regulations, soldiers often shoot tear-gas projectiles and rubber bullets indiscriminately at groups and individual protestors from short distances.  The army has also resumed using high velocity tear-gas projectiles in Nabi Saleh, despite the fact that they have banned after causing the death of Bassem Abu Rahmah in Bil'in in April 2009, and the critical injury of American protestor Tristan Anderson in Ni'ilin in March of the same year."

"Tear-gas, as well as foul smelling liquid shot from a water cannot called 'The Skunk,' is often used near the homes of the village and even directly pointed into houses.  This allows no refuge for the uninvolved residents of the village, including children and the elderly.  The interior of at least one house caught fire and was severely damaged after soldiers shot a tear-gas projectile through its windows."

"Since December 2009, when protest in the village started, hundreds of demonstration-related injuries caused by disproportionate military violence have been recorded in Nabi Saleh."

"The Israeli strategy of quelling grassroots resistance also consists of judicial persecution of activists.  Such persecution is in clear violation of the fundamental rights to freedom of opinion, expression, assembly and association.  The recent augmentation in the use of the military judicial processes as a form repression against demonstrators coupled with the rise of other methods of repression should not only be examined on a case-by-case basis, but rather must be acknowledged as a systematic implementation of an illegitimate policy of political repression against civil society."

"Between January 2012 and April 2011, the Israeli Army has carried out 73 arrests lasting more than 24 hours on protest-related suspicions in the village of Nabi Saleh, including those of women and of children as young as 11 years old.  Of the 73, 18 were minors.

 - Nabi Saleh's population is little over 550 residents, meaning the number of arrests constitutes more than 10% of the population."

"Manal Tamimi, a mother of four from Nabi Saleh was arrested 22 January 2010, during one of the first demonstrations in the village.  At the time of the arrest she was inside her home with her husband tending to her four children when soldiers threw a tear gas grenade into their home.


Manal rushed to get everybody out of th house, and when they were all out on the street the soldiers ordered her to take her family back into the house.  She refused to do so since the house was still full of tear gas.  Other people from the village gather, and in the middle of the discussion Manal, her sister Maha and her cousin Nariman Tamimi were arrested by the soldiers and taken away.  Two other men were also detained.


Manal describes the arrest as humiliating.  The soldiers were grabbing them and trying to removed their headscarves.  She was not told where she would be taken, and she was afraid of being alone with the soldiers as she was taken in a separate jeep.  They were all taken to the settlement of Shar'ar Benyamin where they were interrogated.  While waiting for seven hours inside a jeep, Maha (Manal's sister) was in serious pain and in need of medical attention.  As she laid down on the floor to ease her pain the soldiers ordered her up and beat her.  They screamed that if she didn't get up they would 'beat them both until the floor was covered with their blood.' ...upon arrival [to Hasharon prison], more than 30 hours from when they were arrested, the women were still not allowed water, food or sleep.  When they were transferred back to Hasaron prison that night, they were held with the general Israeli' prisoners instead of taken to the section for Palestinian political prisoners." 


Manal was accused for grabbing a female soldiers M-16 which was only far from the truth, but that particular soldier wasn't even there at the demonstration... "During their trial, the charges against the women changed four times.  In the end, Manal and Nariman were offered a plea bargain, under which they were sentenced to six months probation...on the condition that they would not enter a closed military zone or participate in any demonstrations for the duration of their trial, which is an undetermined length of time due tot he suspended sentences..."

View from little girl's bedroom window...

That same little girl... apparently she's
sick of the view... (watch, half way through the film, posted above, is Jana yelling boldly and beautifully before the soldiers...)

Arrests of Minors


"18 of the arrests in NS have been minors, two of them under the age of 12...


According to Israeli law, people under the age of 18 are considered minors and in the context of a police interrogation are entitled to special rights.  Amendment 14 to the Israeli Youth Law specifically asserts and reiterates such rights, such as the right to have a parent present, and the need to uphold minors' rights in the questioning process, such as the right to remain silent.


Under military law - in clear discrimination compared to Israeli law and in breach of international conventions for the protection of children - Palestinian children are considered to be adults at the age of 16.


Minors are often arrested at gunpoint in the middle of the night, taken from their parents, beaten up and denied their legal rights during questioning.  They then often give statements incriminating many people in very broad terms during police or Shin Bet interrogations that could be considered nothing else but coerced confessions... [let me know if you want some of these accounts].

Demonstration reaching a lull, coffee and cigarette break.. for a few hours...

And so it begins again, on till sundown...

Night Raids


"Another tactic often employed by the army in dealing with the demonstrations is the use of military night raids on the village.  Such night raids are used as a form of collective punishment, during which military jeeps drive through the village randomly throwing concussion and tear-gas grenades in the streets.  In other cases the night raids are staged to carry out unwarranted searches to arrest villagers, including minors, for their involvement in demonstrations.  This is a clear case of using military tactics to deal with a strictly civilian situation.


One example of such events, which happen regularly, took place January 12 and 17 2011, when soldiers systematically raided dozens of houses in the village, in what seemed to be a 'mapping' operation - taking pictures and ID numbers of all the male residents - especially minors.


The night before some of these pictures were taken a village raid and house arrest happened during the wee hours of the morning, leaving many of the villagers with little or no sleep, the night before the weekly protests...

A sound bomb was thrown right inside this little courtyard, in front of several women.  One of the women, crying, cleaned away the canister and shattered pieces of shattered pieces of metal and whatever else these canisters are made of.  Right after, a soldier marched up the road and stood in front of them, and dropped the sound bomb right in front of the crying woman who had just finished cleaning the first one.  

Soldiers staring down a house that had just been resprayed with Skunk water while the family was desperately tried to scrub off what would wreak for days.  At this point there was no resistance in the village, but the soldiers continued to set off their "defensive" weapons while the village tried to carry on after putting up with soldiers in their village for 7 hours...

This kid was driving and a soldier shot a canister close range in his car, the canister filling up the hot car with gas and shattered glass.

Sun Setting through the gas after a long day, on Nabi Saleh...

Foreign Familiar

Love it, hate it, somewhere in-between: Take from this what you will...

                    Foreign Familiar

I sense it, the connection.
     I know it;
           not a feeling, not a thought,
                 a know.
Know, try, do.
                                   try.

This foreign land is familiar.
The more it naturally,
      gently,
            overwhelmingly,
                   alarmingly,
            connects with me,
                         to land: to home -
      ...the more I am earthed;
            grounded in the haze of what makes us human.
      ...the more I understand, and hate, my hate.
            Confused, disheartened, yet still inspired to dream.
      ...the more my body longs for...

Fertility,
which is everywhere bursting with life - 
           - from the fragrant, quiet sunrise gently greeting and beckoning branches, birds; 
          bathing in the warm - scorching - rays of life... awakening, connecting...
     yet repressed...

           - through to sunset, when the once comfort of still night simmers down, uneasy 
           with fear of violation, dissatisfaction, and loneliness.  Longing for before the 
           loss of calm comforting rest.

By the pride of women,
 - and the pride of men - 
     The rivers gushing life - to drink, to bathe -
           dammed, poisoned, stolen.
...strangling sources of being:
     the stuff of sterility.


The walls I have around me enclose 
     a body so much more than its borders,
           aching for a connection that has been, and is cut through,
Those walls that break beauty,
     and cause me to fear that love, 
           more truly shown in liberation,
                  will not be expressed,
                        lived,
                        desiring to be unbound within peace,
                        in this life.

...Causes me to wonder,

     
who will tear down the walls? me? you?
            us... 

                   ...enough?
     And where will we get our fuel for such a task?
              - our desires, responsibilities?
              perhaps once pure, but corrupted,
                    caught in the cycle of walls.

Land divided, and souls divided
      like ours,
      struggling to be vulnerable;
      even in friendship,
      even in more.
                          especially in more...
Separated by pride, addiction, corruption, hate. hate.

...Though I cannot see your face, your eyes - 

- such blockage -

     the sky that is all we can both have in common in the now,

           will send its doves overhead,

                 to whisper similar and unique gentle beckonings of 

                 love that casts out the fear,

                       and puts the strength in our human hands,

                 to melt what separates us,

                       passionate, intentional, with care...

      and even if for a moment in time -

                 for the moment may pass - 

            we are surrendered by willing, needed, embrace.

With me,

     produce love;

          the kind I cannot make alone.

Let us unite under the common blue,

     the above that 

          connects us from outside, inside,

                outside, inside -

                                            one.

Sky, Water, Land;
        soul. 

     foreign, 

     familiar,

            to share.

The Chosen Ones

...freaking strange sights...

...This night is going to be difficult to write…

Village of Kfar Harris, the location of this post's story...

We are chosen,
and we are crazy...

...Chosen...

Who chooses the chosen?

Do the chosen choose the chosen?

…Are the chosen choosed by the chosen or the chooser?

Who chooses who is chosen, 

                                                denied chosenness, 

                                                                                                  and who is unchosen?

If I choose myself, all others who are not me, are not chosen.

And,

Who chooses the chooser if not the chooser?

Until we 

choose the chooser,

Until we 

see that by choosing me, we disagree

- Before I, the chosen one, 

choose to eliminate you, the unchosen,

Before you, the chosen one, 

choose to dominate me, the unchosen

- Let us choose each other.

...Let the chosen choose one another,

Until the chooser of us all, is revealed. 

Fervour of an unusual variety...

Chosen.

I have learned that when you stamp the name of “God” on something, it is yours, 

and the actions involved are justified and blessed without question.  

By claiming God, you deny your human action the necessary step of questioning.  

By claiming God, you make yourself irrefutable - from both others and yourself - for who would dare question what God has said, or intends to do?

I hope you note the cynicism.

My days have been filled with hundreds of the faces of the occupation.   

There is no single story, narrative, experience.

There are no two sides.  

My mind is racing to process all of what I see, who I meet, all that I learn in such a short time, before returning to a place where much of this does not apply, yet can be translated through our human experiences and used when I return, as I relate what I can to folks back home.

The pride and arrogance that is being bred in many of the settlers/colonizers has been the most difficult to face. 

People back home (and all over the world), especially those of the Zionist variety

(Christian, Jewish, secular, etc.), must see the danger of this ideology in practice. They must remove their romanticized blinders, and see what this concept of chosen is doing to our “holy land.”

On Thursday June 14, the IWPS team received a request for our presence overnight in the Palestinian village of Kifr Haris in the Salfit region.  The Zionist military shuts down the village twenty-six (somewhat sporadic) nights a year at 10pm, forcing every person into the walls of their homes to make way for Zionist Settlers who come in the name of prayer piety, but with the intent of making their presence known in the land they take over. The target in this village is at Joshua’s tomb, which is located in the centre of the village, a place they do not desire to share in remembrance, but use to declare their dominion over non-Jews (zionists, once again, this is not antisemitic!!).

Pictures from this night are lacking in quality and quantity, as it wasn't exactly an environment that fostered proper documentation! But I tried.

The zionist Colonizers admire Joshua as the figure who conquered the ancient Cannonites and brought the Jews from thousands of years ago into this land. These gatherings supposedly occur for pious reasons, yet often result in thousands of Settlers wreaking havoc in the village, through means of vandalism, waste skewed about, defecation, and obnoxious noise sent echoing through the gagged and silenced town into the wee hours of the morning.  Palestinian villagers watch silently from their darkened homes, unable to sleep, as their town is taken over and trashed. Our presence was requested so that we could not only take pictures and document this frequent display of violence and colonization, but to hopefully keep the vandalism to a minimum, with our international outsider eyes.

Our venture began with our team quietly leaving our Palestinian host’s home, where we had laughed and ate much, and making our way to the centre of the square. We joined the over half-dozen military trucks and security vans while getting a sense for things. We made sure the soldiers were convinced of our persona as innocent conservative Christian pilgrims who were claiming to be there at Joshua’s tomb to pray, who had heard about the celebration in Jerusalem.  One soldier even invited us not only to get him if any others caused us any problems, but escorted us to the tomb to pray before the settlers began their evening – he clearly was unimpressed by the extremist behaviour and actions of Settlers. 

We entered down into the little concrete tomb through its one entrance, surrounded at the beginning of our night, by soldiers.  We became comforted as we prayed not only because our persona called for it, but due to our vulnerable state - giggling both at the ridiculousness of the events before us, and at just how vulnerable we were to the soldiers, some of whom made clear they suspected our presence in the village as foreigners (questioning us to see if we were “peace” groups – how dare we! ;)).

We spent some time huddled around a special little blue prayer book that one of our teammates had on her, while soldiers popped their heads in and out of the underground concrete tomb, until we made our way out, thanking the soldiers as we exited, to a patch of ground in the centre/edge of the square, in clear view of the nights activity. Dozens of settlers began to arrive and set up food tables, mingle about the closed-down town, and sometimes pray.  

Inside Joshua's Tomb, where a soldier let us in to pray before the Israeli settlers came. And pray we did, surrounded in this vulnerable spot by soldiers who were leery of our presence. 
We prayed, laughed, and prayed.


One of our teammates, who had observed such an event before, noticed a significant difference on this night from her last time witnessing it: there was a major lack of religiosity in the majority of settlers’ behaviour, which is supposedly why they take over the village.  What became apparent (and was even confirmed by one of the more orthodox Settlers) was that there was a lack of spiritual fervor amoung the young people, which comprised most of the numbers of the mobs, as well as settlers of all ages.  A need to pray at Joshua’s tomb was trumped by the lure of a chance to be obnoxious and make their colonizing presence known to the Palestinians who were forced to silently watch and/or and listen from their darkened windows.

Over the course of a few hours, the mingling about consisted of a number of Settler boys barking at us; asking where we are from, condemning us for our Christian beliefs, and making it clear that we were not welcome there – that we were inferior in their eyes.  

We witnessed young boys attempt to size up the observing and disenchanted soldiers; try to tamper with Palestinian property (which was thankfully under control of the soldiers because the numbers on this particular night were significantly less than other when Settlers come; aggressively ripping fig branches off their trees and throwing them on the ground.  In waves throughout the night, crowds mobbed a road trying to reach Jonah’s tomb off to the side of Joshua’s, pushing against the line of soldiers blocking them.  The boisterous yelling, pushing men were clearly not seeking somber time in prayer and relation with the Divine, but loud and obnoxious trouble making. As the evening played out, our presence as internationals with intentions beyond our own prayers and innocent piety, was made more clear as we took pictures and stood more obviously and alertly within the action.

Settler praying from door to door, 
claiming rights to the land and 
homes of his Palestinian cousins.

- C

To our pleasant surprise (relative to the circumstances), a soldier right in front of us at one point began to clean up some of the garbage that was being chucked on the ground by the Settlers. As we followed suit, a gang of young male Settlers made it loudly clear that they thought we should leave the trash on the ground for the Palestinians, cursing Palestine and the town that we were in.  They spit out "F*$! Philistine, put the trash on the ground, we put it there, it is for the philistines." It was difficult to stand there and not be able to fully argue back the way that I would have without such circumstances surrounding us.  Somewhat refreshingly, one soldier who was clearly disgusted by the Settlers, told us to “Never listen to what they say, ever.”  This is important to note - not all Israeli's want the occupation or settlements, and not all soldiers want to be there... many of whom wake up to what is going on at the hands of their state and themselves while they serve their mandatory time in the zionist military (www.breakingthesilence.org) 

At about 2:30/3am we began to make our way out of the village, down the only road we could walk on, lined with soldiers.  At the based of the village, we curved in the opposite direction of the settlers, past the soldiers, and along a smaller road within the olive groves, headed for Harris.  We walked home for two hours through to morning, with Army trucks whizzing past us along the main road.

The Settlers take-over and presence in Kifr Haris proved to be a demonstration of their self-proclaimed power and ideological arrogance.  Both those who came to pray at the tomb of Joshua (the figure who brought the Jews from the Torah into this land) and those who came to declare their status as settlers, did so through colonial acts of imposing on, controlling, and taking over a Palestinian village. God wonders what they were praying for.