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Originally uploaded by kara melissa.
This was our first Christmas together. We celebrated with our wonderful friends Sigita, Alun and Khalil. Khalil drove us from Nazareth to Bethlehem. That was three years ago. I don’t know if driving from Nazareth to Bethlehem would have been possible this year, even if we had been there.
Sending out holiday wishes to all those we love, far and near. Hoping to see you all again soon.
It’s difficult for me to express my feelings about the current Middle East Crisis. Sometimes Ali hides the pictures from me of the children that have been blown up and sometimes I see them by accident. I cry a lot and feel a deep sadness. From here. In my nice London flat. Free from bombs and turmoil. I welcome things in my daily life to take me away from the realities that other people are living. And no longer living. Because, it is not my reality. But somehow, it’s very close to my heart.
As a teacher I work with children and build relationships with the future leaders of the world. As an Aunt, I treasure and cherish my nephews beyond words. As a human who is easily touched by sadness in the world, I find myself close to tears or sometimes crying when I read about, listen to, or watch what is happening to the families in Lebanon. It’s true, there are rockets landing in northern Israel too. And I fear for those that we know and care about there. One of the children that I taught in Nazareth lost two young cousins –aged five and nine– to a Hizbollah rocket which hit a couple of weeks ago. Many of these children see the rockets fall. Thankfully, they still have their homes. Their families. Their lives. The children in Lebanon? Not so lucky.
According to The Independent, “Of the 615 dead in Lebanon, 45% are children. Of the 3,225 injured, 33% are children. Of the 960,000 refugees, 45% are children.”
I don’t know what the newspapers look like in America. But here, it is pictures of children dead and maimed — lifted from the rubble of a newly bombed home, school or hospital — daily. It’s a lot to swallow back the tears and not even be there. What is happening to the people living through it? I cannot imagine. But I try to learn and understand. I have visited some powerful blogs based in Beirut this past week. Many of them are written by women my age. These women are artists. Wives. Daughters. Sisters. Mothers. Environmentalists. They are people like ourselves. They try to rise above the current situation, but sometimes, it’s exhausting and traumatic. I have linked one in my sidebar written by a woman named Zena, who was also interviewed recently on CNN: Beirut Update. I read her insights and reactions daily. She also writes about the enviornmental impact on the war, specifically the 15,000 ton oil spill which reaks havoc on the coast as a result from the Israeli air raid on the Jiyyeh power plant [southern Lebanon].
From her blog, I have found others to read: Little Paper Boat, From Beirut with Love, Raytch, and Lebanon Updates. More are linked on Zena’s blog that I have yet to read through. I’ve started with these.
My mom asked me why I am so torn up about this war versus the Iraqi war. This one feels much closer to home for me as we know people in northern Israel, but also as we have lived in Israel and traveled to the West Bank and seen the conditions the Israeli Army has put on the Palestinians. We have seen the Israeli tanks. We have met Israeli soldiers. We have waited at checkpoints. We have seen the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and have known/spoken with individuals on both sides. And we have seen the blind support from the US for Israel. We have seen what the IDF [Israeli Defence Forces] can do. Families are being displaced. There is no water, no food, no place to stay/hide. Innocent civilians are being killed. There are children that are being massacred. Massacred. What else is there to say?
I know I am emotional about it. I haven’t really been able to discuss it with Ali since it started a few weeks ago. I just cannot comprehend how one side is allowed to get away with so much when they lose so little compared to what they are doing to the other side. And that’s what it is to them, ‘the other side’. They are not people. They are not individuals. They are only seen as the enemy. As terrorists. Even the women and children. For after all, if they are married to a militant, then shouldn’t they die too? I cannot comprehend the comparison, because to me, there is none.
People who know me certainly know the side that I am passionate about, even though I do try to see both sides of the conflict. It’s possible sometimes. But after living in Nazareth and travelling frequently to the West Bank, I saw, felt and experienced more than I read about in the newspapers. This said, it’s a newspaper article that has gotten me worked up this morning as I slowly wake over my coffee on a grey, London morning.
In bold are the numbers that just don’t add up, taken from the article that became my tipping point to finally write something about the situation in Israel-Palestine and now Lebanon that is just about to boil over.
The Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah surprised Israel with a bold daylight assault across the border on Wednesday, leading to fighting in which two Israeli soldiers were captured and at least eight killed, and elevating recent tensions into a serious two-front battle.
Early on Thursday morning, Israeli warplanes fired missiles at the runways at Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut, shutting the airport and potentially stranding thousands of visitors at the peak of tourist season. Israeli warplanes also hit numerous locations in southern Lebanon, adding to the civilian death toll. The Israeli military confirmed the strike, saying that the airport was a target because Hezbollah receives weapons shipments there.
The Israeli government also confirmed that Hezbollah fired several Katyusha rockets into northern Israel, injuring three people.
The toll was the highest one for the Israeli soldiers in several years, and combined with the deaths on Wednesday of at least 22 Palestinians, including many civilians, in fighting in Gaza, it was the deadliest day in the Arab-Israeli conflict since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip last year. And the violence continued into the early morning hours, when an Israeli airstrike heavily damaged the Palestinian Foreign Ministry building in Gaza.
Two years ago, Hezbollah managed to push Israel to free more than 400 Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in exchange for an Israeli businessman held in Lebanon and for the bodies of three Israeli soldiers killed in a Hezbollah attack in 2000. Israel is currently holding close to 9,000 Palestinian prisoners, though the number of Lebanese prisoners is believed to be much smaller.
The fighting on the Lebanese border erupted around 9 a.m., when Hezbollah attacked several Israeli towns with rocket fire, wounding several civilians, the Israeli military said. But that attack was a diversion for the main operation, several miles to the east, where Hezbollah militants fired antitank missiles at two armored Humvees patrolling the Israeli side of the border fence, the military said. Of the seven soldiers in the two jeeps, three were killed, two wounded and two abducted, the military said.
Israel then responded with artillery fire, airstrikes and a naval bombardment that focused on about 40 sites in southern Lebanon. Most were believed to be Hezbollah strongholds, but roads and bridges were also hit in an attempt to keep Hezbollah from moving the captured soldiers farther north, according to the military. At least 2 Lebanese civilians were killed and more than 10 wounded in southern Lebanon, Lebanese officials said.
The Israeli Air Force also dropped a bomb on a home in Gaza City at around 3 a.m., saying its targets were Hamas leaders. But the blast killed nine members of the Salmiyeh family, according to Dr. Jumaa al-Saqqa, the spokesman for Al Shifa Hospital, where the bodies were taken. There were visiting Hamas leaders in the house at the time of the bombing, but they escaped with only minor injuries, Palestinians said.
In two separate gun battles near the town of Deir al-Balah, Israeli soldiers killed 10 Palestinian militants and wounded at least 7, Palestinian security and medical officials said. At least 12 more Palestinians were killed in other Gaza incidents, many of them in airstrikes around Khan Yunis and Deir al-Balah.
Early on Thursday, a strike by Israeli aircraft heavily damaged the Foreign Ministry building in Gaza. There were reports of injuries, though it was unclear whether they included people inside the ministry, which is controlled by Hamas, or in nearby buildings.
These paragraphs are taken from an article in today’s New York Times. It’s clearly most of the article, but I chose items that illustrated the numbers of people reported to have been immediately effected by the violence. To me, they don’t add up. There have been eight Israeli soldiers killed and three are being kept in captivity. That’s eleven. There were three civilians injured from rockets fired from Lebanon. The kidnapped individuals are the said reasons behind the attacks that Israel has launched on Palestinian and Lebonese civilians, while claiming to kill/target militants and militant headquarters, they have infact injured and killed civilians. Since the attacks launched in Gaza alone, there have been over fifty people killed in Gaza. Fifty. And many civilians are again refugees in their own home land, forced to flee their homes and take refuge in UN schools in Gaza.
It appalls me that it is stated that it was the highest toll for Israeli soliers in years when the number tops less than a dozen and more than a dozen Palestinian civilians are being killed or injured daily.
This article focusses on the recent events, it does not include the power plant that was destroyed in Gaza, leaving civilians without electricity and now without water. It does not mention the bridges that were destroyed throughout Gaza, that during the rainy season will make travelling from one place to another impossible.
I find it very difficult to understand how Israel knows that the individuals they are killing are militants, when clearly after the attack is launched, there are a dozen civilians that have been killed in the attempt to kill a militant. And why do we just believe that they are militiants? How do we know? Because Israel says so? And why are Israeli citizens more important than Palestinian ones? Why is it so awful that nearly a dozen soldiers have been killed, injured or kidnapped when there are several dozen civilians — women and children — that are dead, or hungry, or thirsty or homeless. Why is it ok to attack the people of one place but not the other? Why is it justifiable to kill innocent people in order to get one soldier back?
If this is war, why aren’t armies fighting each other, rather than one military against an entire population? Oh, I forgot, there is only one military. Every one else fall into the militants and terrorists category.
This post is what happens when I read the news in the morning and it’s about something important to me.
Other posts about my time in Israel and Palestine:
November 2004
December 2004
January 2005
February 2005
March 2005
Sometimes I understand why my NYtimes news posts go unopened in my yahoo inbox. I just need a break from the world. I want to get a good headline for every bad one, but I think those are hard to come by.
I don’t have a lot of energy right now, so I decided to just browse articles and see what was new in my previous, recent home, Israel-Palestine. True to form, more Palestinian’s are due to be displaced, 1000 of them in East Jerusalem, for a park in an area where it is claimed there are ruins of King David and his Dynasty. It’s all quite ridiculous [to me]. Here are a few sections from the article.
Over 1,000 Palestinians live in the 88 affected homes, and Palestinians had received orders to tear down 64 of the homes before the city agreed to reconsider, said Sami Ershied, one of the lawyers appealing the orders.
“How can they build a garden for a man who died thousands of years ago?” said Mr. Jalajil. “What, is King David going to come here and drink coffee?”
Peace groups, made up of both Palestinians and Jews, opposed the demolitions and gave tours of the area to diplomats and journalists.
Such a pattern is also emerging north of the Old City, enveloping East Jerusalem with a Jewish presence from three sides, cutting it off from the parts of the West Bank controlled by the Palestinians, Mr. Margalit said. This would have relevance to the peace process by pre-empting Palestinian claims for a capital in East Jerusalem.
“The goal is political,” said Mr. Margalit, who was a city employee in Jerusalem for 22 years. “It is not urban and not archaeological. Nobody believes they want to demolish 88 houses to make an archaeological park.”
Will it really ever end? Could there really be a two state solution? And what would it mean if there was, would it be fair and equal? Would settlers still live in places they shouldn’t live? Will Arab Isralies and Palestinians be allowed to travel freely to see their family and loved ones? Or will they be pushed further from their homes, continuously?
Again I protest, why can’t everyone just get along?
Well, the computer is so slow today, I thought I might lose my thoughts waiting for everything to wake up. Perhaps I was trying to do so myself as I peeled back the warmth of the large pink comforter — staying in the kid’s bunk room at Ali’s Auntie Gillian’s – down from the nape of my neck. The chill of a Scotland Spring air creeps in around any part of my body where the skin is exposed. I pull a large sweater over my head and climb down the ladder toward the floor, one step at a time. Ali’s snores rise from the bunk below, intoxicating the air in the room with left over pints of beer breath from last night’s Stag night out. Stumbling in at 3 am full of “I love you’s” and “you are prettier than all the other girls” rolling off his tongue one after the other. Then I could sleep soundly.
I slip into my own world, one speaker into each earlobe, passing back into the past with some Mobius Mix from the All for Peace station out of both Jerusalem and Ramallah. And I recall getting out of Israel-Palestine…
We nearly made it through with an all clear signal, the blue sticker, when just as we went through the x-ray machines, the blue sticker got replaced with a red one. Now for me, I see blue as serene, like the sky on a sunny summer day. Red tends to have a more negative effect, that of WARNING. So when I questioned this change, I wasn’t surprised by the lies: “for airline purposes” Yeah right. That’s when the fun began.
We made it through Israeli security after I stood chatting up the gal who looked through everything from my undies to my wooden map of “Israel” with all the towns marked with the Arab names, aka PALESTINE. She browsed through our Arab music and asked about our Israeli titles, I assured her those were burned onto the computer. I tried to make up some excuse about languages when she saw the wooden map, but she was having none of it, “It’s ok, I understand.” Overall, those checking our bags and running a metal detector over our bodies were quite nice. They didn’t ask us many questions; there was no interrogation session such as the one when entering and leaving Egypt previously. They even invited us to come back to visit again!
We made it with an escort to the passport control where we were soon surrounded by a couple of security gals. A few more questions and then we were sent to wait some more. After being taken to a stark white inspection room, they took our hand luggage and decided to send most of it beneath the plane, and re-checked, with a bomb sweeper device, everything else. No problem. Until they took my computer. It would be wrapped and placed under the plane. I was not happy and I let them know. In fact, you could say I was quite pissed. But it wasn’t Security who was doing it, it was Border Control, so I should feel better. Right. Then we were brushed again with a metal detector, but this time I had to take my bra off and drop my pants to my knees. That was somewhat degrading and it was quite unnecessary. But really, you just have to laugh at their paranoia. What else could I do? I was happy I didn’t wear those undies that have a hole in the front. Or any other creative ones.
After taking every little piece out of my carry on, items scattered across the counter, they had the nerve to ask whether I would like them to repack my bag or do it myself. I am sure they had their own laugh with my indignant insistence that they do it themselves, after all, they had dismantled it. And then with one more escort we were taken to the edge, where we had to run to catch our plane. Once on, sinking into British Airways posh chairs, surrounded by British accents, the last three hours seemed to melt away as we made the transition back into the Western world.
I generally don’t get too excited until I board the plane. This is especially the case this time because we anticipate an adventure into interrogation by the security at the Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.
There are always places you wish you’d have gotten to before you leave somewhere you have been living. But I think that, even though this is still the case with Ali and I in Israel-Palestine, we have done quite well. If you note the places visited in my side bar, you will see we visited every city in the West Bank. One of the questions they will ask us is whether we went to the West Bank or not. It’s not always in your best interest to say yes, but there is definitely that part of us that wants to shout “YES we have and we will again.” Then they will ask us if we have seen any soldiers with guns. This has to be the STUPIDEST question ever. I mean, come on. Take a walk down the street in Jerusalem, they are everywhere. I think I hate this question the most. What they really want to know is, “What do you think about the soldiers with the guns?” And they want you to say, “I am so glad they are here to protect us.” Which we really know is: BULLSHIT.
The Israeli society is one built on fear. Over history the Jews have been persecuted, and no one can deny the atrocities of the Holocaust. But I can’t always help but wonder why people refuse to learn from history. Yes, the Jews needed a place to come together and recover from the Holocaust. But we must remember that in taking back their Holy Land, they also displaced the Palestians, sending millions into refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and even Palestine. What is happening here is an occupation. Palestinians have lost their land and the land they do have is occupied by the IDF.
After the Palestinians decided to rise up against the occupation of their land, the Israeli government decided to build a “separation barrier.” A wall much like the one that separated East and West Germany. Suicide bombers became common for a period of time after the second intifada began in 2000. There have been two since Ali has been here, one since I have been here. On Sunday there was a plastic bag left alone near to where we were waiting for our bus at the bus station in Jerusalem. The area was evacuated and we waited and watched as a team came and blew up the bag in the event that it would have been a bomb itself. Buses pulled up and people ran to load onto them, only to be pushed into another area away from the “suspect bag.” There was panic in the air. I also felt afraid, especially not knowing what was going on without the knowledge of Hebrew. Everything turned out to be fine.
The world sees the aftermath of suicide bombs, not knowing what could have caused them in the first place because they don’t see the terror that the IDF creates in the Occupied Territories.
Settler children spit on Palestinian adults in Hebron. Jericho was cut off because it was making too much money with a Casino that Israelis used to frequent. After its economy suffered tremendously, it has recently been reopened. Bethlehem continues to suffer. Settlers were encouraged to move into Gaza and the West Bank and now have to disengage from Gaza and some from West Bank areas as well. Posters of Settler families facing an IDF soldier are tacked up around the bus station, in attempt to make me feel sorry for them. It doesn’t work. I do try to look at both sides: it would suck to grow up somewhere and be forced to move. But you can’t deny the fact that they are getting huge compensation to move elsewhere, more than enough to by a home in another Settlement or another area – not to mention that they did it to the people living there first. Gaza and West Bank homes are demolished daily, to make way for the wall, homes linked to a “suspicious person,” and many for no reason at all. No one gives these families a place to stay or the money to pick up the rubble that was once their home and build a new one.
I look at the occupation much like what has happened to other native cultures in the past and only continues to happen over time. I think about the history of the Native Americans. The bloodshed, the war. That was so long ago. How can the same thing still be happening, but with bigger guns, and tanks instead of horses? Is humanity really that…what is the word for it really? It makes me sad. And it makes me feel defeated. And if I think about it too much, I feel the “Little Man Tate Syndrome” coming on. So, I am going to get back to my cough and get some sleep. It’s tiring to look around the bedroom, see all of the things that we need to back up, only to be unpacked and questioned about at the airport.
11.13pm
I had a dream the other night. It followed me all through my day, staying in the back of my mind. Ali and I stood at the counter making coffee, our work day had ended. He wore his leather and I told him to take it off and stay awhile. And then it fumbled out from my lips and into his ears. He listened intently as I took him into a world I find myself half living in and unable to get out of each morning. I wake from my dreams and recall moments of another life.
A vehicle took me and an old lover to a place with sand dunes and sagebrush floating in the wind. We were dumped out into the open of a barren lend, left to fend for ourselves. In a matter of moments we would be captured and caged, forever a hostage in our own land. Unable to leave or enter again. I was afraid of being caged and refused to sit out in the open while the soldiers came down upon us. I told the men I was with to wait, I would leave the cover of the tree and nearby cave we were hiding in to seek a way out.
I remember running over the dunes in the open, looking above me with the feeling of being watched. I saw a car parked near the exit on the other side of where we had been dropped off. I saw a couple girls sunbathing, wearing dark sunglasses. I ran to them and pleaded with them to let me hide in their car and get over the border to get help for my friends and the others hiding. They agreed and I crouched down in the back of their car. They told me to get my ID out in case we were checked at the border. I didn’t want to tell them that my ID was what had put me here in the first place.
There were other events in the dream. I carried the constant feeling that I was running from something/someone that was chasing me, trying to keep me caged. I did escape, after a couple attempts, but was still located on the outskirts of the border, talking and pleading with others to help me assist in the escape of my friends left behind. I was unable to know of their whereabouts, whether they were safe or whether I would ever see them again.
I looked at Ali, “In your dreams, you were a Palestinian,” he responded.
The water was boiling. He poured Arabic coffee mixed with cardimum into the pot. We watched it cloud and boil, creating a serum that soothes us after another day at work. We walked from our kitchen to our porch. He lit a cigarette and I leaned against him as he told me about his day. Freedom. To love. To feel. To come and go freely.
Beautiful People. Oh, there are many in this world.
Went to the West Bank again this weekend, had an entirely different experience than last weekend, ie. Nablus vs. Hebron. I felt like I was on the outside of a snow globe peering in at all the people living there and as I was walking through the streets someone was shaking it. But instead of snow falling, IDF soldiers seeped out of the corners while children tried to play soccer in a place they used to feel safe. They now feel the need to throw sticks at visitors because the can’t differentiate between the Settlers and the trash they throw down upon them and the Internationals coming to help fight for their existence in a land that was their first. Pictures of old men standing next to their watch shops with bullet holes in the widows. Empty streets giving way to an even emptier Old City. Water tanks demolished by the guns of both the Settlers and the IDF. Trash collecting in grates above the walkway from people that don’t belong there nor have the right to inflict such atrocities on the people that were there first. Soldiers waving their guns down alley ways, me holding my breath in the hopes that no child runs across to their neighbor’s house, only to get shot in the process. Keeping distance behind the afternoon “checks” while Ali tries not to get caught taking pictures…
Just added a new link in ‘my peeps’ section. A very good friend that has been there since the days when we still went to college parties and met each other on the dorm steps, exchanging compliments about hats and shoes–without cell phones. When first impressions were never last and we became friends anyways. She knows what I’m talkin’ about and it’s hella good to see her writing again cuz she’s got talent.
Time to get back to that job searchin’ and then off to teach English to some Arab journalists. Three more weeks in the Holy Land and then off to the UK and wherever our feet take us…
Yalla bye!
Restored faith in human kind.
When I sat down to recall our day in the West Bank, it came out in snapshots. I thought I would create two entries, one in prose and one in poetry. But alas, this was not to be the case. What came forth were images wrapped with feelings and I developed an extensive piece of prose poetry. The feeling that came back to me again and again was that for one day, in this place so ridden with conflict, I felt a restored faith in human kind. It was an amazing feeling. I reflect on our day in the sunshine, walking through markets and villages, side streets and main streets, and the thing I most clearly see are the smiles. On every face we met, and on our own. Beautiful. Sunshine from the inside out.
Sketches of Palestine
Blood rides through my veins,
bubbling over bones.
Life exudes from each breath.
My heart beats rapidly,
reminding me of my own mortality.
Checkpoint: Jenin
Set up just for the settlers
invading Palestinian land
as though it is their own.
The checkpoint officer,
young and friendly,
greets us with a smile.
He already assumes
we are going to Jenin
when we say Jamelya.
Says it’s “cool” we have a “friend” to visit there.
He waits for us to return later that evening.
Makes friendly conversation, and
asks nothing about our daily adventure.
We discuss hashish, age
and traveling to far off lands
like India and Nepal.
Into Jenin
Waiting for our service to leave,
we stand in the sunshine
snapping pictures of the world around us.
Taxi drivers organize leaving times
with a certain rhyme and reason
all of their own. Order in chaos.
We find our way to the market,
snapping people and produce
into our memories.
A conversation with a business man
and a world wrestler flexing his pecks
brings warm smiles to our faces,
laughter exploding from our chests.
We climb into the back of our service
and watch the hills roll by,
settlements popping into the horizon.
Checkpoint: Nablus
Walking around the tank
rolling up the hill.
Kicking up dust
“on its way to the tank wash,”
a friend jokes with me when
I relay the scene to her.
More check point officers,
one in the reserves
with his long hair and earrings
hiding beneath the green helmet.
Another with cropped hair
and stripes on his shoulder,
reminds us that we are responsible
for our own safety once we enter.
His long haired friend smiles and nods us thru.
Returning after a gorgeous day,
a new guy checks our bags
interrogating us about our purchases.
The long haired one from earlier
takes my passport and smiles,
“It’s beautiful there, isn’t it?”
Such a human thing to say,
we are reminded that they are not all robots.
We expect these soldiers to be so unpleasant,
always suspicious, defensive, cruel.
But today we are greeted with humanity.
Into Nablus
Service drivers taking us into Nablus.
Children peeking over the seat in curiosity.
Exchanging extended hellos in simple English
with their father.
Palestinian guards, most without guns
talk amongst themselves
at the city center.
Conversations in Arabic
mixed with english greetings.
Invited in for coffee and sweets at local shops.
Smiles on young faces and old.
Toothless men baking pita bread
extending a warm smile and handshake.
Veiled women shopping
for vegetables and shoes.
Uniformed children walking
home from school.
A warmth and feeling of welcome
embraces me more than any
other place we have visited
in Israel-Palestine.
The road back to Jenin
We are stopped by a random checkpoint
that didn’t exist on the way in.
Soldiers hide on the hill off to the left,
while two others slip behind olive trees to the right.
All machine guns point at the vehicles waiting to pass.
The Hummer blocks the road,
surrounded by another half dozen soldiers.
Car drivers and passengers are instructed
to leave their cars and walk up one by one,
baring their stomachs.
Just making sure they are not strapped with bombs
before they approach with their ID cards.
The soldiers decide
whether they drive through.
There is no reason for the check point
this land is occupied territory.
Families are on their way home.
Husbands returning from work.
Children returning from school.
What kind if war is this,
when only one side is armed?
Jenin and the final checkpoint
The streets are quiet.
The service area is empty
aside from one car and a few men.
We are greeted by a man from Nazareth
that recognizes us.
He organizes for us to go
by a special taxi to the checkpoint
which will close in a half hour.
We get through where
the half dozen tanks sleep,
hibernating since their invasion
into Jenin in 2002.
We arrive at the checkpoint
open 24 hours, 7 days a week
just for the settlers
that perch their homes
on top of the mountains
outside Jenin.
Another man arranges a ride
for us to Nazareth.
We sit and have tea,
discuss life and the occupation.
He wishes for a way
out of this country
and asks us if we can help him.
He invites us back to visit his family,
to take us to the college and Camp Jenin.
We hope to return.
Back to Nazareth
We wait with the wife of the driver
who will take us home.
A mother with an Arab Israeli husband –
both children Israeli citizens
while she remains Palestinian.
When she visits her husband,
she cannot leave their home.
She lives in a village outside Jenin
with their children.
We pay her husband 100 shekels
to take us back to Nazareth,
perhaps enabling him a weekend
with his family that may not have been planned
or attainable without our money.
Kara Melissa
5 March 2005
revisited 9 March 2005
When I came here I had a difficult time adjusting. I was focusing more on the political situation than on my own personal life. Then my personal life suffered some challenges which were not easy to overcome. I wasn’t able to create a balance.
I was figuring out how to perform in my job with children who acted up because they had had one English teacher after the next leave them, and really, that’s what I was going to do in the end anyways. I thought they were spoiled, but they were just being human, putting up barriers much like the walls that exist all over this country.
I was trying to experience and learn about life in Israel-Palestine.
We visited places in the West Bank: Jayyous (olive picking), Bethlehem (Christmas), Ramallah (Palestinian elections). We saw the wall being built and how it affects the communities it ruins, separating families from each other, such as the mother and daughter on different sides of the wall in the village of Baka. We visited Israeli cities, eating yummy food, drinking good coffee, walking through the market that was bombed in October, strolling barefoot along the beach in Tel Aviv. We’ve been to Jerusalem a number of times. A city divided like pieces of a pie, everyone inhabiting the same space, yet completely isolated. Muslims, Jews, Christians, Settlers, Foreigners, Tourists, Students.
I became consumed with thoughts of the occupation, reading snipits in the news from Ali or personal stories in the newspapers/websites I discovered on my own. I would write about these experiences and thoughts on my blog, trying to make sense of it all and share that dismay with others. Ali also wrote about the occupation. People reading our blogs became worried about our wellbeing and wanted to read more uplifting stories. As a result of my emotional reactions to the assorted challenge I was dealing with a rupture was created on the home front. I had become so attentive to external conditions that I was oblivious to its effect on my personal relationships. Once I did, I began to focus on repairing it. We’ve come a long way Baby. (Fat Boy Slim)
So, the balance still does not exist. I find myself focusing on the good in life around me and then I see that I am neglecting the reality outside of Nazareth. I just read Rachel Corrie’s letters from Gaza to her parents in Olympia, Washington. She was a 23 year old member of the International Solidarity Movement, a group that uses non-violent direct action against the Israeli army in the Occupied Territories. She was killed in March of 2003 by an Israeli bulldozer that “didn’t see her, in her bright orange vest” as she stood between the bulldozer and a Palestinian home, blocking the demolition, in the end giving her life to the cause.
Gaza is a war zone that people either don’t recognize as such or forget that it exists. It is far from our Arab town of Nazareth. It is far from the places we have visited. We see the empty streets and closed businesses in the West Bank, the posters of martyrs and the wall that keeps families apart. When we visit other cities in the West Bank we will see more. But we will not get to Gaza. Because Israel will not allow us passage, nor will they recognize the terror and acts of violence that they commit daily in Gaza. It’s interesting that you can have “the world’s fourth largest army, backed by the world’s super power” fighting “terror” and no one really understands or knows what’s truly happening there.
The rest of the world sees the war in Iraq and the genocide in Sudan. But what about the malevolence they unconsciously contribute to, through tax dollars and indifference?
We were walking through the Moslem Quarter of Jerusalem’s old city, and saw posters outside a shop noting some major corporations’ who profit from the occupation: Clinique, Origins, Caterpillar, DKNY, Prescriptives, Estee Lauder — Estee Lauder’s chairman, Ronald Lauder, is also President of the Jewish National Fund which acts as a PR on behalf of the Israeli government and the Occupation of the Palestinian Territories.– .
How many of us have and do purchase products from these companies? How many of you know where the money goes and how much of it is used to purchase bullets that kill students in classrooms when a tank comes through during the morning Math lesson?
I suppose this is an attempt to reclaim some of the balance in my life that I strive for. Life IS good. For me. For Ali. For us. But we also want to recognize and educate the outside world about what is truly going on here in Israel-Palestine. And sometimes it brings us down. And sometimes, if we take you down with us for a moment, then you will have experienced a tiny ounce of a life that exists elsewhere, where the only thing up is the sun.
What You are Saying