A slightly more substantive "I'm home" e-mail

Hello!

I've had a few days to rest and recuperate from my travels, and I've found that I've picked up a couple of new habits, neither of which has any logical connection to my time in Israel/Palestine.  The first is that I stop eating when I'm full, even delicious Thai food; and the second is that I'm waking up earlier and more easily (yet not on an Israeli time schedule, either).

But that has no bearing on anything.

As I am in the United States and on a semi-normal schedule, I'm available for sit-downs or speaking engagements of basically any kind.  If you or your group are interested in a meeting/presentation/interview/etc. regarding the current situation in Israel/Palestine, please contact me.  I can tailor my angle to specific interests and concerns, or I can just report on my experience there.

Please contact me if you have any interest in hearing about the trip, whether on a personal level or in a more formal setting.  I will, as promised, be sending some more updates that I didn't get completed while I was overseas, so all you need to do for those is keep checking your e-mail.

Thanks once more for all your support.

Nick

PS - This isn't an advertisement; I'm not looking for speaker's fees or anything.

Do you have a van parked on the street?

Some auto owners might feel a sense of impending doom when the person knocking on the door uttered those words. I, however, could not imagine any following sentence that would particularly upset me. "Someone hit it. With a bulldozer. Head on. At sixty miles per hour." Okay, cool. Actually, does insurance cover that?

"I think someone broke into it."

My reaction was more interested than concerned. Apparently the door had been open when my neighbor left for work this morning, and was still open when she returned, causing her some concern. I went to check to see if anything was damaged--nothing there is actually worth taking except the gas in the tank--but found everything intact. In fact, if I had to guess...

...I'd say I probably just managed not to shut it last night. Improbable as that is, it seems more likely than someone breaking into my car without damaging or disturbing anything, including the radio, and then leaving the door standing open.

The iObama

From the New York Times, regarding the upcoming Apple tablet computer:

"The device promises to hasten the extinction of paper, solidify Apple’s advantages in the mobile computing market, cure hunger and finally broker a peace between Jay and Conan."

I'm home

Just a quick update to all of you letting you know that I am back in Richmond, safe and sound.  More stories from my time in Israel/Palestine will follow!

-Nick

Soldiers on the Roof

Greetings!

 

Before I begin, a lightning update on where I am now: I'm in Jerusalem, and have been meeting with various peace groups here.  I'm heading back to the States on Monday.

 

This e-mail, however, goes back a few days to a story that happened in Al-Khalil on Wednesday, January 13.

 

Soldiers on the Roof

 

I was on potato-peeling duty for dinner in the CPT apartments, and was lamenting the fresh bag of potatoes I'd just been given, when I heard someone yell that there were soldiers on the roof.  Since I will take confronting people with guns over peeling potatoes any day, I dropped everything, grabbed my camera, and ran upstairs.  When I got to the roof, Paulette was arguing with maybe six soldiers about their right to be there.  After talking with others, it seems I arrived rather early in the encounter, though I did miss her trying to shoo them away (literally by waving her arms at them and saying "shoo!  shoo!").  They had also challenged her to prove she lived there, though that didn't really go anywhere.

 

Paulette had a camcorder, and I began recording video on my camera as well (though the batteries died shortly thereafter).  Pete was also taking multiple photos.

 

As the soldiers still refused to leave, we broke into a round of "Joy to the World."  I hope no videos surface of this, as I was definitely singing in the key of H.  They climbed to a higher level of the roof, and we followed them.

 

The soldiers began arguing with Paulette about their practices in Al-Khalil and various other relevant issues, and I don't remember the specifics of that conversation.  After a while, Paulette went back downstairs, and I found myself alone with the attention of a semi-circle of soldiers.

 

"Forgive me," I said.  "I'm new here, and I can't really speak to what's happened.  But I just want to say what I've observed.  There's all this fear that everyone has a knife, or a gun.  You've mentioned specific attacks that happened five months ago, or several years ago, anywhere in the country.  I'm from the United States, which in some places is a very violent country.  I've lived in a city where people are killed every day, often for the color of their skin, not once every five months.  I've worked with kids who live in neighborhoods where nine-year-olds are carrying guns and selling drugs.  But if someone where to ask me if I wanted the army to come occupy the city to make it safer, I would say absolutely not.  I would be horrified by the thought."

 

That launched us into a very long conversation, most of which I'm sorry to say I can't recall all that well, so what follows will just be snippets of what I remember.  At some point, some of the other delegates started talking to the soldiers, so that after a while I was talking to just one of them--Yadid (which means "friend"), the tallest, who I was later told had been acting disrespectfully to Paulette before I arrived.  Joseph and two Canadian girls, who were traveling independently and staying the night with CPT, also joined in.

 

There was some argument between the soldier and one of the girls about territory and history, but I tried to keep the conversation on the current actions of the military.

 

What I would call Yadid's central argument was that the occupation, checkpoints, and detentions in the street are all necessary to keep people safe and prevent terrorist attacks.  He also claimed that if Israel were not occupying Palestine, then the Palestinians (I presume; it was more of a "they") would be occupying Israel.  I told him that while I did not at all agree with that position, if it were the case, CPT would be there working with them.  He seemed genuinely glad to hear that.

 

He mentioned his desire to keep his family safe, and that became our common ground.  I told him I, too, want his family to be safe, and we acknowledged that we had the same goal and different ideas of how it could be achieved.

 

Yadid had a very different impression of the safety of Palestinian areas than I.  "If I came into these places without my vest and my gun, they would throw rocks at me or shoot me," he said.  I replied that I had walked through these neighborhoods, and had never felt unsafe.  "Yes," he said, "because they know you're their friend."

 

"Why can't you be their friend?" I asked.  "And besides, I have had Palestinians tell me 'Shalom' because they think I am Jewish.  I have still felt completely safe, and nothing has happened to me."

 

I also talked with him about some of my research on terrorism, and he seemed genuinely interested in it.  I talked about Jihad, since he had asked about September 11, and he jumped at my comment that concessions would not appease that breed of terrorist, linking them to Hamas.  Hamas, I assured him, is Islamist nationalist, and is a very different kind of terrorist organization.  I told him a psychiatrist had found that 50% of suicide bombers out of Gaza had their homes destroyed as children, which traumatized them and thrust them into a desparate situation.

 

"And why were their homes demolished?" he asked triumphantly. I told him they were built without permits, and he responded, "It is the same in any country! What happens in your country if someone builds something without a permit?"

One of the Canadian girls jumped in and pointed out that elsewhere one would pay the fine and be done with it, whereas here they must pay a fine, have their home demolished, and pay for the demolition anyway.

I added that of the over 6,000 building permits requested inthe Hebron district in 2009, only 13 were granted. He commented on the subjectivity of data, but I think such a startling hard number gave him something to think about. 

 

Finally, the people below must have gotten impatient with us, because we were called in for supper.  The soldiers were invited to join us (on the condition that they leave their guns outside), but they said they couldn't.  I got Yadid's e-mail address on the condition that I would not bombard him with pro-Palestinian literature.  "I think you are completely wrong," he told Joseph and me, "but maybe it is good that you care about something enough to come all this way.  It is better than sitting at home and doing drugs."

 

That, to me, became the most important part of the conversation.  It is neither an easy nor a common thing to respect the value of another's passion when it fuels a position so opposed to one's own.  Seeing that recognition gave me hope for dialogue between the various sides of this conflict.

They left when we did, which suggests they were just waiting for us in order to save face.

 

He's just a kid

 

When I reflected later in the evening on what had transpired, I realized something else I had observed: in the past, soldiers have been scary to me.  I have placed upon them the "older than me/taller than me" impression.  This changed Wednesday night.  Talking to Yadid, I realized he was just a kid, probably younger than me (I'm guessing twenty, because Israelis generally go into the army at 18 and he commented that he has nine months left).  He had a gun and a uniform, but it did not make him more informed than me, and I did not have to yield to his authority.  At the same time, he became a real person.  It's hard to explain, but I feel that conversation greatly helped me to understand the soldiers here.

 

A story I previously reported

 

The CPT release concerning the incident that happened right before we got to At-Tuwani can be found at http://www.cpt.org/cptnet/2010/01/12/tuwani-shepherd-tortured-five-hours-israeli-soldiers-and-police.

*Other links*

Delegation blog: mideastdelegation.blogspot.com

My blog: cptnick.blogspot.com 

The Star of Goliath

Hello everyone,

I'm back at a computer after several days without internet access.  Many exciting, depressing, and encouraging things have happened over the last few days, and in good time I will share with you all of them, but at the moment I feel my priority should be getting some sleep.

From now on, you're likely to get more, smaller e-mails from me, rather than big chunks of text.  These will continue after I'm back in the U.S., as there are many stories to tell.

However, I wrote something the other day when the internet was down, so here it is:

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Nick's CPT Update Monday, 1/11/10

Hello friends and family,

I'm back in Al-Khalil after two nights in the village of At-Tuwani in the South Hebron Hills.  Our internet isn't working at the moment, so I'm writing this ahead of time and don't know at the moment when I will be able to post it.  At the time of this writing, anyway, it is almost noon on Monday, January 11.

The trip is starting to take its toll on me emotionally; the last two days have been particularly intense and draining.  Hebron introduced me to settler encroachment, blatant injustice, and military harrassment.  At-Tuwani, however, painted an even worse picture of the occupation.  First, I'll rewind to some of the stuff I didn't get to report on earlier.

Al-Khalil, continued

I've given up on trying to report everything I learn from everyone I talk to, at least while I'm here.  When I get home, I'll dig through my notebooks and regale you with every detail.  For now, however, I'll stick to my broader experiences here.

Since I enticed you with mention of home invasion, I'll start there.  We got back to the CPT apartment on Friday laden with filafels for lunch.  As we were arriving, Drew and John ducked out, having gotten called to a home invasion.  We continued eating, but before too long we received a call for backup, so several of us set off with Paulette, a full-time CPTer here, at a fast walk.

We were just a couple hundred meters from the house when we passed a group of soldiers, one of whom was holding a large pry bar.  We met Drew at the entrance to an apartment building, received an update from him, and were able to go up to talk with the family.  I was struck by the way we were welcomed into the home and served hot tea: even the shock of a home invasion seems to have no effect on Palestinian hospitality.

Here's what happened:

The family was eating lunch when soldiers entered their apartment, giving no reason.  They gathered the family in one room and held them there while they searched the house, then they went upstairs to a small room that one of the family members, a student, uses to study in.  He offered the soldiers the key to the room (it may have already been in the door; it was when we got there), but they ignored him and broke the door open.  Then they went and looked around on the roof, which for some reason is common.  The glass over the solar water heater was cracked from where a soldier had stood on it previously, and there were cuts in the chicken-wire fence where they had cut it to look through.

Drew and John arrived with a partner of theirs in Al-Khalil and entered the apartment while the family was being held in the room.  Their partner asked the soldiers for a warrant or a written order from their commander, one of which is required for them to be able to enter a house.  The soldiers refused to show either and told the partner he had one minute to leave.  The partner said, "It is the law."  One of the soldiers responded, "Go f--- yourself.  I am the law!"  All the while, Drew was videotaping the soldiers.  Finally they left, though it was not clear exactly why.  I am quite sure, however, that they were very relieved when they saw us walking, that they were not still there when the whole group showed up.

Events like this are not the exception here; they are a common occurance.  Only a small fraction of them are ever documented like this one was.

That is not the end of Al-Khalil, but I want to get on to At-Tuwani.


Arriving in At-Tuwani

"You have entered a village that is nonviolently resisting ethnic cleansing."

Those were the introductory words from Joy, a CPTer in At-Tuwani.  At-Tuwani is the largest of many small villages and hamlets scattered in an area of the South Hebron Hills.  There is a permanent CPT presence there, and the village (and its neighbors) have been insistent on keeping their land despite constant harrassment from both settlers and soldiers.

I want to say a word about settlers: "Settlers" is a blanket term for Israeli civilians living on occupied land.  This is illegal: international law forbids an occupying power from transferring civilian population to occupied territory.  There are, however, different kinds of settlers.

In and around Jerusalem, many settlers are not ideological or zionist.  They may not even know they are settlers, as their neighborhoods are not advertised as "settlements" and many of them are Jews arriving from abroad and simply going to the cheapest housing.  It is far cheaper to live in East Jerusalem, or in a nearby settlement, than to live in West Jerusalem.

In Hebron, we are getting more into the territory of ideological settlers.  They are more likely to engage in harrassment of Palestinians, and they are often zionist in that they believe the land was given to them by God and they have a right to take it.  We heard stories of militant occupation by settlers willing to live in difficult situations in order to claim land, and saw an example of an outpost.  I would also surmise that, at least in the case of settlers living inside of Hebron, their ideology can be somewhat mitigated by their daily interaction with Palestinians.

In the South Hebron Hills, the settlers are, for the most part, highly ideological and militantly zionist.  Those who don't want to rarely have to see a Palestinian, as they would never be allowed inside the settlements, which are locked up tight.  They would see them briefly on the road, as they travel between settlements for school or work.

Some of the settlers, however, will see the Palestinians more often, when they come on to their land to harrass them, assault them, poison their sheep, destroy their property, and more.  Slowly but surely, they expand their settlement.

A familiar pattern might look like this: the settlers build an outpost, which is illegal.  Then they build a road to the outpost.  Then they supply the outpost with electricity and water, and the outpost becomes a settlement.  If they run in to Palestinian opposition, the military administration declares the land "disputed" and a "closed military zone," and keep out any Palestinians.  Note that "disputed" is a joke, as the Palestinians generally have deeds proving their ownership of any land they have left.  Since Palestinians can't cross on to the disputed land, it is then declared "abandoned" and given to the Jewish Land Trust, which passes it on to the settlers.

Back to At-Tuwani.  Tuwani is overlooked by the Ma'on settlement and the Havat Ma'on outpost.  Settlers from the outpost tend to be the most troublesome, as they are as a group more militant.  At the time of our arrival, there was plenty of stress for the local CPTers, for the following reason:

Two days before we arrived, a family from At-Tuwani were grazing their sheep on their land.  Some settlers from either Ma'on or Havat Ma'on (I'm not sure which) arrived and called the military--another common tactic, as the military tends to be as much the settlers' gun men as keepers of the peace.  Not wanting a confrontation, the family quickly herded their sheep back on to land that was even more clearly theirs.  This didn't help: the soldiers attacked and beat the family, then "arrested" (abducted) the oldest brother.  They tied his hands and feet and blindfolded him, and took them back to the military base, where they beat him (still blindfolded) for hours.  Finally, they dumped him on the side of the road, still bound and blindfolded, at night.  He hid until a CPTer and someone from the village were able to find him and bring him back.

Again, this is not a unique story.



We had a little time to drop our things and unpack a bit, then we were off to join a march from At-Tuwani to Al-Fakhiel, a local school about an hour's walk away.  The settlers commonly prevent children from getting to school, so the march was a nonviolent action to protest that, and the military's inaction and complicency.  Though it was a march, at the insistance of the organizers, we rode in a trailer pulled by a tractor.  At the end of the march, there was a press conference.  Hafaz, a local organizer, spoke of the need for the international community to get involved.  They do not want food or money from us; they just want their children to be able to get to school safely.

More on the village of At-Tuwani

As I described, the people of At-Tuwani have been slowly losing their land to settlers.  This is not their only difficulty: they have faced the demolition of their homes and buildings, and many of their homes have demolition orders on them.

Here's the lowdown on that situation: any construction in Area C (Israeli controlled) of the West Bank requires a permit.  Basically, Israelis can get these permits and Palestinians cannot.  They occasionally try, but even trying and failing requires a significant financial investment.  An example of the injustice regarding these permits: in 2009, Palestinians applied for 6,142 building permits in the Hebron district; only 13 were granted.

As such, every single building in At-Tuwani is illegal.  This includes their school and cistern, both of which have demolition orders on them.  Demolition orders must be issued a few days before actually demolishing a structure, but they are not a guarantee that it will happen: some buildings have had demolition orders on them for well over a year.  But this means they could be torn down at any time, putting the residents in a constant state of fear that their homes will be destroyed.  Sometimes, the military goes so far as to park bulldozers on the road to At-Tuwani just to terrorize the villagers.

Despite a promise from Tony Blaire, who said there was an agreement with the Israelis, the village has no electricity.  Acting on the promise, the villagers constructed the infrastructure to bring electricity from the Israeli network into the village, but the army confiscated the electrician's work truck and tore down two pylons because they were "too close" to the highway.


School patrol

The next morning, several delegates joined the full-time CPTers on "school patrol."  I was on breakfast duty, so I was not one of these delegates, but here's the deal:

There are children in two nearby villages who attend school in At-Tuwani.  The shortest road from their villages to the school passes directly between the Ma'on settlement and the Havat Ma'on outpost.  There is a middle road that also passes dangerously near the settlement, and a third road that goes around.  The difference is between a twenty minute walk and an hour and a half one.

Some time ago--I don't feel like going back for my notes--CPTers tried to accompany the children on the short road.  They were attacked by settlers, and though the children escaped, the CPTers were badly beaten and had to be hospitalized.  They tried again with the middle road, and were again attacked.  Since internationals were being injured, though, this brought enough attention that the military struck a deal with the mayor of At-Tuwani that they would provide an escort for the children going to school, so long as no Palestinian adults or internationals went along.

This deal only works so well.  The military escort is frequently late, if it bothers to show up at all.  The point at which they meet the children is well within settlement territory, and is not where they agreed to meet them.  And even when it works perfectly, the children are being escorted by the same soldiers they've seen harrassing and arresting their families.

Under this arrangement, "school patrol" is a bit different than it was during the attacks: an Italian peace group that also works in At-Tuwani, Operation Dove, goes to the villages from which the students walk and waits with them while they watch for the military escort.  When the escort arrives, the children go meet them and walk.  CPT waits in At-Tuwani and watches for the escort to arrive.

On Sunday, the escort arrived at the meeting place, but left again immediately because no children were there.  Remember, the meeting place is in settlement territory, and it would be dangerous (actually, impossible) for the students to be waiting there.

The children had exams that day, so they decided to walk anyway.  They tried to take the middle path, but a settler had parked his car and was waiting in ambush.  He got out with his face masked and approached the children, who ran away.  The CPTers here have found that any time a settler masks his face, he intends to do physical violence.

After an hour and a half of phone calls to the military from CPT, Operation Dove, and one or more human rights groups, two foot soldiers and the settler police showed up to escort the children.  When they were just halfway past the settlement, the police drove off, and the soldiers got into a settler vehicle and left.  The children were forced to run the rest of the way to the waiting CPTers at At-Tuwani.

Our life

Living without electricity or running water was an interesting turn.  Even in the winter, we had sunlight pretty much as long as we wanted it, so that wasn't a major issue.  Flashlights helped us out at night, and the village has a generator (with a demolition order on it) that supplies about four hours of power each night.  Drinking water was purchased at the village store (they order it just for the internationals), wash water came from a cistern and could be accessed from a tap in the bathroom, and dish and tea water was drawn from the village well.  I went to draw water both mornings and found it to be a fun chore, though I imagine the novelty would wear off before too long.

The worst thing for me was that both toilets to which we had access were "squat toilets," which is a euphemistic way of saying "hole in the ground."  Used handwashing water is used to flush, and they drain to... somewhere.  I'm not particularly interested in knowing where.

We managed to jam twelve people into Hafaz's small living room on sleeping mats, without a whole lot of room to spare.  Both nights were rather horrid for me in terms of quality of sleep; I must have woken up every ten minutes Saturday night.  Sunday was marginally better.

Peter, one of our two Australian delegates, has fallen quite ill in the last couple of days and was running a fever of 105 last night.  He's seemed to have gotten a little better, but the poor guy seems miserable.

Catching up to now - 3pm Monday

We called taxis to bring us back to Al-Khalil this morning and have had a decently relaxed day.  We met with a shopkeeper who works with human rights groups and is a "convinced" nonviolence activist, and are now back at the CPT apartments.  Shortly we will be living for overnight stays in Palestinian homes.  The men are going to stay with the shopkeeper we met with a while ago, so I'll get to talk to him about some of the CPTers we know in common, like Cliff Kindy, a friend of his who has a farm near where I went to college.

Delegation blog

Something I have promised and not delivered: the official CPT delegation blog for this trip can be found at mideastdelegation.blogspot.com.  It lacks posts, a fact you can blame on me, since I'm the "blog coordinator."  But, as you know, we've been away from the internet.

Just a reminder, these e-mail updates will all be compiled at cptnick.blogspot.com.  There are a couple of things I'm leery of posting in such a public format for security reasons, so not quite everything I send you will appear there.  Also, even in these e-mails, I may withhold or change names because some of the people we meet with could be in danger if they are identified.

Thoughts on conflict, dispute and neutrality

I have always tried to be as objective as possible (insert post-modernist reflections on the impossibility of objectivity here) when dealing with matters of conflict and politics, and especially concerning the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.  I complained that a week-long seminar in which I participated on the subject was biased against the Israeli side.  Even recently, just before leaving for this trip, I wrote a press release expressing my interest in learning about "all sides" of the conflict.

But objectivity and neutrality are not the same thing.  The latter has become too often the norm, particularly in the press, though that is not something I wish to tackle right now.

As Dr. Ken Brown commented in a class I had with him, "The more you study an issue, the further from the center you'll find yourself."  This is certainly the case here.  At the risk of sounding arrogant, the truth in this land is not found in the center.

I mentioned earlier that Israel benefits from saying "let's negotiate" while grabbing more land.  To be plain, under international law, the whole occupation is illegal.  The land is not disputed; it is occupied and stolen.  Even talking about a "conflict" implies some balance of sides, as if two factions are shooting each other.  But this is a matter of occupier and occupied.  In this story, one faction has a monopoly on money, resources, weapons, equipment, and legal structure.  The other struggles to scrape out a living, denied any shred of normalcy.  One side expands and takes, while the other side tries only to hold on.  When it comes to ownership of the land, one side has proof; the other side vetoes this proof with guns.

The message from the international community cannot continue to be about getting the two sides to the table.  Our message has to be simply, "end the occupation."

End rant.

I hope all of you have been doing well in class, work, or whatever it is you're doing.  I apologize for the sporadity with which I have been sending updates, but computer access and time has been even more limited than I expected.  You'll probably continue to get these well after I return home as I struggle to catch up on everything I've learned and experienced.

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Back to 1/14

As you can tell, I was a little upset when I wrote that.  I thought about taking out my political bias, but that wouldn't really be giving you the full feel of my experience here.

A quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. has been popping into my head frequently these last few days: "The arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice."  I always that it was a cool saying, but my time here has transformed those words somehow.  Now, when I say (or type) them, I feel moved almost to tears.  Justice will come.  I trust that.  And amazingly, I continually meet Palestinians who, despite the conditions under which they are living, share that faith.  I just hope it isn't too long in the coming.

Since then, we have had the opportunity to stay with host families in Al-Khalil, visit Bethlehem and spend the night in a refugee camp, and confront soldiers on our own rooftop here in Al-Khalil.  All of these stories will get to you--if not in the next couple of days, then certainly upon my return.

Blessings to you all,
Nick

Greetings from Nick

Hello friends -

 I haven't been able to get online, but want you all to know that I am well. Thank you for your continued support!

Nick (via Anna Lisa)

In the Occupation

I find it completely unbelievable that this is only the second full day of my time here in Israel/Palestine.  I already feel like I've had two weeks' worth of experiences!

Sunrise in Jerusalem

I woke sometime between 4 and 5am yesterday (Thursday) to the call to prayer.  Some of my fellow delegates who had already been here warned that earplugs might contribute to a peaceful night, but I was completely entranced by the eerie beauty of the voice.  I think sometimes there is benefit to not understanding words, because it lends them a sort of magic.  Already being awake, I decided I might as well get up and grab a shower before prime time, as I was sharing a room with four other men.  Having plenty of time before our 7:30 breakfast, I went up to the roof of the hostel to catch a view of the city.  It was nothing short of astonishing.

I won't rave on any more about that, since it has very little to do with the real purpose of the trip.

Whom does conflict serve?

We met with Jeff and Sarah from the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) to talk about the broad issues of the occupation.  ICAHD was formed as an "end the occupation" organization, but chose to frame their campaign with the specific issue of house demolitions because of their symbolic power, and the disconnect from any semblance of security.  One study of suicide bombers, I think in Gaza, found that 50% of them had their homes demolished when they were children.

I will post some more on this later, since I do not have my notes in front of me and there's a line for computer use, but there's one issue from that I wanted to touch on:

The idea was introduced to me that Israel has nothing to gain from peace.  Most frameworks for negotiations account for the "facts on the ground," or the settlements already built in the West Bank.  Rather than simply withdraw behind the pre-1967 borders, Israel argues that it should keep settlement blocs.  This means that the longer Israel delays a real peace agreement, the more land it can grab through settlements.  We also had the opportunity to look at maps that painted a very clear picture of the strategic placement of settlements: not only are they designed to grab up water resources and fertile land, but they are carefully placed to mingle the Israeli and Palestinian populations, rendering impossible any Palestinian state.

Israel has continually presented the Palestinians with offers it knows they won't accept, and has refused to even entertain Palestinian offers.  It has been suggested, and I am willing to believe, that Israel has no current interest in a peace agreement.  For these reasons, Sarah at ICAHD suggested that the international community absolutely has to insist on the pre-1967 borders as the borders for Israel, so that Israel will not ultimately gain from continuing to construct settlements.

This is an ultra-brief and likely confusing summary of thoughts from that meeting and tour (there was a tour), but I'm trying to hurry past yesterday and get through today while it's still today.

After ICAHD and lunch, we grabbed our bags and headed for Al-Khalil, the Arabic name for Hebron.

Life under occupation

Hebron is unique among Palestinian cities in that it has Israeli settlers living within the city (in addition to in settlements bordering the city).  Settlers claim to exist in numbers of 800 or more, but independent sources can only confirm 600-650 at the most, 250 of whom are temporary students.  The numbers I've heard are more along the lines of 200-400.  This is in contrast to 160,000-170,000 Palestinians.

As a result of this intermingling, Hebron is divided into two control zones: H1, which is Palestinian-controlled, and H2, which is Israeli-controlled.  The Palestinian population of H2 is 35,000, and the conditions are much worse than in the Palestinian-controlled zone.  We are staying at the CPT Hebron apartments, which are loated in the Old City in H2.  While H1, like Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, has all the look of a modern city, H2 can simply not be described as anything other than a bombed-out third-world city.  Building permits are impossible to obtain, so roads and buildings fall into disrepair if they aren't deliberately demolished.  Access restrictions and curfews have killed commercial business.  Most shops are closed by late afternoon, and 1,100 shops in the zone have had to close their doors permenantly.  Checkpoints and road blocks hinder the movement of Palestinians, separating them not from the Israeli settlers but from their schools, mosques, and each other.  Soldiers detain young men and sometimes even children at random to check their ID or search their bags.  Many of these detentions are illegal under Israeli law.  Beyond this, they sometimes enter Palestinian homes without warrants, all in the name of fighting "terrorism."  More on this in a moment.

Last night I joined a couple other delegates and two full-time CPTers here, Drew and John, on a patrol.  A large part of what CPT does here is patrol the streets to look out for detentions or other forms of harrassment, and to let both the Palestinians and the Israeli soldiers know that they are present.  We didn't encounter any soldiers moving about the streets, but we did run into one standing guard who asked where we were from.  When we said America, he left us alone.

It was last night that I had my first experience with an Israeli checkpoint.  Being white, we were able to ignore the bleeping metal detector and walk through the turnstyles without interruption.  On the way back, we stopped to watch a Palestinian man going through the same checkpoint.  He was made to go through the metal detector several times, empty his pockets, remove his belt, and lift his shirt and pant legs to show that he did not have a weapon.

"It's not nice," one of the soldiers called in our direction, "but it's my job."  This is a common attitude, as soldiers assigned to Hebron tend to be the younger ones and are often decently socially conscious.  Also, Israel has compulsory conscription for everyone, so plenty of the soldiers don't even want to be here and are simply forced into this situation by their government.  I think many of the problems here are issues that will arise any time a military force is used to do police duty: they don't know the law, and besides, they're trained to war.  And "inter arma enim silent leges: in time of war the law is silent."

To be continued

I'm realizing there is no way I will be able to get everything I want to write written at the moment, as it's late, I'm tired, and there is an increasing queue of people wanting access to the computer.  Tomorrow we leave for At-Tuwani, and I will have no internet access for two days, and will probably have a crazy amount more to write about when I return.

And I didn't even get to the part where we responded to a home invasion!

More when I can.

-Nick

I'm in Israel!

Hello all,

 

Not only have I arrived in Israel safely and without major complication, but I have also managed to survive the Hebrew keyboard and login page to bring you news from my trip!

 

I left for the airport around 3:15pm yesterday (Jan 5) for my 6:30 flight to Newark, where I got on a direct flight to Tel Aviv.  I nearly didn't make the latter, though, because the first flight was delayed nearly two hours.  The flight to Tel Aviv was only ten hours, and I made it in time for supper (we're seven hours ahead of Eastern Standard, so hello from the future).

 

Immigration

 

It's a good thing I obsessively rehearsed my story about why I was in Israel, because I really got grilled.  I think the woman at passport control hit a secret button while asking me why I had a Jewish name, because as I headed out towards baggage claim there were two Israeli security officers already walking towards me.  They asked why I was in Israel, if I knew anyone, if I was part of a group, where I was going, where I was staying, about my school, my church, why I didn't just go to Italy, why I didn't read a book about Israel instead of traveling here... and on and on and on.  I also got lectures about how I needed better planning to go to a country and how I should already know about the holy sites because I'm a Christian.  (My cover story was that I was a seminary student coming to visit the holy sites.)  "Don't worry, we're just chatting," he told me.  Right.  I know an interrogation.  He kept asking me the same questions in different ways to see if my answers would stay the same.  In the end, though, he let me go, and it was on to customs, which I was fearing even more.

 

Customs

 

I was nervous about customs because I was smuggling a very expensive camera and external hard drive in for CPT and didn't have the best explanation for why I was in possession of the equipment.  I went through the line for people with items to declare, because by their posted signs I had a few things I had to tell them about.  The customs officer seemed really disappointed, though, when I told him I had a phone, and he shooed me out into the airport as I murmured I also had a couple cameras.  For all the trouble they gave me earlier, Israel ended up being the only country to let me in without the slightest interest in checking my bags.

 

Taxis

 

I met up with Shannon and Sharon, both of whom had been on my flight but neither of whom I actually met before landing, and we got a taxi to the Jerusalem hotel.  We shared the taxi with a family of Americans who were trying to get to an apartment they'd never been to in a part of the city they didn't know.  The driver got very frustrated with them, and they started yelling at him, and he started yelling back.  He didn't speak much English and the Americans spoke almost no Hebrew, so the whole process seemed unconstructive.  When he dropped us off (last), it was clear he liked us better.  That, or he was really happy about the chance to light a cigarette.

 

And so on

 

We had a delicious dinner at the Jerusalem Hotel and then walked over to the Hotel Hashimi in the old city.  The old city is incredible: tunnels and stone streets give it a feel very different from any city in the US, and even from anywhere I'd been in Mexico.  It's different for there to be such an interior feel, outside.

 

There are 14 of us in all, including our leader, Sarah.  We had a meeting a few minutes ago to go over some scheduling stuff and assign "roles" to the team members.  I am the "blog coordinator," which seems right up my alley.  Begging people to post on blogs is nothing new to me.  I will include the URL of the CPT delegation blog in my next update.  For now, though, speaking of blogs, remember that all of my updates will be, in addition to sent by e-mail, posted at cptnick.blogspot.com.

 

I will surely have far more interesting things to report when A) we have done more and B) I am less tired.  As it is, I've had four hours of sleep in the last day, so I think it's time to go to bed.

 

Thanks for all your support,

Nick

CPT Delegation Update: 3 days to go!

Hello to all the friends, family and community that signed up to receive updates from my trip to Israel/Palestine; to the few of you who did not sign up, but to whom I'm sending this anyway; and to readers of the two blogs on which I'm posting this.

As my departure for Tel Aviv gets closer and closer, I figure it's about time I send out a good long update on the preparations and what I'm expecting.

What I'm doing

For those of you who aren't familiar with this trip (namely, those of you who never signed up for updates), here's what's going on: on January 5, I will be joining a two-week Christian Peacemaker Teams delegation to Israel/Palestine.  The fourteen(ish) of us will be meeting with various Palestinian and Israeli peace workers and groups, as well as observing the conditions under which Palestinians live in occupied territory.

In addition to this being an exciting learning and peacemaking opportunity, I'm doing this as an independent study to meet my cross-cultural requirement as a student at Bethany Theological Seminary.

If you are unfamiliar with Christian Peacemaker Teams, please check out http://www.cpt.org.

This is the description of this particular delegation experience posted on the CPT website:

"Conflict in Palestine/Israel has taken center stage in recent months.  Despite involvement of the Quartet on the Middle East and overtures from the Obama administration, the situation for many Palestinians living in the West Bank remains grave.  Road closures, home invasions, checkpoints and the presence of militant Israeli settlers in Palestinian villages continue to threaten Palestinian human rights.  Israel's separation barrier (much of it built on confiscated Palestinian land) not only separates Palestinian communities from each other, but also acts as a barrier between ordinary Israelis and Palestinians seeking to come together for peace. CPT delegation members will gain a perspective on how these issues affect daily life."

Fundraising

The full cost of this trip was $2,750, only $1,200 of which was covered by Bethany.  Thanks to the amazing generosity of classmates, people from my home church, and others, I was able to reach this goal.  I seriously never imagined that this would happen, and was expecting to have to take out a loan in order to go on this delegation.  I cannot thank enough those who gave financially to make this trip possible.

Academics

In order to get course credit for this trip, I've self-assigned a bunch of readings.  Right now I'm working on The Fateful Triangle, a positively massive book by Noam Chomsky on the US, Israel and the Palestinians.  I figure I'm a grad student now, so I should suck it up and read huge books.

Whatever reading I don't get done before I leave will be completed when I get back, since I don't want Israeli security to catch me with books that suggest I'm more than just a tourist; they could deny me entry to the country.

I'll also be writing a "significant paper" (the wording in my proposal) reflecting on the experience upon my return, in collaboration with the cross-cultural director here at Bethany.

Preparation

The information sent to me by CPT is borderline overwhelming.  I'm practically drowning in maps, background information, human rights reports, and cultural information.  In certain areas I'll have to remember I can't show the bottoms of my shoes to others (i.e. cross my legs) or walk in public with my good friend, Mary, who is also going on this delegation.

The real scary stuff, though, is the airport preparation.  I can't announce to Israeli security that I am on a CPT delegation, or I'll run a very significant risk of being denied entry to the country.  In fact, in an early hitch, both leaders of this delegation were denied entry into Israel, so I imagine the CPTers already there are scrambling to prepare for our arrival.  I'm supposed to say that I am participating in a church tour group to the holy sites.  I pray that entry will go smoothly, but it could be complicated.

Updates

I will send out e-mail updates as often as possible while I am in Israel/Palestine.  These updates will also be posted to a blog located at http://cptnick.blogspot.com, so if you're extra interested in my reports you can find them all filed there.  I won't activate these posts, however, until I'm in the country: it just seems prudent not to announce my intention to join a peacemaking delegation on a public website when that information could keep me from doing just that.

Thank you all for your support (of all kinds) and your interest.  Feel free to reply to my e-mails with any questions or comments you may have, and I will do my best to respond to you personally--though depending on my location, I can't always guarantee this.  I will keep you updated on what happens and what I learn, both from the delegation and from my supporting research.

Also keep in mind that when I return, I'll be looking to share this experience in pretty much any format or setting desired, so if you have any kind of group you want me to talk to (or just want to buy me coffee ;-) don't hesitate to ask.  It's the least I can do, considering I'm taking this trip with so much support from back home.

Thanks and blessings to you all,

Nick