A Violently Divided City

Last week, I spent two days in Hebron, interviewing families and children about their experiences living under occupation and specifically with Israeli settlements throughout the city, which according to the UN under the Fourth Geneva Convention are considered to be illegal. I have written about Hebron before, when I last visited in 2010, and unfortunately things are still extremely difficult for the Palestinians who live here.

Hebron is a surreal place, especially H2, which is the area of the city where over 500 Israeli settlers are living alongside 30,000 Palestinians. Despite the population imbalance, the Israeli settlers hold the power in H2, often commanding the Israeli soldiers stationed in the area. There are few people on the streets and all of the stores along Shuhada Street--once a bustling part of the Palestinian city center--are closed up and abandoned (see photo below) after the settlers moved into the area and forced Palestinian businesses to leave. Settlers freely walk around the streets, as they are guarded closely by the Israeli military. However, the statistics point to more violence directed towards Palestinians than settlers, so this "protection" is misplaced. In fact, the settlers frequently use the Israeli army to further oppress the Palestinians, which was reaffirmed in stories I heard from families. The Palestinians who are out on the streets are usually hurrying towards the safety of home. The Palestinians' fear is palpable, especially throughout my interviews. One family does not let their children (ranging in ages from 5-18) leave the house unless they are accompanied by an adult. Another family has installed multiple security cameras, which keep getting stolen by the settlers. Another family told me a story about their six-year-old son who was kidnapped by Israeli settler youth. One child-participant was scared to open up her front door to me, because she said that the settlers (who are her neighbors) might see her. The settler's power is seen clearly in all the Stars of David that are drawn on the walls and doors throughout the neighborhood, laying claim to the territory.

When I revisited Hebron a few days ago, I met members of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). These international volunteers--or Ecumenical Accompaniers (EA's)--"provide protective presence to vulnerable communities, monitor and report human rights abuses and support Palestinians and Israelis working together for peace" (see photo to the right). They invited me to observe them in their daily activities, including accompanying Palestinian children as they walk to and from school (as they are the frequent target of violence from Israeli settlers) and monitoring settler activity within Hebron.

On the day that I visited EAPPI, an EA and I waited at the bottom of some stairs where the children would pass by on their way from school to home. The schoolchildren were friendly (see photo below left), though cautious, especially with presence of so many settlers, who had gathered at the settlement just across the street from the stairs. (The number of settlers increased dramatically at this time of year, because of the Jewish passover.) Even when one of the Israeli settlers came up and yelled for us to leave, the children did not flinch; they just continued on their way, jostling and joking with one another, along Shuhada Street and home. At one point they squealed when they spotted a lizard.

One infamous settler named Anat Cohen, who, along with her husband and 14 children, lives in the Beit Hadassa settlement in the middle of H2. The house belongs to a Palestinian, Mr. Abu Ribhi Dies who was thrown out of the home in 1975 after a military order was issued claiming that the home did not belong to him. In addition to being the head of education for the settler children in H2, Anat Cohen is known for encouraging settler violence against Palestinians. She has also been known to be violent with internationals who visit H2 in support of Palestinians. I actually saw this with my own eyes, when I noticed an older woman with a taut and weathered face approach us, yell in Hebrew, and point at us. I was told that she was shouting at the nearby Israeli soldiers to arrest us, though there was obviously no legal reason for this. About five minutes later, I saw her throw water (along with some young female settlers) at an international visiting from Germany and then kick another international visiting from the US. After witnessing this, the EA and I encouraged the Israeli police to file a report about Ms. Cohen's violent behavior towards internationals. But instead, we were thrown out of H2 by the Israeli soldiers and police, a perfect example of how the settlers utilize the Israeli military to further their own goals. It also illustrates how difficult it is for Palestinians to see true justice.

At the end of my day in Hebron, I went along with another EA to monitor settler activity in H1. many settlers and their Israeli guests entered the Old City of Hebron to take historic tours of the area. According to the 1997 Hebron Agreement, H1 is under the Palestinian Authority's control, and therefore off-limits to Israelis. Despite this, the Israeli settlers--accompanied by dozens of Israeli soldiers (see photo to the left)--regularly visit the area to "sight see." When I asked one settler what the tour guide was saying, he told me, "We are learning that this city belongs to us."

I watched the Israeli settlers, accompanied by heavily armed soldiers, walked through the narrow streets of the Old City. The settlers also watched me, and found it amusing to take photos of me. (At one point, I felt like a tourist attraction.) Palestinian children also watched the settlers curiously, but also took time to skirmish with a soccer ball. Though it was extremely strange to see these large groups of settlers accompanied by heavily-armed Israeli soldiers moving through a Palestinian city, it was just another day for the Palestinian children, who seemed eager for the Israeli settlers and soldiers to leave, so they could get on with their football match.

Land Day

Land Day is approaching tomorrow (Friday 30 March). It is an annual day of commemoration for Palestinians of an event in 1976. In response to the Israeli government's plan to expropriate thousands of acres of land for "security and settlement purposes", a strike and marches were organized in Palestinian towns throughout the West Bank. In the ensuing confrontations with the Israeli army and police, six Palestinians were killed, about one hundred were wounded, and hundreds of others arrested. For this year's Land Day, Palestinian activists are organizing a Global March to Jerusalem intended to bring attention to the situation here and to recognize Jerusalem as a vital and controversial site for both Palestinians and Israelis. The March will engage people from all over the world, who will show their support for Palestinians by marching as close to Jerusalem as they can get considering existing country borders and political barriers.

Two days out of the past week, I have heard gunfire in the distance. I have not been able to pinpoint exactly where the gunfire is coming from. But, like the Israeli military jets continually flying over Nablus, it is a reminder that the occupation is ubiquitous. For example, the following happened in the past week in Nablus:

• last Friday, an 8-year-old boy was injured by an explosion in the village of Qaryut; apparently, the devise was set there by the Israeli army during training exercises.
• on Monday, the Israeli army detained three men for unknown reasons in the Nablus city center.
• on Tuesday, a 24-year-old farmer from the Nablus village of Iraq Burin sustained head injuries when settlers from the nearby Yizhar settlement threw rocks at him.
• and, yesterday, settlers blocked the entrance of the village of Beit Dajan, protesting the reopening of a road to Nablus city.
  

These events were tempered by a unity rally held in Nablus City center last week, which called for an end to the division between the political parties in the West Bank in Gaza, to more effectively resist the occupation. Of course, this is controversial, because the Palestinian division is between Fatah and Hamas, the latter which has been recognized as a terrorist organization by the EU, US, Canada, Israel, and Japan.

In terms of my research with children and families, things are going slowly but surely. I have finished three interviews in Balata Refugee Camp. The interviews have been extremely interesting. Each interview was supposed to be the parent and two children (older and younger), but the whole family is there for the whole interview. So it's usually Mom and her 10 children, and maybe a sister-in-law or a bunch of young cousins as well. It's definitely a different kind of methodology (more like a family focus group) using a collaborative process, with every member of the household contributing a piece, which is more culturally representative of how families operate here. I can distract the kids with some mapping and drawing exercises and then talk to the adult. But I also try to spend more than half of the interview speaking with the children to get their views. Parents have commented on how great it is that the research cares about what children think.

Some of the families' stories are difficult to hear. Two separate families told me about how the Israeli army has entered their homes and broken down the wall between their wall and their neighbor in order to arrest their neighbors. (The image to the right is of one family's wall that was broken down and is now repaired with cement.) This practice, known in Israeli army parlance as "walking through walls", is the action in which soldiers create holes in the walls of Palestinian homes in order to avoid the streets, roads, alleys, and courtyards of the community, where they fear being attacked by militants. Though an effective military strategy, the “penetration of war into the private domain of the home” is described by Weizman (2007) as “ the most profound form of trauma and humiliation” (p. 194). My study participants have called it "insulting". In another house I went to, the 6-year-old son was asleep on a mat on the floor near where we were conducting the interview. The mother told me that the Israeli army had been in the refugee camp a few days ago, and when the boy saw them, he involuntarily urinated and has been incontinent since then. This is a common symptom in school-age children who have experienced traumatic stress. These cases are not the majority, though, and there are plenty of happy, bright, and energetic children who "seem" impervious to the effects of occupation.

Peace at a Snail's Pace

I have arrived in Nablus, after about 48 hours of travel from Montreal, through Jordan, and across the Israeli border into the West Bank. Nablus has been clouded by widespread dust storms for the last day, so the city is covered in a cloak of dirt. The winds were so strong that I thought I might be knocked right over.

There is currently tenuous peace in the West Bank, and I was surprised to see so much economic growth in Nablus. However, there are still reminders of the occupation as well as an acknowledgement that the peace may not last forever. This morning, I was awakened by the sound of low-flying jet planes in the sky above; in fact I am still hearing the deep "whoooooosh" of fighter jets as I write this. The Israeli military was performing fighter jet exercises in the airspace over Nablus. My Palestinian friends told me that the military does the exercises over the West Bank for two reasons. The first is intimidation, reminding the Palestinians that Israel has a powerful military, which they can use against the Palestinians. The second reason that these exercises take place over the West Bank, my friends told me, is because if they had an accident above a Palestinian city, "it wouldn’t be as big of a deal" compared to if the accident was over an Israeli city.

Gaza has also entered a respite after recovering from cross-border violence between the Israeli military and militant groups. The violence was spurned by Israel's launch of air-to-ground missiles into Gaza, which killed the leader of the Popular Resistance Committees, Zuhair al-Qissi, and his assistant. During the several days of fighting--in which Palestinian militants fired more then 100 rockets into southern Israel and most rockets were intercepted by Israel's new Iron Dome anti-missle rockets--80 Palestinians were wounded, 26 Palestinians were killed, two of whom were children. No Israelis were wounded or killed during the violence.

I am looking forward to starting my research in the next few days. In researching my sites for sampling, I have found that some of the villages no longer exist, having been "depopulated" by the Israel military (see for example, Deir Yassin). I have been conducting informal interviews about the status of children here, and I have heard a common theme of hopelessness. One Palestinian father told me, "Today's children have no hope for the future, therefore they have no desire to go to school or improve themselves. They just spend their days fighting with each other." Emphasizing this point, yesterday I witnessed two young boys in the street near my guest house "playfully" throwing large rocks at each other. When I walked back to the guest house, I was surprised to find a freshly painted mural. It depicts a snail with a head of two fingers indicating the peace sign. This is indeed a hopeful sign in a violent landscape, illustrating a peace that is slow yet ultimately attainable.

Peace for One Night in Bethlehem

Bethlehem was just another Palestinian village until the day that Jesus was born. It wasn't until around 300 AD that the prophetic message that Jesus was born became a religious movement, and Bethlehem quickly became a prosperous and fortified city, as well as a popular place for religious pilgrims, with many churches and monastaries built in the area. In the Crusader times (1099-1187 and 1228-1144), kings were crowned in Bethlehem as a symbolic connection to the birthplace of Jesus, and it was promoted as the seat of many religious parishes, including Episcopal and Roman Catholic communities.

Confronted by the injustices of the British colonial system as well as the Zionist threat in the first half of the 1900s, residents of Bethlehem firmly supported the cause of Palestinian nationalism. In the 1920s and 1930s, Palestinians in Bethlehem mounted several public campaigns against the British law that repealed citizenship of Palestinians but granted citizenship to Jewish immigrants. In response, Britain cracked down hard on representatives of Bethlehem. For example, in 1938, the mayor of Bethlehem, Issa Bandak, was deported by the British occupation authorities after his outspoken criticism of the British occupation. Much as Bethlehem housed Joseph, Mary, and the newborn Jesus, Bethlehem subsequently became a sanctuary for countless Palestinian refugees expelled from their villages. According to the Alternative Tourism Group (2008), population figures rose from 9,000 to nearly 20,000, while an additional 40,000 refugees stayed temporarily in Bethlehem on their way to exile in the West Bank, Jordan, or other Arab states.

I visited Bethlehem in May 2010. Today, the Bethlehem district constitutes the towns of Beit Sahour to the east and Beit Jala to the west, as well as three refugee camps (Aida, Beit Jibrin or 'Azza, and Deheisheh) to total 76,000 people. Dominated by minarets and bell towers, the city affirms its religious diversity: it has a Muslim majority (67%) and a strong Christian minority (33%). Almost every Christian community is represented: Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Armenian, Lutheran and Syrian, all sharing the same Arab-Palestinian culture.

Nevertheless, there is much in-fighting between the various Christian groups over control of various religious sites in Bethlehem. For example, despite being a place sacred to all Christians, the Grotto of the Nativity (see photo at left) - marking the exact place of Jesus's birth - has been the object of bitter dispute between the Christian communities. In 1847, the star was stolen, and the Sultan in Istanbul was asked to arbitrate: he chose to freeze the controversy with a status quo, which pleased no one, neither France, as "the custodian of holy places, nor Tsarist Russia, as protector of all Orthodox subjects in the Ottoman empire. Finally, the star was replaced with a copy. However, prolonged disagreement over custody of these holy places served as pretext for hostilities between the great imperialist powers leading to the Crimean War of 1853-1856, with England, France, and Turkey opposing Russia. Even today, there is a complicated and detailed plan of ownership of particular places and hours for certain religious celebrations and feasts. If one religious community fails to honor another 's plan, for instance by walking down the wrong staircase at an inopportune time, then this is cause for shutting down a whole section of Bethlehem in order to rectify the situation.

The hopeful news is that Bethlehem is celebrating its merriest Christmas in years, according to this story from NPR. Mild weather, a booming economy, and thriving tourism (see photo at left) are all helping to bring holiday cheer to the West Bank town. Christian tourists, Palestinian Christians, and even Palestinian Muslims from Bethlehem's refugee camps prayed side-by-side on Christmas Eve. One woman from the camp said, "Because of the hard situation and the pressure we are living in, we take advantage of any joyful moment and bring our children to play."

It's promising to see peace in the little town of Bethlehem for even one night. But let us not forget the wall that continues to surround Bethlehem (as well as the rest of the West Bank and Gaza), the growing number of illegal Israeli settlements that are being built and are eating away at Palestinian land, the failure of peaceful negotiations between the leaders of the region, and the reality that after celebrating side-by-side with people of all faiths, many Palestinian families must return to refugee camps rather than to their rightful homes.

(separation barrier near Aida Refugee Camp, Bethlehem)

Compassion at Damascus Gate

Today, I left Jerusalem for Amman, where I will be returning to Canada. As I was leaving my hotel to find a taxi to take me to the Jordanian border, I saw a large gathering outside Damascus Gate, one of the largest entrances to the Old City. I asked a bystander what was happening, and he said that the Israeli military had closed the Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of the holiest sites for Muslims, after rumors that there was going to be a protest over Israel's actions against the Gaza aid flotilla.

For some Palestinians who come to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, they must wait months, or even years, to get a permit from the Israeli government to visit Jerusalem. There were men pleading with Israeli officers to let them enter to Old City to pray. But the military was steadfast. My initial thought was that a denial of people's right to pray might cause more protests, and defeat Israel's intent to quell a protest. This is yet another example of a Israeli policy that exacerbates the opposite of its stated intent.

I heard later (from Anna Baltzer's blog) that when the call to prayer started, the men got as close to the walls as possible, and started praying, some kneeling in the dirt without prayer mats. Calm overcame the area, as the men (young children and elderly alike) bowed down in unison, praying. When the imam began his sermon, everyone listened intently. Some expected the sermon to address the injustices that the Palestinians were experiencing at the moment, but instead it was about compassion in Islam. The imam asked that their prayers be accepted even though they could not be inside the walls of the mosque. He said, "Someday, we will live in a place where it doesn't matter what color your skin is, or where you're from." And the group answered a collective "Amen."

(Above photo: Anna Baltzer)

Hebron

Today, I travelled to Hebron, which, with 160,000 inhabitants, is one of the largest city in the West Bank. What makes Hebron unusual is the presence of 5 settlements and 500 Israeli settlers in the middle of the city center. Israeli army presence here is massive, and Palestinians are unable to cross through settler-occupied areas to reach other parts of town. This has consistently caused violence clashes between settlers and Palestinians, and israeli soldiers are occasionally sent in to evict Israeli settlers who are deemed under Israeli law to be illegally squatting in Palestinian homes and buildings.

Hebron has a rich religious history, which is linked to its recent violent history. In Islamic tradition, Adam and Eve lived here after being exiled form the Garden of Eden, while the presence of the Tomb of the Patriarchs - the collective tomb of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, along with their wives - makes it sacred to Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike. Although instead of promoting like-minded links between the major monotheistic religions, this has made Hebron a flashpoint for religious violence, most famously culminating in the Baruch Goldstein massacre.

In 1994, during Ramadan, Dr. Baruch Goldstein, an American-Israeli settler from Kiryat Arba in Hebron, opened fire on Palestinians praying in the Haram al-Ibrahimi Mosque, killing 29 men and boys in the back and wounding 150-200 others. After this incident, tensions between the Palestinians and the settlers grew, and the

city was divided into H1 (80% of the municipality of Hebron, under Palesti

nian control) and H2 (20%, which is under Israeli control). The 40,000 Palestinians living in H2 face daily harassment from the Israeli army and settlers. The open-air markets have been covered with netting, to catch the detritus and rubbish that the settlers throw down from the upper floors (see photo to the right). International human rights organizations keep 'observer' groups in town Voluntary teams (such as the Christian Peacemakers Team, who I interviewed) escort Palestinian children to school to protect them from settlers throwing rocks and verbally harassing them. Palestinian violence against settlers, too, has sometimes flared up.

When I was walking through the semi-abandoned market, there were Israeli soldiers on every rooftop, following my every move. I would often turn a corner and be face-to-face with 5 or 6 soldiers in full combat gear with the guns facing me. Unlike all of the other Palestinian markets that I have visited - Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem, East Jerusalem - children were conspicuously absent from the city streets. At one point when I looked up through the netting and wires and eclipsed the blue sky above, I saw some children poking the heads outside of a window covered with bars. I waved at them, and they laughed and waved at me. In another area of the Old City, where I was told the poultry market once used to be bustling with commerce,

there were four young boys tending to cages filled with pigeons. They saw my camera, rushed over, and asked for an impromptu photo shoot. I obliged, as they became giddy each time they were able to see themselves reflected in the digital photo.

In H2, I saw anti-Palestinian graffiti, such as "Gas the Arabs" written on the doors of a Palestinian home. The morning of my visit, a settler drove to the entrance of the Arroub refugee camp and shot two Palestinian teenagers, accusing them of throwing stones. As

I write this, the boys in critical condition in the hospital (see the news story here). To quote a 2004 report by The Alternative Information Centre's Occupation in Hebron, "Israel's settlement policy, which supports the presence of radical Jewish fundamentalists with a strong anti-Arab ideology in the middle of a Palestinian city, is the proximate reason for the high level of violence in Hebron."

Al-Naqba Anniversary in Nablus

I am now in beautiful Nablus, nestled between Mount Ebal to the north and Mount Gerizim to the south. Today, Friday, is a day of rest, so I spent the day catching up on reading and writing. Walking the empty streets, I notice relics of the city's violent past: some windows punctured with bullets and streets lined with peeling posters of Palestinian martyrs. Contrary to the Western media's depiction, every person killed in the conflict (whether a combatant or a civilian) receives a tribute poster. Nablus was the focus of repeated Israeli incursions during the second Intifada (meaning "shaking off"), when Israeli planes, tanks, and bulldozers targeted the city, killing dozens of civilians and damaging or destroying about 700 buildings. In fact, today is Yom Ha'Atzmaut (Independence Day in Israel) or Al-Naqba ("The Catastrophe" in Palestine), and to remind the city's inhabitants, the Israeli military flew several planes over the city in the morning, breaking the sound barrier. I can see the Israeli army has set up posts in the mountains surrounding the city, and often Palestinians in Nablus will tell me that they always feel as if "we being watched by Israel". During my first evening here, a gentleman sent a plate of fruit to my dinner table and introduced himself as Professor Sa'ed Jamal Abu Hijleh, a Palestinian poet/human geographer/political science professor/radio host/bogger. I don't usually accept fruit from strangers, but I trusted my instincts, and Sa'ed has become a great resource here in Nablus. Despite his exuberant activism, Professor Sa'ed Jamal Abu Hiljeh became extremely emotional when he started to tell me when his mother was killed by Israeli soldiers. In 2002, the 61-year-old grandmother was sitting on her front porch embroidering, when Israeli soldiers opened fire upon them killing her and injuring her husband. There is a memorial website for her here.

Amman to Nablus via the King Hussein/Allenby Bridge Border Crossing

Amman is only about 200k from Nablus, but, due to the numerous checkpoints and security features installed by Israel, it me took over 9 hours to get here. I catalogued my border crossing, entering Israel from Jordan via the King Hussein/Allenby Bridge border crossing:

- Drive 100K from Amman to Jordan-Israel border (1 hour)

- Taxi drop off on Jordan side of the border

- Walk about 2K (with luggage) to bus depot

- Give luggage to Jordanian official to be X-rayed; retrieve luggage

- Give passport to Israeli official

- Pay 5JD ($7.50); get on bus

- Get passport with Jordanian exit stamp

- Depart on bus; drive about 5K through the Jordan Valley, passing through several military checkpoints (30 minutes)

- Get off bus at Allenby Bridge Crossing; walk past fierce-looking man dressed in jeans and T-shirt, carrying large semi-automatic weapon

- Give luggage and passport to Israeli official

- Wait in line to get passport back

- Wait in line to get passport checked

- Wait in line to get personal belongings X-rayed

- Walk through metal detector

- Wait in line for passport control; answer questions; forfeit passport

- Fill out personal information form; wait in passenger waiting area (2 hours)

- Meet with Israeli official; answer more questions (15 minutes)

- Wait in passenger waiting area (1 hour)

- Meet with Israeli military officer; answer more questions (15 minutes)

- Wait in passenger waiting area (1 hour)

- Get called by Israeli official to retrieve passport; exit passenger waiting area

- Give passport to Israeli official; get another sticker on passport

- Retrieve luggage

- Exit Allenby Bridge Crossing Point

I took a bus from the border to Jericho (the world's oldest continuously inhabited city, settled 10,000 years ago) and then took a shared taxi through Ramallah and onwards to Nablus. The driver, (a surly young man who got into a fight with an elderly passenger and then a Palestinian Authority official), took a circuitous route to avoid the military checkpoints, so the journey took twice as long. But the drive was fascinating. Rising from Jericho into the hills, I could see one of the West Bank's largest and most contentious Israeli settlements, Ma'ale Adumim, which sprawls atop the hills slipping eastwards down from Jerusalem. It achieved official Israeli city status in 1991, and is home to over 30,000 settlers who live there illegally (according to international bodies) on Palestinian land. Palestinians claim that Israel's plan for Ma'ale Adumim's continual expansion is to ensure an 'outer ring' of Israeli settlements that will have the effect of isolating East Jerusalem from Jericho, and eventually the north West Bank form the south, cutting the entire West Bank in half.

On the short drive to Nablus, I didn't expect to see so many settlements, and I tried to write down as many names as I could (while losing a battle of window roll-up/roll-down with my driver): Rimmonim, Ma'ele Efrayim, Qusra, Migdallim, and Gav Hahar. They rose up like green oases - with maroon-tiled houses in the middle - amidst the hilly desert landscape. There are 187,000 Israeli settlers currently living in more than 100 settlements in the West Bank, with around another 177,000 in Palestinian East Jerusalem. One of the issues that I would like to explore more is the issue of settler violence, as there have been reports of settlers attacking Palestinian children on their way to school and destroying families livelihoods (e.g., farms and olive groves), which obviously has short- and long-term impacts on children and families. In fact, last week, Israeli settlers were accused of burning down a mosque in Luban al Sharqiya, near Nablus.