Reem asks us to help her buy some Orange SIM cards for her colleague in Gaza because he is sure the Jawwal towers will be bombed and Gazans will have no way of calling out. Jawwal is the Palestinian cell phone provider and Orange is the Israeli.
Chelsey arrives on her Birthright(1) trip just after the attack on Gaza. She asks her tour guide what is happening in Gaza. He tells her not to worry about it.
We are glued to Al Jazeera like everyone else, watching the carnage, the inept Arab leaders, the lying Israeli officials and keeping track of the death toll.
Together with Dunya(2), we decide to project images of Gaza with the word ‘SHAME’ in English and Hebrew. Dunya gets a projector, but we need a way of powering our projector from the car. We do some research and realize we need an ‘inverter’, a device which gives us an electrical outlet off the car battery.
Our puppy needs a home and we won’t give her to someone who will keep her outside. This rules out a Palestinian home for her so we drive to Tel Aviv where they have an animal adoption day. Hopefully we can find an inverter as well. We find one at the Home Depot. We are ready to project. Still have the dog.
We are not ready to project. The cables are too short. Nobody seems to have these cables in Ramallah. We drive to Tel Aviv for another adoption day where we sit with 100 dogs who need homes. Nobody even looks at her. We decide the dog has been racially profiled and leave. We are too late to get to the Home Depot but find an auto body shop outside Qalandia where they make the cables out of some old wire for us. We are ready to project.
I spend a day with Dunya on the tour she is giving to students from Boston College studying social justice. We drive to a Bedouin village nestled in between a hydroelectric plant and a chemical factory. Despite the power plant in their backyard, they have no electricity themselves, but a lot of cancer. We spend the day visiting ‘unrecognized villages’ and ‘concentration townships’. At lunch the 3 students ask Dunya whether they are allowed to buy drinks which are Israeli. I look down at my bottled water. There are no other drinks so it is okay.
The PA(3) hits protestors in Ramallah with teargas for a show of support for Hamas.
Our equipment now working, we drive to Jerusalem to project our images from a hotel window. We are too far from the wall we are projecting on and our projected ‘Shame’ disappears into darkness.
We are having coffee with our friend Sonia when she gets a call. It is someone from Libya who called her number randomly just to make contact with Palestinians. Apparently people from throughout the Arab world have been calling Jawwal cell phone numbers to show support.
We drive to Gaza to see where we will be stopped. Police barricades well before the Erez crossing stop us. At a gas station we see smoke rising in the distance. Soldiers tell us we are not allowed to take pictures of Gaza which we ignore. We drive south along the Gaza strip and end up where the press is lined up, viewing Gaza from miles away, green pastures in front, the dull thud of shelling in the background.
Having breakfast with Dunya, Chelsey and Huda when Reem calls. She wants to come over because she is upset. Her colleague in Gaza has called her to tell her the Israelis are in tanks outside his window. He thinks he will die.
The dog is facilitating smooth passage through the checkpoints. I’ve never seen Israelis soldiers be so friendly at Qalandia.
The Bank of Palestine across the street closes for the afternoon for an employee demonstration against the situation in Gaza. Huda calls me to take pictures of her niece who works there.
We drive around Jerusalem looking for a spot to project our ‘Shame’ slideshow. We find a spot on a busy freeway. After three minutes, two young guys cross the street to yell at us and spit on our car.
A UN school is bombed in Gaza. Then the hospital. Mark Regev, Israeli spokesman, questions whether Israel was responsible.
We give up on trying to find a home for the dog here. We are sending her to Canada with Chelsey when she leaves. She just needs her shots.
We stage another projection in Jerusalem. This time a very angry elderly man rips the projector cords out of the car. Elle gets called ‘a piece of shit’ and that she ‘probably goes with Arabs’. I only get called a bitch but it sounds much worse in Hebrew.
We spend the evening packing up boxes of humanitarian aid being sent to Gaza. Amongst the diaper, baby wipes and toothbrushes is a 2 litre bottle of Dettol still warm from the factory.
Nearly 1200 deaths and over 3000 casualties. Unilateral ceasefire is declared by Israel. Olmert says that if so much as one rocket is launched they will resume. He also says he is sorry for the civilian deaths but they did the best they could to only target Hamas. 400 children are dead.
Footnotes
1) 'Birthright' is a tour for diasporic Jewish youth funded by philanthropists and the Israeli government to encourage interest and support for Israel.
2) Dunya Alwan, our new American friend from upstairs, runs 'Birthright Unplugged' - the alternative narrative to 'Birthright', touring the Occupied Territories.
3) Palestinian Authority
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Monday, January 5, 2009
Gaza
As most of you know, the attack on Gaza started last Saturday. We were sitting in a café at the time, meeting a well-known Palestinian poet, Ghassan Zaqtan, when he got the news on his phone that the Israelis had bombed Gaza. Needless to say, our meeting with him was cut short. On our way home to check the news, the demonstrations in Al Manara had started and people started to gather in the streets. We had just heard from Neta about the conditions in Gaza before the attack, how the siege had taken its toll on the population and how dire the humanitarian crisis was. The siege was bad enough, but to hear of the scale of attack and that Israel planned to continue, was unbelievable. And have they ever. Last night we were at a demonstration in Tel Aviv when they announced that the ground invasion had begun. Despite the news, and the right-wing nationalists who were protesting our protest, it remained non-violent. It may have had something to do with the hundreds of police officers standing between them and us.
The po-po is everywhere these days, in both Israel and Palestine. We have been to many demonstrations in Ramallah in the past week, kept in control by the Palestinian police and army. Of course that in such a potentially explosive situation there would be, yet we have also seen army gathering in front of our house and riot police by the Muqata, lying in wait for a potential outbreak. The official explanation we were given was that they were protecting their people from the Israelis, yet the Israelis are not in Ramallah. The more likely reason is the PA, controlled by Fatah, is intent on quashing any visible support for Hamas. We have heard from friends how if anyone at these demonstrations raises a Hamas flag, it will be ripped out of their hands. Considering the first statement by Abbas after the airstrikes was to condemn Hamas for bringing this on themselves, this is not surprising. The other reason lurking in everyone’s mind is that Fatah is collaborating with the Israelis, and keeping everything under control in the West Bank while the Israelis beat-up Hamas (and everyone else who happens to get in the way). While he claims he ‘will not ride into Gaza on an Israeli tank’, who will fill the void if Hamas is destroyed? The one statement from Israel on this invasion that I do believe is that they don’t want to re-occupy Gaza. Who wants to be in charge of all those troublesome and expensive Palestinians again?
As you can imagine, the mood around here on New Year’s was less than celebratory. We attended a candlelight vigil at Al Manara, and for the first time, encountered a bit of hostility. “Why are you here? Who is the real terrorist?” a man asked us. When we apparently answered his questions correctly, he then tried to befriend us, but this was not the ‘Welcome, welcome” we were used to. But in addition to being angry, people are depressed. Cut off from Gaza, controlled by the PA and the Israelis, they feel helpless. But beyond their anger and rage at the Israeli attack, the Palestinians are disgusted with the rest of the Arab world who have completely abandoned them (again). As the Arab states schedule their meetings, and the UN debates the wording of their ceasefire statement (to be rejected by the US again), the tanks are rolling in and the airstrikes continue.
I don’t need to give you my list of top 10 statements by Livni, Barak, Olmert and Peres (although I think “there is no humanitarian crisis” wins) because I’m sure you have heard these campaign slogans on the news. Elle has written a great piece on the injustice of this attack on Gaza (see http://landed-graphicpictures.blogspot.com). In the meantime, we have been trying to adjust to the new reality around here, which is still a bit of an unknown. As I have mentioned to all that are worried about us, Ramallah has been very calm and we are for the most part, ensconced in our apartment planning some kind of guerrilla-girls propaganda piece, or watching the television at Huda’s while she prepares our next meal.
Simultaneously, it was Elle’s birthday (change of plans), Elle’s beloved dog Sigmund was put down (haram….), our friend Chelsey arrived and is in the middle of her Birthright tour nightmare, and, we rescued another animal (puppy headed for the trunk of a car). We are trying to find a home for this sweet little mutt but so far, no luck….not exactly the best time. We thought of advertising her as a refugee from Gaza who made a dash for the door when the tanks rolled in. Any takers?
The po-po is everywhere these days, in both Israel and Palestine. We have been to many demonstrations in Ramallah in the past week, kept in control by the Palestinian police and army. Of course that in such a potentially explosive situation there would be, yet we have also seen army gathering in front of our house and riot police by the Muqata, lying in wait for a potential outbreak. The official explanation we were given was that they were protecting their people from the Israelis, yet the Israelis are not in Ramallah. The more likely reason is the PA, controlled by Fatah, is intent on quashing any visible support for Hamas. We have heard from friends how if anyone at these demonstrations raises a Hamas flag, it will be ripped out of their hands. Considering the first statement by Abbas after the airstrikes was to condemn Hamas for bringing this on themselves, this is not surprising. The other reason lurking in everyone’s mind is that Fatah is collaborating with the Israelis, and keeping everything under control in the West Bank while the Israelis beat-up Hamas (and everyone else who happens to get in the way). While he claims he ‘will not ride into Gaza on an Israeli tank’, who will fill the void if Hamas is destroyed? The one statement from Israel on this invasion that I do believe is that they don’t want to re-occupy Gaza. Who wants to be in charge of all those troublesome and expensive Palestinians again?
As you can imagine, the mood around here on New Year’s was less than celebratory. We attended a candlelight vigil at Al Manara, and for the first time, encountered a bit of hostility. “Why are you here? Who is the real terrorist?” a man asked us. When we apparently answered his questions correctly, he then tried to befriend us, but this was not the ‘Welcome, welcome” we were used to. But in addition to being angry, people are depressed. Cut off from Gaza, controlled by the PA and the Israelis, they feel helpless. But beyond their anger and rage at the Israeli attack, the Palestinians are disgusted with the rest of the Arab world who have completely abandoned them (again). As the Arab states schedule their meetings, and the UN debates the wording of their ceasefire statement (to be rejected by the US again), the tanks are rolling in and the airstrikes continue.
I don’t need to give you my list of top 10 statements by Livni, Barak, Olmert and Peres (although I think “there is no humanitarian crisis” wins) because I’m sure you have heard these campaign slogans on the news. Elle has written a great piece on the injustice of this attack on Gaza (see http://landed-graphicpictures.blogspot.com). In the meantime, we have been trying to adjust to the new reality around here, which is still a bit of an unknown. As I have mentioned to all that are worried about us, Ramallah has been very calm and we are for the most part, ensconced in our apartment planning some kind of guerrilla-girls propaganda piece, or watching the television at Huda’s while she prepares our next meal.
Simultaneously, it was Elle’s birthday (change of plans), Elle’s beloved dog Sigmund was put down (haram….), our friend Chelsey arrived and is in the middle of her Birthright tour nightmare, and, we rescued another animal (puppy headed for the trunk of a car). We are trying to find a home for this sweet little mutt but so far, no luck….not exactly the best time. We thought of advertising her as a refugee from Gaza who made a dash for the door when the tanks rolled in. Any takers?
Friday, December 26, 2008
Christmas in Bethlehem: by invitation only
Despite being in the middle of the Holy Land, I haven’t quite felt the Christmas spirit this year. Maybe it’s the warm weather or the fact the Christianity really ranks third around here, but it just hasn’t happened. My sweet wife however, was determined to make Christmas happen and decided that we should go to Bethlehem, the apex of this holiday, it being the city of the manger and all. I then got excited at what we might find there – pieces of actual straw upon which Jesus was birthed? Preserved fragments of Jesus’ first dirty diaper? The possibilities were endless.
So we planned to go to Bethlehem, but then Huda, our landlady (see earlier posting), told us she was planning on going to visit her cousin in Haifa when she got her permit. We offered to drive her because it would have taken her hours and hours by bus and checkpoints. Yet on the 24th, Huda still hadn’t received her permit, and was told to check back at the end of the day. So we changed our plans back to Bethlehem and planned to chauffeur Huda the following day. In the meantime however, we had one more thing to do...
Our friend Neta had been arrested by the Israeli authorities and was sitting in jail waiting for her hearing. Neta had just been on the ‘Free Gaza’ boat , which sailed from Cyprus to Gaza, to break the siege and bring in humanitarian aid. She spent 3 days in Gaza, and was arrested at the Erez checkpoint back into Israel for entering Gaza as an Israeli. (1) Prior to leaving Neta had told us she was likely to spend a few days in the slammer, so it was not unexpected. Yet it was her third day of being held, and we didn’t have much information on her situation, so we wanted to see whether we could at least visit her. We didn’t know her exact location, but we started driving in the direction of Gaza and through a few phone calls made an educated guess at which police station might have her. We found the courthouse, but by the time we got there we were surprised to hear she had been released. We tracked down her lawyer and found them at a nearby café, debriefing over cheesecake and cappuccino. She told us about her time in Gaza: no electricity, supplies running low and most importantly, how over 200 people have died this past month because they can’t get cancer treatment (no medicine, no power = no chemotherapy). She also told us how they were chaperoned very closely by Hamas, and at a certain point were told it was ‘time to go’. We then swung by the prison where she picked up her belongings, but couldn’t get her cellphone or money because ‘the lady with the key had finished her shift’. Sigh….this would mean she would have to drive back to Ashkelon the next day. We then drove back to Jerusalem where we dropped her off and continued on to Bethlehem.
Getting into Bethlehem was a bit tricky as the checkpoints prohibit Israeli cars from entering into the city. A helpful taxi driver (and helping himself charged us 100 shekels) showed us a way through Beit Jala and took us right to the center where all the excitement was. We walked around but soon realized that we weren’t going to get close to the church, see the mass or any of the services. We didn’t have tickets for the church, which are apparently free, but must be ordered two months in advance. I was hungry so I bought a falafel and we wandered around the sad display of Christmas lights in the square. Everyone was gathered around the stage where there was a woman on stage rocking out to some bad Spanish pop music. Where were the Christmas carols? the mulled wine and gingerbread? Where was the fantastic display of Christmas lights? I suddenly realized I had envisioned ‘Christmas in Bethlehem’ as ‘Christmas in Heidelberg’.
We stood against the fence as those with tickets formed a huge line waiting to get into the Church of the Nativity. The police meanwhile, had pushed everyone even further back, as though we were a hostile crowd of anarchists. “What is going on?”, we asked. “Abu Mazen is coming!”, he answered. (2) Having had enough, we turned to go but were met with, Max from Costa Rica and David, from New York, gay boys equally disappointed and confused by the night’s events. We chatted briefly and decided we would all go have a Christmas drink but suddenly a procession of singing Italians passed us and Max started running off behind them, waving at us to join. He seemed to think we were on to something special and could slip to the group unnoticed. We carried on up the street with the group, but as Max was being swept into the ‘Grotto of the Milk’ (3), the three of us were immediately stopped by the nun/bouncer who wasn’t fooled by anyone (well, except Max). We stood around for awhile, but got cold and tired waiting so pleaded with a very serious looking young priest that our friend was inside and we would like to join him. He asked us our friend’s name and what he looked like and then hurried off. A minute later Max appeared with the priest, unceremoniously escorted out the gate. He pouted a bit that we had ruined his perfect plan but then soon realized he would have been trapped in there for hours of Latin chanting and god-knows-what else. We went and had our Christmas drink with the boys, discussing our experiences and impressions of Israel and Palestine. It was late and we didn’t want to drive back to Ramallah in the dark but we didn’t think we would find an available hotel room. Max and David gave us the number for the Intercontinental ‘Jacir Palace’ and we got a room without any begging or our prepared jokes of ‘no room at the inn’! What luxury: heat and hot water (4).
The next morning we called Huda to see when we should pick her up for our trip to Haifa. A depressed sounding Huda picked up and told us she didn’t get her permit. We felt terrible. We knew how she had been baking for days and looking forward to seeing her cousin. We said we would drop by her house later for tea. Considering we now didn’t have to rush back to Ramallah we decided to stop in Jerusalem, in the old city, to continue our hunt for Christmas but there was none to be found. The Lutheran church was closed and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was business as usual. We walked around in the rain, had our very festive lunch of hummous with pine nuts, and made our way back to Ramallah with a kitschy little wooden Nativity set for Huda. Christmas was not to be found in the Holy Land for us this year, or for Huda. Elle is still trying though; she is in the kitchen right now heating up some red wine with oranges and cinnamon. Merry Christmas!
Footnotes
1. Israelis are not allowed into Palestinian controlled areas and Gaza of course is a huge no-no because of the conflict with Hamas and current siege.
2. Abu Mazen is Mahmoud Abbas, leader of Fatah, controlling the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
3. The ‘Grotto of the Milk’ is the spot where Mary stopped to breastfeed baby Jesus on their flight to Egypt. I’m not joking.
4. Our apartment is lacking in a few basic amenities. Heating is accomplished through a system of hot water bottles, electric heaters which look like very large open toasters and propane heaters which smell like they might be leaking. Our hot water is powered with solar (which usually works), or, on cloudy days, an ineffectual boiler.
So we planned to go to Bethlehem, but then Huda, our landlady (see earlier posting), told us she was planning on going to visit her cousin in Haifa when she got her permit. We offered to drive her because it would have taken her hours and hours by bus and checkpoints. Yet on the 24th, Huda still hadn’t received her permit, and was told to check back at the end of the day. So we changed our plans back to Bethlehem and planned to chauffeur Huda the following day. In the meantime however, we had one more thing to do...
Our friend Neta had been arrested by the Israeli authorities and was sitting in jail waiting for her hearing. Neta had just been on the ‘Free Gaza’ boat , which sailed from Cyprus to Gaza, to break the siege and bring in humanitarian aid. She spent 3 days in Gaza, and was arrested at the Erez checkpoint back into Israel for entering Gaza as an Israeli. (1) Prior to leaving Neta had told us she was likely to spend a few days in the slammer, so it was not unexpected. Yet it was her third day of being held, and we didn’t have much information on her situation, so we wanted to see whether we could at least visit her. We didn’t know her exact location, but we started driving in the direction of Gaza and through a few phone calls made an educated guess at which police station might have her. We found the courthouse, but by the time we got there we were surprised to hear she had been released. We tracked down her lawyer and found them at a nearby café, debriefing over cheesecake and cappuccino. She told us about her time in Gaza: no electricity, supplies running low and most importantly, how over 200 people have died this past month because they can’t get cancer treatment (no medicine, no power = no chemotherapy). She also told us how they were chaperoned very closely by Hamas, and at a certain point were told it was ‘time to go’. We then swung by the prison where she picked up her belongings, but couldn’t get her cellphone or money because ‘the lady with the key had finished her shift’. Sigh….this would mean she would have to drive back to Ashkelon the next day. We then drove back to Jerusalem where we dropped her off and continued on to Bethlehem.
Getting into Bethlehem was a bit tricky as the checkpoints prohibit Israeli cars from entering into the city. A helpful taxi driver (and helping himself charged us 100 shekels) showed us a way through Beit Jala and took us right to the center where all the excitement was. We walked around but soon realized that we weren’t going to get close to the church, see the mass or any of the services. We didn’t have tickets for the church, which are apparently free, but must be ordered two months in advance. I was hungry so I bought a falafel and we wandered around the sad display of Christmas lights in the square. Everyone was gathered around the stage where there was a woman on stage rocking out to some bad Spanish pop music. Where were the Christmas carols? the mulled wine and gingerbread? Where was the fantastic display of Christmas lights? I suddenly realized I had envisioned ‘Christmas in Bethlehem’ as ‘Christmas in Heidelberg’.
We stood against the fence as those with tickets formed a huge line waiting to get into the Church of the Nativity. The police meanwhile, had pushed everyone even further back, as though we were a hostile crowd of anarchists. “What is going on?”, we asked. “Abu Mazen is coming!”, he answered. (2) Having had enough, we turned to go but were met with, Max from Costa Rica and David, from New York, gay boys equally disappointed and confused by the night’s events. We chatted briefly and decided we would all go have a Christmas drink but suddenly a procession of singing Italians passed us and Max started running off behind them, waving at us to join. He seemed to think we were on to something special and could slip to the group unnoticed. We carried on up the street with the group, but as Max was being swept into the ‘Grotto of the Milk’ (3), the three of us were immediately stopped by the nun/bouncer who wasn’t fooled by anyone (well, except Max). We stood around for awhile, but got cold and tired waiting so pleaded with a very serious looking young priest that our friend was inside and we would like to join him. He asked us our friend’s name and what he looked like and then hurried off. A minute later Max appeared with the priest, unceremoniously escorted out the gate. He pouted a bit that we had ruined his perfect plan but then soon realized he would have been trapped in there for hours of Latin chanting and god-knows-what else. We went and had our Christmas drink with the boys, discussing our experiences and impressions of Israel and Palestine. It was late and we didn’t want to drive back to Ramallah in the dark but we didn’t think we would find an available hotel room. Max and David gave us the number for the Intercontinental ‘Jacir Palace’ and we got a room without any begging or our prepared jokes of ‘no room at the inn’! What luxury: heat and hot water (4).
The next morning we called Huda to see when we should pick her up for our trip to Haifa. A depressed sounding Huda picked up and told us she didn’t get her permit. We felt terrible. We knew how she had been baking for days and looking forward to seeing her cousin. We said we would drop by her house later for tea. Considering we now didn’t have to rush back to Ramallah we decided to stop in Jerusalem, in the old city, to continue our hunt for Christmas but there was none to be found. The Lutheran church was closed and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was business as usual. We walked around in the rain, had our very festive lunch of hummous with pine nuts, and made our way back to Ramallah with a kitschy little wooden Nativity set for Huda. Christmas was not to be found in the Holy Land for us this year, or for Huda. Elle is still trying though; she is in the kitchen right now heating up some red wine with oranges and cinnamon. Merry Christmas!
Footnotes
1. Israelis are not allowed into Palestinian controlled areas and Gaza of course is a huge no-no because of the conflict with Hamas and current siege.
2. Abu Mazen is Mahmoud Abbas, leader of Fatah, controlling the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
3. The ‘Grotto of the Milk’ is the spot where Mary stopped to breastfeed baby Jesus on their flight to Egypt. I’m not joking.
4. Our apartment is lacking in a few basic amenities. Heating is accomplished through a system of hot water bottles, electric heaters which look like very large open toasters and propane heaters which smell like they might be leaking. Our hot water is powered with solar (which usually works), or, on cloudy days, an ineffectual boiler.
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