27 July 2009
An early start for our “action”. We have been asked to join the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) and Operation Dove at At-Tuwani. The locals had asked them to accompany them on a symbolic walk to/from their summer school. Normally the military escort them along the ‘long’ road but today we are going to take the direct route over the hills and close to the settlements. We were briefed last night, the Palestinians call the shots, the CPTers accompany them. They did a similar walk last year and it got ugly; a CPTer assaulted by a soldier. A CPTer has been seriously injured by a settler. We were informed of possible arrest. The role of the internationals is mainly in recording the stories. There will be 2 video cameras on the walk and one on the hill overlooking us.
We get to At-Tuwani and the first thing to impress is the number of young people with CPT and Operation Dove who have given up three years of their lives to witness in this way, in the middle of nowhere, with people off the global media’s radar. We head to the school. The main leaders in the community are pointed out and they are mostly women in this instance. One in particular is organising the children and I am told that she is not a mum, ‘just’ an activist. The children had made banners, but one of the banners is from the funders, the European Union. The children have their T-shirts, the 8th steadfast summer school, 2009.
We are told where the most likely threat is likely to come from and are asked to keep between the children and the hills. We head out with the children singing, chanting and behaving like children the world over, behave; running and falling out and making up and laughing. We get tired with our trekking boots and walking gear, the children run up and down rocks. This is the way they get to summer school every day. A number of younger women walk up the hills with high wedges on their feet like they are walking down a catwalk.
After a while we see the settlers at the edge of an outhouse. Further up we look back and see the military jeep heading above us on the hill. Trying to walk in the heat, trying to watch where you are putting your feet, trying to watch where the children are and constantly scanning the horizon. We were warned of the rocky ground, the gradient, the heat, but no one warned me about the thorns, which I constantly had to pick out of my feet.
We reached the top of the hill, the nearest village, without incident. Jubilation from the children. A walk from summer school to home is a political act of resistance. Lots of water is consumed and then out come the children with trays of sweet, warm, mint tea, and it tastes so good.
An army jeep arrives, stopping a short distance from us and 2 soldiers get out. They start speaking to an Italian member of Operation Dove. All fairly pleasant but with undertones, like young men shadow boxing, squaring up but not really wanting a fight. The outcome was that we can all return but “don’t go near the trees, near the settlements, it only causes trouble”. They were in effect being told not to go on their own land because it would upset the people in the settlements. Jessica, a CPTer intervenes: “It’s good that you are here, now, about the military accompaniment of the children…” Turns out the soldiers usually met the children halfway to the school. The children come over the hill and don’t know if it will be settlers or soldiers waiting for them over the ridge. The soldiers have told the CPTer’s they can’t get the key to the gate to come up all the way. How did they manage to get it today, to come up to the village now? “We just did”. The soldiers said that they would accompany the children back but only children and no adults. Then it breaks of into Arabic as the local people take over the negotiations. We sit drinking tea for what seems like an age. Eventually I ask a CPTer what is happening. The locals have called their lawyer about which way they are legally allowed to return. The Palestinians will decide which way to return and either way may cause difficulties. One of the delegation commented on the civility of the conversation between the peace activist and the soldier. The peace activist said that he had met him before on an earlier walk to school and spoke to him. He is from Tel Aviv, grew up on a kibbutz, has left leaning politics and said that he admired the peace activist for what they did but he had to do his job. No easy boxes here. Is this a potential for Combatants for Peace? An American peace activist spoke about how he finds it hard to get used to the soldiers and police here. At home mostly he trusts the police to do what they should. Here he never knows how they are going to react, like today or aggressively. During the last protest walk it was the soldiers who assaulted a CPTer.
And we wait. And then everyone gets up and we are off again. I have no idea which way we are going but it soon became apparent that we are going by the trees, the settlement. Three settlers appear on the hill above us and we can see them bend down and pick up rocks. They are a long way off but I don’t know which way we are going. We see army jeeps going up to the settlements. And then white estate cars appear from the settlements. There is a Y junction up ahead, one to the village and one to settlement. The adults speed the children up, a sense of real urgency appears. The car arrives at the junction at the same time as the tail enders. The CPTer’s and OD lot drop back to the end of the march with video cameras raised. Soldiers, settlers, police, dislike cameras. There is a fear of cameras from people holding guns that terrifies me. Two settlers are in the car, words spoken, one gets out, shouts but that was it. Then another car appears. It carries on driving towards the group. The peace activists walk 5 abreast across the path, it won’t pass here, engines revved behind the line. And then the soldiers arrive. One jeep, four soldiers. The settlers stop. The soldiers get out and walk down behind the children, guns clasped to chests. No words are spoken. Is this protection of the children, securing the settler’s “rights”? Who gives the orders in the field? It looks like the settlers. The children approach home and see family standing at the end of the road. They cheer and run, jubilant, like athletes reaching the finishing line, and then the police arrive with flashing blue lights. There is a discussion between police, soldiers, peacekeepers and locals. We are advised that it is a good time to leave. We were there because our passports were important, they aren’t needed now.
Walking to summer school is an act of resistance. It brings grown men out of their homes to threaten children. It brings out soldiers and police. It brings out singing and celebration. It brings out non-violent resistance. We only offer our presence, our international passports in our pockets. The children and the villagers offer spirit. We leave and we will be home next week. They will continue to take the dangerous walk to summer school.
We return to our new base at Hebron. Walid A Adu Alhalaweh from Hebron Rehabilitation Committee takes us on a tour. Hebron is strange for all sorts of reasons. This is where the Mosque of the Patriarch is, Abraham and Sarah. Now split, half mosque half synagogue. And Hebron was an economic powerhouse with olives, grapes and glass produced here. Now it is unique for other reasons. It has settlements inside the city. The settlements are connected by a road that no Palestinians can use. There are constant conflict points over new settlements. It is a city of conflicts. 400 settlers with 1,500 soldiers to protect them. It was also a city of co-existence. Jews owned property and lived in the city as neighbours. There is a nostalgia almost for the Jewish neighbours of the past, the Hebronite Jews. Now conflict marks the relationship between neighbours. Commercial life has deteriorated. 500 shops have been closed on military orders, 1,000 have closed ‘voluntarily’ because there is no trade. People are either scared to venture into certain parts of the city or it is too difficult. There are 101 barriers in an area of 1 km square. Walid’s passion is to return the city to its thriving past, preserve the past but also revitalise the life of the city. And that means people returning to live in the old city and businesses opening up.
The walk around the city reveals the absurdity of this place. Small houses or small communities surrounded by Palestinians. Each settlement with soldiers and outposts. Wire netting covers the Palestinians windows and wire netting is stretched above us on each street protecting those below from those who live above. Look up and you see rubbish and rocks above you. We hear stories of settlers throwing rubbish, urine, anything onto those below. The netting catches the big objects, not the urine (one of the CPTers joked about having her second baptism in Hebron), but now nails are thrown. It is crazy, who wants to look out of their window and see their own rubbish nesting in the netting below? Some shops close voluntarily, there are no customers because of the threat from above. Friday and Saturday are apparently the worst days. Must be nothing in the Torah about throwing obscene object on your neighbours on the Sabbath.
Other shops have closed by military order. They now rest on designated a military zone, that is they are below or close to settlements. The metal doors are welded shut. We saw the old chicken and fish markets; previously bustling places now ghost towns. We saw the wealthiest market in the region, all the high-income goods, now empty, a military zone. Our guide has no doubts they will become the new settlements
We walk past the mosque/synagogue. The patriarch now divided like the city. Through the checkpoint and metal detectors. No problem for the tourists but we see a number of young Palestinian men stopped and searched. And there are cameras everywhere. If you think CCTV is bad in Britain, then come here.
We walk around the corner coming close to the settler’s road. We turn the corner and sees concrete bollards being placed down one side of the road. Our guide, Walid, is visibly shaken; angry and upset. I don’t need Arabic as he turns and walks past me like he cannot bear to look in that direction. The Anglo Saxon swear words must be our greatest gift to global culture. “Apartheid in action, before our eyes”, he exclaims, calling for a camera from one of the CPTers. There were concrete blocks in this street before but they are being moved further over, eating into Palestinian land. And there were gaps in them before, you could walk through the gaps but now you have to walk all the way to the end of the road and back again. There is real hurt in Walid. As we walk back up, past the checkpoint Walid stops and talks to one of the soldiers. It is a warm, friendly conversation. We know about the soldiers being on their best behaviour when internationals are around but there appears to be something more here. Walid later tells us that the soldier is the commander of the military in charge of the mosque/synagogue. He has known him for 10 years. It will be him that is responsible for the new concrete bollards but there is a friendship here, like the relationship between Dauod and the settler at the Tent of Nations. When some people get to know each other there is no hatred; it is the system that promotes hatred. Nothing here fits into boxes, nothing all black and white. I pray for the people who work with the young people in whatever interfaith way is possible. Maybe the young will dismantle the systems of hatred and then the Wall.
An early start for our “action”. We have been asked to join the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) and Operation Dove at At-Tuwani. The locals had asked them to accompany them on a symbolic walk to/from their summer school. Normally the military escort them along the ‘long’ road but today we are going to take the direct route over the hills and close to the settlements. We were briefed last night, the Palestinians call the shots, the CPTers accompany them. They did a similar walk last year and it got ugly; a CPTer assaulted by a soldier. A CPTer has been seriously injured by a settler. We were informed of possible arrest. The role of the internationals is mainly in recording the stories. There will be 2 video cameras on the walk and one on the hill overlooking us.
We get to At-Tuwani and the first thing to impress is the number of young people with CPT and Operation Dove who have given up three years of their lives to witness in this way, in the middle of nowhere, with people off the global media’s radar. We head to the school. The main leaders in the community are pointed out and they are mostly women in this instance. One in particular is organising the children and I am told that she is not a mum, ‘just’ an activist. The children had made banners, but one of the banners is from the funders, the European Union. The children have their T-shirts, the 8th steadfast summer school, 2009.
We are told where the most likely threat is likely to come from and are asked to keep between the children and the hills. We head out with the children singing, chanting and behaving like children the world over, behave; running and falling out and making up and laughing. We get tired with our trekking boots and walking gear, the children run up and down rocks. This is the way they get to summer school every day. A number of younger women walk up the hills with high wedges on their feet like they are walking down a catwalk.
After a while we see the settlers at the edge of an outhouse. Further up we look back and see the military jeep heading above us on the hill. Trying to walk in the heat, trying to watch where you are putting your feet, trying to watch where the children are and constantly scanning the horizon. We were warned of the rocky ground, the gradient, the heat, but no one warned me about the thorns, which I constantly had to pick out of my feet.
We reached the top of the hill, the nearest village, without incident. Jubilation from the children. A walk from summer school to home is a political act of resistance. Lots of water is consumed and then out come the children with trays of sweet, warm, mint tea, and it tastes so good.
An army jeep arrives, stopping a short distance from us and 2 soldiers get out. They start speaking to an Italian member of Operation Dove. All fairly pleasant but with undertones, like young men shadow boxing, squaring up but not really wanting a fight. The outcome was that we can all return but “don’t go near the trees, near the settlements, it only causes trouble”. They were in effect being told not to go on their own land because it would upset the people in the settlements. Jessica, a CPTer intervenes: “It’s good that you are here, now, about the military accompaniment of the children…” Turns out the soldiers usually met the children halfway to the school. The children come over the hill and don’t know if it will be settlers or soldiers waiting for them over the ridge. The soldiers have told the CPTer’s they can’t get the key to the gate to come up all the way. How did they manage to get it today, to come up to the village now? “We just did”. The soldiers said that they would accompany the children back but only children and no adults. Then it breaks of into Arabic as the local people take over the negotiations. We sit drinking tea for what seems like an age. Eventually I ask a CPTer what is happening. The locals have called their lawyer about which way they are legally allowed to return. The Palestinians will decide which way to return and either way may cause difficulties. One of the delegation commented on the civility of the conversation between the peace activist and the soldier. The peace activist said that he had met him before on an earlier walk to school and spoke to him. He is from Tel Aviv, grew up on a kibbutz, has left leaning politics and said that he admired the peace activist for what they did but he had to do his job. No easy boxes here. Is this a potential for Combatants for Peace? An American peace activist spoke about how he finds it hard to get used to the soldiers and police here. At home mostly he trusts the police to do what they should. Here he never knows how they are going to react, like today or aggressively. During the last protest walk it was the soldiers who assaulted a CPTer.
And we wait. And then everyone gets up and we are off again. I have no idea which way we are going but it soon became apparent that we are going by the trees, the settlement. Three settlers appear on the hill above us and we can see them bend down and pick up rocks. They are a long way off but I don’t know which way we are going. We see army jeeps going up to the settlements. And then white estate cars appear from the settlements. There is a Y junction up ahead, one to the village and one to settlement. The adults speed the children up, a sense of real urgency appears. The car arrives at the junction at the same time as the tail enders. The CPTer’s and OD lot drop back to the end of the march with video cameras raised. Soldiers, settlers, police, dislike cameras. There is a fear of cameras from people holding guns that terrifies me. Two settlers are in the car, words spoken, one gets out, shouts but that was it. Then another car appears. It carries on driving towards the group. The peace activists walk 5 abreast across the path, it won’t pass here, engines revved behind the line. And then the soldiers arrive. One jeep, four soldiers. The settlers stop. The soldiers get out and walk down behind the children, guns clasped to chests. No words are spoken. Is this protection of the children, securing the settler’s “rights”? Who gives the orders in the field? It looks like the settlers. The children approach home and see family standing at the end of the road. They cheer and run, jubilant, like athletes reaching the finishing line, and then the police arrive with flashing blue lights. There is a discussion between police, soldiers, peacekeepers and locals. We are advised that it is a good time to leave. We were there because our passports were important, they aren’t needed now.
Walking to summer school is an act of resistance. It brings grown men out of their homes to threaten children. It brings out soldiers and police. It brings out singing and celebration. It brings out non-violent resistance. We only offer our presence, our international passports in our pockets. The children and the villagers offer spirit. We leave and we will be home next week. They will continue to take the dangerous walk to summer school.
We return to our new base at Hebron. Walid A Adu Alhalaweh from Hebron Rehabilitation Committee takes us on a tour. Hebron is strange for all sorts of reasons. This is where the Mosque of the Patriarch is, Abraham and Sarah. Now split, half mosque half synagogue. And Hebron was an economic powerhouse with olives, grapes and glass produced here. Now it is unique for other reasons. It has settlements inside the city. The settlements are connected by a road that no Palestinians can use. There are constant conflict points over new settlements. It is a city of conflicts. 400 settlers with 1,500 soldiers to protect them. It was also a city of co-existence. Jews owned property and lived in the city as neighbours. There is a nostalgia almost for the Jewish neighbours of the past, the Hebronite Jews. Now conflict marks the relationship between neighbours. Commercial life has deteriorated. 500 shops have been closed on military orders, 1,000 have closed ‘voluntarily’ because there is no trade. People are either scared to venture into certain parts of the city or it is too difficult. There are 101 barriers in an area of 1 km square. Walid’s passion is to return the city to its thriving past, preserve the past but also revitalise the life of the city. And that means people returning to live in the old city and businesses opening up.
The walk around the city reveals the absurdity of this place. Small houses or small communities surrounded by Palestinians. Each settlement with soldiers and outposts. Wire netting covers the Palestinians windows and wire netting is stretched above us on each street protecting those below from those who live above. Look up and you see rubbish and rocks above you. We hear stories of settlers throwing rubbish, urine, anything onto those below. The netting catches the big objects, not the urine (one of the CPTers joked about having her second baptism in Hebron), but now nails are thrown. It is crazy, who wants to look out of their window and see their own rubbish nesting in the netting below? Some shops close voluntarily, there are no customers because of the threat from above. Friday and Saturday are apparently the worst days. Must be nothing in the Torah about throwing obscene object on your neighbours on the Sabbath.
Other shops have closed by military order. They now rest on designated a military zone, that is they are below or close to settlements. The metal doors are welded shut. We saw the old chicken and fish markets; previously bustling places now ghost towns. We saw the wealthiest market in the region, all the high-income goods, now empty, a military zone. Our guide has no doubts they will become the new settlements
We walk past the mosque/synagogue. The patriarch now divided like the city. Through the checkpoint and metal detectors. No problem for the tourists but we see a number of young Palestinian men stopped and searched. And there are cameras everywhere. If you think CCTV is bad in Britain, then come here.
We walk around the corner coming close to the settler’s road. We turn the corner and sees concrete bollards being placed down one side of the road. Our guide, Walid, is visibly shaken; angry and upset. I don’t need Arabic as he turns and walks past me like he cannot bear to look in that direction. The Anglo Saxon swear words must be our greatest gift to global culture. “Apartheid in action, before our eyes”, he exclaims, calling for a camera from one of the CPTers. There were concrete blocks in this street before but they are being moved further over, eating into Palestinian land. And there were gaps in them before, you could walk through the gaps but now you have to walk all the way to the end of the road and back again. There is real hurt in Walid. As we walk back up, past the checkpoint Walid stops and talks to one of the soldiers. It is a warm, friendly conversation. We know about the soldiers being on their best behaviour when internationals are around but there appears to be something more here. Walid later tells us that the soldier is the commander of the military in charge of the mosque/synagogue. He has known him for 10 years. It will be him that is responsible for the new concrete bollards but there is a friendship here, like the relationship between Dauod and the settler at the Tent of Nations. When some people get to know each other there is no hatred; it is the system that promotes hatred. Nothing here fits into boxes, nothing all black and white. I pray for the people who work with the young people in whatever interfaith way is possible. Maybe the young will dismantle the systems of hatred and then the Wall.
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