by
Karen Clarke.
In January, I received an invitation from Interfaith Peace Builders to participate in their 30th delegation, in conjunction with the National Peace Foundation, to travel to Israel/Palestine in May. Our mission was to interface with a broad spectrum of people from both sides of the conflict and to record how their lives have been impacted by the Occupation, which is multi-tiered and multi-layered in complexity.
Interfaith Peace Builders (IFPB) began as a program run by the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) in November 2000. Since then, IFPB has partnered up with different organizations and eventually branched off from FOR. The primary goal of IFPB is to educate Americans serving as delegates about the region and to broaden their understanding of what is happening on the ground. Returning delegates then share their own stories with their communities.
What then do I write about? Like individual weavings of tapestry, it is almost impossible to separate one aspect of the Occupation from another. I think about the village of Bil’in, where we stayed for one night. That is where I will begin my story.
Bil’in is a small farming community of approximately 1800 people located 16 km west of Ramallah in the West Bank. The area, once comprised of 4000 dunums (1 dunum = 0.25 acres) has been reduced to 2300 dunums by the Separation Wall, and closer to 900 dunums on the account of illegal settlements surrounding the village. During construction of the wall, 1000 ancient olive trees were uprooted. Olive trees have connected the villagers to this land for centuries. Agriculture is a main source of the economy here.
Our delegation arrived in Bil’in on June 1rst at 2:45 pm. We were greeted by our friendly hosts and promptly ushered into a family dwelling. As we were entering the village, I was struck by the seeming quiet and inactivity. Hours earlier, the calm darkness was shattered by Israeli troops riding in the streets, shooting guns, and throwing tear gas bombs onto the houses.
Night raids by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) are common as they continue their search for men and boys who participated in the protests. People are arrested at random for arbitrary reasons and detained for indefinite periods of time. There is little to no information about where these people are taken.
Scenes such as this take place across the country. What puts Bil’in on the world map? Bil’in is a site of weekly protests against the separation wall and encroaching settlements with villagers, international and Israeli activists gathering to lend support by non-violent means. The IDF is reputed to fire tear gas canisters directly into unarmed protesters. It has been reputed on occasion that special Israeli forces disguised as protesters will attend the demonstrations and start throwing stones to provoke the soldiers.
Our host, Ali, declared, “Through popular resistance, we proved it [the wall] was only used to grab land, displace people, and not for security reasons.” We watched a short video commemorating Basem Abu Rahmeh, a villager who was shot in the chest close range with a tear gas canister, and died at the scene. My fingers cramped up as I attempted to keep pace with the narrator’s story. Ali’s 4-yr.-old daughter, a beautiful girl with a cherubic face, walked around the room showing us a spent tear gas canister. (4:15 pm call to prayer). Finishing our visit, we rode to nearby Nil’in, another site of peaceful protests, to speak with Abu and members of Popular Committees.
Surrounded by an olive grove on a hilltop, we got a bird’s-eye view of the Modi’ in Ilit complex encompassing Matiyahu East and Kiryat Sefer settlements. As Abu spoke, a military jeep pulled within sight of us and parked on the access road snaking along the separation wall. Another speaker explained, “Despite the killing of my nephew, the taking of my land, I am still a man of peace. Revenge causes suffering.” A boy of about 18 who was present, bore the scar of a head injury sustained while attending a weekly protest. We wandered back through the neighboring village of Nil'in and a young man would periodically point us towards the buildings to show us bullet holes from previous IDF incursions. On the return trip to Bil'in, I watched nervously out the back of the bus window as a military jeep remained in view following us at a creeping pace.
Our final stop before dispersing with families was at the protest site in Bil’in known as “work-site of shame”. We walked up the road that so many people across the globe have traversed. Divided by the access road, our barrier was a steel fence reinforced by concertina wire. Spent tear gas canisters and burnt debris littered the landscape. A gravesite of Basem Abu Rahmeh was carefully maintained. We took pictures and quietly spoke amongst ourselves, gathering our thoughts. A short while later, a soldier stepped from behind a high tension wire fence covered by a cloth mesh and shouted a verbal warning not to cross the barrier. We explained that we were not there to protest and only wanted to visit the site for a few minutes. The soldier stood on the other side of the fence facing us in silence. As we ambled back towards the village, the soldier returned to the guard station.
Having had some time to readjust and fall back into a routine more or less, I am haunted by graphic footages of night raids into Bil'in and neighboring Nil'in via emails forwarded to me. A recent video that was particularly moving showed an international activist (with an American accent)being wrestled to the ground and subsequently arrested. An IDF soldier placed his arm around a distraught woman who was calling out to her friend being loaded into a jeep. The soldier was saying, “Please! Please get back. We don't want to hurt you!” In these videos, I see places we walked, held discussions, listened, observed the surroundings and took pictures. I recognized a portico where I greeted a middle aged man before entering his abode. I wonder about the households who hosted us. Were their belongings ransacked? Damage to properties? People threatened and harmed? Of those who were arrested since our visit, did we share a meal with them? Laugh, converse, and smoke together?
“An enemy is one whose story we have not heard.” - Gene Knudsen Hoffman
Our group of 16 was split into 3 sets of people. Both Palestinian and American parties knew little in the way of language and custom so we communicated by hand gestures and drawing pictures. Dave, a Jewish delegate in our group, presented a book that had nature scenes of the New England region to a young girl. Shortly thereafter, a young man named Hamde joined us for supper. Hamde coaxed Aaron, another delegate, into biting into a chili pepper. We laughed as Aaron, teary-eyed, finished his meal to the best of his ability. Barbara, a former stock broker in her 60s, presented a pipe with tobacco and proceeded to smoke with Hamde. The awkwardness and tension of two seemingly opposing groups of people melted like the January thaw of Northern Maine. Family members of all ages entered the room to smoke and observe the scene. A boy of about 12 borrowed my camera and took pictures.
We visited families in other houses. A teenage girl approached me and shouted, “MarHaba!” (Hello!) and asked if I spoke Arabic. Another teenage girl asked questions about the states. I drew her a map and put people's names by their respective origins. She asked how old I was. To my answer, she laughed and replied, “You are short!” I did not try to decipher the meaning of that. Across the room, a mock wedding was being arranged between Barbara the stockbroker and the man who greeted us on the porch. The house parties resonated with loud talking, raucous laughter, and more coffee. At another gathering, Hamde, who was sitting at my right at one point, showed me more pictures of the protests taken off of his cell phone. Plates of lemons and dates were passed around. Eventually, we returned to our respective hosts. A few young men lingering in front of shops greeted us as we passed. A peaceful night.
In retrospect, we had an unlikely gathering. Following 911, there was much fear-mongering about “the other”. “You’re either with us or against us!” “Terrorists” became a household word in our vocabulary. Doors to human exchange and understanding slammed shut with a resonating clang. We could then justify the unjustifiable. Most of us on the delegation had never set foot inside the house of a Muslim family in the Middle East, much less America--- Christians and Jews alike. It was a first in stepping beyond the threshold of our comfort zones.
An IDF soldier reached out to an unarmed protester in a show of compassion, crossing yet another threshold.
Hamde drew an illustration of the separation barrier and military vehicles traversing the access road. Arrows point to two civilian casualties. Above the scene, a dove holding an olive branch flies over the fence. The next morning, I woke early and watched a pair of white doves perched on a powerline against the backdrop of Modi’inIlit with Bil’in in the foreground. The white dove is a universal sign of peace.
*Note: Some of the names of the villagers have been changed to protect their identities. We were told that some families previously hosting internationals had been subjected to retribution raids by the IDF. The next morning, I heard that Nil'in had been raided
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