Merry Christmas! Santa and Reindeer... Oh, What? No Santa?

To make reindeer food, combine 1 c. glitter, 3 c. raw oats, and 1 c. sugar. Mix well and sprinkle on grass or roof tops.

On Christmas Eve my sister is making reindeer food for Dasher and Dancer and cookies for Santa--just to make sure they find the place. It's always smart to entice the animals as well as the old man. I thought about making some too. I mean, really it's a great idea! I asked her if she thought Santa would make it here. Would it be a waste of cookies and glittery oats? We were being silly, but her response took the humor out of the conversation for a second.

No.

I stopped laughing. Why not? I guess Palestine is a bit sealed off. And if Santa flies, the likelihood he'll get shot down by the Israeli military which controls our airspace is pretty high. And that would be awful, for the whole world, not just Palestine. So, I guess the children in Palestine can forget Santa again this year because if they insist on his visiting, the rest of the world might lose their presents for tomorrow, and forever. So, we'll talk to the kids and ask them to forgo gifts again. After all, it's nothing new. They are used to being forgotten and sacrificed. And sadly, they aren't alone in the world.

I never thought about it before, but I guess Santa only has time for so called first world countries. But then again, he used to come here. But that was before...

The Irony

I love it really. On my igoogle homepage I have various headlines. On the left: "Obama Approves $30 Billion Defense Aid for Israel." From another news source on the right: "Israeli pleads guilty to leaking classified U.S. documents." I do not understand the relationship between these two countries. The US is consistently screwed over by Israel and yet pledges absurd support. Moral of the story: don't ask why.

Teaching Under Occupation

I mean really, how the hell am I supposed to teach like this? I gave this bullshit speech in class today, our last class of the semester, and I believed it until now:

"No matter what your grade, you became better. You are better writers, better readers, better students. You are better, and that is success. Your points do not reflect that, so even if you think you have failed, please remember that you did improve and THAT is the success that counts."

Bullshit. I really feel right now that it's all bullshit. Maybe I can say those words in another world. But their points do matter, and those kids deserve more from us. And in the end, is there really any way to succeed here, points or none? Why do we have a system that defeats them? Is it not enough that we have a country, an occupier, a world that defeats them?

****

After class and I'm in my office. Students come. Some need papers they didn't pick up. Some have a question. Many wait. After a few, I walk out to grab some tea. I see one. I smile broadly, "Ahlan!" (Welcome) I usher him into my office. I'll get the tea later.

He looks at me with an exhausted face, smiling barely, his eyes framed by huge bags of fatigue. "What happened to you?" I say as I bend down to rummage through stacks of papers to return him his. "Didn't want to come to class, so you slept in?" He reaches into his pocket and produces a paper. I immediately assume it's a doctor's note. About to give him hell for being absent too many days and how that note is not going to help him pass, my eye catches the Hebrew in between lines of Arabic. I look up and stare into his face. His exhaustion is more obvious by the second.

He opens his mouth, "The Israelis had me." I nod like I understand but inside I'm on fire, "AGAIN?! HOW MANY OF MY STUDENTS ARE THE ISRAELIS GOING TO FUCKING TAKE?!" I invite him to sit, pushing a chair towards him. I immediately launch into a list of how we can catch him up, but my eyes catch his and I shut up.

"Are you okay?" and I touch his arm. "Really, are you okay?"

He nods, unconvincingly, "Yea, it's all good."

I laugh, a tortured laugh, because it's not. It's really not all good. "Listen," I tell him, "We need to talk. Not today. You need to relax and sleep first. Can you see me Saturday?" He nods. "Did you turn in your essay? Yes, right? You only missed one class, or was it two?"

"No, I missed three."

"How long did they have you?"

"They make me come everyday. I'll tell you the story another time."

"Bring the essay to me when you are ready. I don't want rushed and crappy. Do your best. If that takes time, it takes time. Bring it when you can."

He nods again.

"Saturday then?"

He nods and leaves.

Now it's my turn to nod. I begin to cry. It is a luxury I am not able to indulge. A former student walks by, sees me and smiles--tears in her eyes. I invite her to sit with me. We talk and I see that today someone has broken another piece of her, and I know really it's all bullshit. There is no success here. No possibility for success. If the Israelis don't have them, the Palestinians have them. If the Palestinians don't have them, the families, teachers, anyone else who can is beating them down--and I'm right there kicking.

A Call to Action and an Inspiration

Please read (this is related to Palestine in so far as you can see the connection between all human suffering, especially at the hands of other humans). This was written by someone special to me:

During the last 10 days I've seen several things on the streets that make me step back and say "Wow!" I saw a carjacking or robbery about 40ft. from me and then people were yelling and running everywhere in a panic, one hour later someone shot off a gun very near to me and I was the only person who seemed to jump...and I jumped pretty high. There are always the drunks and the drug users and the fights and yelling and all the other things that seem to consume the streets, but last night I saw something that I've never seen before and quite frankly I wouldn't expect to see it in San Francisco. We came upon a person under a dark piece of plastic by the bus station and we asked as we always do, "Salvation Army are you hungry?" and the plastic started moving until a man’s face became clear to me. He said, “Yes, I'm very hungry and in his hands he was holding a dead pigeon that he had been trying to eat with the feathers and all. Let me just say that in my heart, this is not right and I am greatly disturbed to see somebody having to do this to survive. It almost made me sick.

I slept very little last night thinking about this and I want to share my thoughts about a few things with you. Some who read this might be board members, council member, officers, soldiers, employees or supporters. In some way we're all on the same team and in some way you're all working hard to make our city or state or world a better place and I thank you for all that you do. I believe that there has been no greater time in history than now for The Salvation Army. People are hungry, people are lost and people are sick and all of us are in some way part of the only Army in the world that can do something about the social ills that seem to be everywhere around us. I challenge you to hit the streets and reach out to those who are down and out, and to those who are up and out. The Salvation Army marches, they just don't sit in offices, The Salvation Army fights for those who can't fight for themselves and The Salvation Army does not retreat in the face of overwhelming odds. There are people everywhere that are counting on this Army...The Salvation Army. We'll march into war with bibles and food and love and compassion and we will not be stopped. Thank you all for your support, because I couldn't do what I do if you didn't do what you do. God bless.

A Walk in the Hills

I went on a beautiful hike yesterday led by Palestinian writer Raja Shehadeh. In his book, he paints a vivid picture not only of the landscape of Palestine, but of its continuing destruction at the hands of the Israeli state for the purpose of settlement construction.

As we hiked up hillsides and down into wadis throughout the morning, I found myself lost in the beauty and tranquility. Mounting our last hilltop, we walked along a terrace, a layer in the side of the hill that was planted with olive trees. I paused and looked up the few layers above me to the top of the hill. Then I glanced over at another hill top, cleared of its lovely terraces and ancient olive trees, which were razed and replaced with identical concrete constructions--an unnatural and intrusive settlement. I returned my gaze to my hillside thinking how the hill on which that settlement stands looked like the one on which I paused now, and just a few years ago at that. I wondered, how long will these trees stand before they too are cut with chainsaw and the land dug up and reformed with concrete?

Gaza--it's still here.

Perhaps we in America have the privilege to contain wars. We have a luxury in perceiving Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, any of them--from a distant place and separating ourselves from what happens "over there." Sure, our "boys" are involved but we really aren't. Moreover, even though the Iraq "war" for example is not finished, we don't have to think about it daily, we don't have to feel frightened or threatened by it, and we certainly do not have to weigh its costs, effects, or consequences as we would have to were it to have transpired on our land.

Over here, war is a continuing, daily event. It's not even an event anymore, it's just life. And certainly the effects are ongoing, real and very immediate. I was watching this piece today and I thought about how on tv it seems distant, like a documentary about something far away in space and time. But it's not really far away because the occupation, the violence, the suffering, the war, the grief--none of it has ended.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UChWtlMGBJ0&feature=player_embedded


Yesterday I went to a demonstration against the Palestinian Authority who has decided not to support the UN Goldstone Report on Gaza. I've never felt such hopelessness here. I'm not sure what we are fighting for anymore. I'm not sure how much longer I can raise my voice when there are so few voices shouting from within these walls and outside of them. Then I saw a man wearing a black shirt and I started screaming louder. It said: "Remember Gaza."

Update on Mohammad Othaman's Arrest

Joint Addameer and “Stop the Wall” Update on the Arrest of Human Rights Defender and Activist Mohammad Othman


[Ramallah, 30 September 2009] On Tuesday 29 September 2009, a court hearing at Kishon (Jalameh) interrogation center extended Mohammad Othman’s detention period for 10 days. A long-time human rights defender, Mohammad Othman, aged 33, was arrested on 22 September 2009 at the Allenby Bridge Border Crossing between Jordan and the West Bank. Mohammad, who is an activist with the “Grassroots Stop the Wall Campaign”, was on his way back to Ramallah from an advocacy tour in Norway where he had been engaged in a number of speaking events.

At the court hearing in Kishon, the Israeli interrogation police did not provide any reason for Mohammad’s arrest, but contended that an extension of his detention period was necessary for further interrogation. The military judge rejected the interrogators’ initial request to extend Mohammad’s detention period to 23 additional days, arguing that no clear allegations exist as only two short interrogation sessions had taken place during the previous eight days of his detention. The judge did agree, however, to a 10 day extension period, based on “secret information” that was made available to him by representatives from the Israeli Security Agency (ISA). Addameer attorney Samer Sam’an, who represented Mohammad at the court hearing in Kishon, questioned the ISA officers about the content of the undisclosed information and the reasons for Mohammad’s detention, but received no answer.

Interrogation

On 24 September 2009, Mohammad was transferred from Huwwara provisional detention centre to Kishon interrogation centre, located near Haifa in northern Israel. He was subsequently placed in solitary confinement. On 27 September 2009, five days after his arrest, he was interrogated for the first time. In the interrogation session, which lasted less than one hour, Mohammad was questioned about his friends and family and was asked to provide their telephone numbers along with his personal e-mail address. In addition, the interrogators asked Mohammad broad questions about his work. The second interrogation session, which took place a few hours before Mohammad’s court hearing on 29 September, lasted just 40 minutes and featured the same questions as his first interrogation.

Considering that, eight days after Mohammad’s arrest, Israeli authorities have been unable to cite any legitimate suspicions or allegations to justify his detention, both Addameer and Stop the Wall contend that Mohammad’s arrest was arbitrary and therefore illegal under applicable international law. Addameer and Stop the Wall also reaffirm their previously stated position that Mohammad was arrested because of his high-profile advocacy work, both locally and internationally, as a human rights defender voicing opposition to Israel’s ongoing human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territory, including those resulting from the continuing, illegal construction of the Annexation Wall inside the West Bank.

Context

Addameer and Stop the Wall contend that Mohammad’s arrest should be viewed in a wider context of persistent Israeli repression against Palestinian human rights defenders and activists who, like Mohammad, have been successful in their lobbying efforts, at home and abroad, against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territory, Israel’s continuation of land confiscation and the illegal construction of the Annexation Wall. For example, on 20 July 2009, Mohammad Srour, a member of the Popular Committee Against the Wall in Ni’lin, a village west of Ramallah affected by the construction of the Annexation Wall, was detained by Israeli border officials while crossing the Allenby Bridge from Jordan and taken to Ofer prison for interrogation. Srour was released on bail three days later. Although Srour was not charged, the courts said they were likely going to charge him, but they did not say on what grounds or when. In its final report submitted to the Human Rights Council, the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict expressed its concern that Srour’s detention “may have been a consequence of his appearance before the Mission”. Indeed, on 6 July 2009, together with an Israeli activist, Srour testified before the Mission in Geneva and described the fatal shooting of two Ni’lin residents by Israeli forces during a demonstration in Ni’lin on 28 December 2008 protesting the Israeli aggression in Gaza. Srour’s arrest, like the arrest of Mohammad Othman, is an indication of the oppression levied against Palestinian human rights defenders and marks an increasing infringement by Israel of the Palestinian population’s rights to freedom of opinion and expression and to peaceful assembly as inscribed in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Most importantly, Addameer and Stop the Wall fear that Mohammad could be held placed under indefinite administrative detention, without charge or trial, for a renewable period of one to six months. No justification other than an unsupported declaration that “the detainee poses a threat to the security of the State” or “area” would need to be provided for this to occur. Furthermore, it is clear from Addameer’s experience that Israel has regularly used administrative detention in the OPT to facilitate the detention of community activists and human rights defenders in cases where the prosecution lacks “sufficient” – or, more likely, “any” – evidence against them.

In light of the above, Addameer and Stop the Wall urge foreign government officials, including members of foreign representative offices to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and foreign Consulates in East Jerusalem, as well as representatives of the European Commission and the European Parliament, human rights organizations and United Nations bodies to:

• Raise Mohammad Othman’s case in their official meetings with Israeli officials.
• Demand clarifications regarding the reason for Mohammad’s arrest and extended detention in official letters addressed to Israeli authorities.

For more information, please contact:

Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association
Tel: +972 (0)2 296 0446 / 297 0136
Email: info@addameer.ps
Website: www.addameer.info

Stop the Wall Campaign
Tel: +972-2-2971505
Email: global@stopthewall.org
Website: www.stopthewall.org

Violence and the Land

Yesterday I went to see my friend's family in a village I haven't been to in a year maybe. I know the way well. A few summers ago I went there often. Driving around the West Bank is really quite horrifying because not only do you see manifest racism and apartheid as you drive on the settler roads only to be forced off of them to potholed dirt roads where Palestinians drive but you feel the anger that such racism and apartheid create. Sadly this is nothing new nor even shocking anymore. What so disturbed me yesterday was that in getting to this village we were blocked at multiple turns. Roads that were used just yesterday were now inaccessible after the Israeli military pushed heaps of trash, dirt and rocks into the path.




Turn around and try another route. We literally went in a wide circle around the village to the north then the west before circling back to the east. It was the same leaving: a huge circuit around that was utterly unnecessary. Solely frustrating. And for what? How can you learn the land when such violence is imposed on it, daily violence against land. How can you live when you don't know which way to go? The path to your house is new today, and again tomorrow. The path you walked as a child and are forbidden now from using with its destroyed trees and broken soil. They are destroying the land.

And when we left, a military jeep had blocked a road and stopped us. In Hebrew and Arabic he gruffly demanded my id then said to wait. In a line of cars, more time, more gas, more humanity stolen.

Support

A word of thanks to all those who have supported me and helped get the word out about Mohammad. In times like these I'm proud of our community's ability to come together in our fight for justice. I'm also aware that we can and must do better and I look forward to our efforts to learn from this.

A special thank you to Laila for showing up in my moment of need with zero alcohol beer and kitkat bars! I particularly enjoyed the water martinis she made. A toast: to good friends and solidarity!

Mohammad's Arrest

Monday night I called Mohammad. He had just landed in Jordan at the airport. We talked. We laughed, said we'd see each other soon. Next morning I called again. Phone was off. Uncommon, very uncommon. I called maybe 30 or even 50 times throughout the day; every time the same message in Arabic telling me the phone was off. And I felt it in my gut. I knew he was arrested. At 2:30 I received a text message from him saying he was arrested. Phone was back off again. Then we all went into action. We have mobilized thousands of people for him, and for the cause. Mohammad is being held in administrative detention. Administrative detention is ugly and violent.

"Administrative detention is detention without charge or trial and is often based on ‘secret evidence’. Israeli Military Order 1591 empowers military commanders to detain Palestinians, including children as young as 12, for up to six months if they have ‘reasonable grounds to presume that the security of the area or public security require the detention’. The initial six month period can be extended by additional six-month periods indefinitely. This procedure denies the detainee the right to a fair trial and the ability to adequately challenge the basis of his or her detention.

"There are currently at least 387 Palestinian men, women and children in administrative detention. For more information visit the DCI-Palestine website at Freedom Now."

http://www.dci-pal.org/english/display.cfm?DocId=1247&CategoryId=1

Free Mohammad Othman Now!

Yesterday, October 22, Mohammad Othman was detained and arrested by soldiers on the Allenby Bridge Crossing, the border from Jordan to Palestine. He was returning from a trip to Norway.

Mohammad, 33 years old, has dedicated the last ten years of his life to the defense of Palestinian human rights. His village, Jayyous, has lost most of its land to the Wall and the settlements. He has worked constantly to let the world know about the Israeli crimes against his people and has developed relations of international solidarity.

It is not the first time, Palestinian human rights defenders are arrested after trips abroad. Muhammad Srour, an eye witness to the killing of Arafat Khawaje, 22, and 20-year-old Mohammed Khawaje, who were both shot on a Gaza solidarity demonstration in Ni’lin on 28th December. He testified in front of the UN Fact Finding Mission on Gaza and, in a clear act of reprisal, he was arrested on his way back. This strategy of arrests complements the overall policy of isolation of the Palestinian people behind checkpoints, walls and razor wire.

We call on international solidarity and human rights organizations to act immediately to bring attention to this case and advocate for the release of Mohammad Othman by:

Recommended Actions:



* Encourage others to join this campaign through petitions, demonstrations and / or letter writing / phone calling. Please provide them with contact information and details;
* Urge your representatives at consular offices in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem/Ramallah to demand the immediate release of Mohammad Othman. (For your consular contacts, see: http://www.embassiesabroad.com/embassies-in/Israel#11725);
* Let the Israeli Embassy in your country know that you are campaigning for Mohammad’s release and for a just and lasting peace based on international law.
* Bring the case of Palestine’s first BDS prisoner of conscience to the attention of local and national media outlets;
* Follow the blog and facebook to free Mohammad Othman to see the latest updates and action alerts.

Blog: http://freemohammadothman.wordpress.com/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=36429272741&ref=ts


Mohammad Othman, however, represents only one of the 11,000 Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons. More than 800 are being held in “administrative detention”, meaning that they are imprisoned (indefinitely) without charge. International solidarity has to hold Israel accountable and achieve an end to the large scale repression and mass imprisonment of Palestinians as part of their efforts to bring about an end to the occupation and the restoration of Palestinian rights.



Sample letter:

Dear x,



I am writing to you to express my deepest concern about the detainment of Mohammad Othman yesterday, September 22, at the border between Jordan and the West Bank. He was returning home after a visit in Norway.

I fear that the detainment of Mohammad Othman is a result of his peaceful criticism of violations of international law by Israeli authorities. The charges against him have not been made clear, but there is reason to believe that he is a prisoner of conscience, arrested solely for his human rights work through legal organizations. I therefore urge for the immediate and unconditional release of Mohammad Othman.

In the meantime, I ask that Mohammad Othman is protected from any form of torture or ill-treatment, and that his rights as a detainee are fully respected for as long as he remains in custody.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this urgent matter.


The International Red Cross delegations are here :

Tel Aviv
ICRC delegation
185, Hayarkon Street
TEL AVIV 63453

Tel.: (+972) 35 24 52 86
Fax: (+972) 35 27 03 70
e-mail

Head of delegation: Mr WETTACH Pierre
Media contact persons: Ms SEGEV-EYTAN Yael
Mobile: (++972) 52 275 75 17
Languages spoken: Hebrew/English

Jerusalem
ICRC mission
Nabi Shu'eib st. 8
Sheikh Jarrah district
PO Box 20253
91202 JERUSALEM

Tel.: (+972 2) 59 17 900
Fax: (+972 2) 59 17 920
e-mail

Head of mission: Ms AMSTAD Barbara
Media contact person: Ms BONEFELD Anne Sophie
Mobile: (++972) 52 601 91 50
Languages spoken: Arabic/English

Gaza
ICRC office
Jalaa street 50 / 43 Rimal
PO Box 29

Tel.: (+ 972) 8 2828 874 or (+ 972) 8 2822 644/5
Fax.:(+972 ) 8 2828 884

Obama's Israel - Palestine Policy

How is it possible that none of us have really noticed Obama's policies on the Middle East? I myself only realized two days ago that there is a dark, blurry void--a silence. On one issue and one issue only Obama is vocal: settlements. Headlines in Israel's Haaretz, the BBC's Middle East edition, Al Jazeera English--they all repeat Obama's firm demands that Israel halt settlement construction. They also report Israel's unwillingness, Palestine's frustration, and, now, Obama's likely lenience on the issue. And while we are all so busy watching this re-run, we fail to notice how this is the ONLY thing Obama has even articulated a position on. While we are so busy praising Obama and then qualifying how, well, at least he's better than Bush if not actually praise-worthy in terms of Middle East policy (cough, everything? but you could only really get better after Bush), we have utterly failed to realize that our critique is empty because his policy is absent. I've been researching Obama's position on Israel and Palestine and this is what I've found:

On Settlements: (Taken from "From Obama's Prizes For Israel Are Not 'Pressure'" By Ali Abunimah on 16 July 2009 in The Electronic Intifada)

"For months the focus has been on Obama's demand that Israel agree to a complete cessation of settlement construction, including the subterfuge called "natural growth." It was during a similar "freeze" in the early 1990s that Israel built thousands of settler housing units on occupied land. Arab optimism and Israeli anxiety were amplified as Obama and his Middle East Envoy George Mitchell said repeatedly that this time they wanted a total halt.

"Yet the firmness shows signs of erosion. Israeli press reports spoke of a "compromise" taking shape in which Israel would be allowed to complete thousands of already planned housing units. Although those reports were denied by the United States, several participants in the White House meeting said Obama alluded to an unspecified compromise in the works.

"Anything short of a complete cessation of settlement construction will mark an achievement for Israel; what is important is not the number of units the United States may approve, but the principle that this administration, like its predecessors, will license Israel's illegal colonization. Once that principle is established, Israel may present more faits accomplis and build at will.
And even if Israel does agree to a verifiable cessation, the US has structured the matter as a quid pro quo in which Israel is not required to do anything without receiving a reward. The president has appealed to Arab states to normalize ties with Israel if it freezes settlements, including opening diplomatic missions and allowing overflights by El Al aircraft (recall that when en route to bomb Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981, Israeli warplanes reportedly falsely identified themselves as commercial aviation)."


On Jerusalem: "The city is and will remain the capital of Israel. The parties have agreed that Jerusalem is a matter for final status negotiations. It should remain an undivided city accessible to people of all faiths."
[According to Obama:] "any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel's identity as a Jewish state" and Jerusalem "must remain undividied" (AIPAC speech as democratic candidate). The next day, June 5, 2008, in a CNN interview Obama elaborated: "obviously, it's going to be up to he parties to negotiate a range of these issues. And Jerusalem will be part of those genotiations...As a practical matter, it would be very difficult to execute [a division of the city]. And I think that it is smart for us to work through a system in which everybody has access tot eh extraordinary religious sites in Old Jerusalem but that Israel has a legitimate claim on that city." (Taken from Journal of Palestine Studies Vol. XXXVIII, No. 2 (Winter 2009))

On the Wall: The wall is not YET an issue Obama has taken up. The focus is first on settlement activity, and also to a far lesser degree on Jerusalem. There is a void on the construction of a violent structure that is devastating people economically and certainly politically--both now and in terms of any possible future.

And finally, on the Right of Return: dozens of Israeli sources report Obama's complete rejection of the Palestinian right of return. Rather he emphatically supports Israel as a Jewish state and believes in a second, neighboring Palestinian state--thus, those millions of Palestinian refugees whom the UN has repeatedly asserted have a legal right to return to their homes and lands from which they were dispossessed are denied by Obama--champion of change--in support of a racist, exclusive state which relies on apartheid and a violent occupation to enforce its settler colonial existence.

Hope?

I cross the checkpoint to Jerusalem often enough. Sometimes I pay attention to the experience, angering--even boiling--from humiliation and frustration; other times I zone out and transport my mind to other thoughts, diverting my attention to avoid the anger of occupation, especially this one that puts so much effort into its violent colonization of land and people. But the last few times I've crossed, I couldn't ignore the reality in front of me: an old man, too old to stand in this line. Clearly straining to hold his own body weight, shuffling forward a few small steps and resting himself--hunched over, visibly weak and tired. Even he must stand in the line. Another man, much younger. Patches of hair had fallen out. A black eye patch hugged his left eye and a face mask covered his mouth. He looked so sick and frail. I wondered where he was going...the hospital for a check up after surgery? Perhaps on going treatment? Maybe the Palestinian hospital could no longer do anything for him and so he was sent across the checkpoint--the awful, animal cage of a checkpoint with shouting soldiers screaming at you "ONE AT A TIME. HEY GIRL, GO BACK!!!!" There is no sympathy in this occupation; there is no humanity in it. Only anger and violence.

And Israel will not halt settlements, those illegal colonies. No! They will assert their authority to rule a people and control its land. They will assert their "right" to violate international law and continue building. They will refuse peace and hope. They will continue...no matter the human cost.

Border Crossings

I have been receiving articles from several sources, including the Israeli paper Haaretz and the online Electronic Intifada, from concerned friends. These articles detail new Israeli occupation policies at the border crossings. If you are going to or thought to be going to the West Bank, whether as a student, teacher, peace worker, or tourist, your passport is stamped with a new visa which effectively confines you to PA territories, meaning the West Bank—excluding East Jerusalem. If you enter through the airport and are so fortunate as to avoid this stamp, you are made to sign a document promising not to enter PA territories. Both methods are illegal under international law, and both can control my entire life as a professional in the West Bank who is required to have Israeli visas to be in Palestine. The joys of occupation. I was nervous to say the least. Imagine being a teacher: a pretty typical profession I would imagine. You go about teaching day in and out. You learn your students names and writing styles. You invest so much time in their education. Everyday you greet colleagues, work at your desk, prepare for class. Even though you are hired by the university, even though the Ministry of Education approved your hire, even though you have been teaching for years, you are denied the visa not only to work, but to even be present in your work place, in your home. I know that I am not alone in this experience. All nation states require so called foreigners to apply for visas to live or work or even visit. The problem here is that my nation state, the one where I live and work, has no authority to grant the visa because we are under occupation. Not only can I only be here as a tourist, and still I am not allowed to be in the area where I am, but that tourist visa expires every few months; moreover, it is not a simple trip to cross a border to renew a visa. Interrogation, harassment and humiliation not to mention the time and money make the inconvenience positively awful. How many years can I be a tourist? How many times do I have to lie about where I live, what I do, who I am? Sometimes I feel awful about the deception, and then I want to scream, “I’m a teacher! I am not doing anything wrong or bad or hurtful. I TEACH WRITING!” But it is mam-noo-a…forbidden, because I teach on the wrong side of the line. The lies become more intricate and the feeling more nauseating…and I wonder, when can I speak the truth? When can we be without fear at the border? When can Palestine have justice, freedom, peace?

Coming Home

Traveling is always a strange experience. Boarding a flight, staring at clouds through the small window, random conversations with random strangers who become your friend for the duration of the flight, de-boarding and finding yourself transported to a new universe. I rarely experience culture shock, but somehow, driving from the airport to my friend’s house struck me, overwhelmed me—even though I’ve been here a dozen times before. I just felt that I was so clearly and unmistakably in the Arab world—the architecture, the sandy hillsides, the sounds and smells. And though I forever respond routinely to the annoying observation that I live in the Middle East and that is just so incredible, wow, I was struck with the thought, “I live in the Middle East and this is just so incredible! Wow!” Still, it always feels like coming home. And it is coming home because as cheesy as it sounds, home is where the heart is, and my heart is firmly and forever here.

I went to my family, the family that has loved me and allowed me to be part of them for more than five years, and I was home. I love the welcome. I love the coming home. After two days, the exhaustion of jet lag and the days of Ramadan (without the structured time scheduling of the kids’ being in school) meant that I was insanely sleep deprived. After my first day teaching, I came home at 3 and crashed into a deep sleep. I remember waking up to the sounds of Arabic. A little boy was speaking, and I thought, “Arabic. Someone is speaking Arabic. I speak Arabic. I should go see who that is.” A second later, “More people speaking Arabic. I speak Arabic. I should go see.” Then I woke up a bit more and remembered where I was, smiling in my heavy drowsiness before re-embracing my exhaustion. I am home.

Excessive America

I went to the bathroom this morning to wash my hands...the water was cold. After a minute of running, it turned warm, then hot. An endless supply of hot water. We have no need to turn on the hot water heater--it simply stays on...all the time. Perhaps it's more accurate to say we have no need to turn off the hot water heater. I leave the bathroom and the luxury of endless hot water (I know there's an end and we're working our hardest to find it) and move to the kitchen. Big refrigerator, huge really. And it's bursting with food that will go bad and be trashed. Excess. Everything American strikes me as over-sized and excessive. And the most beautiful part of all, we are blinded to our over-indulgence, convinced that this is natural rather than realizing that the electricity we use as well as all natural resources are available to us because they are denied to so many others. Water--we had 8 water-less days in Palestine. We won't have one here. And frankly, that's just not natural at all.

Checkpoints and humanity

Walking along the beach-side cliffs of Pacifica, my father reminds me of an article I sent him months ago—I think when the Israelis attacked Gaza in December of last year. The article invited the reader to imagine occupation by projecting something like the Israeli occupation over Tijuana. My dad stops and looks around the beautiful, green hills of Pacifica and muses: “Imagine if we had to cross checkpoints to go from state to state.” I laughed, “No dad. The checkpoints prevent us from coming these five minutes from the house to the beach, from going to the other side of Pacifica, to Daly City. They don’t separate states, the separate everything because they are internal too. And if you can cross, it’s after waiting 5 months for an expensive, precious, and typically denied permit from the military occupiers.” It’s hard for us to imagine, but I want to try to paint the picture, because I live there.

If you don’t know anything, Palestine is a historic land whose people have long suffered a history of occupation. In 1948 a new occupier came, one that the international community supported. Though the illegal occupation of Palestine began in 1967 with an Israeli military and civilian invasion of the West Bank and Gaza Strip (two areas of historic Palestine that were carved out of the land and reserved for the indigenous population while the rest of their lands were declared for the Jewish state), the colonization had begun nearly 20 years earlier—though Israel vigorously disputes the language of occupation and colonization. The occupation is a military one with checkpoints at what seems to be every turn. The UN recently reported 93-staffed checkpoints and 541 blockades, all severely inhibiting internal Palestinian movement. I was in Hebron last week and the 1.5-2 hour trip took well over 3 hours as the 3 exits out of the city were all blocked by Israeli jeeps, doors open hiding 18 year olds behind with guns trained on the waiting traffic. These impromptu-jeeps-blocking-the-roads-for-hours-stops are not included in the above numbers, though they are quite common. Security perhaps? The more one looks into this situation, the more confused the word security becomes. I used to believe that the security of one people (Israeli Jews) was achieved at the cost of another (Palestinians), but I have come to understand that no one is truly secure there. I am not asserting that they are equally insecure, by any means. There is nothing equal about occupation. But the so called security that the state of Israel talks about is truly an illusion used to justify nearly every policy against the Palestinians, when in fact, the constant violence the state inflicts on the native population means that there can be no security—only the constant need to more violently impose occupation’s control and power. I am convinced of this after years of observing, that is, living under this occupation.

It is not only checkpoints that we fail to comprehend. Physical access is only one policy. You need a permit to build, even to modify your house. We need those in America as well, but not from an occupying military who denies them at every appeal. And since your land has been confiscated for “security” purposes, you can only build up when your son needs a place for his family. Still, without that permit, both your home and the new addition face demolition. I am a teacher. Dozens of my 150 students over the last one year alone have personal stories of demolition, brothers’ being imprisoned, harassment, siege and curfew, theft of land, murder, interrogation, and the list goes on for a hundred pages. Why am I writing all of this? Because two days ago I stepped off a plane and the so-called culture shock overwhelmed me. I’m not talking about secure borders here, I’m talking about occupation’s military violence that is daily coming INTO your home, not standing at the borders of your nation. So as President Obama promises to work towards peace for Palestine and Israel, step out of the constant insistence of the media and Israel and all of her friends, that Israel must be secure, and think about the words of Rachel Corrie: “Everyone must feel safe.” This is a human right, and Palestinians are, shockingly, human too.

Out of Palestine

I think about leaving a lot. Not just when I feel that life there is too hard or that I need a break, but I think about the act of leaving and the implications of that choice. The key word here is choice. Realistically, it's utterly un-sustainable for me to continue on in Palestine non stop. My family is not there to start. But emotionally, no one can say living under occupation is easy. It is not like I encounter the daily checkpoints on my way to work. I choose to cross them by choosing to go to Jerusalem. Still, occupation is like cancer, spreading its poison even if it remains unseen. Emotionally, you need a break. So, okay, I get it. I need this. It's very justifiable. But politically, you GET the break. Your race, your nationality, your privilege accesses that break while all your friends deal with occupation day in and out and do not GET the choice to leave or have a holiday. Again, I get it. I need to leave to be able to continue staying and contributing, but it's just hard to deal with the leaving or maybe with what you leave behind.

Last night I went on a walk with my dad. Since arriving here, I haven't seen one soldier, one gun, one checkpoint. Just saying that makes me want to cry. We just walked this amazingly beautiful path along stunning cliffs that hung over a gorgeous sea, on the horizon of which the sun set. I walked along that path and I thought of my best friend in Palestine. I thought of the absence next to me of someone with whom I would LOVE to share this walk. I thought of the absence of someone with whom I'd love to share this city, my family, this freedom. And then that got me thinking, what do I mean by freedom. I thought a lot about this word and my meaning, and I think I mean the absence of fear. I'm not sure that really communicates my meaning, but it's closer.

I have been crossing international borders since I was 8 years old. I've NEVER been afraid until the Israeli border interrogation that traumatized me for a solid month after I left. I've never felt that I had to be afraid of my identity and the reality of my life, or life itself. Fear. And it sticks. Fear is sticky. And the Israelis are first rate at creating fear, at destroying freedom and life itself. Denying humanity. And I'm bitter. Yes, I am very bitter. Sometimes I look around and think with a laugh, this has GOT to be something I imagined. This canNOT be reality. And yet it is, this reality that is so absurdly violent and inhumane that it seems it must be a game...only the stakes are death.

Water Crisis

I get asked on occasion for my personal experience of the water crisis we constantly suffer here. I always tell people that I live in relative privilege in Ramallah and have not, to date, had to go without. All that changed this morning. We ran out of water. What do you do when you don't have water? You just wait. A friend on the other side of Ramallah gets water every 8 days. You do what you can on the day it comes, and then you wait. Fortunately, we could buy and at the very least we have other means of access. What about remote villages who have water tanks deliver to them or Gaza? 7 days doesn't seem so long when you think about the months others endure for a near nothing supply.

Guantanamo

A few days ago I had the amazing opportunity to sit next to a man who is a lawyer for Guantanamo inmates. I won't repeat his stories. But I will say that if you think you have ANY conception of the kind of violence we are inflicting on human beings in that place, think again. All I can say is god help them and god forgive us.

Hope in Palestine...

A student just came to my office and she is the third in five minutes to touch something deep inside me. It is the end of the semester and there is heavy disappointment in the air as students find that I was sadly serious at the beginning of the course when I warned that it would be a very hard class and the grades would be low. Many fail this infamously impossible course and are left severely depressed. Understandably. I handed back the last of the three major essays they write during the semester. It is worth 20% of their final grade and reflects three weeks of hard work at the end of a semester of intensive work. As I left the classroom of silent students staring at their scores, one boy walked in front of me and said, "Good. You gave me points in the good category. I am good. Good. It's the first time in one year I have this feeling. I am GOOD." I asked him if he was being sarcastic. He then exclaimed, "NO! I am good and I have waited and worked one year to hear this!" I stopped dead in my tracks. Several students near him also stopped. I said slowly, "There is something gravely wrong when a student says this. We are doing something insanely wrong if you say this after one year."

Next. Aya just left my office. As she opened the door, she turned and looked at me. She said that when she began the semester she thought to drop my class and leave the department. But she stayed. And she knows that she is stronger. In the beginning she could not write or speak well, and she knows now that she is better and she is determined to fight her way towards further improvement. I told her that I remember in the beginning of the semester seeing her and thinking how serious and sad she was. She seemed so scared to be there. But now in class she smiles and speaks out. It's amazing because her change is not limited to her writing but to her whole self. The last words were hers: "Really, I love you." And she left.

Then entered Nida. "I want to ask about my points..." I looked to her points--under 50%. Then I looked to her. "I know they are low," she said, "but I don't care. In the beginning of the semester you marked me unsatisfactory for every category on the grade sheet, but now I have two good categories! I worked so hard and I know I improved so much. I swear I don't care for the points, but just to know I improved. And I will do this course again next year and be even better!"

I find myself sitting here now, reflecting on these kids' ambition. Spectacular really. I told them in class how proud I am of their work. I told them I know I push and push and push. But they rise to meet my expectations EVERY TIME. "This is Palestine," someone whispered, "we're used to being pushed around." I smiled softly, "I know...but this is pushing to help you and look at how far you have all come! I swear I could not be more proud of you guys!"

Israeli Military Prohibits Literary Event

Tonight was the opening of the Palestine Festival of Literature, and while this is the second year that the Festival happens in Palestine, the ongoing celebrations for this year's "Jerusalem: The Cultural Capital of the Arab World" framed the Festival as part of a larger cultural movement. There was to be a reception from 6-6:30 followed by two groups of writers speaking to the audience. I went early for the reception as Michael Palin, all hail Monty Python, would be there and I am a long time fan. 10, maybe 15, minutes into the reception and something intense happened. I was outside of the foyer, just in the courtyard, making my way towards Michael Palin for my much anticipated introduction when four soldiers pushed into and passed me. I was a bit confused and annoyed and turned to see where they were going. It was just us in the theatre--a rather elite collection of Palestinians and ex pats all dressed up for the event and acting all literary--and thus I found myself a bit baffled by their rude entrance. All of a sudden people started pushing and saying "get inside now. go inside. hurry." We all pushed into the theatre, through the soldiers, and stood in confusion. Various individuals tried to speak to soldiers, including the boss military man, but none of them would speak to us. They just stood there. Five or six up the stairs. Outside in jeeps and vans. Three at the front door. Six at the entrance to the house of the theatre. Then I looked into the theatre and saw another several.

http://www.palfest.org
Everywhere I looked...more soldiers, standing and holding guns silently staring at us. No one knew where to go or what to do. So I turned to Michael Palin. How convenient that he was right next to me! "Hello Michael. My name is *******. I'm a teacher at *******. HUGE fan! Over a decade now, HUGE fan. We'll talk more later without the guns." He politely shook my hand and said, great. I suggested to the people around me that we just sit and get on with the event. More soldiers. Someone suggested the French Cultural Center--apparently the soldiers weren't allowed to enter there but then again they weren't supposed to enter Al Aqsa Mosque either and they did in 2001. So, we left through a back gate, passed a police van and the one hundred or so of us walked as a parade down the street five minutes to the French Cultural Center where everyone worked to through the food we'd carried into some sort of arrangement while others set up a sound system and stage. On the way a man asked in Arabic, "what happened?" I said in Arabic, "The military doesn't like literature. Pity." Still, it went off, a bit awkwardly, but nonetheless. Five minutes after the writers began reading their work to a frazzled but excited audience, one, then two, three, and four police vans pulled up in front of the Cultural Center. They stayed there with their lights flashing for a good ten minutes. After that, one stayed, just to remind us of the presence of the military and their might. They denied our presence at the first venue and challenged it at the second. Apparently the Israeli military has a security concern with literature. Who would have guessed? Actually, I did. This is the cultural occupation we hear less about but which is debilitating a people, their heritage, and the preservation of all that is dear to them.

A Letter From My Student to Obama

Dear Mr. President:

First of all, I congratulate you on the new position. I congratulate you for the actualization of the American dream, the dream of black people and the dream of Martin Luther King Jr. Sorry Mr. President I did not see the inauguration ceremony. In that moment I was busy watching the war on Gaza and numbering the victims of children, mothers, fathers…. while you were being inaugurated.

You are one of the dreamers. You are the one who achieved the long dream for the American black people who were suffering hundreds of years. Also Palestinians have a dream. I’m Palestinian I still have hope to get to my dream, to live in peace in an independent nation as you. But I wonder how to get that dream while you support Israel like who led America prior to you by everything. During the war on Gaza you said “Israel has the right to self-defense...” What is the right you are talking about? Is it the right to brutality or the right to killing children and steal lands in Gaza and the West Bank. And you want more peace, but what kind of peace? Is it like the peace that happened in Gaza before months ago (the war on Gaza)? I think we got too much peace in the last ware on Gaza. It is not enough or what? In the final peace process a lot of children in Gaza lost their families and homes. When somebody wants to take my home do you think I will give up simply? No I will fight back what about you Mr. President? What are you going to do Mr. President? You will fight back exactly like us, as we do in Palestine. The peace you are talking about is represented in arming Israel to overwhelm us by flashy peace bombs as happened in Gaza.

Anyway, let us go to the point that you really want peace and you are the president that we waited for. You want to visit Israel to discuss the situation for peace. But prior to you many American presidents came to make peace between both Palestine and Israel, but they failed. Are you going to do the same? I hope not, and not to disappointment me because you really want peace. If you really want peace withdraw American troops from Iraq, and Afghanistan. Get them back home. In Iraq leave the land to its people and stop supporting Israel against Palestinian afterward the killing will stop. Mr. President be the one who makes unforgettable differences and memorable changes to be remembered forever. Mr. President you can make changes in the region if you really want. Here I’m not asking you to bring troops to get back our stolen lands. I’m asking you to be clear, to stop Israel from stealing land and building new settlements, to put away all plans that were established by others, because these plans indeed won’t bring peace. But if you choice one of these plans like “Annapolis” or “The Road Map” we will see more peace bombs, another war, and more homeless children and families. Mr. President we are humans just like you. We have two legs, two hands, eyes. When you visit us you will see. The thing which I cannot understand is why you are supporting and arming Israel, not Palestinians or Palestine and for what? Can you tell me Mr. President? Is this because we don’t deserve life? However, Mr. President I know your previous president left you a hard mission and many things to repair them. I wish happiness and a good life for you during your presidency. Don’t forget we have a dream that I hope someday will come. I hope this day comes in your time and then peace and peace.


Salem Nazzal, Student
Palestine

Petra and Palestine

Went to Petra. So amazing. I am still reeling from the experience. Whenever I step out of occupied Palestine, I can’t help but weep for Palestine and the people who have suffered so greatly for so long. If only they could be given an honest chance at life, what could Palestine be?

Denying Life

For as long as I have been coming, which is over five years now, I have never met her husband. For as long as I have been coming, he has been trying to get back inside this country. Thousands in plane tickets and lawyer fees to try and try to get back to his family. I know Wafa and her kids very well—she’s family. After years of trying to get in, he finally succeeded. I couldn’t believe it. She had her husband again and the youngest got to meet his father. They finally had their dad in the flesh to be their dad again. Only two months of being a family. He died a few days ago of a heart attack. He was young, and everything seems wrong. Two months of a dad. Two months of a husband. Two months on his land. They were deprived of each other for years, and then when the occupation stopped saying no, fate stepped in.

Israeli Post Censored

Sometimes we imagine that a comparison between other historical experiences and the ones in Palestine are useful. And perhaps they can be. I'm thinking now of the occupation of Iraq and that of Palestine. But the big difference, as I see it, is that Iraq's occupation is primarily military. Here, the military is just one of so many mechanisms that serve to reproduce a complex and devastatingly violent occupation whose aim is not "reconstruction" or, even along more sinister lines, the control of oil. Here, the Israeli occupation is obsessed with making the Palestinian life absolutely un-liveable.

I just opened a package. I had mailed it to myself because I cannot carry even my own writings as they are politically "threatening"--talking about occupation and power structures in Historic Palestine. Hence, mailing them to myself. It took far longer than it should have, but I just opened the documents about ten minutes ago. What did I find? Every single hand written comment or correction my professor had made was whited out. The pages are full of white strips covering the ink. Why? I really really struggle to understand how we can live in a world where that question has no meaningful answer. And that is the case here in Palestine. Why? Who knows?! To let me know they read it? To annoy me? What? I mean, really, how threatening can some grad student paper be to a state that they should censor it? All I can think of is that it's a game to them. Some 18 year old in an office with a white out pen and piles of documents. What a waste of energy! And for what? To remind me that they're watching me. To remind me that my own thoughts only exist within the box they have created, the prison around Palestine. To remind me that occupation and ethnic cleansing here is of a special breed: force them out by making every aspect of life unbearable, even, or perhaps especially, education.

Wadi Joz

Yesterday I went to Bethlehem to visit a friend. I made a comment about the route I’d taken and she was shocked, “You cannot go on that road,” she chided, “it is illegal for Israelis and foreigners.” I understood immediately. The road I traveled is called Wadi Joz. It links Ramallah to the south—Bethlehem and then Hebron. Wadi Joz is a dangerous road because of its severe angle and sharp turns but to make it a proper death trap there are parts that are hardly wide enough for a single car. Imagine trucks and buses winding down the wadi (valley or gulley) at a snail’s pace and then imagine adding to this dangerously steep and winding road the problems that come with oncoming traffic on narrow roads. Needless to say, I was sick to my stomach with fear. Of course Israel doesn’t want Israelis and internationals on such a dangerous road! There is a clear spectrum of human value and my life is too precious to put in the danger that every Palestinian who travel north of Bethlehem must face.

Closing Our Eyes

Sometimes I look around and wonder, "How the hell are we living like this?" I'm writing at this moment because I feel so overwhelmed. With every ounce of effort, we try to maintain some semblance of normalcy in our lives...university and homework, grocery shopping, picking the kids up from school. But we are rats in a cage under a lethal experiment and there is really nothing normal about this and there never ever should be.

It can be easy in Ramallah to forget about the cage. Sometimes you don't feel the occupation because you don't see it. I had my students write on Silwan, a neighborhood in Jerusalem, where 88 houses in which 1,500 people live, are under demolition orders. Ramallah was supposed to participate with all of Palestine in a general strike. I asked the students to tell me why there was a strike and what they were doing. A few participated in demonstrations, but most blamed the weather and their sense of powerlessness for their choice to abstain. We have the luxury here to ignore, to choose not to participate, but most in Palestine do not have this luxury because guns, soldiers, tanks, and violence are daily realities.

Inspired?

I’m listening to music from the play Les Miserables, and with that soundtrack of oppression, injustice, and suffering in the background, I’m reading and grading students’ work. Three weeks ago I assigned my class an interview. They were to find someone who lived through the Nakba and converse with that person, paying particular attention to that survivor’s personal experience as an individual and part of a community, as well as think about the way the Nakba of 1948 is still present today.

These stories are heart-breaking. I gave the same assignment last semester and remember crying half way through, breaking down under the weight of so much grief and suffering. But more than the pain of the past is its presence in the present. 60 years on, nearly 61, and people are still waiting for justice. It is an active waiting in Palestine which asserts itself as resistance against historical wrong doings that have evolved into an intricate and violent occupation which seeps like rotten water into the crevices of daily life, infecting everything with disease. And to whom should the Palestinians look for justice? Hilary Clinton visited last week, presenting a harsh contrast between Obama’s foreign policy and his false message of change. Salam Fayyad (Palestinian Prime Minister) resigned on Saturday, reminding us that the Palestinian Authority is overgrown with deep-rooted corruption and failure. They have so little power under occupation, but what they do have is used to benefit the rich and the few. Israel becomes more conservative by the year, believing the occupation to be justified and the lone option for maintaining its so called security. So, where do we look for salvation in Palestine? Is it really a miracle that we need? In the 21st century, does it take a divine miracle to end state oppression and violent militarism?

I spend so much time working with my students to activate in them a political consciousness, and I realized last week that rather than inspiring them I am debilitating them. When I recognized their hopelessness, I tried to move them to hope but I found myself at a loss for words. I do believe. I do have hope. But I’m not sure how realistic it is. Certainly Obama will be the same coward we saw in Bush and Clinton and every other president before them back to Truman, kissing the ground Israel desecrates. The leadership here does not merit its title. The people suffer greatly. Malnutrition, thirst, poverty, and worst of all, hopelessness. So, what shall we believe? What shall we say? How can we change our reality?

Snow and Blood

I keep saying "I'm going to blog today" and not doing it, so finally I am forcing myself to take the time to write these thoughts. It snowed on Sunday morning. Thick and fluffy and white. It was so beautiful and for the hour that the it lasted, with its pure layer thinly covering everything, Palestine felt clean and pure. Then it melted, and became a sloshy, wetness and reality hit me: this is occupied Palestine no matter how magical the snow may feel--it does not clean away the filth and violence of occupation.

Last Friday in a village in the north, the Israeli soldiers came and occupied a house. It was an old house, dating to Roman times. They kicked the family out and occupied it. They said it was holy to the Jews, and they had a military order, which they had written, that was supposed to be evidence of a higher power's declaration that the imagined significance of this house is greater than the rights of the family who owned it. As it turns out, generations and generations ago, a Jewish woman married a man who lived in the house. He buried his wife in the garden, and to this Jewish woman, settlers will come and pay homage. She was not of any religious importance. Her value is located in her blood--Jews must reinvent their claim to the land and she will now be used, her body and her memory manipulated to serve a political purpose. Is nothing sacred here? Under occupation, the only question is how to "purify" the land.

Boycotting Israel

I am pleased to report the first US university to divest from Israel: http://stopthewall.org/worldwideactivism/1846.shtml I can only hope that this is a trend that offers an economic tool to pressure Israel into a more just situation than the current occupation and racism within its state offer.

I'm a vegetarian, and I love tofu. But the only tofu I can get in Palestine comes from East Jerusalem and is in a can, which is completely unappetizing to me. There are health food stores in West Jerusalem where I can find fresh tofu, but the problem is I boycott the Israeli economy in as much as is possible. Yesterday in Tel Aviv I was hanging out with an Israeli who lives in the city. He is vegan. And I told him how much I miss tofu, so he directed me to a store down the street where I can buy tofu. I told him I can't because I boycott Israeli products and stores. He reminded me of what I know all too well: it's impossible. Not simply because I was in Israel itself, but because there is a deeply entrenched occupation that controls the products on Palestinian shelves. In East Jerusalem--legally Palestine--one cannot find the most basic Palestinian products like water. In Ramallah I can but the majority of products are Israeli and those that aren't still have to go through Israel to get to us, which means ultimately that the Israeli economy benefits. Nonetheless I believe whole-heartedly that we who live in Palestine should do our best to support the Palestinian economy and not the Israeli one. It just doesn't make sense to fund the occupation. And while it is so challenging to boycott Israeli products here because they are sometimes the only option, outside of Palestine and Israel it is much much easier. I hope that people around the world join in the growing BDS movement and use their buying power to fight injustice and apartheid. Here's a list of companies who support Israel. I hope it helps you start daily demanding justice in this simple but vital way:

One Prisoner Back on the Streets

Last night a man of 27 was outside my house. He was surrounded with maybe fifty family and friends who were celebrating his return. They stood outside all talking with intense energy and enthusiasm, for this man of 27 was released from Israeli prison yesterday after 6 years there. He was apparently held for a conspiracy against a soldier. I don’t think the way forward in this situation is to blame others. That said, we exist within systems of power relations, and these systems often bind us to certain roles and possibilities. He may or may not have been responsible for planning or was part of the executing of a plan to kill an Israeli soldier. I don’t know, and I don’t care. The point is that there is a cycle of violence here, and not one that we can easily dismiss as intractable and incomprehensible. There is an explanation for conspiracies against soldiers or the state. There is a brutal military occupation of the Palestinian land and people that is enforced everyday by those two mechanisms. This man was bred to violence. Now that may seem a highly contestable claim, but he was in fact born into a violent existence, one created by occupation. The soldier is the symbol of Palestinian oppression and so it makes sense to hate that symbol and to want to destroy it. He may have participated in a conspiracy, and he is accountable for that violence, but that violence cannot be stopped with six years in prison, or even a hundred. It can only be stopped with the violence to which it responds also stops. Only then can 20 year old young men live their lives instead of being defined as symbols of violence.

I'm Back

I’m not sure where to start. I’m back in Palestine. The first change I noticed was when I entered Israel, all of the Israeli soldiers, staff, and passport control especially, were so friendly to me. A lot of friends have asked me how I thought Gaza would affect my ability to enter Israel and return to Palestine (for those who don’t know, the occupation of Palestine means that anyone coming to Palestine enters through Israel and their passport control before crossing into Palestine, which has no air, land or sea control). I answered frankly that I didn’t know. I didn’t have any idea if entering would be more difficult or what. My experience says Israel is giving itself a makeover, embodied in that line repeated to me a good six times as I went through security and passport control: “Welcome to Israel.” My analysis is that the image of Israel is so poor after their massacring the people of Gaza that this is one of Israel’s attempts at rectifying the damage. The problem is, the damage is not just one of image. The damage is someone’s home that they built after 20 years of saving their salaries. The schools destroyed. The mosques decimated. The brothers, the daughters, and grandmothers dead. The father who lost his legs and the mother who lost her skin. The child who lost her eyes. The burned school books and pictures. The clothes and food supplies. Life. The health, safety, education, and future of an entire people. Maybe more than those futures are their presents. No shelter, no food or water, no mother or brother now. All dead, destroyed, massacred. Wouldn’t it be incredible if fixing the damage was an honest endeavor, not about branding Israel differently but of rebuilding lives and changing a decades long policy of ethnic cleansing. That sounds so simple that it rings of absurdity. And yet, how is it that halting violent ethnic cleansing could possibly sound absurd?

The Privilege to be Blind

Talking to an Israeli friend this morning. He said somewhat casually, "Yea, I didn't even know there was a war. A friend asked what I thought about it, and I had to ask him, what war?"

I laughed in shock and said to him, "Isn't that incredible!"

He replied that it wasn't really because he doesn't pay any attention to the news.

So, I elaborated, "No, isn't it incredible that you are bombing the shit out of people less than an hour from your house, and you don't even know about it. You shouldn't have to turn on the news or look at the papers. You should know about it because at night you can see the light in the sky. Everyone is talking about it. Come on! Just think about it, you have the privilege to ignore the news, to ignore the violence. And what a privilege!"

He responded that most people have that privilege to which I retorted rather rudely, "Not the more than one million people in Gaza whose houses and schools and families you are bombing the shit out of!" And it's true, right? I mean, every life is sacred. But 10 dead, with only three civilians and four of the soldiers being killed by "friendly" fire, the loss--while tragic--is minimal compared to the more than 1,000 Gazans dead and 5,000 wounded. I guess my point is that at least my friend can ignore afford to ignore it.

Although he did mention that an emergency alarm was sounded in Jerusalem today. He said he was scared to death and didn't know where to hide. Turns out it was a mistake and went off accidently. The contrast is just absurd.

The Jewish State

If I called the US State Department to inquire about a work visa for a non US citizen whom I wish to employ and were asked if he was black, I would most certainly be shocked by the question and definitely challenge the racism so obvious in such a question. The race, religion, sexuality or gender of any individual who has the skills and experience to be employed are absolutely irrelevant, and moreover illegal to question.

But when an Israeli citizen recently called the Israeli Ministry of Interior to inquire about a work visa for me, he was given some information and then abruptly asked, “Is she Jewish?” My jaw dropped. This would surely be labeled racism were it asked here in the US, but in the Jewish state of Israel, it is practically natural that a Jew could be given a work visa without question yet a non Jew would experience a far more difficult process. How is it possible that now, in the 21st century, a state that privilege an entire race and religion over all others, including both the indigenous people and American citizens, whose money is the largest support Israel receives, is virtually accepted around the world? I think it’s been far long enough and we must stop and think about this exclusive state whose every structure is inherently racist.

As I sat in a Jerusalem bar last week, I struck up conversation with a French tourist. Much of his family had declared aliya (the law that allows any Jew in the world to gain citizenship almost immediately by declaring his “return” home) and lived in Israel. I asked if he planned to do the same. He said no, he was not really Jewish, at least, he clarified, in terms of religion. But he was racially Jewish. So, I asked what he thought of the Jewish State and he told me that it was necessary for Jews to have a safe place since they were unwelcomed throughout the world. Christians, he continued, could go anywhere, but not Jews. I challenged this claim and he responded that he had traveled extensively and never been threatened, and he was a Christian. I was confused. He said he was Jewish. A Christian Jew. But the question remained, how could he invok the Christian part of his identity and credit this with his safety? He said he was a white European and for this reason he was safe. But, I thought, most of the Jewish Israelis I saw were white Europeans, so which Jews were unsafe? Which Jews did Israel exist for? He was a bit confused by this point as well, but maintained that there was nothing racist about having a Jewish state. The US was a Christian state, he asserted. Okay, well, not really, but nonetheless, is Israel a religiously Jewish state or a racially Jewish state? A little of both, but here’s the crux, you don’t have to be a religious Jew to declare Aliya, you just have to prove to be racially Jewish. An Israeli citizen I know was asked if he is Israeli Israeli or Palestinian Israeli; apparently the former means pure Israeli, that is to say Jewish. Can you imagine if American American signified a “pure,” white American as opposed to a Black American? I can because it was not so long ago that “African” Americans were less than those imagined to be American Americans. We’ve come a long way in America, but not far enough. And since I can’t imagine the State Department questioning my race and using that to deny me a work visa, I don’t think we should so easily accept when any other state uses such categories to discriminate most and privilege some.

On Monday, the Israel Central Election Committee banned Arab political parties from running in the upcoming elections. Citizens of the state are no allowed to run for office because of their race. Imagine…but wait, in this country we can simply remember.