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.