Tuesday, June 9, 2009

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.

Monday, June 8, 2009

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.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

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.