CPT Palestine #3: Caught Between Soldiers

Soldiers escorting Israeli settlers through the Palestinian Old City of Hebron

Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem's famous church built on top of "the stable".

A poignant piece of art by Banksy on the Israeli apartheid wall in Bethlehem

So our first real taste of active, physical occupation (aside from East Jerusalem) was Bethlehem. Some of the most important places we visited here were the Wi’am Centre for Restorative Justice and the Lajee Centre in the Aida Refugee Camp.

Both the Wi'am Centre and the Lajee Centre are successful and productive Palestinian-led civil society organizations.

The Wi’am Centre for Conflict Resolution

http://www.alaslah.org/

Explaining to us how the Wi'am Centre works on restorative justice and conflict resolution between local Palestinian families. They look at collective responsibility, rather than blame or guilt for problems that arise. This process of conflict resolution rehumanizes the conflicting parties in the other's eyes, which is an essential aspect of reconciliation.

Lajee Centre for young people in the Aida Refugee Camp

http://www.lajee.org/

Explaining how the centre provides refugee youth with educational, cultural, social, developmental opportunities. The programs are shaped by the particular needs, interests, and skills of the youth in attendance.

PLEASE watch this short video made by the youth at the Lajee Centre. It's incredibly well-made and they can tell their own story much better than I can.

A military turret on the wall blackened with gunfire

The refugee camp came together to memorialize the names of all the Palestinian children who  have been killed by the Israeli military

Exploded tear gas canister, made in Jamestown, Pennsylvania

Rubber bullets

Why not just show a bunch of the discharged ammunition used by the Israeli army on the Palestinians, later collected by this Palestinian organization.

-     We spent an extended amount of time in Hebron, where CPT is active. Hebron is a very old Palestinian city and one of the most industrial cities in the country. It is where many famous Palestinian handicrafts are made, such as Phoenician glass, kufiyas, leather sandals, olive oil soap, and many other things for which Hebron is famous. Unfortunately, as Israel makes it increasingly difficult to export Palestinian products, many of these businesses find themselves going out of business. Also home to the Ibrahimi Mosque, the tomb of Abraham and Sarah, this Palestinian city holds religious significance to both the Islamic and Jewish religions.

A man melts the Phoenician/Hebron glass into shape

A store with the finished products

Noah smiling away outside the glass factory, owned by the Natsheh family

Camel Sandals - a worldwide famous leather "old world" sandal brand that is based in Hebron:

http://camelsandals.com/

Kufiyas - evolved into a symbol of solidarity with Palestinian people, the kufiya was originally a type of scarf worn by Palestinian farmers. Now, Hirbawi is (I think) the only entirely Palestinian-owned company left that makes them:

https://www.hirbawi.ps/

https://www.kufiya.org/

During one of our first days here, myself and two other members of our delegation found ourselves in a tight situation.

While the three of us were wandering around on a lunch break, we found our path back to the CPT office blocked by a row of Israeli soldiers. Walking back the other way, the path had been blocked off that way as well by the time we got there, another blockade further in the distance. Between the two blockades was a “no-go” zone that was completely empty. Apparently, the soldiers blocked the street in order to find three boys who had supposedly thrown rocks. Arresting two of them already, they were blocking the street in search of the third (ineffectively so, they were more likely trying to send a message). Trapped between the two soldier blockades, we watched what happened between the Israeli soldiers and Palestinians trapped with us inside the blockade.

Abby, the other woman with us, speaks Arabic and some Hebrew, so was able to understand the communications around us. When one of the soldiers tried to speak to a Palestinian child, Abby frowned and leaned over to me.

“His Arabic is so poor,” she commented, “he’s trying to ask ‘what is your name’ but is actually asking ‘what is my name’”. This is strange how little Arabic the soldiers know, considering they are working in the middle of Palestine, an Arabic-speaking country. Also, Israel is a country completely surrounded by other Arabic-speaking countries – you would think they learn at least some amount of Arabic in school. I mean, it is just a tiny portion of Canada that speaks French, yet I could probably at least carry out a small conversation, let alone say ‘what’s your name’. It really feels like a mentality of both isolationism and imperialism that would lead a state like Israel to not teach their children Arabic.

When one soldier got annoyed with a child repeatedly demanding to pass, the soldier scoffed, “No, cannot pass. Or else I kill you.” What was horrifying was the grin on the soldier’s face – he was joking, but the threat was real. He had license to kill that child if he passed the blockade.

At one point, a loud sound went off on the street ahead of us, so we jumped up and bolted to the middle of the road to see clearer. In the distance, we could see a cloud of tear gas billowing up from the ground, people running away from it covering their eyes and noses and coughing.

At one point, we were getting quite tired as we’d been waiting slightly over an hour already. Suddenly, we heard frantic shouting not far from us. Looking up in horror, we saw the soldiers angrily shouting and pointing their guns at a man walking straight through the “no-go” zone between the two blockades. Everyone began shouting and gesturing frantically at him, multiple assault rifles pointed directly at him. Heart pounding, I stared in silence and horror, terrified of what the soldiers would decide to do. Eventually, he made it through the other blockade and walked up a path, shouting at the soldiers the whole time and the soldiers shouting back.

One of the more terrifying realizations of this experience was how candid everyone is around these weapons. Most of the Palestinians were not at all scared of the foreign soldiers, this type of militant disruption being a regular part of their life. The majority just appeared somewhat annoyed, an attitude of ‘ugh this again?’ being the overwhelming attitude. At one point, one of the soldiers nearest to us wanted to readjust his helmet, so he handed his gun to a fellow soldier to hold. As they passed the gun by the strap, I noticed that for a moment I was staring straight down the barrel of an assault rifle.

Just chilling around some dudes carrying automatic rifles... Actually, this was during a "settler tour", where roughly 30 soldiers escort around 10 or so settlers around the Palestinian-controlled areas of the Old City.

This is something that should never be normalized. But it is here in Hebron.

Don't overdo it now... just a massive f***ing tank in the middle of the street.

The occupation is more visible in Hebron than anywhere else we've seen. The settlers are more radical and ideological, the Palestinians are more highly persecuted and watched by Israeli soldiers, the Israeli military checkpoints are more intense, the number of settlements is higher here, and the division is more pronounced than anywhere else.

A Palestinian home confiscated by Israeli settlers and decorated Israeli colours and flags

For the life of me I can't figure out how to rotate this photo, but it's basically just an empty street. Shuhada Street was once the most bustling market street in Hebron, but it's since been shut down by the Israeli military and now, as you can see, it is completely bare.

These nets are to stop/collect trash thrown at Palestinians from Israeli settlers. Many Israeli settlers occupy the upper floors of buildings in which Palestinians still live in the downstairs. The Palestinians use the back doors onto this street and the settlers exit from stairs on the other side of the building.

An illegal synagogue set up on Palestinian-controlled land by settlers across the street. Rather than use the synagogues already in the settlements, some settlers deliberately set up makeshift synagogues on Palestinian-controlled land as a statement.

Let's take a brief break from lousy occupation to really appreciate something incredible: Palestinian food. People were incredibly generous and kind, either offering us food or getting excited when we would eat something Palestinian. And the food was absolutely delicious.

Laila was kind enough to invite everyone to her home for a large meal of maklubeh. She'd made a huge pot that we all sat around in a circle and enjoyed. Laila works with the Hebron Women's Cooperative

Oh my goooosh that food. Falafel, sooo many different kinds of salad, pickled vegetables, pits, hummus (so much hummus), shawarma, literally everything delicious. Also the incredibly refreshing mint lemonades that were everywhere.

Okay, back to occupation.

In addition to documentation, one of the important roles CPT plays in Hebron is their school patrols. Historically, as the number of Israeli military checkpoints increases around Palestine, the number of students attending school decreases (fancy that). Every morning and evening, CPT members arrive at the checkpoints to count the number of children passing through on their way to and from school. They also record the number of bag checks, body searches, and other disruptions. (Click here for their actual website)

Parents walking their sons to the checkpoint for school

A group of young women on their way to school

Pushing one-by-one through the turnstile as soldiers carefully watch them

Fascinating: when the turnstile broke down, a soldier came out after a while to see if he could fix it. Even though he opened a gate to the right of this photo while he did this, children often still waited behind him instead of going through the open gate. When occupation is ingrained, children learn that the cost of potentially making a wrong move out of convenience is far higher than waiting a little longer at a checkpoint.

Just shepherding ma' sheep down the street

On Fridays, CPT also monitors the number of people attending and leaving the mosque.  As checkpoints go up, mosque attendance also goes down (again, just faaancy that)

While waiting outside the mosque, Mohammed invited Barbara and I to sit down for some coffee outside his shop. Self-attributing his incredible English skills to tourists and Arnold Schwartznegger movies, Mohammed was more than happy to chat with us. Both Mohammed and Barbara are such direct and self-spoken people with an incredible sense of humour that lead to this probably being one of the most enlightening and also hilarious conversations of the entire trip.

 Another large role CPT plays in Hebron is supporting many local organizations through both promotion and tourism.

The Hebron Rehabilitation Centre

Visiting a school funded by the Hebron International Resources Network. It is incredibly difficult to get any sort of authorization from the Israeli military to build anything (even schools). However, after several years, they were finally able to achieve permission to build the school and, alas, here it is.

Another valuable tool they have at their disposal is a strong foreign presence. In tiny Bedouin towns like Umm Al Khair, a foreign presence is needed to prevent hostile settlers from throwing rocks and bulldozing their corrugated metal houses. Also, while the Israeli military requires a permit to bulldoze solid, permanent buildings, corrugated metal buildings are considered impermanent and can therefore be destroyed without a permit. Having already demolished the majority of their permanent concrete structures, the military no longer requires permits to destroy their homes. Read more about Umm Al Khair HERE. As these demolitions and rock-throwing most often occur at night, many organizations arrange for foreign groups to spend the night in one of their shelters. A foreign presence greatly decreases the chance of violence on any given night.

This lovely fellow showed us around his village and explained the village's experiences with the settlers and the military.

You can see the modern-looking settlement houses in the background. They stand in stark contrast to homes built from sheet metal and cloth in this village.

The village elder standing strong, hand in hand with the next generation.

Breaking bread together

Spending the night in this tent, the morning was so lovely. Mornings in Umm Al Khair <3 td="">

Free Palestine

-       LINKS to all the important places we visited:

The Wi’am Centre for Conflict Resolution in Bethlehem

http://www.alaslah.org/

Lajee Centre for young people in the Aida Refugee Camp

http://www.lajee.org/

Hebron Women’s Cooperative

https://womeninhebron.com/

Hebron Rehabilitation Committee

http://www.hebronrc.ps/index.php/en/

Hebron International Resources Network

https://hebronresources.wordpress.com/

Story of Wadi Al Hussein

http://english.pnn.ps/2017/07/06/the-suffering-story-of-wadi-al-hussein/

TIPH (Temporary International Presence in Hebron) - another international presence in Hebron

http://www.tiph.org/

International Solidarity Movement (ISM in Hebron) - another international presence in Hebron

https://palsolidarity.org/

Story of Umm Al Khair

https://muftah.org/israel-bedouin-village-umm-al-khayr/#.Wd24ChNSy8o

Operation Dove (in Al Tuani village)

http://www.operationdove.org/

Peace Now (rotates to Bethlehem because no water in Al Tuani)

http://peacenow.org.il/en/

CPT Palestine #2: A Divided Israel

Abandoned Arab homes in Lifta, Jerusalem. The inhabitants fled during the 1948 Nakba (translated to English as "Catastrophe", or known in Israel as their "War of Independence")

Legally, East Jerusalem is occupied territory belonging to Palestine. However, you wouldn’t know it because Israel identifies it as their land and people can drive from one end to the other – it’s one city. It is also entirely within Israel's massive wall (or "security fence", according to Israel). Although all of Jerusalem is claimed by Israel, there is clear evidence of policies aimed to keep land in and the people out of Israel

For example, Arab residents whose family have lived in Jerusalem for generations are often given “permanent residency” status rather than Israeli citizenship. To maintain residency within Jerusalem, they have to ensure that it is their primary residency or their living permits are revoked. There are unannounced residency checks late at the night. If the door is not answered, it is concluded that the house is empty and residency permit is revoked.

In addition to this, rent is extremely high, marriage outside of Israel results in loss of residency, access to the Arab Al Quds University is made extremely difficult, Israel does not recognize degrees from Al Quds University (although many other countries do), and they are cut off from trade and employment. It is clear that the aim to push the Arab people out of Israel and East Jerusalem, while keeping the land in.

Since Arab families generally have a higher birthrate than Jewish-Israeli families, it would make sense to assume that their percentage of the population will grow - and it does. At some point, it is estimated that the Arab population in Jerusalem will outnumber the Jewish-Israeli population. That said, the “strategic plans” of Israel include a “religious section”. The goal for Jerusalem in the most recent plant is to have a 70% Jewish and 30% non-Jewish population. Israel is one of the only countries in the world to include a religion section in something like this.

If Israel doesn’t acknowledge the divide between Israeli and Palestinian land within Jerusalem, wouldn’t they at least treat it like their own?

No, even without it being recognized by Israel as Palestinian, you can see how East Jerusalem, the "Arab Section", receives very little, if any, development funding from Israel. Every year, an extra allotment of funding is given by Israel to Jerusalem for development purposes. It is clear which part of Jerusalem receives this funding. We had a decent lookout point at Jabal El Mukabar, where we could see the high-rise skyscrapers and greenery in West Jerusalem situated directly beside the old, brown buildings of Easts Jerusalem. Every house in East Jerusalem was topped with a water tank.

Lookout at Jabal El Mukabar with out guide explaining the view and situation surrounding it. To the right is East Jerusalem. It is difficult to see, but the buildings are quite old and there are water tanks on top of everything. In the far left corner is West Jerusalem with new skyscrapers and around seven cranes in sight at the time of this photo.

Building permits are impossible to attain in East Jerusalem. If someone builds without a permit, the entire house is demolished. While Israeli law demands demolished houses are cleaned up around two weeks after demolition, the demolished houses in East Jerusalem are left for much longer as a message to the residents. Every house in East Jerusalem is topped with a water tank because their water supply could stop randomly - this doesn't happen in West Jerusalem.


Another important example of the discriminatory policies is that of two Arab towns on the outskirts of East Jerusalem, still within the Wall. They are blocked in on almost all sides yet are completely packed with people; they need to expand. Between the two towns, there is an open expanse of land that would naturally be built on to satisfy this expansion. The land is completely barren. However, Israel has cut off access to this land for "protection of the native species". There are hardly any plants in the area - there are no natural species here. Even Israeli environmentalists criticized Israel's decision to preserve this land. The sole purpose of it is to prevent the two Arab towns from expanding into it. This is a further continuation of the underlying policy of keeping Arab land in and Arab people out.

To the left and right are the two Arab towns. Behind us is the larger city of East Jerusalem. Far in the distance of this photo is the Apartheid Wall. In the middle, behind the trees, is the expanse taken under reserve for "environmental conservation" (the part with the trees is not part of this).

Another day while still staying in Jerusalem, we visited the Negev region, in southern Israel. The Negev is primarily populated by Bedouin communities, recognized internationally as the poorest people in all of Israel. Even Israel recognizes them as citizens, yet houses are demolished regularly and very few, if any, government funding or social services are provided. They generally have around one small medical clinic for several villages, live in corrugated metal structures, no electricity, a severe lack in other important infrastructure, and very few graduate high school. Less than 1% graduate post-secondary school. The towns are largely unrecognized by Israel, even though their inhabitants all hold Israeli passports.

One home in a typical Bedouin community in the Negev

Bedouins are often said to be a nomadic people. However, there is a lot of conflict surround this. Historically, only the shepherds were “nomadic” in order to keep finding food for their sheep. It’s a desert – not a lot grows there. However, there were still primary structures set up where people would live. The few of them that were “nomadic” were purely out of necessity for the sheep and for food – it was not a desired way to live. Many Bedouins nowadays loathe using the term “nomadic”. Within Israel, calling them "nomadic" gives the Israeli government the ability to deny Bedouin villages legitimacy, contributing to why Israel doesn't recognize the majority of Bedouin villages in the Negev.

Another reason Israel doesn't recognize these towns (aside from, y'know, racism) is the lack of documentation. The Bedouin have never had written documentation of their ownership of the land - they have never needed it. Even during both British and Ottoman rule, the never had documentation but their rights to live in the lands were still recognized.

A woman joined us on the trip and gave us a tour of the Negev. We noticed giant electrical plants directly beside many of the villages. This would never fly in Canada.

A somewhat confusing photo taken from the bus, this is one of the electrical plants directly beside the town

At some points it even extends over top of Bedouin roads and buildings

We visited Al Arakib, a town in which the inhabitants' families have lived for multiple generations, yet it is unrecognized by Israeli. Their homes have been demolished multiple times. We were lucky enough to meet the Sheikh of Al Arakib. A figure of resilience and perseverance, he spoke to us about the difficulties of the town's inhabitants, the number of times it's been destroyed, their multiple legal battles, and Bedouin history in the region.

A rather symbolic photo of the Sheikh walking out into his town's land

The town was celebrating its anniversary of having been rebuilt multiple times. As part of this, they had a large poster board full of photos.

A woman beside what was formerly her home - Al Araqib. From the poster board.

This poster of the Sheikh of Al-Araqib gave us all a chuckle.

Still standing strong

During the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict, the Israeli government classified the entire Bedouin area of the Negev "open areas". Therefore they did not have warning sirens or anti-rocket protection. 




We visited multiple Bedouin communities, many of which are unrecognized by Israel, and heard from many of the Bedouin people about the situation. Despite extreme poverty, every single community we went to had a large shelter from the sun with cushions for us to sit on. They served us each a cup of sage tea, Arab coffee, and water, ensuring our cups were always full. It was rude to refuse. This culture of hospitality shocked many of us regardless of how little one has, they still treat guests with honor and there is always something to give.

The teapot, coffee pot, and bottle of water that went around multiple times and was always kept full.

Note: these photos are not my own. We had different people as “designated photographer” for the day, so to give more respect/attention to the speakers and avoid all of us taking photos at the time.