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KC Native Joe
Carr Working for Peace in the West Bank
October 6 - Hebron
Hello all. A quick disclaimer, this is far too long and
detailed, so feel free to skim it an only get the essentials. Thanks for
bearing with me; I promise to be more concise in the future.
Well I’m finally in Al Khalil (Hebron),
where I’ll be living and working, but for now am continuing the delegation
till Friday. We spent the last several days going between Israel and the
Palestinian territories, looking at the Wall and other evidence of the
occupation, and meeting with Palestinian and Israeli peacemakers.
The first day (Thursday) we spent in
Bethlehem, and met with Badil (www.badil.org),
which is a refugee rights organization, and we learned about the plight of
Palestinian refugees. They have no citizenship in any country unless they
give up their refugee status, unlike other refugees who have a state from
which they came. There are over 4 million Palestinians living abroad, unable
to return to their homes in what is now Israel after they were forcefully
evacuated in 1948. Then we met with Wi’am (www.planet.edu/~alaslah.org)
which works on resolving inter-Palestinian conflict, such as domestic and
employment issues. It is interesting to see relatively normal intuitions
functioning while under military occupation. Then onto the Applied Research
Institute of Jerusalem (ARIJ) (www.arij.org)
which has done amazing research on the wall, including detailed satellite
photos and environmental analysis.
As Christians, we of course visited the
Church of the Nativity on the cite where Jesus is believed to have been
born. It turns out it is less like a barn, and more like a cave, where
animals lived. It’s a gorgeous old structure, some parts from the Byzantines
in the 400’s, others from the Crusaders in 1100’s. Super-old regardless.
There are still many bullet wholes from when the Israeli Military attacked
it in 2002 and held dozens of Palestinians captive for several weeks.
We spent the night in Deheshe Refugee
camp, a gated-in ghetto that consists of an entire village that was uprooted
in 1948 from what it now Israel. It has little commercial development and
poor water and electricity supply. The man that we stayed with, Atallah, sat
and talked with us for a long time that evening. He brought in his mother
who’s in her 80’s, and his nephew who was 11, allowing us to get the
perspective of multiple generations. She told how Jewish militia forced her
family out of their home at gunpoint when she was 14, and had to live in a
cave for a few years before the refugee camp was erected. An Israeli missile
killed her son (Atallah’s brother) a few years ago. She said that she tries
not to hate Israelis and Americans (who made it possible), and that she
knows it is the fault of government and not the people.
The young boy, Ma’an, told in great
detail about an Israeli siege on his house, where they forced them all
outside at gunpoint, and then into one room for a long time with no food or
water. They beat one of his uncles in front of his family in order to shame
him. Ma’an said he wants to be a football (soccer) player when he grows up.
We asked him if he’d play football with Israelis, and he said he wouldn’t
cause he’d feel like a traitor. He doesn’t believe there are any good
Israelis, but if we knew of any he’d very much like to hear, because he’d
only seen cruel soldiers. We told him stories of Israelis who protest the
occupation regularly and of Israeli soldiers who refuse to serve and get put
in prison. He was very excited about this, and had a look of wonderment in
his eyes. I told him of the Israeli who was shot in both legs by the Israeli
Military while protesting the wall, and he was thrilled. He said that maybe
he could play football with Israelis who didn’t hate Palestinians.
The next day, on our way back into
Israel, we’d cleared the checkpoint and were on our way into Jerusalem when
Israeli police stopped the bus for a random ID check. All the Palestinians
on the bus became very anxious, including an old man who looked like he was
going to have a heart attack. They ended up pulling a man, his wife, and two
children off the bus and detaining them. Apparently his ID was ok but his
wife’s permit was expired, which is often tolerated for women who’s husbands
are legit, but it seems they were anxious to be jerks on this day. We had to
go on realizing there was nothing we could do.
We then went
to meet with Rabbis for Human Rights (www.rhr.israel.net),
but there was a time mix-up and we were stuck waiting in the hallway of an
apartment building. An Israeli man showed up and offered to show us his
Sukkot in the back yard. A Sukkot is a square tent made of wood and fabric
with various ceremonial plants and symbols. He sat us in it, gave us cold
soda, and proceeded to tell us the history of the Sukkot. Sukkot is a 6-day
celebration of the harvest season feast of the tabernacle. The Sukkot tent
is an impermanent structure that symbolizes God’s protection of the Jews in
the 40 years they were in the desert. Turns out he and his wife are from
Kansas City, and immigrated to Israel 30 years ago. Truly amazing random
hospitality.
After our meeting with the activist
Rabbis who take direct action against human rights abuses in the West Bank
and in Israel, we visited the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions (www.icahd.org)
who do amazing direct action work in the territories. They have an
anti-Zionist approach which calls for one secular democratic state in which
everyone has equal rights, a truly radical idea.
The next
day we went on a short wall tour, and checked out places where the wall is
going to be. We visited the West Bank city of Budrus, which is one of the
only places where nonviolent direct action by villagers moved the wall
closer to the green line and saved a few acres of olive trees. Some of the
trees they call “Roman trees”, because they are over 1000 years old. Some
that were uprooted they were able to replant. They won’t grow back, but they
consider olive trees holy so they leave the trunks sticking up. They’re
still losing hundreds of acres of their farmland, but they consider it a
success that they were able to make any change at all. There wasn’t even a
checkpoint going in and out of the village from Israel, so clearly there are
no “terrorists” coming from there, making it even clearer that the wall has
nothing to do with Israeli security.
We drove on the Israeli side of the wall
along the Northern west bank. The Israeli government has piled up dirt next
to the highway and planted flowers, but you can see the tip of the wall
sticking out, and the occasional guard tower. I doubt any Israeli is fooled.
One part of the wall completely surrounds the village of Qalqilya. When we
parked for a closer look it is obvious how it totally encompasses the
village.
The next day we were scheduled to visit
Ramallah, but tragedy struck for me. I got a call early that morning from a
friend in Olympia, telling me that one of our friends had committed suicide.
His name is Collin, he was Rachel’s best friend and former lover, and had
recovered from heavy heroin addiction. I got to know him pretty well when I
was in Olympia right after Rachel was killed. He said that she had really
brought him out of his drug abuse, and that he probably would have overdosed
and died otherwise. He’d begun dating another one of my friends who I know
much better, and they had recently got engaged. Turns out they both became
addicted to heroin, and he jumped off a bridge. She’s now in de-tox in
Olympia surrounded by friends. Collin is the fifth person in my life to die
of unnatural causes in the last year and a half, so it’s pretty upsetting. I
wrote a poem about it, which is pasted at the bottom. It’s a little corny
but it helps me grieve.
After a day of recovery, I went with the
group on a tour of unrecognized Palestinian villages inside Israel. There
are over 110 of these, the residents of which are all tax-paying voting
citizens of Israel, but their villages are not on any map, they’re denied
water, electricity, and road services; forbidden from having schools,
clinics, or any state funding for any project. They are always denied
building permits, and their homes are destroyed regularly. Meanwhile, the
Israeli government pumps money into Jewish-only neighborhoods nearby, and
often plans for them to expand on top of the current location of the
Palestinian village. We visited the town of Ein Tob, which is one of the
only villages to fight and win county water, but they had to purchase and
install the pipes themselves. We met with a man who had dared to open a
restaurant out of his home, and now Israelis come from all around for his
food. I joked that when they ask where it is, he should tell them, “look on
the map, and where you don’t see, that’s where we are”.
We met with the Arab Association for
Human Rights (www.arabhra.org)
based in Nazareth. They outlined multiple levels of personal and
institutional discrimination against Palestinian living in Israel with
Israeli citizenship. I always knew the Palestinians living in the occupied
West Bank and Gaza Strip were treated terribly, but I had no idea what a
racist system Israel operates within its borders. It is truly comparable to
the Jim Crow south in our country.
Nazareth was amazing. We visited the
cite Mary is believed to have been visited by Gabriel and told of her
immaculate conception. We also visited a church containing a house from the
era Jesus lived in, not necessarily his house, but one like it. The church
contained gorgeous representations of Mary and Jesus from nearly every
country in the world.
The next day (yesterday), an Israeli
activist gave us a tour of the Bedouin villages in the Negev desert. These
too are Palestinians who have Israeli citizenship, and many of them even
serve in the Israeli military. The Bedouin are a nomadic people who
formerly were spread throughout the Negev desert, 60% of Israel’s territory.
They have now been forced onto a small triangle (2% of the Negev)
appropriately called the “Reservation”. Israel built three townships and
told the Bedouin they had to sign away their rights to their land and become
an urban proletariat, working for Jewish Israelis instead of farming and
raising animals in their traditional ways. Those who refused, live in
unrecognized villages like those described above. In addition to this,
Israel has turned the Reservation into an industrial area, and every major
polluting factory is placed within miles of these townships and unrecognized
villages, including Israel’s nuclear weapons facility. There are incredibly
high rates of cancer, miscarriage, heart disease, asthma, and scores of
other health problems in the Bedouin’s living within 20 miles of the
facilities. They could have built these in the largely uninhabited 60% of
the Negev, but they chose the small 2% area designated for the Bedouins. Can
anyone say racist genocide?
Now we are finally in Khalil (Hebron),
and I truly feel at home. The apartment is awesome, with gorgeous old
architecture. The old city in which we live, is between 400 and 700 years
old. We live in a neighborhood now largely abandoned by Palestinians and the
shops they used to operate there. Israeli soldiers and settlers have slowly
but surely occupied more and more of the area, and are now on all four sides
of us. But you will hear much more about this situation, I will end this for
now.
Much love to everyone, pray for me as I
continue to grieve for Collin, and the now over 60 Palestinians massacred in
Gaza. Thanks for the replies, it helps me know that I’m loved. I’ll let you
know if they get overwhelming.
in peace
- joe
Oh Collin
Oh Collin
I’m callin your name
Cause you’ve fallen
Fallen from the game
The stuff that came was tough
You had rough breaks
I thought you had what it takes
To shake the earthquakes
But there’s only so much a man can withstand
I understand why you had to abandon the land
But it hurts to see another brother under the dirt
Rachel saved you once by the grace of her care
How could Maya even try to compare?
She’s a phenomenal woman and her love was immense
But you caint thwart fate
There’s no way to prevent
For addicts its dramatic
Two choices you said
You either screw up your life and come out
Or your dead
Apparently the latter was the ladder you’d climb
Your destiny to rest in peace
It’s simply your time
We said goodbye to Rachel now we let you go too
And focus on the living loving Maya and crew
I’m barely believing that I’m grieving once more
But death’s a part of living like the apple’s core
So goodbye farewell audios
Masalaama my friend
Another ship has cast
But not the last
Not the end
Oh Collin
I’m callin your name
Cause you’ve fallen
Fallen from the game
Oh Maya
I cry to get you through the pain
May the evil needle cead and not to you do the same
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