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Published: July 14th 2006
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A photo from the kindergarden
The boy pictured is holding rubber bullets fired from when the army raided the nursery school. We're not in a warzone
Elliot:
Okay so I imagine anyone out there paying attention to the media must have the impression that all Hell is breaking loose. However, paradoxically the West Bank seems to be relatively calm just now.
Anyway, we're not in Gaza, Lebanon or Northern Israel, so we're away from the hairy stuff. This is not to say we are not having "interesting times." We've come back from Jericho now, which was HOT, but not too harrowing.
I should have written about this yesterday, because today we went to the Palestinian village next to the wall to protest, and the Israeli army was not chuffed with us being there. If you're just interested in the protest, then scroll down, but I want to tell another story first, about something that happened in Jericho.
Only good little Palestinian get computers
Jemima's already talked about most of the stuff that we did there- basically it's a relatively peaceful, touristy part of the West Bank, but there is still what I'd call creeping process of colonisation, and the occupation still manifests itself in pretty ugly ways.
One example is the four charitable organisations
The happy couple
Seriously dedicated Palestinian activists invited soldiers to their wedding. An Arabic word comes to mind: mishnoon. (bonkers) that were attacked by night in the city, including a kindergarden and a medical centre. I want in particular to talk about the Islamic kindergarden, which Jemima already wrote about, because it is kind of emblematic of the perception of Palestine at the moment.
Soldiers invading a nursery- a pretty unjustifiable thing.
Now we six ISMers visited them. We explained that our role was to try to mitigate the actions of soldiers by our presence in such scenarios, and to document them so that the world knows about it. This is all fine, and maybe in the future ISM will have a greater presence in the area, and we can do precisely those things.
At the moment we were speaking to them, however, what they needed was a new computer. It was disappointing not to help, but ISM is not a charity, though we did say that we could perhaps find organisations who would help. By an enormous coincidence, we met a European philanthropist (I won't be more specific because he is keen for his activities to go under the Israeli intelligence radar.) Basically he's a Christian, and he is travelling Palestine helping farmers find European markets
Thee's always someone who...
who gets carried away at weddings. and getting Fair Trade accreditation. He also seemed keen to do... "good deeds," I spose you'd call'em. He bought a fax machine for the hotel we were staying in, which had also been raided by the army.
So we got talking to this chap, and told him the story of the kindergarden. He was enthused, and we made an agreement whereby we (as individuals, not ISM) would contribute $200, and he would pay the rest. This seemed so enormously serendipitous that it had to work- had to be fate.
So we made sure we have the money, and arranged to meet our new philanthropic friend in the morning in the hotel lobby.
However, when we met he told us he had some "bad news." He had spoken to someone from the governate, and found out that Sheik Zaid, who ran the school ,was a member of Hamas. He sympathised, but he did not want to take political sides. So no computer.
I want to be clear: the kindergarden was not attached to any political party. It was Islamic, but even Tony Blair extols the virtues of "Faith Schools." It is not really surprising that a member of Hamas, the leading Islamic, party, also should be the head of an Islamic children's institution.
That word "Hamas" terrifies people though. I don't want to labour the point, but this incident really put me in mind of the economic sanctions against Palestine since the Hamas was democratically elected, and the humanitarian crisis which.
I'm not angry with the philanthropist; he was doing anazing work, not for glory but because of faith and compassion. I'm just incredulous that a nursery school could be ransacked by soldiers, and yet not receive help. Maybe i just wish i was incredulous...
Here ends the dismal parable.
Bil'in: the village against the wall
Anyway, on to today and Bil'in. The ISM report is here: http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/07/14/palestinian-activists-wed-in-the-shadow-of-the-wall/
Bil'in is like THE village against wall. They've been having weekly marches for years, and they now operate an outpost on the Israeli side of the wall, inhabiting the land despite its annexation. The demo today consisted of an attempt to have a wedding on annexed Palestinian land on the Israeli side of the wall. What could go wrong?
The happy couple were Mansur, a Palestinian man in ISM, and his bride Iman, a Palestinian Texan. There was dancing and singing, but the soldiers were not in party-mood. You'd think 'Leave me it's my wedding day" would deter some violence from the soldiers, but they unleashed a fair arsenal of sound bombs, tear gas and rubber bullets. Oh and wooden clubs, which some seemed to like. There were plenty of injuries- the guy next to me right now has his arm in a bandage, but Jemima and I were taking a relatively backseat and came out fine, if pretty spooked. Of course this kind of violence is common for Palestinians, but it's still pretty scary. Thankfully no-one was arrested.
To explain why we were there I'll just say that, in the groom's home village of Biddu, there was a demonstration against the wall without internationals, and four were shot dead. I think a demo on the scale of today's would have been a massacre without us there.
As for Jemima and me, we're physically fine, though, without wanting to be touchy feely and American, emotions have been running quite high. I'm glad she is here with me.
Tomorrow we're going to a village that does not exist....
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DB (dod or Cymru)
non-member comment
S'mae
Hiya Glad to see events in Lebonan are threatening to cut things short for you. A lot of us have definatly been keeping a special eye on news about the situation in the West Bank. The story about the Kindergarden was interesting - if only to highlight the degree to which Hamas is intergrated into everyday life. If nothing else it puts the demands of many who claim that Pallestinians must disown Hamas into perpective. Anyway, my best wishes to both of you... keep in contact DB