Letter From American In Ramallah
This is the current top post in WordPress – good to see word getting out about this first hand account of life in the OPT … direct link here
Following is a letter from an American in Ramallah, who is a friend of a friend. Checkpoints, Nasrallah, IDF, jokes, arrests, kidnapping — it’s all in there. We pick up after the initial greeting:
I apologize for the huge gaps in my emails. These past few weeks have been very very busy and it has become nearly impossible for me to plan ahead of time. Yesterday I was planning on going to Hebron when my friend called me and told me that there was going to be a huge rally “welcoming” Condalezza Rice. Sure enough he was right. The rally was enormous. All of Ramallah—all the stores, all the supermarkets, all the food stands—shut down protesting her arrival and the entirety of the city hit the streets yelling, screaming, and chanting. So while Condalezza was talking peace in Arafat’s compound, the entire city was on the streets telling her to ‘go back to where she came from.’
Judging from the rally, it seems that Abu Mazen, the Palestinian president, and Condalezza Rice were the only two people in all of Ramallah (or more accurately all of the West Bank) who didn’t realize that Condalezza was wasting her breath talking to a powerless government and a powerless people. I guess the Bush Administration never got the newsflash that more than half of the Palestinian government was detained only a few weeks back by Israeli soldiers and now are being tried in court. There are a few leaders who managed to escape the roundups and the Israeli soldiers have come into Ramallah nearly every night looking for them. A few days ago, I was coming home from a wedding in a nearby village at around 1:30 a.m. when all of a sudden nearly 16 jeeps, tanks, and enormous Israeli round-up cars (the size of a small truck) passed us by. I’ve never seen an Israeli roundup mission so close and it was very nerve-racking seeing one military car after another pass by us with undoubtedly hundreds of soldiers waiting to take away some Palestinian or another. Because we didn’t know in which direction the cars were heading, we had to drive very carefully through the city, hoping they wouldn’t see us and shoot at our car. After some debate, the Palestinians I was with told me that it was too dangerous to go to my house because I live very close to many governmental buildings. So even though I lived only a few kilometers from their house, I had to sleep the night at one of their houses. Only last night, the Israeli soldiers completely closed off Umm al-Shara’it, right next to where I live, because one of the Parliamentary leaders lives there. In fact he lives in the same building as my friend and just this week alone, the soldiers have come
four times looking for him, always at 1:30 in the morning and staying until 4:00 a.m. waking up everyone in the building. My friend told me that it is only a matter of time before the soldiers will take his wife and children and force the parliamentary head to turn himself in.The detained parliamentary heads have recently had three charges served against them. The first charge is being part of a terrorist organization, the second charge is being part of an organization that promotes terrorist activities, and the third charge is being a member in the Parliament representing a terrorist organization. I was at an organizing meeting with members of the Parliament, including the Parliament president, and various lawyers when they first announced the charges. I had to nearly leave the room because I was laughing so hard.
Of the many things that the Israeli government needs to work on, I think some creativity should be on the top of the list. I have been working with a PLFP parliamentary head, Khalida, in order to try to get word out to the international community about the complete blasphemy of the detention of these parliamentary and ministry leaders. I can’t properly describe the irony of the governmental situation here other than to say that nothing speaks more of the Palestinian spirit than attending a parliament meeting. In the big hall, the parliamentary heads from Gaza and the West Bank speak to one another via telecom because Gaza citizens are not allowed to come into the West Bank and vice versa. From the telecom conference, we could see that the Gaza citizens don’t have any electricity and are fanning themselves with paper fans with windows wide open as they are trying to conduct the meeting. As for the parliamentarians from the West Bank, half of them arrived late…some of them very late because theywere held up for hours at the various checkpoints. Yet the most striking part of the meeting was the enlarged pictures of all the detained parliamentary leaders placed on their seat. Considering that more than half of the parliamentary heads have been detained, there were many many of these photos around the parliament hall. But despite all these challenges, the parliamentarians continue to conduct meetings and try to get business done as much as possible.
Another newsflash that the Bush Administration never got was that the Palestinians have really had absolutely no role in this war other than shutting down their stores in solidarity with the Gaza and Lebanese people and holding protests. The Israeli government has openly admitted that their invasion into Gaza was not related to the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier. It was something that they have been wanting and planning on doing for months on end now. But even if we were to play devil’s advocate and imagine that the invasion into Gaza was directly related to the kidnapping, I’ve completely lost count of the death toll just in Gaza (not including Nablus or any other region in the West Bank), but it is definitely over 200 Palestinians. And if that is not enough, in one night alone, over 150 Palestinians in Nablus were “kidnapped” by Israeli soldiers and they are yet to be released. Because of the number of these detainees, the Israeli soldiers have taken over schools in Nablus to hold these Palestinians. This death-toll also doesn’t include the countless homes, farms, and livelihoods that have been destroyed by Israeli tanks and bulldozers. I still can’t quite comprehend the justice or the equity of the Israeli reaction to the kidnapping. When the kidnapping and killing first happened, I was talking to my colleagues at work. They all agreed, including my friend ____ whose entire family still lives in Gaza, that the kidnapping is worth the price that the Gaza citizens have paid. “It is like someone opened up the air channels in our body and we have finally been able to breath,” they kept saying.
Hasan Nasrallah has become the all-time hero of every Palestinian. I remember the day that Hizbollah kidnapped the two Israeli soldiers, the Palestinians were absolutely astounded. People on the streets were dancing and celebrating. For once, someone stood up and defended the Palestinians. For once, someone actually tried to turn the tables and hurt the oppressive Israeli regime in an offensive rather than a defensive manner.
Palestinians have come to expect complete international rejection. Even though many countries around the world provide financial support to Palestinians, it is a rare country that provides open support to the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli occupation. Almost all types of support are done under the table in a very hush hush manner. When the Israeli soldiers were first kidnapped, nearly every Arab country (Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, etc.) cameout in strong opposition of the kidnapping and the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance. They all spoke of their disappointment on the attacks on Israel, never mentioning Israel’s attack into Gaza or its destruction of other Palestinian territories in the West Bank. Yet over the past few weeks every one of these countries has provided millions, if not billions, of dollars in relief while continuing to re-enforce their position of disappointment at the kidnapping of the soldiers. For Palestinians, Nasrallah is the only one who will stand by Palestinians tooth and nail despite the consequences, which have been nothing short of disastrous.
Since the beginning of this war, the people here in Palestine have been fixated to the television and radio and newspapers. Wherever you go, all you hear is people talking politics. Like fans of a soccer game, the Palestinians are cheering on Hasan Nasrallah and talking and watching intently, waiting to see who is getting closer to the goal line and who has made what goal. Yet the goals here are made at the expense of lives. For every Israeli soldier killed, hundreds of Lebanese women and children are being killed. As several Israelis have told me unflinchingly, killing civilians is a necessary evil because one never knows where the Hizbollah soldiers are hiding.
Yet the idea of collective punishment has not only been concentrated on the Lebanese. In the OPT, it has become nearly impossible to travel from one region to another. Checkpoints have been set up nearly every mile and going from point A to point B is the ultimate test of patience.
The last thing that someone here wants to do is get an Israeli soldier’s bad side. My American colleague, Gina, got detained at the Kulendia checkpoint recently when she was trying to go to Jerusalem for rolling her eyes at the female soldier.
All of a sudden, the soldier told her that her visa was illegal and she was taken into the backroom with two large male soldiers. Needless to say, Gina has traveled with this very same visa for nearly two months through dozens of checkpoints, including Kulendia, many times over and never has had any problems. In the backroom, one of the soldiers put his face in her face and began screaming at her, “Why do you like Arabs!!! Why do you
like Arabs?!?”Gina tried to call the American Consulate yet when she got through to the Consulate, they told her that they don’t get involved in local politics and there was nothing they can do to help her. Only after flirting with one of the Israeli soldiers, did he agree to release her, not forgetting to give Gina his number.
On one of my trips to Nablus, at one of the checkpoints, the Israeli soldier who was examining our passports and hawiyas suddenly opened the chauffeur’s door and began screaming at the chauffeur of the microbus, “Why are you trying to kidnap me?!” Everyone on the bus was so confused and nobody knew what to say.
The chauffeur told him in Arabic, “Even if I wanted to kidnap a soldier, surely I wouldn’t want to kidnap you. You’re not good looking.” I started laughing but the soldier was not laughing. He called the police and after three hours of waiting and watching one of the most ridiculous scenarios I’ve ever experienced, the soldier started laughing and winking at the other soldiers and told the bus driver to go on his way. The soldiers had
their fun at the expense of the integrity, time, and nerves of all of us in the bus.Four days ago, I called my friend to check up on him and found out that his uncle had just been killed. His uncle had a heart attack and the ambulance was trying to take him to the hospital but the Israelis had set up a checkpoint on the road and wouldn’t let the ambulance go through. So his uncle died in the ambulance just like so many Palestinians have died over the years.
Like a rock that is thrown into a pond, the place that the rock falls is considered ground zero where all the direct blows are taking place. The rock is the towns in Lebanon and Gaza where hundreds and thousands have been killed and injured. Then there are the ripples of the rock and those ripples have extended into the lives of nearly every single person in the OPT, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan , and beyond. I was recently told that in Syria, almost all the schools have turned into refugee centers for the 600,000 some Lebanese refugees. Schools in Syria won’t
start in September this year since it’ll take longer to find housing for the hundreds of thousands of refugees.The Israelis have similarly left the northern regions of Israel that have been bombed. Those who have decided to stay are living in their bomb shelters. Nearly every Israeli family has a bomb shelter under their home that is fully furnished, with a full kitchen, amenities, television and satellite. The Arabs, on the other hand, who live in the same region, share poorly furnished and equipped bomb shelters between several families. For example, the Arabs in Jaffa are prevented by law from upgrading or making any improvements to their homes which includes building bomb shelters. The Israelis living in the same region, on the other hand, have no such laws and are building new and beautiful homes with state of the art bomb shelters. Only two days ago, I was able to go to Jaffa and see first hand the difference between the Arab and Israeli neighbourhoods.
Now that my stay has nearly come to an end, the thought of leaving Palestine is very painful. I can’t even try to make myself feel better by thinking that I’ve really done something to improve the situation or provide any type of support. But at the very least, when living here, I become like the Palestinians to a certain extent. Like all the Palestinians, I must also take the blows as they come. When the Palestinians are forced to wait at a checkpoint for hours on end, I am similarly forced to wait. When the Palestinians are prevented from staying out past curfew, I am similarly forced to go indoors. When the Palestinians cry over a detained daughter or son, or over an assassinated relative, I also join them in their pain and tears.
Living in America, we are so often caught up in our material lives that we forget that there are people, like the Palestinians, who don’t even have the means to control a single aspect of their lives. To go from nearly no control and freedom to nearly full control and freedom will be a very difficult transition. Anyways, I only ask that everyone please remember the people here in your thoughts, prayers, daily lives, and actions.
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