Oats and Olives

Jibbat al-Dheib

Today I went with the Israeli solidarity organization Ta'ayush to Jibbat al-Dheib, a Palestinian village with land in Area C in the Territories. We joined farmers and shepherds so that they can work their land.

We helped clear a field that surrounds olive trees. I kept remarking how soft my hands are, this lifestyle isn't suited for soft hands. I couldn't keep up with the 70 year old Palestinian man who was grabbing thorns with his bare hands.

A security guy from a nearby settlement showed up. He had a camera and walked into the field recording us. "Pixelization of the conflict," a weathered Israeli activist remarked. He circled us, our cameras circled him. It was one of the strangest dances I've seen. The IDF showed up. 4 jeeps of soldiers. We kept clearing the field. Some were sitting in the shade of an olive tree watching what was happening. The soldiers waited, the Israeli flag on the jeep flapping in the wind. Another car shows up: one of the commanders of the area. He has a notebook with him--it shows what part and parcel of land belongs to whom and who is allowed to be where when. This piece of land, which belongs to the Palestinians who were working it--was declared to not be a problem. But they approached us anyways. A conversation of waving arms and gesturing hands takes place. I watch from afar and feel the smallness of this moment, but also notice the grandiose existentialism of arguing over who's land this is. In the background, I hear the swish and clunk of a hoe hitting the earth and continuing its scraping motion of clearing away the plants and cleaning the field. The argument takes place, the Palestinian man keeps on working.

Guns hit the hips of the young soldiers as they start to weave their way through the wheat to demand our IDs. They took pictures of our posed pictures, wrote down our names. I asked why, the soldier responded "To know who is in the field."

They retreated to their air conditioned jeeps where they kept an eye on us the rest of the day. It's the same feeling as I got from the surrounding 3 settlements: they are keeping their eye on this Palestinian village and land that is located in the middle of the ring that they form. It's directly in their line of expansion. That prickly sensation on the back of your neck when someone is watching you...

We finished one row of the field today. The Palestinian laughed at the foreigners with their good intentions but their bad farming skills. We climbed back into the car, sweaty, dust covered, a bit sore around the edges, but determined.

Coffee instead of Conflict

I traded my past frantic  life of running around Jerusalem and the stress of the conflict for a new life of coffee.

I now work at a neighborhood café and, for those of you who know me well, it is a dream come true. I come home from work smelling like Ethiopian dark roast; I have already learned to use the espresso machine. Next up—making hearts in  my cappuccinos. 

The café is a minute walk  from my new apartment, tucked away amongst quiet streets and facing a little square and playground. The place is definitely the community hub; neighbors who come daily victoriously receive the honor of the “Neighbor Cup” with their own name on the bottom and their own spot on the venerable shelf of glasses. A familiar face walks past the glass window, and the barista has already begun to make their drink. Keys are left at the counter for someone else to pick up, and kids run in and ask right away for one of the jelly filled, dusted with powdered sugar, flower-shaped cookies.

A bubble has begun to envelope me as my daily rhythm shifts. I wake up early, go to work, drink two, three, four coffees, and then come home and write papers (4 down, 5 to go!), or go to the beach. All in all, this is not bad at all.

But, it’s weird. While I’ve been learning Hebrew words to describe the taste of coffee (with a hint of cocoa, smooth, bitter, acidic, full-bodied), Jerusalem has been erupting in a renewed cycle of violence. (See this article that lists all that happened over the last few weeks). Notably:

• “Israeli police armed with stun grenades and tear gas clashed on Tuesday with Palestinians throwing rocks and barricading themselves inside Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque.” More here at NYTimes.
•  “Thirteen Palestinians, including children, and four policemen were slightly injured in violent clashes which erupted over the weekend between settlers and Palestinians in the neighborhood of Batan al-Hawa in the Silwan area of East Jerusalem.” Read more at Ha’aretz
•   An Israeli died after a rock was thrown at his car in East Talpiyot, a neighborhood in the southeast of Jerusalem. Here at Times of Israel.

The Old City of Jerusalem feels really far away. Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock, which I used to see every morning cresting over the walls as I rode the bus to university, feels really far away. Rocks thrown at the train, (I used to trace the cracks they made in the train windows as I sat in my seat) feel really far away. The Qalandiya checkpoint connecting Jerusalem to Ramallah, which was only 20 minutes from home, feels really far away. Tel Aviv is only 45 minutes from Jerusalem,  but it is truly a bubble; people even call it the State of Tel Aviv, noting its exceptionality from the rest of the country. People living here live in a completely different world. And I’m falling into it. All my focus has turned westward to the sea, and my back is towards the West Bank (in the East).

I made the conscious choice to move to Jaffa because I wanted to be further from the conflict. I was burnt out, exhausted by the constant interactions, the inability to hide under your covers and ignore the scary political mess unfolding all around you. Living in  Tel Aviv/Jaffa, I can instead choose my dose of anxiety about the occupation in the West Bank and the  violence in Jerusalem as it suited my own mental health. I am learning to create a world where I can take care of myself and be recharged with enough energy to give back to the work I am engaging in. In doing so, I am turning a blind eye to the processes of gentrification happening in Palestinian areas in Jaffa, to the crises in South Tel Aviv with the asylum seekers and foreign workers, all in the name of living five minute walk from a yoga studio. Occupation doesn’t stop just because you choose to ignore it. The luxury of being able to turn on or off oppression is a privilege, yet one that I am grappling with how to handle it.

Elia Suleiman's The Time That Remains: Chronicle of a Present Absentee (2009)

There’s an addictive quality to conflict: the high adrenaline of constant events, political tension, and stress. I’ve begun to replace it by watching all the documentaries and movies about Israel and Palestine that before I couldn’t even glance at for fear of overdose. I spent a good few days re-watching and analyzing the incredible film The Time that Remains, directed by Elia Suleiman, for a paper. Think Wes Anderson whimsy, absurdism, quick dialogue and fantastical attention to details mixed with the history of the 1948 war and the psychological effects on a Palestinian family in Nazareth.

And I also spent a night watching The Gatekeepers, a chilling documentary that features interviews with six heads of the Shin Bet (or the Israeli intelligence agency) as they recount the Israeli policies since 1967. Powerful and moving to hear a retired intelligence man say that the current policies of occupation are untenable and corrupt everyone, or to hear that the future is dark unless Israeli politicians begin talking with anyone from the other side. Both films are highly recommended.

 What's incredible is how in so many places, whether it's Jerusalem or Tel Aviv or Ramallah or New York City or Paris or Denver or Ferguson, reality and perceptions can change so quickly based on location. It's easy to get caught up in a world that is all consuming and difficult to extract oneself far enough away to gain perspective of conflict and oppression in the face of lived realities.  I don't know if by living in Jaffa I have gained distance and perspective, or if living on the southern border of Tel Aviv, I'm just living in a world that pretends that these other realities don't exist. 

Neither Jerusalem nor Jaffa is perfect, the question now is, where is the best place to gain a vantage point in order to understand the nuances?

Several events are coming up in the next few weeks. On September 29, there is a learning tour in Silwan, a Palestinian neighborhood in Jerusalem that has been the site of many home demolitions and evictions. Then on October 1, Breaking the Silence is taking activists on a learning tour to the areas surrounding Ramallah. I’m also looking forward to the next few weeks as the Jewish high holidays end and my dear friends in All That’s Left: Anti-Occupation Collective return and we get booted up for plans for future actions. The least I can do is bring the coffee to our next meeting.

South Hebron Hills

April 11, 2015

Yesterday I traveled to the South Hebron Hills with All That's Left and Taayush for a day of education about the situation facing Palestinians in this region. Taayush is an organization of "Israelis & Palestinians striving together to end the Israeli occupation and to achieve full civil equality through daily non-violent direct-action." 

For all that we saw, see my tweets here.

The area of the South Hebron Hills is in Zone C of the Palestinian territories, and while approximately 4,000 Palestinians live there now, there is an implicit and explicit effort being made to push the remaining people off their lands to other villages or towns in order to annex the remaining land.

Amiel, our guide, was an Israeli who has worked and volunteered with Taayush for over 12 years. He has dedicated every weekend to coming to the South Hebron Hills. One friend of mine told me that he is a permanent fixture at every protest or event within Jerusalem, Hebron and the surrounding areas. His family is a dynasty amongst lefty activists. Yet he is a modest man, traipsing quietly through the grass, with his two young girls following behind him, leading the way to the house of yet another friend.

Amiel showed us the area on maps and explained how in the hills and within the valleys, there are 24 unrecognized Palestinian villages which each face different threats to their continued existence.These villages have been expelled and demolished over and over again since the second Intifada. Some have been relocated many times due to reasons such as the establishment of a military firing zone through the middle of the valley, or due to the declaration of the land as an archaeological site.

The map is now a crisscrossing puzzle of Zones A and B and C zigzagging and undermining each other. He joked with us that he understands the borders better than the soldiers and that they even follow his advice. 

We spoke with a family who lives in Susiya. Susiya is currently made up of only a few tents on top of a hill, with no access to water, a crumbling road, and infrequent electricity. There is a standing demolition order for the village, and the Supreme Court of Israel is currently delaying passing judgement on whether or not the demolition order is legal. One man described to us how his grandfather was expelled from his village by Israel in 1948 and carried his father to the new village. Then in 1986 when the villagers were expelled again, his own father carried him from the second side of the village to where Susiya is located today. He then told us how he does not wish to carry his own children to a new place if they are expelled again. His story was left lingering in the air, and yet the prophetic parallelism seems inevitable.

We visited  with Um Takir who lives down the hill from Susiya. Her and her husband are the last remaining family living on the side of the hill next to the road leading down into the firing zone. She recounted how her husband was shot one year in the eye, and had to be fed through feeding tube through his nose for a year afterwards. She told us how the settlers come in the night to break her solar panels and cut the hose to her water tank. Their last neighbor just moved his whole family to Yatta, a neighboring recognized city, after he was violently attacked by settlers and after returning from the hospital, retaliated against them. His response led to the hospitalization of 3 settlers. He is now waiting for the hearing to his court case, and Um Takir is left alone in the valley. Soldiers are stationed nearby, but the positioning of her house on the hillside hides it almost completely from outside eyes.

It was incredibly dismal to look at the crumbling stone walls of the last remaining house of a village. She and her husband stand as the final barrier to the annexation of a huge section of the valley and the end of an historical identity tied to that land. Um Takir told us that she will not leave this house unless she is martyred. 

I was struck by the labyrinthine and seemingly insurmountable details of the situation. We listened and toured and walked for over 6 hours, and yet I walked away being more confused than when I arrived. It is all a jumble of court-cases, military law overriding civilian law, water pipes, permits, violence, demolitions, donations, systemic oppression and paradoxical objectives; and then it is all bound together by a few fierce individuals with a relentless attachment to their land, a desire to live in dignity, and a refusal to be forcefully pushed out. And in the backdrop, 18 year old soldiers are standing around bored with huge guns.

There was one  surreal moment that stuck with me: as we stood by the side of the road, 5 soldiers came from the nearby settlement and began to walk across a field of flowers. They were wearing all their gear, carrying huge rifles and the birds were singing in the background as if this was the most peaceful nature walk to ever take place. The sky was so blue and spring was so bright. I caught eyes with a friend of mine and we both just shook our heads at the dissonance of the moment.

For a more in depth account of what has happened in the South Hebron Hills over the years and attempts at resistance, court cases, and violence, see here and here. Breaking the Silence also holds tours in the South Hebron Hills. And stay tuned, All That's Left will be organizing an action of partnership this summer with Jews from the Diaspora aimed to alleviate some of the challenges these Palestinians face.

The Revolution has been Postponed Due to Rain: Post-Elections

Spotted in Tel Aviv this morning.

March 18, 2015 

Dark day to wake up to. King Bibi has claimed his throne yet again. The adrenaline of hope & elections has given way to disenchantment and a cathartic release leading to depression. Many young Israeli friends of mine are posting statuses asking if anyone knows of an apartment in Berlin to rent, or if people want to join them in the establishment of a third state for the rational left. They say they feel as though they don't belong here.

I'm in shock and awe that a large enough majority of voters in this place supported Netanyahu after the campaign he ran. He ended with fireworks of declaring that there will be no Palestinian state under his leadership. He posted a video on Facebook that didn't even try to disguise his racism as he pleaded with his voters to vote because "Arabs were being bused in droves" to polling stations. His exhausted and wild expression showed his desperation. And yet. It worked. Results say majority who voted for him were from the West Bank settlements, whereas the communities living near the Gaza border voted for the Zionist Camp. Shows you the isolated, divided and delusional world this country lives in.

It's hard not to ignore my American notions that elections equals democracy and that the people have spoken and now we have to remain quiet as he leads this country down the dark path it's been heading. It's hard to feel like anything has changed.  But that overlooks the fact that this is not a true democracy. 4 million Palestinians living under the military rule of this government do not have a say in the decisions being made. That does not represent the voice of the people living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. If we try to look for a silver lining to the day, the Joint Arab List snagged 14 seats and is now the 3rd largest party in Knesset. They could wield a lot of power and cause a great headache for Netanyahu. And at least now he had reveled his cards and the international world cannot shy away from the fact that with Bibi at the realm, the peace negotiations are dead. 

Results of the Election can be found here and here.