Occupation

Jerusalem is coming to Denver! / February 12, 2018 by Sophie Schor

All the time, Jerusalem is in the back of my mind and I know that the work I'm doing now is for my friends living in tents after their homes were demolished (yet again); it is for my friends who dedicate their lives to radical education and creating new narratives of coexistence and peace; and for my friends who are constantly striving to create a different reality in Israel and in Palestine.

Combatants for Peace (CfP), an organization that I was deeply involved with when I lived in Jerusalem, are embarking on a speaking tour in Colorado. I've been dedicating my free hours between school, work, friends, and family to bringing two activists here to share their personal stories with different communities here.

Lucky for me, Jerusalem will soon be coming to Denver!

Leaving the Cave / June 29, 2017 by Sophie Schor

Plato is famous for his allegory of a cave. In it, he employs a metaphor that if you were born in a cave and lived in a cave your entire life, captive and unable to turn your head, only seeing shadows cast on the stone wall, you would know no other reality than that. But if you were to leave the cave and walk under the sun and see the real world outside—not the world of the shadows, rather the world of light and dark—how would you ever begin to describe it to those still sitting in the cave and watching the wall?

How can I even describe the last forty days of Sumud: Freedom Camp and living in Sarura?

Against a backdrop of desert hills, a terraced valley with newly planted olive trees, and the mountains of Jordan peering at us through the hazy distance, we built a movement.

We Are Sumud / May 22, 2017 by Sophie Schor

Three days ago, Fadel used his key to open the door to his family's cave-home and entered his home again for the first time in twenty years. Three days ago, over three hundred Palestinians, Israelis, and diaspora Jews arrived to Fadel's family lands to be there for him to open his home and return. The joy in the air was palpable as groups propped up a tent on the ruined rock walls of a home from the village of Sarura, as new walls were built, as the cave was cleared of dust and dirt and made habitable. Teams were established to be on clean-up duty and sort out a system for recycling and trash. Other teams were busy preparing the roadway to be repaved to ensure that water could be transported to this remote location and enable quicker transport in an emergency if someone needed to get to a nearby hospital.

Something Broke. / November 13, 2016 by Sophie Schor

Something broke last week and a deep grief set in. I was surprised by the heaviness of my mourning. Hillary Clinton’s climactic denouement and Donald Trump’s decisive rise to power has left me spinning in an emotional tidal wave. I wake up in the morning and my limbs feel heavy. My heart hurts. My brain races and runs. My instinct is to throw the covers over my head and hide away, to play soothing music and close the blinds and sit in darkness.

Yet—it is hard to bounce back from watching a woman come so close, yet still be unable to attain the highest-office, the symbolic house that equates the highest power in our world. It is with this heavy heart that I went to Beit Jala this weekend for a continuing seminar with the women activists of Combatants for Peace. I was emotionally burnt out and exhausted, yet I knew I had committed to the process and so I went.

The Hills of Nabi-Saleh / August 31, 2015 by Sophie Schor

A photo has been circling around the web in the last three days of an Israeli soldier holding a Palestinian child in a headlock. I stumbled across the video of the entire encounter. The video was posted on Facebook and it began playing without my consent (you know that annoying feature where your newsfeed suddenly comes alive?). I couldn’t look away. In less than 3 minutes, it captured everything that is wrong with the occupation.

Between a Wall and a Hard Place / August 17, 2015 by Sophie Schor

We were walking in the corridors of no-man’s land in the Northern corner of Jerusalem municipality at the edge where the Neve Ya'akov settlement ends and the grey concrete wall that separates Jerusalem from where the West Bank begins. Our professor pointed towards a flat concrete court that was overgrown with brush and prickly plants and mentioned, “Arabs and Jews used to play football there. But that was before they built the wall…”

We were standing in the corner of Neve Ya’akov, a neighborhood that is often classified as just a suburb of Jerusalem, which lies across the green line and hugs the curve of the separation barrier. The distinguishing characteristic between the houses on the left and the houses on the right were striking. One side was clearly Jewish, Jerusalem stones turned yellow with time, white water-boilers speckling the rooftops. The apartments on the right were Arab, bright new stories built up to house more families, black water-boilers dotted their roofs.

Thyme to Build A Road: Solidarity Action in South Hebron Hills / June 13, 2015 by Sophie Schor

It was after the end of prayers and suddenly many young men from the village showed up, pick axes in tow. “The Shabaab will break the ground, you will put in the plants.” We quickly settled into a rhythm, conversations flowing and laughter ringing across the field as we watched row after row of thyme settle its roots into the dirt.

The young man next to me, Omar, swung the pickaxe into the dirt and told me about how he finished his B.A. at Hebron University in Agricultural development and wants to do a Masters in water. I smiled encouraging words as I pushed away rocks and broke up dirt to place yet another thyme plant in the ground. Tariq, another young villager, described what life is like in his village. There's a difference when you read that some villages only receive two hour of electricity to when someone looks you in the eye and tells you this

As the journalist next to me asked Muhammad about the village, I overheard him respond in broken English, “I was born here, I live here, and I will stay here.”

The fierce desire to remain rooted in a place, in the face of so much violent opposition, bureaucratic antagonism, and a prejudiced system almost seems naïve. Yet, existence is resistance. That line has been echoing in my head all weekend.

This weekend, an unprecedented event took place. Over the course of 36 hours, 71 people spent time working in Susiya, Bir el-Eid and Umm al-Khair in the South Hebron Hills in the West Bank.

Here’s the catch—most of those people were Jews.

Occupation is not a Solution / May 20, 2015 by Sophie Schor

Since moving here to Jerusalem last June. I've met many different people, had many eye opening conversations, and have been both disillusioned by politics and inspired by people.

In June, I will be joining over 50 other people (mainly Diaspora Jews and other internationals) with All That's Left: Anti-Occupation Collective to go to the South Hebron Hills to help build a road in solidarity with the Palestinian communities living there. These communities live in Area C and are officially unrecognized by the Israeli government. This means that the villages do not have access to general utilities such as water or electricity. Furthermore, even though these families have lived on their lands for many generations, there is a constant threat that their homes will be demolished. There is currently a standing order to demolish the village of Susiya. This has happened many times before and is part of a policy of the Israeli government to condense Palestinians living on land that is in Area C (Israeli sovereignty) to cities such as Yatta. The Palestinians living in the South Hebron Hills have also faced a lot of settler violence from the nearby communities. For more information on the Israeli policies in Area C, see here.

I visited the South Hebron Hills and the village of Susiya in March. I was most struck by these experiences as I saw that this is an unsustainable existence. Occupation is not a solution.

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.

Pains of Exodus / April 3, 2015 by Sophie Schor

April 3, 2015

I met Manel Tamimi while traveling through the West Bank in January. She welcomed us into her home in Nabi Saleh and spoke with us about the horrors her family faces under occupation.

Nabi Saleh is a well known friction point for resistance and holds weekly protests every Friday. The village organizes itself and attempts to walk from their homes across the valley to the spring that used to belong to them. The spring is now a part of the settlement which was built above it. There’s a brilliant profile in the New York Times that describes the Tamimi family and the village.

Manel told us that she classifies herself as a non-violent resistor, but could not call herself peaceful. She said,”I can’t be peaceful in that moment when an Israeli soldier enters my house to arrest my 14 year old son. When I’m watching 2 of my cousins dying in front of me. When my 8 year old faints after being shot with tear gas and the soldier is smiling. Yet, I am nonviolent because a mothers pain is the same pain. I refuse any mother to experience this pain because I’ve experienced it. I understand the meaning of losing your beloved and waiting for your beloved.”

Manel was shot by an Israeli soldier in the leg today with live ammo during the weekly protest.

I heard about this as I am heading to my family’s kibbutz in the south to celebrate Passover—a holiday that marks the freedom of the Jews from slavery in Egypt and their arrival to the land of milk and honey. It is my family’s tradition to have long conversations that are interrupted by food and singing all night long. We often discuss the idea of freedom and I have grown up repeating every year that we are not free until all peoples are free. This sentence has never rung more true for me than in this moment. While we were talking with Manel, she said “Even if one day we free Palestine, I am going to fight for others. Because if you are a human you are going to fight against the pain of others.”

There is weird parallelism in being here in Israel, on my way to the Kibbutz which was founded in 1953, to be surrounded by cousins and tradition, and to know at the same time that across the wall, not so far away, people are hurting because of this claim to this land.