It's Getting Hot

Police sitting in the shade of their umbrella overlooking Isawiyya.  

April 28, 2015

Yesterday, an 18 year old was shot in the stomach by the IDF in Jenin. He died this morning due to complications. He is the third Palestinian to be killed by Israeli forces in recent days; a 17 year old was killed in East Jerusalem on Saturday for allegedly running at Israeli police "wielding a knife," at a checkpoint, and another Palestinian man was shot dead in Hebron on Sunday after he tried stabbing an Israeli soldier.

A-Tur, a Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem, and the home of the 17 year old who was killed at the checkpoint, was put under curfew. There have been sporadic clashes there since the shooting on Saturday, his funeral was last night.  

Last night 2 more people were arrested in Isawiyya, the Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem that sits opposite my classrooms at university. The entire place was barricaded with concrete blocks. This morning as I walked to class I noticed the police had not only roped off the area at the top of the hill, but they had propped up an umbrella to sit under to stay cool.

Temperatures are also hitting a crazy and sudden high—we went from pleasant spring directly into summer with no easing into it. Tomorrow is supposed to be over 90 degrees (30C)—a hamsin, desert heat storm, is landing on our doorstep.

I can’t help but remember a conversation I had with my roommate. It was November, and it was raining in Jerusalem. It was the first rain of the season; the streets were flooding and it was torrential downpour for days. I had never seen that much constant rain before.

October and November had been particularly tense times in Jerusalem. There were almost daily outbursts in the Old City over policies to limit access to al-Aqsa mosque. There were several intentional accidents where people were run over and killed by cars. There were reports of random stabbings at train stations and bus stops. There was a brutal attack on a synagogue. The city was rippling with tension.

My roommate and I were on our way to university and walking through the puddles, pretending as if the umbrella we had was actually preventing water from falling on our heads.

“I like it when it rains,” she remarked off-handedly. “The attacks stop.”

And stop they did—at least in our comfortable disillusionment in the Jewish side of Western Jerusalem. Things quieted down, people were lulled again into a false sense of calm.

Here comes the warm weather again, and clashes and protests against the occupation are rising to the surface again. I can’t help but think about a scientific study I heard of that showed the relationship between high temperatures and violence. Solomon Hsiang published a resounding study in 2013 that analyzed the relation between hot weather and conflict.  “For every standard deviation of change,” explains The Scientist magazine, “levels of interpersonal violence, such as domestic violence or rape, rise by some 4 percent, while the frequency of intergroup conflict, from riots to civil wars, rise by 14 percent.” The hotter it is, the more likely violence is. 

And here we are. In the middle of a hamsin. The beginning of summer breaking out. I can’t help but hold my breath.

There are two important demonstrations happening tomorrow, organized by the activists of Free Jerusalem including a protest against the collective punishment in A-Tur. They will meet at 8:30 at the entrance to Mt. Scopus Campus of Hebrew University. http://goo.gl/B7CgmV

And there is another march to show solidarity with Gaza youth against the siege, tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. in front of the Prime Minister's house. http://goo.gl/eVJPLs

 Things are heating up here.

*See: Hsiang, Solomon M., Marshall Burke, and Edward, Miguel. 2013. "Quantifying the Influence of Climate on Human Conflict." Science, 10.1126/science.1235367.  

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/36822/title/Climate-Change-and-Violence/

Memorial Day

From the "Monument to Future Victims of the Conflict" 

April 21, 2015

It is Israeli Memorial Day. Flags have appeared everywhere seemingly overnight. The music on the radio has shifted to a slow and somber mood. You hear it the moment you step onto the bus where the bus driver nods to you with an air of equal solemnity. 

At 8pm, we were driving. A siren sounded, and 5 women with roots in America and various connections to this place got out of the car. We stood on the side of the road in silence and camaraderie. The seconds passed. We got back in the car; we kept driving. 

Everyone has lost someone here due to the conflict(s) and wars. Whether it is a young soldier who died this summer, November 2012, Lebanon, Sinai, Yom Kippur, or a friend or family member who was blown up on a bus, in a restaurant, on a street corner. Someone stabbed or attacked randomly. Everyone here has someone. Today the national trauma is worn on the sleeves of every Jewish Israeli. 

Israel recognizes 116 soldiers and civilians who died this year.

They're not alone in mourning.  2,314 Palestinians died in Gaza this summer, and 58 in the West Bank this year. This is not including the thousands injured, displaced, or imprisoned.  The UN released a report that said the Palestinian death toll in 2014 was the highest ever since 1967. You can read the report here.

Tonight, to commemorate these lives, we attended an alternative memorial ceremony hosted by the Combatants for Peace and the Bereaved Family Forum. The event is unique. It was the 10th year that they brought together Palestinians and Jews to share different stories of loss and to call for an end to the cycle of violence. We heard from a Palestinian woman who's father was shot and killed randomly by a settler. We heard from an Israeli who's brother committed suicide while serving in the army. We heard from a Palestinian man who's 10 year old daughter was shot by a soldier outside her school. And an Israeli mother shared her story of losing her son while he served in Lebanon. It was moving to sit in this hall, filled with people who also chose to memorialize this day differently. 

I told a young Israeli whom I know that I was going to this ceremony. She is self-proclaimed to be the most rational, secular person. She was raised in Jerusalem by an American mother who immigrated to Israel and works with an organization fostering relations between Palestinian and Israeli kids in Jerusalem. And yet. She told me that this day, this one day is too much to bear to also include dialogue. Today is a memorial for her friends; it's overwhelming enough as it is, she can't hold onto both stories at the same time. I hadn't thought of that until she shared it with me. 

She is going to Mount Herzl for the ceremony that takes place at the military cemetery. She told me that every year, she sees more friends standing there, mourning someone that they lost. And each year, they get younger. It never ends, she said. It just continues, the cemetery keeps growing. 

It is for that reason that I believe that alternative events like tonight are essential: to create a place to lay all grief on the table, to be vulnerable and remember together. To find humanness in each other, even in our worst moments. This is the only way to stop the graves from multiplying each year. To prevent the pain held by those left standing, to bring an end to the never-ending list of names that echo when the siren sounds.  

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.