A last story, about Palestine, about Nablus, about my life here. Six months later, time to go home. After six months I still have no clue where to begin telling about Palestine. It seems the more I’ve lived here, the harder it becomes to explain what Palestine is all about. Palestine is no story, it’s an experience, it’s life. Maybe that can explain my recent absence on this blog.
Reflecting on the past six months, it has been more than worth it. My life in Nablus and especially my work as an English teacher have allowed me to comprehend Palestine even more than before. Nablus is a city where hardly any internationals come to visit and my work gave me the opportunity to interact with ordinary Palestinians. Not just to observe the Palestinian society, its culture and its problems, but to participate in it, to be part of it to a certain extent.
In my classes I didn’t deal with high-roller Palestinians, civil-society leaders. I was given the opportunity to get to know hundreds of common people. To hear about their lives, their goals and dreams. These are the people that are always talked about when you hear the term 'the Palestinian people'. These are the ones that are always discussed in the news and in the so-called 'peace' negotiations between Israel and Palestine. They are more than mere numbers or cases. They are more than an abstract concept or a political label (be it either terrorists or freedom fighters). They are more than lost souls that need our 'benevolent' western help and advice. They are not lost, even though they have suffered so much in the past century and continue to be put through unthinkable misery. They are not lost at all. In fact we are the ones that are being lost and the Israeli people is a people that is being lost.
They know what they are suffering and that they are suffering. They know what they are suffering for. They know who they are and they know their enemy and their struggle. They know exactly what is happening. And after all what has happened to them they still stand for what they believe in, firm and determined, because they know and they feel what they stand for is ultimately right.
I came to Palestine as an English teacher. But the people here have taught me. They taught me about perseverance, resilience, sumud as it is called. I felt how strong their roots are and I became aware that with strong roots nothing can uproot you. Nothing can deviate you from your goal. A tree in a storm is put under a lot of pressure, it will crack and moan, branches might break off, but if the roots of the tree are strong and healthy the tree will live through it, even though you might see it pushed to all sides by the heavy winds.
In Holland I feel we are like a tree that has forgotten about it roots and only wants to grow in the sky, bigger and bigger. But if then a small wind comes along we begin to groan as if the entire universe is coming down on us. We are unaware of our roots and unaware of our struggle, but in fact everyone has a struggle, as life itself is a struggle. We hardly stand for anything, as we’re not really sure what could be worth standing for.
And even though it’s a common tendency to either blame the Palestinians or to feel sorry for them, I can not do either one of them. I can not even feel sorry for them wholeheartedly. As controversial as it may sound, the general feeling I have is one of admiration (with of course some exceptions in individual stories). I admire the strong sense of belonging in Palestinian people, I admire that they are so well-aware of their identity, as the absence of these feelings inside of me gives me the feeling that I’m just wandering around, floating in a huge void. I’m the one that is being lost. I’m the one without a homeland, not them. Even though for the Palestinians the physical homeland has been and is being destroyed and denied to them, they have a homeland that still exists in the Palestinian mind. Far beyond the reach of the Israeli attempts to take it, control it and abuse it. The Palestinian roots can never be destroyed. I felt this here.
With strong roots you don’t need, or depend on, protection mechanisms, or external support. You will be able to endure the storm by yourself. The power comes from within and no can external mechanism can ever equal its power.
The Palestinians are fighting their fight largely without weapons, but still they manage to withstand the Israeli state that is armed to its teeth. Why and how? Because they rely upon real power: the power from within. Their roots and minds have shown to be strong enough to endure all the violence Israeli weapons and wars have inflicted upon them.
Israel on the other hand can not maintain is existence without violence, without weapons and without war and they are well aware of this. They know that they are weak. Everything they are, everything they stand for, everything they believe in: it’s all an illusion. A myth. There’s no such thing as an Israeli people or even a Jewish people. The Israeli bestseller from historian Shlomo Sand, based on extensive research, states that the idea of a Jewish people is an invention, created around a century ago for political purposes: the establishment of a colonial Zionist state in the land of Palestine. The Jewish inhabitants of the state of Israel mostly have no historical connections to the land and don’t have much more in common with each other than that they believe in the same myth.
I met Israelis and I talked to them. They give me the impression of a scared people. Traumatized, slightly paranoid that the entire world is against them. At the same time when I look at them they make me feel like they know that they are wrong. I’m convinced that deep deep down inside them, they are completely aware of the illusion they are and the lie they are living. In my eyes this is their ultimate fear: to come to accept that they are without roots, that they are lost. They continuously try to rationalize and argue this fear away, as well as externalize the fear on anyone that is not Jewish, with of course the Palestinians and other Arabs as the perfect scary monsters.
Israel has built all the available protection mechanisms around its dying tree. But no windshield is strong enough to keep up a tree that is without roots: a state that has been built on stolen land. You can not build a house without a foundation. You might be living in it comfortably for many years, under the impression that you have it made, but in the end it will collapse when even the slightest amount of pressure is put on it. The story of the three little piglets all of a sudden has come to show me great philosophical meaning.
But for the time being the windshield offers a little protection. Without that kind of protection the Israeli tree will collapse sooner than we hold possible. And not because the oppression and killing of Palestinians is effectively preventing Palestinians from murdering the Israeli people (the Palestinian have never shown any sign of blind hatred or anti-Semitic feelings towards Jewish people), no… without any protection the tree will collapse from its own weak roots. Without the ability to externalize the Israeli feelings of fear, without a common enemy that is out there ‘to hunt them down to the end’ it is almost inevitable that the Israeli people will have to look inward and see that in fact they are their own enemy.
This is why Israel attacked Gaza, this is why Israel can not allow itself to make peace with the Palestinians. And by peace I of course don’t mean the joke of the Oslo peace process, as this peace was only established to continue the occupation of Palestine by different means, to crush the Palestinian resistance by dividing them amongst themselves, and to ‘restore’ the Israeli image in the world, that was severely damaged when the world was observing the true face of Israel in the first Intifada. I mean peace without the upsetting taste of racism and Apartheid. Peace would mean that Israel can not maintain its existence, as Israel can not maintain its existence without their Apartheid ‘windshield’ and without considering the Palestinians as their ultimate enemy.
Let me end with expressing my eternal gratefulness for the past six months and for all the amazing people and life lessons I bumped into. I was given the experience to feel what all the academic concepts I’ve been taught in Conflict Studies really entail. Freedom, peace, violence, fear, anger, resistance and power were more or less abstract notions to me. I understood them from a distance (some more than others), but by being here I encountered them… I invited them inside. I know their faces now and I consider it one of the best experiences that has ever crossed my path.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
The power of humour
Palestine... how good it is to be back, how hard it is to be back. I've arrived almost a week ago from Egypt... but in this week I've seen it all again. I visited almost every city in Palestine: Jerusalem, Ramallah, Nablus, Bethlehem, Jenin, Hebron and on top of that I've ran into all the features of the Israeli occupation, again... The checkpoints, the settlers, the wall, the refugees, the violence, the roadblocks, the random arrests, the economic hardships of the Palestinians, the personal stories of traumas and suffering. It is all too much. All too much to mention in a blog like this. But let me try to give you a clue of what I've been through and of what people go through here on a day to day basis.
The second day I was back, I went to Bethlehem. When I was sitting in the service (the shared taxi) and we passed an Israeli settlement close to Ramallah, I all of a sudden heard the loud and upsetting noise of a stone against the window I was sitting behind. A stone. I saw a settler man standing in the distance looking at me very upset. I was too surprised to realize what had just happened and wasn't really shocked or scared, because it's just beyond imagination that such a thing can happen if you're simply sitting in a car.
In Bethlehem I visited a Palestinian family. During the nice chit-chat, the mother of the family recalled old memories of the first and second Intifada. How her children had been screaming every time her house was invaded by Israeli soldiers. And how one soldier one time tried to make the children feel more comfortable by trying to get the children to shake his hands. Normal stories, nothing special... at least not here in Palestine.
From the window of their building she showed me their neighbor's house that had been completely demolished by the Israeli army, because the father of that family had been a resistance fighter. The house was being rebuild with financial help of Hizbollah.
On friday I went to Bil'in to join in the weekly protest against the building of the separation wall that steals 60% of the land of the village. For four years now the villagers have been demonstrating against this, largely non-violently (except for stone-hurling by some local youths), largely without success... even though the Israeli high court has decided that the route of the wall needed to be changed a little in favour of the people in Bil'in.
Can you imagine that these people try to walk up to the wall every week. Every week with both hands in the air, and their fingers making the peace sign. Every week just trying to get to the wall, to talk with the soldiers, to let their voices be heard. Every week these attempts are met with the most outrageous violence from the side of the Israeli army. Tear gas granades are fired, often accompanied with rubber-coated or even live bullets, sound weapons are used to disperse the crowd, because Palestinians are not allowed to demonstrate... not even non-violently.
When I was there I walked up with the villagers and stood right next to the gate that prevents the Palestinians from reaching their land and the site where the wall is being built. After the Palestinian made it clear that they came in peace the Israeli soldiers made it perfectly clear that they just want the Palestinians to rest in peace and started firing tear gas granades right away. Please note that at this point not a single stone was being thrown by the protesters at the gate. After the first two tear gas grenades were being fired into the air, the next ones were being fired right at us... with a dazzling speed they came in our direction. Luckily everyone managed to escape them, because if such a thing hits you, you will suffer from serious burns.
A few minutes later most of the first ranks of protesters were hit by the teargas and had to pull back, including me. Quite a dangerous situation, because the teargas and the effects it has on your body make you completely forget about the entire situation around you. It burns on your face and you can not see and all you care about is to get rid of that feeling. But in the meantime the teargas is still being fired and you're not paying attention where it is being fired, because you've stopped to care. It was the first time I was being targeted and confronted with violence so directly. But I didn't realize that until I was lying in my bed at night. It felt so familiar, so normal. I wasn't scared at all. I just ran in all directions to escape the grenades as if it was the most common thing to do.
All my respect to the people that go through this process at least once a week.
In the past few days I went to visit Bethlehem and Hebron with some friends. We had rented an Israeli license plate car and went on the Palestinian road to Bethlehem (not through Jerusalem, because that is not allowed for Palestinians... and one of us was Palestinian, although with an American passport that contains a stamp stating that this passport is not valid in Israel!!) We were nearly in Bethlehem when we were stopped at the Wadi Nar checkpoint. The soldiers told us that we couldn't pass this checkpoint because of the Israeli car. Complete nonsense, because Israeli cars pass there all the time. But nothing worked on them, so in the end we had to turn around and go back. Rejected at a checkpoint. We had to go back all the way to a big Israeli settlement to use the (settler) passing there into Jerusalem (to reach Bethlehem inside the West Bank). Illegally smuggling the Palestinian in our car into so-called Israel. All this makes you feel like a criminal, even though we had no bad intentions and were not really doing anything wrong and we didn't even want to go inside 'Israel'. All we wanted to do was visit some nice places and hang out as friends do all over the world.
After that we went to crazy Hebron (the only city with violent Israeli settlers living inside a Palestinian city, terrorizing the local population)... always crazy, always violent and bizarre... so of course we ran into extraordinary situations here. But let me not go into all the details here. Just think of checkpoints around every corner in the old city, a lot of bizarre questioning by Israeli soldiers, such as: What is your religion? If you give the 'right' answer you can pass... and a Palestinian population desperate to survive and trying to persuade you to buy their products because there's simply no customers.
In the evening we visited Dheisheh refugee camp where we met with the amazing general generosity of Palestinian people. Living in the camp, right next to the entrance they had been through a lot. Torture, arrests, attempted assasinations, being held under (tank) fire, having Israeli soldiers "camp" at their roof, seeing their friends being killed... you name it.
When we went back to Ramallah there was a traffic jam about 1km away from Qalandia. After a while we came to realize that it was most likely something of a checkpoint. I had never seen such a thing and was a bit worried. We saw guys with flashlights, casually dressed wearing hoods and shorts. What was going on? Then we saw the guys, which seemed to be Ethiopian jews, checking people's passports and wearing machine guns. What the FCK?!? What to do? Turn around and risk being shot at? Wait our turns and risk being shot at? You just don't know what is possible. They didn't look trustworthy to say the least. The line began to shrink until there were only one or two cars in front of us and all of a sudden an Israeli police car drove by. It didn't stop, nor did it slow down... but the armed guys immediately got into their car and drove away as if nothing had happened. We were shocked. The most bizarre thoughts ran through our heads. Who were these guys? It seemed as if it were just settlers that had put up their own checkpoint and when the police saw them they knew they had to go. And as if the police didn't really disapprove, so they just drove by, giving them a silent sign to go, to prevent them from being arrested. I still don't really know, but it was pretty fcked up scary.
Today when I reached Huwarra checkpoint in the service from Ramallah there was a huge army presence around the checkpoint. I saw all different kinds of armed vehicles and wondered what was going on. When we approached I saw a shitload of soldiers surrounding a couple of blind-folded and handcuffed Palestinians. In the parkinglot I asked a man what was going on. He told me that a few settlers had begun throwing stones at Palestinians close to the checkpoint. Then the army came and the soldiers accused the Palestinians of throwing stones, giving them a "legitimate" reason to arrest them. Sadly this is quite normal as well. Whenever there's settler violence against Palestinians the Israelis like to put the blame on the actual victims of that situation.
And then there's still too much other stuff. Too much... literally. How to deal with this? How to deal with being exposed to the reality of violence and occupation. To be honest... a lot of times you don't really know, a lot of times you're quite okay, but in the deepest moments when you feel you've really been exposed too intensely there's one thing that helps: humour.
The power of humour is astonishing. Who told us that it is impossible to be scared and laugh your head of at the same time? Why can't things that are depressingly sad not be extremely funny as well?
The guys in Dheisheh camp told us their stories with so much humour, irony and charm that it was almost impossible not to laugh. I couldn't stop laughing when one of them told me when he had been dragged outside his house and tortured by soldiers, when he was not wearing much more than his underwear, he managed to sneak inside when they were distracted for a second to, as he said it, "put on some nice cloths"....
After our freaky ninja-settler checkpoint experience we were almost crying of laughter, because of what we had just encountered. Joking around about all the things that could have happened if the police hadn't passed by.
In Bil'in when me and a small group of not even 10 people went up again for a second encounter with the Israeli soldiers, we sat down behind a small wall... sitting in the sun, surrounded by beautiful olive trees and we were singing (Arabic protest songs)... singing and clapping and smiling... as the teargas grenades fired over our heads. A small bubble of sincere happiness in an extremely depressing setting of violence and prolonged injustice and suffering.
This is how I cope, this is what makes it all worth it. Laughing, enjoying, having fun, smiling. All the things that the Israeli army doesn't want Palestinians to do. This is the core of the Palestinian resilience I've talked about before... Sumud.. steadfastness... all made possible by the relativating power of humour.
The second day I was back, I went to Bethlehem. When I was sitting in the service (the shared taxi) and we passed an Israeli settlement close to Ramallah, I all of a sudden heard the loud and upsetting noise of a stone against the window I was sitting behind. A stone. I saw a settler man standing in the distance looking at me very upset. I was too surprised to realize what had just happened and wasn't really shocked or scared, because it's just beyond imagination that such a thing can happen if you're simply sitting in a car.
In Bethlehem I visited a Palestinian family. During the nice chit-chat, the mother of the family recalled old memories of the first and second Intifada. How her children had been screaming every time her house was invaded by Israeli soldiers. And how one soldier one time tried to make the children feel more comfortable by trying to get the children to shake his hands. Normal stories, nothing special... at least not here in Palestine.
From the window of their building she showed me their neighbor's house that had been completely demolished by the Israeli army, because the father of that family had been a resistance fighter. The house was being rebuild with financial help of Hizbollah.
On friday I went to Bil'in to join in the weekly protest against the building of the separation wall that steals 60% of the land of the village. For four years now the villagers have been demonstrating against this, largely non-violently (except for stone-hurling by some local youths), largely without success... even though the Israeli high court has decided that the route of the wall needed to be changed a little in favour of the people in Bil'in.
Can you imagine that these people try to walk up to the wall every week. Every week with both hands in the air, and their fingers making the peace sign. Every week just trying to get to the wall, to talk with the soldiers, to let their voices be heard. Every week these attempts are met with the most outrageous violence from the side of the Israeli army. Tear gas granades are fired, often accompanied with rubber-coated or even live bullets, sound weapons are used to disperse the crowd, because Palestinians are not allowed to demonstrate... not even non-violently.
When I was there I walked up with the villagers and stood right next to the gate that prevents the Palestinians from reaching their land and the site where the wall is being built. After the Palestinian made it clear that they came in peace the Israeli soldiers made it perfectly clear that they just want the Palestinians to rest in peace and started firing tear gas granades right away. Please note that at this point not a single stone was being thrown by the protesters at the gate. After the first two tear gas grenades were being fired into the air, the next ones were being fired right at us... with a dazzling speed they came in our direction. Luckily everyone managed to escape them, because if such a thing hits you, you will suffer from serious burns.
A few minutes later most of the first ranks of protesters were hit by the teargas and had to pull back, including me. Quite a dangerous situation, because the teargas and the effects it has on your body make you completely forget about the entire situation around you. It burns on your face and you can not see and all you care about is to get rid of that feeling. But in the meantime the teargas is still being fired and you're not paying attention where it is being fired, because you've stopped to care. It was the first time I was being targeted and confronted with violence so directly. But I didn't realize that until I was lying in my bed at night. It felt so familiar, so normal. I wasn't scared at all. I just ran in all directions to escape the grenades as if it was the most common thing to do.
All my respect to the people that go through this process at least once a week.
In the past few days I went to visit Bethlehem and Hebron with some friends. We had rented an Israeli license plate car and went on the Palestinian road to Bethlehem (not through Jerusalem, because that is not allowed for Palestinians... and one of us was Palestinian, although with an American passport that contains a stamp stating that this passport is not valid in Israel!!) We were nearly in Bethlehem when we were stopped at the Wadi Nar checkpoint. The soldiers told us that we couldn't pass this checkpoint because of the Israeli car. Complete nonsense, because Israeli cars pass there all the time. But nothing worked on them, so in the end we had to turn around and go back. Rejected at a checkpoint. We had to go back all the way to a big Israeli settlement to use the (settler) passing there into Jerusalem (to reach Bethlehem inside the West Bank). Illegally smuggling the Palestinian in our car into so-called Israel. All this makes you feel like a criminal, even though we had no bad intentions and were not really doing anything wrong and we didn't even want to go inside 'Israel'. All we wanted to do was visit some nice places and hang out as friends do all over the world.
After that we went to crazy Hebron (the only city with violent Israeli settlers living inside a Palestinian city, terrorizing the local population)... always crazy, always violent and bizarre... so of course we ran into extraordinary situations here. But let me not go into all the details here. Just think of checkpoints around every corner in the old city, a lot of bizarre questioning by Israeli soldiers, such as: What is your religion? If you give the 'right' answer you can pass... and a Palestinian population desperate to survive and trying to persuade you to buy their products because there's simply no customers.
In the evening we visited Dheisheh refugee camp where we met with the amazing general generosity of Palestinian people. Living in the camp, right next to the entrance they had been through a lot. Torture, arrests, attempted assasinations, being held under (tank) fire, having Israeli soldiers "camp" at their roof, seeing their friends being killed... you name it.
When we went back to Ramallah there was a traffic jam about 1km away from Qalandia. After a while we came to realize that it was most likely something of a checkpoint. I had never seen such a thing and was a bit worried. We saw guys with flashlights, casually dressed wearing hoods and shorts. What was going on? Then we saw the guys, which seemed to be Ethiopian jews, checking people's passports and wearing machine guns. What the FCK?!? What to do? Turn around and risk being shot at? Wait our turns and risk being shot at? You just don't know what is possible. They didn't look trustworthy to say the least. The line began to shrink until there were only one or two cars in front of us and all of a sudden an Israeli police car drove by. It didn't stop, nor did it slow down... but the armed guys immediately got into their car and drove away as if nothing had happened. We were shocked. The most bizarre thoughts ran through our heads. Who were these guys? It seemed as if it were just settlers that had put up their own checkpoint and when the police saw them they knew they had to go. And as if the police didn't really disapprove, so they just drove by, giving them a silent sign to go, to prevent them from being arrested. I still don't really know, but it was pretty fcked up scary.
Today when I reached Huwarra checkpoint in the service from Ramallah there was a huge army presence around the checkpoint. I saw all different kinds of armed vehicles and wondered what was going on. When we approached I saw a shitload of soldiers surrounding a couple of blind-folded and handcuffed Palestinians. In the parkinglot I asked a man what was going on. He told me that a few settlers had begun throwing stones at Palestinians close to the checkpoint. Then the army came and the soldiers accused the Palestinians of throwing stones, giving them a "legitimate" reason to arrest them. Sadly this is quite normal as well. Whenever there's settler violence against Palestinians the Israelis like to put the blame on the actual victims of that situation.
And then there's still too much other stuff. Too much... literally. How to deal with this? How to deal with being exposed to the reality of violence and occupation. To be honest... a lot of times you don't really know, a lot of times you're quite okay, but in the deepest moments when you feel you've really been exposed too intensely there's one thing that helps: humour.
The power of humour is astonishing. Who told us that it is impossible to be scared and laugh your head of at the same time? Why can't things that are depressingly sad not be extremely funny as well?
The guys in Dheisheh camp told us their stories with so much humour, irony and charm that it was almost impossible not to laugh. I couldn't stop laughing when one of them told me when he had been dragged outside his house and tortured by soldiers, when he was not wearing much more than his underwear, he managed to sneak inside when they were distracted for a second to, as he said it, "put on some nice cloths"....
After our freaky ninja-settler checkpoint experience we were almost crying of laughter, because of what we had just encountered. Joking around about all the things that could have happened if the police hadn't passed by.
In Bil'in when me and a small group of not even 10 people went up again for a second encounter with the Israeli soldiers, we sat down behind a small wall... sitting in the sun, surrounded by beautiful olive trees and we were singing (Arabic protest songs)... singing and clapping and smiling... as the teargas grenades fired over our heads. A small bubble of sincere happiness in an extremely depressing setting of violence and prolonged injustice and suffering.
This is how I cope, this is what makes it all worth it. Laughing, enjoying, having fun, smiling. All the things that the Israeli army doesn't want Palestinians to do. This is the core of the Palestinian resilience I've talked about before... Sumud.. steadfastness... all made possible by the relativating power of humour.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
The Gaza ceasefire - Time to reconsider
As you might all know, a ceasefire in Gaza was established. Not because of benevolent considerations, but because it needed to happen. It was planned, as this entire military operation was planned well in advance. An Egyptian friend of mine informed me that the fighting needed to and would be stopped before the 18th of the month, because of the inauguration of Obama. I was not completely sure of his assessment, but he assured me that this was how things were about to unfold and I would come to acknowledge that he was right. And so he was... completely... a ceasfire: A time to reconsider the next steps, and to evaluate the outcomes and impact of three weks of fighting, with 1300 people being killed, 5500 wounded and about 100.000 made homeless.
Time to reconsider, for me as well. This ceasefire is my ceasefire, although my survival is not really at stake of course. Nonetheless,the three weeks of fighting have had its toll on me. Sometimes it's like the entire war in Gazais also fought out at the personal level. An invisible mini version of the war inside my head.
Over three weeks I've been fighting with my own weapons, even though their impact has been very limited at best, or even close to zero if I'm being honest enough to be realistic.
My trip to Egypt, to Al Arish and the Rafah border crossing have exposed me to the violence in Gaza and made it real for me. I saw, as far as I was able to see that the war was not just going on at the Al Jazeera tv channels. Wow... real war, with real victims, even though only a glimpse of it was revealed to me. I saw and heard the numerous explosions at the Rafah border, watching in shock how the rockets "slowly" fell down on Palestinian soil. Without being able to know the exact consequences , leaving it to my imagination to do the math.
This combined with hanging out with my Palestinian friends from Gaza, meeting others that were affected, hearing the stories, watching the news, travelling back and forth between Taba, Al Arish and Cairo, dealing with the fascist Egyptian police and just by being in the crazy jungle called Cairo, that is a lethal energy sucker itself, have left me beyond being emotionally and energetically drained.
It was time for a ceasefire, inside my head. Regroup, rearm, re-energize, reconsider altogether. My combat units had just completely destroyed all the civilians infrastructure in my mind, killing many of my civilians that were just against the fighting and that were only looking for ways to live a calm and simple life.
Now it's time to look for survivors under the rumble of the effects of war.
In the end there's not a lot of difference between physical and mental fighting. And even, and I'm truly shocked to say this as I never imagined myself saying such a thing, between fighting for a just cause and fighting for an unjust cause.
By that I mean: We should be completely aware that any fighting is violent and kills a lot, whether inside or outside yourself. My mental fight for a just cause, for Palestine, for Gaza, has created a lot of internal casualties and refugees.
When reading my own words, I'm surprised that these are mine. I've never thought about this, or like this, before and it is unfolding as I am writing this. Most likely way too deep for a simple blog like this... but as is Palestine itself... so whatever.
I don't mean to say that fighting for Palestine is useless or that I, myself want to give up my struggle for Palestine. I'm just saying that it comes at a price and we should not forget about that.
So time for a ceasefire. I'm currently in Taba right now and I've already been here quite some time, but I really need it. I went back to my friends at the beach camp and they've re-welcomed me with open arms. It has everything I need to get myself completely back together again: there's no people, no traffic, no noise. Instead there's the beach, the sea, the sand and stones, the sun, the moon and the stars and daily camp fires with cups of tea and laid-back conversations about life. But most of all, I refound myself there. Time to reconsider: Who am I? What do I want with my life? Why do I engage myself so deeply in this struggle? In the end I feel from inside that it's not my struggle, but why then do I identify myself so profoundly with it?? No easy answers available. But this place gives me so much new energy that in a few days I will be ready again to go back to Palestine and tackle these issues inside of me.
Time to reconsider, for me as well. This ceasefire is my ceasefire, although my survival is not really at stake of course. Nonetheless,the three weeks of fighting have had its toll on me. Sometimes it's like the entire war in Gazais also fought out at the personal level. An invisible mini version of the war inside my head.
Over three weeks I've been fighting with my own weapons, even though their impact has been very limited at best, or even close to zero if I'm being honest enough to be realistic.
My trip to Egypt, to Al Arish and the Rafah border crossing have exposed me to the violence in Gaza and made it real for me. I saw, as far as I was able to see that the war was not just going on at the Al Jazeera tv channels. Wow... real war, with real victims, even though only a glimpse of it was revealed to me. I saw and heard the numerous explosions at the Rafah border, watching in shock how the rockets "slowly" fell down on Palestinian soil. Without being able to know the exact consequences , leaving it to my imagination to do the math.
This combined with hanging out with my Palestinian friends from Gaza, meeting others that were affected, hearing the stories, watching the news, travelling back and forth between Taba, Al Arish and Cairo, dealing with the fascist Egyptian police and just by being in the crazy jungle called Cairo, that is a lethal energy sucker itself, have left me beyond being emotionally and energetically drained.
It was time for a ceasefire, inside my head. Regroup, rearm, re-energize, reconsider altogether. My combat units had just completely destroyed all the civilians infrastructure in my mind, killing many of my civilians that were just against the fighting and that were only looking for ways to live a calm and simple life.
Now it's time to look for survivors under the rumble of the effects of war.
In the end there's not a lot of difference between physical and mental fighting. And even, and I'm truly shocked to say this as I never imagined myself saying such a thing, between fighting for a just cause and fighting for an unjust cause.
By that I mean: We should be completely aware that any fighting is violent and kills a lot, whether inside or outside yourself. My mental fight for a just cause, for Palestine, for Gaza, has created a lot of internal casualties and refugees.
When reading my own words, I'm surprised that these are mine. I've never thought about this, or like this, before and it is unfolding as I am writing this. Most likely way too deep for a simple blog like this... but as is Palestine itself... so whatever.
I don't mean to say that fighting for Palestine is useless or that I, myself want to give up my struggle for Palestine. I'm just saying that it comes at a price and we should not forget about that.
So time for a ceasefire. I'm currently in Taba right now and I've already been here quite some time, but I really need it. I went back to my friends at the beach camp and they've re-welcomed me with open arms. It has everything I need to get myself completely back together again: there's no people, no traffic, no noise. Instead there's the beach, the sea, the sand and stones, the sun, the moon and the stars and daily camp fires with cups of tea and laid-back conversations about life. But most of all, I refound myself there. Time to reconsider: Who am I? What do I want with my life? Why do I engage myself so deeply in this struggle? In the end I feel from inside that it's not my struggle, but why then do I identify myself so profoundly with it?? No easy answers available. But this place gives me so much new energy that in a few days I will be ready again to go back to Palestine and tackle these issues inside of me.
The Gaza experience in Egypt
When I was in Al Arish I coincidentally met a Palestinian from Gaza in an internet cafe. Within the first 15 minutes he had already told me a lot of sensitive information about himself. He informed me that he had come to Al Arish through the tunnels that Palestinians have made under the border with Egypt. He showed my a wound on his arm...a result of his 'trip' to Egypt. He was working in the tunnels with several others, transporting food, clothing and medicines for the people in Gaza when the tunnel all of a sudden got bombed. Three of the people he was with got killed. He managed to escape to Egypt, where he went to stay with two Palestinian friends that were legally residing in Egypt.
He also told me how he had been in prison for 1 year and 8 months until five months ago. There he had been mistreated considerably, with the Israeli guards tying his arms and legs to a chair every day for 12 hours, 40 days in a row, forcing him to admit that he was Hamas and that he was making qassam rockets. The first being not true, but the second was. Damn... Welcome to Gaza, where violence is just interwoven with daily life.
In the days after, me and another volunteer from Nablus that had come to Al Arish as well, hang out with our newly made 'tunnelfriends' a lot. They helped us considerably, taking us to the border with Gaza and by just being nice and opening their house for us. We had so much fun, almost as if there was no war in Gaza. Their behavior seemed normal, they were laughing and joking around. In the meanwhile, the police was posting outside of the house, most likely because it's not normal for them to hang out with internationals, but possibly as well because they were Palestinians. Just enjoying life and hanging out is a tricky business here in Egypt and not entirely without risks...as I said: welcome to fascist Egypt, where the state determines who can be your friend.
So their house became like a happy little bubble, devote of the outside reality of the war in Gaza and the Egyptian totalitarian police. But as is the thing with bubbles, sooner or later they crack. And so did this bubble. The first little crack showed up the night me and Henry were invited to sleep in their house. When I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom I saw two of them sitting in a dark room, anxiously making telephone calls. The air was tense and I knew that something was wrong. When I walked up to them I saw the despair in their eyes, leaving not much behind of the happy "tough" guys from before, these were five-year olds in the bodies of grown ups. Israel was bombing the area where they lived and had destroyed their family's house. Never before have I seen fear in such a pure and intense way, but in their eyes it was there. They couldn't reach their family, because the telephones there were hardly working and with every attempt I saw their fear grow and their bodies shrunk. In the end they managed to get a hold of them, using my Palestinian Jawwal sim, instead of their Egyptian ones. The family was fine, home-less... but fine.
The final burst came after a few days. While we were listening to music the doorbell rang... within no-time the house was filled with Egyptian secret service agents questioning us. They arrested the Palestinians and me and the other volunteer were also taken to the police for interrogation. Serious trouble...
In the police station I was questioned first. The police man was quite nice and polite and assured me that we as internationals would be fine.. Yes of course, the perverse power of a Western passport. At a certain point the officer told me that I shouldn't be hanging out with Palestinians in Egypt in the future, because it puts me in danger. I replied that I wouldn't change my behavior. He looked at me slightly surprised by such straightforwardness. I explained him: I like Palestinians, they are great people and I don't think there's anything wrong with hanging out with them. He replied: yes.... I like Palestinians too, but...
AH! The Egyptian 'but'...BUT not really, BUT only as far as it pays. As I've said in my previous post, the official 'but' is: we need to protect the security of our country.... Yes... BUT, and I take full credit for this last but, this is not the entire story.
Many people would say that Egypt is tight friends with Israel. At first I thought like that too. But not really. Egypt only sucks up to Israel when it has a clear political or financial interest to do so... so not a case of true and warm friendship. Political opportunism at the expense of suffering Palestinian civilians.
Why would Egypt not open the border and why would Egypt allow Israel to bomb the tunnels connecting Gaza with Egypt? It seems irrational if you realize that Egypt would gain a lot from opening the borders and is gaining a lot from the illegal tunnel trade. Business in Al Arish is benefiting from the dire situation in Gaza. When the border was blown up last year people from Gaza flooded into Al Arish to do shopping and spent their money.
Israel knows that and that's exactly why Tzipi Livni, the monster herself, went to pay Hosni Mubarak (the Egyptian president) a visit with Christmas...only days before the Israeli invasion of Gaza. If Israel wanted to have Egypt's approval for this war it needed to 'compensate' Egypt for the financial losses this war would bring for Egypt, in terms of lost trade revenues. So you get this amount from the tunnels? We will double it if you can assure us that you keep the borders closed. Great! Everybody happy... and the Palestinians?? Ah.. well if anyone asks we will just say how much we like them... BUT not from upclose/ BUT from a distance/ BUT only when locked away. The Egyptian love for Palestine... heartbreaking...
So that's how the Egyptian police showed how much they liked my Palestinian friends...they locked them away. Me and Henry were put in the street after a few hours. We decided to take the morning bus back to Taba, because we had already planned that and we didn't know what else to do. In the bus I felt horrible... slightly guilty out of an irrational feeling that we caused these problems for them. One of their friends called me: Hi how are you? When I said not too happy... he didn't understand why. He didn't know what happened and apparently no-one knew. I tried to tell him that his friends were in serious trouble but he patronized me, saying that I shouldn't worry and it would probably be nothing. I told him that he needed to take me seriously and that I knew what I was talking about, but he just kept on 'shush-ing' me as if I was a little girl that needed to go to sleep. One day later he called me again slightly more aware of the situation... he asked me a lot of questions about what happened exactly and finally came to the conclusion that they were in deep shit. DUH! What have I been trying to tell you all this time? Some Palestinians can be so annoying for not taking women serious and treating them like cute little creatures that you just have to pet a little if they make any noise.
In the meantime he mobilized everyone to find out where they were. They also called the brother of two of the guys in Cairo. In the end... this brother and a friend of him spent 2500 pound (around 350 euro) and three days of putting pressure on the police. The result two of my friends were released from prison. In the meantime I had found that the one without the passport had already been sent back to Gaza.
When I was in Cairo, one of my released friends called me to tell that he was in Cairo as well. To see him again was great. I had worried about them a lot. Their entire lives seemed fucked... in a few days they lost everything: their house, their freedom, their future and everything else.
But thanks to the corrupt Egyptian police they were released from prison. Their brother told me that if he and his friend hadn't had spent all that money that they wouldn't be freed and they would probably have been locked away for a long time. I realized that in the end it was a good thing that me and Henri were there when they were arrested, because without us no-one would have known what had happened to them at all.... damn.
In less than two weeks I've had a rather fair introduction to what it means to be a Palestinian from Gaza. My head is empty now of words to describe how experiencing this and meeting these people has impacted me, so let me share with you a poem that I've written a few days ago:
Gaza - Beyond imagination
you are
bombed into my heart
so close and yet so far away
as if even my heart got uprooted
when I stood by and watched you cry
by the silent tears and passive fear of my friends
your damaged children
the night their house, their home was mutilated by F16's.
I was there and I wasn't.
A distant witness to your sorrow
as if distance makes the pain dissolve
it doesn't
as I saw in their eyes
you were there that night
present in their prayers
even though the world has tried to lock you away,
ignorantly
unaware
that you are so much more than a piece of land.
You are a spirit...
Oh, you abused daughter of Palestine
you remain safe and sacred,
no matter how violence has befilthed your destiny,
in the minds of your children
in the mind of justice
you are seen
I can promise you
I was there that night
even though I wasn't
He also told me how he had been in prison for 1 year and 8 months until five months ago. There he had been mistreated considerably, with the Israeli guards tying his arms and legs to a chair every day for 12 hours, 40 days in a row, forcing him to admit that he was Hamas and that he was making qassam rockets. The first being not true, but the second was. Damn... Welcome to Gaza, where violence is just interwoven with daily life.
In the days after, me and another volunteer from Nablus that had come to Al Arish as well, hang out with our newly made 'tunnelfriends' a lot. They helped us considerably, taking us to the border with Gaza and by just being nice and opening their house for us. We had so much fun, almost as if there was no war in Gaza. Their behavior seemed normal, they were laughing and joking around. In the meanwhile, the police was posting outside of the house, most likely because it's not normal for them to hang out with internationals, but possibly as well because they were Palestinians. Just enjoying life and hanging out is a tricky business here in Egypt and not entirely without risks...as I said: welcome to fascist Egypt, where the state determines who can be your friend.
So their house became like a happy little bubble, devote of the outside reality of the war in Gaza and the Egyptian totalitarian police. But as is the thing with bubbles, sooner or later they crack. And so did this bubble. The first little crack showed up the night me and Henry were invited to sleep in their house. When I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom I saw two of them sitting in a dark room, anxiously making telephone calls. The air was tense and I knew that something was wrong. When I walked up to them I saw the despair in their eyes, leaving not much behind of the happy "tough" guys from before, these were five-year olds in the bodies of grown ups. Israel was bombing the area where they lived and had destroyed their family's house. Never before have I seen fear in such a pure and intense way, but in their eyes it was there. They couldn't reach their family, because the telephones there were hardly working and with every attempt I saw their fear grow and their bodies shrunk. In the end they managed to get a hold of them, using my Palestinian Jawwal sim, instead of their Egyptian ones. The family was fine, home-less... but fine.
The final burst came after a few days. While we were listening to music the doorbell rang... within no-time the house was filled with Egyptian secret service agents questioning us. They arrested the Palestinians and me and the other volunteer were also taken to the police for interrogation. Serious trouble...
In the police station I was questioned first. The police man was quite nice and polite and assured me that we as internationals would be fine.. Yes of course, the perverse power of a Western passport. At a certain point the officer told me that I shouldn't be hanging out with Palestinians in Egypt in the future, because it puts me in danger. I replied that I wouldn't change my behavior. He looked at me slightly surprised by such straightforwardness. I explained him: I like Palestinians, they are great people and I don't think there's anything wrong with hanging out with them. He replied: yes.... I like Palestinians too, but...
AH! The Egyptian 'but'...BUT not really, BUT only as far as it pays. As I've said in my previous post, the official 'but' is: we need to protect the security of our country.... Yes... BUT, and I take full credit for this last but, this is not the entire story.
Many people would say that Egypt is tight friends with Israel. At first I thought like that too. But not really. Egypt only sucks up to Israel when it has a clear political or financial interest to do so... so not a case of true and warm friendship. Political opportunism at the expense of suffering Palestinian civilians.
Why would Egypt not open the border and why would Egypt allow Israel to bomb the tunnels connecting Gaza with Egypt? It seems irrational if you realize that Egypt would gain a lot from opening the borders and is gaining a lot from the illegal tunnel trade. Business in Al Arish is benefiting from the dire situation in Gaza. When the border was blown up last year people from Gaza flooded into Al Arish to do shopping and spent their money.
Israel knows that and that's exactly why Tzipi Livni, the monster herself, went to pay Hosni Mubarak (the Egyptian president) a visit with Christmas...only days before the Israeli invasion of Gaza. If Israel wanted to have Egypt's approval for this war it needed to 'compensate' Egypt for the financial losses this war would bring for Egypt, in terms of lost trade revenues. So you get this amount from the tunnels? We will double it if you can assure us that you keep the borders closed. Great! Everybody happy... and the Palestinians?? Ah.. well if anyone asks we will just say how much we like them... BUT not from upclose/ BUT from a distance/ BUT only when locked away. The Egyptian love for Palestine... heartbreaking...
So that's how the Egyptian police showed how much they liked my Palestinian friends...they locked them away. Me and Henry were put in the street after a few hours. We decided to take the morning bus back to Taba, because we had already planned that and we didn't know what else to do. In the bus I felt horrible... slightly guilty out of an irrational feeling that we caused these problems for them. One of their friends called me: Hi how are you? When I said not too happy... he didn't understand why. He didn't know what happened and apparently no-one knew. I tried to tell him that his friends were in serious trouble but he patronized me, saying that I shouldn't worry and it would probably be nothing. I told him that he needed to take me seriously and that I knew what I was talking about, but he just kept on 'shush-ing' me as if I was a little girl that needed to go to sleep. One day later he called me again slightly more aware of the situation... he asked me a lot of questions about what happened exactly and finally came to the conclusion that they were in deep shit. DUH! What have I been trying to tell you all this time? Some Palestinians can be so annoying for not taking women serious and treating them like cute little creatures that you just have to pet a little if they make any noise.
In the meantime he mobilized everyone to find out where they were. They also called the brother of two of the guys in Cairo. In the end... this brother and a friend of him spent 2500 pound (around 350 euro) and three days of putting pressure on the police. The result two of my friends were released from prison. In the meantime I had found that the one without the passport had already been sent back to Gaza.
When I was in Cairo, one of my released friends called me to tell that he was in Cairo as well. To see him again was great. I had worried about them a lot. Their entire lives seemed fucked... in a few days they lost everything: their house, their freedom, their future and everything else.
But thanks to the corrupt Egyptian police they were released from prison. Their brother told me that if he and his friend hadn't had spent all that money that they wouldn't be freed and they would probably have been locked away for a long time. I realized that in the end it was a good thing that me and Henri were there when they were arrested, because without us no-one would have known what had happened to them at all.... damn.
In less than two weeks I've had a rather fair introduction to what it means to be a Palestinian from Gaza. My head is empty now of words to describe how experiencing this and meeting these people has impacted me, so let me share with you a poem that I've written a few days ago:
Gaza - Beyond imagination
you are
bombed into my heart
so close and yet so far away
as if even my heart got uprooted
when I stood by and watched you cry
by the silent tears and passive fear of my friends
your damaged children
the night their house, their home was mutilated by F16's.
I was there and I wasn't.
A distant witness to your sorrow
as if distance makes the pain dissolve
it doesn't
as I saw in their eyes
you were there that night
present in their prayers
even though the world has tried to lock you away,
ignorantly
unaware
that you are so much more than a piece of land.
You are a spirit...
Oh, you abused daughter of Palestine
you remain safe and sacred,
no matter how violence has befilthed your destiny,
in the minds of your children
in the mind of justice
you are seen
I can promise you
I was there that night
even though I wasn't
Friday, January 16, 2009
Welcome to (fascist) Egypt!
Welcome to Egypt visitors. This is the sign you'll find a few hundred meters after leaving the Rafah border crossing with Gaza. Visitors? What visitors??! Maybe they are talking about the few heavily bombed nearly dead Palestinians that are brought to Egyptian hospitals. But I don't think these people are capable of opening their eyes to see this sign of so-called Egyptian hospitality. The Rafah border crossing, operated by the Egyptians is closed and has been closed for a long time. Depriving the already deprived Gazans of yet another right: The right to flee violence and seek a safe shelter. This is not the only conflict in the world and in terms of fatalities not the most severe, but even in the bloodiest conflicts civilians are able and allowed to flee the war violence... whereas the people in Gaza can do nothing else but await the rain of bombs and pray that God will spare them, just for once, making this one of the most detrimental humanitarian disasters in this world.
No-one can go in or out... except for around 30 of the most seriously wounded people each day and a team of 10 aidworkers that got very lucky and was allowed to go in. And for the rest: no matter what a great docter or journalist you are. The doors remain shut.
So yes... welcome to Egypt. In the nearly ten days that I've been here I've been questioned by the Egyptian secret service 4 times and than I'm not even considering all the times I've been questioned at the many checkpoints that are now allover the country (mainly because of the situation in Gaza now... at least so I've been told). I was sent away from the hospital in Al Arish where I wanted to visit some of the victims with an Egyptian nurse that I had met on the beach. The secret service checked my passport, questioned me in detail and then send me away... as if visiting wounded people in hospitals is some terrorist act threatening the security of the state of Egypt.
Ironically, every time after they were done questioning me they told me: Welcome to Egypt! Uh?! You guys don't really make me feel welcome at all.... But indeed: Welcome to fascist Egypt. In such a short time I've met regularly with the true face of Egypt, beyond that of the pyramids, the beaches of the Sinai. This is Egypt as it is... welcome! A true fascist country, where the 'security' of the state is deemed more important than individual lives and any feelings of humanity, especially in the case of severe human suffering, are severely oppressed.
"Yes, people in Gaza are dying...but we need to safeguard the security of our country. This is our land, you know". This is how it was more or less literally said to me several times by different people.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Final Destination GAZA
With the situation in Gaza totally spiraling out of control and my Israeli visa expiring I was faced with a difficult dilemma. I didn't want to leave Palestine and the situation in Gaza to go play the blond tourist in Egypt... but I had to leave. That's why I decided to go Egypt and try to get to Gaza, at least as close to Gaza as I can get, which means the Egyptian city of al Arish and the border town of Rafah (Rafah in Egypt... the town has been divided into an Egyptian part and a Gazan part)
Coming from Sakhnin, where a massive demonstration for Gaza was held by 100.000 to 150.000 Palestinian Israelis (in a town of 25.000 people) I took the bus to Eilat in Haifa at eleven in the evening.
The bus ride made me feel very nervous. Surrounded by Israeli people and society it almost made me forget about Gaza and about the purpose of my trip. It was like as if I was on a school trip, but then one with fat russian ladies sitting next to you, scaring the hell out of you with their occasional loud snor every 10 to 15 minutes. At every stop we made people came up to me, curious to find out where I was from and what I was doing. It's not nice to say that you're a tourist to their lovely country now with the situation in Gaza.
Driving past Beer Sheba, I was confronted again with Gaza. It was so surreal to realize that Gaza was close, while being surrounded by Western Israeli society where live was just going on as if Gaza didn't happen. But then two trucks drove by, both carrying two army tanks on them. No-one seemed to notice except for me. I was terrified. These tanks were obviously going to Gaza and obviously not for fun or peaceful purposes... Tanks are made to kill and even though the bus ride had made me forget a little that was what Israel was doing while I was trying to get some sleep on the bus to Eilat.
We arrived in Eilat at 5 am. So there I was in the bus station, having to wait for the Egyptian embassy to open at 9, to get my visa to get the hell out of this fascist country, where guns and violence are so normal and accepted. The public transport is filled with young soldiers going home or their army bases, often carrying their (huge) guns carelessly, as if it's some sort of accesory.. like a bag or a mobile phone.
While waiting I enrolled in several conversations with other people that were waiting. One guy told me in broken English that his friends are now inside Gaza. And that he believes in God, so that he hopes they will be okay. I didn't know how to react to that, so I just nodded, feeling disgusted and lonely, because my concerns were not the concerns of the people I was surrounded by.
A little later when I was standing outside to see the sunrise I met three Israeli guys. Two of them were here to go to court, because they had been smoking hash and the other was here with his cousin, to travel back to Belgium where he was studying. We had nice, stupid conversations about nothing, life, music etc. It was not until we talked about their army experiences that I found out that the Belgium guy was a Palestinian Israeli from Nazareth. The two Jewish Israeli guys didn't seem to matter at all, they were curious but after a few questions the conversation went on.
Knowing that one of the guys was Palestinian I felt a little more comfortable to tell about what I had really been doing in the past few months. I openly talked about how I had been inside the West Bank and how I liked cities like Ramallah and Nablus. One of the Jewish guys told me how he, when he was in the army, used to go eat humus and falafel in Ramallah after his army shifts. Humus and falafel... we engaged in discussions about where the best humus of the entire country could be found. The jewish guys claiming that it was in Akko, the Palestinian that it was in Nazareth and me saying inside the West Bank. The atmosphere was pleasant and everyone seemed open to listen to what the other had to say. When the subject changed to music again, one of the jewish guys began to sing a song of Umm Katum an Arabic artist. He was a big fan of her music.
Later on the cousin of the Palestinian also came outside and there I was... with two Palestinian Israelis and two Jewish. It reminded me that the conflict is not about two people hating each other. The people get along fine, if they are willing to leave their prejudices aside. It's the political level that has manufactured this situation of complete oppression of the Palestinian people.
After 9 o' clock we said goodbye and after I got my visa I went straight to the border crossing. I was somewhat nervous, but the girl sitting behind the desk was actually smiling at me for a difference. After she made a phone call that scared the hell out of me, I was free to go and cross to the Egyptian side. There I had more difficulties... Not because they were asking me the same difficult and annoying questions as in Israel, not at all... just because my visa number was not correct: they had two number 23's... welcome to Egypt! I couldn't help but laugh at their attempts to come across as professional serious guys. Even their moustaches gave me a feeling I had ended up in some sort of comedy show.
Outside I didn't really know where to go, since I hadn't really planned this trip. A bedouin cab driver that insisted on driving me (after thorough negotiations about the price) took me to the busstation where we drank coffee and had a look at the map of Egypt. It was not possible to go Al Arish straight. He told me I had to make a huge detour and change busses several times, but that I couldn't do it today anymore, since I would arrive there at night. I agreed to let him take me to a beach camp close to Taba on the coast of the Red sea.
At the beach camp I was welcomed by a young guy that ran the joint. I didn't see anybody else. Later I found out that I was indeed the only guest. The only other people there were the two other guys working there. While we had initially agreed that I would pay 20 pounds (3 euro), they told me at dinner that they not only didn't want me to pay for the food, but that I could even stay there for free. I was amazed. I had been warned by everyone to watch out for the Egyptians always trying to get money out of Western tourists, and here I was as the only source of income in a deserted beach camp not being allowed to pay. Maybe it was because I told them about my plans to go to Al Arish, or because I spoke a little Arabic. Anyhow, I was touched by their hospitality that wasn't different from the Palestinian hospitality.
I had a great time there, being on a deserted beach, with the beautiful red sea a few metres away. At night, I sat with the guys around a camp fire on the beach, drinking tea and talking about Palestine and the Arabic world. We sat under a palm tree hut until 4 am and finally fell asleep around the camp fire, with the relaxing noise of the sea. The next day I stayed with them as well, because I had missed my six o' clock bus to Suez. It was truly a relaxing and short vacation, being completely away from the stress of life.
With a promise to come back, I finally took the bus the day after. In the evening I arrived in Al Arish after a long and exhausting trip through the entire Sinai. I was shocked to see the many Egyptian checkpoints all over the country. Great... just another fascist country, where I felt for some reason that it was better to tell that I was going to Cairo. More stories about Egypt and Al Arish to come. So far it has been great and without problems, if only the Egyptians here spoke a little English...
Coming from Sakhnin, where a massive demonstration for Gaza was held by 100.000 to 150.000 Palestinian Israelis (in a town of 25.000 people) I took the bus to Eilat in Haifa at eleven in the evening.
The bus ride made me feel very nervous. Surrounded by Israeli people and society it almost made me forget about Gaza and about the purpose of my trip. It was like as if I was on a school trip, but then one with fat russian ladies sitting next to you, scaring the hell out of you with their occasional loud snor every 10 to 15 minutes. At every stop we made people came up to me, curious to find out where I was from and what I was doing. It's not nice to say that you're a tourist to their lovely country now with the situation in Gaza.
Driving past Beer Sheba, I was confronted again with Gaza. It was so surreal to realize that Gaza was close, while being surrounded by Western Israeli society where live was just going on as if Gaza didn't happen. But then two trucks drove by, both carrying two army tanks on them. No-one seemed to notice except for me. I was terrified. These tanks were obviously going to Gaza and obviously not for fun or peaceful purposes... Tanks are made to kill and even though the bus ride had made me forget a little that was what Israel was doing while I was trying to get some sleep on the bus to Eilat.
We arrived in Eilat at 5 am. So there I was in the bus station, having to wait for the Egyptian embassy to open at 9, to get my visa to get the hell out of this fascist country, where guns and violence are so normal and accepted. The public transport is filled with young soldiers going home or their army bases, often carrying their (huge) guns carelessly, as if it's some sort of accesory.. like a bag or a mobile phone.
While waiting I enrolled in several conversations with other people that were waiting. One guy told me in broken English that his friends are now inside Gaza. And that he believes in God, so that he hopes they will be okay. I didn't know how to react to that, so I just nodded, feeling disgusted and lonely, because my concerns were not the concerns of the people I was surrounded by.
A little later when I was standing outside to see the sunrise I met three Israeli guys. Two of them were here to go to court, because they had been smoking hash and the other was here with his cousin, to travel back to Belgium where he was studying. We had nice, stupid conversations about nothing, life, music etc. It was not until we talked about their army experiences that I found out that the Belgium guy was a Palestinian Israeli from Nazareth. The two Jewish Israeli guys didn't seem to matter at all, they were curious but after a few questions the conversation went on.
Knowing that one of the guys was Palestinian I felt a little more comfortable to tell about what I had really been doing in the past few months. I openly talked about how I had been inside the West Bank and how I liked cities like Ramallah and Nablus. One of the Jewish guys told me how he, when he was in the army, used to go eat humus and falafel in Ramallah after his army shifts. Humus and falafel... we engaged in discussions about where the best humus of the entire country could be found. The jewish guys claiming that it was in Akko, the Palestinian that it was in Nazareth and me saying inside the West Bank. The atmosphere was pleasant and everyone seemed open to listen to what the other had to say. When the subject changed to music again, one of the jewish guys began to sing a song of Umm Katum an Arabic artist. He was a big fan of her music.
Later on the cousin of the Palestinian also came outside and there I was... with two Palestinian Israelis and two Jewish. It reminded me that the conflict is not about two people hating each other. The people get along fine, if they are willing to leave their prejudices aside. It's the political level that has manufactured this situation of complete oppression of the Palestinian people.
After 9 o' clock we said goodbye and after I got my visa I went straight to the border crossing. I was somewhat nervous, but the girl sitting behind the desk was actually smiling at me for a difference. After she made a phone call that scared the hell out of me, I was free to go and cross to the Egyptian side. There I had more difficulties... Not because they were asking me the same difficult and annoying questions as in Israel, not at all... just because my visa number was not correct: they had two number 23's... welcome to Egypt! I couldn't help but laugh at their attempts to come across as professional serious guys. Even their moustaches gave me a feeling I had ended up in some sort of comedy show.
Outside I didn't really know where to go, since I hadn't really planned this trip. A bedouin cab driver that insisted on driving me (after thorough negotiations about the price) took me to the busstation where we drank coffee and had a look at the map of Egypt. It was not possible to go Al Arish straight. He told me I had to make a huge detour and change busses several times, but that I couldn't do it today anymore, since I would arrive there at night. I agreed to let him take me to a beach camp close to Taba on the coast of the Red sea.
At the beach camp I was welcomed by a young guy that ran the joint. I didn't see anybody else. Later I found out that I was indeed the only guest. The only other people there were the two other guys working there. While we had initially agreed that I would pay 20 pounds (3 euro), they told me at dinner that they not only didn't want me to pay for the food, but that I could even stay there for free. I was amazed. I had been warned by everyone to watch out for the Egyptians always trying to get money out of Western tourists, and here I was as the only source of income in a deserted beach camp not being allowed to pay. Maybe it was because I told them about my plans to go to Al Arish, or because I spoke a little Arabic. Anyhow, I was touched by their hospitality that wasn't different from the Palestinian hospitality.
I had a great time there, being on a deserted beach, with the beautiful red sea a few metres away. At night, I sat with the guys around a camp fire on the beach, drinking tea and talking about Palestine and the Arabic world. We sat under a palm tree hut until 4 am and finally fell asleep around the camp fire, with the relaxing noise of the sea. The next day I stayed with them as well, because I had missed my six o' clock bus to Suez. It was truly a relaxing and short vacation, being completely away from the stress of life.
With a promise to come back, I finally took the bus the day after. In the evening I arrived in Al Arish after a long and exhausting trip through the entire Sinai. I was shocked to see the many Egyptian checkpoints all over the country. Great... just another fascist country, where I felt for some reason that it was better to tell that I was going to Cairo. More stories about Egypt and Al Arish to come. So far it has been great and without problems, if only the Egyptians here spoke a little English...
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Bleeding for Gaza
After two days of feeling frustrated about not being able to do anything for Gaza, I went to Rafidia hospital in Nablus to donate my blood for the wounded and out of a general feeling of solidarity for the people of Gaza.
Armed with a bottle of juice and some chocolate bars to recover from my mission I walked Rafidia street, uncertain where to go exactly. In the previous days I had been a bit weary about how people in Nablus would react to me after Israel's killings in Gaza. Normally we get many "shaloms" (Hebrew greeting that is the equivalent of the Arabic "salam", both meaning peace ironically), so I expected to run into a slightly more hostile attitude of people in the street. Luckily I've underestimated the Palestinian friendliness once again, even though we still get the regular "shaloms", I haven't noticed any hostility towards me and so I didn't need to know where the hospital was exactly, because people were more than willing to show me.
A young guy in the street walked me all the way up to the blood clinic inside the hospital. At first the people there told me to come back the next day between eight and ten, but in some cases it pays off to belong to an exotic kind: Of course they couldn't send the "ajnabiye" away that has come all the way to give her blood for Gaza.
Besides me and the doctors there was no-one there and that added to the depressive atmosphere of the run-down hospital, giving it an air of serenity at the same time.
I had to wait a little before we could move to the procedure and overheard the staff in the other room talking excitedly about the "ajnabye", I was surprised to feel that apparently for them it was a major thing that I was there.
The doctor (or employee) that treated me was a very nice man and spoke English very well. He made me feel very comfortable and also very appreciated for doing this. We spoke about the situation in Gaza and about the situation in Palestine in general. He repeated the general vision that Palestinians have about the situation, their lives and their fate as a people: a nation that has been under siege for 60 years. Not just now, not just Gaza. Now it's Gaza... five, six years ago it was Nablus, Jenin, Ramallah. Every Palestinian where ever he lives, what ever he stands for is suffering from this siege.
His personal lifestory underlined this. He told me that he himself had been in prison for 10 years. He just got out 11 months ago. Not that he was a terrorist, nor a criminal. He told me that he had been a peace activist all his life. The reason he was imprisoned: he had convinced a young Palestinian guy that was going to commit a suicide attack in Israel not to take his life and that of some many other innocent people. By himself he had been able to stop this person and for this heroic action of great responsibility he was rewarded with ten years imprisonment, because he had been unwilling to tell the Israelis who this boy was. In his own words: " I'm not a collaborator". He saved Israeli lives, but instead of showing gratefullness, the Israelis made sure that people like him will think twice about making that "stupid mistake" again.
Welcome to the cruel reality of Israel, where even peace activists are seen as security threats that need to be locked away. Anyone that talks about or fights for freedom, regardless if they use non-violent means, is an enemy of the state of Israel.
He made me feel that I wasn't just giving my blood for Gaza, but that I was giving my blood for Palestine in general, for the Palestinian struggle to freedom. A free Palestine, not meaning free of Jews, but free of oppression. Unlike what people in the West are led to believe by Israel, the general Palestinian wish is not a state of their own: a Palestinian-only state where all the Jews have to be pushed out. Palestinians are not Israelis and are ready to embrace the notion of living together in one land. All they long for is freedom, as opposed to the Israelis that in general long for a Jewish-only state. The doctor talked about this with passion in his eyes, if only, one day... He told me he dreams of Palestinians living together with Jews.
While my blood was slowly dripping into the bag on the ground, he asked me if I was still feeling okay, as is of course part of the procedure. Even though my arm was slowly turning blue I was feeling better than ever. Being here, as an international volunteer in Nablus, there's many times that you feel completely useless, not being able to make any difference to the perverse reality people live in. Right there and then I felt my presence was anything but useless. Not only was I physically contributing something essential: my blood, my life liquid, a part of myself, one of the most precious and costly things you can give as a human being... The gratefullness that he showed me for donating my blood made me more aware than ever that, even though I might not always feel that way, me living next to Palestinians in Nablus is really a contribution in itself: Being there, showing willingness to listen to their stories, giving attention to their problems and their existence. Giving my blood, can actually be seen as a symbol of what I have been doing all along in Palestine: giving myself to this cause.
During the draining of my blood, he enthusiastically called his wife, to tell her about the "ajnabiye" giving blood. He told me his wife was too scared to do it, but this might be able to convince her "if even internationals are coming here to do this then she, as a proud Palestinian, should definitely do it as well." The whole situation made me smile: To see him talking to his wife, so delighted. He even asked me to say "hi" to her on the phone. There I was, with a needle sticking out of my arm, talking to the wife of some doctor in Rafidia hospital, making a difference.... at least a small one, adding some positivity in the live of an incredible human being that has spent 10 years suffering in jail, because he didn't want to give up the principles he believes in. And, hopefully, also in the life of a suffering human being in Gaza. His story and this experience reaffirmed my believe that the positive will always prevail in the end, even when surrounded by so much misery. He clearly made a difference in my life as well... adding some positivity when I was in a position surrounded by so much misery.
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