The ruins after the rain

I’m in England at the moment. Yesterday I had a beautiful day in Coventry with my friend Sam. I never thought I would write ‘beautiful’ and ‘Coventry’ in the same sentence, but that was before I saw the cathedral, where Sam is volunteering.

Coventry is known as Britain’s Dresden. The cathedral was all but destroyed by bombing during the Second World War (despite the best efforts of the provost, who valiantly stood on the rooftop one night and tried to toss stray bombs onto the street with a pitchfork before they could explode). Only the outer walls and the spire remain. Peering into the cathedral on the morning after the bombs hit, one of the staff noticed that a pair of scorched beams had fallen in the shape of a cross.

The cross in the ruins.

When the war ended, it was decided that the ruins should remain as they were. Wandering through them, I was surprised by their peace. Normally in a place that bears obvious scars of violence I feel more grief than anything, but this place was marked with something more than that. I think it is because of all the love and care that people from Coventry (and much further afield) have put into making it a place for reconciliation. A statue was sent from Dresden, and it now stands near the entrance to the ruin, named simply ‘Survivors’. It is a quiet reminder that the prayer inscribed behind the charred cross – Jesus’ words as he died, ‘Father, forgive’ – was not just for the bomber pilots who discharged their cargo on Coventry but also for pilots who flew in the opposite direction. Nearby is a plaque in honour of people who died on the Home Front, confronting bombs with pitchforks, and one final statue – a couple embracing.

Our tour guide (a volunteer from Germany, whom Sam had roped into the expedition on the grounds that she knows more about the cathedral’s history than he does) explained that the statue’s creator was inspired by a woman who refused to believe that her husband (reported missing, believed dead) really was dead. She set off round Europe on foot to look for him. I don’t know if she ever found him, but the sculptor tried to imagine what their reunion might have looked like and cast it bronze.  Originally titled ‘Reunion’, it was renamed ‘Reconciliation’ when it was donated to the Peace Studies department at Bradford University. Fifty years after the war’s end, several casts were made of the statue. One came to Coventry. Another went to Northern Ireland. A third stands in a park in Hiroshima.

Finding Bethlehem in East London: a Christmas journey

I’m not a London sort of person. Before I left for Palestine I lived in a remote Northumberland hamlet (population three people and a sheep) with a mile-long walk across the fields to reach the nearest bus stop. London has an awful lot of people and no sheep, and I have several grievances against it. It always seems so easy to navigate when you look at the Monopoly board, but when you actually get there nothing is arranged in orderly squares and you’re lost before you even know where you are.

Last year, one late December day, I alighted at Euston Station and caught the Tube into the East End. I was introduced to this part of the capital through Rachel Liechtenstein’s book Rodinsky’s Room, a semi-autobiographical work that tries to solve the mystery surrounding the disappearance of David Rodinsky, a reclusive man who lived above the old synagogue on Princelet Street. My present-day destination was a flat on the thirteenth floor of a tower block in a densely populated housing estate.

Just a thought

Earlier today this picture appeared on the Facebook page of the Israeli Embassy in Ireland. It is an image of the Sacred and Immaculate Heart, with the festive caption, “A thought for Christmas…If Jesus and mother Mary were alive today, they would, as Jews without security, probably end up being lynched in Bethlehem by hostile Palestinians. Just a thought…”

My initial reaction was, “Smooth move, directing this picture and caption at a country where the population is a.) predominantly Catholic and b.) generally sympathetic to Palestine. PR skillz, u no have any.” Then I thought of something else.

This image of the Holy Hearts is hanging on the wall of my host family’s house in Bethlehem (only ours is kitschier and better). When I saw the embassy’s Christmas message, I thought of the family’s experiences during the Intifada, when the house was constantly being requisitioned by Israeli troops. They used to corral everyone into one corner, and my landlady was never allowed to be the one to wake her children: the soldiers pulled them out of bed at gunpoint. When the soldiers got thirsty my landlady used to give them water. Occasionally some of them became distressed and she and her husband would try to comfort them. There were times when the curfew lasted so long that the family ran out of food. Soldiers would bring their own meals into the house (sometimes hot pizza, with its appetising smell) and the kids just had to sit there and try to bear the hunger until such time as curfew was lifted and they could go to the shop.

Last year I ended up bringing an Israeli friend who was then performing his own military service into the house. (He was off-duty at the time, obviously, and before you ask – it’s a long story. I may tell it some day.) I was worried about how the family would react to him. Sure enough, my landlady wasn’t best pleased – but not because he was an Israeli Jew and a soldier to boot, but because, “If the army find out he has been here they can hurt him. You need to look after your friends, Vicky, he is a good boy.” She sat in the living room and talked with him, underneath the Holy Hearts image and the equally kitschy representation of the Last Supper.

That picture on the wall of one Bethlehem family home has witnessed a lot of things, but never hate of the sort that was exhibited by the embassy this afternoon. Just a thought.

Abraham’s Tent

Lee Weissman is one of several extraordinary people whom I’ve ‘met’ courtesy of Twitter. (If you’re ever feeling a bit peaky about life, Twitter is an excellent restorative of faith in humanity.) He goes by the Twitter handle of Jihadi Jew and he keeps a blog of the same eyebrow-and-curiosity-raising name, which is always a humbling and richly rewarding read. A chasidic Jew of the Bratslav school who is a high school teacher by profession, his big interest is in creating understanding between Jews and Muslims. He seems to have quite a knack for that. One of my favourite posts on his blog is a contribution from a Christian friend who came to observe his Talmud class, because it demonstrates two things clearly: he teaches well, and he listens even better than he teaches.

The least of these: a reflection on a bad choice

It was only half-eight in the morning, but it was already too warm for comfort. I could feel the acrid salty heat rising from the tarmac as I headed up the hill. The chapel was going to feel like an oven. Once again I caught myself fantasising about air conditioning, which not many people have in Palestine. Just imagine walking into a building and being met by a beautiful blast of cold air, and getting some iced grapefruit juice, and…

“Stop!”

The order was issued in an American accent and preceded by an earsplitting whistle. I didn’t stop for the whistle. I never do. If people want to talk to me, they can start by addressing me as though I’m a person too and not an errant sheepdog who needs to be brought to heel. At “Stop!” I reluctantly obeyed. I hadn’t eaten any breakfast yet, and you don’t pick fights with M16-wielding men without at least having had a cup of tea beforehand.

The entrance to Bethlehem, viewed from inside the checkpoint complex.

He was not a soldier, but a civilian employee from the company that has been contracted to manage this particular checkpoint. (Military occupation is big business.) The sun glinted on his dark glasses and the barrel of his rifle. Behind him was a female guard who was gazing up at him adoringly from beneath her baseball cap. I know that look, and it’s never pretty. The way some guys start parading around the checkpoint like peacocks in flak jackets if there happens to be a female colleague anywhere in the vicinity is like something out of a David Attenborough zoological documentary on mating rituals. And what better way to demonstrate power, manliness, and general desirability than by harassing the odd passer-by? Frankly I don’t know how the female soldiers and guards manage to keep their legs together.

“I don’t want to go through the machsom,” I called out wearily, resigning myself to the game. I tried to step forward so that I could talk to him in my normal voice, but he gave another shrill blast of the whistle (ow) and held up the palm of his hand.

“Where are you going?”

“To church.” I pointed at the road that sloped off to my right, skirting the separation wall. The guard turned away and said something to his colleague. I took this as permission to move. I was wrong. The resulting whistle was loud enough to make my heart jump skittishly. “Wait!”

No, this is not about security

All Palestinian adults from the West Bank or Gaza require a special permit to enter Israel. The permit often specifies the roads they are allowed to use, the window of time in which they can travel, how many hours they may remain at their destination, whether they can stay overnight (a rare privilege), and so on. Riding on Bus 21, the Palestinian bus that goes between East Jerusalem and central Bethlehem, I have witnessed soldiers boarding the bus and detaining passengers who had overstayed their allotted time in Jerusalem by half an hour. The rules on permits form an intricate web, but so far children have been relatively free of its tangles. The rule was that any child under sixteen could travel freely within the Green Line providing they were accompanied by a close relative who had a permit. But not any more.

Permit issued to a neighbourhood child for Palm Sunday 2011. Photograph by Jenny Baboun.

Last year we noticed the changes creeping in. In April 2011, a toddler in our neighbourhood received his own permit. I burst into incredulous laughter when I saw Jenny’s photograph. I was sure that it was a spoof.  But it wasn’t. This Christmas, my colleague Toine’s two children – the youngest of them nine years old – also received permits. Many of their classmates were left out. This week, Toine’s wife Mary noticed that a permit had been issued for a two-year-old when she checked the lists to see if she and her family would be celebrating Easter in Jerusalem this year.

The use of the permit system to divide up families during what should be times of celebration is nothing new. As I wrote in my last post about checkpoint fun, it’s the norm for everyone in the family to get a permit but the grandfather and the eldest daughter, or the mother and the uncle. It’s arbitrary. The one consistent thing is the pitiful agitation that descends on each Christian family as Easter or Christmas draws near. (Muslim families experience the same thing during Ramadan and Eid.) They’ve got friends and relatives on the other side of that wall. Will they be visiting them, or won’t they? It lies in the hands of the military. And the justification for this is that it is essential to Israeli security.

Is it for security that permits are being issued to Palestinian children? This measure has not been implemented during a time of heated conflict. It has not been preceded by a wave of atrocities against Israeli civilians, masterminded by nine-year-old Tamer and perpetrated by two-year-olds who are barely toilet trained. It has been quietly implemented during a time of quiet. No one can look at this and justify it in the name of security, because if the two things were remotely related, why is it only happening now? And it has not happened without thought. It has been phased in slowly, smoothly, as is normal with so many of the rigid laws that govern every aspect of Palestinian daily life. “The method creates uncertainty,” Toine told me. “It gets people used to the new law before they implement it fully, it softens the will to resist.”

When a Palestinian Christian couple are given permits to celebrate Easter in Jerusalem, but their young children are not, what will they do now? Find babysitters and celebrate the holiest days of the Christian calendar away from their children? Choices like this make it harder to move around even when you have permission to leave Bethlehem, and the ties between West Bank Palestinians and their families, friends, and holy sites on the other side of the wall are slowly and quietly being eroded.

This is what military occupation looks like. And no, it’s not about security.

Graffiti on the separation wall in Bethlehem.

When Jenny saw the toddler’s Palm Sunday permit last year, she wrote, “I thought ‘speak now, or forever hold your peace’. If we, Christians of the Holy Land, do not stand up and defend our rights to enter Jerusalem just like Jesus Christ did, then our children and grandchildren will never have the chance of even walking in the Old City. If a child needs a permit now, the worst is yet to come.” Her decision has been to boycott the permit system entirely. This means either sneaking into Jerusalem illegally, or confronting the soldiers over her right to pass.

Many people in Bethlehem have become desensitised to the occupation. I have good friends who are too afraid to fight for fear of losing what privileges they have. They cling to their permits like lifebelts; they don’t want to end up on the blacklist by confronting a soldier. Others just don’t see how a fight is even possible. They’re numb. But now a murmur of dissent is rising in Bethlehem. As I heard Palestinian friends discussing the new rules this evening, a song from Les Miserables came to mind:

Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?

At AEI we are responding to the change in the rules by designing permits for tourists, which will look exactly as Palestinian permits look, and give the holders the privilege of visiting the Church of the Nativity between the hours of three and five o’clock on alternate Thursdays or some such thing. This is to raise international awareness of local people’s difficulties; many tourists breeze through Bethlehem in their chartered coaches without learning much about the inhabitants’ lives.  I would like people to take the opportunity to issue permits of their own design to the occupying soldiers at the checkpoint too, but this idea has been met with fear. I may have to do it myself. My Hebrew is almost up to it now. “I’ve noticed you sitting here, day after day, never having permission to go anywhere! And it’s just not fair, when you are so kindly allowing all these Palestinian people to walk through this gate (or be pushed through, like that one-year-old whom you’ve just cleared to go). Now you can have a permit too, instead of being restricted to this box! Go and see your friends! Look, we’re allowing you to reach them on one of two highways, and we’ve been generous with the time – you have a six-hour window for travel. Break it and you’ll get blacklisted.”

I outlined this plan to a Palestinian friend. She practically choked on her coffee. “Vicky, are you trying to get yourself deported?”

“No,” I said serenely. “I don’t think they’ll do that. You have to be assertive and sincere, that is key. But it would be much better if you did it, as you’re the one whose movement is restricted. Lots of people need to do it for it to be effective. And we could do to have the women’s choir marching with us, singing that song from ‘Les Mis’…”

This is not the first time I have suggested that the Sumud Choir sing in the checkpoint. Music and resistance go together very naturally. Once again, my suggestion was blackballed. “Vicky, I told you before, if you sing in the checkpoint then I am sorry for the army. For the first time in their life they will have a real security threat.”

“Certain high notes can shatter glass,” I said thoughtfully, choosing to ignore this inconsiderate slur on my abilities. “I wonder what it takes to bring down concrete?”

On the separation wall near my house, someone has left a pair of red handprints on the wall, with the optimistic instruction ‘push hard’ scrawled underneath. As of tonight we don’t have an answer. But we’re going to find one.

From Bethlehem to Rwanda

Just after Christmas I started to feel restless. I was dissatisfied with how things were going with the youth group. Late last year we lost our youth house in Bethlehem (one of three premises) because we couldn’t afford the rent and upkeep, and now the youth have to squash themselves into what was originally an office and practically sit on each other’s laps when they want to meet. I decided that they needed something to perk them up a bit. A field trip seemed in order.

The writing on the wall

If you are a tourist or pilgrim who arrives in Bethlehem via Checkpoint 300, the first thing you will see as you turn into the street is the concrete barrier that slices it in half, severing the neighbourhood from Rachel’s Tomb and the military base that lies adjacent to the holy site. Get closer to the wall and you will find the women of the neighbourhood waiting to meet you.

One of the simplest but most important aspects of my organisation’s work is providing a space where people can tell their stories. One day Toine had an idea: why not turn the wall itself into that space? We could collect short vignettes from the women who use the centre and hang them on the concrete. The stories would be like windows: tourists on their way to see Nativity Church or eat dinner at the optimistically named Bahamas Fish Restaurant would be able to catch a glimpse of Palestinian life.

The checkpoint game

“Feee -ky!”

Reem came sweeping into the office with an agitated clatter of bracelets. She always moves like a whirlwind, but I can tell when something has happened to disturb her: ‘v’ becomes a ‘f’ and she stretches the first syllable of my name to breaking-point.

“Do you know what has happened to me in this sheckpoint today?” she demanded, jabbing her thumb at our rear wall. (‘Ch’ becomes ‘sh’ as well.) “I could not believe my eyes, my ears, my own ears I could not believe! Do you know what they are doing now?”

I glanced nervously at the brimming coffee cups on the desk. She was gesticulating with enthusiasm and I could see a third-degree burns incident occurring if we weren’t careful. I managed to shepherd her into her chair (an impassioned Reem is a bit safer when she’s sitting down) and discreetly transferred the cups to a side table. Then I settled down and prepared to hear yet another checkpoint story. Every Palestinian has their checkpoint stories. Listening to these weary catalogues of mundane humiliation and everyday hurt, I always wish I could change the endings, but I can’t. The only thing left for me to do is listen.

Wrong on the Internet

The Internet is a terrific invention. Without it, I would never have found myself living on top of a pizza shop in Newcastle with my close friend Danni and a wheezy arthritic old cat, having to wear heavy-duty earplugs to block out the cheerful karaoke coming from the pub next door. (‘Mr Blue Sky’ and ‘I Am the One and Only’ were popular numbers, sung very loudly and with Geordie accents.) Without the Internet, I would never have found myself being force-fed vast quantities of dubious makloubeh by a Palestinian girl from Gaza in a kitchen in northern England. I would never have made the acquaintance of Shai (who has been quite invaluable in helping me with colloquial Hebrew – now I can even ask for a drug dealer and a wide selection of other things that I am unlikely to want). Without the Internet, I doubt that I would ever have smuggled an off-duty Israeli soldier into Bethlehem and sent him home wearing a kuffiyeh. (That story has yet to be told on this blog – I’ll get to it.)

Danni and I met on a forum for disabled teenagers, which was my intro to the power of the Internet in bringing about change for the better. That forum gave me some of my best friends. It provided advice for teenagers who were struggling to cope with their condition. It even saved a few lives (literally). When Britain’s coalition government began to draft in an unjust and dangerous series of welfare reform policies, disabled and chronically ill people took to the Internet to launch a counter campaign. Many of the participants couldn’t leave their houses – some even struggled to get out of bed – but they turned to their keyboards. I was particularly moved by people’s response to Ali, a severely ill woman who shared on her personal blog that suicide would be her only choice if her benefits were revoked. She had lived on the streets once, she wrote, and she would never go back there again. Within hours, a group of disabled people had conceived of ’5 Quid for Life’. Donors contribute five pounds per month to the organisation, and the money will be distributed to people facing Ali’s trouble.

For something that has accomplished so much good in my life, the Internet is also a terrible headache. I read and comment on a variety of blogs – about Palestine/Israel, about disability, about feminism, special needs education, mental health, ecology, veganism, theology, and so on. Sometimes the comment threads dissolve into a cesspool of petty spite. The topic of discussion is abandoned in favour of having the last word or taking another commenter down a peg or two. When the topic of discussion is a family who has lost their home or a prisoner who is dying, this absence of compassion is inexcusable, and I find myself asking why I am joining in with these conversations. What does it achieve?