Beware of my hunger

Write down!
I am an Arab
And my identity card number is fifty thousand
I have eight children
And the ninth will come after a summer
Will you be angry?

Roughly 1,600 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are on hunger strike. Just over a week ago, one of them collapsed during his court hearing after going for sixty-six days without food. He is Bilal Diab, and today marks the seventy-fourth day of his fight.

This wave of resistance from within the prison system itself began with Khader Adnan, a baker from the West Bank village of Arrabeh who started to refuse all food after he was arrested by the military and placed in what is euphemistically known as administrative detention. Prisoners are held without charge or trial, and their detention can be renewed indefinitely. Adnan had already been imprisoned multiple times. In a letter he gave to his lawyers during his hunger strike, he wrote, “The Israeli occupation has gone to extremes against our people, especially prisoners. I have been humiliated, beaten, and harassed by interrogators for no reason, and thus I swore to God I would fight the policy of administrative detention to which I and hundreds of my fellow prisoners fell prey.” His case captured international attention, with a close friend and co-activist of Bobby Sands writing from Ireland to offer support and call for Adnan’s immediate release.

Art and apartheid: worlds apart

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am an MA student in Jewish Studies. A few weeks ago students taking Hebrew were encouraged to book tickets for Habima Theatre’s Hebrew-language performance of The Merchant of Venice as part of the ‘Globe to Globe’ Shakespeare festival.

During my undergraduate years (as a student of English literature) I practically lived at the Globe, developing incredible calf muscles as I stood through half of Shakespeare’s repertoire. The opportunity to see one of Shakespeare’s most controversial plays presented in Hebrew by a theatre company intimately acquainted with Jewish history and heritage could have been a strong incentive to make a return trip (and maybe even invest in a seat this time).

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!”

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.

Syrian snacks, disability rights, and a simple act of kindness: what I’ve read this week

I’ve decided to create a weekly round-up post of the most interesting, thought-provoking, and urgent things I’ve come across during the week, especially if they haven’t received much attention in the blogosphere. All of the links will be relevant to peace and justice work in some way, although not always specifically to Palestine. Feel free to add your own reading suggestions.

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.

Non-violence in a nutshell

As I wrote in the aftermath of Mustafa al-Tamimi’s murder, many Palestinians have become jaded with the concept of pacifist resistance, as it is often conflated with passivity. Acquiescing to the State of Israel’s insistence on retaining all of Jerusalem is needed to demonstrate ‘openness’; abandoning the boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign is a sign of being ‘reasonable’; renouncing the one-state solution and accepting Israel’s right to exist as an ethno-religious state reveals a willingness to be ‘tolerant’. Without these things, Palestinians are told, you cannot be truly non-violent; and non-violence is your duty. We demand it of you. You won’t deserve even a sliver of the cake until you are on your best behaviour.

The devouring lion: graffiti near Bethlehem checkpoint

These things are not true. An unwavering commitment to justice ought to lie at the heart of all pacifist resistance. In surrendering their most basic rights in order to try and buy that crumbling slice of cake, Palestinians would become accessories to the state-sponsored violence that is being waged against their communities – the carving up of the West Bank into impoverished cantonments, the water shortages, the ongoing isolation of Gaza, the home demolitions,  the destruction of hundreds of years of Palestinian culture in Jerusalem and beyond. This meek acceptance of the status quo is not non-violence; you can’t have true non-violence without self-respect.

Pacifism or passivity?

This morning, in Tel Aviv’s Beilinson Hospital, twenty-eight-year-old Mustafa al-Tamimi died from the injuries he sustained at yesterday’s protest in the village of Nabi Saleh. A soldier opened the door of the military jeep as it was driving off and fired a tear gas canister at Mustafa at point-blank range. It struck him full in the face. When I saw the photograph, I was reminded of a red pomegranate split open on rock. His features were barely discernible.

This evening, IDF spokesperson Avital Leibovitch issued photographic justification of Mustafa’s killing, captioning it, “This is what he was doing.” The photo shows a cosy-looking bed. Looking at this piece of incontrovertible evidence, I could only conclude that Mustafa had been threatening soldiers’ lives with a 10.5 tog fibre quilt in a floral-patterned pastel cover. Then I registered the slingshot lying on top of the quilt. Avital Leibovitch’s insinuation is that Mustafa had been throwing stones.

Several people who were present at the demonstration have responded to her claim by pointing to the photo that was captured moments before the canister was fired. Mustafa has no slingshot, and he is carrying no rocks. In one sense, it was right to point this out – but in another it is wrong. It misses the point.

What ‘retards’ have taught me about peace work (and people)

“Are you mentally handicapped?”

“He’s too low IQ to give a proper response.”

“I’m sure you’re retarded.”

The use of cognitive disability as an insult has always bothered me. It’s demeaning and hurtful to people who have such disabilities, and it shows a lack of understanding of how these conditions actually affect a person. When these insults are flung about in a discussion on the conflict in Palestine and Israel, my usual distaste is tinged with a sense of something very like irony as well.

Before I started work in Bethlehem, I had a job in a residential college for young adults with learning disabilities. Most of the students were eighteen or nineteen when they came to us, although the college could accept any student between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five. It was a marvellous place, set in one of the wildest and most beautiful counties of England, with a river flowing beneath it and a ruined castle in the grounds. Also dotted about were several little cottages (once the houses of farmhands) where the students lived together in groups of half a dozen.

Spot the difference

I’m back in Britain – for now.

My time in Palestine was remarkable – exhausting, thought-provoking, hope-inspiring, fun and tragic all in one go. My return journey is already planned, and this time I am taking with me a secret weapon against the occupation and injustice: my mother.

And if the socioeconomic protests that have broken out in Israel on such a seismic scale aren’t enough to topple Netanyahu’s government, her arrival will.

When I came back from my first ever visit to Bethlehem, aged nineteen, I spent the next couple of weeks in a kind of numb daze. I don’t remember much. I cried a lot, I know that. Eventually I would take my horror and my anger at what I had just seen and use it as fuel in my quest to do something, but at the time I didn’t think there was anything I could possibly do except cry. Over the past few days I have endured a muted version of that hopelessness. Aspects of life in Palestine keep flashing to mind, sharper than glass, causing me to recoil and think, “That is horrible! How did you ever manage to put up with that level of horrible? More importantly, how did it manage to become normal for you?” The contrast between British and Palestinian life makes my mental snapshots of deadly weapons and destroyed houses stand out even more clearly. For example:

Passengers on board a First North Western bus service.

Here you see people travelling into Manchester. I can’t say for certain, but it’s a pretty safe bet that none of them has a gun in there. Not even the moody-looking girl at the back.

Spot the difference.

And here is a covertly taken photo of a fellow passenger on the bus from Tiberias to Karmi’el. I wonder what goes through his mind when he gets dressed in the morning? “Right, I think I’ll wear the frayed cut-off jeans and my giant shades, and just to complete the look, I’ll accessorize with this edgy submachine gun.”

Culture shock doesn’t even begin to describe it.

A few days ago, when this post was still sitting in my ‘Drafts’ folder, I followed that sentence up with, “I’m glad to have a break from it all, though.” I am now deleting that statement, because fortunately certain elements of the great British public have decided to help me ease gently back into normal life by organising a little light recreational violence. I thank them for the thought, but I think they’ve gone a bit overboard. They can stop setting fire to things now.

Shai says:
wtf.
you people need to smoke something and relax.
Vicky says:
I don’t have a strategy for this. I’ve never done riot dispersal before. It wasn’t part of our nonviolence training.
Do I go out into the city centre and appeal to their better natures? “You are worse than the Magav! Go home!”
Shai says:

you can tell them this:
seriously, Shai is involved in more peaceful demonstrations than this. and everyone in his neighborhood owns a rocket launcher!

Don’t worry. I may have left Bethlehem for a while, but my activism doesn’t stop here, and neither does the blog. As you can see, life in Britain can afford a lot to write about…