Hello all,
Greetings from S'ra and Mohammad's apartment in Al Bireh, a town just outside of Ramallah. Happily, this trip to Israel and Palestine is decidedly more celebratory that my time here last year. I arrived to the West Bank a little over a week ago for S'ra and Mohammad's wedding, and have since attended three parties and had the pleasure of spending time in Qalqilya with the Qubaa family. I feel honored to be able to be here to witness S'ra and Mohammad joining their lives together; S'ra is positively glowing! The wedding consisted of a women's party on Saturday, with the wedding party itself on Sunday. In both parties, S'ra was made up into a gorgeous babe, (serious makeup, hair and dresses!!) and she danced with close friends and family at the head of a big room with a seemingly large percentage of the women of Qalqilya sat facing us. I was admittedly disappointed that we didn't get to dance with the hundreds of people in the room, but in the end I did enjoy dancing with S'ra's friends and the women in Mohammad's family. The women's party was also a henna party, with a professional henna artist decorating all of our hands and arms! Both parties were attended mostly by women, with the exception of the last hour of the wedding itself, when Mohammad's father, brother, cousins and uncles joined the dancing. At that point, family members took turns visiting the newlyweds on their thrones on stage, giving gifts, good wishes, and taking photographs. Honestly, the whole two days was at times bewildering, as we were at points not in the position of knowing exactly what was coming next; frustrating, with our battles against green eye shadow and white foundation at the salon; exhilarating, with the love of S'ra and Mohammad and his the family…I feel so thankful for the endless openness, patience, and generosity that the entire Qubaa family have, not only for her S'ra, but for her small entourage of English-speaking activist friends. I can assure you all that she has been properly welcomed into a wonderful, wonderful family. In addition to the festivities in Qalqilya, we were able to have a small party last night here in Ramallah for the city folk—Mohammad and Sra's friends from Ramallah, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem, International Solidarity Movement volunteers, as well as devoted Qubaa family members. The party was complete with cake, and unusually, some not-so-covertly-consumed alcohol. I will refrain from more intimate details of the wedding, as it is a somewhat private affair. Although I should mention that some have interpreted it politically--a Reuters reporter from Qalqilya has pitched a story about how S'ra and Mohammed came together in their struggle against the wall, and he even photographed them on their wedding day at the wall itself! The wall. The construction continues at a wicked pace, daily; the amount of land that is being carved into for the construction of this concrete monster is literally breathtaking. Last year with S'ra, I witnessed the wall cutting through villages, effectively annexing agricultural land for Israel. Now I am observing what happens when the wall cuts through the center of a town. Or the center of a busy thoroughfare. The wall is currently surrounding East Jerusalem. I ride by it every day on my way from Ramallah to Jerusalem. It is lined with businesses that have closed due to a lack of business. People walking the wall, balancing on the base to avoid the traffic of the highway. More construction, closing off a path here or there. It is craziness, literally. To travel from Ramallah means crossing two checkpoints, with two taxis now negotiating roads under construction beneath the looming wall. The other day I visited Kalendia checkpoint in another capacity, this time accompanying a group of women called Machsom Watch. Machsom Watch is an organization of over 500 women, all Israeli, that sends a group of women to every checkpoint in the West Bank, twice a day, every day. There, they monitor the situation and interfere if it appears that their involvement will help. My host that day, Leah Ngad, author of Winter in Kalendia (she's looking for a publisher for the English addition, if any of you have a lead!) told me that many women who join are motivated initially by purely humanitarian reasons. That is, some are not necessarily against the occupation, but recognize there are human rights abuses that need addressing. However, after days of watching the checkpoints, it becomes clear to these women that the checkpoints are not a security measure, but rather a way to control and humiliate the Palestinians. For example, Leah has seen soldiers reroute Palestinians who are denied passage through one checkpoint to another crossing 45 minutes away. Why, these women wonder, are the checkpoints positioned between Palestinian towns? Why does the wall stretch between Palestinian towns? Most of the Machsom Watch volunteers, Leah esplained, come to realize that a humanitarian occupation is not possible. Their experience working inside the occupation has a radical politicizing effect. (Machsom Watch publishes their reports on their website, machsomwatch.org.) I have spent some of my time here collecting information about Israeli groups involved in the struggle against the occupation. I am trying to get a (hopefully accurate) picture of what the Israeli left is. I have been fed some interesting ideas so far that include perspectives that I don't claim but do sometimes share--about the mainstream, Zionist peace groups verus the radical left, versus stopgap measure groups versus those who seek to affect policy, verus those who seek only to document human rights data versus the various Refuser groups…I'll hold off on writing about these as the opinions I have collected are from those involved in the movement, and in the coming week I'm hoping to get perspectives of Israelis who are a bit more removed. I do need, however, to comment on the ceasefire and the disengagement plan, the darlings of the Israeli press in the past few weeks. The debate rages over whether or not the settlers of Gush Katif should in fact be relocated. As the date of their displacement approaches (142 days left), the settlers have compared themselves to Holocaust victims. There is a new group of Refusers—this time it is soldiers who will refuse to evacuate the settlers. Did you all see the cover of the Economist with Sharon on the cover with an olive branch in his mouth? Sharon is the new dove. I asked Jimmy Johnson, a Jewish-American volunteering with the Israeli Commission against Home Demolitions (ICAHD) about the disengagement plan. He asserts that Israel gains from this move. The disengagement plan frees them from securing areas that are less populated. These areas, not coincidentally, have fewer valuable resources. That is, Israel has no plans to withdraw from settlements with major economic activity, agricultural value, or control of aquifers. However, the more isolated settlements (a handful in Gaza and in the Northwest of the West Bank), which are not cost-effective to defend, will be let go. Meanwhile, the resources, as well as absolute sovereignty, rest with Israel. And the system of absolute control of the Occupied Territories continues as well. Similarly, Israel announced last week that home demolitions will no longer be used punitively. It seemed a victory, finally! But according to ICAHD, this will reduce the number of home demolitions by approximately 1/7. In the Al Aqsa Intifada alone, 4,200 homes were demolished. Of these, only 628 were punitive. The others? Destroyed because of a lack of a building permit from the Israeli authorities, because they were in the way of a future bypass road or the wall, and sometimes purely by accident—they got the wrong house! Like the wall and the checkpoints, home demolitions will continue in order to control the Palestinian population. As far as the actual "ceasefire" is concerned, you have all heard about the very recent suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. The perpetrator evidently was active with Islamic Jihad, although the organization itself is not claiming responsibility. Israel has looked to the PA, who has begun to arrest Islam Jihad members. I'd like to include this news report from Miftah.org (The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy): Despite the promise to ‘end all Israeli army operations against Palestinians, anywhere’ by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, eight Palestinians have been killed and many more injured by Israeli armed forces’ gunfire since the so-called ‘Sharm El-Sheikh Ceasefire’ was agreed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on 8 February. All attacks took place on Palestinian territory and were carried out by Israeli occupying forces. At least two killings took place during a premeditated and carefully planned army operation. Two of the other fatalities were children. Meanwhile, Palestinian militants have attempted a few attacks on Israelis but failed to cause any casualties. Aside from this, Palestinian security forces have worked hard to prevent Palestinian militants from responding to Israeli attacks. This has resulted in the death of one Palestinian security officer and several sackings of officials held responsible for failing to prevent armed Palestinian responses to Israeli breaches of the ceasefire agreement. And so, despite the headlines carrying hopeful messages, I am sorry to report that the "facts on the ground" do not reflect signs of change. Perhaps small steps for change can happen—maybe Israel will take confidence in Abu Mazen. So far, Israel has not taken military action against the West Bank, unless you count increased military presence through closure in Tulkarm and more checkpoints. Perhaps we will see something different. I hope to write again soon. Thanks for taking the time to read this, I hope you all are well. In Solidarity, Hilary ------------------------ Yahoo! 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