Closures, Olive Trees, and Racial Profiling

Many of you must be wondering what it has been like here since Arafat died. On Thursday, the day oafter he died, the Israelis closed the West Bank and Gaza, so things were back to the way they were before they caught the Hamas guy in Hebron. Soldiers created more roadblocks out of dirt piles, and more random check points, and made it very difficult to go anywhere.

On Friday the whole team went to Tuwani so we got to experience what it was like. To get out of Hebron we had to take a cab to an enlarged dirt pile/road block. We had to cross the paved settler road and go over another dirt pile to catch a cab on the other side. There was a tank at the paved road and soldiers checking IDs and refusing to allow Palestinians to cross. They let us cross, but we had to convince them, and we weren't sure we would be able to get back later. Palestinians were flying black flags as a sign of mourning, and schools were closed for a week, so people were out and about. Later, when we came back to Hebron the tank was still there, but we had no problem crossing the road. At that point, Palestinians had stopped trying.

One team member went to Jerusalem the next morning and it took three hours (normally a half hour) because the van had to drive all over the place to find a way in. He had to get out and walk several times, because the roads truly were blocked.

It seemed odd to me that the Israelis thought it was a good idea to intensify oppression of Palestinians as a fitting way to mark Arafat's death. All it does is get people angry.

We planted trees in Tuwani on Friday. You may remember in an earlier email I talked about how settlers and soldiers had uprooted olive trees there. The land belonged to Saber, the village leader, or mayor, but the Israeli army confiscated it, naming it state land, because it sits right next to the settlement fence. So as an act of nonviolent resistence, we replanted the trees. We don't know how long they will last, but now that so much attention is being paid to Tuwani, they have a better chance. The team will plant more in two weeks.

There is hope for Tuwani, but it is too soon to tell if the improvements that have been made as a result of the assault will last. They are building the clinic now without disturbance from the army. This is a major victory, because with the infrastructure of a school and a clinic, it will be much harder to destroy. Because of the attention after the assault, Israeli public opinion is less likely to stand for it. I may have mentioned earlier that two small villages close to Tuwani were evacuated several years ago due to settler harrassment. All the people moved to Yatta. The settlers have taken the land and plowed and planted it.

The children are getting to school with a three-jeep escort, but are still getting harrassed by settlers, who do not seem to care if army and civil administration are present. The only time the settlers behave themselves is when police are present, and this is rare.

Tuwani is improving its road as part of the clinic construction, and this is unimpeded by the army. They have been promised water and electricity, but it has not yet been delivered. I have my doubts, but we will keep up the pressure. I'm proud of the progress that has been made, due largely to pressure from US government officials and media attention.

I have no evidence that there is a real investigation of the assault happening. I doubt it.

Meanwhile, one of my teammates was detained again at the checkpoint near our house. We were walking through it to get to the van service the Jerusalem, and they stopped him. He fits a profile they are told to look for: young, dark, male. They detained him for about 30 minutes while they called the police, who came within five minutes. Eventually they let him go, after they realized they had no evidence he is a terrorist. I doubt that the Israelis would appreciate it if similar racial profiling was done against them.

Machine Guns and Holy Sites

On Saturday the settlers in Hebron were celebrating what they called Sarah's Day. Masses of tourists were here from other parts of Israel, because Sarah is buried here. When we went on our usual morning school patrol, accompanying Palestinian children to school here in Hebron, settlers and tourists were streaming to the synagogue, and there were at least triple the number of Israeli soldiers and military police present. What I noticed was that the Palestinian kids who would normally have to cross the street that the settlers and soldiers were using, were simply not coming out. They skipped school that day because it was too threatening.

As I was standing on the corner monitoring the situation, I noticed a few young men wearing prayer shawls and machine guns coming out from the synagogue. I have learned that this is common dress for many young settler men. One of them walked by me and said "fuck you bitch," in perfect American English. This was a religious Jew, with earlocks, a prayer shawl, and a machine gun, coming home from synagogue.

This was a change from the usual. Most of the Hebron settlers refuse to speak to us at all or even look at us when they walk by.

I had another illuminating encounter with settlers and machine guns in West Jerusalem on Thursday. I was there for a meeting with the US Consulate about holding the Maon settlers accountable for the beatings. Another CPTer and I were standing in line at the central post office to pay my ambulance bill. In order to go into the post office, as with other public buildings in Jerusalem, one has to pass through a metal detector and be frisked by armed security guards. Two young settler men walked in, dressed in prayer shawls and machine guns, and stood in line with us. Apparently settlers with machine guns are exempt from security precautions. The rules really only apply to Palestinians.

Later on Saturday, the settlers continued their celebration of Sarah's Day by organizing a march to some holy stone located outside of their settlement compound. In order to facilitate this, the Israeli army, police, and civil administration shut down the street where the march was to take place, forced all the Palestinians off the surrounding streets, and closed all the shops in the busiest market area of the city. There were six or eight military, police and civil administration jeeps with six people each, plus an armored personnel carrier with a bunch more soldiers enforcing this. I saw two military police officers fire shots into a crowded market, and I saw a jeep drive into a crowd in order to get them off the streets. The street they closed is lined with Palestinian homes and shops. Things remained closed for about three hours. No notice was given.

After they got all the Palestinians out of the way, the settlers lined up behind the military check point that separates their compound from the Palestinians. About 250 of them marched out, singing and clapping. They were all dressed as religious Jews. They were escorted by this large contingent of soldiers to their holy stone where they were to pray, and then escorted back. Many brought their own machine guns as well.

One man stopped to talk with us. He was not from this settlement, but from Tel Aviv. He basically blamed the whole situation on Palestinian terror. I asked him what he would do if the village his family had inhabited for 500 years was destroyed, his home bulldozed, his family herded at gunpoint to a refugee camp, and his land confiscated in order to create a new country. This is what happened to half of Palestinian villages in 1948. He said I was condoning terror. I do not get it. Obviously, I do not think that violence gets anyone anywhere, but one can imagine the desperation that has led to it. I can also imagine the desperation that has led Jewish people to want their own state. What I cannot understand is what they have done in order to get it.

And what they have done in the name of holy sites. My attitude toward holy sites is a bit different. I did see the place in Bethlehem where Jesus supposedly was born, but it is not the actual site that matters to me. They could destroy the site, and it would not affect my faith a bit. It is the spirit of the site that matters, not the actual place. Control over the place is not so important as is the way we live our lives.

Gaza Disengagement

Palestinians whom I have spoken to are cynical about the Gaza withdrawal plan, for a variety of reasons.

Most importantly, it won't lead to any kind of real independence for the Palestinians in Gaza. Israel will still control the borders, and therefore the economy, and freedom of movement. Gaza is basically one big refugee camp, and this plan holds out little hope for improvement.

Also, they are offering the settlers somewhere between $200,000and $300,000 each to vacate the settlements. This was land stolen from Palestinians originally, for which they were never compensated.

Finally, and probably most importantly, Sharon has stated that along with Gaza disengagement will come consolidation of control over the West Bank, where the majority of Palestinians still live. The settlements here will not be dismantled, but will be allowed to expand "naturally." The illegal expansion outposts are supposed to be destroyed according to a promise made to the Bush administration, but we have seen that this has not happened, and in fact, more are being built.

The roadblocks are supposed to be eliminated, but we have also seen that that is not happening. Israel continues to place more and more restrictions on freedom of movement for West Bank Palestinians, primarily through construction of the separation wall and of roadblocks. This effectively destroys any possibility of real economic life because Palestinians cannot get across borders for jobs or trade.

All of this is being done with the blessing of the Bush Administration, although at this point I don't believe that the Democrats would do much better, at least not according to what they say.

Most of what goes on here is done via negotiations with the U.S. government, because our aid makes up about 15-20% of their annual budget. Most Americans don't know enough about the situation here to effectively influence policymakers, even if they want to.

And so it goes. I do not foresee a successgul Gaza disengagement.

The Role of Accompaniment

Village of at-Tuwani

Sunday morning the head of the Israeli Civil (Military) Administration for the entire southern West Bank came to Tuwani and met for an hour with village leaders. Such a high-level visit is unheard of, and villagers believe the attention is a result of the efforts of CPT and its supporters.

The high-ranking visitor asked village leaders to, "tell me your needs." The village leaders listed these concerns:

*Water: Villagers draw by bucket from a small spring that only provides enough for drinking and cooking. Water of poor quality from rainwater cisterns is used for washing. A large water supply line for Ma'on settlement passes only sixty meters from the village. The village wants water from this supply line.

*Clinic: The village wants to complete the construction of their clinic, currently under a stop-work order from Israeli authorities.

*Safe passage to the Tuwani primary school for the children of Tuba: The children are currently using a circuitous five-mile mountain path. They are afraid to use the direct one-mile path because settlers from Ma'on attacked them and the accompanying internationals.

*Electricity: Though grid power extends to Ma'on settlement, Tuwani only has power from a diesel generator for a few hours each evening.

*Road access to Kirmil: The Israeli military maintains three dirt barricades blocking the only road from Tuwani to Kirmil, Yatta and Hebron. These barricades prevent the villagers from access to a hospital, secondary schools and stores.

*Improvement of the road to Al Mufakra and villages to the south: Several small villages south of Tuwani have access to Tuwani only through a rough path. They travel through Tuwani to reach schools, stores, and medical care. Five years ago, when the villagers of Tuwani tried to improve this road, Israeli authorities forbade it.

"These are humanitarian needs; under occupation, the Israelis are responsible for these," said one village leader. He continued, "The civil administrator responded to all these concerns. He asked us to provide engineering drawings for connecting our village to water and electricity. He told us to go ahead and build the clinic, and he promised to come for the opening celebration, but we still don't have a permit in writing. He said he would look into the questions about the roads, and that he would send Israeli soldiers to accompany the school children. He did not refuse on any of the concerns."

"This meeting today didn't just happen. We have had these problems, and many attacks by settlers for years, but no one outside knew. Thank you for being here, you have brought us attention. Please thank all the people who have helped us, the media, the US government and consular officials who visited, and the Israeli and international peace groups. Your help made this visit happen."

Of course, today the army did not show up in the afternoon to walk the children home from school, so they had to go the long way again. In the morning, they showed up late, so the CPTers there walked them on the short road. When the army finally showed up, they again called the police and threatened the CPTers with arrest for doing so. So we will see what really comes of all this. But the high-level interest is a good sign.

Roadblocks and Checkpoints

I just returned from two days in Bethlehem. It looks like many of the other Palestinian cities I have been in, except there are way more Christians, and Christian holy sites. It is not falling apart like Hebron, and there are also more foreigners. But getting in and out is like everywhere else--a huge hassle. Going through military check points and climbing over dirt piles. They are building the separation wall between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, and in the process they are trying to claim as much of Bethlehem for Israel as they can possibly squeeze in. Just recently two Jewish settlers grabbed some land close to Rachel's Tomb, on the outskirts of Bethlehem, to turn it into an Israeli settlement. This is likely an attempt to force the wall to go around Rachel's Tomb and make it part of Israel. I have a hard time enjoying any of the holy sites because the people in charge here do not act very holy. I was really glad to see the Church of the Nativity, though.

On Monday I travelled to Tuwani for the first time since the attack. There are two ways to get to Tuwani from Hebron. The way we went on Monday, you take a cab through an industrial area of Hebron to the Yatta roadblock. The roads are blocked by Israeli soldiers. You climb over the roadblock (dirt pile) and walk about a half mile to cross the paved settler road that Palestinians are not allowed to drive on. Across the paved road you climb over another dirt pile and take a van service to Yatta which winds around the hills on narrow sometimes paved, sometimes gravel, roads. We negotiated with the driver to take us through Yatta and Karmel all the way to Tuwani. However, when we got close to Tuwani, we got a surprise: another dirt pile!

On Saturday, the bulldozer had come through on the road to Tuwani from Yatta and dug up the road just before it reaches another paved settler road that the Palestinians can't use. You have to cross that paved road to get to the gravel road that goes into Tuwani. These paved roads are part of a highway system used by settlers, soldiers and other Israelis and foreigners to get around the West Bank. They were funded by U.S. aid. Palestinians can't use them and have to find ways to drive around them, since the army often blocks the access roads as well. So we got out and walked the half mile or so uphill to Tuwani.

This new dirt pile blocks the main and shortest road to Yatta from Tuwani. There are back ways to get there. On Tuesday this week, Naim, a man from Tuwani, was driving his car on one of the back roads and was stopped by the army and handcuffed, blindfolded, and taken to their headquarters, where he was held this way for five hours. Why? Because he was driving on the back roads to Yatta, and they didn't want him doing that. I don't know why. Control? He is also not allowed to use the settler roads, and cannot use the roads that have been blocked. Yatta is the nearest decent sized city to Tuwani, where they go for food shopping and medical care.

The children that we accompanied to school are now going two hours in each direction because the army has branded the shorter roads a "closed military zone." This is in response to the settler attacks on us. The settlers attack, and the Palestinians are punished. I don't get it. It looks like the settlers may also be trying to claim the long road. On Thursday this week the children saw settlers on the long road and ran home, too scared to go to school. We don't know for sure what the settlers were doing there, but the children seemed to think they were planting trees. This is not a good sign, because if the settlers are planting trees, then they are trying to extend the grove of trees which is their outpost even further into Palestinian lands. We haven't been accompanying them on the long road because the army has promised to protect them only if we are not there.

This week some officers from Shin Bet, the intelligence agency, came to Tuwani because they are now in charge of investigating the attacks on us. They spoke a few minutes to the CPTers who were there, and went up and looked at the grove of trees where the attackers came from. But they refused to go in! They are afraid of them, too. Funny, though, a van from Doctors Without Borders was in Tuba at the time, and they drove back on the road that goes right through the outpost without incident. One of my teammates got a ride with them and was able to see what it looks like. They are living in small, rusty trailers and lean-tos made of canvas. Clearly, nobody lives there full-time. People from the settlement itself are rotating in and out in order to retain the land they stole. No question that people from the settlement know who is responsible for what happened to us.

I really don't understand why the government of Israel puts up with them. I guess because they only really adversely affect the local population, the Palestinians, and Palestinians can't vote.

Life With Israeli Soldiers

On Friday I traveled back to Hebron from Tiberias with one other team member. Hebron is now relatively open since about 10 days ago, when they captured the Hebron head of Hamas. In order to humiliate the man completely, they put him on television in his underwear. It reminded me of what US soldiers were doing to detainees in Iraq. It would humiliate anyone, but in Muslim culture, it is especially degrading.

Anyway, the main road to town is open now, which makes things much easier. But on Friday, our service van went up an access road to get across the main bridge into Hebron, and it was blocked with a barrel. The army commander said he didn't want Palestinian cars blocking the road because then his soldiers couldn't get through. I wanted to ask him, "but isn't it you that is blocking the road?"

A little later we were walking to our apartment in the Old City. We came across a group of eight soldiers, one of whom was breaking down the door of a merchant with a sledge hammer. It was Friday, Muslim holy day, so all shops were closed. So we asked the soldiers why they were doing this. The young Israeli soldier who spoke to us was from the U.S. and spoke English. He said some kids threw rocks at them from the roof. In this part of the Old City, the passageways are covered with tin or with netting, so that anything thrown from the roof would not hit anyone. I asked the soldier, "Did the rocks hurt you?" Immediately he demanded to search our bags. After the search, I asked him again, "Did the stones hurt you?" He hurled an insult at me and walked away. They continued their work with the sledge hammer.

Later, some other members of out team went out, passing through the army checkpoint nearest to our apartment, called Beit Romano. Beit Romano is named after the Jewish settlement that the army is there to protect. There they found a large group of detained Palestinian children. We do not know this for sure, but we guess that they randomly rounded up children in the Old City after the stone incident. The soldiers threatened the CPTers with arrest if they stayed. There was also a group of settlers there, watching the whole thing. Once the CPTers moved out of view of the settlers, the soldiers stopped threatening. A little while later, the children were released. We do not know if it was because we were there.

Yesterday we went out to the checkpoint again because we learned that among a large group of Palestinian detainees was Atta, a longtime friend of the team. The soldiers routinely stop and search any man who looks under 35. The search often includes making them raise their shirts to expose themselves in some way. Atta had refused to submit to this, so they detained him. In the entire time I have been in Palestine, only one weapon has been found on someone going through Beit Romano, and it was a knife, probably not going to be used as a weapon at all.

Also yesterday, the police went to Tuwani and threatened my teammates there with arrest for helping to work on building a medical clinic. The villagers had repeatedly applied for a permit to build, but Israeli civil authorities refused to accept their application. Then, about 10 days ago, the civil authorities granted verbal permission for them to build, but would not put it in writing. Now yesterday the police came and took everyone's IDs and threatened them with arrest. Only the settlers from Ma'on could have called the police. So the police are this responsive to settlers calling, but have done nothing about the settler attacks on us. Eventually the civil authority was called, and he again told the police that Tuwani could build the clinic. The police let everyone go, but told them they could not work on the clinic or they would be arrested.

So, who is in charge? Israeli civil authorities, or settlers? We think it is the settlers, who in fact act like armed paramilitary groups making their own rules. The army and police are afraid of them. Obviously, so are the Palestinians. Settlers control about half of the land inside the green line, meaning inside the borders of the occupied territories, and continue to illegally grab more. We read in the newspaper this morning that Sharon's government is negotiating with the US over dismantlement of illegal settlement outposts, like the one that my attackers came from, and they have agreed to leave large settlement areas alone for the time being. Meaing they will not dismantle them. So you can see how much influence the US government has over this situation. Our government pretty much controls it.

I have been wondering lately how many Israeli citizens vote in our elections. I have come across soldiers and settlers who are American. The Haaretz reporter who interviewed me was from Florida, and she talked openly about voting. The last time I was at the consulate there were several groups of Israeli citizens applying for US social security benefits, because they are also US citizens.

With respect to my case, if we want to call it that, I believe that the US Consulate is pressuring the police to act, but is not getting anywhere. I spoke to the consular official yesterday, and he told me he met with the police on Friday, and the police told him that they do not have the time to pursue this investigation. Notice that they had the time to threaten CPTers and Palestinians with arrest for building a medical clinic. An important fact is that these police officers are based at a station located inside another settlement, Kiryat Arba, on the outskirts of Hebron. Kiryat Arba is the oldest Jewish settlement inside the occupied territories. They tell us now that the investigation has been shifted to Shin Bet, Israeli intelligence. We do not yet know what they will do. I think that pressure has to be placed on the Israelis at a much higher level before anyone will act, and we are working with some members of Congress to get that to happen.

I do not know if it will do any good, because it seems that too many people are too invested in keeping the truth about the settlements from getting out. I think that if most Americans knew the extent of the violence and human rights abuses against Palestinians perpetrated by the settlements, then they would be outraged and would not want their tax dollars used to fund it. Tomorrow I go back to Tuwani for the first time since the attack. I will only go for the day, for a team meeting. I cannot yet stay there, because I cannot use what we call the squatty potties and I cannot yet sleep on the floor, because of my knee. But I am walking pretty well, so I can now do most of the things I was doing before. Not ready for a bike ride yet, but I hope to be sometime soon.

The Gory Details

I was supposed to leave Tuwani on September 29. The evening before,Chris asked who would do the school accompaniment with him, and I agreed to do it before I left. I got up before six, packed my back-pack, woke up Chris, and we set off to escort the kids from Tuba to their school in Tuwani.

Tuwani is a Palestinian village of about 350 located in the hill country south of Hebron. Tuba and Tuwani are two of a cluster of six small Palestinian villages. Many of the families here are shepherds and others tend olive groves or fig trees. Some families live in caves that are part of an ancient way of life. CPT was invited by the villagers in Tuwani to stay with them as a deterrent to the violence they experience from the nearby Israeli settlementof Ma'on.

Since 1967 Israel has built over 200 illegal settlements, or colonies in the occupied territory of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. All of this land was confiscated from Palestinian owners, creating terrible economic hardships and despair among the Palestinian people. Even worse, almost everyone in Tuwani can tell a story about Ma'on settlers beating or harassing them. The people are frightened, but they are also determined to resist. They think the settlers are trying to intimidate them into abandoning their land and way of life.

One community priority is providing safe passage of the children from the nearby village of Tuba to their school in Tuwani. Their path to school passes through the settlement area. We accompanied the children on Monday and Tuesday without incident.On Wednesday morning the 29th I was feeling anxious, because I wanted to finish in time to catch a van to Yatta at 7:30. We were hoping that the kids would meet us halfway, because the settlement area is at the Tuwani end of the path. Although the path is only two kilometers long, it feels like much more in the desert heat and rough terrain, and I was anxious about being late. Chris and I both grumbled about the kids not coming out to meet us.

On the way to Tuba I started to pray. I wish that I could say I was praying for the children, but mostly I was praying because I was feeling anxious. I prayed that I would get back in time for the van. I also prayed that I would be able to accomplish God's will for the morning accompaniment, whether or not that included getting to the van on time. We arrived in Tuba at 6:30 a.m. in plenty of time for my planned departure. However, the children were not yet ready to leave. Some parents offered us tea which Chris politely accepted, but I refused. Chris made it very clear that we were in a hurry and needed to leave, and by ten of seven, I had waited long enough and (stupidly) set off on my own.

I thought that if I left, it would hurry the process along. Shortly thereafter Chris and the five children left Tuba. Due to a previous knee injury, I walk more slowly uphill than I would like, so I hoped and assumed they would catch up with me. Before long the two girls were next to me and Chris was not far behind with the three boys. The girls, Miriam and a-Sophia , and I chatted as best we could with my practically nonexistent Arabic and their practically nonexistent English. I shared my water with them.

As we approached the settlement area, the girls and I were still 20 or 30 feet ahead of Chris and the boys. This did not worry us, because there had not been any problems the last couple of days. On the right side of the path is the settlement of Ma'on surrounded by a chain link fence with barbed wire. Inside the fence is the paved settlement perimeter road. Onthe left side of the dirt path is a grove of trees containing a settlement expansion outpost called Ma'on Ranch. Settlers live there in trailers and mobile homes. The Israeli army prevents Palestinians from entering this area, and none dare attempt to enter for fear of arrest, beatings or worse. It is a strictly settler area; the children are the only exception so they can go to school.

A few minutes after we entered into the settlement area, the girls next to me started to scream. I looked up and saw a man dressed in black swinging a chain coming out of the trees about thirty feet ahead. He had on a black face mask that looked like two scarves, one over the bottom half ofhis face and one over his forehead, leaving a slit for his eyes. The girls immediately turned around and started running back toward Tuba, and I followed them. Just as we reached Chris and the boys, at least four other men emerged from the trees similarly dressed. The children continued to run toward Tuba, and Chris started yelling, "Don't hurt the children, don't hurt the children!"

It seemed that Chris and I were their targets, because they headed straight for us and let the children go. I learned later that the men had thrown rocks at the children as they ran toward Tuba, but that they did make it back safely. We tried to run off the path, away from the masked settler men, but it was hopeless. They were bigger, faster, and stronger. I tried to pull out my cell phone to call for help, but they were on top of me immediately, tripping me, throwing me to the ground and beating me. I don't remember much of the actual beating, or feeling any pain while it was happening. I remember thinking to myself that if I just lie very still and pretend that I am unconscious or dead, maybe they will go away. I also remember hearing Chris scream, realizing that he was taking a much worse beating, and knowingthat there was nothing that I could do for him.

I can piece together what happened from my injuries. I must have fallen on my face, where I have cuts and bruises on my jaw and above my lip. I must have broken the fall with my left arm, which is fractured just below the elbow. They must have kicked or beat me on the left side of my right knee, where I have an enormous bruise, a lot of swelling and pain, and an undiagnosed injury. They also must have kicked or beat me on the top of my head and my left upper arm where I have bad bruises. I also have other minor cuts and bruises on my hands and other parts of my body. I don't know if they used their feet, rocks or chains. I am relieved that they got my already-bad knee instead of ruining my good one.

When they finished beating Chris, they started to head back into the grove of trees. One of them said in English, "Take her phone," and someone came over and picked up my phone from where it had fallen. They also grabbed my fanny pack from around my waist. When I heard them walking away, I ventured a look up. I saw the group go back through the grove of trees and into Ma'on Ranch. One of them looked back at me and I quickly put my head back down.

After a few minutes, I sat up and Chris walked over to me. I do not remember exactly what we said to each other in that moment. Chris' face was streaked with blood and I felt some dripping off of mine. I couldn't walk. Chris pulled out the cell phone concealed in his pocket and called Diane and Piergiorgio, who were back in Tuwani. He told them that we had just been attacked "really bad" by settlers but the kids were okay. I cannot remember what else he said, but I know that Diane and Piergiorgio said that they were coming out to join us, and that they would call the police immediately.

I called Cal in the Hebron office and told him to call the US consulate to report that my passport had been stolen. Looking back, I cannot believe this is what I was thinking about! Chris and I sat alone for 10 or 15 minutes in the spot where we had been beaten. We were both really scared. I knew the attackers were still in the trees somewhere and I was afraid that they were going to come back and finish the job. We heard and then saw vehicles driving along the settler perimeter road and I was convinced it was them coming back to find us.

Looking for a place to hide, I scooted on my butt over to a rock and propped myself up against it. But on that side of the road there was nowhere to hide, nothing but a chain link fence and small rocks. I will never forget Piergiorgio and Diane for risking their livesto come to meet us that morning. A few minutes after they arrived, I finally burst into tears. I was just so scared and so happy to see them. In that moment Piergiorgio did exactly the right thing: he gave me a big hug. I got tears and blood all over his shirt.

Maybe ten minutes after Diane and Piergiorgio got to us, settler security drove up. Every settlement has its own private security force armed with machine guns. None of us had called settler security. The man got out of his car and asked us what happened. We told him that people from his settlement attacked us. He did not offer us any assistance or first-aid, even though we were bleeding and obviously in pain. He said that they attacked us because we had upset the balance of power between the settlement and Palestinians. He understood immediately, as we did, that the perpetrators were settlers attacking us because of our presence in the area.

Five or ten minutes after settler security arrived, the police and army came, and shortly behind them an Israeli ambulance. In all it tookabout 30 minutes for help to arrive, even though the region is swarming witharmy and police and no doubt they could have been there much sooner. TheIsraeli police or the army did not search the grove of trees for our assailants. By taking so long to get to us, they effectively let the perpetrators get away. The police asked us to explain briefly what happened. They gave us a piece of paper summoning us to the Kiryat Arba police station that same day. Kiryat Arba is an Israeli settlement located on the outskirts of Hebron. The paramedics checked us over, put me on a stretcher, and took Chris, who had a punctured lung, and me to Soroka hospital in Beersheva. Diane rode with us and Piergiorgio remained in Tuwani.

I was grateful tohave Diane's steady presence with us during the emergency room ordeal. Later that afternoon the police came to the hospital to take statements from us. The US consular officer was appalled that the police insisted we come visit them at another settlement and instead insisted thatthey visit us. I gave a statement which the officer wrote out in Hebrew. I refused to sign it because I did not know what it said. I do not know what has happened to that statement. I heard later that the police had gone to the court for a search warrant for the settlement but they were denied. I do not know if Ma'on or Ma'on Ranch were ever properly searched.

That same day, two more CPTers went to Tuwani to take our places. Operation Dove, the Italian Catholic group to which Piergiorgio belongs, sent down an additional person. We all agreed that if the settlers were going to escalate the violence, then we would escalate the nonviolence. The next morning the team reported that they did the school accompaniment on schedule, and the police were present to provide security.

About one hour later, an Israeli army jeep drove through Tuwani and soldiers told the villagers that CPT was endangering their children. They threatened that if the children walked home from school through the settlement area,then the violence would be even worse. They blamed CPT for the violence and not the settlement attackers. We have a quality CPT team here in Hebron. Everybody did what was needed: being with us in the hospital, speaking to the press, phoning familyand friends, and bathing and cleaning the blood off of me when I couldn't do it myself. I am grateful for their care. I am also grateful for my extraordinary network of family and friends who have given me much love and support.

Resisting Oppression

There was another another suicide bombing, this time in Jerusalem. A young woman from a refugee camp in Nablus blew herself up. My God. This has meant that getting to and from Jerusalem went from difficult to nearly impossible, due to Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks, and I did not attempt it this weekend.

This week three of us went to a demonstration in Beit Awwa, not far from Hebron, a place where the separation wall is to go up. It was organized by ISM, another international group with a mission comparable to ours but which is secular. (The differences between ISM and CPT are numerous, but I won't bother with them here!) Anyway, ISM invited us.

It was quite a scene. Practically the whole village turned out, except for those who were working and those who were in school. Even one school let the children out of classes to attend. It was a middle school for girls, and they were all there in their school uniforms, and some of them spoke quite passable English. Anyway, we were there to accompany them in their display of resistance and opposition to the building of this wall and the militarization and land confiscation that goes with it. The Palestinians seem to believe that the presence of internationals lowers the risk of violence from the Israeli soldiers.

The demonstration was an impressive display, until a group of young men started throwing stones. I did not see what started first, the stone throwing or the tear gas. I think it does not matter, though. It is like dealing with small children---it does not matter who started it, because both sides were in it.

To give it some perspective (and I saw all this very clearly, because shortly after it started, I was right up front), the stones were no more than about 5 inches in diameter. They were not boulders. The Israeli soldiers had humvees and other armored vehicles, bulletproof vests, M-16 rifles and oozies. The Palestinian men had rocks. I counted 22 soldiers. There were around 500 villagers, I would estimate--although ISM claims there were over 1000--and no more than a couple of dozen stone throwers.

According to my research, no more than 5% of Palestinians are armed, and those who are have very low-tech weapons, no match for the carefully armed (by the United States) Israeli army. This explains why those people who believe that only violence will get the Israeli army out of Palestine have turned to terrorist acts.

So the young men threw stones and the army shot tear gas bombs, lots of them. I learned a lot about tear gas that day. They shot the bombs right into groups of people, right into the groups of girls, who were huddled together. Shortly after, they started with rubber bullets. I counted 12 people taken away in ambulances. They had to be taken all the way to Hebron, because Beit Awwa does not have a clinic that could handle them. Hebron is not far in distance, but bad roads and hills makes it a 45 minute trip. And then there are army checkpoints along the way, and they do stop ambulances.

The injuries were from rubber bullets, and from tear gas bombs exploding into groups of people, causing the people closest to them to collapse. Two of those taken away by ambulance were from the girls school. There were lots of people--in fact, almost everyone--affected by the tear gas, but most did not need medical treatment.

Of course there were no injured soldiers. The rocks are no threat to them. Why not just sit in the armored vehicles and let the men throw stones? Why not just drive away to a reasonable distance, where they can still observe but not be hit by stones? Why not negotiate with the demonstration organizers, made up of Palestinians and internationals, to allow them to demonstrate all they want if they stop throwing stones? Why this extreme reaction? I don't get it.

It was a battlefield, and the Palestinians lost, as they have been doing from the beginning. When it was over, I asked myself what was the purpose of that. The Palestinians gained nothing from the exercise. Because of the stone throwers, the international press will continue to label them "terrorists." Never mind that they were a small minority of the demonstrators, the vast majority of whom were peaceful. Never mind the actions of the soldiers. I worry that when 22 soldiers can so easily put down 500 or so villagers, then the exercise becomes disempowering for the Palestinians, not empowering.

But then I was thinking about the importance of resisting oppression, especially your own oppression. Demonstrating is a way of saying that you refuse to go along with it, that you refuse to just passively roll over in the face of human rights violations on a massive scale. I think that some form of resistance, even if it fails, must be good for the spirit.

During the fracas, I gave out a lot of handy-wipes and Kleenex to crying little girls. I felt like the Sandra Bullock character in the movie "Two Weeks Notice," carrying handy-wipes to a demonstration. Don't ask me why I always have them with me...

Afterward, many people thanked us for being there. One guy told me that they believe that if internationals had not been there, then the soldiers would have used live ammunition. I asked him if that could really be true. He said he had seen it himself. I can't judge if it is true or not, but even if it isn't, the perception becomes important. Because then our presence enables these villagers to mount some resistance in a space that feels safer to them.

Hebron Life

I am writing from Jerusalem. I came in on Saturday night by myself, because I just needed some alone time. Saturday night I sat on the rooftop of a pizza place in the Christian quarter of the Old City sipping wine and enjoying the view of Jerusalem. I think it was the first time that I really felt I was in the Holy Land. Of course, the scenery is better at night because you can't see the dust... The wine was a treat, because there is no alcohol in Hebron. The pizza was pretty bad, but I also had a salad with lettuce in it! I have really been missing the lettuce. Then I took a hot shower.

Sunday I went to West Jerusalem, the Israeli side. It was my first time visiting this section of Jerusalem. We just don't get over there because we are here for such short time periods, and our business is in East Jerusalem. Going to West Jerusalem felt like going back to the West, with modern shopping malls and fast food. I ate at a vegetarian restaurant and had my second salad with lettuce in it. I also had spinanch lasagne and some tofu on the side! Later we took a service van (pronounced servees, with the accent on the second syllable) to Tel Aviv to visit the beach, and I swam in the Mediteranean in my underwear (forgot a bathing suit).

This morning I ate at my favorite pastry shop next to the internet cafe in the Arab section of the Old City. I would never usually eat so much pastry, but they do incredible things with pistachios, and I have been losing weight, so it probably doesn't matter. I can't think why, because it seems like all I do is eat, and falafel is not exactly low-fat.

Hebron is still pretty well locked down, except that now the Jerusalem service vans are getting all the way through, making getting to Jerusalem much simpler. Somebody dug out a pass through one of the blockades so that the service vans can pass, but no other vehicles are going through. I'm not sure I understand the system; the van driver paid 5 shekels to a Palestinian guy minding the blockade when we went through. There are still "flying checkpoints" on the way, and at one point we were stopped and all the men had to get out of the van to be searched and ID checked. It must be so humiliating for them.

Last week several of us went to visit the Jabbar family. One brother, Atta, has suffered 2 home demolitions. Now he is in his third house, but last year some nearby settlers took over the house at gunpoint and claimed it was their synagogue. After several months the family got a court order and was able to move back in. But the settlers had done much damage to the home and they had to reconstruct parts of the inside. The couple is about my age, but they look older than my parents. The last few years have taken a huge toll.

Another brother, Jaudi, spent twelve years farming a hillside belonging to his family. Then the army came with orders to seize the land for the nearby Jewish settlement, and they built a wall separating him from his land and preventing him from farming it. A few years later he tried to build an extension onto the family home to give more space to his family (he has 7 children and is living with his parents and sister), and the army bulldozed it. They are all living together in a 3-bedroom house.

After the home demolition, someone from CPT lived with the family for three months. Jaudi talked to us about how much that meant to him, just the moral support. He said we have been important to him to talk to, because he needs to talk about it or he will go crazy. He said that with those two actions, all his dreams died, and nothing in life is sweet for him any more. He wanted the farm for his children. There is some farmland left, but now, because of the closure of the entire West Bank, he can't sell any of his produce in Israel, which was the main market.

Last week we set up a regular check point watch at the army check point near our apartment (called Beit Romano). We live between two checkpoints, Beit Romano and Ibrahimi Mosque, and the army base is just behind us. We are spending two hours every day monitoring and recording what the soldiers do. This means recording ID checks, searches, and detentions,and monitoring whether their behavior is appropriate to the Palestinians they stop. The soldiers do not like it, and seem rather intimidated by our presence. Once, when I was there, they repositioned themselves so we could not see them. The Palestinians are pleased that we are there, and the fact that the soldiers are intimidated makes me think it is a good idea.

I had an unpleasant encounter with a soldier the other day. I was doing a street patrol with my teammate on Rosh Hashanah, when there is a lot of settler traffic through the Old City and a higher possibility of confrontation. When we were returning through a checkpoint called Gate 5 a soldier stopped us and said we couldn't pass, that we would have to wait because there was some kind of military exercise going on. In other words, we couldn't walk back to our own home.

Usually I try to be civil to the soldiers but not exactly friendly (why should I be nice to someone who is pointing a gun at me?) because I don't want there to be problems for the Palestinians they are detaining. But this time there were no Palestinians, and he was detaining me. So I told him that he was violating my rights by detaining me. He said he was only doing his job, and I told him that he did not have to follow orders that are illegal. To make a long story short, the encounter upset him, so he decided not to let us pass at all. If we were Palestinian we would probably still be there. As it was, we walked away from him and entered by a different gate, where there was no trouble.

I feel that since confronting the soldiers is something that Palestinians cannot do, but I can do, then I should do it, to try and encourage them to have some kind of conscience. They are still human beings, first and foremost.

Also during the Rosh Hashanah holiday my teammate and I decided to walk along Worshipper's Way. This is an ancient path that leads to Abraham's Cave, now the site of a synagogue on one side and a mosque on the other. The path leads to the synagogue side, and it is said that it is a path that Abraham probably walked. There are ancient houses and ruins of houses there. Recently the soldiers dumped fill dirt on the path in order to widen it, and some think, to pave it. In places the dirt is so high it covers over the doorways and windows of Palestinian homes. When we were there, the place was infested with soldiers, and I was saddened by it. A lot of settlers from a nearby settlement were walking the path that day, and the soldiers were there to keep the Palestinians away.

Desperation and Despair

It is getting worse here. They have locked down the entire West Bank until after Yom Kippur. What that means practically is that our movement is restricted, and the movement of Palestinians even more so. More people have been arrested and killed, and we hear what sounds like tank fire every night.

The Israelis are doing this in retaliation for suicide bombings. Based on what I have experienced here, my feeling is that suicide bombings are more about suicide than bombing. If you understand it as a suicide, then you will have a clear picture of the situation of desperation and despair that Palestinians are living.

I am feeling angry about Western attitudes. The United States justified dropping nuclear weapons on Japan because of Pearl Harbor---along with fire-bombing Tokyo. We justify invading and occupying two countries after 9/11, killing thousands and torturing many. But we are shocked and appalled at a small number of violent resisters to murder, military occupation, land confiscation, home demolitions, torture, and mass detention? I don't get it.

Just to be clear: As I am sure you all know, I think the Palestinians would be far better served by mass nonviolent resistance in the style of Gandhi, King, and Mandela, and I wish they had the leadership that would take them there. I wish for the same nonviolent leadership in the United States.

On Tuesday we went to the small Palestinian village of Suseya at the invitation of farmers because they wanted to draw water from their well. In order to do that, they have to get a permit from the Israeli army, even though it is their own well on their own private land. In the past, even though they hold a permit, armed Israeli settlers from nearby have stopped them, so they wanted accompaniment.

The water-drawing went without incident, but while we were there we received a call from a nearby village. Israeli settlers were uprooting and dragging away olive trees from the village grove. The olive trees are their livelihood. By the time we got there, the settlers had taken away 40 trees, leaving the grove in ruins. We did manage to get it on Israeli radio, but too late to stop the settlers.

On the way home, we had to do our usual driving all over the place to find a way back into Hebron. We got dropped off at Beit Anun, a place where many come and go. We found the Israeli army there preventing Palestinians from crossing over to the blocked road into Hebron. They were letting people in, but one by one. The men were stopped; the women were let by. One man said to us, "I need a sex change operation. Then they would let me across. I am not a man anyway. If I were a man, I would not be in this situation."

Many Palestinians are now avoiding the roads and cutting through vineyards on the outskirts of Hebron to get in to the city. As we drive by, we can see lines of people snaking through the grapevines. The army does not stop this, proving that the whole thing is more about harassment than actual closure.

Yesterday we were returning from a visit and the cab took us to the only blocked road where there was no army truck. There were vegetable trucks parked on either side of the blockade, transferring their products from outside the city to trucks that could take them inside (see the photo above). The drivers were throwing heads of cauliflower at each other across the barrier.

We have passed a number of ambulances that were detained by Israeli soldiers. The villagers in Suseya tell us stories about trying to get to the hospital in an emergency. They are prevented by law from using the paved road to the nearby city because it is a settler road--Palestinians cannot drive on it. So the ambulance cannot come to them. They have to go to the hospital by donkey.

Have I mentioned the license plate system? Palestinians have green and white license plates, and those cars can't go on many roads (settler roads) and can't go into Jerusalem. Yellow and black license plates can go anywhere. These are for Israelis and the few Palestinians who have Jerusalem IDs. People also have ID cards with different colors, designating where one is allowed to move. This is a lot like the Soviet Union, the very system that many of these Jews escaped from for Israel.

Yesterday we visited two families who have home demolition orders because their land is located near an Israeli settlement. In both cases it is private land, owned by the people who live there. The Israeli army can just demolish homes on private land! One family has three small children. The father is the offspring of refugees from the 1948 occupation. He went to Saudia Arabia to earn enough money to come home to Palestine and buy land and a home for his family. Now he works as a hairdresser, although nobody in his community has any money, so they use the barter system. The mother has a university degree in computer science and speaks beautiful English, but she can't find work. They have lived with a demolition order for four years; they never know when the bulldozer will show up.

The other family is wealthier and has a big plot of land with grapes and fruit trees. But they have to get a permit to harvest their crops, and the army will only let them do it one day each week. They have 30 tons of grapes they can't harvest! But even if they could harvest them, they cannot sell them because of the West Bank closure. The market for them would be in Israel, and they can't get them through.

I hope I am giving you a sense of the despair and desperation here. The Palestinians are not the terrorists.

Lockdown in Hebron

Hebron is in lockdown. Lockdown is a term used in U.S. jails when inmates are locked in their cells and cannot walk around the common areas or go outside. Sometimes they do it just to get an accurate count; other times it is punishment imposed after some kind of incident. In Hebron, the "incident" was last week's suicide bombers, who lived in Hebron.

The Israeli army had previously blocked most of the roads in and out of Hebron,but now they have finished the job. They have locked us down.

There are currently 4,082,300 registered Palestinian refugees, 32% are living in camps. Refugees make up 32.6% of the population of the West Bank. Over 60% of Palestinians live on less than $2.15 per day, the official poverty level here. There are 98 Israeli army check points and 99 road blocks, and the worst affected areas are Ramallah and Hebron. 50% of the total land mass of the West Bank is under the control of Israeli settlers. This land was confiscated from Palestinians.

This military occupation is harsh, leaving people in despair and without hope. But Palestinians retain their self-respect, and almost everyone here is engaged in some form of nonviolent resistance. Some people are also engaged in violent resistance.

One form of nonviolent resistance involves the roadblocks. We can get out of town by taking a cab to a roadblock, then climbing over the pile of rocks and dirt, then catching another cab waiting on the other side. We have to repeat this 2, sometimes 3, times to get to Jerusalem. Returning from Jerusalem on Sunday, we found that the army had put up yetanother barrier: barbed wire. We took a cab to the roadblock, climbed over it, then took a cab to the barbed wire, then walked around three sets of coiled barbed wire in the road about a half block apart. Then we caught another cab.

The whole town is being punished for the action of two residents. Another form of collective punishment involves aggressive I.D.checks. There are military check points all over Hebron, and Palestinian men are routinely detained. This activity has picked up noticeably since the suicide bombing. Today we witnessed Israeli border police parading aline of 35 or so young Palestinian men toward the check point nearest our apartments. The police made them squat in a line for an hour. When someone asked the officer in charge why the men were detained, his reply was, "because I want to."

The image of Hebron as a jail and the Israelis as our jailers fits the situation here. The violence of the jailer is well-known but rarely punished, while the violence of the inmate results in severe punishment for the whole population. The only difference is that most people here never committed a crime. They landed in this jail due to geography, international politics, ethnic origin, religion, and bad luck.

Introduction to Hebron

Hebron is home to the buriel site of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and Jacob, and the worship space above it dates from at least Herod's time. As such it is a holy site. The Old City of Hebron, the location of the buriel site, was for centuries the home of Muslims and Jews who lived there peacefully until 1929, during the time that it was a British colony. In 1929 there was a massacre of Jews by Arabs, and 67 Jews were killed. Over 400 were saved because they were hidden by their Palestinian neighbors (although this is never pointed out in Israeli literature about it). This event is a point of grief for both sides.

After the massacre, the British forced the rest of the Jews out, saying they could no longer be protected. In 1979, the Israelis established their first settlement in Hebron, claiming that it was an ancient Jewish site and forcing out the Palestinians who lived in the places they wished to settle. Today there are 4 Jewish settlements in Hebron, all with confiscated land. One is located right in the Old City, built literally on top of Palestinian homes, forcing the residents to flee.

In 1994 there was a massacre of Palestinians by a fanatical rabbi from New York, who opened fire on Muslims at prayer in the mosque located on top of the holy buriel sites. 27 Palestinians were killed by him, and an equal number were killed by Israeli soldiers who were brought in. The rabbi was killed by 3 Palestinian men who beat him with a fire extinguisher (the only weapon they had) in order to stop the killing. The three men were killed by Israeli soldiers.

Since that time the buriel site has been split in half--one part for Jews and one part for Muslims, with a wall between. Currently, the settlers are bulldozing several 700-year-old Palestinian near the site to make way for a new road from their settlement to the synagogue. Palestinians are forbidden to use these settler roads.

Until just a few months ago, there was constant violence between Palestinians and Jews in the Palestinian market area of the Old City and on a main road in town that was used for commerce, but was also used by the settlers to get to their homes. The CPT apartment is located in the market area, just off that main road. However, a few months ago, the Israelis changed tactics a bit and closed off the road completely to Palestinians and blocked the market area off from the road. This effectively shut down the market and forced most of the vendors out to another part of the city.

The idea is to get all the Palestinians out of the old city altogether, even though they own their homes and shops there. Many have left, of course, but others are staying, keeping their shops open as a kind of nonviolent resistance. Israeli soldiers are stationed around the Old City to protect the settlers, although reports from CPT and other international groups state that most of the violence originates from the settlers.

It seems to me that the settlers are a scary bunch with a lot of political power. They often sit at the Hebron check points, and along with the soldiers, are armed with machine guns. Their large guns intimidate the hell out of me, and I guess that is the point.

I do understand why Jewish people want their own state, because of centuries of suffering violent oppression as an ethnic minority. However, I don't understand getting it by doing the exact same thing to another ethnic group.