Administrative Detention: the case of Dr. Gassan Sharif Khaled

I first heard about Dr. Khaled from our coordinator, Valentina. Dr. Khaled’s father, Abu Azzam, had requested that we attend his court case at the High Court in Israel as a show of support. I wanted to learn more about the case before I went, so I met with Abu Azzam at his home in Jayyous, a small village in the northeast part of the West Bank.

This was my first experience with Arab hospitality and it was quite overwhelming. The food, cheer and generosity were double anything I had experienced back home. Abu Azzam certainly fit his moniker, Abu meaning father as he is considered the father of the village. It was hard for me to understand his patience and good humor all while his son was sitting in a military prison, but for most Palestinians that is life in the occupied territories.

His son, Dr. Khaled, is a professor of international and civil commercial law at A-Najah university in Nablas, a major city to the north of Jayyous. He was abducted from his home by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) on the 16th of January, imprisoned for two months, and was released on bail after his family raised 30,000 sheckles in addition to the 30,000 raised by Israeli friends, which amounts to around 20,000 dollars. The initial three weeks of his detention included constant interrogation from the Shabak (Israeli Secret Service) at which time his father tells us he was tied down to a chair for twenty hours daily with only four hours for sleep and was not allowed to speak to anyone, even his lawyer.

The initial charges by the Shabak are seen by friends and family as a frame up, completely baseless to anyone who knows him. He is a sworn adherent to non-violence, has never been charged with a crime before, is a man of truth, and is an ardent promoter of the law. However, after backing off its initial charges, the Shabak decided to pursue the matter further. Only ten days after being released, the IDF broke down his door with sledge hammers at 3:30 am and took him away for the second time, severely traumatizing his wife and five children, the youngest just five months old.

Several military court hearings were held after his second detention at which even the military court judge expressed his concern for the Shabak’s lack of evidence for why a second detention was necessary. He warned that Dr. Khaled could not be kept in prison absent any “new facts” pertaining to the case not being provided within 24 hours. The judge ultimately gave in, however, and instated the administrative detention order on the basis of allegations made by the Shabak that Dr. Khaled was “master planning a large scale military attack on the authorities.”

During the course of our afternoon together, I came to understand Dr. Khaled’s situation and learn more about Abu Azzam’s difficulties under occupation as well. As the largest landholder in Jayyous, Abu Azzam faces constant threats to his land. None of his son’s can get a permit to work the land, most of which is between the security fence and the Green Line (the 67 borders). His olive trees have been uprooted by settlers, only to be planted again with the help of internationals and Israelis and then uprooted again. And he can’t sell his fruits and vegetables in the biggest market to the north, Nablus, because, although there is no law that states he cannot, anytime he brings produce to the market, it must be checked by Israeli authorities box by box, after which most buyers have left and the product has lost its freshness. Despite all of this, or because of it, Abu Azzam is a vocal critic of the occupation and has given lectures abroad about the situation in Jayyous and the West Bank as a whole (some Israelis have expressed to me that they think Dr. Khaled is being held in prison because of the activities and position of his father).

The court hearing was brief, about a half hour for oral arguments from both sides, and the three judge panel seemed more critical of the prosecution, but in the end the verdict was handed down in favor of the State, meaning Dr. Khaled will serve the whole six month sentence, which could be extended indefinitely. Under administrative detention, a person deemed as a security threat by the state authorities can be held for up to six months without a trail, essentially suspending the writ of habeas corpus. The defense attorney is at a loss because he cannot see the evidence being brought against his client, evidence that the state can claim is too sensitive to be made public at a trial. It is very much a Kafkaesque reality for those being charged. When they brought out Dr. Khaled, he looked frightened and confused, he didn’t belong in a brown prison jumpsuit surrounded by prison guards, he should be in a classroom teaching. For someone who has studied the law extensively, his predicament must have seemed all the more absurd, but it was all real and I could see the helplessness written on his face. He had no one to turn to; his lawyer, his friends, and the international community could not help him that day. He is still in prison, and who knows how long he will stay, separated from his family, friends, colleagues…his life.

An Early Morning at Qalandiyah

Qalandiyah, as mentioned in an earlier blog, is the main checkpoint between Ramallah, one of the biggest cities in the West Bank, and Jerusalem, and it fields most of the traffic coming from the northern part of the West Bank into Jerusalem. So if you live in the north and need to get to work in Jerusalem, your mornings are spent at Qalandiyah.

I’ve already described the layout there so I won’t go into too much detail. It has three initial turnstiles followed by four metal detector checkpoints. We try to go there at least twice a week to monitor the checkpoint and help people with their difficulties, whether it’s getting through the humanitarian gate, the gate for women, the elderly and the sick, or helping people connect to other organizations, Machsom Watch or the International Committee of the Red Cross, that can help them with permit problems. As I mentioned before, anyone coming from the West Bank (a green ID holder) must walk through the checkpoint, only Jerusalem (blue) ID holders can go through via car or bus, which takes much less time.

The checkpoint is an intolerable place and one of the most difficult tasks for me as an EA. We leave Augusta Victoria at 4:30 and get to the checkpoint around 5:00. There is always a large crowd of men waiting outside the initial set of turnstiles anxious to get to work, so they begin to climb the fence in an attempt to jump into the turnstile in front of everyone else waiting in line—not really a line though, more like a pile of people pushing and shoving, trying to gain entry any way they can. The working day is from 7 to 3, so people come as early as 4 am or before, but the problem is that the people in charge of the checkpoint only keep one metal detector gate, out of five, open during the early hours. They wait until 5:30 to open the rest of the gates, but, by that time, huge crowds of people are waiting outside the first turnstiles, so you have a very chaotic situation. And more and more people continue to come throughout the morning in taxis and services all throughout the northern villages and towns of the West Bank, so when the metal detector checks begin to slow then things just get worse and worse—three to four people mashed together in the turnstiles for example.

Some people have approached us trying to explain why those waiting to get through behave as they do—the pushing, shoving, shouting, and climbing. But, of course, we tell them it is unnecessary. Many have told us that if they are late for work a couple of times it is ok, but they are in danger of losing their jobs if they are consistently late. For someone providing for a family of seven or eight getting to work on time is about survival. If I had to go through the same procedure every morning, I would be one of the ones climbing the fence and jumping into the turnstile. It pains me to see these grown men have to be reduced to this every morning.

The Humanitarian Gate (HG) is another major problem. Because women, some for religious reasons (they are not allowed to come in contact with the men), cannot go through the main gates, as well as older men, the sick, and children, there is another gate solely for them that is opened periodically throughout the morning but not with any regularity. Of course, the younger men, seeking any way to get through, will also attempt to pass through the HG. This creates a problem because it angers the policeman in charge of it and creates further delays. The hardest part is seeing women holding their crying babies as they wait, sometime as long as a half hour, but the worst is seeing some of the sick people who have to wait, some too sick to stand so they lay on the dirty floor (and to think that this gate wasn’t opened to women and the elderly at the beginning, the women at Machsom Watch had to work hard to get the military to keep it open every morning).

We see the misery of the checkpoints every morning we go, but we also here people’s stories and frustrations. They ask us why the international community is not at Qalandiyah at 5 am, why no one is there to report the hell they go through each morning just to get to work. Just last week, we met a man who had bruised and broken several ribs because he fell trying to get into the turnstile and was out of work for a month. But he was back because he had to work, and with the high unemployment in the West Bank many people turn to work in Israel, they have no other choice. So he was back, climbing the fence again. His story is not unique either, we have heard many more like it.

Refugees in Jerusalem

After passing through a small checkpoint, your senses are immediately assaulted by the heavy stench of burning garbage coming from the dumpsters that line the main road into the heart of the camp. The interior is a concrete jungle. It’s a tangle of cement structures suffering from neglect and poorly constructed additions to make room for the ever growing population. The streets and alleys are narrow and littered with waste, and a mess of telephone cables dangle above. The wall is visible from the edge of the camp, as is the surrounding settlement of Pisgat Ze’ev, a stark contrast to the chaos of Shu’fat.

The Shu’fat refugee camp lies just north of Jerusalem and is the only one in the West Bank inside its municipal boundaries (meaning many of its residents are blue ID holders and are not restricted by the Israeli closures in the West Bank). The camp was created in 1966 when the Jordanian Government and the UN attracted the initial inhabitants from their homes, in what is now the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, with promises of new houses and lands to cultivate. More refugees came in 1967 when Israel occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank, and the camp quickly became overpopulated. Today, the problem of overpopulation continues for many reasons: high birth rates, people can no longer afford the cost of living in East Jerusalem, or have been forced out and want to retain their Jerusalem IDs. Current population figures suggest the camp hosts around 20 to 22,000 residents, 10,290 of which are designated as refugees by the United Nations.

As in most refugee camps, there is little infrastructure and high unemployment, and with the building of the wall, many of these problems are getting worse. The influx of people from different places means that Shu’fat is increasingly a place of anonymous urban life with a lack of authority; all of which is evident upon visiting the camp.

Then there are the children. Everywhere you go in Shu’fat you see children: boys kicking beat-up soccer balls off old buildings, girls chatting on the steps outside their home, and brothers and sisters returning from the corner store with treats in hand. Everywhere, groups of children. Some of them greet us with smiles and say “shalom, or hello” while others look at us with a mixture of confusion and curiosity. What is evident upon a trip through the camp is not just that a large portion of the population consists of children (almost half we are told), but that they have no place for recreation. The creation of the wall has cut off expansion of the camp leaving little space for these kids to run and play.

Fortunately, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is very active in the camp and there are quite a few international NGOs who sponsor activities and programs as well. One of the highlights is the community center where children come for after school activities including arts and crafts, English lessons, and other recreational activities. The center has a very dedicated staff of volunteers led by Dr. Salim (pictured below in the middle), a family practitioner who splits his time between his clinic in Jerusalem and work at the center. It is through places like the community center where you see the hope in the otherwise dire story of Shu’fat. It is a place where the chaos of the streets is confronted by the community building and fellowship of the many programs offered by Dr. Salim and his team of volunteers. Most importantly, the children are not idle, and left to their own devices. They are taking part in something that will help shape their futures in a positive way. Unfortunately, however, these children are a few hundred out of thousands living in the camp. So more needs to be done, and, hopefully, as more and more people here about the positive stories like this, the more and more positive changes will take place.

Bridging the Divide: an Israeli Volunteer in Shu’fat Refugee Camp

Anne comes every Wednesday from 9 to 2 to the community center in Shu’fat refugee camp to help the Palestinian women and men undergo physical therapy treatment. She has been a professional physical therapist for twenty three years, specializing in a technique called integrative manual therapy. She is also an Israeli.

Anne came to Israel via New York in 1974. She was a Zionist, served in the military, and later moved to the settlement of Pisgat Ze’ev. Things changed for her, however, after her first trip to the States in over thirty years. On the suggestion of a friend, she decided to attend a peace camp in Yosemite. Of the 250 people who took part in the peace camp, 50 were Israeli, 50 where Palestinian, and the rest were Arab and Jewish Americans. This was her first face to face contact with the “other,” and she came to realize, despite the depictions in the Israeli media, they were people, they were human.

In 2007, she moved from Pisgat Ze’ev to the Palestinian-Israeli village of Abu Gosh where she met a German nun who told her about the community center in Shu’fat refugee camp. Up to that point, her only experience of Shu’fat was the smoke she could see from her neighboring home in Pisgat Ze’ev billowing from the camp after incursions, and the stories of terrorists she heard on the news. Despite warnings from friends of the dangers of the camp, she decided to go and see for her self and learn more about the community center. Dr. Salim, the director of the camp, and his staff were very welcoming, and, in February of 2007, she began volunteering once a week.

Over the past year and a half that she has been going to the center, word of mouth has gotten out about an Israeli physical therapist in the camp, and the response has been great. The Palestinians really appreciate her work and they get to experience a different side of the Jewish people, a contrast to soldiers and settlers. Many of her patients have said that just her coming there means a lot, and while most of the Palestinians from the camp can go to Israeli clinics, this is the first time an Israeli has come to the camp to treat people.

Although she is just one person, her story is not unique, or rather her motivations are not unique. Many Israelis that I have met like Anne say they decided to get involved after they have met Palestinians and come to realize that they are human beings just like anyone else. Unfortunately, the mutual hatred, fear, and ignorance that people on both sides of this conflict have, compounded by the construction of the separation barrier, makes the leap between cultures and people very difficult. But it can be done, and Anne is a shinning example of it.

Breaking the Silence in Hebron

Our bus, full of internationals and Israelis, drove through the paved roads of the Jewish Settlement of Qiryat Arba on our way to Hebron. We were all there for a tour conducted by a group of former Israeli soldiers who are now active in speaking out about the horrors of occupation. Their organization, aptly named “Breaking the Silence,” has been giving tours of Hebron for the past four years. That day, however, we never made it into Hebron.

Hebron is the only city in the West Bank with a Jewish settlement in its center. It consists of two areas: H1, home to around 120,000 Palestinians and under the control of the Palestinian Authority, and H2, where 30,000 Palestinians remain under the control of the Israeli military who protect the 800 settler inhabitants. At the center of the old city of Hebron is the tomb of the patriarchs where Abraham and his descendants are believed to be buried, and is thus holy to all three Abrahamic faiths—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. H2 remains the source of much tension and conflict between the settlers and Palestinians who live there.

We could not make our destination because of the large crowd of settlers who blocked our bus from entering. At first, it was a small crowd of children but soon grew to include women and older men, along with the leaders of the extremists who live there. Several police were there to escort us (Breaking the silence had just won a decision in the High Court to continue conducting their tours with the cooperation of the local authorities), but they were not enough. At one point, our tour guides got out of the bus to speak with the police and document the situation for the court. It was a circus. Our guides were filming the settlers and the police response, or lack thereof, and the settlers were filming us while the police filmed everyone. The children tried to block Yehuda, one of our guides, from filming but he was crafty and tall enough to evade them. One of the men had a bullhorn and began preaching to us in Hebrew, but I didn’t get what he was saying. The police couldn’t move them out of the way because they are not allowed to physically contact the children, or the babies whom some of the settlers placed in carriages in front of the bus.

These are the most extreme of the settlers. They are ideological settlers who want the Palestinians to be expunged from the land they believe was given to them by God. For the EAs in Hebron, most of their time is spent protecting Palestinians from settler harassment, including walking the children of Cordoba school to and from school each morning in an effort to dissuade the settler children from throwing stones and attacking them, although not always successfully. Most settlers, on the other hand, are not like this. They are economic settlers who are living in the West Bank because of the subsidized housing provided by the Israeli government, and they do not present a physical threat to the Palestinians.

In the end, after waiting over two hours, we were told we could drive a few hundred meters into the old city of Hebron, but our guides declined because they didn’t want to give the authorities the satisfaction of allowing us to conduct a partial tour, which would not have been beneficial when they bring their case to court, yet again.

But the day was not totally lost. We went with Yehuda to the South Hebron hills and heard from a family who have had there olive trees uprooted and wells poisoned and have courageously stayed their ground in the face of consistent settler harassment. And we got to hear Yehuda, a three year veteran of the Israeli Defense Forces who spent over a year stationed inside H2, give his testimony of what he saw. We heard about the IDF’s policy of constant presence through things like incursions, with or without intelligence of a threat, into homes so as to make sure the Palestinian communities fear them. We heard about the IDF using Palestinians as human shields to inspect suspicious objects on the side of the road thought to be bombs, or to approach homes of suspected militants. And we heard about the strategy of urban warfare whereby the military blows holes through the homes of Palestinians so they don’t have to walk through the streets where they might be vulnerable to attacks. Finally, we heard why he helped start “Breaking the Silence.” He said he was deeply disturbed at how what he saw and did became normalized; how soldiers lose their humanity by slowly and consistently crossing the lines of morality; how decent human beings become monsters, with serious mental health consequences after leaving service; and how all of this can happen without even noticing it.

Of course, those serving in the IDF are not unique. Decent people involved in military actions around the world experience the same thing to be sure. The question is can something be done to end the suffering of the Palestinians and the young IDF soldiers who become dehumanized because of occupation. I personally think that something can and must be done to end the cycle of violence and dehumanization. Thankfully, people like Yehuda are forcing Israeli society and soldiers to question what occupation does to them. They have been to over 1,000 classrooms telling children about the ugly side of occupation, a contrast to the heroic images they are inundated with from an early age. They are doing important work and their story needs to be heard.

Checkpoints in Jerusalem

One of our main, weekly tasks as EAs is to monitor the checkpoints that connect the West Bank to Jerusalem. These checkpoints pose a major challenge for many Palestinians in and around the Jerusalem area trying to gain access to the city. This is a potential problem for all Palestinians and especially for those without blue Israeli identity cards (a blue ID means the holder has a residency in Jerusalem while a green means that he or she is from the West Bank). Palestinians with green ID cards can travel into Jerusalem only if they have a valid permit (e.g. work or medical). However, even a valid permit will not ensure passage when there are closures for security and other reasons. For instance, from May 6 to 17 there was a closure imposed on the West Bank during which Israel’s Independence Day, Al Nakba Day, and President Bush’s visit to Israel all transpired. So Palestinians with valid working permits were out of work for a period of 12 days during the closures.

When there are no closures, we try to go at least 4 times a week to two separate checkpoints: Zeitun (pictured above), a pedestrian only terminal down the hill behind the Mount of Olives where we live, and Qalandiyah, the main checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah.

Zeitun opened at the beginning of 2006, and is a main crossing point for many children who go to school in Jerusalem. We have been going there early in the morning from about 6:30 when the children begin showing up for school and the men and women head to work. The traffic there is quite small (about 200 people any given morning). Qalandiyah, on the other hand, connects two major population centers, so it experiences a much higher volume of people and is therefore much bigger than Zeitun and accommodates motorists as well. At Qalandiyah, there are two, initial lanes for cars (pictured below) that lead to a four or five lane toll booth looking structure where guards check cars and passenger’s IDs (only blue ID holders can pass by car or bus while all green ID holders must go through the pedestrian terminal).

However, the basic layout of the pedestrian terminals at both sites are similar. They both have an initial gate with several steel turnstiles and high, wrought iron fences topped with razor wire. Just inside the first gate is a guard box with bulletproof glass where, usually, a female guard communicates with the Palestinians through a loud speaker. Then there are five or six additional gates with turnstiles that lead you into the metal detector section with machines much like you would see at airports to check baggage, and where more guards sitting behind protective glass check IDs (more recently, many of these gates have been equipped with fingerprinting identification systems as well). After passing inspection through the metal detectors there is a final corridor leading to the last turnstile before reaching the other side. In all, you pass by two guard booths and through four steel turnstiles, waiting in two separate lines, before you reach your destination.

Up to this point I have been referring to the checkpoints as terminals, but they are anything but. When I think of terminals I am reminded of the minor annoyance of passing through airport security before boarding a flight. Qalandiyah and Zeitun, on the other hand, look like special military zones, complete with concrete walls, razor wire, and guard towers. The area is patrolled by military vehicles and armed personnel, and a constant barrage of commands seem always to emanate from the loud speakers which can be heard at quite a distance from the source.

For many thousands of people, the checkpoints are part of their morning routine. And after only a month of checkpoint watch, I cannot fathom how anyone could internalize an experience like this making it routine, or normal in any way.

House Demolition in Ar Tur, East Jerusalem

The large arms of the bulldozers jackknifing their way through the concrete roof of the Abassi home drowned out all other sounds in the area, as plumes of dust spewed into the air under the blazing sun. We stood on a hill just above the scene, along with a handful of international aid workers, students, and reporters, but all we could do is watch. The order to demolish the home had come down that morning despite last minute appeals from the family’s lawyer for a stay on the order.

Audrey, one of my fellow EAs, had seen the bulldozers driving down the street outside her bedroom window and informed the rest of us of what was underway. The house, it turned out, was located just behind the Augusta Victoria complex on the Mount of Olives where we are staying. The family had built their home there two years ago without the necessary permits from the Israeli authorities who control the Eastern Palestinian part of Jerusalem. They moved there because they had been displaced by Israeli settlers from their home in nearby Silwan, the neighborhood I mentioned in an earlier blog. And it is very difficult for Palestinians to get permission to build in East Jerusalem, or even to add additions to existing structures. We have heard figures in the realm of less than five percent getting permission to build. Thus, many families, faced with few desirable alternatives, build without permits and are subject to a similar fate. The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) reports that over 18,000 homes have been demolished over the years.

Before the demolition began, the family and a team of yellow-vested workers began removing the family’s belongings, and a small skirmish erupted after one of the workers scratched a piece of furniture as they carried it out. The family was then detained and escorted to another part of the property, while the children were moved to the neighbor’s house but not spared from the sights and sounds of it all, as they watched through the slats of the neighbor’s balcony railing.

There are seven people in the family including three children, of which the youngest, a girl, is 7. As they watched their home slowly dissolve into twisted metal and rubble, I thought of this popular reality show in the U.S. called “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” where impoverished and hard luck families are given new homes. I have to admit, it is a warm feeling to see a family being given a second chance with a new home, but I never imagined what it would be like to witness the other extreme. It was awful.

We approached a soldier to ask what he thought and, in his broken English, used the analogy of driving a car without a license. Despite the obvious flaws in his reasoning, it was clear that there is a legal aspect behind the destruction, a misuse of laws and bureaucracies to force people from their lands and homes.

After about an hour, it was all done. The house was gone and the family left homeless. All we could do was walk away, sweaty, speechless, and sad.

To learn more about ICAHD, go to their website at http://www.icahd.org/eng/

Planting Olive Trees

We set off for Dey Istra last Friday to help a group of four Palestinian families plant olive trees to replace the ones that had been uprooted by settlers from the surrounding hills. We were there with an activist peace group from Israel called Rabbis for Human Rights. The Rabbis are known for their support of Palestinian villagers, particularly farmers, and have been on many excursions such as this, both as extra farm hands and a protective presence. That day there was only one Rabbi but seven Israeli volunteers.

After walking about 2 miles through winding trails in the picturesque valley of Dey Istra, we arrived at our destination where around fifty trees wrapped in plastic covering were waiting for us. The local farmers dug the holes with basic tools, as we unwrapped the plants and sank them into the inhospitable ground. The searing heat made the task rather arduous for those who have yet to acclimate to the weather, but our guests were happy to appease our thirst with fresh water and juice. And after we finished, we were given a picnic under the shade of an established olive tree. We ate pita and humus and shared sweet, black tea that was brewed over an open fire. We observed Israelis and Palestinians working together, each with grace and good humor (a side of the conflict you do not see in the international news).

We shared openly with the Israelis about their concerns for the effects of the occupation for all parties. “If you want a decent world, you have to do something to bring it about,” said Hillel, an American born Israeli, as we inquired about what led him to get involved. Yehoshua (Joshua), who fled Germany at the age of 6 in 1937, said his friends ask why get involved? He said thoughtfully, “I am not a religious man, but someday I’m going to have to answer the question what have you done to help, and I’ll be able to answer…I did my part.”

To learn more about the Rabbis for Human Rights, visit their website at http://rhr.israel.net/

Archeology in Jerusalem: Uncovering the Past or Rewriting the Future?

Silwan is a Palestinian neighborhood just a stones throw from the Old City with clear views of the al-Aqsa mosque. It is also the home of 5000 years of history binding together the varied stories of different nations and peoples. And it is the home of the original Jerusalem, which in Biblical history is the place where King David built his capital 3,000 years ago. Today, however, it is the home of a new story: one of archeology in the name of politics and dispossession. But this isn’t a story you will hear from the “official” tours run by Elad, a right-wing settler organization that has slowly taken control of Silwan over the past twenty years. As is often the case in Israel, you have to seek out alternative sources of information to find out what is really happening. Our alternative source was aptly named the alternative archeology tour (you can visit them at http://www.alt-arch.org/), which was conducted by Rafi Greenberg, a professor of Archeology at Tel Aviv University.

We began at the City of David Visitors Center (run by Elad) where there has been much excitement and conjecture over whether the structure below the Center was once the Palace of King David, something that has been accepted by many as fact even though it has yet to pass the muster of archeological standards for such determinations. Professor Greenberg basically painted a picture of archeology at this site as focused solely on confirming what is written in the bible, with little to no interest in the history of the everyday people of that or previous periods, something of great value for understanding cultural life in ancient Jerusalem--not to mention the thousands of years before the Biblical story of David. This lack of interest in the histories of the people and cultures that lie beneath Silwan mirror a lack of interest in the people living there today, which professor Greenberg would argue is based on motivations for the future make up of greater Jerusalem.
To apply for a National Geographic grant, professor Greenberg told us an archeologist must answer the following questions on page 13 (the ethics page) of the grant proposal: how does your project affect the community? What are you doing to mitigate that effect? Have local people been involved in the decisions that will affect their environment? How will you leave the site after completing the excavation? Of course, if you answer these questions in the negative, your grant proposal will most certainly be rejected. Yet, that is what is happening in Silwan. People’s homes are being damaged because of excavations being done under them, while others are in danger of losing their homes to make room for future excavation sites and even a proposed “archeological park."

The politicization of archeology in Silwan is all done with the complicity of the Israeli government at the urging of Elad. The Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA), for example, once in opposition to handing over archeological sites to settlers because of their intentions to build over them, is now Elad’s subcontractor. And although archeology is one of the main tools by which to get Palestinians to leave their homes, it is not the only means. Settlers have been using legal, buying homes for millions of dollars, quasi-legal, absentee landlord laws, and illegal means, forged documents and the like, to make room for the ever growing number of settlers living in Silwan.

Even though one could argue that most of this is technically legal according to Israeli law, where does it leave the village of Palestinians and the greater Israeli public at the end of the day? For the two weeks I have been here, the story is one of settlers wedging their way into Palestinian villages and towns in East Jerusalem and the West Bank with very little noise from Israelis, although there are a growing number of people and organizations that are speaking out. And the Israeli government remains complicit if not altogether supportive of these settlement expansions, which have been roundly rejected by the International community. Yet they continue to grow, while the peace process continues to shrink.

(The house on the top has been demolished to make room for the "archeological park," and the one on the bottom is one of many that belongs to settlers)

To get a more detailed picture of the politics of archeology in Jerusalem, please read Professor Greenberg’s article, “Contested Sites,” and for more information about Elad, go to this article in the Guardian.

The First Annual Palestine Festival of Literature

A lot of the entries for this blog will show the humanitarian effects of the occupation, disheartening realities to be sure, but I also wanted to include the positive things people are doing to cope with their situation and to rise above it. That said, last week, from May 7-11, there were a series of readings and lectures as part of the first annual Palestine Literature Festival.

It can be difficult for Palestinians to maintain a cultural life under occupation, with its curfews and incursions, and authors and artists must make extraordinary efforts to keep the lines of communication with the outside world open. The Festival was part of that effort, inspired by the call of Edward Said, to “reaffirm the power of culture over the culture of power.”

I attended the closing ceremony held at the Palestinian National Theatre in East Jerusalem. Raja Shehadeh, a Palestinian author who was recently awarded the Orwell prize for his book “Palestinian Walks: Notes on a Vanishing Landscape,” started the evening with a reading from that work describing a walk along the Galilee before the occupation. Then the guest authors from around the world, who had spent the week traveling around the West Bank, read from works that inspired them and related to the conflict today. Irish novelist, Roddy Doyle, read from the opening of Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities,” and Pankaj Mishra, an Indian author and essayist, read from James Baldwin’s reflections on force during the Vietnam War. Suheir Hammad, a Palestinian American Poet, choose a different track and gave us a glimpse of the people she met during her stay by reading from her diary—it was mostly in Arabic with some lines in English, “last year we had a barbeque there, now the wall.”

The evening also included several performances by “Yasmeen” a group of musicians from the Edward Said National Conservatory, although they had to change their program a bit because two of their members were held up at checkpoints. I guess that was part of the irony of the evening: it was a Palestine Literature Festival, but a majority of the audience was composed of internationals--the closure of checkpoints that day prohibiting more Palestinians from attending.
The final reader was a Palestinian actor from England, Khalid Abdala, who closed with a passage from an essay by professor Said. Khalid's reading, delivered with the skills of a trained actor, left a lasting and hopeful impression on me: we don’t have to be resigned to the conclusion put forth by Samuel Huntington that civilization is headed for the clash of culture. On the contrary, the rich complexities of culture contain cross currents of understanding that will help heal the wounds of yesterday and provide for a better tomorrow.

To read more about the event and the authors who participated, go to http://www.palestinelitfest.org/

The Nakba

Yesterday was the 60th anniversary of the Palestinian “Nakba,” or “catastrophe,” which led to the displacement of more than half of historic Palestine in 1948. Yet, last week, just miles away, there was a 60th anniversary of a different sort—the celebration of 60 years of independence in Israel. In that one year, 1948, two very different stories emerged, and I got a chance to witness them these last two weeks.

The Israeli celebrations were filled with fire works and barbeques, much of what you would see in America on the 4th of July, while the Palestinians held demonstrations focused on the right to return as stated in UN resolution 194 (which is what you see on the boy’s shirts).

The demonstration started with one minute of silence in the city center of Ramallah, one of the biggest cities in the West Bank located just north of Jerusalem. There was music, marching bands, UN and Palestinian flags everywhere, and even an Arafat look alike. We then proceeded to a soccer field near the Qalandiya checkpoint, the main checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah. At that point, the crowds let loose thousands of black balloons to represent their hope for a better future.

Unfortunately, the day ended with a standoff between a group of kids from the nearby refugee camp and Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) from the Qalandiya checkpoint. The boys hid behind trash cans in the middle of the road and threw rocks at the soldiers, although they fell far short from hitting anyone. The soldiers then responded with rubber bullets and sound grenades. It was a very jarring experience, but what shocked me the most wasn’t the sound of gunfire and the sight of burning tires, rather the fact that Palestinians went about their daily routine in the midst of all this: the cars continued down the road that was clogged with garbage dumpsters, and the builders across the street kept laying bricks for the shop on the corner. Fortunately, there were ambulances around and I didn’t see anyone get injured. At one point, I was really concerned for the boy who climbed a latter to place a Palestinian flag atop the “security fence” because soldiers have the authority to shoot people who attempt to climb over. To me, it seemed liked the boys were playing a game, like the make believe games I would play with cap/water guns when I was a boy, but this was not make believe; it was real.


Most of the day was peaceful, filled with nonviolent demonstrations. But, as what seems to happen all too often, the emotions involved in this conflict spill over.

If you want to learn more about the Nakba and the right of return, you can check out the Palestinian NGO Al-Haq's position paper here

About Me

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Marty Harms (I'm the one on the left), and I will be spending the next three months in Israel and Palestine as an Ecumenical Accompanier (EA). The EA program, run by the World Council of Churches, was created to support the nonviolent Israeli and Palestinian peace movements that seek an end to the occupation of the Palestinian territories. As an EA, we are here to “accompany” these people both literally and figuratively, whether that be through escorting Palestinian children to school, observing checkpoints, being present at nonviolent demonstrations, or just listening to their stories. We are also here to accompany by giving them a voice to the outside world, through the blog I’m writing, or the presentations I will be giving to people, organizations, and churches when I return home.

The Programme consists of six different placements in Israel and the West Bank, each with four members from a collection of different countries around the globe, including Sweden, the U.K., Norway, and South Africa to name a few. Each person brings with them a unique background and perspective to the conflict, some are nurses, others are pastors, journalists, students, engineers, but they all have a desire to see change that translates to peace and security for both sides. I have been placed in Jerusalem along with Audrey Gray, a 74 year old retired nurse from England, Erik Persson, an economics student from Sweden, and Brigitte Siegenthaler, a pastor from Switzerland (the man in the picture is Kurt, a nurse from Norway who was on the previous Jerusalem team). The other placements are Bethlehem, Tulkarem, Yanoun, Jayyous, and Hebron.

A little more background information,

I received my bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Michigan in 2003. After spending some time as an intern on the Hill in Washington D.C., I returned to U of M to work as the research coordinator for the Korean Studies Program at the International Institute. My focus on Korea would bring me to Seoul a year later on a scholarship to study Korean and continue my research interests there. After three years in Korea, where I did a variety of jobs from teaching English to translation work for the National Museum, I came back to Michigan where I learned more about the conflict in Israel and Palestine from my father, a Lutheran pastor who has been very active in advocacy work on the region both here and abroad. Before attending law school in the fall of 2008, I decided to get involved myself.

To learn more about the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel, check out the website at http://www.eappi.org/