AT-TUWANI REFLECTION: What’s the Point?

by Eileen

(Well, I suddenly have internet access, so I have a flurry of posts to get out. This is a reflection written by one of my wonderful teammates.)

The last two Friday nights, the Israeli army set up a ‘flying’ (temporary, mobile) checkpoint just outside Tuwani. Checkpoints on the highway beside Tuwani are a regular occurrence. One jeep, four soldiers and a string of spikes across the road constitute a checkpoint. Each time the soldiers show up, we go down to the road to monitor what is happening. We document the checkpoint, as well as any searches that take place and are present to respond in case of abuses.

Typically these temporary checkpoints last a few hours. Soldiers stop cars, check ID’s and search a few trunks. Much of the traffic in the area is actually foot traffic, people walking from villages around Tuwani to and from the nearby city of Yatta. Men, women and children, including infants in their mothers’ arms, are checked. Aside from settler traffic on the highway, which does not have to stop, soldiers mostly see a lot of tractors and sheep trailers. I wondered this Friday if they were going to search the sheep!

After seeing this countless times and failing to see the point, last night I asked one young soldier on duty what they were doing. He said they were “looking for stolen cars or weapons.” Still curious I followed up, “Do you find a lot of weapons this way?” “No. The people with the weapons see the checkpoint and make a U-turn. There’s nothing we can do.” Since I felt he understood me, and also because I was tired of standing around on a cold windy night, I pressed a bit and said, “So that makes this kind of pointless, huh?” Now were both smiling, and he said, “Yes. If it were up to me, I’d be home in bed.”

They can’t possibly find anything using this method. Not that I'm convinced there's anything to find. The soldiers and jeeps are visible from a half mile away. Anyone who might be trying to move contraband could simply wait until the soldiers leave. Everyone knows this, including the soldiers.

But there must be some point to it. Otherwise why are these soldiers ordered time and time again to set up these checkpoints?

On Saturday, soldiers again set up a flying checkpoint just outside Tuwani. This group of soldiers seemed particularly dangerous. They were wrestling with one another and pointing the laser guides of their automatic weapons at objects in the darkness. They were rude and rowdy, particularly as the evening wore on. When they turned up the American rock and roll music, I wondered if this is what the US occupation in Iraq looks like.

After waving a pick-up truck along, one soldier pointed the laser guide of his automatic weapon at the abdomen of the young boy riding in the back of the truck. The boy said something, and then the laser point moved, appearing next on the child’s face.

It was then I thought I could see the point, tragic and awful as it is. It isn’t about finding weapons or stolen cars. It’s not about finding the bad guy. It’s a display of power. Checkpoints are a way of reminding everyone, even the kids, who’s in charge. If that’s the point, then these flying checkpoints certainly do that.

Well, both a lot and very little has happened since I last wrote. I've flown around the world, from the United States to Palestine, and I'm now back in the West Bank. I'm living in Tuwani, a tiny village located in the South Hebron hills, next to the Ma'on settlement and it's outpost. Palestinian children coming to school in Tuwani and Palestinian shepherds graving their sheep have been attacked by settlers living the outpost.

Tuwani is a very beautiful place and thankfully since I've been in the village, very little has happened. Mostly, children have gotten to school on time and safely and, by and large, Palestinians have been able to graze their sheep quietly. I've spent most of my time recovering from a vicious attack waged by the Tuwani bacteria. But I'm back to good health again.

I've been able to visit Bethlehem and Hebron as well. Hebron, in particular, is looking up. The city government is paying shop owners 200 NIS a month to keep their shops in the old city open during Ramadan. The old city is normally a ghost town, as Israeli settlers often throw trash down at Palestinian shops and harass them in other ways. But today I could hardly recognize it. So many shops are open. It's beautiful to see.

I must get on with life here, so I'll wrap this up. God willing, things will continue to be quiet and I'll continue to have very little to say.

I'm safely back in Jerusalem and it's time for bed. 

Additional Information of the Dismantled Wall Outside Tuwani

CPTnet
20 August 2007
AT-TUWANI: "Security" wall along Route 317 dismantled

On 7 August 2007, members of CPT observed the dismantling of the "security wall" along Route 317. Upon investigating, they saw a crew of workers under Israeli supervision taking the wall down just past the road connecting At-Tuwani to Yatta. By the end of the day, no wall remained in the area.

The short wall--as it came to be known for its 80-cm height--along route 317 was constructed the previous summer, reaching the village of At-Tuwani on 14 June 2006. It consisted of six-meter-long slabs of preformed concrete that fit together in a tongue and groove pattern. The Israeli military had originally planned the Separation/Apartheid to run along route 317 but the Israeli Supreme Court had rejected the plan. The military built the short wall instead, under the auspices of security, despite the fact that, given its height, a person in reasonably good physical condition could climb over it. Its actual effect was to greatly reduce access to the economic and social hub of Yatta for the people of the South Hebron Hills, and to cut off shepherds from their land on the other side of the wall. The Israeli army could also more easily stop all vehicle traffic from Tuwani and the surrounding villages to Yatta and the villages to the north, because the wall had only two small openings that were frequently the sites of "flying checkpoints." In July of 2006, the Israeli military temporarily closed even these openings with cement blocks.

Last summer, the people of At-Tuwani and nearby villages, with the support of Israeli and international peace activists, organized demonstrations against the building of the wall. Eventually, they won a court decision that declared the wall illegal. The Israeli army delayed in implementing that court decision for some time.

Asked about the way events unfolded, a village leader for nonviolent activity said, "The IDF routinely disregards Israeli court decisions. We believe what happened is a success for the people's nonviolent resistance. This is a very important step."

The village plans to hold an action to celebrate the dismantling of the wall in the near future.

I've decided to change the quote at the top of my blog to better express...the tone I'm striving for. It's a challenge to write a blog about Palestine as a white Christian (Quaker) American. And even more so as a pacifist. Lately, I've felt like I've needed to change my tone and content to both make my position more clear (and less watered-down) and to take my various privileges into account. For some reason, changing the header seemed like a place to start.

This quote comes from a letter written by several community leaders in Bethlehem. Sami Awad read it out loud to a crowd of Israeli soldiers at an Easter demonstration at the Bethlehem checkpoint. I wanted to post the letter in its entirety here:

Asalaam 'alaykum (Peace be upon you),

We in the Bethlehem community have come to you today with a message on behalf of our people. We represent the family members and friends who are imprisoned by these concrete walls and wire fences that now create the Bethlehem open-air prison. You, like prison guards, control our freedom and ability to live as human beings with dignity in this holy land.

Our strong delegation of civilians comes to you without weapons but with great strength and commitment to deliver the message of just peace. In the name of security, you do not permit us to travel, to school and to worship in our holy sites in the city of Jerusalem. Your government deprives us each day of basic human rights to self-determination. Each day you keep us from being with our families at weddings, funerals, graduations, birthdays, and religious holidays. Although Jerusalem is only twenty minutes from Bethlehem, we have not been allowed to pray and worship at our holy sites.

Each day as you come to our city, you serve the system of violence that keeps our people imprisoned and without the ability to live a life of a normal human being. With your guns, tanks, and insults, you teach our children to hate.

However, we believe each of you has the power and choice to choose a different ending to this story. We appeal to your conscience and humanity as individuals and as soldiers who may feel there is no way out of this system. Put your guns away—I repeat, put your guns away—and join us in the fight for peace and freedom.

The People of Bethlehem

It's the settlements, stupid. And they aren't going any where.

(This blog has been entirely, disgustingly, self-focused as of late. Enough of that. And now for something completely different.)

The powerful seem to have decided what sort of peace they will impose on Palestine. Everyone whose declared themselves a say in Palestine's future, from President Bush and the liberal elite, are all talking about the same "final-status solution."

I bow to the predictions of anyone with a better crystal ball than mine, but I suspect that this trend has been obvious to a great many outside observers and crystal-clear to many Palestinians: It's the settlements, stupid. The major Israeli settlement blocks will not be returned to Palestine and the consequences of absorbing their land into Israel could be disastrous.

The National Interreligious Leadership Initiative for Peace in the Middle East, an organization consisting of mainstream Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religious leaders, has been pressuring the Bush administration to more actively broker a two-state peace agreement. Their plan is based on preexisting Bush/Clinton policies and includes the following proposals:

• Israel must withdraw to it's 1967 boarders
• Jerusalem will be the capital of both Israel and Palestine
• Palestinian refugees will receive compensation for their lost property and aid in settling into new homes (mostly outside of Israel. Israel would re-admit only as many Palestinian as would allow it to maintain a Jewish majority).
• Land-swaps would allow Israel to retain some of the West Bank land where its settlers now live.
  

In Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (a book that didn't especially impress me), former President Jimmy Carter outlines a very similar proposal for peace:

Withdrawal to the 1967 border as specified in U.N. Resolution 242 and as promised in the Camp David accords and the Oslo Agreement and prescribed in the Roadmap of the International Quartet...Good faith negotiations can lead to mutually agreeable exchanges of land perhaps permitting a significant number of settlers to remain in their present homes near Jerusalem. (pg. 216)

It's the last point in both of these plans that has me worried. If Israel is allowed to retain land in the West Bank, it's obvious which parts they will choose. The map to the right shows Israeli settlements in the West Bank represented in the darker blue. There are three principle settlement blocks, which I've done my best to circle in read. Ariel, Ma'aledumim and Gilo are home to thousands Israeli citizens. Like all settlements in the West Bank, they are illegal under international law.

Ariel is located in the Sulfit region, an area known as the food basket of the West Bank. Ma'aleadumim surrounds Jerusalem and separates the Northern half of the West Bank from the Southern. Gilo surrounds Bethlehem. If Israel keeps Ariel, it keeps some of the best land in the West Bank. If it keeps Ma'aleadumim and Gilo, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and Ramallah will be cut off from each other. These three city represent 90-95% of the West Bank's potential for economic growth.

Over the last 40 years of occupation, Palestine has become increasingly dependent on Israeli goods, and in better days Israeli jobs. Even if Palestine retained all of the West Bank, its economy would have difficulty recovering. But if these settlement blocks and the land surrounding them become a part of Israel, recovering will be doubly difficult.

But Israel would only acquire these lands under a "mutually agreeable" land swap. So Palestine will get some great land from Israel, right? Bluntly, I can't believe that will happen. Israel is not going to give Palestine its most productive land. Palestine wont get the land between Tel Aviv and Haifa. Palestine will probably get some land in the Negev desert. The Negev is beautiful, but it is not economically viable. It's certainly not comparable to the land that Palestine will lose. (Especially if we remember that Palestine has already lost all of the land it enjoyed before 1948.) If you'll pardon me, this is a sand-for-peace proposal.

Once a "final-status agreement" is reached and something approaching peace follows, the international community will, in all likelihood, proceed to ignore Palestine all together. International aid money will dry out. Palestine's economy will remain dependent on Israel's, ripe for easy exploitation. The occupation might end, but I don't see how Israeli colonialism wont.

In this blog, I try to write about the hopeful signs I see in Palestine. It's a tricky business, as I feel no right to declare what looks good and what looks bad for a people I am not a part of, but there are enough people writing about all the terrible things that are happening. However, as I start to really understand the consequences of Israel's "facts on the ground" that the Israeli government has worked hard to create, it's hard to be hopeful.

How can settlement expansion be resisted?

Joy Over the Fall of a 2 and a half foot High Wall

(click for larger photos)

What does Joy do in Palestine any way? A video from Christian Peacemaker Teams.


This is a rather incredible video - not because of the quality, but because it shows CPT work in all of it's messy complexity. This is a scene that plays out regularly in Hebron. The Israeli army tells students they can't go to school. They and their teachers respond with an impromptu nonviolent demonstration. The Israeli army responds with violence. And CPT responds by getting the way of that violence.

I wish that I could narrate this film scene by scene, but I don't have the time right now. I hope this is a helpful look into our work and the lives of Palestinian children.

PS: I'm back! I just spent a couple of months up in the mountains without internet access. It's nice to be home.

Pieces of Palestine Zine - It's Available for Order!

Tuwani Online!

Little Tuwani, the village where I hope to be working, may not have running water or more than a couple of hours of electricity every day, but they do have a website. Check it out at at http://tuwani.org/about And spread it around - Bil'in may be getting all of the of the international attention, but Tuwani has been quietly and determinedly been resisting the occupation, successfully. Yep, Tuwani is amazing.

A day in the life of a CPTer living in At-Tuwani

Five A.M.

For a member of Christian Peacemaker Teams, a day in Tuwani starts at about 5 am. It's time to crawl out of the sleeping bag, dress, grab a cell phone and video camera and don a red baseball cap emblazoned with "CPT." (Yes, the hats are embarrassing, but they immediately identify us an international human rights workers and that's important.) Then it's time for school patrol.

School Patrol?

Tuwani is a tiny village located in the south Hebron hills and it has a big problem. On Tuwani's land, Israeli citizens have erected a small illegal settlement and an outpost.

Every morning CPTers wake up at the crack of dawn to accompany Palestinian children who must walk near the settlement.

Numerous times, Israeli settlers have attacked these children without provocation. CPTers, along with members of Italian nonviolent intervention organization Operation Dove, are committed to intervening when settlers attack these children and reducing the incidence of attack by providing an international presence.

Joy, what on earth are you doing? Is this safe?
In separate incidences, four CPTers have been attacked by Israeli settlers. Members of Operation Dove and a human rights worker with Amnesty International have also been beaten.

After these incidences, the Israeli Knesset, in an unprecedented decision, ordered the Israeli army to accompany the children of the South Hebron hills to school. No where else in occupied Palestine are Israeli soldiers charged with protecting Palestinian children.

Now, instead of walking the children to school themselves, CPTers now wake up at the crack of dawn to ensure that the Israeli army shows up on time, or at all. Here's what happened one day in 2006:




After School Patrol: Additional Accompaniment Work

After getting the kids to school, CPT responds to requests for accompaniment from villagers in at-Tuwani and the surrounding area. A soldier informs a Palestinian farmer that he can't tend to his olives, a CPTer might accompany him, documenting the situation, talking with the soldiers, and maybe calling Israeli supporters. Or a CPTer might join a shepherd who has been threatened by settlers. CPT accompanies Palestinian upon request because we've found that the presence of international reduces the likelihood of violence and helps Palestinian to be able to go about the business of their normal lives.

Nonviolence:

Harassment and attacks at the hands of Israeli settlers are a pressing concern for the villagers of At-Tuwani, but violence is not their only problem. Like all Palestinians, they must also contend with systemic injustice, like movement restrictions, land confiscation, and the Israeli built annexation Wall. To resist these human rights violations, Palestinians have used nonviolent resistance methods. CPT is honored to participate in demonstrations, press conferences, and other forms non-cooperation organized by the villagers of at-Tuwani.

Villagers have resisted land confisciation, the destruction of their olive groves, and home demolitons, but most frequently they have worked to slow or stop the construction of the Annexation Wall.

In many parts of the West Bank, the Wall takes the form of a huge cement barrier.

But in Tuwani, it's just 2.5 feet high, just tall enough to prevent a donkey with a cart from crossing.

Villagers have held international press conferences, built bridges of rocks over the wall, and used their physical presence to slow down construction. Demonstrations like these are dangerous for Palestinian - they risk being tear-gassed or beaten by the Israeli army, or even arrested and imprisoned. When internationals, like CPT, and Israeli peace activists attend demonstrations, the Israeli army is often less inclined to respond violently because their actions are carefully documented.

7 P.M.
When night begins to fall, CPTers enjoy a couple of hours of electricity. (No, there's no internet access. Nor is there running water. Yes, that means no flush toilet.) Reports are written and cameras charged. In a 10 ft by 10 ft house, four teammates snuggle into sleeping bags, dreaming of justice and peace.

Remembering the Children of 40 years of Occupation

A few nights ago, I read out loud 7 or 8 pages of names, names like Khaled Adli Bassem al-Bazyan and Sara Abdul-Azim Abdul-Haq Hasan, and names like Shalhevet Tehiya Pass and Naftali Lanzkorn. These children were among the 943 Palestinian and 118 Israeli children who have been killed since 2000.

Khaled was 14 and lived in Nablus. He was killed when an Israeli soldier shot him in the abdomen during a demonstration on the Nablus-Ramallah road. He died in September of 2000. Sara was 18 months old. She lived near Salfit, in the same area where I used to live. She was killed by an Israeli settler who shot her in head while she was riding in the car with her father.

Shalevet Tehiya Pass, was 10 months old and lived in the Avraham Avinu settlement. Shalevet was shot by a Palestinian sniper while playing on the playground. Naftali was killed by a Palestinian sucide bomber near Kfar Saba. She was 13 years old. Both Naftali and Shalevet died in March 2001.

On Wednesday, we read all 1,063 names of Israeli and Palestinian children killed since 2000 outside of the Northwest Convergence, a conference featuring members of the Likkud party who strongly advocate the continuance of the Israeli occupation. While former Prime Minister Netenyahu spoke about Israel's glorious fight against terrorism, we read names. It took us an hour and a half to finish.

It's was easy to lose myself in the complex task of sounding out names like Shalevet and Khaled. It took all of my concentration to stumble my way through unfamiliar sounds and multisyllabic surnames. But then I would come across a name I knew well - Fadi, Jamil, Bassem, Huda, Mohamed, Rachel. I can't help but picture other children I know with those names and wonder if they're still okay.

This week marks the 40th anniversary of the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip. Our congress has chosen to mark this week by congratulating Israel on its military might. I wish that they had instead read out the names of 40 children killed in this conflict or listened to the testimonies of 40 families whose homes have been demolished or looked at pictures of 40 olive trees uprooted or 40 lines at checkpoints.

How many more years? How many more children?

It's a zine!

(Actually, this zine isn't available quite yet. But it will be in the next two weeks or so. So hang tight for the moment, but be prepared to be excited!)

Starting on the 27th of June, this blog will be updated less frequently as I travel before beginning my work in Palestine. Hopefully, by September, things will be back online.

Until then, if you're interested in other ways of keeping track of me, take a look at the sidebar to the right. The first four links should be very helpful.

Cheers!