Coming Home

At the beginning this project, three months a year for three years
seemed like a good plan.  Each team member spends three months a year
then goes home to spread the word, recover, and maintain their normal
life.  Who knew, maybe in three years the Intifada would have
succeededin achieving real negotiations towards the real end of the Occupation.
(Well, maybe no one else really thought that, but then I was much
newerthen to the whole situation).  Now it seems like three months on the
ground is a drop in the bucket, barely enough to begin to understand
things, barely enough to start.  Just as I’m starting to get my feet
wet, it’s time to go home.  Obviously, there is no sign of the Occupation ending.

Yet, I also know that it is time leave.  I’m tired.   I’m not just
tiredbecause I haven’t had more than four real days off since I’ve been
here.
Not just because I miss the people back home, and being able to wear
a sleeveless shirt in public when its over 90 degrees, and being able to
wrestle and act like a tomboy.  And I’m not just tired because there
is so much here that is unbelievably horrible, and because every single
person I meet who lives here has a tragic story to tell.  I’m tired
because when I show the people the new proposed map of the Wall, and
what will be left of Palestine, I make the choice of looking at their
eyes when they see it.  Their response is the same response that I had
when I was told that my friend Laura was murdered:  “No, no, it’s a
mistake--it’s not true.”  I argued with my friend that had phoned to
tell me, and came up with any possible reason that she could be wrong.
The Palestinians that I tell are going through the classic Kubler-Ross
stages of death and dying.  Denial is the first.  But the wall is
undeniable; it is being built mile-by-mile, day-by-day.  It is a
cancer that will destroy them within 6 months to a year.  To make it even
more painful, Palestinians who have no other work and no other way to feed
their families are doing the physical construction of the Wall.  They
are forced into building their own prison.

What really exhausts me is that I have to be the one to show the map.
Why hasn’t the Palestinian media and the Arab media reported on this?
Why does Condoleeza Rice state her disapproval before Arafat or Abu
Mazen?  Why aren’t the villagers informed about the wall until it is
already separating them from their beautiful land and their only means
of sustenance?  I am tired of being the bearer of bad news.  And
because I am not Palestinian, I don’t feel it is my place to urge resistance
and provide a message of hope- I am not the one who has lost everything
again and again, I am not the one who has always stood back up and
continued to survive.  I know that their urge to resist will come,
after the denial and shock has passed a bit, after I am no longer standing
in front of them with the map.  My place is to try and change the US
policy so that their resistance can be recognized as their right.

So, it is time for me to go home so that I can work in another way.  I
know that it is really the US that stands in the way of justice and
peace here.  I know that it is up to the US taxpayers to decide if
they want their ten billion dollars in tax money to pay for building this
Apartheid Wall and sealing the Occupation, or rather to go to
something like stopping the spread of AIDS in Africa. There is a lot of work to
do.

My friend Ben and his friend John have been here a week early to meet
with IWPS and work out an itinerary and logistics for delegations from
Boston and Colorado.  This is the story of our trip together to Nablus
on my days “off”).

We called ahead to the ISM coordinator in Nablus to find out the
possibilities of travel. She informed us that all the checkpoints in
to the city had been completely closed off that day, and even the
mountain passageways were filled with snipers.  Her advice was to come anyway,
to test when the checkpoints would start to be opened.  We took the dirt
backroads to a point where our Palestinian driver felt he could no
longer drive safely.  Ironically, he dropped us off in front of what
looked like an open parking garage for APC’s.  We walked towards a
gate that appeared to be empty, but as we approached, soldiers came out
from cover.  They asked us what we were doing there and to see our
passports, then let us through.  Such a surreal game.  We were really surprised
that they allowed us to pass--us pretending to be clueless about the
closure and checkpoint, them pretending not to know we were lying. 
Most likely, they didn’t want to be stuck with having to deal with
Internationals who were stranded at the otherwise abandoned post.

We caught a taxi/service to Balata refugee camp, and walked over the
roadblock to go inside.  We went to a house that is under threat of
demolition and met there with the ISM group and discussed the next
day’s activities and went to bed.  From the women’s bedroom, I had the
smells from the chicken coop and goats from next door, mixed with the smell
of sewage that is a result of the poor conditions in the camp.  Although
I could barely sleep all that night, I couldn’t hear the tanks or
shootings over the sounds of the chickens the way Ben and John could
from the men’s room.

We got up at 3:45 a.m., ate some watermelon, put on fluorescent yellow
vests and walked outside.  We walked through the empty streets to meet
other ISM’ers at the Askar refugee camp, and took a taxi to a road
that lead to the outside villages of Nablus.  By then it was around 5:30
a.m. and the sun was starting to rise.  We walked past a Ferris wheel and
an airplane set up on cement blocks with some other odd parts of
amusement park rides.  Still dazed from the lack of sleep and early morning
light, it felt like we were in the set of a movie that had been abandoned by
the director.  At first, the APC in the distance seemed to somehow fit
naturally into my state of consciousness. As we approached, however,
reality set in:  the amusement park is permanently closed, and the APC
and the Occupation it stands for is the reason why.  The roof of the
APC opened and a soldier climbed out, two people went to try and negotiate
our passage, while I stayed behind with the other internationals and
Palestinians.  We were not allowed to pass, the roadblock we had
planned on moving was to remain, and we had to walk back to Balata.  Good
morning.

After attempting to sleep for an hour, we had another meeting and
decided to go to checkpoint watch.  My team went to Huwara checkpoint,
the main road that people use to get in and out of Nablus.  When we
arrived, there were few people getting through, if at all.  I was
chosen to be a ‘negotiator,’ and spent the next four hours trying to convince
the soldiers to let at least the oldest and sickest through, while the
others stayed and waited in vain in the hot sun.  Although I was
successful in helping some individuals through, it was a hard lesson
in what another aspect of Palestinian life is like, what I don’t see
every day in the villages that I work in.  The hardest for me was seeing the
treatment of six men.  They were herded from the other side of the
checkpoint in dirty, tight blindfolds and plastic handcuffs, holding
onto the shirt of the man in front to stay in line as if they were
camels. At this point I was standing inside the checkpoint, where
normally only soldiers are allowed to stand.  One soldier screamed at
me to leave, but got distracted by a car that was waiting to pass, so I
was able to stay and watch.  The six men were lined up and forced to
kneel. The soldier on guard went one by one, and first took off the
blindfold, then gave a little lecture, then dropped their ID card in front of
them on the ground, then took off their handcuffs, then told them to leave.
They were not criminals, or wanted men or obviously they would not
have been released.  They were simply taken there to be humiliated.

In the evening, Ben, John, and I went to visit the sister of a friend
of mine from home. I delivered to her a poem written by my friend’s wife.
Although they didn’t know me all, they were completely welcoming.  By
now, I should be accustomed to Palestinian hospitality—the total
openness and generosity, even to total strangers, but I’m still
amazed. They took us on a tour of the town of Nablus, through the ancient old
city, and to a canafe shop (traditional cheese desert which Nablus is
amous for), let us sleep in their beds and even provided us with
pajamas.  Their beautiful apartment and taste is posh even by American
standards, and as we took photos and chatted and watched cable T.V. I
began to relax a bit and even feel like a tourist.  Despite what seems
to be their cosmopolitan lifestyle, even they are suffering from the
constant trauma of the Occupation.  The young boy showed me the photos
he had taken from the windows of the apartment.  This one, a tank on
the street below.  This one, men lined up against the wall spread eagle in
front of an army jeep.  This one, busses filled with all the men ages
15-65 of a refugee camp being driven away.  The family cannot leave
the country, cannot even leave Nablus.  I can visit my friend’s sister,
but he cannot.  She is a prisoner in this war zone.  In the morning as she
was leaving for work she gave me a bag full of zataar that she had
hand made.  I will take it back with me to give to her sister in law that
she has never seen.  The poem that I delivered and the zataar that I will
bring back is the closest that these two women can come to shaking
hands and kissing on each cheek.  Because of my passport and place of birth,
I have the privilege of being their messenger.  Despite the pleasure of
meeting with this family, the honor of being their guest is mixed with
the shame of what my country has done to them and all the other
families in Palestine.

***You can see photos of the Nablus trip and read Ben’s journal by
going to http://www.bcpr.org/b2p/Ben1.html and to
http://www.bcpr.org/b2p/Ben2.html***

See you all soon,

Nadya

To see photos and reports by the International Women's Peace Service
(IWPS), go to www.womenspeacepalestine.org.
To find out how you can join my support team  contact julie@freespeech.org. 
To send me messages, you can send to my e-mail, iwpsus@yahoo.com