chapter 5: i am in palestine and this is not a dream

My journal from a couple days ago:

I am in Palestine and this is not a dream. I am sitting in a tent in the middle of the desert in the Middle of the East, where Arabic and tea is flowing like a river through clouds of smoke that linger softly in the crags of the farmer's faces, who are recounting for us the story of how they came to live here:

Before the 2nd Intifada* things were very good. We all lived in Yaata (he gestures towards a far-away clump of bright lights) and worked in construction in Israel. After the 2nd Intifada, no one was allowed to work in Israel. So we move here, with our families, to work the land and raise sheep. We do not wish to be farmers or have the life of farmers, but there is not much else to do. We are told by Israel we cannot build homes; this doesn't matter much because the settlers** would come and destroy them anyway. So we live like the Bedouins, and make tents, but they are burning these, too. But it is much easier to re-make a tent. Always, they burn things to dust.

As a representative of a pacifist organization, the next question I ask is entirely inappropriate, but it is through my lips before I can stop it: Why don't you have guns to protect you? (In my private thoughts, I am imagining someone coming to burn my house down and threaten my children with knives night after night, and when I tell the police, they won't do anything about it, which is what happens in Palestine all the time. I would get a gun, and when they came to do it again, I would shoot them. I am not sorry for this.) Our translator is a little pissed I have said this and doesn't want to ask the men this question, but it is too late, cuz they have seen the look on his face and they know I have said something scandalous and they want to know what it is. They hear the question, and it makes them quiet. They say:

Right now we have nothing, and they come and threaten us with knives. If we get knives, they will get guns. If we have guns, they come with soldiers. If soldier is seeing me with a gun, he is putting me in jail for many years, no matter what the situation. It is illegal for a Palestinian to have guns.

That night, as I lie in the tent the farmers have contructed for us (us being me and Fernando from New York and Paul from Britain) so we can keep an eye on the house they have just put a new roof on, since the last one was - you guessed it - burned down - I hear a great big booming in the distance.

We all step outside the tent, and in the distance, there are 3 or 4 bright stars that have broken out of the sky and started to fly in formation, and they are dropping beautiful fiery comets on the horizon. We are silent; we don't know what we are seeing, or maybe we do and it is too much to speak about. "That's...that's them bombing Gaza, isn't it?" says Paul in his lovely British accent. Impossible, we think. We look at a map, and see we are about 60 miles away from the Gaza Strip. So this is what it looks like, I thought, when lots of people are dying...from 60 miles away, lots of people dying looks like a laser light show.

peace, salaam, shalom.
only love will prevail.

magan

*Intifada is Arabic for "uprising" and literally means "shaking off" - it refers to Palestinian resistance against Israeli oppression, both violent and non violent - the first Intifada was in 1987 and ended with the Oslo Accords in 1991, and the 2nd Intifada began in September 2000 when Ariel Sharon invaded Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Muslim holy day with 2000 soldiers
**Settlers refer to Israeli colonists who are sent to live outside Israel's borders on Palestinian land - this is one tactic the Israeli government uses to usurp land from the Palestinians. Settlers are generally known to be violent and very aggressive towards the Palestians, which causes Palestinians to leave their homes, and then they build more settlements.

SOUSSIA: a photo essay

This is the village of Soussia. Only 7 or 8 families live here, waaaay out in the Negev Desert. They farm and grow things to make money.

This is a real nice lady who lives in Soussia. I forget her name. This is her daughter, Marah. It means "happy" in Arabic.

This is Marah's Dad. He's real nice, too. He taught me how Soussians say "wow": Yabayayeeeeee!

There are Israeli settlers that live very close to Soussia. The settlers come and burn down the Palestinians' homes and hurt them with guns and knives. This is where Marah's Dad was stabbed in the head.

This is Marah's house. A couple days ago, settlers came and burned the roof off. They asked us to come help them put it back on. So we did.

These are settlers. They were not very happy that we were replacing a roof they had worked so hard to burn down.

They told us to get off "their" land. We said no. They didn't like that, and shoved some people around a little, and threatened us.

This guy got real pissed when we wouldn't stop putting the roof on, so he got on his Nextel and called.....

a bunch of these guys.

We talked to the soldiers and told them what they were doing. The settlers talked to the soldiers and told them we were bothering them. So the soldiers told everyone to just leave each other alone.

I guess the settlers didn't listen, cuz 3 nights later they came back and burned the roof off Marah's house again.