The following is an excerpt from a speech made by a holocaust survivor. We spoke with a woman this week whose grandmother shares similar views. We found that her grandmother is not alone:
"I was born to a Jewish family in France during the Second World War. I am alive today, like thousands of other Jewish children of the time, thanks to the anti-Nazi resistance in France. The resistance united people of many political persuasions and religious beliefs: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim.
Today we must join in a similar broad alliance, this time to defend the Palestinians. In doing this, we also strike blows against anti-Semitism. Israel's aggressive policies in the Middle East are against the interests of Jewish people and Palestinians alike, all of whom have a stake in a peaceful and united Middle East. Palestinian liberation offers the Jewish people in the Middle East the prospect of brotherhood and peace."
Speech by Suzanne Weiss, holocaust survivor, Canada, http://coalitionagainstisraeliapartheid.tyo.ca/2006/06/05/suzanne-weiss-holocaust-survivor/
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Happy V Day
We're in Ramallah and it is sunny and beautiful. Pretty soon we'll be going out to see if I can get a haircut and then maybe grabbing a up of joe at the local "Stars & Bucks."
Plans are ever-evolving. We most likely will not stay in Ramallah for the next month, but yesterday we met with an Arabic teacher and organizers at the coalition called Stop the Wall, which helps communities coordinate efforts to challenge the building of the wall. They see the role of international volunteers as educators in their own countries. We need to figure out how best to spend our time here.
We are looking at venues to teach English in community-based settings. We (or one of us) will be volunteering with the international women's peace service. We will spend a little more time near Tel Aviv to visit friends of the family. We have completed a non-violence resistance training but have made no commitment to use it.
today i dream of hot tubs and loved ones. and pop rock chocolate.
Plans are ever-evolving. We most likely will not stay in Ramallah for the next month, but yesterday we met with an Arabic teacher and organizers at the coalition called Stop the Wall, which helps communities coordinate efforts to challenge the building of the wall. They see the role of international volunteers as educators in their own countries. We need to figure out how best to spend our time here.
We are looking at venues to teach English in community-based settings. We (or one of us) will be volunteering with the international women's peace service. We will spend a little more time near Tel Aviv to visit friends of the family. We have completed a non-violence resistance training but have made no commitment to use it.
today i dream of hot tubs and loved ones. and pop rock chocolate.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
House in a Cage
We finished our 5 day tour of the West Bank with the amazing program, Birthright Unplugged. We have seen so much so quickly and our world has been turned upside down.
Right now we are in East Jerusalem at an internet cafe. We are heading up to Ramallah to a 2-day training on non-violent resistance and to meet with an organization about short term volunteer/intern positions. We will most likely spend 2 weeks in Ramallah, and 1-2 weeks in a village on the West Bank outside of Jerusalem with the International Women's Peace Service. We may still try to get to Egypt and Jordan but you know how things change.
When I open my email, I break down a little. It is so hard to figure out how to communicate to you what is happening here. I wanted to believe that the contrast is not as bad as were the rumors. They are actually worse.
Two days ago we visited a family whose home is entirely fenced in--a triangle of fencing and cement wall. This is almost 20 km inside the west bank. the house has a valid permit from 1972 and the family has lived there since then. they live in a village with several neighbors. however, a settlement has been built directly next door. last year, the israeli government decided to build the wall between israel and 'palestine' in between this family's home and their village. they pressured the family to move and they refused. instead of honoring their rights, the govt built the wall so that the home is completely isolated from the village. this is in the rural area and the 'wall' is mostly a fence. however, directly in between this house and the homes of their neighbors, there is 30 meters of tall cement wall. there is no other explanation for this except to completely isolate and pressure the family to relocate.
pictures to come.
~NL
Right now we are in East Jerusalem at an internet cafe. We are heading up to Ramallah to a 2-day training on non-violent resistance and to meet with an organization about short term volunteer/intern positions. We will most likely spend 2 weeks in Ramallah, and 1-2 weeks in a village on the West Bank outside of Jerusalem with the International Women's Peace Service. We may still try to get to Egypt and Jordan but you know how things change.
When I open my email, I break down a little. It is so hard to figure out how to communicate to you what is happening here. I wanted to believe that the contrast is not as bad as were the rumors. They are actually worse.
Two days ago we visited a family whose home is entirely fenced in--a triangle of fencing and cement wall. This is almost 20 km inside the west bank. the house has a valid permit from 1972 and the family has lived there since then. they live in a village with several neighbors. however, a settlement has been built directly next door. last year, the israeli government decided to build the wall between israel and 'palestine' in between this family's home and their village. they pressured the family to move and they refused. instead of honoring their rights, the govt built the wall so that the home is completely isolated from the village. this is in the rural area and the 'wall' is mostly a fence. however, directly in between this house and the homes of their neighbors, there is 30 meters of tall cement wall. there is no other explanation for this except to completely isolate and pressure the family to relocate.
pictures to come.
~NL
This is Our Intent
This blog is a forum for us to process our experiences in Palestine/Israel and our evolving knowledge about what is happening here. We spent one month in what is internationally recognized as "Israel" visiting Jewish historical sites and visiting friends and relatives. We are now on the West Bank, land that was allocated to Palestinian people in 1967 but is highly controlled by the Israeli military. What we write here is what we have learned and seen.
~NL and HKL
~NL and HKL
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Hebron, West Bank 2/7/07
"This is not a conflict with the Jews. Jews and Palestinians lived peacefully here for many years." An elder Palestinian man from a small neighborhood in Hebron shared this with us. He grew up in Hebron and has fond memories of his Jewish neighbors. His brother and his neighbor were "milk siblings"; that is, as infants they both drank milk from his mother's breast. After the war in 1948, his Jewish neighbors moved away and Jewish settlers moved in who today treated them as animals.
We went to this neighborhood to visit a family up the hill. We were stopped by the israeli guards because we were forbidden from going to their home based on an arbitrary rule that these families cannot receive visitors. This is a peaceful elderly family. The last time our trip leaders visited the family, they were allowed to go but the Jewish settler family across the street threw food directly at them.
Hebron is one of the few places on the west bank where settlers and palestinians live within the same city. There is a very strong military presence that monitors and limits palestinian movement and business. There are daily altercations between settlers and palestinians.
Another Palestinian man shared his story with us. He lives in the old city of Hebron. There is a settler apartment built right next to his home. The settlers offered him $1 million if he would move. He refused. His family was harassed--stones, food, bottles were thrown at them. One night, settlers came into their home and beat him and his wife. They lost their unborn child. Then they asked him if he would now move for the $1 million. He told them that if he was going to move, he would have done so before losing his child.
-NL
We went to this neighborhood to visit a family up the hill. We were stopped by the israeli guards because we were forbidden from going to their home based on an arbitrary rule that these families cannot receive visitors. This is a peaceful elderly family. The last time our trip leaders visited the family, they were allowed to go but the Jewish settler family across the street threw food directly at them.
Hebron is one of the few places on the west bank where settlers and palestinians live within the same city. There is a very strong military presence that monitors and limits palestinian movement and business. There are daily altercations between settlers and palestinians.
Another Palestinian man shared his story with us. He lives in the old city of Hebron. There is a settler apartment built right next to his home. The settlers offered him $1 million if he would move. He refused. His family was harassed--stones, food, bottles were thrown at them. One night, settlers came into their home and beat him and his wife. They lost their unborn child. Then they asked him if he would now move for the $1 million. He told them that if he was going to move, he would have done so before losing his child.
-NL
From the Other Side
From here on out everything is different. No matter how many stories I have heard describing the the conditions of the west bank, I could not believe what was happening to millions of Palestinians. This week we crossed the check point from Jerusalem into the west bank. I am seeing this with my own eyes for the first time. There is no way that the state of Israel can claim to be working towards peace.
I do not support propaganda. I do not support one-sided stories. What I have seen the past two days are lived experiences of people living in a refugee camp 15 minutes outside of Jerusalem, people of Bethlehem, and those living in Hebron. I am staying with a family who was displaced from a village outside of Hebron. They have 4 children, mother, father. They gave two of us a bedroom and little mermaid comforters.
Major Point of Reference: For much of the region of the West Bank, check points do not guard the border between Palestine and Israel. The check points are actually located in the Israeli wall that are located on West Bank land according to the Oslo Peace Treaty of 1967. To get from East Jerusalem to Bethlehem, we entered the west bank 10 minutes before we were stopped to go through. We didn't even have to flash our passports; as Americans, we were let through instantly. Meanwhile, one of our host mothers at teh refugee camp had to wait at the point for 3 hours crouched in the pouring rain. She was ill and returning from seeing the doctor. If she stood up, the soldiers threatened to let off tear gas.
What I can tell you is that there is no going back to the reality I inhabited. I have no idea how to reconcile the reality here with that of people living within the state of Israel. I'm soaking it in and trying to figure out the next step.
I am a human faucet.
-NL
I do not support propaganda. I do not support one-sided stories. What I have seen the past two days are lived experiences of people living in a refugee camp 15 minutes outside of Jerusalem, people of Bethlehem, and those living in Hebron. I am staying with a family who was displaced from a village outside of Hebron. They have 4 children, mother, father. They gave two of us a bedroom and little mermaid comforters.
Major Point of Reference: For much of the region of the West Bank, check points do not guard the border between Palestine and Israel. The check points are actually located in the Israeli wall that are located on West Bank land according to the Oslo Peace Treaty of 1967. To get from East Jerusalem to Bethlehem, we entered the west bank 10 minutes before we were stopped to go through. We didn't even have to flash our passports; as Americans, we were let through instantly. Meanwhile, one of our host mothers at teh refugee camp had to wait at the point for 3 hours crouched in the pouring rain. She was ill and returning from seeing the doctor. If she stood up, the soldiers threatened to let off tear gas.
What I can tell you is that there is no going back to the reality I inhabited. I have no idea how to reconcile the reality here with that of people living within the state of Israel. I'm soaking it in and trying to figure out the next step.
I am a human faucet.
-NL
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Blooper #1
In Haifa, Hannah, Nova and Henry Schalit were dying to get to the Beach and it was shabbat so there weren't buses running. So, we walked to the nearest Beach and there were locked gates. Henry, being the god of Chutzpah, asked five people if we could get into a sailing area that connected to the beach until someone let us in. We were told we could only stay a little while so we sat down on the beach and played in the sand and discussed our personal strengths while Henry took a nap. There were a lot of people there for a while and then fewer, but we made eye contact once in a while. We joked about getting locked in. Then when we were ready to go we walked over to the door and realized we could not get out because there was a giant padlock on it. We searched for other ways to exit and found none except for a hole in the fence that Hannah tried to climb through but didn't fit. There was barbed wire and a giant wall surrounding us. Then Hannah noticed a spot where the fence and some barbed wire ended out by some rocks partially in the water. We saw a guy across a parking lot and started waving our arms at him but he looked blankly at us, and then started walking towards us. He came down to the rocky spot that Hannah found and moved some barbed wire and motioned for us to come. One by one, we maneuvered our way down around the fence, up the rocks and into the parking lot, then squeezed through a gap in the parking lot gate and made it back onto the main road safely! The only thing we forgot was the bag of hummus and vegetables.
We also dodged a cybertoothshark, a man-eating walrus and a poisonous ruggaluch.
We also dodged a cybertoothshark, a man-eating walrus and a poisonous ruggaluch.
Shalam.org
We are in the Northern part of Israel, staying with some distant relatives of Hannah's. We were blessed with hospitatlity of Nova's family friends last night. We've been doing more thinking about what being in the land of Israel means to us. We are pondering how our identity as a Jewish Minnesotan/ Texan is linked to the state of Israel, what it means that our ancestors came from here thousands of years ago and their descendents then fled to Israel and displaced many people who had been living here since then. This is such a sacred place to so many people.
Today we talked about methods of coexistence with family and freinds, both social workers with very different perspectives. We discussed the importance of joining Jewish and Arab schools in Israel, which are now primarily seperate. In most Jewish schools they study Jewish history, hebrew and English and in Arab schools they study hebrew, Arabic and Arab history. How can true co-existance take place if people are not shown in the classroom how to respect and understand eachother? The default is for children to learn their own histories and regard the other based on what they see and hear, which is often negative and violent.
Today we talked about methods of coexistence with family and freinds, both social workers with very different perspectives. We discussed the importance of joining Jewish and Arab schools in Israel, which are now primarily seperate. In most Jewish schools they study Jewish history, hebrew and English and in Arab schools they study hebrew, Arabic and Arab history. How can true co-existance take place if people are not shown in the classroom how to respect and understand eachother? The default is for children to learn their own histories and regard the other based on what they see and hear, which is often negative and violent.
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hannahla
Jerusalem
Beach in Tel Aviv
sweet lovin, nagila, tractor, sunset. this is the good life, folks
