Hannah Heads Home

Well folks,

My time in the Middle East is coming to an end. It has been an exhausting and fulfilling journey for me. I created new roots in Deheisha refugee camp in Palestine, in the Bedouin community of Tel Sheva, and in East Jerusalem with a community of Internationals and Palestinians and Israelis. The trip began traveling through Israel and ended mostly in the West Bank.

I have learned a lot through spending time in the Deheisha refugee camp and traveling through various cities and towns in Palestine. I have heard stories of peoples villages lost and lives drastically altered by the occupation. At this point its all that many people know. I believe people must be able to move freely through their land or suffering, hatred and resentment will continue to build.

Nova has been my companion and support throughout the trip. Her solid presence has made this trip possible for me. Her boldness and curiosity have been an inspiration. It has truly been a pleasure traveling and living with Nova throughout much of my experience here.

I am heading back to the United States in a few days. This journey has impacted my understanding of the politics and people of this region and will stick with me for years to come.

If the world knew

Signs of a diseased nation poisoned with racism and hiding behind notions of 'security':

1. Israeli soldiers at the airport strip searching 10 year old girls because they have Arabic surnames.
2. Guards targeting a 79 year old holocaust survivor after she participated in a nonviolent protest on the west bank, strip searching and molesting her.
3. Soldiers strip searching a Palestinian American woman with Cerebral Palsy and refusing to return her maxi pad or let her purchase a new one.

These are true stories about women's experiences at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. There is a very powerful 13 minute documentary that you can watch (I highly recommend):
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/about_us/easiesttargets.html. This makes my phone disappearance at the Jordanian border seem minuscule, my heart sink, and my stomach turn. I'm less than excited to go to the airport.

Sweet Baby Gamla

Last month we spent 2 days on a farm in the Negev Desert (Southern Israel) with a Bedouin community and the Israeli project Bustan (www.bustan.org). Bedouin people are indigenous to the Middle East and are traditionally nomadic. Their lives have been drastically changed by statehood, land development, and Israeli laws. Most Bedouin living within the state of Israel have lost their land to the state, which has been used for military bases, creating Jewish towns and other developments, airports, etc. They have been relocated into townships, or urban dwellings, where they are detached from their land and poverty and crime fester without opportunity.

This community is working actively to try to maintain their traditional ties to the land and are creating a Bedouin agricultural and education center. But even their land is being threatened by land confiscation by the israeli government through house demolitions and forced removals. Their family has already been moved from their traditional lands and never received the promised compensation.

We had the opportunity to work in their garden, gather medicinal plants from the desert, and spend time with their family in their home. We had some of the best hospitality of our lives, as well as a wrestling match, acrobatics, yoga, singing and dancing, and an arabic-hebrew-english game of telephone with the women and girls in the family. And, of course, spent some time with a one day old camel.

Muslim Prayer outside Demascus Gate

Al Aqsa Mosque inside the Old City in Jerusalem is one of the holiest Muslimssites in the world. You have probably heard about the controversy with the excavasions under the Mosque, as people are outraged that the Israeli authorities would jeopardize the foundation of their holy site. Every Friday, hundreds of men go to the Mosque to pray but for several weeks, men between the ages 18-45 are not allowed into the Old City. Hannah captured this photo of men praying on the street outside Demascus Gate, the entrance into the Old City in East Jerusalem. Israeli soldiers stand over them, ready to squash any resistance.

Rosie come back

Who knew that circus performers were taking over the west bank?

And of Course, One Donkey

My Day
by Nova Luna

Today I went with my teammate at the International Women's Peace Service to a nearby village in the Salfit distriction in the northern West Bank. This area is where the separation wall reaches the deepest inside the West Bank, 22 km east of the 1967 internationally recognized border. We sat down with the mayor of this town and began to gather information about house demolitions and land confiscations in the village. When the separation wall is finished being built, 40 percent of their land will be lost to Israeli military control. They also have 17 current house demolition orders from the Israeli government, most likely on the basis of not having building permits. This is, by the way, land supposed to be within jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority.

We left the mayor's office to go meet with a 56 year old woman who recently returned from the hospital after being shot by the Israeli military by a rubber coated lead bullet in the face. She was walking home one day when the Israeli army had instigated and responded to children throwing stones in the village. she walked up a hill, approaching a corner. Two soldiers were crouched down behind a wall aiming to shoot. One soldier fired a bullet at her face that hit her nose and detatched a section of her right nostril. She had 20 stitches and the doctor has to remove skin from another place on her body to resculpt her nose. With a slightly sharper angle of the wrist, this woman would be dead. Her family was very sweet and gave us fruit.

Then we went and visited another family. Their 20 year old son had been taking us around the village and was very excited to give us samples from his perfume business. He not only gave us small bottles to take home, but doused us as we sat on the couch with old lady poperi. Then his sister in law took us out back and her mother took us into the small room where they make bread in smokey fire pit and keep the farm animals--2 rabbits, 1 duck, several chickens laying eggs, and of course, 1 donkey. Outside there was the most beautiful 2 year old girl and her mom, let's just say she is most definitely part of our team, as they say.

Then we visited a close friend to the organization and her fabulous family. They hold
women's strength at the forefront and are not afraid to shine and take risks. Her oldest daughters sang and all her children danced for us when we traveled on the Birthright Unplugged trip last month. We ate good food and as we were leaving the village in a car, we almost hit a horse running straight at us.

Of course, the day cannot end without me eating 4 or 5 chocolate cookies and refilling the hot water bottle that i carry around with me in absense of heating and good slippers.

Tree for You

Wow, we have actively avoided writing on this blog for one month! I, for one, have been overcome with a sense of paralyse when I think about how to communicate all that I have experienced in the last month. Now to take it one step at a time.

Here is a poem that I wrote a month and a half ago after learning more about the history of tree planting in the state of Israel, sponsored by the JNF (Jewish New Fund, governs a large portion of all land in Israel). Many Jews around the world have childhood memories of putting quarters into charity boxes at synagogue to support planting trees in Israel. Supporting the ecological environment of the holy land seems like a simple, non-political, of course situation. But I have learned that many of the forests that have been planted by the JNF in Israel were strategically placed to cover up destroyed Palestinian villages when they were pushed off their land in 1948 and the state of Israel was formed. There were 531 Palestinian villages destroyed during this war. This history is rarely told.

Many visitors to Israel have planted a tree in the Holy Land as a commemoration to loved ones, or a way to connect with the land. My sister was one of these people several years ago and she planted a tree for our grandfather, the most gentle and loving man in the world, who was dying with cancer. This was a huge gesture of love, amidst untold tragedy. I think the poem can take it from here:

Tree for you

Here is a tree for you, Grandpa

a strong Jerusalem Pine in the holy land

planted as a seedling with hope

and memory of your strength and love

a gift from your granddaughter

a way to connect to what is sacred

and spiritual

and alive

A tree for you, Grandpa

covering the ashes of a fallen village

a cemetery of lives lost

with no tombstone

a forest planted to make israel beautiful

and to hide the blood spilled

the voices distant and muffled

by a cement wall

A tree for you

when millions of people live without a safe home

without the means to protect their land against rape, theft, and destruction

without hope

There is a tree planted for you, Grandpa,

where homes used to keep families warm

while today young children grow up in cages

There is a tree just for you,

my dearest Grandfather,

a token of my sorrow

a dream that some day fear will not allow us to turn our backs

and pretend we do not see.