Fear, Anger and an unforgettable day.

I have refused so far to keep track of my days chronologically. Today, however, must be frozen in this page from the beginning to the end because what I experienced thought me more about myself and about others than thousands reflections.

Friday: I spent the night in Jerusalem with my nablussian Roommates. In the morning me and D. left for Bilin with three other friends. Bilin is a small village right at the border of the apharteid Wall that Israel has been building since 2002. The Wall has been built for 'security reasons' and cuts into Palestinian land reducing significantly the already limited freedom of movement in the West Bank. The UN declared the wall illegal in 2004. Israel keeps building.

In Bilin ISM (International Solidarity Movement), is attempting to supervise the many human rights violation committed by the Israeli army. The village organizes a demonstration that is currently taking place once a week, on Friday. And here we go.

The demonstration receives large support from the international community because it is a mean of peaceful Resistance. Internationals are encouraged to goo because their presence, and international pressure, limits the Israeli's response to the protest and gives it an international audience. The Palestinian cannot win the war, but they can win the world supports, testing Israel military and political strength.

Having grown up going to demonstrations, I see them as the expression of a dynamic social dialogue and as an exercise of democracy. Welcome to Israel, many have told me today. Demonstrations here are a type of warfare and they are brutal.

We arrived to Bilin with a taxi and got dropped by a group of about 60 people standing around in a street. The demonstration had not started and we had an introductory chat with a friend of a friend working with ISM. He gave us tips with a calm, expert tone. They sounded like the safety talk given on planes but without the 'in the unlikely even of an emergency landing...'. Basically, we need to have something to cover our nose when (or if, I cannot remember) we get gassed. Keep control, run in the opposite direction of the wind, cover your head and pay attention to the trajectory of the gas bombs.

Still quite confused we begin marching ten minutes later. It is a small group of people and they are mostly international. People similar to us, young and older people from Europe and the US, some press and some Palestinians. I intend to stay at a safe distance and I spot two older ladies with funny hats holding a French flag. I see them as my safe island, I cannot imagine anybody hurting two old French Ladies with funny hats.

We start walking. We are not running, no screaming, we have no weapons, no stones, no nothing. In many we have cameras, a powerful weapon. I have never seen such a peaceful,almost passive, demonstration. We heard a few songs and a couple of people held Palestinian flags. As we were walking down I felt little anger and little adrenaline in the air, it was almost disappointing.

We are walking in a little street, around us an astonishing panorama and the Wall, in front of us, in the distance. We spot the Israeli soldiers that stand with jeeps and military guns behind the fence. Shortly the first gas bomb arrives. The air fills with a dense smoke. It hurts my lungs but it is still bearable. For 15 minutes gas bombs keep coming at a regular interval and they drop in the fields next to us, at a security distance. I think the worst is gone.

It is a matter of seconds. I am walking next to my friend when all the sudden the people in front of me start screaming. I see the sky full of smoke and instinctively I turn around. I am not thinking. What I see in front of me I will never forget: 5 gaz bombs touching the ground in front of my eyes. They are right on the street only few meters away from me and they keep coming down. I am terrified. I cannot breath and keep my kafia on my mouth. The air is just unbreathable and my skin is on fire, I am angry: why the fuck am I here-WHy_
All that comes out of my mouth for the few minutes following this is 'help me'. I look at my roommate and see myself saying 'help me' like an idiot, like a bad actor in a bad american movie. Why am I telling her help me?? Why on earth am I not helping her instead?
She is running next to me, she cannot breath. She looks at me with the most helpless look I have seen from her: I can't help you, she manages to say.

I see an olive tree and I go under it. There a bunch of Palestinian and an international girl I had talked to before the demonstration. I am still saying help me. They give me an onion and tell me to put it on my nose. At this point I lose my roommate and see other Friend. Her knee is bleeding and her eyes are full of tears. We put some water on the cut and I clean it with my kafia.

I stay under the tree watching people come and go screaming, crying. Some are normal and focused. They know what to expect and they know how to act. There are a couple of cars with 'press' written on them. I wonder what the hell they say about what happens: it is so absurd I cannot stop feeling angry, so angry. From the olive tree I can see the Israeli soldiers behind the wall, with military suits and helmet. I wonder what they orders have been. I wonder how they feel about this.

In the mess, children are the only one that really know what's up. They are helplessly trowing stone from the fields around the street. The soldiers' aim at them and they keep covering their mouths but they stay. Back in the mess, which I enter trying to locate my friends, I see a boy, must have been 8 or 9, coming out of the field in a cloud of smoke. He is like a surreal vision, like everything else.

The Israeli soldiers do not give us a fucking break. We got their point I think. They continue trowing gaz without interruption.

After 1 h or so the situations seems having calmed down. People are going back to the city center and I finally find all my friends again. They are fine. But their eyes are so out of it, I imagine my eyes must be too. I am in shock.

We talk with some international that have spent some time in Bilin helping out people. Their stories are dense, but they seem more comfortable with surreal. Seems something people get used to here.

We hop on a service and go back to Ramallah. We go seat in a European looking cafe, get a juice and try to calm down. It takes me an half hour to feel I can do anything at all. We share our prospectives- we would only be able to actually have a rational conversation about what happened 2 days later, in the balcony of our apartment in Nablus.

The day changes completely tone in its end. I went to the dead see and watched an amazingly red sunset why sipping beer with a bunch of people. Everything was calm and beautiful and when the sun went down it let space to a night sky packed with lights. I felt in connection with the people around me and with everything else and felt grateful for the beauty of what was around me...and thankful I surpassed the afternoon...

I could not help feeling guilty through out the day. I never thought I could be so sell-fish in a situation of emergency. I am not sure how high the possibility of getting seriously injured must have been in Bilin. What mattered for me is the fact that I felt I could dye and I have never been so terrified.

We thought a lot about what happened in Bilin. The reaction to the demonstration is without any doubs so extreme. We discussed whether we would go back... it is a form of terrorism at the edge between physical and psychological- actually both. This is exactly what Israel wants, right? They want us to get the point that it is not worthed going back. We thought about how frustrating it must be to feel that there are no options to resist. When Palestinian use violence they are terrorists. If they resort to non violence they are victims of terrorism...fucking security reasons are the secret word to Israeli's terrorism.

In all this mess I learned a lot today. I learned what it means to have fear and what it means to be angry, to the edge. Of course it is nothing compared to how Palestinians experience on a regular basis, but the picture that I took in my head about how I felt during the demonstration will help me understand others better- and this is to me priceless.

Fragments

After some days of silence, I am back on my blogging schedule forced by an overload of observations that are hanging out inside my brain randomly, and making my effort to ‘rationalize’ is almost painful. Experiences are made firstly through our senses and then processed as a mental exercise. It is on these senses, and on my feelings that I would like to start this brainstorming session today. In this blog entry, organization is something you should not expect- just to make things clear-. Instead, I will write a series of mental pictures.

- On Wednesday, as I was walking back from my lesson in the late afternoon I realized that I was simply ‘walking it out’. I was completely by myself walking on a one of the ridiculously steep streets of Nablus, and I was in a state of total euphoria. The sun had just stopped being unbearable, the city had its usual sober vivacity, and I had just finished a long day working in Askar. Yet, nothing in particular had happened and it was one of these average days in which you feel you do have a routine and it makes you feel safe. While I was in the middle of my euphoria, a man starts following me from the back and when I turn he almost screams ‘your cell phone!’. I know I met the guy before, but my head cannot connect. I look at him confused and say ‘what about it?’. Turns out that he works in the cell phone shop where I left, and forgot, my broken phone to see if I could retrieve my numbers. Inside the shop he gives me my old phone and tells me that I should go with a flash drive to pick up my numbers that are on the computers. I thank him and ask how much I own him. Nothing- I own him nothing, he insists, because it did not cost him money to do me the favor. I am back on the street, and walk to another office where I am giving Italian lessons to a colleague’s friend. I enter the office and he offers me tea. We talk about his interest for Italian and have a one hour lesson. He is very focused and eager to learn. After my lesson we have a chat and I leave. Of course, no money involved. Today, I have another lesson with my Italian student. He invites me for a super nice lunch that we eat at his office but that was cooked by his mother.- I never realized how good it feels to exchange things other than money-

- The conversations that I have been having with people about the process of exiting Israel through Tel Aviv make particularly anxious – (to be continued …)I am seriously concerned, and also seriously worried about getting in trouble with Israel for volunteering in the West Bank. At the same time I find my anxiousness pathetic. I have a Western passport and an embassy that would support me. My imagination can hardly hint to comprehend the sense of powerless and restless that Palestinians experience.

- For a nice break from the simplicity of Nablus’s life, the other volunteers and I decided to spend a mundane night in Ramallah. With the check points opened, Ramallah is a scarce hour away from Nablus; however, the difference between the two cities is striking. The awareness of being constantly checked out on the streets fades away and Ramallah feels more metropolitan, hectic and open. Ramallah has been a ‘base' through the past decades for many of the western activists, journalists and politicians working in the West Bank. Ironically, their presence shaped the city so greatly that Ramallah hardly feels like the rest of the West Bank.
We went out to a beer festival, which was basically a party which included beer, disco light, super western music and a bunch of people dancing around.

- On Friday, one of my palestinian colleagues (Y) invited me to take a little tour around Nablus. It was a simple day, which turned out to be one of my favourites. Y. and his cousin came to pick me up and we ended up having a drink on a little natural riot. The owner of a little coffee shop placed some chairs and table on the water and the location became one of the locals' favorites. We spent the afternoon talking about the Islam. Personally, I feel so detached from organized religion in this period of my life that listening to their interpretation and to the strenght of their belief made me feel confused, as if there was something I could not appreciate in the order of things. While we talk about the balance between good and bad actions that will place individuals into heaven, a bee is flothing around my glass of coke and Y's cousin, noticing that I am bothered kills the bee. I make some reference about Karma, and I start getting questions about my beliefs that up to that point I have not discussed. I answer that I simply try to do my best to be respectful to people around me and that I do 'pray to god', but I am not interested in his name. I guess I would not mind calling it Allah, or Dio. They are confused, but they explain to me how Islam respects all religions.

Storie

Questa e' una delle tante storie che mi capita di sentire in questo periodo che sento di dover condividere.

Questa e' una parte della storia che mi ha raccontato il mio studente di italiano, B. (25 anni), durante la nostra lezione. Questo ragazzo insegna ai bambini del circo di Nablus. Durante questa conversazione eravamo solo in due in un ufficio.

B: Crescendo, camminavamo per la strada in 30. Ero circondato da amici. Poi e' iniziata l'intifada. Uno viene ucciso, l'atro va in galera. Mi sono ritrovato un giorno a camminare per la strada, ed ero solo. Ho perso la speranza. Mi chiedo: 'Perche' io sono ancora vivo? Qual'e' il punto?'
Poi tanto, se perdo la speranza io non importa a nessuno.
Poi ho iniziato a lavorare con il circo ed ho trovato il mio modo per combattere l'occupazione. Il sorriso e' un'arma molto forte.

(silenzio per circa un minuto)

Una sera, ho sentito una bomba. Sembrava vicino la casa di mio cugino. Lo chiamo ma non risponde.
Allora chiamo il vicino. Lui risponde. Chiedo: 'Dov'e' M.' Lui mi dice 'hai sentito la bomba? M. e' morto.' ed attacca il telefono. Io rimango cosi'...

(silenzio)

Poi sono andato all'ospedale per vedere il corpo. Era nella cella frigorifera (??) e quando apro lo vedo. Non c'e' piu' la testa. Chiudo subito.
Non perche' ho paura, non perche' mi fa impressione.
Solo perche' voglio ricordare la bella faccia di mio cugino.

(silenzio)

Portavo sempre al collo la sua foto.

(pausa)

Un girno volevo mostrare il villaggio dei samaritani a due amici francesi. Io vivo 5 minuti a piedi dal check point. quando ero piccolo andavo sempre a giocare li, e' un passeggiata brevissima.
Quel giorno arrivo al check point e i soldati mi chiedono i documeti. Io spiego che voglio solo mostrare il villaggio ai miei amici. Lui vede la foto di mio cugino, mi prende e mi tira su e chiede, in ebraico, chi cazzo e' questo. Mio cugino, dico io. E' perche' hai la foto?. perche' e' morto, rispondo. Il soldato chiede: com'e' morto?
Lo avete ucciso voi, dico io.
Era un terrorista, risponde.
No, era mio cugino, dico io.

(Pausa)

il soldato mi dice: non me ne fraga un cazzo, fatti rivedere qui e ti sparo in fronte.
Non sono piu' tornato li'.

New Peace

Article on the resent peace developments from the New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/world/middleeast/20israel.html?_r=1&hp

Israel’s Religious Right and the Question of Settlements
Middle East Report N°89
International Crisis Group

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=6228&l=1

Much more than the biggest knafeh in the world.

Today is a very special day in Nablus. 'the most amazing day in Nablus in seven years' to say it with the words that many have used to describe the proportion of the event to me.

Officially, today Nablus is celebrating a record for the Guinness Book with the realization of the biggest Knafeh, a very popular local sweet cheese. An association of local bakers produce a batch of 74x1 m Knafeh. (!!!) The celebration, however, had a deeper undertone. At least three people have explained to me, with similar vocab and attitude, that in Nablus, celebrating in the street has not been possible for a long time, basically since the outbreak of the second Intifada which got heated in Nablus in 2000. My most reliable source when trying understand how people see their situation is repetition. A couple of sentences have been told to me almost exactly in the same form by numerous people. Hearing more than a couple of times the same powerful statement hinted to me that a certain view is shared by many. In my top list of common sentences there is 'We can expect the Israeli army to invade at any time', and 'life is not easy here, but we try to live a normal life, we have to live normal lives'.

The contrast between occupation and normal life creates a strange atmosphere. Palestinians in Nablus are extremelly proud of their culture and their city but there is a sense that many things are just not possible. The occupation is felt in crucial aspects of every day life. For example, a friend was explaining to me how his dad works with wood and just purchased a new machine from China. They are terrified that the machine will not be allow passed the check points, resulting in the loss of a very large investment. He added 'if they don't let it in for some reasons, there is nothing much we can do about it'. Before the Intifada, Nablus used to be the economic center of the West Bank and the beauty and potential of the city gives hope that Nablus might strengthen its position in the future.

Today represented pride and hope for Nablus. The city was in spot light in the the international media and to palestinians in Israel, the rest of the West Bank and in Gaza. Most importantly, the celebration was simply for the the citizen of Nablus themselves.
Together with the other volunteers of PH, I saw the eating of the biggest knafeh from a VIP position: the fourth floor of a mall right above the Knafeh's exposition. The city was packed with people, and highly controlled by soldiers that could be seen right and left with huge guns. The big guns, which I always find extremely intimidating, did not disrupt the enthusiasm. After the prime minister Salam Fayyad himself opened the event, hundred of people were eating Knafeh while thousands filled the streets.

What I had initially imagined a simple street festival, in a city where up to two years ago curfew was mandatory and where people still remember very clearly what it is like to leave inside a house for weeks and weeks, became 'the most amazing day in Nablus'. And it was indeed amazing, I must say.

Hebron. The Unending Siege.

06/12/09 7:36 pm Nablus, Palestine

Last weekend Gioel and I, along with a small group of other volunteers here at Project Hope took a day tour to the city of Hebron in southern Palestine with a Palestinian tour guide. The tour was part of the “Breaking the Silence” tours, meant to show the travesties that the Palestinian people face due to the Israeli occupation; a first hand view, the images that they won’t show you on the nightly news. I think that it is the most important thing that we have seen in our time here, yet it has taken me sometime to figure out how to put it into words.

Hebron is a city under siege. The city has always had great significance to Jews, Christians, and Muslims. It is called “The City of the Patriarchs,” the place of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and Jacob. Their cenotaphs are now located inside the Ibrahimi Mosque in the old city center. Problems began here when a group of Jewish residents were massacred in the market in ‘29. After the ’67 war, the Jewish settlers began returning to Hebron, bringing with them an attitude of militant solidarity. One way or another, they would colonize this city. Currently there is a population of about 400 Jewish settlers inhabiting the old city center at the expense of the previous Palestinian residents.

It works like this: the settlers slowly bought out those Palestinians that would sell. Those that wouldn’t they used force and intimidation to force out. They came in the night, moved in and took over. Naturally, the IDF followed to secure the safety of the settlers. As if they are the ones needing protection. The army cut the city in half, closing the main road and therefore markets to allow safe accuse for the settlers to their housing in the city center. The Israelis also took over the mosque, turning half of it into a synagogue. It’s not even that the Israelis want to be there either. They’re supported by the government who provides to most hardcore and fanatical of the settlers with stipends and incentives to live in Hebron in two-year shifts, replacing families leaving with new immigrants in order to maintain the 400 population. It’s like a game to them.

But lets be fair here. The Arab residents haven’t exactly been saints either. There have been attacks from both sides resulting in deaths and injuries of many. That said, the settlers are hardly innocent: heavily armed and filled with a fanatical militarism, they take the law into their own hands. We visited the home of a Palestinian family that is the last hold out on a now Jewish block. The settlers have attacked their family, throwing rocks, abducting children for periods of time, and even firebombing the house. The soldiers use the Palestinian rooftop water tanks in the Old City as target practice, forcing the Palestinian residents to walk across the city to carry their water back. Below the settlers houses the Palestinian market streets still exist. The shop owners had to construct makeshift nets and fencing above the street to protect from garbage, stones, bricks, bombs, even feces thrown down from the settlers above. This improvised ‘ammunition’ piles up on the nets, rotting above the heads of the Palestinians below. The sight and smell almost made me sick.

I understand that I am only seeing one side of the story here. Yes, there have been terrible acts from the Palestinians as well in the struggle, but what I have witnessed here really makes it hard to imagine that the Israelis can come up with a good, logical, ethical reason for their actions. The problem with Hebron is that I really want to stay impartial in this conflict. I really want to feel, to think that there is another side to this. Well, there is another side of course. But a meaningful side. An actual reason for them to do this. Of course I speak of the Israelis when I speak of ‘them.’ I want to know, to maybe understand why they would do something like this, but when you go there, when you see it first hand all you can feel, all you can think, is the pain, the hurt, the suffering… the desperation that the Palestinians feel. It is tangible. You can feel it in the streets, in the air around you. When you walk through a checkpoint in the old city center, just to get to the great Mosque for prayers, you see the hatred, the fear.

Nablus – A City of Action [Some More Thoughts on the City]

06/12/09 2:30 pm Nablus, Palestine

Nablus is the most important city, outside of al-Quds (Jerusalem), in Palestine. The city is a large, vibrant urban spread of dense urban blocks, welcoming green space, and breathtaking hillside panoramas. But most importantly, Nablus is a modern, functioning, living city.

Nablus, a city of about 134,000 inhabitants is a center of Palestinian culture, industry, and identity. An ancient city, also home to the Jewish Samaritans and Christians alike, Nablus was at the center of the second Intifada. As a launch pad for rockets and resistance fighters, Nablus felt the full crackdown from the Israeli Defense Force, cut off by checkpoints, host to a military occupation of the city center and nightly security raids in the refugee camps. Through all this, however, Nablus has survived and carried on. Today, one must almost look for the signs of the previous struggles, as the vibrant pulse of the cities energy is the first thing noticed on the step out of the taxi.

The people are a friendly and hospitable people, always excited to practice their English and invite visitors to sample their exotic flavors or view their beautiful wares. Nablus is known for its olive oil soap industry as well as a special sweet made from cheese call kanafeh. But anything else can be found in the Nablus markets as well: clothes, toys, candy, meat, spices, electronics, and furniture; anything you desire. Walking through the markets is a festival for the senses.

Everywhere, colors, smells, sights, sounds. Some familiar, some shockingly new, some repackaged but you know the game. I found the markets of Nablus strangely representative of Palestine as a whole, a place of extreme constrasts. Oddly new, yet comfortably traditional; at one time frighteningly intimidating yet wonderfully accommodating. A place of beauty and extreme desolation, but always the place of a great People.