lots of stuff

i have not been able to get to a computer for this whole week, really. so sorry about not being in touch. that also means that there has been a lot to tell, so if you have time, there is plenty below. starting with "the beginning (sunday)" i go through each day or two with my thoughts and activities. i have also included an article in the blog because i was not able to get the link to work correctly, so you can read it or skip it. its pretty depressing. but it tells the story better than i can relate it. then there is other stuff. i am sorry it is so much, i am not sure if you will have a chance to read it all. but its what i got.


























































(top to bottom, left to right) mural at the palestine fair trade association, abdelrahim (abed) and his beautiful heart, the third oldest church in the world (in a VERY old village in jenin), harry the german-israeli acupuncturist who let me stay at his house in a kibbutz in the north of israel, good man great ideas. he too wants to (and is) teaching chiropractic courses to palestinian farmers, tawfik the man in charge of the medical center in bartaa who lost his mother three weeks ago at a checkpoint, treatment room, front of medical center in bartaa.

jenin, jenin (wednesday, thursday)

in jenin i first met with abdelrahim's organization the palestine fair trade association, http://www.palestinefairtrade.org/ the first of its kind, selling fair trade and organic olive oil, olives, zaatar, sundried tomatoes, etc. it has been incredibly helpful to the farmers, according to abed. they are interested in having an acupuncturist come to teach the farmers or to do travelling clinics in the area to provide service to the 25 surrounding villages where the farmers have no access at all to any care. one of the men showed me his back, explaining an ancient muslim tradition of cutting the back and then placing cups over it to bleed the back! very similar to chinese, and in similar locations. thought that might be exciting to those practioners reading this...

from there i went to the jenin governmental hospital, it is a sad place. almost every night the israeli army has some sort of operation in the refugee camp, which was totally destroyed several years ago. if you have never heard of this, please look it up, terrible. the 2002 massacre is denied to this day by the IDF. anyway, every night there is some operation, which inevitably ends up in the injury or death of several people. the hospital is filled with them. i did not know it then, but that night there was to be another israeli invasion of the camp.

after the hospital i went to the jenin creative cultural center http://orgs.takingitglobal.org/19381 which has a pretty bad website for such a cool organization. it is much like the al-rowwad center in aida refugee camp. the founder of the center, yousef shalabi, is the man who started ISM branch in jenin, who now has shifted his focus of resisting the occupation to the cultural center. it is a fascinating place, and they are also very interested in the acupuncture trainings. he said that he needed to take a step back from ism because of the psychological damage that he had recieved - having seen children, women, men, and even internationals shot or killed by the israeli army. sustained years of that resistance had taken its toll. he wanted to begin treatments for himself right away.

next door to the center is the jenin branch of the treatment and rehabilitation center for victims of torture. the director gave me a tour of the facility, and showed me a mosaic making workshop for a group of twelve men who had been tortured. he told me the stories of some of the men. one man had no eye because he looked at a soldier at a checkpoint and was beaten in the one eye severly for a hour, then taken to prison where he was not given care. another man had no hands. they told me that he was on his way to his fields to prune his trees and the settlers came and cut off both of his hands with his shears. mahmoud reminded me that torture is just one level of the trauma that palestinians have suffered. in fact there are layers upon layers, before one can even come close to being resolved another happens. a man has his child killed, his house demolished, fields taken from him, beaten at a checkpoint, put in prison, tortured.

that evening was also very difficult for me, since i spent the night in a small village outside of jenin. while the army was in the refugee camp, i was outside in a quite town, drinking endless coffee with every person who saw me. if palestinians can say one word in english, it is "welcome". but the night was hard because i saw the repercussions of this structural violence in the home where i was staying. the wife and child were treated very poorly, and i can only imagine that my presence may have delayed some sort of physical violence. everybody was on edge, all the time. it was an uncomfortable night. and when mahmoud told me he had been in prison for two and a half years and i remembered that dr. sehwail said that 95% of prisoners are tortured, i could only imagine what he endured. and now the cycle of violence spins on, damaging the family, the children. it was very sad.

in the morning we headed back into town and the signs the army had been there were evident. boys throwing stones at fully armored jeeps were getting shot at and chased. checkpoints were up everywhere. when we left town we realized that the previous afternoon nobody with a jenin regional ID was allowed to leave, NOBODY. this means that nobody could leave to get out of the region for a day. no matter the reason. (abdelrahim told me that he had to wait four hours at a checkpoint. checkpoints up everywhere. lots of people being held. ) the same was true for nablus and tulkarm. nobody left. the inhumanity continues. i drove through the refugee camp and it was "normal". business as usual. just another night of terror.

i returned to ramallah after three hours of avoiding sketchy checkpoint in tiny towns, i had a nice meeting with abdelrahim again, which was beautiful. and sad. he has such a big heart and i hope to see him again. our parting was difficult. he said that if there is anyting that he could for me, anywhere in the world, then he would do it. we both cried a little tear. then i went to bir zeit university to meet with ghassan andoni, the founder of ism. he is brilliant, and gentle, and full of wisdom he shared his vision of the future of the west bank, a very depressing story. he said that for the first time the internal conflict is more devastating than the occupation itself, and is hurting the movement to end the occupation. it hurts the international image, it hurts everyone internally. but he was quick to empasize that the internal violence is NOT A JUSTIFICATION for the occupation. in fact, the occupation has everything to do with the current violence. but he says the only way the internal conflict will end is through massive palestinian demands for ending the power struggle and corruption.

ghassan he also reaffirmed the need for alternative medicine in the territories. ghassan, like so many others, confirmed that people are fascinated with the medicine, have heard so much about it, but have never had acces to it. there is a strong desire for profound healing, he said, and people want to find the tools for that. the meeting with him made my whole trip worthwhile, in some ways. then five hours to the north to wait for the qalkilya checkpoint tomorrow to work with physicians for human rights.

a bigger story about barta'a

so i have an article about barta'a where i was working, that was written in haaretz about tawfik and his mother. it tells the story better than i can retell it here. very sad. written by gideon levy.

"For the first time in my life I see my mother suffering and I can't help
her. For 46 years, from the time I was born, such a thing never happened -
that I couldn't help my mother," says the son sadly, after he tried in vain
to take his mother from their home in east Barta'a to the government
hospital in Jenin, a 20-minute drive during ordinary times, which haven't
been ordinary for a long time.

It's possible that it was his mother's time to die in any case, but why did
it have to be such a humiliating death, on the floor of a van at the
checkpoint? How many more such articles will still be written, and how many
times will the Israel Defense Forces explain that "humanitarian cases" are
allowed to pass through the checkpoint, an explanation that repeatedly
contrasts with reality? On Monday three weeks ago, Kamela Kabha, 78, died
that way at the Reihan (Barta'a) checkpoint, while her son Tawfik pleaded
for her life.

The situation in Barta'a is misleading. There are about 5,000 residents in
the eastern part of town, and about 3,500 in the western part - residents of
the territories and Israeli citizens, respectively. An imaginary border
passes between them. Israel built the separation fence east of the town, to
annex more settlements, which actually has brought economic benefit to
Barta'a - shopping on Saturday and very cheap dentists for Israelis - and
therefore some people are pleased with the fence. But the town has been cut
off from its natural surroundings and the main city, Jenin, and has become
an enclave: Residents are not allowed to go to Israel, and it's hard to
reach Jenin via the checkpoint, to work, shop or see a doctor.        
    
During recent months, the main contact the Palestinians have had at the
Reihan checkpoint, which closes in on Barta'a from the east, has been with
the employees of a private security company. The residents miss the soldiers
who were there before: With them, they say, you could sometimes talk.
Instead the tough guys from the private firm came, with rifles and dogs, and
the treatment, say residents, has become even more inhumane.

Recently we saw the men. The one responsible for the checkpoint on behalf of
the security company, Charlie, spoke in a tone of authority: "Lots of people
are waiting at the checkpoint? What's the problem with that? Do I owe you an
accounting? What, are you a supervisor from the Defense Ministry?"

That evening Kamela didn't feel well. A heavy woman, she had suffered
recently from high blood pressure and too much sugar. Her children gathered
around her and her son, Tawfik, a member of the town council, called the
doctor, who decided she should be rushed to the hospital in Jenin. But it
was already late and the Reihan checkpoint closes at 10:45 P.M. Even if the
guards would open the checkpoint, the family knew they would have to stop at
the Dotan checkpoint, which is locked up tight at night. The doctor
therefore recommended that they wait until morning.

Kamela's condition worsened and at 6 A.M. Tawfik, who is also in charge of
coordination and liaison with the IDF on behalf of the council, began to
phone the Office of Coordination and Liaison, in Salem. "My mother is ill
and I want an ambulance to come and take us to Jenin," he explained to the
woman clerk at the office. "Get back to me in a few minutes."

In order to allow a Red Crescent ambulance from Jenin to go to Barta'a,
there must be coordination. About a month ago at a meeting with the Israeli
official in charge of the liaison headquarters, Tawfik and other council
members were promised that emergency vehicles, ambulances and firetrucks
would be allowed to pass through the Reihan checkpoint quickly.

Tawfik says he phoned the headquarters five or six times about his mother,
and each time was given the runaround: "I'm checking," said the clerk.
Kamela, like all residents of Barta'a, had a permanent transit permit for
passing through the checkpoint - "for entry and staying, including sleeping
in a closed military area, the seam area, declaration No. 02/03." Tawfik
gave the clerk the details.

Meanwhile he also called the Red Crescent offices in Jenin and ordered an
ambulance. The ambulance arrived at the checkpoint at about 7 A.M. The
security firm's employees did not allow it to pass. The ambulance waited for
almost an hour, until it was forced to return to Jenin.

What happened at the checkpoint was described by the paramedic, Said
al-Atrash, in testimony that appears on the B'Tselem Web site: "At about
6:50 A.M. I set out with my colleague Faiz in the direction of the Barta'a
crossing. We arrived at about 7:05 and advanced to the gate because we knew
that the crossing had been coordinated. Several guards demanded that we move
back. We drove in reverse and stopped at a distance of 20 meters from the
crossing. We thought that we were only waiting until they finished checking
the vehicle in front of us, and then they would call us ...

"About 25-30 minutes after we arrived, we contacted our headquarters. Faiz,
who knows Hebrew well, approached the gate on foot to try to convince the
officer in charge to allow us to pass ... but they didn't agree ... Before
we left the place in the direction of Jenin a volunteer from Machsom Watch
arrived and asked us why we were there. We told her we were trying to pass
through to evacuate a sick woman whose life was in danger. The woman made a
call on her cell phone and at the same time one of the guards signaled to
her to approach the gate. When we reached the gate, the official from the
security firm told us to go back. We decided to return to Jenin."

Meanwhile Kamela's breathing became increasingly difficult. Tawfik again
told the clerk that his mother was in serious condition and she again told
him to phone back. With her last ounce of strength, the mother begged her
sons: "Take me to the hospital." The situation was desperate. In the absence
of any other solution, Tawfik contacted one of the village men who has a
Volkswagen Transporter and asked him to come to evacuate his dying mother.

The sons dismantled the seats, carried their mother on a mattress and placed
her on the floor of the vehicle. It was almost 9 A.M.; three hours had
passed since the first phone call to the liaison office. They arrived at the
checkpoint some time later - the dying Kamela and her son, her daughter, her
sister, and the driver of the Transporter.

A female security guard asked the driver for his papers and permits. Tawfik
turned to the guard: "Do me a favor, my mother is dying. Hurry a little."
The minutes passed. Tawfik recalls: "I behaved like a crazy man." The driver
opened the door of the vehicle to show the guard the dying woman. "Look at
her, she'll die at the checkpoint," shouted the son.

Charlie's angels were in no rush. Munir, the Civil Administration officer,
arrived after hearing the shouts of the desperate son. About 20 minutes
passed until the checking of the permits was completed.

When the officer Munir saw the woman's condition, he himself quickly ordered
the ambulance from Jenin - the same one that had not been allowed to pass
through about two hours earlier, also apparently at his orders. The
ambulance set off and meanwhile the Transporter was finally allowed to cross
the checkpoint on the way to Jenin.

Kamela died about 100 meters after they passed the checkpoint. Tawfik says
that he called Munir so he could see what had happened. The ambulance from
Jenin arrived as well, and the medical team could only pronounce the woman's
death. On the way back in the Transporter with the body, the guards once
again asked for the permits, including that of the deceased woman. Tawfik
says that he spoke to Charlie, who said: "I'm not responsible for this, the
army runs the checkpoint." Munir also told him: "I'm not responsible for
this, the security firm runs the checkpoint."

Says Tawfik: "I'm not interested who's responsible ... What's important to
me is that it doesn't happen again. That the world sees what they're doing
to us."

After we relayed the details of the incident to Physicians for Human Rights,
the association's researcher, Ibrahim Habib, sent a harsh letter of
complaint to the Military Advocate General, Brigadier General Avihai
Mandelblit: "In light of the unfortunate outcome of the incident, and in
order to prevent a repetition of such incidents in the future, we ask that
you investigate the behavior of the soldiers and the security guards at the
checkpoint and at the Salem liaison office, including the officer who
answers to the name Munir, and to try those responsible."

The IDF spokesman replied: "The IDF expressed its regret to the family of
Kamela Kabha and clarified the procedures among the soldiers at the
checkpoint and among all the forces operating in the sector. In this case,
the ambulance was in fact delayed for over an hour until the required escort
force arrived. The investigation of the incident did not result in an
unequivocal conclusion regarding the connection between the delay at the
crossing and the death of the woman."

Kamela is not alone. In Barta'a they can tell of Khabab Kabha, a woman in
labor who was forced to give birth about two months ago at this checkpoint,
after being refused permission to cross late in the evening; about Hosni
Kabha, 48, who about a year and a half ago suffered a heart attack at the
checkpoint after he was delayed there; and about Leila Ibrahim, who returned
from the hospital after a Caesarean section, and was forced to cross the
checkpoint on foot and to stand for hours in the examination rooms.

Since the security firm began working at the checkpoint, they say in
Barta'a, people are sometimes delayed for hours, standing in cramped
examination rooms. On a Sunday a few weeks ago we met Hayfa Kabha, in her
eighth month and carrying twins, who says she stood for over an hour in the
room, without being able to sit. She left for the hospital in Jenin early in
the morning for tests, and returned at about 1:30 P.M., after the security
check, exhausted. That same day others told us that they had been delayed
between one and two hours at the checkpoint, on their way home.

Kamela's funeral was also delayed. After they brought her body back to
Barta'a, they waited for about two hours until her sisters could receive
permits to pass through the checkpoint and get to the funeral. "God will
help," says Tawfik, citing his mother's last words, and adds, "God will help
at the checkpoint."

When we returned there with him the following Sunday, we saw Charlie. Armed
with dark glasses, he ignored us. "At least he could have shaken my hand,"
added Tawfik, "and told me that he shares my sorrow."

barta'a is a village that i saw with an invisible border, right through the middle of town. no checkpoint there, but if any palestinian is found on the other side he is immediately sent to prison for a minimum of two months. later there is a checkpoint that goes deeper into the west bank. this is where i could not cross on monday, so i went to jalame checkpoint (further north) where i could practically see jenin. again there they would not let me pass. so i took a twelve hour detour to make it to jenin by 10 am the following day. i passed through several checkpoint and saw at one there was a group of women from machsomwatch! yeah! we passed through quickly, and everyone in the car was happy because the day before there was a four hour wait. undoubtedly, the women heard of this and made their presence known. too late for the people travelling yesterday, and alleviating some suffering today. i asked the palestinians in the van with me what they thought about the women, and they only shook their heads. they dont want the women there. they dont want the fucking soldiers there! it is still obviously humiliating that one has to pass through a checkpoint every 20 minutes to travel in your own land.

it isnt a poem (monday and tuesday)

so i had a very long day today, quite difficult. at the end of the day i tried to make a laundry list of all the things i felt and saw, difficult in itself, since there was just too much. but i will just put the laundry list here, and if there are questions about specifics, i can get to them later...

today i saw
a tiny flat stone with a hole in the middle. a smiling woman holding fresh bread, offering. a man kiss both my cheeks. a man die slowly and painfully of heart problems in an ambulance at a checkpoint. the beach. the wall. guns. fresh figs. busy busses and shopping. men in flip-flops. dusty car windows. flags. peace signs. pistachios. pain. laughter. humiliation. faith. schools with boarded windows. writing on the wall. a man shed tears when he told me the story of how three weeks ago his mother died while being held for hours at a checkpoint on the way to jenin. a woman with a sore throat. a woman with a needle in her hand. 5 year old children counting to ten in english for me, smiling and laughing. a red-faced schoolmaster. coffee, tea, hummus, olives, cheese, oil. the place where the only olive press was in the town, the major source of agricultural income, flattened by soldiers. nasty men and women laugh at me for three hours. private security now, mercenaries, doing the hateful dirty work. telling me to go away. go 12 hours on 8 busses, 6 taxis to take a trip that should take 45 minutes. twice. a doctor from jenin who was paid 5000 shekels ($1000) because the soldiers said they had indeed made a mstake when they killed his two of his three youngest children. US AID. organic plums and big guns. harry potter. cigarrettes. rubble. grapes on the vines. concrete, plastic trash. metal detectors. a huge golden sun over olive trees. mini skirts. faces covered. concertina wire.

so there was probably more, but i cant remember. today i saw a cage. i realized that when i was walking down the street in ramallah (one of the many stops i made today) that all the fancy shoes and purses are still in a cage.

the beginning (sunday)

in the morning i went to the office of the palestinian centre for human rights. http://www.pchrgaza.org/ . they have a lot of good information on their website, including a weekly report on the human rights violations in the occupied palestinian territory. here is the link to see the report for the last week. its astonishing - http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/2007/30-08-2007.htm. the information about health care in the west bank on the website is quite dated, which they had assured me that it wasnt when i was not taking notes, but anyway, it still gives staggering statistics. as of 2003

17 on-duty medical personnel have been killed by the Israeli army during the intifada. At least 206 have been injured. Palestinian paramedics have
also been arrested, beaten, and used as human shields on numerous occasions.

10 Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulances have been destroyed and 80% of its ambulance fleet has been damaged. During Israeli attacks on
Palestinian cities, Israeli forces have shelled and raided hospitals and clinics, including Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron, and al-Bireh resulting in
destruction of medical equipment and disruption of health care for patients.

http://www.pchrgaza.org/medical_care_stat.htmli spent the day in jerusalem, having more meetings. today was different because the meetings were more for me than for the project, and i met with two very different but great organizations. http://www.awalls.org/ is the website for the israeli anarchists against the wall. they have been doing direct action regarding the wall since it began construction, and many activists have been jailed for it. currently they have been focusing on Bil'in, where on tuesday there was a huge victory! an ILLEGAL settlement, according to israel (there are legal settlements and ILLEGAL outposts, according to israeli law, but international law says that ALL settlements are illegal) wanted to expand further into the surrounding area, and the wall was built to accomodate. but an israeli high court deemed the construction illegal and ordered the moving of the wall back so that the local farmers can get to their lands again. it seems small, but people here are very excited for at least the smallest victory. later in the day i met with machsomwatch, women for human rights, http://www.machsomwatch.org/. the organization is comprised of only women who travel to the occupied territories to monitor checkpoints and report back to israel (and the world) what they have seen. their goals are to inform the public and hopefully be a peaceful presence at the checkpoint. their monitoring has had some impacts, mostly on the day-to-day level for palestinians. unfortunately their presence at the checkpoints is only temporary and therefore only provides short-term relief to palestinians trying to travel within their lands, and when they are gone, the indignities continue. this is the sad truth. i witnessed this on my way to jenin, which i will talk about later.