occupation kills

Another exchange with another close friend. As the exchange develops, I'll keep posting the remainder.
Note: Plain text is the other person, and bold text is my reply.

To: tarek@tarek.2y.net
Subject: hi there!
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 05:10:58 -0400 (EDT)

tarek,

i have been thinking about you a lot lately. are you safe?? are you eating enough?!?! is there anyone there to hug you when you have a bad day?!?! silly things to think, i know, but i do think about them anyway. i'm glad that you are doing something you really believe in, and i support you - like i really do, but i also worry about you being so far away. well, not really being so far away, but being in such a dangerous place. please, just promise me one thing. all i need to know is that you will, when push comes to shove, think of the people here who love you, and who you mean a lot to, and then realize that you need to keep yourself safe (or as safe as you can in those parts) for them. i know that sounds really selfish, but i really don't want anything to happen to you.

Origin: Aroub refugee camp, close to Hebron
Destination: Jenin

Total Duration: 5 hours 26 minutes
Travel Duration: 4 hours 18 minutes
Total Cost: 53.5 NIS ($12.44 USD; $17.42 CAD)
Number of Checkpoints: 8 (including spontaneous checkpoint that we avoided)

11:48am. I say goodbye to all my relations, including my mother who has come to visit, and I head out in an 80's stationwagon. They've insisted that I go with my cousin to a nearby village to slaughter a Gedi (sounds like a sheep and looks like jar-jar binks) and take some meat back to Jenin.

Yesterday I saw another guy try to solve his problems with an M16 machinegun. The conclusion is obvious: Palestinian society is extremely violent. The big question, then, is: why?

There are no police stations - they were all destroyed by the Israeli forces. There are no police officers - they have all either been killed or sent underground by the same Israeli forces. Remnants of any official bureaucratic branches have all been destroyed. Men and women with leadership skills are either in jail or dead. All of the latter are necessary steps in a successful occupation and oppression. To remove all organization and structure from within a society is to undermine the very foundations of so-called civilized life. And so it has in Palestine.

Note: Stay tuned! Related Pictures (a picture of the bastard) to come!

The bastards are always "just following orders". They must be. They say it so often! "Look, I'm sorry. Nobody passes here today. It's not my fault. I'm just following orders." Just following orders? Is it really that easy to follow orders? Do orders give that much leeway?

OK, I'm willing to accept that the Israeli Occupation machine behind the soldiers has told them that they can't let anybody pass. But who gave them the orders to point that gun at my head and threaten to kill me? Or was that an acceptable flash of independent thought?

"Hey! That's my antenna!" It was a simple statement. The results: Shots fired. Two badly beaten. Fifty more in a huff. I just wanted to get a hair cut. I told a friend about the guy who cut my hair last year [related story], and he said he knew who I was talking about. My friend drove me to his place, but we found it closed, and so he dropped me off at another barber shop that came highly recommended. On my way in, I walked by two guys, who greeted each other like old friends. When I was almost out of earshot, I heard one say "Hey! That's my antenna!"

The barber tried to put his hands through my hair. In the best of times, it's a chore. With only goat-milk soap as shampoo and Jenin's fine dust caking through it, he was doomed to failure before he started. He told me that my hair was the thickest he had ever seen. I pretended like he was making a novel observation.

Note: Pictures of Najwa to come!

Najwa reminds me of my sister. She's smart. She's articulate. She speaks from the heart. As she spoke, I couldn't help but think of how this thirteen year old girl would have to beat all the odds to make something of herself. She was still a child.

"What childhood? What childhood?" My imagination had run wild with me, and she corrected me like the woman of wisdom she has become. More than correcting, though, she was asking. She searched my eyes, hoping that I would give her an answer. Maybe she wanted me to trivialize her suffering. Tell her that she was normal. I couldn't. In my eyes she found only profound sadness and despair. Her eyes glazed over and welled up. She pitied me. And all I could think of was my sister, and what would have happened to her.

A tear rolled down my cheek as I thought about it. Nobody came. And so we found ourselves digging alone: ten internationals trying to clear the roadblock with rickety shovels, pick-axes, and hoes.

The tear hit the ground, but was quickly covered by dirt being thrown my way by another international. I kept my head down and kept digging. How many times could I do this? This was just my first time and already my spirit was almost broken. The Berqin valley road is the main method of transportation into the city of Jenin from the town of Berqin and most of the western villages. It has been closed and opened at least a dozen times in the past year.

Since arriving in Jenin, I have been trying to figure out where I am. Everything is different this year.

Last year consisted of constantly reacting to blatant and extreme Israeli army aggression. Essentially, we were constantly tank-chasing, ensuring that some accountability was being levied onto the Israeli occupation forces. With such frequent and indiscriminant massacres of civilians, we had our hands full just trying to keep up. Last year was, without a doubt, high intensity warfare administered against a poorly-armed and mostly civilian populace.

On the outside, this is the good life. There are few, if any, large-scale attacks on any town at any time. When one prods, however, one sees that life is not worth living.

Monday, 16 July 2003. N A B L U S.

6:45 pm. A traveling companion and I arrive at a roadblock. As we try to walk through, we hear faint yells. Soldiers have occupied a house and refuse to allow us through.

7:15pm. While we wait to try again, a man calls us over. He wants to show us one of the only pools in Nablus. There's a junk yard close by and an old abandoned plane. We refuse. The man seems crazy.

7:50pm. We try again. Maybe the soldiers aren't looking. We were wrong. They were. They became even more angry.

8:15pm. The sun is fast fading. If we are to make it, we have to do something.

We spoke so quietly. So softly. The near-full moon cast the light off her face just so. There was so much to talk about. I hadn't seen her in a year! As we hopped from subject to subject, I realized that this was perfect. The cool night's breeze. The moon. The stars.

We burned through the various things we had done during the year when she paused and looked into the distance. She could muster no more than a sigh.

The distance at which she stared was where the sound of gunfire was coming from. It's funny how quickly these things become mundane. The guns had barely stopped since sunset. Heavy machineguns. Light machineguns. Tank-shells. Palestinian-made explosives. The strange thing is that this was not a battle. It was just another night.