long days, short nights.

this morning I slept too late. when I woke up I heard about what the soldiers did to one of the little boys who sits on our stoop in the afternoons. all the children seem to eat quite a bit of candy. I find myself always staring at teeth when I’m being spoken to. we sat at the bottom of the hill and drank water most of the afternoon. I took pictures of military vehicles and I took a picture of the jewish defense league tag, “gas the arabs.”

I went to get falafel, that’s twice today. everything was closed in the old city and the falafel man sent his son to do all the work. an elderly woman ordered about seven of sandwiches. the little boy had his dirty hands full, so the woman started to help him make them.

she was completely covered from head to toe and her clothes were in the food, she stuffed the pitas with french fries, cauliflower, spicy red sauce, tomatoes, eggplant, and falafel of course. I didn’t care that it was unsanitary; there’s flies everywhere, and mosquitoes. the little boy seemed burnt out when I made my purchase, I handed him two shekels, and he knew what I wanted.

on my way back from the old city, I went through the checkpoint and the new soldiers, the ones who beat up the little boy on our stoop this morning, he asked for my passport. I don’t know why they always ask me where I’m from; it says it on my passport. I told him, I am from arizona.

“Oh shit man, I’m from Miami!” He said.

Are you a Dolphins fan?

“Only when they’re doing good.”

They’re never doing well. Are you going back to America after you serve your time here?

“Yeah, if I don’t die.” He looked at the ground and acted like the area was hostile, and he almost made it seem like the israeli’s are the ones dying all the time.

You’re not going to die here, I told him. I couldn’t help but laugh at him. He was holding an m16. I knew he was just trying act like rambo because he was fresh out of training. Ryan and I agreed, give the new soldiers a few days and they’ll find boredom soon enough. they aren’t going to keep the checkpoint doors closed, worry about their safety, yada, yada.

At four we went to a neighborhood flooded with settlers and speckles of palestinian homes. we picked grass for their sheep. their land has been occupied by settlers; they’ve added a makeshift synagogue, made out of a tent, illegally on the land. shortly after we started picking grass, the soldiers came and watched us. they asked one of the dwarf boys in the family of twelve children why his family wasn’t picking the grass and why they had internationals. the boy responded in arabic, “every time we pick grass or herd our goats in our own land, we are stoned and arrested.”

my eyes and arms itched and we hauled grass, in bags, up the hill. the twelve children were abusive to the dog they had chained to the tree. I couldn’t really say anything about it, and the dog didn’t have a name.

I took a break from working, picked raw almonds and other fruit from the trees on their land. one of the wives living in the house brought mint tea out consistently.

after our work was finished, we had arabic coffee and cookies. the little boys showed me their baby arab horse. they also showed me how hard they could throw rocks at the poor dog without a name. I tried to show the children that it made me sad when they abused the dog, but they didn’t really pay attention. the father of the family let me and camila ride the horse around for a while. I didn’t feel like making him run because the oldest of the children was busy being a ham and the poor giant was exhausted.

on the way back, our palestinian friends were harassed by soldiers and one of them was punched numerous times in his stomach. he’s a tough kid, i offered him a jamal after the occupational forces were finished, “checking if he was a terrorist.” I’ve become more and more witty speaking with soldiers since I’ve been here. the settler jews were celebrating their new torah and they spit on us and threw rocks as we walked by. maybe if they grew up as palestinians, they would be better at throwing rocks? if I grew up as a palestinian in the west bank, dealing with those people, I wouldn’t be alive right now, and I understand why the ones who died are dead now.

tomorrow looks like it is going to be a long day, we are going to a closed military zone and I’m hoping to sleep well tonight, tomorrow is the shabbat, the settler jews are celebrating by demolishing palestinian homes. hurraaahhh..hopefully I can walk away safely and find myself drinking on sunday afternoon, from a corner in west jerusalem.

<3

b

Soldiers invade Palestinian home

Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Tel Rumeida, Hebron

Shortly after 3pm this afternoon, two internationals working with ISM in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood were walking through the olive groves between Palestinian homes, when they observed two armed men in civilian clothes enter an unoccupied Palestinian home which had been broken into and vandalized last week. Keeping a distance, and calling several other internationals for assistance, they approached the home, and became aware of the sound of breaking glass. When two other internationals and an Israeli peace activist arrived, they entered the courtyard of the home and observed six to eight Israeli soldiers inside the Palestinian home. When the soldiers became aware of the internationals' presence, one from their group quickly blocked the doorway of the home and demanded that the human rights workers (HRWs) leave the premises. The HRWs refused to leave and demanded an explanation for the soldiers presence. The soldiers insisted that the home was necessary for their training excercises, and claimed to have no responsibility for the earlier break-in. When asked to leave, the soldiers became hostile, saying the internationals "had no right to be in Israel", and that they were "trespassing in the Palestinian home". One soldier in particular made multiple racist statements about Arabs, and also disparaging remarks about American Jewry. After speaking to an Israeli human rights group about the legality of the situation, and being under the impression that their presence was perhaps extending the duration of the soldiers presence in the home, the HRWs decided to leave.

(Apologies for the impersonal feel of this blog- its an official report.)

tel rumeida- your american tax dollars at work

we've been in tel rumeida for a few days now, thought it was high time to update. tel rumeida is a perfect microcosm of the apartheid conditions faced by palestinians everywhere in the west bank. in this neighborhood, only the israeli settlers (living here illegally according to international law) are permitted to drive cars. they also enjoy the privelege of carrying weapons, which is COMPLETELY out of the question for palestinians. virtually every settler over the age of 16 carries an M-16 on their shoulder at all times, while just the other day a palestinian boy was arrested (after several hours of detention in the sun) for carrying a BUTTER knife. yes, a butter knife.
we've had a few problems with palestinian youth sexually harrasing C. but overall, this is uncommon behavior, and something the adults strongly dissapprove of.
there are checkpoints at every possible entrance to the neighborhood, which are manned by the israeli army, and almost every palestinian (man, woman or child) can expect to get stopped, searched, and possibly detained without any reason at all, often several times a day. by monitoring the checkpoints, and intervening when soldiers begin to harrass palestinians, we are able to minimize the inconvenience and/or humiliation involved in thios process. on sunday morning, C. and i were on shuhada street, monitoring the checkpoints (of which there are two) when we noticed three settler youth between the ages of nine and twelve approaching us. as they got close, they began cursing at us, then all at once, they ran up and spit on us. a soldier at the checkpoint was standing watching us, but felt no need to intervene. in america, if this situation had happened, i probably would have smacked one of those little bastards. here in tel rumeida, however, such an action would invariably lead to harsh reprisals against the palestinain residents by both the soldiers and the setllers, so we silently stared back at them.
this morning, C. and i were on shuhada street again, monitoring checkpoints (again), when one of the three boys who spit on us came walking down the street. This time, without his friends to encourage him, he avoided eye contact with us, until he was several hundred yards away, then he managed to work up the courage to yell something in hebrew at us, which i assume was derogatory.
even with close to 1000 soldiers staioned in our neighborhood to protect them, the settlers are a cowardly lot. they send their children (who are immune from prosecution under israeli law) to commit most acts of violence, and harrasment. by night they stone the homes of palestinians (and the apartment where we internationals live), break windows, spray paint vile graffitti (i.e. gas the arabs), and set fire to olive groves, but at sunrise they lose their nerve.
in solidarity,
R

6/24 again (i knew i should've edited this)

Sitting on the roof makes for good people watching. I watched the israeli soldier and wondered what he was thinking. he seemed bored, he was leaning against a tower, the sun was beating the both of us up. I kept staring at him and the soda can next to me. ten years ago, I would have probably assumed hebrew writing was from a country in asia.

I thought about my computer. I left it in kentucky with my friend’s mother, the words come out better on that computer, we have a better relationship than anything else I’ve ever had a relationship with.

the call to prayer sounded off in all directions and being stuck in the middle sounds reminds me of being in my mother’s backyard. the race track sounds similar to all the prayers going off at the same time.

I pulled out a jamal and light it up. when I arrive in arizona, I am going to give my lungs a break; I’m giving myself a break.

every now and then, a person will walk by and the bored soldier will ask them for their identification. he made the person show him everything in her bag and then sent her on her way. I am sure she assumed she would be accosted by the soldier, I’m sure she expects this every morning when she steps out of wherever she sleeps. it’s hot outside but thankfully the weather is not like phoenix, at least the breeze is cool.

my finger nails are dirty and my arms smell like bug spray. I picked the scab on my forearm and watched the blood run down. i remember when I was younger and my mother would always tell me not to pick my scabs because she was worried about me scaring. I could care less if I scare these days. the water is clean and it has an after taste similar to carrots. I chewed my finger nails and mixed them with my saliva and spit it over the edge. after watching the spit hit the pavement below, I thought about committing suicide. I wonder if I’d feel myself smashing against the concrete before I died. my armpits smell like the food I’ve been eating, olives and other vegetables. thankfully, I’ve been taking care of myself.

the little boy that runs his fathers store was below the wall, flying his hand made kite and he looked up at me, smiled, and asked for my name. I give him a new name every time he asks me, he’ll never remember my name, and people are in and out of this place all the time. I walked down the stairs without a railing and thought about being dizzy and drunk, breaking my neck on the stairs. the windows are barred off and bullet holes have baptized themselves through the glass behind the steel. I gave the man behind the counter a half a shekel for a hand full of gummy bears and quenched my thirst with more carrot water, it’s hot again today.

6/24

We sat next to the soldier post and he kept pointing his gun at us, “just joking around about it of course,” ha-ha, such a funny joke. I took pictures of Palestinian children standing up against the wall. Today has been fairly calm. We kicked the ball back and forth with young Palestinian boys. One of the boys was a bully to all the younger boys and he kept asking me to take pictures of him because he wanted to see himself, he was the ham of the group. Nikki let me listen to her headphones but I gave them back to her because we never know when violence might break out and Israeli youth is known to stir up a mess. The soldiers drive their tanks through the streets very fast and the settlers also drive their cars fast around blind corners, almost like they are hoping to "accidently" kill one of the palestinian children kicking a ball in the street. One of the soldiers threw his glass bottle into the street and made a joke with his friend. They watch us, we watch them. If they do anything to hold up a Palestinian, we call our resources. Two of our group members relieved us and we made our way to the olive grove. Today was too hot for the israeli settler children to come out and throw stones in the grove. I went into the holy well (jews only) and I washed the mulberry blood off my fingers. thankfully i was able to get out of the hole in the ground before the two israeli's holding m16 rifles were able to see me. it's really dark in the well and you have to keep your head just above the water, i didn't go in, i just washed my hands. they were speaking in hebrew, talking shit, but we ignored them because we have to. I took more pictures of the burned trees and grass, I like the way olive trees smell when they are burning but I know that it isn’t a good thing around here. the trees have been around for thousands of years and it’s pretty sad to see a staple crop demolished thanks to the israeli settlers.

Next to the well sits a Palestinian grave yard, I took pictures of that too. When the settlers took over that area of H2, they danced on the graves and drank alcohol. Israeli settlers, leave their trash everywhere, filthy people, who have everything they’ll ever want given to them by their government. new maps of the area show the grave yard with a proposed road that has passed and will be laid out eventually this year; all the grave stones will be demolished and the olive trees as well. Palestinians are not allowed to drive cars in this area of the west bank, so it’s not like they’ll be using the new israeli only roads. I think I lost my keys in the well.

Last night I made a telephone call to my friend in phoenix. We’re required to have telephones in case we’re arrested, beaten up, etc. after the phone call I heard a loud bang and realized we were being stoned by local israeli’s.

<3
b

6/23

two other internationals and I patrolled the old city of Hebron this morning and everyone says things like, “welcome” and “what’s your name?” the Palestinian children kicked a soccer ball at me and I kicked it back as we were walking out of our building this morning, then they gave me high fives and hugs just for being around.

We were patrolling the checkpoints next to the mosque, observing the way the IOF and israeli settlers were treating the Palestinians. Every time someone was detained, we waited for them to be released. The soldiers are always rude and treat Muslim people like animals that they don’t want to be around. We asked one of the soldiers why a passer by was being detained and the soldier said, “We are looking to see if this man is a terrorist”, obviously he was just an old man walking through HIS OWN neighborhood.

Soldiers kept stopping us and asking what our religion was; where we were from, passport please, move on. they are nothing but big dorks with american machine guns.

I never answer the religion question. For the record, I am catholic, but it doesn’t really matter and I don’t really know how catholic I am. If we tell the israeli soldiers that we are Muslim, we will be detained. maybe they don’t ask me because I have a rosary around my neck? israel is a very racist nation; the evidence is right here on the ground of palestine. israel is also brainwashing the world with their PR compains.

We met up with members of CPT and they showed us around east Hebron. We walked through a nieghborhood over 8000 years old. facist sharon wanted the area to be demolished, but thankfully, archeologists won the good fight. We were in the west bank, area H2, a Palestinian location, occupied by zionist-israeli settlers. on the roof of a Palestinian owned home being occupied by israeli settlers, illegally, soldiers sat with their m16 rifles and sniper rifles, fantasizing about killing poor people. the israeli government, that asked them to leave twice, still protects their rooftops from harmless people, yes harmless. islamic people are not allowed access to the main roads, only jews can use the main roads in this part of the west bank. soldiers and settlers all walk around like maniacs with their machine guns. We left the members of CPT and made our way to a Palestinian youth center.

At the youth center we were welcomed with open arms. One of my colleagues is from germany and he speaks Arabic fairly well. The youth center workers poured us tea and we sat around eating apricots and smoking Jamal cigarettes with the men. On the wall was a picture of yasser arafat shaking hands with the man sitting next to me, he was stamping cards of some sort.

I kept my attention outside of the window. There was a donkey tied to a post. I watched the animal try to balance himself and I watched him pulling at the leather ropes wraped around his face, today was very hot. I haven’t had anything alcoholic to drink in, what feels like, a million years. I thought about sitting with brad, making gg allin jokes, talking freely about PC situations, and drinking until we throw up on the porch in tempe.

while I was day dreaming, one of the women took us into a room and we watched a play put on by seven, young, Palestinian children. I didn’t understand what they were saying, but I pretended. One of the men that spoke little english tried to explain the play in my bad ear but I couldn’t hear him over the music. After we left the youth center, everyone invited us into their homes for Arabic coffee and we had to decline because we needed to observe the checkpoints.

Tonight i will drink tea and listen to gun shots and fireworks on the roof top. hopefully the israeli settlers don't slingshot stones large enough to hurt anyone, just relaxing.

some of the events that happen here in the west bank, I am better off keeping to myself, because I don’t know how I would be able to write about it or explain it to even my closest friends.

<3

b

6/22

Today we arrived in the west bank, a city called Hebron. Hebron is divided by israeli settlements and Palestinian neighborhoods. One of our house mates was showing us around the area, telling us where not to go because there’s a chance we’ll be stoned by israeli children. israeli government will not charge a child with a crime if they are under the age of fourteen. israeli settler children are known to throw rocks and do other violent things to Palestinians and anyone who isn’t jewish.

one of the Palestinian olive groves was torched today and thankfully, my pals and I were able to help put the fire out, even though the field was demolished. The soldiers told us not to help because it is dangerous, so we waited until they left. I’m sure the soldiers wouldn’t mind the fire spreading.

The call to prayer is much louder in this part of the west bank than it was in Ramallah. Tonight I watched Palestinian children kick a basketball around in the street and I smoked Jamal cigarettes on the roof. Hebron is sad and very beautiful. I will post more later, this blog is boring, and I need to eat something.

<3

b