Erez Crossing, Gaza

Israel is waging a slow strangulation of 1.5 million residents of Gaza Strip.

Checkpoints that should be transferring food, supplies and people in and out of Gaza have been closed off for over five weeks. The weeds in the Erez parking lot show Israel's attitude for toward international law which outlaws collective punishment of civilians.

I hope all people who care about peace with Justice in the Middle East will speak or act out against this outrageous collective punishment.

What I Learned ......

I recently got home for my visit to Palestine-Israel. Here are some of the things I learned or experienced:

1) Many Palestinian activists think that armed confrontation used in the 2nd Intifada was counterproductive and unsuccessful. In that confrontation a small group of armed fighters put the struggle on Israeli terms and sidelined mass participation. These activists believe that a better long term strategy is non-violent civil disobedience and resistance. This form of struggle can include great numbers of Palestinians plus Israelis and Internationals in joint action.

2) Within the Occupied Territories there are signs of a sectarian (Fatah) PA. There is sometimes an unwillingness to engage in open political debate. In the business world this can be caused by fear of offending the existing authorities and what they can do in response. For example, authorities might not renew a business or operating license.

3) An important feature of the new strategy is that it promotes discussion, debate and democracy. These are essential since it is not just a question of getting rid of the Occupation; the question is what will follow.

4) Conditions in the West Bank are generally safe for visitors. The big majority of people are friendly even when they know you are American. It helps to say "Bush Very Bad". This almost always breaks the ice and promotes a big smile or handshake!

5) There no saints. A few taxi drivers will try to cheat you in Bethlehem as well as New York or Vancouver.

6) Old city Jerusalem is one of the wonders of the world. But be prepared for some very hard sell tactics in the markets.

7) Israelis are joining Palestinians at the front lines of the mass non violent resistance. At Umm Salamun I saw three get arrested (along with three Palestinians). At Bilin I was worried for the safety of one brave Israeli.

8) At the demonstrations Muslim Palestinians join together with Christian Palestinians and internationals with ease.

9) Its the policy, stupid! I met a Canadian Israeli woman who lives in Maale Adummim. She would prefer to live in joint Arab-Jewish community. However now she is a 'settler'. Why? She has new condo for $200K that would cost $1 Million in Jerusalem. There are parks and public facilities all over. Property taxes are a fraction what they would be elsewhere. Israeli policy is to take over more and more land using economic incentives where the religious or ethnic zealotry does not work.

10) On the surface Bethlehem looks pretty comfortable. Below that it is struggling badly. The economic infrastructure throughout the West Bank is in dire straits. Despite taking HIGHER taxes from the Palestinians Israel invested almost nothing into West Bank or Gaza infrastructure.

11) All Palestinians are upset at the Fatah-Hamas infighting. Fatah supporters are in denial over evidence of Israeli-US support for Fatah 'Executive Force' and aggression.

12) The extent and pervasiveness of Israeli settlements, checkpoints, restricted roads and overall Occupation is disturbing. How would YOU like to be prevented from travelling outside your town (or across town)?

13) The conflict is over land and resources not religion.

14) It will take robust INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE to bring peace to this conflict. The Palestinians do not have enough people or resources to challenge Israel militarily. Try as hard as it can, Israel cannot vanquish the Palestinians. The balance of forces are such that international intervention is essential. That means it is essential for progressives in the US to bring about a change in US policy.

15) Palestine Summer Encounter is a good program. We met with many terrific individuals and organizations.

Hate Mail

I sent a letter to the editor of my home town newspaper from Bethlehem. The letter is here.

In response, a reader sent the following letter. This letter illustrates the extent of ignorance and hate among a certain segment of the North American population.

How did the author get these prejudices? Misinformation such as described in the previous posting surely contributes.

Misinformation and Bias

Misinformation or disinformation on the Mideast conflict are common in North America. The following article is a good example. It ran in my local paper recently.

The story title is "Palestinians attack Israeli hospitals treating Arabs" and readers are led to believe that Israel shows a "rare compassion" only to be foiled by the violence of their opponents.

The article consists of a few anecdotes and second or third hand information and some very large "conclusions".

The author ignores the violence, death and suffering caused by Israeli actions and policies. You would never know from this article about Palestinians who have died BECAUSE of Israeli actions and restrictions. Just in the past month many have died because Israel has prevented them from getting to their homes in Gaza.

The author blames all Palestinians for the attempted suicide bombing at the hospital in Beer Sheva two years ago. He neglects to inform readers that the same doctor whom he quotes made an informal survey of people in Gaza and found they OPPOSED the suicide bombing at the hospital.

The article essentially stands truth on its head. The clear implication is that the occupiers are benevolent. The victims are violent.

Following are disinformation tactics commonly used in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and illustrated by this article.

1. Substitute a few anecdotes for overall facts.

2. Repeat negative anecdotes and their conclusions. No problem if it is years old. Repeat it over and over.

3. All Palestinians are responsible for the bad actions of any one Palestinian.

4. Good actions by Palestinians are to be ignored. They do not count. For example, how many Americans know about the widespread mass non-violent demonstrations by Palestinians which have been occurring WEEKLY for the past two years in the Occupied Territories?

5. Negative actions by Israel are to be ignored or forgotten. They don't count. Witness this article which ignores a mountain of information documenting Israeli violations of human rights and crimes.

6. Good actions by an individual Israeli organization or person go to the credit of Israel overall. Witness the implication that Israeli hospitals and doctors normally treat injured Palestinians.

The result of this media bias and double standard is readers who are badly misinformed and highly prejudiced.

Witness the thoughts of the person who sends the hate mail in the next posting.

Poem at Neve Shalom / Wahat al-Salam

At the entrance to the "Oasis of Peace" village there is an olive tree and plaque with the following poem printed in Hebrew, English and Arabic.

Olive Tree

Shafted, stuck among three coconut palms
in a layer of gravel from the Home Depot
in the middle of a junction turned overnight
into a square.

Motorists hurrying home
see it perhaps
through clay pots tilting over,
but they have no time for the twisted story
that rises from its trunk or the flat top of the tree,
trimmed with a building contractor's sense of humor.

Nor can they fathom their roots groping
in foreign soil
clutching mother earth
like provisions from home
since the soldiers cut them down.

The olives, offered and unwanted, blacken
my face
and no miniature roses will divert my heart
from the shame.


- Agi Mishol
(Translation Lisa Katz)

Oasis of Peace

Oasis of Peace = Neve Shalom = Wahat al-Salam

I heard about this interesting village from my friend Marvin. He described a village where Israeli Jews and Arabs live side by side in peace and equality. It sounded good and I spent a night in their very nice guest hostel. Neve Shalom / Wahat al-Salam is located midway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, in beautiful hills about five miles off the main highway.

The village was founded in the 1970's by Father Bruno Hussar an Egyptian Jew converted to Christianity on land donated by the nearby Trappist Monastery. The early decades were a major struggle. No trees, electricity or water!

Today it is beautiful - a genuine oasis. They have very nice houses and a superb swimming pool in a stunning hilltop setting. The chickens and roosters down the hillside wake one in the morning. You hear both Arabic and Hebrew spoken throughout.

The village includes a bilingual/binational school curriculum. The school administration, teachers and classroom instruction are evenly split between Arabs and Jews, Arabic and Hebrew. There is a long waiting list of people who wish to move into the village.

Neve Shalom / Wahat al-Salam is a model and example of what is possible. It is pretty amazing (and sad) that this is still - according to some people - the only mixed Jewish/Arab village in Israel! This seems a bit hard to believe but what I do know, and what I saw myself, is that both Israel AND the Occupied Territories are basically made up of old Arab villages and new Jewish settlements.

The success achieved by Neve Shalom / Wahat al-Salam - especially the educational component - shows what is possible. If it is true that a two-state solution is no longer possible, this example and what they have done, becomes all the more valuable.

Holocaust Memorial - Yad Vashem

On a magnificent hill overlooking a valley to the West of Jerusalem is Yad Vashem - the Holocaust Memorial. It has bold and impressive architecture - a huge cement A-frame with skylight at the peak.

Inside, the museum is a path through dozens of exhibits which document the discrimination, suffering and atrocities against Jews in Europe especially during the 1930's and World War II. Through photos, text, video and artifacts the powerful exhibits show the conditions imposed in the Jewish ghettoes, the resistance, the violence, the horrors of the concentration camps.

Exhibits include discussion of repression against the Roma (gypsies) and homosexuals. Other exhibits document the historic links of the Jewish population with socialist and communist ideas and movements. Exhibits document the liberation of the concentration camps and defeat of Nazi Germany.

The final exhibit of the path through the museum documents the creation of Israel. I suppose the designers of the museum see this as the final chapter in victory over the holocaust and anti-semitic atrocities.

But is this correct? After five weeks in Israel and the Occupied Territories it strikes me as deeply ironic. Ghettoes, identity cards, economic repression, discrimination based on ethnicity, humiliation of one ethnic group, and state violence against civilians are happening barely ten miles from the museum. It is just that these things are happening behind a very tall wall.

It would be nice if one day the final exhibit of the memorial could pay tribute to those who continue the tradition of Jewish humanitarianism and resistance to oppression and racism - people like Barara Lubin, Sergio Yahni, Naomi Klein, Yuri Avnery, Dennis Bernstein, Jeff Halper, Noam Chomsky, Amira Hass, etc etc etc..

Unusual IDF Soldiers

IDF soldiers are normally unfriendly. Every attempt I made to talk with them had been been met with silence or monosyllable response and a sour look.

But these ones were different. Was it a change in policy? Or was it simply different soldiers and personalities? Or was it because these soldiers had seen me being angrily rebuffed by a Palestinian woman when I asked to take her photo as she sat on the pavement with grape leaves for sale??

Whatever the reason, these two soldiers were abnormally open and talkative. One soldier is the son of parents from the Ukraine. He follows international politics and is sorry that Bush's popularity is so low in the USA. "Bush is a good man." But now that Bush is on his way out, who will become President? The soldier asked me who I thought and then suggested his own guess: Hilary Clinton. He thinks this is fine: "Hilary will be good for Israel."

I asked the soldier what he thinks about the situation in Jerusalem. "Its calm on the surface but just below the surface it's not calm at all." The IDF needs a heavy presence to keep a lid on things. I suggested that the tension and lack of calm is because of injustice against the Palestinians. He disagreed and thinks the problem is Muslims against the West. He thinks there should be one world religion.

I was curious about the other soldier and asked his background since he was clearly not European. His family immigrated to Israel from India. He is Jewish by religion. It seems there are many immigrants to Israel from India as well as Ethiopia .... they reside especially in southern towns and cities such as Beersheba.

This made me think about something else I had heard. Apparently many of the Russian immigrants (who are now 20% of the entire population!) are not Jewish - they have come to Israel to better themselves economically. In its desire to expand the non-Arab population the rules about Jewish entitlement have been lax. This has provoked all sorts of controversy. There are reports that all it takes is one easily forged document claiming a Jewish grandmother to have entitlement to Israeli citizenship and a host of privileges. Many of the Russian immigrants retain their Russian Christian Orthodox beliefs, and its hard to see the Jewish ethnicity in the blue eyes and straight blonde hair.

Note the weapons in the photo. All Israeli soldiers carry these American M-16s. I asked why they don't use Israeli made Uzi submachine guns. They said that the Uzi's are not appropriate for crowded Jerusalem. "We would be killing everybody in the area if we started firing Uzi's."

Serving in the IDF is a melting pot for the Israelis. Certainly there is a heavy pro-Israel and pro- Zionist education involved. Certainly it puts the soldiers on the side of the occupiers. That is why it is so important that some soldiers and officers are speaking out against the Occupation. That is why it is so important that Israelis are involved in the non violent demonstrations against the Wall and speak to the soldiers in Hebrew and as fellow Israelis.

People need to persuade the soldiers that the conflict is not Israeli vs Palestinian or Jewish vs Muslim. The issue is justice vs injustice. Although these soldiers would not agree, I sensed they at least had open minds.

Trapped in Jerusalem

I was looking for someone in the Christian quarter of Old City Jerusalem.

When I inquired with someone on the street one thing led to another and pretty soon the family invited me in for tea. The daughter is a school teacher with husband and young son, struggling economically. The mother is living with them in one room although she has her own place and would much rather be in her village near Ramallah. She needs regular medical treatment at a Jerusalem hospital. I wondered why she does not travel to her village since it is only an hour away. They explained that she could leave Jerusalem but could not come back. It takes a very special and hard-to-get permit to enter Jerusalem from the Occupied Territories. So even though she is receiving regular medical treatment at a Jerusalem hospital she could not re-enter. Her only option is to stay.

By chance I met someone else in Old Jerusalem with just the same predicament. He works selling goods in one of the small shops in the Old City. He does not own the shop but works for a daily salary of 50 sheckels (about $12.50). He was dressed in one of the white "night gowns" that we see Iraquis wearing on TV or in photos. He would like to leave Jerusalem but fears that if he leaves he will not be able to get back. As we conversed and I expressed my opposition to Bush's invasion of Iraq as well as the Israeli Occupation, he became quite talkative and said he had been to Iraq and saw the air raid shelter which was bombed in Gulf War 1, killing many hundreds of women and children. He expressed the view that all politicians become corrupt. "Governments are the problem", he said.

I had not previously noticed a boy of about 8 or 9 years of age sitting in front of the store front. The man explained that he is looking after him since his father is serving a ten year prison sentence. "For nothing" he said. Just one of the many thousands I suppose. I did not inquire about the mother but wondered about her later. Had she died? I suppose so, since Palestinian families are very close.

This seems to be the plight of many people. Israel has made it impossible or very difficult for them to move about - consequently there are tens of thousands of Palestinians trapped in Jerusalem unable to return home for fear they will never get back to where the few jobs and health services are.

Economic Challenges

Jericho Resort Hotel

The economy in the Palestinian Territories is generally in bad shape.

In Bethlehem the only industry/craft which seems busy is the wood carving shops. They make olive wood sculptures of Jesus, crosses and other Christian symbols. These small wood carving shops are busy from sunrise to dark but most carvings are for export.

Otherwise the tourist industry in Bethlehem is in dire straits. Many shops have shut down. Hotels are near empty or closed. Tourist buses sometimes come for a few hours to visit the Church of Nativity, then return to Jerusalem to avoid spending the night in 'dangerous' Bethlehem.

My first night in East Jerusalem I chatted with an American tourist at a coffee shop. She was on a trip to Israel with her Baptist congregation from Dallas Texas. She explained that they would not be visiting Bethlehem or the Occupied Territories because it is 'too dangerous' according to their Israeli guide. They would be seeing Bethlehem from afar but not going there!

Having stayed in Bethlehem area for a month, it seems to me that Berkeley California is probably more dangerous than Bethlehem. And Berkeley is not very dangerous! People in Bethlehem are generally friendly and welcoming. In fact one often hears random shouts of "WELCOME!" and "HOW ARE YOU?"

Occasionally one also hears shouts of "I LOVE YOU!" This was amusing since the shouter did not know what they were saying .... Apparently the Arabic word for 'like' is the same as for 'love'!

In Jericho the situation is also grim. The oldest continuously inhabited city in the world is now sprawling, dusty and dilapidated. The main road into the city from the south is closed by Israeli military. To get into the city you need to go through other Israeli checkpoints. There are signs of strife and military conflict around the city - buildings destroyed.

I stayed in a nice five star hotel with huge swimming pool, elegant bar and restaurant, impressive photographs and artwork ..... for $80. Sadly for the hotel, it was near empty.

I spoke with the general manager of the hotel. He had lived in the US but returned to his homeland. The Jericho Resort Hotel was built in the 1990's with joint Palestinian and German investment. It was doing very well and had good occupancy rates. Then the intifada broke out in 2000 followed by Israeli response and repression. After that there was essentially no business. For several years the hotel was closed. The German investors withdrew. Jericho Resort Hotel is now open again but struggling.

How do you develop a business when the town is controlled by checkpoints, tourists are steered away, and the local population (Palestinians) are not free to travel around their 'own' territory?




Military Checkpoint on the way into Jericho.

Visit to Yanun

Yanun Boy on donkey, Upper Yanun Village

International and Israeli Activists






In the northern West Bank, just south of Nablus, there are a pair of villages - Upper and Lower Yanun. Yanun became known six years ago when the entire village was driven out by settlers who had expanded in the surrounding hilltops and then attacked villagers. These were the first Palestinian villages to have been completely driven out since 1948.

In response, the UN and some liberal church groups encouraged villagers to return and offered protection. For the past several years there have been three or four volunteers from the Ecumenical Church network who live in the village to be a witness in case of assault or attack.

I went up to Yanun and spent the night there because the regular volunteers were away and they needed another volunteer.

Getting there was an adventure. The main road in the West Bank does not have signs indicating directions to the Palestinian villages. Ror the most part, road signs just point to the Jewish settlements! Directions to Yanun were vague ... volunteers had always gone there by taxi from the Nablus checkpoint. I ended up taking a rented car straight up the valley.

During the drive I received a cell phone call and was told I was on a road the settlers have claimed should not be used! Fortunately I had a rented car with yellow license plates (Israelis, settlers and others with authorization to enter Israel).

The valley is beautiful with olive and fruit orchards, hay fields, hills and the Jordan Valley to the east. Villagers live a traditional way of life - boys shepherding, families tending to the olive and fruit orchards.

Settlers have taken over the surrounding hilltops and installed industrial level chicken coops. There are now soldiers, lookout towers, night lights, security fences, etc.. It is rather eerie given the serenity and tranquility of the valley and lifestyle of the lower valley where boys ride donkeys and elderly women sit on the ground and shell walnuts.

I spent the night in Yanun with an Israeli refusenik - former soldier who refused to be part of the Occupation. We had good conversations and it was interesting to learn his viewpoints. As part of our duties we walked to Lower Yanun, maintained a visible presence and generally just were 'about'. Not a hard job in such a beautiful place.

Next day the regular team returned. It is an interesting group: Norwegian woman, Swiss guy, South African woman. They are all volunteers from organizations part of the World Council of Churches. WCC played an important role opposing South African apartheid and now is in the forefront trying to bring peace with justice in Israel-Palestine.

The volunteers have all been to Palestine previously. The slow pace at Yanun is a bit too slow for some of them. But its just a three month commitment and an internet cafe is just a ten mile donkey ride away!

The situation in Yanun exemplifies what is going on throughout the West Bank: Israeli settlers move in, take over hilltop, establish 'security' perimeter which gradually expands and takes more and more of the land needed for village shepherding and orchards. The settlers are armed with machine guns and self-righteousness. After initial assaults the conflict becomes one of slow grinding down.

The population of Yanun is about one half what it was.