Update 2- Short and Overdue
Chevre,
Last you heard from me, I was getting ready to shear the tzitzit off my keppe.
Thursday, March 20-- Ta'anit Esther
I arranged to meet with fellow Palestine-travelers at 11am at Damascus gate, and I arrived at the Techana Merkazit (central bus station) around 10 am, and started walking. I walked through the shuuk (market), and by chance, passed a barber shop, who was willing to cut my hair but slightly incredulous that I wanted to cut my peyos off.
"Why?" he asks me. "It's Purim," I tell him. "Time for a chidush chadash," a new transition.
I didn't tell him: "because I'm going to Ramallah in an hour, and I really don't want want to walk down the street there with peyos." The off-chance that he wouldn't be willing to cut them off for me wasn't worth it, I was on a time-schedule.
So here I am, freshly hair-cut and wait just five minutes (although I'm ten minutes late) for the first two contestants of the game show, "Who Wants to Go to Palestine?"
I thought another friend was coming too, but no, it's just the three of us. We grab a shuttle from the Palestinian bus station, and are in Ramallah around noon, after an extensive display of how far Palestinians are redirected thanks the to the Wall around Ramallah. I decide not to fast, so I walk around searching for my favorite falafel place, but was unable to find it after twenty minutes or so, and settled for a different restaurant.
Ow! My first meal in Palestine, and I was already injured! I got something spicy in my eye and had to wash it out. It hurt a lot. Maybe I should have fasted.
We found the ISM office, talked to the folks there for a little bit, then picked a village to head out and see. We picked Bil'in, where there have been weekly protests every Friday for three years. We found our way to a shuttle heading that-a-way, found the "international house" (Abdullah's house), and sat in the yard hanging out with some Palestinian kids for half an hour or so. Inside, many members of the household were teaming up to clean the place up, that's why we were in the yard.
Abdullah took us in his car, along with another friend, to see the Wall, which at this particular location consisted of a series of fences, razor wire, roads, and sensors. The story goes something like this:
During the time when they were initially building the barrier, Palestinians were prevented from accessing the olive groves on the grounds that no one lived over there, despite the fact that the land historically belonged to the village of Bil'in. The settlement of Modi'in Illit, to the West of Bil'in, was illegally building additions to their settlement, stretching eastwards towards Bil'in. Since there didn't seem to be any authority willing to stop Israelis from building without a permit, some folks thought of a creative resistance they could employ.
One night, Israelis and Palestinians together built a one-room "house" on Bil'in land out beyond the olive groves, and beyond the path of th wall, nearby to where Modi'in Illit was building their Matityahu East expansion. The idea was this: if the courts upheld that Israeli settlers were allowed to remain in their illegally built structures, then by extension "Bil'in West" had to stand as well.
Without the specifics of exactly what happened, the current situation is this: the route of the wall got moved somewhat, so Bil'in had access to a bit more land on their side of the wall, and a gate was installed so that a villager from Bil'in can, with a bit of hassle, access the olive groves on the far side of the barrier, facilitated by the Israeli military.
Our host Abdullah explained to us that we, as internationals, would not be allowed to cross through the gate, but that they, as villagers from Bil'in, would be allowed to. He asks for permission for us to all go through. The soldiers talk amongst each other and up the command, and ten minutes later, the decision is made known that we aren't allowed through. It was a pretty surreal manifestation of bureaucracy, that no less than six personnel were being used to watch and man this gate, and to maintain a presence at the barrier, which is the traditional site of protest.
We made our way back to Ramallah, and then to Jerusalem, where we walked through the Border Terminal (nee military checkpoint) known as Qalandia. A new thing is that they checked the date on our visas. I had rarely, if ever, seen those checked. Back to Jerusalem, a night at Benj/Emma's and the anticipation of hitching through the West Bank the following day to Kibbutz Sasa for the Purim weekend.
Shavua tov!
Ya'akov
About Modi'in Illit and the placement of the Wall near Bil'in:
[http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2005/12/29/bilin-land-grab-thanks-to-the-wall-2/ ]
A reason to be happy that my phone doesn't work that well:
[http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/mobile-phones-more-dangerous-than-smoking-802602.html ]
Last you heard from me, I was getting ready to shear the tzitzit off my keppe.
Thursday, March 20-- Ta'anit Esther
I arranged to meet with fellow Palestine-travelers at 11am at Damascus gate, and I arrived at the Techana Merkazit (central bus station) around 10 am, and started walking. I walked through the shuuk (market), and by chance, passed a barber shop, who was willing to cut my hair but slightly incredulous that I wanted to cut my peyos off.
"Why?" he asks me. "It's Purim," I tell him. "Time for a chidush chadash," a new transition.
I didn't tell him: "because I'm going to Ramallah in an hour, and I really don't want want to walk down the street there with peyos." The off-chance that he wouldn't be willing to cut them off for me wasn't worth it, I was on a time-schedule.
So here I am, freshly hair-cut and wait just five minutes (although I'm ten minutes late) for the first two contestants of the game show, "Who Wants to Go to Palestine?"
I thought another friend was coming too, but no, it's just the three of us. We grab a shuttle from the Palestinian bus station, and are in Ramallah around noon, after an extensive display of how far Palestinians are redirected thanks the to the Wall around Ramallah. I decide not to fast, so I walk around searching for my favorite falafel place, but was unable to find it after twenty minutes or so, and settled for a different restaurant.
Ow! My first meal in Palestine, and I was already injured! I got something spicy in my eye and had to wash it out. It hurt a lot. Maybe I should have fasted.
We found the ISM office, talked to the folks there for a little bit, then picked a village to head out and see. We picked Bil'in, where there have been weekly protests every Friday for three years. We found our way to a shuttle heading that-a-way, found the "international house" (Abdullah's house), and sat in the yard hanging out with some Palestinian kids for half an hour or so. Inside, many members of the household were teaming up to clean the place up, that's why we were in the yard.
Abdullah took us in his car, along with another friend, to see the Wall, which at this particular location consisted of a series of fences, razor wire, roads, and sensors. The story goes something like this:
During the time when they were initially building the barrier, Palestinians were prevented from accessing the olive groves on the grounds that no one lived over there, despite the fact that the land historically belonged to the village of Bil'in. The settlement of Modi'in Illit, to the West of Bil'in, was illegally building additions to their settlement, stretching eastwards towards Bil'in. Since there didn't seem to be any authority willing to stop Israelis from building without a permit, some folks thought of a creative resistance they could employ.
One night, Israelis and Palestinians together built a one-room "house" on Bil'in land out beyond the olive groves, and beyond the path of th wall, nearby to where Modi'in Illit was building their Matityahu East expansion. The idea was this: if the courts upheld that Israeli settlers were allowed to remain in their illegally built structures, then by extension "Bil'in West" had to stand as well.
Without the specifics of exactly what happened, the current situation is this: the route of the wall got moved somewhat, so Bil'in had access to a bit more land on their side of the wall, and a gate was installed so that a villager from Bil'in can, with a bit of hassle, access the olive groves on the far side of the barrier, facilitated by the Israeli military.
Our host Abdullah explained to us that we, as internationals, would not be allowed to cross through the gate, but that they, as villagers from Bil'in, would be allowed to. He asks for permission for us to all go through. The soldiers talk amongst each other and up the command, and ten minutes later, the decision is made known that we aren't allowed through. It was a pretty surreal manifestation of bureaucracy, that no less than six personnel were being used to watch and man this gate, and to maintain a presence at the barrier, which is the traditional site of protest.
We made our way back to Ramallah, and then to Jerusalem, where we walked through the Border Terminal (nee military checkpoint) known as Qalandia. A new thing is that they checked the date on our visas. I had rarely, if ever, seen those checked. Back to Jerusalem, a night at Benj/Emma's and the anticipation of hitching through the West Bank the following day to Kibbutz Sasa for the Purim weekend.
Shavua tov!
Ya'akov
About Modi'in Illit and the placement of the Wall near Bil'in:
[http://www.palsolidarity.org
A reason to be happy that my phone doesn't work that well:
[http://www.independent.co.uk
Labels: israel-palestine
posted by Jacob at 7:43 PM
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