Palestinian Report #3
Dodging Rubber Bullets
Jenin, Palestine (West Bank)
August 1, 2003
Those of you who’ve been relieved that I haven’t been in danger yet can start worrying now. I’m okay, but things have been pretty intense here for the past week. I’ve had a crash course in israeli violence. I have been shoved, tear-gassed, shot at with rubber bullets, threatened with live warning shots, and frightened and shocked by sound grenades, not to mention intimidated by the usual tanks and machine guns.
OPEN THE ROAD
On Friday (July 25), I joined 24 other internationals to remove a roadblock between the northern village of Aba and the city of Jenin to the south. As I mentioned in my last update, israeli soldiers regularly block main roads in order to limit and control the movement of Palestinians. The Aba roadblock prevents 2,500 Palestinians from Aba and other nearby villages from using their main route into Jenin. Jenin is the urban center in this region. Villagers travel there to work; to sell their produce; to buy food, clothes and other items; to attend school; to visit family or friends; or to access transportation to other destinations, as well as for an untold number of other reasons. Likewise, people in Jenin regularly travel to Aba and other northern villages (or they would if this road were open). This particular road is blocked because it intersects with a settler road: a well-maintained, paved road to a 300-person israeli settlement and a military base. In other words, the road is blocked because israelis don’t want to have to deal with Palestinians in any way.
Internationals have removed this roadblock before, and israeli soldiers put it up again. The villagers have asked the International Solidarity Movement here to clear the road whenever it is blocked. This roadblock is really formidable, nothing compared to the roadblock in Burqeen. It consists of four 4-foot-square concrete cubes in a row across the road and entirely covered in a mound of dirt so that the whole arrangment is about five feet high. There are also long, deep trenches on each side of the road to prevent cars from going around the pile. In addition to this obstacle, just in case someone might pass, there are three more blocks on the north side of the road, on the other side of the settler road.
The group of us who would be working to remove it met the night before to discuss the action plan. First, a group of diggers with shovels would toss all of the dirt into the trench beside the road. Workers with pickaxes would work simultaneously to break up the clots of dirt and make shoveling easier. When the first block was uncovered, two 8-foot crowbars would be wedged underneath to act as levers to lift the block enuff to put a heavy-duty carjack underneath. One member of the workcrew would then jack up the block and, with those using the crowbars, flip it into the trench.
Military vehicles pass often on the settler road crossing the Aba-Jenin road, so we knew that we would have a limited amount of time to remove the roadblock before soldiers arrived. The plan was to have the roadblock removers work as quickly as possible to get as much done as they could before the soldiers got there, and then the blockers would move into place to protect them from arrest once the soldiers were on the scene. The action was well-planned, so that is essentially what happened.
About 10 minutes passed and much dirt was removed from the mound before the first jeep carrying four soldiers stopped on the settler road. The soldiers got out and shouted, “What are you doing?” Our two middle-aged negotiators, a Jewish man and woman, approached them calmly and explained that we were internationals trying to remove the roadblock so that the road can be used by the 2,500 Palestinians living in the villages north of Jenin. The blockers laughed as we watched the negotiators sing and dance to lighten the soldiers’ mood. It didn’t work very well, though, because the soldiers soon came down the road toward us. We blockers prepared for a shoving match by linking our arms in a line in front of the workers, who steadily continued digging.
We knew the workers were likely to be arrested if the soldiers could reach them, and it was our job as blockers to ensure that that didn’t happen. The soldiers, of course, opposed us. They rushed toward us, and we stood our ground. When they tried to go around us to grab the workers from the other side, our line moved with them. Sometimes they pushed us, but we held our ground. Frustrated, the soldiers started grabbing the work tools. They succeeded in confiscating a shovel and a pickaxe, although I tried to rescue both, lost my footing and fell in the process. I have bruises on both my knees to show for my efforts. The tools were thrown into the field alongside the road. In the meantime, another jeep of four soldiers had arrived to try to push their way to the roadblock removers.
Things became very tense at this point. The workers had removed all of the dirt from the first block, had wedged the crowbars underneath and were jacking up the block and trying to flip it into the ditch. This was the most dangerous part of their work because of the heaviness of the block and the likelihood that a part of someone’s body could get caught underneath and crushed. A line of about six people, including myself, blocked the workers from a group of four soldiers. The military commander was hell-bent on destroying this action and maintaining the roadblock. He shoved with all his might against the linked arms of myself and another woman. “You’re hurting me!” I shouted as his weight crashed against my arm and his M-16 gun scratched my inner left arm just above the elbow. “Stop! My arm! You’re hurting my arm!” He paid me no attention as he continued to push against me and grab at the crowbar being used to flip the concrete block. One of the male workers told us later that he trapped between the block and the crowbar as the soldiers crowded all of us together with their pushing.
"Stop the work! Stop!" the soldiers shouted.
"Let's talk," urged the male negotiator, Deet. "We can stop the work if you'll just talk to me for one minute."
"Why bother wasting your time?" the commander asked us. "We'll just build another roadblock."
"But why block the road?" queried Rala, the other negotiator. "You don't have to block it. Thousands of Palestinians need the road."
"We will block the road," he answered matter-of-factly.
In the heat of the moment, things become blurred. I don’t know how exactly this situation was diffused, but the soldiers eventually backed up a bit, the block was flipped, and we internationals decided that we’d been done enuff and could leave. So the whole event ended rather quickly. We walked slowly away from the roadblock, and the soldiers drove off in their jeeps. The internationals reassembled and agreed to return to the roadblock to try to find our shovel and pickaxe and to smooth out the road as best as we could. No soldiers were around, but we worked quickly anyway. We succeeded in removing a boulder from the side of the road to make more room for cars and in clearing the way of big rocks, but no one could find the tools. Oh well. 0 people + 2 tools arrested = 1 small loss.
Soldiers blocked the same road again later that day.
ANOTHER OBSTACLE
The 25 of us internationals returned to Jenin, where we met to discuss the strong and weak points of the roadblock removal. Afterward, Rudy, a british woman also staying at the university dorm, & I took a shared taxi home. Six other people were in the car with us: three men alone, and a husband and wife holding their baby girl. En route to Zebabdeh village, we encountered lines of traffic stopped in four directions. A parked jeep blocked the intersection of two roads. Palestinians know better than to drive or walk toward a military vehicle without express permission from soldiers. On July 26, a 4-year-old boy was shot and killed and two of his relatives wounded when a tank “misfired” at Bartaa checkpoint south of the city of Jenin.
The driver of our taxi immediately turned off the ignition and resigned himself to a long wait. The cars ahead of us appeared to have done the same. Rudy & I exchanged a look. Time again for us to use our white western privilege to get thru a checkpoint and possibly help some Palestinians pass in the process. We took out our passports.
“Would you like us to try to talk to the soldiers?” I asked the taxi driver, who spoke some English.
“If you want,” he answered disinterestedly. He seemed unhopeful that our attempt would do any good.
“We will only go if you want us to, if you don’t mind,” Rudy said. We didn’t want to go against the wishes of the Palestinians with us, who would face the repercussions of our actions should the soldiers get angry or annoyed.
“Try,” the driver urged us.
So Rudy & I got out of the car and slowly approached the jeep with our passports held up in front of us so the soldiers wouldn't mistake us for Palestinians and freak out. As we neared, we could see that four soldiers were just sitting inside the vehicle. Two got out to speak with us. We exchanged greetings, and they started bullshitting with us about the u.s. and england. I’ve found that this is the usual routine with soldiers at checkpoints around Jenin, and it annoys me that they can be so nonchalant when hundreds of Palestinians are sitting in their vehicles, burning up in the sun and waiting to resume their lives.
“What’s going on?” I asked. One of the soldiers, the most talkative one, replied, “We’re looking for terrorists. We’re trying to find Mohammed Abu Yuusef. Have you seen him?” Clearly, the soldier was being facetious, dirisive and racist by saying that a fictional man with a stereotypical Arab name was a terrorist to insinuate that all Arab men are terrorists and are interchangeable. I asked, “So what are you doing? Are you checking cars?” I was in no mood for chitchat. “Nuthin’,” the soldier answered. Duh. As the name alludes, checkpoints are points at which Israeli soldiers check Palestinian vehicles and decide whether passengers may continue on their journeys or turn back. Israel claims that the 170 permanent and untold number of impromtu or “pop” checkpoints in the West Bank are necessary for security. This incident illustrates just how “necessary” the checkpoints are: necessary for israeli harrassment and the disruption of Palestinian lives.
Sensing that we were getting nowhere with questions about why the soldiers were here, Rudy & I explained that we were trying to return to our dorm and asked if we could pass. “Sure,” one soldier said as casually as if we were requesting a cup of water. “But if you see Mohammed Abu Yuusef, tell him we’re looking for him.” Sure. Will do. Rudy & I began walking back to our taxi, and the soldiers hopped in their jeep and drove away. Of course, true to their racist nature, they taunted the Palestinians and shouted insults out the jeep windows when they roared past the cars. The Palestinians remained silent as they started their vehicles and began moving.
All the way back to Arab American University, I thought about what had happened. The four soldiers reminded me of carousing frat boys. It was as tho they had a half an hour to kill until the end of their shift, and they’d just decided to cause some trouble, to toy with people they knew they’d get away with toying with. They weren’t checking out any cars. They weren’t protecting anyone from anything. They were just being spoiled jerks.
TEAR DOWN THE WALL
On Monday (July 28), I faced another troop of aggressive israelis when I joined approximately 50 other internationals, more than 200 Palestinians villagers in the Jenin district and 30 anti-occupation israeli anarchists for a massive action and demonstration at the Apartheid Wall. The wall, currently under construction and completed in a few spots, robs Palestinians of 40% of the West Bank by cutting deeply into the Green Line, pre-1967 border between israel and Palestine. The particular segment of the wall that we marched on is actually a 12-foot-high wire fence bedecked with razor and barbed wire. It separates the villagers of Anin, east of Jenin city, from their 2,750 acres of their land, 22,800 of their olive trees and another Palestinian village. A steel gate in the fence is supposed to allow the Palestinians access to their confiscated lands. Israel, however, has permanently locked the gate, and soldiers patrol the area to ensure that Palestinians cannot breach the “security fence.”
As another International Solidarity Movement member wrote: “With their best lands cut off and their cities surrounded, Palestinians will be left on the rocky central spine of the territory. The ‘state’ that will be conceded at this point will have no borders with any other countries and will be completely dependent on israel. An industrial zone is planned near the settlements in the southwestern section, which will draw upon Palestinian labor. Israel can then send home the hundreds of thousands of
foreign guest workers who have been siphoning billions of dollars out of the israeli economy. Palestinians who cannot find work will have to emigrate. The wall is a tool for ethnic cleansing.”
For more information about the wall, another of israel’s “security measures,” visit http://www.palsolidarity.org/wall/wall.htm. (if this link doesn't work, cut and paste it to the address box above)
The ISM had been coordinating with the locals near the wall for at least a month prior to this action, but there was no way we could predict exactly what would happen on the day we tried to open the fence. We did know that there had been a heavy military presence in the area on Sunday and Monday morning before we departed from Anin toward the wall, so we expected a quick military response. Those who had seen it briefed the rest of us on the design of the fence and gate. Our group objective was to break open the gate, remove the razor wire blocking the opening and cut holes in the fence so that Palestinians could get thru to tend their land. As with the Aba roadblock removal, each of the internationals chose a role. Again, I was a blocker responsible for using my body to prevent the israeli soldiers or police from arresting anyone of the crew cutting thru the gate lock, the razor wire and the fence. The 20 or so of us blockers from amerika, canada, the uk and europe were assisted by 20 young israeli anarchists, who, interestingly enuff, faced their own difficulties entering the West Bank (Remember: israel’s prerogative is to keep israelis and Palestinians separated.).
The blockers led the way toward the wall. If you go to http://www.palsolidarity.org/ (if this link doesn't work, cut and paste it to the address box), you’ll see me wearing a purple hat & red shirt on the right in the photo accompanying the article about this action. We were followed by the work crew and the Palestinians. (While Palestinians were, of course, an integral part of this demonstration, internationals performed the actions because we do not face the same level of violence as Palestinians receive from israeli soldiers.) Chanting “1-2-3-4, occupation no more! 5-6-7-8, stop the killing, stop the hate!” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!,” we marched over and past the four roadblocks in our way. The Apartheid Wall was then in sight. We could see a group of soldiers on the other side of the gate (the so-called israeli side, even tho it is Palestinian land within the pre-1967 border). To the left of the soldiers, a cluster of peaceful israeli demonstrators holding up anti-occupation and anti-Apartheid Wall signs.
The soldiers fired tear gas and sound grenades at us immediately. The New York Times article about this action reports that the soldiers started shooting to “drive back” the protestors destroying the wall, but this is a bald-faced lie.
(Read the Times article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/29/international/middleeast/29MIDE.html?ex=1060503139&ei=1&en=783f4cfa3d7b13eb) (if this link doesn't work, cut and paste it to the address box)
The work crew proceeded in spite of tear gas and sound grenades, and when these didn’t stop the activists, the soldiers fired rubber-coated bullets at them at close range. At least five internationals were wounded from rubber bullets (two in the leg, one in the back, one in the stomach and leg, and one in the neck). Two were hospitalized. Another amerikan received a cut and burn from shrapnel from a sound grenade. At least three others -- an israeli and two Palestinians -- were injured. Luckily, some Palestinian medics were there to assist the wounded.
Let me try to describe what it was like to be in this situation. I know full well what kops & the military are capable of, but I had no point of reference for this action, so it was really scary. I have never been exposed to tear gas or close-range gunfire. As soon as we reached the fence area, the soldiers threw sound grenades at us. These make a huge explosions, and, for someone unfamiliar with such weapons, they sound like live gunfire. So I thought the soldiers might be shooting directly at us, and that made me nervous. I also believe that the soldiers were firing live warning shots into the air, but I can't confirm that. With so many loud noises, explosions, shooting and screaming at one time, it is difficult to tell where any one sound is coming from. The whole thing was very chaotic. Because the soldiers started their offensive attack right away, the action team didn't have time to get into place. The fence crew went ahead to the fence and started trying to cut thru the lock, but we blockers were a mess. We grouped to the side of the fence crew & tried to avoid tear gas. Within less than five minutes, half of the fence crew had been injured, and someone called for more people to try to shake the gate open. I ran to help with that. The gate lock broke without much effort, but as we were trying to pull it all the way open so that a crew of workers could cut away the coils of razor wire, the soldiers fired two more tear gas cannisters at us. We all retreated to remedy ourselves with onions and vinegar, which counteract the effects of the tear gas. The gas stings your eyes, induces crying and makes it difficult to see. Breathing in the gas also burns your lungs and makes you start coughing. Fortunately, the wind carried a lot of the gas away and the onion worked its magic, so I recovered pretty quickly.
At this point, the 40 or so of us who'd approached the wall had drawn back. We gathered in groups to discuss what to do. Our agreed-upon protocol was that we'd abort the action if the soldiers fired rubber bullets at people, so we decided not to continue with the rest of our plan to cut away the razor wire and try to further open the fence. We were out-armed by the soldiers, who had no qualms about using excessive violence on a group of unarmed, non-violent peace activists. Our power then was in our presence and our message. "The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!," we chanted to the soldiers. The israeli anarchists with us went up to the fence and shouted Hebrew peace slogans for the benefit of the media. There were Palestinian and Canadian reporters there and supposedly an ABC News crew. The NY Times printed an article, but I don't think they had a reporter on the scene (and if there was one, she is blind and dellusional because the article is so incorrrect). After some interviews, we all marched as a group back to the village of Anin. Our victory was small but symbolic, as the ISM reported.
IT NEVER ENDS
The next day (July 29), on our way to the university from Jenin in the bus, we came upon a pop checkpoint. The other two internationals teaching at the school and I decided to go up and talk to the soldiers. They told us to bring our vehicle up, and they'd let us pass. We didn't want to be spoiled amerikans just driving past everyone else waiting in four directions, tho, so Rudy boarded another bus so that it would be allowed thru as well. Luka & I got back on our bus, and the soldiers waved us thru the checkpoint. We watched anxiously out the back window as the soldiers stopped the bus Rudy had gotten onto & ordered all of the passengers out. The soldiers looked them over, and Rudy did some talking, and then the passengers were allowed back on the bus & thru the checkpoint. As we drove away, we could see that the other cars were passing more quickly thru the checkpoint. I guess even big-bad israeli soldiers get a little nervous when they realize that internationals are privvy to their inhumanity. That's another triumph, but a sour one. What happens when the internationals go home and israel has free reign?
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