Two more personal accounts which just arrived
November 2, 2002 (continuation from November 1)

[] Report from a behind-the-scenes activist
[] "You may not enter Israel!"

[These two personal accounts arrived just after we had sent out the billboard. We hope you don't mind to get more reading material for the weekend.]

[] Report from a behind-the-scenes activist
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Sat, 02 Nov 2002 01:38:05 +0200 (IST)
From: Rayna Moss

Dear Friends,

Finally some good news this week: the government is collapsing! In case anyone thought that there were principles, morals or even some sort of different political thinking behind Ben-Eliezer's resignation - sorry, it was just a move aimed at saving his vast behind in internal Labor Party politics. Nevertheless, it is certainly fun to see yet another disastrous government fall. Contemplating what will come next is really painful, so I'm just trying to enjoy the present.

Ben-Eliezer's replacement, former Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz, was forced to leave the UK hastily, due to legal action against him for war crimes. Really, who better to be Minister of Defense?

I know that some of you are wondering why I'm not picking olives or being a human shield in Yanoun. I'm kind of wondering myself. My plans to join one of the ISM/Ta'ayush/Rabbis for Human Rights actions are constantly being subverted by personal difficulties and other tasks that need to be done. Granted, not as dramatic, courageous or publicized as other activities, but just as necessary. As some of you know, Tom has been sick on and off for about three weeks, with recurring throat infections. He was diagnosed with mono, then a different infection and he is finally doing better on penicillin, although he's still weak. Friends who would normally help out with caring for him when I'm away were unable to do so, so I needed to find activities closer to home, for the time being.

My friend Hagar (Yafka Gavish's daughter), a single mother who is in the same circumstances, initiated what started out as a modest campaign to raise funds for buying school equipment for Palestinian children. The campaign was started by the Movement of Democratic Women, whose members sewed 1,000 backpacks and then asked for support in filling them. Through a few emails and phone calls, we managed to raise hundreds of shekels, enough to fully equip more than 80 children (with some help from our enthusiastic supporter, the owner of the two-shekel store. He calls us "righteous ladies" and that's the name we've adopted for our small band of at-home activists - it sounded better than "the women's auxilliary of Ta'ayush"). In general, we don't know where the backpacks go - the MDW make trips to whatever city or village is accessible on a certain day, according to needs and requests from local NGOs. In one case, Adam Keller reported getting a request from a small town, where none of the children had anything to bring to school and happily, we were able to respond immediately. That week, they received 100 backpacks, in addition to donated clothing and toys.

As soon as that campaign was over, we were alerted to the situation of Palestinian families with sick children, who are given permits to come to hospitals in Israel. Obtaining the permits is a struggle in itself, and the parents rush to the hospital as soon as they get them, without any preparation. The children are usually in critical condition - newborns with heart defects, leukemia patients who need chemotherapy, a boy who was shot in the head. In addition to the obvious concern and tension, the parents don't have the support of their families once they are in Israel, sometimes only one parent is allowed in, they have other children at home in the care of grandparents or other relatives and they are isolated due to language and status. A peace activist became aware of this situation after receiving a call from a PNA official whose relatives were at an Israeli hospital - they had not changed clothes in three days and were subsisting on leftover hospital food and snacks from a vending machine. The activist started to care for them and asked others to help and one man who lives near the hospital now goes every day, checking all the wards for Palestinian families who might need help. He reports to a Ta'ayush coordinator (one of the "righteous ladies", who can't get into trouble because she's pregnant) and she in turn makes sure that the families are visited every day, get fresh food and changes of clothing, calling cards for the pay phone, etc.

The families have only good things to say about the medical staff and pray for them on a regular basis. "They don't discriminate at all, they don't care if you're Jewish or Arab," one mother told me. Another said, that a doctor had stayed with her son for hours in intensive care, "just as if it were his own son." How utterly terrible, when medical staff performing their jobs "without discrimination" is considered to be practically a miracle....

The everyday, mundane problem seems to be with the support/administrative staff, who make no effort to help the families. One woman did not have a pillow for a week, because no one told her that she could go to the linen closet and take one. No social workers have come to sit with them and help them through these difficult times. All of those normal functions are done by volunteers. Another difficulty is money - the prices here are three or four times higher than in Palestine, so what funds they do have with them don't last. They can't leave the hospital at all, because their ID cards are held by security, even if they could find their way to a market with cheaper prices.

In any event, we've settled into a good routine and these people are no longer isolated and neglected. When it was my turn, some of the families had already been there for a week, so as soon as Peter and I got off the elevator with our bags and containers, they greeted us "Here's Ta'ayush!" The same people who, the week before, had been fearful and alone, were already settling down and even supporting others. A Palestinian father told me about a Jewish family whose daughter was terminal and had been told that she would die within hours. He said that he distracted the mother by drawing her into a political debate and when the girl did die several days later, he and his wife comforted her parents and sat with them.

Helping these families is somewhat delicate - these are people who normally do not ask for favors or charity, working people who support their families and who are in need only due to circumstances. We explained, that we are not a charity group, that we are supporting them as a political act, because they are victims of the occupation, but it was still difficult to overcome natural shyness and discomfort. Things have gotten better, since we make a party of the whole thing. We "occupy" the lounge (well, we are Israelis...), put tables together and put out a spread. Of course, we also eat, so it is more like a communal meal. Although there is tough competition, I have been officially named the best cook in Ta'ayush. Of course, most of the judges are sick and/or traumatized, but still, their taste buds are unaffected. It was really gratifying the last time I went, to see people really digging in, especially a young boy who was terribly burned in an accident at home. His father said that he wouldn't eat, because he would only take liquids, but I made a small plate for him anyway and he devoured everything. Both of his arms were bandaged and his face was covered with an ointment, but the smile he gave me was unbelievable. What more could a Jewish mother want?

A few days later, the coordinator called to tell me that one of the mothers who had shared our meal had smiled for the first time that day and she started to realize the value of our work there. But today we heard the heartbreaking news that her baby had died. I don't think there was anything more that could have been done for him, from the medical aspect. He was born with severe problems and despite the heart surgery, his other organs collapsed. He was three weeks old. We did have some good news as well, one girl taken out of intensive care and transferred to a regular ward; a boy with cancer whose parents got a permit to go back and forth with him, so they don't have to be prisoners at the hospital, but we are all distressed at this tragedy.

On the optimistic side, this project had a nice spin-off. I asked Hagar to organize some clothes for the babies and children who were being released and she contacted a friend who has access to a large quantity of used clothing (long story, too complicated to get into). The guy promised a delivery that week and said he'd leave the bags outside her door. When she got home, she couldn't see her door: he'd brought about 15 huge garbage bags filled with clothing and shoes, filling the entire staircase. He also left a note: he would bring regular deliveries every two weeks! It took us a whole day to separate everything. A lot went to Windows, a group that works for coexistence and brings supplies to Palestinian communities in need. We also donated some bags to a group of refugees from Sierra Leone, who have won a legal battle to remain here due to the civil war in their country, and who now need the means to support themselves. A shelter for the homeless also got some bags.

In addition to these special projects, I continue to volunteer at the Open Clinic, which serves migrant workers. I fail to see how a person like myself, who faints at the sight of blood and gets queasy even seeing an injection in a movie, gets involved in so many medically-related projects, but there it is. My job at the clinic is not in a medical capacity, of course: I just work the reception desk, refer patients, give out information, play with the kids while they wait, hold babies while the mothers use the bathroom, feed homeless people who wander in, etc. To give an idea of the scope of our work: in the three years the clinic has been working, we have had more than 10,000 patients. All of the work is voluntary and the administrative staff of Physicians for Human Rights also work for the clinic. The Tel-Aviv municipality is now considering giving us a building to work out of (instead of the combined clinic-PHR office) and perhaps paying some full-time medical staff. It took them ten years to recognize that we have a population of migrant workers with no social services and only three years to recognize the need for a clinic, so I guess that's progress.

Back at home, Tom has, once again, won first prize at school for most money collected for the Cancer Association. He's also in a project in which older kids tutor pre-schoolers and first-graders and he loves it. We've discussed junior high, since he will have a choice next year. The local high school is literally three minutes away, but some of his friends will be going to a supposedly better school, that focuses on art, but requires a bus ride and that terrifies him (and us). There is also the option of going to a democratically-run school that focuses on media and communications, a short ride from home. I was really excited about that one, since the principal took a failing school and totally turned it around by letting the students have a say, but I've cooled now that I saw in a paper that they have a new project: the school has been "adopted" by a unit of soldiers from Military Intelligence, who tutor the kids. Considering the fact that Tom has already announced that he plans to go abroad to avoid being drafted we could rely on his judgement, but it scares us to think of him being exposed to this sort of "good works".

Okay, for everyone who complained that they haven't heard from me and asked what I've been up to, this should be sufficient. I'm going to get back to my pots and pans, since I have a meal to serve tomorrow, and I need to maintain my reputation. The menu includes soy-rice-veggie burgers, zuchini in tomato sauce, beet salad, potato salad, homemade pickles and a sweet kugel. So for those of you who haven't been over in a while, stop being such wooses and get on a plane. You can't really say that you'd rather be vacationing in Bali...

Love,
Rayna

(For those of you to whom this invitation doesn't apply - see you ten minutes after peace!)

[] "You may not enter Israel!"
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Fri, 01 Nov 2002 14:35:41 -0500
From: Kathleen Kern

[Kathy Kern is a long-time member of the Christian Peacemakers Team (CPT) in Hebron. This week she was deported back to the US upon arrival at the Ben-Gurion Airport for her eleventh term of peacemaking service. She wrote an article about the experience for a local paper in Rochester NY.]

"I did not kill that Dutchman on the moor!" I read on the wooden slab of the bunk above me in my prison cell. The author had written an address in Essex, England below it. A woman from Ghana had written in broken English that it was better to be dead than African in Israel.

Unlike my cellmates from Malawi and Russia, facing deportation (probably for overstaying a visa and prostitution respectively) I was being deported for working with a human rights organization.

That afternoon, the young woman at passport control had stamped my passport with a three month visa and sent me, as per the usual routine for suspicious characters, to a security person for further questioning. He laughed when he saw me, because he had interrogated me before. The next steps normally would have involved him asking me further questions, putting my luggage through a scanning machine and letting me go.

But this time, something on the computer caught the attention of the Interior Ministry. After several hours of questioning and leaving me to wait outside an office, Ministry officials told me they were denying me entry into Israel.

I refused to accompany the security people to my cell until someone answered this question: Given that I had entered the country multiple times in the last seven years, each time telling airport security the truth about my work, why were they deporting me now?

"I donšt care about your honesty! I donšt know why they let you in before! You may not enter Israel!" the Interior Ministry official said. I persisted in my demand for an explanation and he finally said, glancing at what looked like a police report in Hebrew on his computer screen. "You make many problems for soldiers."

So perhaps my past detentions (for trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home by climbing on the roof, for selling tomatoes in a vegetable market that the Oslo Accords stipulated should be open to Palestinian vendors, and for sitting on a pipe to prevent settler security people from cutting off a water supply to Palestinian farmers) had finally caught up with me. My last detention had been in 1999 and the police had never arrested me, but I decided pressing the increasingly hostile official was not going to get me a better explanation.

When Israeli airport security ushered me into the holding cell area and told my jailer why I was being deported, he noted the tears running down my face and said, "No! No! It is crazy here. You are good! You are good!" He then kindly allowed me to call an Israeli friend, Yaalah, although official deportation protocol permits a call to the U.S. Embassy only. She said she would notify my co-workers.

At 6:30 am the next morning, the police drove me across the tarmac to the British Airways jet and waited there in the vehicle, its lights flashing, until the plane taxied away.

The day after I got home, Yaalah called and told me that Israelšs Ministry of the Interior is on strike at the moment, which may have had something to do with my deportation. Representatives were denying entry to anyone who raised red flags rather than scrutinizing their backgrounds more closely.

Several days later, I wrote a letter to the Israeli Embassy saying that the work I do as a human rights activist actually enhances Israeli security, because intervening when we see Israeli soldiers and settlers brutalizing Palestinians helps decrease feelings of rage and helplessness that might be channeled into violent resistance, and because we support Palestinian groups using nonviolent strategies to resist the Occupation.

"If Palestinians believe their goal to end the Occupation can be accomplished nonviolently," I wrote. "There will be many fewer dead Israelis. And fewer dead Israelis and Palestinians is something that my co-workers and I truly yearn for."

I do not have high hopes that the Israeli authorities will allow me to return. Zeev Boim, a senior member of the ruling Likud party recently introduced a bill in the Knesset (Israeli parliament) that would make assistance by an Israeli citizen to the Hague International Court of Justice punishable by up to ten years' imprisonment. The deportation of foreign human rights observers pales in comparison to the imprisonment of Israeli citizens for submitting evidence of war crimes to an international judicial system. But both actions beg the question, why is the current Israeli government afraid of people reporting what it is doing in the Occupied Territories?