Subject: Some day off!!
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 08:30:13 -0600

Greetings from Jenin, this will be a poorly and rapidly written update as i don't have much time to write. Here goes:yesterday me and the other longtermers tried to take it easy for once, while the shorttermers went to pick olives. those of us trying to chill went to a meeting with the local rep of a very respected and prodigious Israeli human rights group called Bet'se'lem {well worth looking up online}. we talked for about an hour, much of it him telling various horror stories about soldier atrocities towards Palestinians, largely revolving around sex crimes, obscene acts of humiliation and forced beastiality , eating of non-food items, humiliation etc. these things happen everyday here, sadly.after that i was outside of this internet cafe chatting with cab-drivers when another group member called, saying we had an "urgent situation", so i returned home. no chilling!!! ever!!!!-smile. the situation was that an isolated village well outside Jenin had been invaded by the iof, placed under curfew, school kids were stuck at skool unable to leave, and the iof was conducting operations all over the village. so we hurriedly went in a cab, traveling most of the way offroad, thru olive tree orchards as Jenin is still sealed off by the IOF. can you believe that here there are traffic jams in olive orchards? its true. we got to the village, walked in, found the area of main iof activity and made ourselves very visible as our only intention was to observe. we ascertained that the iof was doing house raids, had arrested 2 young men, and were still doing raids. we observed them enter a home, kicking out the 2 occupants, an elderly woman and a woman about my age. a iof jeep zoomed up to us ,told us leave the area, we said we weren't doing anything, he said, "you want to get arrested?" we said no. he said "then go away now". we backed up a few feet. the illegally house arrested residents of the village were thrilled to see us and waved enthusiastically from their house windows. there were about 10 iof vehicles in our immediate vicinity, we stayed visible and held our hands clearly out in front of us, re-iterating our role as witnesses, not participants. we quietly made jokes about the soldiers and the ridiculously overwelming force they had brought to this sleepy, rather pathetic little hamlet. again, a jeep zoomed towards us, "why are you here?" we could've asked them the same, but instead replied "we heard there are small children here being held, and we find that unacceptable." he said we had to leave the village immediately, we said we had had no intention of interfeering or "causing trouble", but we would not leave until the operations were over and the kids were retuned to their families. the jeep guy again told us to leave or face arrest, but we sensed that were probably ok. we observed their operations for several exhausting hours with periodic exchanges with iof trying to get us to leave. after they left, we left too. after the hour ride home we were walking towards the front door of our flat, around dusk, when a university student i know ran up to us, another busload of students was being held at the exact same spot as the load of univ. kids i wrote you about the other day. we groaned, got another cab and went. we found them there, almost exact same situation as tuesday, soldiers took I.D.s and disappeared. the kids had been there for 4 hours and were wondering what had taken us so long! we explained why it took us so long and 4 hours later they were on their way, having been held for 8 hours. to accomplish this, we had to flag down an army jeep on the deserted road, this task fell to me and Moustaffa, another ISMer, while the other ISMers and the students hung well back. Doing this sucked, it was pitch black and we knew that the soldiers are young and scared. as Mous is a brown guy, i had to spearhead the flagging down {i'm white}, so i did so. the jeep, for which we had waited for several hours, turned so its headlights {brights} were blinding us, and 2 soldiers climbed out very cautiosly, guns raised to shoulders, aimed at us, took a few steps toward us...."lift your shirts!. Turn around! why you here?" we explained that we came at the behest of the detained kids' families to gain their release and he told us to back to Jenin. we said we couldn't do that without the kids because we knew their families and would be ashamed to do so. he checked our passports, we still having not seen the soldiers much because we were blinded by headlights. we stood there with our hands in the air for 30 minuts, blinded, while the soldiers milled around their jeep. Eventually they told us to call the detainees forward, which we did. they were called up to our position one by one and given their I.D.s back. Problems remained though, first one was that the soldiers had thrown the bus drivers' keys into a big field at the the time of the student's initial bust, second was that a cab driver was also caught up in the mix {he had also been carrying students to the university}, and the soldiers claimed they didn't have his I.D. So, who the hell did? we knew they were lying and probably had thrown it away or something, so pursued the issue as much as we felt we could. the soldier we had been dealing with looked a little ashamed, then said "Don't have it", got back in the jeep and drove off into the night. The bus driver hot-wired his own bus and took the students back to Jenin, we stayed there with the cabbie. without his I.D. he faced renewable 6 month terms in Israeli prisons, we all knew this, especially him. he was a slight, sad looking man, probably 55. we waited with him there in the darkness for another 2 hours in slim hopes that the jeep would return. It did not. He was sad and worried and humiliated, but bought us bottles of fruit punch on the drive home. there were 6 bullet holes in the front doors of his cab. He told us {via Moustafa} that he as very embarrassed and humiliated because as visitors we should be drinking tea in his home, not sitting in dark fields waiting for foreign soldiers, and that he wasn't quite sure why he was no longer allowed to live like a human being, that he had no problem with Jews and they all used to live together. i cried quietly in the back seat, listening to him,drinkin' my punch.we returned home late last night, i gobbled up some food and fell asleep in the fetal position during our meeting. Some day off.Fascism takes no breaks here in the Occupied Territories of PALESTINE. Struggle, Ben