Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 10:54:22 -0700

Geetings from Jenin!! i am so happy to be back here!! i made it in yesterday afternoon after a 7 hour commute from Jerusalem {should take 90 minutes} along with 3 new people from the training i helped facilitate over the weekend. it took so long because of the .....whats it called again?.....oh yeah, the completely illegal and immoral Israeli Occupation of the beautiful land and people of Palestine. but we made it! we were twice turned away at checkpoints by jaish {soldiers} and finally went off-road, which i suggested from the beginning. so, i have once again snuck into Palestine, and i'm damn proud of it. there is a certain pleasure in sneaking in, as it involves none of the temporary aquiescence to illegitimate power that getting thru checkpoints does. no false story about being an English teacher, no being polite to backwards minded soldiers, no act of naivete or being a foolish tourist, i sneak in Palestinian style. i prefer to do things as they do as long as i'm here, i don't wanna exercise my white privilege or any similar nonsense. i wanna ride with Palestine.so, the training was good, most of what i did revolved around various role-plays in which i prepped folks for the unholy demeanor of the soldiers and kops they would soon be dealing with. i played the soldier, i felt funny and held back alot, but they thought i was carried away and exaggerating!!!! Funny!! i was just showin' what i'd seen, watered down, and they thought i was tryin to scare them !! they'll see, or in fact already have as its now Tuesday. i wish i was exaggerating, to be sure. my friend Moustaffa who i have mentioned several times left Jenin Saturday noonish, i called him thru-out the day{i was at the training in Beit Sa Hour aka Bethlehem doing the training, near Jerusalem} as his phone had no credit, and despite earlier promises to me he had struck out alone . i called him hourly, he crossed thru two checkpoints to enter Israel, was interrogated at length and had possessions taken at both, and crossed into Israel at 3 pm. i was happy, figured he was largely in the clear. i called him again at 6, he was still sitting by the side of the road, 50 meters past the checkpoint, in Israel. no busses or cabs had been willing to pick him up, though 2 had had the decency to tell him why "you look like a bomber". so there he was, sitting there, well past dark, on what is essentially a settler road. Youch!! i passed a hat, rushed back to Jerusalem with the others, and got a taxi with Israeli plates, and off we went. it was me and the driver, a Palestinian, we crossed much of the country{ies} in a local cab. halfway there Mous's phone battery died, the last thing he was able to communicate was "Hurry up dude, come now!" the drive was 2 and a half hours, i was really nervous for him, especially after we lost phone contact. The drive went on forever, it felt like, we drove thru the town i was deported to last month, where i slept in a park after being taken at gunpoint from our peace camp. it was weird to drive those roads again, this time safe in a car with Israeli plates. we pulled up, not knowing what to expect, and there he was, my chubby Canadian friend, hamdAllah {thanks to god}, sitting there in the dark, smoking a cig, in one piece. i was thrilled. he had sat there for 6 hours. we drove back to Jerusalem and had a beer. the cost for a local taxi cross country?? not cheap, but everyone from the training pitched in.Moving on, i think i'll jump ahead to my time since returning to Jenin. last night, after saying hellos and being welcomed back, we went and had a visit at a friends' home. much of the talk revolved around his families experience during the Jenin Camp invasion in spring 2002 . after awhile his older brother, around 35, presented himself. he immediately struck me as a rather strange and haunted man. we learned why, in painful detail, and it all stemmed from his experience during the invasion, in which his home was first attacked by an Apache helicopter, 2 rockets and many dozens of rounds of 5 inch long bullets, as he huddled in the back bathroom with his wife, 2 small kids and 2 day old daughter. i saw the damage to the house myself. then soldiers came and occupied the home for 14 days, while his family was forced to dwell in the bathroom. they ran out of food. the infant became sick. the soldiers shot up the house, while using it as a base. it went on and on. he's sorta strange now. he is obsessed with the fact that he wasn't able to protect his kids. tanks came and tried to knock down the house, but he had built it well and it didn't fall completely. he is very haunted by the minutes in which he realized they were trying to bring down the home on him and his family. he freaked out, apparently, and is still sorta strange, though fully functioning etc. the tanks then crushed the 2 family cars, too thoroughly as to be an accident {i saw them} and smashed the stone wall surrounding the family compound. 7 of his IMMEDIATE neighbors were killed by the IOF. so, he went thru 2 weeks of this, unabated, and it left its' mark. Why was his home targetted? Was he Hamas? Jihad? Al Aqsa? He has a balcony with an amazing view of the camp, thats all. thats why he went thru this, thats why his kids are messed up now, wake up screaming in the night. a great view.So here's the low-down from Jenin: the city is surrounded, the roads in and out are ALL closed, theres no work, no one has $$, theres no way to bring in water, no way to take out the garbage, moral is rock-bottom and people can't afford to celebrate Ramadan properly. In the Mayor's own words, "The city is dying." The situation is so incredibly sad, and the sadness is multiplied, to me, by how truly cool the people here are. Whoever you are, reading this somewhere, i know you'd like them too. we can't just let them die, melt away, as is the intention of the Israeli government. Back In The Trenches, Ben Jenin, PALESTINE