Shwei Arabic

Some Poems I Wrote on Palestine

2012-02-11T03:13:00.000-08:00

Words are cold suns in my mouth here. My thoughts are butterflies that start flying and then burn before they enter the sky. I have trouble understanding the hate that I see here, the hate that Jews show towards Muslims. I have been robbed of the power to articulate my thoughts. Perhaps my thoughts will find more eager expression through poetry. Perhaps this is my own way to pray.

The Toe Nail Clippers

They did not say, “come with us,”

but, he knew, and came.

“Undress,” they barked.

And he did.

Sun-kissed body

revealed

no weapons

of any sort,

but, an olive pit,

a green thread and

toenail clippers.

“You could kill someone with this”

they roared,

pulled the small metal

from his open palm.

All day he waited.

His family waited,

wondering how a simple

trip to the neighboring town

would take twelve hours.

The Man in the Cave

They say he has been in the cave for 17 years…

Cement and dirt mixed,

wires scarred air.

Homes were crushed into clay

and people were forced out at gunpoint.

The man ran to the mountains,

to a cave that had not-yet been

sealed off with barbed wire.

He made a wood chair,

pillow from rock.

He hummed tunes to the jade mountains

the lemon earth.

Refused to leave the Jordan

Valley, to abandon the azrak, azkrak sky.

Hebron

The Jordan Valley took my heart out of my body

and Hebron jumped up and down on it.

Soldiers in shorts ran on the streets, guns

bouncing against their bodies. Their white legs

running on streets where no Arab is permitted to walk.

Children walked in ditches and showed identification cards

every ten minutes, passed checkpoints on their way to school,

each bag suspect. Settlers can drive on the roads, but Palestinians

cannot, and so must push everything in grocery carts, trying to

gain momentum up hills that this land is famous for. Hills

that make your stomach lurch.

The debasement of humanity, to have to prove your existence

with an identity card each day………. What does it mean to be human?

And who are the animals? Who are the violent ones?

Who are the snarling ones? Who has fangs? We must question

again, what it means to be human. To be forced to walk

on the curb of the road, not the road itself.

You Know You're from Palestine When...

2012-02-06T13:47:00.000-08:00

You have too many first cousins to count
You eat pumpkin and watermellon seeds for a snack
You drink 5 cups of tea or coffee a day
You know all your neighbors
You pray five times a day
You live at home even after you are married
You eat your weight in hummus a month
You can navigate your village with your eyes closed
You would give visitors every piece of food you have
When you say, "these are my relatives," you mean the whole village

You Know You're a Foreign Volunteer in Palestine When...

Children run up to you and say, "What is your name?" What is your name?"
Everyone invites you over to their home for food, and insists you eat everything
Kanafeh, a sweet syrupy pastry follows you everywhere
You are invited over to three homes for tea (all at the same time) and you must pick one
The store owners say, "welcome, welcome"
Everyone wants to learn English
You are surprised that you never get ripped off by shop-keepers
You are surprised by the friendliness of the people
You almost get run over by the crazy drivers
A thousand eyes train on your when you go to the main University in the West Bank to teach (you are the only person not wearing a head scarf, but it is okay, they do not mind)
You teach in three villages in one day
You accidently reach out your hand to shake (when some Muslim men do not shake hands)

You Know You are a Palestinian Surviving under an Occupation When...

Surveillance cameras are on you
You allow extra time when traveling because you do not know how long a check-point will last
You cannot travel outside your territory
You know you live under an occupation when your land has been colonized
You will never be able to travel abroad
You will never see the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, a holy spot for Muslims
You are considered suspicious
You have no land, no country and a government that is only recognized by some
You were born at a check-point crossing because it took so long
You know you live under an occupation when you work and play in an apartheid state, divided by religion
You know you live under an occupation when the hospitals are seperated by religion
You have been arrested by the Israeli National Defense
You know someone who was detained for a day for having nail clippers in their pocket
You know you are surviving an occupation when the UN runs your primary school
The Israeli government blocked your water well and took over all the aquifers in your area
Your people are famous for a genre of poetry called "exile poetry"
You are tear-gassed for peacefully protesting
You are told to tear down your home yourself or pay the Israeli government to do it for you
You joke that if the colonizing force could put a price on the sun and prevent you from looking at it, they would
You are very familiar with the back of an Israeli Defense Force jeep
You know what the Nakba is
If you are a Bedouin you are no longer a nomad. You can no longer live sustainably, traveling and trading through the desert. Now, borders, check-points and a giant concrete wall have forced you to become an impoverished person, living on a square of mud in a home with a plastic-tarp with a giant hole that does not keep out the fierce winter rains and winds. You have now been forced to adopt a western way of living where you stay in one place and produce things for other consumers--mostly settlers. You will never roam the hills with your animal herds again.
You know you are living under an occupation when you keep smiling, despite all of that
When you joke about sorrow because it is the best way to be strong

Soap-Soap-Soap

2012-01-31T12:31:00.000-08:00

Nablus, Palestine.

Soap-making is one of the oldest traditions in Nablus. Olive oil is the primary ingredient, though most of the oil now comes from Italy instead of Palestine. (It is too expensive to use Palestinian oil for soap; it is primarily used for food.) Palestinian soap used to be shipped to places across Europe, particularly France.

Men awaken pre-sunrise to begin the several-day process of making soap. It takes one day to carry the soap from a boiling vat and pour it onto a concrete floor, another several days to cool, a day to cut and another day to stack. The men haul the soap on their shoulders, which are protected from the weight and heat with flour sacks lightly stuffed with some sort of padding. The men range in age from old to young. Their task is arduous. The soap steam is wicked hot. The bucket is crazy heavy. The stairs, steep and narrow. The men carry soap on their shoulders for hours. They take shifts, trade off that heavy bucket. Everything comes down to timing: each foot is perfectly placed, the soap, perfectly balanced. One slip and scalding soap would spill everywhere, but it never slips. The men are too careful.

Peace Branch

2012-01-25T15:41:00.000-08:00

Olive trees are the Palestinian lifeblood. They are an economic mainstay, primary use of agricultural land and food staple. Olive oil is eaten with every meal: pita is torn and dipped in hummus drizzled in oil. It is sold in massive quantities in markets, and olives are marinated, pickled and salted. The town of Nablus is famed for its olive oil soap, made using a traditional method where soap is stirred and poured by hand.

Life is not all rosy on the olive front, however. Fire fighters in Palestine have been called to extinguish olive tree forest fires made by settlers. Last week I met a British volunteer raising money to replant the estimated 10,000 olive trees that have been destroyed in Palestine this year. Some have been cut to make way for the giant cement Wall snaking around the West Bank.

Derrick Jensen, an American ecological philosopher, writes about how when trees are cut they scream. Having cut wood myself, I always thought that that was the sound of a chain-saw contacting wood. Now I think differently. This blog post started out with a peaceful idea. But, you cannot write about olive trees in a peaceful way. I have to write about the violence that is done to trees in these parts. It is hard to write about these things. Things become especially complicated since I am Jewish, something I am wise enough not to mention to my students. The only Jews they have ever met are settlers or soldiers. They have watched settlers take their land. And soldiers shoot and jail. Yet some of the translators I work with know I am Jewish (I have been extremely selective in who I tell). And they treat me like a sister.

This is beautiful land. You see why folks fight over it. In the West Bank, the earth has a certain timbre; the ground resonates with beauty cavernous as a struck bell. Yanun is one such place. To get there, you can ride a donkey (like a local child), take a taxi, or walk. I walked and followed the donkey.

An author once delineated the difference between the words pretty and beauty. He wrote: pretty is flawless and beauty flawed; as a result, beauty is more striking because it contains reality and depth which prettiness lacks. True to this point, Yanun is beautiful in a way that only sad things can be. Its olive trees are hundreds of years old. The bark's texture is deeply-grooved. The trees are serious. And yet, they make you want to laugh: they are all gnarled and fat. They look like wizened old men, and you expect them to open up into a toothy grin, or fart.

Yanun was once a thriving village; now it is comprised of a few homes and a smattering of children. Muslim Palestinians are afraid to live here because of hostile settlers. Currently, international volunteers live in a special building to provide a modicum of protection. The thought is that settlers will be less likely to be antagonistic if foreigners are there, and that the villagers will feel safer. A group called Rabbis for Human Rights does similar work. They act as what they term "human shields," walking children to school and protecting farmers from abuses.

I wish I could visit in September to see the harvest. To watch men shake down the branches and women and children gather the olives. A few weeks during the harvest season is the only time Palestinian denizens of Yanun will be permitted to access trees above their home. This hill is near a newly built settlement road. Locals say that the harvest used to take weeks and now takes days since they cannot tend the trees during the year. These are trees their forefathers have tilled for generations upon generations. It is cultural and economic survival, and it has, ironically, become an act of defiance to harvest the land where you were born.

Jordan’s sand dunes stretch behind Yanun, behind neatly tilled soil, dark with rare rain, which only falls in winter. It is in the land that peace can be found here—the undulating hillsides—and in organizations like the one I work for, Project Hope, where Palestinian volunteers spend hours to create a professional organization where the next generation of young people can learn English. For them, as for much of the world, English is the strongest tool they have in getting ahead, and it is an advantage that we native speakers have without realizing it. My Palestinian students thirst for knowledge.

Resistance comes in the form of olive tree re-planting and learning. Every week my organization has a meeting where the international volunteers speak with the local project administrators. Grievances are aired and suggestions put on the table. We volunteers gripe--a lot. Sure, things could be improved where I work, but I am struck by something that I think many of the volunteers here take for granted—and that is how smoothly things run. And, about how it is “cool ala tool” as my students would say (which I believe is Arabic slang for cool) that Palestinian students are learning and engaging with volunteers from across the globe. Since Palestinian children are not permitted to leave the West Bank--ever!--Project Hope is bringing the world to them. It is an act of love on the part of the Palestinian volunteers who make the program run so cleanly. It is a feat to sustain a non-profit organization in any country, to keep the door open on time, to have it well-staffed and fully staffed with positive professionals. It is particularly difficult in Palestine where money is low, loud booms strangely crack into the night, scary sounding planes fly constantly overhead and the rules change daily. It is frustrating for many of the Western volunteers who overlay their (our) western expectations onto a Palestinian reality. Not all students attend class and yes, teaching is more impromptu here than anything in the United States. You function on your feet. However, I see this organization as the thing it is: a miracle. Today I spoke with Abdulkarim, a serious 21-year-old with glasses and a shy smile who practically runs the daily operations at Project Hope. He is also a part-time student getting his MA in linguistics. This is inconceivable to me since his job lasts more than a normal work day. When I asked him how many hours he worked at our organization he smiled, shrugged and said, "until the job is done." He was born in a refugee camp near Nablus.

In Yanun I eat almonds that a women gathered from her tree. I watch children play, the sun melts behind a black cloud. I walk around the olive trees, and, up above, two Israeli soldiers step from their watch tower to take a closer look at me, far down below. Of course they have guns.

Thoughts on Zionism and Palestine

2012-01-23T13:51:00.000-08:00

I dislike writing blogs about Palestine. I want to write about my spectacular teaching here, and my feisty and fabulous students. The interesting classes we have. How I was taught by a student how to juggle yesterday. And do a handstand. I want to tell you about how spectacular it is teaching English as a second language, and what a rewarding challenge; however, politics keep getting in the way….Maybe I should stick to photographs. I dislike writing these posts because I myself am so conflicted about Israel. I came to Palestine because for me it was a moral imperative. I was raised to believe that suffering in any form is unjust. And so I came to counter injustice via education: I am teaching children and adults how to read English. At the same time, I think the idea of a Jewish state is great. It is needed. Unlike other groups that have experienced genocides, Jews have been expelled, murdered and oppressed throughout the world and in the past we never had a place to go to, to be safe. Do we deserve a safe home, a safe area to go to with a military that defends us? Yes. I think we do. But, should we oppress another people in order to make this a reality? I think not. And in the meantime half my friends and or close acquaintances believe strongly in Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, and many of my other friends are Palestinian---and at this point I’m not sure who is reading my blog and who is not, but surely I’ve disgruntled, alienated and lost more than a few friends. I guess this is what happens when you go to such a controversial land. Lately I have been reading some posts in a good blog called Mondoweiss, The War of Ideas in the Middle East. This blog, written by two American Jews, provides according to their website, “alternatives to pro-Zionist ideology as a basis for American Jewish identity." Here is their website: http://www.mondoweis.net/

New Digs

2012-01-15T23:40:00.000-08:00

These pics are where I am living now and my view. My guess is that the home was built around the 1930's. It is built in a French style. The rooms are large and spacious, with impossibly high ceilings (that are difficult to keep warm.) The interior of the house is modern, and we have use of a kitchen and two bathrooms on each floor. At the moment, I have no roommate. I am staying in a home with five other volunteers from around the world. We are all working for the group Project Hope. We teach at different times, but we are still able to coordinate enough to cook dinners together. Some volunteers are staying for only one month and some plan to stay for much longer. At present, the volunteers hail from France, America, England, New Zealand and Australia. Sadly, our Canadian volunteer, Paige, just left. We miss you, Paige! Some folks are retired, some have just finished college and some are middle-aged. For the most part, there is a pretty nice synergy between the volunteers, and we all take part in keeping the house running smoothly.

Tables through Doors

2012-01-14T02:41:00.000-08:00

I returned to Nablus from visiting another village at five in the evening; it was dark and most shops were closed, yet kids filled the streets. Several children gathered round, eager to display their English skills and ham it up for the camera. Across the street, I watched a furniture delivery unfold, a la Palestinian style: Four or five men adroitly hoisted an enormous table from ground level to a metal roof at mid-level and then up again, trying to fit the table through a doorframe. The men smiled as they hoisted. The table was heavy and at one point the thin tin the men were standing on began to shake. More men from below put their hands up to keep the roof from collapsing. The table almost fit. Except for the wheels. I do not know how they got that table through the doorframe, all I know, is that they did. They probably had to hack off the wheels on the ends of the table legs and then re-afix them.

The move was thrilling for a dry town that has no bars or clubs, and few places open after six. (Alcohol is “haraam,” or, forbidden in Muslim culture.) I don't mind this since I am happy reading, writing and making lesson plans, but some of the volunteers from larger cities miss a more exciting night-life. For me, the dynamism of meeting loads of new people, teaching, trying new foods and learning a new language and culture during the day is plenty. Then again, if I grew up here, a little excitement beyond tables might be nice...

The table-lifting illustrates a sort of resourcefulness that abounds here. People in Nablus seem to be able to make anything, fix anything. Nablus is the industrial and production center of Palestine. Conversely, the much newer city of Ramallah, also well known in the West Bank, is home to the Palestinian National Authority, more modern shops and non-governmental organizations. After 2002, Israel bombed many soap factories that were suspected of housing terrorists in Nablus, an act which nearly destroyed that industry. But the city still continues to make soap by hand, ceramic tiles from scratch, candy and sweets; tinwork, ironwork, carpentry, stone-work and stone-cutting also prevail.

Most jobs here are labor jobs, involving the hands. Mechanization is slow to arrive here. In simple clothing, with no protective gear or masks, men daily weld doorframes amid spark showers, cut tiles standing in heaps of powdered clay up to their shins; hands, arms and face dusted grey. Men awaken with the first call to prayer at 5 am then carry steaming buckets of soap up flights of stairs, carefully pouring it over warehouse floors to cool, repeating a culture of generations. Women arise at a similar time, concoct sumptuous meals, clean pyramids of clothing and then sometimes work outside the house, hurrying home early to prepare more vegetables, rice, meat and hummus.

People's crafting skills are unbelievable. Most things are produced right here. Some fruit is imported from Israel since the Palestinians just don't have a lot of land to grow things, and much of their water is pumped out of their land into Israel proper. That aside, an abundance of things, from pita to windows are produced in Nablus. Despite obstacles to commerce (like not being able to send packages or deliver any things outside the border), Palestinians continue to make their industries thrive--to fit tables through doors.

Getting Into Palestine (Tips for Crossing Borders)

2012-01-13T02:11:00.000-08:00

This post mentions several topics. It is discursive like my thoughts. I write a bit about what I have been doing in the country of Israel and the territory of Palestine up until now, and how I got into the country.

Five tips for getting into Israel and then visiting the West Bank:
1. Do not say you are visiting the West Bank
2. If security asks ,"What is Palestine?" Say, "Never heard of it."
3. Be Jewish
4. Don't be a non-white Jew
4. Have US citizenship
5. If you were in the West Bank before say you were a tourist, not volunteering (security may view you as a terrorist if they know you were helping children learn to read...)

How hard is it to enter Israel or the West Bank you may ask? The answer depends on your gender, what you look like, your nationality, and your last name. It is easiest if you are Jewish. It is most difficult if you are Arab or Palestinian, or look like you are, since a lot of racial/ethnic profiling goes on.

You will be asked many questions that may appear random. The point, however, is to see if you are lying. So, your body language is being monitored and the timbre of your voice, and whether or not you freeze up and are too nervous to answer. a query. Sometimes the questions may seem funny: One of my friends was asked if he was born at home or in a hospital….Airport security will look into your eyes to see if your face matches your passport. If you admit that you did not have your luggage on your person at all times, it will be labeled suspicious property, and taken for closer inspection.

Mostly though, it's your face that matters. And your nationality. Israeli custom’s officers decide in the first ten seconds whether you are a suspect or not (I was told this by someone training in the Israeli army.) There is not always time for thorough questionings. In this vein, the way someone looks is the first thing that could be used against you. The second thing is the way you answer the first question. Are you nervous? The appearance of lying could be enough to get you pulled aside for more questioning.

I got off easily. I was asked six or seven questions, three of which were: Do you speak Hebrew? Are you Jewish? and What is your Hebrew name? (Many Jews are given a second Hebrew name when they are little that is not used much.) When I was in Israel, every Jew I encountered had a Hebrew name. Besides my Rabbi’s daughters back home, and a few of my friends, most American Jews that I know have “American Jewish” names: Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, etc. In Israel those names are not to be found. There are Hebrew names: Chaya, Shoshanna, Liba, Rivka, etc.

When asked what you will be doing in Israel, it is prudent to not mention Palestine or West Bank. Tourists are very much allowed in the area, but if you say something in the airport, you will likely be denied entry. If you make it into Israel, you are free to go to Palestine. There are no border checks where they stop you going from Jerusalem to the West Bank. I was surprised about this. Then a Palestinian told me that Israeli's don't care who goes into the West Bank, they just care who comes out. I thought this double standard was funny in a dark humor, sad kind of way. Though I have not come out of Palestine to Israel, I know that far more extensive questioning occurs at border crossings in that direction.

Of course, tourists are highly discouraged from going to Palestine by most Israeli Jews, though it has been safe here for a little while. Most violence is a result of militant Jewish settlers. Interestingly, maps of Israel in the tourist offices do not show the West Bank border. This is insane. That’s right, there is NO demarcating line on tourist’s maps given out in Jerusalem which shows the border, a border which very clearly exists.
When I came to Nablus I caught a bus near the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, in the Arab side of the city. Nobody checked my passport. From there I went to the modern city of Ramallah, where most Palestinian government buildings and NGOs are, and then on another bus, through winding olive groves, to the old city of Nablus.

In short, if you are Jewish and coming to Israel it is far less difficult than if you are not.
Also, it helps to come into Israel with a Jewish tour group that is partly funded by the Israeli government. Disclosure: Before volunteering in the West Bank I was on a trip called Birth Right (whose name itself has highly political connotations), a free trip for Jewish youth to go to Israel for ten days. The premise of the trip is that it is both social and education. If you go on the trip you are permitted to extend your stay for up to three months (the length of a tourist's visa) and Birth Right will still pay for your return trip home. Some see me as a hypocrite. I cannot show this blog to some Hasidic and orthodox Jews who I befriended in Israel. Similarly, if a picture of me standing next the Israeli flag (many pics of which were taken on my Birth Right trip) ever circulated among my students that I teach in Project Hope, I would be seen as a spy. The important thing is that I feel safe, which I do, at all times here. Ironically I felt far more uncomfortable when I was in the Jewish section of Jerusalem. I felt like an alien there.

I actually enjoyed my free trip to Israel on the Birth Right trip. I was able to look at the trip with a critical eye and actually take a good education away from it. Fortunately, there was not a lot of anti-Palestinian rhetoric on the trip. It was primarily just an erasure of all Palestinian history and views, which I could deal with, temporarily, since I knew I would be spending the bulk of my three months in Nablus. However, after my Jewish trip ended and before my volunteer teaching began, I stayed in a very religious Jewish hostel in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem, which was free for Jews, very close to the Wailing Wall, over Chanukah. Now that was an experience! I could write about fifteen articles about my time during this period, and maybe I will. For now, here is a pithy overview.

For a few weeks before my teaching began in Nablus, I took classes at an ultra religious, Jewish women's yeshiva. Why you ask?? Well, I wanted to learn about this culture. Sadly, it left a bad taste on my tongue. I felt highly uncomfortable in that environment and it made me dislike the ultra religiosity that I saw. I walked in communities where, if you carried a novel, it was looked at bizarrely. A community where bookshelves were only lined with religious texts and torah. Where people were praying over a prayer book in every bus stop and street corner, in every shop. Where there were prayers before bed and before food and before a sip of water and before speaking and before sitting down. The discomfort I felt was immense.

In Nablus, nearly all the women wear head scarves, but I never feel uncomfortable not wearing one (none of the Westerners who volunteer here feel compelled to wear a head scarf, and the locals say that it is entirely okay for us not to.) However, in parts of Jerusalem, if I did not wear a long skirt with stockings underneath and a shirt with an extremely high neckline I felt like I was a pariah. The feeling is different here. Before Jerusalem, I had never been around such religious Jews before. The intensity of having a single focus (religion) infuse every facet of life was overwhelming. It freaked me out. Many people did not watch TV or have much interaction with views apart from what they were learning in a religious context. (Granted, I don't have time for TV myself these days, and would prefer to spend time writing or exploring, but the idea of a religion forbidding many things sets me on edge.)

For ten days I lived around people who only spoke of the torah and the lessons within it. I felt excluded from this dialectic. If you did not know what the week’s torah portion, called the parsha, was, than you had no way to enter into any conversation. Several days I would interact with four or five different groups of people, and all of them would only be discussing the week’s parsha. This would be heaven for a biblical scholar. Sure I might like to learn about the week’s story in the bible. But, I also want to discuss plants and politics, news and world events. I would find it strangely debilitating to live in a world seen solely through the prism of religion.

Another thing that I found highly ironic was how many American Jews I met in Israel. Dozens and dozens and dozens. From Los Angeles. New York City. Baltimore. Most had moved within the last ten years. Many came from orthodox communities in America, while others had recently become very religious. Many of the younger people had moved within the last three. And many were sweet, kind people. They gave me meals and places to stay, because I was Jewish. If you are a Jew and you go to Israel, without asking questions, people will feed you and house you and the government will temporarily take really good care of you. But only if you are Jewish. It feels wrong to me that so many Jews come to Israel, not because they are religiously persecuted, but simply because they want to live in Israel.

Jerusalem. Many Hasidic married women are not allowed to show there hair so they wear wigs. Most orthodox Jewish women in the city cover their hair in some fashion, often in a turbin-like fashion for similar reasons.

In Israel, most orthodox and Hasidic men and women are not allowed to touch in any way, even for a handshake, unless married (this rule did not stop a random orthodox Jewish boy from coming up beside me and trying to kiss me near the Wailing Wall before I fended him off with my backpack! This actually happened twice, on different occasions, but I was faster the second time and scurried away before a repeat of the aforementioned incident could happen!!!) Nothing like this would ever happen in Nablus. I would not feel safe in Jerusalem at night, I do in Nablus. The community is too small. Everyone knows everyone and if word got out that this sort of harassment occurred, the perpetrator would be shamed by his family and the community. In Jerusalem, where there are thousands of tourists, the Palestinians are bitter from having feet in two lands (both Israel and Palestine) while having land in neither, and try to rip off everyone, yell at you and never leave you alone, Jews are aggressive or clannish and the prices are so expensive that even if you haggle down to a "low" price you are still getting ripped off, whether you are in the Arab market, the Jewish market or a restaurant--the biggest rip off of all.

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In my next post I will answer any questions you have about my time in Jerusalem (which occurred over Chanukah), and my time in Nablus so far! I look forward to your questions (you can post them in the comments section on this blog.) Best, Paula

A Note on Illegal Settlements

2012-01-12T02:23:00.000-08:00

Guard dog (rottweiler) posted and tied outside a settlement on Mt. Gerizim near Nablus

I have not seen any soldiers since I have been in Nablus, but the military presence in Jerusalem is huge: pic taken of soldiers on a main st in the new part of Jerusalem

Soldiers patrolling in the Arab Shouk (the Arab market.) There is a market called the Arab market in Jerusalem, where primarily only Muslim Israelis go and a market called the Jewish shouk where mostly only Jewish Israelis go. I did not see soldiers in the Jewish market on the several days I went.

Preface: This piece reveals a few general thoughts on the issue of settlements. In the future I hope to write more posts that engage the topic in greater depth.

-Paula

My name was mentioned in the last paragraph of an editorial in the January 9^th issue of the Charleston, West Virginia newspaper: “The Charleston Gazette.” The editorial reviewed a film about the occupation of Palestine (I did not know that my name was in the piece until my parents told me via email.) You can see the opinion: Gazette editorial
To give a brief definition: Israeli settlements are Jewish communities, some small, some very large, that exist on land captured by Israel from Jordan, Egypt or Syria in 1967. These settlements exist in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and in the Golan Heights. (They also existed in the Gaza strip until recently.) The International Court of Justice and the international community concurs that settlements in the West Bank break international law. They violate the Geneva Convention. Settlers are no longer able to build more settlements, but there is little enforcement that would prevent settlements from expanding their borders, which happens far too often.

It is an abomination that Jewish Israelis should still have settlements in Palestine. The settlements keep growing and growing—exponentially! First, the settlements (the houses often look like Western-style suburbs with no connection to the land) have outposts that stretch farther from the settlements themselves. These outposts, which are only supposed to be guard posts, eventually turn into expansions of the settlement, swallowing up more and more Palestinian land.

One city that is famed for having bitter relations with settlers is Hebron. I have not visited the city, but I know that the area is famed for violence and harassment from settlers. What sets Hebron apart from other Palestinian cities is the presence of settlers within the city center. (Settlements are often set apart from the neighboring communities by walls or fences and always armed Israeli guards.) In Hebron, settlers harassing Palestinians is common. As a result, many international peace keeping groups are stationed nearby to try to provide a modicum of protection for Palestinians.

Besides often being violent, settlers have access to resources that Palestinians do not. The quality and supply of drinking water in settlements is usually better than in the nearby Palestinian villages and settlers are allowed to outwardly carry guns, while Palestinians cannot do the same.

In the schools and community where I teach in Palestine, I always have a translator who converts my English instruction into Arabic. The translators are usually my age, and from Nablus. When speaking with one of my translators, Fadi, I learned that his grandparents grew up in Haifa, in northern Israel, before they were harshly booted from their land. They were expelled with nothing but their clothes, along with thousands of others in 1948, when Israel was turned into a country.

Fadi’s grandparents grew up in one of the most elegant seacoast towns of Israel. They lived near the world-famed Baha’i Gardens. This carefully tended spot is one of the two important holy sights for those of the Baha’i faith, a religion originating in Persia. Fadi’s grandparents were never permitted to return to their homes. They have since passed away. And now Fadi, who lives in the West Bank, will never be permitted to visit Haifa under current rules.

If you were born in Palestine (The West Bank) it is nearly impossible to leave. You are not permitted to visit Israel proper (yet more and more Israeli Jews have settlements in Palestinian land in the West Bank, creating an enormous double standard.) Some Palestinians are permitted to travel to Jordan, and occasionally Turkey. If you are married to someone from another country for a certain number of years, say France, you may be permitted to travel more easily, since you will then have dual citizenship. You might be able to take a vacation to Indonesia. But you cannot return to Israel. And for the vast majority of Palestinians, you can never leave the West Bank.

When I ask my friends from around the world: “Where do you want to travel?” They reply on a whim: Russia, to see the onion-shaped domes of St. Petersburg; the tip of Norway to behold the shape-shifting northern lights; Peru, to hike snowy peaks. When you ask Palestinians the same question, they say, “Syria, to see my family who I have not seen since 1967, when half my relatives fled, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, to see my aunts and uncles…” An old women wants to see her son who she will never be allowed to see. And we start here. One way that you know you are under military occupation is that you are not seen as a citizen of the world, or hardly even a citizen, but a mere denizen of a small—and increasingly smaller—territory. The least the Jewish Israeli’s could do is leave the West Bank.

Faces of Palestine

2012-01-10T04:17:00.000-08:00

Confessions of an Ignorant Traveler

2012-01-09T01:30:00.000-08:00

There are lots of stray cats in Palestine, stray dogs are less common. Palestinian cats are more well-fed than American strays, which are usually scrawny. However, Israel proper takes the cake for feeding its cats the most. Most Israeli cats are fat!

Crocuses on top of Mt .Ebal. The top of the mountain is very grassy, but grass is not very common here.

Sunset from a taxi window. Most taxies here are shared with other people. Taxi transportation is very common and people use taxies to go all around the city. Culturally, it is often more common to take a taxi than to walk.

These cars are dead, but they give a good picture of the types of cars people in Nablus drive: small and old.

The Nablus fire department

Confession: Whenever I used to read the news I would skip articles pertaining to the Middle East. Why would a news lover intentionally avoid gaining insight into this part of the world, you might ask? Valid query. I avoided reading about the topic for two reasons: First, it seemed the only things mentioned were blood and bombs. Secondly, it seemed like a conversation so complex that without background knowledge I felt I would not understand the articles, which was sometimes true. And so the irony: Woman who knows very little about the Palestinian conflict immerses herself for two months in said area....Maybe it is ironic; or, perhaps it is entirely logical....

Instead of thinking of this post as "confessions of the ignorant," let us call it, "the listening project." Everyday I enter the world as two ears. Ignorance drives my knowledge. I seek answers to questions that I am slowly gaining the insight to articulate. It is a radically new experience to be in a place where I have few preconceptions. I am learning to utilize the sense of hearing like no other. Yes, I read some things before coming here, but there is a sort of veracity in seeing things first hand which cannot be entirely conveyed through media. And here, more than many places, there are layers beneath layers. For example, as someone who has only been here a week, I have a gilded picture of this place. By looking around, it seems like paradise: cheap food, the nicest people you may ever meet, beautiful landscape. But there is more to the story, and each day, I peel back a layer of the proverbial onion.

While I did not arrive here with a lot of preconceptions, I am often struck by how NORMAL life is here. If one wants to hear about horrors you don't come to Nablus and expect to get this stories in the first day. To the eye, one sees seemingly whole family units, joyful people, a cornucopia of mom and pop industries and a great deal of self-sufficiency. "Why does it look so entirely normal here?" I ask. I am used to reading articles about poverty and deprivation about the region, as I am sure you are, too. However, the people here have an extreme will. They do not appear disempowered or down-trodden. They go about their lives. I am told that since they have lived under occupation for so long that the abnormal has been normalized to the point where life here looks absolutely normal in so many ways. You have to keep your ears open to listen for the differences. Palestinians will not come out and say, "Listen to my unpleasant stories..." No. They view tourists as guests and do not want to burden guests with sadness. Instead they show you beautiful things and infuse your memories of this place with joy. For this reason, listening becomes all that much more vital. To know the true picture you have to listen, hard. Only then do small stories emerge, and, they are not often relayed in a mournful tone. People here speak in a positive dialectic, they joke, they laugh. It is a way of resistance, as well as existance.

City of Stairs

2012-01-08T03:14:00.000-08:00

Nablus is a valley city, clasped in the embrace of Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, to the north and south, respectively. This tree-topped peak grins from my kitchen window each morning. It taunts one to reach it, though no road reaches near the summit. On friday I climbed to the top. This challenge reminded me that Nablus is not a city for the weak or infirmed. This my friends, is a city of stairs.

I surmise that this city has more stairs than any other per kilometer. There are long sets of public concrete steps that take you from one street level to another. Stair after stair, up a mountain. Some staircases led to dead ends and private homes so you must turn around.There is also a road that loops around and around Ebal, but walking the road would take far too long, so I chose to cut straight up.

When the streets and houses ended I was faced with land: fertile, reddish soil, and wild dogs.  I protectively picked up a rock in case they found me interesting. Fortunately,  the wild mountain dogs were more fearful than curious, and scampered into the hills.

Mount Ebal is one of the highest mountains in the West Bank (3084 feet) and it is beautiful up high, if you can make it that far: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Ebal From the top I could see a brilliant panorama of the city and everyone’s flat rooftops, upon which are strung clotheslines and sit large black water tanks. By the time I descended, the moon was up.

I chose to climb on a friday, the Muslim holy day, on purpose. I did not want to see a lot of people who might ask questions--a girl climbing up a mountain might be seen as a strange sight.  Indeed, few folks were outside on friday.

Loping back down the mountain I saw more people emerging from homes and some shops were no longer shuttered since the sun was setting, and the holy day ending. I purchased a delicious glass of fresh-squeezed apple and pomegranate juice from a juice shop. While sipping my drink, I stepped into a candy shop (Nablus folk adore sweets, they put several teaspoons of sugar in tiny glass cups of tea and coffee and often eat pastries) and purchased a type of Wrigley’s chewing gum no longer sold in the U.S: It is sans artificial flavoring and fake sugar. I also bought a bag of eggplants and potatoes from a vendor and marched home. I was tired and my lips a bit dry. My mind whirled with thoughts, one of them being thus:  Nablus is incredible--if one can acclimate to the stairs.

In Occupied Territory --The Sun Also Rises

2012-01-05T11:04:00.000-08:00

Yanun, West Bank, Palestine/Israel

View from the volunteer house I am living in: Nablus, Palestine

Greetings from a place where water is celebrated, honored, revered. From a place that makes the best pitas in the world. From a place rife with turmoil and bursting with magnificence. Let me paint a picture for you....: You are walking down the main street in Nablus, the old city. It is a little before classes start. Children overflow the streets (50% of those in the city are under age 18.) There are children everywhere! They pop from alleys, from behind cars, they are brighter than sun. All the children say, "Hello, what is your name"; "Hello, what is your name?"; "Hello, what is your name?" You are the only Westerner on the street. Maybe only one of a few in the entire city that day. The shop-keepers say, "Welcome, welcome, welcome."

My Google homepage reads Palestinian Territories, in case I, myself, forgot that I was in Palestine, or I forgot to tell you, my friends. To be specific, I am in Nablus, the largest city in the West Bank, not counting Jerusalem. It is 2,000 years old. For now, life is calm here for a tourist. I feel safe. There have been fewer deaths in the country in the past two years than any year since 1999, which, ironically, was the last time I visited Israel as a twelve-year-old. Though I know I should feel more scared than I do, I felt far more uneasy in Jerusalem than here.

And so, here I am. I am volunteering for two months as an English teacher. I teach all levels from beginner to advanced. I am volunteering with an organization called Project Hope. It gives free and low-cost English classes to more Palestinians than any other volunteer organization in the West Bank. This Canadian organization is located a short distance from the center city and is run by locals. International volunteers are paired with translators from Nablus. The volunteers range in age from 24, (me), the youngest, to age 70. We are mostly Westerners: Dutch. French. Scottish. Australian. Canadian. British.

I have been here a week and I feel like I just landed. At the same time, I feel I have been here for lifetimes. Many people who have visited Israel feel similarly: Time possesses a different property here. It often goes by in a blink—even when you are not doing anything. You feel like you are newly born here and simultaneously old as the Nile. For example, when floating in the Dead Sea, the saltiest body of water in the world, you feel soft as a baby. Salt coats the beach, thick as snow banks and the water buoys you so high you think you might float away like an untied balloon. At the same time, the harsh Israeli sun (which you need shades for at 8 am) makes your skin dry as dolls made from apples in New England during the 1800’s. Israel is a paradox between old and new. It was constructed in 1948, yet has been around for thousands of years. Three religions consider it the most holy place on earth. And every year young Israelis must fight to secure borders. And every year Palestinians must wake up to the knowledge that their land is under siege from Jewish Israeli settlers that are encroaching.

This place is complicated. The great philosophers of the past would have loved to discuss Israel—few topics are more heated and more nuanced. If you ask most Jewish Israeli’s what they think of Israel they will express how they love their country. If you ask many Arab Israeli’s they will shake their head and reply, “complicated, complicated.” Complicated indeed.

And yet, Nablus is probably the coolest place I have ever been. The people are perhaps the nicest. The food makes me grin. The culture is rich as the soil. Gnarled olive trees speckle the land. Donkeys delivering mail compete with Coca-Cola in a land that is unchanged by time, yet changes every second. I have never seen more beautiful land--the land sweeps, hills are richly planted with olives and figs and mulberries--and more magnanimous people.

Each absence in the city (a bombed soap factory), a demolished home, each cultural building (like the Nablus library, the largest public library in the West Bank), tells a narrative whose story I do not know. I do not know Arabic. I do not know when the roads were laid. I do not know what it was like to live in Nablus five years ago when there was a strict curfew imposed by Israeli guards, and even volunteers with Doctors without Borders were forbidden from leaving their office at night. All I know is what I see, and that is immense beauty. The resilience and energy and hospitality of the people here astonishes me. Kindness grows from the soil like sunflowers. Children's smiles light up the streets like stars.