Fighting the Wall
Last Friday I participated in my first protest against the segregation wall, and I'm angry that I didn't go earlier. After only a few hours, I left the demonstration feeling energized, productive, like my presence here represents something concrete, like I have a purpose. Perhaps exactly at the right moment, I was reminded of why I'm here, what I care about, and what's really going on.
There are weekly protests against the Wall in a few locations throughout the West Bank. For a long time, the largest and most publicized demonstrations were taking place in Qalqiliya - a town in the northwestern West Bank situated just East of the Green Line (which marks the internationally recognized border between Israel and the West Bank). You can see on the map below that the Wall, which has been in construction since 2002, cuts deeply into the West Bank, often enclosing entire cities, leaving them accessible only through checkpoints.
Proponents of the Wall claim that it is being built in the name of security, to protect Israel from terrorist attacks. Opponents argue that the Wall is a "Land Grab", a means of securing land for Israeli settlement expansion in the very near future. In fact, the instance of terrorist attacks has decreased in the past four years, but its also clear (from my own veranda) that the Wall and its planned path swerves through land, separating settlements deep inside West Bank territory from nearby Palestinian towns.
During construction of the Wall around Qalqiliya, internationals and Palestinians gathered regularly to protest. The Wall went up anyway, and today, the city is essentially dead, economically and socially. The biggest Wall demonstrations are now in the Ramallah area, which has also been almost completely surrounded, and, in the past few months, around Bethlehem, where construction of a 360*, 28-foot wall is almost complete.
Last weekend I went to the Bethlehem demonstration with a friend and her colleague, Marwan, one of the coordinators of the weekly demonstrations. Marwan spoke to me the whole morning about Gandhi and his teachings of non-violence. He is fascinated by the possibility of a tiny man clothed in rags gathering more strength than the British Empire, and emphasized to me the importance of continuing non-violent resistance in Palestine despite the desperate situation. I don't think non-violence is a term that we as Americans automatically, or even after consideration, associate with the Palestinian resistance. It has, however, been a central part of activism here since 1948. Unfortunately, we don't see that on our side of the ocean.
We arrived in the village of Umm Salamona on Friday afternoon and walked about a kilometer through baby olive tree fields to the beginning of the march. From afar we could see the group of 150 or so Palestinians finishing their Friday prayers - kneeling quietly in neat rows, bodies rising and falling like the sea. Only a few hundred meters away we could see three military trucks surrounding the construction site, where workers and a front-end-loader were clearing a path for the Wall.
When we arrived at the site we saw that the group was about 200 - accompanying the Palestinians were nearly 50 foreigners and Israelis. The Friday prayer ended and one of the coordinators spoke to us briefly about the history of the Wall, what its impact would be in the area, and what we would be doing in the next hour. Over and over, in English and in Arabic, he emphasized that there would be no violence on the part of protestors that day. "Our faith in our land is stronger than their weapons," he said more than once. Non-violence was central to his message, and all of the participants, young and old, Palestinian and foreign, nodded in agreement as he warned us not to lose control, not to pick up stones, not to throw away the message of the demonstration.
We started walking, shouting "No, no, to the wall!" "One , one country!" and "Where is the justice?" A band of soldiers - as always, my age, probably younger - ran along on either side of us, scanning the crowd for disturbances. I caught one young guy filming us with his digital camera...but nothing happened. We walked along our path, crying for justice, holding hands and flying flags. At one point the soldiers stopped us, forming a wall of shields across the path. I was frightened - as voices raised and protesters pushed against the soldiers angrily, twenty five armed soldiers watched us from on top of the hill, waiting for a stone to fly or for one of their comrades to fall. I've heard stories and watched news coverage of protests in Ramallah - its not uncommon for Friday afternoons to end with tear gas and rubber bullets. This Friday, this site, though, saw none. The same coordinator who had spoken before stepped to the front, calmed those still marching (I had climbed up the other side of the hill and was watching carefully by that point), and then turned to the soldiers and spoke for a moment. Somehow, we were able to finish our march without another interruption.
The afternoon ended with an evaluation session led by the demonstration's coordinators. By that time our group had trickled to about 50 or 60 people, but we sat for an hour, sipping juice and eating cookies (as is standard at any Palestinian gathering) discussing the successes and failures of the day, points for improvement in the future, and our different roles as Palestinians, Israelis and foreigners. They asked us, as foreigners, to document our experience, to send home photographs and stories to share the truth about the situation and the resistance. I returned to the village on Friday feeling energized, educated and overwhelmed by the gravity of this responsibility. It would be impossible to successfully repaint the distorted pictures that we are presented in the United States, or to flip over the coin that has laid forever on the same side.
I guess this is a start.
There are weekly protests against the Wall in a few locations throughout the West Bank. For a long time, the largest and most publicized demonstrations were taking place in Qalqiliya - a town in the northwestern West Bank situated just East of the Green Line (which marks the internationally recognized border between Israel and the West Bank). You can see on the map below that the Wall, which has been in construction since 2002, cuts deeply into the West Bank, often enclosing entire cities, leaving them accessible only through checkpoints.
During construction of the Wall around Qalqiliya, internationals and Palestinians gathered regularly to protest. The Wall went up anyway, and today, the city is essentially dead, economically and socially. The biggest Wall demonstrations are now in the Ramallah area, which has also been almost completely surrounded, and, in the past few months, around Bethlehem, where construction of a 360*, 28-foot wall is almost complete.
Last weekend I went to the Bethlehem demonstration with a friend and her colleague, Marwan, one of the coordinators of the weekly demonstrations. Marwan spoke to me the whole morning about Gandhi and his teachings of non-violence. He is fascinated by the possibility of a tiny man clothed in rags gathering more strength than the British Empire, and emphasized to me the importance of continuing non-violent resistance in Palestine despite the desperate situation. I don't think non-violence is a term that we as Americans automatically, or even after consideration, associate with the Palestinian resistance. It has, however, been a central part of activism here since 1948. Unfortunately, we don't see that on our side of the ocean.
We arrived in the village of Umm Salamona on Friday afternoon and walked about a kilometer through baby olive tree fields to the beginning of the march. From afar we could see the group of 150 or so Palestinians finishing their Friday prayers - kneeling quietly in neat rows, bodies rising and falling like the sea. Only a few hundred meters away we could see three military trucks surrounding the construction site, where workers and a front-end-loader were clearing a path for the Wall.
When we arrived at the site we saw that the group was about 200 - accompanying the Palestinians were nearly 50 foreigners and Israelis. The Friday prayer ended and one of the coordinators spoke to us briefly about the history of the Wall, what its impact would be in the area, and what we would be doing in the next hour. Over and over, in English and in Arabic, he emphasized that there would be no violence on the part of protestors that day. "Our faith in our land is stronger than their weapons," he said more than once. Non-violence was central to his message, and all of the participants, young and old, Palestinian and foreign, nodded in agreement as he warned us not to lose control, not to pick up stones, not to throw away the message of the demonstration.
We started walking, shouting "No, no, to the wall!" "One , one country!" and "Where is the justice?" A band of soldiers - as always, my age, probably younger - ran along on either side of us, scanning the crowd for disturbances. I caught one young guy filming us with his digital camera...but nothing happened. We walked along our path, crying for justice, holding hands and flying flags. At one point the soldiers stopped us, forming a wall of shields across the path. I was frightened - as voices raised and protesters pushed against the soldiers angrily, twenty five armed soldiers watched us from on top of the hill, waiting for a stone to fly or for one of their comrades to fall. I've heard stories and watched news coverage of protests in Ramallah - its not uncommon for Friday afternoons to end with tear gas and rubber bullets. This Friday, this site, though, saw none. The same coordinator who had spoken before stepped to the front, calmed those still marching (I had climbed up the other side of the hill and was watching carefully by that point), and then turned to the soldiers and spoke for a moment. Somehow, we were able to finish our march without another interruption.
The afternoon ended with an evaluation session led by the demonstration's coordinators. By that time our group had trickled to about 50 or 60 people, but we sat for an hour, sipping juice and eating cookies (as is standard at any Palestinian gathering) discussing the successes and failures of the day, points for improvement in the future, and our different roles as Palestinians, Israelis and foreigners. They asked us, as foreigners, to document our experience, to send home photographs and stories to share the truth about the situation and the resistance. I returned to the village on Friday feeling energized, educated and overwhelmed by the gravity of this responsibility. It would be impossible to successfully repaint the distorted pictures that we are presented in the United States, or to flip over the coin that has laid forever on the same side.
I guess this is a start.
posted by kate at 2:22 PM
2 Comments:
yes, Kate, it is a good start. thanks - Foard
KateMahoney,
Please be careful!! You're correct we never see this side of the coin. Thank you for the insight. But once again please be careful we love you and want you home for pong!
Love,
Maria
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