free palestine

Sage:Miramiya

I am currently sick with major stomach problems and have just been given a strong sage tea mixture by my friends in Jenin to drink - I am told it will heal my stomach. The taste is pretty damn bitter, but I down it quickly, eagerly hoping to end the waves of nausea.

Sage: Miramiya in Arabic. An herb that grows wild in Palestine..and in Turtle Island (the land of north america). This little plant is the link in my mind right now between Palestine and Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory.

I went to visit Ni'lin for the first time, a village to the North-West of Ramallah. I sat underneath olive trees in this beautiful farming land as someone pointed out over the hill where the wall was being built and how the land had been stolen by the encroaching Israeli settlements of Modin Illit (Keryat Sefr), Mattityahu, Hashmona'im and others. Already Ni'lin has seen its land diminish to 1/5 of its original size - now the wall confiscates another 2 500 dunums of farming land. The olive trees are short and stubby but are generations old - deceiving in appearance when I am used to seeing the old growth forests in northern ontario or the west coast of canada - there they are so tall you can imagine how they have been there long before any European settlers or lumber companies aiming to chop them down.

I am told that miramiya grows wild under the old olive trees and in the hills of Palestine. The wind is constantly blowing when you sit on a hilltop such as the one outside of Ni'lin overlooking the settlements and the construction of the wall. When the wind blows strong you can smell the wild sage and thyme. I picked up a small branch and rubbed it between my fingers - the rest of the day the sage oil was seeped in to my hands.

I came to Ramallah and checked my email - there was a new message saying Shawn Brant - spokesperson for the Tyendinaga Mohawks, along with 9 others are arrested again - facing serious charges for, plain and simple, defending their land and upholding their rights as the Mohawk nation. Shawn has now been put under 23 hour lockdown for burning sage in his cell - a tradition, a medicine - punished by settler courts that are clearly designed to uphold colonial rule. Burning sage in his cell. 23 hour lock down - unable to see or even really speak with his children.

Back in Ni'lin - at a recent demonstration I was walking in the back as the demonstrators from the village marched through that same olive grove to the location that the wall is being built - bulldozers were working at digging up land, surrounded securely by fully armed IDF soldiers and military jeeps. As the demonstration approached the soldiers began firing round after round of tear gas canisters directly in to the crowd. People re-gained their breath and went right back forward towards the bulldozers. Again the soldiers drowned the area in tear gas, then took aim and started shooting rubber coated bullets at close range. The youth, some with slingshots in hand, started grabbing stones and throwing them as far as possible at the soldiers. Back and forth it went, all the while people choking from the toxic smell of tear gas or some being carried away in stretchers after being hit by rubber bullets. One kid - 15 years old - had a rubber bullet enter his leg above his knee - his friends trying to get to him to help him but the soldiers were still firing. Finally the medics got to him and carried him down the hill towards an ambulance. At one point the grass caught on fire, spreading quickly in the dry area of the olive grove. People ran through the gas to jump on the fire in an attempt to put it out to stop it from burning the land.

In the midst of this the many miramiya bushes on the ground are being stamped on by soldiers and people running away. There is a strange mixture of smells between the toxic gas and healing sage...

As the demonstration ends I am sitting with some of the people from the popular committee talking about what people want to do next against the building of the wall on their land. They ask me about canada and so I begin to talk about what I know of the history and ongoing process of genocide, transfer, and land and resource theft of the First Nations people. And about Tyendinaga - about the land reclamation and the Quarry, the highway and rail blockades in resistance, and the recent jailing of leaders from the community - treated as criminals on their own land for defending their land.

'Ah, i see, Palestinians in Canada', one man says.

'Yes', i said, 'it is similar, but for 500 years, and i am the settler'.

We talk some more about the history of both Palestine and Turtle Island.

'We know this very well..The land is everything - we give everything for it' he says.

In Balata camp - speaking with an 80 year old woman from Haifa - living for 60 years in a refugee camp. She puts sage in her tea everyday - says it is good for you to drink sage every day. She tells us that the best place to pick Miramiya in Nablus in on the mountain, but that she can't go there because of the settlement and therefore closure for Palestinians. But a friend managed to bring her some sage from the mountain, and the rest of the time people in the camp grow the herb in small pots on their steps of their crowded cement refugee houses.

Sage - Miramiya grows wild and resiliant on the land. It is medicine and ceremony in the face of 500 years or 60 years. Medicine in the cells of 12 000 political prisoners in Palesine; burned in ceremony by political prisoners in Quinte Detention Centre in Turtle Island.

Back to drinking my tea...I am realizing that perhaps my stomach issues are from being...i think the word is overwhelmed, and so incredibly humbled that my heart has dropped in to my stomach and is swishing around down there.

From: A State of Siege by Mahmoud Darwish

...This siege will endure until the besiegers feel,

like the besieged that anger is an emotion like any other.

"I don't love you. I don't hate you,"

The prisoner said to the interrogator.
"My heart is full of that which is of no concern to you. My heart is full of the aroma of sage.

My heart is innocent, radiant, brimming. There is no time in the heart for tests"...

Speech of the Red Indian by Mahmoud Darwish:
http://arabwomanprogressivevoice.blogspot.com/2007/01/poem-speech-of-red-indian.html

For more on Tyendinga:http://www.ocap.ca/supporttmt
For more on Ni'lin:http://stopthewall.org/factsheets/1669.shtml

Jenin and exploitable markets

All that i know of Jenin is watching the little bits of news that we got in 2002 when the IDF invaded the camp, and then a year later when my friend worked in Jenin for 5 months. Jenin is in the north of the West Bank - near the northern line with the state of Israel. It is quite isolated, and is known for being a place that many fighters and martyrs come from as well as a huge amount of political prisoners. I am told that at least 2 500 of the 12 000 Palestinian political prisoners come from Jenin.

The residents of Jenin camp have seen three generations of displacement. A lot, perhaps most, of all the people I met are originally from the Haifa area and were exiled in 1948. Jenin is not far from Haifa, and on a clear day you can even see it from the high point of the city.

One of the entrances to Jenin camp goes past a cemetery...this is the martyrs cemetery - those that have been killed by the occupation either in resisting Israeli forces, or in incursions and assassinations, or in the massacre. There are hundreds of graves - stone after stone from April 2002, some as young as 3 or 5 years old that we could read. Some stones as recent as the fall of 2007. There is a large statue in the entrance to the cemetery that lists the names of those who died in the massacre. Along the cement walls surrounding the cemetery there are messages to the martyrs written in spray paint..'we will not forget our brave fighters', 'you taught us how to be brave'...and so many more that are so heartbreaking to read. The cemetery is a raw image of what people mean when they talk about how the Nakba is ongoing.

We walked up the hill from the cemetery past the destroyed house of a father who had lost 2 sons..his house was bulldozed twice..posters and pictures of his sons pasted on to the bits of cement structure that were left standing.

In the other entrance to the camp is a somewhat strange (at least at first glance) sculpture of a horse that was built from the wrecked metal of the many many cars that had been bombed by the Israelis in air strikes - one of the main pieces is part of an ambulance.

We met with two different families from the Haifa area - the first couple in their 50's talked about their parents having left Haifa during the Nakba. The man's father was so distraught to have left his home that he tried to cross back over to reach his village in 1949 - he was arrested and deported to Gaza. The family didn't see him again for 14 years - the whole time believing that he was dead. Then one day they received a letter saying that he was alive and trying to return to Jenin to be with his family but was being prevented...eventually he was allowed back to Jenin camp after being separated from his family for over 14 years. Then again after 1967, when he was getting very old, the father wanted to return again to his village near Haifa. He somehow made his way back to his village..where he then worked on his own land as a labourer for settlers for the remainder of his life.

The second family - we spoke with the grandfather who was in his 80's..he told us about the time period of the Nakba when they were expelled from their village of Ijzim near Haifa..Thousands of people made to walk eastward, not knowing where they would end up and thinking that they would return home only after a few days or weeks at most. He told us about the times before the zionist armies came..about a time period when a Jewish family lived next door and their two families used eat together, their kids used to play together..they had daughters at the same time and named them close to each other: Ralia and Dalia.

Jenin refugee camp is one of the saddest places that we have gone to so far...14 000 people in the camp alone - forced to live as refugees for 60 years. At first in 1948 the camp was made out of tents, then UNRWA built small cement box houses which are what people live in today. But the camp is so small and so crowded.

-----

The wall in Jenin district runs north and west of the city, like in many other areas, the wall confiscated a great deal of fertile agricultural land, essentially cutting off the livelihood of local farmers. This has created a massive base of people in need of an income, and also dependent on Israeli imports. Jalameh terminal is the main gateway to '48 - it is a massive checkpoint just outside of the city of Jenin. Jalameh is where products will come in and out of Jenin district, and where workers will line up at 3am to try to enter Israel. The terminal will often be closed at the will of the Israelis. We went to Jalameh in the afternoon as workers were coming back from Israel through turnstile gates in the terminal and then piling in to cars.

The whole area of Jenin has a ridiculously high unemployment rate - some say as high as 78%. One of the main sources of employment is to apply for a permit to work in Israel - these permits are almost impossible to obtain in that you have to go through security check after security check and if anyone in your family is in prison, or they just plain decide that they don't like you, you are de-facto a threat (which means that the majority of the population is shut out from this). If you are one of the lucky ones that gains a permit, you will make 1/3rd of what a Jewish Israeli worker will make, most likely be treated in terrible working conditions (especially in construction), and have very little rights which are upheld under Israeli law - so if you are injured on the job it is almost a given that you will not only not receive compensation, but you will also lose your job. Another major source of employment is people who cross without permits (so illegally) in to Israel - these people have it the worst - chased probably every day and living under constant fear of arrest.

The new addition to Jenin is the Industrial Zone - the Israeli and P.A 'solution' to boosting the economy, and to gain the the perks of cheap exploited labour that has no other choice and is literally walled in, is to create a free-trade border industrial zone (much like the industrial zones along the border of the U.S and Mexico). This project is being funded by guess who...the World Bank, is being built on Palestinian land, and controlled by both the Israelis and parts of the P.A. The Jenin industrial zone is unfortunately only one of many new proposed projects to create free-trade and 'economic re-vitalization' in the West Bank. Just when you thought the language of corporate globalization, 'structural readjustment', and 'development' were perhaps not as popular as in the 90's (or maybe its just that North Americans lost the focus of it)...well it is alive and well in Palestine - gaining ground on the back of a brutal apartheid system. For example, recently there was the Palestine Investment conference in Bethlehem which was aimed at attracting all international and Israeli investors to slice out a piece of the economic pie here in Palestine. It is a gross attempt to 'normalize' apartheid - in fact, there was no mention of occupation in any of the language of the conference and instead included such disgusting proposals as 'the untapped resource that is Gaza'...no mention of the siege.

More on the PIC:

[http://www.imemc.org/article/55008]

One thing piles on top of another: Refugees living in camps for 60 years, constant military invasions, confiscation of land...leading to further unemployment and a destroyed economy, and capitalist greedy assholes finding ways to make money off of the whole thing.

cages and tunnels - Biddu

Biddu is a village in between Ramallah and Jerusalem - a distance that probably used to take 30 minutes to drive, is now not possible except through a matrix of closed roads, new roads, and checkpoints.

(http://www.poica.org/editor/case_studies/view.php?recordID=551)

We drove around these roads with Mohammad who is a taxi driver and lives in Biddu so he knows the roads all too well. On the road to Biddu we passed through one checkpoint where the 18yr old IDF solidiers asked why we were in the car with Mohammad - to which he replied we were his friends and going for lunch at his house. The nerve of 18year old Israelis who sit at checkpoints and questions men twice their age about driving along their own goddamn road. I could go on and on about soldiers at checkpoints who also sit there and text message their girlfriends or boyfriends while holding an entire line of cars up. Total arrogance.

Many of the roads around Biddu are closed off - literally piles of dirt and cement are put in the middle of the road to create a barrier - then a watch tower further down. One of the main roads has been taken over as a settler-only highway, and a new road has been created for the Palestinians that cuts directly through the best agricultural land then turns in to a cave-like tunnel that goes UNDER the settler highway (that used to be a Palestinian road). The wall runs along side this highway and then weaves through the land up towards Biddu. In this area it is partially a full wall, and then partially an electronic fence covered in barbed wire and a military road along side it - oh yes and watchtowers and patrols.

In entering the village of Biddu Mohammad shows us the field where his cousin was shot by a sniper while working in the field - Mohammad was the only other person there and his cousin died in his arms after he tried to carry him back to the village.

Then we are shown different sections of the wall - including where his families land has been confiscated and only 4 olive trees remain. Further up is Sabri's house. Sabri's house is located on the edge of the village and directly next to where settlers chose to build Har Adar settlement. When the construction on the wall began the Israelis attempted to bulldoze Sabri's house - but the community resisted. Then they tried to buy him out - but he refused. So then they built the wall AROUND his house - literally enclosing his small house in to a cage on 3 sides, and a long gate on the front. It is a 10metre high fence complete with razor wire, a gate for the soldiers to enter, spotlights, cameras, and a bridge over top for soldiers and settlers to cross. All of his land was confiscated, there is only enough room for a few tomato plants between the space of his house and the fence - plants which Sabri clearly tends to with total care.

On the other side of the fence is the upscale community of Har Adar. Lush green lawns, full-size new houses, basketball courts, families having bbq's. All looking over Sabri's cage. Apparently they are able to water their lawns and not notice the massive cage directly in front of them..or they don't give a damn. Probably the latter, as Sabri talks about him and his grandchildren being constantly harassed by settlers - trying to intimidate him in to leaving. Somehow the Israelis have found 75 year old Sabri who is half blind and deaf sitting on his front steps stuck in a cage to be a severe security threat. God forbid that he should one day try to leave his cage - maybe even step on to the settlement - maybe reclaim his stolen land?! It would certainly be more than his right to do so. But Sabri is resisting in his way - he has stayed and has refused to let them have the last word. He waits for when he can take back his land. Biddu has had a strong history of resisting the Wall. I am told they have 5 young martyrs, hundreds injured and many many in prison. The main demonstrations were held in the year of 2004 with not very much press coverage or international support. It has seen a lot of violence for a village of only 6 500 people.

Just outside of the village are the best known grape fields in the region as residents of Biddu will proclaim proudly. I wish I could have taken a picture of the grape fields - it was like a small paradise on its own - never mind in comparison to the barbed wire fences.

Haifa

In reading and looking at detailed maps of the city, and hearing multiple stories - I am slowly piecing together parts of the history of Haifa - a port town on the northern part of the state of Israel. In the year of 1947 - 1948 there were a series of terrorist attacks carried out by zionist militias on the arab quarters of Haifa - everything from barrels of explosives being rolled down the stairs in to al-Abasyah neighborhood, to car bombs, the New Years Eve massacre where 60 people were killed, to also broadcasting messages in the neighborhoods of the violence that will ensue if the arabs don't choose to pack up and leave. The history of Haifa is sad - even a right wing historian like Benni Morris will say that prior to the Zionist aspirations for the colonization of Palestine Jews and Arabs lived together within Haifa for generations. It was not the dealings of those Jews who lived in Haifa for generations, but rather of those who claimed to speak on behalf of all Jews (and still do) in the project of forcing an exclusive Jewish state in the land of Palestine.

Closely following the massacres in the village of Deir Yassin on April 9, 1948 where over 120 civilians were killed by the zionist militias called the Irgun (later to become the Likud party and the youth wing of Betar Tegar) and the Stern Gang (co-founded by Yitzhak Shamir who later became president of Israel) - the Haganah attacked Safed on April 17th, and the residents of Haifa were being told to leave and prepare for the worst. On April 21st the Haganah attacked Haifa. The city was forced to surrender on April 23rd - over 50 000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes. Most people left by boats (literally pushed in to the sea) and the rest to more northern towns and villages like Akka that were also later ethnically cleansed. Palestinians from Haifa can be found all over the world - many in the West Bank which is really not that far away in real terms - but they can't return and they can't even visit the ocean. Just under 4 000 Palestinians remained in Haifa, and today make up a larger part of the population of the city, which makes Haifa an interesting place for the contradictions of the state of Israel.


We walked around Haifa - visited some of the Palestinian neighborhoods, visited many homes that are sitting empty (such as Leila Khaled's family home) or have been bulldozed to the ground. Statues celebrating the 'liberation of Haifa' with emblems of the Haganah, street names that have been changed to intersections of 'Hertzl Ave and Balfour St.', or even better 'Jabotinsky Sq' - heroes of the colonizer. Along the beach there are a series of really beautiful old homes that are boarded up and sitting empty. One of these homes had a 'For-Sale' sign hanging on it so we called the number - the man proceeded to tell us that yes this property is older than 60years and is 'Arab architecture' (i.e Palestinian owned), that this property was being sold for commercial use but that he has many other beach front properties if we were interested - but first, 'Are you Jewish?'. This is a common question in 1948 Palestine - some property is held by the JNF for exclusive Jewish Only use, while other properties are sold off by racist landowners who will only sell or rent to people who are Jewish. We didn't get to find out how Erez was able to acquire this property - but one could only assume that it had been confiscated in the 'absentee law' after 1948 and sold to the most Jewish bidder.


Further down along the beach is the Haifa port which I believe is Haifa's largest import-export terminal. All along the port you will see Zim and Maersk containers shipping out Israeli goods (such as Carmel-Agrexco fruits, vegetables and flowers grown on stolen land) to Europe, New York, and Toronto and Montreal. Also there is an Israeli military navel base - with war ships being sent off to patrol the coastline along Gaza.


There is lots to write and say about Haifa..but i will end with saying that we visited the ocean (which I know is based so much on our privilege to be able to do so) - and it is so beautiful - tall hills and mountains leading to long beaches and bright blue water...The next time that I visit the ocean here I only hope that it will be when everyone who is Palestinian can dip their feet in the water in a free Palestine.

Nakba Day: Ramallah

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/15/israelandthepalestinians

The organizers are estimating that the demonstration today to mark the 60th Anniversary of the Nakba was around 30 000 - 50 000 people in Ramallah alone. Buses from the north (Qalqilya and Jayous districts) were able to make it through the checkpoints to come. The demonstration started at the Al-Awda (Return) camp that was set up in central Ramallah and marched through the city to the central square called Al-Manar. There were a few drumming bands of young students, tons of banners, a sea of Palestinian flags, tons of music and chanting, dancing and speeches.

At 2pm the people gathered at Qalandia camp where thousands of black balloons were released (similtaneously with Bethlehem and Jerusalem) - 21 915 black balloons to represent every day that has passed since the Nakba of 1948 - they carried messages of from the kids of the camp
talking about their wish to return to their homes and lands.

At 3pm, around 3 IDF army vehicles approached some of the youth who were on the road down from the Qalandia checkpoint (a super militarized IDF area - where the wall circles around with a high watch tower). A clash broke out between the youth who began throwing stones at the soldiers in the vehicles. One would think that the soldiers should just get back in to their vehicle and drive back to the checkpoint - but no, they instead respond with driving up the road and
started to shoot tear gas, sound grenades, and rubber bullets. And then this is where north America (or at least the part of activist north america that i am associated with) differentiates - the Palestinian youth responded to the provocation of the IDF by proceeding to gather MORE people and MORE rocks, to pull out slingshots, to build barricades, to wrap their faces with scarves dipped in onion juice (to take away the sting of the tear gas), to light tires on fire and roll them towards the soldiers, and to run closer towards where the soldiers are in order to have better aim for their rocks to hit against the armoured vehicles. This went on for a long time. The IDF jeeps eventually backed off - but continued to fire towards the youth from the watch-tower and behind the concrete wall of the checkpoint. One person was hurt from a rubber bullet where it hit his chest but he was brought to the hospital and he is ok.

I'm holding two of these things - rubber bullets (found them on the ground)- they come in two different kinds as far as I can tell today. One is plain thick rubber, and the other is metal coated in rubber. They cause different kinds of damage it seems.

So this is Nakba day in occupied Palestine - the day to commemorate and protest: those who died in 1948 and those who were forced from their homes, the destruction of over 500 villages, and the on-going system of apartheid. It is not enough that most Palestinian people have lived as refugees for 60 years...apparently Israel also had to flex its muscles behind high-tech weaponry, concrete walls, and the president of the U.S on the anniversary...

George W is in town too. Visiting Israel to make sure that the world knows that the war-on-terror is still alive and kicking, 'Happy Birthday Israel', and 'Don't worry Israel, the U.S is behind
you'. In case anyone forgot.
(http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/983716.html)

To be honest it is hard not to be overwhelmed, and sad. It is sad to see grandmothers marching and still carrying the key to their house that they left 60 years ago thinking that they would go back in a few weeks. And it is hard to see the grandchildren armed only with rocks against one of the world's largest military regimes. And it is harder still to see your friends growing up in these conditions in camps and to know that I was able to be here today - while some are kept
out by a racist state.

But, 50 000 people marched today under the banner of 'No Peace without Return' (more people than anyone expected), and everyone speaks of a growing movement for the Right of Return for refugees and against all of Israel's policies.

It is more than inspiring, it is very very humbling. And it is good to be humbled.

Lost homes of West Jerusalem

Silent March of Nakba Survivors, their family and supporters: May 11th, 2008

Commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the Nakba (the Palestinian 'catastrophe' when at least 800 000 people were forced out of their land), 200 people marched through the West Jerusalem neighborhoods of Talbiyeh to the Lower Baq'a - stopping along the way for families to talk about the histories of their homes; how they were built (often times by the grandfather or uncle), the memories of the neighbourhood before 1948, and how people fled after a massacre in a nearby hotel, or were slowly pushed out. Like most families in 1948 Palestine during the Nakba, their property was then deemed 'absentee property' by the new Israeli state and claimed as Israeli. Now these homes are part of an up-scale Israeli neighbourhood next to the Jerusalem Theatre, with very little being known about the history of this area by the new inhabitants. One of the homes still had the Arabic writing of the initials of the family, but the woman who came out to yell at us for being on her porch claimed to have always lived there.

Some of the people marching wore black t-shirts that said on one side 'Nakba Survivor' and on the other 'This is Our Home'. The organizers also handed out fliers with information about the Nakba, a map of the area including were the lost homes are, and the stories of families (i will try to scan and post this soon, it is a really beautiful flier). It was obviously a very emotional and sad day, but also very powerful marching through those neighbourhoods and ending with a speech by the daughter of a man that lost his house in the Lower Baq'a about how Palestinian refugees hold firm to their right to return to their land and homes - and that this was in the name of all those who are kept out of Jerusalem whether in the West Bank, Sabra and Shatila (Lebanon), Jordan, Europe or elsewhere (like Toronto)....