Checkpoint Kalandia - Now even bigger

Checkpoint Kalandia, my next novel, may be set a decade ago, but the problems the family face continue today. Kalandia is one of the major checkpoints on the West Bank. It is now a permanent fixture that looks more and more like the entrance to a maximum security prison every year.

Today a Palestinian broke through a checkpoint near Jerusalem. He injured two guards slightly, and the ensuing gunfire failed to stop him. That’s all the news article in the Jerusalem Post says. (http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Palestinian-breaks-through-checkpoint-near-Jerusalem-injuring-2-security-guards-332243).

I wonder what drove the man to run through the checkpoint. What made him so anxious to get to the other side that he was willing to risk his life to get there? Does he have family on the other side? Maybe a sick mother or grandmother?

   Or was it something else entirely—was he at a point where the idea of facing one more checkpoint, one more humiliating experience of being patted down asked to raise his shirt to show his skin, and asked countless meaningless questions just too much for him? Was this act a scream of desperation and despair?
   This is life, not a novel, so we will never know what prompted his actions. We will never share his inner thoughts. We can only imagine what it feels like to live in what may be characterized as the world’s largest prison. No, maybe not. In a prison the prisoners are fed, sheltered, and in most countries given medical care.

There is a very good blog describing a trip through the Qalandia Checkpoint by an American photojournalist. The photos are striking, and the narrative is entertaining. http://holylanddispatches.blogspot.com/2009/06/military-checkpoint-is-one-of-most-well.html

Perhaps you noticed that the spelling is not consistent in this blog or across the internet. The reason is that when words are transliterated from one alphabet to another, the spelling is interpreted by the person doing the transliteration. I use Kalandia, but Qalandia is probably the most common spelling.

The video below is one of the best portrayal of the checkpoint I have seen. It chronicles the history of the checkpoint from temporary to permanent with increasingly restrictive layers of security.

WORLD REFUGEE DAY - June 20

June 20^th was declared World Refugee Day less than thirteen years ago. Millions of Palestinians have been refugees for five times that many years. Over a million Syrian refugees have joined their ranks only recently, and their numbers are growing daily.

The United Nations reports that more than 45.2 million people have been displaced from their homes due to conflict or violence, making it the highest number since 1994, when millions of people fled ethnic violence in former Yugoslavia and genocide in Rwanda.

And each day, another 23,000 people begin to search for safety from harm or persecution—the world has a new refugee or internally displaced person every 4.1 seconds. “Each time you blink, another person is forced to flee,” said Antonio Guterres, chief of the U.N.’s Refugee Agency, in Geneva. Earlier, he called the numbers “truly alarming.”  http://world.time.com/2013/06/20/the-worst-refugee-crisis-in/

No one wants to be a refugee. They didn't want to flee their homes, often with nothing but the clothes on their backs. They don't want to live on borrowed land, dependent on the charity of the world. No one chooses that path easily. It is chosen as a last resort—an alternative to certain death for loved ones.

Refugees love their families. They have hopes and dreams. Refugees would like nothing better than to leave their refugee status behind and live normal lives with only the ordinary problems of going to work each morning and raising their children to be good decent people...but that is not an option for them.

As UNHCR Special Envoy Angelina Jolie said in her press release today, 20 June 2013

I have met refugees around the world. They are resilient, hardworking and gracious people. They have experienced more violence and faced more fear than we will ever know. They have lost their homes, their belongings and their countries. They have often lost family and friends to horrific deaths. Faced with war and oppression they have chosen not to take up arms, but to try to find safety for their families. They deserve our respect, our acknowledgment and our support – not just today but for the duration of their ordeal. http://www.unhcr.org/51c2f7c26.html

Two kids taken by Israeli soldiers

It’s something that happens every day in the Occupied Territories, so why am I writing about it? Because of a random tweet, because it was written up in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, because the reason it caught my eye was that this article was about newborn kids—the four-legged variety.

My first thought was: How sad is that? The arrest and incarceration of children has become so commonplace that it no longer attracts attention. The abduction of baby goats is more noteworthy than the abduction of a child.

 “Two and half hours after the kids were born a group of soldiers, probably serving at the Nahal base at Krayot ‏(not in the West Bank‏), showed up and confiscated the goat and two newborn kids, loading them on their Hummer. Mahamra’s donkey, which had been harnessed to a water container on wheels, disappeared too.” http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/the-idf-battles-a-palestinian-shepherd-and-his-two-baby-goats.premium-1.507009

My second thought was: In some ways, taking three goats and a donkey from this man may have even more disastrous results than arresting a child. It could very well threaten the livelihood of the entire family. The donkey may be their only transportation; their only means of getting fresh water, getting to the nearest town to sell their livestock or buy basic necessities. Sell their livestock? Without the mother goat and kids, there will be far less livestock to sell, no milk, no cheese. The shepherd is from the village of Maghayir al-Abeed in the South Hebron Hills. He raises his goats on the same land his father did, and probably his father before him for generations.

How did such a story even get into Haaretz? The article states that several nudniks (I looked it up—nudnik is a Yiddish word meaning persistent pest) took up the case. They put it up on Facebook and started investigating the abduction of the animals. Others read about it on Facebook and began to call and add their voices.

They were told the shepherd entered a closed firing zone with the intention of stealing ammunition. The kids were less than three hours old—not exactly ideal get-away vehicles for an ammunition thief. Also, the land is NOT a closed firing zone. The IDF wants to demolish eight of the twelve villages that are on 30,000 dunums of land (about 7,500 acres) to make it a firing zone. Israel’s High Court is debating the issue and has ruled that the status quo cannot be changed until they make a final ruling. Looks like the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) is getting a head start.

I usually embed a video at the end of my blog post. The one I wanted to share with you does not allow me to embed it.  Here is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpPMyQz759k&list=PLA21794A5EF380C4A 

 

 

 

Man’s Inhumanity to Man—will it ever end?

 

There is nothing I can say that pictures can’t say better-- 

Nothing I can say that won’t bring tears to my eyes.

 

Gaza is under attack.  Photo story of the events in Gaza http://electronicintifada.net/content/photos-israel-relentlessly-bombs-gaza-west-bank-protests-repressed/11901 

 

Land is constantly being appropriated

and homes destroyed.

 



WILL IT EVER END?

Apartheid—it’s so last century

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an article giving the results of a survey conducted on the eve of Rosh Hashanah.  The original headline for the piece was “Most Israelis support an apartheid regime in Israel,” but a search for it today yielded a headline “Survey: Most Israeli Jews wouldn’t give Palestinians vote if West Bank was annexed.”  Under the new headline was a note that supposedly explained what they now consider a headline which “did not accurately reflect the findings” of the poll.  http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/survey-most-israeli-jews-wouldn-t-give-palestinians-vote-if-west-bank-was-annexed.premium-1.471644?block=true

They didn’t say what they called the situation, if not apartheid. 

“The Palestinian minority in Israel: Systematic Discrimination” is the headline of an article in Qantara.de, a German based website.  http://en.qantara.de/Systematic-Discrimination/19419c497/index.html  The article goes on to say:

The Israeli government and its advocacy groups like to boast of the country's supposed democratic, multicultural way of life. In reality, Palestinians in Israel experience systematic discrimination in such a way that calls into question the validity of the "Jewish and democratic" formulation. By Ben White

It has been received wisdom in the West for decades to see Israel as "the only democracy in the Middle East". In recent times, however, Israeli policies have been subject to increased criticism, particularly in Europe – and specifically in terms of military action in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the territories occupied since 1967.

Unfortunately, criticism does not seem to have any effect on the actions of the Israeli government.  As a recent (October 31, 2012) article posted by Stop the War Coalition in the UK says, “The facts speak for themselves:  Israel is an apartheid state.”  The article has links to official UN documents stating the official definition of apartheid, and gives additional information of facts on the ground that support the headlines. http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/palestine-and-israel/1992-the-facts-speak-for-themselves-israel-is-an-apartheid-state%20

 

Separate But Equal—never happened, never will

Back in the days of my youth (yes, I’m that old) bus stations in the southern part of the United States had four bathrooms and two water fountains.  Today my adult children look at me with puzzled expressions on their faces at the idea of segregation.  I might as well be telling them stories about dragons and sea monsters.  I like that.

Yes, I know that racism is still rampant in this country, but now there are so many issues on which to discriminate that any halfway decent bigot can get up a good rant without breaking a sweat.  I’m not even sure race is at the top of the list any more.  Abortion, sexual preference, religion, political preference... the list goes on and on.

The point I’m trying to make here is that we have made progress in this country.  We’re far from perfect, but we’re working on it.  The "Christians Only" sign, posted in the United States, was not dated, although the blogger said that until the late 1960's Jews were still being discriminated against in many places in the southern United States.  http://attendingtheworld.wordpress.com/2008/10/12/blacks-chinese-japanese-blacks-jews-muslims-whos-next/

Racist groups, cults, fanatics, skinheads, etc. do exist in this country and in many other countries, but most people agree that it brings shame on the country and we must continually fight against it.  It is NOT legally sanctioned; it is NOT national policy.

Apartheid is alive and well and living in Israel.

Earlier this year, Israeli courts upheld a controversial marriage law that bans Palestinians who marry Israeli Arabs from obtaining Israeli citizenship or even residency rights.  Quoting ABC News:

Under current Israeli law, when an Arab Israeli marries a Palestinian they either live apart or must move to another country to live together long-term.

Various human rights groups challenged the law in the Supreme Court on the grounds that it violates the rights of Palestinian spouses to a proper family life.

But the court has ruled that human rights cannot override Israel's security concerns, with one judge writing that: "Human rights are not a prescription for national suicide."

Human rights groups have attacked the court decision, and accused the court of stamping its approval on a racist law that will harm the lives of families whose only sin is the Palestinian blood that runs in their veins.

"It is a dark day for the protection of human rights and for the Israeli Supreme Court," attorneys Dan Yakir and Oded Feller from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) said in a statement.   http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-13/israeli-court-upholds-controversial-marriage-law/3770458

Reading about a law is very different from reading about an individual whose life has been changed by the law. A wonderful op-ed piece in the New York Timeshttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/24/opinion/not-all-israeli-citizens-are-equal.html?_r=1tells of a couple who are self-exiled to the United States—far from their respective families because the law prevents them from living in the husband’s home.

This makes me wonder what would happen (Heaven forbid!) if a non-Arab Israeli citizen married a non-Israeli Palestinian. Would the same law apply? Maybe one of my readers can find an answer.