Snapshots From Palestine

By the Michigan Peace Team

The Michigan Peace Team (MPT) was co-founded in 1993 by Fr. Peter Dougherty, Kay and Randy Bond, and Jasiu Milanowski as a vehicle to train ordinary citizens in the techniques of empowered, nonviolent peacemaking, then send these individuals as teams into areas of conflict. Since its inception, MPT’s list of members and supporters has grown to over 3,000 names, and it has continued to successfully place trained peace teams both locally (e.g., at KKK rallies, campus riots) and abroad (Bosnia, Chiapas, Haiti, Iraq and Palestine). What follows are the impressions of four Michigan Peace Team members who visited Palestine in Spring 2005.

Mary Hanna-Miller


	A daylight raid on Bil’in (Courtesy Michigan Peace Team).

TONIGHT WE are Bil’in, a small village outside Ramallah.

“Get up! Get up!” It is very late—or is it very early?—and in the pitch blackness the whisper holds urgency. “The soldiers have entered the village.” Are they coming to collect the boys they think threw stones? We scramble to get shoes on, grab a flashlight, pull on clothing. A cacophony of voices and accents and languages join to confront the Israeli raiders. We gather in the courtyard for a head count, then turn and sprint at a fast walk toward the targeted home. Annette links her arm through mine so I can keep up. “Yalla, Yalla!” “Hurry, hurry!”

It is so dark I can barely see the person in front of me, and the ground below me not at all. My eyes strain to identify the intruders through the night veil. Suddenly, we are upon them—three soldiers make a quick dash to their jeep. They rev the engine loudly, and pretend to charge us—but no one moves. Throwing the jeep into reverse, they turn and charge again: a frustrated bull facing too many matadors. Again they meet with no success, and retreat a ways down the road, where a companion jeep is waiting. There is some kind of strategic interchange, then apparent surrender as both vehicles roar in defiant anger through the crowd of peacemakers to exit the town. For the moment, we have won!

A discussion ensues in Arabic between the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) coordinator and some of the townspeople. It is decided that some of the internationals should sleep at the house that was targeted this evening, to serve as a buffer of safety for the family should the soldiers return before daylight. All of the MPT women volunteer, so we return to the ISM apartment to gather cell phones and warm clothing. Tonight, five American women sleep on a layer of thin mattresses at the foot of the bed of the household’s oldest son, who is paralyzed from the chest down by an Israeli bullet through the neck—his punishment for participating in a demonstration against the occupation. The hospitality offered by this poor family goes beyond description, but the head of the household is realistic: We have protected them, but just for the night. The occupation is not over, the soldiers will return, more houses will be raided, more children arrested, more lands confiscated, more people will die. We’ve stopped the onslaught, but only for a little while. That they are so grateful for such a tiny reprieve makes me feel very humble indeed—and more determined than ever to make sure the world hears of their struggle.

Kim Redigan

Later that week, four of us journeyed to Al-Khalil (Hebron), perhaps the most volatile spot in the West Bank and home to the most militant settlers in the occupied territories.

By day the mood in the Old City is grim and depressing, controlled as it is by 1,500 Israeli soldiers assigned to protect the 500 Jewish settlers who have moved into the heart of the Old City. The ancient and narrow streets of this once-thriving market area are cordoned off at each end by soldiers and checkpoints. Although a few brave merchants register their protest by opening their shops and displaying their wares to nonexistent customers, the area is tense and virtually deserted. Between the checkpoints and the restriction of movement and the frequent curfews and the home demolitions and the army’s practice of using Palestinian homes as military posts, the situation in this compact area is desperate and suffocating. Even at the peak of a sunny afternoon, the atmosphere is foreboding.

That night, we settled in for the evening in a small one-room apartment in the center of the Old City. At 2 a.m. we were abruptly jolted from our sleep by the heart-stopping sound of loud dogs barking aggressively and incessantly right outside the apartment building’s exterior door. At the same time, someone began pounding, banging, storming on the door. The effect was utterly chilling.

This continued without interruption for 30 awful minutes—a solid half hour of relentless barking and pounding. Throughout the entire time, our human assailants uttered not a single word, making the situation all the more macabre and frightening.

We lay in the dark, frozen to our mats, barely daring to breathe. There was nowhere to go, nothing to do—and, clutching my cell phone like a security blanket, no one to call, I realized. This was a lesson in pure, unadulterated powerlessness.

The relief we felt when it all stopped was palpable. We were shaken, but grateful beyond words that the door had not been broken down.

About 40 minutes later we were cautiously drifting off to sleep when the attackers returned, with the same ferocious-sounding dogs and the same violent pounding. This time, however, we heard steel on steel and surmised that they had returned with some kind of tool, perhaps a crowbar. Once again, we had no other option but to simply endure this terror. Finally, after 10 or 15 minutes, the dogs and their human accomplices gave up and left.

The following day, when we told our friends who live in Hebron what had happened, they said, “Settlers.” Nothing unusual or extraordinary, just the usual Saturday night settler activity. Welcome to Hebron. Welcome to the occupation by night.

Annette Thomas


A warm welcome in Jenin (Photo by Michael Keating).

Having attempted and failed on two occasions to enter the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin, I finally succeeded in April of 2005. I had become obsessed with the Palestinian crisis after visiting the West Bank and Gaza with a friend shortly after the Jenin massacre in 2002. A desperate need to connect with the people, to understand how something so violent and devastating had not broken their spirit turned this trip into a personal mission. The Israeli military raid of the Jenin camp that took place in the dead of night, leaving the Palestinians no chance for resistance, had become a human tragedy. Countless homes were demolished before the residents had a chance to evacuate. Scores of innocent people died. Somehow the survivors found the strength and courage to rebuild their lives.

I was taken to the home of a Jenin family, headed by a woman who had the sole responsibility of raising not only her children but the children of her brother and his wife, each of whom had been falsely imprisoned: he for five years, she sentenced to three consecutive life terms. In desperation, their 12-year-old daughter had written to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan for his support in the release of her mother, and was planning a trip to New York City to meet with him. As I listened to my hostess’s story—her husband, twin sons and cousin killed by occupation forces, mother harassed to the point of a heart attack and death, and the false imprisonment of her brother and sister-in-law—I struggled to make sense of this human cruelty. I studied her face for telltale signs of the effects of the occupation. Anguish, pain, distrust: they were all there. Yet, as the minutes passed, the children, beautiful, giggling children, almost 10 of them, started warming up to and embracing the stranger who had traveled, with her peace team, thousands of miles to learn their stories and help make the rest of the world aware of their plight. Having been taken to their rooms, showered with gifts, hugs and kisses I was overwhelmed by the love they shared with me. I became their friend, a friend who would have to leave but could never, ever forget them.

Twyla Meyer


	An Israeli military checkpoint bars Tulkarm farmers from their land.

We arrived in the city of Tulkarm around noon on Tuesday, April 19, 2005. With a population of about 50,000, the city lies near the northern Israeli border. ISMers met E. and me at the bus stop and we walked to the office of the ISM Palestinian coordinator. He took us on a tour of the last completed piece of the wall. Now, when the gates are shut and locked, the entire population is imprisoned.

Later we went to the outskirts of town to wait at a gate for the Palestinian farmers to return from their day’s work in the fields and groves located outside the series of fences and gates. On a yellow sign attached to the gate the Israeli military posts when soldiers will be there to allow the farmers through. Some mornings, however, the Israeli forces don’t bother to show up, making it impossible for the farmers to tend to their crops. In the afternoon the soldiers make everyone wait until all the farmers are accounted for before letting anyone back in. There is not shade from the sun, or shelter from the rain. Today, to show their disdain for the internationals observing the process, the soldiers treat the farmers with increased and obvious disrespect.

The next day we visited the Tulkarm Social Work Committee. Sarif, the director, describes the conditions under which many of the people live. Unemployment, poverty and disillusionment have taken their toll on families, he tells us. Fathers and mothers are often unable to feed or care for their children. Even though the Social Work Committee volunteers are doing their utmost, they fear they cannot overcome the level of hardship.