February 7 2003
Hi friends and family, and others,
I
have been in Palestine for two weeks and one hour now, and I still have
very few words to describe what I see. It is most difficult for me to
think about what's going on here when I sit down to write back to the
United States. Something about the virtual portal into luxury. I don't
know if many of the children here have ever existed without tank-shell
holes in their walls and the towers of an occupying army surveying them
constantly from the near horizons. I think, although I'm not entirely
sure, that even the smallest of these children understand that life is
not like this everywhere. An eight-year-old was shot and killed by an
Israeli tank two days before I got here, and many of the children murmur
his name to me - Ali - or point at the posters of him on the walls. The
children also love to get me to practice my limited Arabic by asking
me, "Kaif Sharon?" "Kaif Bush?" and they laugh when I say, "Bush
Majnoon", "Sharon Majnoon" back in my limited arabic. (How is Sharon?
How is Bush? Bush is crazy. Sharon is crazy.) Of course this isn't quite
what I believe, and some of the adults who have the English correct me:
"Bush mish Majnoon" ... Bush is a businessman. Today I tried to learn
to say, "Bush is a tool", but I don't think it translated quite right.
But anyway, there are eight-year-olds here much more aware of the
workings of the global power structure than I was just a few years ago.
Nevertheless, no amount of reading, attendance at conferences,
documentary viewing and word of mouth could have prepared me for the
reality of the situation here. You just can't imagine it unless you see
it - and even then you are always well aware that your experience of it
is not at all the reality: what with the difficulties the Israeli army
would face if they shot an unarmed US citizen, and with the fact that I
have money to buy water when the army destroys wells, and the fact, of
course, that I have the option of leaving. Nobody in my family has been
shot, driving in their car, by a rocket launcher from a tower at the end
of a major street in my hometown. I have a home. I am allowed to go see
the ocean. When I leave for school or work I can be relatively certain
that there will not be a heavily armed soldier waiting halfway between
Mud Bay and downtown Olympia at a checkpoint with the power to decide
whether I can go about my business, and whether I can get home again
when I'm done. As an afterthought to all this rambling, I am in Rafah: a
city of about 140,000 people, approximately 60% of whom are refugees -
many of whom are twice or three times refugees. Today, as I walked on
top of the rubble where homes once stood, Egyptian soldiers called to me
from the other side of the border, "Go! Go!" because a tank was coming.
And then waving and "What's your name?". Something disturbing about
this friendly curiosity. It reminded me of how much, to some degree, we
are all kids curious about other kids. Egyptian kids shouting at strange
women wandering into the path of tanks. Palestinian kids shot from the
tanks when they peak out from behind walls to see what's going on.
International kids standing in front of tanks with banners. Israeli kids
in the tanks anonymously - occasionally shouting and also occasionally
waving - many forced to be here, many just agressive - shooting into the
houses as we wander away.
I've been having trouble accessing
news about the outside world here, but I hear an escalation of war on
Iraq is inevitable. There is a great deal of concern here about the
"reoccupation of Gaza". Gaza is reoccupied every day to various extents
but I think the fear is that the tanks will enter all the streets and
remain here instead of entering some of the streets and then withdrawing
after some hours or days to observe and shoot from the edges of the
communities. If people aren't already thinking about the consequences of
this war for the people of the entire region then I hope you will
start.
My love to everyone. My love to my mom. My love to
smooch. My love to fg and barnhair and sesamees and Lincoln School. My
love to Olympia.
Rachel
February 20 2003
Mama,
Now
the Israeli army has actually dug up the road to Gaza, and both of the
major checkpoints are closed. This means that Palestinians who want to
go and register for their next quarter at university can't. People can't
get to their jobs and those who are trapped on the other side can't get
home; and internationals, who have a meeting tomorrow in the West Bank,
won't make it. We could probably make it through if we made serious use
of our international white person privilege, but that would also mean
some risk of arrest and deportation, even though none of us has done
anything illegal.
The Gaza Strip is divided in thirds now. There
is some talk about the "reoccupation of Gaza", but I seriously doubt
this will happen, because I think it would be a geopolitically stupid
move for Israel right now. I think the more likely thing is an increase
in smaller below-the-international-outcry-radar incursions and possibly
the oft-hinted "population transfer".
I am staying put in Rafah
for now, no plans to head north. I still feel like I'm relatively safe
and think that my most likely risk in case of a larger-scale incursion
is arrest. A move to reoccupy Gaza would generate a much larger outcry
than Sharon's assassination-during-peace-negotiations/land grab
strategy, which is working very well now to create settlements all over,
slowly but surely eliminating any meaningful possibility for
Palestinian self-determination. Know that I have a lot of very nice
Palestinians looking after me. I have a small flu bug, and got some very
nice lemony drinks to cure me. Also, the woman who keeps the key for
the well where we still sleep keeps asking me about you. She doesn't
speak a bit of English, but she asks about my mom pretty frequently -
wants to make sure I'm calling you.
Love to you and Dad and Sarah and Chris and everybody.
Rachel
February 27 2003
(To her mother)
Love
you. Really miss you. I have bad nightmares about tanks and bulldozers
outside our house and you and me inside. Sometimes the adrenaline acts
as an anesthetic for weeks and then in the evening or at night it just
hits me again - a little bit of the reality of the situation. I am
really scared for the people here. Yesterday, I watched a father lead
his two tiny children, holding his hands, out into the sight of tanks
and a sniper tower and bulldozers and Jeeps because he thought his house
was going to be exploded. Jenny and I stayed in the house with several
women and two small babies. It was our mistake in translation that
caused him to think it was his house that was being exploded. In fact,
the Israeli army was in the process of detonating an explosive in the
ground nearby - one that appears to have been planted by Palestinian
resistance.
This is in the area where Sunday about 150 men were
rounded up and contained outside the settlement with gunfire over their
heads and around them, while tanks and bulldozers destroyed 25
greenhouses - the livelihoods for 300 people. The explosive was right in
front of the greenhouses - right in the point of entry for tanks that
might come back again. I was terrified to think that this man felt it
was less of a risk to walk out in view of the tanks with his kids than
to stay in his house. I was really scared that they were all going to be
shot and I tried to stand between them and the tank. This happens every
day, but just this father walking out with his two little kids just
looking very sad, just happened to get my attention more at this
particular moment, probably because I felt it was our translation
problems that made him leave.
I thought a lot about what you
said on the phone about Palestinian violence not helping the situation.
Sixty thousand workers from Rafah worked in Israel two years ago. Now
only 600 can go to Israel for jobs. Of these 600, many have moved,
because the three checkpoints between here and Ashkelon (the closest
city in Israel) make what used to be a 40-minute drive, now a 12-hour or
impassible journey. In addition, what Rafah identified in 1999 as
sources of economic growth are all completely destroyed - the Gaza
international airport (runways demolished, totally closed); the border
for trade with Egypt (now with a giant Israeli sniper tower in the
middle of the crossing); access to the ocean (completely cut off in the
last two years by a checkpoint and the Gush Katif settlement). The count
of homes destroyed in Rafah since the beginning of this intifada is up
around 600, by and large people with no connection to the resistance but
who happen to live along the border. I think it is maybe official now
that Rafah is the poorest place in the world. There used to be a middle
class here - recently. We also get reports that in the past, Gazan
flower shipments to Europe were delayed for two weeks at the Erez
crossing for security inspections. You can imagine the value of
two-week-old cut flowers in the European market, so that market dried
up. And then the bulldozers come and take out people's vegetable farms
and gardens. What is left for people? Tell me if you can think of
anything. I can't.
If any of us had our lives and welfare
completely strangled, lived with children in a shrinking place where we
knew, because of previous experience, that soldiers and tanks and
bulldozers could come for us at any moment and destroy all the
greenhouses that we had been cultivating for however long, and did this
while some of us were beaten and held captive with 149 other people for
several hours - do you think we might try to use somewhat violent means
to protect whatever fragments remained? I think about this especially
when I see orchards and greenhouses and fruit trees destroyed - just
years of care and cultivation. I think about you and how long it takes
to make things grow and what a labour of love it is. I really think, in a
similar situation, most people would defend themselves as best they
could. I think Uncle Craig would. I think probably Grandma would. I
think I would.
You asked me about non-violent resistance.
When
that explosive detonated yesterday it broke all the windows in the
family's house. I was in the process of being served tea and playing
with the two small babies. I'm having a hard time right now. Just feel
sick to my stomach a lot from being doted on all the time, very sweetly,
by people who are facing doom. I know that from the United States, it
all sounds like hyperbole. Honestly, a lot of the time the sheer
kindness of the people here, coupled with the overwhelming evidence of
the wilful destruction of their lives, makes it seem unreal to me. I
really can't believe that something like this can happen in the world
without a bigger outcry about it. It really hurts me, again, like it has
hurt me in the past, to witness how awful we can allow the world to be.
I felt after talking to you that maybe you didn't completely believe
me. I think it's actually good if you don't, because I do believe pretty
much above all else in the importance of independent critical thinking.
And I also realise that with you I'm much less careful than usual about
trying to source every assertion that I make. A lot of the reason for
that is I know that you actually do go and do your own research. But it
makes me worry about the job I'm doing. All of the situation that I
tried to enumerate above - and a lot of other things - constitutes a
somewhat gradual - often hidden, but nevertheless massive - removal and
destruction of the ability of a particular group of people to survive.
This is what I am seeing here. The assassinations, rocket attacks and
shooting of children are atrocities - but in focusing on them I'm
terrified of missing their context. The vast majority of people here -
even if they had the economic means to escape, even if they actually
wanted to give up resisting on their land and just leave (which appears
to be maybe the less nefarious of Sharon's possible goals), can't leave.
Because they can't even get into Israel to apply for visas, and because
their destination countries won't let them in (both our country and
Arab countries). So I think when all means of survival is cut off in a
pen (Gaza) which people can't get out of, I think that qualifies as
genocide. Even if they could get out, I think it would still qualify as
genocide. Maybe you could look up the definition of genocide according
to international law. I don't remember it right now. I'm going to get
better at illustrating this, hopefully. I don't like to use those
charged words. I think you know this about me. I really value words. I
really try to illustrate and let people draw their own conclusions.
Anyway,
I'm rambling. Just want to write to my Mom and tell her that I'm
witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide and I'm really scared, and
questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature. This
has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and
devote our lives to making this stop. I don't think it's an extremist
thing to do anymore. I still really want to dance around to Pat Benatar
and have boyfriends and make comics for my coworkers. But I also want
this to stop. Disbelief and horror is what I feel. Disappointment. I am
disappointed that this is the base reality of our world and that we, in
fact, participate in it. This is not at all what I asked for when I came
into this world. This is not at all what the people here asked for when
they came into this world. This is not the world you and Dad wanted me
to come into when you decided to have me. This is not what I meant when I
looked at Capital Lake and said: "This is the wide world and I'm coming
to it." I did not mean that I was coming into a world where I could
live a comfortable life and possibly, with no effort at all, exist in
complete unawareness of my participation in genocide. More big
explosions somewhere in the distance outside.
When I come back
from Palestine, I probably will have nightmares and constantly feel
guilty for not being here, but I can channel that into more work. Coming
here is one of the better things I've ever done. So when I sound crazy,
or if the Israeli military should break with their racist tendency not
to injure white people, please pin the reason squarely on the fact that I
am in the midst of a genocide which I am also indirectly supporting,
and for which my government is largely responsible.
I love you
and Dad. Sorry for the diatribe. OK, some strange men next to me just
gave me some peas, so I need to eat and thank them.
Rachel
February 28 2003
(To her mother)
Thanks, Mom, for your response to my email. It really helps me to get word from you, and from other people who care about me.
After
I wrote to you I went incommunicado from the affinity group for about
10 hours which I spent with a family on the front line in Hi Salam - who
fixed me dinner - and have cable TV. The two front rooms of their house
are unusable because gunshots have been fired through the walls, so the
whole family - three kids and two parents - sleep in the parent's
bedroom. I sleep on the floor next to the youngest daughter, Iman, and
we all shared blankets. I helped the son with his English homework a
little, and we all watched Pet Semetery, which is a horrifying movie. I
think they all thought it was pretty funny how much trouble I had
watching it. Friday is the holiday, and when I woke up they were
watching Gummy Bears dubbed into Arabic. So I ate breakfast with them
and sat there for a while and just enjoyed being in this big puddle of
blankets with this family watching what for me seemed like Saturday
morning cartoons. Then I walked some way to B'razil, which is where
Nidal and Mansur and Grandmother and Rafat and all the rest of the big
family that has really wholeheartedly adopted me live. (The other day,
by the way, Grandmother gave me a pantomimed lecture in Arabic that
involved a lot of blowing and pointing to her black shawl. I got Nidal
to tell her that my mother would appreciate knowing that someone here
was giving me a lecture about smoking turning my lungs black.) I met
their sister-in-law, who is visiting from Nusserat camp, and played with
her small baby.
Nidal's English gets better every day. He's the
one who calls me, "My sister". He started teaching Grandmother how to
say, "Hello. How are you?" In English. You can always hear the tanks and
bulldozers passing by, but all of these people are genuinely cheerful
with each other, and with me. When I am with Palestinian friends I tend
to be somewhat less horrified than when I am trying to act in a role of
human rights observer, documenter, or direct-action resister. They are a
good example of how to be in it for the long haul. I know that the
situation gets to them - and may ultimately get them - on all kinds of
levels, but I am nevertheless amazed at their strength in being able to
defend such a large degree of their humanity - laughter, generosity,
family-time - against the incredible horror occurring in their lives and
against the constant presence of death. I felt much better after this
morning. I spent a lot of time writing about the disappointment of
discovering, somewhat first-hand, the degree of evil of which we are
still capable. I should at least mention that I am also discovering a
degree of strength and of basic ability for humans to remain human in
the direst of circumstances - which I also haven't seen before. I think
the word is dignity. I wish you could meet these people. Maybe,
hopefully, someday you will.
