i made it up to the west bank a few times in the spring. one day, a group of classmates and i visited the city of hebron. we went to the local hospital where we were able to chat with some palestinian medical students and get a tour of the facilities. we also walked around the old city that is hemmed in by ideological jewish settlements. we wandered through the alleyways where the settlers throw garbage and sometimes even acid and alcohol down on the palestinians below. we looked out over the infamous shuhada street, or “apartheid” street, so named because palestinians are not permitted to use it despite the fact that it used to be the main thoroughfare through the city. interestingly, even israel’s supreme court recently ruled that palestinians should be able to use the road, but the military disagrees and defies the law by continuing to restrict access. the settlers really wield disproportionate control of the situation, even in open defiance of supreme court rulings. its all extremely sad. it was really encouraging to see some of my classmates make the decision to go see the reality of what is happening in palestine, some of them for the first time. we also visited a glass blowing factory in hebron, where they make all manner of glass things by hand with the help of a huge furnace. if you’re interested in learning more about the situation in hebron, my friend michael mcray just published a poignant book about 3 months he spent there volunteering as an advocate for nonviolence with an organization called christian peacemaker teams. the book is called “letters from apartheid street: a christian peacemaker in occupied palestine.” you won’t regret reading it!
another day i headed up to bethlehem to visit my friend dr dave, director of the middle east studies program, and the intern at the program, chris, a friend from college. i got to sit in on an interesting lecture, and then we went to a nice lady’s house in bethlehem with some of the students at the program for their cooking class. we made a nice dessert called basboosa. while there, some protests erupted at checkpoint 300, the main checkpoint through the separation barrier between bethlehem and jerusalem. we watched as tires burned in the streets and tear gas wafted into the air and found its way into our nostrils. the protests were triggered by the suspicious death of a palestinian prisoner in an israeli prison. a major source of contention is that all palestinians in the west bank are effectively under israeli military marshal law. thus, they can be arrested at any time without any reason and held indefinitely without trial, a policy called “administrative detention.” thousands are being held in israeli prisons, including many minors. of course, many are truly terrorists and deserve to be incarcerated. but many others are there simply because the israeli government doesn’t like them or the things that they say, and some are never even given a reason for their detainment. huge problems. guantanamo bay disgusts me in the same sort of way. anyway, it is fascinating to live in such a charged region of the world. ambivalence with regard to these issues isn’t a very palatable option when the tear gas is wafting into your nose and making you cry.
