From Pork to Palestine: Protective Accompaniment in the Holy Land

Israeli Occupation Forces Disperse Nil'in Protest With Tear Gas, Concussion Grenades, Flash Bombs

2010-01-01T19:43:00.021+02:00

Israeli Occupation Forces dispersed hundreds of Palestinian protesters in the occupied West Bank village of Nil'in near Ramallah Friday with so-called "less than lethal" weapons during an anti-Apartheid Wall demonstration that also marked the 45th annivesary of the founding of the Fatah political party.

The village of Nil'in and her 5,000 residents are located outside of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, near the neighboring village of Bil'in. Like Bil'in, Nil'in is a symbol of nonviolent popular Palestinian resistance. The Apartheid Wall has choked off more than 40 percent of the village land since construction began in Nil'in in 2008. The town is also surrounded by illegal Israeli Jewish settlements that are visible just over the Apartheid Wall.

The Israeli Army set up a checkpoint at the main entrance to Nil'in, so the taxi I took from Ramallah dropped myself and another international off several hundred yards down the highway from the checkpoint and the driver told us to cut through the village land until we were inside city limits. After 45 minutes of walking through groves of olive trees, cacti, and jumping over barb-wired fences, we managed to stumble into the village without being spotted by the apartheid state security forces.

After the noon prayer the gathered crowd began marching down to the Apartheid Wall. Just beyond it was the Israeli Jewish settlement that was built on Nil'in land illegally annexed by Israel.

As soon as we reached the wall the Israeli Occupation Forces responded by firing tear gas, concussion grenades, and flash bombs, slowly driving the demonstrators back across the rugged terrain. Scattered skirmishes continued for nearly an hour, but things began to heat up again after Israeli soldiers crossed the barrier and began advancing on the demonstrators on foot.

Village youth began firing stones at the soldiers from home-made slingshots and a real back and forth running battle between the soldiers, with their high-tech weaponry, and the village Shabab, with their slingshots and stones, took place. In the end, of course, the Palestinians retreated without any serious injuries on either side. Several Palestinians were treated for tear-gas inhalation by the International Committee of the Red Crescent.

I hitched a ride back to Jerusalem with three members of Anarchists Against the Wall.

"Without protective accompaniment from Israelis, internationals, and journalists, these demonstrations could never take place," one anarchist from Tel Aviv said. "Every week there would be fifty arrested and ten dead and pretty soon, no more protests."

Video Of Thurday's Gaza Solidarity Demonstration in Ramallah

2009-12-31T22:14:00.001+02:00

Thousands Protest Gaza Siege as Egypt, Palestinian Authority Repress Demonstrations

2009-12-31T17:30:00.019+02:00

Hundreds of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah rally in solidarity with the Gaza Freedom March on New Year's Eve Day

Ramallah -- Thousands of people in Egypt, the besieged Gaza Strip, Israel, and the occupied West Bank rallied on New Year's Eve Day to call for an end to the international blockade and siege of Gaza, but the protests were marred by police brutality in Cairo and the cancellation of a solidarity action in the occupied West Bank town of Tulkarm at the behest of the Palestinian Authority.

In Cairo, Egyptian riot police brutally beat Gaza Freedom March demonstrators who were unable to enter the Gaza Strip after the Egyptian government permitted less than 100 of the 1,350 participants from crossing the Rafah border into Gaza.

"Members of the Gaza Freedom March are being forcibly detained in hotels around town, in Lotus and Liala, as well as violently forced into pens in Tahrir Square by Egyptian police and additional security forces," Codepink said in a released statement.

"Reports of police brutality are flooding a delegate legal hotline faster than the legal support team can answer the calls. The reports span from women being kicked, beaten to the ground and dragged into pens, at least one confirmed account of broken ribs, and many left bloody."

Lara Elborno, a Palestinian-American, University of Iowa alumni, and law student at Loyola University in Chicago confirmed the reports.

"They broke a guy's rib," Elborno said from Cairo. "They beat people with walkie talkies. My sister Dana got her camera taken and they stole the card with her pictures on it. Five security forces surrounded her and threw her to the ground. They pulled her hair and punched and kicked her. This is only one of many stories."

In the Gaza Strip, about 100 international solidarity activists joined 500 Palestinians living in Gaza for a rally and march denouncing the blockade. About 1,000 Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews demonstrated on the Israeli side of the Erez border crossing, according to Haaretz.

In the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, more than 250 Palestinians rallied in solidarity with the Free Gaza March during an event organized by the Palestinian Popular Committees of the West Bank.

“We are calling on the people of Palestine to work together to end the occupation,” said Iyad Burnat, a community organizer with the Bil'in Committee for Popular Resistance Against the Wall and Settlements. “Only by uniting the resistance can we succeed."

But the demonstration in Ramallah was curtailed after the Palestinian Authority prohibited the rally from marching through the city. And a similar solidarity action in the West Bank city of Turkarm, near the Northwest border with Israel, was cancelled after the Palestinian Authority prohibited the demonstration from taking place.

"As you know, this rally and march was supposed to be held today in solidarity with other demonstrations to protest the siege in Gaza," said Abdul Kareem, a community organizer with the Turkarm Popular Committee. "Unfortunately the Palestinian Authority has forbidden this demonstration."

"The P.A. has their own point of view and it is wrong," Kareem continued. "They say this demonstration is supporting Hamas, and they say they don't want to add more tension with Israel after the attacks in Nablus last week. They support Gaza in behind closed-door meetings and in public speeches, but they will not support Gaza on the streets."

Some organizers say that the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority is actually attempting to co-opt the Gaza Freedom March movement by holding celebrations marking the 45th anniversary of its founding on the same day as the solidarity demonstrations. Although the Free Gaza protest in Ramallah was attended by most of Palestine's largest political parties, Fatah banners were noticeably absent. Fatah held a seperate rally at a different time and location.

About 100 Palestinian Christians also attended a candle-light vigil for Gaza in Manger Square in Bethlehem.

The Gaza Freedom March and the Palestinian Popular Committees of the West Bank are demanding an immediate end to the blockade of Gaza, a form of collective punishment which has essentially turned the Gaza Strip into an open-air prison for its 1.5 million inhabitants.

The New Year's Eve Day protests were scheduled to mark the one-year anniversary of Israel's Operation: Cast Lead massacre in Gaza that killed more than 1,300 people and wounded more than 5,000.

Palestinian Popular Committees Call For Solidarity Actions With The Gaza Freedom March

2009-12-30T20:36:00.012+02:00

The Palestinian Popular Committees of the West Bank are calling for non-violent popular demonstrations throughout the West Bank tomorrow, Thursday, December 31 to mark the one-year anniversary of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead massacre against the people of the Gaza Strip, when more than 1300 people were killed and over 5000 injured during the 23-day assault.

The demonstrations are organized as solidarity actions with the Gaza Freedom March.

“We are calling on the people of Palestine to work together to end the occupation,” says Iyad Burnat, a community organizer with the Bil'in Committee for Popular Resistance Against the Wall and Settlements. “Only by uniting the resistance can we succeed."

The Palestinian Popular Committees of the West Bank are demanding an immediate end to the blockade of Gaza, a form of collective punishment which has essentially turned the Gaza Strip into an open-air prison for its 1.5 million inhabitants, over half to two-thirds of whom are listed as "food insecure" by the United Nations.

For more information about the effect of the siege on the people of Gaza, go here.

Solidarity demonstrations with the Gaza Freedom March will be held in the West Bank cities of Ramallah, Tulkarm, Jenin, and Bethlehem. I'll be attending the actions in both Tulkarm and Ramallah tomorrow and will post a report-back with photos and video as soon as I can.

Video of night raid in Bil'in. 12.29.2009

2009-12-30T14:40:00.001+02:00

Israeli Occupation Forces Arrest Two Village Youth During Night Raid In Bil'in Early Tuesday Morning

2009-12-29T03:29:00.013+02:00

Israeli Occupation Forces arrested two village youth from the small West Bank village of Bil'in early Tuesday morning during a night raid operation there around 2:30 am.

Lookouts with the Bil'in Committee for Popular Resistance Against the Wall and Settlements spotted Israeli soldiers near the Southwest gates of the town as well as in the Western groves of olive trees around 1am Tuesday morning and quickly mobilized the rest of the night patrol team.

"We do not have enough people to try and stop them tonight, David," Haitham Al-Katib, the Media Coordinator for Friends of Freedom and Justice Bil'in, told me. "Tonight you are not an activist, ok? Tonight you are a photographer. We will show the world the truth about what is happening here."

Hamoda Iymad Yassen and Khalil Abraham Yassen, 16, were arrested at their homes around 2:30am Tuesday morning.

More than 30 Bil'in residents have been arrested since June during a night-raid campaign conducted by apartheid state security forces in an apparent attempt to disrupt the nonviolent resistance activities of the Bil'in Committee for Popular Resistance Against the Wall and Settlements.

The Bil'in Popular Committee organizes weekly demonstrations at the Apartheid Wall near their village to protest the annexation of more than 60 percent of their land to Israel.

U.S. Official Criticizes Israeli Construction In Occupied East Jerusalem

2009-12-28T18:55:00.006+02:00

Haaretz has a good article in today's paper titled Israel plan to build in East Jerusalem harms peace process, says U.S. official.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to construct an additional 700 apartments in East Jerusalem is another blow to already stalled peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, a U.S. official said on Monday.
"We feel that unilateral actions make it harder for people to get back together at the table, and that's what our goals are," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity pending a formal reaction from Washington.

Read the whole thing here.

Israeli Occupation Forces Demolish Gas Station in Kusra Village Near Nablus

2009-12-28T18:21:00.008+02:00

A Palestinian-owned gas station and convenience store was demolished by Israeli Occupation Forces in the small farming village of Kusra outside of Nablus last week, and today myself and another international solidarity activist went into the field to investigate the incident.

We talked to Morad Abu Amer, the owner of the demolished gas station, and asked him what happened. According to Morad, his family built a gas station on the outskirts of town five years ago to service the community, and for years his business thrived without incident. But about seven months ago, the Israeli Army told him that he had to close his store because the location of the gas station directly across the street from an Israeli Jewish settlement could be used as a base for terrorist attacks against the settlers.

Morad spent 5,000 sheikels, or about $1,500 US, hiring an Israeli lawyer to fight the claim. But the Army showed up suddenly without warning last Wednesday, December 23, at 7am in the morning, and proceeded to demolish his store. Morad said that the Army surrounded the town with jeeps, set up three check-points in the village, and instituted a 24-hour curfew that required all the village residents to remain inside their homes.

"This gas station cost me more than 300,000 sheikels," Morad said (or about $100,000 US).

"I support myself, five children, my wife, and my mother, and now I have no work."

Israeli Occupation Forces Block Road in Madama Village Near Nablus

2009-12-27T20:18:00.009+02:00

The International Solidarity Movement office in Nablus received a phone call from a nearby village named Madama today about a new roadblock in their town, and we went out to the village to investigate.

Madama is a small farming village of about 1,800 people, with two schools and two mosques. Most of the traditional village land has been confiscated by Israel for the Yitzhar settlement. Part of the Apartheid Wall and a settler-only road also cuts through the village land.

According to the villagers we spoke with today, settlers attack the town residents two or three times a week, and the Israeli Occupation Forces raid homes daily, ostensibly to look for "terrorists".

Last week, an Army bulldozer drove through town and dumped concrete blocks and rocks on a road that the villagers use to access their farmland.

"If I can't get my tractor though to my olive trees, I cannot work, my trees will die, and I will not be able to make a living," Muhammed Abu Massam said, a local farmer.

From Hebron to Nablus

2009-12-27T18:56:00.006+02:00

I'm banned from Sheikh Jarrah and occupied East Jerusalem so I spent the last two days in Hebron and recently arrived in Nablus.

Hebron is one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world and the place where Isaac and Ishmael buried their father, Abraham, signaling a reconciliating between the two feuding brothers. Unfortunately there is no such reconciliation in Hebron today.

Hebron is unlike any place I've ever seen before. The old city reminds me of the old city in Jerusalem, except not as crowded. But there are military check-points and Israeli Occupation Forces everywhere, including in watch-towers all across the city. When we were walking through the city, settlers openly carried automatic weapons and assault rifles.

I asked one of them if I could take their picture.

"No," he said. "It's forbidden on the Sabbath."

"It's forbidden to get your picture taken on the Sabbath, but it's okay to walk around with an automatic weapon?" I asked him. He snorted and turned around, ignoring me.

Hebron is also the only city I've visited so far where beggars are openly walking the streets, asking for money. Street hustlers are also much more aggressive here than in Jerusalem. A few hundred Israeli Jewish settlers live amongst thousands of Palestinians in Hebron, and the tension is palpable. A thick layer of netting seperates the Israeli apartments from the Arab markets below them because the settlers throw stones and trash at the Palestinians from their windows.

Later on, we met up with our contact, a woman named Leila who runs a Women's Collective that sells homemade tapestries, kufiyyas, purses, coin wallets, and other items. She invited us into her our home and told us a little bit about the situation in Hebron over a delicious Arab dinner.

"The situation in Hebron is very bad, very dangerous," she said. "There is no work, and the settlers and the Army threaten us and attack us everyday."

On Saturdays, a settler "tour" goes into the old city through a military checkpoint to visit the holy sites important to Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike. They are guarded by a phalanx of soldiers and private security, but sometimes the overzealous ones use the day as an opportunity to take potshots at the Palestinian merchants, overturning their stands, stealing from their stores, insulting them, spitting on them, and sometimes worse.

We spent most of the day and night patrolling the streets of the old city, but it was quiet. We talked with the young men on the streets, drank tea inside their houses with their families, and generally just had a relaxing time.

I left Hebron this morning and am now in Nablus.

Christmas in Palestine: Teargassed in Bil'in, Arrested in Sheikh Jarrah

2009-12-26T09:40:00.008+02:00

I was teargassed in Bil'in and arrested in Sheikh Jarrah yesterday. Merry Christmas.

In the West Bank village of Bil'in, demonstrators marched to the Apartheid Wall and attempted to breach security and enter village land that had been annexed to Israel behind the barrier. Representatives of the the Fatah Party, including central committee member Abass Zaki, joined the march. Demonstrators dressed as Santa Claus carried a Christmas tree decorated with spent tear gas canisters and percussion grenades that had been used by the military against the demonstrations.

"Israeli soldiers, do not shoot," said Iyad Burnat, a community organizer with the Bil'in Committee for Popular Resistance Against the Wall. "Today is Christmas, and we come bearing gifts of sweets. Do not fire tear-gas."

Israeli Occupation Forces responded by immediately throwing concussion grenades and tear-gas canisters at demonstrators.

The weapon-garnished tree was carried in support of Abdullah Abu Rahme, a coordinator of the Bil’in Popular Committee. Rahme is currently being held in military prison and is being charged with incitement and weapons possession for collecting spent tear-gas canisters after the weekly demonstrations against the wall in Bil'in. The small West Bank village has had more than 60 percent of its land annexed by the Apartheid Wall in order to clear room for new Israeli Jewish settlements.

Dozens of demonstrators including Fatah central committee member Abass Zaki suffered from teargas inhalation.

The demonstration was short-lived, but exciting. After Israeli Occupation Forces began firing tear-gas at the demonstrators, Bil'in youth, faces covered with kufiyyas, broke off from the main march and began approaching the wall from the East and West, as well as straight up the middle. Some threw rocks at the wall. Others picked up undetonated concussion grenades and tear-gas canisters and threw them back at the soldiers. In every case, Israeli Occupation Forces quickly and efficiently fired back and methodically forced them to retreat. After the main body of demonstrators withdrew from the area, back and forth skirmishes between the village Shabab and the apartheid state security forces continued for nearly an hour.

Tear-gas is not that bad. If you catch a whiff of it, it burns the eyes, nose, mouth, and throat and is extremely painful. At first I felt like I couldn't breathe, like I was suffocating. But I remembered my training and forced myself to stay calm, and to convince my mind that I was able to breathe. After that, I was indeed able to draw oxygen from the air, although it was still incredibly painful. But the effects wore off after just a few minutes and the gas disperses from the air fairly quickly. Another trick is to just stay upwind. If you stay upwind from the gas, a canister can land two inches away from you and you can breathe with no ill effects, no problem.

A Maan News Agency account of yesterday's Bil'in protest may be read here.

After the demonstration was over, myself and two internationals took a taxi to Jerusalem to catch the weekly demonstration against the Israeli settlement project in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

The Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem was built by the UN and Jordanian government in 1956 to house 28 Palestinian refugee families from the 1948 war. But after the start of the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967, some Israeli settlers began claiming ownership of the land the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood was built on as their own. To date, four refugee families have been forcibly evicted and displaced by the Israeli government and an extreme right-wing settler organization has moved in to the vacant homes. The evicted families have erected protest tents outside of their former homes to maintain a permanent vigil and presence in the area. They face daily violence by the settlers.

A total of 28 refugee families are currently at risk of forced eviction and displacement, a process illegal under international law, especially the 4th Geneva Convention, which prohibits territorial annexation and the transfer of civilian populations into occupied territory.

The taxi dropped us off in the middle of the demonstration in Sheikh Jarrah. More than 300 Israeli Jewish anarchists, internationals, and Palestinians were present. But literally within seconds of exiting the taxi, a group of border police and Israeli Army soldiers broke through the demonstrator lines and began arresting people. Both myself and another international from Italy were among those arrested.

We were thrown into an unmarked police van and taken to the Shalem Police Station due South of Damascus Gate, where we were interrogated and detained for about six hours.

"I don't even know why I am being arrested," I told one police interrogator.

"You are being detained because you participated in a demonstration in Sheikh Jarrah," she replied.

"Is it illegal to have a peaceful demonstration in Israel?" I asked.

"It depends," the interrogator replied. "This demonstration did not have a license."

"You refuse to grant the demonstrators a permit," I said. "But every Friday you let the settlers demonstrate in Sheikh Jarrah and throw rocks at the Palestinians. What's the difference?"

The interrogator ignored me.

According to the document I signed, I was arrested for "interference with the investigation or trial proceedings" and "danger to the safety of person/public/state."

I am also prohibited from entering the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood for the next 15 days.

According to a Ynet news story titled "Leftists: Stop settlements in Sheikh Jarrah", eight demonstrators were arrested at yesterday's nonviolent demonstration.

"Organizers of the protest claim police burst through lines of demonstrators and used excess force to arrest some of them unlawfully.

"There are currently eight detainees being held at the Shalem Police Station who were arrested illegally and in gross violation of a court order," they said in a statement."

Twenty-seven demonstrators were arrested at last week's protest, and 24 were arrested the week before.

It's getting harder not to let anger and frustration overwhelm me. Everyday I watch more or less uselessly as Palestinians are harassed and assaulted by both the Israeli Occupation Forces and right-wing Jewish settlers, state and nonstate actors alike who appear to be in open collusion with one another. Labeling the state of Israeli as an apartheid state is a gross understatement. Palestinians and even left-wing Israeli Jews are not granted permits to demonstrate, and even the most civil and nonviolent forms of expression and popular resistance are violently repressed at every turn. In contrast, the settlers spew hatred and bigotry at every opportunity, are anti-woman, anti-christian, and definitly anti-Muslim. They are basically given a free pass to deface property, commit vandalism, throw rocks at homes, beat up little children in the streets, throw refugees out of their homes, and worse. The Israeli security apparatus sits by and watches and does nothing.

Everyday that I have been here it gets worse. When human rights workers label Israel a colonial-settler apartheid state we are accused of being Jew-hating anti-Semites. But why is it that it is always the Palestinians who are kicked out of their homes, and always the Israeli Jewish settlers who get new ones? One laughs, the other cries.

This conflict is not about religion, it is about economics. It is about land and territory. And it's about power. The international human rights movement has succeeded in restraining the occupation forces somewhat, apart from the carpet-bombing of Gaza last year, Israel is now restrained from committing blatant massacres, but the reality is not much better. Through a complex process deemed legal by the apartheid courts, the Palestinian people in occupied East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank are slowly but surely being dispossessed of their homes, land, and livelihood, and nothing that we can do is putting a dent in it. The Palestinians of Gaza are essentially living in an open-air prison. It is incremental change at its worst.

Two Palestinian Children Arrested in Bil'in Wednesday

2009-12-24T10:50:00.008+02:00

Two Palestinian children from the West Bank village of Bil'in near Ramallah were arrested around 5pm Wednesday near the apartheid wall west of town after they discovered several Israeli soldiers hiding in a nearby grove of olive trees.

Amar Rayed Al-Kateeb, 13, was released into his parents' custody around 2am Thursday morning.

Sameer Jadallah Al-Kateeb, 14, was still being detained by Israeli Occupation Forces at the time of this writing.

More than 30 Bil'in residents have been arrested since June during a night-raid campaign conducted by apartheid state security forces in an apparent attempt to disrupt the nonviolent resistance activities of the Bil'in Committee for Popular Resistance Against the Wall.

"Danger: Popular Struggle" (Haaretz Swipe)

2009-12-23T15:32:00.009+02:00

The Jerusalem-based daily newspaper Haaretz has a good article today critical of Israeli state repression against the nonviolent popular resistance movement in two of the places I've been staying at: Sheikh Jarrah in occupied East Jerusalem and the village of Bil'in in the occupied West Bank.

It's titled "Danger: Popular Struggle."

Over the past few months, the efforts to suppress the struggle have increased. The target: Palestinians and Jewish Israelis unwilling to give up their right to resist reign of demographic separation and Jewish supremacy. The means: Dispersing demonstrations with live ammunition, late-night army raids and mass arrests.

Read the whole thing here.

Everyday we go to sleep in the morning, so that others may sleep through the night

2009-12-22T14:58:00.028+02:00

I was woken up with a start around one o'clock in the morning by Iyad Bornat, a community organizer for the Bil'in Committee for Popular Resistance Against the Wall; Haitham Al-Katib, the media coordinator for Friends of Freedom and Justice Bil'in; four young Palestinian men; and an American anarchist who calls herself Storm.

"Are you ready?" Haitham asked me.

"Yes, let's go."

We set off on a brisk pace through the village, past a small grove of olive trees, and headed southwest to a home on the edge of Bil'in that doubles as a lookout post during the Popular Committee's nightly patrols.

The village behind me was dark in the night, but off to the west the lights of an Israeli Jewish settlement shone with all the trappings of a modern first-world city. Between Bil'in and the settlement lay the Apartheid Wall and several settler-only roads. An Army jeep off in the distance scanned the village with a giant spotlight. A surveillance tower even further West recorded the movements of Bil'in's population, and possibly recorded the sounds of conversations as well.

"The settlement was built on Bil'in land," Haitham told me.

I had arrived in Bil'in 12 hours earlier and was dropped off near the village mosque. A few minutes later a young boy showed up and told me to follow him. The boy took me to Iyad's house where Iyad began to tell me his story over a cup of hot tea.

"This is Bil'in, a small village of Palestine," Iyad began. "The nonviolent popular resistance did not start in Bil'in. It started in historical Palestine in 1936. The first intifada was also nonviolent, and we had all of the people with us in our resistance."

"I was arrested for the first time during the 1st intifada, when I was 17 years old. I spent two years in jail then, plus another year under house arrest."

"Our village began demonstrating in 2005 when the Israelis started uprooting all of our olive trees."

"You know," Iyad continued, "we do not call the wall that they built a security fence, because it is not for security. They built it to confiscate our land and our water in order to build new settlements."

The Bil'in Committee for Popular Resistance Against the Wall was born out of this struggle. Organizers quickly and efficiently harnessed the power of multimedia and the digital age to reach out to Israeli and international solidarity activists and began building the infrastructure necessary to sustain a long-term campaign.

Bil'in currently has two International Houses, a community center with four computers, high-speed internet, and top of the line photo and video equipment, most of it donated. Both the Bil'in Committee for Popular Resistance Against the Wall and the Friends of Freedom and Justice Bil'in have their own websites. The Popular Committee also hosts four international conferences on nonviolent resistance every year, and has won a variety of international human rights awards for its work.

Their success at organizing against the occupation and annexation of their land has come at a heavy price, however. On April 14, a young man named Bassem Ibrahim Abu Rahmah al-Pheel was murdered by an Israeli soldier at a weekly demonstration against the wall when he was shot in the chest with a high-velocity teargas canister. So-called "martyr" posters bearing his image and likeness seemingly adorn every street and room in Bil'in.

In the last six months, more than 30 young Bil'in men have been arrested during a night-raid campaign by the Israeli Occupation Forces, including three raids in the last week alone.

It's nearly six o'clock in the morning and we've been on night patrol for nearly five hours. The village roosters have begun to crow and the rosy-fingered dawn is beginning to rise in the East. I'm quickly learning that there's nothing glamorous about protective accompaniment work. Quality conversations aside, standing on watch all night long is incredibly boring. My clothes all reek of campfire smoke, and I spent one sleepless night in Sheikh Jarrah in a vain effort trying to keep a fire lit during a downpour. All I had to show for my efforts was a body and pair of clothes soaked to the bone. Everytime I start wishing for a little action to break up the monotony, I have to remind myself that boredom is far preferable to the alternative of settler attacks or police and army raids. The little sleep I do get during the day is marred by a fever I've seemed to catch with symptoms that alternate between either uncontrollable shakes and shivers or profuse sweating.

Leave it to a Palestinian to keep things in perspective for me.

"Everyday, we go to sleep in the morning," Haitham told me. "So that others may sleep through the night."

Night patrol in Bil'in

2009-12-20T21:42:00.008+02:00

I'm leaving Sheikh Jarrah and occupied East Jerusalem early tomorrow morning for the Palestinian village of Bil'in near Ramallah.

Bi'lin has had nearly 60 percent of its land annexed to Israel after the construction of the apartheid wall there to clear space for illegal Israeli Jewish settlements.

Over 30 residents of Bil’in have been arrested in the last six months during a night raid and arrest campaign by the Israeli Occupation Forces. The night raids target young Palestinian boys accused of throwing stones at the wall as well as participants of the weekly nonviolent demonstrations and organizers for the Committee for Popular Resistance Against the Wall.

International solidarity activists in Bi'lin patrol the town every night in an attempt to mitigate and document the raids by the apartheid state security forces.

Video of Friday's Demonstration in Sheikh Jarrah, Occupied East Jerusalem

2009-12-19T14:20:00.003+02:00

Video of Thursday's Palestinian Cultural Celebration and Police Repression

2009-12-19T11:04:00.006+02:00

27 arrested, 3 wounded during Sheikh Jarrah protest

2009-12-18T21:58:00.017+02:00

Twenty-six Israeli Jewish anarchists and one international solidarity activist were arrested and three Palestinian children wounded during a nonviolent demonstration against the Israeli settlement project in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah Friday.

Over 300 people, most of them members of the left-wing Israeli Jewish organizations Anarchists Against the Wall and Rabbis for Human Rights, attended the weekly vigil. Last week 24 people were arrested during a similar protest that was also violently dispersed by Israeli Occupation Forces.

The apartheid state security forces blocked the roads leading into Sheikh Jarrah in an attempt to prevent protesters from reaching the Palestinian neighborhood, but the demonstrators successfully broke through police lines by splitting into feeder marches and descending on Sheikh Jarrah from the side streets, back alley-ways, and rugged landscape behind the neighborhood.

When the demonstrators reformed their line and stood face-to-face with the police, protesters sat-down, linked arms, and sang anti-occupation chants in Arabic, Hebrew, and English. Police then moved in and began arresting the linked anarchists one by one. Most of the protesters suffered minor bumps and bruises while being dislodged from the human chain by the police snatch-squads.

“This event represents a legitimate and nonviolent protest of Palestinian, international and Israeli activists, against the ongoing campaign of evicting Palestinian families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah," said protest organizer Assaf Sharon. "The police have been brutally dispersing these peaceful protests for the second week, while the Palestinian families live in constant fear of violent settler attacks.”

One Israeli Jewish anarchist who refused to give her name or city of origin grabbed a bullhorn and said:

"We are here today and every Friday to demand an end to the occupation of Sheikh Jarrah by the Israeli government and Jewish settlers. We call on the Israeli government to dismantle all settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. We are not using any violence. The only violence here today is the violence the police are using on us."

Towards the end of the protest a group of nearly 100 settlers entered the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and began throwing rocks at the house of a nearby Palestinian family. One 12 year old Palestinian boy was also chased into the street and beaten by settlers. Three Palestinian children were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

I asked a member of Anarchists Against the Wall why her organization came to the protest today. She also refused to give her name but said she was from Tel Aviv and that the anarchist organization counts more than 200 people as members.

"Well you will probably get a different answer from every one of us," she said in broken English. "But for the most part we talk about things like apartheid, occupation, and the racist nature of the Zion state."

A photo album of today's demonstration can be viewed at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2429735&id=14812438&l=e9db91a9dc

I'll post videos of both today's and yesterday's demonstrations as soon as I can.

Palestinian Cultural Celebration Violently Repressed by Israeli Occupation Forces

2009-12-18T09:06:00.012+02:00

A Palestinian cultural celebration was brutally repressed by Israel's apartheid state security forces in Jerusalem Thursday after hundreds of Palestinians attempted to leave the Old City via Damascus Gate and march to the French, British, and American embassies.

At least nine people were arrested, including the secretary-general of Jerusalem's Fatah movement, Omar Ash-Shabi, and one International Solidarity Movement activist who tried to de-arrest an unlawfully detained Palestinian.

The cultural celebration was organized by the Al-Quds Community Action Center meant to mark Jerusalem's designation as the 2009 Arab Cultural Capital of the World by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.

According to the Maan News Agency: "intended to be a yearlong event sponsored by the Arab League, Al-Quds Capital of Arab Culture was officially banned by Israel. The festival was marred by arrests and police raids. Israeli forces also broke up a march planned by Palestinian scout troops and closed schools where cultural events were taking place. Soldiers also surrounded the French Cultural Center and the British Council, where two simultaneous events were planned as the finale of Al-Quds Capital of Arab Culture."

According to event organizers, eight buses of people were also prevented by authorities from joining the demonstration.

I've never seen anything so fucked up in my life. Any Palestinian man who dared to open his mouth to sing songs, dance, or chant slogans was immediately arrested. Chant leaders were targeted by snatch-squads made up of police and army soldiers and beaten and detained without the slightest hint of pretense or justification. An old woman who started screaming after her son was arrested was kicked in the face by a police officer. News reporters and photographers were pushed, shoved, and thrown to the ground if they got in the soldiers' way. Any Palestinian male who yelled at the security forces or protested the violence of the state was immediately assaulted and detained. The apartheid state security forces acted with a vicious precision that left the crowd in shock. Women and girls were crying with grief, tears streaming down their faces. It was an overwhelming display of brute force and repression by a police state more often expected in a place like Iran than in "the only democracy in the Middle East".

Apartheid Israel does not recognize Palestinian human rights to free speech, assembly, or cultural expression.

"It is forbidden for Palestinians to celebrate their identity and culture in Jerusalem," said event organizer Najwa Silwadi.

"The community was not aggressive towards anybody. We only wanted to give our people the chance to take pride in their culture and national identity for a few hours. And this is how they react. This is the reality of the Israeli occupation."

I still can't believe what I saw yesterday.

A photo album of the cultural celebration can be viewed here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2429675&id=14812438&l=451a670b5c

I'll upload a complete list of video from the demonstration as soon as I can. The weekly Sheikh Jarrah march and rally is today. Last week, 24 Israeli Jewish anarchists and two internationals were arrested during the protest.

"Sheikh Jarrah is no fairy tale", Jewish scholar writes

2009-12-17T09:33:00.003+02:00

A professor in the Hebrew literature department and the Jewish and Comparative Folklore Program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote an excellent opinion-editorial column in Haaretz today titled "Sheikh Jarrah is no fairy tale".

Read the whole thing here.

There are pro-Palestinian demonstrations today and tomorrow and I will blog about them as soon as they are over. If, for some reason, I am arrested at either demo, it could be a few days before my next post.

Coffee and conversations in Sheikh Jarrah

2009-12-16T19:38:00.008+02:00

Last night the Israeli settlers decided that since the homeless Palestinians they had evicted from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem had a campfire to stay warm, the settlers needed to have their own campfire too. I saw it as yet another act in a series of deliberate provocations by the settler organization against the Palestinian refugees who had lived in the area since 1956.

The funny thing was, the settler youth had apparently never built a fire before because it took them over two hours to get it going, and in the meantime they kept smoking themselves out of the area directly outside the front door of the Al-Kurd house.

A taxi driver named Abdullah and I spent the better part of the night drinking tea, feeding our own fire, and laughing at the inept settlers, and we eventually got into an interesting conversation about religion.

According to Abdullah, Western efforts to promote democracy in the Middle East are destined for failure because Western liberal democracies are ignorant of Islam and Islamic history.

"Islam is a political and a personal way of life," Abdullah said. "For the last 1400 years it is how we have organized our societies. It is not like capitalism's conquest of religion in Europe and America, where religion is now strictly a private and personal thing for most people. No. For us, Islam is a political way of life as well as a personal way of life. There is no such thing as a secular politician because in our culture secularism has no legitimacy with the people. Islam is compatible with democracy but it cannot be excluded from it, it must be integrated."

I asked Abdullah if he viewed the Israeli/Palestinian conflict through a religious lens.

"No," he said. "The prophet Muhammed teaches Muslims to love all People of the Book: Jews, Muslims, and Christians. We do not have hate in our hearts for anybody or any religion. But when the Israeli Jews come to steal our land we must fight them."

"And we will fight them the right way. Nonviolently, through popular resistance."

U.N. criticizes Israeli policy of forced displacement in Sheikh Jarrah

2009-12-16T10:57:00.007+02:00

I got off night patrol early last night when I was relieved by two French activists, and so I had some time to research Israeli policy in Sheikh Jarrah. I found this report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Territories of Palestine:

http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_shiekh_jarrah_english_2009_08_15.pdf

Ethnic Cleansing in Occupied East Jerusalem

2009-12-15T19:35:00.007+02:00

I've spent the last few days on night duty in an occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood called Sheikh Jarrah, accompanying two Palestinian families who have erected protest tents outside of their homes after they were forcibly evicted from them by the Israeli government and right-wing Jewish settlers.

The Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem was built by the UN and Jordanian government in 1956 to house 28 Palestinian refugee families from the 1948 war. But after the start of the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967, some Israeli settlers began claiming ownership of the land the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood was built on as their own.

"On December 1, 60 soldiers came to my house and smashed all of my furniture," said Nabeel Al-Kurd, one of 28 families in the neighborhood who have either been evicted or are threatened with it.

"They pushed my mother and beat her. My mother is 85 years old. She was taken to the hospital. From then until now, everyday, everyday there is trouble - fighting and shouting."

Nabeel Al-Kurd has set up a protest tent on the paved entrance that divides the front section of the house from the back section. Every night, he uses the furniture that was smashed by the Israeli police during his eviction to fuel a fire to keep his family and international accompaniers warm during the cold winter nights.

"We sit in this stand, right inside the gate, because we are afraid if we leave they will take more ground and we will lose the rest of our house," he said.

The International Solidarity Movement maintains a 24 hour a day, seven day a week presence in the neighborhood because the families living there face daily harrassment and threats by the Israeli settlers. Israeli police and military forces also maintain a permanent vigil on the street.

The Al-Kurd family is only one of several families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood that have been forcibly evicted from their homes to allow Israeli settlers to gain a foothold in the pre-dominantly Palestinian neighborhoods in occupied East Jerusalem.

On August 2, the Israeli Occupation Forces evicted two other Palestinian families, the Al-Gawi and Hannoun families, from their houses after they demolished the gates of the houses and forced the families to get out at gunpoint. Several of the family members were seriously wounded during the encounter.

Nasser Al-Gawi has also constructed a protest tent outside of his old house and maintains a permanent vigil across the street. Clashes between the Israeli Jewish settlers and Palestinian Muslims in the neighborhood are frequent and on-going. In the three days I have been in the neighborhood, I have witnessed almost constant harassment at all times of the day and night. The settlers hang Israeli flags from the Palestinian houses, swarm the neighborhood with dozens of young men, many of whom are armed, walk the streets with large, unmuzzled dogs, shout obscenities at the residents of the protest tents, and other deliberately provocative actions. Sometimes, the clashes turn violent. This morning, Israeli occupation forces tore down Nasser Al-Gawi's protest tent (he later put up a new one and is still there as I write this).

Nasser, who has testified in front of the U.S. Congress about the situation in Sheikh Jarrah, calls Israeli policy in occupied East Jerusalem "the Judeazation of Al-Quds" (Arabic for Jerusalem).

"The name of the game is ethnic cleansing," he told me while we sat in front of his campfire and shared tea around 1am yesterday morning.

"Israel wants the Palestinians out of East Jerusalem so they can claim the capital as their own."

According to several International Solidarity Movement activists who have spent months providing protective accompaniment to the residents of Sheikh Jarrah, the aim of both the Israeli government and the settlers is to turn the whole area into a new Jewish settlement to create a Jewish continuum that will effectively cut off the Old City from the northern Palestinian neighborhoods. Constructing new settlements in occupied East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank is illegal under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Late last night a young Palestinian man wearing a red and white kaffiyah, baggy pants, and a sideways New York Yankees hat stopped by to supplement the vigil during the late night evening hours.

"My name is Abraham," he said smiling. "You know the prophet Abraham? Well I am not him." He laughed.

Over the next few hours, Abraham told me that he had lived in Sheikh Jarrah for seven years, and was now a cook at a nearby restaurant. He dreams of becoming a successful rap superstar.

"I want to have a good life, a good job, and a beautiful wife," he said. "But all around me are walls. Everytime I climb on top of one and jump over, there is another wall in front of me."

Israeli Anarchists, Internationals Demand Release of Political Prisoner Wa’el Al Faqeeh Abu As Sabe

2009-12-14T19:55:00.009+02:00

A group of Israeli Jewish anarchists and International Solidarity Movement activists demonstrated outside of the Jelemeh Prison in Haifa today to protest the arrest of a prominent grassroots Palestinian organizer from Nablus named Wa’el Al Faqeeh Abu As Sabe.

Al Faqeeh was kidnapped from his home by Israeli Occupation Forces on the night of Tuesday, December 8 when over 200 Israeli soldiers invaded Nablus and arrested nine members of the popular resistance there.

Al Faqeeh, 45, is a community organizer with the Nablus Youth Union and the Palestinian Cultural Enlightenment Forum, as well as several international groups. According to Israeli, Palestinian, and international activists familiar with his work, Al Faqeeh coordinates the yearly olive harvest campaign, as well as year-round demonstrations, fund-raisers, and educational events.

Three days after his arrest, on Friday, December 11, Israeli settlers set fire to the mosque of Yasuf village near Nablus in an apparent attempt to derail the so-called "settlement freeze" initiated by the Netanyahu government.

The Yasuf village was invaded by Israeli Occupation Forces later that same day. According to eyewitness reports, the soldiers fired tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets at Palestinians protesting the desecration of the holy site.

Demonstrators at today's protest outside of Haifa planted olive trees at the prison gates, hung banners demanding Al Faqeeh's release, and stuck Palestinian flags on the barb-wired perimeter fences surrounding the prison.

Nonviolent Direct Action Training Concludes

2009-12-13T19:17:00.006+02:00

Nonviolent direct action and protective accompaniment training with the International Solidarity Movement concluded today. The two-day training was similar to other trainings I've done with Witness for Peace, the Christian Peacemaker Teams, and the Des Moines Catholic Worker. We did alot of role-playing and had workshops on hopes and fears, ISM's organizational structure, consensus and affinity group decision-making, Palestinian culture, security, power and privilege, know your weapons, de-escalation and de-arrest techniques, legal, the history of nonviolent popular resistance in Palestine: 1909-2009, and more.

Another workshop was called "responding to military actions." During a protest in the West Bank, the Israeli Occupation Forces' first response is to announce the area as a restricted military zone off-limits to protesters. If demonstrators refuse to disperse, riot police will form a line to push protesters back. The proper response from demonstrators is to form your own line and either link arms or sit-down. If the riot police are unable to push the demonstrators back, they will usually escalate to using concussion grenades and flash bombs. Concussion grenades are orange grenades that are made of plastic and detonate 3.5 seconds after the pin is pulled. They make a loud sound that can cause people who are unprepared for them to panic. The proper response is to take one or two steps away from where the grenade lands, turn your back, yell "concussion grenade", and plug your ears with your fingers.

Flash bombs are black are silver and made of metal, thinner than the orange concussion grenades and less noisy, but they explode in 1.5 seconds and shoot fire out of the bottom of the canister.

The next step on the escalation of force chart for the Israeli Occupation Forces is to use tear-gas. There are several different types of tear-gas canisters. Some are made of rubber and are either thrown by hand or shot out of the M16 rifle. These have a maximum range of 30 meters. There are also silver tear gas canisters that can be fired from a launcher attached to the M16 rifle. Legally these can not be fired at a distance less than 40 meters and can not be aimed directly at protesters, but occupation forces have and will fire them at any time from any distance. A third kind is the high velocity canisters that nearly killed Tristan Anderson. They are also fired from the M16. A fourth kind of tear gas is fired from a box attached to a jeep that can fire 40-50 canisters at a time.

Tear-gas is a psychological weapon that tricks your brain into thinking you cannot breathe. It also burns your eyes, nose, mouth, throat, and lungs. The best way to nullify them is to stay calm, don't panic, watch where the wind is blowing, have an escape route planned in advance, and to use vinegar or an onion to negate the effects of the gas.

Occupation forces can also escalate to shooting demonstrators with rubber bullets and rubber-coated steel bullets. These are also fired from an M16 with a longer barrel and a red or yellow label on the magazine cartridge. Rubber bullets are not legally allowed to be fired at a distance less than 100 meters, but occupation forces have and will fire them at any time from any distance. Snipers generally fire rubber-coated steel bullets at people they deem to be active leaders - people with bullhorns or flags, as well as youth throwing stones.

The best response to rubber bullet fire is to turn around, put your head down, and cover your head. They are too fast to dodge so its best to take the fire in the back, so it misses your vital organs. Wearing thick clothes can help. Occupation forces can also fit an attachment to their M16 rifles that allows them to shoot 20-25 rubber bullets at once. These are meant to be deployed against large crowds. During the 2nd Intifada, more than 200 Palestinians were killed with these "less-than-lethal" weapons.

The occupation forces have also recently been using high-pressure water cannons. Often times these cannons shoot water containing chemicals that either burn your skin like tear-gas, or smell like raw sewage, or both.

Rain ponchos can nullify water cannons to some extent, as does linking arms and turning your back.

According to our trainers, "Israel is a testing ground for new weapons". If the weapons work well against Palestinians resisting occupation, they will work well in any civil riot situation. We saw this at the G-20 protests in Pittsburgh this year when the police deployed weapons previously unseen on American soil.

From left to right: flash bombs, concussion grenades, rubber tear-gas canisters, steel tear-gas, high-velocity tear-gas, rubber bullets, rubber-coated bullets, live ammunition, and two different M16 attachments for firing multiple rubber bullet rounds at once.

During our de-arrest training we learned that a priority for the International Solidarity Movement is to de-arrest Palestinians because there are more consequences for Palestinians than there are for internationals or Israeli Jews. Internationals arrested by occupation forces can only be detained for 24 hours. Palestinians can be detained for weeks, months, even years, without ever seeing a judge or even their own lawyer.

Tomorrow we are going to a protest in Haifa.

Nonviolent direct action training in Ramallah

2009-12-12T19:14:00.012+02:00

Myself, two people from Denmark, and one South African began a two-day nonviolent direct action and protective accompaniment training with the International Solidarity Movement today. Our contact, a Palestinian man named Hisham, picked us up at a hostel in Jerusalem. We got on a bus and drove to downtown Ramallah. As soon as we got off the bus, Hisham disappeared and a few minutes later another international walked up to us and told us to follow her. We walked a few blocks and jumped into two taxis, which took us somewhere. As soon as we got out and the taxis drove away, Hisham drove up in another cab and told us to get in. Then we were taken to a nearby hotel to begin our training.

I can't lie, I was geeking out at all the clandestine stuff. The International Solidarity Movement is a legal, aboveground, nonviolent organization, but the Israeli state security forces, especially the intelligence agencies like the Shabak (the Israeli equivalent of the FBI) and the Mossad (the Israeli equivalent of the CIA) routinely monitor and spy on the organization. A little caution never hurts.

The nonviolent direct action training was similar to other trainings I've done with Witness for Peace, the Christian Peacemaker Teams, and the Des Moines Catholic Worker. We did alot of role-playing and had workshops on hopes and fears, ISM's organizational structure, consensus and affinity group decision-making, Palestinian culture, security, power and privilege, know your weapons, and more. Tomorrow will be more of the same.

Our lead trainer, Hisham, told us a little bit about himself, too. Apparently he worked for years in Lebanon as a fighter with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and was injured fighting Israeli forces there, which is why he walks with a heavy limp and can't move his right arm. He told us that he had been arrested and tortured by the Israeli Occupation Forces 18 times. Nine years ago, he resigned from the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO, of which the PFLP is a faction) and became devoted to nonviolent struggle and popular resistance.

"I believe strictly in nonviolence now, that's why I do what I do," he said.

I asked him if we could share his story with other people.

"I only tell you what they already know about me," he said. "Anything they don't know about me, I don't tell you."

The direct action training is important, I don't want to downplay it, but so far I'm having a hard time sitting still. Twenty-one activists were arrested in occupied East Jerusalem yesterday protesting the eviction of three Palestinian families from Sheikh Jarrah, and tonight there was a solidarity vigil at the former Russian Embassy where the activists are being held. 20 of the arrested are Israeli Jewish anarchists, the other is a German working with the International Solidarity Movement.

Arrival in Israel

2009-12-11T20:12:00.003+02:00

My plane arrived safely in Tel Aviv earlier today, I got through the interrogation process at immigrations and customs, and made contact with the International Solidarity Movement at our pre-arranged location in Jerusalem. Nonviolent direct action and protective accompaniment training starts tomorrow.

Jesus Journalism and the International Solidarity Movement

2009-12-11T19:48:00.007+02:00

I'm taking three weeks of vacation from my normal day-to-day life in Des Moines, Iowa to travel to Israel and the Occupied Territories of Palestine to volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, "a Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land using nonviolent, direct-action methods and principles."

ISM was "founded by a small group of activists in August, 2001. ISM aims to support and strengthen the Palestinian popular resistance by providing the Palestinian people with two resources, international protection and a voice with which to nonviolently resist an overwhelming military occupation force."

This won't be my first experience in an armed conflict zone. In the last year I've traveled to Colombia twice for a total of 15 weeks to volunteer with Justice and Peace, a human rights accompaniment organization that works with internally displaced subsistence farmers threatened with continued violence by paramilitary and state security forces. The Christian Peacemaker Teams calls protective accompaniment "nonviolent third-party intervention", or "reducing violence by getting in the way."

Peace Brigades International uses the following tactical map to visually describe the protective accompaniment model:

I'm not in the Holy Land on a fact-finding mission. Nor do I intend for this blog to demonstrate even a pretense of impartiality or objectivity. Although I respect the Israeli Jewish right to national self-determination, I believe that both Zionism and the birth of the nation-state of Israel are marked by the original sin of the ethnic cleansing of indigenous Palestinians from their native land, a colonial-settler project of territorial expansion and apartheid that continues to this day in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.

I call my proposed method of reporting "jesus journalism", because I intend for this blog to give preferential treatment to the perspectives of the poor and the oppressed. Jesus was born to the lowest-class of his time, a poor refugee in an occupied country, and was persecuted by the powers-that-be from his birth until his death. The biblical Slaughter of the Holy Innocents continued last year during the Israeli shelling of Gaza, and nonviolent resistors are "crucified" on a regular basis in the West Bank, particularly in places like East Jerusalem, Ni'lin, Bi'lin, Nablus, Bethlehem, and Hebron. If Jesus is to be found in the modern-day Holy Land, he will be found among the Palestinians.

Finally, I am here as an American to bear witness to the social injustice of the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine, and the continued U.S. financial and military support of this colonial-settler project. I believe that support, measured in billions of dollars of military aid a year, is given because it serves U.S. national security interests to have a proxy army in the oil-rich region of the Middle East. As an American citizen and taxpayer, the blood of both the Israeli and the Palestinian peoples is on my hands.

I invite all of you to join me through this blog as I attempt to both narrative my experiences here during the next three weeks and to amplify the voices of the sometimes voiceless. Bookmark this blog, set up an RSS feed, join it as a follower, and check it daily.

Peace, love, rage, and solidarity,

David Goodner