ICAHD

"Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, "As for me, this is my covenant to with you; You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name by Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come of you. I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you, the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan for a perpetual holding, and I will be their God." Genesis 17:3-8

I am now going to finally write about an experience I had during my first week here in Israel-Palestine, and which I have given a great deal of thought to in the past three weeks. The other YAGMS and I went on a tour with an organization called ICAHD, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, which is "an Israeli peace and human rights organization dedicated to ending the Occupation and achieving a just peace between Israeli's and Palestinians." A major focus of their program is to educate and expose people to the realities on the ground regarding home demolitions, evictions, the Separation Wall, and the development of Settlement Blocs. These are all policies of Israel that take land from Palestinians, leaving the Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem and the West Bank in discontinuous, disconnected enclaves, cut off from one another and from resources, making the hope for a viable Palestinian state more and more difficult to realize. 

      The first stop on our tour was the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem, where the residents are systematically being evicted from their homes. Because it practically impossible for Palestinians in East Jerusalem to get building permits, many refugees built without permits.  We went and talked to three brothers who were sitting vigil under an olive tree on a street corner, only a few yards away from the homes in which they raised their families. The Hannoun family was a refugee family in East Jerusalem from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and had built their homes during the period of Jordanian control of the region through UN permission. On August 2, 2009 they were forcibly evicted from their home at 5:30 in the morning by Israeli police. The women were forced to leave the house before they could cover their heads with hijab, which is a clear and obvious disrespect of the Muslim faith of the family. Internationals and activists who were staying at the house to support the family were arrested by the police, and some people were even beaten. A checkpoint sealed off the area around the house almost immediately so that the

new families of Israeli settlers could move into the homes. I would highly recommend reading this article about this particular home eviction, and how home evictions are permitted to happen. (http://www.imemc.org/article/61265). There is also a brief  Al Jazeera news video at this website that includes the brothers that we spoke to from the family.  http://ramallahonline.com/component/content/article/72-human-rights/3387-israeli-forces-evict-the-hanoun-and-al-ghawe-families-from-their-sheikh-jarrah-homes. 

      As I sat under the olive tree, leaning in as close as I could to hear the words of the one brother who was quite fluent in English, I could see the three doors marking the three houses of the brothers. And I could see the new settlers behind the fences, inhabiting the homes that were forcibly acquired for them only a few weeks prior. And the security cameras that they were being installed outside the homes. And I could see and hear the strength and hope with which this man spoke about the situation in which he and his family were in. He told us that although there seemed to be no justice for them in the courts, that they would keep fighting through the legal system, because that was their only option at the moment. What I witnessed was a man struggling to keep his dignity, but acting in peace, with a clear hope that through words and peaceful demonstration there would be some justice for his family. What was more, he asked us to tell his story- to let people know what was happening to Palestinian refugee families like his. Their homes can be demolished with bulldozers, or taken from them with no recompense. The Hannoun family was offered a tent, which they refused, because they rejected the idea of returning to the tent like after 1948, being displaced again and again, endlessly refugees. When asked how long they would sit vigil outside their homes, one of the brothers told us that he wasn't sure, because they had children returning to school, and that homework was meant to be done "...in the home- not on the streets." I can attest to the fact, though, that every time I've ridden by Sheikh Jarrah on the bus in the past weeks, there they are, sitting under the olive tree, waiting.  

The next stop on the tour was to a gate in the Separation Barrier next to the Palestinian neighborhood of Anata.  The gate is the only point of entry to Jerusalem for a Beduin community that lives on the other side of the Separation Barrier, since the road that the community was promised has yet to be built. These beduins are actually Muslim Arabs with full Israeli citizenship, and they have a key to the gate so they have access in and out. When we arrived at the Wall, though, there were IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) border control and security guards at the gate. 

We were trying to visit a beduin friend of our Israeli tour guide, but these gatekeepers refused to let us through to the other side of the Wall. There was much discussion and arguing in Hebrew and Arabic, so I'm not sure exactly what was said, but what became clear was that we were not going to be allowed through. Abu Jamal, the beduin man, was told that he could come to the other side of the Wall and speak to us, but we could not go through the gate and access his community. It is important to remember that the Separation Wall does not follow any kind of legitimate international border, and is considered illegal by the International Court of Justice. The Wall next to Anata divides East Jerusalem from East Jerusalem. Also, the man we were trying to visit was a full Israeli citizen who was inviting us to his home, and yet we were denied entry to the only point of access to that home, since there is no other road. There was no legitimate legal basis for these soldiers to keep us out, or prevent us from going through. Here we witnessed a glimpse of what it actually means to live under military occupation; whether or not you can have visitors to your home is dependent upon the whims and decisions of a few soldiers with automatic weapons. On a different day, with different soldiers, with fewer people, at a different time of day, things might have been different, but on that day, we were kept out. 

Our final stop on the tour was an Israeli settlement in the West Bank- the largest settlement in the West Bank, in fact, and home to 35,000 Israeli settlers. Ma'ale Adumim is a very large, modern, hilltop settlement, complete with a large industrial zone, homes, schools, stores, swimming pools, greenery, flowers, parks...you get the idea. In many ways it seemed to me like a planned or gated community in the United States, self-contained, with a guard at the entry, and in a secure place on the top of a hill. The settlers that live in settlements do so for economic reasons, ideological reasons, and sometimes both. Tax breaks, affordable housing, and subsidies for education and healthcare are just some of the incentives for moving to a settlement. Just looking around you can see that the settlements are pleasant looking, clean, organized places to live and raise a family; being inside a settlement made it somewhat easier for me to understand why an Israeli would move to the Occupied Territories. On the other hand there are the ideological settlers, though, that believe that the entirety of the region, including the occupied Palestinian territories is their God-given right, and this permits them to take land and resources in the West Bank and East Jerusalem away from Palestinians. 

The day was truly an eye-opening experience, as I began to actually see the physical and human effects of an Occupation that I had only read about before. Understanding what a home eviction is, and looking into the eyes of someone who has been evicted from their home are two very different things. Another thing that ICAHD emphasized to me is that peace is not about belonging to a certain ethnic, national, or religious identity. It is not an Israeli thing. It is not a Palestinian thing. It is not about criticizing or attacking groups of people. It is about recognizing that certain political, military, and economic policies, as well as personal attitudes and habits stall and prevent peace and the preservation of human rights from being a reality. One you recognize those things, then you work to change those policies and attitudes. 

"...it is crucial to understand Abraham's response to so gracious a gift, of which he and his descendants were to be caretakers. He did not plow through the land, driving out its inhabitants, wielding power to establish ownership by "right." Though he was to become the father of the faith for both Jews and Christians, he knew he was not the first inhabitant of Canaan to worship the one true God by any means...Never did Abraham try to wrest Melchizedek's throne from him, nor did he take over anyone's land. He lived as a nomad. In fact, when his wife Sarah died, he very meekly purchased a cave in Hebron for her tomb."   

 -Elias Chacour, Blood Brothers