Backstory

In June of 2003, I helped coordinate a speaking event for Professor Noam Chomsky, here in DC; a fundraiser for both the International Solidarity Movement and Stop US Tax-Funded Aid to Israel Now! (SUSTAIN - now the Coalition for Justice and Accountability). The event raised money that we are still using in our work, some three years later. Part of it funded my visit to Occupied Palestine. I'm grateful to everyone who was a part of that, to this day.

Since many I suspect are reading this might not have known me three years ago, it's worth noting how I got into Israel, as (for non-Jews, especially today) it is no small feat. Most tourists (indeed, most internationals), when asked the purpose of their visit to Israel, simply say they are coming to visit the Holy Sites. In most cases this is absolutely true, I'm sure. Nonetheless, with the increasing presence of foreign journalists, human rights workers, and solidarity activists making routine and extensive visits to the Occupied Territories, the State has clamped down considerably. In fact, virtually no international journalist who does not work for a major corporate publication can get into Gaza, at present (a free press be damned).

In light of this, merely offering one's interest in the Holy Sites is not enough. Upon such an explanation, one is subjected to a detailed pop quiz about which sites, where they are located, and what one knows about them. Should you be so unfortunate to fail this quiz, you're likely to be deported immediately.

The night before I left for my trip, I had a friend cut my hair quite short, in a sort of Caesar look. I then went out for dinner with my (then) partner and a friend, and swung by DC's premier GLBTQ bookstore to grab a rather seedy guide to the world's gay hot spots, and then crossed the street to Benetton and dropped $60 on a turtleneck (the employee that helped me ended up giving me her discount, when I explained what it was for). I boarded my flight in designer jeans, faux-designer shoes, and a designer sweater, toting gay travel guide with bookmarked pages on Israel. Upon arriving, my story was that I was more or less coming to troll for ass on the beaches of Haifa, Eital, and Tel Aviv.

You laugh. But it worked. Sadly, recent events indicate that the stamp in my passport was hardly a reflection of the country's attitude on the matter.

October 29, 2003

Well, I made it. Per usual, the flights kicked the shit out of my allergies, and I hardly slept. Upon arriving at Tel Aviv, I was quickly singled out for interrogation at passport control, and gave my dodgy/vague answers about what I was doing in Israel, where I would be staying, etc. Ultimately, when I mentioned that I was interested in gay culture in Israel, the tone changed dramatically, and for whatever reasons, they let me in with little further discussion. Lelia, please hold onto the receipt for that Gay Travel Guide... I never once really opened it, and I'd love to get the $30 back!

This is the part none of you are going to like hearing (and believe me, I don't like telling it, either). My first interactions with Israelis were horrible. Really fucked up and heartbreaking. Brian Duss (who DC folks will remember) had invited me to stay with him in Jerusalem until my ISM training started, so I called him up to find out how to get to where he was. He has been staying in the guest house at the Augusta Victoria Hospital, and had suggested I hop in a shared cab and have them drop me there. Well, as soon as the words "Augusta Victoria" came out of my mouth, in conversing with any Israeli outside the airport, they immediately stopped talking to me, and turned their backs to me. One cab driver finally blurted out (quite angrily), "I'm not going to that place. It is an Arab place!" - and that was the end of the discussion. So, basically, my first interactions with Israelis were characterized by outright racism and a rather explicit Apartheid-style exclusion. It was really fucking sad. I actually sat at a bus stop, in shock at how caustic and hostile they were. I can't really describe the way this set the tone for me.

Finally, I walked back over to the shared cabs, and asked someone again to take me to Augusta Victoria, and he refused, but offered to take me somewhere near there. I told him I didn't know where that was, and it wouldn't help me any unless he would actually take me to the hospital. Finally an American who'd immigrated here from (of all places) DC, 16 years ago, intervened and talked him into taking me there. Nice as this was of her, she was no real departure from the standard Israeli attitude thus far; totally condescending toward me for having any relationship with such a place, whatsoever. Obviously, I didn't talk about why I was there, and played up that I was some dumb American tourist, so that I wouldn't be treated to any more verbal abuse. I queried her about some rather benign information about Israel, and she began to wax poetic about its various climates, landscape, etc, wrapping it up by saying "...And we are surrounded entirely by enemies who want us to disappear, but we're not going to disappear because God is on our side.". The rant seemed seamlessly timed with our arrival at Augusta Victoria, where our driver charged me twice as much as he'd charged all the other passengers. I kept my mouth shut and shuffled into the front gate of the hospital.

By the time I made it to where the guest house was, there was shouting and commotion from down the hill, on the very street the cab had come down, and kids about my age and younger were running up, and then back down the hill carrying bricks, sticks, and something that resembled a bowling pin. Apparently, it was some sort of fight between two groups of Arab youngsters, and I watched, in utter awe that I was seeing such a thing no sooner than I'd set foot in Jerusalem. There really isn't any describing it.

Duss had a basketball game in Bethlehem, and I opted to stay put and crash, reflecting on all the awful shit I'd seen in just my first few hours in Israel. My heart was literally aching at the virulent racism I'd encountered from every person I'd spoken to. It's the sort of thing you just would never believe until you'd seen it. It was something I really wasn't prepared for, to say the least.

October, 31 2003

So, I'm in the Occupied West Bank, now. I'll start out by saying thank you to Brian Duss for all his graciousness toward me these last few days. He's been great company, and has been such a brilliant adviser as to considerations I should be making with regard to how I act/speak/etc. here. At times, his honesty was really critical and blunt, but I love him all the more for it. Really, if you're reading this, Brian.... I can't thank you enough. It's meant the world to me.

I awoke this morning at 2:30am, due to jetlag. It's killing me, I swear. I decided to let Duss sleep, and snuck off to the common room of the guest house, to watch BBC, and drink tea until it was time for me to head down to the Old City. For the next five hours, I battled mosquitoes, while trying to locate some visual indication of the regular gunfire in the street. I'm not talking about the sort of thing we sometimes hear in Shaw, or Columbia Heights back home -- I'm guessing that some of what I heard was actually heavier artillery -- possibly cannons. It's really hard to wrap your mind around, until you're actually sitting in the middle of it.

Finally, I showered, packed my bags, and headed out the front gate of Augusta Victoria, intending to descend the hill to the first intersection and grab a cab down to the Damascus Gate, where I was meeting up with other ISM folks to cross over to Beit Sahour for two days of training. As I made my way out into the street, I noticed IDF on the very corner I intended to hail a cab from. So, my first real dilemma: Looking like an obvious international, leaving a notoriously Arab compound...What were my odds staring down these soldiers? Not good, I figured. Luckily, a cab was coming my way up the hill, and I flagged it down before they noticed me.

Duss had told me the ride to Damascus Gate would be about three sheckles (Israeli currency), but the driver had other ideas. He wanted 15 upon arrival. Fortunately, I only had 100 sheckle bills, and four sheckles in coins. He took the four, and told me the hotel I was looking for was in the Old City, just inside the gate. Bastard. I wandered around the Old City of Jerusalem for a good half hour, before a Palestinian kid was nice enough to tell me it was in fact just outside the gate -- but I did get a nice little glimpse of the Old City, which is one of those things you really just can't imagine even existing.

I met up with two women from the ISM -- one from London, another from Ireland. Both very, very nice. On our ride to Beit Sahour, we found the checkpoint for the road completely closed, and had to reroute to Beit Jala, where we bailed out, climbed over a hill strewn with discarded razorwire, and hopped in a cab to Beit Sahour on the other side. Somewhere in all of this, one of the women allowed me to email Lelia from her fancy planner/cell phone, to tell her I'd finally arrived safely. This was the highlight of my day.

Now, I'm in Beit Sahour for the weekend, in a rather intensive 12-hour per day nonviolence and ISM structure training, with jetlag kicking my ass like nobody's business. Lovely. I've made a point of apologizing to the coordinators, and they've been really warm and understanding about it. Hopefully, if I can ride the next seven hours out, I can just pass the fuck out and sleep all night for once.

That's all for now. I'll write more in detail later, when I'm not skipping lunch.

November 1, 2003

I finished up my training with the ISM today in Beit Sahour. I'm back in Jerusalem for the night, literally across the street from the Old City's Damascus Gate. I finally kicked my jetlag, too. Last night, after being up from 2:30am, and training for over twelve hours... Lisa excused me to my room, and I passed the fuck out. It was wonderful.

A few of us hit this socialist pub tonight, called D1. We sat down at the bar, and started chit chatting with this guy next to us. He turned out to be the son of Jeff Halpern -- the fella more or less running the show at the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. Fancy that! He also turned to be absolutely obsessed with Faraquet. Go figure. DC... World fucking famous.

Tomorrow, I'll be heading to Qalqilya (I probably totally misspelled that, but it doesn't really matter, since it's an Arabic word and has no English spelling), which is the town entirely closed in by the Apartheid Wall. We're actually going to have to climb part of the wall to get in. Once there, I gather things will be pretty chill until the 9th, which is the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall -- an "Internaltional Day Against Walls", if you will (wink). Expect good things. After that, I'll head back down to Beit Sahour, to help out in the ISM media office (Adam Eidinger would be so proud), until I make my way back to Jerusalem and then on to Tel Aviv to fly home. Excited as I am about my work here, and whatnot -- I confess to being eager to be home, eager to be back at something I know. Despite all my training, and all my background in nonviolent direct action...I'm still feeling pretty unprepared for what I'm doing here. I feel like I'm prepping up to climb the neighbor's fence and steal their peaches or something, only.... there are no peaches, and the neighbors are trigger-happy teenagers, in the pay of a pseudo-fascist Apartheid state. I'm not trying to be funny, either. That's really what it feels like.

What's really, really striking about being here, and being in the ISM, is that most of the people I'm training with have never done any sort of direct action, and for some, this is the first real activism they've ever taken on. That's really hard to wrap my mind around -- why the hell would you choose this to get your feet wet?!! I don't dare say that to any of these people, cause it would likely scare the shit out of them if they had the slightest idea that experienced activists regard nothing about such a decision as normal. On the other hand, these are some brave motherfuckers. Those of you who've stared down ravenous riot cops, and been beaten or tortured in US jails likely still stop short of wetting yourselves at the thought of staring down a tank in a deserted street, in a region where those with power have been given a blank check to butcher with impunity... But this was the first thing these people thought to do. It's both absurd, and extremely heartening all at once.

Well, it's late, and I feel, I should be being more social, given that we're all more or less splitting up to head to our respective assignments in the morning. Take care of each other....

November 3, 2003

Qalqylia. If you can imagine the Warsaw Ghetto, in what might as well be the middle of the desert, well... That's where I am at the moment. Things are fairly calm here, if you can imagine what calm feels like when about 1,000 people are trapped inside their own city at a checkpoint, for hours on end, in 90-degree heat, in the middle of Ramadan (in which no one eats or drinks while the sun is up). Such was the sight we were greeted with upon arriving here. The good news was that we didn't have to climb the wall, which would've been a bust, given that the two women assigned here with me are about my mother's age, and one of them brought an entire rolling suitcase with her. The soldiers actually didn't even ask why we were trying to get into the city. Remarkable, considering one of our local coordinators had been trapped outside the city for a month right up until our arrival.

Qalqylia is about 20km from Tel Aviv, which means that at one time, a considerable chunk of the people living here worked in Israel, commuting from their home. When Israel began heavily restricting movement in the West Bank, more and more people began turning to agriculture. When the wall was erected, that endeavor more or less shit the bed, as it cut many farmers off from their land, and almost all of their water sources. So, the city is largely reliant on outside aid, and has already seen somewhere between 3-5,000 people pack up and leave, in search of something marginally more promising. To be clear, this was Sharon's plan when he envisioned the wall: Arbitrarily compartmentalize the West Bank into a handful of South Africa-style bantustans, and as Palestinian society suffocates, announce to the world, "Look!!! We've ended the Occupation!! Here is the Palestinian state we promised!!!" Meanwhile, Palestinians spiral toward being little more than a story of extinct peoples in some obscure history text that no one reads.

Having been here a few days, the affects of the wall are apparent in a variety of ways. For starters, the Olive Harvest campaign here is non-existent, for all intents and purposes. Most farmers can't leave the city, and those who can have largely opted (out of sheer desperation) to apply for the permits Israel issues them to farm their own land (thus tacitly legitimizing Israel's self-proclaimed authority to issue such permits), compromising virtually any role the ISM could really play. So, rather than picking olives, I've spent my first few days here helping the Swedish ISM work out possible ways of instituting parallel currencies in Qalqilia, to bolster what's left of its autonomy, in light of its current utter isolation. A big thanks to Andrew back in DC for providing us with such spectacular research materials. I've also managed to actually take a trip to the wall, and see it first hand. Staggering, and heartbreaking all at once. Until you actually touch it, its real gravity and significance are little more than abstraction. The malice and arrogance it implies just defy the imagination.

So much to take in, and so much to try to understand. For now, I'm laying down, and reading.

November 5, 2003

My time here is growing increasingly more conflicted with each passing day. For starters, the isolation is really getting to me. I've read half the books I brought with me, already, and have managed to not sleep much at night, when I'm alone. Yesterday, I went to sleep at 7am, and slept straight through the day, not waking up until 5pm. No joke. I tried sleeping last night, but it just didn't happen. So, I locked myself in the bathroom, with the light on, and read all night, until we left for the checkpoint to monitor IDF behavior there.

During the day, I'm consistently tired... Tired in that way that makes your eyes burn, and your head feel like it's on fire. And on top of that, my body was none too excited, upon arriving in Qalqylia, to discover that the toilet in our apartment was little more than a hole in the floor. It took several days for me to actually shit, and by that time, my digestive system was in rather painful knots, and I wound up purging everything in it in a most unpleasant manner. The days are long, given that there is little real work for us to do here, and it only makes this all feel more useless and pointless.

This isn't helped any by the Palestinian Authority. In the last two days, we've had two meetings with the NGO coordinator for the PA, regarding Sunday's international day of action against the apartheid wall. The first meeting accomplished nothing -- absolutely nothing. He hemmed and hawed about shit everyone in the room was perfectly familiar with, and treated our presence as if it were little more than a cultural exchange. The two older women in our group ate it up, too, which did little to steer things in a productive direction. Last night's meeting with him, while accomplishing something marginally more (it took four hours to hammer out what should've taken five minutes), really illuminated for me what seems to be going on, here.


Basically, so far as I can tell, the PA here in Qalqylia is holding out for a political resolution of the conflict, in the hope that whatever Israel agrees to will confer some sort of status to the PA and its membership. So, all decisions about the territories that are not made by Israel, are concentrated within PA agencies. So, for instance, with the day against the wall just a few days away, we have nothing organized, and cannot go directly to any community groups in Qalqylia to hear from them what they'd like to see happen, having instead to rely on this coordinator fella who seems utterly disinterested in anything grassroots, despite his obvious attempts to humor and co-opt such tendencies in the city. During our meeting last night, he (congenially) fought tooth and nail to liquidate the proposed demonstration of anything remotely substantive. He went so far as to try to tell us that marching to the wall was a bad idea, despite that the whole day of actions is anchored around it. He wanted us to march from one random spot in the city, to another equally random spot, and discouraged us from proposing anything non-traditional or creative (i.e. anything but the usual banners, marching, etc.).

Of course, I'm not saying this to dismiss legitimate objections based on the local culture, etc. -- but the truth is, given that this is supposed to be a coalition event, it seemed disingenuous and odd to me that this guy would speak with such finality about it, when he had thus far failed to sit us down with any of the local NGO's, as he'd promised. The whole thing was fucked, from top to bottom. The PA seems to want to trot the ISM out to its constituency as some sort of cultural exchange regiment, while utterly de-fanging grassroots resistance to the occupation, and encouraging the local population to adapt to the wall, and all that comes with it.

Worse still, at least one of the local (Palestinian) ISM coordinators is a passionate apologist for this bullshit, and when I queried him about it, he had not one reasonable argument for it, and tried to frame the discussion as if concentrating this much power in one person was the only way things could possibly be done, and as if it did nothing to betray the democratic objectives of resistance to the occupation. Naturally, this explains why the ISM has little work in Qalqylia -- we're a show piece that is tolerated and congratulated for how "brave" and "selfless" we are, but we're subtly kept on a short leash, while the PA enables the inevitable suffocation of this city, in the hope that they can negotiate some concession of power from Israel before the shit really hits the fan.

News flash: Even Israeli human rights groups are estimating that Palestinian society as a whole has maybe a year left, unless something really dramatic takes place; which says nothing as to the prospects of a city entirely enclosed by a wall, with no freedom of mobility, etc. By encouraging the population to adapt to the wall, the PA isn't encouraging a survival strategy, because the prospects of survival under the current arrangement are more or less nil. If you've studied the Bolshevik compromise of the Russian Revolution, or of Stalin's betrayal of the Spanish Revolution... You can more or less guess what the dynamic here is. It's not very far off the mark, and involves all the classic contradictions. Not shocking that when several Swedish and American ISM coordinators were discussing the December "recess" that the ISM is taking, to regroup and strategize -- and the subsequent suggestion (on the part of some of its founders) that budgets for cell phones, rent stipends, etc. be suspended during that period -- one of our local coordinators (who is an AP photographer -- much better off than your average Qalqylia resident) blurted out "Fuck them both!!!". Sound familiar?

It's not clear how much longer I'll be here, once the Nov. 9th action goes down. After losing a 50 sheckle bill to a phone card machine, and getting ripped off more than once by Israeli cab drivers, I've lost about a week's living expenses, here, and will not be able to afford to stay through my scheduled return, without revisiting my financial arrangement for all of this. There won't be much for me to do here in Qalqylia, and the ISM media office is quite a ways south of here -- and south of Tel Aviv -- which would mean incurring considerable travel expenses just to have something meaningful to do/contribute. Furthermore, I think the situation on the ground here has deteriorated such that it undermines the potential for ISM work as it currently exists. The ISM needs time to regroup, and examine the situation so as to develop a viable strategy for activists on the ground, in relation to the material conditions here in Palestine, amidst recent developments. Staying here beyond the action on the 9th seems, more and more, like an exercise in further spinning the gears.

We'll see, I guess.

November 6, 2003

So, the last day or so... Bleh.

There was another meeting with our PA coordinator for NGO's last night... Or was there? Feeling utterly fed up with the nonsense of our first two meetings with him, I opted to stay home and write a piece for DC Indymedia, and continue getting press stuff together. 4 hours after leaving the rest of the ISMers came home, but there had been no meeting (gasp!). Our guy hadn't coordinated anything, and they went to get dessert with the local coordinators, instead. Lovely.

I began feeling really upset about the situation -- no work was really getting done, and I'd almost wasted a week here. I wrapped up writing, and decided to try and go to sleep at a reasonable hour, to curb this sleep disorder I seem to have developed. It worked, too... Kinda.

At about 3am, I woke up to the call to prayer -- during Ramadan, every morning is started with a blaring noise comparable to an air raid siren, followed by a'capella songs, etc. Sometimes, it's beautiful. This morning, it made me miserable. As if that weren't enough of a distraction, Mohamed was tossing and turning a few feet away, and breathing/hacking like he was about to die. So, I gave up on sleep, and went up to the roof to watch the sun come up -- something I'd yet to do. Finally, about four hours later, I fell back asleep... And didn't wake up until 2-fucking-PM. What the hell is happening to me???

The day passed in much the same way as the last few have. Very little work, some brief forays out into town, etc. I also called Lufthansa to find out how difficult it would be to get my flight home moved up a week -- no dice. In the evening, there was a sort of memorial/celebration for the late Edward Said, here in the town, at what is more or less the city hall. I was enticed into going (despite that the entire presentation was in Arabic) by the mention that a half hour into it we'd be leaving to meet with some people from a neighboring village about an action they wanted to have. After sitting there for a bit (the event, of course, didn't start on time), I asked when we should leave for the meeting, and was told that we weren't leaving, the plans had changed, and the people were supposed to meet us there. Well, that was it.

Having had enough of people's tapdancing about these actions for the last few days, I went home, to try and get something substantive done, for once. I probably can't adeqately characterize my frustration, at that point. I was ready to just leave Qalqylia, outright... Action be damned. But when everyone came home, they informed me that, while the meeting we were supposed to have did not, in fact, go down, there was another meeting about Sunday's action which was apparently quite fruitful. We'll begin preparations tomorrow.

Get fucking ready.

November 8, 2003

Oh man oh man oh man....

We just finished assembling our "tools" for tomorrow's action, and I'm really fucking stoked. What I had suggested as an action, out of sheer expediency and the sense that it was (at minimum) feasible, has blossomed into something that could be spec-fucking-tacular. We weren't totally sure that we could pull off something all that interesting, both because of our numbers, and the sort of comfort level that a conservative town like Qalqilia has with more dramatic actions. But I'm satisfied that this could be positively fantastic, if we pull it off.

I went across the street to get something to drink, and the two guys working in the little store were working in some sort of multimedia program on the computer there, and noticed me glancing at it. At first, I was worried that they were going to be pissed at my being so nosy, but one of them showed me (quite proudly) that they were updating an English-language website about the Wall, as it impacts Qalqilia.

It's quite interesting to talk to people in shops here, on the streets, etc. and see how all of them perceive resistance to this wall as a basic part of their lives -- which isn't something all that shocking in the abstract... Indeed, it makes perfect sense. But when you experience that firsthand, it really is a pronounced difference from what I think we're used to in the States, in most cases. At home, I feel like the idea of explicit and dramatic resistance is something people empathize with in some idealistic sort of way, but don't really internalize it as necessary. And admittedly, there are often good reasons for that. But given how utterly hopeless much of the situation here appears and feels, even to the casual observer, it's staggering that people still have hope, and even an identification with resistance.

Tomorrow, from noon until 2pm, there will be a general strike throughout the West Bank -- amidst, in some cases, unemployment rates of 90% and poverty on a massive scale. That's really hard to wrap one's mind around, coming from DC, where apartheid, colonialism, poverty, etc. are all built into the structure of the city, and yet... People have been conditioned to resign themselves to it. It's testament to how effectively capitalism and other systems of power have convinced people to adapt themselves to unadaptable situations. And it's not that I'm romantic about the situation on the ground here. I mean, the ISM Olive Harvest campaign has more or less bombed, because you can't really construct a direct action campaign around picking olives on confiscated land, when the farmers are all so desperate that they're lining up to apply for permits. But something tells me there is still a disconnect to be learned from here, that could instruct strategies for organizing back home. Then again, maybe not. Perhaps tomorrow will illuminate that more.

Running down the clock. Tomorrow is the day that I've sort of lived for, the last few weeks -- it's the culmination of all that I'd wished I'd been able to do here, in Qalqilia. And it feels pretty incredible that this is happening around the world -- that what is happening here is actually part of something that people around the world are putting themselves into. People back home have been really, really helpful in expediting technical/material assistance we need for our action -- and that's meant the world to me. Not just because of the objective material benefit of being able to actually do what we want to do, here... But in the fact that if I'd had to face one more effort being for nothing here, I'd have lost my fucking mind.

However, I'm still not sleeping. Not when I want to, anyway. I laid down this morning at like 5am, and just as I finally started to doze off, this torrential downpour started beating on the roof like nails, nearly out of nowhere. And that was the end of my sleep. I finally dozed off again around 8am, and was woken up at 9 to go scout for the action, and procure supplies for it; painfully exhausted the entire time. By the end of it, I was really irritable and wanted to shove anyone who walked too slowly in front of me on the way back to the apartment. When I finally passed out again, I didn't wake up until 5pm.

This sort of experience really draws out the fact that we're social beings. Not being able to process things that I didn't expect to feel, here, has created this sort of dead weight that just drags around on me, and aggravates me when I'm not distracted enough not to notice it. So, at night, I can't sleep, cause it's just me and that dead weight. And during the day, I can only sleep because I can lull myself by listening to the other voices in the room, etc. I'm elated to be heading to Beit Sahour in the next few days, to work in the media office. It'll mean working by myself, communicating with folks online when I need to, and I'm told there's a TV; which means I can just leave it on and fall asleep at night.

Supposing everything goes well tomorrow, I'll have a lot more to talk about. We've already received 3 French internationals, and are expecting 8 ISM folks from this weekend's training tomorrow. Several kids from ISM in Jayous have also shown up to help. So, our group is swelling a bit, and I'm buoyed by the prospect of this action being something significant. Cross your fingers.

November 9, 2003

So, today is the day. Per usual, I slept zilch last night; mostly care of a French fellow whose night-time breathing bared a sonic resemblance to a bowling tournament. I did, however, make use of my sleeplessness and showered for the first time in a few days, and shaved for the first time since I got here (with almost two weeks of growth, I'd begun to look like a settler). So, I'm all squeaky clean for the soldiers and the cameras, today. It's likely just one more way for me to convince myself that I'm adequately prepared for something I'm most certainly not.

At 8am, a crew of about 8 fresh ISM trainees showed up at our door, and within about 30 minutes, we formed a circle in the men's sleeping area, to review the action plan, designate roles, etc. The diversity was dizzying -- Swedes, Americans, Brits, Danes, Germans, French... Even people from the Basque Country (during introductions, my lack of sleep led me to believe they had said they were from "The Lost Country" -- to much confusion on my part). Gabe and Frederic (two international ISM coordinators on the ground here in Qalqilia) facilitated everything like they were drinking water -- seamlessly working in time for people to translate discussions for those with less English, questions, clarification, advice, scenario, etc. It was beautiful. They deserve a shit-ton of praise for making consensus process look like child's play, with about four different languages going at once.

One thing worth mentioning here is, what I find to be, the most interesting nuance of Ramadan. For those unfamiliar, Ramadan is a Muslim holy month, more or less, where adherents fast from sun-up to sundown; not eating, drinking fluids, smoking, etc. Well, apparently, you're not allowed to breathe tear gas, either. I'm not making this up, folks (I couldn't come up with that if I wanted to). I seriously thought Mohammed was joking when he said it last night, but it was repeated today, because out of respect for the local culture, ISMers are asked not to be seen drinking water, eating, smoking, etc. in the street during light hours... And we're also being asked to respect people's religious burden by not breathing tear gas today, either. Don't ask. If I hadn't had it explained to me firsthand, I wouldn't get it, either. So, no teargas today, kids. Got that?

Without giving away too much about what I'll be doing today, I'll let on that I'm in the highest risk part of the action; working with one American, one Swede, three Basque, and one Frenchman. If we pull this off, it's going to be hot shit. If we don't, well... The worst that will likely happen is my housemates will be seeing my freshly-shaven face strolling through the front door by midnight Eastern Time. If I manage to avoid such an end, I'll likely find myself in a taxi headed to Beit Sahour to finish out my tenure here, in the media office. Either way, I've put a hoodie and my cell phone in my backpack today, on the off chance I find myself at Dulles in the mid-evening cold, tonight (which I'm told is highly unlikely... But I wasn't supposed to spend a week in jail in Philly back in 2000, either, you know?).

It's good to finally be doing something, here. It's good to feel of use, for once. It's good to know that so many people back home have cared enough to chit-chat with me online, agree to make emergency phone calls if necessary, and well... If my cell number shows up on theirs tonight... Be willing to pick me up from the airport, hahaha.

Here's to smashing Apartheid, from Anacostia to Qalqilia.

November 10, 2003

"Are you a journalist?"

"No, I'm an organic farmer."

"Yeah...uh huh."

(Getting through the checkpoint, leaving Qalqilia)


The action went off beautifully, though not at all as planned. I know you've all been kicking yourselves with anticipation, so I figured I'd let that cat out of the bag, right off the bat.



We marched with several hundred locals to the wall, and then broke off with stencils we'd made the night before, spelling out THIS WALL WILL FALL, and armed with more spraypaint than I've seen in quite some time, we bombed the shit out of that fucking wall. It was a pretty high-adrenaline thing, despite that there were no soldiers in view, initially. I don't really know how to describe what it felt like -- climbing the embankment, grabbing hold of a drainage hole to keep myself up, and spraypainting as fast as I could, trying to not be too sloppy about it.

I didn't have the best traction on the embankment, and just as I felt myself slipping, I felt at least four hands (locals) holding me up, until I could finish. If I remember anything about this trip, it will be that feeling -- which I know sounds a bit mushy and romantic, but I'm dead serious. Being in Qalqilia wasn't comfortable, at all... I stood out like a sore thumb everywhere I went, largely because of my tattoos, and while everyone was always excessively nice, I never really had any way to ascertain exactly how people there felt about internationals in their movement. Those few minutes, hanging onto the wall... It really drove home that I wasn't totally an eyesore, or a burden, and that what I was doing mattered to someone, and was useful.

As we would finish a stencil, the spray cans would get passed off or dropped, and while I didn't notice it at first, due to being focused on what I was doing, the locals took our action and upped the ante big time. When I'd finally jumped down and took a look around, I could see Palestinians "decorating" the rest of the wall to my left, all the way to where it met the fence. I say that they upped the ante because this entire area was a military zone, secured with barbed wire, fence, and a watchtower that could easily be a sniper position. Before I could really get a sense of what had happened, there were about 100 Palestinians at the gate on the fence, where the soldiers had appeared, literally about a minute from pulling the fence to the ground. The soldiers responded, with what sounded like rubber bullets (though I didn't notice any injuries) and the younger kids responded in turn with volleys of rocks. We expected this, but knew it wasn't going to help the situation, at all. Within minutes, several noise grenades had been lobbed, and kids were running in our direction to get away. Surprisingly, they kept going back to the fence, and there was seldom a point at which there was not at least one airborne rock visible. This sparked a sort of conflict in our group...

Our local coordinators immediately started urging us back, away from the scene, fearing for our safety. And this I don't understand one bit - we're here to be a presence that puts our privilege in the way of Israeli violence, in the simplest terms. Now, while kids throwing rocks at soldiers is certainly not the sort of thing that speaks to de-escalation, those kids also don't deserve to be shot for it, you know? At the same time, this is a Palestinian-led movement, so for a bunch of internationals to take a situation into our own hands is a really risky thing. So, we sort of firmly asserted that we felt we needed to stay, but pull back slowly, hoping the kids would follow. Fortunately, this worked. But it left an odd taste in my mouth, that the local coordinators were so quick to just have us abandon people. I don't really know what else to say about it... I wasn't comfortable with it, at all. That's that.

About as soon as we got back to the ISM flat, I packed up and headed out, to try and make it to Beit Sahour by day's end. The checkpoint was a breeze, though I got the distinct impression my line had been used by a million other ISMers, based on the soldier's tone with me. I grabbed a cab with an Italian kid and an Israeli girl, who'd both apparently tried to get into Qalqilia to document what they called "The Riots", but were turned away at the checkpoint. When I told them I was with the ISM, the Italian responded (as if he were talking about something that only existed in legend) "You guys are crazy"... I didn't really know what to say. We got out in Funduq, a town not far from Qalqilia, and while I tried to find a ride to the Calandia checkpoint, they went off in search of food -- in their words "Not giving a fuck" that it's insensitive to be seen eating or drinking during daylight hours amidst Muslims fasting for Ramadan. A car full of Palestinians offered me a ride to a junction where they said I could catch a cab to Calandia, and on the way, all they wanted to talk about was politics, but their English was minimal (and my Arabic virtually non-existent), and all they could do was say (in an inquisitive tone) "I love you Sharon?", and when I shook my head, they'd laugh and draw their finger across their throat. Interestingly enough, they did this when mentioning Arafat, as well.

I finally jumped out near the junction, but couldn't really feel out where the hell I was supposed to be going, so I approached a group of young women (maybe highschool aged) who looked kinda modern, hip -- possibly internationals also here for the actions, but paused when I heard them speaking Hebrew. They were settlers. Finally, after confirming that one of them spoke a little English, I asked where I would catch a cab to Calandia, and predictably, they looked at me curiously, in that "Why the hell would you want to go there?" sort of way that most Israelis do, when you mention any place in the Occupied Territories (never mind that we were standing in the middle of the fucking West Bank). They tried telling me that no cabs left from where we were, despite that I could see three of them about 100 meters away. When I pointed to them, the girls all laughed condescendingly and said "You don't want to ride with them... They're Arabs." -- does this shit not stop?!!! What the fuck? They suggested I take a bus with them to Jerusalem (which was where I was headed from Calandia, anyhow) for about 20 sheckles, which seemed reasonable for getting to Jerusalem. Just then a rather nice van pulled up and a few of them started piling in. One of them waved me over and told me to get in. They started telling the driver (a young Israeli, probably about my age) I was going to Calandia, and I corrected them, saying that if he could take me to the Old City, I would be fine, as I was ultimately looking to get to Beit Sahour -- which elicited the usual curiosity and condemnation. "Why are you going there? Are you a student? [Shaking head in disgust] You don't want to go to Calandia, believe me." -- It never ends, here. If it's Arab, they're all terrified of it, needlessly.

Finally, the gals hopped out and I checked to make sure the guy could drive me to Damascus Gate. Shortly thereafter, he pulled over and pointed in the direction of the gate, and said I could get out. When I asked how much I owed him, he said "Nothing. It's no problem." -- Shocked, I asked if he was sure, and he got this sort of knowing/condescending look on his face, that sort of said "I don't want to take your dirty money you Arab-loving piece of shit.", without totally giving himself away. Satisfied to have gotten a free ride, I didn't push him, and hopped out.

[Note: A number of folks, namely Palestinians, have pointed out to me that this was an unlikely explanation. "Do you really think there's an Israeli that wouldn't tell you what they thought?", was one comment I got. It's quite possible that this fella was, in fact, quite sympathetic, and made this gesture out of that sympathy only when the settler girls were out of earshot. I still think about him.]

So, here I am, back at the Faisal Hostel in Jerusalem (a nortorious left-leaning ISM hangout). The only shared cab I could find to Beit Sahour left while I was getting my bags -- which is fine, since I haven't slept since 5pm yesterday, and would much rather crash than have to socialize with folks at the media office, right now.

At the end of the day, it's hard to really describe the feeling one gets encountering such rabid and virulent racism, on such an almost ubiquitous scale. It's the sort of thing that feels like a punch to the gut, and stays there for a while. Every time I've faced it, it's shaken me to the core, and plunged me into a very real mood shift...one I would even call depression. It saps one's hope, even. It was odd to be at that place, given the emotional space I'd been just hours before, on the Wall, in Qalqilia. I missed it, already. Ironic.

November 13, 2003

"I'm....I'm shocked....You being here, and working with the ISM - that doesn't shock me. But this, this shocks me."


(A radical Israeli youth, upon hearing about my vasectomy, last night)

I've been away from this thing for a while. In part, for good reason. Also in part cause I've just been too damn distracted to bother with it. All of this, despite that the last few days have been really heavy, and wrought with some of the most intense moments of my entire trip.

My first day in the ISM Media Office, we got word that several of our people in Nablus had been shot and wounded by the IDF, in the Balata refugee camp. None were seriously injured, I guess -- none went to the hospital, anyway. But then again, the last time ISM folks were wounded by soldiers in Balata, they were awoken in their hospital beds at 2am, by masked soldiers interrogating them at gunpoint, and dragging an alleged Hamas militant out, removing him from life support. So, one really can't say whether what kept them out of the hospital was the lack of seriousness in their injuries. Nonetheless, some of them were deliberately shot by soldiers, with plastic bullets, and others were hit with shrapnel from live ammunition fired at their feet (a typical tactic in the West Bank).

One of the kids was an 18 year old Swede who'd been in training with me. He was one of my favorite people from that weekend, and he'd wanted to pal up with me on wherever we decided to work, but I opted for Qalqilya, in order to work around the Wall, and the group there had requested only one male. Hearing about his injuries, I felt kinda bad for abandoning him...not because I could've really done anything for him, but... I don't know. In a situation like that, you can't really help but think shoulda, coulda, woulda. Especially since the only time I encountered soldiers in Qalqilya was at the checkpoint, and at the fence, when locals got a bit rowdy. Something in me feel guilty for having been so safe, while he was taking what was likely shrapnel to the face.

The next few days, I was on my own at the office, and got a call from Yamoun (a village west of Jenin, in the north of the West Bank), saying that the IDF had occupied the town several days before, and was basically riding roughshod over the entire population. They'd taken three houses, and locked the families in one room of each house --- in one case, 30 people confined to one room, with no food, no water, no bathroom -- and then refused to allow the Red Crescent or the ISM to bring them food. They'd shot up the water tanks in the village (an overt act of malice, in this region), and had been wantonly shooting at children, despite that there were no resistance fighters in the village, and no one was shooting back. Several kids had been wounded, and about the time I hung up the phone, one of them had died. Another kid was stranded outside his house, when he discovered it was surrounded by soldiers.

This is the sort of thing that really doesn't get much examination in this whole nightmare. Israel has managed to destroy some of the most basic structures in Palestinian society, and if they're ever to recover their lives, their world, they're going to have their work cut out for them. This much is obvious, just upon arriving here. But what's just beneath that is the way in which Israel has managed to decimate the psychic world of these people, particularly children. What kind of society can be built, in the long-run, upon a generation of people who've been barred from school by curfews, scarcely left their homes, seen their families shot dead, had their toys crushed right in front of their eyes, lost their homes, and suffered any number of other traumas? What kind of reconciliation with the people of Israel can be born of a generation of people who've never seen a Jew that wasn't carrying an automatic rifle?

Last night, I went into Jerusalem with Lisa (one of the campaign coordinators) at the invitation of a woman who was presenting a film about the ISM called Jeremy Hardy vs. The Israeli Military. It's basically the story of Jeremy Hardy (a sort of comic personality on BBC Radio 4), and his two trips to Palestine with the ISM, documenting the siege of Bethlehem and the Church of the Nativity, and other really high-profile moments from the last few years. Parts of it were downright horrifying, as with a scene where an Israeli tank opens fire with live ammo at a line of (obviously, unarmed) ISM folks, who are standing with their hands up, or Jeremy's tour of a maternity hospital that was shelled by the IDF, and the statue of the Virgin Mary atop it, riddled with bullet holes. Other parts of it were really light and comical, perfectly drawing out the irony of being here -- as when one activist tells Jeremy that he's either going to be staying in homes with the families of martyrs (to prevent them from being bulldozed), or riding in ambulances (because they are so frequently targets of IDF attack). The obvious contradiction there being that these are, under normal circumstances, the precise reasons why you wouldn't want to be anywhere near such situations, and the two guys immediately crack up laughing at the absurdity. It was comforting to know that it was ok and healthy to laugh at ourselves amidst all this.

The audience for the film was exclusively Israeli, and we'd been invited, in the hope that we could field questions after the film, about the work of the ISM, etc. I'd offered to go with Lisa, in case things got heated and/or ugly, to draw some of the fire away from her. Not surprisingly, there wasn't a soul in the audience who wasn't already a committed leftist of some shade, and who wasn't already appalled by and vehemently opposed to the occupation. So, while some really good, really critical questions were asked, people were overwhelmingly supportive. And I was pleasantly surprised at what a sophisticated analysis some people had of what we do.

Moreover, it was good to finally make contact with Israelis who were not raving racist lunatics circa 1950's Alabama. I went out to D1 (a socialist pub in Jerusalem) with a couple of kids from the event, one of whom had handed out a petition before the film, calling for the abolition of the Wall. The other recently made history as the first Israeli to be exempted from military service on grounds of conscientious objection, without being sentenced to jail time. Both were extraordinarily intelligent, articulate, and committed for their respective ages (17, and 18 I think). They were among the 35 Israelis who went to Jenin this past Sunday to help Palestinians and ISM folks tear out four whole sections of the Apartheid Barrier (at the request of Palestinians). It was clear from talking to them that not only was there dissent within Israel, but there were people who told it like it was, with no reservations. One of them openly referred to settlers as "fascists" with "nazi-esque" ambitions. Another Israeli kid I'd met that night made the interesting point that Israel was perhaps the only colonial power in the history of the world that did not call itself such. I don't know how necessarily accurate that is, but it's certainly an interesting lens through which to examine the situation. All in all, a fantastic night, despite my anxiety about having left the Media Office empty, with the shit hitting the fan up in Yamoun.

There was clearly no way I was going to make it back through the Bethlehem checkpoint as late as it was, so I hiked back to the Faisal Hostel near the Old City, and stayed up talking to a Swede, a Brit, and (I think) a French fellow. They were all totally shitfaced (I'd seen them at the pub earlier), and were a hoot to talk to, as such. We swapped plans as to how to talk our respective ways out of Israel during the interrogations we will all most certainly face at the airport. I decided I'm going to talk at length, and in minute detail about how much hot anonymous gay sex I had in Independence Park, to back up my story coming into the country, and avoid having to detail the visits to holy sites that every other fake tourist has to spit out. It'll probably shock and disgust my audience such that they'll swiftly send me on my way, just to shut me up. Come to think of it, this isn't much of a departure from my life back home. This should be cake.

At this point, I'd been up for well over 24 hours, and still had to make it back to the Media Office as early as possible the following morning. I managed to fall asleep, and woke up a few hours later, just in time to catch a Servis to Beit Jala around 7am, and then a cab to Beit Sahour, putting me in front of this very computer no later than 9am. It was beautiful. Things were even slow enough most of the day that I managed to power nap much of it away, until early afternoon. It was just what I needed to come back to... A little calm.

Unfortunately, the phone began ringing regularly, updating me about the anti-Wall action in Tulkarem, where one of our coordinators had been targeted for arrest. Fortunately, she managed to escape by the skin of her teeth... Five times. Unfortunately, on at least one occasion, this involved other activists piling on top of her to protect her, and in the shuffle, an American activist from Washington state was arrested, and will likely be deported tomorrow, on charges that he threw rocks at and attacked a police officer. While it's clearly complete bullshit, if it were by some bizarre stretch true, it would be the first case ever of an ISM activist doing any such thing. Such is the absurdity of police behavior, no matter where you go. Alongside that, the soldiers had a field day beating and abusing the internationals in the action -- the worst account of which was probably when a soldier ripped a clump of hair from the head of a 73-year old man. Way to go, lads.

Here's to taking one for the team, Bruce. You'll be missed, I can tell.

November 17, 2003

This is the slowest things have been, here. I've spent the last day or so doing little more than killing mosquitoes and deleting the (literally) thousands of listerv subscription confirmation emails that we've been spammed by Zionist hacker types. Fun, fun.

I tried to change my ticket, to leave about 2 hours from now. I almost pulled it off, too. However, in the ten minutes it took me to find a friend back home who'd put up their credit card for the reservation (I only have cash), Lufthansa sold the remaining seat on the flight to someone else. Bastards. I'm still going to go by the travel agency when I get to Jerusalem tomorrow, to see if they can help me at all. I seriously doubt they can, but it's worth a shot. There's literally nothing left for me to do, here, and it's starting to make me stir crazy. Especially at night. I get really spent, and exhausted, to a point where I can't sleep, and I just sit up awake. I need out of here. Big time. To top it off, the heater here in the office ran out of gas earlier today... So now it's back to freezing in here at night, which makes sleeping impossible, anyway. Fortunately, I'm leaving tomorrow.

Another ISMer was supposed to come today and let me train them on all the media stuff, so they could take over tomorrow. They never showed. So, as of tomorrow, the ISM Media Office will be empty, unless someone else steps up. Yay.

This will likely be the last entry for a while, possibly until I get home. My internet access will be much more scattered, once I leave the office. So, see you all when I see you.

November 18, 2003

I was supposed to leave the ISM media office, today. Another activist was
supposed to come in and train yesterday, but never showed up, and my aim
was to shoot out of here midday today, and head to Jerusalem to decompress
a bit before flying home at the ass-crack of Friday morning. At 9am I was
woken up by the phone here in the office, with one of the ISM coordinators
telling me that (as many of you likely know by now) two soldiers were
killed nearby, in Beit Jala (the news is saying Bethlehem, I think), and
the checkpoint is closed. She said she and another activist would get
here tomorrow to take over, and that I might as well stay, considering
there was little chance I'd make it through the checkpoint anyway.

I was audibly disappointed, cause she had to follow up the suggestion by
asking if I was alright. I lied. I said I was just getting a little
fried and antsy, being cooped up in the office by myself for days on end.
The truth was, much in the same way as it had during my jail time in
Philly during the RNC years ago, my body seemed to have decided it was
done being here, despite my having no control over when I could leave.
Sleep has been sparse, tension constant, and yesterday the gas in the
heater ran out, so the office has been reduced to an icebox at sundown
(I'm wearing three layers, a ski cap, and -- when necessary -- a kaffiya,
just to keep warm). And yet, somehow, the mosquitoes in here haven't
gotten the memo that it's cold as shit, and they can start hibernating or
whatever the hell it is those little bastards do in the off season.

I hung up, resumed my position beneath a pile of blankets, and allowed
sleep to dissolve my developing inner monologue about how frustrated and
anxious I've become.

Eventually, I got up, showered, made tea, and began fishing out field
reports that had been buried in our email system when some Zionist hacker
subscribed us to Le Monde's email list about a million times. It seems
they managed to screw with other things too, cause all of a sudden
messages that were almost a week old were showing up, and other little
oddities were becoming apparent. Just as I'd finished posting them all to
the ISM website, I got another call -- this time from Sulfit.

3 ISMers had accompanied a Palestinian farmer and his family into their
(confiscated) olive groves, this morning; much to their own peril. The
IDF was there, and the guy running the show announced that he was a
maniac, his job was to be a maniac, and that even his military ID said
"maniac" on it. The intimidation became too much, and the farmer
apparently bolted out from behind the activists, and basically threw
himself into IDF custody (likely fearing for his family). They threw him
in a Jeep, and drove off. They returned with a bulldozer not far behind
them. Not surprisingly, they informed everyone that they were going to
destroy the whole grove, but then went on to explain that they planned
on killing the farmer by the end of the day, and if the family ever
returned, they'd be killed and their home would be destroyed.

Two of the ISMers proceeded to block the path of the bulldozer, while
another called me from her cell phone, to fill me in. In the time that
she was talking to me, the bulldozer turned around and left, but the
"maniac" had lunged for her camera, and threatened her for being on the
phone. Immediately, I typed up the details in a brief message, and
blasted it out to the ISM media list, and told the woman on the phone to
call me with anything else she needed. The shock didn't wear off, at all.
The idea that these assholes would literally tell this guy's family that
they were going to kill him by the end of the day was so repugnant and
outrageous, and yet, at the same time... What the hell could I do? I'm
stuck in Beit Sahour with the nearest checkpoint closed down.

About ten minutes ago, the ISM volunteer called me back. Apparently,
within minutes of my email going out to the media, the grove was flooded
with Israeli human rights workers from B'Tselem, Rabbis for Human Rights, and other groups -- who then proceeded to harvest every olive in sight -- leaving the family's children standing with their mouths agape, in awe that any Israeli was doing any such thing for them. About the same time, CNN showed up with a van and crew, and interviewed the family, the Rabbis, etc. (who knows if they'll actually run the story). And an Israeli truck driver stopped by to tell the ISM folks that he'd seen the Jeep with the farmer in it, parked about 5km away -- so the soldiers hadn't done
anything with him (yet).

Given that only a few minutes have passed... I don't really have my head
fully wrapped around what just happened. But it blew my fucking mind.
Despite having abstained from alcohol for the last 13 years, I feel like I
could really use a drink, right now. Had those two soldiers not been
killed, had the checkpoint been open... I'd have left, and no one would've
been here to take that call. Serendipity is a motherfucker.