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....
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....
posted by Joshua | 9:18 PM
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