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.
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.
posted by Joshua | 9:19 PM
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