A nation like all the other nations, a/k/a "I have a dream" - and this is not it.

So I was not going to blog today. All we were going to do was an historical tour of East Jerusalem. But what we experienced was so outrageous that I decided to share it. I have heard and read about overt racism before but never before have I had the pleasure to be an eyewitness. We are based in Ramallah and so we got on the bus to go to Jerusalem. Once we got to the checkpoint, the bus stopped. We were then informed that all the Palestinians had to get off the bus and walk through while the rest of us (i.e. white Europeans and Americans) could ride through. I was appalled and wanted to get out and walk in solidarity but the door shut too quickly (or I was in shock too long). Can you imagine what this feels like? I will help you. Imagine you are on a bus from Detroit to Ann Arbor for you Michigan folks or the Upper East Side to Brooklyn for you New Yorkers or perhaps from San Diego to Oceanside. Pick a spot about a 30-40 minute drive. Then imagine that you are told “all the Jews must get off the bus and cross this [imaginary] line on foot.” You see? I bet anyone who was in the Holocaust sees indeed. What if you are elderly and walk with a cane? What if you are in a wheelchair? What if you are pregnant? What if you have small children? We were with a group from a Norwegian trade union who for the past 10 days have been on the same type of eye-opening tour we have been on. While we sat waiting for our Palestinian friends to rejoin us, we all talked about how appalled and shocked we were and how we wished we had, as a group, gotten off the bus with the Palestinians. It took the Palestinians over an hour to get through the checkpoint. (And lest you think that this is about security, i.e. lest you buy into the Israeli propaganda machine, keep in mind that there are checkpoints all throughout the Occupied Territories, 600 of them, at which women are prevented from reaching the hospital while in labor, at which children are prevented from getting to school on time, if at all, at which Palestinians are prevented from getting to work, and at which, from a report in September from an Asian human rights agency, little girls are molested.)

Once in East Jerusalem, our Israeli tour guide (a former IDF soldier), told us that the quote above was the goal of the Zionists – that Israel would be a nation like other nations. The only problem was that while, for example, the French have France, the Jews had no land. In contrast, and interestingly, the Palestinians had the land but no real sense of nationality until, like in Europe, the idea of a nation caught on in the Middle East, simultaneously with and in part in response to, Zionism and British colonialism. It was also the time that other British colonies were beginning their fight for independence. Thinking they were clever, the British made promises to both the Jews and the Arabs. The Zionists were no fonder of the British than were the Arabs, but they were able to build a relationship with the British and agreed to back them in the war in order to get military training, weaponry and, ultimately, the land. From yesterday’s blog, you should now know the history but our guide today added an interesting twist. You see, the Zionists were all Europeans, as was the UN. This meant that they were from the same world whereas the Arabs were the “other,” and we all know how westerners treat the other. Hence, the Israelis were much better equipped to deal with the British than were the Palestinians.

At any rate, you also now know that the majority of the land was given for the Jewish state via the UN partition plan. Today, we learned that the new Jewish state included the Galilee (read: water) and most of the coast (read: fertile) so that what was left for the Palestinians was not a viable state at all and that land trick is crucial. And, following the 1948 conquest, the Israelis had possession of 78% of the land, with over 600 Palestinian villages destroyed. Hopefully, by now you understand the ethnic cleansing that occurred. If not, we will talk.

At any rate, remember the absentee law that several of our speakers have discussed? It is also known as the “present-absent” law. This is the one that says don’t dare leave your home or the state of Israel will declare it abandoned state land. Once the Israelis conquered Jerusalem in 1967, this absentee law applied here as well. Moreover, Israel annexed Jerusalem, in contrast to its refusal to do so with Gaza or the West Bank. Why? In order to “keep Jerusalem ours.” (According to our guide, this annexation, by the way, is not recognized by the international community but is seen as one more illegal act.) The plan is popularly known as “Judaizing.” Scary – like reverse Nazism. Yes, and our guide also told us about the ceremonies he did as a soldier to link in his head his Judaism and nationalism. Here’s how that worked. You have probably seen the pictures of Hezbollah with the soldiers holding guns and the Koran. Our ex-IDF soldier told us that during many ceremonies, the soldiers would hold their automatic weapons in one hand and a Torah in another.
Let me describe some additional logistics. Remember yesterday when I told you how Jeff described the “facts on the ground” – the creation of a physical situation that negates the possibility of a two-state solution. This is what we heard about again today. The open land that is really beyond Jerusalem is being filled with what are referred to as “ring neighborhoods,” to encircle the city with masses of Jewish settlements and then, as we said yesterday, connect the settlements, isolate the Palestinian villages and bisect any proposed West Bank Palestinian state.

In addition to re-explaining Oslo to us, and the crazy area A, B and C plan, our guide began telling us about scary right-wing organizations in the city of Jerusalem, one of which was originally backed by Ariel Sharon. Now you must keep in mind as we talk about crazy right-wingers here that it is not so much that they are outrageous and irrational, that sort of group exists in every population. It is that the state of Israel is 150% per cent behind them. This was obvious in Jerusalem and was painfully present in Hebron (which, to be frank, I have not yet blogged about because it is huge, painful and beyond all that I have already told you.)

So here, Sharon bought a house, still standing of course, and an organization called Ateret Cohanim was started whose goal it is to Judaize Jerusalem. They began to take homes in which Palestinians live. Now the trick here (there is always a trick) is that these Palestinians do not actually own these homes. Why not? Because they are refugees that fled their own villages in 1948, to which they are not allowed to return. Instead of taking care of the refugee population it created, the state allows these Ateret Cohanim members to evict the Palestinians at gun point and then the state issues a declaration that the homes are state land. There is no trial, no evidence, no judge (not that the Israeli justice system ever works for Palestinians) just a declaration issued by the state. The Ateret Cohanim then hire private guards to “guard” the house from the Palestinians.

Here’s another bizarre twist: sometimes the Ateret Cohanim encounter a Palestinian that actually does own the home. If the Palestinian won’t sell the whole house to them, the Ateret Cohanim may just buy the roof. Our guide told us this happens when, for example, the Palestinian is perhaps desperately in need of medical care or expensive surgery. Once the Ateret Cohanim are established on the roof (there are Jewish settlements built on the roofs of Palestinian homes in Jerusalem and Hebron that we saw, clearly marked with Israeli flags flying), they start the harassment of the Palestinian family. This may include dumping garbage and dirty diapers, banging on doors in the middle of the night, screaming and calling the police, at which point guess who gets arrested?

This, of course, creates tension, to say the least. Our guide pointed out several kippah-wearing young men that past us on the street (for those of you who are not Jewish, this is the skull cap) who, our former IDF soldier guide told us, are always armed. After all, they might run into a dangerous Palestinian on the street.

Also, as we now know, there are home demolitions always, with half the homes in East Jerusalem under a demolition order and 100 houses a year demolished. And in Jerusalem, Israel is using archeology as an excuse to demolition additional Palestinian homes. Here’s how it works. Jerusalem, a city conquered by many different people over thousands of years, consists of layer upon layer of civilizations. So, in order to discover the “City of David” and other “precious” relics (apparently more precious than human lives), the state authorizes digs, in places on which Palestinian homes sit. Either the Palestinian homes are destroyed or the excavation is done under the houses. Of course, the latter leaves the home completely unstable so Israel tells the Palestinians they should leave. And if the excavators find some important relic, they are allowed to evict the Palestinian residents. Sometimes the state pays the Palestinians but remember, most of them are refugees who do not own the home to begin with. Further, the state can always claim the homes are illegal – remember Jeff’s talk I posted yesterday about how no permits are issued to Palestinians so anything they build is designated “illegal.” Thus, the state can rationalize grabbing the land. And you should really know that when you visit the Western Wall, the plaza directly in front of it – the one that is so clear of any structures – used to be home to a slew of Palestinian homes. Those people are now in a refugee camp.

Who can live like this? So the Palestinians leave, and voila, you now have the Judaization of Jerusalem – more land, less Palestinians. As you can imagine, we are all exhausted. Not necessarily physically but emotionally. In fact, we are traumatized ourselves. How can this be happening? And how can it be Jews committing these crimes? And how can we sit by and allow it to continue? That is the real question. I know my answer.

Tomorrow we are going to the Golan Heights and then to the rap concert benefit for the family forced to live under a tent.

In the meantime, below are two pictures of graffiti the Palestinians have painted on the wall. By the way, some Palestinians hate this - they believe it is beautifying an evil thing. Interesting discussions. Anyway, the little cartoon is "Handala" (with some added, typical teenage graffiti) a symbol of Palestinian resistance and the plight of the refugees, whose face you will never see until the occupation ends. His creator, Nafi Al-Ali, was 10 when his family became a victim of the ethnic cleansing and ended up in a refugee camp. Loved and hated for his cartoons and brutal honesty, Al-Ali was assasinated in 1987. You can read more about Handala and Nafi Al-Ali at http://www.handala.org/handala/index.html.

The second picture is a play on MLK's famous "I have a dream" quote.