Living in the West Bank
The following pages contain
short essays written by students in a freshman English class at Dar al-Kalima
College in Bethlehem, West Bank of Palestine.
The assignment was to tell Americans (or other foreigners) what it is
like for them to live in Palestine under Israeli occupation.
I corrected most grammar errors
and misused vocabulary. Otherwise, I did
not change the content. I included all
the essays that were submitted to me.
Occasionally, I put explanatory material in brackets.
Most of the essays include the
names and e-mail addresses of the writers.
They would be happy to hear from any readers and answer questions. Note that they gave me hard copies of their
essays and many were hand-written. I
then typed all of them up on my own computer.
I may not have gotten their names or e-mail addresses correct. If you try to e-mail somebody and it bounces
back, let me know and I can try to find the right address.
The Israeli occupation affects my daily life in several
ways. First of all, the fears which live
inside me each and every day prevent me from living normally like any person on
earth. I live under the fear of being
injured or shot at by Israeli snipers for no reason.
Secondly, medical treatment is a basic requirement to live a
good life, but getting health care has become an obstacle for me. The Israeli barriers are now surrounding
every town in the West Bank, so that the Palestinian people cannot come and go
normally. We Palestinians lack access to
good health care because of the Israeli occupation. In order to go to a good hospital in Israel,
we have to get written Israeli permission.
It is very difficult to get this permission even for a few days per
year.
Everybody says that Palestinians have their own weapon,
which is education. This is totally
true; we grow with our education and our diplomas. Unfortunately, after we graduate, we do not
find suitable job opportunities to help us build our lives and be
self-reliant. Jobs are hard to find,
especially good-paying jobs.
It makes me sad that we are obliged to accept that we cannot
live normally and fully in our beautiful land.
Seeing the sea and smelling the shore makes me feel stronger and more optimistic. Knowing that I cannot enjoy this pleasure
[because of Israel travel restrictions to the Mediterranean Sea] is something
that really depresses me! We are young
and want to live happily, but having people occupy us make our dreams
impossible.
I am Hanadi Abu Jamal.
I’m from Jerusalem. We and the
Jewish people live in the same country.
There are kind Jewish people. On
the other hand, there are also bad Jewish people. The real problem is the Israeli government,
and the biggest problem is the separation wall and the checkpoints! We can’t live happily.
I am studying in Bethlehem, and I really feel sad when I
remember that I have to cross the checkpoint every day. Every day I have to take off my shoes and
leave my bag and my things in a box until
they check me!
It’s really a disaster.
I feel sad. L
The Palestinian issue has been argued for a long time and is
still being debated. I didn’t live at
the time of my parents’ youth, but I saw and still see my generation suffering
from the injustice of the occupation. I
see the most severe torture of young and old Palestinian people. If I wanted to mention all the things that
happen, this paper would not be long enough.
Every day countless numbers of our people yet arrested—young
and old, women and men. Every day we
hear about martyrs, some of them children.
Every day we hear and see demolitions of our houses, buildings, and
other places. Every day we hear the
sounds of cars or even targeted people being blown up. We hear every day about Israelis uprooting trees
and expropriating lands for their settlements.
Every moment we hear of attacks, arrests or provocations for workers and
travellers at checkpoints. Every day we
hear about Israeli officials disturbing students and keeping them from going to
their schools or universities. Every day
we hear about breaking into and disrupting the sanctity of our homes, villages,
churches and mosques.
This is what our daily life is like.
We cannot escape these conditions; we have no vacations, no
entertainment and no breaks—none of the pleasures you experience in your daily
life.
By Shorouk B.
It’s Easter time, and I as a Christian would love to visit
the holy places in Jerusalem. I’d love
to visit the tomb of Jesus and the Church of the Resurrection, but because of
the occupation, it’s almost impossible for me to make this journey.
In order to enter Jerusalem, I need a permit. And to get one, I need to submit my name at
the church or other official location.
Then I need to wait for the mercy of the occupation to allow me to get
this permit. They may or may not give it
to me. If they do not give it to me, I
cannot enter Jerusalem. Even if they do
give it to me I have to submit to the insult of being personally inspected at
the checkpoint.
The occupation also works to build divisions between Muslims
and Christians through the permit system.
Muslims are routinely denied permits to visit their holy places in
Jerusalem. This way, the Israelis attempt
to plant hatred between the different groups of Palestinian people.
Getting the permits is very difficult, making Palestinians
suffer. I am one of those who suffer
because I was deprived of the opportunity to visit the holy places on this
beautiful holiday. They did not give me
a permit.
Shireen Khair
Once during my summer vacation, all of my friends were out
of the country (Palestine). I was bored
enough to have a crazy decision to start cycling from my house in Ramallah to
Bethlehem. I started at 5:00 p.m. It took me six hours to get to the last
checkpoint, the Israeli checkpoint. I
felt the poisons go out of my body. I
was warm like a hot oven. All the dogs
at the checkpoint were barking in my face, and I was sweating like a waterfall.
The soldiers at the checkpoint said, “You can’t pass here on
foot or by bicycle. You should take a
car.”
It was 10:30 at
night. I asked a man with a big white
bus to give me a ride to Bethlehem. He
was so nice to me and after I told him about my trip, he was happy and sad for
me at the same time. He dropped me off
in Beit Sahour, close to Bethlehem. I
was relaxed and cold after he gave me water and chocolate. I started cycling again and my left leg
muscle went out and it stopped for ten minutes.
The Palestinian people have suffered from Israeli
occupation. They have committed
assassinations that have split the land.
They have committed a siege of the Palestinian people and a forgery of
history and Palestinian heritage for the benefit of Jewish people. They have also abused the Palestinian people
and usurped their rights through the establishment of military checkpoints as a
barrier.
For instance, one time I was at the checkpoint when the
soldiers blocked the road leading to Ramallah from Jerusalem. Also, once when we were going to Al Quds
University to hear a lecture, the soldiers ordered us to get out of the car at
gunpoint. At this point, there was only
15 minutes before the lecture began.
They kept us out of the car under gunpoint and examined us under the
pretext of identity cards. We had to
wait for two hours in the car. After
this period we went back to the house because we had missed the lecture because
of the soldiers.
Ahmed Hamdan
Ahmedhamdan_212011@hotmail.com
My dad travelled to Abu Dhabi when he was 16 years old. His parents suffered from the social
situation, so had to help his parents, but he didn’t have an ID. So if he came back to Palestine, he couldn’t
go out again.
But, my dad loved to be here in Palestine with his
parents. And we all came here with
him. Then one day, the Israeli soldiers
came to our city. They entered our
neighbors’ homes. They searched for the
people who didn’t have IDs because they wanted to kick then out of the country.
They came at 5:00 approximately. They woke up everybody. They searched everyone. They scared the children. They came to my uncle’s home, my
grandfather’s home, and every neighbor’s home in our city.
We woke up and saw the soldiers. I was very afraid because I didn’t want them
to take my father. I prayed more and
more for the soldiers to leave. Finally,
the soldiers went from my city and the soldiers didn’t come to my hoe. I thank God because he saved my father.
Three years ago, they finally gave my father the ID, and I
think now we are safe on this subject.
Maria Abuzuhuf
The occupation does not give us permission to go to
Jerusalem without a permit, so we have to get one. One day my sister and I decided to get a card
so we went to the place where we apply for cards. We got there at 9:00. They started letting people in one by one. We waited a long time and then the Israelis
said now it is lunch time, so everybody has to wait.
We waited and waited until 2:00. Then the Israelis said they couldn’t take
anybody else. All the people became very
angry and were not able to get in. So
after all this waiting, we had to go back home without any result.
Name: ?? Maram???
In 2000, the Intifada in Palestine was going on. One day, I had to go home after school, but
it was difficult for me to go home because the Israeli soldiers blocked the
streets. I tried for 20 minutes, but I
couldn’t go home. I tried to follow
another way to avoid the soldiers. They
stopped me again. Some people told me
that the soldiers do this every week because they look for people to
arrest. They check some people’s
identities and they went away. I arrived
home after an hour.
I am Tarek Zboun from Bethlehem. I am 23 years old and I am a refugee from
Ilar village in Jerusalem. Ilar is now a
settlement for the Israeli soldiers. It
is forbidden for me to see and visit my village so I have never seen my village
in my life. But I am sure and I believe
that one day I will return to my village.
I would like to talk about a story that happened to me. This story had a lot of effects on my
life. It happened when I was four years
old. I was playing in the street with my
friends and I saw my cousin was writing on the wall something about Palestine
and the resistance. Suddenly, I saw a
lot of Israeli soldiers come from behind my cousin and they shot him in front
of my eyes. They killed him in front of
my eyes. I was a child and I didn’t
understand why they killed him. At that moment, I didn’t feel anything. He was my best cousin. He was so close to me. Until now I remember only this moment from my
past when I was a child.
This story made me stronger.
It helped me to quickly understand our situation and the occupation and
that I am a refugee. It made me
understand everything about our lack of rights and this stupid world. Or should I say bad governments with stupid
people in a beautiful world.
Thank you.
Palestine
For those who don’t know Palestine, it is a small, beautiful
country in this holy land which is the center of the universe. I want to tell you some information. How do we live? What is our dream?
First of all, you have to know that the Israeli occupation
is still going on. Even though they are
on the border of the Palestinian land, they can enter and take whoever they
want from their homes and the Palestinian army can say or do nothing. We still have more than 8,000 prisoners in
Israeli prisons. We still have refugees
waiting to return to their homes.
Thousands have been sacrificed with their blood and souls to free
Palestine.
Our daily life….What can I say? Maybe you have seen the long wall which the
Israelis have built around and between the Palestinian area and the
border. Maybe not. If you have a chance to see it, then you will
know that we are in a big prison. We
can’t go from one area to another without facing the checkpoint. If we want to go to Jerusalem, we need
permission from the Israelis. It’s
really funny that it is maybe easier to come from the U.S.A to Jerusalem than
for us to get there. The Israelis may or
may not give us permission and they do not need to explain their reasons for
refusing us.
What can you do when you are sleeping in your house (safety
house) and suddenly a special force army enters and stands above your head with
fully armed weapons, saying to you, “get up and come with us”? Or what can you
do when your child goes to school and you learn later some Israeli soldiers
took him somewhere and you begin to search everywhere to find him in one of
their prisons??
There are many stories like this every day of our
lives. All we want is to live in a free
country, where you can go wherever you want…to the beach, or from one area to
another…
Finally, what I can say to you is that our cause is about freedom,
dignity, and human rights. We want the
same things everybody else in the world wants.
Do you think we don’t have the right to live like the other
human beings on this earth?
I love a girl from Ramallah and we stayed together for two
years. We realized we couldn’t stay
together because we faced many obstacles because of the Occupation. She needs a permit to enter Jerusalem and
that’s impossible for her unless she has a very convincing case for the
Israelis.
I am a human being and I have rights and the simplest right
is love.
I love it here a lot, but I can’t understand why I don’t
have the right to love a girl from the West Bank just because of a stupid
permit. I hate these words (“wall”,
“border,” “occupation”), but the word I hate the most is “human rights.” Because for us it’s just a word in the sky
like “love” and “hope.” It’s not
something we as Palestinians can reach.
In Palestine, we die to live.
I remember in 2010 when I was in the twelfth grade, I was
asked by a teacher to do research on a Palestinian village. One option was the neighborhood of Sheikh
Jarrah in Jerusalem. That neighborhood was
seized by the Jews, who drove the inhabitants from their homes and introduced
settlers to Palestinian homes. After I
got there, I decided to make a documentary film about the sad and tragic
situation. It was during the winter, and
I saw children sleeping in tents that were dripping water on the inside. I saw an old woman sitting in the rain while
a Jewish settler entered into her home. As he passed her by there were tears in her
eyes.
I began to shoot my film, even though one of the settlers
was aware of my presence and called the police.
The policeman came and asked me to turn off the camera, but I kept
recording. He grabbed my blouse and pulled the camera forcefully. The camera hit the ground and broke. This was the first camera I had ever received
in my life. It was a gift my father
bought me when he discovered that I was talented in this field. It was my most precious possession.
However, the policeman did not achieve his goal of stopping
me from my dream of making films. I am now studying documentary film-making at
Dar al-Kalima College to finish the work I started.
Mahdi Ayyad
An Experiment of the
Popular Resistance in Bil’in: A Peaceful and Forever Strengthening
Story of Struggle and
Resistance
By Iyas Abu Rahmah
The village of Bil’in is currently living under Israeli
occupation. Since 2005 Israel has built
settlements that are illegal and illegitimate.
And the apartheid wall that is built on the existing territory belonging
to the inhabitants of the village is annexed to the State of Israel under the
pretext of “security.” The wall is
illegal according to the advisory opinion of the Hague International. My question to the whole world is: Why is
there so much silence regarding this illegal wall? It is not a wall for security purposes, but
rather is intended to steal lands and annex property in favor of the Israeli
settlements.
As for my personal experience as a resident of the village
of Bil’in, I have chosen photography in the village as a form of peaceful
resistance that allows me to document what is happening in the village of
Bil’in and other neighboring villages that are resistant to the illegal wall,
settlements and the occupation from the violations imposed by Israel against
the Palestinian people. Also it allows
me the ability of documenting the peaceful demonstrations suppressed by the
Israeli army and to share with the world my photos and expose these practices
against the Palestinian people; and to help mobilie the movements of
international solidarity to stand beside the Palestinian people to end the
Israeli occupation and the establishment of the Palestinian state and capital
in East Jerusalem.
In the village of Bil’in, the popular struggle is peacefully
against the wall and settlements. The
Israeli occupation forces have produced many violations and attacks on the
village during the last seven years, leading to the arrest of hundreds of young
men and children, and wounding more than 1,500 local participants and caused
the death of martyrs on behalf of the Jawaher and Basem Abu Rahmah in the
village.
Personally, my father and my uncle were among the wounded
and prisoners, many times they were either injured and had been arrested or
both more than once. Our family home was
broken into and destroyed several times because of the presence of the
International Solidarity Movement volunteers staying in our house.
We have been subjected to many injuries and injustices in
the month of March of this year which have been documented through
photography. I was shot with a so-called
“rubber-coated” metal bullet in the foot during one of the peaceful
demonstrations in the village of Nabi Saleh.
It was clear to the Israeli soldier that I am a photographer and I was
in front of him, unarmed, taking photos of the demonstration peacefully. The Israeli soldier who took orders from the
commander intentionally shot Ali in person.
This is the policy of the Israeli occupation to continue targeting journalists
and photographers during their coverage of the peaceful demonstrations, to
prevent the transfer of what is actually practiced by the Israeli army in the
peaceful popular demonstrations.
On another occasion that I was photographing in the village
of Nabi Saeh where they were peacefully demonstrating for the recovery of
territory that was stolen for the benefit of the illegal settlements
established on their (Nabi Saleh) territory, I photographed the suppression of
the Israeli army against the demonstrators and unarmed Palestinians and with
the participation of solidarity international and Israeli peace activists. In this instance an Israeli soldier attacked
me and assaulted my fellow photography Ali and the armed soldiers beat me
severely and attacked us. This is the
policy of the Israeli occupation forces that continue to prevent the transfer
of the real situation in pictures for arbitrary criminal practices against the
Palestinians.
As for the suffering of the family, I’ll talk about this
incident, on the night of 15/8/2009 the Israeli army broke into our house to
arrest my uncle Abdullah Abu Rahma, coordinator of the Popular Committee
against the Apartheid Wall in the village.
He was not at home, but I and my brothers and my cousins were. The soldiers broke the doors and furniture in
our home and that of my uncles. They
came to continue the spreading of terror inside the house in the middle of the night while
everyone was asleep. They were in search
of my uncle Abdullah for his arrest for his participation in peaceful
demonstrations against the wall and settlements in the village and as an
organizer and leader of the peaceful marches.
The Israeli soldiers knowing that my uncle Abdullah is considered a defender
of human rights and the struggle against the wall and settlements in a peaceful
and wide participation of the free world and the Israeli peace activists. This is the policy of the apartheid regime in
the State of Israeli occupation with the suppression of the leaders and
activists of the Popular Resistance against the Wall and peaceful settlement of
Bil’in. We are sure that the occupation
and wall will fall as the apartheid regime in South Africa fell; the apartheid
regime in Israel has to.
The village of Bil’in is a small village surrounded by
complacent valleys and mountains, on the road between Jaffa and Jerusalem. Bil’in is one of the villages near the
province of Ramallah from its West side, about 16 km away, a population of
1,800 people, mostly working in agriculture, and about 4000 acres of land. Known as simple and good people and good
neighbors, they are lovers of freedom and peace, and reject injustice.
Many homes and lands have been confiscated more than once
and used for the purpose of illegal Israeli settlements. In the beginning of 1980, Israel built the
settlement of “Mitatyaho” on the part of its (Bil’in) territory. At the beginning of 1990 Israel confiscated
another part, where the settlement of “Kiryat Sever” was then built. At the beginning of this century in 2002 Israel
built a new settlement named the settlement of “Mitatyaho East.”
In April 2004, the Israeli government’s intention to build a
separation wall on village land spurred the Board in turn to notify the
citizens in the village, prompting them to form a popular committee to resist
this wall and the colonies, which were keen to represent the largest category
of the population of the village. This
committee undertook the task of follow-up with protests of the wall in the
village, and the preparation of daily and weekly events, and communicating with
international and Israeli peace activists, and follow-up legally and to
communicate with lawyers and legal advisors in this matter.
The building of the wall started with bulldozers. The Israeli army began to work on the land of
the village in Bil’in on February 20, 2005 and built the wall on the land of
the village five kilometers from the Green Line (the border set in 1948 by the
UN). They did this not for security, as
they claim, but to steal more land and build settlements on them.
The wall significantly affects the economic resources of the
village. The remainder of the land left
to the villagers has been reduced from 4000 acres to 1700 acres. The wall also makes the land near it unfit
for residential purposes. The villagers
are forced to buy land from the neighboring villages or migrate to another city
or foreign country, none of which they can afford.
The citizens have been faced with two options, either to
live in appalling conditions and poverty, or to emigrate to another
country. They rejected these two options
and decided instead to resort to popular resistance to express their refusal to
accept the current conditions. They will work and sacrifice in order to get the
wall removed.
Results of the Experiment:
1.
On
September 4, 2007, the Israeli Supreme Court issued a resolution declaring the
wall illegal in its present path. They
declared that the justifications put forth by the Israeli army declaring it was
built for security purposes are not convincing.
The court recommended that the wall be demolished and return it back to
a length of 500 meters, or approximately 1100 acres. In so doing we were able to return half of
what was threatened with confiscation.
Although this was an achievement, it is not a final victory; there is a
settlement on our land and the new wall also leads us to continue the journey
and the continuation of the demonstrations.
2.
To keep the gate open for citizens to work in
their own land, especially during daylight hours.
3.
Demolition of some houses in the settlement and
the return of some pieces within the settlement and its surroundings.
4.
Bil’in has become a symbol of popular
resistance, especially in the resistance of the wall, nationally and globally,
and the focus of international solidarity.
5.
The unity and interdependence of the village has
melted most of the problems of the interior, and they lined up in rows facing
the Israeli enemy.
6.
Bil’in has become a tourist site, official and
popular.
7.
The Popular Committee against the Wall won four
local and international awards. In 2007,
the Palestine International Award for Distinction and Innovation, the Yasser
Arafat Award for achievement, the Carl von Ostozaki Award for Human Rights in
Berlin in 2008, and the award for Creative Community of the Arab Thought
Foundation of Kuwait.
8.
Stop the construction of 1500 housing units of
the Eastern settlement Mtetyaho B, which was supposed to be built on the
territory of the village.
9.
Because of the success of the People’s Committee
to stop the settlement expansion on January 1, 2008, some of the young men are
legendary, and they prevented settlers from the development of a new outpost on
the land of the village, despite the danger they suffered.
10.
Convert the land behind the wall to green by
encouraging citizens to reclaim the land and plant it with grain and fruit
trees, especially olives.
11.
Implementation of workshops, lectures, and
international conferences to resist the occupation and the wall and settlements
for the dissemination of the experience of Bil’in’s peaceful protests.
12.
Removal and demolition of the wall primarily on
the territory of the village on the first of September 2011 to recover the
village of Bil’in and about 1000 acres.
Elements that contributed to the success of the
experiment:
1.
Young
leadership that focused on national unity (Popular Committee Against the Wall),
which included the participation of most of the villagers.
2.
International and Israeli solidarity activists.
3.
Continuity of efforts.
4.
Creativity and innovation in ideas, surprising
the enemy.
5.
The media.
By Iyas Abu Rahmah
Phone +9705988025669
My name is Hidaya. I
live in Nahhalin. I have five brothers
and three sisters. I study in Dar al
Kalima College. A month ago, I felt some
pain. I went to the hospital. The doctors decided that I have to have an
operation. I stayed in the hospital for
eight days. The nurses there were very
kind. There was a patient with me in the
same room. Her relatives helped me a
lot.
The most difficult situation for me was when the doctors
wanted to check my operation to make sure that everything was O.K. Now I feel better. The happiest time was when the doctors told
me it was time to get discharged. I was
very pleased to be back home with my family.
Hidaya Njajarh
Abu Mazen to the
United Nations
September 2011 proved that the Palestinian Authority leaders
have never learned from the lessons of the last fifteen years of negotiations for a peace. They keep forgetting and ignoring the fact
that what has been taken by force can’t be gotten back except by force. International popular solidarity can’t be
effective if it is not followed and supported by the official government.
Going to the United Nations was not a good decision as it
did not provide anything new or deal with other demands which need to be
mentioned first. For example, what about
the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails?
What about the refugees? What
about the continued detention of young people in the West Bank by the Israelis
whenever they want to?
There is also the issue of settlements, which covers a large
area of the West Bank. The West Bank is
divided into cities where we may not go from one city to another without going
through checkpoints. Now they are
talking about negotiations that have not provided solutions for more than 15
years. The state has not made any
progress. Now the Israelis kill people
in Gaza on an ongoing basis. There is
also the capital of what would be a Palestinian state (East Jerusalem) under
Israeli control. If somebody wants to go
to Jerusalem, they need a permit for several days. In most cases, he won’t get one; only a few
people do.
Hazem Al-Khalib
