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October 23, 2001
Steve
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Anthrax,
Cipro and the Bailout of Bayer
Carl
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Just War
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The Rule of Lawlessness?
Patrick
Cockburn
Errant
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George
Monbiot
War
and Oil
Robert
Jensen
Crushing
Academic Dissent
October 22, 2001
Hamit
Dardagan
The
New Newspeak
Tom
Turnipseed
War
on the Poor
Patrick Cockburn
Killing
Mullah Omar's Child
David
Vest
The
War on Women
Shepherd
Bliss
Advice
from a Vietnam Vet
Hani
Shukrallah
Capital
Strikes Back
October 21, 2001
Donald
Rumsfeld
The
al-Jazeera Interview
Mark
Scaramella
Nuclear
Anxiety
October 19, 2001
Mohammed
Sid-Ahmed
Bush's
Palestinian State
Michael
Colby
A
Mailroom Manifesto
October 18, 2001
Mahajan
and Jensen
Avoiding
a New Cold War
Patrick
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US
Planes Pound Taliban
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Gerald Ford
and the CIA
Mokhiber
and Weisman
3
Arguments
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October 17, 2001
Ballinger
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Music
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Steve
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The
Anthrax Chronicles
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Operation
Infinite Disaster
Susan
Block
Sex
Not Bombs
David Vest
Osama Speaks
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October 23,
2001
The West Bank
Life  Under Occupation
By Lori A. Allen
RAMALLAH: For the last three days I have spent much of
my time doing one of three things: first, I have been watching
Bethlehem Television as the lines of breaking news flashed on
the screen (We announce the death of ....; Citizens: beware
when walking in the streets or in your homes, there are Israeli
snipers in the hills; We announce the death of our sister,...
; Citizens: stay away from the area of Bab AL-Ziqaq, Israeli
tanks are headed there; We announce the death of 16-year-old...;
There are a large number of wounded, area hospitals request
doctors who are able to come assist; We announce the death of....
This is just part of the succession of
announcements which occurred in the space of about two hours.
Second, I have been talking to a friend in a refugee camp in
the Bethlehem area. He is a human rights worker, unable to reach
his Ramallah office since the tanks invaded his town. Over the
phone he fills me in on the latest death count, tells me where
the tanks have reached, how bad the shelling is, listing off
the neighborhoods and refugee camps that are under heavy attack,
mentioning people I know and how close the tanks are to where
they live.He tells me that he moved to his mother's house with
his family because his own home isn't safe. "I didn't know
where to hide my daughter," he says in a voice more helpless
than I've ever heard from him. "Nowhere is safe."
And the third thing I have been doing
is, when the phone line suddenly goes dead, or I hear the shelling
crashing loud enough to startle me over the phone, and his panic-distracted
voice talking to family as he hangs up, I open my e-mail in something
close to tears and terror, and write desperate notes asking him
to let me know he's OK, stay close to the ground, don't walk
past windows, don't go outside, I don't know How should I know
how to stay safe from tank shelling, helicopter missiles firing,
and snipers aiming? He writes me back, "A friend has been
injured. An ambulance driver. He had surgery but he should be
OK. I'm OK."
I asked him, when he told me about the
TV announcement asking residents to beware of the snipers (snipers
who killed a woman walking in the street, snipers who killed
a woman in her home), I asked him, bewildered, outraged, and
terrified, "How are you supposed to take precautions against
snipers?" "I don't know," he said, "stay
low, don't go outside, don't stay in your house, don't breathe"
Life under occupation. Don't move, don't stay still, don't breathe.
"Is this life?" has been a constant refrain uttered
by Palestinians over the past year, a question they ask me in
frustration, a question that is becoming harder to answer with
any kind of foreigner-optimism. "We're just sitting here
counting the martyrs," my friend said. Fourteen over the
weekend of October 19-20, at least 20 since the assassination
of Rahavam Ze'evi, over 700 in the past year. "They just
want to kill a lot," is his analysis. "And they don't
care who."
Things seem to be out of control, but
the mental panic is unbearable. I try to calm down, concentrate,
but I can not think straight; I cannot analyze the possible
strategies, plans, and scenarios that could be guiding what
seems to be simply unbridled murder and mayhem. I have been writing
to my friends in the U.S., describing the situation, hoping
some outside perspective will help me put my thoughts and emotions
in order. All they can tell me is, "Get out. Leave. Take
a vacation. Escape. Now." But that is impossible. Leave
my friends to tread these troubled waters alone, leave these
tragedies unwitnessed, unrecorded, because I am the lucky holder
of a U.S. passport, the golden document, the get-out- of-jail-free
card, pass go if you feel like it, avoid it if you don't (We
announce the death of )
I speak with another friend, also a human
rights worker, a patient language teacher and insightful research
assistant. He has been caught in his home village outside Ramallah,
and our lessons will have to wait. The road from his home into
Ramallah has been under curfew since the tanks rolled in. Earlier
in the day a friend had snuck into her office located on that
street, to grab her computer and files, and scurried out when
the soldiers announced over a loudspeaker, "Movement is
Forbidden!"
I call another friend, a human rights
worker from Jenin, to ask her about the situation. She says it's
calm, the tanks are at the perimeter of the town, there is no
shooting, but the closure is tight. No one can get out. hey don't
want to invade after what happened a couple days ago, she reasoned,
when they attacked a girl's school and killed a 10-year-old
Palestinian child. It made them look bad. I tell her what she
already knows: how many killed today, the tanks are still encircling
my town, where the shelling is in Bethlehem, what colleagues
have been unable to reach the office. "And," I exclaimed
in indignation, "and now the PA is throwing political prisoners
in jail!" She laughed with affectionate mockery of my near-hysteria
and said, "Well, at least it's better than the Israelis
getting ahold of them." Everyone knows what happens to
Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails. But I found
little comfort in her reassurance. Then she reminded me, "This,
what is happening now, this is normal. What happened in Hebron
a week ago, what happened the last time they invaded Jenin, what
happened throughout ten years of the first intifada, what happened
in Sabra and Shatilla."
It is a recurrent history of murder,
massacres, resistance and resilience. I protested, repeating
what someone had told me, "But the people are tired. And
the Israelis want to wipe out any Palestinian who will continue
the resistance." "Kill every Palestinian?!" was
her interpretation of that statement. "For every one that
falls, one hundred will spring up in their place." I realized,
after this succession of telephone calls, how much like a Palestinian
I am acting. Calling all one's friends and relatives to make
sure they're OK, get an update on the local situation, joke and
complain and repeat, "We're used to this. This is normal."
But I'm still not-Palestinian enough
to know that this is NOT normal, no one should have to get used
to this, and I need a break. Everyone needs a break. So a group
of friends--all ex-pats-- organize a movie night. But the shooting
from the Pisigot settlement, or perhaps it is from the tanks
encircling the town, has just started. It's best to stay inside
when the shooting starts, move away from the windows, go to a
room out of the line of fire, if you're lucky enough to have
such a room. But I need a break, to see my friends, a mental
escape.
I consider the path I have to take to
catch a taxi. I live about 1 km. from the settlement, and I have
to walk in front of it, right past where a bullet entered my
neighbor's house not two weeks ago, shattering their veranda
window as she slept. At least the taxi stand is only a couple
of blocks away; I won't have to walk down the street where a
40-year-old mother of three was shot as she was carrying groceries
home to her family. There is a lull in the shooting, and I scurry
out my front door, my body involuntarily crouching down in a
half-duck.
I think to myself, "Is getting out
to see friends and a movie worth risking a stray bullet?"
I catch my taxi. Upon arrival the hosts tell us a guest who
lives in another Ramallah neighborhood will not be coming. There
is heavy shooting and he's afraid to leave his house. He shows
up a bit later, apologizing for his cowardice, but assures us,
it was really heavy tonight. After the movie, a bad comedy about
religion and the loss of faith, we leave, turning down the radio
to listen for shooting as we approach a road running past the
Pisigot settlement. We drop off our friend, a lawyer who pays
attention to details, who tells us to pull up right next to the
garbage can which marks a safe parking spot, as the house across
the street will partially shield us from the settlement.
His building has been shot up repeatedly
over the past several months. Windows, doors, water tanks, electricity
lines, phone lines shattered, pierced, and severed. He gets out,
not waiting to make sure he's gotten inside, we speed off, me
still crouching low. And this morning, another call from my
friend. 8:30 in the morning and the fighting continues. The tanks
have withdrawn a little bit from their location in the center
of town, but not very far. Yesterday people thought, "that's
it, they are reoccupying Bethlehem." Yesterday the attack
helicopters fired missiles. Two of his relatives were injured,
and are still in surgery. The people are angry. The human rights
workers are stuck in their towns. And my back hurts from crouching.
But no matter who tries to forbid it, movement will continue.
CP
Lori Allen
is a University of Chicago anthropology graduate student currently
conducting research in the West Bank. CounterPunch subscribers
were able to read her report on September 11, as seen from Ramallah.
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