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May 3, 2002
John Stauber
Big
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Attacks "Mad Cow" Authors
Kathleen Christison
Before There Was Terrorism
May 2, 2002
CounterPunch
Wire
Rep.
Dick Armey Calls for Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians
Rami Kaplan
Israeli Soldiers Resisting
the Occupation:
Why We Refuse to Fight
Carol
Norris
Subterranean
Mini-Nuke Blues
Bernard Weiner
A Peek Inside Colin Powell's Personal
Diary
May 1, 2002
Badiou,
Michel, Lazarus
French
Elections:
What is to be Done?
Baruch Kimmerling
The Battle of Jenin as
an Inter-Ethnic War
Edward
Hammond
Hiding
History:
NAS Suppresses Chem/Bio War Documents
Kristen Schurr
Inside Gaza
Sam Bahour
Corporate
America and
the Israeli Occupation
Jacques Ranciere
Prisoners of the Infinite
April 30, 2002
Mike Leon
Chomsky,
Letters to the Writer and the Peace Movement
Dave Marsh
The FBI and the Music
Industry: Paying the Cost to Feed the Boss
Steen
Sohn
Something
Rotten in Denmark:
New Danish Government's Alliance with Far Right
Desmond Tutu
Apartheid in the Holy Land
Christopher
Reilly
Kissinger:
the Wanted Man
April 29, 2002
Larry Hales
At the Church of the Nativity
Michael
Colby
The
Times Does Brockovich:
Ralph Nader with Cleavage?
CounterPunch Wire
Bank Robs Publisher,
Vows to Repeat
Gavin
Keeney
So
Long, Frank O. Gehry?
April 28, 2002
Michael Neumann
The Jewish Left and Palestine
April 27, 2002
Dr. Susan
Block
Adelphia
Going Down:
Cover Ups, Censorship
and Naughty Accounting
Jordy Cummings
Stuck Inside the Journalism School
Pyramid
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Set
This Flag on Fire!
April 26, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Act
Now to Stop the Killing
of an Innocent Man
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Anti-Bribery
Law Takes a Hit
Tariq Ali
Letter to a Young Muslim
April 25, 2002
Francis
A. Boyle
Home
Brew? Biowarfare,
Terror Weapons and the US
Adam Federman
"And the Earth Wept"
Bush at Saranac Lake
Stanton
and Madsen
US
Media Interests:
Champions of Profit, Propaganda and Puffery
Aaron Hawley
Cop a Buzz Day in Vermont:
Education v. Incarceration
David
Vest
Code
Red: Politics and Wordplay at the Vatican
Bernard Weiner
Time Out! A Pause for Longer-Range
Thinking
Rep. Dennis
Kucinich
Standing
with the Peace Movement
April 24, 2002
David Vest
State of Politics in France:
Code Bleu
Jean Fallow
A20
in Seattle:
Cops Get Rough, Again
Kevin Alexander Gray
Help Save the Life of an Innocent Man:
Ask for Clemency for Ricky Johnson
Tanya
Reinhart
Jenin,
the Propaganda Battle
Todd May
Drowning Children, Palestinians and American
Responsibility
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Loneliest Road
Nir Rosen
The Broken Home:
Revisiting Israel
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
A
Big Blow to Big Tobacco
April 23, 2002
Brian Wood
Where Is the Aid for the Victims in
Jenin?
John Chuckman
I,
George:
Gomer as Claudius
Norman Madarasz
French Presidential Elections
Absenteeism and Le Pen
Dr. Susan
Block
Bernard
Parks, Goodbye:
A Farewell to My Chief
Joan Smith
Who Will Rid Us of
These Pedophile Priests?
April 22, 2002
CounterPunch
Wire
EPA
Ombudsman Resigns
in Protest
Dave Marsh
DeskScan: What's Playing
at My House This Week
Ron Jacobs
A20
in DC: Taking the
Message to the Beast's Belly
Kathy Kelly
An Open Letter to
Israeli Soldiers
Irit Katriel
Word
Games and Body Bags
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
We Come for Peace
Daniel
Bar-Tal
Is
There a Way Out?
Occupation, Terror
and Understanding
David Wilson
A Week of Coups, But Now
The Freedom Train Hits Town
Shaik
Ubaid
Today
I Was a Palestinian
April 21, 2002
Michelle Campos
Suckered Again in Israel
Mike Leon
200,000
in DC Protest Say:
"We Are All Palestinians Today"
C.G. Estabrook
Sex and Power in Catholicism
Kathy
Kelly
Gimme
Some Truth Now
A Walk Through Jenin
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May
3, 2002
Searching for Peace
A Journey to Beit Jalla
by Yigal Bronner
The sky is overcast, and it begins to drizzle
on the hills surrounding Bethlehem as we arrive at the mound
blocking the entrance to the village of Beit Jalla. We drive
slowly-- a convoy of about a hundred cars and four trucks, all
loaded with food and medicine-- and then come to a halt. The
people of Beit Jalla have been under curfew for the last month,
with no end in sight. Now, for the first time in several days,
the curfew has been lifted for a few hours, allowing them to
stock up supplies (not that the shops in the village have much
to offer). Several dozen residents decide to spend this precious
time on coming to the roadblock in order to welcome us.
We shake hands and embrace, and then
get down to work. The food in the cars is unloaded and passed
over the mound to a truck waiting on the other side. Several
boxes full of medicine-- urgently needed in a hospital for the
mentally ill-- pass hands as well. Three of the trucks continue
to other destinations (through a nearby road, controlled by the
army), to villages and refugee camps in the Bethlehem area whose
situation is even worse than Beit Jalla's.
Meanwhile, as in similar convoys organized
by Ta'ayush, an Arab-Jewish group that combines humanitarian
aid with political action, a gathering is organized. The Mayor
of Beit Jalla is the first speaker. I listen to his description
of life under curfew and constant siege as I pass through the
crowd. I am looking for the parents of Laith, a nine year-older
from Beit Jalla. A few months ago, during a previous round of
violence, Laith was smuggled out of his enclosed village by friends,
and enjoyed a picnic and a visit to a theme-park in Israel. For
one day he was like any other kid, free to run outside and play.
This is how I got to know and like him; my family had joined
him on his one day of freedom, and my six-year-old son Amos was
one of his playmates.
Now I get to meet his parents, a charming
couple. It is an emotional moment. For a brief while we have
what resembles a normal conversation among parents. They inquire
about Amos, I about Laith. But Laith's childhood is by no means
normal. He has been confined to his home for four weeks now,
without a single breath of fresh air. Even now, his parents don't
allow him out. Too risky. They left him with his aunt, and must
soon return for another unknown period of house-arrest. We part
with the hope of meeting soon, perhaps under better circumstances.
I try to imagine my son, Amos, in Laith's situation, and find
it hard to do. What do you tell a boy his age? How does one explain
the need to stay at home? To be patient? What does he think when
he sees soldiers roaming the village streets, imposing curfew
and taking away his freedom?
Speaking of soldiers, they surround us
from all sides. Yuri, one of the convoy's organizers is now speaking
and addressing the military. He tells the soldiers that they
are unwelcome here. He urges them to leave and return one day
as guests rather than occupiers and colonizers, and wishes them
a safe trip home. He tells them about the misery they are inflicting
on the Palestinian civilians. About the hunger and poverty. About
the feeling of the farmer who helplessly sees his crops rotting,
unable to tend to them. Yuri is followed by Liora. She speaks
of the Palestinian women -- whose husbands have been detained
by the army, and who are now single mothers caring for their
children-- as the true victims and heroines of this war.
The soldiers stand around us, revealing
no emotion. I don't know what they are thinking. But it is clear
they wish to be seen as part of our event. By allowing humanitarian
aid to pass, they hope to prove that they are "the most
humanitarian army in the world." One of them is even documenting
the happening with a video-camera, presumably for PR purposes.
Just a fortnight ago, the army spokesperson used footage of a
similar food convoy headed for the devastated Jenin camp, as
proof of the humane nature of the Israeli troops (who were meanwhile
bulldozing homes on their inhabitants). What the spokesman neglected
to mention was that the army stopped the thirty plus trucks on
route to Jenin, despite its promise to let them through, and
allowed only a trickle of supplies to pass.
With this recent bitter experience in
mind, we are determined not to leave Beit Jalla until we are
certain that the trucks have passed all of the military checkpoints.
When news arrives from the drivers that they have reached their
destination, we begin to rap things up. We part from our hosts
who must hurry home before the curfew is re-imposed, and send
the long convoy of cars back to Israel. A few of us remain to
wait for the returning truck-drivers. As it turns out, though,
our day's adventures are not quite over.
On the way back from Bethlehem, the Israeli
military stops one of the empty trucks. Four armored vehicles
surround it, a tank points its cannon at it, and the soldiers
aim guns at the driver and force him out. We call the driver
on the mobile phone; he sounds afraid. The soldiers who gave
the truck its entry-permission at the checkpoint promise to release
it, but there seems to be communication problem between them
and the troops in Bethlehem.
The minutes go by. It is now late afternoon,
and sun is about to set. The truck has not yet been released,
and we stand waiting, talking with the driver every few minutes
to calm him down. It is cold. But, as we try to warm ourselves,
we get another chilling glimpse of the occupation. A small army
pickup arrives at the checkpoint with three Palestinians lying
in the back. They are in their fifties; their arms and legs are
tightly tied, and their eyes are covered. It is quite obvious
that they are not on the top of the army's most-wanted list,
for they are left unattended. The army base is just around the
corner, but no one seems in a hurry to take them in and interrogate
them. They simply lie like cattle.
We approach the soldiers and ask them
at least to uncover the detainees' eyes. They refuse. An argument
ensues, in which the soldiers insist that their mode of action
is the most humane. Nonetheless, they prohibit us from photographing
the men. After some discussion, they allow us to give them water
and cigarettes. We catch a brief word with them. They are from
the Deheisha refugee camp. They have no idea where they are now.
I don't know why they were arrested. But being a Palestinian
man these days automatically makes you suspect, and the most
trivial actions such as leaving your home turns you into a criminal.
At last, the truck arrives and we embrace
the drivers, the true heroes of the day. We learn that while
passing through Bethlehem a large group of residents desperately
jumped on top of one truck, grabbing whatever they could. "They
were not thieves," the driver, a Palestinian citizen of
Israel, explains, "they were simply hungry. One old lady
ran after us for a kilometer just to get one pack of rice. I
saw very difficult sights," he added. "It is an altogether
different world there, on the other side of the army checkpoint."
We exchange a few more stories, take a photo next to the empty
truck, and leave for Jerusalem. As we leave, the three men are
still lying in the military pickup truck, tied and blindfolded.
Four cars and one truck drive quickly
on the empty road. As the beautiful hills of Bethlehem turn to
dusk, we hit the last army checkpoint. The soldiers manning it
insist on stopping the Palestinians among us. They are, after
all, Arabs. They take away their Israeli IDs for "inspection"
which seems to go on for ever. They tell us that they have called
the police to make sure their "record is clean." We
wait together. Another hour passes. It is dark and the wind is
freezing. Finally, we decide to protest. Two of us park their
cars so as to block traffic to and from the nearby settlement,
insisting that if we are not allowed to travel, neither will
they. This stirs some commotion. The officer in charge arrives,
IDs are returned, and we are free to go. We learn that the police
had approved our entry a while ago but the soldiers wanted to
keep us waiting longer, for the fun of it.
I arrive home a bit after seven. Galila
is putting the kids to bed. I kiss Amos and tell him I met Laith's
parents, and that they say hi. I tell him some but not all of
what I experienced. I put him and my toddler-daughter Naomi to
sleep. Then I pause to think. I know I saw only the surface,
had only a tiny glimpse of what is really going on in occupied
Palestine. I haven't seen the really devastating scenes of Jenin
and Nablus. But what I saw, heard and experienced-- the child
confined to his home for a month, the old lady running after
the food-truck, the men lying on the floor of the army vehicle,
the soldiers humiliating my Palestinian friends at the roadblock--
all that was quite educational. It allowed me to understand that
what Israel has been destroying in Palestine is all but the infrastructure
of terrorism. It has been destroying the agricultural, educational,
medical and road infrastructure; it has been eroding goodwill
and undermining whatever is left of the Palestinian desire for
peace. It has been sowing hunger, poverty, humiliation and hatred,
all of which only serve to fortify the infrastructure of terrorism.
I go to sleep thinking of Amos and Laith, hoping that they can
somehow grow up as friends.
Yigal Bronner
is a member of Ta'ayush and can be reached at ybronner@post.tau.ac.il
For more information on Ta'ayush -- Arab-Jewish Partnership --
visit our site http://taayush.tripod.com
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