Informant38

indiscriminate punishment of entire communities

After our visit at the clinic, we were taken on a tour of the area by a man named Samer, who desperately spoke about the situation there. His friends, relatives and strangers suffer daily from the Israeli occupation that abrogates UN treaties and disregards established lines defining boundaries.
The 25-foot-high "Apartheid Wall" and fence that will confiscate about 40 percent of the territory of the West Bank is certainly a problem, as access in and out of territories is tightly limited. The Green Line, the border that existed before 1967, and is recognized by the UN, would require all settlements to be evacuated.
Raids into the Dheisheh refugee camp, where we visited, were common; several a week, we were told.
Families of six are living in concrete spaces 27 feet square, using outhouses made of scrap tin and gardening in enclosures walled with discarded barrels that are filled with rubble. The camp is one square kilometer and houses 11,000 Palestinians, 60% of whom are under 18 years old.
Samer talked passionately for three hours as we toured the area, showing us houses that had been shot at and bombed and explaining how the situation has worsened over the year. Another intafada is going on, more stones hitting at tanks.
Suicide bombers are often those who have lost family members and suffered from the humiliation of searches, seizures, denied access to basic human rights and needs and who have lost a relative to military action. They feel the weight of death around their neck and resolve to fight the challenge that demolishes their communities.
I don't claim to know the extent of the struggle but wish to relay the pain with which Samer spoke. The injustice registered as a plight that he and his people bear, without the support of the outside world. Why? Why? Why? he continued to ask. Desperate for a reason why the Israeli military acts inhumanely, he seeks to understand how normal people can accept and allow their governments to permit it.
Some of those who are lucky enough to retain their homes that have been surrounded by Jewish settlers need permission to leave or enter each time they want to go out.
Thousands have emigrated to Europe and elsewhere. Those without the means, remain to eke out a living under harsh conditions. Poor Palestinian men are the ones building this wretched wall; forging the chains that bind them. The question there is whether it is better to be fed and chained or hungry and free. These are the choices of the poor in Palestine. For those working in Jeruselem who have to pass through checkpoints it is required to wait from the night before to claim a spot in line in hope of gaining passage in the morning. Others start a daily hike early in the morning under the cloak of darkness, risking their lives and "freedom."
When these people take such risks that could cost them their lives, one must ask why. Because they're going to die if they don't. I thought of Mexicans who risk death by crossing southwest deserts and years in jail to scrape out a living detassling corn or butchering hogs.

Brian Buckley, in Bethlehem, Palestine, May.09.04
newsletter from The Najaf Emergency Peace Team, "Peace Between Peoples"