Yesterday, I attended a checkpoint tour through the West Bank, organized by an Israeli nonprofit organization. Traveling through the seam zone between the West Bank and the Green Line, we sat on an air-conditioned tour bus and pointed at various hills containing settlements, valleys with a few patches of Palestinian farmland, and about five checkpoints, three of which we stopped to take photos and listen to a few examples of injustice. Filled mostly with Israelis between the ages of 50 and 80, the tourists were eager to listen and learn. Yet there were things that kept ringing as the tour went on, red flags marking subtle rhetoric and a lack of understanding within the supposedly understanding group. I found the questions and points I wanted to be addressed were not only avoided, but perhaps even consciously ignored. Where I wanted there to be progress, there wasn’t any.
Before I proceed, I would to like to preserve the anonymity of the group as well as the individuals I am talking about, so I will not mention any proper names. Furthermore, this organization should be commended for its work within checkpoints themselves - aiming to ensure the safety and dignity for Palestinians - its public call within Israeli society to end the occupation, and its attempts to educate Israeli society on several injustices coming with the occupation. My account does not encompass all of Israeli activism and does not try to; rather, it is simply a personal interpretation of one example of Israeli activism.
Our tour guide repeated several times as she began her talk: THIS IS NOT A POLITICAL TOUR. WE WILL NOT TALK POLITICS HERE. As many times she repeated these words in different English sentences, there were still trace amounts of fear, as if she was afraid the bus would rise up in arms if she even breathed the word “Palestine” or “occupation”.
And thus the tour began. Our first destination was a small agricultural Palestinian village inside of the seam zone. We filed off of the bus and observed an agricultural checkpoint, witnessing a Palestinian boy stopped in front of the gate because he didn’t have a permit for his bag of fertilizer. The tour guides agreed publicly it was awful, but did not fail to keep throwing in security logic along the way: “If he wanted to blow himself up, why would he do it in his own village?”, answering the questions of the more security-minded folk in the audience. While that is a valid response in terms of security, they were failing to address the larger picture.
The next stop was a meeting with an “Arab friend”, a Palestinian man who told his story between constant reassurances of his friendship with the Israeli people, an effort seemingly tending to the invisible yet ever-present (and in my opinion, many times irrational) fear of international hatred towards Jews. He served us water, coffee and tea, and faced many questions from the audience not about the checkpoint dehumanization he faced, but about the lack of authority the PA held, as if Israel was no longer responsible for the frustrations he faced.
After this we stopped for lunch at a falafel shop in a small town still inside the seam zone. People lined up to use the one-stall bathroom and gave extra money to the cashier, a deed seemingly valiant but, in all honesty, quite patronizing.
Following lunch were several bathroom stops, a stop in Jayyous where we did not even step a foot off of the air conditioned bus, listening instead to a villager repeatedly reassure us he had “many Israeli friends”; only after this was repeated several times did he quickly tell his story and then sold everyone olive oil. We then stopped again, this time to buy real life “Arab sweets”, and then continued our in-bus trek winding through steep hills, pointing out settlements on top and Palestinian villages below, and finally coming back to the seam zone where we stopped at two checkpoints, one deserted and one still fully functioning.
Stopping briefly in the parking lot, we listened to the tour guide stress, “Yes, and once President Obama told Israel to get rid of this checkpoint, it did! See? Oh and it used to be awful, one of the worst. And now it is gone. Well, not really gone, because it is still blocking the road. But there are no soldiers here anymore.” Did Israel add any others to replace this one? I wanted to ask.
Before any of us really had time to process what we were seeing, we were back at the bus station in Israel, filing civilly off of our tour bus.
And I couldn’t help but feel . . . strange. While I was hoping to learn more about the construction, use and abuse of checkpoints, I instead received subtle rhetoric on the legitimacy of Israel (which I am not denouncing, however that decision should be my own, and not be constantly forced onto me), an inaccurate and frankly completely separated view of “the Arabs” (the use of that word alone exemplifies a lack of understanding) and a look into factions of supposedly leftist Israeli society. We were all spoon-fed a few examples of injustice mixed with a subtle separation from “the Arabs”, not drawing on similarities between the two peoples but instead separating them even more. It was as if the message was, “well, they do suffer, but they all also want to kill us minus a few of them. So we still need a lot of separation and security from them.”
Yet with this separation, peace will never be possible. If the Israeli society is unwilling to understand and relate to those they call “the Arabs”, (and conversely if the Palestinians are unwilling to understand the Israeli point of view) a lasting peace will never be a reality.
Note: Our first stop was not a small agricultural village but our second stop; our first stop was in Alfe Menashe (an Israeli settlement) where we learned of the High Court of Justice verdict in 2005 on the separation wall, which deemed its sections inside occupied Palestinian land as illegal.
The dismantled checkpoint (Huwwara) does not completely block the road, as previously stated
The ages of participants is unverified
While the term “Arabs” was used at times during the tour in reference to the local population, “Palestinians” was also used when referring to the individuals we met and to the people in general.
Bailey Fisher is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.
Who will hear their screams?
Date posted: April 01, 2024
By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
When Israel claimed women were sexually assaulted on a mass scale on October 7, the world exploded. Almost the entirety of Israel’s genocidal war was based on these and other allegations, many unsubstantiated. We all remember the infamous’40 beheaded babies” story, do we not?
This article is not about Israeli allegations per se, neither will it only focus on violations against Palestinian women. This is about a world that is immediately up in arms when one side merely alleges atrocities while it turns a blind eye to actual documented violations against the “other”.
In Gaza, it is painfully clear that we indeed, are ‘the other’. How else can anyone explain the muted cries of women being stripped, raped, starved and murdered practically in real time, on our phone screens, documented in UN reports and described in horrific detail in eyewitness testimonies? There is no other explanation than that Palestinians are what Arundhati Roy calls “Children of a lesser God”. We are the victims of deep-rooted colonialism, one whose geographic demarcations may have vanished but whose insidious, dehumanizing mentality still prevails and manifests in the ugliest of manners.
For nearly six months, Palestinians have endured unspeakable atrocities at the hands of Israel’s occupying army. Today, the Gaza Strip has been reduced to an emaciated shell of what it once was. As Gaza is being systematically decimated and ethnically cleansed, the world, for the most part, looks on. Barring sympathetic supporters and a few well-intended but timid political actors, nothing has been done to stop the carnage. Palestinians once believed there was no way the world would allow Israel to erase Gaza off the map, no way it could see a live-streamed genocide and do nothing. But that is exactly what is happening.
Then, when we thought things could not get any worse, something unfathomable emerged from the deathtrap of Gaza. When this happened, we were certain it would be the turning point in this hellish nightmare. Well-documented reports, corroborated by the UN and eyewitnesses on the ground, told of harrowing stories of sexual assault against Palestinian women in Gaza.
We were paralysed with horror when we heard of women being raped by Israeli soldiers in northern Gaza, assaulted and stripped in front of their families. What’s worse, we all know that in times like these, the undocumented atrocities will far outnumber those documented. Who knows what horrors will unfold once the dust settles in Gaza; no doubt they will be so horrific, our entire nation will be traumatized for years to come.
The real question here is not how Israel’s soldiers perpetrated such gross violations. I think by now we can all agree that this depraved military establishment and its political echelon to boot, has dehumanized and vilified Palestinians so much and for so long, they will justify just about anything. No, the question is more about the moral compass of the rest of the world. While alliances and political interests are always part of the equation, even when the issue pertains to basic human rights, nothing can better explain the blatant hypocrisy, double standards and loss of collective humanity than the deafening silence today.
Our women have not only been killed, starved and displaced, they have been exposed to the very violations that sparked global outrage and a genocidal war against an entire population under occupation, unprecedented in modern history. This is not only unacceptable, it is an indelible stain on humanity. Sexual violence is a crime so heinous it is imperative to condemn and prevent, no matter the perpetrator or the victim. That must always be the baseline in any argument.
Palestinians will never get past this genocide; it is not something you can come back from. However, be assured, this is not only about the Palestinians. The world’s women, the majority of so-called feminists who have remained disgustingly silent, must know this: when you do not stand up for women, all women, no one will stand up for you in your time of need.
A new day will come
Date posted: February 14, 2024
By Joharah Baker
I once heard that anger is not a real emotion, but a cover for other feelings such as sadness, disappointment or fear. You need to peel back that outer layer to understand what is really going on inside.
Strange how this has lately resurfaced for me, but I think I know why. Lately, I and surely, millions of other Palestinians, have been filled with a blinding rage -- at Israel, at the United States, and at the world overall. This is a rage that is all-encompassing, the depth of which is palpable at the cellular level, permeating every molecule and every atom of our being. The genocide in the Gaza Strip has grated our emotions raw and we are left stinging and burning from our head to our toes.
Our anger is like a huge magnetosphere and we are all trapped inside, but its walls are translucent and we can see the source of our rage mocking us from beyond. We Palestinians are angry because we are so disappointed and we are angry because we are disillusioned and we are angry because we are drowning in sorrow.
Our disappointment lies in the fact that the world has failed us in the worst possible way and has allowed the unspeakable to be committed against us. Genocide is the ‘mother of all crimes’ and, contrary to the promises, the conventions and the historical lessons the world was supposed to learn, it has been committed over and over again. The Palestinian genocide, however, is unique in at least one way: it is live-streamed, which means no one can claim ignorance and everyone has a responsibility in stopping it. Hence, our disappointment is not limited to countries, Arab or otherwise, or to international and human rights organizations. It has spread to everyone in our orbit; acquaintances and people we thought were friends, but whose silence towards our slaughter is a deafening betrayal. Our sense of disappointment has discolored every relationship it touches because every relationship for us is a dichotomy: you are either with or against genocide and either support Palestine in word and deed, or not.
Our anger is a thin veil concealing our disillusion with the international community and its institutions, supposedly established to protect people in situations precisely like ours. We have confirmed what we knew all along, that these organizations were constructed for some and not all, for colonial powers and not those who suffer beneath them. Even when the highest court in the land rules in our favor, the Global North ensures that its ruling will not be implemented to save us, the oppressed, indigenous brown people whose lives apparently do not matter.
And finally, our anger is a survival mechanism to shield us from our own grief. Our sorrow over the murdered men, women and children, defenseless, homeless, starving and shivering in the cold, is so deep, so immense, we ourselves cannot fathom it. If we dare peek behind this anger and truly feel a fraction of the aching in our hearts, it will paralyze us for sure, because no people can endure the magnitude and scale of such suffering and not lose their minds.
We Palestinians know we cannot let go and that a new day is near. We know we must hold on just a little bit longer, because Palestine depends on it. We are no strangers to oppression, suffering and sacrifice and we know the price of our freedom has and continues to be painfully high. Still, we also know that a life without shackles and the yoke of oppression around our weary necks is the only life worth living.
Killing the flowers will not delay spring
Date posted: February 01, 2024
By Joharah Baker
This may be the hardest article I’ve written so far, for obvious reasons. As the genocide in Gaza grinds on into its fourth month, with winter in full force, the situation is so dire it has been described as hell on earth. To date, some 27,000 Palestinians have been murdered by Israel, nearly 70% of them women and children. Another 70,000 have been wounded and at least 1.9 million people have been displaced. With only 2.3 million in the Gaza Strip to start with, this computes to 1% of its population being exterminated, and in less than four months.
However, in the midst of these horrific times, let us allow ourselves a sliver of hope. The ICJ ruling, announced on January 26, prompted mixed feelings among Palestinians who naturally, wanted to hear a clear and firm demand on Israel to stop its onslaught. However, even without the express demand for a ceasefire, the ICJ offered something to the Palestinians for which they have been demanding for many years: their suffering, their plight and the brutal oppression they live under, was finally acknowledged by the highest court in the world. More importantly, Israel is being called out for its crimes, displayed in real time for all to see. For this, we will be eternally grateful to South Africa and its exceptional legal team for bringing this case of genocide to the ICJ and forcing the world to look straight down the barrel of Israel’s cruel intentions.
Of course, for the Palestinians, we did not need an international court to tell us that Israel is committing a genocide, but it was cathartic to hear this acknowledged on a global platform. While we are aware that the actual charge of genocide perhaps needs years to prove, it only takes hearing the ruling and the case argued by South Africa to surmise that Israel is as good as convicted.
This is not insignificant, and we will cling to any shred of hope we can find in this unjust world. Having said that, this is no time to rest. If anything, it is time to push even harder because now, we have ICJ rulings in our favor and legal backing to claims we already knew were legitimate.
However, while this may have offered us some ray of light in the darkness in which we are all engulfed, the fact of the matter is that things continue to worsen on the ground in Gaza. This genocide is so heinous, not only in the brutality of the Israeli bombs and denial of basic aid to the people of Gaza, but in the fact that its people are suffering from multiple and simultaneous injustices. That is, those who are being starved are the same people who have been displaced and the same people who have been injured and cannot receive medical attention. They are the same people who have lost their homes and family members and the same people who are under the rubble. One atrocity does not cancel out another in Gaza and that is what makes this genocide so unimaginable.
We have reached a point where it is unnecessary to describe the horrors of life in Gaza because frankly, in the past four months, everyone has seen them. It is not a matter of the world not knowing. This may have been the case in other genocides and atrocities, but not this one. It really boils down to two things: The dehumanization of the Palestinians and Israel’s impunity for its crimes, the latter being a direct result of the former.
Shame on the world for accepting Israel’s vile propaganda, hook, line and sinker. Shame on the “western world” in particular, who we will never forgive. Shame on them all for aiding and abetting the slaughter of our people, their displacement, starvation and annihilation. This will not go unnoticed in the annals of history, which will paint each and every accomplice in the criminal light it deserves.
But these despicable powers do not know the lion-hearts of the Palestinians and their fierce loyalty to Palestine. They will never be able to kill us all and my hope is that this thought haunts them day and night.
A sign held up in one of the many protests around the world reads: “Killing the flowers will not delay spring”. Our Spring is coming, without a doubt.
The Human Side of Demolition: A Tour of Susiya
Date posted: July 04, 2012
By Bailey Fisher for MIFTAH
Located in the southern tip of the West Bank, the South Hebron Hills are home to tens of thousands of Palestinians living in largely herding and agriculturally-based communities. Relying almost completely on the natural resources provided by the land, the earth is critical to their survival; additionally, market access for them to sell their goods is also crucial, as it provides the only stable source of income.
Since the early 1980s, the number of Jewish settlements in this area has drastically increased, bringing with them a diminishing amount of water, land, and safety for these Palestinian villages. As the settlements continue to expand, the Israeli army has continued to not only push out the Palestinian villages but, in many cases, demolish them altogether; between 2008 and 2011, 1,101 Palestinian structures have been torn down here, leaving Palestinian villagers nowhere to live and nowhere to go .
Susiya, a small, agricultural Palestinian village in the South Hebron Hills, has been inhabited by Palestinians since the early 19th century. Sustaining themselves through livestock and crops, the people of Susiya have traditionally been a herding community, selling animal products in Jerusalem on a seasonal basis. In 1983, Israel declared the land on which Susiya is located as “state land”, and subsequently established the ever-growing Jewish settlement of Susiya. The Palestinian villagers have been expelled twice since this declaration, yet have returned both times to Susiya. Each return has proven more difficult, and after their second return, much of their land had been confiscated and new provisions had been implanted, barring them from building any new structures on the small plot of land that did remain. Their main source of water has been taken for settler use, and the villagers are still not allowed to access it. Instead, they are forced to purchase water 50 km away, making it much more expensive and much less accessible. Moreover, their access to the Jerusalem market has been essentially cut off with the separation wall, leaving them with a diminished source of income, now more vital than ever for the purchase of water. p>
Driving through the winding hills of South Hebron, I arrived in Susiya around 11 am on June 20th with a group of 25 European and American students and our tour guide, a former Israeli soldier and member of the Israeli non-profit organization Breaking the Silence. Stepping out of the bus, we were immediately met with a rush of hot, still air, the kind of dry heat that stifles any hint of energy; that dries up sweat faster than your body can produce it, that bakes your skin until it resembles the flaky thin pastry of baklava. Entering the village, we found tents, the smell of goats and chickens, a few shacks made out of various pieces of rubble, a couple of caves with wooden doors, and people: Families. Grandparents. Children. My shoes scuffed against harsh brush and cacti as I walked. Oddly, I was struck silent.
I looked to my left. Sixty or so well-built settler houses rested just above the village, with several military posts not too far away. The settler houses were sound structures, with driveways, streetlights, and even a few swimming pools. And those people attacked this village? Frankly, it was quite difficult to imagine. We stopped in a few spots of rare shade and were then welcomed by a member of the Susiya village, a man named Nasser. His smile was warm and his eyes light, though he explained the situation of the village very matter-of-factly. They had close to no water, though settler water pipes ran directly below the village; they were forced to travel 50 km from their village and pay seven times what a Jewish person living in Jerusalem pays for water. Virtually all farmable land was being used by the settlers, so the villagers had very little left to sustain themselves. Violent attacks from the settlers had increased dramatically over the past few years; his arm, slung half-heartedly in a makeshift sling, was a testament to this.
Energetically he then led us through the village, showing us a well that had been destroyed by the Israeli army, a small plot of olive trees, and finally a tent filled with around 50 children attending a summer camp. When we entered, they were playing a game in which two kids with their hands tied behind their backs competed to find a key in a pile of flour, using only their faces.
I guess I considered the survival of these people to be somewhat of a miracle. Hearing these stories I felt selfishly hopeless, watching these people lose everything with very little control. Life was very, very difficult, and with little prospect of improving in the near future.
And yet, children laughed, pushing each other in the dirt. Women smiled behind their long, conservative clothing, caring for the younger children. Men welcomed us into the village with big smiles and open arms. People were alive, resilient, and hopeful. There was no need to pity them, for they are people, and they are strong. Hope and communal support go a long way; I was amazed to find that these people, with so much misfortune in their hands, were far from unhappy.
I left Susiya without fully understanding humanity’s strength to endure but at least having somewhat of an appreciation for it. Somehow, I trusted an anonymous yet present goodness and strength within people to solve the incredibly complex conflicts entrenched in this region. Girls giggling with their friends, boys pushing each other playfully in the dirt: factors prevalent in all lives no matter the conditions, thus connecting us together in some transparent web of humanity and bringing us together in an utopian image of peace.
On Tuesday, June 12, 2012, 50 temporary structures in the Palestinian village of Susiya received a demolition order from Israel’s Civil Administration. Residents were given three days to appeal the demolition order to the Civil Administration’s Supreme Planning Council. The structures facing demolition include at least 17 residential tents housing over 100 people, 14 tents serving as kitchens, a shop, a clinic, a community center, a structure for storing sheep’s milk, solar panels, a cave used as a Palestinian cultural museum, and shelters for sheep and chickens .
I try to have faith in mankind’s ability to live together, to overcome, and to survive. These people will care for each other, they will endure and their inner strength will carry them farther than many of us would dare go. They will overcome, and they will raise their next generations.
Yet I cannot help but wonder, what happens if they don’t? With no end to Israel’s settlement practice in sight, what will keep them going? And what happens when they stop?
