While I have moments of missing J so keenly, I sit in a trance or pace the house, not knowng where to put myself. My Grandmother used to eat her dinner off newspaper when Grandpa was away, to save the drag of washing up one plate. And though I have to watch out not to eat a few Tuc biscuits followed by a Twirl for dinner; on the whole we're okay. Each street around us houses a friend. 'Keyf Jowzek?' (How's your husband?) asks my friend Marwan in the 'everything' shop, piled up to the ceiling with wares. 'Baghdad. Haraam.' (Baghdad, What a shame), people lament. The Armenian hairdresser pops out of his shop, his mouth full of hair pins. 'Anything you need. Really - you know where to come,' as I wheel past with the Pea.
In our world this week - in our uncomplicated bubble hovering over much a more complex reality - the main worry is that the star wars costumes and light sabres may have been forwarded to Baghdad by the diplomatic postal service. Though perhaps a light sabre is the very thing for J: for the force. With a thick Iraqi dialect to contend with in his work, and a life empty of distraction.
But all is not okay around us. Shaded by the superior hell of Aleppo or Yemen, the State of Israel can continue to build illegal settlements on land that is officially Palestinian and bully the Palestinian people into submission unhindered. A greater regional conflict is just what the more sinister side of the State of Israel (becuase there are many, many Israelis who do not support this) needs to get on with what they came for - a whole country of their own, without the Palestinians getting in the way.
It's so easy to become inured to the situation here when you've lived here for a while. It's important to get out and see it as often as you can. And as internationals we can mercurially move around the way that locals from either side, cannot so easily, or safely.
This week I head up to Qalqilya, in the northern West Bank with Mark - the sculptor I've been filming with - to visit an eye clinic with St John Eye Hospital. Mark is visibly moved by what he sees. While we drive up the winding road, one of the doctors shows Mark a map of the West Bank showing the settlements. 'They're almost like a brown cancer stain in a scan of the human body,' says Mark. 'Yes, and they're growing, un-treated, even encouraged,' the doctor replies. 'There are maybe over half a million settlers in the Palestinian territories now,' he continues. 'They all have one IDF soldier guarding them to keep safe, and they are taking all the water, and using the roads, that we are often not allowed to use ourselves.'
The Palestinian populations scattered between these hilltop land grabbers are suffering from diabetes, depression, each compounded by the limited movement. It's difficult to get a permit to reach Jerusalem - though one way is a medical permit. The doctors refer 10 patients in the outreach clinic the day we visit.
But it's easy to ignore it when you're cut off from 'the other'. So easy. And also for internationals such as me: busy with jobs and juniors and just getting on with things. You can forget to put your head up and realise what is being eroded: a civilisation and a nation of people being slowly and assuredly squeezed. The life out of, the air out of, the houses out of, the land out of, the water out of...them and their country.
A young Palestinian man is shot dead by Israeli police while bringing home food, baby clothes, a grieving mother recounts. 27-year-old Mustafa Nimir, was killed early one morning this week, when Israeli forces showered the vehicle in which he was travelling with live fire. The Israeli police claim he and his cousin were attempting a car ramming. But eye witnesses deny this.
This is one story of many, many others.
Many locals here are calling this an ongoing 'Nakba' - referring to the 'catastrophe' when the Palestinian people were forced out of their land in 1948 when the State of Israel was created. The inhabitants of the West Bank and East Jerusalem are regularly subject to house demolitions, eviction orders, search operations. 83 Palestinian young people have been shot since the beginning of the year in the Bethlehem district. The same is happening all over the West Bank.
This is what an IDF commander, known as 'Captain Nidal' recently said to the young men of a refugee camp of Palestinians near Bethlehem: ' 'I will make the youth of the camp disabled. I'll make half of you disabled and let the other half push the wheelchairs.'
BADIL, the resource centre for Palestinian residency and refugee rights explains: 'These threats indicate that these actions are not accidental or isolated incidents, but rather result from a systematic Israeli military policy aimed at suppressing resistance, terrorizing Palestinian youth, and permanently injuring them and/or causing significant damage to their physical and mental well-being. The explicit threats by the Israeli army leadership show the willingness to commit criminal actsand raise significant concerns about the adherence of the Israeli forces to the tenets of international law.'
'We must always take sides,' said Ellie Weisel, Nobel Peace Prize Winner and holocaust survivor. 'Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.'
'An injustice somewhere, is an injustice everywhere.'
I often ask myself which kind of Israeli would I be? The one who puts her head above the parapet and says what she will not stand for? Or the one who just gets on with things and would rather not think too hard about it?
And as internationals we should be asking ourselves the same question.
In our world this week - in our uncomplicated bubble hovering over much a more complex reality - the main worry is that the star wars costumes and light sabres may have been forwarded to Baghdad by the diplomatic postal service. Though perhaps a light sabre is the very thing for J: for the force. With a thick Iraqi dialect to contend with in his work, and a life empty of distraction.
But all is not okay around us. Shaded by the superior hell of Aleppo or Yemen, the State of Israel can continue to build illegal settlements on land that is officially Palestinian and bully the Palestinian people into submission unhindered. A greater regional conflict is just what the more sinister side of the State of Israel (becuase there are many, many Israelis who do not support this) needs to get on with what they came for - a whole country of their own, without the Palestinians getting in the way.
It's so easy to become inured to the situation here when you've lived here for a while. It's important to get out and see it as often as you can. And as internationals we can mercurially move around the way that locals from either side, cannot so easily, or safely.
This week I head up to Qalqilya, in the northern West Bank with Mark - the sculptor I've been filming with - to visit an eye clinic with St John Eye Hospital. Mark is visibly moved by what he sees. While we drive up the winding road, one of the doctors shows Mark a map of the West Bank showing the settlements. 'They're almost like a brown cancer stain in a scan of the human body,' says Mark. 'Yes, and they're growing, un-treated, even encouraged,' the doctor replies. 'There are maybe over half a million settlers in the Palestinian territories now,' he continues. 'They all have one IDF soldier guarding them to keep safe, and they are taking all the water, and using the roads, that we are often not allowed to use ourselves.'
 |
| Map from PeaceNow.org |
The Palestinian populations scattered between these hilltop land grabbers are suffering from diabetes, depression, each compounded by the limited movement. It's difficult to get a permit to reach Jerusalem - though one way is a medical permit. The doctors refer 10 patients in the outreach clinic the day we visit.
But it's easy to ignore it when you're cut off from 'the other'. So easy. And also for internationals such as me: busy with jobs and juniors and just getting on with things. You can forget to put your head up and realise what is being eroded: a civilisation and a nation of people being slowly and assuredly squeezed. The life out of, the air out of, the houses out of, the land out of, the water out of...them and their country.
A young Palestinian man is shot dead by Israeli police while bringing home food, baby clothes, a grieving mother recounts. 27-year-old Mustafa Nimir, was killed early one morning this week, when Israeli forces showered the vehicle in which he was travelling with live fire. The Israeli police claim he and his cousin were attempting a car ramming. But eye witnesses deny this.
This is one story of many, many others.
Many locals here are calling this an ongoing 'Nakba' - referring to the 'catastrophe' when the Palestinian people were forced out of their land in 1948 when the State of Israel was created. The inhabitants of the West Bank and East Jerusalem are regularly subject to house demolitions, eviction orders, search operations. 83 Palestinian young people have been shot since the beginning of the year in the Bethlehem district. The same is happening all over the West Bank.
This is what an IDF commander, known as 'Captain Nidal' recently said to the young men of a refugee camp of Palestinians near Bethlehem: ' 'I will make the youth of the camp disabled. I'll make half of you disabled and let the other half push the wheelchairs.'
BADIL, the resource centre for Palestinian residency and refugee rights explains: 'These threats indicate that these actions are not accidental or isolated incidents, but rather result from a systematic Israeli military policy aimed at suppressing resistance, terrorizing Palestinian youth, and permanently injuring them and/or causing significant damage to their physical and mental well-being. The explicit threats by the Israeli army leadership show the willingness to commit criminal actsand raise significant concerns about the adherence of the Israeli forces to the tenets of international law.'
'We must always take sides,' said Ellie Weisel, Nobel Peace Prize Winner and holocaust survivor. 'Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.'
'An injustice somewhere, is an injustice everywhere.'
I often ask myself which kind of Israeli would I be? The one who puts her head above the parapet and says what she will not stand for? Or the one who just gets on with things and would rather not think too hard about it?
And as internationals we should be asking ourselves the same question.
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