1-Israel's Palestinian Bingo Policy 2-Israeli soldiers "squash" Palestinian in van 3-Arabic Lesson in Jenin

Dec. 25, 2002

On Dec. 23, several ISM members visited the area where the Israeli
forces (IDF) had blocked the road joining the city of Nablus with three
outlying villages: Azmut, Salem, and Deir al-Khatab. Besides blocking
at least two access roads to Nablus, the army has dug a
large, steep moat to keep people from crossing fields to reach the
Nablus access road. We had heard that the villagers were suffering from
being cut off from jobs and food and hospitals in Nablus, as well as
suffering from pollution coming from the chemical plant of the Israeli
colony/settlement called Alon Moreh, which sits on two hills overlooking
the three villages.

The roadblock is intermittently staffed by the IDF. Usually there is one
Armored Personnel Carrier (APC) (looks like a tank, except it doesn't
have a large gun), with 3-4 soldiers at the wall of red
earth that is the roadblock. Every time a Palestinian approaches
the roadblock, slipping and sliding on the steep muddy paths
approaching it from either side, the soldiers take his or her ID
card. Then the Palestinian must wait in the rain and cold until the ID
is returned. (These IDs are issued by the Israelis and are
necessary to move around the country and to enter hospitals, etc.).

When we ISM internationals first arrived on the afternoon of Dec. 23,
about 20 Palestinian men were crouching in the rain, forced to face one
direction and not to move. The soldiers, meanwhile, were taking their
time checking every ID by telephone. They seemed
to wait til 10 or 15 IDs had been checked before allowing any of the 10
or 15 people to leave. Occasionally, the soldiers would allow one or two
people who approached the roadblock to pass directly on
through. Unfortunately, this had the effect of convincing more
Palestinians to try to pass through. In our three days of roadblock
watch so far, we have found that the vast majority of Palestinians who
have tried to pass through the roadblock have been stopped
and held for 2-7 hours. Those stopped have included men, women, and the
occasional donkey. Usually, younger children, very old people, and
people so sick that they are on stretchers, have been allowed through
with minimal (though not the absence of) hassle.

During negotiations, the soldiers explained their behavior to us in the
following ways: "this is a game of Palestinian Bingo: we gather all the
IDs and sometimes we have a "bingo" and find a terrorist." Thus, I
understand Palestinian Bingo be a strategy of not only
criminalizing but actually arresting an entire population, in hopes of
sifting through them to shake out likely suspects. The soldiers insist
that this harassment and collective punishment is "justified by the end
result" of occasionally catching someone they believe
might be trying to bomb children in Tel Aviv. Clearly they are
fearful, often making men bare their bellies (to show no explosives)
before allowing them to approach the soldiers.

Unfortunately, on the night of Dec. 23, the "bingo" was our friend Omar
al Titi, who has been helping the nonviolent International
Solidarity Movement and who had led us down to the roadblock
thinking that any security check on himself would reveal that he was not
"wanted". That night, however, after making Omar squat with the men for
3 hours, the IDF said that he was a "wanted" man and
arrested him (true? or just trumped up charges to punish the ISM?).
Although internationals tried to block the APC's exit, Omar was
taken away. His whereabouts are currently unknown.

The ISM has been successful at the roadblock in ensuring that no one was
beaten or shot while we were there. The people tell us that our presence
helps prevent this, as well as preventing some of the more egregious
humiliations such as being made to kneel in muddy
rainwater (in plentiful supply). However, the people also tell us that
sometimes their punishment is doubled after we leave, thereby
emphasizing that we cannot afford to ignore places that we begin to
help.

At the roadblock, we witness various levels of power games. One
captain admits he's been reprimanded for hitting soldiers and indeed he
is the most rigid about making the detained men squat and
face a certain direction -- handcuffing any who attempt to speak to him.
In another power trip, a young soldier with round glasses
constantly aims his machine gun up the hill at little boys shouting far
in the distance. When I stand before the rifle saying "I hope you
aren't going to shoot anyone", he replies, "they're throwing
stones", though they aren't. He keeps aiming and I keep standing in
front of the muzzle til my partner helps me realize that this is his
power game with me. So I distract with another request to let the
detainees go. Later, in the rain and dark, only one detainee is
left, but the Captain will not let him go. At first, he says it's
because the man refused to call neighbors over to this Venus
Flytrap of a roadblock when ordered to do so. Finally, the Capta!
in tells us "because of you. You push too much. If not for you, this man
would be gone." We realize then that we have pushed our
political discussion too far, and this last detainee has paid
the price. We ask if it would help if we step back. He nods and we step
away, out of the shimmer of APC headlights. Minutes later,
this last detainee is freed. We have learned all kinds of lessons about
power today.

It has been overpoweringly heartening at the roadblock to watch
Palestinians approach Israeli soldiers (mostly 18-25 year olds here) as
human beings and negotiate with them. There was 'Assem, a high school
counselor, speaking to the soldiers: " Tell me, human
to human, what is the solution? Our village is cut off from food; our
people are hungry, our animals are starving, we cannot get to our jobs,
and we cannot get to the hospital. We are starving, what is the
solution? If you tell me, I will try to do it. Tell me, not as a
soldier, but as a human, what should we do?" There was
Haithem, who works in the Nablus Tourism Office (a grim job this
year!), walking up to the soldier and saying: "I did not try to
sneak across the field, I did not try to climb over some mountain. I came
here, to you, to this checkpoint. Now I am asking you to let me go to
my job in Nablus, or let me go home to my two girls who are coming home
from school now and will have noone at home to care for them." And there
was the man whose name I didn't get, organizing the group of 20 today
(Dec. 25): "Alright, everyone who has been here since 7 am and waited
here patiently for the last 7 hours, stand in this group here. Everyone
who has just arrived and been detained,
please stand over there. Now, I ask you soldiers, even though your
shift has just changed and everyone looks new to you, to please let all
of us who have been here since 7 go home. Thank you."

We also witness various levels of humanity from the soldiers. One APC
crew allows the Palestinians to complete unloading animal feed across
the roadblock, while the IDF checks IDs. Another crew
allows the detainees to stand, sit and build a fire. They give a
canteen of water to a devout student of Islamic studies who wants to
pray. They allow some old women and women with children to pass
across the roadblock without security checks. Most soldiers
(especially the dual citizen from Baltimore) feel compelled to
justify their obviously unkind job as moral, in order to protect Tel
Aviv babies from bombs. But humane or abusive as each individual man is,
all are still soldiers in an army whose rules require them to
systematically and consistently violate international law by
collectively punishing an entire population of men, women and
children. In Palestine, all 3 million people are being forced daily to
play one big cruel and unpredictable game of Bingo.

And amazingly, all of a sudden, all of those IDs which take "so
long" to check according to the soldiers, materialized and were
returned -- all the ones that the soldiers had had for 7 hours AND the
ones that they'd only had for 1/2 an hour. Suddenly, at 3 pm
today (Dec. 25), all the people detained during the day were
released. Who knows why -- were the soldiers tired of standing in the
rain, guarding old men and school girls and one soggy donkey? were they
tired of the internationals and hoped they'd leave? were our calls to
Hamoked (human rights organization) and the IDF
spokesperson bearing fruit?.... The only thing that was clear was that
it does NOT take a long time to check IDs, and if the soldiers really
were there simply to increase Israeli security by checking IDs, the
process could take less than 10 minutes for any one person.

Even though Captain Arial Zev of APC # 753731 claimed that he was not
doing this to "humiliate" and that he was "just following
orders" (his own words were not in response to anything we had said, for
we had found engaging in political discussion fruitless and
counterproductive), his actions spoke loudly of collectively
humiliating and terrorizing and starving the people and animals of three
small villages -- a heroic group of courageous people
retaining their dignity and community while trying to survive.

And as I sit here in an incongruous internet cafe in the midst of a
refugee camp in Nablus and write this report, I wonder whether our
replacement shift saw a whole new group of folks detained. I wonder how
the two young men got home after we met them on the road and
warned them that they'd most likely be detained if they tried to
pass the roadblock. And I wonder where Omar is tonight. Is he, like 90%
of the male Palestinian population who has been to prison
(currently there are 5,500 in prison) being beaten and forced to
stand all night tied to a pipe in some freezing, dripping courtyard, or
bent double in a cold "closet" covered in a burlap bag soaked in feces?
I dedicate this report to you, Omar al-Titi, as you
showed us the way to the roadblock, and opened up your heart and
house to us. I hope that the coming days find you free -- and
increasingly safe and warm.

Linda Bevis
ISM Nablus
Dec. 2002
======================================================2-Israeli soldiers
"squash" Palestinian in van, killing him – another example of soldiers
acting with impunity

27th December 2002

Bassel Jamal Rabiya, 22 years old and Abdullah Nadmi Rabiya 28, both
from the village of Maythaloun near Jenin, were driving from Baqa
As-Sharqiya at around 6PM on December 19, when an Israeli armoured
personnel carrier (APC) drove down the road in the opposite
direction. According to Bassel, who was driving, the APC was on the same
side of the road as them, and was headed straight for them.
Bassel initially thought that this was accidental and so he changed
lanes to avoid a collision. Then the APC also changed lanes when it was
only 70 or so meters from them, so it was once more heading
straight towards them.

The APC then drove directly into the front of the van, which was now
stationary. Terrified, the two men tried to escape – Bassel by
attempting to crawl out of the driver's window, and Abdullah by
climbing over the front seats to get into the back. Basel's head and
torso were out of the car, when the APC drove onto the top of the vam.
Bassel estimates the APC remained on the roof of the vehicle for ten
minutes, during which time he yelled and screamed at the
soldiers and Abdullah, but the noise of the APC was so loud that
there was no response that he could hear. Eventually the APC
reversed off the top of the van and drove off down the road. People then
came and removed he and Abdullah. Unbeknown to Bassel, Abdullah however
had been killed – the APC had smashed his skull as he
clambered to the back.

According to Abdullah's 26-year-old brother, Abdul Karim Rabiya,
Abdullah, who was married and had two children, Muhannad, four and a
half years old, and a two year old daughter Manar, had been making his
way back to his village after working in a restaurant in Hadera. He made
this journey once every two or three weeks, depending on the situation
and how difficult it was to re-enter the West Bank.

Abdullah had taken the job in the restaurant and illegally entered
Israel to work since all the other members of his family were
unemployed, due to the dreadful economic situation in the West Bank. He
alone supported his parents, two of his brothers, one of whom is married
with children and five of his nine sisters who are still
living at home, in addition to his own wife and two children.

Abdul Karim who was shocked by the "brutal and senseless murder" of
his brother said the "poverty of his family and the lack of money was
the reason he endangered his life in going to work in Israel, never
seeing his family."

Bassel, who was lucky to be alive albeit with broken legs, lives
with his parents and grandmother, his three sisters and four
brothers, and was one of the two breadwinners of his family, and was
devastated by the death of Abdullah, and the destruction of his car
which he used as a taxi to support the family.

This tragic and horrid death is not the first of Palestinian men
trying to provide for their families – only last week five men from the
same family were killed as they were trying to cross the fence from the
Gaza Strip to Israel in order to work when Israeli soldiers fired a
missile from a tank at them.

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, 74% of
Palestinians live in poverty, on less than $US 2 a day. Malnutrition is
rife throughout the West Bank and Gaza, and a large proportion of
Palestinians are reliant on international humanitarian aid.

For more information contact: The Palestine Monitor

+972 (0)2 298 5372 or +972 (0)59 387 087

http://www.palestinemonitor.org
=========================================================3-Arabic Lesson
in Jenin Annie C. Higgins
28 December


The first time I stopped into `Izz ad-Din School for boys [grades 7 –
10] in the northeast section of Jenin was in early October when the
tanks were making the rounds of schools and blocking the
entrances. Three weeks later with the tanks practicing the same
drill, I stopped to check on the school, as it is on the path of one of
the tanks' primary entrances to Jenin.


The school had not been bothered that day. Instead the faculty were
discussing the unfairness of the Palestinian Authority's
announcement that teachers would not be paid for days they missed due to
absences caused by the Occupation forces. This did not seem fair to the
teachers who undergo daily feats of hardship and courage facing
checkpoints or going around them, sometimes to be turned back or delayed
until school is over, through no fault of their own.

One teacher was a relative of one of the youths who had carried out a
suicide operation the day before. Another told of having lived in Israel
for a decade, and of his friendly relationships with many
Jewish Israelis. Faces of schoolchildren killed by the Army looked down
from posters on the walls. Awards, a map of Palestine, an
artistic rendition of al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, and
ubiquitous Palestinian flowers were tastefully arranged. A teacher
invited me to sit in on his class. I felt honored at this rare
invitation, especially since he was teaching the same subject I do,
Arabic. His students were younger, though, in seventh grade.

Our entry to the classroom acted as a switch, dimming the boys'
energetic voices to a low murmur. The teacher/ustadh offered me a chair
in front of the blackboard facing the class. Instead I chose an empty
desk on the side where I could see both students and
teacher. He began by speaking of the value of language as a way of
making your needs understood, and as a way of strengthening ties
between people. This fit in with an idea I hear frequently, that
social bonds are much stronger in Arab societies than in the west, and
which I find mainly accurate. The teacher called on various boys amongst
the healthy-sized group of forty to read the day's text on language. In
a very engaging style, he departed from the text to ask questions
relevant to their present life.

"What language beside Arabic do you see in shop windows in Jenin?" A few
boys answered, "Hebrew." "Yes," the teacher/ustadh went on,
"when there were good relations between Israelis and us, people came
from Israel to shop in Jenin. How can they know where to buy
something unless they can understand the sign?" None of the children
found this unusual or distasteful, as I sat in my little desk
remembering Hebrew signs I had seen and wondered about. He went on to
talk about people from Jenin who needed to speak Hebrew when they went
to work in Israel. He spoke more about the ability of language to bind
societies together, and the value of translation and
translators. One boy he called on to read was very self-conscious about
making a good impression on the visitor. I kept my eyes
focused on the serious students and ignored the silly faces I could see
in my peripheral vision.

The teacher/ustadh went on with the translation theme, and asked who
knew how to say `na'm' in English. The answer was instant and
confident as they translated to "Yes!" He asked how to say `yes' in a
number of other languages, French, Polish, Russian, Chinese,
usually supplying the answer himself. But when he got to Hebrew, the
answer was even louder and more confident than the English one:
"BE-SEDER!" They were surprised when he corrected them: "`Ken' means
yes. `Be-seder' means fine." I recalled the times I had heard local
Jenin Palestinians using `be-seder' amongst themselves, but was
surprised that the boys belted it out so happily, without any
recriminations. A few more students read the remaining sentences
from the text, before listening to the ustadh's finale of the
homework assignment.

When class was over, they became like papparazzi to a celebrity,
asking me to autograph their notebooks and ooh-ing admiringly when I
wrote in Arabic. The throng became overwhelming so the ustadh made them
back off. They settled down and settled for loud applause
complete with vocal accompaniment. I cannot imagine a classroom of
seventh-grade boys in my home country being so enthusiastic about a
visitor's presence! As I walked on the outside pathway, other
potential fans called to me from the windows of their classrooms. But
one lesson was my portion for the day.

Making my way to the center of town, I saw a teacher from a girls'
school I had visited previously when they had gathered six hundred girls
into two small inner classrooms as the tanks did drive-by
shootings of the centuries-old school. Today, she invited me to the
family optometry shop. Although I did not mention my Arabic lesson, they
began talking about previous times when Israeli clients would come in
from Tabariyya, Afula, and other places. I asked if the
prices were lower in Jenin. The answer was affirmative-lower prices for
the identical product-and they told of how they would make tea for new
and regular customers alike, and enjoy chatting together. In Hebrew
presumably. I thought back to the Arabic lesson: language
strengthens ties between people.

My friends went on to say how the Israeli shoppers would buy fruits and
vegetables, and all kinds of things. I looked out at the Hisbe Market
just outside the door, where the Army had plowed through the metal
frames of the outdoor stalls a few weeks before. Some vendors were still
coming to market with wheeled carts, but it was just a skeleton of the
former street-long corridor of booths selling all manner of products.
Huge billboards placed by the Palestinian
Authority remain above proclaiming Peres' declaration: "The pains of
peace are better than the tortures of war/aalaam as-salaam khayr min
`adhaabaat al-harb." The strange angles of metal stall supports
testify to the torture. Amidst the damage, I remember the lesson:
language strengthens ties.

A seventh-grader tells me of the day recently when a tank parked
itself right outside their UNRWA [United Nations Relief Works
Agency] school. The teacher led them in repeating with vigor: "We are
steadfast/ihna samidin!" After five minutes, the tank rolled
away. Language strengthens.

On another day, a young friend asks if I would like to hear her read
from her history book. She reads a section about Arab contributions to
the sciences, such as the astrolabe and maps. This sparks a
memory and she tells me excitedly that during the Big Invasion in April,
when they were practically the only family inhabiting the
abandoned neighborhood, a soldier knocked on the door. She remembers
what he looked like, pale and overweight. But what really struck her
attention was that he had in his hands a detailed map of the
neighborhood. "They use the maps to hunt wanted people and capture
them." She remembers, too, that they had placed their own dead
soldiers in a house across the narrow passageway. Language
strengthens memories of twisted ties between people.

The schoolbooks also have contemporary views of Arab contributions. One
thing that Palestinians always cite as a virtue is their power of
endurance. One book tells the story of a child going to visit a relative
in prison, and how, after a long wait in the rain, they are told that no
visits are allowed that day. With over eight thousand Palestinians in
Israeli prisons, many children have relatives either in prison or in
hiding. Children sing a song that resonates with a tremendous proportion
of them: "I am a Palestinian child…my brother is far away, my father is
a martyr, and my mother is always sad." But they endure. They smile and
greet foreigners, often calling out in Hebrew, "Shalom!" Language
strengthens ties between peoples.

As I finish writing this, I receive a phonecall from a reader in Tel
Aviv, "We are with you! We are with the people of Jenin!" Language
strengthens ties between people.

Dr. Annie C. Higgins specializes in Arabic and Islamic studies, and is
currently doing research in Jenin.

Annie Higgins in Jenin, Occupied Palestine
tel: + 972-67-540-298