The bits of evil carefully weighted out in advance

Two days after the demonstration in Kufr Qaddum this Friday I am sitting here trying to analyze what exactly it is that happened there that made out of this event a turning point for me. Writing a post reflecting upon my little traumas here seems a very selfish deed when it’s pasted unto the broad picture of what Palestinians have been going through for a lifetime or more.

Up to this point I have been trying very hard to find some logic in the Israeli policies in Occupied Palestine, even if they are all wrong to me; to dig under it all in search for some human impulses buried in there, to try to "balance" myself. In the meantime it’s very easy to concentrate on blaming the settlers for it all and forget about the fact that it’s the Israeli government that stands behind them. Yes, the Israeli government does destroy a settlement occasionally and this goes all over the news and they patch up like this what would have been otherwise a too bad of a world opinion. The on-the-ground situation speaks of a very different picture though: the settlement’s fences move down few meters every now and then, ever so slowly they steal more and more land. It’s not done in a sudden and shocking manner, no, it happens in a very stealthy and sneaky way, bit by bit. Then the settlers burn the land around the settlement so that the Palestinian owner gives it up at some point or is too afraid to step foot on it; thus this land is taken over too. The settlements are everywhere in the West Bank now and they keep on growing, it’s so disheartening, so depressing to observe. I have been here for two months and yet I could already witness their growth myself: what was empty land the last time is all built up in a couple of days the next week you are there. But here I got carried away, it was the army I wanted to talk about and here I deviated from the topic exactly as I predicted.

What was it that “woke me up” during this Friday demonstration? I did very well know that coming here as a peace activist and going to demonstrations against the Occupation, against the Wall or anything against the policies of the Israeli government may lead to me being detained. Hearing an international like me was detained along with a Palestinian should not have been that shocking.

Israel has two different law systems when it comes to people detained (and then they argue they are not an Apartheid state!). Until 2002 there was Civil System that was valid for Israelis and Internationals alike. Then the Separation Barrier was built separating the West Bank from Israel. The international solidarity movement with the Palestinians grew and as more and more internationals started to demonstrate along with Palestinians, a certain "Ministry of Interior" had to be created in order to deal solely with these internationals-Rachel Corries. Thus internationals fall now into a third legal system, in between the Palestinians and the Israelis. They can be detained for 24 hours, after which their case should go the civil court and it doesn’t because there are no ground for them to be detained in the first place. Nothing like that happens to Palestinians. They can be detained with no charges pressed against them (Administrative Detention) for indefinite period of time. Whatever the case, internationals today are privileged in occupied Palestine. It feels unfair to be treated differently than any other human being and at the same time it’s difficult not to take use of this privilege by being here and protesting against it.

Seeing "one of us” gettng detained and knowing it could have been me, the brutality in the Occupational army's shutting down our protest this Friday, getting gassed more than what I'm used to, all of this made me finally open my eyes a little: there was nothing "human" in any of this and I'd better stop digging for it or trying to understand any "other side". Here's a video of the two arrests that took place: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grli-nG_g-o&feature=player_embedded

I also felt left out in how vulnerable I felt after the demonstration; everyone seemed to be doing fine emotionally while I was in a wreck of state for the rest of the day. Whoever got arrested, Palestinian and International alike, was taken away in jeeps. Whoever got injured, or inhaled too much tear gas, was taken away in ambulance. The rest of us went to the lunch organized in advance to commemorate the memory of Yasser Arafat.

Everyone had moved on. I was sitting next to a Palestinian man and he was trying to make me eat, rolling the musakhan for me and shoveling it in my hands. In the same moment an activist received a message from the international arrested saying soldiers had just taken turns to hit him. They spat on the Palestinian man and made him crouch with his head between his legs. And here we were, having lunch. How could that be? Then I looked around at the faces around me. The man who made the sandwich for me had been in prison for 8 years. Another one had been released not a long time ago after a year in prison. The rest knew they could be arrested for asking for their rights anytime as well. The other internationals had more experience than me, they all already knew. Nobody was about to sit there and get depressed. Palestinians get arrested all the time. As to the international: yes, they may beat him up a little, but it won’t be anything serious. It’s like moving your fence down the road to steal more land: nobody hears about it because it’s done with measure. They weren’t going to beat him up severely so that a big story comes out after this and the media roars with reports about it. All evil is done in a cold well-measured and well-thought manner.