Entries this day: Dream Jerusalem Ramallah_means_hill_of_God

Dream

7:18am IST Sunday 09 October 2005

On top of a super tall balcony and needed to get down to the hotel below, I knew I should be able to control my descent due to unknown reasons (*). I stepped off the ledge and fell pretty quickly but was able to swoop around to the left and then back upward to make my entry into the hotel. I was off course the first time, so I went upward through the trees or roof of some building and tried again. The second time I was on track and went straight through the doors and into the hotel where I landed safely.

(*) I didn't think, "this is a dream," but "I know I should be able to do whatever I want in this world, but I'm a bit afraid to try, but I just gotta trust and do it."

Jerusalem

Jerusalem

I'm in Jerusalem!

I haven't really seen anything undeniably inappropriate, but there is definitely a
distinction between areas for Palestinians and  areas for Israelis, and definitely
some weird stuff going on.

For the past two days, I've been staying in Faisal Hostel, basically across the
street from Damascus Gate, a portal between the Old City of Jerusalem, and the rest
of Jerusalem.  The Old City is where a lot of biblical stories took place,
including where Jesus was tortured and paraded through town, if I understand
correctly.

Twice I've wandered around the Old City, which seems a lot like the world's
original shopping mall, but with churches and people with machine guns keeping us
in line.

Once I wandered around a market in an Israeli area of town, where I was surprised
to see a significant number of civilians with guns tucked into their belts.  What
type of bizarro world have I reached??

This month the muslims are celebrating Ramadan, and last night the Israeli soldiers
were 2500 strong around the Old City, controlling entrance where people were trying
to go pray.  At one point the soldiers launched sound bombs to disperse the crowd
that had collected near Damascus Gate.   The Palestinians hadn't been doing
anything violent.  I had just been out there getting some food.

Today my friend Niveen (from P/B) came to visit, and gave me her old cell
phone!  She took me to get a simcard and then to the Palestinian Vision office
where I met Ramy, the Middle East Coordinator for P/B!  He speaks 100 miles
per hour and invited me to come by anytime I'd like to help with writing or
editing.  Fantastic numbers of doors are opening for me.

I'll stick with my original plan for now; I'm going to be trained tomorrow and the
next day by people from ISM before participating in the olive harvest.  Ramy
assured me that 1 month is far too long for me to pick olives every day, and said
I'd be welcome back whenever I was done picking olives.

So so much to learn; so many people I'll be meeting tomorrow!

    Peace and Love
      - Rob 

Ramallah means hill of God

9:25am IST Sunday 09 October 2005

Ramallah means "hill of God." Traveling to the hill of God requires traveling through un-Godlike conditions, nothing like what Heaven should be. Roads all pot-holed and speed-bumped and occassionally semi-blocked with rather large random piles of concrete chunks or other rubbish.

The hour drive would be about 20 minutes except for the condition of the road and a checkpoint which disallows vehicles to pass. We had to get out of our bus, walk along a rough gravel path with razor wire borders, through a one way revolving gate, all within an otherwise desolate area with halting stages of construction projects all around, with the basic plan of sealing the checkpoint with a big fucking wall.

The new, far-larger waiting area is under construction. This will be for Palestinians who are trying to exit the Ramallah area or something. I'm still not 100% sure on terminology, but I think it's for Palestinians who are trying to exit the West Bank.

Once we got through the checkpoint, we piled into a taxi and headed the rest of the way to a hotel.

The following pics can all be described as between the checkpoint and the hotel we used in Ramallah.

This hotel has a pool!

We've arrived at a hotel in Ramallah where we will have training for the Olive Harvest. Got about 8 trainees chillin' in chairs now while the trainers get their stuff set up.

Present at the training:

Gabriel
Sarah
Ulf
Per
Gunter
Caorla
Johan
Rob

Sections: hopes and fears, culture, security, checkpoints, etc

Our hopes: learn and educate friends, contribute to people on the ground via ISM, support someone who is living in crisis and tell people back home what is happening, have moments of inspiration, prepare materials for work back at home, hope ISM can make some progress with issues within the organization, hope I have a good experience meeting friends in Gaza, learn more and more and be useful in this difficult situation, doing our best for the people here, report back to friends and produce some written materials.

Suggestion that we write down our experiences; our peers cannot believe it's true how people are treated here.

Our fears: don't want to be hurt, don't want to be arrested, don't want to be deported, was afraid I wouldn't be able to get in, afraid of not getting the chance to do what we wanted to do, a bit afraid of what we might see, but trying to be mentally prepared. afraid of not being allowed to come back into the country, afraid for the Palestinians, afraid of infighting within Palestinians, afraid of an intifada, fears about ISM internal structure and ISM's role in the conflict. Fear that ISM cannot adapt to new needs of Palestinians. Afraid of losing my written / audio / video / photographic evidence of what we see here.

11:14am IST Sunday 09 October 2005

Interesting that we are seeing some of the interal problems with ISM: he said she said there are too many trainers and who will do what part of what, etc.

11:22am IST Sunday 09 October 2005

Culture:

Ramadan: tear gas intake is okay because it's un-intentional.

alsalam alykom (wazzap)

wa alykom alsalam (wazzap)

ana nabaty (I'm vegetarian (male))

ana nabatyah (I'm vegetarian (female))

futul (breakfast)

eat as much as possible

kol (eat more (male))

koli (eat more (female))

We must "must is M-U-S-T" we must eat sweets after food.

Men are not allowed in the kitchen.

no toilet paper down the toilet.

Only walk in groups of three or more.

Security:

Check all yer stuff for evidence of activist activity, especially computers.. Throw that shit onto CD and mail it home from Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.

ISM Principles:

Non-violent

Palestinian led

Group actions

Affinity Groups:

Affinity groups are small groups that stay aware of each other. They usually contain people who are designated as

Arrestables / non-arrestables
Medic
Media contact
report writer
Photo / video recorder
Legal
Scout
Communication
Translator
Facilitator

We should know stuff about our affinity groups:

Names
phone #s
roles
arrestability
health issues
how they to react to violence

Consensus:

1. Define problem
2. Clarify
3. Discuss
4. Make proposal
5. Clarify proposal
6. Discuss proposal
7. Modify proposal
8. Test for consensus
   1. restate proposal
   2. everyone understand?
   3. any blocks?
   4. any stand asides?
   5. all in favor?
9. If blocked, or asides stood, discuss
10. implement

Roles:

Facilitator
Time keeper
Note taker
Vibe watcher / caretaker
Stacker (who's next to speak)

Action Planning Agenda:

Information sharing
goals / actions
roles
specific action plan
logistics (clothing / bring / time)
communication system
awareness of other groups
evaluation plan

Dealing with settlers:

Settlers are Israeli citizens who have moved onto formerly Palestinian land. Sometimes they get really mad when Palestinians are harvesting olives on what both factions think is their land.

Intervene if they are harassing/attacking Palestinians

document their activities if they are inappropriate

call the police

5:03pm IST Sunday 09 October 2005

This training is going quite nicely. A lot of the stuff I have heard/seen before in YRUU anti-racism training and in my men's group, so it seems to be coming naturally.

We did a role play as activists with soldiers screaming at us, and I just opened up like in men's group, allowing him to scream and threaten, etc.

Terms:

Intifada: Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation

Nakba: Israeli independence 1948

Naksa: Israeli winning war in 1967

Closure: stopping access to Gaza and West Bank / or blocking portions of cities

Curfew: military enforced time during which people may not leave their houses
        activists often break curfew

Checkpoint: permanent -vs- flying (temporary), all traffic is stopped and checked

Roadblock: permanent impassable by traffic

Greenline: UN resolution 181 in 1947 declared a border between Israel and Gaza/West Bank

Closed Military Zones: no international citizens are allowed in these areas.
                       They must show a map and are supposed to give a copy upon request.

Refugee Camp: filled with displaced Palestinians

Internal refugee: in West Bank or Gaza

External refugee: elsewhere in the world

DCO: District Coordination Office (between Palestinians and Israeli govt/military)

IDF: Israeli Defense Force
IOF: Israeli Occupation Force

Hamoked: human rights organization.  Call them when Palestinians are detained at checkpoints

IWPS: International Women's Peace Service

CPT: Christian Peacemaker Teams have been around a long time in Palestine
     They were red hats

EAPPI: Teams from around the world who strictly observe passively.

TIPH: Temporary International Presence in Hebron - official
      government presence to monitor military in Hebron

6:30pm IST Sunday 09 October 2005

Regions supported by ISM:

Qawawis: village with lots of problems with settlers

Nablus: none but long termers there now.

Bilin: non violent resistence continuous here. Demonstrations every Friday. Military is there at least once a week and check IDs of people in their homes.

Hebron: the only city where the settlers are actually in the city and expanding outward. Very holy site to Muslims, Jews, Christians. Great deal of settler violence toward Palestinians. Tons of stuff going on there every day.

Ramadan Campaign: monitoring activity in and around the Old City on Fridays during Ramadan