That’s all folks!

So, I think I must wrap up here.  There is lots more that I could say, but I don’t think I can make the committment to keep up the blog.  I have the ‘to do’ list to get on with.  Amongst the list of things to do is to give the money I’ve collected for maternity care in Palestine, to be distributed by the NGO I’ve been working with.  I have raised £1280.  I am cagey about my contacts on the blog, wanting to keep things more or less anonymous.  But if you want to add to that figure get in touch via the comments and I can email you more about the NGO and the purposes to which money will put – partly to support the development of a professional midwifery organization and partly for low-cost equipment.

Jewishness interrogated

At the airport there is more waiting in line.  First there is the pre-security check, then the bag check for checked luggage, then the screening for carry on, then the border control, then the checking of exit stamps.  This is what I have been worried about, that I will be asked whether I have been in the West Bank and what my business is there.  In fact, the pre-security screening takes a different, more surreal, form.  Do I have family in Israel?  Where do they live?  What are their names?  I provide the relevant information and the Jewishness of family names is apparently reassuring.  What is my middle name?  Does it have any significance?  Yes, I reply, it is Yiddish.  The woman on border control looks puzzled.  Do I speak Yiddish?  No, it is my great-grandmother’s name.  I explain the etymology, and the suffix to form a diminutive.  ”Oh, okay, good to know.”  Do I speak Hebrew?  Not really, I reply.  Not for practical purposes.  Have I ever learnt it?  Yes, for reading the siddur (prayerbook).  But you don’t speak Hebrew?  I explain that my limited siddur Hebrew is pretty useless in Israel.  I get a sticker that says I’ve passed the test.  I can’t help feeling that Modern Hebrew would have proved my credentials better than my Yiddish middle name or familiarity with the siddur.

Nablus is under curfew, we are all accused and I stand with Palestinians at Qalandia

As I am getting ready to leave, there is news that a family has been killed in the settlement of Itamar, near Nablus.  A father, mother and three children have been stabbed to death.  Netanyahu immediately declares the Palestinians and the Palestinian Authority responsible. Nablus and the surrounding area are under curfew.  As I travel from Ramallah to Jerusalem I hear three different perspectives on the events.

My hosts in Jifna shake their heads, worried.  It is horrible, to kill children.  They do not believe it was a Palestinian. How is it possible?  They ask.  The settlement of Itamar is a fortress, surrounded by electric fence with sensors and barbed wire, guarded by soldiers and guards from the settlement, CCTV watching everywhere.  The settlers wear guns, have dogs.  And yet a Palestinian supposedly entered the settlement undetected, killed not one but five people at close range with a knife.  And then left the settlement undetected with no alarm raised until the discovery of their bodies in the morning.  No dogs barked, no CCTV spotted him, no fence sensors activated.  It is a bit like a detective novel, if it were not so real, so horrible.  It is true that it does seem extraordinary that anyone was able to get in and out so easily.  To stab a family at close range, to stab children, it is not possible.  They do not believe it was a Palestinian.  The settlers at Itamar are all crazy, they are capable of anything.  They speculate that one of their own community has lost the plot and the blame of Palestinians is convenient.  Not all killings are terrorism they remind me.  But this event makes all Palestinians into terrorists in the minds of the international community.  It will be an excuse for settlement expansion.   Horrible, to kill children.  We move on to other subjects – the protests in Yemen, the killing of the Al Jazeera camerman in Libya.  I am packed and get a lift to the pick up point for the local ‘service’ to Ramallah, and from there take the Number 18 bus which should take me through the checkpoint at Qalandia to Damascus Gate in Jerusalem.

As we approach the checkpoint the Palestinians with West Bank IDs and permits (for which they have applied more than 20 days in advance) get off the bus and go to a hall to wait to enter through the checkpoint.  Seven seats are vacated, everyone else remaining has Israeli or Jerusalem ID.  Except me.  I have my foreign passport, so I can stay on the bus.  The traffic slows to a crawl and when we really come to a standstill I look at the time.  I will measure how long it takes to pass this checkpoint from this moment.  Now each bus is being checked individually.  The process is slow.  Palestinians must get off the bus and wait in line, unless they are over a specified age.  We are several buses back, and every so often the engine starts up and we move a bus length forward.  I ask the woman next to me if she will need to get off the bus and wait in line.  She shakes her head and replies that she has a Jersualem ID and is over 65 years of age, so will be allowed to stay on the bus.  (Older people with West Bank IDs and permits must always get off the bus).  Before we get to the front of the queue of buses a Palestinian man comes on and counts the empty seats.  Soon seven people from a bus further back have got on our bus.  There is a lot of this sort of informal organization around the checkpoint.

Eventually our bus is at the front.  Most people get off and line up in the cage for Israeli ID holders.  A couple of Israeli soldiers come on the bus, their guns dangling, to check the IDs of those of us staying on the bus.  My passport is taken from me.  I ask why I cannot stay on the bus.  I explainthat I was told that foreign passport holders can stay on the bus.  The Israeli soldier ignores me and hangs on to my passport.  The woman next to me also has her ID taken.  When the checking is finished the soldier gets off the bus, still holding my passport.  So, we must get off the bus it seems.  My passport is given back to me and I am dismissed to stand with the Palestinians who have Israeli IDs.  It is fine by me, except that I have a flight to catch and things to do in Jerusalem before leaving for the airport.

Next to me in the line is a Palestinian man who speaks English with an American accent.  ”So, today you are Palestinian” he says.  ”It seems so.”  The line moves painfully slowly.  There is a turnstile, which lets through people one by one.  Sometimes two by two if the border control (or are they soldiers?) are feeling generous.  It is an opportunity to have a long conversation.  I tell Faris (for that is his name) about my time in Hebron and Qalqilya, visiting the hospitals.  He was a teacher, but now he has taken an administrative job in an educational charity.  With the checkpoint, he cannot guarantee to be in the classroom on time, but the job he has now starts at 11am and they understand if he is late, as he will be today.  I ask about the woman over sixty-five who was made to get off the bus.  Sometimes you are allowed on if you are over sixty-five, sometimes eighty-five, sometimes one hundred and five.  You can never tell.  It is whatever the soldier that day decides.

I ask if it is always like this, if tourists cannot stay on the bus.  Normally they can, he says, but today it is worse than normal, on account of the killings at Itamar, the curfew of the Nablus area.  ”Something happened there, and now we are all accused.”  I repeat to him the views of my hosts at the guesthouse, that they do not understand how a Palestinian could have entered and left the settlement to commit the crime completely undetected. He shrugs.  It is true, he continues, that no group has claimed responsibility*  but even if it is a Palestinian, it is not every Palestinian in the West Bank. They are the minority of the minority of the minority, who would even contemplate doing such a thing, but we are all accused.  ”Even you” he says.  ”Look you are English – they don’t even know their own history, how you English are their friends, the Balfour declaration – but they see you as the enemy, because you come on the bus with us from Ramallah.”  And we are all together here, all made Palestinian by the checkpoint.  He is a Muslim, but I am a Christian, right?  Actually,  I am Jewish I tell him.   He smiles, it does not matter “But today you are Palestinian.”  He asks whether I was Jewish in Hebron – a more conservative area, less tolerant perhaps –  to which I replied that no one asked and it was not relevant.  He tells of how he was in the US after 9/11 and that it also suited him to ‘pass’ as Greek or Italian rather than be identified as Arab.

Finally, we are at the front.  I apolgise for my luggage, it will prevent someone else joining me, two by two, in the turnstile.  I put my bags and coat through the X-ray machine, show my passport and visa at the window, collect my things and then go through two more turnstiles.  I get on a waiting bus on the other side. In all, I have been more than 90 minutes at Qalandia checkpoint.  It is okay, I will still make my flight.  I cannot imagine what it must be like to do this every day.

When I get to my friend in Jerusalem I have only a little time to sort out the things I need to do before my flight.  I tell her I was delayed at Qalandia.  She says it is because of the killings at Itamar.  Yes, I say, repeating Faris’s words “We are all accused”.  She responds that she wouldn’t put it like that, it is just increased security, though pointless, after the horse has bolted.  It is not that all are accused, it is just that everyone is guilty until proven innocent.  I’m afraid I cannot make out the distinction.

*since then the ‘Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades of Imad Mughniyeh’ is reported to have claimed the killings (not to be confused with the more well known Fatah-linked Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades not of Imad Maghniyeh).

Some Photos

A conversation in the ‘service’

After my meeting in Ramallah I spend some time in the city and in late afternoon take a shared taxi (a ‘service’ – a Ford minivan) back to Jifna.  I am sitting next to a man whose hands are covered in building dust.  He welcomes me to Palestine (I cannot count the number of welcomes I have received since I’ve been here) and asks me how I find things here.  I tell him I have found that the people are very courageous and (what other word can I use) welcoming, that the land is often beautiful, but the situation is shocking, terrible, more than anyone should have to bear. 

He asks me my business here and I describe my time in the hospitals, meeting with midwives and doctors.   I ask what work he does and am surprised when he answers that he is a teacher.  He graduated from Birzeit in 1992 and teaches the penultimate year of secondary school.  He earns so little in the public sector that on Friday and Saturday (his days off) he goes to work on a building site with his brother.  His stop is before mine.  "Salaam, bonne chance."

I have a ‘to do’ list

I have been meeting with people at Birzeit and at the NGO here in Ramallah.  I have prepared for myself a long ‘to do’ list for when I get back: emails to send, reports to write, articles to publish, talks to give, connections to maintain and to make.  I want to come back here when I am more experienced.  I want to facilitate something more lasting, more valuable.  I do not want to do it alone.  I know there are many more  readers of this blog than commentators.  Last week I averaged 150 page views a day, and on my ‘peak day’ had almost 300.  

I hope there are a good number of midwives and student midwives amongst the readers, and that maybe some would be interested in developing some kind of connection with Palestinian midwives.  Or perhaps the non-midwifery audience wants to stay in touch with how these links I’ve been making develop. 

In any case, if you comment you leave your email address though it is not published.  It seems a good way to stay in touch with this temporary community of readers after the end of my visit and the end of this blog.   So – comment on this post and I can email you very occasionally to update on anything that comes out of this visit.  If you don’t want your comment published, just state that in your comment.

"I did not understand, I should have come sooner"

When I was in Bil’in yesterday, a couple staying at the guesthouse went to Jerusalem.  They are  from France, though she is originally American.  Like me, they are Jewish.  I saw them when they arrived back late at the guesthouse last night.  She was visibly upset, shaking, tearful.  He was furious, enraged.  What had their day been like to make them so upset?

They had gone to witness the protests at Sheikh Jarrah, of which I have written before.  They took the bus from Ramallah to Jerusalem.  At Qalandia checkpoint, as foreign passport holders, they could have stayed on the bus and have their documents checked.  It would likely have been quick and easy.  Instead they chose to experience Qalandia as Palestinians trying to reach Jerusalem, on foot.  They queued for almost three hours in the rain and cold, all of them together with men and women, young  and old, children, babies, the ill, the infirm, Muslims, Christians and these two Jews.

What they experienced there has broken their hearts.  The humiliation of ordinary people wanting to pray at Al Aqsa.  The obstacles placed in the way of people wanting to reach what is, in their hearts, their capital city – for all that Ramallah is the administrative capital.  The flippancy and arrogance of the young Israelis in uniform who man the checkpoint.  The pointlessness of the slow queue.  The intimidation of children.  Still, despite the frustration and the wait the people there are so kind. Talk freely with this foreign Jewish couple about their lives.  Share their food and conversation.

The man returns enraged.  He wanted to ask a soldier why, behind the glass, he is so afraid of babies that they must be made to wait for three hours. Why he holds up the passage of old women.  He wanted an explanation.  Something to tell people when they ask why Qalandia must be this hellish humiliation.  What rationale, what justification?  He is told that if he confronts the soldier it will hold up the line still further.  And if he was Palestinian he could not risk such a confrontation.  To be allowed to pass requires passivity, acceptance of the humiliation and even then is not guaranteed.

The woman tells me how she has been really affected.  This is the culmination of everything she has seen here.  "I did not understand, I should have come sooner.  I have wasted so much time."  She is so hurt, so distressed, by the actions of Jews here.  "It makes me really hate my people" she says.  Perhaps she is not just speaking of Israelis, but also of members of her community who would excuse this situation, who would rationalize the status quo (echoes of "it’s all so complicated, so messy").  I remind her that Israelis were on the demonstration in Bil’in, in Sheik Jarrah.  I tell her of organizations like Jews for Justice for Palestinians and their equivalents in other countries.  It is not enough.  It is something.  But for those not yet standing up against this injustice, do not say you do not understand.  Come and stand in line amongst Palestinians at Qalandia, as this Jewish couple did.  Do not end up in the position of saying you should have come sooner.  Do not break your own heart.

Going to Bil’in

My plan in Jifna was to hang out in the village and take a walk in the countryside here.  The weather is atrocious and a couple of other guests here decide to go to Bil’in for the regular Friday demonstration.  I had said I would not go to this sort of action.  I do not want to get hurt or arrested.  You will be fine, my hosts reassure me.  Stay at the back, no problem.  I am reassured, and since there are other guests who want to go I will have company and someone to share the taxi fares with.  It is Friday and transport is not as easy as other days, but we manage to find a shared taxi easily.  We are two Canadians and two from Britain.

We are dropped in Bil’in at the meeting point for internationals and Israelis who have come to support the demonstration by Palestinians against the wall.  The village of Bil’in is small, about 1800 people.  Before the wall it had 4,000 dunums of agricultural land, but the villagers were cut off from 2,300 dunums by the path of the wall.  Their struggle against the wall has been going on for more than six years and has involved both direct action – non-violent protests, both traditional and ‘creative’ – and legal.  Sometimes they dress up, do performance art, chain themselves to olive trees. More often the Palestinians, Israeli supporters and internationals march from the centre of the village to the barrier, which is a fence with barbed and razor wire on this section.  Today is a conventional march.  Before we leave the leader of the Popular Committee, who is the brother of Abdullah Rahman currently in prison, explains the history of the protests.  They are non-violent and unified – there is no place for splits in Bil’in.  The Israeli supreme court has ruled in favour of the village of Bil’in regarding the route of the wall, and their persistent protests have led to some significant victories.    He talks a bit about how Bil’in was inspired by the actions of the villagers of Budrus, and how Bil’in inspires other villages to resist the passage of the wall.  He talks of the many international dignatories who have been here and thanks us for our presence, for helping keep the eyes of the world on Bil’in. It is funny to be put in the same bracket as Jimmy Carter!

Next one of the Israelis gives a briefing of a more practical nature, since we are new here and do not know what to expect.  His advice is as follows:

#1 Tear Gas. The IDF are sure to use it against the demonstration.  When you hear the canister shot into the air, be sure to look where it is and make sure you don’t get hit.  This is the main risk, to be hit directly by a canister.  The IDF are meant to only fire the canister to land 10 metres from people, but sometimes they break their own rules.  This is when it gets dangerous.  As for tear gas itself, it can make you feel you are going to die, but actually if you don’t panic you will be okay.  Do not rub your eyes.  Do not rub your skin.  Do not drink water straight away.  Do not run, as you risk falling.  Do not run, as you will breathe more deeply.  Do not hyperventilate.  Try to cover your face and smell something strong (after shave, onion, alcohol rub) to remind yourself that you can still breathe.  The burning sensation in eyes and throat and nose will pass.  Walk away from the direction of the gas.  If you need help grab someone close to you to escort you away.

#2 Sound bombs.  The IDF sometimes roll these along the ground.  They are frightening but harmless.  If you see something rolled toward you (rather than falling from the sky) put your hands to your ears and walk away.

#3 Rubber-coated metal bullets.  The IDF only tend to use these where there are youngsters throwing stones.  The demonstration leaders cannot prevent the young boys throwing stones.  The only thing to do is to try to put some distance between yourself and the youngsters.  The IDF are meant only to aim for the legs and lower body with rubber-coated bullets.  And if you are hit by one here, then you will leave with a bruise.  No mention is made of what happens if you are hit in the head.  Keep distance between yourself and any youngster who throws stones.  Do not get between the IDF and the youngsters.

#4 Stink water.  I was a bit unclear as to what this is.  Sewage perhaps.  It is fired from a water cannon.  Avoid it.  It will get in your clothes and you will smell for days.

#5 Arrest.  The IDF may come through the gate and grab you. It is likely to be random.  If you are arrested you have the right to remain silent.  There are observers who will call a lawyer on your behalf.  Internationals are generally released without charge within 12 hours.

After all this I am terrified.  I particularly do not want to be arrested – it would be a really bad end to a good trip.  Being on the receiving end of a rubber-coated bullet could be an even worse end.  I am a physical coward.  Also I do not want to put the NGO who have arranged things for me in a difficult situation, although I am on my ‘own time’ here, at my own risk.  But  I am again reassured by Israeli activists.  Look, we have to tell you the worst, for your own protection.  No one has been arrested for ages.  Tear gas is your main enemy.  I begin to realize it is something like the consent for caesarean section when women are warned of the risk of bleeding, infection, hysterectomy, death.  We have to tell you the risks.  It could happen.  But we take precautions.  Stick with us, you will be okay.  And I want to see this, after everything I have seen of the wall and its effects. It seems important to be here where the people are resisting so powerfully, to be in solidarity with these people.

The march sets off and I walk alongside an Israeli who has come here from Tel Aviv.  We talk about how marginal his voice is in Israel.  Most of his friends would not do this.  They might be against the occupation, but to actually put themselves on the side of Palestinians protesting injustice would be going too far.  The leaders of the Popular Committee lead the chanting – Arabic and then English slogans against the occupation, against the wall.  When we reach the wall there is a truck with a water cannon.  Watch out for the stink water, the Israeli says to me. We are standing near the back, not too close.  Still, we should be ready to run.  When it comes, it turns out to be a jet of green paint.  I try to get a good picture but it is tricky to capture.  The green paint is new I am told.

A few youngsters throw stones in the direction of the wall, they don’t have the reach to get near the IDF.  And then the tear gas starts.  I have been in many demonstrations in my life.  I will be joining the Royal College of Midwives banner on the TUC demonstration against the cuts later this month.  But this is something new.  First you hear the canister go up,  and then you see it come down, some distance away (I am standing far from the action) and then the plume of gas.  At first the gas is undetectable, but when the wind is in your direction and even far from the gas plume, you taste it and feel it.  It is really nasty.  The Israeli I’m with pulls his scarf up over his mouth and nose, and then makes sure I need no help with mine. This is something like the instructions about oxygen on the aircraft – attend to yourself first, you are no good to anyone if you are choking.  He has some aftershave in his bag and sprays some on his wrist and then some on mine.  It is true that smelling it helps, even if it is purely psychological.  Here is a use for unwanted gifts of Old Spice and Brut.  It is hard to position yourself so that you are entirely unaffected, even standing quite a distance from the demonstration itself. I do not panic, I observe the advice I have been given.  It is true that the effect passes.   I am more a spectator now, and I can’t imagine what it is like to be right at the front where the gas canisters are coming down.  There is still a crowd there.  Some of the boys pick up gas canisters and throw them back in the direction of the IDF (of course, their throws do not have the reach of the canister fire).  I don’t know how they can stand to do it.

The demonstration is muted today on account of the weather and I am told the IDF response is pretty muted too, although how tear gas and water cannon can be called muted I don’t know.  After the demonstration here some of the Israelis are going to Sheik Jarrah to protest against the settlers taking over Palestinian houses there. I wish them well, but I do not want to go with them. I have had enough excitement for one day.  I travel back to Ramallah in a shared taxi and meet a Palestinian journalist who has been covering the demonstration.  We have lots of interesting chat about the situation here and in the wider Arab world. He gives me some contacts for people in Israeli and Palestinian health NGOs, including a midwife. Serendipity.  A quick tour of the Old City in Ramallah and I am ready to get back to the guesthouse. This was meant to be my day off.

Two stories from a village outside Ramallah

I am staying just outside Ramallah in the village of Jifna, which is very close to Birzeit University.  Tomorrow I am meeting a faculty member from the Institute of Community and Public Health at Birzeit, so I am conveniently located here.  Jifna is in Area B, under Palestinian Authority municipal control, but with Israeli control of security.   The break in this small village gives me a breathing space at the end of a busy trip.  The weather has turned a bit nasty though, rainy and cold, just as I’m finished with my hospital placements and ready for some sight seeing.

I am staying in a guesthouse here, and I am told a couple of stories that I thought I would share with you.  One concerns the son of a neighbour.  He has just returned home after two and half years in prison.  He was imprisoned at age fifteen for the crime of throwing stones in the direction of the settlement here, Beit El.  He maintained that he was innocent of the charge, simply picked up with a crowd of local youngsters.  In any case, two and half years for the crime of throwing stones seems a long sentence, especially since creating and occupying an illegal settlement has no penalty at all.  He has missed the end of his high school education and at the age of  eighteen does not want to return to a class of kids of fifteen.  Since his release he has not left the house but stays in his room.  My landlady was a social worker before retirement. She says if this young man shows no interest in life outside the house in another few days  she will go to speak with him.  Without a high school diploma he cannot go to university.  Maybe he will be able to go to work with his father.  But first he has to leave the house.  This is how lives are wrecked.

Imprisonment is a very common experience for Palestinian men.  As I talk to people I begin to realize just how common.  The hospital driver who invited me to eat with his family outside Hebron has a daughter who is engaged to young man currently in prison.  They do not know when he will be released.  Soon, they hope.  The ‘professor’ in Qalqilya, such a cultured man, mentions in passing that he was in prison in the 1970s.  Everyone has been in prison, has had a member of their family in prison or knows someone in prison.  In the protests against the wall at Bil’in there have been over a hundred arrests, most of them children.

The other story concerns the children of Jalazone, the refugee camp next to Jifna.  My landlord tells me that in the past year, four children from there have been killed, shot dead, by settlers of the neighbouring settlement Beit El.  I asked what investigation was made, what action taken, what charges brought, what penalty exacxted, against the settlers involved.  My hosts shrug.  “Nothing?” I ask, still incredulous, though I don’t know why I am.  “Nothing. They are above the law.”

And here a Palestinian boy can get two and half years in prison, and his future wrecked, for being amongst other youngsters throwing stones.

The penny finally drops….

One of the issues I had been concerned about is the effect of restrictions of movement on care for women in labour, about delays at checkpoints and women giving birth in transit or while waiting.  I had always been puzzled by the high mortality associated with these incidents.  After all, women have been giving birth without medical assistance since the dawn of time, why were checkpoint births having such poor outcomes with high rates of neonatal mortality.  I knew it was the case, but could not understand why.  Here in Qalqilya I finally understood it.  Neither of the hospitals in Qalqilya has a neonatal intensive care unit, and so women in premature labour are transferred to other units in larger towns with appropriate facilities.  To do so they must pass through Area C  (Israeli controlled) and so risk facing a checkpoint on their way to the receiving hospital.

Women likely to be delayed at a checkpoint in labour are not a random cross-section of the pregnant population.  They are the most vulnerable, the high risk cases who must be transferred, or women who need the services of a tertiary care hospital.  Women in premature labour giving birth to 32 weekers, women carrying twins, women with pre-eclampsia, women carrying babies with congential abnormalities who must be born in a tertiary centre.  Why had I not understood this before?