PNN:  Could you speak to why this General Assembly is so important? Why the Presbyterians have it?

Jeff Halper: The United States is different from Europe.  The churches here really have a voice.  Now, it’s true that these are mainstream churches. It might be more important to do these in an evangelical church in the States, but nevertheless, there’s Presbyterians, the Methodists, the Lutherans, the United Church for Christ, the Episcopalians.  The Catholics we haven’t managed to break through with.  But the mainstream Presbyterian, Protestant denominations are still very, very important.

I bet you twenty percent or so of congress is probably Presbyterian if not a quarter.  And they have a moral voice beyond their numbers.  When the Presbyterian Church makes a resolution, that really is listened to.  So from that point of view I think it’s a strategic decision to devote a lot of time to the different churches here.

I might not do that in Europe. In Europe I go more for human rights organizations and political groups and unions.  For example unions are very strong. Unions in the States are very weak and they tend to be more if not rightwing than certainly mainstream.  The Unions here aren’t going to go for this like they would in Europe.  On the other hand the churches here are plugged into this much more than churches in Europe.  Although the churches in Europe are good. We work with Pax Christi, which is a Catholic group, in Germany and Holland.  We work with the Catholics in France, we work with the Anglicans in Britain. They’re very strong.  We do work with churches, but they have less clout in Europe than they have here.

PNN:  Have you seen any of the responses to this General Assembly from groups criticizing it, such as B’nai B’rith?  Note: B’nai B’rith, along with some other Jewish advocacy groups have issued statements that have criticized the Presbyterian General Assembly report.

JH:  I’m sure.  This guy Abe Foxman (National Director of the Anti-Defamation League), one of their main guys. That’s what I was talking about before, about the organized Jewish community.  They’re the organized voice, and they have the organization and they have the money and they have the access to the media and political leaders.  But they’re not elected.  They’re not known by the mainstream Jewish community. I don’t think they necessarily represent Jews in this country.  So their voice is disproportionate to their actual representation of Jews here (in the U.S.) So, what do I care what they say[laughs]. They’re not really representing anybody but themselves.

PNN: You had a chance to see Avraham Burg speak last night. He said something about the occupation essentially being very easy to undo. As if you could flip a switch and that Israel would be gone from the West Bank. Do you see that as being the case? Note: Avraham Burg is an Israeli and former member of the Knesset.  He is also the Author of the book: “The Holocaust is over, we must rise from its Ashes”

JH: No, that’s ridiculous.  I don’t know where it’s coming from.  There’s a problem, a guy like Burg. He’s a thinker. He really moved (ideologically) especially from where he was brought up.  He’s written some books that are interesting.  He’s a bright guy. Within Israel.   Within Israel, he’s free; he’ll be critical of that discussion.  When you go outside…there’s this concept in Israel of not showing your dirty laundry in public. There is a real fear of delegitimizing Israel.  And there’s a defensiveness, because you know that Israel is doing bad things. You know Israel’s culpable.  But you don’t want to go out and say it to a bunch of Christians in Minneapolis.  So, you end up pulling your punches. You come because you want to somehow progress peace.  But you don’t really say what you think.

I don’t think Burg really believes most of it.  Mitri Raheb (Pastor of the Christmas Church in Bethlehem, and who also spoke at the event with Avraham Burg) said something right.  He said, “you don’t like Boycotts? Give me something.  Give me another tool.  We tried negotiations. So what do you want me to do if I can’t boycott?”  Because Burg came out against Boycott.  So Burg says, well if we got 500,000 Israelis and 500,000 Palestinians to march on the wall, it would fall.  You are not going to get 500,000. It’s ridiculous.  And he knows it’s ridiculous.

PNN: It wouldn’t be allowed.

JH: First of all the Palestinians would get shot. And second of all you wouldn’t get (that number), even if Israelis could do it somewhere.  Look you could get, if this became a campaign, and Burg was there, and Yossi Beilin and some of these people came out, you might get on a nice sunny day, you might get a crowd, you could get 50,000, which would be a pretty big thing.  But it’s ten percent of what he’s talking about. You’re not going to get a half-million. It’s ridiculous.

So why did he say it?  He knows that. He said it because you’ve got to say something. And he assumes that Christians, Presbyterians in Minneapolis don’t know it.  Sounds good, so I’ll say it.  But it’s cynical in a sense.  That’s a liberal thing.  It has always been.  Since the sixties, but way before the 60’s, there’s always been a huge chasm between what are called radicals, or, I prefer to use the word critical.  (Between) Critical thinking people and liberals.  And liberals talk the talk but they can’t walk the walk.  Because they just can’t go there.   And that’s where he’s trapped (Burg). He knows better, but he just can’t go there.

PNN: I see that a lot with some Israelis, in the peace movement, on the left.

JH: The Zionist left

PNN: Yes, Peace Now.

JH; And he’s Zionist, so that’s a whole undercurrent that we didn’t get into much but that’s also what’s holding him back.

PNN: There seems, like you said this sort of apprehension, that many Israelis can’t get over the hump.

JH: I’ll tell you what the hump is.  Israel is a Jewish state.  They want 78% of Palestine to be a Jewish state of Israel.  And that’s what they share with all other Jewish Israelis.  That’s why they are so fanatical about the two state solution. They can’t go anywhere else. You have to have a Jewish state.  It can’t be one state.  And they don’t always say it.   They almost assume that everybody agrees on that.  Burg started yesterday by saying we all know the solution:  the two state solution. So If you’re locked into that paradigm, there has to be a Jewish state.  They don’t say in 78% of the country but in the green line.  And the problem is that as that recedes, as Israel’s creating a bi-national reality, and as the Palestinians even inside Israel are saying, no wait a minute, lets talk about one state.  Also that the occupation didn’t start in ‘67 and all that, then they start getting defensive, and now they’re supporting something that they themselves know isn’t going to work maybe, it isn’t really acceptable, it’s a little bit old fashioned, its out of step with things. But they can’t go anywhere else. So you end up, again, you put as good a face on it as you can but in the end you’re defensive.  In the questions when he got up, somebody said to me today it was like Jekyll and Hyde. And he’s this nice, cute guy telling quips and anecdotes in the first part, and turns into a mean, strident, patronizing guy with Mitri (Raheb) in the second part. Because Mitri is basically saying it’s not going to work, two states is not going to work. All this stuff isn’t going to work, Zionism isn’t going to work, and pushes Burg to a place where he doesn’t want to go. And he gets defensive. And when you get defensive you get mean.   Because offense is the best defense.

PNN: Talking about that, the idea of the two state solution, yet the view that Israel is in a sense digging its own grave, progressing deeper into the West Bank.  And it’s government sponsored like you say, but at the same time the (Israeli) government says we want negotiations.  Aren’t you are hamstringing the Palestinians? There leaves no room for maneuverability.

JH: Yeah, you set conditions that are unacceptable. You have to recognize that Israel is a Jewish state, that’s another thing now (that Israel lists as a negotiating demand). Well, Israelis who aren’t Jewish, what does that mean for them? In a sense that’s the strategy. You create preconditions that are unacceptable and then when the other side doesn’t meet them then they’re the rejectionists.

PNN: I see at the event today that there are people talking about Hamas.  I believe it was a few delegates that said we can’t bring them in (to the process). The PLO was considered a terrorist entity.  In 1993, the PLO recognized Israel’s right to exist. So I mean it seems like this cycle is replaying again, what happened twenty years ago.

JH: Yes.  But everything is designed to make the occupation permanent. So, you negotiate one day, but you are not really negotiating in good faith. You’re doing a war the next day. There is a British concept called “muddling through.” Which means that basically, you know where you’re going. You know that you want to keep the whole country. You can’t approach it too rationally and linearly, because you don’t know, a million things happen, the war, the flotilla, the Soviet Union falls, I don’t know, a million things happen. So if you get locked in to some scenario, it doesn’t work.  So muddling through is very good, because it means that you know where you are going but you meet each challenge day by day. So, today I’m going to open 12 new industrial parks for Palestinians and give them a little bit of money. The next day I’m going to close them and the next day I’m going to reopen them, and the next day I’ll take off 20 checkpoints. And you try to keep an equilibrium. We have a name for our (Israel) policy. It’s called the status quo. So how to you maintain the status quo in a dynamic way? Muddling through lets you do that.  It looks unorganized, and if you look behind you, you really see that this is a very flexible way of keeping that equilibrium.  And Israel says we’ve done it for forty-three years.  And we’ve had times before, we’ve had James Baker before, we had George Shultz call Yitzhak Shamir on to the carpet in Washington.  Prime ministers have been called onto the carpet in the White House before; Eisenhower almost cut diplomatic ties over Sinai. There’s ups and downs, (the idea being) we can weather it all, we’ve managed for forty-three years, sixty three years. We’ll manage for another forty-three.  In a way in Israel there is also the idea that we have to get over the next five years.  After that, who knows, it’s a new game.  So don’t ask me where I’m going to be in twenty years, I have no idea, but we’re going in this way and that is the way Israel approaches it.  It’s very hard to grab hold of Israel in that sense.  Go with the flow, that’s the point.  Obama wants negotiations? No problem. You want a two state (solution)? Where do I sign? Roadmap? Great.  And then you construct it in a way that you are defeating it, but you never say no to the powerful. You always say yes and then you do all of your little things (to not make it happen)And you try not to get into a fight with the Americans.  And it’s worked.

PNN: Have you heard of Rabbi Menachem Froman from Tekoa? Note: Rabbi Menachem Froman is a Jewish Rabbi who lives in the Tekoa, part of the Gush Etzion settlement in the West Bank.

JH: Nutty guy

PNN: I have read that he was a friend of Arafat.

JH: I don’t know about friends.  He just met with the Prime Minister of Turkey.  He’s a settler. He wants reconciliation with the Palestinians and that we should all live together.  Kind of this almost “new-agey” weird guy.

PNN: And that is very much a minority.

JH:  Yeah, he has no power.  He’s not political, he’s not left, he’s not right.  The religious don’t like him.  The settlers don’t like him.  There’s nothing to it.  One of the problems with the Palestinians is that they’ve glommed on to these marginal, weird guys.  Like Moshe Hirsh from Neturei Karta (at one time Arafat’s advisor on Jewish affairs).  It’s stupid.  Neturei Karta is like supporting Hamas.

PNN: It’s fringe.

JH:  It’s not only fringe, but it’s anti-women, it’s anti-everything. It’s ultra-orthodox, anti human rights.  And they’re not pro-Palestinian particularly.  They don’t believe in Zionism, because God should bring the Jews back.  (Their view is) The Jews should come back, but when God decides to do that.  It doesn’t help the Palestinian cause to get associated with these people who are really right wing, anti-human rights, anti-women type groups.  They think just because they’re pro-Palestinian…

PNN: because they’re Jews.

JH:  Because they’re Jews. It’s stupid.  And Froman’s the same thing.  It’s unusual to have a religious Rabbi settler who likes Palestinians.  That’s newsworthy.  Man bites dog.  But it’s not significant.

PNN: What are some flaws you see in Palestinian leadership?

JH: Flaws?

PNN: In the government, corruption, the police forces?

JH: It’s not just corruption.  I don’t understand how they think they are in the political game. They’re not.  I don’t get it.  Afif Safieh was the Palestinian representative in Washington. In July 2008 he moved to Moscow.  The Palestinian Authority didn’t appoint another representative in Washington until July 2009, a year later.  During that year you had the invasion of Gaza and the whole Obama administration comes into office. In that whole period there is no Palestinian voice in Washington, whereas Israel is just all over the place.  I don’t even know what that means. And then their diplomats are terrible. I can name one or two that are excellent.  Afif was pretty good. Leila Shahid, who is the Palestinian representative in the European Union, is great.  But for the most part all over the world they are weak, they’re inarticulate, they’re ineffective.  They are very narrow because they are PLO, Fatah basically.  I’ll tell you one thing that came out, I knew about it. Richard Falk. He’s one of the most famous human rights figures in the world. And he’s the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine. Israel won’t let him in because he is critical. So Richard Falk, who is one of the greatest assets to the Palestinians, comes out in favor of the Goldstone report.  He says the Goldstone report shows that Israel committed war crimes, and they have to be tried(in court). He’s been pushing that.

The Goldstone report also criticized Hamas.  So the Palestinian Authority is trying to get Richard Falk fired because he supports the Goldstone report.  Why? You would think that they support the Goldstone report.  No, because Hamas was criticized by Goldstone on the basis that they were the governing entity in Gaza. Well, if Falk accepts the fact that Hamas is the governing entity, then it’s anti-Fatah.  In other words they are willing to fire one of their greatest advocates. They are so obsessed with Hamas that they are losing the whole picture. So that’s my problem, I think they are shortsighted, I don’t know what in the hell their strategy is. And it’s very frustrating.

Stay tuned for a second installment of this interview, where we will continue our discussion with topics related to Mr. Halper’s background and more about the conflict in Israel / Palestine.

Part II

PNN:  From reading the introduction of your book you talk a little about how you came to be involved in the conflict.  Did you always see things the way you do now?  [Note:  Jeff Halper’s book is entitled: An Israeli in Palestine:  Resisting Dispossession, Redeeming Israel]

Jeff Halper: I’m a child of the sixties here in the (United) States.  I was always political. You almost had to be political in the sixties.  I was in the anti-Vietnam War movement.  I was in the civil rights movement.  I was in Mississippi.  I was at Woodstock even.  I was always very political.

So when I went to Israel I didn’t stop being political.  I was just going to another front of the revolution.  It isn’t a story of a rosy-eyed Zionist who got to Israel and then got disappointed and became a leftist.  The first thing I did was join the Israeli peace movement.  From that point of view I knew where I was going, that there was an occupation, and I knew about Palestinians.  Still, there was an attraction to Israel because I was alienated from the States.  I really wanted to get out of the States.  I had nowhere really to go.  Israel I could go to because I’m Jewish.  And I liked the idea of somehow developing a Hebrew society, the Hebrew language, things like that.  So I was attracted to that.  But again, I always knew there was an occupation, so I was always on the left.

PNN: In the sixties there was a great amount of Jews that went to the south (to fight for social justice during the American civil rights movement)

JH: Well, the Jews were disproportionately involved in both the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement.  It’s the same thing today, maybe a little less.  There was just an article written in the New York Review of Books (Peter Beinart, The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment) about the fact that Jews are liberal, and then (also that) young Jews have been taught to be Zionist or pro-Israel, go to Birthright, all that stuff.  But there’s a conflict.  And when there’s a conflict they go with their liberalism for the most part.  So it was the same thing.  I think there is a liberal element in Judaism, it just can’t be squelched completely.  And that’s what led someone like me to go to Israel, even though I was critical.

PNN: You talked in the beginning of your book about “The Box,” the framing of the issue as “The Box,” and trying to poke holes in it to affect change.  At the General Assembly this week I saw a dead-ringer for what you talked about there.  Could you speak to that a little bit?

JH:  Most people aren’t critical thinkers.  You go to school, but school does not train you to be a critical thinker, it trains you to be a good citizen that doesn’t know anything.  But you know what you need to know for the job market.  They don’t want to train you to be an intellectual.  And the political system, everything trains you to conform, basically.  And that’s what people do.  So they don’t ask questions.  You saw that at this meeting.  I don’t know how many commissioners there were in that Committee 14(the Presbyterian Church’s Middle East Study Committee at it’s 219^th General Assembly).  There were maybe forty.  Maybe five of them talked.  Most of them didn’t ask questions, all they did was raise their hands once and a while.  And they raised their hands on completely diametrically opposed resolutions.  So, that’s the way people are, they think in “The Box.”  And “The Box” is all they need.  It’s comfortable, you don’t have to go beyond it, you fit in, everybody likes you, you don’t have to think about things, and you have a good time.  The pursuit of happiness is the American thing.  So it’s very hard to get people out of the box.

PNN: To not be bothered

JH: To not be bothered, to ask questions, to be willing to be critical, to be criticized.   In America to be popular is so important that people just resist getting out of “The Box.”   And they don’t understand it and they don’t want to go there.  That’s what makes it hard, because reality is not in “The Box.”  Reality is much more complicated, it’s much more nuanced. All these slogans are just from ignorance.  And you can’t do it in a sound byte.  That’s the problem with the way the whole thing is structured in these conflicts, everybody gets a minute or two minutes to talk.  You can’t get an idea across in a minute or two.  It’s just a ping-pong of slogans back and forth. It doesn’t lead anywhere.

PNN: Could you talk about the popular movement among the Palestinians?  The protests in Bil’in, in Nil’in and other places, and how you are involved with that?

JH: We’re partners with the Palestinians.  We can’t fight their struggle.  It’s true we initiate things in (regard to) house demolitions, rebuilding houses and resisting demolitions, but we do that always with Palestinians.  We always work with them.  We’re the junior partners. It’s their struggle.  I go to Bil’in, I go to Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan and other things.  I prefer, in a way to go to actions in the Occupied Territories initiated by Palestinians.  That’s the solidarity.  There are times in which we initiate things in the Occupied Territories.  But like I said, it’s always in conjunction with Palestinians, in a partnership with Palestinians.  So we see ourselves as partners.  It’s a common struggle.  Both peoples are going to continue to live in that country, so the vision is an inclusive vision.  We both have a right and a duty to struggle together.

I have, in a way, liberation. I’ve got Israel.  The Palestinians don’t have a state, in whatever form it takes.  So in a way there’s that asymmetrical element.  It’s their struggle for liberation that remains to be won.  For example, our organization does not advocate a particular solution, one state or two state or whatever, because we say that’s the Palestinians prerogative.  And if in the end they decide two states, and I don’t like the idea, it’s not my call.  If they decide one state, then I have to go with that.  In other words their liberation is in a sense their liberation.  Their self-determination is their self-determination.  I can’t second-guess them on it, I can’t tell them what to do, and therefore I think that partnership idea is very important.

PNN: One of the main reasons you came was to talk about Caterpillar and divestment…

JH:  And apartheid

PNN: And apartheid.  Can you talk a little more about these issues?

JH:  In a way it’s phrased, this is an “American Church,” the Presbyterian Church USA.  So it’s an American conversation.  In some ways it’s important that they evaluate American policy.  Well, Americans give economic, political and military support to Israel.  It’s like an umbrella that insulates Israel from pressures.  And that’s why Israel can be so aggressive.  And people aren’t really aware of it.  So they think the United States is helping Israel militarily because Israel needs that, and needs to be defended.  But, in fact, Israel’s the fourth largest nuclear power in the world. It’s the third largest arms exporter.  It can do very well without America.  What it needs from the United States is access to military technology.  It doesn’t really need the three billion dollars.  The three billion dollars are very nice, but it doesn’t really need that.

PNN: In Israel, isn’t a large component of the economy military technology? For example, Drones?

JH:  Yeah, military technology.  The United States buys drones from Israel, not the other way around.  And joint projects.  The wall that the United States is building (on the border) with Mexico is being built by Boeing and Elbit Systems, which is an Israeli system of surveillance.  So you know, Israel’s an equal partner, its not this little country that needs every bullet the United States sends.  The United States also uses Israel to test its weaponry.  For example, in Gaza.  One of the reasons why Israel invaded Gaza, I think, was to field-test American weapons.  The cluster bombs, the white phosphorus, what’s called DIME, Dense Inert Metal Explosives, based on Tungsten.  Certain robotics, different kinds of crowd control gasses and sprays.  There’s a lot of American weaponry that’s tested by Israel, it’s field tested in Gaza and in the West Bank as well.  So there’s that whole part of it, and I don’t think Americans really understand the military part and how it has nothing to do with Israeli security, has nothing to do with really supporting Israel.  It’s Israel being used by the United States for developing weaponry and for field testing, Israel using the United States to market military technologies and do joint projects.  And all this is a military arrangement that on one hand contributes to the occupation, but it’s just a present to Israel.  Its not that the United States is really defending Israel.  Israel could have had peace twenty years ago, probably forty years ago if it had not occupied Palestinian land, if it had dealt with Palestinians and not tried to exclude them.  So in a sense the American military, it’s bad on two counts.  One is that it perpetuates the occupation, which isn’t good for Israel or for American interests in the Middle East, and on the other hand it contributes to American militarism.  Those are both issues the churches’ should be concerned about.  So what I was doing was trying to frame this issue in terms of American responsibility, American values, church values, rather than putting the emphasis on Israel itself.  That was the thrust of what I was trying to say.

PNN: It seemed in the committee there was a lot of concern about demonizing Israel.  A lot of people may not be familiar with the Israeli press and the way that Israelis in many cases are condemning what their government is doing.  That same voice is not heard, say, in the New York Times.

JH:  First of all there is a weird double standard.  I mean, who ever talked about being afraid to demonize South Africa in the days of Apartheid?  And who ever talked about balance?  “We have to hear from the Afrikaner side.  We can’t listen to the ANC (African National Congress) voice without listening to the white voice as well.”  The whole dynamic here is completely different than anywhere else.  You can criticize Iran, you can sanction Iran.  You can do regime change in other countries.  Not with Israel.  There’s a very strange double standard there.  And in addition to that, the point I try to make is that Israel’s a country.  It’s not a religion, it’s not Jews, it’s not your next-door neighbor who’s Jewish, that you golf with.  It’s a country!  And it’s a country with a tremendous geopolitical importance whose policies tremendously impact the well-being of the United States.  There’s no symmetry between Israel and the Palestinians.  Palestinians don’t have an army.  They don’t have a state.  So first of all, why is criticizing a nuclear power, that’s an occupying power, why is that demonizing?  And second of all, why is listening to the Palestinian voice by itself, with no Israeli additions, like we listen to Nelson Mandela’s voice, why is that forbidden?  Why can’t you hear Palestinian voices, with the feeling that this is unbalanced and quick, quick, quick! We’ve got to get some Israeli voices!  It’s very weird, that’s the only word you could use, a weird concept and dynamic of Israel that goes on.

There’s different reasons why, but you can’t do that in the world, you can’t take a nuclear power and say it’s beyond criticism.  That’s a really dangerous thing.  But people just don’t think, they just don’t think.  And that was my disappointment here with the Presbyterians.  They didn’t think, they didn’t ask questions.  I was a resource person.  I was called for one minute over two days.  And the discussion was superficial, I think it was trivialized.  In the middle of all these discussions of life and death, whenever there was a break they talked about their most embarrassing moments.  Or prayer, all this prayer stuff.  Prayer is nice but if it’s hollow, if it’s not balanced by action, justice, everything else, that was missing.  I guess you have to give the Presbyterians some credit.  At least they were dealing with some of these issues.  I don’t think the process and the discussion they had did justice.  It didn’t serve either the interests of the church or the issues under discussion, so I’m very critical of that process.  But at the same time, we made some progress.  Caterpillar was denounced, divestment still possibly could take place, (and) the Palestinian voice did come through.  We lost the Apartheid overture, but the word was used, political consciousness was raised, and it’s an advance over the last time.  Last time we had to argue whether there was an occupation or not.  And so it’s a process, it’s true.  What’s missing for me is the urgency, because it’s an urgent problem, which I feel as an Israeli, and Palestinians feel, that isn’t felt here.  Here, it’s an exercise, and they study it for the next couple of years, and that’s why it gets trivialized.  But nevertheless, I have to give some credit to the Presbyterians, they did kind of bite the bullet.  Not every decision was what I wanted but we did make progress.

PNN: As an activist yourself, for a long time now, what is your advice to people who want to get involved? Maybe it’s the Israel/Palestine conflict, or maybe it’s something else.  How do they help lift up the voices of the downtrodden?

JH: That’s a big problem, because the discourse is still in the old colonial.  White voices are still privileged over the voices of peoples of color.  The rich are still privileged over the poor.  The west is still privileged over everybody else in the world.  The militarily strong countries are privileged over the weaker ones.  It’s still like that. The world is still in a colonial space.  And the discourse is very colonial.  Even the fact that these delegates didn’t want to listen international law or human rights, or the U.N.  It was all American, American, American.  And by American they meant white.  Just look at the Presbyterian Church, its ninety-some percent white. Middle class.  It’s very much a colonial discourse, and that’s something that we have to fight.

I think in the world, and Americans don’t really see this yet, the United States is getting very isolated, because I think the peoples of the world, the non-core, the periphery, the people of the peripheries in Latin America, Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, are getting pissed off.  You’re having the rise of what are called the BRIC nations. Which is Brazil, Russia, India, and China.  And if you throw into there Turkey and Iran, maybe even Mexico and South Africa, you’re starting to get a new constellation of the world, of peoples that are kind of pissed off at the United States and Europe that are still dominating the main source of warfare today.  The main form of warfare is what’s called resource wars.  Wars that the west wage against poor countries that happen to be sitting on resources that they want.  Whether its water or minerals or timber, or oil.  And then at the same time, through the IMF and the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization and other institutions oppressing those peoples and not letting them enjoy their own resources, not giving them fair prices for their products, not giving them a fair go.   And I think it’s changing.  In the next few years the United States is not going to be as privileged as it is today.  But it still has it’s feeling of entitlement, partly because of its military strength.  The Pentagon gets almost a trillion dollars a year in funding.  The United States pours thirty billion dollars of new weapons into the world every year.  Ten billion go to the least developed countries.  So that’s what gives the United States its clout.  But its losing it economically, its losing it culturally, its losing it in terms of people caring about the United States.  That’s part of the process.  Part of what I try to do is help Americans try to understand that and change their policies, but they can’t because they’re so insulated.  So much in “The Box

On their return they were assaulted by the Israeli forces at the checkpoint. Around 15 were detained, some violently. Among them was a member of the PLO Executive Committee Abbas Zaki, as well as an AP photographer. Two friends and colleagues, with whom I volunteered last summer, Ahmad Al- Azzah and Marwan Farajeh were also detained. Here, to provide a little more insight on these men is an excerpt from a story that The Palestine Telegraph ran about the demonstration:

“Ahmad Al-Azeh is the head of the Nonviolence Department for the Holy Land Trust. He hails from the Al-Azzeh Refugee Camp and is the father of three young children. Ahmad graduated from Bethlehem University with a degree in Sociology and a minor in Psychology and completed his Masters in Human Rights and Democratization in Malta. His specialization was women’s rights and gender issues.

Marwan Fararjeh, a father of six young children, is responsible for coordinating activities with 19 villages in Bethlehem and its surrounding areas for the Holy Land Trust. His projects involve community building. He organizes campaigns against the Wall and against confiscated lands or lands threatened with confiscation by the Israeli government. “

Of those who were detained, the Israeli and international activists have been released. The 11 Palestinians who were detained have been sent to Ofer Prison until Thursday and after that time they will hopefully be released, but this is not definite. Holy Land Trust has recently released an update about the detention of its employees:

“Our initial information is that the detained men will be released on Thursday, March 31st, and given court dates for the charges brought against them. However, as Bethlehem District and the checkpoint that the Separation Wall that Marwan, Ahmad and the nine other men crossed is considered under the jurisdiction of the IDF, it is possible that they will be detained for a greater period of time, possibly up to six months, under military law”

The only reason that they were not released with the others is because they are Palestinians. These are men who I know would never hurt as much as a fly, and their detention is very troubling to all who know and love them. Last summer I volunteered with the Palestinian NGO Holy Land Trust, a Palestinian Christian Organization in Bethlehem that advocates for non-violence, as well as trains the next generation of leaders determined to end the struggle by non-violent means.

Since I left last summer, the area of Bethlehem, which includes Bethlehem, Beit Sahour and Beit Jala, as well as smaller villages such as Al-Masara, has increasingly fallen under the grip of Israeli harassment. The army has moved into the area of Ush Ghrab, near Beit Sahour, where settlers are determined to take more land from Palestinians. In the past few weeks, Israeli forces were uprooting olive trees in Beit Jala so they could erect more of the separation barrier. There have also been a number of Israeli night raids on P.A.-controlled Bethlehem itself, and there have been a number of detentions. As I am currently in the States, it is a very unsettling feeling not being able to stand in solidarity with my Palestinian brothers as they are sitting in a prison cell.

It is important to stress that many of these men who were detained work and organize with the Popular Committees in the Bethlehem area that stage the weekly protests against the occupation. As you know, Israel has been ramping up its harassment of these groups, threatening them with arrest, entering villages late at night and declaring areas closed military zones. And this is only my opinion, but I believe that most of these men were targeted for detention at the demonstration. The Israelis no doubt know who they are, and are familiar with their activities.

So, while I am waiting for my friends to be released on Thursday as scheduled, I’m not going to hold my breath about it. They may very well be held longer. This is why myself, my friends, all those concerned are making a concerted effort to get as much info out about these injustices as possible. Then, maybe the collective voice of humanity will raise itself to demand an end to the mistreatment of Palestinians as well as an end to Israel’s self defeating policies.

This Post has been Crossposted at Mondoweiss

I remember well this Wall and macabre trick it once pulled on me, demonstrating its push and its power. I had just left from a night of friends in Jerusalem at 1 in the morning, got a ride from the Old City’s Damascus Gate, and in 10, maybe 15 minutes and I had passed thru the checkpoint, manned at this hour by a cute Israeli girl engrossed in a novel, who kindly waved me by with a smile and the flick of her wrist. I came out the other end, thru the spinning turnstile, down the corral-like chute that Palestinians (those lucky enough to have permits) are forced to wait in, like cattle, every single morning so they can provide for their families. I was here. Bethlehem. Home. But because of the zig-zag maze of the Wall I promptly became lost. I backtracked back and forth, but it seemed at every point I met my old foe again in all it’s rigid horror, the eyelets with which it was lowered into place staring back at me in crude defiance of all reality. And so it was with an almost nightmarish panic that I continued, the Wall still ever-present, and once I even came upon an observation post, a turret jutting out of the concrete, Israeli soldier inside and at the ready. I cannot be sure but I am almost positive I saw the green diode of the laser sight on that soldier’s M4 search me out in the darkness. I should not have been there, in the middle of the night. I would like to think that perhaps he was more afraid of me than I was of him. Perhaps. Maybe he was my age, and probably he was younger. And maybe he was thinking about a girl, maybe that cute girl back at the checkpoint. Or maybe he was wishing he was on Ben Yehuda Street, with friends, laughing it up at the tourists, and what they buy and the money that they pay for all those things. Anything but having to do his job right here and now, to have lift his gun at another human being. Yet he was here, because of politicians, because of leaders who did not understand, and still do not, who play their little games on paper and ignore the flesh and blood.

Seeing this, I abruptly turned back from where I came. Safe, but still lost, and not a soul out this night. There is never a soul out this far away from the city center. This is the time of night where, under the full jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli Army still carries out raids in which they detain Palestinians, and take them from their families and into the deep dark night, who knows to where, maybe the Russian Compound, or maybe Ofer Prison.

Still lost I looked for landmarks, and the Wall loomed, faded, but always calling attention, even in the darkness. I went up and down hills, my legs ached, my shirt was damp from sweat and fear and then the dogs started to chase, barking and gaining in mass as I passed their mid-night haunts. They stayed a few paces back not knowing what to expect. I tried to shoo then, hit them with rocks but they kept at their game. Trying to stay sane, I remember walking along the ledges above the side-walks, taking the high ground, out of the reach of their jaws. Eventually the dogs receded into the night, and I saw the neon glow of the crosses on the churches and the green light emanating from the minarets of the mosques. I prayed for daylight and some sense of direction and then finally came to something I knew, an alley, that led to a street, that eventually led home.

This is my story of the Wall. My story, in all its fear and loathing still cannot compare to the others. Everybody has their own. Maybe it dissects your village, cutting you off from your harvest and your ability to put food on the table. Maybe you are lucky and the wall is not completed. Maybe it is only a fence. Maybe if you are nice and they are in a good mood the soldiers will let you farm your land. Maybe it surrounds your house, cutting it off from the outside world. Maybe it separates you from your family. Maybe this is only one family. Maybe it is a people. Maybe it is a nation.

The Wall still stood. And there it stands today.

After reading what I read in my inbox I needed to write this down. Indeed, I am shaking as I write, a mixture of caffeine and sorrow that will not let me shut my eyes to bed. The reason that the message struck me so is the fact that I lived and volunteered the duration of my time in Palestine in the village of Beit Jala. It is here that they are building another section of that wall. Beit Jala, my home for three months in the Summer of last year. It has been over half a year since I began volunteering in Palestine, and there is not a second that goes by that I do not wish I was there still, doing whatever I can to stand in solidarity with those who took me in and those who made me part of their extended Palestinian family.

I think it is safe to say that I arrived in Palestine with a degree of naiveté. I had studied the conflict, its politics, its people, but until I set foot upon the land I could never fully understand how the separation of peoples is conducted.

I think I could say that I left Palestine with a certain degree of naiveté as well, for the area that I lived and volunteered in, the Bethlehem Governate, is where one of the grand experimentations in Bantustanization is being carried out. Here is your state they say, here is your autonomous prison. I knew that this area was being enclosed, indeed I saw it every day. Yet now it is only with Israel’s increased encirclement that you see, even as the politicians talk of peace,  the utter contempt and arrogance in with the occupation army works, increasing its patrols and detentions, squelching and threatening the popular non-violent resistance, going to great lengths to break the spirit of those who resist.

What I remember now, and indeed, what I remember most about my time in Beit Jala is the my bedroom in my host family’s home. For three months it was my window to the world. From it I could see the whole of the Palestinian experience. I still remember its every detail, those two large windows looking out upon the land. Those two large rolling shutters that, when I needed them to, could block out the heat and the light. They granted me a reprieve when the sun was too bright or the day was too long, or even if my little host brother a bit too annoying.

These reprieves were only temporary, but for Palestinians, they are all but non-existent. Because out of these windows one could see it all. One could see the Settlement of Gilo, 40,000 strong, carved out of the northern slope of the wadi, and transcending it’s summit, and up and down and all around, like a militant urbanized fetish, claiming the land so soldiers and tanks don’t have to. The Wall is there too, unfinished, running west and turning south, north and south again, as a rudimentary dirt path awaits more concrete slabs to seal up the land.

There are yet more things that I can see through this window. Below is the road to Jerusalem, Route 60, an Israeli-only bypass road that few Palestinians, those lucky enough to have an Israeli I.D. or permit are able to travel on. It is on this road that I, as an international took Beit Jala’s 21 bus (Israel no longer allows Internationals to ride the 21 bus, allowing for only one way in and one way out for bus-bourn tourists to Bethlehem) to Jerusalem when I was bored or wanted to see some history. To get to this bypass road and on our way to Jerusalem, the bus passes through the Beit Jala DCO, and once through, to the intersection with Route 60, where a checkpoint awaits.  This process takes, if you are lucky, around 45 minutes.  Beit Jala is a little under 7 miles from Jerusalem. An Israeli Settler, driving from Alon Shvut, Part of the Etzion Bloc of Settlements, and more than 5 miles southwest of Beit Jala, can reach Jerusalem using this same road in 20 minutes.

Even the long waits would not be so much, but for the fact that a majority of my Palestinian friends cannot even go to Jerusalem. Five miles away from Al-Quds, the holy city, Yerushalayim, the city of peace, the and barred forever. If my friends had permits they would not be permitted to stay the night. To not be able to visit the Holy city that one can see thru the haze on top of the highest hill in Beit Jala seems a crime of great proportions.  Perhaps that haze has seeped its way into those leaders who make these rules, for they find no trouble in their inverted and warped cognitive dissonance, in which peace equates to the continued occupation of a people.

Sadly my friends, there is yet another window we have yet to look through. Out of this window, looking out towards Beit Jala, I can see, perched between shops and houses, the Israeli DCO, the District Coordinating Office, what Orwell would have called the Ministry of Love. It sits there, Its camouflage netting hanging over the side, and an Israeli flag perched at the highest point, begging to be seen.

If I look to the left I can see the bombed out mansion, remnants of the Second Intifada, where militants and Israeli soldiers made Beit Jala a battleground. The house still sits, un-repaired, it’s great veranda mortared and pock-marked, clinging upright only by a few stones. Trauma and death and sorrow, and if it crushes stone than what does it do to the body, to the mind, and what was the toll, and was it worth it and will it ever be?

And if I were there today still, I could see that ugly Wall being built, I could see a giant Caterpillar Backhoe tearing up the earth as it uproots the olive trees, as it uproots livelihoods, as it uproots decency and all that is good about humanity. Because in that soil is the blood, sweat and tears of dreams, not corrupted by ideology, but loved as a child, holding firm against the onslaught of the years, holding on to the last shred of hope with all the passion that one can muster. You can see that, see it on the faces of the the old men who cry at the death of their fields, and the old women who cry at the death of their husbands and sons and daughters. And you can see it in their eyes and the eyes of the protestors who came with them and sat there yesterday and would not move, would not move until they were forced to, arrested and detained. And they will come back and do it all over and their bodies may be moved but their Hearts cannot. And there will come a time when you cannot move them anymore.