Reflections on Arriving to Falastin

 On landing to Ben-Gurion on the evening of Rosh Hashanah in the year 5786, it was unmistakable to me that I was arriving to a nation at war, the pictures of hostages lining the walls of the arrival hall.

While in line for entry, a male U.S. traveler remarked to another U.S. traveler that he "hoped to see the Iron Dome in action" while simultaneously stating he was there "to walk in the steps of his Lord and Savior."

This twisted violent contradiction left me speechless in its cruelty as I resolved and reminded myself why it is necessary to do solidarity work so necessary for the Palestinian people in a world complicit in genocide and unspeakable violence combined with an infuriating combination of ineffectual words.

Masub Abu-Toha writes in Things You Find Hidden In My Ear, "Borders are invented lines drawn with ash on maps and sewn into the ground by bullets."

Nowhere was this more evident than in the city of Al-Khalil (Hebron), declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Site in 2017 while wracked by violence over decades and now at the epicenter of the militarization of the Occupation. I had prepared for the trip, both physically and mentally, but nothing can fully prepare you for the depth of the apartheid in the military checkpoints in a city which finds itself abandoned by tourists and entrapped by settlements and military.

My comrades remarked, "Oh wow, this is worse even than last year." The shops shuttered, garbage collecting on the sidewalks, with only a few humans in eyesight as we walk into what the tourist brochure dubs "the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world" and one of the holiest places in both the Judaic and Islamic worlds.

Alone on a once busy souk, we were quickly identified as internationals and approached by two former shopkeepers who told us the story of their livelihoods vaporized by the force of a nation at war. They told us that since October 7, 2023 five hundred and fifty more shops have closed in the Old City due to the strain on the economy and lack of tourist traffic as well as increased military presence and settler violence.

Part of a much larger exodus since 2000, they reported that a full 1800 shop owners have gone out of business. They also told of us of the 2000 soldiers in the military presence protecting 400 settlers in the four settlements within the city. Of this reality one said, "they treat us worse than the animals but we do our best to resist."

Later that morning as we monitored the checkpoint leading to Al-Ibrahim Mosque, we saw their words in action. As 300+ worshippers answered the call to Friday prayer, we bore witness to the indignity of checkpoint 10. Barely able to see into the turnstile, we had difficulty ascertaining what constituted the multiple delays we observed, we saw one man turned away from prayer at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, one of the holiest places in both Judaism and Islam.

The man walked away visibly angered as my colleagues debate the effectiveness of us tallying the numbers in a conflict the United Nations is obligated to monitor. Just five days earlier, the U.N. complains about the two boys aged 6 and 8 who are detained for playing soccer in the very alleyways we were standing in.

I reminded my colleagues that solidarity meant showing up, bearing witness, and doing as the people ask. The people of Palestine had not only asked us to be here and welcomed us by offering us chairs as we counted and gave us tiny cups of the delicious Arabic coffee. We sat and watched the checkpoint and reflected on how the will to resist stays alive.

Resistance stays alive in dignity and courage but most of all in kindness in the face of injustice. "Salaam alaikum", some called out to us, perfect strangers only recently arrived. Do not forget, these passersby reminded us, God is still good.

Al-Khalil does not forget what it means to be a friend to God in its sumud (steadfastness). Falastin has so much to teach the world-- I am honored to be here to listen.

Hope and Resistance

 At the conclusion of our morning tour with ICAHD, (formerly known as the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition and now an international coalition resisting Israeli apartheid), our tour guide Chaska- a local Israeli activist who has been working for decades to end Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine - painted a bleak picture of the future of the Holy Land. "We are nearing the end," she said. "This situation has to end at some point. And the way things are going, it is looking like Israel will succeed in not only in the total colonization of historic Palestine, but also in the normalization of that colonization. It will be much like the way the United States colonized Indigenous nations on Turtle Island, pushing the Indigenous people onto smaller and smaller island reservations, and making that completely normal." (We hope to give a fuller description of this informative experience in a future blog).

Our guide's prediction, which felt like a punch in the gut to me, is not unfounded. It is grounded in her decades of experience watching her government encroach deeper and deeper into the West Bank, stealing more land for the construction of bigger settlements (some with populations as large as 50,000) that are connected to one another through a network of roads and closures that make it impossible for Palestinian towns to remain contiguous with one another, systematically demolishing more and more Palestinian homes, and making life so difficult for Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem that it becomes increasingly desirable for them to move out of their historic homeland and become a part of the diaspora.

Later that day, as we rode the bus to Bethlehem to visit a few friends and elders in the Palestinian nonviolent resistance movement, I shared with my team how hard it had been for me to hear this. Listening to, and seeing with my own eyes, all the facts on the ground, it seems quite possible that such a dystopian future might actually come to pass. I wondered aloud whether our hosts in Bethlehem, who had been bearing the brunt of this reality for a long time, would agree that they had no future in their own homeland.

The bus dropped us off at the Bethlehem checkpoint - a mechanized opening through the monstrous, 30-foot high wall that snakes in and around the entire West Bank. It was quite easy to get through, as we discovered, as the Israeli army encourages Palestinians to leave Jerusalem. (It is much harder to return.)

As it had been over 16 years since I had last passed through this way, I was somewhat stunned to be confronted once again with the overwhelming force of this wall that enforces and concretizes apartheid rule. The experience of walking in the shadow of this imposing symbol of oppression overwhelmed us all; one of our team members who had lived and studied in Bethlehem 25 years ago broke down and wept with grief and anger as she witnessed the destruction of this place so beloved to her.

We then visited Wi'am, the Palestinian Conflict Transformation Center. Zoughbi Zoughbi (a Notre Dame graduate!) and several of his family members hosted us for an incredible lunch. Over chicken, falafel, hummus, bread, tomatoes, olive oil, and za'tar, we learned of their own mixed family's experience of the occupation. Since 2019, Israel has refused to allow Zoughbi's wife, an American citizen, to return to the West Bank to live with her family, despite having lived there most of her life. His two sons, one an engineer with a Masters degree from the U.S., have returned to Bethlehem to work as volunteers, with next to no pay, in solidarity with their father, because they believe not only in nonviolent resistance, but also in the importance of standing against the ethnic cleansing of their people, and remaining rooted in their homeland.

Speaking of the increasing enclosure of their beloved city, they pointed out their vulnerability. "We are like sitting ducks," they said. "The soldiers have threatened that if we do not fall in line, we will be the next Gaza."

The Zougbhi family witnessed to us what hope and resistance look like in the face of indescribable oppression. Despite the attacks on their marriage, their employment, and their physical well being (all direct attempts by the Israeli government to make life untenable in Palestine), they have chosen to stay rooted in their family, the community they love, and the land to which they belong - all while offering incredible hospitality to those of us who traveled to stand with them.

Part of the Zoughbi family's resistance includes a contagious sense of humor. Lookout over the domineering wall just a few hundred feet from their home Zoughbi Zoughbi pointed out a growing Walnut Tree. "We hope the roots of this Walnut tree grow so large," he said with a smile, "that it will break the 'wall' into nuts."

After saying goodbye to the Zoughbis, we walked to the Palestine Museum of Natural History, a stunning new project being built by Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh (a biologist and geneticist who was recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize) and his wife. As one of his many acts of resistance to what he calls the "monoculture" of Zionism and the Israeli nation state, Dr. Qumsiyeh insists on studying, collecting, nourishing, and displaying the vast and beautiful biodiversity of Palestine - so that visitors and Palestinians alike can continue to fall in love with both its people and its ecology.

Dr. Qumsiyeh shared a story of one of his first acts of nonviolent resistance: in 1988, when the Israeli military banned Palestinians in the city of Beit Sahour from owning milking cows, he organized a dairy collective of people who literally hid a herd of 18 cows, which were deemed a "threat to Israeli security. "Later, when Palestinians in Bethlehem refused to pay taxes for their own occupation, the Israeli military surrounded the Church of the Nativity in a siege that lasted 49 days. Dr. Qumsiyeh and others recruited and organized internationals to stand with them and break the siege through nonviolent resistance, forming what is now known as the International Solidarity Movement or ISM.

Today, Dr. Qumsiyeh uses that same creative energy to organize volunteers at the museum to plant olive trees, cultivate herbs and vegetables, care for injured owls and other wildlife, experiment with hydroponics, and tend the land with care and determination.

Looking at the newly planted trees and other creatures on the land it is clear that those who are bringing this project to life envision for Palestine a future of beauty, flourishing, and meaningful life.

The struggle is not over yet.

It Will Fall

The fences with barbed wire are everywhere, a tangible separation to remind them all, Palestinian and Israeli alike, that there is a difference between the two peoples and their rights as humans in this land. 

Chunks of the West Bank have been cut into pieces specifically to isolate communities of Palestinians and separate them from their Jewish brothers and sisters. The awe-inspiring land is interrupted by metal, plain concrete structures reminiscent of prisons, both in design and by the surrounding “security” fences. 

What is it that the Israeli government fears? They say it is the terrorism that plagues the Palestinian territory, but the indigenous people here are amongst the most welcoming and gentle people: men embracing each other or walking arm in arm; women welcoming us into their homes and hearts. There is no judgement, no difficulty, no barrier in our connection. There is only love and camaraderie. These are a people most hospitable in their acceptance of others. 

I believe this government fears equal rights. I believe they fear inclusion. I believe they fear fellowship. I believe they fear the humanization of marginalized people. I believe they fear the things that would make theft and oppression unpalatable for the masses. I do not believe they fear a concocted terrorism, simply not here, among these gentle people, just trying to live in peace. 

I’ve come to the realization that the fences keep both Israelis and Palestinians locked in. Locked into the separation. Locked into the beliefs. Locked into apartheid and disdain. And whom does it benefit? From where I stand, it seems as though both groups are worse off for it. The land and the culture suffer with the humans the fences oppress on both sides. The propaganda of fear controls the poisonous narrative of the degradation of an entire race of people. 

Two worlds divided by roads and so much more. My eyes cannot believe what they see, my brain cannot comprehend it and my heart cannot accept the fear and these apathies invented by greed and oppression. Something has to change.

The walls must come down.

Seeds of Hope

As we do UCPA (Unarmed Civilian Protection Accompaniment) work year-in and year-out, our doubts can outweigh our confidence. It helps to see and hear success stories that can buoy our efforts.

The last time I was in Palestine, I joined the struggle to protect the village of Khan al-Ahmar which was a typical extended Bedouin family spread across several villages. When an illegal settlement stole some of the village’s traditional lands, the village asked that the illegal settlement educate the Khan al-Ahmar children too, especially since the school bus went right through Khan al-Ahmar everyday. When that request was flatly denied, the village built its own school. The walls were made from used automobile tires filled with cement. Over time, as enrollment grew, the school expanded from one room to about twelve rooms. The walls were decorated with wonderful murals created by generations of students.

However, the illegal settlement Ma'ale Adumim wanted the land and felt that demolishing the school was both legal and their right. They also believed it would weaken the will of the community. Ma'ale Adumim was a powerful, though illegal, settlement with ten-story buildings, higher-education institutions, and industry. They believed they could get anything they wanted. In order to discourage bulldozers from doing their dirty work, our UCPA group spent many nights sleeping in the school. We returned to Khan al-Ahmar to demonstrate during the daytime when the danger to the village was especially high. Some days Palestinians from all over the West Bank gathered to show solidarity with the village. 

During this time there were elections in Ma'ale Adumim and one of the campaign promises was to once and for all just get rid of Khan al-Ahmar. Besides the expansion goals of Ma'ale Adumim, there was a bigger strategy. Khan al-Ahmar was one of the few remaining obstacles to cutting the West Bank in half with illegal settlements. As international awareness of the threatened school grew, the illegal settlers devised a new strategy. They started building a new road, a settler-only road that would imprison Khan al-Ahmar between two roads with no access to any of their traditional and life-giving grazing land. We watched as they cut the road so close to the village that the bulldozer actually tore parts off some of the buildings. Honestly, as I left, I was discouraged and thought that under threat from the powerful Ma'ale Adumim and Zionist goals, there could be no future for the school or the village of Khan al-Ahmar.

When I returned this year and rode from King Hussein Bridge to Jerusalem, some five years after attempting to save the village and school, I kept a despondent eye out to see what, if anything, remained of Khan al-Ahmar. As we came over the rise, there it was: Khan al-Ahmar with both the village and the school looking healthy. The only thing that had obviously deteriorated and fallen into disrepair during the five years was the illegal settler road that was designed to finally strangle the life out of Khan al-Ahmar. The road had succumbed to the ravages of time, reverting back to sand.

The sight of Khan al-Ahmar and the school still standing, was inspiring. It’s a living testimony to the efficacy of UCPA. Personally, I was surprised when I realized something. For me, seeing that the road built to strangle the village had been erased by nature gave me a vindictive joy. There are victories in the midst of struggle.

The Road Home

“I hate this place so much,” I thought.

It’s was 7:46 PM and the checkpoint to get home was closed early. “Why does it have to be so hard?!” I breathed away the tears. 

This is what it’s all about, isn’t it? They want the Palestinians to hate being here. They want to drive them out by nickel and diming away their sanity. 

Side roads are closed with massive boulders so a hundred feet away another path must be made to the same road. Main roads have been bulldozed so already dilapidated cars take an even greater beating. 

Every nugget and every crumb adds to an almost certain resignation, but then why can’t I see it in Palestinian faces? How do they smile? How do they find something extra in nothing to share with me and their neighbors? How do they find joy given the incessant chipping away of peace and stability? 

We are forced to turn around at the checkpoint, behind us was a Palestinian. We yell, “as-salamu alaykum,” out the window and they stop to roll down theirs. We yelled the town we were trying to go to, the driver nodded his head and said to hurry. We raced through the town following them. They were going to lead us home. Even though they are the ones who this labyrinth is designed to inconvenience, their faces show us nothing but kindness and warmth. With smiles they gladly help us. The only time tonight I can find a smile is looking back at them. 

I don’t hate this place. Even though they want us to hate it, even though they want them to hate it. I love Palestine, and they love their home. Their spirit will be unbroken and inspired by their beautiful resilience. The tears come again and my heart is filled by their spirit.

Common Pigeons

It is early morning and the shops are just opening. A shop owner walks out and spreads a bag of grain on the ground. The pigeons descend by the flock, one after the other. The wide pedestrian way fills with pigeons joining the resident cats.

Through the swirling pigeons, two children appear. It is hard to tell if they are scaring up the pigeons intentionally or just as a by-product of their meanderings. The children become more visible, now that they are halfway through the swirling pigeons.

A boy and a girl, a year apart, both dressed for grade school, chase the pigeons and then lose interest in them. Walking parallel to them, but staying out of the flocks of pigeons, is a man carrying two small book packs.

This scene is by Damascus Gate in Jerusalem. A father walking kids to school like this could be any city around the world. It reminds us how much people around the world, despite the divisions, have in common.

A Ridge that Divides

Looking across the valley, I see the land of a farmer I know. His family land runs from the olive trees below his house up over the ridge with about half his fields sloping down the other side into the next valley.

For generations his family has walked through or shepherded their sheep through their closer fields and onto their farther fields.

As part of the illegal settlement expansion and aggression since Oct 7th, the settlers, backed by the occupying army, have arbitrarily denied the farmer permission to use or even pass over his own land on the ridge.

To reach half of his fields he now must get in a car and drive almost an hour around the illegal settlement. A settlement that was built on stolen Palestinian land in the first place.

So, working his fields is now at best complicated and probably impractical. Of course, grazing his sheep on his farther fields is now impossible.

Rock Land

The land is rock. Not rocks, but sheets of rock. Not dirt punctuated by many rocks, but sheets of rock marked with gaps and divots. Some big, some small. Some areas, the rock is polished from use. Other areas are rough. The sheets of rock can be so featureless that roads of safe passage are marked by stone walls or cairns. 

On the sheets of rock are boulders and smaller and smaller rocks, until at last sand. The wind-blown sand fills the dimples and crevasses in the rock sheet. The largest crevasses filled with sand support plant growth. In these crevasses Palestinians have gardens. One row of onions, or in bigger ones, a more conventional garden of five or six rows.

Rocks are used to build walls, fences, buildings, ovens, and terraces. Walls that are precisely built straight with trim sides, as though built for a formal garden. Also, there are rough-hewn walls. These are functional, but not works of art. All are built without mortar or cement by people who start building walls as soon as they are strong enough to lift even small rocks.

At times, big stones that are too big to lift, are positioned as the base of a soon to be wall. The wall is being built with manageable sized stones placed around them. Even slabs of rock, say six or seven feet by about four feet, are used by planting them on their end to form the backbone of a wall.

They present a jagged top that looks like some dinosaur's teeth coming out of the earth. Walls come in all heights, from terrace walls, well over a man's head, to walls little more than a row of rocks. These little walls may direct rains toward wells, or mixed with stone cairns, they may mark safe passage or a “roadway” across the rock.

The use of rock goes below the surface too. Cavities in the rock, from small cavities to walk in caves, find a use. Caves that make dry and rodent-free granaries are fitted with steel doors. Caves that are dry, wind free, and temperature moderated, become communal bed rooms. Caves are kitchens, work rooms, and storage areas. Small cavities are used for traditional ovens. Some caves have complete roofs, others need some amount of added roof. Some are walk-in, others require a ladder. Most have been enlarged and shaped over the generations. They have doors, roofs, and other features have been fashioned so that caves can fill multiple needs. Each family uses a variety of available caves but mostly they live in conventional above ground houses.

The rocks and the people grow together and shape one another. The relationship is beautiful, as are the rock structures and uses. The rock itself seems to come alive as the sun settles and night encroaches. The rock faces and hills start to glow and radiate a warm inviting red color.

My Indignation

The night passed uneventfully. In the morning a couple of settlers drove a few cows along the public road. They turned off the road taking a short cut across Palestinian fallow land. Across the valley, a settler shepherd herded a flock of sheep from another direction across the Palestinian fallow land. The settlers met and then turned and drove their animals directly into a Palestinian olive orchard and garden. 

My first response was, “Let's just go down and drive the sheep out of the Palestinian's olive trees and garden.” The Palestinians said, “No, we are calling the police.” 

After half an hour of watching the sheep and cows grazing on the olives and garden, my indignation was growing and I was feeling more like, “Let's just go run the sheep out of the garden and orchard. While we’re at it, we could also scatter the sheep and even drive a few of them off.” The Palestinian owners again said no; instead they called the police another time. This was a saga in itself. The police had an endless list of questions to find the complaint that had been made just half an hour earlier.

Meanwhile, because of the injustice, my anger had risen more and I started thinking we could butcher a couple of sheep or maybe put out poison for them; anything to stop the settlers from deliberately grazing on the Palestinian olives. The sheep and cows would do irreparable damage each time they grazed in the orchard, eventually denying the Palestinians any value from their orchard or land. This was the intent of the settlers.

After another half hour, the Border Patrol showed up. This was after the cows and sheep had eaten their fill and moved off the Palestinian land. Even though the settlers and flocks were still visible, and we showed the Border Patrol videos, they said they couldn't do anything unless they eye-witnessed the crime. The police could act on complaints, but the Border Patrol could not. It was unclear why, when we called the police, they sent the Border Patrol. It is easy to ask if maybe that was intentional.

We have seen this before, where settlers drive their herds into Palestinian crops. The police are called and eventually the police say the settlers can't graze there, but not until the sheep have eaten their fill. Then the same sequence of events often plays out on subsequent days.

The patience, the nonviolent resistance of the Palestinians, was astounding. I was not watching years of my work being destroyed and I could barely restrain myself in the face of the injustice. By contrast, it was the Palestinian's income and future that was at risk, yet they restrained their emotions and worked methodically to prove that the system was not working.

Stillness in the Olive Grove

One way that my companions and I serve here is to provide protective accompaniment to Palestinians while they’re carrying out their regular lives. Members of our team have been accompanying Palestinians picking olives the last few days. 

This morning I was in an olive grove when I heard a rifle shot and then angry yelling. Two IOF soldiers were at the base of the trees, screaming and pointing. The duo quickly turned into a group of seven, all carrying automatic weapons and pointing them at us harvesters. The men demanded we stop and then they separated the internationals from the Palestinians. 

The soldiers grabbed the Palestinians by their necks, shoving their faces down as they pushed them forward. They yelled and demanded compliance.

The internationals were treated very differently. We were unharmed. As minutes and hours passed in the desert sun, the internationals were offered shade and water. The Palestinians were refused these needs and the soldiers told us “they can swallow their spit,” and the interrogations and detainment continued. 

I found a spot on a tarp and sat next to the olives. The people next to me were still and frightened. The armed men demanded our phones and took pictures of our passports, even though it is prohibited by law. They would not identify themselves nor tell us why we were being detained. One of the international women picked up her phone, and they threatened to shoot her if she did it again. 

I knew I needed to remain calm and keep my head clear, when a grasshopper jumped onto the tarp with me. This caused an immediate and urgent-feeling and reaction inside of me. I wanted to jump up and run away from it or quickly squish to feel safe again. I have had a debilitating fear of bugs for most of my life, and that grasshopper triggered that fear in the most intense way.

But in that moment I realized the parallel in front of me. Even though I hate bugs, in nature I am in their home. It would be cruel to harm this defenseless being, something that belongs here. 

This is true of the Palestinians as well. This is their home. They were not harming anyone, just as the grasshopper wasn’t harming me. As I looked around at the violent harassment of the Palestinians, I did not understand why they were being treated this way. My heart screams in agony every day that my fellow brothers and sisters are being tortured, attacked, threatened, murdered, and my brain can’t comprehend why this is happening…simply because they’re existing.  

There is nothing else I can do in this moment. So, I sit on a tarp and watch a grasshopper as my heart breaks, until I’m forced to leave my Palestinian friends behind to meet whatever fate the soldiers decide that day.

Forced to abandon my friends with their oppressors