Orientation Week, or, By the way…we’re late, we’re late!
So…one week gone. Our orientation left us with very little free time, so I’m sorry to say that this overview of that week is poorly written, out of order, and lacking in the details needed to do justice to the experience.
Our orientation crammed in a million different aspects of Israeli-Palestinian society.
We listened to two members of Combatants for Peace, which is composed of former IDF soldiers and Palestinian fighters who have renounced violence and work to educate others on the conflict. They explained how difficult it was to hear about the killings each had committed, but how they have become each other’s best friends. We heard two 19 year old Israeli girls discuss why they refused to serve in the army, and how they were imprisoned for it. Their refusal is specifically a response to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, but since Israel won’t accept this as valid grounds, they were filed under the mental health category. We were in awe of their account of the social repercussions of their choice and felt moved by their courage in questioning their society.
Danny Rubenstein, a journalist with Ha’aretz, spoke about the concessions he believes are necessary for both sides - Israel to give up settlements and Palestine to give up the right of return. We heard Jeff Halpern of the Israeli Commission Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) discuss the methods through which Israel confiscates land and creates facts on the ground.
Our visit to Yad Veshem, the Israeli Holocaust Museum, was really moving for everyone in our group. It’s a beautiful museum, with amazing exhibits and testimony from survivors. Yet at the same time, Israeli soldiers were surrounding us the entire time, guns hanging from their hips. Many were disturbed by the political overtones the soldiers’ presence created. The path towards the creation of Israel was started long before the Holocaust, and it seems that Israel wants to use the memory of the Holocaust to justify its current actions. I felt that on my first trip to Yad Veshem last summer, I was actually more distracted by the soldiers than I was this summer. Since I knew to expect the masses of soldiers, I was able to focus more on the history of the Holocaust and was very moved thinking of the injustice. At the same time, it’s amazing that Israelis can visit the museum and be so moved and yet not see any parallels to their policies towards the Palestinians. Especially in the history of the rise of the Third Reich in the 30’s - Jews were segregated into ghettos and had no freedom of movement… Many sentences from these parts of the museum could be altered to replace the word “Jews” with “Palestinians” and still make complete sense today.
That evening we climbed up to the ruins of a Palestinian town which is now an Israeli kibbutz. The views were beautiful and we had a debriefing to go over our experience up to that point. Many of us felt really overwhelmed - you hear stories of devastating sadness every day, and then have no time to reflect or even sleep… but we all felt that we would rather see more every day, since we can bring back these narratives for our friends and family at home to help raise awareness.
We also visited Beit Arabiya, which was originally a family’s home until it was demolished three times by the Israeli Defense Force. His family was traumatized by the demolitions. His daughter was temporarily blinded and his wife couldn’t speak for months after the second demolition. His strength was astounding. The family turned their house into an education center to raise awareness about Israel’s demolition policy.
We visited the village of Sakhnin, which is a Palestinian town in Israel proper, and finally had some time to relax with a night of Palestinian music and shishah. We all got up to dance towards the end, and it was an amazing experience to simply appreciate the culture without feeling overwhelmed by the politics of the region.
We visited Deheisheh Refugee Camp, Bethlehem, destroyed villages of 1948, the village of Bil’in (which has weekly protests against the planned route of the wall through their town), and many other places.
I arrived in Nablus yesterday with Leigh (GA), Audrey (MA), Mathilde (France), and Lian (Netherlands). We are staying in a great apartment on Mt. Gerizim just a few blocks from our NGO - Project Hope. The Project Hope offices are beautiful, and we had a great barbeque on the balcony overlooking the whole city. Today we met up with other FFIPPers at the Dead Sea and spent the day lying in the sun and floating around. Tomorrow’s our first day of work, so we’re all excited to see what exactly we’ll be doing.
