tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41262799042790108182024-03-05T06:12:01.442-05:00Discovering BethlehemLiving, learning, serving, and working in the town where Jesus was born.Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04885102333204660542noreply@blogger.comBlogger54125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4126279904279010818.post-28013868990401195422012-09-01T23:54:00.000-04:002012-09-01T23:54:48.372-04:00Home<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
After being back in the US for just a little over a month, I feel like it's time to finally close the loop and update this blog. I'm back in the US safe and sound, but coming back pretty much broke my heart. I miss Palestine so very much, and not a day goes by that I don't think about returning.<br />
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The leaving wasn't too bad. I packed, got on the bus in Bethlehem, and headed for Jerusalem. I met up with the rest of the MCC crew there, and drove to Amman, Jordan. From there, we had a few days of debriefing, and then we flew to London, then Washington, DC. At first, it didn't really hit me that I'd left. I said all my goodbyes, but it wasn't nearly as painful as I'd imagined. The students had already left for the summer, and so I only had to say goodbye to the staff, many of whom had already left for vacation. It was only after I'd left that my heart started to hurt.<br />
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MCC's reorientation was fantastic. The Palestine/Jordan team (along with most of the Asia team) were picked up in DC and drove to Akron, PA, where we had a week of restful debriefing and reorientation. It was wonderful to reconnect with the other SALTers and hear all about the adventures that they had in their respective countries. Mennonite Central Committee had some great tips on how to handle reverse-culture shock, and trust me: there has been a lot of that going around.<br />
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I am so grateful to MCC for the opportunity to serve in Palestine for a year; I couldn't have asked for a better sending organization. I am so grateful to the MCC Palestine team for their support, faith, and incredible example. I am so grateful to Bethlehem Bible College for welcoming me and caring for me. Truly, I learned more than I taught, I was given more than I gave, and I was loved more than I would have dreamed possible.<br />
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Working for change is hard. Working for peace is hard. There were so many times when I got overwhelmed and felt like things would never change. Thank you to each and every person in both Palestine and Israel who proved me wrong. Things are changing. Slowly but surely, they are changing, and I feel honored to have been able to work alongside some unbelievably amazing people (Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals alike) who are all working toward one common goal: to bring peace, justice, and freedom to Occupied Palestine.<br />
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The question isn't "if" I'll return to Palestine... it's "when." Right now, I'm catching up with friends, looking for a job (I have an interview next week - cross your fingers for me!), and still trying to readjust to life back in the US. It's a challenge, but one that I'm ready for.<br />
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I don't know whether I'll pick this blog back up the next time I head off to the Middle East or whether this is my last entry. Regardless, I want to thank you so much for your thoughts, prayers, and encouragement over this past year. It has truly been invaluable. I am so glad to have had such an incredible network of people supporting me, and I am thankful for each of you.<br />
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Until next time,<br />
<br />
Meredith</div>
Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04885102333204660542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4126279904279010818.post-35359010055084242122012-07-05T17:45:00.000-04:002012-07-06T11:31:22.423-04:00When the Evening Comes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Its a little past midnight and I'm sitting on the roof of the dorm building at the college. I tried to go to bed, but I couldn't fall asleep. Sleeping would mean wasting some of the precious few moments I have left here in Palestine, so instead, I'm up here enjoying the beautiful view of Beit Jala. I tried to take a picture so that you could enjoy it with me, but this is the best I could do:<br />
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I know it doesn't look like much, but trust me when I say that in person, it is absolutely breathtaking. There's a party going on off in the distance somewhere, and I can hear singing and clapping. Its probably a wedding. I heard a huge bang a moment ago; either a lone firecracker or a soldier's gun shot. It sounded so near, but I didn't see an explosion in the sky... maybe the firecracker was defective. The kids in the refugee camp across the street didn't even flinch. They're used to the noise.</div>
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Out of all the things that I've experienced this past year, the distinct scent of Palestine is one that is seared in my brain forevermore. During the day, the smell is a heated concoction of Arabic coffee, dust, rich spices, garbage, roasting shwarmah meat, car exhaust, and whatever fruit is in season.<br />
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But once the sun goes down and the blistering heat of the day is replaced by the gentle cool of the night, the smell transforms. In the breezy darkness, you can truly smell Palestine. It is earth - olive wood, soil, and a hint of the smell that comes before a thunder storm even though we won't have rain again until the Fall, along with the bit of argeela smoke that wafts from the open windows in the restaurant across the street, and the smell of the freshly washed and sun-dried laundry that the women in the refugee camp are just now finding time to take off the clothes-lines. I'm absolutely sure that this is what heaven smells like. I wish I could bottle it up and take it with me, because I know that my hurting, homesick-for-Palestine heart will soon be craving the familiarity of this evening scent.<br />
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With eleven more scalding, sunny days and cool, windy nights in Palestine, I am trying to soak in everything about this confusing, wonderful place that has, at my very core, become a part of me. The sights, the smells, the conversations with beautiful people, the long walks around Bethlehem, the newfound friendship I have with the grocer next-door, the beauty of the Adhan echoing over the hills five times each day, the special spot where I always sit on this rooftop, the way the moon looks so much closer here, the tears I've cried over the conflict in this precious town, the apartheid, the oppression, the pain, the hope, the resilience, and the longing for peace; I want to remember it all. </div>Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04885102333204660542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4126279904279010818.post-20244732114253931992012-07-02T14:21:00.003-04:002012-07-02T14:21:59.270-04:00The Cycle of Abuse<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've been so busy these last few weeks trying to cram every little bit of life into my time here that I haven't really had time to do anything else, including blog, but I saw this quote today, and all I could think was "THIS IS ABOUT PALESTINE!"<br />
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"It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. I simply can't build my hopes on a foundation of confusion, misery, and death. I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too. I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that this cruelty too shall end, and that peace & tranquility will return once again."<br />
--Anne Frank<br />
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And then I saw the author, and all I could think was "wow, this is a cycle of abuse that needs to be broken." The abused child grows up and is much more likely to end up abusing his child than someone who never suffered abuse. The psychological damage that is inflicted on one person can also be inflicted on an entire people group, on an entire nation. The Jewish people have been horrifically abused... and now the nation of Israel is, in turn, abusing a weaker people group: the Palestinians. This abusive cycle needs to be broken, and healing needs to take place on both sides of the wall. I have said many times "there will be no peace without justice," but I think I need to add "there will be no peace without justice, <b>and there can be neither peace nor justice without healing.</b>"<br />
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Intensive therapy helps to heal the abused child who has grown into an abusive adult, but how do you help to heal an entire nation of abused people who have allowed their government to turn into an abusive force? And how do you respond to those countries, like the United States, who are enabling this dysfunction? My psychology degree didn't cover this... if only there was an instruction manual.</div>Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04885102333204660542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4126279904279010818.post-4559710787737528492012-06-15T16:48:00.001-04:002012-11-15T21:57:47.882-05:00It's GRADUATION DAY!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
You know that feeling when you first meet someone and the two of you just click? None of that awkward, proper "getting to know you" nonsense where you test the waters and ease into your friendship. I'm talking about big loud CLICK where you two just instantly get each other. That is exactly what happened the first time I met David (whom you may remember from our little conversation in <a href="http://offtopalestine.blogspot.com/2012/02/zababdeh-and-run-in-with-soldiers.html">this blog post</a>). My second day of work, this short, scrawny kid just walks up to me while I'm sitting in my office, sticks out his hand, and says hello with this big grin on his face. He was the first student at the college to introduce himself to me, and we became fast friends. His English is fantastic, and he made sure to teach me some important Arabic words that my month long Jordanian crash-course had missed, like "sababah," which means "cool." We laugh and joke, and things always feel so easy with him. I immediately had someone that I could be myself around and communicate with (without having to revert to a really bizarre version of charades like I did with most other people).<br />
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The first thing that struck me about David was his kindness. It's not something I usually think about when meeting someone, but with him, I couldn't help but recognize it. Over the course of this past year, he has patiently helped me with my Arabic, always gone out of his way to introduce me to other students whom I didn't know, respectfully explained cultural difference to me, and come into my office a few times a week asking if I needed help with any of my work (that kid is now a PRO at stuffing envelopes) all with a huge smile. At first, it shocked me. Here is this stranger, this guy that I don't even know, being so very kind to me, some random new girl who is a foreigner and an outsider in his community. Honestly, the first few months I was here, I really needed that kindness. I felt so fragile, like an infant. I couldn't figure out how to travel by myself, grocery shop by myself, or even communicate with the vast majority of the population by myself. Having someone around who constantly went out of his way to make sure that I was well taken care of and adjusting to my new home made my first few months about a hundred times easier than they would have otherwise been.<br />
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My friendship with Jumana developed completely differently. We saw each other every day for five months without saying a single word to each other. The first few months that I was here, I usually waited for the students to approach me instead of approaching them because my Arabic was nowhere near good enough to hold a conversation, and I didn't want to make them self-conscious about their English skills (or lack thereof). While I definitely wouldn't use this relational strategy again, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Live and learn.<br />
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So one day, I was waiting for one of my MCC coworkers to finish up teaching an English class so that I could bum a ride to our meeting instead of taking the bus. Since it was an evening class, Jumana was sitting at the front desk of the building as the "manager," making sure that random strangers weren't coming in and out. Since we were the only two people in the entire building who weren't in the English class, I went up to her and forced her to talk with me. Her English was pretty basic (and I've found that girls are usually much more timid about speaking and possibly making a mistake than boys are) so we stuck to topics like school, work, family, and post-graduation plans. After this conversation, we started saying "hi" to each other and casually chatting during lunch.<br />
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While our friendship started out slow, we soon bonded over shoes, long hair, and the song tirashrash (do yourself a favor and check out the true cross-cultural beauty of this timeless masterpiece <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq5EnedEUSA">HERE</a>). Turns out that this quiet, stoic girl is actually a huge goofball! I can't believe that I almost missed out on the opportunity of getting to know her, just because both of us were too uncomfortable with our language skills to make the first move.<br />
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The reason that these two are on my mind is that they both were among the students who graduated from the college today! I feel like a little momma hen whose chicks have just flown the coop. I am so incredibly proud of both of them for all of their hard work, and I am so excited to see what their futures hold! Both of them have overcome unfathomable obstacles to have made it this far, and I'm telling you people, mark my words: these kids are going places! Also, I realize that I'm only one year older than both of them (it was me walking across that stage last year!) but I still feel like a proud parent.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzwEMG1aVMTjmV4kb-x18gOHWIoLARRoH5ZswHBqn_quJAWdA7jwop4T6h__bng8V-8eN3YeKMs48MKhcj9gakZKSYz7aWCI4GYoVV8-WIzOlCURo8z-LOBdzNgsu8nEz0t7bbxMzK/s1600/Jumana+and+David.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzwEMG1aVMTjmV4kb-x18gOHWIoLARRoH5ZswHBqn_quJAWdA7jwop4T6h__bng8V-8eN3YeKMs48MKhcj9gakZKSYz7aWCI4GYoVV8-WIzOlCURo8z-LOBdzNgsu8nEz0t7bbxMzK/s400/Jumana+and+David.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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Jumana, William (the college's caretaker), and David</div>
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David and Jumana: two of the many reasons why Palestine has changed my life. They are both such truly, deeply <u>good</u> human beings that they inspire me to be better. I am so, so grateful that these two beautiful people were brought into my life this year, and I cannot imagine my time here without them.</div>
Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04885102333204660542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4126279904279010818.post-14877310428740162392012-06-14T04:08:00.000-04:002012-06-14T15:05:15.820-04:00Five Weeks (And Enough Tears to Flood the Sea)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
With exactly five weeks left until I leave Palestine, I am pretty much in panic mode. The thought of leaving this place, my new home, is absolutely devastating. I cry every time I start to think about it, which makes for some pretty awkward moments, like my bus ride home from work yesterday when the woman sitting next to me dug through her purse and offered me a handful of tissues because I had a mini-breakdown (IN PUBLIC!). I would do just about anything to stay here, but unfortunately, I was told that because I have a one-year work visa, I shouldn't even bother trying to reapply (Israel has a ton of crazy rules and procedures regarding visas). My request for a new visa <u>will</u> be denied. The only option left for me is to go back to the US and try to figure out how to re-immerse myself back into my old life when I feel like a completely different person than the girl who left DC a year ago. I waver between feeling optimistic about returning home and starting my "real, adult life," and wanting to skip out on all my responsibilities, fake my own death, and stay here as an illegal immigrant (don't worry mom, I would never actually do that).<br />
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This past year of my life, I have been completely immersed in the
struggle for freedom, peace, and justice here in Palestine. This seems to consume my entire
life, and I honestly don't know what is going to be left of me once Palestine is stripped
away. What will I think about? What will I talk about? What will I work toward?
I'm worried that I'll end up floating around in the breeze, completely empty with no direction.<br />
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Living in this
undercover war zone bonds people together; we all have struggles and
frustrations and fears in common. We all are, whether directly or indirectly,
working for the same thing: Freedom; freedom that will only come through peace
and justice. It is a strange thing to live in a place where I am not free. Even
after a year, it is still such a jarring experience to be walking down the
street and encounter a checkpoint, or a refugee camp, or a wall. The core of
this apartheid system wholly clashes with the core of my faith, which is the
love of Christ.<br />
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Christ's message of love and peace and equality is the absolute
antithesis of this apartheid system, and even after a year and hundreds of
conversations, it still breaks my heart every time I encounter a fellow brother
or sister in Christ who tries to tell me that this occupation is somehow
Biblical, that it is somehow a justifiable means to an end. I can't help but
cry for these people who have somehow missed what Jesus was saying. Christ's command to "love your neighbor as yourself" has somehow turned into "love
your neighbor as yourself, unless they have the wrong skin color or speak the
wrong language," or "love your neighbor as yourself, unless they have something
that you want," or "love your neighbor as yourself, unless they don't
love you back, then just kill them all."<br />
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Treat someone the way you want to be treated. I don't understand the confusion. How much more clearly could Jesus have put it? If your people were being massacred, wouldn't you desperately want your brothers and sisters in Christ to stand up for you? Refuse to support the group that was killing you? On the other hand, if you were the one doing the massacring, wouldn't you want your brothers and sisters to come and stop you, show you the error of your ways before it was too late, refuse to allow you to slowly lose your humanity by doing something so heinous?<br />
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The term "massacre" comes from the Latin term "mass sacrifice." That is exactly what is being done here. Palestinians are being "mass sacrificed" in order to... well... what? In order to give the Jewish people a homeland, an EXCLUSIVELY JEWISH homeland where there are no Arabs allowed? If so, why do Palestinians continue to be kicked out of their homes in the West Bank in order to allow for the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements? Often times, people will say, "well the West Bank was part of the land that God promised the Jews," so they should have that too. This poses a bit of a problem, because the land that God promised the ancient Israelites (and that some believe Israelis now have claim to) is not just modern day Israel, West Bank, and Gaza. Oh, no. It is Israel, West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Jordan, and large parts of Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. It's most of the Middle East. So if we believe that the Israelis have claim to all of the original Promised Land, then what are we going to do with the hundred million Arabs who currently live in it?<br />
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Somehow, we've skipped over Galatians 3:28-29 which says "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." We are one in Christ Jesus. How do we miss that? We are all heirs to the promised land. How do we miss that?<br />
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As I'm entering my last month here in Palestine, I'm still struggling with all of this. I'm struggling with what to do with this experience, with this knowledge, and with all of these vivid images of suffering and oppression that will forevermore be burned into my brain. What do I do with all of this pain that constantly weighs down my spirit? Honestly, your guess is as good as mine. All I know is that I wouldn't give up a second of this experience. The oppression that I've seen, the pain I've felt, the depression that I know will follow my return to the US, it all has been and will be worth it. In the next five weeks, I have a graduation ceremony, a birthday party, the wedding of two dear friends, 21 more days of work, countless conversations, meals, cups of tea, and eventually, many devastating, tearful goodbyes. I'm trying to stay positive, and so for now, I am going to focus on the next five weeks, and not any of the moments after.</div>Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04885102333204660542noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4126279904279010818.post-90629645027723226152012-06-11T03:56:00.002-04:002012-06-12T13:44:37.366-04:00The Parents Visit Palestine!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
My darling parents came to visit me a few weeks ago, and we were able to travel around Israel, Palestine, and Jordan! Here are some of the highlights of our travels. Warning: photo overload!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My parents' first day in Palestine, walking around the Suuq in Bethlehem with Emily and me.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Shepherds' Fields</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hebron<br />
The barrier behind us marks the divide in the road. Arabs are only allowed to walk on the side that we are on. The other side of the barrier is for Jews only (or Internationals - I'm sure we wouldn't have gotten in trouble if we'd tried to walk there). Also, you can't see them in this photo, but there were Israeli soldiers stationed at either end of this walk-way.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGg-mFNrY9Yrzj3Y8uWO3oNQGamLasOhYxVORqQmFasBRhQorhbvBqvRs5uFT26NF_24c8SwrSAh88QA8QT5XnDxEkW4PGL83lNoESjSmJiF-EwuvmdzcgiwW-tAwiGDZ8aGF6oIbZ/s1600/DSC02710.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGg-mFNrY9Yrzj3Y8uWO3oNQGamLasOhYxVORqQmFasBRhQorhbvBqvRs5uFT26NF_24c8SwrSAh88QA8QT5XnDxEkW4PGL83lNoESjSmJiF-EwuvmdzcgiwW-tAwiGDZ8aGF6oIbZ/s320/DSC02710.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">East Jerusalem</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_iCom7xkVsfaXUTtmdz3uF4zIXkOuXxnnl59M4_KFu1qSHyBzO9sK_0yMARIoCoiqvqpqv-3H6L6LLxXhia6WJiopUTkdnjtdrtqot3MXMw-CGJESlswFhBfG7Y9Hn3yV_SQkNWGm/s1600/P5107588.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_iCom7xkVsfaXUTtmdz3uF4zIXkOuXxnnl59M4_KFu1qSHyBzO9sK_0yMARIoCoiqvqpqv-3H6L6LLxXhia6WJiopUTkdnjtdrtqot3MXMw-CGJESlswFhBfG7Y9Hn3yV_SQkNWGm/s320/P5107588.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Herodion!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUTNMfxWLF1Hk8KKCmpZ6I944CRMMmTah5pnjiVwzqkbzbU2KeNX0fJK4hn9vjs5WcpR2mpzPJFCcp84616QRg7-xrMRFLAYDMnQwvHnG3rMyCFYcMtXazeeN0Pmr-K4m4n2gj911B/s1600/P5107586.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUTNMfxWLF1Hk8KKCmpZ6I944CRMMmTah5pnjiVwzqkbzbU2KeNX0fJK4hn9vjs5WcpR2mpzPJFCcp84616QRg7-xrMRFLAYDMnQwvHnG3rMyCFYcMtXazeeN0Pmr-K4m4n2gj911B/s320/P5107586.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View from the top of Herodion.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL559AzZb2raykUGalEaABOkAfeIYdNWyfhR8teLVW7RyJdwkCvn8nmdY8mEZ091X3b6BkTn43BcCLJR73-iSDVOIyICcRPzadTVJ1Q9Kmw7XxSGmde7hC31ryVcoJ75pH9HNTXB2q/s1600/DSC02701.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL559AzZb2raykUGalEaABOkAfeIYdNWyfhR8teLVW7RyJdwkCvn8nmdY8mEZ091X3b6BkTn43BcCLJR73-iSDVOIyICcRPzadTVJ1Q9Kmw7XxSGmde7hC31ryVcoJ75pH9HNTXB2q/s320/DSC02701.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Emily & I being statues at Herodion.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZmo6K5GrtPXb4NcxTu4vC4PZjrgRoNApABaoy5Dah3t0DunRFw0iQeU76zRsjFWDmo6lSHVM8ApHsAXtSckCEgZTtKxYgSyg-j-HFpQ4JHobhOdqJWg6o4KWd7dRCT9WSpZR9-Oeu/s1600/DSC02706-1+(dragged).tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZmo6K5GrtPXb4NcxTu4vC4PZjrgRoNApABaoy5Dah3t0DunRFw0iQeU76zRsjFWDmo6lSHVM8ApHsAXtSckCEgZTtKxYgSyg-j-HFpQ4JHobhOdqJWg6o4KWd7dRCT9WSpZR9-Oeu/s320/DSC02706-1+(dragged).tiff" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Going down into the deep dark bowels of Herodion. I don't look thrilled.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAe2PxwMWDYHGEhswK8KEvgL3Ah3YeY4ruiiM2ZIbokQP0qC5EvvBWak78SB9k8ryqRjDChGUyTdWqNgmtA9AF7rJ-Y1X5_ph1u2qnG_AGZfNtXwXVfNz2UmVOmyjCX5DyOgLBVXF6/s1600/P5107611.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAe2PxwMWDYHGEhswK8KEvgL3Ah3YeY4ruiiM2ZIbokQP0qC5EvvBWak78SB9k8ryqRjDChGUyTdWqNgmtA9AF7rJ-Y1X5_ph1u2qnG_AGZfNtXwXVfNz2UmVOmyjCX5DyOgLBVXF6/s320/P5107611.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ancient Water Cistern at Herodion.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj75HfeA9Mvx64o5HmxkEfwlH1Z-Z60B4lztxVjTHd3HSCKra4Y_LjXaXoXURqZC30sZYCbjWB-awLge1K1PPbxTCFSpcso3nEbkEXfWJPyMiziJZl9avlHfYYKm5q-agocvIG2DLcf/s1600/P5127643.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj75HfeA9Mvx64o5HmxkEfwlH1Z-Z60B4lztxVjTHd3HSCKra4Y_LjXaXoXURqZC30sZYCbjWB-awLge1K1PPbxTCFSpcso3nEbkEXfWJPyMiziJZl9avlHfYYKm5q-agocvIG2DLcf/s320/P5127643.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beautiful stone formations in Jordan.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbnDsYHtyLPjTtxousgPcbkMPyR-Zbb0W_ZA9Y6yNGjXuTAtvGCzNZTGB7-xMyIYMWIF0A0zkKaz89PhpFnHCfO0Bf5GkItk7XFqlhLsJZsMXmDD1Tp7j5h_oQ_XT9NVSaC7MfESXM/s1600/P5127663.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbnDsYHtyLPjTtxousgPcbkMPyR-Zbb0W_ZA9Y6yNGjXuTAtvGCzNZTGB7-xMyIYMWIF0A0zkKaz89PhpFnHCfO0Bf5GkItk7XFqlhLsJZsMXmDD1Tp7j5h_oQ_XT9NVSaC7MfESXM/s320/P5127663.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sunset from our hotel room outside Petra.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxfUhMchCkVINLgej0Q7_FIvUhPlrK2J-xZVwfhEhZToCjByiOSsMaO-w8h_mc8MA7ADIx1WSwXvGOWjEp51kocyWTbiMTOzzObyFdGAXW77Zp3NSbux_s45DY0gaOuhln9sOUO_Bb/s1600/P5137672.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxfUhMchCkVINLgej0Q7_FIvUhPlrK2J-xZVwfhEhZToCjByiOSsMaO-w8h_mc8MA7ADIx1WSwXvGOWjEp51kocyWTbiMTOzzObyFdGAXW77Zp3NSbux_s45DY0gaOuhln9sOUO_Bb/s320/P5137672.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ancient homes in Petra.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGPwr8LIMTzDnKys6F-6j6KyQy4f5546KYew79-7rjcj3m95-piGNWsnzX2-DM88ukUQOtG05tEtjQjrEuM7E5dHelU3M_jdpEKkwGOXoqxeYqh15tOyc328oe5m5mwW-pnCTNdpKA/s1600/P5137694.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGPwr8LIMTzDnKys6F-6j6KyQy4f5546KYew79-7rjcj3m95-piGNWsnzX2-DM88ukUQOtG05tEtjQjrEuM7E5dHelU3M_jdpEKkwGOXoqxeYqh15tOyc328oe5m5mwW-pnCTNdpKA/s320/P5137694.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beautiful buildings at Petra.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNXX97QydrCic040wLFGmIDhQVI1bd1SqwBF8BGQZ_pYMtkfUFEVmDQxScFB505rEkSHjIaNP50Nkq3aHLZfmGzanQ3ZlJzrNuA9w2-vcYYAIF8UQCuTcrdi2W15RVKcJ-eKqBMNPL/s1600/DSC00314.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNXX97QydrCic040wLFGmIDhQVI1bd1SqwBF8BGQZ_pYMtkfUFEVmDQxScFB505rEkSHjIaNP50Nkq3aHLZfmGzanQ3ZlJzrNuA9w2-vcYYAIF8UQCuTcrdi2W15RVKcJ-eKqBMNPL/s320/DSC00314.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Climbing into the crevices in the wall at Petra on our way to the treasury.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwhrnWw3DuS-oG74oW9zgWbzfEzYNwL36neALDD0qKVbB7Heg8LDy30H-xYz3fFZfp8HWC4djoGgLABk8JHjtr2pUsPANrmbvLrMpGOQEbnw3FYw6UinRgrHlvIiN_Gk8EuGeDFR_x/s1600/P5137705.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwhrnWw3DuS-oG74oW9zgWbzfEzYNwL36neALDD0qKVbB7Heg8LDy30H-xYz3fFZfp8HWC4djoGgLABk8JHjtr2pUsPANrmbvLrMpGOQEbnw3FYw6UinRgrHlvIiN_Gk8EuGeDFR_x/s320/P5137705.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Coming out of the tunnel after walking for an hour and a half, our first view of the treasury...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXASIigfK_QuJC0XzyDRAdCEkCAgO_4PbDS6NVAvBjAk5qbjgiDl-ao1R7ckhh9Sl7fZdjsWS5uvReZXZsQ93fr5YVwTlRG1ZgBMiJ3c98YGSht8NskJZnf99HlJcJTz8ktEwlJDqq/s1600/P5137720.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXASIigfK_QuJC0XzyDRAdCEkCAgO_4PbDS6NVAvBjAk5qbjgiDl-ao1R7ckhh9Sl7fZdjsWS5uvReZXZsQ93fr5YVwTlRG1ZgBMiJ3c98YGSht8NskJZnf99HlJcJTz8ktEwlJDqq/s320/P5137720.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There it is!!!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibT_M4SOHXU54sBF7igBKkmY0zMIyQ3IjVe-1NwWxdZljFjs3g0pq2XvMy56F1RDLb6dB70tgagD17_c90JCaWqxQ38lWTCZdcjvsL76vPc8chRcOX4P690rsA2dCu4CZjkOkpou-1/s1600/P5137713.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibT_M4SOHXU54sBF7igBKkmY0zMIyQ3IjVe-1NwWxdZljFjs3g0pq2XvMy56F1RDLb6dB70tgagD17_c90JCaWqxQ38lWTCZdcjvsL76vPc8chRcOX4P690rsA2dCu4CZjkOkpou-1/s320/P5137713.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The fam.<br />
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</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjArZ9I8ESCR0B89CQG3iMSPJhMCnxrd1h1Ex4-0q5_BG1c1Hkwbj8hYWLlephDh7u1E_QBnpC4Dj-KZmcUOD0nAgpAUNm7t_sfQyOgNCwkkbb3-OxlcMfrHK5-wsIauDlEsY_6KWJy/s1600/DSC00330.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjArZ9I8ESCR0B89CQG3iMSPJhMCnxrd1h1Ex4-0q5_BG1c1Hkwbj8hYWLlephDh7u1E_QBnpC4Dj-KZmcUOD0nAgpAUNm7t_sfQyOgNCwkkbb3-OxlcMfrHK5-wsIauDlEsY_6KWJy/s320/DSC00330.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Emily and I are so excited!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYaJ0mbfjQ67f96KSglLLjvk63PQ23H1_ZYhbG46YkwBfjB7tocRVj0U_66PwyeiW7Npfy5nCrgj-jusr4It88cxjQhXIofpjJq5GlmPa4f5cqNWM_UOOwOrmx8D400K6crSUllXli/s1600/P5137730edt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYaJ0mbfjQ67f96KSglLLjvk63PQ23H1_ZYhbG46YkwBfjB7tocRVj0U_66PwyeiW7Npfy5nCrgj-jusr4It88cxjQhXIofpjJq5GlmPa4f5cqNWM_UOOwOrmx8D400K6crSUllXli/s320/P5137730edt.jpg" width="259" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Climbing onto boulders.<br />
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</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF0fiyBZ1l_K9tyUOjkPJCmZTPSZAPxj8kMJZigUjLLHt_zl12-Q9JQzjXQmy5YwIxydV29a9R60aZJJXs5mzZeOvL1EJJbrJQBcR4CDyibUmL-hlbAf75nlhNG9Zans5DrYopKHw3/s1600/P5137733.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF0fiyBZ1l_K9tyUOjkPJCmZTPSZAPxj8kMJZigUjLLHt_zl12-Q9JQzjXQmy5YwIxydV29a9R60aZJJXs5mzZeOvL1EJJbrJQBcR4CDyibUmL-hlbAf75nlhNG9Zans5DrYopKHw3/s320/P5137733.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The amphitheater.<br />
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</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEherDoqn1e4DjsmzSWQ-Y6VJkjW8lPRhLhv56ZPpKyILShJhyphenhyphenEy5ifQt9lJgh58hrNYIs-gkYmnS4Uc7-jFiRHeEtHsdw2u1ioTVekUQP36JVcQCSSjs7RFDvhMo-QaRBvyC6Me6Hj0/s1600/P5137734.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEherDoqn1e4DjsmzSWQ-Y6VJkjW8lPRhLhv56ZPpKyILShJhyphenhyphenEy5ifQt9lJgh58hrNYIs-gkYmnS4Uc7-jFiRHeEtHsdw2u1ioTVekUQP36JVcQCSSjs7RFDvhMo-QaRBvyC6Me6Hj0/s320/P5137734.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stairway to heaven.<br />
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</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyuGs_Q-cMUTZGvJQjbYjdXczoU4H1mv01sWNMk18MCMeumilaGE9SaerkuNicTWvz-VVVMFeJD3on6H_-65jCXS_NCXg3vse_oraATyzffRm-mhVEjS9qBZ_qfAvl2xgPCciF26sv/s1600/P5137751.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyuGs_Q-cMUTZGvJQjbYjdXczoU4H1mv01sWNMk18MCMeumilaGE9SaerkuNicTWvz-VVVMFeJD3on6H_-65jCXS_NCXg3vse_oraATyzffRm-mhVEjS9qBZ_qfAvl2xgPCciF26sv/s320/P5137751.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tombs.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpXa7YYscue_lAG7POb_rWw91B1ZiD3djmtnbaDWZRtv-q7wDeH_6o-n10Q8VAr3fmBMiSbXdtKqASrUodDhlIsvgjUsQZW_4gvNjgOVhFnQHm_I6pOYPVzx-ghqm67SJ38_fCRkyd/s1600/DSC00359.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpXa7YYscue_lAG7POb_rWw91B1ZiD3djmtnbaDWZRtv-q7wDeH_6o-n10Q8VAr3fmBMiSbXdtKqASrUodDhlIsvgjUsQZW_4gvNjgOVhFnQHm_I6pOYPVzx-ghqm67SJ38_fCRkyd/s320/DSC00359.JPG" width="216" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Climbing up into the tombs.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAxe-lmgJfwwogtxCh2FWyq9sYfSP2dLPWJGT_H1IZu-4EZq80UXzVAR00Up2JOzlMW_5nZGv5aeVmqjp7FmAaDp2whVwfny3jZQ9RgwrrfxCb9SwJhBZKy-ZEucyXAGFyxK1Xhive/s1600/P5137758.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAxe-lmgJfwwogtxCh2FWyq9sYfSP2dLPWJGT_H1IZu-4EZq80UXzVAR00Up2JOzlMW_5nZGv5aeVmqjp7FmAaDp2whVwfny3jZQ9RgwrrfxCb9SwJhBZKy-ZEucyXAGFyxK1Xhive/s320/P5137758.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We met a beautiful Bedouin woman who showed us some incredible patterns in the rock.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh6nz36pcoeLwKlFb9BmtW2B_2WbCobw5kCUffM0Ne0Q_VOOPMTKLY7oUvysbGMcemW0Vi3ZmvDpkdFwuzin-G5xv_AhLcffbNl_ore8SPVwKlNDsQmFjYon3tIq_bR2yTwMoV8C3B/s1600/P5137761.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh6nz36pcoeLwKlFb9BmtW2B_2WbCobw5kCUffM0Ne0Q_VOOPMTKLY7oUvysbGMcemW0Vi3ZmvDpkdFwuzin-G5xv_AhLcffbNl_ore8SPVwKlNDsQmFjYon3tIq_bR2yTwMoV8C3B/s320/P5137761.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And of course, I wouldn't be me if I didn't get sunburn which later turned into sun poisoning.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLT8YP1UPTj46LKMA3sli-mIbH5bMP9c6IlE3i7Izk3LWeKCnNkQ0Lo3Re6uYb-6s307cLxwc3b_bsugDzv4v7hbBvrzyN8hdNXCQEh0zv8nAzOdYgtGvm0vANilbRB69tCrii0bk5/s1600/P5147792.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLT8YP1UPTj46LKMA3sli-mIbH5bMP9c6IlE3i7Izk3LWeKCnNkQ0Lo3Re6uYb-6s307cLxwc3b_bsugDzv4v7hbBvrzyN8hdNXCQEh0zv8nAzOdYgtGvm0vANilbRB69tCrii0bk5/s320/P5147792.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Emily falling off the cliff.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMYy_ITjWNYZSdku4eZAV8SA_FmnSdtCOnWHZpKRrN0Pkc5zOTDX21BxKqXiUjGcoZhPOk7HnQ20f8oKxWpWXcfr3f6MJGOuFwj1Cv9QY-4BAYbuVVZ5bKBHWzwwA1pdVKHTDWin-O/s1600/P5147799.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMYy_ITjWNYZSdku4eZAV8SA_FmnSdtCOnWHZpKRrN0Pkc5zOTDX21BxKqXiUjGcoZhPOk7HnQ20f8oKxWpWXcfr3f6MJGOuFwj1Cv9QY-4BAYbuVVZ5bKBHWzwwA1pdVKHTDWin-O/s320/P5147799.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking down on the dead sea from Masada.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY-buFUNkaQx-OzshfKkpSv2NhuJhi6Hf5J_BLu5CPJUL-ez6WluMb8A4PCM8mKoaAeDkr5XhTTDZKOD8IdZpFxHS9MShPxQZQ33y-H-p-Y20ZZ5r-xay9dYCkoAEbFcF2Ny9Ho6zn/s1600/P5147804.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY-buFUNkaQx-OzshfKkpSv2NhuJhi6Hf5J_BLu5CPJUL-ez6WluMb8A4PCM8mKoaAeDkr5XhTTDZKOD8IdZpFxHS9MShPxQZQ33y-H-p-Y20ZZ5r-xay9dYCkoAEbFcF2Ny9Ho6zn/s320/P5147804.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View of the side of Masada.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQihSOVNgGFbiC4BJ-CM6Rxzj75kaPSj2YNGs0TwjGAm__x_ep8JYXUi-THRKQp6ezySs7CATaNrxLyive6rNm8mgThn6Lk0J_D2NKMshKFfG_6cD8z2dsY-LtCkp0Q7mLvNGQzi6M/s1600/P5147807.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQihSOVNgGFbiC4BJ-CM6Rxzj75kaPSj2YNGs0TwjGAm__x_ep8JYXUi-THRKQp6ezySs7CATaNrxLyive6rNm8mgThn6Lk0J_D2NKMshKFfG_6cD8z2dsY-LtCkp0Q7mLvNGQzi6M/s320/P5147807.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">SO WINDY! And sooooo beautiful!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3NMoUXXw1T0oBJ3Wh2YG2mZxYREpX51TQRwewvbt4YCHRc0gBohxg0VQJa8IdE03pZpzOiMY783Ks119kSlIXo2xOsGe96h2WfF1xIl-5vQdffNDMwavN26SvfY3lUBJnyggZAzNZ/s1600/P5147810edt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3NMoUXXw1T0oBJ3Wh2YG2mZxYREpX51TQRwewvbt4YCHRc0gBohxg0VQJa8IdE03pZpzOiMY783Ks119kSlIXo2xOsGe96h2WfF1xIl-5vQdffNDMwavN26SvfY3lUBJnyggZAzNZ/s320/P5147810edt.jpg" width="232" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Such a beautiful view of the ancient city behind me, and the dead sea behind that.<br />
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</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkSaUWosLm2UpPW7MbtRDr5lAa4SxJUpY3o4k9COZwK5_ucZF3UuYbL3YdW_HonsWD9SO5HM-84nWUDxeL1OrRRTQkl06FdZYqOsq8Z29Oot1N0CkQK4MiVgDshAOD_HuGd3s5b2L2/s1600/DSC00525.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkSaUWosLm2UpPW7MbtRDr5lAa4SxJUpY3o4k9COZwK5_ucZF3UuYbL3YdW_HonsWD9SO5HM-84nWUDxeL1OrRRTQkl06FdZYqOsq8Z29Oot1N0CkQK4MiVgDshAOD_HuGd3s5b2L2/s320/DSC00525.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Saying goodbye to the parents!</td></tr>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div>
And that was the end of their visit! Well, they were here for almost two weeks, so obviously there was a little more going on than what these pictures capture, but these were some of the highlights. It was so wonderful to be able to share my city with my parents. They now understand my time and experiences here so much better than when they only were able to connect with me over Skype, and I am so grateful that they were able to make it out for a visit!</div>
</div>
</div>Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04885102333204660542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4126279904279010818.post-17251946341131838962012-06-03T17:08:00.000-04:002012-06-04T02:18:34.511-04:00Airport Trauma<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This article is about two American girls and their recent trip to Israel. It was so incredibly informative and well written that I just had to share it with you all.<br />
<br />
Please, read this. Please, take a peak at the racism and discrimination that is so unabashedly bold in Israel. Please, think about how terrified you would be if this had happened to you, or to your child.<br />
<div>
<br />
I got a little taste of this when heading to Cyprus a few weeks ago, when I was searched (including the back room pat-down and the plethora of security guards herding us through the airport that she talks about) leaving Israel, and when I was detained and interrogated upon re-entry.<br />
<br />
I consider myself a pretty tough person. I'm good in high-pressure situations, I rarely get rattled or intimidated, and I experienced a mere fraction of what these girls went through, but I still was shaking when I was released. I still went home and cried from a mix of anger, terror, and sheer emotional exhaustion. It was still all I could think about for days afterward. I still continue to have nightmares about being locked in that dimly lit room in that nearly empty airport at 2am and being yelled at in Hebrew by three huge, intimidating Israeli men.... and I was only there for an hour, these girls were held for 14. The psychological trauma that I experienced, times 14? I can't imagine it. I got that kind of treatment with my Polish-Scottish-German ancestry (aka: my pale skin and light eyes) and my American passport... just imagine the experience of people of a different race or from a different country.<br />
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And so, without any more commentary from me, here ya go:<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"></span><br />
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‘Do you feel more Arab or more American?’: Two women’s story of being detained and interrogated at Ben Gurion</h1>
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by <a href="http://mondoweiss.net/author/najwa-doughman-and-sasha-al-sarabi" rel="author" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #003366; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Posts by Najwa Doughman and Sasha Al-Sarabi">Najwa Doughman and Sasha Al-Sarabi</a> on June 2, 2012 <a class="com-bubble" href="http://mondoweiss.net/2012/06/do-you-feel-more-arab-or-more-american-two-arab-american-womens-story-of-being-detained-and-interrogated-at-ben-gurion.html#comments" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: url(http://mondoweiss.net/site/wp-content/themes/mondoweiss/images/com-bubble.png); background-origin: initial; background-position: 50% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: white; display: inline-block; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; height: 21px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; width: 26px;">93</a><br />
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<img alt="ben gurion airport" height="352" src="http://mondoweiss.net/images/2012/06/ben-gurion-airport.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: silver; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-color: silver; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: silver; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-style: initial; border-top-color: silver; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px; padding-top: 5px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="650" /><br />Ben Gurion Airport</h5>
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I am an American citizen. I went to American schools my entire life, graduated from an American university and work as an architect in New York City. Why was this happening to me? It all started with a simple question. “What is your father’s name?”</div>
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“Bassam.”</div>
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“Okay, please wait a few moments in the waiting room over there.”</div>
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Little did I know that my father’s Arab name would make me guilty until proven innocent. A “few moments” would turn into a 14-hour nightmare at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.</div>
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<img alt="SN2" height="360" src="http://mondoweiss.net/images/2012/06/SN2.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: silver; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-color: silver; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: silver; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-style: initial; border-top-color: silver; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px; padding-top: 5px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="289" /><br />Sasha Al-Sarabi and Najwa Doughman</h5>
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I was hoping they wouldn’t separate me from my friend Sasha, whom I was traveling with. We had been warned about possible interrogations and security checks but were reassured that since we were both young, female professionals from New York City with American passports, it wouldn’t be a problem to enter Israel. It was going be my third visit and Sasha’s first.</div>
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Sasha was called in to be interrogated by a bleach-blonde pregnant woman and was led into a small office to the left of our waiting room. Twenty minutes passed until Sasha came out, walking quickly back to her seat.</div>
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She attempted to reassure me. “It’s going to be fine. They just want to see if we’re lying about anything.” But she was obviously flustered.</div>
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Now it was my turn.</div>
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“Najwa, come.”</div>
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“Do you feel more Arab or more American?” she asked. I had answered the ten previous questions very calmly, but with this question I looked back at the security official confused and irritated. She couldn’t have been much older than me—her business attire and stern facial expressions did not mask her youth.</div>
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“I don’t know, I feel both. Why? Does this affect my ability to get in?”</div>
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She ignored my question. “Surely you must feel a little more Arab, you’ve lived in many Middle Eastern countries.”</div>
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I did not see the correlation. I have never felt the need to choose. “Yes I have but I also lived in the US for the past seven years, and was born there, so I feel both.” My response did nothing to convince her.</div>
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“Hm. Will you go to Al-Aqsa?”</div>
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“Yeah, maybe.”</div>
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“Will you go to Jewish sites as well?”</div>
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“Yes, why not? We want to see everything.”</div>
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“But you have been here two times already. Why are you coming now for the third time? You can go to Venezuela, to Mexico, to Canada. It is much closer to New York, and much less expensive!”</div>
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I realized the conversation was going nowhere. “Right, but I wanted to come back here again. Don’t you have tourists who come back more than once?”</div>
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“I’m asking the questions here,” she replied disgruntled.</div>
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“Okay, we are going to do something very interesting now!” Her face transformed from a harsh stare to a slight smirk. She proceeded to type “www.gmail.com” on her computer and then turned the keyboard toward me. “Log in,” she demanded.</div>
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“What? Really?” I was shocked.</div>
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“Log in.”</div>
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I typed in my username and password in complete disbelief. She began her invasive search: “Israel,” “Palestine,” “West Bank,” “International Solidarity Movement.”</div>
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Looking back, I realize I shouldn’t have logged in. I should have known that nothing I did at this point would change my circumstances, and that this was an invasion of my privacy. Yet all the questions, the feeling that I had to defend myself for simply wanting to enter the country, and the unwavering eye contact of the security officers left me feeling like I had no choice. I was worried I would let Sasha down if I refused and that it would be the reason for both of our denials into the country.</div>
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She sifted through my inbox, reading every single email with those keywords. She read sentences out loud to her colleague, sarcastically reenacting and mocking old Google Chat conversations between Sasha and me about our future trip to Jerusalem. I squirmed in my seat.</div>
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The Israeli authorities have a notorious reputation for denying entry to Palestinians of all citizenships, and I had received all sorts of advice, solicited and unsolicited, on how to cope with the problem. The security officer opened an email from a friend living in Jerusalem who had advised me to remove myself from internet searches. “They are heavy on googling names at the airport recently,” he had written. “See if you can remove yourselves, not crucial but helpful.”</div>
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The security guard found this especially hilarious. With a laugh, she called her blonde colleague over and reread the sentence mockingly. “You can tell your friend, not only do we google you, we read your emails, too!”</div>
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I was beyond uncomfortable, uncertain of how else they would try to humiliate me. “Okay, I think you’ve read enough,” I said. “Is what you’re doing even legal? Can you please log out now?”</div>
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The guard became even more defensive. “You could ask me to log out, but you know what that would mean, right? Tell me to log out,” she dared me.</div>
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I was speechless. I felt completely helpless, furious, and exhausted; I was now entering my fourth hour of interrogation.</div>
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After reading several more emails, they wrote down every contact name, email, and phone number they could find. Finally, the interrogator said, “Okay you can go.” But before I could even feel the slightest sense of relief she added, “Good luck getting into Israel.”</div>
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Three more hours passed. A large bald man eventually approached us holding our passports. “Come with me,” he ordered. We walked straight across the hall to another waiting room, in front of two small offices.</div>
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“As of right now, you have been denied from entering Israel.” Despite the looming feeling I had after walking out of the interrogation room that my hours in this country were numbered, the words still stung with disappointment, frustration, and anger.</div>
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Sasha had had it. “Okay, I want a lawyer,” she said. “And I want to call the American embassy, now.”</div>
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The guard was not fazed by her requests. “Yes, yes, call whoever you want, after you do procedure.” He turned his back and walked away.</div>
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We peered into the office. A stout woman in uniform, about fifty years old, was taking pictures and fingerprints of a man sitting in front of her. Sasha was called in next. The woman told Sasha to sit in front of the camera.</div>
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“Wait, before you take my picture, can you tell me why we have to do this?” Sasha asked.</div>
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“This is procedure. This is how we do things in Israel,” the woman responded, looked back to her camera.</div>
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“You’re treating me like a criminal! I don’t want you to take my picture,” Sasha said. “We’ve already been denied. Why are you doing this?”</div>
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“You will take a picture and then wait in a facility until your flight.”</div>
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Sasha was persistent. “What facility? Our flight is in nine days! Why were we denied? We need to call the embassy now!”</div>
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“You will call after you take your picture. I don’t know why you were denied. My job is just to do procedure. When I go to America, the same happens to me. I get denied from America,” claimed the woman.</div>
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“No,” replied Sasha, “No, you don’t.”</div>
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After our pictures were taken, we officially felt like criminals. It didn’t help that two new female guards were now assigned to watch us at all times. The most humiliating thing was each guard couldn’t have been more than twenty years old. Everywhere we went, they were right behind us. Even when Sasha went to the restroom, the security guard went with her. After about 30 minutes, six more security guards surrounded us to walk us to another room across the airport. It was as if all the shepherds had come to herd two small sheep.</div>
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We had not committed any crime. Our only sin was being born to Arab parents. It was then that we realized what a sheltered life we had lived. We had always read about racial profiling and heard accounts from family members and friends in college. We always sympathized and were infuriated by it, but never had we felt it first hand.</div>
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Sasha and I paced back and forth with anxiety while we were made to wait in the hallway. At one point I turned my head and noticed the female guards pointing at our attire and admiring Sasha’s pants. It hit me then, for the first time, that these guards were actually young girls, interested in fashion and trends, like we were. Under different circumstances, could we have actually been friends?</div>
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They led us into the next room, which was painted white and had an intimidating, large “Explosive Detection” machine. The guards proceeded to open our luggage. They picked through every single piece of clothing and every tube of makeup. They inspected my laptop and Sasha’s iPad, wiped each item with a cloth, and ran them through the machine. They x-rayed and scanned everything—twice.</div>
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After they had gone through every one of our belongings, they proceeded to the body search. I was taken to the back of the room with one male and two female security officers. The room was smaller and closed off with a curtain. The older woman seemed to be training the younger one. She would murmur directions in Hebrew as the younger officer patted me in different places. The man stood right outside the half-open curtain. They scanned my body with a metal detector, and it beeped at the button on my jeans. “Take off your pants,” said the older officer immediately.</div>
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I lost my last nerve. “NO,” I responded. “We’ve already been denied. You searched everything. Why do I need to take my pants off after you’ve denied me? I will not take my pants off.”</div>
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“This is how we do things in Israel,” the woman snapped back. “You have to take them off.”</div>
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“And if I don’t?”</div>
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“Then someone will make you.” They all walked out of the room.</div>
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I began crying and shaking as my mind went through a million different nightmares. Were they going to get more people to hold me down? What the hell is going to happen to us? I wanted to see Sasha and not be alone for a minute longer, but was too afraid of the consequences of leaving the room.</div>
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The guards returned a few minutes later with shorts taken from my luggage. “Fine,” they said. “Wear these.”</div>
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I struggled into them with tears streaming down my face. I stood ashamed and mortified as she patted me down all over again. I had never felt so humiliated, so degraded, and so violated.</div>
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Once my “security search” was over, I changed back into my jeans and returned to the white room. It was Sasha’s turn to be searched.</div>
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When this was over, two men from immigration services approached us holding our passports.</div>
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“Now you will be taken to a facility.”</div>
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“A facility? You mean a jail? Are we arrested? How long are we going to be there?”</div>
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“This is not jail. It’s a facility. This is where everybody goes that is denied entry from the State of Israel.”</div>
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They took all of our luggage and our phones and drove us about five minutes away from the airport to a gated, white building. All of the windows had double bars on them, and none of the doors had doorknobs. We walked through the dark halls and passed by open rooms filled with bunk beds.</div>
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“You can call your parents from my phone, not yours. Leave your phones here. But if it is an international call, use yours. Your flight back is at 8 am tomorrow morning.”</div>
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We called our parents, and he took us to our room on the second floor. Inside were ten bunk beds, four sleeping women, a sink, a bathroom, and a shower.</div>
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We both stared at the beds for a minute before lying down. The mattresses looked like they were made of duct tape, the room smelled of urine, and there was a grey, furry sheet on each bed. We folded my sweater in half to use as a pillow, and lay in the three-foot-wide bed together, looking up at the bottom of the bunk above us. “FREE PALESTINE, I Shall Return—Maryam 2006” and “21 Gaza Peace Activists detained” were scribbled on the wood. Reading those sentences over and over gave me an odd sense of peace, and we drifted into a restless sleep.</div>
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At about 5 am, the guard came to wake the Spanish woman in the bed beside ours. “Wash your face,” he told her. She sprung up, splashed water on her face, and waited for him to come back and unlock the door. We sat up anxiously in the bed waiting for our turn to leave.</div>
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At 6:15, a guard came and told us that the US embassy was phoning for us. My parents had called them from Virginia after our two-minute conversation to inform them of what was happening. Sasha answered the phone. “Oh, thank God, we’ve been trying to get in touch with you! This is Sasha. We’ve been through a lot the past few hours.”</div>
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“As I told your friend’s parents yesterday, there is really nothing we can do. I’m just glad that you’re going to be able to get on the next flight.” the woman said dispassionately.</div>
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“This is ridiculous. They went through my friend’s email. Is that legal?”</div>
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“Well, they can do whatever they want. There is nothing we can do. They are their own country, and they make their own rules.”</div>
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“If only you could see the conditions we are in. I just wish you could come and smell the room.”</div>
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“Oh, I’m really sorry, but at least you’ll be getting on the next flight,” her voice was annoyingly monotonous.</div>
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“I can’t believe we are funding this system. I understand the special relationship between America and Israel, but there is clearly something wrong with the way we are being treated”.</div>
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“Well, there’s a lot of things wrong with a lot of systems.” She clearly wasn’t going to help us.</div>
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“You are right. We should all just sit here and be complacent like you. Well, thanks for your call.” And Sasha hung up.</div>
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We had been desperately waiting for this call, and the amount of frustration we felt after receiving it was overwhelming. We had demanded over and over to be able to talk to the American embassy, hoping that being American would give us some sort of protection or a little sense of security. There is no difference between every citizen in America, we thought naively. Surely the US Embassy would rescue us and demand that we be treated like human beings. Surely they would reprimand the Israelis for their appalling practices and demand that they act like the democracy they claim to be.</div>
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If we were two American citizens in a Syrian or Iranian “facility,” would the American embassy’s reaction be the same? Would Obama himself not have made a statement by now, demanding our release? If we were Americans of Polish or Chinese descent, would we have been treated this way? American citizens are usually given a three-month visa upon arrival. Why were we an exception? There are a lot of things wrong with a lot of systems, but when we are funding one with billions of our tax dollars, this means that we are supporting it.</div>
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An hour later, which seemed like an eternity, the guard showed up. It was now 7:30 am, which was only thirty minutes before our flight. This turned out to be no problem, as we were driven straight to the steps of the airplane. Our passports were given to the captain of the Air France flight. When we arrived in France, three policemen waited for us at the door of the plane, took our passports from the captain, and led us down the stairs of the airplane straight into their police car.</div>
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“Does this happen often?” Sasha asked.</div>
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“Every day,” replied the officer.</div>
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</div>Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04885102333204660542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4126279904279010818.post-27633894740762982352012-05-15T12:35:00.000-04:002012-05-15T12:46:44.856-04:00Remembering the Nakba<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Today, May 15, is when those in Palestine and around the world remember the Nakba. Before coming here, I knew very little about the history of the Nakba, and so this has been a huge learning process for me.<br />
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According to <a href="http://www.ongoingnakba.org/en/palestine-s-ongoing-nakba.html">Badil, the Ongoing Nakba Education Center</a>:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The term <i>Nakba</i> (Arabic for 'Catastrophe') refers to the first round of massive population transfer undertaken by the Zionist movement and the State of Israel in the period between November 1947 (the issuing of the UN Partition Plan for Palestine) and the cease-fire agreements with Arab states in 1949. The Nakba was an act of forced population transfer (ethnic cleansing) undertaken for the purpose of establishing Israel as a state that would ensure permanent dominance of Jewish settler-immigrants over the indigenous Arab people of Palestine. More than 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their homes and lands during these original Nakba years. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The <i>Ongoing Nakba</i> refers to Israel's ongoing denial of the rights of displaced Palestinians to return to the lands from which they were displaced, as well as the ongoing experience of forced displacement and dispossession of Palestinians from their homelands that has continued since the original Nakba years as a result of Israel's policies and practices, namely Israeli apartheid, colonisation and military occupation.</blockquote>
For a beautifully done, deeper description of pre-Nakba Palestine, I highly recommend checking out <a href="http://www.nad-plo.org/userfiles/file/New%20Publications/The%20Untold%20Story%20of%20a%20Cultural%20Catastrophe%20Al%20Nakba.pdf">Nakba: The Untold Story of a Cultural Catastrophe</a>. There are some beautiful photos and great stories. Here is a little excerpt:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Nakba, meaning catastrophe, is commemorated by Palestinians throughout the world on May 15 every year. It marks the loss,
dispossession and historic injustice suffered by the Palestinian people, through the forced expulsion from their homeland by Israeli
forces and Zionist militia. Nakba commemorates the period when <b>approximately 800,000 Palestinians, at the time 67% of the
population, became homeless and/or, stateless refugees.</b> Today, it is estimated that <b>7 of the 11 million Palestinians around the world
are refugees</b>, still roughly two-thirds of the Palestinian people.<br />
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Nakba, for Palestine, is about the loss of potential on a mass scale. It is about reducing a vibrant and highly accomplished culture
into one filled with bitter-sweet memories consumed by the national cause of return and justice. <b>Entire villages were destroyed</b>,
then rebuilt [as Israeli towns] and renamed; books, music collections and works of art were left behind as people ran for their lives, expecting to
return a few weeks later; sports clubs and social organizations disappeared with the communities of which they were a part. <b>It
was a systematic campaign of death, destruction, and cultural obliteration, carried out against a nation whose vibrant culture was
forcibly stunted.</b></blockquote>
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Here are a few original images from the Nakba:</div>
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There were many protests and remembrance events today, by both Palestinians and Israelis. Many were brought on by the fact that the ethnic cleansing has continued, right up until today.<br />
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<u>Palestinian families continue to be kicked out of their homes so that Israelis can move in, especially in East Jerusalem and Hebron.</u><br />
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<u>Hundreds and hundreds of Palestinians are sitting in Israeli prisons right now without any charges against them, and with no prospect of release.</u><br />
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<u>Young men are killed by Israeli soldiers at non-violent demonstrations with alarming regularity.</u><br />
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The terror continues to grip Palestinians as they fear for their lives and the lives of their children. The emotional and psychological damage that this trauma has done to people, especially children, is astronomical.</div>
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<b>Today, I am especially aware of the reason that I am here. I pray for peace, work for justice, and ask you to do the same. Remember Palestinians, who are the largest refugee population in the world, and join me in praying for their return to their homes, villages, farms, and families.</b></div>
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A Palestinian man with the key to his home before the Nakba in 1948 protesting for the right to return to it... and a "witty" Israeli reply.</div>
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</div>Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04885102333204660542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4126279904279010818.post-34219326532230848332012-05-09T17:32:00.002-04:002012-11-15T22:00:17.868-05:00Visitors, Birthday, and Cyprus... Oh my!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Things are crazy around here right now! A dear friend from college, Emily, arrived in Palestine for a month long visit, then I celebrated my 23rd (sheesh, I'm old!) birthday, then I was in Cyprus on a retreat for all of the Europe & Middle East staff, and now my parents are here and we are traveling around exploring the West Bank.<br />
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I would just like to take a moment to rave about how wonderful things have been over the last month. When I arrived in Palestine, I made a very conscious decision not to do much traveling. Since this is essentially an open-air prison for those living here, I did not feel that it would be fair (or polite) for me to go in and out of Israel. My neighbors, friends, and host-family do not have this right, and I felt that if I wanted to truly immerse myself in this community and live in solidarity with these people, that I should forgo this right as well. Therefore, I have, as much as possible, stayed in Bethlehem and Beit Jala, and not traveled in Israel or much in the West Bank. I wanted to be present in my local community, and I am so happy that I made that decision, because I feel that it has truly enhanced my relationships here.<br />
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Now that I am coming to the end of my time here (only two more months!) and have people visiting, I am doing all of the traveling that I have not done over the last 9 months. Having Emily and my parents here has been absolutely wonderful. I've been able to play tour guide a little bit, and we are exploring some of the things I have never seen.<br />
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Emily and I did a lot of exploring in Jerusalem for the first few days she was here. After living in India for the last 7 months, she was super excited to eat french fries, and insisted that I pose with them.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYi7ztbgFo_4J9-z2U3FgzCtVmcSZu-mylsy672X_KWEiPIbSLlLrxIFVjmwulV8AYH-nw089FMrv-x04r21JqrhTIBzwjC9c0dPz_u_mx10zzW6o2eOio341pj9MUsi6TQ8zACC9R/s1600/IMG_1802.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYi7ztbgFo_4J9-z2U3FgzCtVmcSZu-mylsy672X_KWEiPIbSLlLrxIFVjmwulV8AYH-nw089FMrv-x04r21JqrhTIBzwjC9c0dPz_u_mx10zzW6o2eOio341pj9MUsi6TQ8zACC9R/s400/IMG_1802.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is my judgmental face.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Church of the Holy Sepulcher </td></tr>
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Later in the week, we traveled to <a href="http://www.parks.org.il/BuildaGate5/general2/data_card.php?Cat=~25~~251269827">Tel Be'er Sheva</a>, which I saw two years ago when I was in Israel. We had a bit of a ridiculous bus adventure, and finally made it to the archaeological site, which dates back to the 10th century BCE. We took the bus from Bethlehem through the military checkpoint into Jerusalem, then the light rail (similar to the metro or subway, except that it's all above ground) from the Old City to the Central Bus Station in West Jerusalem, then a bus from there to Be'er Sheva, then a taxi from the city to the ancient site. It's times like these that I really miss my car, but am so grateful for the generally well structured public transportation system in the Middle East. The site was so incredibly beautiful, and I had a fantastic time exploring!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJmOem3XkFIFQeBTpKREx-OT5TK9V4uRlu4mQDwVxegMaN6Xv5gPPBhzHkCTpvet6QgWGRvb-kc9y-ejSpcv9x9xaheM2jvlLBm1viIkQA-wldtI2vuAyRdgFV83r9SsgDcEE-QqsV/s1600/P5017520.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJmOem3XkFIFQeBTpKREx-OT5TK9V4uRlu4mQDwVxegMaN6Xv5gPPBhzHkCTpvet6QgWGRvb-kc9y-ejSpcv9x9xaheM2jvlLBm1viIkQA-wldtI2vuAyRdgFV83r9SsgDcEE-QqsV/s400/P5017520.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFLX8z8S2qHWEStgd8emSABXyQvNFiPMAicrv9opd5qm_5kR0FjadA4Xx0RQm4ms9ErZ2I5_RvK1V0AQ2lAq-7zjSx-T8af1gwNSVRbbyPXOtW4X-ociA1W3oJuWxSK4b_oyuBjVOG/s1600/P5017518.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFLX8z8S2qHWEStgd8emSABXyQvNFiPMAicrv9opd5qm_5kR0FjadA4Xx0RQm4ms9ErZ2I5_RvK1V0AQ2lAq-7zjSx-T8af1gwNSVRbbyPXOtW4X-ociA1W3oJuWxSK4b_oyuBjVOG/s400/P5017518.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In a water storage tank hundreds of feet under the village.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I am the ghost of ancient Be'er Sheva. Obviously.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Camel herd!</td></tr>
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We also had a chance to walk around and see a portion of the wall in Bethlehem.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I know, I'm not a very good rhino.</td></tr>
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On my birthday, I went to work. Super exciting, right? It was actually totally wonderful. I got a lot of "kul cene u inti salme" greetings, which directly translates to "every year and you (female) peace" but I think "peace to you every year" makes a bit more sense. Some of the students brought me a cupcake so I could blow out a candle, and then Emily and I got shwarma at my favorite little place in Bethlehem for dinner. Afterwards, my host family threw me a surprise party! The kids had helped to bake me a cake and they were so excited about it. We then played Uno while the kids played with my camera. It was the perfect little birthday.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me and 3 year old Layal</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bishara insisted that we hold up our Uno cards while he held his truck.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Natalie (9) and Lubna (11)</td></tr>
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Cyprus was incredible and beautiful. We left Bethlehem at 2:30am on Thursday, and got to the airport around 4am thanks to some stops at checkpoints and other general confusion. Unfortunately, we were flagged at security and had some pretty intense security checks, including a private-back-room body search. It was absolutely miserable, but it gave me a new understanding of the ways that Palestinians are humiliated by "security measures" that are mostly just racial profiling and/or harassment.<br />
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The MCC Europe and Middle East staff retreat was fantastic. I was able to reconnect with the other Middle East SALTers, some friends who are Service Workers, and some incredible staff members! I had such a restful time swimming in the Mediterranean, surviving my first bee sting, laughing with my coworkers, and taking naps on the warm, breezy beach. It was a little slice of heaven.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq-S9SaOrJTtKeDg934bwCGch9081WlH3w0Nm2zLZblIG3xMV5CD566HgO3ns5Ovsrf15u0SHcyGXFXG29pXmFWX58teT924wf2J8BAZv3h0sldKgtGmB6i8Ymf5-BBA4CX4qlmIPX/s1600/P5037544.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq-S9SaOrJTtKeDg934bwCGch9081WlH3w0Nm2zLZblIG3xMV5CD566HgO3ns5Ovsrf15u0SHcyGXFXG29pXmFWX58teT924wf2J8BAZv3h0sldKgtGmB6i8Ymf5-BBA4CX4qlmIPX/s400/P5037544.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View from my hotel room.</td></tr>
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On the way back through customs at the Tel Aviv airport, all of my other coworkers got through, but I was somehow flagged. I was detained and interrogated, and unfortunately Sarah, Bassem, and Rachelle had to wait for me on the other side of customs for about an hour. I was then released and sent on my way. Again, it gave me an understanding of the terror that Palestinians must feel when they are brought in for questioning. Honestly, I was scared. Huge men yelling at me in Hebrew is not what I wanted to be experiencing at 2 in the morning. Cognitively, I knew that they wouldn't hurt me or arrest me because I'm an American, but I can't imagine how terrified I would have been if I hadn't had my US passport to hide behind and therefore didn't have any guarantee of my safety.<br />
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For the next week, I'll be traveling around the West Bank with Emily and my parents, but when I come back, I'm sure I'll have some interesting stories for you all!</div>
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Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04885102333204660542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4126279904279010818.post-51859325488055472562012-04-21T19:45:00.000-04:002012-06-11T04:08:33.403-04:00The More the Merrier: My Second Tel Aviv Adventure And The People Who Made It Wonderful.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Last time that I went to Tel Aviv, it was with two other internationals who were working at the Bible College with me. This time, I went with a group of students and a few of the staff from the college. Typically, no one would have been able to go because Palestinians are not generally allowed into Israel for "security reasons," but during Christmas and Easter, the Christians in the West Bank can apply for permits from the Israeli government for temporary access to Israel in order to worship at the holy sights. They don't alway get a permit, but if they do then they have a month where they can visit Israel. The students often joke that Israel thinks they're terrorists... except over Christmas and Easter. It doesn't make much sense to me why for 10 months out of the year, you classify someone as a security threat and don't allow them to travel in, to, or through Israel, and yet the other two months you give them unrestricted access to the entire country... but that is a post for another day.<br />
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Our wonderful Soheir, the college mama/professor/translator/all around fantastic human-being decided that since some of the staff and students had NEVER SEEN THE SEA BEFORE (even though Tel Aviv is only 35 miles away from Bethlehem), she would rent a bus and organize a day trip for everyone. She is the absolute sweetest. The Christians' Easter permits expire tomorrow (Sunday, April 22nd) and so it was decided that today was the day for a seaside adventure!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Isn't she adorable? Told ya so!</td></tr>
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There ended up being 20 of us total, Soheir, Hala (the college librarian) along with her husband and three kids (none of whom had ever been to Tel Aviv before), Rita (one of the cleaning staff) and her friend, William (the groundskeeper) and his wife, Ron & Joanne (the new couple who run the Guest House), seven students, and ME! We left Bethlehem at about 8am and arrived in Tel Aviv around 9.</div>
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Before we did anything else, we (obviously) took a few ridiculous pictures... and some pretty cute ones. Haneen, one of my good friends and a first-year at the college, wanted a jumping shot, and so I dutifully played photographer. It took us four tries, but eventually, we captured it:</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Haneen and the Jump Shot!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me and Haneen in Jaffa's town square.</td></tr>
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We began in Jaffa, the town that is right next to Tel Aviv; if you started out in Jaffa walking toward Tel Aviv, you would get into the city without even realizing that you'd left Jaffa... they sort of just run into each other. In the morning, we visited St. Peter's Church, browsed the street merchants, and went on a little museum tour to learn more about the Jaffa sea port that has been active for over 5,000 years. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St. Peter's Church</td></tr>
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We all went to lunch together around noon, and then afterwards we split up and each went our separate ways for a few hours. I ended up hanging out with Soheir and Jabra, a student at the college. Jabra speaks basic English, and I speak <i>very</i> basic Arabic, so luckily Soheir speaks both languages fluently. We ate ice cream, walked around Jaffa, explored the little artisan shops scattered throughout the town, talked, laughed, and basically just had a pretty rad time.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jabra in Jaffa, overlooking Tel Aviv.</td></tr>
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Jabra is one of the male student that I'm closest to at the college, but male-female friendships are not encouraged in Palestine, and you are DEFINITELY never supposed to hang out one-on-one. Most of my closest friends in college were guys. I tend to connect easier with men than with women (maybe it has something to do with only having brothers?), and I've found that to be even more true when there is a language barrier. Somehow guys just don't need as many words to communicate; you can totally bond nonverbally, which you can't often do with girls. The fact that it is not culturally appropriate to have any real male friendships here has been an incredible challenge for me. Jabra and his roommate David (who unfortunately was sick and not able to come to Tel Aviv) are two of the sweetest, kindest, most humble guys I have ever met. Jabra especially has such a gentle spirit. He is essentially the opposite of the "loud, angry, domineering Arab man" stereotype that we so often hear in the West. At 24, he is the oldest student living in the college dorms, and he is definitely having a positive influence on the other guys who are living there. </div>
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Here is a story from today that basically sums up who Jabra is in a nutshell:</div>
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[Ok, backstory: so I trimmed my bangs a few days ago because I always cut my own hair and it wasn't a big deal at all. Well I'm an idiot and wasn't really paying attention, so I ended up cutting my bangs short. Wayyyyy short. I've been pinning them back until they grow out, but unfortunately for me some of the shortest bangs constantly come out of the bobby pins and I totally can't tell because instead of falling in my eyes, they are so short that they stick straight up. Seriously, it's a tragedy.] </blockquote>
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So today we're all sitting on the bus waiting for one last person to arrive when Jabra, who is in the seat in front of me, looks at me and says "your hair is sticking up." I was super frustrated with myself and my stupid hair and totally overreacted by basically yelling: "JABRA. I KNOW. I can't do anything about it and my hair just won't work and I'm so tired of trying to fix it and I don't have any hairspray with me and it looks ridiculous and I hate myself for being so stupid and not paying attention to what I was doing and now everyone is going to stare at me all day and I'M JUST GOING TO SHAVE MY HEAD." Also I may or may not have teared up... but I'm blaming that on my lack of sleep. </blockquote>
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Now instead of calling me a crazy person for totally mis-directing my anger at him and/or yelling back at me, Jabra doesn't even bat an eye. He calmly gets up and comes to stand right in front of me. Without a word, he gently takes all of the bobby pins out of my hair and begins to slowly and carefully twist the short bangs under the longer ones and pin them down. Ten minutes later, I had no more sticky-uppy bangs; they were all pinned down, and they stayed pinned (despite the windy beach) until half way through the day (when I immediately had Jabra re-pin them).</blockquote>
RIGHT? I know. He definitely wins the award for "kindest way to deal with a girl trying not to sob over her hair." I'd bet every penny I own that he has a sister.<br />
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After the whole group met up again at about 4, we headed down to the beach! Again, we all split up as some people went off to swim, some went to walk further into Tel Aviv, and some (like me) went off to find a quiet place to relax and enjoy the weather. I ended up walking down the beach until I came to the portion that has huge rocks piled on top of each other to create a sort of wall against the tide. I decided to climb down the rock wall/pile a little ways to find a quiet, more out-of-the-way spot (side note: doing this in a dress was a super classy idea). I spent an hour just listening to my iPod and watching the waves. It was the most soothing thing I've done in a long time.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3wmHWY9tR313yhx755ze0oVZ3JoLQr2lpi_6NY8Dd_OEsKwp87Icj8ArUnPAtSnMKEZVaL8AfciQZkAbnkPwYwmXpaUayqx5_oP7qZ-wbLv3V6sRGy1FEw_pLPqO9fotnx78EM6Lw/s1600/P4217425.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3wmHWY9tR313yhx755ze0oVZ3JoLQr2lpi_6NY8Dd_OEsKwp87Icj8ArUnPAtSnMKEZVaL8AfciQZkAbnkPwYwmXpaUayqx5_oP7qZ-wbLv3V6sRGy1FEw_pLPqO9fotnx78EM6Lw/s320/P4217425.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I know it looks like I could just step onto the beach, but I'm actually about 25 feet up.<br />
The view of the sea and the sun was beyond incredible.</td></tr>
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We ended up heading home at about 7:30pm, and got to Bethlehem a little after 8. I was left with some beautiful pictures, wonderful memories, approximately eight pounds of sand in my purse, a very fancy flip-flop tan...<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">AND....</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">SUNBURN. My poor, poor burned body.<br />
Although it's never officially summer until Meredith forgets that she's caucasian and goes out in the sun without sunscreen only to come back hours later burnt to a crisp<br />
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There's really nothing better than having a mini-vacation. I feel so recharged and refreshed, even though technically I was only away from my "regular life" for 12 hours.<br />
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In other news: get excited for the next few weeks... I have visitors coming! I'll be doing a bunch of traveling, which I will obviously share with you all, and I'll also explain why I intentionally haven't done much traveling up until this point.<br />
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I hope you all are doing well - Happy Weekend!</div>
</div>Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04885102333204660542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4126279904279010818.post-3455464377302071112012-04-19T06:49:00.000-04:002012-04-19T06:49:52.582-04:005 Things I Just Cannot Get Used To No Matter How Hard I Try<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>1. Greeting everyone individually when I walk in a room.</b></div>
Here, whenever someone enters a room, they are expected to say hello to everyone who is there, individually. This is often done by greeting everyone by name ("Sabah al kheir [good morning] Anita, sabah al kheir Meredith, sabah al kheir Ghadeer"). Other times, it's just done by making eye contact with a different person and repeating the same greeting over and over. Sometimes, it's done by kissing on the cheeks, although often that is only gender specific (so men will kiss men and women will kiss women).<br />
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<b>2. Bargaining for every good or service.</b></div>
"Oh, you want to charge me 15 shekels for a cab ride home? Well, I think your time is only worth 10." "You want me to pay 100 shekels for that handmade scarf? Well, it's not <i>that</i> great. I'll give you 50." That is basically what I feel like I'm saying every time I try to haggle with people. I feel so rude. SO RUDE! Of course here, it's not rude. It's how things are done, and if you don't haggle then you are hugely taken advantage of. The general rule for market items here is that you are supposed to end up paying about 30% of the sticker price (or of the first number that the seller offers you), but you have to bargain your way down to that number. Cognitively, I know this, but it doesn't make it any easier for me when I'm trying to haggle my way down.<br />
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<b>3. A phrase for every occasion!</b></div>
In the West, we basically say "thank you" whenever someone does anything remotely polite for us. Give me a ride in your taxi? Thank you! Wish me a happy birthday? Thank you! Refill my water glass? Thank you! Hope that I get well soon? Thank you! Say you like my new haircut? Thank you! Tell me to enjoy my meal? Thank you! Here, there is a unique response to each different phrase. There are a hundred of these phrases that I can never keep straight, and they each mean something that, in my brain, doesn't at all correlate with what is being said. For example, when someone says "sahhtain," which roughly translates to "enjoy your meal" the correct response is "ana qalbek," or "on your heart." Huh? I usually just end up saying "shukran" (thank you) at the same times as I would in the US. People look at me a little funny, but at least I don't feel rude when I can't remember the correct response.<br />
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<b>4. Shame Culture v. Guilt Culture</b></div>
I was raised in a guilt culture, which means that if I do something wrong, even if no one else knows, I generally feel guilty about that and it eats at me until I do something to atone for my wrongdoing. In the same way, if people think I have done something wrong but I have not, then I defend myself, fight against these false accusations, and I do not feel guilt. In the shame culture in which I now live, what I have done does not matter, what matters is what others perceive that I have done. If I do something wrong, then I shame my family (or tribe) and it is a public thing, not a private thing like guilt. This might explain it a little better:<br />
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<a href="http://shrinkwrapped.blogs.com/photos/uncategorized/shame3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://shrinkwrapped.blogs.com/photos/uncategorized/shame3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Basically, shame is a holistic feeling: I am bad. Guilt is much more specific: I have done something bad. Therefore, guilt does not generally overshadow your life the way that shame does. All that to say, that I am not used to living in a shame culture. Having to worry about things as mundane as making sure not to come home after dark (because my neighbors will see, assume I've been doing something inappropriate, and it will bring shame on my host family) is something that has been a challenge. <b>Having to think about the way that my actions will be perceived by outside observers, not just whether they are right or wrong, is something that I have never encountered before. </b>Growing up, I was always told that "as long as you know that what you're doing is right, then it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks," but here, it is essentially the opposite: "it doesn't matter what you're doing, if people think that you are doing something shameful, then that is what is important."</div>
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<b>5. The constant presence of soldiers.</b></div>
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That's pretty self-explanatory. It doesn't matter how often I see them... every time I turn the corner and run into a pair of teenagers with AK-47s slung over their shoulders, my heart starts racing.</div>
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For the most part, I've adjusted fairly well to living in Bethlehem. I've gotten into the rhythm of life here, and I very much enjoy it. As I begin to wind down my time here (I only have three more months!) it really hits me how much this place has become my home, and how most things that seemed to strange to me when I first arrived have become totally normal. I can only imagine that when I return to the US, everything is going to seem incredibly bizarre for the first few months!</div>Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04885102333204660542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4126279904279010818.post-44473236191604296022012-04-12T06:05:00.000-04:002012-04-12T10:16:08.224-04:00Debunking the Myth<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Happy Easter, everyone! I know, I know, I'm a few days late. Unfortunately, I was pretty sick over Holy Week (the week leading up to Easter), so I didn't get to participate in the local events as much as I had wanted to. Easter is a huge deal here, for obvious reasons. Jerusalem is the setting of the crucifixion and resurrection story, and the entire city was bustling with excitement. Thousands of tourists and locals alike participated in all sorts of different activities to commemorate different Holy Week events. Many of my other ex-pat friends said that the Easter story felt so much more real to them after being here, and I agree. It is much easier to visualize things when you're here and seeing the sites first hand.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/Orthodoxe_Kreuzwegsprozession_am_Karfreitag_in_der_Via_Dolorosa.jpg/575px-Orthodoxe_Kreuzwegsprozession_am_Karfreitag_in_der_Via_Dolorosa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/Orthodoxe_Kreuzwegsprozession_am_Karfreitag_in_der_Via_Dolorosa.jpg/575px-Orthodoxe_Kreuzwegsprozession_am_Karfreitag_in_der_Via_Dolorosa.jpg" width="298" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Orthodox Good Friday procession down Via Dolorosa.</td></tr>
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It was fascinating for me to see all the tourists with their bright smiles and their incredible enthusiasm. They smiled and danced from one place to the next, and I was constantly overhearing people talk about how Jerusalem is "the holiest city in the world." And I also constantly heard people say how they "hope those Arabs just leave us alone over Easter" or how they hope that "Palestinians don't bomb Jerusalem and kill us all." Not realizing, of course, that East Jerusalem is an Arab city, or that there were Palestinians standing right next to them, or that there are plenty of Arab Christians who are celebrating the rising of the Savior, who died not just for you, but for them as well.<br />
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Yesterday marked the eight month mark for me, and I find that the longer I'm here, the heavier my heart grows. This occupation is weighing on me, and I am not even constrained the way that most residents are. I find myself feeling drastically different about Jerusalem than so many of the tourists that I saw. For them, it is this holy city with a bright light shining from it. For me, well, sometimes I can literally feel the dark cloud that is hovering over Jerusalem. The air is heavy, the pain is tangible, the oppression is smothering.<br />
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I feel like living here has opened my eyes to so many things, and I wonder if I've gone through life with the same naivety, with the same blinders on me as so many of the tourists I've seen over this past week. Do I think critically about things, or do I just follow the leader and buy into what I'm told? Do I wrestle with what I encounter, or do I take everything at face value?<br />
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I ran into this quote by Henry Rollins a few days ago, and it so accurately summarized how I'm feeling:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I beg young people to travel. If you don’t have a passport, get one. Take a summer, get a backpack and go to Delhi, go to Saigon, go to Bangkok, go to Kenya. Have your mind blown. Eat interesting food. Dig some interesting people. Have an adventure. Be careful. Come back and you’re going to see your country differently, you’re going to see your president differently, no matter who it is. Music, culture, food, water. Your showers will become shorter. You’re going to get a sense of what globalization looks like... And that for some people, their day consists of walking 12 miles for four buckets of water. And so there are lessons that you can’t get out of a book that are waiting for you at the other end of that flight. A lot of people—Americans and Europeans—come back and go, ohhhhh. And the light bulb goes on."</blockquote>
I feel that for me, the light bulb has gone on. I read a bit more about Henry Rollins, and found <a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10797904">this article</a> written about him. While I don't agree with everything that was said, I did love this little excerpt:<br />
<blockquote>
The fact that [Henry Rollins has] generally had a good time and been treated well by the people in the Middle East has made Rollins question the way those countries are framed in Western media. That's convinced him that there's not as much to fear in the world as some would have us believe, and that the US could instead serve the far greater purpose of making things better for people around the world. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
It is for this kind of hard-won education that Rollins travels in the first place. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
"To take the myth away from something," he muses of his motivation for visiting places many view as difficult.</blockquote>
"There's not as much to fear in the world as some would have us believe." Those words hit home for me. I can't even remember how many times someone recoiled in fear when I told them my post-college plans, or how often people told me "don't get blown up" when they found out I was going to live in the Middle East. Living in Palestine has shed so much light on our shared humanity. People here are the same as people everywhere else in the world. People want food, water, and shelter. They want safety and stability for themselves and their families. <b>There is no great mystery here. There are just people, who are pretty much the same as you and me.</b><br />
<br />
As I look forward to the three months that I have left in Palestine, I hope to continue to de-bunk all the myths that I have about this part of the world. I hope to explore and adventure, and I hope to truly see Palestine through the eyes of those who call this place their home.</div>
</div>Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04885102333204660542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4126279904279010818.post-56296270777476363612012-04-01T10:36:00.000-04:002012-04-01T10:36:52.434-04:00World, Meet My Coworkers!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
For the past week, I've been working on getting out the Shepherd Society's Easter newsletter. On Thursday, my boss decided that he wanted a picture of the staff in our newsletter, and so we got to have an impromptu PHOTO SHOOT! I'm really excited, because now you can see the Shepherd Society staff! The Bethlehem Bible College employs about 20 staff members, and probably around 20 faculty members. The Shepherd Society, the humanitarian branch of the College, has only four staff members, but what we lack in numbers, we make up for in awesome.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1laeD2KNLqSPkdUW93m93_RDjkKobKBxrh80l0F7lS1MSVITaefVy6EYP-vTUA40Nr62SXy-Y8BSJE39an0sf9TSyoCOv9o0o1YXdIHQJgMv4J1U0U-i1ZSdhteQ5EHtyIk3RKxm6/s1600/serious.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1laeD2KNLqSPkdUW93m93_RDjkKobKBxrh80l0F7lS1MSVITaefVy6EYP-vTUA40Nr62SXy-Y8BSJE39an0sf9TSyoCOv9o0o1YXdIHQJgMv4J1U0U-i1ZSdhteQ5EHtyIk3RKxm6/s400/serious.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our very serious, Palestinian style photo.<br />
Alex, George, Muna, and Me</td></tr>
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Alex is the director of the Shepherd Society, Dean of Students at Bethlehem Bible College, and pastor of the East Jerusalem Baptist Church. Alex has an absolutely incredible life story, and wrote the book <i>Palestinian Memories, </i>the second edition (which I was able to help edit!) was published in March. Alex's father (a hospital worker) was shot in the head and killed by Israeli snipers in 1948, afterwhich he was raised by a single mother along with his six other siblings. While he spent his childhood living in and around Jerusalem, the Israeli government revoked his citizenship after he left for college and refused to let him return to his family, and so for a time, he was a man without a citizenship, without a country. Now he is a U.S. citizen who has lived in Palestine on and off with his wife Brenda for the last few decades.<br />
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George is the deputy director of the Shepherd Society and is working toward his Masters in Counseling at nearby Bethlehem University. He coordinates the initial meetings with new families needing assistance, and does the best he can to help them cover things like medical costs, utility bills, and tuition payments. He got married a few years ago, and his wife packs him tea-time snacks for the 10:30am tea break. It's all sorts of adorable.<br />
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Muna is the Shepherd Society social worker. She does extensive follow-up with families and helps to make sure that we are best meeting their needs. She also runs the family to family sponsorship program, where a family in the West can sponsor a Palestinian family. Her daughter comes into the office on Fridays (since school here runs Monday-Thursday and 1/2 day Saturday) and is the spitting image of Muna. It's so crazy to see Muna's identical twin who is 8 years old.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgejizNfrSsfC4Kt2rmv0WUt2B0wjKKfZGakY6gkuBllsFqz36rPwriRufukBqrPEWxkaCjU6DTI1ehZ7DWkhA4Xt9daE2x8wxjh37voUj2gWaVeXcpqM_xk-GyOkLd_M9nmofylm7-/s1600/laughing.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgejizNfrSsfC4Kt2rmv0WUt2B0wjKKfZGakY6gkuBllsFqz36rPwriRufukBqrPEWxkaCjU6DTI1ehZ7DWkhA4Xt9daE2x8wxjh37voUj2gWaVeXcpqM_xk-GyOkLd_M9nmofylm7-/s400/laughing.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">How we are normally, on very windy rooftops.</td></tr>
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</div>Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04885102333204660542noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4126279904279010818.post-42291168594234160122012-03-29T13:19:00.003-04:002012-03-29T16:13:02.119-04:00Limitless Kindness and Bottomless Cruelty<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have to admit that as much as I love living in Palestine (and I REALLY love living in Palestine!), there are days when I selfishly wish that I had just remained ignorant of the injustice here. There are times when all I want to do is crawl in a hole and never hear another word about apartheid, occupation, or international politics ever again. Sometimes, it just hurts too much. Sometimes, it's just too overwhelming. Sometimes, instead of motivating me, it cripples me.
<br />
<br />
Some days, I see the tangible results of my efforts here - one more family can pay their medical bills, or send their kids to school, or have food to eat that evening - and I feel like what I'm doing is making a difference. Other times, I feel like I'm not doing nearly enough. If I can't change the world, then what's the point of trying? What's the point of helping people survive from one miserable day to the next if I'm not working to change their circumstances. I am just one person. I cannot end this occupation, and when you get down to it, that is the root of the problem. Things will not, CANNOT, substantially improve until the occupation has ended. And therefore, if I'm not helping to end the occupation, then am I just wasting my time?<br />
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I cannot offer a short-term solution, send up a two second prayer that things get better, and move on. I must work for justice, because my humanity is tied in with your humanity. And your humanity is tied in with the humanity of the boy down the street. And all of our humanity is tied in with the rest of the world's humanity. If the humanity of those living in Palestine is being ignored and undermined, then my own humanity is undergoing the same treatment. All of humanity suffers with the oppressed - consciously or not.<br />
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Earlier today I was catching up on <a href="http://wandering-gnome.blogspot.com/">my friend Courtney's blog</a> and saw a quote that totally articulates these hard moments:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.”<br />
–Mark Jenkins</blockquote>
"Limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty;" this is what I'm experiencing here in Palestine.<br />
<br />
Today, the cruelty so overshadows the kindness that I struggle to remember a time when I wasn't frustrated, brokenhearted, and exhausted; I have given all that I have, and I am completely spent, totally drained. Today, as I walk past packs of soldiers, teenagers with machine guns, all I can see is the occupation and the pain that comes along with it. Today, as I walk along the wall, all I can feel is claustrophobic, caged; I feel like a prisoner.<br />
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But tomorrow will be different.<br />
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Tomorrow, I will remember the kindness of people - on both sides of the wall. Tomorrow, I will begin again, working for peace in my own small way, one family at a time. Tomorrow, I will be able to appreciate the beauty of this place, despite the suffering that is happening here.<br />
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But today... today, I just can't, and here are a few reasons why:<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Israeli soldier aims his gun at Palestinian civilians in the old city of Hebron. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://thewe.cc/thewei/&/images3/palestine_2004/students_shot_while_at_un_school.jpe" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="228" src="http://thewe.cc/thewei/&/images3/palestine_2004/students_shot_while_at_un_school.jpe" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Two 10 year old students were shot by Israeli forces during class in a United Nations school in Gaza.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Israeli soldiers come to oversee the demolition of a Palestinian family's home in the West Bank.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Israeli soldier shooting at school children in the West Bank city of Hebron.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.jewlicious.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/the-smaller-the-tougher-300x195.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="208" src="http://www.jewlicious.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/the-smaller-the-tougher-300x195.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #323232; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 19px;"><i style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Haaretz [Israeli news source] found that dead babies, pregnant women, mothers weeping on their children’s grave, a child in the crosshairs of a sniper’s rifle and blown-up mosques are just a few of the images with which IDF soldiers decided to mark their graduation from a training course or tour of duty... </i></span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #323232; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 19px;">The Haaretz inquiry brought several examples of such prints: An infantry snipers’ T-shirt with the writing “better use Durex” running alongside a dead Palestinian child, a weeping mother and a teddy bear; <u>another sniper course shirt showing an aim taken at the belly of a pregnant woman, with the slogan “One shot, two kills;”</u> a shirt from the Haruv battalion with the picture of a Samurai and the caption “we won’t chill before we verify the kill,” and many more."</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">A mother trying to shield her children from the crosshairs.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Cattle grates used to herd people into the checkpoints.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"> <a href="http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/berlin-wall-palestine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="292" src="http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/berlin-wall-palestine.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">"<b>Ich bin ein Berliner</b>" ("I am a Berliner") is a quotation from a June 26, 1963, speech by President JFK in West Berlin. He was underlining United States support for West Germany, 22 months after the Soviet-supported East Germany erected the Berlin Wall as a barrier to prevent movement between East and West.<br />That wall fell. This one will too.</span></span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnoFuFL1Ik4EraipdZ_7xPFZISJSI6bb0igEIRyQdtvs8NMBZYJX0gp4NaJkfdZ5CiH2bcecH_YGJbCF5LAevQy_zpLj93AVrBP4lhmAq1WuLSOXTsGKjEjWYwPqC-R8H7_bpB3AuqgXLy/s1600/P1030339.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnoFuFL1Ik4EraipdZ_7xPFZISJSI6bb0igEIRyQdtvs8NMBZYJX0gp4NaJkfdZ5CiH2bcecH_YGJbCF5LAevQy_zpLj93AVrBP4lhmAq1WuLSOXTsGKjEjWYwPqC-R8H7_bpB3AuqgXLy/s400/P1030339.jpg" width="300" /></a><br />
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Sometimes, I wonder if I'll ever be able to piece my heart back together again.</div>
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</div>Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04885102333204660542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4126279904279010818.post-13640590115700664212012-03-23T09:56:00.000-04:002012-11-15T22:09:25.200-05:00This Duck is an Apartheid Duck<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Israel is an apartheid state. Here, on the ground, there is no denying it. It's indisputable. Often, instead of trying to argue with the facts, Israelis or Zionists try to argue over technicalities by using convoluted logic: "Don't call it apartheid! That was in South Africa. This isn't South Africa, therefore it's not apartheid." Well, no. It still is apartheid. It's just Israeli apartheid, not South African apartheid.</span>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In fact, if you talk to people who lived under apartheid in South Africa, there is a recurring theme to their opinion on Israel:</span>
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"I've been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about."<br />
<a href="http://rabble.ca/news/2010/03/israel-and-apartheid-fair-comparison">- Archbishop Desmond Tutu</a> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://rabble.ca/news/2010/03/israel-and-apartheid-fair-comparison"></a>"Israel came to resemble more and more apartheid South Africa at its zenith -- even surpassing its brutality, house demolitions, removal of communities, targeted assassinations, massacres, imprisonment and torture of its opponents, collective punishment and the aggression against neighbouring states."<br /> <a href="http://rabble.ca/news/2010/03/israel-and-apartheid-fair-comparison">- Former South African Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils.</a> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://rabble.ca/news/2010/03/israel-and-apartheid-fair-comparison"></a>"But what is interesting is that every black South African that I've spoken to who has visited the Palestinian territory has been horrified and has said without hesitation that the system that applies in Palestine is worse."<br /> <a href="http://rabble.ca/news/2010/03/israel-and-apartheid-fair-comparison">- Professor John Dugard, Former U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Occupied Palestine.</a> </span></blockquote>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://psanmb.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/palest-nelson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="226" src="http://psanmb.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/palest-nelson.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">"...we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">-Nelson Mandela</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://rabble.ca/news/2010/03/israel-and-apartheid-fair-comparison"></a>"When I come here and see the situation [in the Palestinian territories], I find that what is happening here is 10 times worse than what I had experienced in South Africa. <b>This is Apartheid.</b>"<br /> <a href="http://rabble.ca/news/2010/03/israel-and-apartheid-fair-comparison">- Arun Gandhi</a> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://rabble.ca/news/2010/03/israel-and-apartheid-fair-comparison"></a>"As someone who lived in apartheid South Africa and who has visited Palestine I say with confidence that Israel is an apartheid state. In fact, I believe that some of Israel's actions make the actions of South Africa's apartheid regime appear pale by comparison."<br /> <a href="http://rabble.ca/news/2010/03/israel-and-apartheid-fair-comparison">- Willie Madisha, in a letter supporting CUPE Ontario's resolution.</a> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://rabble.ca/news/2010/03/israel-and-apartheid-fair-comparison"></a>"They support Zionism, a version of global racist domination and apartheid based on the doctrine that Jews are superior to Arabs and therefore have a right to oppress them and occupy their country."<br /> <a href="http://rabble.ca/news/2010/03/israel-and-apartheid-fair-comparison">- Current COSATU President, Sidumo Dlamini.</a></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">"It is worse, not in the sense that apartheid was not an absolutely terrifying system in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">South Africa</st1:place></st1:country-region>, but in the ways in which <b>the Israelis have taken the apartheid system and perfected it, so to speak; sharpened it.</b> For instance, we had the Bantustans and we had the Group Areas Act and we had the separate schools and all of that but I don’t think it ever even entered the mind of any apartheid planner to design a town in such a way that there is a physical wall that separates people and that that wall denotes your freedom of movement, your freedom of economic gain, of employment, and at the same time is a tool of intimidation and dehumanisation. We carried passes as the Palestinians have their ID documents but that did not mean that we could not go from one place in the city to another place in the city. The judicial system was absolutely skewed of course, all the judges in their judgements sought to protect white privilege and power and so forth, and we had a series of what they called “hanging judges” in those days, but they did not go far as to openly, blatantly have two separate justice systems as they do for Palestinians [who are tried in Israeli military courts] and Israelis [who are tried in civil, not military courts]. <b>So in many ways the Israeli system is worse.</b> ...</span></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">Another thing that makes it even worse is that when we fought our battles, even if it took us a long time, we could in the end muster and mobilise international solidarity on a scale that enabled us to be more successful in our struggle. The Palestinians cannot do that. <b>The whole international community almost conspires against them.</b></span></span> ...</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><b>Palestinians are mocked in a way that South Africans were not.</b></span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"> In a sense, the UN tried in our case to follow up on its resolutions to isolate the apartheid regime. Here, now, they make resolutions against <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region> one after the other and I don't detect even a sense of shame that they know there is not going to be any follow up." </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><a href="http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/resources/interviews/3079-reverend-allan-boesak-calls-israeli-apartheid-qmore-terrifyingq-than-south-africa-ever-was">- Reverend Allan Boesak</a></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span> </blockquote>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><em style="line-height: 17px; text-align: left;">"Don’t patronize us! We lived apartheid, we suffered apartheid, we know what apartheid is, we recognise apartheid when we see it. And when we see Israel, we see a regime that practices apartheid."</em> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Now, the point of this is not to de-legitimize South African struggle by saying that this one is "worse." It doesn't MATTER which is worse, because both are unjust and painful. Both go against the spirit of Christ. As a follower of Jesus, I cannot sit back and remain silent in the face of injustice and dehumanization. I am called to love my neighbor, and I cannot do that if I am ignoring my neighbor's cries for help. If your neighbor was drowning, you would not just sit back and watch her die because you didn't feel like getting wet. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The title of this blog post was inspired by <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/22/this-duck-is-an-apartheid-duck.html">an article with the same name, written by Yousef Munayyer</a>. I encourage you to read the whole thing, because it articulates the situation much better than I could. Here's a quote from the article that really struck me:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Apartheid, like genocide, has an internationally recognized legal definition. For <i style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">genocide</i>, the definition was institutionalized in the aftermath of World War II. Obviously genocides differ with respect to policies, severity, and method: compare the Rwandan genocide and the Nazi Holocaust, for example. But few would argue that what happened in Rwanda was not genocide because it looks different from other genocides.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And given the definition of Apartheid, Israel’s domination of the Palestinians fits the bill.</span></span></span></span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The </span><a href="http://untreaty.un.org/cod/icc/statute/romefra.htm" style="cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit;">1998 Rome Statute</a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> to the International Criminal Court defines Apartheid as actions or policies “committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the </span><b style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">intention of maintaining that regime.</i></b><span style="font-family: inherit;">”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/22/this-duck-is-an-apartheid-duck.html">Munayyer</a> so bluntly put it: "If it walks like a duck, if looks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, what is it? It’s a duck. This duck is an Apartheid duck."<span style="text-align: left;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04885102333204660542noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4126279904279010818.post-24452236459206233722012-03-18T13:59:00.000-04:002012-03-18T16:36:56.466-04:00The Checkpoint and The Separation Barrier<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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After living in Palestine for the last seven months, there are plenty of facets of this conflict that I am capable of explaining. I can talk about curfews, electricity cuts, water shortages, sanitation issues, demonstrations, Israeli attack dogs being used on Palestinian civilians (ohhhhh yeah, that post is coming soon), constantly being surrounded by soldiers, economic deterioration, harassment, bombing, the apartheid system of having different social structures for Israelis than for Palestinians (different courts, different roads, different laws, etc.), the dangers of normalization, and plenty of other things in a way that someone who has never been here can understand. Unfortunately, there are also things that I just cannot begin to articulate. There are parts of life here that unless you see for yourself, you would never believe, and could not begin to understand. Two of those things are the checkpoints and the separation barrier (or as many Palestinians refer to it: "the apartheid wall").<br />
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Now, if you go back through my blog posts, you'll definitely see me reference these things, but you may notice that I have never gone in-depth and tried to explain them. The reason being that it's simply not possible. I cannot possibly come up with language strong enough to express the way in which the hundreds of checkpoints and this wall, more than twice the height and four times the length of the Berlin Wall, negatively affect the life of each and every person living in the West Bank, and it feels hollow for me to even try. Nothing I can say would adequately explain the realities... you need to see it for yourself.<br />
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Since it's obviously not possible for everyone to hop on a plane and see the conflict first hand, <a href="http://porterspeakmanjr.com/">Porter Speakman,</a> an incredible filmmaker from the US who has spent a lot of time in Israel/Palestine and is the Media Director for the Christ at the Checkpoint Conferences, has made two short (5 minute-ish) films to help people grasp the realities of both the checkpoint and the apartheid wall. I watched them both today, and let me tell you, they are the best summarizations that I have seen so far. I highly recommend that you take the next ten minutes and watch these two short films. I promise that it will go a long way toward helping you understand these two very confusing concepts.<br />
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(If you click play and it tells you that you need some sort of flash player that you don't have, just click on the link in the title of the film directly below the video to go to the Vimeo site where it'll play without having to download anything.)<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/37416952?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="400"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/37416952">The Checkpoint</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/christatthecheckpoint">Christ at the Checkpoint</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
<b>"Traveling from one end of the West Bank to the other, a distance of perhaps 80 miles, takes me as an Israeli an hour and a half or two hours in a car and takes a Palestinian - because on some of the roads I go he can't go, some of the checkpoints I pass he can't pass through - it would take him a day."</b><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/36911218?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="400"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/36911218">The Separation Barrier</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/christatthecheckpoint">Christ at the Checkpoint</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
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For more detailed information about the barrier, I recommend reading <a href="http://electronicintifada.net/content/it-fence-it-wall-no-its-separation-barrier/4715">Is it a Fence? Is it a Wall? No, it’s a Separation Barrier</a> and B'Tselem (The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories)'s <a href="http://www.btselem.org/separation_barrier/map">Separation Barrier Explanation</a>.<br />
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Life changing, right?</div>
</div>Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04885102333204660542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4126279904279010818.post-56996004920231210402012-03-14T14:01:00.000-04:002012-03-15T16:33:18.528-04:00I'm Home<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Today as I was walking down the hall on my way to lunch, I ran into some of my friends who are students at the college. "COME ON!" they said excitedly, as they grabbed my hands and dragged me with them into a meeting room full of American tourists who were visiting BBC. "What's going on?" I asked the coordinator. "Oh," he told me, "this is a group from Notre Dame. They wanted to meet some Palestinian Christian students while they were in the West Bank." I turned back to my friends. "I'm not supposed to be here," I told them, getting ready to leave, "they want to meet with Palestinians, not me."<br />
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<b>"It's okay," one of the students assured me, "you are one of us now."</b><br />
<b><br /></b>Stunned, I sat down between Jabra and Sally, and it began to dawn on me that I really <i>am </i>one of them. Slowly but surely, Palestine has become my home, and I have begun to belong here. After introducing ourselves, we broke up into smaller groups and I sat with my friend Haneen, an absolutely beautiful soul from Ramallah who lives at the college. (Even though Ramallah is only 14 miles away from Bethlehem, because of the Apartheid Wall and the checkpoints, it can take Haneen anywhere between 1.5-4 hours to get from her home to the Bible College, so she lives in the dorms here at school.) She complained about how terrible her English is, I complained about how terrible my Arabic is, and then we took deep breaths, linked our arms together, and emotionally prepared ourselves for the difficult task of discussing the occupation with people who had never encountered it before.<br />
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I realized something, right then and there: it is going to break my heart to leave these beautiful people who have become like family, and this incredible place that has become my home.<br />
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Honestly, in four months when it comes time for me to head back to the United States, I don't know how I'm going to be able to do it.</div>Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04885102333204660542noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4126279904279010818.post-23805624031788522642012-03-11T13:54:00.000-04:002012-11-15T22:11:35.361-05:00As the Bombs Drop Over Gaza<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I had planned for my next post to be about the incredibly fantastic and successful Christ at the Checkpoint conference that the Bible College put on last week, but that is going to have to wait, because unfortunately, there is something more urgent that needs to be spoken about.<br />
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How many of you know that right now, as I am writing this, bombs are being dropped on Gaza? How many of you know that Jabaliya Refugee Camp has been a target of this Israeli bombing? How many of you know that 17 Palestinians have been killed, including a 12 year old boy, and over 40 have been injured? <b>(Update: latest reports as of Wednesday, March 14th indicate at least 26 dead <i>[the most recent being 7 year-old Baraka Al-Mughrabi]</i> and over 80 injured - mostly women and children.)</b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Palestinians women react during the funeral of 12 year old Ayoub Assalya killed in an Israeli airstrike in Jabaliya Refugee Camp, Gaza Strip, Sunday, March 11, 2012. The worst round of violence in more than a year between Israel and Gaza Strip Palestinians deepened Sunday with deadly Israeli airstrikes.</span></td></tr>
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The whole thing began on Friday, when Israel dropped bombs in a (successful) attempt to assassinate Zuhair al-Qaissi, a Palestinian resistance leader. After his death, militants from Gaza retaliated by firing rockets onto the Israeli side, and things have escalated from there. The extremist groups of resistors are no match for the Israeli Defense Force; one side has a few rockets that they can shoot into the mostly empty southern Israeli desert, the other is capable of leveling the entire country.
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Even though Israel started the bombing, even though there was probably a better way to assassinate someone than to rain bombs down on their country's hospitals and schools and refugee camps, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the people of Gaza will take the blame for this. Gaza does not have multi-billion dollar Public Relations spin machines like Israel and the US, Israel's number one supporter. <b>The only thing Gaza has are the small voices, like mine, saying "We are in this land. We are on the ground. We are seeing what is being done. Friends, family, please CARE about this! These people matter. These lives matter. These are your brothers and sisters who are being slaughtered. These are Children of God who are being murdered. Please, care."</b><br />
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But my heart breaks as I realize that it's not enough. It's never enough. My voice is not loud enough. My presence, not powerful enough. I cannot change the world, and I cannot solve this conflict. I cannot stop the bombs from raining down on these precious people. Together, we could. A public outcry, would. But the world remains silent as terrified Gazans sit in their homes and pray that God will spare their children.<br />
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Imagine if this was happening in your country. In your state. In your town. Imagine the pain and the terror that you would be feeling. Imagine how desperately you would want the world to speak out in order to end your suffering. Imagine your devastation when no one said a word.<br />
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I want to share this letter written on Friday by Waleed al-Meadana, a 21 year old student in Gaza. I think it resonates more deeply than anything I could even begin to articulate.
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial;"><a href="http://mondoweiss.net/2012/03/%E2%80%8Fa-letter-from-under-attack.html"><u> A letter from Gaza under attack</u></a></span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: x-small;">March 9, 2012<br /><br />I am writing to all people of the world in solidarity with the oppressed and suppressed around the world. Right here, in Gaza, right now, being under attack, I have no place to polish my language; I have no time to choose my words. I am just being spontaneous, for every second counts. One hour later, I may have no chance to write you, lest being dead -- I have the same things in mind now all Gazans have. (I am Gazan at the end of the day).<br /><br />The only thing I hear is the bombs; it is not too far away. At some point, the dead were 3. Some few minutes later, they were 6. One minute after, they were 7. And time is still counting! How many do you think they would get by the time I finish writing this or you finish reading it ?! Ambulances, rushing in the haunting streets, are also heard. I, like all the poor living things here, can feel the shakes, resulted from the bombs. Fear is easy to notice on the eyes of the children; they, however, show toughness and challenge that they never cry and they speak up their minds. It has been reported that 3 more people were killed in an Israeli raid, hitting the Palestinian legislative council.<br /><br />The names of the dead are aired now: Moatasem, Fayyeq, Shadi, etc. But it does not matter any longer, for what keeps my mind busy now is "Who is next? What next? When is this all over?"—I wish I could think of an exact answer. Many thoughts are popping to one's mind at these moments: family, friends, poor people, the lovely past, the bitterly present and the bleak future. But we never lose hope of a better life. And a better future. While I was lost in such thoughts, dad asked me about the first name one of my friends has. He was actually listening to the radio when the dead were named. I felt like my heart jumped up to my throat. I panicked!<br />I will sleep, though I am being bombed. I will have some sleep, though I am being terrified. And I will dream of a better tomorrow.</span></div>
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Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04885102333204660542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4126279904279010818.post-35405394725305246862012-03-01T15:54:00.001-05:002012-03-15T13:33:39.869-04:00Hey Guys, Apparently I'm Going to Hell.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">Life is insane right now. Seriously CRAZY. I'm busy preparing for the <a href="http://www.christatthecheckpoint.com/">Christ at the Checkpoint Conference</a> being put on next week by the Bethlehem Bible College, and the pushback we're getting is ridiculous. This is our second international conference, and we currently have around 500 people registered to attend. Our basic mission statement is that we aim</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"> "to provide an opportunity for Evangelical Christians to prayerfully seek a proper awareness of issues of peace, justice, and reconciliation in the context of the realities on the ground in the Palestinian Territories."</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"> </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">Our go</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">al is to begin a dialogue about the roll of the church in this conflict. We will have many different speakers, from well known Americans such as Tony Campolo and Shane Claiborne, to British Reverend Steven Sizer, to Messianic Jews, Palestinians, and many others. We have a range of people attending, from very conservative to very liberal. We have Zionists attending and speaking. We hope to have a full range of opinions and beliefs present, so that we can have a truly open discussion about the issues surrounding peace and justice in Palestine.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">Unfortunately, for the last few months, we have been drowning in hate mail. While we have an incredible number of people excited and supportive of the conference, we also have people who have ignorantly believed the awful articles likening us to Nazis and terrorists. <b>My heart breaks every time I read a new article saying that we are evil and that there's a special circle of hell dedicated to people like us. I'm going to hell? For believing in reconciliation? For loving people who are the "wrong" nationality? For working toward justice for all of God's people? I don't think so; I know my Lord better than that.</b></span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">Obviously someone important is getting nervous, because the Israeli authorities have pulled my Palestinian bosses into meetings with the Israeli military twice now.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">The craziest thing I've read so far came from<a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=259936&fb_source=message"> The Jerusalem Post</a>. Not only were we slandered, but our ideology and beliefs were completely twisted into something hatefilled and evil, and completely misrepresented. My favorite quote from this article is "</span><span class="Apple-style-span">Also presenting is Porter Speakman, Jr., who produced the horridly biased and widely viewed film, <span style="font-style: italic;">With God On Our Side</span>, that urges Christians not to assist the Israeli brutalizing of Palestinians through the support of Christian Zionism.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">" Why yes. I WOULD agree that we urge Christians not to brutalize Palestinians. What is wrong with urging Christians to avoid the brutalization of a people? How could anyone possibly argue that brutalizing Palestinians is an okay thing for anyone, <i>especially</i> a follower of Jesus Christ, to do?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">The conference begins next Monday, and life will be chaotic until then.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">In an effort to relax this evening, I went out to dinner with a dear friend here in Palestine, <a href="http://electronicintifada.net/people/emily-lawrence">a British journalist named Emily</a>, to a little bar in Beit Sahour, a village neighboring Bethlehem. It was POURING rain (as it has been for the last few days), and so when we were finished, we decided to have the bartender (who coincidentally is a good friend of Emily's) call us a cab instead of walking.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">As we're headed back to our homes - she lives in Aida Camp, the refugee camp near my host family's house - the driver turns on his CD player, and on comes this guy rapping about ending the occ</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">upation in Palestine. I immediately googled the lyrics upon returning home. Turns out, the song was "End the Occupation" by Abu </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">Nurah. His bio says "</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">The son of Mexican immigrants, Abu Nurah grew up in Los Angeles' notorious Pico-Union neighborhood and went on to graduate Cum Laude from Harvard." Sounds like a pretty cool guy.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">I felt like the first two verses were so powerful, and so I decided to copy them for you all:</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">It's essential for a people to govern their own affairs<br />and return to the land of which they're rightful heirs;<br />Living in exile is like life suspended<br />for people back home the misery never ended;<br /><b>Those who resist are accused of terrorism<br />for refusing to accept conditions worse than a prison;</b><br />To the world, much of the suffering is invisible<br />mountains of evidence held to be inadmissible;<br />Occupations dehumanize populations<br />their strongest supporters are the world's wealthy nations.<br /><br />It's the women and children who suffer most from occupation<br />their stories should be broadcast on every U.S. station;<br />Maybe then the people would push the administration<br />to suspend the billions we give the Israeli nation;<br />And maybe one day mothers could breathe a sigh of relief<br />and their hearts begin to heal from the decades of grief;<br />Enough of roadmaps and Israel's iron fist<br />the immoral state of affairs must cease to exist;<br />How do you explain a 3-year-old shot in the head<br />or an 80-year-old being crushed to death in his bed;<br /><b>Bishop Tutu has said that Palestine is a replica<br />of what Blacks had to endure in apartheid South Africa;<br />Many see the connection, others choose to ignore it</b><br />they say no to divestment but back then they were for it.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">If I could ask for anything from you over this next week, it would be for prayer. Pray for this conference, that God would use it to help bring about peace and reconciliation in the region. Pray for all of those attending, that they would be able to make it through the border without being stopped or turned away. Pray for the Israeli government and those making important decisions. Pray for the Palestinian government in both the West Bank and Gaza, that they will stay strong and non-violent in their quest for freedom. Pray for me; sometimes I feel like my heart is just going to shatter from all of the tragedy here - pray for strength and stability.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">I probably won't be writing until March 9th, when the conference is over (since I'll be there from 5am-10pm every day). So until then, dear ones, have lovely days!</span></div>
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</div>Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04885102333204660542noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4126279904279010818.post-18541203581712073182012-02-21T07:58:00.003-05:002012-02-21T08:50:10.359-05:00Khader Adnan Is Being Released!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This is fantastic news! Khader Adnan is a Palestinian who was arrested nine weeks ago, and has been on a hunger strike ever since. He has been without food for 66 days, and is in critical condition. Israel calls him "a dangerous terrorist," however after two and a half months in prison, they still have not filed any charges against him. Unfortunately, this is all too common. Israeli authorities can arrest a Palestinian, and keep him or her (although it's almost always men) in "administrative detention" for up to six months (and can renew this six month period as many times as they want) without filing any charges or allowing any trial.<br />
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The first time I came to Palestine, I stayed with a host family. My host mother's brother had just been released from this administrative detention. He was arrested for <u>being present at a non-violent protest</u> in the West Bank, and had been in prison for the last TWO YEARS! Even though the detention only lasts six months, it is renewable basically indefinitely. After his first six month term was up, they renewed it, and renewed it, and renewed it. He ended up spending the entire two years in prison without any charges or trial, and when he was finally released, came home to meet his 18 month old daughter for the first time. Essentially, people are being held in prison for no reason, for as long as the authorities deem necessary. It is a tragedy that ruins lives, families, entire communities.<br />
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"Why are Palestinians so angry?" I'm always asked. I would contend that they are not in fact angry, but that their culture is very different, and if you're ignorant of these differences and only view Palestinians through your own cultural lens, then you may incorrectly perceive them to be angry. But if they ARE angry, probably it's because they're having to deal with garbage like this!<br />
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Imagine coming home to find out that your husband or father was just gone. He had been arrested, even though he had done nothing wrong, and you had no idea how many months, or even years, it would be until you saw him again. He was the only breadwinner for your family, so now you have no idea how you're going to eat or pay the bills. Would you be angry? Yeah, me too.<br />
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Luckily, there are people like Khader Adnan who are willing to stand up and say "This isn't right! I'm a human being, and you cannot treat me this way." He has brought light to an issue that very few knew about before. There was a demonstration outside my office today. Hundreds of Palestinian university students held signs and chanted in protest of an innocent man being held in prison.<br />
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Now, if the Israeli authorities had some sort of evidence saying that he was actually a terrorist, I would be absolutely fine with him being imprisoned and charged with his crimes. But they don't. It was, in all likelihood, a smoke screen, a way to keep Palestinians from speaking openly or actively working toward a just peace, a lame excuse used to rationalize the terrorizing of an entire people... just like so many other things here.<br />
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Lawyer for Khader Adnan says Israel has agreed to free West Bank baker refusing food for 66 days over his detention.</div>
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<tr><td align="middle"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10px;"><strong>Adnan said that his hands were shackled behind him and that he was thrown on the floor of a military jeep [REUTERS]</strong></span></td></tr>
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<br />
Israel has agreed to free Khader Adnan, a Palestinian detained without charge, who has been on hunger strike for more than nine weeks, one of his lawyers has said.<br />
<br />
The revelation came hours before the supreme court was to hear an urgent appeal on Tuesday for Adnan's release.<br />
The lawyer said that a settlement had been reached for ending his detention.<br />
<br />
The continued 'administrative detention' of the Palestinian from the West Bank had stroked global anger with protesters clashing again with police in the West Bank on Tuesday.<br />
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<tr><td class="Skyscrapper_Header" style="background-color: #fb9d04; color: white; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold; padding-bottom: 3px; padding-left: 3px; padding-top: 3px;"><span style="color: black;"><strong>I<a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/02/201221715355300838.html" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">n Depth: No food without freedom</a></strong></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td align="middle" colspan="2" valign="top"><a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/video/middleeast/2012/02/2012213153516502377.html" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="198" src="http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/198/300/mritems/Images/2012/2/19/201221993243351580_20.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><th align="left" class="Skyscrapper_Bullet" scope="col" style="background-image: url(http://www.aljazeera.com/Media/ver2/Images/bullet-bar-orange.gif); background-position: 2px 6px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; width: 10px;" valign="center"></th><td><a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/02/201221984424541461.html" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;"><strong>Feature:</strong> Randa Adnan: 'I still have hope'</a></td></tr>
<tr><th align="left" class="Skyscrapper_Bullet" scope="col" style="background-image: url(http://www.aljazeera.com/Media/ver2/Images/bullet-bar-orange.gif); background-position: 2px 6px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; width: 10px;" valign="center"></th><td><a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/02/2012216105041250560.html" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;"><strong>Op-ed:</strong> Saving his life is saving our own soul</a></td></tr>
<tr><th align="left" class="Skyscrapper_Bullet" scope="col" style="background-image: url(http://www.aljazeera.com/Media/ver2/Images/bullet-bar-orange.gif); background-position: 2px 6px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; width: 10px;" valign="center"></th><td><a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/02/20122148513674313.html" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;"><strong>Op-ed: </strong>Starving for freedom</a></td></tr>
<tr><th align="left" class="Skyscrapper_Bullet" scope="col" style="background-image: url(http://www.aljazeera.com/Media/ver2/Images/bullet-bar-orange.gif); background-position: 2px 6px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; width: 10px;" valign="center"></th><td><a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/02/20122954750597454.html" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Support grows for Palestinian hunger striker</a></td></tr>
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Israel arrested Adnan, a 33-year-old baker, on December 17 near the northern West Bank town of Jenin. Israel accuses him of being a spokesman for the Palestinian group, Islamic Jihad.<br />
<br />
He <a class="InternalLink" href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/02/20122954750597454.html" style="color: #fb9d04; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">told lawyers and human rights organisations</a> that masked soldiers violently broke into his house, where his mother and children were present.<br />
Adnan said that his hands were shackled behind him and that he was thrown onto the floor of the military jeep and kicked and slapped by soldiers while they took him to the settlement of Mevo Dotan.<br />
<br />
He began refusing food a day after his arrest and is now said to be in critical condition.<br />
<br />
Earlier, Saeb Erakat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, urged world leaders to pressure Israel to free Adnan.<br />
<br />
"I sent messages to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton today, and spoke with the EU and Chinese envoys," Erakat told AFP news agency.<br />
<br />
"I asked them all to intervene in Adnan's case. They must apply pressure on Israel to release him," he said.<br />
<strong><br /></strong><br />
<strong>Widespread condemnation</strong><br />
World leaders had expressed growing concern over the fate of the prisoner, who was held without charge under a procedure known as "administrative detention".<br />
<br />
There are currently more than 300 Palestinians being <a class="InternalLink" href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/02/201221715355300838.html" style="color: #fb9d04; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">held in administrative detention</a> by Israel, without charge or trial, for renewable periods of six months, without any way of defending themselves.<br />
<br />
Palestinian officials warned that his death in custody could start a violent backlash, while a spokeswoman for the Israel Prisons Service said on Sunday that they were "constantly monitoring" the situation.<br />
<br />
"We understand the implications of this case," Sivan Weizman said.<br />
<br />
But on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office went on the offensive, with a spokesman describing Adnan as "a dangerous terrorist" despite the fact he has yet to be charged with any security offences.<br />
<br />
Until now, Adnan has not been charged and the military court that approved Adnan's detention has refused to release any details on the reason for his arrest or ongoing imprisonment.</td></tr>
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</div>Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04885102333204660542noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4126279904279010818.post-65160076593766134592012-02-15T07:45:00.002-05:002012-11-15T22:17:39.692-05:00Zababdeh... And a Run-In with Soldiers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Right before Christmas, I took a trip to Zababdeh, a little village about two hours north of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Bethlehem</st1:place></st1:city>, with the College Choir as they put
on their Christmas concert (I know this post was a little delayed, but I wanted to
wait until the Choir had finished touring to write about it, and then my computer broke, but NOW IT'S FIXED and I'm one happy camper). The Choir was kind
enough to let me (and my friend Courtney, a volunteer here through the Lutheran
church [funny story: we actually went to college together, but never met until
we got here, even though we have plenty of mutual friends]) travel with them to
see a little bit more of the country.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
First, I feel like I should clarify something that
I'm constantly asked about regarding my placement. I work for the Shepherd Society, which
is the humanitarian branch of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Bethlehem</st1:placename>
<st1:placename w:st="on">Bible</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">College</st1:placetype></st1:place>.
My office is at the college, and so I spend a lot of time with students,
professors, and college staff. I often refer to "the college," and
when I do, I'm referring to BBC, the place I spend 8 hours every day.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
So anyways, Zababdeh! Courtney and I got on the bus
with the choir. We headed up to the village. On our way, we ran into some cows and had to stop while they migrated off the road.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ0a3pHJv_0aDScuGibj1h4B9pHTEROxymUQkUC9I0DbQjbWyvvEOEVJ9CUnEXlt2TVmWfr8nH-jb6BKPoCstr4EVdFxMrR06u6iR-nrc0GKe4muScr7x6FUYVHY8RCBEUrhiuw5y0/s1600/cows.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ0a3pHJv_0aDScuGibj1h4B9pHTEROxymUQkUC9I0DbQjbWyvvEOEVJ9CUnEXlt2TVmWfr8nH-jb6BKPoCstr4EVdFxMrR06u6iR-nrc0GKe4muScr7x6FUYVHY8RCBEUrhiuw5y0/s400/cows.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
I was the official photographer for the concert (translation: terrible idea!). The Choir sang a
mix of traditional Palestinian songs, and Christmas carols, while I desperately tried to take good pictures without good lighting. The place was absolutely packed! Everyone was so excited to have us, and the community was so welcoming. We finished, ate dinner, packed up, and headed home.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcVcX0cTxHpNxf_EUphOLujyJOONm78lUUC1Sv1u-k-IaVo_cC9J0RTav8yxsvEztSjIscWb2_Dk57Oj87i709rKAbK4cDmpcAGPFmAFVW8TRnzIG7rmMiYOAfFLsH9DHIqT0ub0jEZZM/s640/12-19-2011+109.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcVcX0cTxHpNxf_EUphOLujyJOONm78lUUC1Sv1u-k-IaVo_cC9J0RTav8yxsvEztSjIscWb2_Dk57Oj87i709rKAbK4cDmpcAGPFmAFVW8TRnzIG7rmMiYOAfFLsH9DHIqT0ub0jEZZM/s640/12-19-2011+109.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of my favorite pictures from the evening.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
Now, this should be the end of the story. But
because this is <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Palestine</st1:place></st1:city>,
it's only the beginning.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
At this point, it's about 10pm and we're about 45
minutes away from home. We're all quite excited about this, because it's been a
long day and we're all tired. We're all chatting and laughing; we're happy
because the concert went well. Everyone was also relieved, because on the
previous trip (just the day before), the bus was attacked by
Israeli settlers.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
Here's the video from the evening prior (Munther, the guy speaking, is the
vice-academic dean of the college, the choir director, and also one of my
favorite people! He's intelligent and hilarious, a great combination, and he's
my office neighbor so I see a lot of him):<br />
<br /></div>
<object height="360" width="640"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Qi_MNyPxTkE&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3">
</param>
<param name="allowFullScreen" value="true">
</param>
<param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always">
</param>
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Qi_MNyPxTkE&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="360"></embed></object>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
We were well past where the bus was attacked last
time, and so we expected it to be smooth sailing from there on out. All of a
sudden, the bus starts to slow down. We were about to head through an Israeli
military checkpoint, which isn't uncommon in the West Bank, even though we were in Area A, which legally is supposed to be completely controlled by the
Palestinian government and police force (because Palestine doesn't have a military) - for more information on Area divisions and how that works, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Bank#Administration">click here</a>. But I mean, who is going to go up to these Israeli soldiers and tell them that
international law clearly states that they are outside their jurisdiction and
they need to leave? Absolutely no one.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
As we approach the checkpoint, David, one of my good Palestinian friends, started to get a
little nervous, and so I asked him what was wrong.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Last time I went through this
checkpoint," he said, "I got arrested and held for ten days in
prison." </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"WHY?" I asked, "What did you
do?" </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I did nothing wrong. My family is from <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Gaza</st1:city></st1:place>, and even though I am
here legally and had the papers to prove it, the soldiers claimed that they
were fake and that I was a terrorist. They arrested me and held me in prison, without filing any charges, until the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Bible</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">College</st1:placetype></st1:place> found me a lawyer and got me
out." </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I was obviously confused. "How is that legal?
How are they allowed to just hold you for no real reason? They need to have
proof of illegal activity before they arrest you! They can't just deprive you
of your human rights on a hunch! Why did you let them take you?" </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"It’s not legal," he said, rolling his
eyes at me, "Nothing here is legal. But what was I supposed to do? Argue
and get shot? No, your only real option is just to do what the soldiers say and
hope that they don't hurt you. We're not in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place>, Meredith, and we don't
have fancy blue passports to get us out of trouble. We don't have rights like
you."</blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
I was absolutely stunned and quite humbled. I felt
about three inches tall. Here I am lecturing people about their human and civil
rights through my American lens, when the rules are completely different here.
These rights that I take for granted? They don't exist for people here.
They wouldn't exist for me either, except for the fact that my government has enough clout to
force this government to treat me with respect. If the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region>
lost its position as one of the World's superpowers, I would probably lose the
privileges that I have here, including the right to be treated fairly.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
All conversation ceases as the bus slows down to a
stop. We had been motioned to pull off the road by the Israeli soldiers. Out
come the passports, ID cards, and documentation. On trudge the soldiers with
their machine guns and full body armor. One soldier stands in the front of the
bus with his gun pointed at us while a second one walks down the aisle checking
identification. Neither says a word. The ID checker points at certain people as
he walks, and as he finishes, yells out something in Hebrew and motions for
them to follow him. Off go the seven guys he pointed at. One of the other men started to object and question the soldiers, so they pulled him off the bus too. Now, I'm used to riding buses here, but typically they have a mix of tourists and Palestinians on them, which means that the soldiers are a whole lot nicer than when there were just Palestinians and two Americans on the bus. These were not the soldiers I'm used to; the ones who are fake-friendly, who smile at the tourists and casually ask where you're from and how you're liking Israel. These were the real soldiers; the ones that Palestinians see every day.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
At this point, I'm shivering uncontrollably. The
adrenalin is pumping, and I'm afraid. These aren't some random faceless,
nameless strangers that are being taken off the bus, these are my friends. These are people who I just
worshipped with. These aren't terrorists! These are well educated Christians who have jobs and families, and who are contributing members of society. It's the middle of the night in the desert, in the middle of
December. It's freezing. Where could the soldiers possibly be taking them? Well
luckily, not far.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
The soldiers take them off the bus, line them up, confiscate their
documentation, and one of them goes off somewhere, presumably to call someone
and check them out. Now, the first panic point is that their documentation is
gone. Here, if you are caught without documentation, you can automatically be
arrested. I've heard plenty of horror stories about soldiers confiscating documentation
and refusing to give it back, just to terrorize people.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
The only thing I could think was "I NEED TO
TAKE PICTURES OF THIS! NO ONE IS GOING TO BELIEVE THAT THIS IS SERIOUSLY HAPPENING
UNLESS I TAKE PICTURES!" Unfortunately, we apparently are not allowed to
take pictures at the checkpoints for "security reasons." Everyone on the bus desperately wanted pictures, but were all too afraid to take them because they
could get in a lot of trouble.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
"Well," I figure, "I might as well
put these double standards to work. I'm an American, so I won't get in trouble
if I get caught taking them. Worst case scenario, they confiscate my camera.
Best case scenario, I get some pictures of a situation that we usually aren't able
to capture. Risk? WORTH IT!"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
So I snapped away… sneakily.<br />
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY_uo_Rq8jHec66CKxfrUYCetnlFqQlq70KNUvEZLQMcnQyq1fLijT4M02Lwx6GnqRSxpfBybLK7rMm5fyTgHNtzy8k__mif55_RnRI82PhcN6hHj8GXW2iYdfbhVNUcYMSr-XOkyo/s1600/bus1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY_uo_Rq8jHec66CKxfrUYCetnlFqQlq70KNUvEZLQMcnQyq1fLijT4M02Lwx6GnqRSxpfBybLK7rMm5fyTgHNtzy8k__mif55_RnRI82PhcN6hHj8GXW2iYdfbhVNUcYMSr-XOkyo/s320/bus1.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn4sOS9gJU951E__IMbKUOCoP0I3Trz6n1eZgCmux1Mkrg_IGh6Cp6zRDI6NPvAbP4gKyF1_VeZOlynBAtGpldbNBngwJhlP5oYaVrMjQT1qgQwqBeNLK2wDJiFmTKILR6bmic6Vqt/s1600/bus2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn4sOS9gJU951E__IMbKUOCoP0I3Trz6n1eZgCmux1Mkrg_IGh6Cp6zRDI6NPvAbP4gKyF1_VeZOlynBAtGpldbNBngwJhlP5oYaVrMjQT1qgQwqBeNLK2wDJiFmTKILR6bmic6Vqt/s320/bus2.jpg" width="312" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE0TPOEArti1StcIawUotkdjoEinSYMBXDCVSRynpOSyeSQGyt1WqnaVNCPiim_khzedNxBzlL6PVeuiNvRODyD3BqM0w-mvN13XQZsJB_lWe402gv24ZEokBFZO-yF9EFIW0MIclt/s1600/bus3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE0TPOEArti1StcIawUotkdjoEinSYMBXDCVSRynpOSyeSQGyt1WqnaVNCPiim_khzedNxBzlL6PVeuiNvRODyD3BqM0w-mvN13XQZsJB_lWe402gv24ZEokBFZO-yF9EFIW0MIclt/s320/bus3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmeVDbXbqhTpiRqJM_6E-t3vyAy5-nsyjopSLYAgrVKzCcFh1AcbtjD8XrUggkb-N1sey2kHhU2J8hQbgOWFfsjWJMHI_MWsWRRof71I-0gYwF6DZokxKQMAkwOBZGXo8EnqJe-hFy/s1600/bus4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmeVDbXbqhTpiRqJM_6E-t3vyAy5-nsyjopSLYAgrVKzCcFh1AcbtjD8XrUggkb-N1sey2kHhU2J8hQbgOWFfsjWJMHI_MWsWRRof71I-0gYwF6DZokxKQMAkwOBZGXo8EnqJe-hFy/s320/bus4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhftwfeJazMde9tL4SIqCNkZmOgu5EcnZLER35nqqtyOKCV7xDOAlAbcvQcMV1ib9Y0RKDuG526IbEDmmrYistdRn0n3TxEsnH3fqyaSktWfeRKzPGiYwq8HWEU3WLYR9lYYJMR0j_K/s1600/bus5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhftwfeJazMde9tL4SIqCNkZmOgu5EcnZLER35nqqtyOKCV7xDOAlAbcvQcMV1ib9Y0RKDuG526IbEDmmrYistdRn0n3TxEsnH3fqyaSktWfeRKzPGiYwq8HWEU3WLYR9lYYJMR0j_K/s320/bus5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Seriously, can you believe this is real life? They ended up questioning one of the guys individually, and after about 45 minutes of standing outside in freezing weather in the middle of the night for absolutely no reason, they let them back on the bus, and off we went toward home.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The most infuriating part of this whole situation was that I was the only one who was shocked. The guys reassured me that this happens all the time, and they were just glad to get their IDs back and be sent on their way without more trouble. Don't get me wrong, the guys were upset, but they were also resigned to the fact that there is nothing they can do to change the situation. "It could have been much worse," I was told repeatedly. Maybe it COULD have been much worse, but how does that make what did happen any better? How can we ignore the problem, just because it's not the absolute worst case scenario?</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<i>Oh, you broke your leg? Well, we're not going to put a cast on it, because at least you didn't break both legs! It could have been much worse.</i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<i>Oh, your mother was murdered? Well, we're not going to open an investigation, because at least your whole family wasn't murdered! It could have been much worse.</i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<i>Oh, you were raped? Well, we're not going to press charges, because at least you weren't gang-raped! It could have been much worse.</i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<i>Oh, you were stopped at an illegal military checkpoint, racially profiled, held without cause outside in the cold for 45 minutes, harassed, blatantly disrespected and degraded simply because Israeli soldiers like to remind you that they have absolute power over you and can do whatever they want with no repercussions? Well, we're not going to do say anything or do anything or really care about it at all, because hey, at least they didn't shoot you too! It could have been much worse.</i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Do these examples seem ridiculous and horrible? Absolutely. So why do we continue to allow people to be degraded, disrespected, and denied basic rights? Just because there was potential for it to be a worse situation? Does that strike anyone else as INSANE?!</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I was furious, so incredibly saddened, and a bit shaken. What if the soldiers had decided to arrest one of the guys? What if someone had been shot or beaten? What if they thought we all looked suspicious and hauled us all away for questioning? There would have been absolutely nothing that I would have been able to do to improve the situation. I was completely powerless. It's one thing to feel completely powerless when you're in a line at the DMV that just doesn't seem to be moving, or when you're arguing for a higher grade and your professor just won't listen, or when the politician you voted for lost and you feel like the country is going to hell in a handbasket... it's an entirely different thing to feel powerless when you're in front of a machine gun knowing that the soldier who wields it can do anything he wants and get away with it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR">
<br />
After we were released, the bus went straight to the college, and there was no more laughing or chatting or singing. The entire atmosphere had changed. The reality of where we were crashed back down on us, and there was such deep sorrow. It's easy to slip into thinking that everything is normal until you're confronted with one of the devastating realities of life here, like the reality that there is an entire group of people who have absolutely no rights.<br />
<br />
I went home from the college and sobbed. Every time I think that my heart cannot possibly break any deeper for these people, every time I think I've seen the most ridiculous part of this occupation, every time I think that nothing can possibly surprise me anymore, something else happens to show me just how wrong I am.</div>
</div>
Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04885102333204660542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4126279904279010818.post-74063942767006459562012-02-07T02:30:00.000-05:002012-02-07T02:34:24.939-05:00WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I know, I know, I haven't written in almost a month! I'm a terrible blogger. Here's the issue: my computer is broken. Seriously. I know. It broke the day after I wrote my last post, and seriously, it's probably one of the worst things that could have happened. I now have no way to skype with my friends or family, do my yoga DVDs (which were so helpful for stress relief), watch movies/tv/videos, or UPDATE MY BLOG! Luckily, I've been able to check facebook and emails via my work computer, but it is incredibly old and when I'm at work, I'm working, not blogging. I promise to stay after work and get a new post up, pronto.<br />
<br />
So much has been going on here that I want to share: My friends and me getting pulled over at a makeshift Israeli military checkpoint in the West Bank; cars getting regularly gassed by soldiers as they go through the Bethlehem checkpoint as a "routine drill" (making a bunch of Palestinians and ex-pats ill); Palestinians being banned from the Dead Sea beaches, which are IN PALESTINE (in the West Bank), to appease the illegal Israeli settlers; Israeli soldiers detaining a 6 year old Palestinian; Jew-only parking lots in the old city of Jerusalem; and so many other crazy and unbelievable things. You'll have plenty of new updates coming soon.<br />
<br />
Until then, stay safe, healthy, and warm!</div>Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04885102333204660542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4126279904279010818.post-58494301088567955462012-01-13T12:28:00.000-05:002012-01-13T12:34:00.593-05:00Settler Violence 101<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I was planning on putting up a post about my eventful trip with the College Choir to Zababdeh today, but I think that can wait until next week. Instead, I'm going to put up this post that was written by Ryan (one of my fellow MCC workers in Israel/Palestine) and just was published on the <a href="http://mccpalestine.wordpress.com/">MCC - Palestine</a> blog. This post is called Nonviolent Courage Under Fire, and the original can be found <a href="http://mccpalestine.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/nonviolent-courage-under-fire/">here</a>. It is fantastic, and really gives interesting insight into settler violence - something which is almost never discussed outside Palestine (if you have no idea what I'm talking about, I suggest that you read the quick explanation of what settler violence is by <a href="http://www.btselem.org/settler_violence">B'Tselem</a>, an Israeli group committed to human rights in Palestine). It's one of those things that no one wants to hear about, because it challenges your stereotypes. Palestinians are supposed to be violent and Israelis are supposed to be peaceful, and any information that counters this belief is usually just ignored. Anyways, with no more commentary, here's Ryan's incredible post:<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"></span><br />
<div class="entry-content" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="wp-caption alignright" id="attachment_1104" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #f1f1f1; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; display: inline; float: right; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 24px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 4px; max-width: 632px !important; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 4px; padding-right: 4px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline; width: 610px;">
<a href="http://mccpalestine.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/i-jnmwj3c-m.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #0066cc; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-1104" src="http://mccpalestine.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/i-jnmwj3c-m.jpg?w=640" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-width: initial; height: auto; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 5px; max-width: 100%; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;" title="i-jnMWJ3C-M" /></a><br />
<div class="wp-caption-text" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #888888; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Palestinian nonviolence activist Hafez Hreini, from the village of At-Tuwani in the South Hebron Hills.</div>
</div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
It takes courage to run toward someone who is shooting at you, especially if you are unarmed.</div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
In April 2004, in the Palestinian village of At-Tuwani, Hafez Hreini learned that Israeli settlers had approached his 70-year-old mother Fatima in the fields as she was tending her sheep. In this area of the South Hebron Hills, Palestinians have long faces frequent harassment from Israeli settlers and soldiers attempting to take control of more and more land.</div>
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Hafez ran to the fields, heart pounding. When he saw his mother, her face was bloodied. Eight Israelis from the nearby settlement of Ma’on had hit her in the head with rocks and beat her with her own shepherd’s rod. One of the settlers had a gun.</div>
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In his memory, Hafez barely heard the sound of the gunshots. As he recalls, “I was looking only at my mother.” But as he sprinted to his mother’s rescue, he remembers bullets ricocheting from the rocky ground under his feet, spraying dirt that stung his face.</div>
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The Israeli peace activists who had alerted Hafez to the situation also rushed to the scene and caught much of the incident on video. They were intervening as Israeli police and soldiers arrived and the settlers ceased their attack. A Palestinian ambulance rushed Fatima to the hospital. The next day she filed a complaint with the Israeli police, but none of her attackers were prosecuted, in spite of the video and eyewitness evidence.</div>
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As he retells this painful story in his gentle voice, Hafez remembers being filled with rage. What culture on earth does not justify retaliation for an attack on one’s mother? Instead, he says, “My first nonviolence came from my mother.”</div>
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As he cared for her during her painful recovery, Fatima told Hafez that he must find a good way to resist, but she did not ask for the revenge that he was contemplating. “Will it work or not?” was her simple response. “You will destroy yourself, and your family. You have to promise that you will not go this way.”</div>
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“It was the first step for me,” Hafez recalls.</div>
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The attack on Hafez’s mother is just one example from decades of harassment faced by his family and village. Consequently, for two years before the attack on Fatima, Israeli solidarity activists had been coming to At-Tuwani to document and try to prevent settler and military violence. Hafez says that it was hard to trust these activists at first, but they showed him and his community a “new reality” that not all Israelis were oppressors in the form of settlers and soldiers.</div>
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“I realized that most Israelis and internationals know nothing of the occupation,” recalls Hafez. But this was slowly changing through the efforts of Israeli groups such as Ta’ayush, and international presence provided by <a href="http://www.cpt.org/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #0066cc; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Christian Peacemaker Teams</a> and Operation Dove. Their accompaniment, combined with small successes through nonviolent demonstrations and legal advocacy–winning recognition of land ownership, access to the electrical grid, and court-mandated Israeli military escorts protecting schoolchildren from settler harassment–built the community’s confidence in nonviolent resistance.</div>
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Joe Carr and Laura Ciaghi of Christian Peacemaker Teams walk with Hafez through his village's olive groves.</div>
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On these foundations, At-Tuwani continues its struggle. “We’re doing it [nonviolence trainings] to create a new generation that believes in peace,” says Hafez. “It’s like a tree–you have to water it every day.”</div>
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But Hafez and his community’s most fundamental form of resistance is not in nonviolence trainings, demonstrations, or lawsuits, but in the Palestinian concept of <em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-style: italic; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">sumud</em>, or “steadfastness.”</div>
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“This is resistance–to go daily to your land,” Hafez explains. In this way, just by living their lives in the face of ongoing oppression and violence, “we are protesting every day, every night.”</div>
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According to <a href="http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10962&Itemid=62" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #0066cc; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">reports by humanitarian and human rights groups</a>, settler violence against Palestinians throughout the West Bank doubled in 2011 and is the worst since 2005. As in Fatima’s case, perpetrators enjoy virtual impunity from Israeli authorities, with 90% of complaints going unprosecuted.</div>
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“It happened to my mother and it is happening everywhere,” says Hafez. “They are looking for excuses to show Palestinians as violent animals. They are provoking violence.”</div>
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Hafez shares his story with a learning tour sponsored by MCC East Coast.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/world/middleeast/netanyahu-sets-new-curbs-on-violent-settlers-in-israel.html" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #0066cc; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Recent media reports</a> highlight the Israeli government response to spikes in settler violence, but often ignore the fact that Palestinians still face intense state violence. Residents of At-Tuwani have faced the demolition of their homes and even mosques by Israeli authorities as well as physical attacks on a number of occasions. Two years after being attacked by settlers, Fatima was again hospitalized after being beaten by Israeli soldiers at a nonviolent demonstration.</div>
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As Hafez and Fatima’s story demonstrates, neither Palestinian resistance, Israeli activism, nor international solidarity can be successful in isolation. The people of At-Tuwani and throughout the occupied Palestinian territories demand allies at all levels of struggle–on their land, in the courts of their oppressors, and to all corners of the international community. As Hafez states, “We need the support of <em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-style: italic; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">everyone </em>who believes in peace, human rights, and justice.”</div>
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Hafez’s story was just one of many that we heard on <a href="http://mccpalestine.wordpress.com/2011/12/18/photos-learning-tour-highlights/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #0066cc; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">our most recent MCC learning tour</a>. These tours are one of the key ways by which MCC shares the stories of our Palestinian and Israeli partners and neighbors with people around the world. Members of the group that met with Hafez in October just hosted their own storytelling night back home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with more than 125 people attending. Such efforts, and the ripple-effects of activism that result, further encourage the steadfast resistance of Hafez and many others.</div>
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</div>Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04885102333204660542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4126279904279010818.post-27367602914051681322012-01-09T04:54:00.003-05:002012-01-09T09:16:26.627-05:00OFF THEY GO TO GAZA!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
As most of you know, Palestine is divided up into two halves, which are similar in many ways, but have a few differences, including being governed by two different groups. The West Bank, where I live, is governed by the Palestinian Authority, which is by and large a peaceful group committed to nonviolent means of resisting the occupation. Gaza, however, is ruled by Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist group by the EU, USA, Canada, and Israel, because of their refusal to recognize Israel and their sometimes violent means of fighting back against the occupation.<br />
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Since Gaza and the West Bank are separated by Israeli territory, as well as governed by different groups, it is extremely difficult to get permission to go to Gaza. Even for West Bank Palestinians, who you might assume could just go from one area to another, it is very difficult to coordinate because not only must you get permission from Hamas to enter Gaza, but you must also get permission from Israel to travel through their territory to the Gaza border.<br />
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For the past 6-8 weeks, the Bible College has been trying to get permits for the Choir to visit Gaza and sing at the churches there, because apparently, they are really in need of some Christmas cheer. I think that things are terrible in the West Bank... I've been told Gaza is a hundred times worse. Israel continues to bomb Gaza on a regular basis, and extremists retaliate by shooting short-range rockets over the border into the Israeli desert, which then causes Israel to retaliate by bombing more of Gaza. Unfortunately, while most of the rockets from Gaza land in deserted areas of the southern Israeli desert, many of the Israeli bombs hit schools, hospitals, and refugee camps in Gaza. Apparently, Gaza looks a lot like an active war zone. I've often heard Gaza described as an "open air prison," as movement in and out are incredibly restricted. I have never been, and unfortunately, because the application process is even more difficult for internationals, I will probably never be able to go to Gaza, despite my efforts to convince everyone who goes that I'd be a really great person to have along with them (I'm awesome at carrying suitcases).<br />
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Fortunately, the choir is getting ready to go to Gaza, because THEY GOT PERMISSION! They were informed at 7:30 this morning that they had been approved to travel to Gaza, but their permits are only valid for 2 days. Yes, you read that right. 2 measly days. So, 4 hours after they got the word that they could go (after almost 2 months of waiting to hear back), they are packing up and leaving within the hour. Everyone is running around in a tizzy, trying to arrange to leave immediately.<br />
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When I mentioned that I was surprised at how quickly they were ready to up and leave, one of the older choir members, who we'll just call "G," told me a story that I thought gave me a really unique window into the Palestinian travel mindset, and I thought I'd share it with you.<br />
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<b>G: "When I lived in America, I had to move from Missouri to Florida. I was very, very concerned. What is the procedure? I'd never left Missouri before. Would they let me out? How would I get through all the states? Would Florida let me in? I didn't know how it worked. One of my American friends could tell that I was very worried and asked me what was wrong. I told him that I didn't know how I was going to move to Florida. I didn't know the procedure. I hadn't filled out a request or called anyone or filed any paperwork. I didn't know how to go about getting permission to go from one state to another. My friend laughed and told me 'G, you just drive. No one cares. No one will stop you. You just... go.' I was shocked. It is not that way here. Here, you need permission to go anywhere or do anything. Most of the time, you are denied. But if you are granted permission, you better hurry up and go before someone changes their mind."</b></blockquote>
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This whole idea of "asking permission from the government" is so foreign to me. I'm used to living in a country where I can pretty much do whatever I want. I can go wherever I want. I am encouraged to be independent. I am free. Freedom now means something very different to me after living in a place where, for all intents and purposes, people are not free.<br />
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I have another really interesting experience to share with you, but I'm waiting until the choir is officially finished with all of their seasonal travel, just as an extra safety precaution. I should get that post up late this week/early next.<br />
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Anyways, I hope you all had a wonderful holiday, and are enjoying being back at work (hah!).</div>Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04885102333204660542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4126279904279010818.post-76204492242944661022011-12-31T06:02:00.000-05:002011-12-31T06:02:43.873-05:00Happy New Year!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Being a part of Christmas in Bethlehem this year has been fascinating. The holiday season here is much different from home, and honestly, it didn't quite feel like Christmas for me, even though I'm in the Christmassy-est place on the planet! There was so much to see and do here this past week, but unfortunately, I've had the flu since Christmas day, so I've spent most of my vacation asleep. Luckily though, we still have Armenian Christmas and Orthodox Christmas to celebrate, which are both in January, so I'm expecting to be healthy for rounds 2 and 3 of celebration! I'll definitely be filling you in on my interesting Christmas experiences once I'm feeling up to par.<br />
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I hope that you have a wonderful time celebrating the New Year!</div>Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04885102333204660542noreply@blogger.com2