Olive trees? What olive trees?

I arrived back in Bethlehem on Monday to a house full with placement visitors from Hebron and Yanoun. It is always nice to host our colleagues because it is far less boring in the CP when you have company. A really nice Arab Israeli is the commander at Gilo right now (the soldiers rotate locations every 2 months or so) and he loves to speak English. It really doesn’t matter how nice the commander is the process of humiliation remains the same. It’s all relative – better than with a nasty commander but nonetheless, humiliating. I complimented him of how smooth and fast the CP queue was cleared today – 2 ½ hours – and he told me he was there to work and that was exactly what he did. He went directly to the Humanitarian Line and fished out the women and elderly and let them through as he is supposed to do but none of the other commanders have the compassion or the guts to do it. The fact that he is an Arab makes it easier, I think, to deal with fellow Arabs. He comes from Carmel, in Haifa. Not too many Arab Israelis serve in the IDF, so it is a bit rare. We walk a fine line between being seen by the Palestinians as too friendly to the soldiers but on the other hand, the soldiers are young men and women too. I have a need to try to understand people as people, not soldiers, Palestinians, oppressors, terrorists, Israelis or whatever label you want to give them.

Israeli bull-dozers rolled into Beit Jala on Tuesday morning flattening anything and everything in their path. I guess they didn’t see the olive trees on the path! One would have to have been blind not to see the destruction the bull-dozers were causing as they uprooted one olive tree after another. Home owners were trying to replant some of the trees and cut up others to salvage what wood they could. They told us some of the trees were probably 200 years old. But the bull-dozers marched onward heavily supported by the IDF and other Israeli security forces (difficult to tell who the security players were). We had been notified by our local contacts that a demonstration would take place the following day in support of the people who were losing trees and land in this operation. The first family, whose house we stopped at, had lost part of its land the previous day, swing sets and other garden furniture had been salvaged and moved close to the house. When we arrived the owner showed us what was left of an olive tree which had been uprooted.

This homeowner will lose his whole front yard and driveway. You can see, if you click and enlarge, the Wall is coming through. The angled portion of the Wall is to prevent kids from throwing rocks on the Israeli cars below.


We always keep our distance - except when we don't!

The route of the Wall in this area makes no sense at all. We walked back to the other side of the highway where the bull-dozers were moving very fast up a hill taking down tree after tree. Protesters scrambled down the hill to meet the heavy equipment. Two young men sat down and had to be forcibly but peacefully removed by the army, carried up the hill to safer ground. Another group of protesters sat under an olive tree until the army pressured them to move up the hill. It was sad, indeed, to watch the local residents, the owners of the trees, watching the army take down what they had spent years building up. All we could do was be there, witness, photograph, and tell their stories – many times one feels completely helpless in these situations.



We did hear a bit of good news out of Beit Jala this afternoon. Our local contact in Umm Salamone, where we attend a demonstration every Friday, told us that the Israeli court ruled that the route of the Wall in this area is illegal and the destruction has come to a halt! But who know for how long?

If it is possible to have light hearted fun at a demonstration against the Wall, we had it on Friday. Our driver, Eli, and our translator, Yousef, teased each other back and forth and had us in stitches. Yousef is a student at Bethlehem University, hoping to get a scholarship to study languages in France next year. He wanted to attend a demonstration (not in the capacity as our translator) so he could say that he had been at or had at least witnessed such an event. Because the IDF photograph the protestors as much as we photograph them, Yousef stayed in the car, not wishing to jeopardize his future. So now he can say he was there! Eli had a field day teasing Yousef about his bravery! Also, one of my colleagues is deathly afraid of tear gas and so retreats at the first sight of a soldier holding a tear gas canister, regardless of the mood of the demonstration. Early on, Eli and I lost sight of my colleague, of course, because he had already retreated to Eli’s car. Another brave soul! It turned out to be a completely peaceful demonstration with a Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) politician, Abbas Zakke, showing up because elections are just around the corner. Eli said that the politicians will be at every demo from now until elections.

Early on Saturday, I came to Jerusalem for a couple of much needed days off. I took my chances with a Palestinian hairdresser and had highlights done. Not bad! Although I was looking for a mindless couple of hours, I got a 2 hour discussion about Armenian Christians and how they feel neither Palestinian nor Israeli, etc, etc, etc. It seems no matter how hard one tries, there is no clearing the mind and avoiding talk of ‘the situation’. I attended St. George’s Anglican Church this a.m. – same thing – at coffee hour following worship, someone wants to talk about ‘the situation’. This afternoon I wandered about West Jerusalem in the sunshine and no one talked to me. Lovely!

You never know what you will find in East Jerusalem – at the Legacy Hotel tonight, I found a Sushi Bar. I buried my head in my book, sipped my glass of wine and ate Sushi. Perfect end to two days off!