Occupation Soldiers Innovate
New Methods of Suppression and
Humiliation in Ramallah and al-Bira
Husam Izzeddin, Al-Ayyam Daily
26 July 2002
(Excerpts)
If you can guess in which hand the soldier is holding the small stone, you can cross; if you don't, then you have no choice but to return from whence you came and search for a mountain trail, risking being shot by a bullet.
This is how soldiers have dealt in the past two days with people wishing to cross into Ramallah through the Ramallah-Birzeit road. A young man who uses the road frequently told this reporter that he saw a soldier calling upon people, one by one, to identify which of his hands held a small stone. Those making the right guess were allowed to pass, while those failing to do so were turned back. Sometimes, no one was allowed to pass, and gas bombs were hurled at the people standing at the checkpoint. Another young man reported soldiers forcing people to buy a glass of cold sous from one of the peddlers at the checkpoint as a condition for passage.
Soldiers are no longer manning the checkpoints leading to Ramallah and al-Bira around the clock; after a period of absence, however, they raid these checkpoints, pursuing people who had thought that the occupation forces had left the area. Yesterday at noon, hundreds of people were detained in the Jawwal area after a surprise raid on the area. Live ammunition and gas grenades were fired at the crowd.
Such practices are daily occurrences at the checkpoints leading into Ramallah and al-Bira. They also include blindfolding people, breaking car windows, impounding vehicles, forcing drivers to build stone barricades, and confiscation of car keys. At the military checkpoint near Qirat Jaba', several witnesses reported that only those carrying orange identification cards [issued by the Israeli army before 1995] were allowed to pass, while those holding the green cards issued by the Palestinian Authority were denied passage.
Lost homeland
When Israel's army knocks
Zuhair Sabbagh, teacher of sociology at the Bir Zeit University
5 May 2002
Copyright (c) 2002, Chicago Tribune
After a few days of hesitation, I decided to write about the experience I
went through, along with my family, when Israeli troops came to our Ramallah
apartment in March. My reluctance stemmed from the comparison I made with
the atrocities that had taken place in Jenin, Nablus and Bethlehem. I
realized that my experience was not unique but part of a phenomenon.
My life in Ramallah was hectic even before the recent Israeli invasion. I
used the shuttle mini-buses each day to commute to my work at Bir Zeit
University. In the middle of the journey, I had to walk a distance of 2
kilometers through an Israeli military checkpoint. At the checkpoint, I
would pass an Israeli tank and soldiers. Sometimes, I would see my students
being held for hours at the checkpoint. I felt powerless and humiliated.
At night, I could not concentrate on my work or sleep well. The sound of
fighting between armed Palestinians and Israeli tanks interrupted Ramallah's
usually quiet nights. Then the clashes stopped, and bombardments by Israeli
tanks became a nightly event. At the university, I would listen to the
stories of colleagues and students about what had taken place the night
before.
Occasionally, Apache gunships or F-16 bombers would raid targets in
Ramallah. The sounds of the explosions of rockets and 1-ton bombs were much
more terrifying than the sounds of tank bombardments. I felt terrified and
more humiliated, but I did not know that the worst was yet to come.
On March 29, the squeaking of Israeli tanks passing through the narrow
streets of our neighborhood awakened me. A few minutes later, all hell broke
loose. The sounds of heavy machine-gun fire and bombardments kept my family
awake throughout the night and the next day. Then a tight military curfew
was imposed on Ramallah.
Although the clashes stopped after a few days, the sounds of gunfire,
bombardment and explosions went on in Ramallah for 24 days and nights. My
daily routine would start with the sounds of shooting and moving tanks and
troop carriers. Then we would listen to all the news bulletins on different
radio stations and watch TV news and reports. I spent considerable time on
the telephone, exchanging information with friends, neighbors, colleagues
and relatives.
On the next day, a gigantic military bulldozer dug a deep tunnel across
the road that connects Ramallah with Betunia, another West Bank town. I
watched from my window as Israeli tanks chased and stopped Palestinian
ambulances and television reporters. I could see clearly that some
ambulances had bullet holes in their windshields and metal bodies. A few
days later, a tank knocked down part of our neighbor's house.
Curfew lifted
The curfew was lifted four times for a few hours. My wife, 10-year-old
daughter and I drove our car through parts of Ramallah. Many streets in
Ramallah were filled with parked Israeli tanks and troop carriers, while
others were filled with barbed wire that delineated the shrinkage of
Palestinian space.
On every street and corner, Israeli tanks left their mark.
Electricity, telephone and traffic pylons were knocked down and crushed.
Debris, rubble, trees and crushed cars were everywhere. Israeli bulldozers
dug out and cut water pipes. Ramallah was simply devastated.
We tried to buy some food, but food stores were almost empty. We could not
find bread or milk. So we went to the vegetable market, to find that only a
few old vegetables were on sale. While shopping, I learned that many stores,
supermarkets, cultural centers, educational institutes, television and radio
stations, and banks were ransacked and vandalized by Israeli troops. This
brute violence was directed at the economy and culture of indigenous
Palestinians.
What I saw was a different Ramallah. What had happened was detestable and
depressing.
The Israeli army managed, in a few days, to turn a beautiful city into a
disaster area.
The encounter
On April 6, three tanks and two troop carriers encircled our apartment
building.
Their cannons were pointed at our apartments. The scene was frightening
and revolting. I, my wife, Maha, and 10-year-old daughter, Orjuwana, got
dressed at once and prepared ourselves for an uninvited visit from the
Israeli army. Two neighbors came and stayed with us.
As tension and fear began to rise, Orjuwana rushed to her room and brought
with her the three dearest dolls and a teddy bear. A moment later, she went
back to her room and brought with her a children's book in Hebrew. She
displayed the book between the teddy bear and the two dolls. When I asked
her why she had brought the Hebrew book, she innocently said: "I don't want
the soldiers to take away my dolls and teddy bear. When the soldiers enter
our apartment, they will see the book and will not take my dolls and teddy
bear."
Maha and I placed our two identity cards in a handy spot and opened our
door a little.
Moments later, other neighbors informed us by telephone that soldiers went
inside the first section of the building. Two out of 10 apartments were
occupied by their Palestinian owners, while eight were not.
After searching the two apartments, the soldiers dynamited the multi-lock
doors of the other eight. The sound of the multiple explosions was deafening
and terrifying. Orjuwana began to cry in fear. Every few minutes, we would
be shocked by another explosion.
Finally, six soldiers entered our apartment. The officer asked for our
identity cards and took mine to conduct a security check. While pointing
their M-16s at my back, the officer and a soldier ordered me to walk in
front of them and show them our apartment.
While we were in our bedroom, the officer asked, "Do you have any
weapons?" I said, "No, I don't." Then, while I was showing them our library,
the officer asked me, "Do you have any inciting material?" I said, "I do not
work in incitement. I am a lecturer of sociology." "Where do you teach
sociology?" he asked. "At Bir Zeit University." Then, the soldier remarked,
"Oh, this is the university of the shaheedim," meaning the terrorists.
I decided not to respond.
Explosions and flying windows
After this search, the officer ordered us to remain seated. Maha then
asked them if we could leave the apartment while they dynamited the
neighbors' doors, but they flatly refused. Apparently, they wanted us to
hear the explosions.
When the soldiers left our third section to go to the last, we felt some
relief for a short while. We quickly counted the unoccupied apartments in
the fourth section. We both told our daughter: "Orjuwana, only five more,
and that's it."
I decided to look out the window, and immediately an explosion took place.
I heard the shattering of the window glass and saw two aluminum windows
flying down. One landed in the neighbors' garden, and the other fell in our
small garden.
We all felt humiliated and powerless. All we could do was put our fingers
in our ears. But it was useless because the explosions were extremely strong
and shook the entire building. Out of 40 apartments, the soldiers dynamited
23 doors.
The soldiers left us after six tormenting hours.
Moments later, the terrified neighbors began to come, and all of us went
to see the destruction left by the soldiers. After talking to the neighbors,
I realized that some of them went through a worse experience.
An old man who suffers from prostate problems and his terrified
grandchildren were prevented for two hours from going to the bathroom. The
soldiers arrested two of the neighbors. The father and son of the neighbors
opposite our apartment building were severely slapped by the soldiers for
insisting that the map on the wall was that of Palestine and not of Israel.
I could not, that night, go to sleep early because I kept hearing the
sounds of explosions all over the neighborhood. Nightmares awakened my
daughter twice. On the same night, the soldiers were determined to search
other houses and dynamite the doors of empty ones. A colleague at the
university told me that in his neighborhood, the soldiers refused to use the
keys and said they prefer to dynamite the doors.
Days and nights later, we still hear similar explosions.
The soldiers' surprise visit to my apartment made me ponder my life in
Ramallah.
Israel's war has simply devastated the city and shattered our lives. We
can neither sleep well nor function as human beings. The social fabric of
our life has been traumatized. The brutalities of this war have disrupted
the flow of normal life for thousands of Palestinian families.
I realize now that for 1 1/2 years I have been held captive inside
besieged Ramallah. In the past 24 days, I have become a captive inside my
own apartment.
The space has shrunk, and the humiliation has become deeper.
If the issue of an academic boycott of
Israeli universities becomes
more
interesting than the suffering of
Palestinians, it is time to
think of a
new campaign strategy,
says Gargi Bhattacharya
6 August 2002
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
Returning last month from Gaza to more pictures of carnage was more
than unsettling. On the Saturday I was exchanging seriously innovative
sign language conversations with children in Gaza, watching my very
sweaty comrades try to match the practiced ball skills of the
11-year-olds who had gathered round. By Monday I was back in Britain,
watching the footage of another demolished building, the broken
bodies of yet more Palestinian children.
In the circumstances, it is hard to stay focused on the relatively
trivial scandal about an academic boycott of Israel. The forces of
careful dialogue and academic community without borders are making
such a poor job of changing the world, I am thinking about boycotting
myself. Maybe it is better to keep our mouths shut.
However, if there is one lesson that visiting Palestinian territories
has taught me - one lesson from the shaming hospitality of people who
would take time from the brief lifting of curfew to meet with us, from
the endless flow of fizzy pop that was offered in towns where no-one
can attend work, from the deep desire that the outside world should
understand what is being done to the Palestinian people, with all its
complexity - that one lesson is not to take education for granted.
Birzeit University, near Ramallah, has been running intensive and
accelerated courses through July to prepare students for examinations.
The university had been closed since the beginning of May, effectively
shut down through military intervention. Students only managed to
return from June 28 - and even then, not all could return to their
education. Of the 180 students registered at Birzeit who come from the
Gaza strip, 70 had been forced to drop out in the week before our
visit. The strangulation on Palestinian economic life means that they
cannot afford to stay at university.
For those who are struggling to continue their education, things are
far from easy. It is impossible to travel to campus every day - the
combination of curfews and ever more intrusive checkpoints force
students to stay in the area, bunking down in whatever shared
makeshift accommodation becomes available. For those unable to move
to the immediate area, academic freedom is hampered by controls on
freedom of movement. The Israeli army has bulldozed the link road
between Ramallah and Birzeit - so even on the rare occasions that
Ramallah is not under military curfew, students cannot travel easily
to campus. Armed checkpoints block the route between the university
and 33 villages in the surrounding area. In effect, the Israeli
occupation is ensuring that Palestinian students cannot attend
university. Yasser Darwish, assistant director of public relations at
Birzeit, explained that "they considered Birzeit a terrorist place" -
a dangerous hotbed of future radicalism, but also supposedly yet
another haven for terrorists. In response, Israel enforces the
collective punishment of denying education to all - despite the
inconvenient fact that collective punishment is against international
law.
Mr Darwish suggests that this clampdown on educational
establishments is more sinister in intention - it is notable that a number
of key Palestinian negotiators during the difficult Oslo "peace process"
were graduates of Birzeit. It does not take much political acumen to
guess that any future Palestinian leadership will emerge in part from
campus activity and organisation. Shutting down universities may form
part of a strategy that hopes to postpone any chance of a sustainable
peace process for another generation. As Mr Darwish says: "They
know that education is their enemy."
At the University of Bethlehem, where students work in a library with
one wall still smashed through from an Israeli missile attack, staff
have been struggling to prepare their students for final exams.
Bethlehem has been subject to curfew since March 27. When the
curfew is lifted for short periods, the university functions around an
accelerated emergency timetable - a series of short classes to ensure
students and teachers have some contact before exams. But these
exams have no date because that too depends on a gap in the curfew.
Assistant dean of students, Vera Baboun, shared her thoughts about
the attacks on Palestinian education.
"When you want to build a nation you have to concentrate on the
academic level, on the power of the mind. When they want to destroy a
nation, they concentrate on the other part, to destroy the life of the
mind. ... They want to stop all life sources, to make things even more
difficult, so we will be grateful with little."
However difficult life has become in the West Bank, everyone still
warned of the horrors we would encounter when we saw Gaza - "the
slave cage" as it is known colloquially. The Gaza Strip is surrounded by
military fortification - in recent months it has become almost
impossible for the inhabitants of Gaza to travel to other Palestinian
towns. Even Palestinians from the West Bank expressed concern about
our trip to Gaza. Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Committee
for Human Rights, summed up the feeling in his greeting: "Welcome to
Gaza, the other side of the moon."
Mr Sourani also saw the attacks on academic life as part of a larger
strategy to crush Palestinian civil society. He explained that
international academic exchange had formed an emerging ground of
activism, secularism and organisation - and that this was part of the
resistance to occupation. Also - and importantly for a people who are
struggling to rebuild their relation with their homeland - "if you
study here you are more attached. You are not a product of Saudi
Arabia. You are likely to stay, even with only a fifth of the salary".
You may even become part of the skilled professional population who
will rebuild the structures of Palestinian society. This is the
possibility that is under attack. Mr Sourani explains: "Now only the
children of VIPs from Gaza can study in the West Bank - the
connections between Palestinians are being dismantled."
In the end, the university staff and students I met on my trip regard
education in both pragmatic and idealistic terms. As the student
activist from the General Union of Cultural Centres (GUCC) told us:
"If you want to develop, you need to educate. If you want a good
relationship with the UN, you need educated people." Like it or not,
the future of the Palestinian people in part relies on this
recognition and regard from international bodies. But alongside this
hard-headed acknowledgement of public relations, we also met a fierce
belief in the power of knowledge, the thing described by the student
representative as "our belief that education is one of our main
weapons against the Israeli occupation".
I know harsh words have been exchanged about the prospect of
severing relations with Israeli universities and academics - and I don't
want to go over this already dull ground here. My opinion is that the
purpose of any proposed boycott is to draw attention to what is being
done to the Palestinian people, quite knowingly, by the State of
Israel. If the issue of boycott becomes more interesting than the
suffering and struggle of Palestinians, then it is time to think of a
new campaign strategy.
So for all my colleagues who wish to hold on to the values of academic
freedom and their belief in the power of dialogue and exchange, I am
suggesting a change of emphasis.
* If you have colleagues or acquaintances in Israeli universities, ask
them what they are doing to protect Palestinian access to education. If
you meet Israeli academics at professional gatherings, ask them about
the situation of Palestinian colleagues
* If you belong to professional associations or other disciplinary
networks, raise the issue of Palestinian access to education and pass a
resolution deploring the current shutdown of Palestinian academic life
* If you are holding a conference, editing a journal or collection,
engaging in any kind of academic networking activity - actively seek
participation and contributions from Palestinian academics. Make
space to explain why this participation is so important now
* Build links with Palestinian academics and universities. Find ways to
provide some day-to-day support. If you can, visit and see for yourself.
During our visit, a student at Birzeit asked us: "For ordinary British
citizens, is it clear for them what is going on? Who is the oppressed
and who is the oppressor? And do they care?"
If academic freedom is worth anything, surely we need to provide an
answer.
Ran Greenstein
Johannesburg, South Africa
Academics appeal for
West Bank education rights
An international group of distinguished academics - including the philosopher Jacques Derrida and Hilary and Steven Rose - have signed up to an appeal to support students' right to education at Birzeit University on the West Bank.
The appeal comes after the university was, for the first time in its history, entered by Israeli forces on Saturday.
According to the university's head of external relations, three Israeli Army vehicles entered the gates on Saturday in what, she said, amounted to a "clear violation" of international law.
"By chance the university president was nearby as the troops entered. He stood in front of the jeep to stop them getting to the administration building, there was a severe exchange and then they left. He asked if they had military orders, he was sure that they hadn't.
"This has never happened before. We don't know whether it was on the soldiers own accord or not, but it was a clear violation," Riham Barghouti told EducationGuardian.co.uk.
She added there was concern within the university that the visit was a warning of things to come. The university is taking the issue up with international organisations, including UNESCO, which deal with violations to human rights and academic freedoms.
Since March 2001, roadblocks have severely restricted the movement of staff and students in and out of the university. Since April this year, curfews in Ramallah, eight miles away from the university's campus, have caused further disruptions. Ms Barghouti explained that the university had been taking special measures to ensure its 5,000 students and 700 staff complete the semester's work - already two months overdue - despite the curfew and road blocks.
Students and staff are increasingly living on campus, and distance learning is being developed for those with internet access.
"Birzeit has limited resources but this has become the priority, without it [internet access] the university would collapse," Ms Barghouti said. She added that the distance learning and development of internet communications as an emergency measure was also adding to the long term development of the university's IT capacity.
The road from Ramallah leads to the University and 27 small villages. University insiders are convinced that the sole purpose of the roadblocks is to disrupt the workings of the university. Last October students demonstrating at a roadblock were shot at with rubber bullets by Israeli soldiers.
A distinguished list of academics, writers and artists this month signed an appeal for support of academic freedom at the university. The effect of the curfew and road blocks put the "future of the university at grave risk", according to the appeal.
"We believe that these measures, resulting in the virtual strangulation of a major Palestinian institution, violate international humanitarian law, including provisions against collective punishment and guarantees for the protection of civilian populations under military occupation, students' right to education, academic freedom, and the fundamental rights of human beings to live in dignity and freedom," it concludes.
It calls for immediate action from the Israelis to "restore the right of education to Birzeit University students" by removing road blocks and curfews, and for the international community to "assume its responsibility under humanitarian law by taking real and concrete steps to provide protection to the Palestinian civilian population".
The appeal is signed by 32 academics and artists from 12 countries, including Steven and Hilary Rose, who were at the centre of the debate over an academic boycott in the UK.
Ms Barghouti said of the appeal: "It's of utmost importance to have international support. It's important that everyone has the right to education, but it also creates an alternate image of who we are and what we're trying to do as Palestinians and academics."
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