Who Are These People

Jewish Women for Justice in Israel and Palestine

Who Are These People, My People?

Rebecca Elswit, July 2001

hi.
ouch. i think that i am emerging unscathed (physically, of course, emotionally, perhaps not) from what was the hardest afternoon of my life.

"WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE, MY PEOPLE?"
i am so overwhelmed and anguished now i really do not know where to begin. i
had planned to tell you all to PLEASE fwd whatever i write to whomever you
wish, and to thank you for all of your support. and i was going to address,
and i guess i will address, the few questions that arose from my last email.

i am writing what i see. and if it seems imbalanced, well, that is because
the conflict is imbalanced. the palestinians are an occupied people, and
they are fighting a resistance against one of the strongest (and well funded) armies in the world. i will not become an apologist for israel to
make my thoughts, feelings, but most importantly, my observations, palatable
for others (you all back in the states) where the status quo is not neutral,
but pro-israei. i cant write about both sides with equal parts critism and
condemnation and sympathy and empathy because the sides are not equal. yes,
i think that it is stupid for palestinian snipers to fire from residential
areas, which they do, but i do not think that it justifies the collective
punishment that is imposed upon them. and obviously, (i hate that i even
have to write this,) i condemn suicide bombings. israel is a powerful occupier. there is a great imbalance of power, and i would say, of pain. i am
appealing to the humanity in all of you. and i do not think that humanity,
that human rights is political.
feel free, please, to believe politically in whatever you wish. but human
rights should be a universal, that is not to be denied to any people, to any
individual, nor to be dismissed as a political position. except that they
are being denied here. i criticize arafat, too, and the palestinian leadership. but for me, it is much more interesting to share the stories of
people i have met, people i know, people who have touched me. you know about
the governments anyway from the mainstream press.
i am sorry that i dont check email more frequently; there are so many things
i want to write about, but i feel like it is more important to be doing.
anyway.

so today is tisha b'av. and i was hungry. and it was hot. and everyone was
anticipating a big balagan at the western wall/ haram al sharif area. i missed a lot of it, apparently. but i saw enough. i missed the palestinians
throwing stones from above down at the western wall (stefan, a journalist
told me that it was total about 30 stones) and i missed the stun grenades,
tear gas, and rubber coated bullets that followed (one man was shot in the
eye, one man was shot in the head). but i arrived later (not to be a photographer or journalist, mind you, but to pray at the wall). but then i
heard a few explosions (stun grenades, i think) and some shots. i do not
know what the police and army say provoked them. then i saw palestinians
being "escorted" to police vehicles. there were a few kids (between the ages
of 10 and 15) and then, later, some slightly older men. the police vehicles
are conveniently located at the plaza at the wall, that is, the palestinians
had to pass through a crowd (hostile) of jews. i was taking pictures. i doubt if they will come out; everyone was shoving to get close. journalists
with cameras, police pushing them away, jews (many of them apparently american) screaming "death to the arabs". it is os hard to write this; want you to know what i saw, to understand how i feel, but i do not know if
you can.

i saw a boy collapse on the way down from al-aqsa. i saw the soldiers drag
him to his feet so they could put him in a police van. when they got to the
plaza, saw the blood coming from his mouth, from the back of his neck. he
did not need a ride in a paddy wagon, he needed a freakin' ambulance!! but
he was shoved into the back of the van, violently.
i saw fear in another boy's eyes like i have never seen fear before. pure
terror: eyes wide, mouth open, screaming. he was skinny, and tan, and had
brown hair and black eyes, and he was young, and he was afraid, and when i
saw him, i started to sob. sob.
they kept coming; i am not sure of the number of people who were actually
arrested--i did not keep count, and this afternoon was one of the longest i
have lived. and some were limping, and many were already bleeding. and the
police or soldiers or whatever were brutal: pushing them into the vans, like
they were dolls or toys. to animals they would have been more gentle.
the jewish people were screaming death to the arabs, death to the arabs. in
these peoples' faces as they were being dragged to police vehicles. in their
faces. the soldiers tried to serve as a barrier, but they were not entirely
successful. some guy kicked one of the palestinians in the gut as he was
escorted away.

then they brought another kid. and they were twisting his arm (i dont know
who 'they' is, the police or the army, everything is blurry), and they were
twisting it and twisting it and he was screaming and they were twisting and
then it broke. and it was like behind his back, up by the opposite side of
his neck. and he stopped screaming. and i started. i screamed what the hell
are you doing, like, really really loudly and then i screamed some more,
just noise, because i could not stop. i did not mean to scream. it just came
out. and then they pushed me away and yelled at me to get out of the area.
crying, choking on my sobs. i calmed down a bit, and then a religious guy
said to me, baruch hashem, ken?, which is like, thank god, yeah? and i just
looked at him and said in hebrew 'they are also people' and then he yelled,
she thinks they are also people. and a bunch of people stood around me yelling about how i could think that, and death to the arabs,and some other
stuff that i didnt understand.

when i walked away, a religious woman came up to me, and asked if i was going to write about this (she thought i was a reporter, because reporters
and extremists are the only people crazy enough to stay for something like
this. yes, i said. tell the truth, she said. i will write what i see, i said. what did you see, she asked? i saw the police break a boy's arm, i
said. maybe he was the one who killed my son five years ago she said. maybe
he was the one throwing rocks this morning. i am so sorry about your son, i
said. i am so very sorry. but you will not write about him, you will write
about the police, who are here to protect us from those animals, she said. i
am sorry about your son, i said.

part of me thought that i would be able to take it, be able to watch violence in action--hey, i grew up in the states, and we had a television.
but it is different when it is in front of your eyes. when you can see real
fear, when you are almost close enough to reach out to someone and say, it
will be ok. even if it wont. when the cop cars were full they did not leave
right away (i dont know why). i blew them a kiss before i turned my back on
them and walked away. it is so easy for me to turn my back (today it was
not, but in general, it is), to go back to my world of academics and ice
cream. but people here--palestinians and israelis-- cannot. i am lucky. but
we knew that already ;)

i am so lucky that when i lost my passport, credit card, money and cellphone
the other night because i stupidly left it in a taxi, it was returned within
an hour.

some people are not so lucky. nichola is 5. he has one arm because the other
one was blown off on may 6th by a tank shell. he was outside his house when
they started shelling beit jala, ostensibly because people had fired from
beit jala onto gilo, which is called a neighborhood of jerusalem. it has
been annexed. but it was taken in 1967 from the residents of beit jala, who
had their orchards there. see, the thing is, nichola's house is nowhere near
gilo. and shelling the whole town is not necessarily going to get the snipers. but what it will do is create anger against israel and more pain
and more extremism and more resistance. nichola asks his great aunt (whom i
stayed with for a few days as part of an action) every day, auntie, when is
my new arm coming? the doctors at haddasah said they would bring me a new
arm. where is my new arm? maybe tomorrow they will bring it? someone brought
nichola some bubbles when he was in the hospital (for a month), and he loved
them. and he wanted to play with them again, but then he could not open the
cap, with only one arm. he tried to use his teeth, but he couldnt use his
teeth--the plastic was too hard. finally he stopped in frustration, and did
not respond to the people who volunteered to open it for him. he did not
want it because he could nto do it himself. when i hung out with him and his
family yesterday, he opened some things by himself, using his teeth and his
one good hand, his right hand. but he was a lefty, which makes things even
more difficult. i have seen so many people who seem defeated, who seem
beaten, who are oozing despair, that i wanted to share nichola with you
because he has strength and hope, even though his future has been
drastically altered.

"who are these people, my people?" it hurts me so much to see this sort of
brutality. and so then i went to pray. i went to the cotel, the wall, and i
stood and i pressed my face against the hot stone and i felt emptiness and
pain. and i wonder how anyone can willingly, knowingly, break another's bones and not react, and i wonder how jewish people can do it. have we not
learned anything?? and i said the mourner's kaddish, because it is a day of
mourning and a life of mourning, and i mourn for all death and destruction
and i mourn for the separation of jewish people from jewish values--like
compassion, and justice. i wonder if it would have been easier for me to see
someone, not a jew, screaming such hatred at another. maybe.
fatin lives in beit jala. i had dinner with her the other night and she asked me why i was there, why i was participating in this action (a group of
internationals staying in the homes of people whose homes have been shelled). and i started to explain to her, and one of the first things i
said was, i am jewish. and she was surprised, and said, so really, why are
you here. and i said, i dont care if you are jewish christian muslim buddhist hindu or zoroastrian. i dont care if you are palestinian israeli
american mongolian or french. i care that you are a human being. she grabbed
my face and kissed me spontaneously on the cheek. that, she said, is because
you are jewish. then she kissed my other cheek. that, she said, is you are human. and then i started to cry (it is very common these
must run. but i will try to write soon soon soon because there were many
things i had wanted to tell but today's events messed me up. but i am ok.
and for those who worry that i am not having any fun, you should all know
that i took friday 'off' and went to tel aviv, slept on the beach, and went
swimming at 7am before coming back to tour refugee camps.
peace, and justice, and so much love,
rebecca, who lives with the world in her heart.

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