We soon found a motley assortment of people assembling in front of a large house. A host of boys selling the same Palestine bracelets surged for us. I hastily put mine on and advanced through the yard to a group of kuffiyeh-ed dudes standing in the doorway.
“Is this your first time?” a long-haired fellow in a “Smash Israeli Apartheid” t-shirt was asking the others. A few nodded. I could see by the set of their faces that they were American.
“Alright, let me give you an idea of what’s going on.” His English was accented, but this was clearly a speech he knew well, judging by the slight refocusing of his eyes and jut of his hip.
“I am a representative of the anti-apartheid movement in Israel-Palestine. I help facilitate the protests, but I am not in charge, I do not dictate what happens. That is for the community organizers from the villages to decide. I support them.”
“And where are you from?” a woman with a notebook asked.
He hesitated. “I . . . nowhere. Israel-Palestine, Israel, Palestine? Right now I am here.” He was Israeli. But as his rueful air implied, years of protesting with Palestinians against a wall being built by your compatriots on a strip of land a stone’s throw from where you grew up would complicate your sense of identity.
“Anyway, there will be a briefing inside soon,” the uprooted Israeli was saying. The American boys futzed with their kuffiyehs.
Inside, twenty or thirty more foreign protesters milled around the poster-plastered room, scarves knotted at the ready, sunburns advanced. The few Palestinian men in their midst joked with the few who spoke Arabic, and welcomed those who didn’t in English. The piano, fridge, and mattress indicated that this “headquarters” doubled as someone’s home. Within minutes, a squat, beaming woman with hair bleached golden and a slight Latin accent bustled over to direct us to the “Friends of Bil’in” guestbook. Flipping through its dog-eared pages revealed hundreds of volunteers who had come through this room since demonstrations against the Wall began six years ago. The US, Norway, Spain, UK, France, Brazil . . .
Even as martyrs of the Bil’in cause gazed down on us from their commemorative posters, a jovial if somewhat jittery mood prevailed, as if we had all just arrived at summer camp and were awaiting a counselor to start us on the first organized game. It was supposed to be a festive day in Bil’in: earlier that week, the Israeli Defense Forces had at last begun dismantling the Separation Wall to move it closer to the 1967 Green Line, after six years of protests and an Israeli High Court ruling ordering this change to the Wall’s course. Thus, rather than using the Wall to annex two thirds of the villagers’ land for a new Jewish settlement, they would take a mere one third. Far from a full victory, but a cause for optimism nonetheless.
Suddenly a phalanx of suits pushed through the door, flanked by bobbing cameramen. Their charge was none other than Salam Fayyad, the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority. No one rose, even when his attendants announced him. Even the Palestinians seemed either a) too surprised to know what to do or b) too unsurprised to care. The white-haired, bespectacled politician surveyed the room with a grandfatherly smile. “Ready for action?” he said in English. Cameras flashed. Then his entourage herded him out again. Galvanized, we all got up and followed him. We strained to catch his platitudes for the news. The celebratory mood made me guilty to be joining the protests only now. Who was I to waltz in, after the villagers and their committed allies had been protesting for six years, after beloved community members had given their lives? Showing up for the cause at the same time Fayyad deemed it appropriate was by any estimation unfashionably late.
Just then we were called inside for our briefing with Smash Apartheid T-Shirt and another Israeli boy. The second, with long, wavy golden hair and a backpack which appeared welded to his body, launched into a description in lilting English of the weapons that the Israelis could use on us: skunk-water, tear gas, rubber and live bullets.
“So when you inhale the tear gas, if it’s your first time, you’ll think you’re going to die. But you won’t die! Just keep telling yourself, this will be over in two minutes. Don’t rub your eyes, just wait, sit down and rest for a little while. You’ll be fine.”
I tried to imagine sitting down to “rest” in the midst of a tear gas attack.
“Also, watch carefully when they shoot the tear gas, so you see where the canisters will fall, because that is the dangerous thing about tear gas: the canisters. The gas won’t hurt you, but the canisters will. So watch, don’t run, because then you won’t see and they could hit you.”
I tried to imagine not running.
“Then there are rubber bullets, and live bullets. These they shoot at the boys who throw stones. So don’t stand behind those boys, make sure you stand somewhere else.”
But what about the boys?
“Any questions?”
Silence. No one wanted to be less cavalier than our nonchalant guide, and besides, wasn’t today supposed to be more of a celebration than a clash? Surely the IDF would not waste ammo on a bunch of hippies singing songs and giving each other high fives.
“Great everyone, now just remember, today should be a nice and happy demonstration. The Israelis have to move the wall. The High Court ordered it. But we are showing them that we want to take it down NOW, ourselves! So let’s go.”
We took up flags, boys sold scarves to protect the delicate necks of Westerners, men climbed into the bed of a truck blasting debke music, a battery of drummers began to play and people circled up around a few dancers, an unseen orator got on the loudspeaker and delivered a speech in formal Arabic about the peaceful struggle for a Palestinian state, as everyone swung their new flags in time. Operation underway.
When we began to march, I could appreciate the sheer variety of participants. Shoulder to shoulder walked: old Palestinian men in white jalabiyyas and white knit skullcaps atop silver curls; young Western women attempting modesty in cargo pants and creatively arranged kuffiyehs of all colors draped around their necks or hair; knots of Palestinian teenage boys, black hair gelled into variations on the faux-hawk, fake gold and silver bling dangling over tight t-shirts; goth-looking Western youth, massive holes through their ears and noses, hair dyed and mowed into irreproduceable patterns, wearing shirts with anarchist slogans; little Palestinian boys darting in and out, their faces painted with the Palestinian flag and alight with excitement; tan, wiry Israelis, curly hair bandana-ed, sandaled feet dirty and tough; waddling old Palestinian ladies in traditional headscarves and black embroidered gowns, holding flags doggedly as they dragged their skirts through the dust; sunburned American dudes, proudly speaking freshly learned standard Arabic; pairs, groups and singleton Palestinian men of all ages, faces grim, undistracted and unimpressed by the hosts of foreigners, holding their flags with singular concentration; plucky, older Western women with strap-on hats over sun- and time-frizzed hair, smiling and striking up conversations, swaying to the Arabic music blaring from the truck ahead; a diminutive Palestinian father dropping one shoulder to hold his toddler’s hand, cocking the other to hold up the flag.
The road led through town, then past the fields of olive trees remaining in the villagers’ possession. Dancing children waved from rooftops; photographers scrambled around trying to capture the crowd. At last the Wall came into view up the hill. An Israeli tank waited, but I couldn’t make out any soldiers. Could it be that they were going to allow us to march right up and knock the fence down? Perhaps they had decided to let us do the work for them.
I chatted with a Palestinian man about the song blasting from the party truck, “Wayn al-milayiin” (“Where are the millions?”), about the massacres in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, when suddenly he said quietly, “Gas, be careful.” I looked ahead and sure enough, tear gas had just been fired into the front lines of protestors. I hadn’t even heard it over the music. OK: don’t run, watch the canisters. I looked up to see three more snake into the sky, and began backing up in a trance. Watch, don’t run. I traced their smoky, parabolic trajectories as best I could, but they changed course and pace unexpectedly. As I retreated, the sour smell of the gas mixed with skunk water pierced my eyes and nose. “Ambulance, ambulance!” someone shouted from above. The ambulance barged through the retreating protestors and straight into the gas clouds at the Wall. A bulldozer, driven by a group of protestors, had rammed right into the barbed gate. More explosions followed. Screams. Bodies dispersing through the trees, some stumbling out of the cloud to collapse red-faced and panting, others handing them wedges of raw onion to sniff.
I hesitated. The protestors had now scattered down the road away from the gas, leaving only a handful up at the Wall. I looked back and forth. What the hell were any of us doing here, standing around watching the few who dared to take the real risks? Why gather hundreds to cower in their kuffiyehs, taking pictures of themselves? We may as well be watching the whole thing on YouTube. I began back up the hill, albeit slowly.
A Palestinian guy caught up with me. “What are you waiting for, come on!” he said, with what could have been either a smirking or encouraging smile. He had the gangly skinniness of an adolescent but the face of an older man, his teeth stained brown, creases around his eyes.
“Are you from here?” I asked.
“Yes, I am from Bil’in.” His name was Noor. He had the thick, textured village Arabic, using a “tch” sound for “k”. We went through the usual questions, was this my first time in Palestine, where was I from, was I here alone, what did I think of Palestine. All of this as we sauntered up toward the Wall. I started at every noise, eyes darting upward, but he kept a steady gait, unperturbed. After all, he had been doing this every Friday for years. His comfort was contagious; even as a new volley of tear gas canisters whistled into the air, their white paths cris-crossing over our heads, we barely changed pace. They sailed past and landed in the middle of the road behind us. Squeals filled the air as the retreated protestors scattered still further back toward the village. “We could live with the Jews, you know,” Noor was murmuring. "It's just the governments that refuse to let us live in peace." I kept my eyes on the sky, watching one gray volley after another bisect the haze, flinching but walking evenly. One flying object I started at turned out to be a bird, streaking through the cloud. What must the birds make of these noxious chemical plumes wafting through their trees?
I found myself stumbling off the road and squatting, my eyes and nose stinging in earnest now. Taking a “rest”, after all. I mistakenly gulped some water, which made the gas I had inhaled burn all the way down my throat. Noor appeared at my side and gave me a cotton swab dipped in a solution to sniff. It smelled like nail polish remover, but strangely sweet in comparison to the tear gas. I inhaled deeply and looked around. A girl in a hijaab was wiping away gas-induced tears which had streaked her mascara down her cheeks. She managed a snuffling laugh and held up the two-finger peace sign as a friend took her picture. Flags soaked in the vile skunk-water lay abandoned by the side of the road. The heroic bulldozer, its side now pocked with bullet holes, sat parked behind us. The party truck still blasted music, but the drummers squatted by the road, wiping their eyes with their bandanas. Then the orator came back on, thanking the foreigners for their support. The day’s struggle had come to an end.
I sat up on a stone wall with Noor and watched the front guard trickle back down the hill. He recited lines from the classical Arabic poem “al-aTlaal” (“The Ruins”). Already a kind of spleen had set in; here I was, free to go back to Ramallah on the next ser-vees, then home to New York forever, able to say, “I participated in a Wall Protest in Bil’in.”
Yet I had done nothing. In fact, what I had done felt worse than “nothing” because it could be described as “something”. Sure, I made the trek and waved a flag and scared myself a little. Palestine does quickly impose its own relative scale of danger; by some calculations, going to the Middle East at all could be chalked up as a grievous risk, let alone the West Bank, let alone Bil’in, let alone a clash with the IDF at the Wall. But the realities we place ourselves in have a funny way of normalizing in an instant; after all, they become the only reality that exists. For these people, marching through tear gas is a Friday tradition, as natural and as necessary as prayer. Perhaps this could become my reality too; at each demonstration I would grow braver, until finally I forgot my comfortable home and husband and family and ambitions and threw my body without hesitation into the service of a noble cause. But next Friday, the villagers of Bil’in will be back at the Wall while I doze on an airplane. It feels wrong to have been able to sample their suffering, their bravery, then fly away.
"Go to back to America," urged Noor as we parted ways, "and tell them we are a peaceful people . . . we just want to live on our land." At least Bil'in has one more witness.
For more on the peaceful struggle in Bil'in, see their website.
For more photographs of this demonstration, Friday June 24, 2011, see my friend Bram's gallery.
1 comment:
Anna, you have done what you could for now. Your "witnessing" is significant to restoration of peace. I would like this writing to get out to a wider audience!
Love,
Mom
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