Day 3—October 15
Ramallah
After breakfast, we packed our bags and loaded our luggage into Issa's van, then checked out of St. George's Guest House for the time being. We would be returning later in week, and looked forward to spending more time in this beautiful setting. Related photos
On our way to Ramallah, we had to drive through the Kalandia checkpoint, which we had just visited with ICAHD the day before. There was a 15 or 20-minute wait getting through, and the soldiers who checked our passports were somewhat suspicious of what we would be doing in Ramallah. We met our trip coordinator, George Rishmawi, for the first time at the checkpoint. He had come to the area from Bethlehem and then walked across the checkpoint—or around (not sure which)—and joined us in the van. He had not been able to meet us in Jerusalem because, as a Palestinian, he is now barred by the Israelis from traveling there. Related photos
Treatment and Rehabilitation Centre
After crossing the checkpoint, we drove to the Treatment and Rehabilitation Centre for Victims of Torture (TRC) in Ramallah, and met with the director, Dr. Mahmud Sehwail, and other staff members. We had several mental health professionals in our group, so there was quite a bit of interest in this aspect of the conflict. The staff described their attempts to provide mental health treatment and support to the traumatized and suffering Palestinian population of the West Bank. They have a very small organization for such an enormous task—20 technical staff members and a budget of $234,000, most provided by foreign governments, to meet the needs of two million West Bank residents.
Dr. Sehwail quoted a report from B’Tselem (an Israeli human rights organization) that 85-90% of Palestinians in Israeli custody are tortured. The Palestinians themselves believe the true number is higher. The public sector is not equipped to deal with the problems related to this extensive abuse, yet there are few private mental health clinics in Palestine. The TRC also treats patients tortured by the Palestinian Authority. Around 60% of PA law enforcement personnel have been in Israeli custody at some point in the past, and thus many are themselves victims of torture. The torture techniques they use on their own detainees are often ones learned from their Israeli captors. In order to stop this cycle of abuse, the TRC has become involved in PA training programs designed to prevent the use of torture by Palestinian police.
The TRC's patients have either been victims of violence themselves, or have witnessed it (virtually 100% of the Palestinian population has witnessed acts of violence), and the disorders they exhibit include post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and psychosis, which are treated with drugs and individual or group therapy. The TRC has a special program for patients who have lost family members to violence.
The TRC also treats patients in Israeli prisons, although the Israel authorities often make visits with the prisoners extremely difficult for the clinic staff. Dr. Sehwail spoke of being forced to wait 10-12 hours at a prison before being denied meetings with his patients there. The families of the prisoners are also subjected to this type of treatment, which Dr. Sehwail says is merely another manifestation of Israel's use of torture and collective punishment against the Palestinian population. The Israelis use other methods to discourage visits of doctors to the prisons: Dr. Sehwail described one incident where he visited a prison patient who was later put in solitary confinement—on the pretext that Dr. Sehwail himself had prescribed it as part of his treatment. The patient subsequently refused to see the doctor on future visits.
The Israelis have perfected a method of torture that does not leave visible marks but is physically and emotionally devastating to the victim: violent shaking, which causes fainting, damages blood vessels, and results in other long-term disabilities. Dr. Sehwail says that Israeli doctors helped develop this particular technique. He also has female patients who say they'd suffered rape in Israeli prisons.
Dr. Sehwail then quoted some numbers to illustrate the extent of the devastation to West Bank Palestinian society from the recent violence. Since the Intifada began in 2000, there have been:
Those treated at the clinic in Ramallah include:
Rita, a Belgian who lives in Ramallah and works on the TRC staff, says she used to commute to a job in Jerusalem, but with all the checkpoints and travel restrictions that have been imposed, it now takes hours to drive the short distance to Jerusalem and back. She says she was becoming so frustrated by all the delays that it was beginning to affect her home life, where she found herself yelling at her children and experiencing symptoms of anxiety. She finally quit her job in Jerusalem and took the job at TRC in order to avoid the commute. She says Palestinians have to get special permits to travel from town to town, and that it can take three hours to travel 40 km (about 25 miles) because of all the roadblocks and checkpoints. Related photos
After leaving the TRC, we headed to the MIFTAH office. Since we passed right by Arafat’s compound, the Muqataa, on the way, we decided to stop and take a look at the damage we’d heard about previously. The Israelis had besieged the compound in response to Hamas suicide bombings, and had pulled out just two weeks before our arrival. They had surrounded the compound with tanks and destroyed most of the buildings with missiles, then demanded that many of those inside be handed over for arrest. But they ended up pulling back their tanks and troops under pressure from the United States, which feared the siege would harm Arab and international support for a future invasion of Iraq.
The compound had been turned into what looked like a giant parking lot around which heaps of rubble from the destroyed buildings had been bulldozed. Mounds of crushed vehicles were stacked on one side. The one building that was relatively undamaged had the Palestinian flag hanging near its door-- it is apparently where Arafat now lives. Microphones had been set up near the entrance, and several cameramen and other observers were standing nearby, apparently waiting for some type of press conference to begin. The compound was guarded by Palestinian police or soldiers, one of whom asked where we were from as we approached. When our driver said "America", the soldier cheerfully welcomed us. We parked the van and got out to walk around and observe the area. Some construction workers had already begun rebuilding in one spot. A busload of young Europeans later arrived, saying they were on a fact-finding trip and were planning to meet with Arafat. Related photos
George mentioned that, although there were armed Palestinian security personnel around Arafat’s compound, there were no Palestinian police in Ramallah. This is because after the Israelis reoccupied Ramallah and then pulled their troops out of the city, the Palestinian policemen, who are often the targets of Israeli attacks, were still not being allowed to operate there. He says this creates a dangerous situation for the population, because Ramallah is left with no internal law enforcement mechanism.
We had lunch in downtown Ramallah, and were able to walk around the area a little. We saw numerous “martyr” posters plastered on the sides of buildings and other structures. Ramzi says they are pictures of people killed by the Israelis or in suicide bombings, or held in Israeli detention. Among them were dozens of posters of Marwan Barghouti, the Palestinian politician arrested and put on trial by the Israelis. Related photos
MIFTAHWe then continued on to the offices of MIFTAH (The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy) for a meeting with its Secretary General, Hanan Ashrawi. When she walked into the conference room, we immediately recognized her from her many television appearances. We explained that we were Unitarians from the US, and when we mentioned that Thomas Jefferson had also been a Unitarian, she said that she had once slept in Thomas Jefferson’s bedroom at Monticello. Don then extended an invitation to her to speak at the 2003 UUA General Assembly in Boston. Dr. Ashrawi said that she wasn’t sure if she would be able to, but would consider it (she gets dozens of speaking requests every month).
Dr. Ashrawi then explained the purpose of MIFTAH, which promotes democracy in Palestinian society, and how it is attempting to create a civil society on which a stable democratic Palestinian state can be built. Some of the ways MIFTAH promotes grassroots democracy include going into local communities to teach classes and air videos on democracy, and attempting to identify and encourage promising young Palestinian women for future leadership roles in a democratic Palestine.
Dr. Ashrawi explained why she recently refused a position in the “new” Arafat cabinet after the previous cabinet resigned in protest. She said she had served as Minister of Education in an earlier cabinet but had become very frustrated by the corruption in Arafat’s government. She believes the changes Arafat is now proposing are cosmetic only and that she is interested only in real change.
The discussion then moved to the role of the US government in the Middle East conflict, and Dr. Ashrawi stated that the current US administration suffers from “the disease of ignorance”. US government officials constantly lecture the Palestinians on what they must say and do, but have very little understanding of the history of the region or the reality of the situation facing the Palestinians, and terribly little regard for international law. Dr. Ashrawi meets often with members of the US Congress, and says the staunchly pro-Israeli members often attempt to disrupt her meetings. She says the Congressional Black Caucus is quite sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians, as are a few other members of Congress such as David Bonior of Michigan, but that many others tell her there is nothing to be gained by supporting the Palestinians and everything to lose by challenging the pro-Israeli status quo.
She says European governments are generally supportive financially and in spirit, but claim they cannot provide much political support for the Palestinians because they are severely constrained by US global military and economic dominance and forced to operate within the American political framework.
Dr. Ashrawi says she hasn’t lost hope in the possibility of a Palestinian state in the pre-1967 borders, but that soon it might be too late due to the widespread and rampant destruction of Palestinian property, which will take a very long time to recover from even if hostilities were to cease and independence granted immediately. She further believes that things are likely to get much worse before they get better, possibly as a result of war with Iraq.
The Palestinians are trying to counter the pro-Israel lobby and PR campaign in the US but simply don’t have the money to make much of a dent—the people are simply struggling to survive right now. She says AIPAC (America Israel Public Affairs Committee), the powerful pro-Israel lobby, has been running TV ads in the US touting Israel as “the only democracy in the Middle East”, but the Palestinians have no money to counter with their own ads.
Dr. Ashrawi then had to leave for another meeting, and her assistant, Labib, provided us with more information and literature about MIFTAH. Related photos
We left Ramallah to drive to Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust Memorial outside Jerusalem. On the way out of Ramallah, Ramzi and George had a bit of a scare at the checkpoint we exited through. Apparently, cars are supposed to exit through the same checkpoint they entered, but the Kalandia checkpoint was the opposite direction from Bethlehem, our destination that evening. Instead, we left through a different checkpoint that is apparently reserved mainly for diplomats and other dignitaries. George and Ramzi had to leave the van before we reached the checkpoint, as their Palestinian ID’s likely would have gotten them into trouble, and maybe even arrested.
We took a very long time to get across the checkpoint when a couple of ambulances (one with no patients) cut in line ahead of us and the Israelis checked them thoroughly, removing and inspecting many items such as oxygen tanks. When we reached the front of the line, the IDF soldiers were reluctant to let us through and wanted to know what all these Americans had been doing in Ramallah. They asked to see our luggage in the back, but did not open up any of the bags.
By the time we got through, Ramzi and George had walked a long distance from the checkpoint (they could not stop and wait for us or they would have drawn attention to themselves) and when they saw some Israeli soldiers approaching, had turned around and walked back through the checkpoint so as not to appear suspicious. They intentionally walked right past us without looking up, and we had to wait for them to walk back out to a point where we could safely pick them up. Issa asked me to sit in the front seat of the van, where my blonde hair would be more visible, apparently in an attempt to make us and the van appear less threatening or suspicious (which seemed to work).
The delay at the checkpoint meant we didn't have as much time at the memorial as we'd hoped, but we did get to see quite a lot. There were several different exhibits on the grounds, including a very moving memorial to the children of the Holocaust in a dark, cylindrical room with arrays of mirrors reflecting candle lights. We silently walked around the perimeter listening to recordings of voices mournfully reciting names, ages, and countries of children killed in the Holocaust. Ramzi said this was his favorite exhibit at Yad Vashem, and it was indeed a very poignant and sobering experience. Another exhibit was in a cave-like room with an oven in the middle that belched smoke through the ceiling. A large number of plaques inscribed with the names of concentration camps were embedded in the floor around the oven. We were struck by the sheer number of camps, many of which we had not heard of. There was a constant drone or chugging noise in the background—apparently the sound of the ovens working.
The main exhibit was a museum with detailed displays on the history of European anti-Semitism, the rise of the Nazis, and the events of World War II and the Holocaust. There were many horrifying images of Jews being beaten and publicly humiliated, driven from their homes, and forced to wear the Star of David; and later starving and dying in concentration camps. There was a section on the Jewish resistance and the “martyrs” who died fighting the Nazis.
We didn’t have time to read and examine all the displays in detail, however from what we did see, many of us were disturbed by the parallels between the progression of discrimination, abuse, and displacement of Jews in Europe and that of Arabs in Palestine under Israeli rule and occupation. In the very words used to demonize, the material dispossession, the public humiliations, the beatings, the shootings, the "transfers", even the references to "martyrs" and weapons smuggling—the similarities were uncanny. We wondered how many Israeli visitors noticed.
A couple of us also made note of the rather gratuitous exhibit on the Mufti of Jerusalem and his extended stay in Berlin during the war. While this had been a minor and inconsequential event in the course of the war and the Holocaust, the museum devoted a fairly substantial display to images of the Mufti in Germany along with quotes of his exhortations to Arabs to kill Jews. It seemed a wholly disingenuous attempt on the part of the museum curators to tie the Palestinian cause to that of the Nazis and European anti-Semitism, as if the Mufti had been a central part of the Nazi’s plans, rather than the minor sideshow curiosity he actually was. The inclusion of this display seemed only to detract from the otherwise deeply wrenching impact of the exhibits.
We were also surprised that the exhibits were in Hebrew and English only—no Arabic, one of the official languages of Israel. Were Arabs, who make up nearly 20% of the Israeli citizenry, not intended to visit Yad Vashem? Back in the van, George commented that, while the Holocaust was obviously a very sad and terrible thing, he doesn't understand why he is being punished for it. Related photos
After our visit toYad Vashem, we drove to Bethlehem in the West Bank and checked into the Bethlehem Hotel, a large, new building with a spacious lobby eerily devoid of guests—yet another sign of the devastation of the tourism industry. We might possibly have been the only guests in the entire building our first night there. At the checkpoint coming into Bethlehem, an Israeli guard asked for our passports and noticed that Ramzi was a Palestinian and should not have been in Jerusalem. He told Ramzi that he could go into Bethlehem but could not come out—a mild rebuke apparently in deference to his Americans companions. The guard never even noticed George sitting among us, so never saw his Palestinian ID.
That evening, we were invited to enjoy a home-cooked meal with George’s extended family at their house in Bethlehem. The family was extremely gracious in welcoming our group into their home, and made us feel very much at ease with their warmth and kindness. George's mom cooked a delicious, elaborate meal with many salads and meats, of which we were encouraged by the family to eat numerous helpings. We seemed to have little trouble accommodating them!
Later, we looked at photographs of both George's and Issa's recent engagement parties, which looked to be as formal and elaborate as most American weddings. George's party took place during the Israeli siege and curfews last spring, and the guests had to find a way to sneak out to the celebration without getting shot. We were impressed by the closeness and supportiveness of George's extended family, qualities that likely enable the family to survive through all the traumas and difficulties of life under the occupation. Related photos