Yanoun, the limitlessness of Palestinian hospitality, the experimental lawlessness of occupation

Yesterday, after fully convincing myself that I would stay in and rest and get work done on my day off, I was invited in the morning to visit Yanoun, a village about 12 Km outside of Nablus. It didn't take long to decide to go there instead of stay in. Yanoun is a small, low-laying village that is surrounded by hills, and atop each hill around it is an Israeli settlement or outpost. It is divided into two parts, upper and lower Yanoun; lower Yanoun is in Area B, joint Israeli and Palestinian control. Upper Yanoun is in area C, complete Israeli control, as is the majority of the Jordan valley. This means that Palestinians building in Yanoun is completely forbidden, while in contrast the settlements continue to grow. I joined some other volunteers who were visiting because they had heard that Israel had begun digging up about 20 dunams of land in Yanoun. The information was vague so my friends decided to visit and try to learn some more about what was going on.

The trip to get to Yanoun was interesting- in fact, just the trip to just reach the taxi that would take us to Yanoun was delightful in itself. We were hungry for breakfast but it was Friday, a holy day in Islam, so many places were closed. We went to a bakery and bought some bread and noticed that four or five of the workers were standing and eating felafel with hummus and bread. We asked them where we could find an open felafel shop to take with us on the trip, and instead of answering they just insisted we join them and eat their's. So we spent the next twenty minutes standing with four bakers eating felafel, hummus, bread, and drinking tea. I ate plenty and was full, but the baker kept insisting I eat more. I eventually convinced him I was full, and he seemed appeased, but the next time I looked over he was handing me bread with hummus already on it. Such is the limitlessness of Palestinian hospitality. When we left, he gave us a bundle of free bread.

We finally made it to the taxi, haggled a little bit for a cheaper price, and started on our way to Yanoun- we thought. We made a detour to a junk yard and picked up a brake disc for the taxi, and then made another detour to the auto shop to get the brake disc installed. We sat in the cab as the mechanic jacked up the car and installed the part. It was so absurd we couldn't really bother being annoyed. Luckily, one of the volunteers was able to translate most of what was going on, so we weren't left completely in the dark.

Once on the road, our driver began to tell us that he was from Awarta, a village near Yanoun and near the large Israeli settlement Itamar, where in March of 2011 an Israeli family was murdered. He described that after the murders, the Israeli Defense Forces periodically raided and ransacked Palestinian homes in Awarta, supposedly looking for information on the killers. In reality, they were merely terrorizing the population. He showed us a video on his phone of his entire house completely overturned and destroyed. Eventually, three Palestinians were arrested and are now in prison for thirty years.

Itamar, created in 1984, is made up of mostly ideologically motivated ultra-Orthodox families considered among the most fervent Israeli settlers in the West Bank. The settlers have been accused of burning olive trees, destroying cars and shooting at Palestinian residents. In the last 12-15 years the residents have begun encroaching upon and annexing the hills East of Itamar, often in outposts considered illegal by the Israeli government. These are the outposts that now surround Yanun, which sits in between them in a limbo of being unable to expand, terrorized by settlers, and shrinking in population.

In Yanoun, we went to the house of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) volunteers, who are stationed in Yanoun for 3 month intervals to witness settler violence. Alex, a volunteer, told us that things had been calm lately, but they had noticed some extra activity upon the hill they faced, outpost 777. 777 consists of a watch tower, some trailers, and some agricultural structure. Such a small group of structures imposes such huge amounts of influence and power over the village. I was quite taken with the feeling of constantly being watched from the watchtower on the hill; and later the EAPPI volunteer joked that they call the tower their own experience of Foucault's panopticon. The experience of constantly being watched, without seeing your watcher, so that that feeling comes to shape your lifestyle.

The EAPPI described that the settlers will sometimes come down and walk through the village with dogs and machine guns, but refrain if they know that internationals are there. They said that one night they moved accommodations, and as soon as they moved, the settlers came down. This means that it's quite literally the international presence that keeps them from continually harassing the population. They persist, though. The water supply in Yanoun is undrinkable because the settlers pour trash and dead animals in the well at night. In the past, they have tipped over water containers and lit generators on fire, chased and shot at from their olive trees. The life has become so unbearable that the population in Yanoun has greatly decreased, and international support is struggling to keep it functioning.

In Yanoun we stopped by the mayor's house, a shepherd with an amazing mustache who served us hot coffee and hot tea. With the help of our friend and translator, who helped us through the taxi adventure, and we had a great discussion with him on the state of things in Yanoun, largely in the context of the Oslo Accords, which cut the land up in the Areas A, B, and C. "Our problem is Oslo", he said. We discussed the level of strategy involved in the carving up of the land; "Where is the water in Yanoun? It's in upper Yanoun, and so upper Yanoun is Area C" (Israeli control), while lower Yanoun remains in area B. And while Area B is under "joint Palestinian-Israeli control", if any part of it is declared a military zone, it is automatically under complete Israeli control. This is how the land we had heard about had been seized and had begun being tilled. While in Area B, it was declared a military zone, the Palestinian inhabitants were evacuated, and now Israelis were beginning to build on it.

Some words that floated around the conversation over and over again were "lawlessness" and "experimentation". Those seemed to sum up the things that were happening in Yanoun. The town seemed small enough that the settlers and military could dick around together and see what they could accomplish in terms of land annexation. The mayor of Yanoun said that sometimes, the settlers would change into military garb and set up a make-shift checkpoint between lower and upper Yanoun. Once, a settler attacked a Palestinian, ran away, and changed into a military outfit in the next few minutes, apparently completely absolved of his crime. So while the outposts are technically illegal and unsanctioned by Israel, they are made up of the Israeli military themselves. Thus, there is no accountability in Yanoun. It's lawless, as the wild west was, and the world remains ignorant.

After we said bye to the mayor, we took an hour walk to Lower Yanoun. The views of the Jordan Valley were breathtaking. In Lower Yanoun I sat in the living room of a woman's house with her two daughters, we tried to communicate through the language barrier but mostly just laughed at the impossibility of it. She told me I needed to eat more if I ever wanted a husband. Our wonderful taxi driver from earlier never showed up to pick us up, so we hitchhiked to Awarta and found a taxi to take us back to Nablus.

Framed-Unframed

I wrote a review of an art show here in Palestine for Electronic Intifada, here's the text or click the link to see it.

Framed-Unframed: the Changing Representation of Women in Palestinian Visual Arts explores complex facets of Palestinian feminism, religion and the woman’s role in the liberation struggle. The show is now touring Palestinian universities.

At An-Najah University in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, where Framed-Unframed shows through Monday, the exhibition begins in the foyer of the fine arts building, where colossal black chiffon dresses hang from a wire strung across the room. The dresses make up Mary Tuma’s “Homes for the Bodiless” (2000), and the vacant female forms they create point to the grief caused by the continued displacement of Palestinians. This theme continues throughout the show.

Equally thematic to the show is the strength of Palestinian women. In An-Najah’s gallery, the show features artwork made in the 1970s, most commonly depicting women as resolute, sturdy symbols of motherhood, nationhood and resistance. Generally made by male artists, the section represents the foundational and ideologically strategic symbolism structured around Palestinian women after 1967.

Defiantly rooted

Mary Tuma’s ”Homes for the Bodiless” installed in the foyer of An-Najah University’s fine arts building. The female figure in a 1975 image made by Burhan Karkutli demonstrates this blend of militant heroism and cultural bonds to the nation — the woman is dressed in a traditional Palestinian dress (thob) and holds a rifle behind her back. Around her neck is a chain holding the shape of Palestine, on her head is the crescent moon found on the top of minarets. She appears defiantly rooted, physically a part of the land of Palestine, decorated in its symbols. As the show progresses chronologically, the work is increasingly created by women. The modes of representation become more layered, as in Mona Hatoum’s video piece “Measures of Distance” (1988). Hatoum narrates letters to and from her mother that were sent from Beirut to London; her voice recordings are played over images of Arabic script and images of her mother’s body.

Her mother’s words explain the anger of Mona’s father after he once found them naked, taking photographs of each other in the bathroom. “He was seriously angry. He still nags me about it, as if I had given you something that only belongs to him.”

Extremely personal, the work not only discusses distance and loss, but the relationship of a mother, father and daughter. “Anyway, whatever you do with the pictures, for God sake don’t tell him about it,” the artist narrates.

Waiting for change

Hatoum’s piece is an example of the show’s theme of the female body, a remarkable subject for a show dealing with Palestinian women, but a theme that Palestinian female artists have utilized in bold and thought-provoking ways.

A moving video piece by Jerusalem-based artist Jumana Abboud, “Holding my Breath” (2006), highlights the feelings of suffocation and entrapment caused by the occupation of Palestine. In the piece, the artist stands almost motionless with her head in a bowl or her face hidden behind a curtain. Her body becomes a useless tool as the artist holds her breath and waits for a change.

Inversely, “Wish Tree” by Raeda Saadeh uses the female form as a symbol for hope. This piece involves a video of a performance at Birzeit University as part of the exhibition’s opening ceremony.

In the performance, the artist stands on the campus wearing a white dress with a skirt that extends in a huge circle around her. Saadeh stands with her arms outstretched for three hours while students write wishes on colored pieces of paper and throw them to the “tree.”

Saadeh, based in Jerusalem, is known for using her own body to bring attention to the circumstances of her life and the lives of Palestinians. Also included in the show is her work “Penelope” (2011), a large-scale photograph of the artist sitting atop the rubble of a demolished house, knitting from a giant ball of yarn. A Palestinian version of the character from Homer’s Odyssey, the woman is depicted as patient, persevering through years of hardship.

Lipstick limits?

Perhaps the star piece of the show is Amer Shomali’s rendition of the iconic image of Leila Khaled holding a Kalashnikov and wearing a kuffiyeh (checkered scarf) made out of 3,500 tubes of lipstick. Different shades of red and yellow are arranged to create a large, pixilated and pointillist image of Khaled, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who is often considered the poster girl for Palestinian resistance.

What is the intent behind creating an image of Khaled using make-up? Perhaps it speaks to the limits in representation of Palestinian women based on gender roles, or perhaps it is a statement on consumerism.

Both historical and ideological in different ways, the show touches on a vast number of issues. But by always keeping Palestinian women as its main subject it remains constant. By highlighting their resilience and patience, as well as displaying their grief and sorrow at the continued trials of the occupation, it gives a voice to a dynamic community so often stifled or kept silent.

I started teaching english at a really charming school in the Askar refugee camp just outside of Nablus. The kids are 1st through 3rd grade and they're extremely cute. Another volunteer and I painted faces there last week, which was my first experience painting faces. The spiderman's turned out looking pretty creepy, but this tiger was my proudest accomplishment.

The school sits on a hill and looks out over beautiful fields and farmlands that appear typically Palestinian except for the red slanted roofs clustered together to form an Israeli settlement. Settlements always stick out, and not on accident. Designing Civic Encounter, an urban development project in Palestine, has pointed out in the past the deliberate disconnect between the settlements design and architecture and traditional Palestinian culture, which is obvious in a scene like the one at the school. Architecturally, settlements are literally containers meant to hold and guard people, and as such their architecture is distinctly colonial. They are often atop hills, dominating the landscape, and I'm interested in the visual power that gives them and how Palestinians resist it. In this photo, the image is unmistakably Palestinian, the settlement hard to spot to the untrained eye. But looking out from the other side of the building, the landscape becomes dominated by the settlement itself.

Settlements themselves are some of the best visual representations of the dominance of the occupation over Palestinian land, tradition and lives. They themselves push the occupation from military to civilian, from political to personal. They create the event of a West Bank bus stop where settlers wait under the shade of the bus stop, while Palestinian men and women wait in the hot sun fifty feet away. I'm interested in instance such as this of visual authority imposed by the settlements, and by the occupation in general. Hopefully I'll get to writing more about it while I'm here.

Photography class 09/19/2012

Hebron

We visited Hebron last weekend as a group- me and six other volunteers. Hebron is well known (relatively) because since 1994, the city has been split up between Palestinians and Israeli settlers. This was after Dr. Baruch Goldstein, a settler, opened fire in the mosque at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, killing 29 and wounding 125 Muslims as they prayed (his grave is still venerated by settlers today). Following this, the city was split into H1 and H2, H1 where Palestinians can live, and H2 where both Jews and Palestinians can live, but Palestinians movement in the are is severely restricted. In this area, about 500 settlers live (the total pop. of Hebron is 250,000). There are 4,000 soldiers stationed to protect the settlers.

We had the pleasure of being toured around the city by a local girl named Sundas who a friend had referenced us to. Sundas lived with her family in H2, with settlers homes looking over her own. She told us when we arrived that she had been arrested the week before. A settler had tried to run over her 13 year old brother in his car, and when he failed he exited his car and began to beat the boy. Sundas tried to help her brother but couldn't, and eventually attracted the attention of some soldiers who stopped the fight. The settler claimed that Sundas and her brother had attacked him, and Sundas was arrested. She was detained and released without much trouble, because the particular settler was known for his aggression towards Palestinians. It was a shocking anecdote of everyday life in Hebron, where there are almost daily incidents of violence and property abuse from the settlers. We asked Sundas if anything happened to the settler afterwards, and she said of course not. "He is a settler, he is free".

In the old city, we saw the netting above the market, put in place to block the garbage, human waste, and acid that settlers thrown down onto the Palestinians. We saw streets that we could walk down but Sundas couldn't. We saw a settler in H2 carrying an automatic rifle on his back nonchalantly. We saw the synagogue in the Tomb of the Patriarchs, which is now split in two, and when we entered the gate Sundas was stopped as the soldier said "But you're an arab". She waited for us outside, and afterwards we walked the long route home because the direct street that would take us home is for settlers only. After the tour, her mother cooked us a delicious lunch with coffee and tea.

Comparatively, Nablus now seems so separated from the extreme struggle of daily life faced by other Palestinians. I've known about Hebron for some time, but witnessing it has an indescribable effect. The abrupt and unapologetic apartheid is shocking, to say the least, even enough to make you sick.

Patron Saints

This past Monday, our classes were cancelled due to a taxi strike in Nablus and throughout the West Bank. Taxi drivers organized the strike in response to huge hikes in fuel prices, as well as the growing general cost of living. This happened amidst increasing unrest the past few weeks in Palestine- shortly after I arrived, I accidentally ran into a demonstration and march and while I was there I saw a Project Hope volunteer marching. His sign said "In America, you try to work; in China, you try to produce; in Palestine, you try to live". The desperation present in the situation here, where one fifth of the population is unemployed, is obvious. Two men in the West Bank have tried to set themselves on fire since Tuesday in protest over their financial struggles, and a teenager in Gaza who couldn't find a job died recently after setting himself alight.

The protests call on those with power in Palestine to drop the economic agreements in place with Israel, set by the Oslo Accords. According to the agreements, Palestinian trade with other countries is handled through Israeli sea and air ports or border crossings with Jordan and Egypt (for example, Palestine is required to purchase all fuel from Israel at skyrocketing prices, instead of neighboring countries that would sell it for much cheaper). The PA placed a formal request with Israel to review the economic agreements, which was, as the Israel National News put it, "pooh-poohed", as everyone expected it would be.

We went to the aftermath of a protest on Monday, the day of the strike. The city center of Nablus was full of young Palestinian men, sometimes chanting, surrounding piles of burning tired. When one began to burn out, they would throw another one on. Eventually the police showed up in riot gear and cleared people away, so we went home, and later got phone called telling us not to go downtown, as the situation had turned violent, with protestors clashing with police throughout the night.

As the next few days continued and we all waited to see how the situation would progress, I was one of the only volunteers who stated that I supported not only the protests but the riots as well. People are quick to condemn them as violent, erratic, aimless; but I see them as a natural reaction against the increasingly dismal situation that is not only caused by the occupation, but by the regime in place inside the Palestinian Authority, all basically self-appointed and in the pockets of the State of Israel. As they continue to preserve the status quo, they continue to drive the quality of life in Palestine deeper and deeper down.

Force is required to push those who cling to power off of their seats. The Arab Spring set that precedence, and in doing so proved to the world that their ideas about the Arab world were false; they weren't going to sit back and allow their lives to be degraded by the greedy interests of dictators and the West any longer. Just as, I hope, Palestine wont continue suffering at the hands of those in power any longer either. The people here deserve to thrive. While creating a better situation would be a long and hard process, it would be a just one. And I would be so excited to be here when it began to happen.

Yesterday I had a photo class with several university students- a few girls and about five guys. They're all very nice, and know more about photography than I expected them too. I tried to explain the rule of thirds- even though I don't think it's an important or necessary thing to understand in regards to photography. You can compose a beautiful photograph regardless of the rule, and I hate to even call it a rule. But I decided to go over it because it's a basic thing that most photographers know. So I began explaining it, and one of the kids let me know that they were already familiar with the rule of thirds, and that actually, it's more of a theory than a rule. This was the first of many times they amazed me during the day.

It became apparent that the first thing we needed to do as a class was go and shoot some photographs, because any of the limited information I could teach them through our language barrier would probably not be of much aid until I could at lease see what they knew so far. I figured it was better to start with some photographs that they had taken, and discuss with them how they wanted to improve and grow from those. So we decided that next class we would all meet at the City Center and walk through the Old City taking photos. Two students however, Montaser and Masuood, were available to go to the Old City with me yesterday, so we jumped in a cab (which generally costs 2.5 sheckels, or $0.68 each person) and went down there. For two hours we walked through the Old City, and Montaser gave me a narrated history of the Old City. This included a sweets factory, a spice mill, a site of an Israeli massacre of a family during the Second Intifada, the city water pump, and of course, Kenafeh, the dessert Nablus is famous for.

One interaction I've become familiar with and fond of is the lone Palestinian who sees you walking with a group, and comes to join you with a pointed interest of asking how you've found life here in Palestine. Has everyone been pleasant? Have you been able to find your way around? Have you tried Kenafeh? What do you think of Palestinians? And most importantly, will you be sure to tell everyone when you get home what it is like here? This happened while we were in the Old City, and has happened a few times since I've been here. Another example of Palestinian hospitality, and they're acute awareness of how they are perceived in America as exactly the opposite of that.

I came home and loaded the photographs that the two students took onto my computer, and was really astounded. Here are a few of them, the first three by Masuood ( you can see some Kanafeh in the third) and the last two by Montaser.

Nablus Laundry, Call to Prayer

The sound doesn't do it justice.

I’ve been lax in creating this blog, because I’m historically bad at keeping blogs, but I told many people that I would and so here I am, and here it is, we’ll see what becomes of it. I’m beginning it as I live in Nablus, Palestine, where I’ve been for ten days now and I’ll stay for another two months. I’m here working with Project Hope, a Palestinian grassroots organization that brings international volunteers to Nablus to teach English and art to Palestinian children and adults.

Project Hope is more wonderful that I thought it would be. The organization is truly Palestinian, as opposed to other NGO’s in Nablus; those that might be better funded, but operate based on the wishes of an international board of director’s, not the wishes of Palestinians themselves. Project Hope is run by and for Palestinians. It bases itself in the context of existing amidst an unjust occupation, and as such it opposes it and refuses to normalize the conditions it exists in. And it exists to offer skills and tools to Palestinians who are denied many opportunities because of the occupation. I was reminded all of this on my first day, during a short induction that all volunteers undergo; I was so tired and jetlagged I think I just stolidly nodded, but I actually feel strongly that this is the experience and environment that I was hoping for. The organization may be disorganized at times, the equipment may not be excellent, and the funds may be limited; but the fact that something effective and beautiful has been created out of the madness is what makes Project Hope truly Palestinian, and what has made me fall in love with it.

Nablus is still breathtakingly beautiful after ten days. It’s a sea of white buildings resting in-between two hills. I’m not sure, but it must be the acoustics created by the hills that allows for a really beautiful and echoing call to prayer that I’ve been obsessively recording on video during the sunset hours. We live in an old house with large balconies that overlook the northern hill; just beyond the top of the hill is an Israeli settlement. I still haven’t seen it but I don’t often forget that it’s there. I’m especially reminded when I take the briefest of showers, which come pretty sparsely these days. If we use too much water we will run out and not have our tanks refilled until the end of the week; this is because the supply is severely limited by the allocation of West Bank water. Of the water available from West Bank aquifers, Israel uses 73%, and Palestinians are allotted 17%. Israeli settlements use 10%. I imagine that in the settlements, they shower comfortably.

Palestinians in Nablus, living in this crumbling and beautiful city, are incredibly kind and hospitable. Food, embraces, broken English, opinions on Obama, and Palestinian anecdotes are given in great quantities. Their integrity and humility is inspiring. It creates a unique motivation to live up to the standards of veracity here, although I don’t think my own could ever compare.

I also have the company of several intelligent and energetic international volunteers, who I have no doubt will end up good friends.

For those of you who helped me to get here through generous donations on my kickstarter, I can’t thank you enough. Today, because of you, Project Hope has four new cameras and a new laptop, and there is still more money to use. My photography classes are just getting started, but soon I’ll have a separate blog or flickr page where we’ll upload the work we produce. I’m certain it will be beautiful.

I’ll continue to post my own thoughts and photos. I’ll try to keep it updated regularly.

Nablus at Night