I have miles to go before I sleep: July 2011

I have two Palestinian stories to tell...

Palestinians in Jordan

When you take the bus from the North Station in Amman to Jerash and you don't stop at the ruins, like all the other tourists, but you stay on the bus, you will get to where I am going every week this month: Ghaza Camp or Jerash Camp.

This is what UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) tells you about the camp:

Jerash refugee camp

Jerash camp was set up as an "emergency" camp in 1968 for 11,500 Palestine refugees and displaced persons who left the Gaza Strip as a result of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. It is known locally as Gaza camp.

The camp covers an area of 0.75 square kilometres and is situated 5km from the famous Roman ruins of Jerash. After 1967 UNRWA quickly set up facilities for food aid, sanitation, health services and education.

In order to withstand the harsh winters, the original 1,500 tents were replaced with prefabricated shelters.

Between 1968 and 1971, 2,000 shelters were built with support from emergency donations. Over the years, many of the camp’s inhabitants have replaced the prefabs with more durable concrete shelters. Many roofs are still made of corrugated zinc and asbestos sheets, which can cause diseases such as cancer.

Statistics

More than 24,000 registered refugees
One women’s programme centre
Four schools in two double-shift buildings
One food distribution centre
One health centre
One community-based rehabilitation centre
One camp development office

Major problems

Poverty
Overcrowded
High unemployment
Around 3 in 4 shelters are not suitable for accommodation because of structural problems.

Link

Fact sheets may speak the truth but are far from drawing the full picture. Imagine walking in extreme heat up the hill between small concrete huts. Some kids run past you, screaming 'hello' or the occasional 'I love you'. The smell of the open sewage system makes you feel slightly dizzy. In the middle of the street, a little canal is supposed to lead all the sewage somewhere, but the sewage doesn't flow very often. Water is scarce.

A lot of people of Jordan are not (or do not want to be) aware of the situation. They know of the existence of camps but ignore where they are and what is going on there. In Gaza camp, things are very difficult, because the vast majority of refugees come from Gaza or areas around Beersheba and have flown during the Arab Israeli war of 1967. This means that they are not recognised as being citizens of former Jordan, when it still included the West Bank and thus they are not entitled to the Jordanian citizenship, which entails a lot of other problems: There are only a few professions that are allowed to them, they cannot vote and they have to pay university fees of foreigners, which are much higher than the national ones.

It seems to me sometimes that Jordanians defend their Palestinian brothers when it's to their advantage, but at other times it is easy to ignore their plight. I have talked to quite a few who don't seem to care so much about the Palestinians' hardship and it's not uncommon to hear Jordanian voices being raised on how invasive the Palestinians have become. This is of course ridiculous considering the fact that the vast majority of successful business men and millionaires in Jordan are in fact of Palestinian descent. The country wouldn't have got as far as it has without the Palestinians.

Luckily there are some people who do care. Great initiatives have been taking place. For example The Gaza Camp Summer Camp and the Women's catering service, whose food has been judged by many (including me) as the best food they have eaten in Jordan.

Palestinians in Palestine

I ventured to cross the Jordanian-Israeli border a second time and it was a lot more hassle than the first time. Apparently I was considered as “suspicious”, that's why we had to wait half an eternity, while they had our passports until a very grumpy woman called me in. Waiting in the daunting corridor, doors being slammed by by-passing security in a horrible neon light was pretty grim. After a while the grumpy woman called me in, asked me all sorts of weird questions about what I was doing in Amman, whether I was part of a Human Rights group and what I thought of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She screened my bag thoroughly, taking out EVERY clothes item I had and going through each of my photos on my camera. She looked at my diary, luckily I write it in German- so she couldn't understand it.

The whole process can be summarized in the rather pertinent German term 'Schikane', which means as much as bullying and harassment. When I look at how we, as European and American citizens, are treated, I cannot imagine how difficult the crossing can be for the Palestinians who try to go to Palestine every month or every week, to see their families or to continue to do business. A lot of stories exist on what sick procedures the Israelis come up with, whether it is to make you sit in one of their cells, waiting for 4 or 5 hours or to alternatively strip you down to your underwear and make you wait. They would not dare doing that to a Westerner and if a Palestinian would speak up, they would just never let him in again. When in Israel, I had to think of a book I came across some years back. It is a cartoon novel, about the Holocaust, it is called Maus. It is a very good reading. Its specificity lies in the fact that it depicts the Nazis as cats and the Jews as mice. Now I can't help but having flashbacks of Europe between 1933 and 1945. Have the mice become cats? In Hebron, there is a graffiti left by Israelis saying “Gas the Arabs“. When I saw this, I felt like throwing up. What kind of person wants such history to repeat itself? How can ANYONE, anyone, who has probably lost family members in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, want this to happen to another human being? How? I can't see how you can be human and say such a thing. When I went to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Camp, there were many Israelis. Isn't one of the teachings of such a visit: “Never Again”?

A shopkeeper in Hebron repairing the protections.

On my second day in Palestine, I visited Hebron. We arrived on a busy street, that looked a bit like Madaba in Jordan. Nothing special, a few shops, cars, people, life... A few hundred meters down the street however, things started to look differently. We reached the old city of Hebron. The streets were very picturesque, some shops were closed. It being a Friday, we didn't suspect anything. Above the street, there were nets, metal grids and tarpaulins. On top of these, there were bricks, plastic bags, old vegetables and all sort of rubbish. Turns out the Israeli settlers living upstairs were throwing these things onto the shopping streets.

A Palestinian tour guide picked us up as we were looking at the streets... we didn't see any other foreigners apart from the settlers in Hebron. He lives off showing around the few tourists that come to Heron, and he has another job: As he lives in the occupied part of the city, the H2 part, he is able to cross the check-points. In the morning and in the afternoon, he accompanies the children from the H1 part to the school and back, as it lies in the H2 part. In the past, settlers were throwing rotten and old vegetables as well as eggs at the children who were going to school. Now, the community makes sure that there is always someone protecting the children.

We crossed the check points and as Westerners, we were allowed to enter the synagogue and see the tombs of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and Leah. These tombs are the 'reason' why the Israelis decided to occupy this part of Palestine. Even in the synagogue there are soldiers with what I would qualify as big guns. I have never entered a church, where anyone was holding a weapon. If soldiers are necessary inside a holy place, then you probably did something wrong! In the H2 part, there are a few settlements, which hold in total about 400 settlers in the town itself. Outside the town, there are 200 more settlers. To ensure their security, 2000 – yes, two thousand- soldiers are stationed in Hebron. There is no sane way of understanding this.

In the H2 part, the streets are empty. Not because it is so hot in July, but because only the settlers, the soldiers, the other foreigners and the few Palestinians, who live in the H2 part, are allowed to walk there. The Palestinians were forced to leave during the Second Intifada (2000-2005) and the shops were forced to close. The welded doors do not lie.

But the question that bugged me most and that you might ask yourself as well: Who are these settlers?

Do they work? No. They get paid by the Israeli government. Where are they from? According to our guide mainly from New York and Washington. Why do they come? They get paid a lot of money, they have near to no expenses and all they do is pray and throw things at Palestinians. The more they hassle the Arabs, the happier the Israeli government it seems. What kind of people they are? I have no idea. I cannot fathom their minds... Of the few settlers we saw, most were young parents. Most settlers stay for a few years and save money.