By David Shulman

IDF soldiers block activists’ cameras with their cellphones, South Hebron Hills, April 26, 2013 (Photo: Guy, Ta’ayush)

Today we have the New Rules. In some respects they’re rather like the Old Rules. The aim and sole rationale remain the same: dispossession, expulsion, taking more land. The army has, it seems, given up on its favorite device of declaring Closed Military Zones, week after week; perhaps the outright illegality of this practice ended up causing them too many problems in court. Instead, the soldiers simply chase us — Palestinian shepherds, farmers, Israeli activists—physically away, pushing, shoving, threatening, beating. They also have decided they won’t allow us to document their crimes on film; as soon as we start filming, they rush at us and block our cameras with their cell phones. It’s as if they’d decided to circumvent the whole irksome apparatus of the courts and to resort instead to brute force. It’s much simpler, and maybe more effective.

At the same time, there’s been a wave of further annexations. The settlers are paving new roads, which become de facto boundaries, far beyond the settlements’ periphery. Plots of land that the Palestinian owners have worked for some years, or have reclaimed, often with our help, have been declared “in dispute” — which means that settlers have access to them, but the rightful owners don’t. All over South Hebron there are attempts from above and from below to roll back the gains we’ve made in recent years. Probably officers in the Civil Administration have been devising creative schemes. And there have been the usual, routine detentions, harassments, lethal threats, arrests — more, in fact much more, than before. Add to this a wave of pure nit-picking and pestering, for example by handing out tickets to activists, Israeli and Palestinian, for absurd traffic violations; several of our people have recently been fined large amounts for crossing the road while not on a marked pedestrian crossing. Remember we’re talking about the vast open spaces of a desert; the nearest pedestrian crossing is either in Jerusalem or Beersheva, 40 miles away. I myself witnessed the police administering just such a fine the last time I was in the area, some three weeks back.

In short, things are tightening up. Here’s what it looks like on an ordinary day. From Beit ‘Imrah we head down over the terraces to the grazing grounds where the shepherds are clustered with their sheep. An army jeep is waiting for us. A fat, balding officer heaves himself out of it and informs Fadil: “You see this path. It’s the border. You can’t cross it.” The path is an arbitrary line, deep inside the wadi where, in the last months, they’ve been able to graze — after many years during which this wadi was completely out of bounds. We start filming. By now more soldiers, clutching rifles, have clambered out of the jeep. They prod us, driving us over the line and then farther uphill, and they’re jamming our cameras with their cell phones, which they literally thrust in our faces. The commanding officer doesn’t speak again. We protest, we talk of the law, we talk of the crimes he’s committing. He doesn’t reply.

I have one of the cameras, so I get the cell phone procedure over and over, as minutes become an hour, then maybe two hours. It becomes a kind of game. He blocks me, I wave the camera up, down, to the side, looping, looking for a crack or a window where I can film. I manage quite a few short shots, enough, I hope, for the lawyers to use. But he’s at me, pushing at me, taking joy, I think, in blocking and parrying, without words, though I’m talking to him, asking him why he’s so afraid of being filmed and telling him he’ll end up in the Court of Justice at the Hague and so on and so on, and after a while it becomes a dance, like nothing so much as the contact-point improvisation that my wife Eileen has taught me: I take the camera up to the far right, he brings his cell phone down on the lens, I weave circles in the air and he follows me, loop for loop, I hold it down to my waist, switch hands, wave it left or right, over my head, behind my back, and he follows every move in the morose silence his role demands. In the broiling dust of late morning, we move, gyrate, twirl together over rock and thorn.

But it’s not much fun as a game. Today there’s a new tone, menacing and malicious. I think again about wickedness. Since I encounter it so regularly, I’ve developed the rudiments of a theory. I tend to bracket out the pure sadists, who are anyway rather rare, and to focus on those soldiers and policemen who seem to me capable of feeling uneasy or conflicted in the reality in which they are following their orders. For them, I think, like for most of us, the decision is often a subtle one. But today it’s different. The ranking officer and one lower officer are into it. Their faces give them away: cruel, hard-set, disdainful, fully committed to this course. This isn’t cruelty for its own sake, for the sheer pornographic delight it can provide — I’ve occasionally seen that in South Hebron — but something arguably worse, and in no way aberrant. They believe in the necessity of causing hurt, and they do it without hesitation, driving their subordinate soldiers, who are far more innocent and, perhaps, ambivalent, along with them. “An intellectual hatred is the worst,” as Yeats says. But theirs is not only intellectual.

How they rationalize it may not much matter. Later, after a long morning of this chase-and-torment, one of the reserve soldiers tells us: “We have proof that you people pay these Palestinians to provoke us.” That, I suppose, is how he lives with himself. We’re the problem. And in a way it’s true — if we hadn’t been here over months and years, all the lands in the wadi and along the slopes would have been lost forever, as the settlers wanted. We brought the shepherds back. Now they’re here on their lands, and these soldiers are here to cram them back into the little pockets and enclaves they inhabited before. After a while one of the soldiers begins to scream curses, sharp and thin in the desert air. “You Ruiners of Israel, ochrai yisrael, you are aiding the enemies of the Jews, degenerates”—he is waving his gun, threatening us, fingering the clip. [Watch the video here.]

The only thing missing in the whole mad scene is a bona fide madman, and indeed he turns up on cue. He’s from Yata, and his sister lives in Beit ‘Imrah. He’s wearing a thick blue jacket, too hot for today, and the shepherds tell us at once that he’s crazy. He picks up rocks—there’s no dearth of them—and lobs a few at the sheep. He refuses to go away. All we need now is for him to throw a rock at the soldiers, and god knows what will happen. He weaves his way up and down the hill, in and out of the herd, cursing the young boys who are tending the sheep, chanting unintelligible mantras, his eyes bulging, jagged stones cradled in his palms. The shepherds taunt him; he gets more and more angry and voluble. I think he fits right in. “Let him be,” says the fat officer, “hu akhla gever, he’s a fine guy.”

The shepherds are impressive; cool, unintimidated. ‘Abd, in an elegant black shirt, tells me he’s in 10th grade, studying math, physics, Arabic, English. Grades one to ten are all packed together in a single kuttab classroom. After two more years, he wants to study engineering in Hebron or Ramallah or Nablus. He asks me what I do, and I tell him. He likes Indian films and has actually picked up a little Hindi, so for a few minutes, in the midst of everything else, the sheep, soldiers, shepherds, lunatic, all playing their parts to perfection, we chatter in Hindi and Arabic. He’s smart, quick to learn. He needs a computer, and then maybe through his cell phone he could pick up the Internet even out here, in Beit ‘Imrah, strange as that must sound.

As we’re getting ready to leave — the sheep have eaten their fill of thorns — my friend Anas turns up. The last time I was here we had long theological discussions, which included the troubling question of whether turtles can get into Paradise (the answer is yes, in case you’ve forgotten). He says he’s missed seeing me. He’s interested in the little book I am carrying in my front pocket, so I hand it to him, and he flips through the pages. Most of it is in Greek: I tell him there was once, long ago, a great poet called Homer. He hasn’t heard of Homer. On the cover it says: Iliad XXI. He examines it closely and says: “It means Iliad, whoever he is, extra extra large.”

Beneath the bonhomie there is trauma. Anas, 16 years old, was arrested some weeks ago by the Border Police, who took the trouble to hit him with various trumped-up charges. By great good fortune we had video footage that clearly showed the Border Police were lying, but still they held Anas for 30 hours, hand-cuffed, stripped bare, outside in the freezing cold, with no food or water. They wouldn’t let him go to the bathroom. They told him they were going to hold him for 12 months without trial. Finally he saw a judge, who freed him without conditions. But Anas has changed since I last saw him. He has bad dreams at night; they are coming to kill him.

On the way back to Jerusalem, Gabi asks me if I still think there’s some possibility for the two-state solution. I shake my head. Guy, who’s in South Hebron all the time, says, “Yes, of course, that’s what Israel wants. They want the Jewish state here, on the ground, all of it, and the Palestinian state can be somewhere else, maybe on the moon.”

I come back disheartened and weary — exactly what our enemies hope to achieve. Many hours in the thirsty sun, climbing up and down those hills, are nothing compared to the mild agony of dealing with those soldiers. Today’s motto, from Staretz Silouan, the 19th-century mystic, quoted by the incomparable Gillian Rose: “Keep your mind in hell, and despair not.”

David Shulman is a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a long-time activist in Ta’ayush, Arab-Jewish Partnership.

Related:
WATCH: IDF soldier screams at Israeli activists: ‘You are worse than the Arabs’ 

By Ruth L. Hiller

Natan Blanc (courtesy of the family)

Different people refuse to enlist in Israel’s occupation army for a variety of reasons. Some of them, like Natan Blanc, publicly refuse to serve in the occupation and are willing to go to jail over their decision.

A recent blog post by professor of Environmental Studies at Emory College Uriel Kitron, raised some very important points regarding militarism, refusal, and war culture in Israel and puts forward a good opportunity to look at the wider refusal movement.

Professor Kitron presents his admiration and respect for Natan Blanc, who as of this writing, is serving his seventh incarceration period for refusing to be conscripted. Many people, much like Professor Kitron, consider Natan a modern day hero. He is indeed brave. It is admirable that any 18-year-old Israeli would know so much about human rights, and stand true to his/her convictions and beliefs.

Professor Kitron stresses how Natan is a product of his environment. His family raised him to be a caring person with ideals, and an understanding of human rights. There is a lot to be said for the courage it took to let Natan develop his sense of values, ones that cherishes human life and recognize the Palestinian right to self-determination. This is not a given in Israel.

Without personally knowing the Blancs, I admire the ethics that enabled Natan to question Israel’s policies and to make the decision to refuse military service. I identify with his moral values and the way he was raised. I know it is not easy to develop a critical perspective on Israel’s occupation policies, and that it is even more challenging to encourage your children to do so. It is difficult and energy consuming to continually question and oppose Israel’s brutal policies, especially when indoctrination is ever present.

Refusers like Natan, who openly oppose conscription on those grounds, are far and few between — for good reason. But before we can even begin to examine who chooses to be a refuser and how refusal is manifested, it is important to understand that within Jewish Israeli society, conscription is mandatory by law for Jewish youth, and for young secular men from the Druze community. It is perceived as normal and part of the development of Israeli youth; a rite of passage, meant to instill a sense of national responsibility, service and pride.

Israeli society is brutal and judgmental; loyalty to the state is measured by one’s commitment to military service. It is frightening to step outside the consensus of what is considered acceptable behavior by daring to refuse. A sense of belonging is an essential human need and deciding to go without it requires strength and support. Most refusers don’t want to be isolated from their peer group and if they choose to make a political statement link Natan, they require a close support network.

Among the large number of refusers whom New Profile counsels (an average of 100-110 people a month), most choose not to make a declared political refusal for a variety of reasons. They are not as visible as Natan, but are their refusals less meaningful?

Militarism is strongly embedded in our society: it starts at home and continues with our children’s education. Personally I think there is something very warped in the way Israeli parents are expected to raise their children, nurture them and protect them, teach them to be safe and make rational decisions, and then once they are 18, as if feeding them to the wolves, we send them off to the military no questions asked. What is the price that we and our children pay?

We, as parents, are an integral part of this well-oiled induction system. We are obedient to our leaders and raise generation after generation of fighters for a “war of no choice.” Our compliance is rarely questioned.

Conscription inspires pride amongst parents; military rank brings social status, placing soldiers on a pedestal. This idealization can be compared to hero-worship.

What constitutes a hero? Our children are brought up on the remembrance of exile and the Holocaust, Israel’s fight for independence and our perceived need to be stronger than our enemies. They are taught that soldiers can be national heroes. Those that die in battle are often given exalted status, which gives a measure to death that is considered more worthy. They are raised on the belief embodied in Joseph Trumpeldor’s imputed last words: “It is good to die for your country.”

New Profile examines “what is heroism” and “who is a hero” through a balanced discourse. We are careful not to identify refusers through a hierarchy. Each refuser, both men and women, whether they are pre-conscripts, conscripts, or reservists, are welcomed and admired for the type of refusal they chose and the path they take to achieve their goal.

Some of the viewpoints that we consider are: does civil society necessarily have to reflect the accepted militarized hierarchical ranks and then emulate it with the different ways refusers choose to resist? Is it right to calculate measures of sacrifice, be it jail or being cut off from one’s community? If every hero is judged on his or her merits, should we do the same with refusers?

All facets of refusal may be instrumental in changing the conscription process, or chip away at occupation policies, and we do not advise what path should be chosen. We only map out the different options . If they choose to openly defy the Occupation and go to jail, we give them as much support as we can, rather than holding them up as examples for others.

Refusal to serve in the Israeli military is not always the outcome of opposing the Occupation. Other reasons for refusal may be pacifism, the interconnection between feminism and anti-militarism, religion and national identity. Sometimes young people are unable to define “what feels wrong,” yet they still opt to vote with their feet and don’t conscript.

Any action that challenges Israel’s policies and all choices to refuse to do military service demand fortitude and support. Refusal takes great courage. One refuser is not better than the next; each is significant in his/her own way and each way works effectively in growing an underground movement that successfully manages to shake the pillars of the establishment from time to time.

Ruth Hiller, mother of six, is a longtime peace activist and one of the original founders of New Profile. Four of her children have refused to serve in the Israeli military. You can follow her on Twitter @hillerruth.

Israel Social TV is an independent media NGO working to promote social change, human rights, social justice and equality, and to mobilize its viewers towards activism.

By Leehee Rotschild

During a protest against the continued closure of Shuhada Street to Palestinians, demonstrators climb a fence, bulit by the Israeli army in the West Bank city of Hebron February 22, 2013. Hundreds of demonstrators, including foreign and Israeli activists, gathered to mark the 19th anniversary of the closure of the street by the Israeli army in 1994 following the massacre by Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli settler, who went on a rampage inside Al Ibrahimi Mosque, killing 29 Palestinian worshipers. (Photo by: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

On the Friday before last, Palestinian protestors accompanied by Israeli and international solidarity activists wanted to mark “Open Shuhada Street Day” in Hebron. Shuhada Street has been closed to Palestinians since the Baruch Goldstein massacre in 1994, including residents who live on the street and have to climb onto their rooftops to adjacent streets in order to leave their houses. Meanwhile, settlers living in the area come and go freely. Shuhada Street, which used to be the market place of Hebron, has turned into a “ghost street,” with a checkpoint at its entrance.

On that Friday we gathered by the street’s entrance. Palestinian youth hung flags and signs on the checkpoints and the drums beat loudly with slogans against the injustice, on the street, which above all else is the embodiment of apartheid. But the Palestinian residents, who are punished with the closure of their street for a massacre committed against them, whose private and public space is torn from them, have no right of protest under the laws of the occupying army. The protest chants were drowned out by the explosions of stun grenades and whistles of tear gas canister. The smells of the market were overwhelmed by the stench of skunk water. I had planned to write a proper post about this demonstration, with accurate reporting from the ground, but it is hard to maintain accuracy when the protest spreads all over town. It is hard to remain organized when your head echoes with explosions and your heart beats rapidly from running and fear. And I gave up.

And then I saw these photos. Taken by Activestills, they show Baruch Marzel and Itamar Ben Gvir – the first wearing a Kahanist T-shirt, the later in mock Palestinian prisoners uniforms – marching in the heart of Shuhada Street; the same street in which the Palestinian protesters were prevented from entering, heavily guarded by Israeli security forces, the same forces which dispersed with tear gas and rubber bullets the Palestinian demonstration, marking the anniversary of the Goldstein massacre, the same massacre for which the Palestinians are continually punished. So I decided that something must be said, even if nothing more than a summary.

Israeli settlers at the Hebron Jewish settlement’s Purim parade on the city’s Shuhada Street. Itamar Ben Gvir (L), is dressed as a hunger-striking Palestinian prisoner. February 24, 2013 (Activestills.org)

There are many injustices under the occupation: small ones and big ones. There is theft and murder and never ending oppression. There is Shuhada Street, and they all exist there.

I conclude with the Facebook status I published upon my return from the demonstration that day, which still feels most appropriate:

At the end the of the day I’m angry. I’m angry with the Israeli soldiers, and with the PA collaborators. I’m angry with the international community that remains silent. I’m angry at the occupation and apartheid, and the checkpoint blocking a street in which people have homes and families and lives. I’m angry with the Israeli media, according to which “things are calm now,” which means that apartheid is back in order and the resistance has subsided for the day. I’m angry because I’m now back home, safe and sound. But when I left there was still tear gas in the air and the explosions of the sound bombs were still echoing in the streets of Hebron. I’m angry because no one should live like this and still people do, and because for the people of Hebron, for those who live in Shuhada Street, things are “back to normal” now. There is nothing normal about the way things are. I’m angry and sad, and as we sit down for dinner, I go and to wash my hands and my face, and some teargas leftovers leak into my eye. It stings and burns, and the tears are bitter with the taste of tear gas, and with the taste of rage.

Leehee Rothschild has been active in the Palestinian struggle for over a decade. She currently works with Anarchists Against the Wall and Boycott From Within. She writes about activism and political struggle on her blog, Radically Blonde and other publications.

More than anything, the closure of Shuhada Street is an expression of Israel’s undeclared racial segregation policies, and their implications. Ever since it was closed to Palestinians, life in the city-center of Hebron has been destroyed – businesses were closed and many families were forced to leave their homes due to the inability to move freely and make a living.

Last week, just as in years past, the IDF did not hesitate to use its wide range of riot control equipment, including smoke and stun grenades, tear gas, the LRAD (Long range acoustic device) and the “Skunk” (foul water fired from a water cannon, which leaves a terrible odor that lasts for days on whatever it touches). Dozens of protesters were injured.

Israel Social TV is an independent media NGO working to promote social change, human rights, social justice and equality, and to mobilize its viewers towards activism.

Samer Issawi, the Palestinian prisoner who has been on an intermittent hunger strike for over 200 days, had his day in court on Thursday. According to the sentence handed down by the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court, one might ostensibly believe that Issawi would be released on March 6, when his prison term is completed. But Samer Issawi is Palestinian, and therefore subject to a multi-layered legal system in which his fate is not determined by civilian judges, but rather by three IDF officers.

Before Israel agreed to release 1,027 Palestinians in exchange for captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, the army quietly modified Article 186 to Military Order 1651. Article 186 codifies special military tribunals that have the power to cancel early releases. The panels operate using secret evidence and do not even reveal to Palestinians what they are accused of.

So while according to Thursday’s sentencing hearing in the Magistrate’s Court Issawi is to be released within weeks, he will likely be re-sentenced by the military tribunal to the 20 years that remained when he was freed in exchange for Shalit. He will not know for what alleged crime he is being re-incarcerated.

Even Israel’s most secretive prisoner in recent years, Prisoner X, knew what he was charged with. But Prisoner X was Jewish. Samer Issawi is Palestinian.

One other Palestinian hunger striker is being held under identical circumstances. Two others are being held in administrative detention, the practice of holding suspects without charge or informing them of what they are accused.

The injustice suffered by Issawi and the others is not theirs alone, it is one that has and continues to unite Palestinian society. Solidarity hunger strikes are being held both in and out of Israeli prisons. Protests are taking place across the West Bank and judging by the number of injured protesters, the Israeli military response to those protests is becoming more violent.

On Thursday, thousands of Palestinians marched toward the Ofer Military Prison compound in solidarity with the hunger strikers and to protest the practice of administrative detention. At that protest alone, at least 29 protesters were injured by rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas canisters.

Days earlier, nearly two-dozen Palestinian demonstrators were injured at another protest in Hebron. Similar protests have been taking place almost daily in Nablus and throughout the West Bank. Solidarity tents have been erected and protests launched in Palestinian cities and neighborhoods throughout Israel, in Jaffa, Acre and Nazareth, among others.

The situation could explode should the hunger strikers die in prison.

Palestinian parliamentarian Mustafa Barghouti warned as much on Thursday. “Should anything bad happen to Issawi, I predict that the entire West Bank will rise up and a new, non-violent intifada will break out,” he told Israeli news site Ynet.

It is a very real possibility.

Something could happen to Issawi at any time, without warning, explained Physicians for Human Rights executive director Ran Cohen.

“The main problem [with hunger strikers] is that there can be heart failure or something else you can’t predict,” he said in a telephone interview earlier this week.

But there is a much larger issue at stake than Issawi or any of the other current hunger strikers. It is not their individual cases that are necessarily unjust, although they are. Subjecting a civilian population to a military legal system is the larger injustice.

There is a word for when one regime rules different people under different sets of laws based on their nationality, religion or the color of their skin. At a conference in Jerusalem Thursday, former Israeli Foreign Ministry director-general and previous Israeli ambassador to South Africa Alon Liel explained: “In the situation that exists today, until a Palestinian state is created, we are actually one state. This joint state — in the hope that the status quo is temporary — is an apartheid state.”

Much of Israel, particularly journalists and those concerned with civil and human rights, was up in arms in the past few weeks over the case of Prisoner X’s secret imprisonment, specifically that the charges against him were being kept secret from the public and media. Prisoner X, however, knew the charges against him and his lawyers were given access to the state’s evidence against him.

Unlike Prisoner X, Samer Issawi does not even know the charges against him nor will he have an opportunity to contest them in court, let alone a civilian court, adjudicating civilian law, with proper civilian oversight.

Samer Issawi is Palestinian.

Unlike Prisoner X, there is no public outrage in Israel over the way the legal system is preventing Samer Issawi from receiving a fair trial.

Samer Issawi is Palestinian.

Related:
As Palestinian hunger strikes come to a head, world begins to take notice
‘Prisoner X’ and the security elite’s unchecked power 

Last week I went to the Friday demonstration in the West Bank village of Bil’in for the first time.

Some of the people who know me found it hard to believe. “Only now? Next week they will be marking eight years of demos, and only now you come, Ami?”

Yeah. I guess I’m what you call a “couch-leftist.” My battle is done in my home, my sword is my keyboard. I’m proud of that sword, I must say. But for the past year I’ve been feeling it isn’t enough.

I live a privileged life in a suburb of Tel Aviv. Although certainly no comparison to the occupation of Palestine, I live under a “corporate-capitalist occupation” of sorts. Work and family and all the usual stress of living in Israel take its toll, and those four hours every Friday, with my two girls in kindergarten and me and the missus alone, seem like a small window where we can come up and gasp for air.

Go to Bil’in instead of brunch in Tel Aviv? Nuh-uh.

I used to be a much more vibrant demonstrator in my “youth.” I guess I’m losing a bit of that with age, and with the responsibilities that come. My latest “burst” was during the social protests of 2011. As opposed to the occupation, the fight against corporate capitalism brought me to the streets. Sure, they were just a mile away. Not twenty, God forbid.

But for the past few months, I’ve been thinking about Bil’in a lot. I knew I was about to go, but just couldn’t get my act together. And then Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi’s Five Broken Cameras came out, and of course Dror Moreh’s The Gatekeepers, both up for oscars in just a few days.

And it felt like something was coming together. Like it was now or never. So last Thursday I dropped a line to Haggai Matar and told him I want to go to Bil’in, and sure enough he sorted me out. “And bring a scarf,” he reminded me in our email correspondence.

The next morning I sat in the back of a car next to a French activist who was visiting her grandmother in Israel, and an Israeli who just returned from a few years in England. He was shot in the knee by Israeli forces during a demo in the West Bank, and this was his first demo after his return to the region.

Up in front were two young activists, veterans of the protests who gave us some tips on what to say if we get questioned at the checkpoint.

When we got to Modi’in, we took a left and it was a short drive to the village, through the lush green hills of the West Bank, green from the rather wet winter we were having.

In Bil’in we entered a house where we were given instructions about how to act during the demo, what weapons we should be aware of and such. It was a very smooth briefing, almost too professional.

(photo: Ami Kaufman)

Outside, there were children trying to sell us trinkets. There seemed to be a bit of “protest tourism” going on in Bil’in. Both the briefing and the tourism bothered me. Not because I care that the locals are making money off of it. God knows, I support anything that would alleviate their suffering.

No, what bothered me was that for a briefing to be so smooth, and for protest tourism to develop, you need time. An occupation that goes on, and on, and on.

We had some good coffee and chatted before the demo began in a local cafe.

(photo: Ami Kaufman)

After the briefing, Haggai showed me the backyard of a house. These are tear gas canisters collected by the locals, and sometimes used as “decorations” in various events.

(photo: Ami Kaufman)

After the locals left the Friday prayers at the mosque, it was time to demonstrate. Before jumping into the nearest car, I shook hands with Burnat. I tried to find the words to say what I thought of his movie, but typical of me, just shut up. I do that in front of people I admire sometimes. Weird that way.

We parked a few hundred meters from the separation wall and started walking.

(photo: Ami Kaufman)

As we approached the wall, I saw that on the new and unfinished buildings of Modi’in Ilit, the largest settlement bloc in the West Bank, groups of Haredim were gathering on the rooftops to get a good view of the violence.

(photo: Ami Kaufman)

I also saw two soldiers perched up on the wall, apparently to show the “Skunk truck” below them where to spray the “water.”

(photo: Ami Kaufman)

It is the most foul stench I’ve ever encountered, and you don’t see it coming sometimes (below).

Lower left corner shows skunk water, upper right corner a tear gas canister in mid flight (photo: Ami Kaufman)

On the hill to the right, the officers who “managed” the demo had an overview of the site.

(photo: Ami Kaufman)

It was an odd feeling for me, to see the soldiers in green uniform, the same uniform that I have worn in the past, aiming tear gas and skunk water at me. I felt like I knew them and wanted to talk to them. But I felt angry at them, too. At the situation.

Haggai gave me some pads with alcohol to sniff in case the gas got to me. We were only two dozen people there, since most of the youngsters were demonstrating that day in front of the Ofer prison in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike. Yet one veteran activist told me he was surprised by the amounts of gas the army was using that day on so few protesters here in Bil’in.

(photo: Ami Kaufman)

During the briefing, they told us that if we get a whiff of gas – we’re going to panic, but try and stay calm and it will be over in a few minutes. ‘Don’t run, because you might break a leg on the boulders. Just stop and stay cool.”

Gas canister upper right corner (photo: Ami Kaufman)

The first two whiffs I got were bearable. I slowly walked away from the cloud and waited for me to get my breath again. But the next two whiffs were rough. I started to cough like hell, spit, couldn’t breath, felt like my throat was on fire, couldn’t open my eyes, started to panic – and yes, started to run fast like an idiot back up the road to where the cars were. The only time before that I experienced gas was in my basic training during army service. And I don’t remember it being so painful.

As I ran back up, I was holding my camera in front of me and managed to see out of the corner of my eye Emad Burnat, with his camera of course. Probably the sixth one…

He was just standing there, with his sweater over his nose, looking so calm, that I just pressed the shutter button without even looking through the viewfinder. His whole composure was of “been there done that,” and I must have looked like a right fool. Hope I don’t appear in his next film.

(photo: Ami Kaufman)

The demo was over fairly quickly, as the amount of people was so small. We got back into the car, my eyes still flaming. We stopped at Wajee’s house, who gave us dark sweet tea. It took me back to Sinai, which I miss dearly.

(photo: Ami Kaufman)

Wajee then asked if anyone wanted seconds. I raised my hand, and he smiled at me and said “I’m not asking you. I can already see on your face you like it.” I had thirds, too.

(photo: Ami Kaufman)

He then put some plates on the table – the most delicious olives, olive oil (I bought a bottle), za’atar, eggplant salad, endive salad and a warm salad of hubeiza (mallow) leaves.

(photo: Ami Kaufman)

On the way back home, I fell asleep in the car. I was exhausted. Not really from the physical events. I think more of mentally what I had to take in, digest.

God willing, it won’t be my last time in Bil’in. And if my Palestinian brethren will continue to have me, I promise to stand more by their side. Not only behind my computer screen.

Israel Social TV is an independent media NGO working to promote social change, human rights, social justice and equality, and to mobilize its viewers towards activism.

Israel Social TV is an independent media NGO working to promote social change, human rights, social justice and equality, and to mobilize its viewers towards activism.