Some small relief

Prof. Ghazi Falah was released without charge today after 3 weeks of imprisonment.

Topical Notes

Terrorist is such a useless word for so many reasons, one of which is that it homogenizes vastly different groups of people. For instance, having watched Al Manar, the Hezbollah TV channel, I can tell you that they have an army. This isn't some scratched together group of fighters (like we have here in Palestine). This is an army. They have the weapons of an army, the uniforms of an army, the training of an army, and now they're fighting like an army.

People in Palestine love Hassan Nasrallah. It's true. I think it's cathartic for them to see the big bully Israel finally 'getting some'. However, I've also read that Hezbollah's success will further promote armed struggle, and the groups advocating it, at the expense of so-called 'peace talks'. Quite frankly I think that's nonsense. People here are acutely aware of the differences between Hezbollah and the local military capabilities, hence the common refrain 'whatever Hassan Nasrallah says will happen, comes to pass'. (The subtext to this comment is implicit criticism of pretty much all the Palestinian political groups, who promise to return to Jerusalem and many other not so savory things, but have never delivered). If more people are supporting armed struggle, it's because the so-called peace talks have been so fraudulent. However, I think in the West Bank at least, people really aren't sure what to support any more, since the armed struggle has been equally ineffective.

Many people here don't seem to have much empathy for the people of Lebanon though. They would much rather cheerlead Hezbollah than face up to the devastating consequences of the war for the civilian population.

On a personal level, I seem to be increasingly numb to the devastation in Gaza and Lebanon (Yes, Gaza is still happening as well). I don't know whether it's the length of the conflict, the continued inaction of the international community or simply a mental self-defense mechanism, but it doesn't seem to be getting to me as much as it was... which is incredibly sad. Since it's still 'getting to' the civilians of Gaza and Lebanon whether they like it or not.

Finally, why is it that the swimming pool staff can't get the pool clean until 9:15 on weekdays when the summer camps arrive at 9:30, but on Friday, when only families come much later in the morning, they're done by 8:50?

The Arrest of Ghazi Falah

If I hadn't been in such a general funk, and therefore blog funk, I would have posted about this much sooner.

Prof. Ghazi Falah was arrested and detained without charge or access to his lawyer and family 18 days ago, for supposedly spying for Hezbollah and Iran.

Haaretz was finally able to get the gag order lifted today.

Ghazi is a '48 Palestinian, which means he is a citizen of Israel. He is also a Canadian national. His research has always included lots of pictures, and not-coincidentally he is once of Israel's biggest opponents within the academy.
The charges sound absolutely ridiculous, but needless to say, those close to Ghazi are very pessimistic about the prospect of a fair trial in a legal system that has already allowed his inprisonment without charge or visits.

Please read more about this issue at this site.

Check this out!

While I remain too stupified for words, these folks continue to resist:
July 2006 War on Lebanon.
Please take the time to visit their site and show them your support.

Creating Hope Project

On a personal level, one of the worst things about the atrocities being committed in Gaza and Lebanon is that I've lost hope.
Really. It's gone.
And it feels like this is a victory for the Occupation War Machine. I know I've got to keep fighting, but I'm not sure how.
So I'm asking readers for suggestions as to how to restore or create some new form of hope in the midst of the current catastrophes. (Sticking my head in the sand or running away doesn't count).

Lebanon: A Collective Shame

In the last weeks, especially after the invasion of Gaza, I've been carrying around a kind of sadness that isn't just some momentary emotion, but rather more like a disease that you contract if you stay here too long. Sometimes you can even see it in the eyes of people you talk to, although most Palestinians can artfully conceal it most of the time. I'm not so skilled.

I find myself increasingly short-tempered, depressed and have little patience for anything and everything that disagrees with me at any particular point in time. As this sadness has endured, I have begun to shield myself from what's going on around me. I just read the news headlines instead of the articles, I'm constantly thinking about other times and places than those in which I am immersed, and I have become apathetic to the violence, particularly in Lebanon.

Shame on me.

Shame on me for my weakness, my recourse to my privileges and for this burst of self-pity.

Shame on Israel for the despicable use of violence that its completely unethical war machine continues to meat out on a daily basis, and for all its hypocrisy as it keeps 10000 Palestinian and Lebanese nationals hostage ("in jail") while destroying Lebanon and Gaza over three soldiers.

Shame on Hezbollah for it's bellicose disregard for the Lebanese population, and it's manipulation of events in Gaza, when millions of Palestinians in Lebanon live in conditions just as bad, imposed by a Lebanese state that Hezbollah is part of. Shame on them for killing civilans and being no better than Israel.

Shame of the countries of the UN, EU, North America, Russia and many others for their spinelessness and cowardice in the face of an Israeli aggression they could easy stop if there was the political will. Blair and Annan's statement yesterday made me sick with disgust. Shame on them for evacuating their citizens while letting those from Lebanon perish.

Shame on all of the Arab states who profess some mythical unity while standing by and letting Israel massacre innocent Lebanese civilians, while in some cases even supporting it (Saudi).

Shame on those Palestinians who are positively enjoying the retributive force of Hezbollah's actions while showing scant regard for all those people in Lebanon that have been murdered and injured.

Shame on you for living in a world that could let something like this happen.

Shame on all of us.

Israel's Hidden War

You can't miss the bombs and incursions, but you can miss the border guards and bureaucrats! That is unless you read Amira Hass, who tirelessly pursues such injustices.

For those who can't be bothered to click the link, here's her conclusion:

The lowliest clerk in the Interior Ministry and Population Registry has the authority and the opportunity to intervene in the critical affairs of every Palestinian man and woman: when and whom they will marry, whether they will live together, whether they will raise their children together. The power of the most minor Israeli clerk over the lives of the Palestinians is greater than that of any minister in the Palestinian government.

And yet the Western countries continue to demand that the Palestinian Authority behave like a sovereign with respect to a territory and a population that are under Israeli control, and they continue to be tolerant of another policy of mass expulsion that Israel is implementing against their citizens as well.

Holocaust Denial and Palestine Denial

I was speaking to an aging Palestinian man today who said he didn't believe 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis. His reasoning was that it was war, and although Jewish people certainly died during that period, they were just one group among Germans, Russians, French & British.

I haven't talked to many people about this subject, but I assume that such views are not uncommon here. It's easy to just dismiss them, which is what I did at the time of this conversation. After all, witnessing the daily violence that Palestinians endure, it's not hard to imagine why they would be inclined to disbelieve or dismiss any accounts of Jewish suffering.

However, it later occurred to me that there may actually be a much more subtle reason for dismissing this historical event. In this particular geographical context, the history of the Holocaust is inextricably intertwined with the history of the Zionist colonization of Palestine. This second historical narrative, almost a shadow to the first, simply expunged (discursively) the Palestinians from Palestine, (e.g. a land without a people for a people without a land; making the desert bloom). Palestinians have now lived for many years trying to communicate with a world that, largely on account of this Zionist discourse, does not believe or recognize their existence.

Is Palestine denial any less despicable than Holocaust denial?

Fireworks at 10AM!!!

Someone must have got really good Tawjihi results (High School leaving certificate), and couldn't wait to celebrate!

[And of far less significance, Old Man In... makes it to 100 posts.]

Coming and Going (or not, as the case may be).

I had an interesting conversation the other day, which relates directly to this post about the new movement restrictions that are being placed on Palestinians who live abroad. Here is a snippet:

I know his uncle, he’s much older than me, in his late seventies, early eighties. He was an established engineer when there were no engineers in the Middle East, educated in one of the best universities in the Middle East, which is the American University of Beirut. He did a fantastic job, he’s a very famous engineer in the area, and he wants to come here and visit, to see his land, to see his house that he built, and the Israelis are telling him no you can’t come. So instead what he does is he comes to Jordan, because from Lebanon you cannot call here, and the first thing he does is he takes the phone and starts calling. So he called him, he called his sisters, he calls his nieces, he’s just trying to get some balance in his life probably. And when I see him in Lebanon, you feel he’s a broken man. It’s just impossible, I don’t understand it. Why don’t they allow such an old man to come in? What damage to Israel would it do? I’ve no idea.

Mohsen Subhi Plays at The Kasaba

Mohsen Subhi is a Palestinian musician who plays the Oud as part of a quintet. I was fortunate enough to attend his concert at Al Kasaba Theatre and Cinematheque in Ramallah last night. [If you click the second link, I think it's his music which is currently playing]. It was a wonderful concert, and the full house was very appreciative. It was also interesting to see who attends these types of cultural events - lots of internationals who are in town for one reason or another (and this includes Palestinians living abroad) and a kind of local cultural elite (even though tickets were very reasonably priced at 20 shekels).

At the swimming pool this morning there was a lizard in the pool! It would try to swim every so often, but it didn't get very far. It eventually got scooped up in the net and thrown out. That's what happens when you don't buy a ticket!

Finally, among all the other innocent Palestinians who have died in the past few weeks, four more residents of Gaza died at the Rafah Border yesterday, where they have been prevented from entering their homeland. It's sickening to see all the "EU condemnation" of the Hezbollah raid today, while things such as this are completely ignored, depsite urgent Red Cross warnings.

How to save yourself some money (and annoy your neighbours at the same time!)

I heard a story today about someone in town, who instead of paying the 50 shekels for a truck to come and pump out his sewage tanks, was pumping the sewage into the street outside his house, where it would drain away down the hill.

Other residents began to complain to the shop owner who lives opposite this guy, and after a number of such complaints, the shop owner confronted the man in question, who denied he was doing such a thing (and even blamed it on his neighbour, who is also his cousin and lives in America for most of the year). The shop owner accepted his denial, but said he would pass on complaints to the municipality if he started receiving them again.

Such is the fabric of daily life here.

More Disturbing News...

As if we needed anymore!

Israel has begun to enforce a policy of not allowing Palestinians who live abroad to enter the West Bank (entry to Gaza having being prevented since the beginning of the intifada). The story also mentions that other non-Palestinian nationals are being barred entry. In other words, the metaphorical prison just got that much more literal.

Imagine for a moment that you grew up in the West Bank, moved to Europe or North America after graduating from university to find work, leaving your family behind in the process, and then you arrive this summer to find that you can no longer visit your childhood home, your parents, your siblings and their families or your oldest friends.

If this scenario wasn't bad enough, remember also that people living inside the territories are very infrequently given permits to travel (i.e. leave the West Bank). In other words, the State of Israel is now preventing the people who live under their Occupation from even seeing their relatives. And their efforts to hide the many violences they commit on a daily basis, by also preventing foreign nationals from entering this space of Occupation, have also increased.

[But if you're Jewish and live in North America, Europe, etc, you're still entitled to come and live here (i.e. on somebody elses land) at any time].

The End of the Affair

Well, another World Cup comes to its inevitable conclusion. I enjoyed the final. Did anyone else think Zidane's headbutt was absolutely hilarious? It reminded me of Juggernaut from X-men 3. I thought France played better, but they didn't take their chances, and Italy, who looked like they were playing for penalties from half-time onwards, won. Such is football, and such is life.

And now I have to entertain myself for the rest of the summer. What am I going to do?

Life's Small Joys

Last night, after watching the 3rd place playoff in the World Cup at the big screen in town, I won one of the raffle prizes - a (genuine) replica World Cup Adidas Football.

Score!

Stop and Think

All over the UK today, people are commemorating the attack on the tubes (and bus) that happened one year ago, in which 52 people died.

At the time of the bombings, I was here in Palestine. I remember telling a Palestinian friend here about what happened, and her response was to shrug her shoulders. It wasn't that she was being insensitive. It was more that such violence against civilians has become so commonplace here that people's emotional responses have also had to alter to accommodate such frequent and widespread death.

In Gaza yesterday, 23 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military, almost half the number of those killed in London.

If you are commemorating what happened in London one year ago, stop and think what it must be like to not only suffer such horror on a nearly daily basis, but to reach the point where your reaction to such violence is to shrug your shoulders and just get on with life.

Rumour Mill

It's hard to know what's being said behind your back. Personally I don't care most, if not, all of the time. However, from time to time other people's opinions of you and what you're doing manifest themselves to your front side, so to speak.

Palestinians are, with better reason than most, suspicious of outsiders. I'm sure there are many different stories circulating around me about who I am and what people perceive me to be doing here. The fact that I tend to be vague and unsure myself when faced with these questions probably just encourages creative thinking in this area.

My friend T., having already helped me extensively in the past with my work, posed the question (of what 'exactly' I'm doing here) to me a couple of days ago. Apparently a third party who claimed to know me (although I didn't recognise the name) had said that I was working here and in an Israeli settlement?! It seems the specter of the spy always haunts foreigners here, no matter how long there here for. In fact, I suspect the longer you're here, the longer the shadow grows.

However, just to reaffirm how different behind the back opinion is about me, a young Palestinian-American man, named C. approached my table while I was sat with a friend in a coffee shop, to tell me that his cousin, who was sitting with him on the other side of the cafe, thought I was 'cute'.

Just goes to show: you win some, you lose some!

"The Palestinians have no partner for peace. They will only have one if Israel agrees to recognise Palestine's right to function."

If you've been thinking I've been conspicuously silent on the current Israeli atrocities in Gaza, it's because so much of the news coverage makes me so angry and depressed I simply don't have the heart to blog.

I did enjoy reading this piece though.

The Ills of Computer Games

Computer games have been blamed for everything from teen violence to declining standards of education for some time now in Western society. I was talking to a guy the other day who basically said that the village's social cohesion had suffered because kids no longer played amongst the olive trees together (as they did when he was a boy), but instead played computer games (indoors) all the time. I've no way of knowing whether this is true or not, but what I found interesting is that the same sorts of 'anti-social' discourses that surround computer games in the West have managed to travel here along with the actual computers themselves. I know that studies done in Britain and America have found that many kids spend lots of time on the computer chatting with friends, and sending emails, and that in fact computers have allowed for a new form of sociality, or a new medium for social encounter. I also see kids playing at the club, at the pool and most frequently in the street together. It would be interesting to really look at this issue in depth, but I don't think I'll have the time. (Plus it would be something of a tangent from what I'm doing).
If anyone ever gets round to doing a study or finds one, do let me know.

Some Notes on Roofs

If you've been to Palestine, or indeed any Arabic country, you'll notice that most houses have flat roofs. Here, having a flat roof is necessary because you need to store large water containers there in case of summer droughts. Many families have also started putting solar panels on the roof to generate a little electricity too. Flat roofs also allow for the construction of further floors on top, the cheapest way to create more living space.

I had assumed that these roofs, that are so prevalent now, had been the norm for some time. However, the other day I found out that they are in fact a more recent invention. In fact, it is only since the introduction of a certain type of concrete during the 1940s that people have been able to build such roofs. Prior to that, homes would be built in a dome shape, which would keep the rain out. In those days of course, a two-storey building would be considered a palace.

Another interesting feature, which you see on some buildings in the Ramallah area, is red/orange tiles. These have the (presumably unintentional) effect of making the buildings look similar to the houses in the Israeli settlement colonies. However, it turns out that these red tiles were originally used by the British during their occupation of Palestine (1917-1948), again to keep the rain out of the buildings. When concrete made it's way to Palestine, the tiles (being more expensive) were no longer used. However, they are making somewhat of a come back these days, as a decorative feature (i.e. if you're rich, and can't think of a way to spend all your money, then add some tiles to your house).

Swimming Update

Well I've managed to get up and go to the pool every morning, and the stamina is gradually returning. I was going to write a short post yesterday complaining about the fact that everyday I've been, I've had to wait for the staff to clean the pool. In typical Palestinian (Arab?) fashion, the staff don't tend to get going quickly in the morning, although they are also used to Palestinians clientele who would never dream of actually showing up at 9 on the dot when the pool is scheduled to open. However, much to my surprise, everything was ready upon my arrival today. Either they're getting used to having me around, or perhaps I'm getting used to arriving a little later. I also bought some goggles today to stop my eyes watering for the rest of the day. Hurray.