| Palestinian Diary Part 2 By Mike Odetalla |
After we finally made our way through the airport at Tel Aviv, we went outside to try to get a van big enough to haul us and our
luggage to our destination in Beit Hanina, a suburb of Jerusalem. We walked around for about 15 minutes until we found a
driver that was willing to take us there. The driver as it turned out was an Iraqi Jew who had immigrated to Israel along with his
family at the age of 5 from the Iraqi town of Mosul. He spoke good Arabic as well as decent English. We spoke all along the
entire 45 odd minute drive to Beit Hanina. I was struck by how “Arab” this man was. The music he listened to was Arab (His
favorite singer was Abdel el Haleem Hafez), his favorite foods were distinctly Arabic, as well. After listening to him tell me how
heart broken he was at seeing the American planes bomb Baghdad and his native Mosul, I told him that he was in fact an Arab,
whose religion happened to be Jewish. He agreed wholeheartedly with my assessment and spoke emotionally of his father and
how well he was treated and received by the Muslims in Mosul where he was a shopkeeper. A particularly touching story he
told me was how the Muslim shopkeeper that had the same type of store directly across from his father would encourage
customers to shop at his father’s shop when he knew that he had not had his first customer yet so that he may istaftih (have his
first customer of the day to open the path). He even told me that he preferred to live among the Arabs rather than the European
Jews as he felt more at home amongst them.
When we finally made it to the outskirts of my home village of Beit Hanina, I could clearly see the frantic pace of settlement
building had indeed created “facts on the ground” all around Beit Hanina, Beit Iksa, and Shufat. The settlements had in fact
encircled these villages and were fast encroaching in on yet more territory. Beit Hanina alone was encircled by three Jewish
settlements that were built on land stolen from her people which included many dunums stolen from my own family. The
settlements of Neve Yacouv, Ramot, and Pisgat Zee’v, were all built on lands that were stolen from the people of Beit Hanina.
The hilltops and outlying areas were effectively controlled by sprawling Jewish settlements. They in effect dominated Beit
Hanina and its people.
As we made the turn that took us into the northern section of Al-Quds or East Jerualem, the Palestinian neighborhoods of the
city, I could clearly see a vast difference in the quality of the roads and the nature of the municipal services received there: piles
of garbage littered the streets and side walks, which became broken, cracked and ill-kept. Although the Palestinians residents
of these areas pay taxes to the Israeli government at the same rates as the Jews, they do not begin to receive the level of
services provided to the Jewish settlers living in the surrounding settlement neighborhoods. In fact the settlers have their own
“Jew only” roads and highways that bypass completely the substandard roads and services that have become the new
'standard' for the Palestinians residents of 'greater' Jerusalem and its settlement neighborhoods. As a matter of fact, the settlers
also receive superior services than those Israelis who live inside the 'green line' of the pre-1967 borders: much more money is
spent for settlers than on other Israelis. Once the bypass roads connecting the settlements around Beit Hanina and the other
Palestinian suburbs of East Jerusalem were completed, the main road running from Jerusalem to Ramallah fell into disrepair
from severe neglect: Israelis no longer used that road, or rarely do.
My Own village of Beit Hanina is effectively cut in half by one these bypass roads. In fact the road serves more as a fence.
Also the main road (a single lane road of about 4 miles) that links the lower part of Beit Hanina with the upper part has been
destroyed by the Israeli army. The road has been dug up in some places, earthen and rock barricades placed in other places,
and finally car sized boulders placed in the middle of the road in still other places making it more of an obstacle course than a
road, one that a car can no longer travel on. It was hard for me, a reasonably healthy man of 42 to traverse; one can imagine
how hard it is for the elderly, the children, and the mothers who must carry their infants. The purpose of these inhumane roads,
of doing all of this damage has little to do with security: it is much, much more related to efforts at making the life of the
residents of villages such as Beit Hanina as unbearable as possible. Moreover, as bad as the road is in Beit Hanina, I was to
find out later, there are much, much worse.
As my children would soon discover, these road blocks and check points provide some of the most inhumane and diabolical
measures that the Israeli government has yet contrived in its efforts to punish and wear down the people of Palestine. My
children's' Arabic vocabulary was soon to be enriched with the new words: hajez (check points), mahsoom (road blocks) Dafa
(West Bank) and hawiya (identity cards which one must show at every checkpoint).
Two days after arriving in Palestine, we decided to go to Ramallah, which is where my wife's family lives. We had to go there
to see them because they are prevented from leaving Ramallah, as are thousands of Palestinians, due to the closures that are
imposed on them by the many road blocks and checkpoints. In effect they are not allowed to come to Beit Hanina to see us.
They had been in a virtual prison ever since the Israelis made the checkpoints a part of the daily life of the Palestinian people.
My wife, 3 children (aged 11, 12, and 15), and I got up early that morning and made our way to the infamous Qalandia
checkpoint. We traveled by car from Beit Hanina through the Al Ram checkpoint to Qalandia. Now, I must admit that I had
read and heard quite a bit about the Qalandia checkpoint, but I was still shocked at the site of it all. There right in the middle of
what used to be a four lane road, the Israeli army had placed huge cubes of cement and erected a maze of concrete. The area
was absolutely littered with garbage and the ever present dust. Cars and vans lined up on both sides of the road and indeed
vied for the precious little space with pedestrians and large haulers. There were peddlers set up on both sides selling everything
from a cup of coffee, to vegetables, clothes and house wares, all engulfed in a sea of humanity, garbage, and the ever present
dust. This is nothing like the area which I had crossed many times before on my previous visit back in the spring of 2000.
We made our way through the confusion of cars and people to the entrance of the checkpoint which took us into Qalandia. The
Israeli soldiers asked us for our hawiya's or identity cards as we approached with our bags which contained our clothes (we
had planned on spending the night) and the gifts that we had brought with us. After showing them our passports, they made it a
point of paying special attention to my 15 year old son, who is nearly 6 feet tall and looks older than his age. They questioned
him and finally let us pass through to the other side where yet more bedlam was waiting for us. We took a taxi from Qalandia
into Ramallah whereby I got the chance to see how badly mauled and scarred the roads had become from the Israeli armored
tanks and carriers. The road that led from Qalandia to Ramallah was beautiful the last time that I had seen it in 2000. The
median was planted with palm trees, flowers, and other tropical plants. This was no longer the case. It was now absolutely
chewed up and in severe disrepair from the many times it was destroyed by overzealous tank drivers who had made it a point
to run over light poles, palm trees, and anything else that they deemed was "in their way".
We finally arrived to a teary welcome by my wife's' family, which helped take the sting out of what I had just witnessed. We
spent the entire day and well into the night talking and catching up on last eight years since the last time my wife and kids had
been in Palestine. The next morning we were informed that the Israeli army had decided to close the Qalandia check point and
therefore we would be spending an extra night in Ramallah. This did not make my wife and kids the slightest bit bothered as
they had wanted to spend more time there anyway. I guess the same could not be said for people that were trapped on either
side of the checkpoint and would have to wait another day to get to where they had to be.
On Saturday morning we got up, had breakfast with the family and decided that we should head back to Beit Hanina where my
mom and brother lived. We said our good byes and headed for the Qalandia checkpoint. As we got closer to the checkpoint
the sound of automatic gun fire could be heard. My youngest son, who had seen too much of the Israeli destruction and
oppression during the April invasion, was beginning to get unnerved by the sound of the gunfire. I calmed him down and told
him that it was nothing to worry about. My wife's sister was also with us in the car as she was accompanying her daughter, who
had a 1 month old baby girl with her. She had come to Ramallah to see us and also ended up getting trapped there and was
now wanting to get back home. The day was turning out to be a scorcher. It was very hot and soon the afternoon sun would
make it much hotter.
We arrived at the check point only to find out that it had just been closed a few minutes beforehand. There were hundreds of
people waiting to cross in the oppressive sun and heat without any form of shelter or shade. I walked up to the young Israeli
soldier and tried to talk to him into at least letting my sister in-law, her daughter, and the baby pass, but to no avail. I then
reached for my American passport thinking that it might help. To my astonishment, the soldier took one look at it and said that
"Even George Bush would not pass through him" in a perfect Brooklyn accent. My sister in law pushed me away and spent the
next hour pleading with any soldier that she saw to let her and the infant pass. They eventually let her pass with the baby who
was now crying from the heat and probably very thirsty. We saw them cross as we waited with the rest of the people in the
sweltering heat and dust. There were many men leading their elderly parents by the hand. I even saw a man carrying his mother
on his back as he attempted to cross her through to no avail. There were also many people that had doctor's appointments and
kept waiving their papers under the noses of indifferent soldiers who seemed to care little of what these people's circumstances
were. If there was any humanity left in these young Israelis soldiers, I could not see it. After a couple of in the sun, the crowd
only got bigger and tempers began to run short. One elderly man yelled at the soldiers, "This is what you and Abu Mazen
agreed on?" I also heard Palestinian women ask the Israeli soldiers if they had any mothers, sisters, and grandparents. And if
so, would they approve of seeing them treated in this way?
The Israeli soldiers began wading into the crowd and pushing people down with the butts of the rifles. They heaped verbal and
physical abuse at the people that had been waiting for hours in the hot sun. I witnessed a young man who had his back turned
to us and was sitting on the concrete barricade waiting, get hit in the lower back with the butt end of the American made rifle.
The young man was obviously hurt, but nonetheless went after the soldier and had to be restrained. In another instance, the
cruelest of the Israeli soldiers, a young man of about 24, red faced, bearded, and balding, pushed a slightly built Palestinian
father to the ground, spilling the 2 bags of vegetables he was carrying to the ground. The man got up and attempted to go after
the soldier, but I grabbed him from behind, and along with others, pulled him away from the soldiers who were now starting to
gather in force. I knew fairly well that they would have no problem beating this man or even killing him. His wife, who was
holding the hands of their 2 small children, was crying in the background. After I had managed to get the man as far away as
possible from the soldiers, I then noticed the look on my 15 year old son's face. His face was red and I could see that tears
were welling up in his eyes. Also my daughter and youngest son were starting to cry. They had been born and lived in the US
and had never experienced such abuse before in their lives. They were, thanks to the Israelis, being introduced to a whole new
world of inhumanity and oppression. I had to restrain my son and even struck him in the face to keep him from going after the
Israeli soldiers. I kept telling him to stand there and shut his mouth. I feared that if the soldiers had heard him yelling at them,
they might harm him. This went against everything that I had taught my son. I had taught him not to stand silently in the face of
oppression. To speak out against any wrongs that he witnessed. To help others and to do something, yet here I was striking
him because he was doing what I had been telling him all his life in the US. I knew very well that these soldiers could very well
hurt or even kill any of the Palestinian young men that were there and that NOTHING would happen to them. This was the
brutal reality of life under occupation where the value of a Palestinian life, does not in anyway, carry the same value of that of a
Jew.
After nearly 3 hours in the hot sun, we finally started making our way through the long lines. Once we got to the front of the line,
we were approached by an Israeli soldier who demanded our identity cards. While he was checking our documents, I noticed
my 11 year son shaking. I looked at him and noticed that the barrel of the soldier's machine gun was almost touching his
forehead. I asked the soldier to please point the gun away from my son. He laughed and told me that he "should get used to it"...
That my 11 year old son should get used to having the barrel of an American made M-16 pointed at his head...What a world!
Try as they might, the Israelis have not even begun to break the will of the Palestinian people. As my children were to learn, our
people are a proud, brave, and indeed very resourceful people who will persist and endure regardless of whatever the racist,
oppressive Israeli army of occupation may throw at them. They are much more the true Sabra (cactus) plant that survives
tenaciously even under the harshest of conditions and every year produces the flowers that turn to sweet and juicy fruit...
Mike Odetalla
7-2003
luggage to our destination in Beit Hanina, a suburb of Jerusalem. We walked around for about 15 minutes until we found a
driver that was willing to take us there. The driver as it turned out was an Iraqi Jew who had immigrated to Israel along with his
family at the age of 5 from the Iraqi town of Mosul. He spoke good Arabic as well as decent English. We spoke all along the
entire 45 odd minute drive to Beit Hanina. I was struck by how “Arab” this man was. The music he listened to was Arab (His
favorite singer was Abdel el Haleem Hafez), his favorite foods were distinctly Arabic, as well. After listening to him tell me how
heart broken he was at seeing the American planes bomb Baghdad and his native Mosul, I told him that he was in fact an Arab,
whose religion happened to be Jewish. He agreed wholeheartedly with my assessment and spoke emotionally of his father and
how well he was treated and received by the Muslims in Mosul where he was a shopkeeper. A particularly touching story he
told me was how the Muslim shopkeeper that had the same type of store directly across from his father would encourage
customers to shop at his father’s shop when he knew that he had not had his first customer yet so that he may istaftih (have his
first customer of the day to open the path). He even told me that he preferred to live among the Arabs rather than the European
Jews as he felt more at home amongst them.
When we finally made it to the outskirts of my home village of Beit Hanina, I could clearly see the frantic pace of settlement
building had indeed created “facts on the ground” all around Beit Hanina, Beit Iksa, and Shufat. The settlements had in fact
encircled these villages and were fast encroaching in on yet more territory. Beit Hanina alone was encircled by three Jewish
settlements that were built on land stolen from her people which included many dunums stolen from my own family. The
settlements of Neve Yacouv, Ramot, and Pisgat Zee’v, were all built on lands that were stolen from the people of Beit Hanina.
The hilltops and outlying areas were effectively controlled by sprawling Jewish settlements. They in effect dominated Beit
Hanina and its people.
As we made the turn that took us into the northern section of Al-Quds or East Jerualem, the Palestinian neighborhoods of the
city, I could clearly see a vast difference in the quality of the roads and the nature of the municipal services received there: piles
of garbage littered the streets and side walks, which became broken, cracked and ill-kept. Although the Palestinians residents
of these areas pay taxes to the Israeli government at the same rates as the Jews, they do not begin to receive the level of
services provided to the Jewish settlers living in the surrounding settlement neighborhoods. In fact the settlers have their own
“Jew only” roads and highways that bypass completely the substandard roads and services that have become the new
'standard' for the Palestinians residents of 'greater' Jerusalem and its settlement neighborhoods. As a matter of fact, the settlers
also receive superior services than those Israelis who live inside the 'green line' of the pre-1967 borders: much more money is
spent for settlers than on other Israelis. Once the bypass roads connecting the settlements around Beit Hanina and the other
Palestinian suburbs of East Jerusalem were completed, the main road running from Jerusalem to Ramallah fell into disrepair
from severe neglect: Israelis no longer used that road, or rarely do.
My Own village of Beit Hanina is effectively cut in half by one these bypass roads. In fact the road serves more as a fence.
Also the main road (a single lane road of about 4 miles) that links the lower part of Beit Hanina with the upper part has been
destroyed by the Israeli army. The road has been dug up in some places, earthen and rock barricades placed in other places,
and finally car sized boulders placed in the middle of the road in still other places making it more of an obstacle course than a
road, one that a car can no longer travel on. It was hard for me, a reasonably healthy man of 42 to traverse; one can imagine
how hard it is for the elderly, the children, and the mothers who must carry their infants. The purpose of these inhumane roads,
of doing all of this damage has little to do with security: it is much, much more related to efforts at making the life of the
residents of villages such as Beit Hanina as unbearable as possible. Moreover, as bad as the road is in Beit Hanina, I was to
find out later, there are much, much worse.
As my children would soon discover, these road blocks and check points provide some of the most inhumane and diabolical
measures that the Israeli government has yet contrived in its efforts to punish and wear down the people of Palestine. My
children's' Arabic vocabulary was soon to be enriched with the new words: hajez (check points), mahsoom (road blocks) Dafa
(West Bank) and hawiya (identity cards which one must show at every checkpoint).
Two days after arriving in Palestine, we decided to go to Ramallah, which is where my wife's family lives. We had to go there
to see them because they are prevented from leaving Ramallah, as are thousands of Palestinians, due to the closures that are
imposed on them by the many road blocks and checkpoints. In effect they are not allowed to come to Beit Hanina to see us.
They had been in a virtual prison ever since the Israelis made the checkpoints a part of the daily life of the Palestinian people.
My wife, 3 children (aged 11, 12, and 15), and I got up early that morning and made our way to the infamous Qalandia
checkpoint. We traveled by car from Beit Hanina through the Al Ram checkpoint to Qalandia. Now, I must admit that I had
read and heard quite a bit about the Qalandia checkpoint, but I was still shocked at the site of it all. There right in the middle of
what used to be a four lane road, the Israeli army had placed huge cubes of cement and erected a maze of concrete. The area
was absolutely littered with garbage and the ever present dust. Cars and vans lined up on both sides of the road and indeed
vied for the precious little space with pedestrians and large haulers. There were peddlers set up on both sides selling everything
from a cup of coffee, to vegetables, clothes and house wares, all engulfed in a sea of humanity, garbage, and the ever present
dust. This is nothing like the area which I had crossed many times before on my previous visit back in the spring of 2000.
We made our way through the confusion of cars and people to the entrance of the checkpoint which took us into Qalandia. The
Israeli soldiers asked us for our hawiya's or identity cards as we approached with our bags which contained our clothes (we
had planned on spending the night) and the gifts that we had brought with us. After showing them our passports, they made it a
point of paying special attention to my 15 year old son, who is nearly 6 feet tall and looks older than his age. They questioned
him and finally let us pass through to the other side where yet more bedlam was waiting for us. We took a taxi from Qalandia
into Ramallah whereby I got the chance to see how badly mauled and scarred the roads had become from the Israeli armored
tanks and carriers. The road that led from Qalandia to Ramallah was beautiful the last time that I had seen it in 2000. The
median was planted with palm trees, flowers, and other tropical plants. This was no longer the case. It was now absolutely
chewed up and in severe disrepair from the many times it was destroyed by overzealous tank drivers who had made it a point
to run over light poles, palm trees, and anything else that they deemed was "in their way".
We finally arrived to a teary welcome by my wife's' family, which helped take the sting out of what I had just witnessed. We
spent the entire day and well into the night talking and catching up on last eight years since the last time my wife and kids had
been in Palestine. The next morning we were informed that the Israeli army had decided to close the Qalandia check point and
therefore we would be spending an extra night in Ramallah. This did not make my wife and kids the slightest bit bothered as
they had wanted to spend more time there anyway. I guess the same could not be said for people that were trapped on either
side of the checkpoint and would have to wait another day to get to where they had to be.
On Saturday morning we got up, had breakfast with the family and decided that we should head back to Beit Hanina where my
mom and brother lived. We said our good byes and headed for the Qalandia checkpoint. As we got closer to the checkpoint
the sound of automatic gun fire could be heard. My youngest son, who had seen too much of the Israeli destruction and
oppression during the April invasion, was beginning to get unnerved by the sound of the gunfire. I calmed him down and told
him that it was nothing to worry about. My wife's sister was also with us in the car as she was accompanying her daughter, who
had a 1 month old baby girl with her. She had come to Ramallah to see us and also ended up getting trapped there and was
now wanting to get back home. The day was turning out to be a scorcher. It was very hot and soon the afternoon sun would
make it much hotter.
We arrived at the check point only to find out that it had just been closed a few minutes beforehand. There were hundreds of
people waiting to cross in the oppressive sun and heat without any form of shelter or shade. I walked up to the young Israeli
soldier and tried to talk to him into at least letting my sister in-law, her daughter, and the baby pass, but to no avail. I then
reached for my American passport thinking that it might help. To my astonishment, the soldier took one look at it and said that
"Even George Bush would not pass through him" in a perfect Brooklyn accent. My sister in law pushed me away and spent the
next hour pleading with any soldier that she saw to let her and the infant pass. They eventually let her pass with the baby who
was now crying from the heat and probably very thirsty. We saw them cross as we waited with the rest of the people in the
sweltering heat and dust. There were many men leading their elderly parents by the hand. I even saw a man carrying his mother
on his back as he attempted to cross her through to no avail. There were also many people that had doctor's appointments and
kept waiving their papers under the noses of indifferent soldiers who seemed to care little of what these people's circumstances
were. If there was any humanity left in these young Israelis soldiers, I could not see it. After a couple of in the sun, the crowd
only got bigger and tempers began to run short. One elderly man yelled at the soldiers, "This is what you and Abu Mazen
agreed on?" I also heard Palestinian women ask the Israeli soldiers if they had any mothers, sisters, and grandparents. And if
so, would they approve of seeing them treated in this way?
The Israeli soldiers began wading into the crowd and pushing people down with the butts of the rifles. They heaped verbal and
physical abuse at the people that had been waiting for hours in the hot sun. I witnessed a young man who had his back turned
to us and was sitting on the concrete barricade waiting, get hit in the lower back with the butt end of the American made rifle.
The young man was obviously hurt, but nonetheless went after the soldier and had to be restrained. In another instance, the
cruelest of the Israeli soldiers, a young man of about 24, red faced, bearded, and balding, pushed a slightly built Palestinian
father to the ground, spilling the 2 bags of vegetables he was carrying to the ground. The man got up and attempted to go after
the soldier, but I grabbed him from behind, and along with others, pulled him away from the soldiers who were now starting to
gather in force. I knew fairly well that they would have no problem beating this man or even killing him. His wife, who was
holding the hands of their 2 small children, was crying in the background. After I had managed to get the man as far away as
possible from the soldiers, I then noticed the look on my 15 year old son's face. His face was red and I could see that tears
were welling up in his eyes. Also my daughter and youngest son were starting to cry. They had been born and lived in the US
and had never experienced such abuse before in their lives. They were, thanks to the Israelis, being introduced to a whole new
world of inhumanity and oppression. I had to restrain my son and even struck him in the face to keep him from going after the
Israeli soldiers. I kept telling him to stand there and shut his mouth. I feared that if the soldiers had heard him yelling at them,
they might harm him. This went against everything that I had taught my son. I had taught him not to stand silently in the face of
oppression. To speak out against any wrongs that he witnessed. To help others and to do something, yet here I was striking
him because he was doing what I had been telling him all his life in the US. I knew very well that these soldiers could very well
hurt or even kill any of the Palestinian young men that were there and that NOTHING would happen to them. This was the
brutal reality of life under occupation where the value of a Palestinian life, does not in anyway, carry the same value of that of a
Jew.
After nearly 3 hours in the hot sun, we finally started making our way through the long lines. Once we got to the front of the line,
we were approached by an Israeli soldier who demanded our identity cards. While he was checking our documents, I noticed
my 11 year son shaking. I looked at him and noticed that the barrel of the soldier's machine gun was almost touching his
forehead. I asked the soldier to please point the gun away from my son. He laughed and told me that he "should get used to it"...
That my 11 year old son should get used to having the barrel of an American made M-16 pointed at his head...What a world!
Try as they might, the Israelis have not even begun to break the will of the Palestinian people. As my children were to learn, our
people are a proud, brave, and indeed very resourceful people who will persist and endure regardless of whatever the racist,
oppressive Israeli army of occupation may throw at them. They are much more the true Sabra (cactus) plant that survives
tenaciously even under the harshest of conditions and every year produces the flowers that turn to sweet and juicy fruit...
Mike Odetalla
7-2003
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