I have an article in this month’s Foreign Policy in Focus.
Please check it out.

Their promo for the piece:

Artist and activist Ellen O’Grady provides a snapshot of life in the Occupied Territories in Visiting Hani’s House. Accompanying the powerful text are O’Grady’s equally compelling drawings, which document her discussion with Palestinian activist Hani Abu Haikel. He tells her of his meetings with Israeli young people. “I showed them a video of settler and soldier harassment. I swear when many left they were crying. They said, ‘We did not believe the Israeli democratic government could do something like that.’ They stayed two hours talking, even though we only scheduled a half hour. This is how I fight: not with a gun, but with words, through sitting down and talking.”

A drawing from the article:

During my time in Tel Rumeida, there were many mornings I stood on Shuhada Street as children walked past on their way to the Qurdoba School. If you look at the photo above, the school stands just around the corner of the buiding on the right side of the street. In the center of the photo, and across from the school, is the Beit Hadassa Settlement and just before the settlement is a military outpost. It’s hard to see the outpost in the photo, however it’s the square structure after the row of closed shops on the left. The metal grating on the second floor windows and balconies of the Palestinian homes offer protection from the rocks thrown by settlers. In a picture below, you can see that fabric also used for protection.

Beit Hadassa was set up in 1980 after the Palestinians who had lived in the building were expelled. The neighboring Palestinian stores and buildings were demolished by the Israeli military. In 1999 a new five story building (the whilte building in the picture) was built and several family were brought to live there. I believe there are 21 families living there now.

The Israeli government, the settlers in Hebron and their supporters in Israel are trying to make Hebron’s Arab Old City and adjacent neighborhoods into a Jewish Israeli city. They are doing this by tyring to force Palestinians from their homes by creating horrible living conditions and by expanding the settlements. I often heard stories about how Shuhada Street used to be the social and economic center of Hebron. I had the opportunity to talk with three families who used to have shops there. Now, it feels like a ghost town.

The street is lined with Isreali flags and settler graffiti.

Despite the curfews and setter violence a few Palestinian families continue to live on Shuhada Street. This little girl called to us from her balcony. It took me a moment to see her dangling feet.

Back in Jerusalem, where, once again, I have access to the internet. It’s nice, but also daunting. There’s too much to write about. Tomorrow I leave for the US. Tonight I have been listening to interviews from the past weeks. I keep coming back to my interview with Rachel Back, an Israeli poet who lives in a small Jewish village in the north of Israel, in the Galilee. Specifically I keep coming back to her reciting her poems. Below, I have attached I live on the ruins of Palestine.

Though born in the US, Rachel Back is the seventh generation of her family in Palestine. Her grandfather left there in the 1920s to seek his fortune in America, and she returned in the 1980s and lives not far from her ancestors village, which was destroyed in the Druze revolt of 1850.

She talked about living between the ruins of two villages. The village where she lives, Ya’ad, where we sat and drank lemonade and ate walnuts and raisins, used to be a Palestinian village. In 1948 the people of that village, Niyar, were evacuated from their homes in what Palestinians call the Naqba, the “catastrophe” of Israeli independence. The village was destroyed, but there are still remains of the old cemetrary. After our interview, before Rachel dropped me off at the train station in Acco, we went there. It exists on the land between the former village and the new Jewish village. Rachel told me descendents of Niyar still come to tend to the graves.

Here’s the poem:

I live on the ruins of Palestine

Slow to speech thick
of tongue quick
in anger ancient
parched
fear

In the ruins on a land
through a night
ignited

By a single
singed vision
and another
single spark

Cradled close in a charred palm
chiseled in a stonedream
carried across history

Through the dark beneath our bare
feet

Strangers all

On the ruins of Palestine

Internet access has been sporadic and slow this past week. I will attempt to upload clips of interviews later. Below are reports I wrote with my friend Astrid tonight, regarding attacks on us by settlers.

5th May 2007
Tel Rumeida Hebron Region

At approximately 3PM this afternoon two Human Rights Workers (HRW) were walking through the Tel Rumeida olive grove. They noticed settler movement inside the house and on the property of Issa X which is currently a closed military zone and access forbidden to both its Palestinian owners and Israeli settlers.

They sat approx 50 feet away under the trees to document the illegal trespassing. Three settler boys, aged around 10, moved up to the HRWs. Yelling at them to ‘turn off their camera’ (which was off), ‘go home’, ‘get out of here’ shouting ‘Nazi’ and threatened physical violence. The soldier posted in the house came down into the grove and intervened. Telling the HRWs “they are just children, I’m sorry”, and “you can video here if you want, you can do whatever you want.” The children returned to the far side of the house (away from the HRWs) and the HRWs moved back a further 50 feet to avoid provoking further attacks, but maintain a presence in the grove.

Five minutes later the same three settler boys, accompanied by a further 2 two pre teen boys and two adults (aged early twenties) advanced towards the HRWs. The boy in the front was carrying a length of thick plastic pipe, approximately 4 feet. They continued the same verbal threats whilst surrounding the HRWs – and lifting the pipe into a ‘strike position’. Some of the other boys picked up sticks and prodded the HRWs as the boy with the pipe hit and pushed at one HRW as the other shouted for the soldier to intervene.

The verbal threats and physical violence was increasing when the soldier arrived and attempted to deescalate the settler attack. At this point the women of the Abu Talal family moved onto their stairway overlooking the grove to film the attack. When the settler boys noticed their filming they became instantly hostile with one of the boys running at them and throwing stones, causing them to take shelter. The rest of the boys yelled taunts and made obscene gestures.

During the entire attack the adult settlers had stood aside laughing – it was only at this point, when the HRWs requested the presence of police to the soldier that they then ushered the young boys away. No further action was taken by the HRWs or the soldier.

Some footage of the latter part of the attack was captured, primarily the stone throwing towards the Palestinian woman filming.

———-

At approximately 5pm this evening 3 HRWs went to aid 2 other Internationals who were being attacked on the stairway and path overlooking the Beit Hadassah settlement. They were alerted to the incident taking place by shouting and yelling and the sudden movement of soldiers and police running up the stairs.

As they approached they saw from the bottom of the stairs a group of 20 young settler boys ranging in age from 8-15 surrounding the 2 Internationals, and soldiers and border police attempting to intervene as the boys physically and verbally attacked them.

The 3 HRWs filmed from the bottom in an attempt to capture evidence of the settlers assault on Internationals.

A large group of adult settlers then rushed the 3 HRWs. Pushing and grabbing at their cameras and shoving them up the street away from the incident. As they shoved the HRWs away they shouted “go home” “this is your fault” “we’re not the terrorists” “you’re ugly from the inside and out”. The adults were joined by a group of young teen boys (from the earlier attack on HRWs in the olive grove) who used a large sheet of cardboard to block the video cameras recording the assault, and joined in yelling abuse and threats at the three female HRWs.

Soldiers attempted to intervene and were shoved away by both adults and children before more soldiers and police managed to move the settlers away from the HRWS who had still managed to capture a large amount of the verbal abuse on camera.

No further action was taken by these three HRWs.

This morning I watched a settler boy beat on a Palestinian girl as she was making her way home from school. There were six border police close by that did nothing to intervene.

Since Monday I have been in Tel Rumeida, a small neighborhood in the H2 area of the city of Hebron. The designation H2 means it is under Israeli control, which means the IDF (Isreali Defense Forces), the Israeli Police and the Border Police are the formal authorities. (H1 is officially under Palestinian control.) There are military outposts throughout the neighborhood. Palestinian residents are only allowed to travel by foot and are often stopped at the outposts where Israeli soldiers check their ids and bags. A checkpoint with metal detectors stands at the border of the H1 and H2 area.

There are two settlements in the immediate area, Tel Rumeida settlement, and the Beit Hadassah settlement. One of them, the Tel Rumeida Settlement, is just down the road from the apartment building where I am staying with other human rights workers (HRW). Internationals are not allowed into the settlement area, and there is a military post just before it, which they won’t let you get close to. Settler violence and harassment toward Palestinians often happen in and just around the settlement areas, which was the case this morning. I was standing near a military post beside the apartment. The military post beside the settlement is only a block away. The settler boy was sitting on a curb on the opposite side of the second military post when he attacked the girl. As an international I couldn’t go very far, however an Israeli HRW was standing beside me when the attack happened. As an Israeli he is allowed in the settlement zone and ran forward, however he was stopped by the border police and threatened with arrest.

A couple hours later I was standing near the Beit Hadassah settlement just across the street from the Qurtuba Girls School where around 100 Palestinian students from the area go to school. Settlers sometimes throw stones at the kids as they are going to and from school, so a few human rights organizations put folks in the area in an attempt to protect the children as well as document human rights abuses. I was standing not far from the checkpoint when border police pulled up beside me and the HRW I was standing with. We were asked what we were doing there. We described our work, telling him we were there to help protect the safety of the children. Our passports were briefly taken and we were threatened with arrest.

Below is a picture of four kids from Tel Rumeida and the military outpost I was standing near when we saw the attack on the Palestinian girl. Palestinians get their bags checked as they go past the outpost.

This weekend I talked and shared food with four Palestinian families who live near the wall that snakes in and around Jerusalem. Because of the wall two of the four families have been forced to close their businesses, two have been forced to move from their homes, and one of the families fears losing their Jerusalem IDs. I will write more, later, about the wall and how it is affecting people. And how it felt to see it for the first time.

I did not record anyone in these past two days. I was meeting friends of friends and I wanted to be in their company without recording equipment. Also, I am discovering how different it is to wear headphones and hold a microphone than to paint someone’s portrait while hearing them tell their stories. I will be going to Hebron tomorrow and meeting with folks who expect to be recorded. And I will also be bringing watercolor paper and paints and hope there will be time for painting.

This is a picture of an old overpass that forms part of the the wall around the small town of Jaba. For some time the only entrance and exit to Jaba was this tunnel, blocked by the IOF as a form of collective punishment. The sign in blue says “Jaba Welcomes You.”

I bought a plate of hummus for dinner, however when I came to the table Meiko offered me some octopus. It was my first time eating octopus and I loved it.

There are a lot of interesting and generous folks here at the Faisal. Pictured with Meiko is Mordechai Vanunu. Many of you will have heard of him. He is a former Israeli nuclear technician who leaked to the press that Israel had secretly developed an extensive nuclear program. He was subsequently kidnapped in Italy by the Mossad (the Israeli spy agency) and then imprisoned for 18 years. 11 of these in solitary confinement. He was released in 2004 under strict restrictions, like not being able to leave Israel.

Writing from the Faisal Hostel in Jerusalem, just near Damascus Gate of the Old City.

Tom and Claude took me out to dinner before my flight and then to the airport. I slept a good part of the 12 hours on the flight from Atlanta to Tel Aviv. None of the airport taxis were going to East Jerusalem, so I got dropped off at a bus stop in West Jerusalem and after waiting a half hour took a taxi from the second cab that stopped by. The first said he wouldn’t drive into the East side and the second dropped me off a block from the hostel because he was afraid to go any closer. I got a bed at the hostel then went downstairs to buy hummus from one of my favorite hummus/falafel restaurants in Jerusalem. I don’t know what it is, however you cannot find hummus in the US that comes close to the hummus here. I enjoyed talking to the guy behind the counter. My Arabic is coming back ok.

Now, I’m feeling tired, which is good because it’s almost 11pm, a normal time to go to bed.

So. Good night from here.

Ellen.