Personal Stories (Palestine & Israel)

by Jennie Matthew

JIT, WEST BANK - Fearful that radical Jewish settlers will swoop and steal their olives, Palestinians are turning to an unlikely source of protection to secure this year's desperately needed harvest.

Several hundred Israelis, from left-wing activists to moderate Jewish settlers, regularly volunteer to help Palestinians pick olives, believing that their presence deters the worst excesses of radical violence. "I think what we do now is the way of peace. Palestinians and Jews work hand in hand on the trees and pick fruit together," says Zacharia Sada, West Bank coordinator for the Israeli rights group Rabbis For Human Rights. "It gives us hope that the other side of the occupation, the Jewish people, are a peaceful people and want to live together," he adds, sitting in the shade and listening to the soothing sound of olives pattering to the ground.

For Palestinians, the olive is a tree that most symbolises their attachment to the land in the occupied West Bank.

Twelve-year-old Ahmad El-Khatib was killed by Israeli forces, and yet he brought life to Israeli and Druze children who received his donated organs. Samia Khoury finds cause for both hope and concern in recent headlines from the Middle East of more violence, new leadership, and the vision of those working for peace.

By Samia Khoury

Courageous People Willing to Take Major Steps Toward a Saner Future

By Bill Dienst MD

Friday Afternoon, March 11, 2005 La Notre Dame Hotel, Jerusalem

We are now at the beginning of our final homestretch of this journey. A major winter cold virus, which I think we acquired on the plane going into Amsterdam, has moved in and made its way around the bus where we have commingled and inadvertently incubated the germ. It has now afflicted at least half of our delegation, including myself; but we all plug along in spite of illness and exhaustion as if there is no tomorrow . . . because in a sense, there isn't. Most of us fly back to Seattle in less than 40 hours.

By Bill Dienst MD

Friday, March 11, 2005 Jerusalem

Out of sheer exhaustion, I was finally able to get some meaningful sleep last night for the first time on this trip: Way too much stuff going through my brain and it is overheated; it has been impossible to just shut off at night.

I awake early and look east down the hall window here at La Notre Dame. I catch the sun rising over the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane. It is Friday, the Muslim Holy Day. The Mueza'ins are calling their faithful to prayer. The Jewish Sabbath will start at sunset tonight.

International Solidarity Movement

This morning, my friend Peter and I walk toward Damascus Gate in the heart of Palestinian East Jerusalem. We visit hostels where activists from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) hang out. We meet mostly young idealists from around the world: England, the USA, Japan, Portugal, Spain, Germany, Sweden Bulgaria, etc. Many are guarded, until they figure out just who in the hell we are. Then slowly, they become more comfortable. Some who have been here a while have become a bit jagged around the edges.

by Bill Dienst

March 10th, 2005, Jerusalem, Kfar Saba, Tel Aviv and Jaffa (Yafo)

Old Jerusalem

We left Bethlehem in the rain this morning and moved to Jerusalem. Now we're at La Notre Dame just across from the Old City; with medieval walls that were built in the 1500's. More specifically, we are across from New Gate, one of two entrances to the Christian Quarter, and one block east of the Green Line, which used to separate Jordanian controlled Jerusalem from Israel, prior to 1967.

We are a few blocks east of where we met with progressive Israeli activists three days ago, and where Israeli interrogators are known to torture Palestinians; and where some of Jerusalem's best nightspots are. We are also only a few blocks west of Damascus Gate, the heart of the Palestinian City, which goes to bed early.

By Bill Dienst MD

March 8, 2005 in Hebron (Al Khalil in Arabic)

The main rode to Hebron that Palestinians have taken for years is blocked,

so we have to take an alternate route. We cross the Israeli military

checkpoint that blocks the Southern entrance to Bethlehem. We pass a

Palestinian Refugee Camp, and past clusters of Israeli settlements

collectively known as the Gush Etzion block, south of Bethlehem. We see

how new Israeli settlements start out as illegal outposts of a few rows of

mobile homes, and over time turn into Southwest style villa townhouses

that would fit right in if we were in Southern California. Then there are

the military bases taking up even more West Bank land to guard the

settlements.

We arrive at one of the first, and one of the most ideologically right

wing settlements in the West Bank, Kiryat Arba'a. We pass the checkpoint,

and are allowed inside past the electric fence into the heart of this

settlement of 6,500 people. It is the largest in the central Hebron area,

but there are now 5 other Jewish enclaves within the Old City with an

additional 400-500 Jewish Settlers: Tel Rumeida, Beit Hadassa, Beit

Romano, Abraham Avion, and the Gutnic Center. They are supported by

between 1500 to 2000 Israeli soldiers.

By Bill Dienst MD

On Monday March 7, the Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility met

with Mr. Mordechai Vanunu at St. George's Hostel in East Jerusalem. Mr.

Vanunu is famous around the world for exposing Israel's secret nuclear

weapon's program at the Dimona nuclear facility in the Negev Desert in

Southern Israel.

Mr. Vanunu explained his life's story to our group. He was born to a

Jewish family in Morocco. When he was 10, his family immigrated to

Israel. After high school, he completed his compulsory military service

in the Israeli Armed Forces. He then finished a year studying physics at

Tel Aviv University. When he was 22 years old, he was hired on at

Israel's Dimona Nuclear facility, in a top secret lab 23 meters

underground. His job was to help in producing plutonium.

He described himself as being 'apolitical' at this stage of his life, and

simply in need of a job. He worked at Dimona for 9 years, starting in

1979. In the 1980's, he also witnessed the production of materials to

produce a hydrogen bomb. He left Dimona in 1985, and returned to the

University, studying Geography and Philosophy.

By this time, he had become a political activist, and was active in "Peace

Now" against Israel's elective war and occupation in Lebanon. He also had

developed very serious concerns regarding Israel's ambitious nuclear

weapons program.