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On West Bank, questions linger amid small hopes

By Pat Minor
Des Moines Register
Posted on Saturday April 28, 2007

I recently returned from my third trip to the Occupied Palestinian Territories. I saw signs of hope for the first time in Hebron.

New shops are opening in the souk (the marketplace). The chicken market is being cleaned, and chicken crates are in the street. There are 23 Palestinian children walking to school with an Israel Occupation Force escort from surrounding villages to At-Tuwani in the hills south of Hebron. When the Christian Peacemaker Teams began their presence in At-Tuwani, there were only three. The others were too frightened by Israeli settler children who taunted them, threw rocks at them and stole their belongings.

I awoke on Easter morning, first before sunrise to the sound of the Muslim call to prayer in Old City Jerusalem, then to the sound of a multitude of church bells, and rejoiced: “Christ is Risen; He is Risen Indeed.”

And then I started to think about what I was feeling. Signs of hope because four or five new shops were open in the souk? Signs of hope because 23 children are going to school accompanied by soldiers?

ALL of the shops in the souk ought to be open. Every child should be able to walk to school without the threat of harassment or worse by other children. How little we have been taught to expect. “A slow simmer,” Palestinian-American Sam Bahour calls it. As in, a frog will stay in cold water that is slowly heated to boiling.

The Palestinian people are remarkably resilient. They have learned to deal with life situations I find unconscionable. The Atta Jabber family have had their home destroyed by the Israeli Occupation Force three times, ostensibly because they did not have a permit to build on their own land. Never mind that a permit to build is almost never given to Palestinians, even to build on their own land.

The only reason the Jabber house is still standing this time is that the family sold all the land surrounding their home for the “privilege” of living in their own home unaccosted. Atta is prematurely grey and in ill health from beatings and stress. Still, he is able to smile and tell his story once more for those who have not yet heard it.

The separation barrier does not separate Israelis from Palestinians; it separates Palestinians from their farms, their schools, their places of employment. When it is possible to harvest produce, it often languishes at checkpoints until it is spoiled.

The boycott of the democratically elected Hamas government has resulted in even fewer paid positions for an already largely unemployed population. Oxfam reports that “Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are suffering ‘devastating humanitarian consequences’” and that “46 percent of Palestinians now do not have enough food to meet their needs.”

Most Palestinian Christians were not allowed into Jerusalem to celebrate Easter. Most were simply turned away. A few found a way in. In contrast, Jews and Christians from around the world were welcomed with open arms.

What will it take for the American people to see this crisis for what it really is and insist that the Israeli government be obliged to follow international law? When will we elect legislators and a president who are not afraid to stand up and stop this apartheid, this travesty, this inhumane treatment of yet another indigenous peoples?

Pat Minor is a member of the Arab American Institute