Final Days in Tel Aviv

It’s hard to believe I am already back, going through reverse culture shock here in New York. My last few weeks in Palestine/Israel were filled both with finishing up work on grant application and loose ends with film festival organizing and with two trips.

I went on a tour of Hebron with Breaking the Silence, an organization of ex-soldiers speaking out about what they did and what they saw in the military. They work on closing the gap between the average Israeli knows about the mechanics of the occupation and the reality. The tour was continuously interrupted by Jewish Orthodox settlers using a bullhorn and plastic horns, singing and shouting over us.

The police came out, followed by the IDF. We were prevented from going into the Cave of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs at the beginning of the tour because we were “causing too much of a ruckus.” Then we were prevented from visiting the home of a Palestinian activist, despite the fact that we had every legal right to go.

The irony is that this tour happens almost every week, and the organizers alert the authorities beforehand, so they know the tour is coming. It was the settlers interrupting the tour that created the chaos. Of course, it’s nothing new that the settlers are protected from the impact of their own actions and that those who pay are the “other.”  Back in 1994, a settler, Baruch Goldstein, went into the Muslim side of the Cave of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs and massacred 29 people. The result? The entire Palestinian population was confined to their homes for the next two months. When they came out, many found their shops permanently welded closed, along with new checkpoints and barriers.

The second trip I took during my final weeks was to Anata, a part of East Jerusalem that has been shut off from the city because it is on the other side of the wall. I joined the Israeli Coalition Against House Demolitions for a day and for a night on their yearly rebuilding camp. I worked alongside internationals to help build a home for a Palestinian family that was being displaced by the expansion of an IDF base close by. It was refreshing to work with my hands as an activist, to spend time with the host family, and to meet folks from around the world working for justice in Palestine.