A Dragon at the Gate

BURJ AL-LUQLUQ

“Burj Al LuqLuq is the largest play and sports facility for young people in East Jerusalem.[2] In 2007 the Israeli authorities served demolition orders on six of the centre's buildings.[3]” (Wikipedia)

The name, Burj Al-Luqluq,  has an allure for being foreign to American ears, and the translation, “Tower of the Stork,” sounds like a fairy-tale. The actual place is indeed unique and its story not unlike a fairy tale –  the scary kind.

My friend, Deena,(not her real name) took me to see Burj Al-Luqluq because she is on its Board of Directors and helped to create it in 1991.  When I walked through its gate, I felt I had stepped into another world.  Here I was, inside the Old City of East Jerusalem, an ancient, crowded, bustling place, yet what I saw was an acre of  largely open space holding basketball courts and soccer fields filled with adolescent teams of boys  or girls dressed in sport shorts and T’s, a playground next to a low building that housed a kindergarten where well-dressed kids were enjoying the colorful boxes, toys and decorations that you would expect in an American kindergarten, another building that turned out to be a library, and in the background, the golden dome of Haram al-Sharif (the Dome of the Rock) and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.  

Where was I? 

I was on valuable real estate, snatched from the clutches of Israeli settlers back in 1991 and made into a community center for one of the poorest neighborhoods inside the Old City walls.  If Deena and her friends had not acted quickly to establish Burj Al-Luqluq, it would have become an apartment complex for Israeli settlers, who would have built upon the open space, not only excluding Palestinians from living there, but paving it over.

Instead, an oasis, but with a dragon at the gate.  Last November 20, the dragon, in the form of the Israel army, entered the gate in full military gear, and burst into the kindergarten, sending the forty children fleeing into the corners in terror.  After turning over the colorful boxes, spilling crayons and paints, and dumping children’s books and teachers papers on the floor, the soldiers turned towards the library and computer room to see what else they could destroy, whom else they might terrify.

Deena asked if I would write to you to tell you what happened.  That was chapter one of the fairy tale.  For chapter two I did some research  and learned that the army invasion might have been prompted by a desire to punish Burj for sponsoring a sporting event which memorialized the Palestinian man who had recently killed a baby Israeli girl and injured 8 others by driving his car into a light-rail station in Jerusalem.  The man, Ibrahim Al-Akari, was shot dead at the scene, so we will never know his motives, but let us assume the worst – that he was a terrorist who wanted to kill some Israelis.

How then, could Burj Al-Luqluq, a haven for kindergartners, be honoring a terrorist? (And wouldn’t they deserve to be punished for doing so, you might think?)  The idea to honor Al-Akari,  as a martyr not a terrorist, came from the teenagers who were participating in the sporting event.  These teenagers  live in overcrowded apartments, with unemployed fathers and incarcerated brothers.  They see no future for themselves so they drop out of school. They are often barred from praying at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in their own neighborhood because they are labeled terrorists for being young men.  In the end, they are brittle and angry.  And so they did this non-violent thing that was like spitting in the eyes of Israel – they honored the terrorist whom they thought of as a martyr, a martyr to the cause of freedom from the Israeli army of occupation.

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My words cannot convey the thickness of the air in the West Bank after the bombing and destruction of Gaza and the daily killings of individuals in the West Bank,  which U.S. media doesn’t report. It’s like Ferguson and all the young Black men or children in America who are shot dead and we don’t hear about them.

Fairy tales can have a dark message, and this one does not yet have an ending.   The next chapter will be repairing Burj Al-Luqluq and helping the children deal with the trauma they just experienced, while the dragon lurks at the gate. 

OLIVES TO OLIVE OIL, BDS, WATER, SALARIES, ID's, PRODUCTION

OLIVES TO OLIVE OIL

At the cooperative olive press in Beit Jala, we learned a bit more about olives and their products. Farmers in a 22 mile radius can use this press. They bring their 50 kilo sacks of olives, get them marked with their name and wait in line for their turn. Then, only their olives go into the chute, get washed, crushed and processed. They pay 500 shekels for each ton of olives they bring in. One hundred kilos (220 lbs.) of olives make 25 kilos (55 lbs.) of oil. The pits are crushed separately and made into fire place logs. The oil itself is separated into cooking and soap or candle oil. The cooking oil is for household use or export, depending on how much the farmer has. Often a farmer will donate some of his product to charity - for prisoners, for Gaza or for the poor.

OCT, 19 -PICKING IN TECOA' WITH FATIMA AND 8 FAMILIES

Fatima, in addition to harvesting her family's olives with us, gives cooking lessons to help pay for the expenses related to caring for her autistic daughter. She also teaches French and spoke fluidly with the French volunteers in our group. Her husband, Abu Salam Askar, has heart problems and cannot work. They have 5 children, 2 of them in university. After we fiinished picking, we sat down to Fatima's cooking, which was unsurpassed: homemade felafel, hummous, salads, fried potatoes, eggplant, whole wheat bread baked in her outdoor oven, and even dessert! We couldn't pass the platters fast enough.

While in the olive grove, we could see the flat-topped Herodion Mountain, a short distance away, along with a military base to protect the surrounding settlements. Herod the Great built this man-made mountain to hold his castle and underground mausoleum. Although it is in the West Bank, Israel lays claim to it, so I have not visited it.

BDS - presentation by Bisan Mitri

BDS is an appeal to the conscience of the world: BOYCOTT Israeli products; DIVEST from companies that support or profit from the occupation, and SANCTION Israel until it ends the occupation. The call was put together by 181 Palestinian groups and organizations who met for one year in order to draft the call that went out July 8, 2005. It is meant to target complicity with the occupation. It's main goals are: a) End the occupation that started in 1967 , b) Dismantle the Wall, c) End apartheid inside Israel, and d) demand the right of return of Palestinians displaced by the wars of '48 and '67. BDS promotes boycotting Israeli goods by handing out flyers to Pal elementary schools. Beit Sahour Municipality has pledged to be free of Israeli products by ?

Fifth Annual BDS Conference in Nov. will invite Palestinian companies to discuss how they can get involved.

ACADEMIC BOYCOTT - Calls for severing ties with Israel academic institutions because all of them are complicit in the occupation.  First success was U of Johanesburg cutting ties with Ben Gurion U in 2009. Other sucesses: Steven Hawkins refused to participate in a conference in Israel and issued a statement; American Studies Asso endorsed BDS in 2013.

However, Palestinians living in Israel study in Israeli universities because they need the Israeli degree to get a decent job inside Israel.

CULTURAL BOYCOTT - Get celebrities not to perform in Israel. Attracts media.

SPORTS BOYCOTT - Mohammed Sarsa (?) a soccer star came out in support of BDS and was arrested and held without charges (Administrative Detention) for 3 years until he went on hunger strike to demand a trial: 93 days on just salt and water. Refused to be force fed. Finaly got a hearing and served the final 20 days in hospital.

Efforts to get Israel suspended from FIFA.

CONSUMER BOYCOTT -Boycott ALL Israeli products because Israel promotes settlements, and settlement products are often disguised as " packaged in Israel." For example dates from Jordan Valley settlements say only "packaged in So. Africa."
 Look for  bar code 729. The U.S. is Israel's biggest market .

DIVESTMENT - G4S a security company, supplies Israeli prisons; Kuait just ended a contract with them. Gates Fndn withdrew $182 M of shares from G4S. Sauda Arabia canceled Veolia contract 3 years ago.

U.S. Churches: June 2014 Presbyterians voted to divest from Caterpillar, HP (checkpt surveilance) and Motorola.

"Shares Activism" - buy one share in an offending company, pool them with others, and vote as a block.

SANCTIONS -This depends on governments taking action. To press for this,  BDS is changing strategy: meeting directly with government officials such as in Sweden.

ISRAEL'S RESPONSE - While feigning indifference to this campaign, the govenment has shown its concern by moving its efforts to counter BDS from Interior Ministry to Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Kenesset voted $35 M budget to counter BDS, and is paying US students to improve Israel's image.

WATER; SALARIES; PRODUCTION

The World Health Organization (WHO) says the minimum daily requirement of water for human health is 100 litres/day/person. Palestinians are gettinng 73 ltr, Israelis average 300 ltr and settlers get 700-900 lts/day/person. (Cows consume 400 lt/day/cow. Guess who can't keep a cow.)

The price of water in Palestine, which buys its own water back from Israel at 4 times what it costs inside Israel,  makes production cost more. Pal production has dropped 50%.

Palestinian average salary is 1450 NIS/month ($387.00)  45% of pop = low income.

Israel forbids Pal to manufacture 61 common medicines bec. they are made in Israel.

A Paris Agreement (?) forbids Pal to produce salt, cement flour, sugar, etc.

LACK OF ID OF ANY KIND - 70,000 CHILDREN have no ID, denied at birth so they can't get married, attend an Israeli university, nor travel outside country.

PALESTINE NATIONAL CONSMPTION = $3.9 B of which $3.4 B is in products or services produced in settlements, because most Israeli production is in settlements. Pal consumption = 6% of Israeli economy.

Further Analysis of Key Elements; Prospects for Change

 
On my second to last day in Palestine I am in East Jerusalem. Besides shopping for something my Arabic teacher wanted, and buying cookies from my cookie vendor, Khalil, who always greets me with the latest news and his assessment of U.S. and Israeli behavior, and getting a pound of Arabic coffee to bring home, I met with Mohammed B.

Mohammed is a Palestinian tour guide who can get in and out of Jerusalem and Israel because he has a Jerusalem ID. I met him 5 years ago when he guided a tour I was on, and he was so good that I sought him out for the two times I brought a group from the U.S. He agreed to meet with me for tea so I could pick his brain about what is going on here. I was not disappointed. In one hour we covered Jewish encroachment on the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Egypt's role vis-a-vis Gaza and Israel, the international community's response to Gaza, majority grassroots aspirations, and U.S./Israel long-range plans for the Middle East.

I learned that on Wednesday, Oct. 30, the U.N. Security Council discussed (didn't vote on) the issue of Israel's settlement building. (Did this make the news in the U.S.?) All the members, including the United States, agreed that Israel should stop building settlements, especially in East Jerusalem neighborhoods, and should not change the status quo arrangements regarding who can access the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Mohammed says this sends a strong message to Israel, as do the votes by Sweden and Great Britain to recognize the State of Palestine. Finally the international community is waking up and focusing attention on solving "the conflict". The votes in Sweden and Britain were most likely a reaction to Gaza.

Mohammed clarified for me what is meant by recognizing the State of Palestine, which in reality doesn't exist. He said it means endorsing what the majority of Palestinians still want: a two-state solution using the 1967 borders with land swaps, and eliminating the settlements from the West Bank and East Jerusalem. He explained that the West Bank borders would shrink in some places to allow Israel to incorporate large settlement blocks and would expand in other places to envelope Israel's Palestinian cities. Mohammed pulled out his map to show me what he was talking about. After the boundaries have been set and the occupation is over, Palestine will negotiate with Israel how to implement the Right of Return. It will not be abandoned, but a sovereign state will decide what is acceptable, e.g. the return of refugees might be into the West Bank and East Jerusalem, but not to Israel.

I wrote before about the tension around allowing Jews access to the Al Aqsa. It seems Israel floated a trial balloon to see how the public would react to a step towards full access. First came the angry response by the King of Jordan, threatening to re-evaluate its entire relationship with Israel, including their peace treaty. This is not an outcome Israel wants. Second, Israel was surprised to see how strongly Palestinians felt, especially the young men who are the ones most often denied access to the Mosque. Even Mohammed was surprised (and pleased) to see that the youth had not given up their spirit of resistance. Israel backed down, and Mohammed thinks they will no longer allow right wing settlers to the Al-Aqsa compound to upset the status quo.

Egypt's President Sisi made remarks at the U.N. that were quickly dropped from the news. He implied that Israel bore responsibility for the unrest in Egypt's Sinai. Such criticism from an ally is of grave concern to Israel. Meanwhile, Egypt keeps the border crossing to Gaza closed in order to control the Muslim Brotherhood, which has sought refuge in Gaza. However, this might change under the ceasefire agreement being negotiated between Hamas in Gaza, Fateh in the West Bank and Egypt. If the Palestinian Authority under Abbas is granted control over Gaza's borders, Egypt can relax, because Abbas will not tolerate the Muslim Brotherhood either.

Finally, Mohammed painted a picture encompassing the whole Middle East and what the U.S. and Israel are trying to bring about. They are trying to destroy all the Arab armies, starting with Iraq and including Syria and Egypt. This will leave Israel as the only military power in the region. This strategy explains the desire to topple President Asad in Syria. Once he is gone, the rebels will fight among themselves, which will be chaotic and bloody, but won't threaten Israel.

It remains to be seen if Mohammed's analyses and predictions are correct, but his perspective makes sense to me, and helps me to grasp some of the complexity of events in this tortured land.