A white car with one Palestinian man was stopped in the road below the sidewalk outside the city's wall. The man was being hassled by several soldiers ( always with machine guns of course). As we watched a soldier on a motorcycle pulled up as well. It turns out the Palestinian man was being blamed for a driving accident that the Israeli armored vehicle caused. Other soldiers were being called in to "witness" the accident after it happened. The situation went on for about 30 minutes, when finally they let the man go. It was then that the young Jewish men on their way home from Shabbat stopped their heckling and kept on their way. It was then that the Palestinian men on the bridge stopped calling down the soldiers to not hurt the man.
It has only been for the last five days of insight into the Palestinian experience that I understand how normalized this kind of harassment is. Earlier today we were in Sheikh Jarrah where settlers have taken over Palestinian homes. Settlers came and went as a crowd of hundreds gathered on the street corner. There were enough Israeli soldiers there to protect us from the attacks that settlers have tried in the past. But these soldiers do not protect the Palestinians who have lost their homes or who have lived in houses in the neighborhood for 57 years and are not being forced to leave for a settlement to be built. We met with several of the people living in the neighborhood and we stood in solidarity with them. The demonstration went smoothly, but I understand not all who demonstrate are so lucky. Several of the Palestinian activists and even our guide from Bethlehem would have been at the protest had they been allowed to enter Jerusalem- but this is not the case.
There is so much to say about all the experiences here...more to come.
No comments:
Post a Comment