Meeting with Farhan's Family...

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Dianne, Kathy and myself, went to Beit Ummar, we visited with the mayor’s wife. It was a special visit, as Farhan A’lqam, the Mayor of Beit Ummar was detain two months ago, b/c he is with Hamas, (Islamic Resistance Movement) which many considered is a radical Islamic militant/fundamentalist organization. However, in the city of Beit Ummar, (located in the northern part of the Hebron district, between Bethlehem and the Hebron municipality), and area covered by grape vines; the Mayor, is considered by the citizens of the town, as an honest and caring man, who will do anything for his people and the city of Beit Ummar. Many know of his relationship with Hamas, but people do not put much attention to this fact, because he has always demonstrated that he is a man of honor, and he will protect his people as much as possible. In an encounter with Israeli soldiers, who were questioning Farhan and his son, The Mayor told CPT members, that he does not like to lie, he is Hamas, but that one day, his son, not understanding the soldier who was speaking in Hebrew, asked his father, what the soldier was saying (the mayor speaks Hebrew), Farhan told his son, that the soldier was upset, but that things were ok. In reality, the soldier, was cursing both of them, but the mayor, stated to CPT members, that he did not want his son to hate soldiers or any Israeli people.

Two weeks ago, he received a release from the court, but a “witness” testified that Farhan is hiding something, and so they disregarded the order, and will stay in prison for 3 more months.

Visiting with Farhan’s wife and children, talking, and drinking tea, neighbors come in to sit with us, and tell us stories about the Farhan, its easy to see, that this man has gain the respect of the citizens of Beit Ummar, and hearing all these people speaking so highly of the Mayor, I wonder, how much distorted the news get by the time they get to us. When news from the East, reach the West, we picture Hamas, as the bad guys, but is like everything, there are good and bad people, here, there, and everywhere. There are good people in the bad side, and there are bad people in the good side, it all depends our own perspective, I guess… Salaam

Social Repression in Palestine

Wednesday, July 25^th,

This afternoon, I went with Lorin, to the Ibrahim Temple, the Tomb of the Patriarchs, in the ancient city of Hebron, the second holiest city for Jews after Jerusalem.

We went thru the gate, and notice a Palestinian man detained, so we decided to wait and offered some accompaniment, (as that is one thing CPT does-and this happened on a daily basis unfortunately, Palestinians here get harassed all the time). Anyways, we were planning on doing that, so we stand, as usual, close to the check point, and all of a sudden, this soldier girl comes and tell us in a very rude and unfriendly way: “you must go, you can not be here.” We questioned her, but she was not listening to us, she kept on saying, you are not allowed here, and don’t come back again, if you want to come to here, go around, (This is a check point, going both ways) but she was not going to allowed us to go back the same way. So, Lorin, told her, ok, we will be walking for 15 minuets, but we’ll come back. So we went to the other check points, and did a circle, and ended up at the same check point, the man, that we saw, was not there anymore, so that was a relief, but another two men were being questioned, so we stand in the same place. The soldier girl, came again and screaming told us: “I said you can not be here” GO, GO!”, Lorin ask her, can you showed me something that says we can not be here, but speaking to us in perfect English, when we will ask her something, she will say: “I don’t understand English”, very funny! Then I told her we wanted to speak to her commander, and she said “ I am the commander, you don’t speak, you GO, GO!” we try to ask more questions, but she will say “I don’t want to speak to you, you GO, GO, GO” or I will handcuff you, someone caller her, and she left us alone for a few minutes, but she got back to us, this time, pushing me twice. I told her not to pushed me, for I was not doing anything wrong, and she will only say: “GO, GO”, then, she push Lorin a bit too, and told him: “ If a Palestinian comes right now with a gun and shoots me, it will be your fault, because you are distracting me.” I told her, you don’t have to be distracted with us, you go do your job, we are fine here, we just want to make sure to be available in case people need of help. She left, and never came back, apparently she gave up on us!. I hear from other team members, she is very rude and aggressive soldier, and is always like that with her. So, Lorin and I stay there, and then, all of a sudden, they send a teenager, maybe 17 or 18, and a little girl, I will say no older than 7y/o, they have them stand right in the middle of the street, (very unusual, as most of the time, they send Palestinians to stand against the wall, right after the check point. The youngest girl, will look back at the checkpoint, and will start crying and biting on her nails, and will hug the teenager, telling her something. I walk up to them, and ask them what was going on? Unfortunately, they did not speak a single word in English. So we just stand there, hoping to understand what was going on. The girls were there for like about 20 minutes, the youngest, crying and biting on her nails. All of a Sudden, two women come thru the gate, and the little girl runs, and hugs one of them. We discovered, all this time, she was detain, but we were unable to see her, turns our, this lady was the mother of the little girl. We don't know why she was being questioned, but the truth is IDF needs no reason for harassing Palestinians. Later on, we met another soldier, nice guy, had a nice conversation with him, and told us "whenever you pass thru here, stop and say hi". Shalom!