OpEdNews » Another Day in Ramallah

Tags for This Article:

Populum Tag Cloud Control Panel
	Fine tune your search to access content

Articles	Links
Diaries	Products
Events	All

All time
Last 6 mos
Last month
Last week
Last 24 hrs

From:
Month Day Year

To:
Month Day Year

Alphabet Popularity	Count ON Count OFF
This Level	Sub-levels

Tag(s): Apartheid; Equal; Freedom; Holocaust; Israel; Justice; Occupation; Palestinian Homeland; Peace; Politicians; (more...) Rights; Security; World (less...)
Add to My Group

July 25, 2007 at 18:54:01

Another Day in Ramallah

by eileen fleming Page 1 of 3 page(s)

www.opednews.com

SAVE FAVORITES

VIEW FAVORITES

View Ratings | Rate It

[Ramallah, July 24, 2007] Every time I come to Palestine I am amazed at the patience, endurance and family values of the occupied people. Last Saturday I traveled to Ramallah from Jerusalem; a trip that once took less than fifteen minutes and less than 15 kilometers. It took my driver an hour and a half to get me there...

Saturday the traffic was light, but it took an hour and a half and over 25 km’s to reach Ramallah. Numerous roadblocks of sand and large stone boulders were scattered along the dusty unpaved Palestinian streets and two checkpoints were closed. Traffic was thus forced to turn around and search for the one way that was opened.

By the time we arrived at the Kalandia checkpoint into Ramallah, seven lines of cars and trucks were funneled into one and the cars attempting to exit through the same narrow path merged onto the same lane and patience and manners were on display.

I wondered if such a thing happened in the U.S.A. what explosions would erupt from road rage.

I asked my driver why wasn’t there any police directing traffic, and with a wry smile he retorted, “This is area C; Palestinian land under Israeli security and the Israeli’s don’t care about our traffic problems and Palestinian police are not allowed here! Palestinian police don't even have guns!”

On the way home, we exited through the VIP checkpoint, only open to NGO’s, media, politicians, and church cars, and my driver had one. The road from the checkpoint was newly paved and smooth and brought us to an apartheid byway that only NGO’s, media, politicians, and church cars cars, and settlers are allowed to use. As we drove on the empty road, miles of rolled barbed wire fences and cameras on the light posts belied the claim of ‘holy land.’

Although the apartheid road added some extra miles to our journey, it took half the time to return to Jerusalem.

I had returned to Ramallah for two reasons; to visit with a few friends who endure there; Palestinian Christians who have been re-labeled refugees and Arab Israeli’s by the Israeli government but who are denied equal human rights with Jewish Israelis.

And to hear American Palestinian and business man, Sam Bahour address the youth attending Sabeel’s 2nd International Conference: 40 Years in the Wilderness…40 Years of Occupation…

My friend J, is a 22 year old devoted son to his widowed mom and hard working man who will spend the next few weeks of his life volunteering his time and being of service to 45 children from 25 Jewish Israeli families and 25 Arab Israeli families who have agreed to live in very close proximity in an Oasis of Peace: called Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, which is a cooperative village of Jews and Palestinian Arabs of Israeli citizenship. Neve Shalom - Wahat al-Salam’s vision is of an egalitarian society and embraces pioneering educational work at The School for Peace, Children’s Educational System and Pluralistic Spiritual Centre.
http://nswas.net/rubrique22.html

J also told me, “The Israeli government doesn't support Neve Shalom - Wahat al-Salam’s, in fact they are against it, they don't like the Israeli and Palestinian people being friends...Two weeks ago I went through the new checkpoint and it is worse than Kalindia. The soldier made me get out of the car and tried to intimidate me with arrest when I spoke up for my right to pass through without having to get out of the car, for I have Israeli citizenship.

"My father fled from Jerusalem in ’48 to Jordan and then returned to Ramallah thinking he would soon be able to return home to Jerusalem. My mother is from Ramleh and Israeli law is that the children belong to the mother, so I have Israeli citizenship. According to Israeli law, I am living illegally in Ramallah! I was born here and I live here, but I have no ID. People in Jerusalem have ID cards only and the army can confiscate ID cards at any time and then that person is stuck right where they are.”

Those without ID’s in the ‘Holy Land’ become a non-person and I have met many of these Palestinians who cannot move beyond the confines of the refugee camps for they have no ID, and are stuck in a Catch 22; the bureaucratic illogic of occupation.

More on that topic from Sam Bahour:

“I was born in Ohio and have always been involved in Palestinian affairs. In ’88 when the first intifada erupted, I brought back American Palestinian youth, community activists and officials. We traveled from Rafah to the occupied Golan Heights; non-stop back then.

“I got married here and my wife and I went back to America and with the Oslo Peace Accords and Article 36, which stated the Israeli’s would transfer telecommunications-which is my field-to Palestine, I tracked down investors to relocate and contribute.

“I also read the Oslo agreement first and while many thought the occupation would end in five years that is not the case in what Oslo said. What was the case was a rearrangement of the occupation to another tier; a Palestinian occupation also.

1 | 2 | 3

Eileen is the Reporter and Editor of
wearewideawake.org

Producer of "30 Minutes with Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu" Author of "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"

She has been to Israel Palestine five times since June 2005.

She is currently working on "The Boom Boom Benny Story"

	Contact Author
	Contact Editor
	View Other Articles by Author

Bookmark this page: (what's this?)

(More...)

6 comments

Author of four books, part-time college professor, Ph.D American history Carnegie Mellon University.Graduate work in Clark University, Gratz College of Jewish studies.
philip rosenAuthor of four books, part-time college professor, Ph.D American history Carnegie Mellon University.Graduate work in Clark University, Gratz College of Jewish studies.

Another biased report

Any Arab violations of human rights? (Women's rights?) Any Israeli suffering? Any Arab attacks on Israelis? Why need for checkpoints, barrier, ID, demolition? Do Arabs educate for peace or hatred? Historically, there was never a Palestine,Palestinian people as a separate ethnic group,or clear demarcation of boundaries. When have you sought the Israeli (not ultra left)point of view?Has any country been born with no displacement. Have you ever seen maps of anywhere from previous years?

by philip rosen (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 93 comments) on Wednesday, July 25, 2007 at 8:25:06 PM

A writer is a rogue goose. All other gees fly in a flock formation; every goose knows his place and time for honking. The rogue goose is undisciplined. He leaves the formation indiscriminately to have a look at it from aside. He roams back and forth, takes a peep at the leader, honks a little bit from behind, distracts everyone and writes on what he sees. Time passes and as he wants to return back to his place he discovers someone else there. Thus he either has to wait until they land for rest...

to see more of bio, click on member name
Mark SashineA writer is a rogue goose. All other gees fly in a flock formation; every goose knows his place and time for honking. The rogue goose is undisciplined. He leaves the formation indiscriminately to have a look at it from aside. He roams back and forth, takes a peep at the leader, honks a little bit from behind, distracts everyone and writes on what he sees. Time passes and as he wants to return back to his place he discovers someone else there. Thus he either has to wait until they land for rest...

to see more of bio, click on member name

Hey, schraga

You seem not to have learned anything from this site. Historically there were no such people as Palestinians? Welll, who had given a Jewish person whose famly lived for generations in some other country the preferential right to the land in those territories? What a crock, really. And those Israelis who still have brains ( and there are a lot of them) surely understand that the majority of them is just being used by a small group of ultra- orthodox and likud powermongers who love the situation when Israeli young children have to fight and fight and fight forever. It becomes more and more obvious that the govt of Israel is not a friend of the Jews and that it feeds on that very hate it generates and you complain about.

by Mark Sashine (50 articles, 19 quicklinks, 242 diaries, 3437 comments) on Thursday, July 26, 2007 at 1:38:38 PM

Jews in Eretz Israel

Jews ALWAYS had a presence in the land. Because you do not know history, you make ahistorical statements. Did you ever hear of kabbalah? It was formiulated in the 13th century in Sfad. There were four holy cities in Israel 'where Jews were dominant-Sfad, Jerusalem Tiberias and Hebron. There were s o many Jews in Jerusalem that Moses Montefiore had the new city of homes in Jerusalem.(1870s) In 1492 when Spanish Queen Isabella expelled 300,000 Jews many went to Eretz Israel. There they met great rabbis such as Nachmonides who had been expelled earlier.Baron Rothschild supported settlements in the late 1800s. You might think from your statements that nowhere in the world have there been huge population changes.

by philip rosen (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 93 comments) on Thursday, July 26, 2007 at 7:43:01 PM

Been around the block a few times.
Blue PilgrimBeen around the block a few times.

Nope

Schraga doesn't know anything.

13th century my foot -- it's apparently largely related to the tradition of goetic magick, in fact, practiced durng the first few centuries CE -- as well as Jewish mysticism -- and is related to the Tarot and Kaballistic/Hermetic magic too (you can read about in the works of Aleister 'tsadi is not the star' Crowley, and Mouni Sadhu) , but that has nothing to do with Palestine. Palestinians have also always been there, as well as Christians (after it was established) and others.

You are just ranting and disembling, schraga... nothing but Geburah and no Chesed! (Try for a little Binah sometime.)

Kabbalah

Q1.4 : How old is Kabbalah?

No-one knows. The earliest documents which are generally acknowledged as being Kabbalistic come from the 1st. Century C.E., but there is a suspicion that the Biblical phenomenon of prophecy may have been grounded in a much older oral tradition which was a precursor to the earliest recognisable forms of Kabbalah. Some believe the tradition goes back as far as Melchizedek. There are moderately plausible arguments that Pythagoras received his learning from Hebrew sources. There is a substantial literature of Jewish mysticism dating from the period 100AD - 1000AD which is not strictly Kabbalistic in the modern sense, but which was available as source material to medieval Kabbalists.

On the basis of a detailed examination of texts, and a study of the development of a specialist vocabulary and a distinct body of ideas, Scholem has concluded that the origins of Kabbalah can be traced to 12th. century Provence. The origin of the word "Kabbalah" as a label for a tradition which is definitely recognisable as Kabbalah is attributed to Isaac the Blind (c. 1160-1236 C.E.), who is also credited with being the originator of the idea of sephirothic emanation.

Prior to this (and after) a wide variety of terms were used for those who studied the tradition: "masters of mystery", "men of belief", "masters of knowledge", "those who know", "those who know grace", "children of faith", "children of the king's palace", "those who know wisdom", "those who reap the field", "those who have entered and left".

by Blue Pilgrim (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 997 comments) on Thursday, July 26, 2007 at 8:39:05 PM

Eileen is the Reporter and Editor of wearewideawake.orgProducer of "30 Minutes with Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu" Author of "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory" She has been to Israel Palestine five times since June 2005.
She is currently working on "The Boom Boom Benny Story"
Eileen FlemingEileen is the Reporter and Editor of wearewideawake.orgProducer of "30 Minutes with Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu" Author of "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory" She has been to Israel Palestine five times since June 2005.
She is currently working on "The Boom Boom Benny Story"

good converstaion

no need to add anything more to what has been well said,

but will thow this out:

1. Arab's are Semites too

2. Hamas learned their barbaric tactics while being locked up in Israeli jails

by Eileen Fleming (145 articles, 51 quicklinks, 266 diaries, 579 comments) on Friday, July 27, 2007 at 12:37:05 AM

Don'pigeon hole me or sterotype me
pratliff94Don'pigeon hole me or sterotype me

Schraga

Your argument will not be refuted by the facts you state, but by dissimulation and diversion to subjects which do not apply to what you say.

The Jews have always had a large presence in what the Romans renamed Palestine from Israel. Even after the Romans banned all Jews from Jerusalem and attempted to destroy all things Jewish in the "Land" after the Bar Kocha Revolt, we know that even the efforts of the this mighty Roman Empire were futile.

Anyone can Google in Palestine and the UN map of1947 just before the UN Declaration to see the Arab and Jewish inclaves, and how the "Land" was to be partioned. The invasion by seven Muslim armies destroyed that map and uprooted all those inclaves. Schraga, these who are refuting you by propaganda would like us to believe there were just a few hundred Jews in this so called "Palestine" before the Holocaust and all the Jews came there from Europe. The very reason the Muslims in charge of the "Dome of the Rock" are so upset with the Jews digging any place near the Mount is that they are so afraid of finding archeological evidence suppoting the reality the first (c900 BCE) and second) (c510 BCE) temples; so do not expect refutation by facts. We do not want to be mixed up by the facts.

Most of us have a real dislike for Likud and their heavy handed treatment of the Palestinians; however, most of us realize that Likud came to power because of the absolute refusal of Arafat the puppet of "outside" influences (Saudi Arabia, Iran Egypt, etc) to come to the table to work out permanent borders. Fatah wanted war; they got war. Hamas has vowed the absolute destrution of Israel and are waging all out war against Israel; they are being destroyed as a politiccal entity in this war just as they hope to destroy Israel as a politcal entity in it. It is the way of war.

Fatah seems ready to come to the table to make peace and Israel is talking with them. Talking and compromise is the way of peace. Bush has not learned that lesson, neither has Hamas. Hamas and Bush are a lot alike.

by pratliff94 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 962 comments) on Friday, July 27, 2007 at 9:12:35 AM