Day 7: The Law in These Parts (The crazy intersection, or lack thereof, of Israeli and International Law)

This post is specifically on the Legal Quagmire in Israel (Where International Human Rights Law, Israeli Human Law, and Israeli Criminal Law collide indiscriminately and complexly).

For people like my brother who enjoy a more visual representation (aka, a film), see The Law in These Parts.

Lesson 1/17/14: The Legal Quagmire in Israel

I was exhausted after planting trees in the West Bank with Rabbis for Human Rights. After 12 hours of sleep over three days (blame the grad school apps), three hours of walking, and caffeinating indiscriminately whenever I had free time, the body had apparently reached its limit, as I went home and slept for 12 hours.

Eizeh Yafeh/Mneeh. This was beautiful/right.

After a day of recuperation, we took off for Tel Aviv in the morning to talk about the situation in the West Bank from a law perspective with Emily Schaeffer, a human rights lawyer working with Michael Sfard (think prominent human rights lawyer that works on behalf of Arabs in the state of Israel and the West Bank) and Yesh Din. I already talked a little about the visit, but I found some actual law that is in effect in the present (on top of the Sheikh Jarrah/Settler land-grabbing ones) very interesting, and perhaps you would think the same.

(I will try to make this as less like a textbook as I can... though Courtney, Matt, Ryan, Elana, and Emily may not agree with how similar this law summary is to what they read day to day... or maybe they will think it's nicer... I don't know. I'm not in law school).

I've also listed my reactions to add some footnotes to what is a very dense bit of contradicting legal clauses and facts. Hopefully they'll make more sense with them in there. Know that these are incomplete and pending more information sources, whether that be in conversations with you, other lawyers, or books.


1.   Who Determines the Law in these Parts (Israel/WB/Gaza)? Four branches of law interact when talking about the West Bank: International Human Rights Law (IHRL), Israeli Human Law (IHL-- the law dealing with civilians/humans), the Israeli Criminal Law (ICL), and the International Criminal Court (ICC)

Hasan: Ok. I understand this. Keep going.

2.   Why this is all so freaking complicated: Whenever IHRL or ICC laws are breached by a particular country, the degree to which they need to follow these laws depends on the power level of the country which violated the law (aka, Russia and the USA, even though they have often violated IHRL, often don't get checked on some of their actions because they have many allies that depend on them to get by, and if these allies turned their back on them and charged them against the law, the US and Russia has the luxury of cutting off aid as punishment). So many powers in the world skirt this, claiming the laws "do not take into account the context and history on the ground."

• What's funny about this claim is... context and history is based on who you ask, and then spread around by the body in power. So of course this process can be quite cyclical to the advantage of the country in power.

Hasan: Enter Foucault. Power is always going to come into play wherever you are. Some of this is valid, some of it not. I think this is also a case-by-case basis. Then again, when enough cases accumulate to a particular general trend, I will be more liable to call out case-by-cases. In the case of the US and Russia, I think they should get on board with all this. They're part of the International community, and just because they have the privilege of being powers, it doesn't mean they get a free pass. Lead by example.

3.   Israel isn't one of these large world powers, so why does this matter. By extension, anyone who has a good relationship with these countries in power often get a free-be for this because they can claim, validly or invalidly, that the situation is "context-based" and shouldn't have to follow a law that doesn't cater to the situation at hand (When Israel violates IHRL a lot, this is the reasoning that they use to continue any actions that violate IHRL).

• So, actually, Israel is a world power because they have political sway due to their relationships with larger world powers

Hasan: Yeah. I knew this. Relationships are vital to Israel's existence, but Israel is also vital to Israel's existence. They get some nice leg room in international waters because of the work they're doing and the relationships they have. It's a well known fact. Do I think it's legitimate that they use these relationships as ways to bypass law? No. But I also know that context matters, so Israel should, in turn, utilize the same systems of conversation, appeals, etc. to prove their point instead of dismissing people outright.

This means that Israel needs to add into the legal framework and account some Palestinian voices from the West Bank and Gaza. How can Israel be the voice of Palestinians that Israel, for better (for Israelis) or for worse (for WB/Gazan Palestinians), literally has had power over for decades? Palestinians' voices need to be heard in this "assessment" by Israel, or else there's a key voice missing in this legal (justice?) question.

4.   The West Bank Area A is under Palestinian rule uniformly... but only when Israel has no reason to come in. If Israel does not like what is going on in Area A, they can intervene using the IDF because they are the sovereign body in the West Bank. Essentially what this means is that the IDF is in power in the West Bank directly, and the Israeli government indirectly. In this definition of a sovereign body according to law, the IDF has the following duties:

• To protect all people in the West Bank, Israeli and Arab
• Can utilize and apportion territory, but cannot damage it
• Has the right to enact laws in order to ensure safety and order (in the name of security)
• Questions that get asked about these duties:
• Is an action done by the IDF dealing a proportionate amount of damage to justify the needs?
• Is the IDF doing certain actions for the safety of ALL residents?

Hasan: There is way too much to talk about with regard to the piecemeal that is the West Bank right now. Suffice it to say that the IDF being under varying degree of control in all of these areas effectively maintains security for Israelis in Israel and in Israeli townships (or settlements, depending on your terminology), but that there are significant after-effects that truly inhibit the ability of any person under the IDF's control to move freely, to follow their goals in life, to develop their home community, and (insert another fundamental right to live peacefully and progressively here) due to the FEAR of stepping over this line.

Yes. There are people in the WB that have violent motivations that happen to be Palestinian. I contend that not all of these motivations are on the Palestinian side (see: Settler problems), and as such they should rule the whole area fairly for each people according to context (not saying they don't here. The I government has come out with great publications against destructive settler actions).

But the long and the short is that the West Bank is under Israeli power. Yes, the Palestinian Authority is the day-to-day rulers. But outside of infrastructure and underfunded public services, Israel has the last say on everything in the West Bank. So how fair is it, really, that Palestinians are walled into their homes when only a fraction of their population is committing violent acts? This seems to be a context issue here, but Israel seems to be playing this context, again, without any average Palestinian voices that just live their lives day to day in the West Bank.

And Gaza... is too complicated for this post. Maybe I'll get to it later.

5.   The West Bank Area C (refer to link in #4), as I said before, is where Israelis have full jurisdiction, and cover the complete area of all Israeli settlements in the West Bank (in addition to strategic 'buffer zone' locations that help to ensure security of the current Israeli state... the question often asked from the other side of the equation is: you have to cut the Palestinian's jurisdiction into small discontiguous land parcels in order to maintain security? Doesn't that sound a little bit odd to you?). However, in these places are areas where Bedouin peoples call home. In the often talked about E1, for example, many people that support building Israeli settlements in the West Bank say there is nothing there. On the contrary: there is a sizable population of Bedouins that have been living there for a very long time, and these people are continually evicted from Area C because of the land swaps and grabs as history has rolled on.

Hasan: Well. I also have something to say about this.

I'm working with some of these Bedouins... and because of these decisions, they are displaced and have the following attitude towards Israelis and Jews: BAD. They learned I was Jewish with a Muslim name, and they asked me why I had to be so bad.

Hopefully I can prove them wrong about Jews. Israelis... maybe not. They are not a sizable enough majority to cause a huge stir, and Bedouins are REALLY peace-loving people if you look at their attitude towards others, who do not often defy a large body of law, and who go with the flow of what life gives them (see this creative poem I wrote of my time with a Bedouin for a more creative look at their passive go-with-the-flow lifestyle).

Then again, that's what we thought about the people who made up Hamas and Hezbollah before they became like that. And look where that got us. People still are dying and people are still suffering.

All I'm saying is that why should you anger more people, when everyone on all sides of this equation are already angry at you?

It's an easy answer. Israel is there to protect Israelis first. Then others come after that. The West Bank is enough of a grey area that Israel can simply turn the other way and say "we're protecting Israelis by doing this." Sadly they're also pushing away peaceful people that I know, all of whom fight for their freedom by going to school and enrolling in classes.

6.   The 4th Geneva Convention in 1949: During this convention powers that have occupied land as a result of war are NOT allowed to do the following things: move its population into other territories belonging to other people or force these people out from their territory without compensation (aka, change demographics) nor can they change the legal situation or physical barriers on the ground. 

Something important to note: Israel SIGNED ONTO every document coming out of this convention.

• Thus, any Israeli development across the green line (building of settlements) is illegal by International Human Rights Law, because the action has A) changed demographics on the ground, B) annexed significant portions of land that had previously not been their own, and C) forced people from areas without compensation
• BUT it gets complicated, because the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs says that these statutes don't apply to Israel because the territory is "disputed" as opposed to "another country's."

Hasan: Cool. Israel is held to these laws. But I'm confused why the UN and int'l community doesn't cite this for their actions in the WB/Gaza.

Enter the:

7.  Rome Statute. This was a statute passed in the ICC that changed the above conditions. 

What it says: "you cannot transfer a population directly or indirectly into occupied territories." This essentially nullifies any statement that the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs says with regard to "disputed" territory, as it now defines the IHRL in those terms and not solely into "another's country." All well and good, right?

Wrong:

• Israel didn't sign onto this statute, so therefore they don't see it as applying to them at all.
• In addition, other major powers, such as China, have not
• The United States, when it came out, was under George Bush who did not think that the US should ratify it (remember we were under possession of Afghanistan at the time, and a year later, Iraq). In the process, each nation that signed it and depended on US aid got cut off by the Bush administration. So, therefore, the US continually debates their ratification to this statute. So far they have not officially done so, but some of the original aid recipients who had been cut off started to receive aid from the US once again.
• When the case was taken to the Supreme Court that the settlements violated IHRL, it got denied because the Supreme Court said "it didn't have the authority to say whether this situation was legal or illegal."
• Another thing is that all legal issues from the WB and Gaza are taken directly to the Supreme Court, and it only has one shot to pass (no appeal). So if it doesn't pass, you cannot bring back the same exact case or else it'll be thrown away.
• This is the classic IHRL v. IHL conundrum that completely derails any clear understanding of the "legality of the settlements"

Hasan's Assessment: Ah, ok. This is why they can do what they do.

Israel doesn't want to sign onto this because it explicitly will undermine the power they have in the West Bank. Maintaining security is great. But you also must understand the implications of how you seem to the international community when you defy its jurisdiction: selfish, unaware, closed, and inhumane. Israel needs to answer to this statute right now in a less demanding manner. I'm not advocating for a full on signature or anything, but perhaps a new creation of this 

And the USA?... Come on. You guys are the heads of the UN. Whatever you say goes. This is the problem: people are not getting the ability to live to their potential and motivations. You need to address this USA, and you need to be a country that takes a stand for justice, which I think is how you like to brand yourself. Right?

8.   Law of Eminent Domain This law actually originates from the Ottoman Era, and is probably one of THE MOST complex and difficult legal dilemmas in the settlement/wall situation in the West Bank.

What it says: if the state needs to take an action/create an amenity that impacts the land for the "good of the people in the land it rules," it can do so. As a corollary, the state makes this amenity public, and it must compensate the people living in areas that the state affected.

• Why is this a very fishy situation?: 
• Well for all you intuitive folks who understand the current settlement situation, Israel builds settlements ONLY for Jewish residents, creates many roads ONLY for these Jews,, and runs buses ONLY for these Jews as well.
• The separation wall/security fence is not able to be proven in these more general terms, because an argument can be made for it to be there for the safety and security of all citizens, Israeli/Arab/Palestinian
• Thus, the courts take these cases on a case-by-case basis to see what to do... more on this later.
• In addition, these same Jewish residents have Israeli citizenship, while Arabs in all of the surrounding areas do not have Israeli citizenship. The trouble with this is that Israeli citizens are easily able to go into Israel and any Arabs who do not have this citizenship cannot (or must have a VERY convincing argument why, and must stay at the border for about 2 hours on average while this process goes through, regardless of the reason, i.e. medical emergency, seeing family, sometimes work permit if the day is particularly bad)
• A member of our group eavesdropped on a person taking an Arab bus from Ramallah to Nablus: "This whole checkpoint thing is stupid. I am an Arab, but all I want to go to Tel Aviv and shop. I'm even SUPPORTING their economy while I do this. I don't care about killing the state of Israel. I just want to go get some shoes."
• On the flip side, there are some serious demographic (what happens when Arabs come to settle in Israel) and security (there are definitely those that would pass through a checkpoint with violent intent)
• On the flip flip side.... there are serious demographic and security issues to Arabs in Palestine who are witnessing violence by Jewish settlers that go completely unprotected by the IDF; AND the crimes by violent Arabs have an origin: continued oppression of their rights as a people since Israel came into existence in 1948 (which isn't all Israel's fault, but that's when it started).
• A final fish to the frying pan is that there have been many cases won on behalf of Palestinians who have either not received compensation or have complicated their basic livelihood because of land taken for "state use." In this case, the Israeli court, almost continually, have ruled on BEHALF OF THE PALESTINIANS because the law checks out.
• However, it is not always guaranteed that compensation or removal are awarded. Here are the three things that happen:
• The state intervention is removed. Done.
• The state comes up with a reason to keep the change they made (aka, that it benefits the livelihood of people in the WB, which almost always means settlers)
• The state delays removal of the change, sometimes because of "natural delays between legal action and actual action," "they don't have enough money in the budget" (but, conversely, they do have enough in the budget to keep putting up the wall in places that may compromise P livelihoods in the future...), or they "do it intentionally so that they can come up with a reason to keep the change in road/checkpoint/settlement/wall."

Hasan: This type of unilateral discrimination between two people who are supposedly "sharing a land" and "being protected/taken care of" by the ruling power (the Israeli Defense Force) is in direct violation of the 

You would think this would be it.

But there's more.

9.   Int'l C Court vs. Israeli C Law. Criminal law in Israel is also complex. Like seriously. Here's my attempt:

What the ICC says: When a person commits a crime in any occupied territory, detainment must occur in the criminal's home environment so that they have access to 1) their family, 2) their lawyer, and 3) familiarity/amenities/etc. in their home culture. They must also be judged by the "occupying" country's court system.

What ICL does: Yeah, we don't like the ICC understanding of our situation. So instead we're going to do this by de facto mode: 1) detain a person who commits a crime in Gaza or the West Bank in jails within Israel, 2) have the criminal judged by courts in Palestine (which are under the auspices of the Israeli Defense Force, aka the military), and 3) offer them legal representation from Israel as would an Israeli in detainment.

• Why this is acceptable: Israel claims that the territories are disputed, not occupied, and because they did not sign the Rome Statute, they align to this story and legitimize their actions according to a case-by-case ICL ruling rather than the top-down ICC ruling. They also want to see these things on a case-by-case basis 
• Why this is problematic: Palestinians don't get direct access to their lawyer, and often the lawyer is Israeli (I don't say this as if it is a bad thing-- Michael Sfard and company work with the detained P.'s, and they are more able to help them understand their rights given their context. There are other Israeli lawyers that do this type of work too. The point I'm making is that they are put in the hands of a legal system that is not familiar and it requires a great deal of trust in a body that some convicted P.'s would never trust), their families are not around and therefore their support network is undermined, and they are in Israeli soil, where they have no citizenship rights. Thus, there are MANY cases of P.'s that are detained being tortured, threatened, etc. because of these three fundamental things. Check out PCATI, which works to end torture for Israelis and Palestinians (and all others) that are in detainment for more information on this.

Hasan: I am so clueless right now about what I think. This move to do everything in Israel save the IDF judgment is for the benefit of the security of Israelis (and so jailbreaks do not happen, etc.). BUT it also violates a criminal's right to fair trial, which is a universal constant, which I disagree with. AND it also doesn't take into account the countless number of Palestinians that are jailed unjustly.

Ja hey. I'm in conflict with the conflict.

10. Freedom of Expression in the Territories: 

• According to law, you cannot engage in a political gathering that consists of 10+ people. Israel therefore has the right to disband any of these gatherings. This right is enacted by the military, and because of this, Israel can respond in any way necessary (aka violently)
• Israel can at any time revoke your citizenship (which is EXTREMELY hard to renew if you are not Jewish or have Muslim lineage), deport any person from Palestine, Jerusalem, or Israel that they see as a "problem" politically. This means you can be Jewish, Israeli, Palestinian, Armenian, a Jerusalem resident (aka Palestinian without Israeli citizenship), Christian, Muslim; whatever. If you cause a disturbance that Israel does not like, then you can be deported.
• THIS BREAKS DOWN ONLY IN ONE CONDITION: If you are Jewish and you say the following words: "I am planning to make Aliyah and add to Israeli society." In this situation, you will still go to court and be tried, but the Israeli authorities will do everything in their power to keep you in the country and keep you to this word of yours.
• The implication here is that any non-Jewish folk can be deported and not have a bail unless they win a convincing case in court.

Hasan: I am Jewish with Muslim lineage who wants to do peace work on the ground between populations, which means sometimes I'll be perceived as Arab until I prove to people that my mom is Jewish and I can recite key words of Jewish prayers... So this proves really complicated for me, and it shows, in my telling of my own identity, how a person can be pieced apart according to their identity and their perceived actions, when all of you know that I wouldn't commit to an action that is violent or existentially questionable for anyone.

Or at least I hope you all know that. If you don't, you should definitely know that right now.

11. The Security Fence/Wall: I'll cover this in my Ramallah entry. It's long and I don't feel like getting into it right now. Suffice it to say the claims on all sides are VERY DUBIOUS legally.

Very dubious.

And.... remember all the above was from a lawyer who studies the intersection of all of the law that impacts any cases coming from the West Bank or Gaza. She represents mostly Palestinian clients, because Israeli clients are mostly covered by Israeli law, as you can tell. 

She argues that looking at this framework is useful, and it will help solve problems across the board.

But, to a layman, it is REALLY difficult to represent and argue on behalf of Palestinian clients unless you really really know the law. The implication she was getting at is that you don't have to worry as much if you are an Israeli. I'm pretty sure she's correct, because though each thing depends on the context, you look at each case-by-case and see that Palestinians living in the WB have significant borders to their legal processes that Israeli citizens (Jews, Arabs, etc.) just don't have to even consider.

Power is key here. Israel has a lot of power over Palestinian lives in the West Bank. It's true--Palestinians have the right to engage their lives in the way they see fit on the daily and Israel must protect its citizens (a sidenote, so far in this past year, Jewish Israelis have killed Israelis more than Palestinians--Gazan or Israeli--have). Palestinians commit crimes and it is very well documented that they are punished for it (per international law this is a statute of being under a sovereign nation). But, Palestinians at the end of the day experience violence much more often the comfortable Israeli, and thus enacting their daily lives becomes a violent ordeal. It is much like the youth I worked with in South Brooklyn: they became gang members because they had an abusive father who legitimized physical abuse in their midst.

It is a little crazy to me that you are not taking into account the real stories of displacement, violence, and psychological trauma that exists for Palestinians every day, and that this conversation is put aside legally just because it's a disputed territory. The Israeli government says that all Palestinians must give up the hope of ever reconquering Israel for Palestine and then it will give more leeway. I do believe Palestinians need to be more forgiving, but then again, how can they with what is going on in their homes, where fathers and sons are being arrested and detained for years because of being suspected as involved with political activity (see #10)? I feel from this side, then, education, psychological resources, and support could benefit better than a uniform military law or system that discounts the day to day violence as a "crime" instead of, perhaps, a reaction.

But... this is out of my hands. I am not an Israeli member of Knesset, nor am I a negotiator, nor am I part of the Palestinian Authority, nor am I even a citizen of either people. I am an American with a Bachelor's and a passion to educate as a mode of empowerment, no matter who they are, no matter where they live. I do have religious ties to both sides and a wish for people in this land to be able to love and live with what they have instead of hate and kill others.

Simply put: I lack the power to do anything but teach people English and learn about this situation from multiple sides.

For me, all of this is just a wish that I hope can come true.

Day 6 to Day 7: Ani Gar b'irushalayim ma'arav, Olive Tree Planting on Tu B'shvat, and Rabbis for Human Rights

i. The Pre-pre-post

Ok.

I've been talking a lot about E. Jerusalem, the West Bank, the difficult issues in W. Jerusalem, and Hummus.

Maybe I need to lighten up a little bit, or talk a little more about my life in W. Jerusalem.

With that in mind, let me introduce the agenda:

I. Michael Safarad Square and Molad
II. HaRav Kav
III. Tu B'Shvat, Olive Trees, and West Bank Tension

Also; please know that my updates will not usually be this long. As soon as I catch up to today's time, my entries will be much shorter. By the end of this entry, I'll be only 5 days behind (Yahoo!)!

I. Michael Safarad Square and Molad

All right. I realized I missed an experience in the first five days. Let me press replay:

Day Four:

Karen, our education director, took us l'ktzat haleicha down Rechovot Ramban and Keren Hayesod to the Michael Safarad Square, an area that offers a pretty wonderful view of the southwest side of the old city and the valley leading down to the City of David/Silwan (Palestinian/Arab village where Ir Shel David is). 

While there, Karen talked about the difference between space and place, where place is defined by the people who come to know it, and space is place waiting to be defined. It was a concept I had heard before in anthropology classes: ethnographic mapping, where people come to identify seemingly meaningless spaces on earth with a cultural narrative. What would I come to define here as a place? And, once I have defined a place, will it still remain a space to be filled with meaning?

If your head hurts, mine does too. Let's move on.

While there, a person was supposed to meet with us from an organization called Molad which works to restore a "left wing voice" to the Israeli government (think the MoveOn or American Center for Democracy equivalent in America).

Hey Hannah Wizman-Cartier, Micah Weiss, and Avital Aboody-- guess who it was? Elisheva Goldberg!

After a hug and some "what an awesome surprise"s, we got down to talking about Israeli politics.

Molad is a center to restore notions of democratic liberal policies back into Israeli politics. For the past several years, the "left" of Israel has become smaller and a lot less vocal.

*Ok, quick aside to people who are unfamiliar with Israeli politics. Israel has what is called a parliamentary democracy system. This means any party that gets enough votes can be put into the congress and add to the government. This also means that age-old parties can lose popularity because of their policies. This also means that parties can be made out of nowhere and suddenly get a ton of seats in the government (which is what happened in early 2013).

It has the same executive/legislative/judicial branch checks and balances within the government, but the executive and legislative process is a little more complicated. You don't vote for the executive branch. Instead, you vote in the 120 members to the legislative branch (Knesset) each election cycle. Then, from those 120 representatives, whoever is the majority party creates a coalition government that will make up the executive branch (all the ministers; ie minister of education, prime minister, minister of foreign affairs, etc.). However, an executive branch can only be formed if it contains members from parties that, in total, add up to more than half of the Knesset (for example: a party who wins 37 seats must make coalitions with another party with 10 seats and another party with 14 seats to create an executive branch because all of them together equal 61 seats). And then from this coalition comes the executive branch made up of the leaders from each party in the coalition. 

But that's only the tip of the iceberg.

I put "left" in quotations because Israeli parties do not really have a left or right wing. Generally the community here group the political parties into left and right wing according to their stance on the Arab-Israeli conflict. So, a rightist party can be pro-settlements, religious yet underlines the importance of helping underserved populations in Israel. Just the same, a leftist party here can be be pro-peace talks, secular, yet more concerned with government process than actual policies.

For an overview of the political parties in the Knesset now, click here*

So yes, when I say left here, I actually mean about leftist liberal and democratic values in general, from worker's rights to citizenship to fair representation to critical analysis to the situation in the West Bank to the Arab-Israeli conflict in general.

The need for Molad according to Elisheva? "The government right now has no definitive left voices and all of the parties, funding and policy support in the government right now comes from a distinctly conservative place on the issues faced in Israel. All political parties here, while they claim center, left, right, are actually significantly right wing from the outset, so most centrist parties have policies that are more right wing than most other countries versions of central.

So we're a group that seeks to act as a voice for leftist policy in order to combat this trend. We use specific and critical data to point out the discrepancies in what the government says and does, because a lot of their power roots from emotional arguments and not arguments that are grounded in fact or rationale, and a left desperately needs a political voice in this country."

I could get on board with that, I thought. Chalk one up for a more thriving democratic debate and a little more focus on peace-making instead of unilateral moves on the Israeli side.

But I asked her also about what she thought about dialogue vs. fighting for whats right. I'm all about being a proponent for left-swinging values and a more collaborative peace process, but I also know that if you fight the "other side," you sometimes push the other side further from working with you. She told me she was conflicted about it at first, but then realized that Israel needed this voice, and that the more the left becomes a legitimate voice for politics in Israel, the more the culture will change and, sooner or later, the right will have to pay attention.

I guess I couldn't argue with her assessment of the situation. The "right" has been a bit too dominant in Israeli society for the reasons she stated and there does need to be a return to the table to fix the many issues going on in Israeli society in addition to between Israel and Arab countries. At the same time, I think everyone in a society gets better when they talk with one another and share all concerns and needs on the table: working toward the common good.

Darn. I guess this is turning into a heavy/complex/confusing piece already. *sigh*

II. HaRav Kav

No, this is not a famous rabbi.

Right now I'm going to introduce you to the most terrifying yet somehow smooth and efficient transportation system I've ever experienced.

Jerusalem has two different methods of public transport: buses and the light rail. The light rail is a subway system on street level. Since it doesn't snow here often, it's always open to the weather outside. It runs all day from 5:30 AM to 12 AM each day. It's pretty quick from one end to the other, and it looks pretty sleek too.

The bad news: it only goes along one particular line of Jerusalem townships, leaving others square outside of it.

And, you guessed it, as with everything in Jerusalem, this light rail is not without complex controversy.

The light rail itself goes from Mt. Herzl and Yad Vashem to Pisgat Ze'ev, which is, according to international law, an illegal settlement across the green line (noted by the dotted line in the map). Pisgat Ze'ev, along with other 'settlements' across the green line in the Jerusalem area, is a suburb within the municipality of Jerusalem. Thus there is a contention about Pisgat Ze'ev and the other all-Jewish neighborhoods that are considered 'illegal.' Some who believe these neighborhoods illegal therefore point to the light rail and say that it effectively makes it even harder for the green line to be the border between two potential states.

To me, I'm less concerned about calling these areas legal or illegal than by the concept of having only-Jewish neighborhoods in a municipality. Jews are more than allowed to dwell in all-Arab neighborhoods (they just choose not to) yet the same rights to dwell in these all-Jewish neighborhoods across the green line are not granted Arab Jerusalem residents or Israeli Arabs.

On top of this, as I noted in my last entry (re: Sheikh Jarrah), Israeli Jews have a system by which they can evict Arabs from their houses and live in their neighborhoods, whereas there is no process for Jerusalem Arabs to do this.

These two things in my view only perpetuates a separation and contention between peoples in the city. I recognize that to put both in the same neighborhood at this very moment in time may prove disastrous and counterintuitive, but how are you ever going to start to repair relationships on the ground when you continue to be separate each from the other?

And, as the history of the school that I'm working at, Yad B'yad (which was started between Palestinian Arabs and Israelis that wished to live and have their kids learn together in Jerusalem), there are people out there who would start to build bridges and, in turn, shift the culture in widening the gaps.

But yeah. That's the light rail, the controversy, and my own thoughts.

The Jerusalem bus system is extensive and wide reaching.

To be honest, it's the most confusing thing I've ever tried to figure out, direction-wise. But at least once you know where you're going it's a very quick ride.

So quick that you lose your balance with every acceleration even when you're holding onto something, and then straightway lose your balance again because the driver pounds the brakes every time they stop.

I swear those brakes must be incredibly durable to outlast what Israeli bus drivers do to them.

And so, ironically, let me introduce the bus pass that makes all the above experiences and complexities possible: the Rav Kav. This is the card that enables you to travel anywhere by public transport in Israel. Sadly the funds in the cities are not connected, so you must pay as you go. Still, it beats taking a paper ticket everywhere (yahoo environmentalism!) and I also have a nice little picture to let everyone know how excited I am to be a consumer of the efficient Israeli public transit system.

III. Tu B'Shvat, Olive Trees, and West Bank Tension

Well darn. I guess I am going to talk about E. Jerusalem/the West Bank.

S'licha me'od.

Every year at around this time, Jews celebrate a holiday called Tu B'Shvat, or literally, the 15th of the Jewish month Shvat. On this day, we celebrate trees and the natural environment. It's a pretty wonderful holiday filled with tree hugging and unbridled love for nature.

One significant tradition of the day is to go plant trees, to "renew the natural environment." Some people send money to the Jewish National Fund in order to plant trees in Israel (which... actually is another point of contention, but you can read about that here and here because it's kind of a long tangent), and others plant trees in their local communities.

Rabbis for Human Rights has an ongoing campaign to get Israelis to replant olive trees that have been uprooted by attacks by extremist West Bank Israelis (also called settlers by some). In the past, these Israelis have always uprooted olive trees, which remain a chief source of livelihood for many West Bank farmers. On Tu B'Shvat, they decided to lead a delegation to the West Bank to replant some trees destroyed in November of last year. Our group was registered for this delegation.

So we bussed off to Jalud in the West Bank to plant what was around 50-60 new olive saplings. It was a beautiful day, and everyone was in high spirits. I always loved planting trees because it added to the environment, yet this process seemed a little more important because it at least helped a person continue to make a living.

For some video accounts and pictures of the experience, click here, here, here, and here.

During the experience we met a Palestinian farmer named Ahmad. A tall fellow clothed in a hoodie and a scarf, he was a 25 year old bouncing around and directing us to each new plot to be planted. One of the program mates, Mischa, and him struck up a kind of brotherhood through the experience, even though neither could really communicate with each other. Afterward, him and the others on my program would continue to facebook chat in the weeks following (this had a slight blip when he began to feel uncomfortable talking to girls that were not Muslim and then found out we were Jewish and got confused because "all Jews are bad!" To clarify, Ahmad has spent his whole life in Jalud while Jewish settlers have continually uprooted and vandalized the fruits of his livelihood. It seems generalizations are flowing in all ways based on each person's respective experience of "the other")

Another beautiful moment was when I looked across the valley to see two Israeli settlements (Shivut Rahel and Shilo) right there within 2 km of where we stood. They had fences and IDF guard posts while the Palestinians did not. Standing there in that beautiful sunlit valley was a false sense of peace and quiet, yet... it was peaceful and quiet. Every day there is a new tension that sprouts between Palestinian and Israeli people that live in the West Bank.

But the land, the land stayed, and will continue to stay, beautiful, as long as people continue to love it as much as these two groups of people.

I wondered then how bridging this gap would even be possible. Maybe we could point to how yafeh/hehloo (beautiful in Hebrew/Arabic) the land was between them. Or begin water projects. As Bob Gutman once told me, negotiations over water might be what creates a necessity for peace in the area.

After Jalud, we went to see a mosque in Kus'ra that had been vandalized and burned by a settler crew. This was in retaliation for an attack on a couple of settlers by Palestinians that had happened several weeks before.

I could go on and on, but I'll give you a break. You can see my video of my visit to the mosque and my reaction afterward here and here.

I have to state the obvious here. It wrenches my heart when religions become armies. This moment was no exception.

Day 2 through Day 5: Hummus to Arik Sharon

Hey again!

As always, I'll digest the post at the beginning:

I. Overview
II. Things we did the second day (Old City, become obsessed with hummus)
III. Trouble on the Border (Palestinian Stabs a Haredi man near the end of Shabbas)
IV. Sheikh Jarrah and E. Jerusalem: At War with the Jerusalem Municipality (evictions/discrimination through decreased municipal efforts)
V. Visiting Arik Sharon One Last Time 
VI. Little Commune Next to the Knesset (About our house community, our neighborhood, and living in West Jerusalem)
VII. Meet the Crew

I. The Overview
So, to be honest, my first five days here were very fuzzy. Most of my experiences were saturated by an intense bout of jetlag, featuring 3-4 hour nap times twice a day while my body figured out which time was actually night. All of our experiences were bracketed by graduate school and fellowship applications. Life was funny, in that it felt like a dream. Maybe it was.

Who knows.

Anyhow, I'm going to tell it like I felt: blurry, runny, and a little point blank. This post showcases the funny, the intense, and the grateful.

One of these posts will be light, fluffy and dreamy. But this one will be, as my first post insinuates, a little heavy and polemical.

II. Things we did during the second day

*As I said before, this is gonna just weave in and out of what we did, much like how I felt and experienced it*

After my lovely evening with the Israeli customs officials, I arrived at the apartment, ate some delicious rice and veggie sauté, met my fellow program mates and directors, looked out my apartment window to a jaw-dropping view of Gan Sacher, the Knesset, and The Israel Museum, took a shower, found a bed, and slept for the whole 4 hours of jetlagged sleep that I would get.

The next day we went with Itamar around Jerusalem as I had mentioned in the previous post (this was the same "go around" as the g'vul lesson he gave to us). We went through Rehavya, past the SuperSol where David Klapper stole a shopping cart to transport our overabundance of water, up the YMCA tower to see the many different sectors of Jerusalem, snapped some pretty good pics of Gai ben Himon (Valley of the son of Himon) that led down to the City of David and the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, went to the windmill that my mother, my brother, and I went to see when we walked around a bit back in 2001, and made a friend with an elderly Muslim woman who sold us swiss chard and parsley in the Old City.

*Beware: Hasan is about to get really serious*

And then. We ate the best hummus I had ever tasted. Up until that moment, anyway.

It's in the Muslim quarter of the Old City, a place called Abu Shukri on Al Wad Street.

Wow.

Not only was the basic hummus incredible, but then they went and put cooked chickpeas in some, or refried beans in another, or marinated shwarma in others...

My stomach is swooning so hard right now even thinking about it.

It was SO good, we went back a week later and bought two big tubs of their hummus to bring back to our house.

And then... we found out... there were... OTHERS..................

Tip of the iceberg. Since then, our house (See III.) has been on an epic journey to find the best hummus spots in the city. We have charted Ta'ami and Hummus Ben Sirah, a Jennifer Greyber suggestion. Adam Schwartz pitched in with Pinati.

Our mouths are ready for this delicious hunt.

In this epic quest, we have so far found a felafel place in Tel Aviv (as of yesterday) that confirmed for us that any other felafel in a pita claiming to be felafel is lying about its existence, found a joint that provides hummus and felafel for 10 shekhels (2.5 dollars), and go through about 3 tubs of hummus every five days.

We admit. It's becoming a problem. But everyone else is doing it. So we're not going to stop.

After Abu Shukri, we waded through the Damascus Gate and into East Jerusalem. Remember how I said the 'boundary' between East and West was literally, well, nothing?

Well ok, now's the time to start describing East Jerusalem outside the Damascus Gate:

1) An exotic mixture of vendors, from side-of-the-road peddlers to sneaker vendors that charge upwards of $120 for a pair of sneakers.
2) You begin to hear Arabic more than Hebrew, yet the volume remains relatively the same.
3) People in W and E Jerusalem move at the same speed and, when in friend groups, laugh emphatically/walk enthusiastically/and show the genuine love for being in a group.
4) You walk around like you walk around any other portion of the city and no one bothers you. *I do say this from a relatively privileged position: as a person who did and does not wear a yarmulke or any religious garb. I also did not see many others wear a yarmulke or any religious garb. This all depends though. The folks from Rabbis for Human Rights always go into East Jerusalem and they also always wear religious garb and are not touched. I guess this just depends on who you know or how bold you are... I can't really comment past this initial observation yet, though the general perception from conversations I've had with more religious Jews on the W. Jerusalem side is that you definitely should not appear Jewish in E. Jerusalem (i.e. speak Hebrew, wear anything conspicuous)... more to say on this later when I've thought about it more*
5) The coffee is... much better than in West Jerusalem; but that's definitely a subjective opinion.
6) The sidewalks along food shops can get VERY dirty, and smells often vacillate between glorious and horrendous as quickly as Chinatown in NYC or alleyways in India.
7) Otherwise, the sidewalks are very similar to W. Jerusalem.

We walked out of the Damascus Gate, bought a sketchy looking bag of pasta (which, we confirmed later, tasted absolutely horrible), and began to walk back home when...

III. Trouble on the Border
We looked across the street that serves as the border between E/W Jerusalem and saw a couple people crowded around in a circle shouting. There was a Hasidic (ultra-orthodox Jew) sitting on a stone barrier on this corner looking sick from our perspective, and a large number (like 30-40) of other Hasidic folks attending to him. There were also a couple Arab taxi drivers who had been in the area beforehand that were part of the crowd as well. Police showed up on the scene, as did emergency 911 Magen David Adom services 3 minutes later. At the time, all of us assumed that the man had gotten a heat stroke or was not feeling good for one reason or another. As we couldn't get close and couldn't really find out what was going on, we left the scene.

The day following, we found out in Ha'aretz that the Hasidic man had been stabbed by "a Palestinian" (though this is unconfirmed). The police pointed to an Arab, yet the investigation has so far been inconclusive.

Again... #4 above comes from a place of relative privilege that I still have yet to fully understand.

But, I'm not done. It gets more complicated.

IV. Sheikh Jarrah and East Jerusalem: The Neighbors Are Not All Right (House Evictions)

Up the street from where the stabbing took place is the south left sector of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Eastern Jerusalem. On the day following the stabbing, we met with Moriel Rothman who works with Just Vision, a media organization that seeks to increase the power and legitimacy of Israelis and Palestinians against the occupation through nonviolent action.

On an unrelated note, some of you might know Moriel from this. On a related note to my unrelated note, you might not.

At any rate, Moriel had us watch a video about the evictions that are happening in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and then gave us a tour of the neighborhood.

I should note at this point a bit of background about East Jerusalem before I continue with the Sheikh Jarrah experience:
1) It is under the control of the municipality of Jerusalem, i.e. the same one that provides for the amenities in West Jerusalem, which is under Israeli governmental control.
2) East Jerusalem compromises 38% of the Jerusalem municipal population.
3) There have been many municipal "discrepancies" between W and E Jerusalem found by B'tselem, an Israeli organization that does legal/rights based research on the ground. The discrepancies bring up questions about whether the municipality is providing services equally on both sides of the line, and why this is the case.
4) My roommate posted on a facebook listserv called Secret Jerusalem (where you can find out hidden answers to any question you have about Jerusalem life) asking about where to drop compost. A woman, namely the administrator of Secret Jerusalem, remarked to throw it anywhere in East Jerusalem, as they are "still in a third world environmental awareness."

*Either she was being extremely sarcastic, or I don't think she realized that the Jerusalem municipality collects garbage once a month in many areas of East Jerusalem (and, sometimes, every two or three or eight months), whereas it collects garbage 4 times a month punctually in West Jerusalem... My friend Sameh put this discrepancy into words: "I wish to start an environmental initiative in my community to clean it up. But why should I have to provide a service the municipality should provide us with our tax money? Why is my neighborhood (Beit Hanina), an "Area A" neighborhood (one that pays the top tax amount to get all municipal amenities), serviced less than an Area C (ex: Kiryat Hayovel, one that pays the lowest tax to get limited municipal amenities) neighborhood on the Israeli side?"*

But back to Sheikh Jarrah.

We watch the movie called My Neighborhood (you can watch the trailer if you click on the link). It told the story of a family that got evicted by Jewish settler groups. More on that here, if you want a longer read, but I'll condense it into these simple steps:

1) A Settler group buys a permit from a Jewish family who has a deed from their home in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood before 1948 and is not planning on returning.
2) The same group brings this permit to the Israeli high court and utilizes the "Law and Administrative Matters Law" (or simply the 1970 law), that says any Israeli with a pre-1948 claim to a Jewish-owned property in East Jerusalem could bring it to the court, have it passed with little resistance, and then receive a permit to evict the current owners.
3) The settler group gets a police ordinance to evict the current tenants from the house in Sheikh Jarrah and then
4) Settlers show up with the Jerusalem Municipal Police and the IDF, all of whom forcibly evict the tenants.

So yes. People are getting forced from their homes because of this ordinance, one of which was this family that the family followed.

What is a little more baffling about this story is that this and many other Palestinian families had been offered this home as compromise for giving up their home in Yaffo after the 1948 war (The Absentee Law of 1950 prohibited any Arab from claiming any pre-1948 claims in Israel for direct compensation in Arab lands--then Jordan--so this family was provided compensation in Sheikh Jarrah).

After a conversation with the daughter of the family, we then walked up the hill where we saw the twenty or so Israeli settlers lounging in five buildings behind it. I began to feel sick and emotional inside at just how real this was. It was at once relentlessly real, twisted, wrong, and unclear and I really couldn't take seeing settlers insistently live right next to people they despised, and vice versa, for the sake of making the land Jewish.

Again, all of this is collected from facts I've researched only thus far and from the limited amount of people that I've talked to on both sides of this issue.

Here's what I do know: the Israeli government consistently states that East Jerusalem citizens are not in the state of Israel, yet they also effectively have control over all of East Jerusalem (It's Area C from the Oslo Accords), and all E. Jerusalem inhabitants have Israeli citizenship cards... so it seems odd that the local government, even if it doesn't claim responsibility for these people, has a responsibility to these people and deliberately do not take it up.

I'd be interested to know if there is some rationale behind these laws in the present other than the fact that the Jerusalem and Israeli legal structures pave a very easy path for forced evictions of Palestinians in East Jerusalem in favor of ultra-religious settlers that wish to push all the Palestinians out and make the West Bank all Jewish land (see trailer). Because, if I see this correctly, the law (and municipality actions) intentionally discriminates against Palestinians in East Jerusalem. Why this happens, by extension, is not for me to say, nor do I know.

At this juncture, there doesn't seem to be a rationale behind these laws that I can find other than the one I've proposed, and it renders my living in West Jerusalem a whole new level of privilege and awareness that I didn't have before. Perhaps someone could provide me an idea or understanding from the other side that I'm simply not seeing with these stories and 'facts' (HINT HINT: COMMENTS).

V. Visiting Arik Sharon One Last Time
On the Saturday after we arrived, Ariel Sharon passed away after having spent the last 8 years of his life in a coma.

Ariel Sharon was a very controversial political leader in Israel. You can register his accomplishments according to whichever side you happen to fall on politically, but here are a couple of them: leader from the right wing since Israel's creation, became a general in the army, when elected to office in '77 he served as the Minister of Defense for a number of years, he later led the 1982 attacks in Lebanon and made some decisions that led to Christian forces massacring thousands of Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila refugee camps near Beirut, was publicly asked to step down because of this action, returned to politics in 2000 after Ehud Barak failed at Camp David, was the man who went to Al-Aqsa mosque with soldiers and body guards by his side (an action that is generally said to have been a major factor in the Second Intifada, which began the next day), continued settlement building in the West Bank yet completely disengaged from Gaza in 2005, and shortly thereafter fell into a coma which he never woke up from.

A complicated man that divided everyone in Israel and beyond through the polemical and often contradictory nature in his actions.

Though, the argument can be made that this is true for any leader on either side of the equation.

A report came over the public news that his coffin would be open to the public (not his body, but his coffin--in Jewish tradition there's no such thing as a wake/publicly seeing the body after the person has died). As we were literally 300 meters from the Knesset and as this was what I perceived to be a historical event in the course of the conflict, myself and two other folks on my program decided to go.

We came to the Knesset entrance and got in line with the 200 or so people that were passing his coffin in a line. Journalists recorded live new segments while others took pictures and spent some time viewing the coffin. Some even prayed. There were four army personnel on either side of the coffin, two of which had their coats off and rocked back and forth "praying" (I put this into quotes because we didn't really know whether this was true). After we progressed with the line, we circled back and walked back to the apartment and started exchanging our reactions to the event.

I stopped directly in front of his coffin for about a minute or so, and I started thinking many things at once.

The first: Visiting Arik in this way was weird. This is a man I had heard about from his controversial actions in the history books and in the news, so it felt like a historical occasion with regards to the conflict at large, yet I didn't have any personal connection to him as I was not an Israeli affected by these actions in one way or another.

The second: z"l (stands for zichrona livracha: May his memory be a blessing)

The third: ... maybe z"l was pushing it.

The fourth: But was it?

The fifth: Man this is complicated.

The sixth: This man was supported through his comatose state by tax money from Israelis for the past 8 years. I wondered how they felt about that.

The seventh: Well, how do other Israelis feel about his death in general? (Dare I quote a woman from a pro-settlement party on the radio: It's sad that he died, but it was also a good thing, because he didn't get to push through with all his plans.... she apologized for this statement the following day)

In the middle of formulating what would become my last reaction, one of the other program mates, David Sklar, muttered behind me, "I wonder if things would have been different had he not gone into a coma."

This thought, the final one in the line of other thoughts, had also just finished crossing my mind.

VI. Our Little Commune Near The Knesset (b'Sha'are Hesed)

I joke not. We are a group of folks living communally in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Sha'are Hesed (literally means the gates of lovingkindness/compassion).

Ok. That's all cool. What are the components of living communally with five people?

Well, here's just a taste:
1) We share a communal budget for food (700 NIS per week, about 200 dollars). Yes people, I'm still eating very well (featuring lots of veggies and beans!).
2) We take responsibility over communal cleanliness (featuring cleaning after meals, and random apartment cleanings)
3) We meet/talk every so often to discuss issues as they come up and come to consensus-based decisions.
4) We, from the outset, came up with needs and wants to living together. This photo represents the consummation of communal norms based on these wants and needs at this point. These are all subject to change as we continue to live together into the future.
5) Above all, we're here for the good of both ourselves and the common communal member.

Sha'are Hesed eh? Ultra-Orthodox community? How's that been?

1) People talk to us often and are genuinely interested in what we're doing... we're unsure how much we should talk about our ideals to make relationships and promote understanding between all the different populations in Jerusalem, but we definitely garner interest despite our program's secular nature.
2) Lots of mothers amble about with carriages and smaller (and always-cute) children.
3) On shabbat there is a police barrier placed on the central road to block traffic.... not that this stopped my program director from driving down it when we were first going to the house after my bout with Israeli customs because he didn't know any other way (slight misunderstanding).
4) An open give and take library devoted to Jewish mysticism, spirituality, and communal topics.
5) IT'S LIKE SEVEN MINUTES FROM THE SHUK (open market). This is extremely convenient for all our food shopping needs.
6) And 5 from Nachlaot, one of the more beautiful, spiritual, and communal neighborhoods. We toured this with a neuroscientist student named Itamar (not the Hebrew Itamar) who showed us a Yeshiva, some community centers, and the awesome feeling of getting lost in the endless wind and whirl of streets (I can't wait to get lost there again soon!)
7) We have an amazing view of the Knesset and the valley leading further into West Jerusalem.

VII: Meet the Crew: 

Oh, the program mates. Yes. Here they are, with a brief introduction. From now on, I will be posting more about them in :

+ Mischa Berlin-- Toronto native, graduated from McGill two years back. In order to go on this trip, he left his job as a research assistant at an educational research center that investigates how to create more meaningful learning for students across Canada. He's here to start to put into tangible practice ideals and conversations he has had for a long while now, and is excited to get to know a bit more of the Palestinian side of the narrative on the ground.
+ Vallie Rourke-- New Jersey/New York/Portland/Maine native. She currently goes to the College of the Atlantic in Maine where she studies Human Ecology (the intersection of environmental science, biology, and human society, amongst other things). She's been involved with communal living/Hashomer Hatzair (the group that runs our program) for a long time now, and this program afforded her the opportunity to continue this experience while also looking to pick apart her relationship to this area.
+ David Sklar-- Montreal native. A franco-anglophone, David is a full-time actor (look for him as an extra on the new X-Men movie. Yes, I'm serious) who is fully connected to the theater and acting scene on the ground. He decided to take this time to also come here to think with a more critical lens and start to put in work to make the situation better for all populations here on the ground.
See his blog up on the right hand of the page, or click on his name, to follow his reflections!
+ Faryn Borella-- Vermont native, and just finished her final semester at Occidental College (though not graduated just yet!). After a semester at the Arava Institute (educational facility that brings together Jordanians, Palestinians, and Israelis through researching and studying environmental issues that affect everyone in the area) in the Negev Desert (south of here), she decided she needed to come back to indulge in more direct work between the different populations in the Jerusalem area.
See her blog up on the right hand of the page, or click on her name, to follow her reflections!
+ Me-- North Carolina native. After a couple of trips to the area and studying the history of the conflict, I am curious to see the value of programs that encourage relationship-building on the ground between both sides. I am also intending to study international development programming with a focus in community education in environmental science/oral history/recreational activities to build relationships and bridge gaps between conflicting populations in conflict zones.


Gosh. So much to tell, yet wow! I'm already making these so long!... Stay tuned for the next one!

Day 1 and Day 2: HaG'vulot shel Ha'Aretz

Table of Contents (so you can skip to what portions you think are the best-- this one got a bit longer than I wanted it to):

I. Overview
II. G'vulot
III. The Borders within Jerusalem (descriptive about Israeli society)
IV. The Israeli Customs, LTD (personal story about my 2.5 hours detained at customs. Has dialogue, the longest content-wise, but the quickest read)

I. Overview
The first two weeks of the program have been "orientation." We haven't done any real work yet, but this is coming this next week. This post is about the culture of limits here that I experienced the first couple of days.

II. G'vulot
"Ma zeh g'vulot?"

"Borders, Barriers, or Limits."

"Tov Me'od."

The first and third statement was given by our Hebrew teacher, Itamar. I could go on about how baller this man is in his hipster glasses, almost-but-just-short-of-buzz cut, skinny jeans with new balance knock offs to curve out his bell bottoms, and beyond-Scruff scruffy beard, but you'll hear more about him, as he will be our group's teacher for our entire time here.

*NOTE Using the "Hebrew vocabulary" tab above, you should be able to translate the title and conversation, and per my initial post, this will help you learn Hebrew/Arabic with me, as the context will provide. But, since it's the first time, I'll give you a hand:

Title: The Limits of the Land; "What is this, g'vulot (what does g'vulot mean)?" "Borders or Limits." "Very good."*

Itamar at the time was talking about the definitions of a g'vul as we stood in a circle at Gan Ha'atzmaut (Independence Park). Just to provide background, Itamar is absolutely transfixed by language and etymology, how the word is put into practice, and even more excited by how language (safah) is, in itself, a g'vul. He asks us about the different types of boundaries prevalent in Jerusalem. We respond: neighborhoods, streets, walls, the green line, the separation wall/security fence, the old city. "Yes!" he exclaims (note: he is ALWAYS so excited... have I mentioned I like him a lot yet?), "yet these boundaries, are they always fixed?"

III. Jerusalem borders?
Earlier that morning, we had walked from our neighborhood of Sha'are Hesed (more on this later) into Rehavya. None of us would have noticed the change, but Itamar spoke up that we were changing neighborhoods. "Most people here like to say they're from Rehavya if they're on the line, because Sha'are Hesed means like you're very religious, and that has its own implications." I remember that struck me as odd. Why fabricate a version of yourself as a person who was a religious Jew dressed like this, when you've clearly fabricated yourself in flannel, wool fingerless gloves and electric blue kicks?

But back to Itamar and his question about borders being fixed.

There are very clear notions of where yes, this border is a border. One example of this is the old city of Jerusalem . It has a border. This border is a very high wall made of Jerusalem rock that surrounds and protects what used to be the old city. Case closed.........

Au contraire.

This very high wall made of Jerusalem rock was actually NOT the same high wall made of Jerusalem rock that protected Jerusalem in the times of King Herod (around 580 BC). See here for how these mighty boundaries have moved as lines shift.

Boundary meter says: walls are a clear boundary that chang through time.

But c'mon! That's a boring border! Get to the politically dubious stuff!

The famed 1967 armistice line is another 'border' within our fair city. Most people know this line by its more colloquial name: the green line (which was named as such because it was drawn on the negotiations map with green ink). What's impeccable about this line is how impermeable it seemed to my American Jewish psyche. On the trips I took back in the day, I wouldn't have even dared to cross this line because my counselors said, "It's dangerous!" "You'll get robbed!" "You'll never find your way back!" I remember thinking that crossing this line must be one hell of a taboo.

But man, was I underwhelmed to finally see that this line that is often held to be so important and so rigid in the Israeli psyche is one of the most porous and invisible boundaries in the city. You cross it and... A) you're still Jewish, B) there's nothing dangerous (except for Jerusalem drivers, which is a region wide thing), and C) somehow all of your belongings are all still with you.

Even more perplexing, is that because the green pen was "so wide" on the negotiations map, the exact line exists as a 600 meter wide section that "bisects" the city in reality.

Boundary meter says: Important, yet invisible and completely nonspecific.

Ok, fine. The green line's pretty fine and dandy. But I want you to get REAL political.

*sigh*

The separation wall/security fence (green for green line, red for built wall/fence, and dotted red for to-be-built wall/fence) is now a visible feature of the Jerusalem skyline. It winds from the Mount of Olives out of sight towards Bethlehem, and then reappears several kilometers north of Hebrew University's Mt. Scopus campus (which is itself a VERY interesting boundary case).

Boundary? Yes. Very much so. It is made of dark grey cement and reaches very high. BUT, according to Human Rights Lawyer Emily Schaeffer (she'll make a cameo again in a future post), the Israeli government states in court that though it seems completely rigid, it is a temporary structure and can be destroyed whenever they wish (see here for an example of this).

Whether or not its temporary is up to debate, and I'm not here to touch on that. I'm here to talk about boundaries. So there, James Price.

The fence/wall's boundary is a line that snakes up and down the hills about 2 to 3 km east of the Old City. This line was one etched in the office of Israeli officials, and, in Jerusalem, does not at all ride along the green line between West and East Jerusalem. There are many many questions about how this line was chosen especially when there was an already dubious line that could have been used as a template. These questions for the most part will remain just that, because while the Israeli Department of Housing and Development states one reason, no one really knows the multitude of reasons why this line was pushed so far east if the intent was indeed security or separation (both of which are very hard to define and quantify).

Nearby where we stand, Itamar points to a fairly wooded yet broken down area of the park. "That is the location of the ancient Mamilla cemetery where many Muslims pre-'48 were buried, including those that are ... it is now the building project for the Museum of Tolerance."

I had heard about this before, but all the things associated with this situation continue to baffle me with its irony.

"The Mufti, Muslim leadership of Jerusalem, has agreed to have the graves moved and that the Museum would be allowed to build on a portion of the land. It is unclear whether the museum developers still wish to take all the land and use it for this purpose."

... Well then... each limit and boundary means both something and nothing at the same time here... depending on the context.

IV. The Israeli Customs LTD
Itamar gives a handout to us that has different catch phrases on it relating to the word g'vul. One catches my eye: Hata'am Hatov G'vul. I ask him what it means. He says, "Ah I love that one. It's like, you use it when people have gone too far. Literally it means, 'the limit of good taste,' so you would use this when you've been pushed to the edge of your limit."

Ah. Yes. I know that feeling.

Just 19 hours before, my plane touched down in Israel. My first course of action off the plane was to find some wifi and snapchat my brother to let him know I made it so that he could pass the info on to my mother and father in turn.

My second was to prepare for Israeli customs, where I knew they would probably ask me some questions about my name and my one-way ticket.

I approach the customs officer with all of the relevant documents in order, and she takes a look at my passport. I try to look pleasant, friendly and... American. She doesn't look up at me. Instead she stares at her computer screen.

"What's your business here?"

"I'm about to start a five month volunteer program."

Silence. Still hasn't looked at me.

"How long do you plan to stay?"

"Well, until the program ends."

She stares at her computer.

"What's your father's name?"

Crap.

"Masood Bhatti."

"And where is he from?"

"Pakistan."

"Muslim?"

Oy.

"Yes. Muslim. But I'm Jewish."

I just realized she hadn't typed a single one of my answers on the computer. Until those last two.

She pauses. She still hasn't looked at me once (I begin to think now that this is a person-at-customs or a her thing and not my unique situation thing... I still think it to be a little bit we--

Just then, she does look up at me. It is a very professional look. With it comes what I perceive as a very well rehearsed line, delivered with only slight zests of politeness and discomfort.

"If you would please go back to that green room over there, you will talk to a special customs officer. I'm going to hold your passport for you as you wait."

Great.

As I head towards the room, I take a note to self: when they ask about your father, casually slip in the fact that he couldn't have been my father without my mother. Who is Jewish. And white.

And, has had AT LEAST as strong of an influence on my life as, say, my father.

All (perhaps unnecessary; but hey, I wasn't feeling too hot) snarkiness aside, I'm not very worried. I have in my possession my travel insurance, my acceptance letter from my program, some specifics on my program's actions, and a copy of my soon-to-be apartment's address. If the Israeli intelligence is as in depth as I have heard, I shouldn't have a problem.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wait in the "green room" (which actually has an open door and open ceiling to the rest of the customs checkpoint) for about 45 minutes with four others. One of them is a Russian woman who looks pretty annoyed at this whole ordeal. Another is an Australian man who told me he has a couple of Yemenese, Lebanese and Algerian stamps in his passport: "I help run a solar panel industry." A third is an elderly man with white hair, a cart full of bags, and a mocha skin complexion, meaning he could be from anywhere between Morocco and Bangladesh. A final one is a guy that looks absolutely exhausted and unhappy. I can't really tell much about him-- he looks Israeli yet also Arab. Perhaps we have the same problem of looking yet not being Arab. I feel less inclined to speak to him as he seems more content to be left alone, but we exchange wry smiles every once and a while.

"Ehh.... Hasan....ehhh... Bha--"

"Yeah that's me."

"Bring all your stuff with you."

"B'seder."

I enter a room across from a portly, but more-friendly-than-the-customs-lady guy. I hand him all of my documents and point out the relevant information. He asks me the same questions. And then he asks a couple more:

"Where will you be staying?"

"Diskin 5 in Jerusalem."

"Ok. Where do you come from?"

"North Carolina."

"Ok. Why are you here?"

"I'm about to do a five-month volunteer program."

"And what will you do on this program?"

"I will be working with different organizations that work with underserved populations in Jerusalem, while taking Hebrew and Arabic."

Was it a poor choice to include the second language? I don't know, but I said it.

"Is this your first time to Israel?"

"No I've come twice before. Once in 2001 with my synagogue and my mother, and again in 2004 on a summer trip with my summer camp."

"What like Taglit?"

"No it was with Ramah Summer Camp."

"Never heard of it."

"Oh... well it exists."

Was Ramah not a known thing? I guessed maybe Masa'a or Birthright are most of the cases they dealt with.

"Your name. It's not Jewish."

"No it's not. My dad is Muslim and from Pakistan, and he was the one who named me."

"But how are you Jewish?"

"My father and mother are separated and I grew up living with my mother, who was active in a Conservative Jewish synagogue, so I got involved too."

"So your dad is Muslim."

"Yes. But I'm Jewish."

"When was the last time you had contact with your father?"

What?

"Well... He's my father. I spoke to him over skype last week because he and my mom are no longer together."

"Ok. Stayed with him?"

"Uh, like a year ago?"

Two minutes of typing. I'm glad he didn't ask the same question they asked me the first time I went to Israel: Did he give you any packages to take over here?

The reason? I may have laughed out loud at that one. And that would have been bad.

I take a sip of water and hope that I'll make it out of here soon.

Wish granted.

"Ok, go back to the room, if you please."

"Thank you very much."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another hour, another couple of people. The Russian girl is gone, as is the elderly man with the bags. The Australian and the mysterious man and I sit in silence. I look at my i-pod touch to see if I can get wifi. Maybe I can contact my program director and let him know what's going on.

Nope. I am in a dead zone.

I look at myself in my camera vision and realize how disheveled and tired I look. I start to get annoyed for the first time. I need a bed, some food, and a shower. I want to stop answering questions. I want to meet my program mates and directors. I want to check my snapchats and see my brother or my mother write me back.

I want to get on with my life within a land that I had come to love.

Another guy comes in the middle of my angst and attempts my name. He's a lot more successful. But he doesn't hand me my passport back.

"Come with me."

Now, I'm not so happy or confident anymore. The way I present the following part of the story represents how I felt then, and not how I feel now (right now I understand he didn't know who I was, that I had an open ticket and... an Arab-Muslim name raises flags for an Israel that has been attacked by a couple of people in the past that happened to have Arab or Muslim lineage--whatever all this means to them and how this maintains "security" I don't know, especially when Jews and Christians also have committed violence in this area. I just know that I'd hate to be the customs officer pulling over one person or another of a particular lineage in the name of security)

He introduces himself as a special customs investigator.

I high five myself for earning a raise.

He asks me the same questions all the ones before me has. Except he asks some of them like this:

"Have you been to Israel before?"

"Yes, once in 2001 and again in 2004 with my camp."

"What type of camp was this?"

"A Conservative Jewish camp called Ramah."

"Never heard of it."

Huh.

"Did you see any of your father's relatives while you were here back then?"

"Uh, no. None of them live here. Most of my father's relatives are in Pakistan. Some others are in the United States, some others in Dubai, and one I think in the UK.  And besides, I went with my mom, who is Jewish, in 2001 along with the rest of my synagogue, and then again with my camp in 2004. "

"When was the last time you had contact with your father?"

"I spoke to him via skype this last week."

"No. When was the last time you had contact with your father?"

"... Again, I spoke to him via skype this last week."

"No. When was the last time you saw him?"

"Oh, uh. A year and a half ago I think."

"Ok. Contact with your father is when you last saw him."

Well that was a new definition of the word contact.

"So you're Muslim."

"No. I'm technically Muslim by--."

"Answer the question. When I ask I need an answer. I don't need an explanation."

I begin to think about if I had a passport from an Arab/Muslim country with a desire to participate in a social justice program benefitting Israelis and Palestinians.

"I am answering the question. My father is Muslim, which I guess makes me 'Muslim' by lineage in your eyes. But I'm Jewish by practice."

"So you are Muslim."

"No. I am Jewish."

"How is that possible?"

"Because my mother is Jewish, I lived most of my life with her, and I belonged to a synagogue most of my life."

"But your dad is Muslim."

"Yes. He is. But I practice Judaism because I lived most of my life with her and she was active in the synagogue, so I got involved in turn."

"Oh."

Yeah. Oh.

"That seems a little farfetched."

"Do you want me to call my father and mother? I can have them confirm my story, their names and their identities for you."

Silence.

I contemplate whether I should tell him to google my name and my synagogue's name, Beth El, or my time at Colby as co-president. He'd probably come up with some blog posts I've written or the fact that I was a USY leader for my entire high school, and maybe this would have set this matter to rest.

"Achvat Amim, this program you're going on, you know what it means?"

"Yes. Solidarity or harmony between nations or peoples."

Silence.

"Ok."

He returns to his computer.

I begin to ask myself what if I didn't know English or Hebrew. Would I have lasted this long in the conversation? Would they have given me a translator? Would that limit have been the difference between in and out?

And what if I knew Hebrew and was still Muslim? I didn't think my translation of Achvat Amim proved anything, but I guess it did.

"What are you doing on this program?"

"I'm going to be working at a school, Yad B'yad, for Israelis, Palestinians, Christians, Armenians. I'll be working as an English teacher and an after school worker while learning Hebrew and Arabic so I can communicate with the students."

"Yad B'yad. Where is that?"

"It's in Jerusalem."

"I've never heard of it nor the program."

"Well the program is new and both are there. You can look them up."

"Who runs it?"

"Hashomer Hatzair."

"Oh I've heard of them. You know who they are?"

"They are a youth socialist zionist organization."

I'm starting to remember my confidence, and starting to realize I need to be more aggressive with my answers for him to believe me... though I am genuinely wondering with his answer to my question whether or not the way I described the program convinced him I was here to do "good work" in his eyes.

"Ok. Do you know anyone here?"

"Yes. I know many people here."

"How many have you had contact with in the last year?"

"Like 10 or so."

"Ok. What are their phone numbers?"

"I don't have them. I skype with them. I was going to ask them their numbers when I got here, when I got an Israeli phone."

"You have had contact them but don't have their phone numbers?"

"No I don't. Because I communicate with them in a way that doesn't cost me money."

"Ok. Are these Israeli friends?"

I'm actively trying to keep myself from getting angry at that question.

"Yes. They are. In fact, one is an Israeli relative, whose last name I can't remember because, again, I was going to look him up when I got here."

"What are their names?"

"Many of them I only know their first names. A couple of their last names, but I know their first names. If you let me onto facebook, I will give you their last names and can ask them for phone numbers."

Who the hell knew that facebook would come into play in an interrogation room.

 "I can also email my mother to get the name of my relative."

"How can you not know their last names?"

Because I don't carry around all of my international friends' last names in a phone where it will cost me so much money to call them, nor do I type in their last names to facebook when I wish to contact them.

Nor do I, a multi-cultural American, expect any of their last names, or names or numbers in general, to hold any weight on my behalf outside of my contacts list, let alone a room where I could be denied entry to a country.

But I don't say that yet, for fear it'd be too long of an explanation.

"I just don't. I know only a few of the first and last names. The program directors are included in that."

"Write them down."

"Ok."

I write Daniel Roth, Karen Isaacs (the two program directors), Miki Joelson, and Liav Peretz.

"And you know or have none of these numbers?"

"Why would I remember or have any of these numbers when I don't have any use for them? I'm telling you. You allow me onto facebook and email and I will get their numbers for you within 5 minutes. Also, the two program directors' emails are right there if you want to contact them. They both have smartphones."

Silence.

"These aren't Israelis."

My God.

"The first two aren't native Israelis but they made Aliyah. The second two are."

"No they're not."

"Look them up man. They are."

Silence. Typing.

"Oh. They are."

Yeah. They are.

"Their last names don't sound Israeli."

"Yeah, well they are all Israeli citizens."

I realize in that moment that this guy is doing his job very well. Making sure, at any and every point, to offer me opportunities to slip up and give him a reason to deny me entry. This is, at the very root, the role of a person who is stationed at the border and screening all people who are about to come in.

I wonder half jokingly and half angrily if he would care if I had Palestinian friends, some of which were nicer, happier, and more peaceful than other Israelis I had met while in Israel before.

"Ok. You can return to the green room."

Ok. I'll return to the green room.

"Thank you very much."

I should have asked him what will happen, but maybe it was a good thing I didn't. I was already starting to get a little unruly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I go back to the green room. I am the last one there. I put on my headphones, change into shorts (said a flippant sorry to Ben Gurion airport for exposing my boxers and hairy legs to everyone). I blast Schoolboy Q, and then Kendrick Lamar, and then Eminem, and then Pusha T. I do yoga stretches, push ups, and pull ups on the door frame. I drink and drink and drink from my water bottle whenever I'm not doing either.

My brother, if watching this scene, would categorize me as "pissed off." He probably would have thrown in a few expletives.

And, frankly I was. I hadn't felt this angry since I was called a stone-throwing Palestinian at synagogue, or an American infidel at school, or pulled aside in airport security when I was 13, an era more colloquially known as post-9/11.

Conflicts and violence breed fear. And I was feared here in a state I had found love, community and a sense of home back in 2004 with Ramah Seminar.

Ironically, I originally wanted to come BACK to Israel to start to reduce the fear through peaceful means and social justice work, and Achvat Amim was to serve as the method to my madness. Wasn't this, the act of educating , what it meant to love the land?

That was the moment, heart rate up while doing vinyasas and body weight exercises, that I had reached Hata'am Hatov G'vul.

Another hour has passed before I realize it. I am midway through my fourth set of pull-ups when the first man comes to me and smiles. He hands me a passport and a stamped visa for three months.

"Welcome to Israel."

I manage a forced smile. "Todah rabah (thank you very much)."

I turn and walk by the station where I first saw the customs woman, this time making extra sure to break through the gates so that the barriers knew they had been opened.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I anticipate these scenes and accounts will not be the last of the blurry lines and ambiguous borders that I see and experience. As a person who has lived away from the USA for upwards of two years. I also know that limits and barriers are part of every society and culture worldwide, and when you get down to living somewhere, you must understand how to live with them.

Still, I've seen and experienced a taste of ha'gvulot shel ha'aretz (the limits/borders/barriers of 'the land'), and I know how crazy and angry you can get if you are the subject of g'vulot that limit your fundamental right to be who you are, or affix you into a particular character before even asking you a question about who you are. It affected me especially because I do have a love for this place, and to be treated this way left me shaken as to if it genuinely loved me back.

I've also heard that here you people will judge and you have to prove to them that they are wrong, tangibly. I'm thinking, with each barrier set before me, I'll start to figure out how to navigate better through these face value judgments from all sides of the coin, and per my mission to start to break down these judgments into prolonged understanding and relationships, I'm hoping this will only work to my advantage, because I will continue to work as much as I am able for this love.

(Stay tuned: a Palestinian farmer does the same thing to others on our program)