On Stone Throwing and Strategies

Posted on January 1, 2014 by Christian Peacemaker Teams Palestine

Soldiers preparing to fire tear gas on boys throwing stones about 100 meters away

by Kathleen Kern

[Note: The following first appeared on the CPT Palestine blog in a slightly condensed form ]

Years ago in our Hebron apartment, we had a foam cushion insert on which someone had drawn a smiling face. We dubbed it “Happy Foam Square,” and would throw it at a wall when our work got frustrating. Doing so was surprisingly cathartic.

So in a small way, I understand why throwing stones feels good. I also understand, when I see the posters of small boys throwing stones at tanks, that their actions are brave. I understand why the narrative of an occupied people resisting one of the most technologically advanced militaries in the world with rocks and Molotov cocktails is a source of pride in some circles.

But monitoring clashes in Hebron has always been one of my least favorite things to do, because we have almost no impact on the situation, and so little strategy is involved on the part of the Palestinian boys throwing things. They do it because it feels good, because it helps take the edge of the humiliation of the Israeli military occupation, and they just don’t think about the consequences to themselves, their families, or the people living and working in the staging area for these clashes.

In some situations, a thrown stone can literally grant a soldier a license to kill or can result in months, even years in jail for Palestinian youth. We have seen boys as young as eight taken away on suspicion of stone throwing. (Israeli settler youth are never arrested for throwing stones at Palestinians.) In one case, I witnessed soldiers detain children because they were wearing balaclavas in the cold weather; they told me the masks proved the boys were intending to throw stones (For more information on what happens to children accused of throwing stones, see Occupied Childhoods. Newly released report on violation of children’s rights in Hebron.)

On school days, we monitor two checkpoints through which students and teachers must walk to get to school. At one checkpoint, almost every day, schoolboys throw stones at Border Police and Border Police respond with tear gas and sound bombs. One young mother told me, exasperated, “If they weren’t here, the boys would not throw stones.” And it’s true. If the soldiers, for the fifteen minutes before the school bell rang just went around the corner, had a cup of coffee, and let the principals shoo the children into the schoolyards, this dreary daily theatrical production would not take place.

Stone throwing at the Qitoun checkpoint happens less often, but last week, it had a tragic consequence for a family in the line of fire. After a volley of stones lasting less than a minute, a Border Police officer shot tear gas from a nearby rooftop at the boys. He missed, and it went into a family’s home and caught something on fire. They lost everything.

So do I think Palestinian children should stop throwing stones? Of course. Apart from my own pacifist beliefs, I see it having no positive outcomes for the children and teenagers. But there is a reason that societies hold adults more responsible than children for their negative actions, and the soldiers firing the teargas and rubber bullets at stone throwers are at least nominal adults. And the strategists running this stupid, immoral occupation passed the threshold of adulthood a long, long time ago.

The Selfish Writer, #Pitchwars, #Pitchmas, and Yes My Novel is Not the Center of the Universe

Most people, if asked to describe me, would not choose “selfish” as one of their first adjectives. Working for a human rights organization gives one an altruistic sheen, not always deserved, or not completely anyway. Most human rights workers, honest ones, will readily come up with a list of less altruistic reasons they do the work they do. They thought it sounded it like an interesting thing to do for a few years before their “real” careers began; they had friends doing the work; they like to travel; human rights workers are hilarious and often fun to be around (it’s true!)

And then there are the human rights people who are working out “issues” that I won’t go into here.

Hajji Hussein (with child on lap) was a political prisoner for whom CPT’s Iraqi Kurdistan team advocated. He was freed right after an Urgent Action e-mail Campaign we sent out on CPTnet. And right after #Pitchwars. Yes. Hajji Hussein’s freedom was really more important. Really.

I’m writing this entry because I’ve been really conscious over the last couple weeks of how my attention has NOT been focused on the needs of the people my organization serves, nor on the people near and dear to me. Pretty much, all I have been able to think about is getting my novel noticed by an agent.

It all started with the #Pitchwars contest. The premise of the contest is that “mentors”—agented authors, agents’ assistants or other people who have connections in the literary world, read the query letters and the first five pages of the novel that the authors are submitting to the contest and choose one author and two alternates to mentor. Then they read the entire manuscript and help the author sharpen both the manuscript and query for submission to an agent.

I got a mentor interested in my submission based on our shared interest in Joss Whedon, although she was upfront about it being outside her genre, and I began obsessively following the #Pitchwars Twitterfeed to watch her and the other three agents to whom I submitted discussing the entries. Now, I was getting ready to leave the country for another two-month assignment with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT); I needed to get my three substitute editors situated to take over CPTnet while I was gone; CPT was doing its end of the year fundraising push. I was very conscious that my mind needed to focus on other things.

I think it was at the meeting of my church’s Pastoral Ministry committee when we were discussing the needs of people in my church that I felt the most selfish. The other three people on the committee were discussing these needs–some of them pretty dire–and I realized I hadn’t really been giving them any thought, because I so very, very passionately want my novel–The Price We Paid, formerly Shea–to be published. And this #Pitchwars contest had given me hope that a little mentoring might get me there.

With a little distance now, I know it was a good experience. I am still surprised by how approachable the mentors were to unpublished authors with questions and how much time they put into their responses to the people they chose not to mentor. I think I realized later that the contest was not for literary fiction, and hence, not the best venue for my novel. I don’t mean that in a snobbish sense, but in the sense that the mentors who were critiquing adult fiction had a background in commercial and genre fiction. The mentors who commented said I should look for agents who represented literary fiction.

I also got good ideas for sharpening my query. For example, I think I’m going to have to cut out the Hosea and Gomer reference from all future queries, which hurts a little, since Hosea’s love life was the epiphany that led to the novel. But in my last conversation with Jim Loney, who is taking over CPTnet part of the time when I’m gone, he told me he had forgotten the connection the novel had with the biblical story, and he’s one of the novel’s strongest advocates.

Right before I left, I did a 35 word pitch for the novel in #Pitchmas, knowing I’d be in Hebron when the “Winners” were announced (75 pitches get posted on a blog. Agents pick from among the pitches.) Usually, when I’m on assignment, the work has a way of engaging most of my attention, so I’m hoping the Twitter feed won’t take up as much of my time (our Hebron apartment has spotty internet, anyway.)

Years ago, when I got a fellowship to workshop my first novel manuscript with Lee K. Abbott, based on the first chapter I submitted, he asked if I had completed the novel. Upon learning I had, he said the good news was that most aspiring writers never do that. The bad news was that I would probably have to write five before I got published. And I do have the beginnings of a fourth beginning to inkle about in my brain.

But I am not finished with The Price We Paid. Apart from all the ignoble reasons I want it published, I believe in it; I believe it has a life and that I am supposed to advocate for that life. I just wish I were a better promoter.

UPDATE: My Twitter Pitch ( “A” stands for “Adult”) was not chosen for the 75 “Pitchmas” pitches: “A/ Literary Dystopian Iz cheats on his wife but also helps her bring down corrupt religious regime that rules U.S. during 2065-2089 #Pitchmas” Again, I’m not sure literary novels lend themselves to Twitter-length pitches.

Another easy entry after another denial of entry

After my easy entry and exit in October, I was expecting another easy entry, although I was expecting some scrutiny for having entered six weeks after I left the country. Then the Israeli authorities denied entry to my colleague Patrick during the first week of December and the anxieties began building again.

Bob is showing Christopher how to handle the finances. Maurice is standing behind them because I told him to.

When I exited the airplane, I noticed that shortly after I entered the terminal, a long time before I got to Passport Control, a crowd of people was standing. I was jetlagged, had a migraine and was preparing myself for a grilling, so I had only a vague impression that many of them were Latinos. One Israeli security person pulled aside a young man in his twenties who was just behind me, asked to see his passport and added him to the crowd. When I got to Passport Control, there were very few people in line. The young woman in the booth literally didn’t speak to me. She waved me forward, looked at my passport, printed out my visa and waved me on. I didn’t connect the two incidents until I got to my friends Ya’alah and Netanel’s apartment in Jerusalem—that the security people were pulling people aside before they got to Passport Control rather than Passport Control people sending “questionable” people to be interviewed by security.

I spent yesterday in Jerusalem because of a migraine, and upon arriving on team in Hebron this afternoon found that my new teammates Christopher and Maurice had had identical experiences. Israeli security pulled aside the “questionable” people i.e., anyone who was not white, or under thirty to forty years old, soon after they exited the plane. Christopher said he usually gets questioned, but he was deep in conversation with a German businessman as he was walking out of the plane, so the security people left him alone.

I’m going to leave it to Markie to discuss the level of snow and cold here from Winter Storm Alexa (yes they named it.) I’m a little sad that Bob Holmes, one of my favorite colleagues, is leaving tomorrow before I really get a chance to work with him. And Christopher and Maurice will leave in a couple weeks. And of course I was looking forward to working with Patrick; I had even bought Shinichirō Watanabe’s anime series Kids on a Slope to watch with him. At least Mona will be here (she’s at home in Ramallah today.) Girl power. Rah.

RCMP attack on anti-fracking blockade in Elsipogtog

Below is the original version of my November column for Mennonite World Review. The edited version is available here.

On October 17, shortly before CPT’s Hebron team sat down to dinner, I checked my Twitter feed. I saw that something was happening in Elsipogtog—a community in Maritime Canada that CPT’s Aboriginal Justice team is accompanying as it resists fracking by SWN Resources on its traditional lands. When I checked the #Elsipogtog hashtag, hundreds of comments began streaming out about arrests, snipers, rubber bullets, teargas, and vehicles on fire. I realized that thousands of miles away in Occupied Palestine I was watching live, via Twitter, an attack by the Canadian police on the Elsipogtog blockade in New Brunswick. And so as we sat down to eat, in the relative quiet of Hebron that evening, we prayed for Elsipogtog—and our tweets about the ongoing attack on the encampment were later retweeted by some of the Palestinian activists who follow the Hebron team’s account.

The blurry red hat is being worn by one of my CPT colleagues. The policeman with the attack dog was very unhappy about her videotaping him.

The blurry red hat is on the head of one of my CPT colleagues. The policeman with the attack dog is very unhappy about her videotaping him.

Because of the chaos caused by the attack, even now, some of its details are unclear, but what basically happened is this: Canadian police, some heavily armed and in military-style camouflage, arrested Chief Arren Sock and dozens of other protesters, while they ransacked the camp and dispersed protestors using teargas and rubber-coated metal bullets. Some of the protestors responded by setting the police cars on fire and throwing things at the police. What had been a nonviolent witness until that moment fell apart.

In the aftermath of the incident, the KAIROS coalition (of which MCC Canada is a member), Amnesty International Canada and the Canadian Friends Service Committee published an open letter to David Alward, the Premier of New Brunswick. In the opening paragraph, the organizations noted, “it is our view that this clash could have been avoided had the province acted in a manner consistent with its obligations to respect the human rights of Indigenous peoples under Canadian and international law.”

The letter then highlights four areas in which the province of New Brunswick could do more to rebuild just relations with Indigenous peoples:

Acknowledge that Indigenous peoples have rights to their lands, territories, and resources that predate the creation of the Canadian state. International human rights bodies, including the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights have repeatedly condemned Canada’s failure to protect these rights.
Stop ignoring the land rights of Aboriginal peoples in day-to-day operations of the government. Canadian courts have decreed that governments must consult with Indigenous Peoples before making decisions that affect their rights. “Accordingly,” the letter says, “our organizations urge your government to retract statements indicating that the province is already committed to shale gas development, regardless of opposition.”
Acknowledge that the province must obtain “free, prior and informed consent” (FPIC) of Indigenous peoples when a proposed project has the potential to affect their cultures, livelihoods, health, and well-being. “Our organizations call on New Brunswick to acknowledge that shale gas exploration and development on or near the traditional lands of Indigenous peoples is clearly an example where the safeguard of free, prior and informed consent is appropriate and necessary.”
Deploy police with the understanding that they have a clear responsibility to respect and protect human rights, including the lives and safety of those involved in protests. “Use of force must always be a last resort and the scale and nature of the force deployed must be in proportion to the need to protect public safety.”

“Unless the province adopts an approach consistent with these obligations, further clashes may occur,” the letter notes.

Chief Sock

Chief Arren Sock released a written statement on October 18, saying “Chief and Council of the Elsipogtog First Nation wish to state clearly that guns and bombs, if any, have no place in our peaceful efforts.” On October 21, Justice George Rideout denied the request by SWN Resources to extend its court injunction to prevent the Elsipogtog protesters from blocking its storage facility. But on November 18, the activists suffered a setback when Judge Judy Clendenning dismissed an application from the Elsipogtog First Nation for an injunction to stop seismic testing for shale gas.The story is still unfolding, streaming, and tweeting.

Israeli soldiers beat 15-year-old boy at Dubboya Street Checkpoint

There were clashes in the city center of Hebron today because soldiers beat this boy at a checkpoint. Same checkpoint where the young man with Down’s Syndrome was humiliated a couple days ago: http://cptpalestine.wordpress.com/2013/10/21/hebron-reflection-special-treatment/ I was on my way to have dinner with friends (about which my colleague Markie will write an account) when the clashes began.

I thought I would repost the team’s short news item on my blog because of the connection to the release I wrote. My teammates who interviewed the boy are Palestinian and Welsh. They followed him to the hospital and were able to conduct the interview in Arabic while he waited for his X-ray results.

BREAKING
Today CPTers talked with 15 year old Mohammed (not his real name) in the Alya Hospital Al Khalil/Hebron. Mohammed had been beaten by Israeli military for not having an ID.

Palestinians are not issued ID’s until they reach 16. Mohamed had been beaten in the back of his head and body by the soldiers who had also used the butts of their guns. Mohammed subsequently fainted.

The Military then covered his body and left him where he had fallen. After a crowd had gathered and news had spread, Mohammed’s family arrived on the scene and were able to get him to the hospital.

Mohammed was severely shaken by the experience, was awaiting the results of a X-ray and complained of having an intense headache.

The beating took place at the 56 Check point which sits between Shuhada Street, which is under full Israeli Military control, and Bab iZeweyya which is under Palestinian civil control.

Photo: BREAKING

Today CPT talked with 15 year old Mohammed (not his real name) in the Alya Hospital Al Khalil/Hebron. Mohammed had been beaten by Israeli Military for not having an ID.

Palestinians are not issued ID's until they reach 16. Mohamed had been beaten in the back of his head and body by the soldiers who had also used the butts of their guns. Mohammed subsequently fainted.

The Military then covered his body and left him where he had fallen. After a crowd had gathered and news had spread, Mohammed's family arrived on the scene and were able to get him to the hospital.

Mohammed was severely shaken by the experience, was awaiting the results of a Xray and complained of having an intense headache.

The Beating took place at the 56 Check point which sits between Shuhada Street, which is under full Israeli Military control, and Bab iZeweyya which is under palestinian civil control.

1 Like · · Share

Hebron Reflection: Special Treatment

Posted on October 21, 2013 by Christian Peacemaker Teams Palestine

by Kathleen Kern

A few days ago, my teammate Alwyn and I were sidetracked by phone call as we left for a food shopping trip. Another international monitoring group here in Hebron asked us to check out a

Offending snacks photographed by EAPPI after the staff person was finally released by the soldiers.

situation at the container checkpoint that separates the H-1 area (under nominal Palestinian control) from H-2 (under full Israeli military control) in Hebron. Soldiers had stopped a staffperson from a kindergarten near Qurtuba School who was bringing in a box of snacks for the children, which apparently the soldiers running the checkpoint deemed a security risk.

The staff person had been there an hour by the time we got there and would be there for more than another before the soldiers finally let him go. In the meantime, Alwyn and I became involved in another small human drama. A young man with Down’s Syndrome came through the checkpoint. The soldiers were searching most bags at that point, so I don’t know if initially they decided to be extra thorough with him, but perhaps because he made them uncomfortable, something compelled them to make him take his belt off, pull up his shirt, take off his shoes, and pull up his pants legs. They also went through the newspaper he was carrying page by page to see if it concealed anything.

He continued up the hill afterwards, belt in hand, cursing. He would try to put the belt through the loops of his pants, then start re-enacting the scene of his humiliation again and again, yelling and shaking his fist. Alwyn and I joined him and tried to calm him down. An older man came by to help him with his belt, and through him, we learned the young man’s name, Abed*, and that his father had died recently.

What seemed to restore his good humor was showing him my shopping list, and telling him, in Arabic, what we needed to buy (apples, bananas, milk etc.) He sat with us as we waited for people from the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme to relieve us. At one point he nudged me with his elbow, smiled, and said in Arabic, “I’m Jewish.” “Really?” I asked. The smile widened, nearly splitting his face in half and he nodded vigorously.

Before I joined Christian Peacemaker Teams, I worked with developmentally disabled adults. I have thought over the years I have worked in Hebron, that while people with mental disabilities here sometimes suffer worse treatment in the form of mockery on the streets than they do in the U.S., they often feel that they are more a part of the community than the people I worked with did. Still, I guess I do expect that soldiers are going to make special allowances for a young man like Abed, and not assume he is a criminal, which seems to be their default assumption for most young Palestinian men in their twenties. I know that soldiers have taken away boys as young as seven or eight on suspicion of throwing stones. I worry what a strong young man like Abed might face behind that gate where Israeli soldiers take the boys and men they detain. And I worry that we might never really find out what happens to him if they do.

*Not his real name

Pictures–Pretty! Apartheid Wall–Yucky!

by Markie

Hi Kids!

Before we left Bethlehem a couple days ago, we visited the wall that Israel built around Bethlehem. Israel said it was going to build it for security between Israel and Palestine, but the wall isn’t built along the border of Israel and the West Bank. It goes inside the West Bank and has confiscated thousands and thousands of acres of Palestinian land. It surrounds Bethlehem on three sides.

Ever since the Wall went up people from all over the world have been painting pictures on it and writing angry or sad or hopeful or happy messages on it. Kathy and I took some pictures. Can you find me in them?

Some artist called Banksy who’s supposed to be a big deal did this.

People who get really angry at the wall throw burning things at it. I got kind of dirty posing on it.

Some mystery CPTer wrote this on the wall and no one knows who! My teammate Cory and I went looking for clues!

We came to a neighborhood that was almost completely surrounded by the wall. A woman whose home had been surrounded by the wall came up to us and asked us to look at her shop. She had designed some really interesting things. One was an olivewood nativity scene with a wall separating the wisemen and shepherds from baby Jesus, Joseph and Mary (you could take it out.)

When we got home, I was really dirty! So Kathy gave me a bath. Now I am all sparkley clean! Hurray!

Some call it Firing Zone 918, I call them Jinba, Al Fakheit. . .

Some call it Firing Zone 918, I call it Jinba, Al Fakheit, Isfey, al Fakheit, al Majaz, at Tabban, Jinba, Mirkez, Halaweh and Khallet Athaba’

On Saturday evening Kathy, Gabriel and I took a taxi to Yatta to spend the night with the family of Mufid, who usually drives people from Christian Peacemaker Teams, the International Solidarity Movement and The Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel to visit schools in an area that Israel calls Firing Zone 918. We had fun with Mufid’s children, especially Leam

Her big sister Leal and brother Odai taught me the Arabic alphabet.

Then the next morning we went out with another driver (not sure why we didn’t go with Mufid) in a car that the Japanese government donated through Unicef to pick up kids to take them to Al-Fakheit School. These kids live in very tiny villages far away from Yatta, so they either had to move to Yatta to stay with relatives to go to school or just not go to school. But now they have schools in Jinba and Al-Fahkheit they can go to. CPT, ISM and EAPPI ride with the driver into the area these villages are because the Israeli military does not want these villages or schools to be there and causes problems for the drivers.

Sunday morning, they were stopping drivers ahead of us, and our driver was nervous. The soldier told all of us to get out of the car. The soldier started asking the driver questions in Hebrew, and the driver said he didn’t speak Hebrew. So they started talking to him REALLY LOUD in Hebrew. I wanted to encourage them to think about rainbows but Kathy said she didn’t think it was appropriate. Gabriel said that the car had diplomatic plates and that Unicef wanted us to accompany the car, so the soldiers finally let us through.

Then we picked up the children–seven for the first trip. The driver makes three trips to get them all to the school. While the children waited for the other children and the teachers to get Al Fakheit, they played soccer. Their ball didn’t have much air in it, and they built their goalposts out of these rocks, but they still had a lot of fun.

GOOOOAL!

When the teachers got to the school, all the students line up according to what grade they were in and did exercises.

Road to Jinba

Then Kathy and Gabriel walked a long way to visit the school at Jinba that was built for younger children. Kathy fell on her face and hurt her knee.

School at Jinba

The school at Jinba is smaller than the one at Al Fakheit, and only younger children go there.

I hope nothing bad happens to Jinba, Al Fakheit, Isfey, al Fakheit, al Majaz, at Tabban, Jinba, Mirkez, Halaweh and Khallet Athaba’. I hope that these schools an the homes and wells and caves and animal pens are not destroyed. I also hope that the Israeli military stops practicing bombing and shooting near these villages, because it’s scary for the children and animals. The Israeli government said one of the reasons that all the people here have to move (except for the Israelis living in the area) is that it is a nature reserve, and the wild animals and plants need to be protected, but how can you protect plants and animals if you’re bombing and shooting? I talked to a gazelle about it and she agreed with me that that’s just silly.

Looking at the South Hebron Hills from the school at Al Fakheit

Well that’s all for now. Back to doing school patrol in Hebron tomorrow!

Angels at the airport

And lo, the Lord did put in my path two quarrelsome angels, who argued loudly with each other as they left the airplane from France and with the woman at passport control in the Tel Aviv airport, and though she did send them away, verily, they returned each time the young woman did ask me a question to dispute with her most vexedly in Hebrew. Three times they did return, during the time of my questioning, until the young woman gave me the paper that did allow me to enter and catch the taxi to Jerusalem.

Jonathan reading Flannery O’Connor while waiting at the border

So after weeks of anxiety, and seeing my colleagues turned away at the airport and the Jordanian border, my entry into Israel was remarkably anticlimactic. For an idea of what my teammate Jonathan went through when the Israeli authorities denied him entry at the Jordanian border, check out his blog. His ordeal was also written up in the Electronic Intifada.

I was happy to catch up with my friends Ya’alah and Netanel last night in Jerusalem, reconnect with my teammates and meet new teammates this morning (actually haven’t met them all just yet.) Just now, I thought I was feeling pretty awake, but then I started to unpack, saw the bed, and crashed for a couple hours.

So I was lucky. But that doesn’t solve the basic problem: Palestinians invite organizations like Christian Peacemaker Teams to monitor human rights abuses in the West Bank and Israel, which controls all the borders entrances into the West Bank, will not let these volunteers enter. Palestinians should have the right to invite whomever they want to come to their country. Unarmed pacifist volunteers are not a threat to anyone’s security. There’s no question that the Powers that Be simply do not want us reporting what we see.

You won’t know where I’m going till I get there

I will soon be leaving for a field assignment with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT). For those of you who don’t know me well, I work most of the year for CPT from my home in Rochester, NY, editing releases from workers staffing our projects in Iraqi Kurdistan, Colombia, North American Indigenous communities, etc.

At least once a year, however, I spend some time in the field, so I am alerting my blog readers that I will soon be shifting my writing into a more political mode (maybe I should say “even more political.”)

Those of you who know me well know why I am not going to go into great detail here about the whens, wheres, whys and hows of my travel. I will post more of an explanation for those of you who don’t once I get to my destination. Those of you given to prayer—I would appreciate prayers for an open and loving heart should I encounter people on my journey who don’t want me to get to where I’m going.

I will have my traveling companion Markie with me, who will probably post some of his adventures on Facebook. He has encouraged to wear this lucky unicorn necklace. I am hoping it makes me look inoffensive.

Human Rights

Tags