The trip to Jenin began on the narrow, potholed roads of Ramallah (on which it seems to be no problem to drive 40 miles an hour, dodging other cars as they stop or turn), which blended into narrow potholed streets of several surrounding villages. Then suddenly, we came upon a concrete building surrounded in barbed wire and graffitied with Hebrew words and stars of David. Below, we entered an Israeli flag-lined highway. Most signs were written in Hebrew, Arabic and English, but some destinations were only explained in one or two of the languages. (I'll try to explain more about highways shortly.)
The countryside was beautiful. Small stones form the steep hillsides into terraces, which are lined with olive trees. Boys could be spotted following small groups of sheep. However, certain hills rose into abandoned terraces and were topped instead with pointy-roofed houses (most buildings here have flat roofs which double as porches). Israeli settlements are easily identified this way even when they are not surrounded by tenish-foot-tall cement walls topped with barbed wire. An audience member of a lecture I attended last semester about peaceful resistance defended the violent actions of the Israeli army in Gaza saying, “If Canada launched missiles at Connecticut, of course we would bomb the shit out of them.” But what would we expect them to do if we built houses on their hilltops and walls around their farmland?
No comments:
Post a Comment