W. and I go out for a walk in the surroundings, observing the wall again and, as usual, we can’t finish our walk without being invited for lunch. This time it is M. and his son inviting us to their roof terrace. Communication is difficult this time so we only learn that all the land we can see on the other side of the road belonged to M.’s father once. He tells us this while we eat from a tiny dish of olives.
Bi’Lin VI. The day after
Imagine you live in constant tension. Imagine that there is nowhere safe where you live and you can never peacefully go to sleep. Imagine that tonight, as you are falling asleep, you hear some one knock on your door asking for entry. Imagine that the person you live with, your wife, your flatmate, your mother… gets up and opens the door for them. Imagine the person who enters is another person who lives with you; your son, your flatmate’s girlfriend, your father… and imagine that now, knowing that every one who lives in your house have finally come at the end of today, only now you can know that all your family have lived just one more day.
Bi’Lin V. Gas, bullets, stones. Gas
There is a demonstration against the wall every Friday in Bi’Lin, which is actually just a metal fence with a road attached to it, like the one we saw in Yayyous. But it is also called wall because it separates communities and steals land all the same.
More Israeli – and international – activists arrive during the morning and the street is quite crowded, even before the Palestinians come out of the Mosque. J. and A. are some of those internationals and we update each other on what we have been up to since we last were together.
Bi’Lin IV. Israelis against the wall
Tomorrow is the weekly day of demonstration in Bi’Lin. Unlike some demonstrations in Europe, here they are never dull. They do not consist of just marching from point A to point B. They will probably march as well, but we know that there will be soldiers and that they will use unreasonable force and weapons of various kinds against us. From the used materials I have seen around, like banners, it seems that they make creative props for every demonstration. Some times these are banners, some times they are something more.
Bi’Lin III
W. and I go for a walk and we get lost. As we are figuring out our way back, we stop on a corner, trying to decide what way to go, then some one calls us from the doorstep of a nearby house.
Bi’Lin II. The settlement-city
At first sight the Israeli settlement near Bi’Lin is not recognisable as such because it does not look like the other settlements we have seen at all. It looks more like a normal city, with its huge blocks of flats, all immaculate white, but not like the other settlements with small houses with their red roofs. This one looks more like a horrible mega-city than like a pretty little village.
Jews, Muslims and Christians
M. takes me to the neighbouring village to buy some fruit today. He tells me a curious anecdote about this village: the church was very old and needed repairs, and the Muslims insisted on paying for half the cost. I observe that everyone dresses in the same style as in the rest of Palestine and I ask him where the Christians are.
“What do you mean?”
“The Christians. The women who do not need to cover their heads. Where are they? Everyone is dressed as a Muslim”
“Ah. No. The Christians wear the same.”
“So covering their heads is not a religious thing, but a cultural custom.” And I go on about how surprised I am by the fact that Christians and Muslims live together in the same village.
“Well, yes, and Jews too.”
“You mean in some settlement.”
“No, not in settlements. In the village.”
“Jews in the occupied territories?”
“Yes.”
“But, did they not throw them all out, the Romans?”
“Some managed to stay, never left. But the Israelis treat them the same as Palestinians. They are just Palestinians for them.”
Bi’Lin
Every night in Bi’Lin I have prayed that we do not need to come out – that is, that the Israeli army does not invade the village at night in order to arrest the people they can’t arrest during the demonstrations due to international presence.
Palestine deportation
It is not too usual to see shootings in Ramallah nowadays. Specially since the compendium of the Palestinian Authority, where Arafat used to live, was destroyed, there is virtually no Israeli military presence in the city. Says A. that it is because it is no longer necessary. Now at last the Palestinian police can patrol the streets of Ramallah. They could not do that before because, since they are regarded simply as armed Palestinians by the Israeli soldiers, and therefore dangerous terrorists on top of being terrorists, they would shoot at them systematically, and with a total justification, in the eyes of Israeli judges, which are the only judges that exist in Israel and Palestine…
Yanoun to Ramallah
I get the school shuttle to Aqraba to head South. In Lower Yanoun it picks up the children that are too old to go to the school in Upper Yanoun and takes them to Aqraba with the older children from Upper Yanoun. The girl that invited us to her house and then guided us to her father, in the mountain, is among them. Only today she looks a lot older, with her uniform, her shoes and her head covered, unlike that afternoon, when she was wearing sandals and trousers and there was nothing hiding her long plaits.
