July 28,02


Palestine - Salfeet Update


After being stopped at several checkpoints and hiking around settler place road blocks(large boulders and mounds of dirt), we arrived as a ISM affinity group in a rural village in the illegaly occupied territory, called Marda in the area of Salfeet. The car trip went fast, staring out the window going over dicussions in my head that were had at the youth hostel the night before. Many youth there from Sweeden, native Isrealis and Danish have particpated in the ISM for months and talked of the April Invasion. One young man talks of how 90 ISM voluteers got into a occupied city by crawling through a sewage pipe several hundred kilometers, pointed out by Palestinian youth. The veteran volunteers discuss the mental conditions of some of the other volunteers that were here in April,
if they should be allowed to stay here or not, and debating if it was Jennin or Ramallah that fucked them up.


We approach the village and pass by a bicycle frame lodged in barbwire that surounds the Jewish Settlement of Ariel. The village has the largest supply of water in the Occupied Territories and the it just so happens that Ariel is the largest Jewish settlement in the West Bank. As we pull into the host's house many youth crowd the streets, the area has 85% unemployment due to the occupation. The village is culturally conservative and you realize much different than East Jeruseleum when toilets turn into holes in concrete shacks. The Settlers are the main
problem in the rural village, they have cut down 2,000 olive trees, and burst into schools to shoot teachers and
children. A villager shows a Perma Culture Center(agriculture) he used to work at , the day before we arrived the settlers destoyed the 9 rooms in the offices and razed the greenhouse. Down the road a young girl is shot by Settlers, the next morning her parents and I are woken by the same rooster..

Survivors tale:

I was able to interview a Palestinian man who was paralyzed when Isreali soldiers shot him in his back as slept in bed.

A: WHAT WAS THE CAUSE OF THE SOOTING?

R: The soldiers entered the village for no reason. There was no children throwing stones or bombs or anything. The soldiers entered my house and I was shot in the back...I screamed for help till I lost my voice. I was finally brought to the hospital, lungs drowning from blood, and thankfully survuved.


A: WHAT HAS THE EFFECTS OF THE OCCUPATION THAT STAND OUT IN YOUR MIND?


R: We suffer.... AS A PEOPLE it is difficult to travel to move... only to eat and sleep, with your life and children's life in danger there is not enough English to describe it.

A: DO YOU THINK THERE WILL BE ANY PEACE UNTIL THE PALESTINIAN STATE IS FORMED?

R: Yes there will be a Palestinian state...the Palestinian people will be here forever... Bush , Sharon will die people like Sharon will soon be dead and gone but the Palestinian people will be here forever