The Untold Stories:

Tragic, but Not Tragic Enough to Notice

Anna Baltzer writing from occupied Palestine, Live from Palestine, 5 April 2007

Today I visited my friend Dawud in Kufr 'Ain for the first time since
he lost his six-month-old baby at Atara Checkpoint. It was
heartbreaking to hear the details of the story from a man who just
one month ago was asking me when I would come visit his family for
pleasure, not just to take a report. He said there was more to
Palestine than the sob stories. But today was all about grief. We
watched a video of the funeral in silence, and saw Dawud's mother
break down and say she couldn't take it anymore. She'd already lost
two sons to natural causes, but apart from moderate and treatable
asthma, Khalid had been a happy, healthy, chubby little boy.

Last time I visited Kufr 'Ain I took reports from one family after
another regarding nightly incursions by the Army. A 14-year-old girl
told me how the soldiers woke her, her mother, and her five younger
siblings (her father is working in the United States) up in the
middle of the night with sound bombs, forced everyone out in their
pajamas with no shoes and isolated the young girl to question her
before enclosing the mother and children in their living room and
ransacking the house. She said the soldiers put explosions in her
room and in the family's well.

Another family told me how they were woken with sound bombs, rushed
out into the cold, and then the young men were stripped, handcuffed,
and lain on their front lawn before being taken to a neighbor's
living room for interrogation. The neighbor's family was meanwhile
locked in their bedrooms with the lights off, warned against any
sound or movement.

There were more stories. Too many, in fact. Eventually I had to stop
taking reports, partially because I had to be somewhere, but more
because as I recorded the stories I had a sinking feeling that the
incursions were simply too common, too unremarkable to catch anyone's
attention. This would not be a human rights report that any legal or
humanitarian organization would follow up with.

Major operations in Nablus or Ramallah make headlines, but incursions
into many small West Bank villages are just a part of daily life. For
example, for the past two months, the Army has come nightly to Marda
village, throwing sound bombs, arresting men, abducting boys. They
steal IDs and refuse to return them until their holders give names of
kids in the village who put stones in the settler road that cuts
through Marda. They spontaneously shut the village completely,
preventing residents from entering and visitors from leaving. Two
weeks ago soldiers broke into the house of a family with three sons.
The middle son Ahmad, 19, who was studying for an English exam the
next day when he heard soldiers outside, told me his story:

"I left my books to go see what all the commotion was about. There
were about 14 soldiers total surrounding my house, and three jeeps.
Soldiers were kicking our front door and throwing sound bombs. When
the soldiers saw me, they grabbed me and began to hit me. My parents
and my brother Qutaiba--he's only 13--tried to intervene but the Army
pushed my mom and dad to the ground and hit Qutaiba in the stomach.
Each time my little brother tried to stand up they would punch him in
the gut again, and my mother began screaming for them to stop. It
seemed like each time she screamed they beat him again. Suddenly my
mother began to wail and I saw that two soldiers were covering
Qutaiba's face with their hands so that he could not breathe,
suffocating him until his face began to turn red. Eventually they
allowed him to breathe."

I asked Qutaiba what happened after that.

"The soldiers blindfolded and handcuffed me and Ahmad and brought us
in their jeeps to the entrance of our village. They dragged me out of
the jeep by lifting my cuffed hands behind my back, which hurt my
shoulders. Several soldiers beat me with their fists, bats, and guns,
and then they started asking me questions about which village boys
were throwing stones. I told them I was cold and sick, and one
soldier said that this was nothing; he would punish me to the point
of death. They took my cap and began throwing it above my head,
laughing, making fun of me. After half an hour they got bored and
left me to walk home. They drove away with my brother still
blindfolded and handcuffed in the jeep."

Ahmad continued his story when Qutaiba had finished: "It was terrible
listening to my little brother being beaten, and I was almost
grateful when we drove away. The soldiers took me to the Ariel
police station, where they beat me for several hours all over my
body, especially in my head and temples. All the time I was
blindfolded so I could not anticipate where the next blow was coming
from. It was very scary. One soldier put his boot in my mouth. I
asked the commander for some water and he told me to 'Go to Hell.'
Suddenly one of them kicked me very hard in the groin and everything
went black. The next thing I knew they were splashing my face with
cold water, and when they saw I was awake they began to beat me
again, accusing me of throwing stones, destroying settlers' cars,
and being a member of Hamas. After four hours they finally let me go
and I walked home."

Ahmad's father Rasmi cut in. "When my son came home after 1am, it
looked as if he had taken a blood shower. He had to go into school
the next day but his English teacher let him postpone the exam. I
teach my children good values, to respect others and to never use
violence. But how can they continue to be peaceful when they are
constantly surrounded and threatened by so much brutality? I'd like
to live peacefully with the Jewish people. They build their state,
and we build ours. They take care of their children, and I take care
of mine. I lived in Chicago for 15 years. I know that in America
it's a sin to hit your children. Here, soldiers can hit other
people's children and nobody says a thing! But even if they kill my
children, I will not kill theirs. These are my values, what my
parents taught me and what I teach my children."

As Rasmi spoke, a car drove by and the whole family jumped. They
laughed nervously when they realized it was just a neighbor. Rasmi
said the soldiers returned three days later and took Ahmad again,
this time with his older brother Samiah. They blindfolded and
handcuffed them, and brought them to an abandoned warehouse off of
the main road. Ahmad was still fragile from his fresh head wounds,
but the soldiers still beat him and his brother, first in silence,
then cursing them and accusing them of harboring weapons. When it
began to rain, the soldiers brought the young men outside, removed
their jackets, and began hitting them again. Eventually they let the
boys go, after stealing all the money in Samiah's wallet, 70
Jordanian dinars and 60 Israeli shekels. This in addition to 400
shekels that they stole from the house the first time, all together
the equivalent of more than $200 (not to mention the CDs and toys
that they broke when they ransacked the home). They also took the
university documents that were in Samiah's wallet.

Although Marda villagers call us more than most, Marda's situation is
far from unique. Most village's have simply given up on us. We
recently met a 56-year-old grandmother named Hilwe who was shot in
the face three weeks ago by soldiers hiding behind a corner in her
village, Qarawat Bani Hassan. One rubber-coated metal bullet (don't
let the name fool you; rubber bullets can--and do--kill) grazed her
face, tearing and detaching a segment of her right nostril,
disfiguring her and requiring 20 stitches. I asked Hilwe what the
soldiers were doing in her village and she shrugged, "They come every
day. It's nothing special." I asked why nobody had called IWPS to
respond to the incursions and Hilwe's brother answered straightly,
"What are you gonna do, take a report?"

We encouraged the family in Qarawat to call us more, but I won't
blame them if they don't. How much are we really helping by writing
these reports that policymakers and even most activists will never
read? How much are we just creating false hope and forcing families
to relive painful episodes that they'd rather forget? The best we
can do is to offer our services and be honest about what we can and
cannot do. We cannot bring criminals to justice; we cannot get
innocent men out of jail; we cannot keep the soldiers from invading,
or settlers from stealing land. Pretty much all we can do is write
and look sympathetic, and occasionally remind soldiers that we are
watching.

Even our village seems to have given up on us. The jeeps still come,
but nobody calls. Yesterday I heard by chance from a friend that a
boy from Haris was kidnapped by soldiers because he was wearing too
much olive green. They said that color is for the Army. The soldiers
drove him onto a quiet road between our village and Kifl Haris, made
him take off all his green clothes (everything but his underwear),
and left him half-naked to hitch his way back. He hid behind the
olive trees until one car took pity on him and brought him some
clothes.

Like Ahmad's and Hilwe's, the Haris boy's story will never make
headlines. But there will always be the stories that do get out. The
well-known Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy recently followed up on two
of our recent reports: Dawud's baby and the 11-year-old human shield.
The latter made it to the New York Times and other mainstream media,
and the Israeli Army has officially stated that it intends to look
into the human shields charges (meanwhile, other Israeli soldiers and
spokespeople have stated that in fact the invasion "was pretty
boring, we barely felt any action"
[http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3371706,00.html], and in
the future "not all operations will be so careful").

It is the brave voices of Israelis like Levy who give me the most
hope for a change in Israeli mainstream society. I remained stoic
through dozens of human rights reports over the past weeks and
months, but I finally broke down when I learned that one of those
brave voices had been lost. On March 17th, Israeli linguist and
political activist Tanya Reinhart died of a stroke in New York City.
Tanya was a staunch defender of human rights, deeply dedicated to
exposing to fellow Israelis and the world the crimes of her
government against the Palestinian people. Tanya wrote extraordinary
books (including Israel/Palestine, which I sold on tour) and
articles, but she also spent time on the front lines of the movement
here in Palestine.

In our last correspondence, Tanya confessed shamefully that she was
finally leaving Israel because she couldn't bear to remain after her
country's summer bombardments of Gaza and Lebanon. She had eventually
quit Tel Aviv University after her employers "made life impossible"
as punishment for her political outspokenness. It hurt to hear such
an extraordinary activist apologize for not doing enough--she did
more than most of us can ever hope to.

The brave Israeli voices that remain continue to be targetted:
According to the Jerusalem Post, historian Ilan Pappe recently
announced plans to quit Israel for the UK because his "'unwelcome
views and convictions'"--Pappe has done extensive research about the
1948 expulsions of Palestinians--have made it "'increasingly
difficult to live in Israel.'" Yet the Israeli resistance movement
is growing faster than it ever has. And while some stories remain
untold, others will always come out, even if it takes another sixty
years. The only thing harder than speaking truth to power is
covering up the truth indefinitely. Israel is fighting a losing
battle. The reality of Israel's historic and present agression and
ethnic cleansing of Palestine cannot remain hidden forever.

Anna Baltzer

Anna Baltzer is a volunteer with the International Women's Peace Service in the West Bank and author of the book, Witness in Palestine: Journal of a Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories. For information about her writing, photography, DVD, and speaking tours, visit her website at www.AnnaInTheMiddleEast.com