Roll up your sleeves . . .

Olive trees preceded all things in this land, you can even find some older than 10 000 years. I haven't come across any yet but mainly because i haven't had the time to look for it.They are so important that some settlements pay an enormous amount of money to have one transplanted into its entrance as a sort of proof of belonging, of connection to this land. It must be an odd thing to feel the need to show you belong, like the transplanted tree most were also born, growing and living elsewhere before. 

From dawn to dusk under the sun, with a pause for breakfast and lunch, farmers families gather in the fields to harvest the olive. Throughout generations they've been doing this and they shall continue to. Harvesting is no easy task, it is a long hard work even when rakes are available to comb the branches. 

Unfortunately the difficulty of the harvest is not what farmers consider the most troubling, settlers and their "security zones", restriction on access to their fields and trees enforced manu militari by the Israeli Army are their main concerns and not without reason. 

Some of them are granted access once a year to pick their olives, with no other possibility to come and prun the trees or plow the fields necessary to improve the quality of the soil and consequently of the harvest.

Settlers yearly arson the groves, interfere violently in the harvest, steal the crops under the complicit gaze of the Israeli Army yet with an impressive resilience this farmers keep on returning to the place where their trees are. Until the day they won't be there no more, either ones or the others.

Taybe checkpoint - "Cry of the turnstiles in the darkness"

 

"Silence becomes us, we ignore, we avert our eyes and the silent daily march of humiliation continues...a march to which, many by their silence, their complicit complacency, contribute..."

 At Taybe checkpoint Palestinian workers queue by the hundreds each morning way before dawn to enter Israel, they wait in the dark, in a cage like system that conducts them through a turnstile, a metal detector, a fingerprint machine, a verification of their israeli issued magnetic cards, the permit, their identity card and a search within the Israeli Army computer system.

Twice a week two members of our team are on presencial duty there, to register any irregularities, any human rights violations.

this land is my land...

Today i got up at dawn, headed to an agricultural gate - a door in the Wall, the Israeli Government has been building since the year 2000 for "Security Purposes", and that the International Court of Justice declared "to be illegal" in its Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory  of 9th of July 2004.

Every day J., like many other farmers, throughout the Occupied Territories,  at early dawn, has to cross such gate to access his land. He went through a long process to get a magnetic card and then a permit from the Israeli authorities, the administration of which falls upon the military. Then each day, during a period of time fixed by these same "authorities" he is able to cross a gate where this magnetic card and permit are checked and his fingerprints taken. The gate opens three times in the day, if he and every other farmer in the West Bank is "lucky" enough. His work schedule is subject to this "authority".

By these agricultural gates you find only those few who have got permits, those "lucky" few who besides owning their land, which they all do, have the permit to go through.

Here i sit, every other day, at dawn, during these three months trying to say, by my presence, we care, you're not forgotten. Oddly enough though, these men and women, some well into their 60s are the ones that through their welcome, their smiles, their presence give me the hope that i wish i could convey to them... 

You are probably wondering: "why is he there? What does he expect to accomplish with his presence?"
These questions are dangerous. They reveal a tiredness with this subject, due to excessive media coverage, a fatalistic approach that i cannot have. I am tempted at times to have it, to let it go. And i am then confronted with the kindness of a people with whom i have no kinship and with whom my only resemblance is my long beard, my loud laughter and a shared humanity.

Drawing strength from their empathy, their will to resist, their courage none of which seem to portray the long years of waiting, the forgetfullness of the International Community and its lack of backbone, i am here and i have a task to accomplish.

"Pour que l'Homme ne soit plus l'esclave de l'homme. So that Man shall never again be the slave of man."

these were also the questions my colleague and i were asked today by two very young Israeli Army soldiers (Israeli Defense Forces). They seemed puzzled, confused, bored by our presence, so after accomplishing their duty at the gate they came, their gear imposing a certain respect, to ask us who we are and why we're here. Some words came to my mind, a certain reply instantly vibrates within my chest, but some sense of duty and a reflected reply comes instead: " We are from the World Council of Churches and we're here to see that everyone is doing fine!" Still a bit of my "wise nature" reveals itself in the nature of my reply.

I would rather have said:" Why are you here?"

An important part of visiting is the welcome

Heading to Telaviv feels quite surrealist, not only because of all the security measures which are, obviously, with regard to Israel, special:
coming to Frankfurt we have to pass a very detailed security check. A special gate where each person is carefully searched, and the queue is as long as the number of passengers of a Boeing747. There is no rush, no haggling, after all this is just a normal everyday life detail if you're on your way to Israel.
It is a strange experience, despite being a frequent flyer I must admit it stresses me a bit. I guess also the fact that the authorities actually shutdown part of Frankfurt airport, fact of which I am made aware through the planes info system makes for a bit of the apparatus!

At Ben Gurion airport i found a jewish family, fellow travelers with whom i had not exchanged a word, awaiting for me after my first security check to ask if everything was ok with me. Bliss in the fog to come!

This has been a journey I've longed for...can't quite put the finger on it to tell you why... maybe growing up with an obsessive interest about Shoa, the accounts of the survivors, the confessions of the perpetrators, the collected books, photos, exhibits and conferences attended are explanation enough... maybe a desire for justice, a need for the recognition of each individuals dignity, the belief that every single man counts is the background, the thought behind the thought, the why it matters. This is me paying respect and honouring those who have fallen, saying my silence, no! Rather the muteness is disbelief, sadness...
It hurts when reconciling my deep affection for the Jewish people from which I descend from, with the Occupation. 

Step two: finding a tone with which to identify...

...it is not the easiest thing to do...
being a quite private person gets you used to discuss your points of view with a few in an environment of your choosing... not being a person who shies away from its own point of view i often realize that putting too much effort in discussing them publicly or with whoever doesn't really pay especially if it is a controversial subject and then offcourse all subjects really worth discussing tend to be anyway...
...so, this being all new to me, with the exception of some briefs and appeals filed with the Courts, here goes nothing... I would like you to take sometime reading the posted disclaimer and then off we go...into the jungle of controversy...let's keep it civil, remember ourselves to always see the forest not the tree...

every journey starts with departure...

... all this time and after so many different goodbyes, to places, people, projects, ideas and feelings something within still feels the travel element to be absolutely foreign to my body...
So as usual before any journey i stress over packing, or just about anything...eheh the fun part is that i actually get to be very relaxed on the day itself...