Earlier today I mentioned Palestinians at the Olympics, and the statement by Andrea Whitmore, a Methodist activist in Kansas City, that a children's pool in the Occupied Territories that our government paid for was destroyed by the Israelis. I asked Whitmore for more info. She wrote back, citing her husband Doug's observations as a volunteer in Palestine with the World Council of Churches in 2007-08:
"Attached is the demolished children's pool picture with one of Doug's
teammates inspecting the ruins. It was built in Area C [a portion of the West Bank over which Israel has full control], and apparently
the people aren't allowed to build in Area C. Doug says that's true
practically everywhere except maybe in the center of villages. The idea
may be that the Palestinians must not be able to expand. They are
seldom given permits to so much as repair their houses.The pool and
playground were on land far away from anything Israeli, and on
Palestinian land. Nothing at all to do with security.
"Doug's job while with Ecumenical Accompaniers was to monitor agricultural gates (Israeli soldiers check farmers as they go from their villages to their
land), checkpoints (there are thousands within Palestine, as you know)
and the infamous Qalqilya North Terminal, where there's a maze of
turnstiles and fences and electronics with a grim stone pillbox looming
overhead, from which the soldiers can observe the poor souls who,
having permits to work in Israel,
desperately line up in the predawn dark to be checked through in time
to meet their rides to get to work. Doug has a short film, maybe 20
seconds, of a meltdown on the last day he was at that terminal. It
shows desperate men pushing to get through so they can be on time for
work and not lose their jobs–which would mean no support for their
families. I don't know how to send that or I would.
"We had an
email last week from a young man in a Palestinian village telling about
a farmer who lost his permit. In his struggling English, our friend tells of the farmer waiting and waiting for a permit—to
farm his own land, mind you–and not being given one. "He wait for his
permit since along time and the answer in the last they refuse him and
all his family and as you know the main source of income for the most
famels the agriculture and we are in the village dont have an thing
more to do only farming" I am supposing that the old permit ran out.
The farmers have to reapply frequently, and sometimes permits are
issued either to people too old to farm or to children. You get the
picture. So this farmer found out on the last possible day, when
apparently his old one ran out. The man was broken, stood near the
agricultural gate where the soldiers, bored, check farmers through to their own land–and
he asked to just see his land, just a half hour, but the soldiers
wouldn't let him and he stayed at the gate saying, 'Just kill me here, I
want my land.'"
How many seas must the white dove sail before it can sleep in the sand?
Yes and how many stories from Palestine must Americans hear before they will change Middle East policy?
