Sunday, November 27, 2011

An Israeli Soldier Cares For My Safety




The following took place Friday, November 25th in the village of Nabi Saleh during its weekly protest against the Israeli occupation. A group of protesters managed to reach the hill, where a few hundred meters below was the village spring the illegal settlement of Halamish took by force. If you're not an Israeli settler (or their ilk), you are prevented from getting even close to the spring.


“Watch out. You might get hit by a stone.”
For a split second, various images flitted through my mind. One was me throwing my head back, convulsing and positively howling at a full moon in a deserted forest. Another was a perverse natal instinct to hug the soldier, before throttling him into seeing reason. The third was a kaleidoscope of colors. It wasn’t a full scale explosion, but my mouth became unhinged with “dignified” fury.
“You dare to stand in front me, and pretend that you care about my safety? You’re pretending to be worried if a rock hits me? How dare you, when you come here every week—and not just on Fridays but throughout the week— and terrorize this village by spraying them with skunk water, firing tear gas and rubber bullets and live ammunition at their children, at the women, the men! How many children have you arrested? How many houses have you raided? How many have suffocated from the tear gas fired deliberately in their homes, how many kids have you fired at? You don’t care about any of that!”
His little comment solicited the same reaction from the other sabaya/young women around me. We were shouting over each other, then pausing to listen, then picking up on each other’s sentences with added vitriol.
“Anyway,” I added, more calmly. “These stones have a special homing device built into them; they only hit occupiers.”
Two rocks then crashed into the protective shield of one soldier standing to my right. The one in front of me was completely flummoxed.
“Where are you from?” I asked. “Brooklyn?”
“Fuck Brooklyn.” His muddy green eyes were shocked. At that moment, it hit me. I felt so sorry for him.
The commander then marched up. “Go back ten meters,” he barked.
We stayed where we are. If we were guys, there would have been pushing, shoving, anything to provoke us and for them to justify firing from close range. But we were four Palestinian women with a few other Israeli and international activists. Never underestimate the regal wrath of Palestinian women. We will go batshit crazy on you.
“Please go back ten meters.”
Ah, the order turned into a request, which brought about another stab of the kaleidoscope colors.
“You go back! This is Palestinian land, you are the ones encroaching upon this land, and you are the ones perpetuating the colonization of an indigenous people, so you get off this land!”
The commander stared.
My sister and her friend were enjoying themselves a bit too much with their directed banter at them:
“Do you bleed differently from me? We bleed the same blood!”
“Free your minds! Zionism has imprisoned you!”
“You are a victim of your own government’s policies!”
“Put down your gun, we are protesting peacefully!”
A couple of teenagers baffling the Israeli soldiers in front of us by tearing into their state-fed propaganda. I was thoroughly amused, to say the least. I turned to another soldier.
“Isn’t this much better than firing tear gas canisters at us? Look, we’re having a dialogue! We’re talking. We’re not negotiating, since that would imply two equal parties, but we’re conversing!”
One of the girls pointed to another soldier’s face.
“You’re bleeding,” she said.
“From the rocks you throw at us.”
Kids with guns. This was a new unit. A young, scared unit who broke their own rules by replying back.
It was such a ridiculous situation. I touched his submachine gun. “Look at you, decked out like you’re about to face an army. You’re wearing a helmet, knee pads, bulletproof vest, and this gun of yours that shoots sound bombs and tear gas and bullets. We are armed with nothing. Do you realize how stupid you look?”
“You are armed with rocks.” The eyes shifted, the feet shuffled.
Mr Muddy Green Eyes. I felt so sorry for him.

12 comments:

  1. this is you??
    Strong Girl

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  2. If you were born in Wales and raised in England, how can you comment on where the soldier was from?

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  3. Wow - you are so brave standing up to those brutal child killing Israeli soldiers! They have to be the most tolerant soldiers in the world and you have proved it - well done. > I am so impressed with the way they bahaved with you. They should get medals.

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  4. I am very impressed by how they ignored you, I would have wanted to hit you.

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  5. My family members were put in jail in Iraq because they were Jews. They were beaten because they were Jews. They were tortured because they were Jews. They lost everything because they were Jews. Or Zionists "sahyouniya" as our arab "brothers" call us when the hysteria of Arab nationalism courses through their veins. Your arab brothers persecuted us, raped our women, burnt our lives, stole our homes and told us to go to our homeland bidoon raj3a, with no return in YOUR NAME and in the name of Palestine, b'ism falasteen, And MILLIONS celebrate and danced in the streets of Cairo, Baghdad, Algiers, Damascus...if you forget, we do not forget and will never forget. It wasn't the Zionists murdering our peolpe, burning our synagogues but our neighbours, our "friends" "our governments" So we went to our new home and we have no where else to go. They don't want us and you don't want us but we will go no where unless you kill everyone one of us. I buried many, many friends and family in Israel. Murdered, blown up in buses, clubs, restaurants. I read your article and I am sorry your friend died. These soldiers who laughed are terrible. As terrible as the people who give out candy when my grandfather died in suicide bomb holding my 2 year old cousin. You know our humanity is also only human.

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  6. Please don't let some of the other comments detract you. Your empassioned reason and respectful treatment of the occupying soldiers truly baffled them and hopefully causes them restlessness as they, perhaps for the first time, stop to question their loyalty to and participation in the occupation.

    Also, I am sorry to hear of the death of Mustafa Tamimi. Your piece in the electronic intifada drained me of tears and filled me with rage at the occupation. 2011 has reignited the spark that will fuel the fire of Palestinian resistance around the globe. He will not have died in vain.

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  7. I am the author of the post on December 10th and just want to say the comments of mohamass and the anonymous one saying he wants to piss on Tamimi's grave, SHAME on you both. You are both disgusting. To Anon (Dec.11th, 5:36 pm), a man has been unjustly killed. And it doesn't matter if you agree with his politics or no, he didn't deserve to die like this and your comments are no different from Nazis. 'ayb 'alek! Titbayesh!
    E. Heskel

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  8. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  9. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  10. At end of the article there is a reference to a submachine gun; I.D.F infantry's standard weapon is the Tavor Tar 21, and infantry units are switching to the Tavor M.T.A.R, which looks small but fires a 5.56mm round, and is more reliable and accurate than a short barrel M4. This article also highlights the professionalism of I.D.F infantry when handling riot control situations. I guarantee that the soldiers and Magav handled the situation better than most Wester police forces.

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  11. "I guarantee that the soldiers and Magav handled the situation better than most Wester[n] police forces."

    And what do you make of the handling of the situation on December 8th?

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  12. Thanks for correcting my typo. What situation are you referring to?

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