DECEMBER 2007
Ha’aretz Friday Magazine
November 10, 2007
Last
update - 21:50 09/11/2007
My god, what did we do?
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/922009.html
By Dalia Karpel
(Her closing statement in some ways is the most chilling of all the horrid events one reads of in this review of a movie, which is, like Dalia Karpel’s interview of Nufar Yishai-Karin (Parallel Lives) a revelation of what IOF soldiers do in the OPT, what they undergo, and how it impacts on their lives. As with Nufar Yishai-Karin, so also Tamar Yarom is not critical of her experience or that of others. Her movie “has no political stance.” Read this horror tale carefully. It perhaps explains more than anything else why Israel is so violent a society, and why more and more Israelis are seeking life abroad (there was a report on the radio with stats on this; hopefully it will be published in one of the newspapers).D Letter to Handstand)
One night, Tamar Yarom was awakened by one of the
soldiers in her unit. He said he wanted to show her
something in the basement of the abandoned building where
they were staying. "Before we opened the door, I
heard this awful noise from a generator and there was a
strong smell of diesel fuel. I saw a middle-aged
Palestinian detainee lying with his head on the
generator. His ear was pressed against the generator that
was vibrating, and the guy's head was vibrating with it.
His face was completely messed up. It amazed me that
through all the blood and horror, you could still see the
guy's expression and that's what stayed with me for years
after - the look on his face."
Yarom, now a film director, made two films following her
army service as a mashakit tash (welfare officer) in an
infantry company in the territories. She was drafted in
1989 and served at a basic-training base near Jerusalem
until her unit was transferred to Gaza. She accompanied
the recruits from their first day in the army and felt
close to them, and they told her about what they did in
the territories. "I tried not to judge them. Mostly
I was glad that they were feeling good and finally had
self-confidence." That's how it works, she adds:
"When you're told things that you don't see with
your own eyes, you can prettify them in your mind."
But then she was taken to that basement.
Why did the soldier take her there? "He wanted to
share the horror with me," she says. "Maybe he
hoped that I'd do something, that I'd raise an outcry. I
don't remember how we left there or what happened
afterward. The next day I asked one of the commanders
what happened in the basement and he politely explained
to me that I mustn't interfere in things that were none
of my business. That detainee I saw taught me something
about myself that I would never have learned in years of
university. And he's imprinted in my memory, engraved in
every cell of my being. I saw a person in the lowest,
most suffering state. A victim of cruelty I didn't know
existed. And I stood there unmoved, apparently."
Sandler cleans bodies
In 2002, 12 years after completing her military service,
during the second intifada, Yarom directed the drama
"Hatza'it dema'ot" ("Sob Skirt" - a
nickname for a female welfare officer), based on her
experiences during the first intifada. It won the best
drama prize at the Haifa Film Festival that same year,
but Yarom felt she hadn't yet given full expression to
the trauma - "the real thing," as she calls it.
Now Yarom was ready for the real thing. Her second film,
"Lir'ot im ani mehayekhet" ("To See If I'm
Smiling"), is a documentary. It focuses on the
testimonies of six female soldiers about their service in
the territories during the first and second intifadas.
Yarom spent four years working on the film - to be aired
on November 15th on cable Channel 8 - which won the best
documentary award at the most recent Haifa Film Festival.
"I wanted to make a film that shows admiration for
these girls, who are coping with crazy pressure and have
daily responsibility for human lives. I got to know
female soldiers who served as lookouts, operations
sergeants, whose job was to apply make-up to soldiers
going undercover as Arabs. A whole world of women on the
'second' line, in 'combat support.' I was impressed by
the way they grappled with the difficulties and the
psychological pressures. One of the comments I most
identify with was by Meytal Sandler at the beginning of
the film: 'Sometimes I think that I'm insane, because I
have memories that are not connected to reality and maybe
never happened. But I know that they did happen because
of the intensity with which I feel them today.'"
Meytal Sandler has gone to Cologne, Germany to do a
master's degree in linguistics and Jewish and Islamic
Studies. In the army she chose to be a medic, because she
wanted to learn a profession. She was also an idealist,
she says in the film. She was posted in Hebron as a
medical organization officer, responsible for evacuating
the wounded. Sandler was the only person who declined to
be interviewed for this article. She now has another life
and is "okay," she says, but in the film she is
the most fragile, the most touching. She says that during
the filming she drank every day "to forget the
horrors of Hebron."
In the film she says she didn't tell anyone what happened
to her in the army because Hebron operated by its own
rules. The first time she encountered death was when she
was handed the baby Shalhevet Pas, killed in 2001 by a
Palestinian sniper. "There was a baby girl who was
wounded and we couldn't treat her very well and there was
a feeling that she was in my care because I was the local
commander. The next morning I saw the baby's picture in
the paper. People said: 'Congratulations, you've had your
first dead person,'" she says in the film.
As part of her job, Sandler also had to handle the
corpses of Palestinians. "I was in the office with
my medics and my doctor-commander asked, 'There's a body,
who wants to come see it?' It was a cell they'd pursued
for a while and one member was killed. I immediately
said: 'I want to see!' I remember riding in the ambulance
[with the body] and sitting across from Uriel (one of the
soldiers), who looked at me and wanted to throw up the
whole time," she says in the film.
"I wanted to throw up, too, but I couldn't say that.
And the body stank. I gave him a blanket and I took one,
and we wrapped them around us to keep out the smell ...
They then come and take the body to the clinic and tell
us that before it's returned to the Palestinian
Authority, we have to clean it, so there won't be any
signs of blood on it, so they won't see what we've done
to it. This was my task. Because he'd been struck in the
head, but didn't die right away, and only bled and died
slowly, he lost control of his bowels - that's what
happens ... He's just lying there with his eyes open and
I close his eyes because Uriel tells me he's afraid.
"I close his eyes and keep on cleaning and scrubbing
and at some point the eyes open up again. It's automatic,
and it's a very frightening moment. It's like he came
back to life. Giving me this stare. People say to me:
'What did you do? You cleaned a corpse?' and they're
disgusted. I can't allow myself to be disgusted by
it."
Dealing with corpses became routine. Sandler describes
another incident when one was brought to her and was
taken to be rinsed by the bathroom: "Something very
funny happens: He has an erection. A corpse with an
erection. And people laugh a little because it's awkward.
Anyone can come and see, and a few female soldiers come
in - girls I know. One has a camera and without thinking,
I say: 'Hey, take my picture.' And I sit next to the body
and have my picture taken."
Sandler is embarrassed by the photo, and told no one
about it. "Who wants to deal with the evil within
himself, the alienation?" she says. But then she
wanted to see the photo again: "I wanted to see if I
was smiling."
Abramov gets revenge
Was Sandler authorized to deal with bodies? The IDF
Spokesman's Office says: "Care of bodies is not
included within the framework of the medical organization
officer's job; such a procedure is unknown. The
likelihood of this being done systematically is small,
and if it was done - it was an aberration."
Libi Abramov served as a Border Police officer at an
Israel Defense Forces checkpoint. In the film she
describes her friend Hani Abramov (no relation), who was
shot in the jaw and skull in October 2001 during an
operation near Tul Karm - the first female Border Police
officer to be wounded during the intifada. Libi was so
upset that she decided to take revenge on Arabs who
passed through the checkpoint that day.
"With every Arab I see, I see Hani in my mind. In
one shift, there were as many as 70 or 80 people whom I
delayed. I stood them in a line and decided that they
would stay with me for the whole 12- to 14-hour shift, in
the sun, in the heat. I made them stand there with me and
had them do all kinds of exercises. I stood them in
threes, as if they were my soldiers. I started shouting
at them and asked them 'Why did you do that to Hani? What
did she do to deserve it?' No one else was around except
my fighters, and they accepted this; it didn't seem
strange to them."
One night Abramov was sitting alone in an armored vehicle
and saw an Arab staring at her. "I stared right back
and he started making obscene gestures. I took a good
look at him. I wanted to remember what he was wearing and
how he looked. And I can still remember: He was wearing
three-quarter-length red pants, a white shirt and short
black hair. As soon as he saw that my soldiers were
coming back, he ran away. As soon as they got in the
vehicle, I was ready to go. I drove really fast. When we
found and caught him he realized who I was and what was
happening. We took him to one of the alleyways and I
started screaming at him. I made him look me in the eye
and repeat in words what he'd done, and he of course
tried to ignore me. He kept his eyes down. We stripped
him until he was only in his underwear and just abused
him."
Behar regrets to inform you
Education in the territories was also a whole different
story. Education officer Dana Behar says she dealt
"only with death." She grew up in Nes Ziona;
her father was a doctor and her mother led youth trips to
Poland. Before her enlistment, Behar did a year of
service leading hiking trips for youths. She looked
forward to enlisting because she wanted to "continue
to contribute." She enlisted in the summer of 2001.
After taking a course to be a mashakit hinuch (education
officer), her main job was to work with commanders to
make sure that whenever battle orders were given, about
10 minutes were first devoted to discussing values and
humanism. She was assigned to the 50th Nahal paratroops
battalion - "quality people, kibbutzniks and so on.
An elitist population that's known in the IDF as 'the
yellows': Ashkenazim, who are soft in comparison to the
'blacks,' who are not just punks, but also violent."
In her second week, she just wanted everyone to like her.
"There were 500 guys and 10 girls. One day the
soldiers from the company came back from Qalqilyah. The
bus let off all these dusty soldiers and I'm walking
around there, wanting to hear their experiences, and they
see a new girl, fresh meat. So they boasted that they had
souvenirs - prayer beads and little Korans that they took
from the houses. It shocked me. I was taught that this
was plundering."
Two days later, she had her first meeting with the
battalion commander. "This was in Hebron ... and he
asks me how I liked being an education officer. I said it
was fine, but that I'd seen things going on. Horrified,
he called up the company commander in my presence, who
said: 'The girl's a liar. I don't know why she's making
this stuff up, probably to impress you.' The battalion
commander promised to take care of it and I kept on in my
job."
A few days later, soldiers from the same company came to
the area and recognized Behar. "They said: 'Oh,
you're that bitch who ratted on us to the battalion
commander?' I said I didn't rat on them, I just told what
I'd seen. From that moment the ostracism began. I wasn't
allowed to enter their company, which was the most
humiliating thing. Whenever they saw me, they spit on the
floor and cursed ... A few months later, when the company
commander who led the revolt against me was replaced, the
treatment I got from about 100 soldiers finally changed.
Today I know something that I didn't know then: Hardly
any IDF soldier is without a souvenir from some
Palestinian house."
Subsequently she decided to go to an officers' course
because she wanted to work with more senior commanders,
and says, "I also wanted to stop washing dishes in
the battalion. The women soldiers always get stuck with
the dishes."
In the film Behar recalls coming out of the kitchen all
wet when she heard shouting, and saw soldiers who'd
returned from an operation taking pictures with the
bodies of two Palestinians.
"At the time it didn't look strange. The territories
are a crazy place. The big strong IDF just killed some
terrorists; it's the soldier's job to take down an
important terrorist. It's the 'highlight' of his service.
Now it's clear to me that these were the most sickening
pictures I ever saw in my life."
She thrived as education officer for the brigade.
"The first two months in Hebron everything went
well. My assignment was nice for my ego. It's considered
an important assignment, and only strong and assertive
women are sent there."
In November 2002 she left on a weekend furlough. She was
at home and her mother suddenly knocked on the door and
told her the news was reporting a terror attack in
Hebron. "I came out of the shower and called my
commander, and he yelled, 'Get to Hadassah [University
Hospital in] Ein Kerem right away!'"
Why? You were just an education officer.
Behar: "Yes, but he insisted so my father drove me
and on the way I learned that the brigade commander, Dror
Weinberg, and 12 others had been killed. I got to
Hadassah and found that in this emergency situation, all
of a sudden, I'd become an adjutancy officer and it was
my job to relay information to the families of the
injured. I was ordered to go into the rooms and bring
lists of those who were seriously injured ... and those
who had died from their wounds. I was in the hall waiting
for a doctor when I suddenly heard a shout - 'Clear the
hallway!' I got out of the way and then, like in a movie
doctors rushed by with the wounded on stretchers, all cut
and bleeding ... One of them was the boyfriend of a
friend, and I had to tell her that he died of his
wounds."
Behar returned to the brigade in Hebron. The death of
Colonel Weinberg, the most senior officer killed in the
second intifada, sowed terror and chaos. "I prepared
large memorial boards on which to hang texts and
photographs, and memorial candles are placed beside them,
for the brigade commander and the other casualties, and I
asked the commander's permission to put them up. He
screamed at me hysterically, 'No! No! Go into your room
where no one can see you, and stay there until you're
called.' There was no point trying to explain. Anxiety
had taken over and there was also fear of another
assault."
Within two weeks, there were more casualties. "We
knew there was no point trying to sleep or shower, that
there were be another event, more death and grief. I
organized memorial displays, albums, ceremonies and
movies about the fallen and also had to go to the
parents' homes. My women soldiers were falling apart, and
I - without any support from the officers or anyone else,
including the main education office - dealt with this
hell all by myself."
Once, during her service, she asked a friend who was an
information officer if she could come with him to the
home of a bereaved mother, an immigrant from Russia whose
only son was killed. "We come to this fairly poor
neighborhood and go in the apartment, and he tells the
mother what happened and how her son was killed. She
fixes her gaze on me, caresses my hand, and says, 'You're
so pretty, you won't die, you shouldn't be there.' It was
all I could do to keep from falling to pieces."
In the film Behar describes how she realized that she had
to save herself. "I understood that something bad
happened to me. I told my mother to find me a
psychologist and I went to therapy. Now I'm a third-year
psychology major at the University of Haifa, and I see
how right it was to try to save myself."
What mark did your military service leave on you?
Behar: "I've become a very light sleeper. Every
little noise wakes me up and I think it's an alarm and
that I have to rush to the war room in Hebron. I've vowed
never to enter the territories again, because I want to
forget."
Why did you take part in the film?
"Because it's important for people to know that
something bad happened there. The IDF makes great efforts
for it not to happen and I've never seen such big efforts
made anywhere else, but still it happens. Because the
reality is horrible. I want as many men and women
soldiers as possible to talk about what happens there,
for it to be a part of the discourse. I served there
because my parents brought me up on the values of
Zionism, on the idea that wherever I'm most needed is
where I should go. I wanted to make a difference and I'd
do it again despite everything."
Ben Sira-Morag gets a club
In Golani, they salute blondes, and Tal Ben Sira-Morag
was then a blonde soldier. In the film she says her army
service was not without humor: "We were next to a
muezzin, next to a mosque, we were always next to a
mosque. And suddenly we hear coming out of the mosque,
instead of 'Allahu Akbar,' the song 'I've Got the Power.'
[The soldiers had] taken over the place and switched the
tapes!"
Today she's married, a mother of two who lives in Kfar
Vitkin. Her father is Tnuva chairman Naftali Ben-Sira. As
a 10th-grader, Ben Sira-Morag was active in the founding
of the Democratic School in Hadera, which she attended.
She enlisted in February 1990 and wanted to be a welfare
officer, and just as she'd hoped, "I got a Golani
basic training base in the Jenin sector. Everything was
great. I was a queen. The atmosphere was amazing. I did
an officers' course and since I'm leftist I didn't want
to serve in the territories, but I was convinced since I
didn't have much choice and was assigned to a brigade in
the Khan Yunis area."
The base overlooked an entire sector in which were
located the Shimshon Battalion, the civil administration,
Shin Bet security people and other battalions. "It
was a 'hot' sector and there was a high concentration of
wanted men and they brought a Golani brigade there. Then
two Palestinians disguised as women - because they didn't
search women - managed to open fire and a soldier was
killed and others were wounded. Then we got an order that
a female officer with a weapon would be added to every
operation."
On her 20th birthday, Ben Sira-Morag set out on an
operation that lasted about 14 hours. She sat in a Jeep
with senior officers and waited in the dark. The
objective was to blow up two houses. She heard over the
radio the word "Now!" and the commander ordered
her to move to a Border Police Jeep as rockets and RPGs
were whizzing around. The Border Policemen were asking if
she wanted them to bring her flowers from the wanted
man's house, but then they got a call that they had to
break up disturbances in the Tel Amal quarter.
"We drove there quickly and got to an area that was
full of people of all ages running everywhere and
throwing rocks. The noise was terrible and the fear that
a rock would smash you was just as bad," she
recalls. She stayed in the vehicle until one of the
soldiers came back with a club that had cracked in two
after it was used to beat a woman. "Grab a club, put
on a helmet and come out to hit," he told her.
"I came out but I certainly wasn't going to hit
anyone. I saw a baby crying in fright and my instinct was
to go pick him up, but then his mother came and gave me
the worst look I've ever seen in my life. That's when it
really dawned on me: I understood that I was the enemy in
uniform."
Later, she had to conduct body searches of Palestinian
women. "It's a terrible experience. The women are
wrapped in layers and the smell is strong, and why should
I be prying around their bodies? I passed a metal
detector over them, including their private parts. Two or
three security guards stood with their backs to me, but
nearby. I tried to speak gently, but was horrified by the
way I had to intrude."
During one operation, while checking women, "I
suddenly hear a scream and the soldier beside me has
kicked the women who was supposed to pass through
inspection. He'd noticed a knife that was sticking out of
her sleeve. I was without a helmet and my neck was
exposed. The knife went flying, they put the woman on the
side and guarded her. When I finished inspecting, and the
bullets were still whistling, I stood in front of the
woman who was screaming in fear. The soldiers roared at
me, 'Finish her off, she tried to kill you.'
"Time stopped and I felt like everything was moving
in slow motion and at that moment something was erased
from my memory. I think I also gave her a little kick, I
don't remember. I shook her and shouted, 'Stop
screaming!' I put handcuffs on her and took her away. It
was a Saturday. They gave me the knife and said, 'Now
call your mother and tell her to recite the 'blessing for
deliverance' in the synagogue. I called. My mother asked
the rabbi at the Kfar Vitkin synagogue and he recited the
blessing."
Aside from that time, Ben Sira-Morag did not tell her
parents about her experiences in the territories. "I
was very unpleasant and aggressive then. My parents also
weren't that attentive and couldn't absorb what I was
going through. Once my father had occasion to come to the
base and he told me it wasn't so bad." She knows
that he told her mother, 'It's better you don't
know." When Channel 1 did a report on her unit, her
parents didn't watch it.
After the knife incident, Ben Sira-Morag became
emotionally detached from her surroundings. Her requests
to transfer elsewhere were rejected: She was told she was
doing a great job and her contribution was vital, and so
she stayed on until August 1993. After her discharge, she
traveled to the Far East with a friend and in Vietnam she
suddenly suffered an anxiety attack: "People in
Saigon were running and jumping on buses, the buildings
were pocked with bullet holes and there were lots of
beggars. It reminded me of Khan Yunis. I went into a
panic and said to my friend, 'I don't have a weapon! I
don't have a weapon!' It took me a while to calm down. I
kept a journal during the trip and sent my parents
letters in which I did a reckoning with them and with
myself."
In one letter, she wrote: "It was so hard for me
after my discharge and you weren't able to deal with it.
I understand; it's hard. One day I'll tell you everything
I went through there, all the hard things I've been
carrying, inside day in and day out, all the horrors I
saw. In a while, when I'm better, I'll start to write and
reconstruct what I went through for the sake of the
future."
In 2005, Ben Sira-Morag did that: She mounted the play
"Shovrim shtika" ("Breaking Silence")
at the Teatronettto festival, based on her own
experiences. Today she says: "I don't think I was
shell-shocked. What happened to me was because of the
burden of the job."
But she still suffers side effects. Crowded places make
her nervous. She won't wear a watch or listen to the news
or read newspapers. "My army service screwed up my
ability to love," she says. "It took a long
time until I met my husband. I have angry outbursts
sometimes. I don't hit or throw chairs, but I scream and
yell."
Michelzon gets a report
It should just not be boring - that's all Inbar
Michelzon, from Karmiel, wanted out of her army service.
Though her views were quite leftist, there was no
question that she would serve in the army, and as a
sambatzit (operations officer), because she was told that
it's "the closest thing to the real thing" -
i.e., combat.
"I was the commander of an operations room and an
aide to an operations officer," she said this week.
"There were seven companies under us. We relayed
orders and managed things." The war room where she
served was in charge of the Erez checkpoint, the Erez
industrial area and the settlements in the northern Gaza
Strip: Dugit, Nissanit and Elei Sinai.
She says she cried during her first month. Her brother,
who had been a deputy commander in the criminal
investigation division, had told her that it was hell on
earth, but she ended up in Gaza, in October 2000. Her
commander told her that only "the good ones"
get to serve there.
Michelzon remembers the first time she saw the Erez
checkpoint: "It was like mouse cages. I was in
shock. I'd never seen Palestinians from Gaza carrying
sacks on their head, dressed in rags. The poverty stunned
me. This is Israel's backyard. I had to change my skin to
fit in there - everything was said there with shouting,
everything's a matter of life and death."
Her fellow soldiers briefed her on the way things are
done: "You say to someone: 'You want to pass
through? Bring cigarettes.' Or [a Palestinian] would
present an entry permit that took two months to get, and
they'd switch it with another paper that they'd rip up in
front of the guy's face, just to see his reaction, and
then they'd laugh and hand back the original
do0cument."
"Death to Arabs" was emblazoned on one
soldier's flak jacket, she remembers, adding that the
soldiers thought she was a spoiled little girl. It didn't
take long to see that there was no one to talk to.
"The guys would sit there laughing about how a
sniper hit a Palestinian so that he'd be crippled the
rest of his life."
But Michelzon felt that her job was important and that
she was contributing, and there was a lot of action:
"There was gunfire every night. I'd come out of the
war room and all the girls would be running to the
protected room and I'd run to the war room and feel like
a heroine in a war movie. It was fun until our soldiers
started getting killed."
One night, she recalls, "my commander found a
13-year-old boy sitting next to a Border Police outpost.
He asked the soldiers what the kid was doing there and
they said, 'We kept him here and played with him a
little.' My commander returned to the war room and said
that by the morning, he wanted an investigative report
from their commander. The report was submitted and it
said that the soldiers beat the boy and stubbed out
cigarettes on him. I brought the report to my second
commander. He reviewed it and said, 'Call the company
commander and tell him that if he doesn't submit another
report within a few hours to me, the police investigative
division will be here."
And so Michelzon found herself roaming the base with two
reports about the abuse of the boy: the original report
and an "improved" version. She imagined herself
calling up Israel Radio reporter Carmela Menashe: "I
knew I had to do something so people would know what's
really happening. I knew I had the proof, but I didn't do
anything. It scared me. It was impossible for me to
betray my comrades and my commander. It would be like
betraying myself. I continued as usual."
Morality, she says now, "is a privilege of people
who weren't in these places. It's very hard to look at
yourself and understand that you're not the person you
thought you were. I came to the army from a youth
movement that touts equality and the value of every human
being and I got a slap in the face. When I saw the film
at the Haifa Film Festival I couldn't stop crying. I
cried for what we did. Dear God, what we did."
The day she was discharged from the IDF she had to attend
the funeral of a friend, Anatoly Kursik, whom, she says,
"was killed in a stupid operation: A battalion
commander decided to go into an area he wasn't supposed
to be in to catch terrorists, and Anatoly was killed by
friendly fire. That day I felt like everything was
falling apart. I went through a tough period of
depression."
What did you do about it?
Michelzon: "I didn't want to go to therapy. I ran
away to India for six months and there I talked about it
a lot."
She says she believes that not just she, but the entire
public, must engage in some serious soul-searching.
At present Michelzon volunteers in the ALON organization
for social involvement, lives in Tel Aviv with her
husband, and is writing her master's thesis about how
Mizrahi girls deal with the degrading "bimbo"
image.
Yarom's position
All the women in "To See If I'm Smiling"
describe themselves as victims of circumstances. But of
course that's just one way to see what they felt and did
there, and what happened to them.
Asked what her film's political stance is, director Tamar
Yarom seems momentarily nonplussed. Her film has no
political stance, she says. "It's a mainstream film.
Otherwise, people will switch channels. Because who wants
to see a film that tells horror stories about military
service in the territories?"
She adds: "The film is political only in that the
Israeli viewer comes to this subject and projects a lot
of his own political meanings onto it. The only thing
that has value is the attempt to relate the experience of
service in the territories, and women are good at
describing emotional situations. Through them you can
understand the psychology of the guys who serve in the
territories. It's not different, it's just more extreme.
It makes no difference what your job is. If you're in the
territories you'll be sullied by this thing and come out
a different person. I went into the territories with an
excellent upbringing and came out a different person. I
was afflicted by moral confusion there. That's my
position, and the position of the film."
***********************************************
Re-Entry to Israel Refused to young
human rights worker:
KRISTA'S STORY
Sabeel
statement on the issue: "In
our understanding of U.S. State Department policy, Krista
as an American should be privileged to a
"reciprocity" policy -- the U.S . grants
certain visas dependent on what the other country does.
The current U.S. policy towards Israelis seeking
religious visas -- yeshiva students, rabbis, synagogue
volunteers, is that they get an unquestioned multiple
entry five-year visa. Obviously, Krista did not receive
this reciprocity."
Every time I re-enter
Israel/Palestine I am nervous about re-entry and hope for
a new three month visa. I have had problems twice
before- a one week visa once and a denial of entry this
past summer on the way back from a World Council of
Churches (WCC) meeting in 'Amman. Last Saturday morning I
flew into Ben Gurion airport after attending a Sabeel
conference in Boston and visiting my family in
Indianapolis. As I walked up to the passport control
counter the woman in the booth sneered at me and asked
"what are you doing back here?" after seeing
that I had been in Israel recently. She asked why I
didn't have a different visa- why was I trying to sneak
past them? She did an additional computer check and
exclaimed, "you sneaky girl! You were
denied entry in Jordan- you sneaky little
girl!" I felt my stomach drop like I was on a
rollercoaster, I knew what was coming, but I stayed calm
as I was led from one interrogation to another, as my
passport was taken from me, and as I was informed that I
would not be allowed to enter the country. I
explained that I was here representing my church in the
US on business, but they told me that I would need a visa
from the Ministry of the Interior. I
questioned why I would not be allowed into Israel to be
able to go to the Ministry of the Interior to look into
this further, but was not answered. I remained
calm, asked the reasons for my denial and asked how they
would suggest attaining a different kind of visa, as I am
not employed by an organization inside
Israel. I was given no further reasons for my
denial of entry other than continuing to be referred to
as "sneaky." I was then taken to another
room where I was photographed and
fingerprinted. Then I was taken to identify
my luggage and then taken to a back room where five
security personnel searched through my luggage and I was
given a body search by two female security officers.
Finally I was taken to a detention facility and held for
13 hours before I was put on a plane back to the
US. I was treated decently but locked in a room
with no door handle on the inside, bare bunk beds, and a
bathroom. I stayed in the room for 13 hours, but
they brought me something to eat twice. I was
forced to leave my luggage outside, but was allowed to
bring my backpack. I was not allowed to keep my
camera with me, and I can only assume this was to prevent
me from being able to record the conditions in the
cell. I informed them that I was in touch
with a lawyer, and would not fly that day, but they told
me that a court injunction was required to stay. I
requested to meet with the Ministry of the Interior
representative at the airport, but was refused and taken
directly to the tarmac and put on the plane. On the
airplane my passport was given to a flight attendant with
instructions to only return it to me when I got off the
airplane. I had seen that my bags were
checked through to Indianapolis but I had no idea if I
had a connecting flight or what time that it left.
When I got my passport back at the end of the flight it
had "denied entry" stamped in it and I did not
have a connecting flight. Luckily I was able
to call and book a flight for a few hours later, but
after traveling for over fifty hours, I was completely
exhausted. While in the detention facility, I was working
with the American Embassy, lawyers, colleagues, and the
MYRTOE (My Right to Enter) Campaign. I felt
exhausted and sad- I had plans- I was in the middle of
projects- I have friends that I love- and wanted to be
able to say goodbye at the least. One minute I had
plans, and an apartment, and appointments- and the next
my world was turned upside down. I got a phone call
from Sam Bahour of the MYROTE Campaign. He told me
that I am "a real Palestinian now."
Sam and I have a few things in common. We both grew
up near Youngstown, Ohio. We were both denied entry
to Israel in the past- but one key difference is that Sam
is Palestinian-American. Sam is a passionate,
creative leader in the Palestinian business
community. I am in Palestine to learn- to work at
Sabeel- but also to soak up as much as I can to tell the
story when I get back. For me, this was a scary
experience. This was a challenge- an interruption-
an inconvenience. But for Sam and the thousands like him
who are foreign nationals-Palestinians holding foreign
passports who are often the highly educated, committed,
creative contributors to the fabric of Palestinian
society-this is a much larger issue. This
policy of visa renewal takes away the ability to plan,
and the stakes are much higher when denial of entry could
mean separation from your family, your business, and your
home. My heart is breaking when I think of the special
friendships that I have built, the projects that I have
poured myself into, and all that I still hope to
experience in Israel/Palestine. I'm not
finished yet. I'm not done. But no matter
what happens, this is a bump in the road, a blip on the
radar screen for me- not a life and death issue as it is
for many. As I sat in that cell, I was so
tired. I had been traveling for over thirty hours
and I was about to board another twelve hour
flight. I reminded myself that I could leave,
I could choose to quit, and I won't because this is
NOTHING compared to what my Palestinian friends and
colleagues deal with daily. I may have been denied entry,
but I was not a Palestinian being denied access to my
homeland, as many are. I may have been detained for
half a day, but Palestinians can be put in administrative
detention for up to six months without a reason being
given. I may have had to wait while my things
were searched through, but that is something that happens
every day at the terminal checkpoints to enter Jerusalem
or the checkpoints that separate Palestinian villages
from one another throughout the West Bank. I
know that I need to keep some perspective. However,
I am also giving myself some space to grieve, catch my
balance, and remember all the little things that I will
miss if I am, in fact, not able to return. I will miss
the chaos of the market and the fresh delicious
Palestinian food, the sweet thick cups of coffee, an
office that is like a family, playing volleyball on the
Mt. of Olives, my church community, picking olives, using
my Arabic, hiking to remote villages, the piles of fresh
spices and heaps of bright vegetables in the market: an
assault on the senses, engaging in nonviolent resistance
to the Occupation, and the support of good friends who
laugh often but are seriously committed to peace with
justice in this place. I wish I could have
said goodbye. I am in Indianapolis now, continuing to
work by correspondence with Sabeel, with every intention
of returning if possible. So much is up in
the air right now, but one thing I do know. I may
be in Jerusalem- I may be in Indianapolis- but I will
continue to work and to advocate for peace with justice
in Palestine and Israel. Denied entry or not,
I will not let them win, I will not quit. I am not
finished yet.
Krista's email: johnson.krista@gmail.com
Friends
of Sabeel--North America www.fosna.org
Ha’aretz Monday,
November 26, 2007
Last update - 11:54 26/11/2007
Central Jerusalem is quickly turning into a ghost town
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/927870.html
By Raz Smolsky
"Large parts of ny
neighborhood look desolate at night, no one is out on the
street and the houses are dark. The building where I live
has eight apartments. Only three are occupied
continuously through the year, while the owners of the
other apartments come to visit for a few weeks a
year," explained Jonathan Levirer, a resident of
Jerusalem's exclusive Talbieh neighborhood.
According to the first study of its kind ever conducted
on the subject of foreign ownership in Jerusalem, a third
of all the apartments sold in Talbieh in 2007, and 40
percent of those in certain of the city's ultra-Orthodox
neighborhoods were sold to foreign residents. The study,
conducted by Levirer's Kiryata Municipal Consulting
company showed that 20 percent of all apartments in the
center of town are already owned by foreign residents,
and stand empty for most of the year.
In 2007, about 10 percent of all the apartments sold in
Jerusalem; a total of 1,800 residences were bought by
foreigners.
The Jerusalem neighborhood with the highest percentage of
foreign-owned apartments is Romema, with almost 30
percent, according to the study. Next came Talbieh, with
20 percent foreign ownership, and then the German Colony
and Rehavia, with about 14 percent foreign ownership
each.
What is drawing in all these foreigners?
Rehavia and Talbieh are within walking distance of the
Old City, and the latter is especially desirable for its
many old Arab buildings with gardens. Foreign buyers are
often prepared to pay almost any price for them.
Up until three years ago, those prices were in the
$5,000-to-$7,000 per square meter range, but today they
often reach as high as $13,000. These prices are out of
reach for the average Israeli, and have left the high-end
market to rich, mostly Orthodox foreigners, more ofthen
than not from Belgium or France.
Though the situation was until recently a curiosity,
during the past year the situation has become much
worrying. "The laundrymat in the neighborhood has
closed down," said Levirer. "There is still a
small grocery store, but I assume that the nursery
schools and kindergartens will close in the future since
there will no longer be a need for child care. The small
businesses too will disappear," warned Levirer.
"Also in social terms there is a problem. What young
couple would want to buy an apartment here? Those
remaining are the older population and the
foreigners."
Other problems include safety and security, said another
resident. Empty apartments invite burglars. On the plus
side, wealthy foreigners tend to pay their building fees
on time and are willing to spend money to keep their
buildings maintained. Parking is less of a problem now
too.
But the real impact is that the center of Jerusalem is
emptying out, especially as the foreign residents are
able to leave their apartments empty most of the time
when they are absent, and not rent them out.