Blog Header 1

Jun

22

Don’t Go Jogging In Ramallah

Filed Under Website Info | 

In Ramallah now, it’s so easy to forget that you’re in a conflict zone, because during the day everything is so vibrant and normal-looking. But take a step outside the city and you can run into trouble.

It’s early Sunday morning here, and our (American) artistic director just came into the office (Sunday’s a working day here!). He’d gone out for a morning run, and ventured a little further down the road than normal, past a Palestinian checkpoint and down a beautiful country lane.

Unknowingly, he passed an Israeli army camp, and within seconds, he was surrounded by young army-ites, who beat him with their weapons and marched him at gunpoint to be interrogated. Thankfully, one of the young Israelis spoke English and cleared up the situation very rapidly, but thank goodness it wasn’t more serious; ‘beat first ask questions later’ could so easily be ’shoot first ask questions later’.

You do wonder though, quite how stupid/stressed/unstable these poor young guys must have to be to feel the need to attack an unarmed white guy who is quite obviously dressed in running gear.

But ultimately the people who suffer the most are the Palestinians trying to get on and live. I can’t overemphasize how normal it seems here, when you forget about the occupation. This isn’t some weirdly un-understandable ultra-arabic place where everyone walks about in long robes chanting religious things! It’s a perfectly ordinary city, with shops, taxis, people, familes, children, banks, companies, hotels, schools, etc. etc. etc.

And a great big wall.

What so many people don’t seem to understand in the west is that there isn’t just ONE wall or border. Almost all of the ’security barrier’ is inside - ie dividing - Palestinian territory, as are the checkpoints and the illegal settlements, and it cuts up the land, all but preventing peoples’ freedom of movement . People can’t move about their own country. And when they try, they are subjected to racist apartheid by unfortunate young Israelis, most of whom are losing three years of precious youth to enforced ignorance.

Until the walls fall within Palestine and racism and apartheid is ended, there will never be normality here. Yet the walls are still going up, even today. The world has not learnt from South Africa and Berlin. Unfortunately, the educated Palestinians; the businessmen, the teachers, the doctors, the lawyers, and all those who actually understand how to do good things, and work towards positive integration of new social structures, cultural and educational development, and all kinds of economic development projects, do not have the power or ability to change things, because of the obstacles that exist.

Security for the beautiful and wonderful state of Israel is an unalienable right of every Israeli and it should be upheld without question, so that every citizen can live in peace and prosperity. Those who threaten the security of a nation should be hunted down and brought to justice. But I am struggling to see how creating racist policies and abusing the human rights of another race whilst violating international law is the most productive way to do it.

Comments

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.