Home > " This reminds me of the Warsaw Ghetto "
By Doug from Jenin ( ISM )
Barta, Jenin. A crowd of over 100 Palestinians and Internationals protesters gathered today outside the checkpoint Um al Rihan which controls traffic in and out of Barta, a village west of Jenin on the green line.
The situation in Barta is dire. It’s divided in two by the green line. On the west side are Palestinian Israelis who have Israeli citizenship but are denied the right to free speech or to vote, and on the east are Palestinians with no rights whatsoever. Those east of the green line - in Palestine - now find themselves nearly surrounded by the new apartheid wall that is stealing their land and water and turning Barta and neighboring villages into slums.
To reach Barta, one must either cross the green line from "48" (Israel) or one must go through the check point at Um al Rihan. To do either is nearly impossible. Without a permit - rarely granted - a Palestinian may not enter Israel, period. Likewise, without a permit residents of Barta cannot pass through the checkpoint to visit family or friends anywhere in Palestine, and only residents of Barta can enter Barta. This apparently goes for Internationals as well. Even those with permits get only limited access to their own village. Food, medicine, supplies and such that are bought on one side of the wall cannot pass to the other. Men and women that once worked outside the wall are no longer allowed to go to work. Women, I’m told, that used to travel to from Barta to Jenin to take sewing classes and receive job training from the Palestinian Workers Union are now not allowed to leave Barta. Forget slums; this reminds me of the Warsaw Ghetto.
After a week of planning ISM sent two busses filled with Internationals and Palestinians from Jenin to Barta to protest the check point. First we headed toward Yabad to pick up villagers waiting to join us. But a few miles outside of Jenin we rounded a corner and suddenly found ourselves facing the Israeli military. Two US-made humvees blocked the road behind a half dozen fully armed soldiers standing ready to shoot. They aimed their US-made M-16s at our windshield and ordered the driver out of the bus.
As the driver talked with the soldiers, we ISMers used this time to get our stories straight. Since Israel doesn’t exactly appreciate our presence in Palestine, one of us suggested that we tell the soldiers that we’re from the Arab-American University in Zebobde and we’re going to have lunch in Tura with friends. A Palestinian woman sitting with us suggested -through a translator - that we say instead that we’re from the University and we’re attending a wedding with her family in Tura. We agreed, and then we cellphoned a friend in Tura and were told that nearly all the roads to Barta were closed. Apparently the Israelis don’t appreciate peaceful protests either.
Instead of being arrested or detained we were told to turn back. We considered going back to Jenin but decided that was not an option. We would get to Barta, even if we had to walk, some were saying. The bus driver said he knew another way and we took off on a circuitous route. Travelling by dirt road we passed through the junk yard for the illegal Israeli settlement, Shaked, on our way to Tura, then to Hulgun, then Zabda, and finally to Um al Rihan. When we arrived we found Palestinians assembling at the checkpoint in front of soldiers who had strung razor wire across the road to keep us back.
We got off the bus with whistles and noise makers (empty plastic bottles filled with rocks) in hand. As we approached the checkpoint we unfurled banners and signs that read "No Justice, No Peace, "Free Palestine," and "The Wall Must Fall," and we gave tentative toots on the whistles. As we got nearer about a dozen soldiers lined up in front of several armoured vehicles and they issued a command in Hebrew, probably telling us to disperse. Simultaneously, our whistles went full throttle and reached a shrill, feverish pitch as the noise-makers rattled and shook, and we began to shout and cheer.
From the other side of the checkpoint, several residents from Barta tried to pass through to join us but were stopped at the line. Four or five cars, however, passed through and honked their horns. Journalists scrambled to take pictures. We moved closer, the shrill got louder. For a moment Barta was in touch, literally, with the world community. For a moment they actually heard us. I like to think that Barta residents felt embraced by the world today.
The Israelis, visibly nervous, issued a command that they were ready to shoot as they readied their guns. Our Palestinian friends decided that we should turn back, that we had made our point. Quietly and peacefully we returned to our vehicles and returned home.
Barta represents all of Palestine in so many ways. It’s divided, surrounded, cut off, deprived, threatened, harrassed and abused daily. But its heart and spirit remain intact. Once again the Palestinians demonstrated non-violence in the face of violence today, just as they have for much of the last 56 years.
Forum posts
21 July 2004, 18:21
Factually not true. Arab Israelis have both rights and are well represented in parliament.
No need to paint a bad situation even worse. Thank you.
21 July 2004, 21:09
Mr Doug, I don’t think you have an idea what was the situation in the Warsaw Getto, innocent children, women, men deprived from food, 500,000 people dying from hunger or deportation to extermination camps. How can you compare this to your Jenin Arab heroes, that could have had free normal life if they have not chosen the way of terror???
Mr. Doug - You are not monitoring Darfur-Sudan - where half a million people were massacred, you are not in Chechnia, you are not in Syria, Saudi-Arabia, Egypt and those non human right countries. You have chosen to criticise and demonize Israel, the only Democraty in the middle east !!! Is it possible that you do that because the only punishment you will get is expulsion, and in the other countries you will be beheaded??? Is this true human rights work??? Is your conscience clear???
btw - There are more then 10 Arab members of the Israeli patliament, that have the full right to criticise Israel as much as they want - and most of them does it. IS this the situation in the Arab world or Palestinian territories???
21 July 2004, 22:43
You ar 100 % rite
I lived in israel and it wass scery to work on th street so stop this lie know its
31 July 2004, 21:18
i was in iraq and i kill 6 people i get them hart for an suvenir i am now in preason
21 July 2004, 21:22
Don’t exxagerate. You are really naive and childish. You apparently try to impress ignorant poeple by throwing away expressions like Warshaw Getho of which you don’t know anything.
Althogh I was always against my governments settlement policy and I’ll be very happy when we withdraw from them, I’d say that Arafat and his bunch of corrupted colleagues brough upon themselves all their troubles and sufferings. The Palestinian poeple was conducted by him towards mass hysteria which at the end may burn them and bury all their hopes. In my opinion, the only solution for them at the moment is to be autonomous regions in Jordan and Egypt.
Their not so secret hopes to destroy Israel and wipe us to the sea will not be fullfilled. We are much tougher than you might think. Fundametalistic Islam will not prevail.
21 July 2004, 23:08
Terror doen’t lead to peace and to peacful life. Arafat and his people could have gained a country and generous offers from former PM Barak and President Clinton, but he decided to keep on with terror - thus depriving his people from their legitimate right to become citizens of Palestine.
The palestinians and all the fanatic Islamists want to drive the Jews away from their land. They want all of it for themselves. Why don’t the rich Arab nations help their poor brothers and sisters in Gaza and the West Bank? they chose to send money to finance terror - not to help the poor, ill and hungry people. Arafat and his corrupt regime uses all the money for themselves (Suha Arafat lives like a queen in France). Terror brings more and more violence and bloodshed.
22 July 2004, 00:42
Mr Doug,
The situation in the occupied territories is severe enough without you compounding it with misinformed remarks. Firstly, Israeli Arabs certainly can vote and can get elected - I know because I voted for a mostly-Arab party with 3 members representing it in the Knesset, including a former advisor to president Arafat. Secondly, the comparison to the Warsaw ghetto is vile. In Warsaw, half a million people were crammed into one neighbourhood and deliberately starved by a foreign occupier bent on their destruction, without any provocation whatsoever on their part (and eben when they finally rebelled, they only attacked the German army, not civilians). In contrast, the Palestinians in the occupied territories are supported by strong political allies, many amongst them are openly in armed conflict with Israel in which they are deliberately targeting Israeli civilians inside Israel and in which they have already murdered hundreds of Israeli civilians. Israel - with the lamentable exception of some extremists - does not want to destroy them, which is why it is generally open to monitoring by both Israeli and international human rights groups, as long as they stick to humanitarian and political non-violent work. Do you think for one moment that the Nazis would have let you go to Warsaw to express solidarity with the Jews? Were there German human rights groups monitoring the welfare of the Jews in the ghettos and extermination camps?
Unfortunately, the wall - although partly illegal and although it should be rebuilt on the green line - is the most humane temporary solution to protect Israeli civilians from terrorists and calm down the situation, until violence is no longer an option and negotiations leading to a two-state solution can resume.
22 July 2004, 06:15
hello.
sorry if i make mistakes... my english is not the best.
all the things that were writen in this artical makes me realy wonder where that
person (Doug) is.
there are many examples of the terrible violece the people of Jenin are capable of.
I would like to give one example- 04 of october, 2003. a woman from Jenin, Hanadi Jaradat, a 29-year-old lawyer explodes herself inside Maxim restorant. Twenty-one people were killed, including three children and a baby girl, and 60 wounded.
link: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2004/1/Suicide+bombing+of+Maxim+restaurant+in+Haifa+-+4-O.htm
the examples are endless! what do we israelies should do in order to avoid those terrorists??
we want to leave quietly and peacfully just like the palestinians says they want. we have tried
everything. fighting with force- entering the palestinians teritory and try to eliminate all those
who wish to destroy us. peace prosses- giving the palestinians independents and a state, all the
terretory they wish for and money for thier goverment (which was used to build a big house for
Arafat’s wife near Paris etc.) to help their people.
no matter what we tried didnt help. the only choice seems to be keep them away from us. we
dont want palestinians to work in Israel cause they hurt us, dont want them in our land cause
they kill our kids on buses on their way to school. we dont trust and dont believe a word their
leaders say. we are here, in Israel, and you are there, in Palastain. you will do what ever you
want. live peacefully, work, raise your kids and send them to school.
noone will send you to labor camps and later on will kill you with gas. live your own
life! do it in Palastine and we will do it in Israel. use the money USA and Israel gave
you and build yourself. leave us ALONE!
hope what i wrote will not reach deaf ears.
Moty. from Jerusalem. Israel.
p.s- among the people who died in Maxim restorant were 3 Palestinian Israelis
who worked there. Mutanus Karkabi, Sharbal Matar and Osama Najar.