My Trip to Palestine Ended Early

 

Last week I left the West Bank to visit a friend in Amman, Jordan. Little did I know that this was the last time I would be in Palestine. Upon return last Wednesday Israeli immigration denied my visa application to re-enter the West Bank. They believed that I was pro-Palestinian.

 

The manager of the hostel in Amman that I stayed in told me that this is common for people re-entering the West Bank through Jordan, and I think this is true for two reasons. First, if you are boycotting Israel Jordan is the logical place to enter the West Bank because you are avoiding Israel's airport. Israeli security suspects that people who enter the West Bank through Jordan (as opposed to Tel Aviv) are more likely to be pro-Palestinian. In retrospect I should have entered through Tel Aviv. Whether you enter through Tel Aviv or Jordan you are entering occupied Palestinian lands. Also the West Bank is about an hour drive away from Tel Aviv so you can still respect the boycott if you fly into Tel Aviv.

 

The hostel manager in Amman told me that tourists returning to the West Bank from Jordan are more likely to be turned away because they have seen the occupation in person. Once someone sees Israeli apartheid and the occupation even from a foreigner's eyes they tend to be more aware of how racist Israeli society is. They may not put it in those words yet it is there. Israel's occupation cannot allow people to believe that Palestinians are human beings.

 

Due to my abrupt exit from Palestine I have a slight change in my blogging schedule. My roommate in Ramallah is sending back my personal belongings, which includes my camera and my computer. Without these items I cannot upload my pictures or the blog posts that I have already written. So I will continue to write up blog posts and once I receive my camera and computer I will hopefully begin posting several times per week. My apologies for taking so long with the posts. I will do my best to capture what I saw and to give the reader a sense of the occupation.

 

Introduction to Israeli Apartheid

Dear friends and family,

I'm sorry I didn't post earlier. I've been busy traveling and meeting with Palestinian communities in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Israel. I wrote the following post a week ago and haven't had time to publish it. I think that I will try to catch up and describe the various communities I visited throughout the month of July in more detail.

From June 15-24 I will participate in the Health and Human Rights Delegation, during which time I will be learning about Palestinians living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Jerusalem as well as in Israe and meeting with pro-Palestinian organizations. During the month of July I will most likely be filming testimonials of students and faculty at Birzeit University in Ramallah for the Right to Education Campaign. After that I hopefully will visit Cairo, Egypt before flying back to California.

As way of introduction to my journey, I thought I would share with readers a short history the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. While a comprehensive report is far beyond the scope of 1 short blog post, I thought I would provide some historical context before I spend most of my time writing about my travels in Palestine.

The Palestinians have lived on their lands for a long, long time. There is substantial evidence that they were in various locations during Biblical times and have had a continuous presence over since. More recently, Palestinians lived under the Ottoman Empire before World War I, which was when European settlers first began immigrating to Palestine. The latter point is essential to understand what Zionism is and is not. 

In his foundational manifesto for the Zionist movement, Der Judenstaat (which translates to "the state of the Jew," though it is often interpreted as meaning "the Jewish state"), Theodor Herzl explicitly called Zionism a project that would displace the "savage" Palestinians with European Jews. Herzl also considered Argentina or Uganda as possible locations to establish the Zionist colony, though he ultimately decided on Palestine.

During the 1890s Herzl argued that rising anti-Semitism in Europe meant that Jews must build their own Jewish settlements on the colonial frontier. The main point here is that from its beginning the architects of the Zionist movement envisioned the Judenstaat to be a European colonial-settler project that would expand its territory at the expense of their Arab neighbors, which includes not just Palestine but also nearby countries such as Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. In other words, the fundamental precondition of Zionism is the displacement of Palestinians and eventually their Arab neighbors for the sake of "Greater Israel." Hence Zionism both immediately threatens Palestinians and in the long-term their Lebanese, Syrian, Egyptian, and Jordanian neighbors.

In international institutions have been promising to create a Palestinian state for almost a century, a promise that predates any official mandate for the establishment of Israel. After World War I, the League of Nations established a Palestinian Mandate to create a Palestinian state that was to be implemented by Britain. As was true throughout the Arab World, World War I was a time when Europeans lied to protect elite interests at the expense of Palestinian rights. (For more on secret European agreements to divide Arab lands, see the Sykes-Picot agreement.) Without ever creating a Palestinian state, Britain occupied Palestine from 1919 until 1948, the year that the Zionist movement established the state of Israel.

In a 1917 letter to Baron Rothschild, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour stated that "his Majesty's government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people," which Balfour openly acknowledged would infringe on the rights of Palestinians. There is evidence that the influential Zionist and first president of Israel, Chaim Weizman, made this arrangement possible by offering the British government valuable weapons research to help kill Germans during the war in exchange for creating a Jewish state.

As European Jews continued settling in Palestine from the 1890s until the Great Depression, the rise of anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany resulted in a significant number of German Jews immigrating to Palestine during the 1930s. Many of these German Jews did not want to go to Israel and believed the move would be temporary. In the meantime, from 1936-9 Palestinians organized a major uprising against the British colonial government and Zionism immigration.

The relationship between Zionists and Palestinians to the Nazi movement was complicated and is a contested question among scholars today. Various Palestinian and Zionist factions either collaborated or resisted the Nazi movement. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, at first collaborated with Zionists and eventually the Nazi regime. Major Zionist organizations, going back to Theodor Herzl himself, were willing to collaborate with anti-Semites, including Nazi leaders, to achieve their goal of a Jewish state. Hitler himself was intrigued by Zionism as a means of expelling German Jews. Nazi SS colonel Adolf Eichmann, who Hannah Arendt made famous while reporting on his trial in Israel in 1961, visited Mandate Palestine in 1937 to explore the possibility of relocating German Jews there.

Columbia University Professor Joseph Massad is probably the most controversial and in my opinion courageous scholar regarding the question of Zionism and the Nazi movement. Massad argues that before World War II most European and American Jews opposed Zionism. For Massad, after the Nazi Empire murdered millions of Jews a much larger proportion of surviving Jews were Zionists than had been before the Holocaust. In other words, the Holocaust destroyed much Jewish resistance to Zionism and gave the Zionist movement an opportunity to establish Der Judenstaat. 

Zionists did just that from 1947-8 when they expelled approximately 800,000 Palestinians from their homes, roughly a third of the total Palestinian population of 2.5 million. This occurred while the United Nations deliberated a Partition Plan to divide Palestine into Palestinian and Jewish states. It called for roughly 50% of the land to be distributed to each "nation" but the UN never actually implemented the plan. According to the recently deceased Israeli left-wing activist Akiva Orr, there was a backroom deal between Israelis and the Jordanian monarchy for Israelis to annex roughly half of lands allocated to Palestinians under the UN's Partition Plan, which had allocated control of Palestinian lands to Jordan.

Before the UN could fully implement its Partition Plan, Egypt, Jordan (who was at that point probably already compromised), Iraq, and Syria declared war on the Zionist militias with the aim of protecting Palestinians facing imminent expulsion. The Zionist militias won the war, remembered by many Israelis as the "Israel's War for Independence." Palestinians remember it as the "Nakba," which in Arabic means "catastrophe." I believe the Palestinian narrative, which that holds that this was an atrocious instance of ethnic cleansing. For elaboration on this argument, see Ilan Pappe's famous article called "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine."I'm told the book is even better.

As a result of these events, Palestinians only controlled half of the territory granted to them by the Partition Plan and only 22% of the original Palestinian Mandate. Roughly a third of all Palestinians were expelled from their homes, and there was still no Palestinian state. After 1948, Jordan controlled the West Bank and Jerusalem, Syria controlled Golan Heights, and Egypt the Gaza strip, all of which had large Palestinian refugee communities (many refugees also ended up in Lebanon). As a sidenote, I believe that any agreement between Palestinians and Israelis must include the right of Palestinian refugees, now numbering roughly six million people living outside of historical Palestine, to return to their homes. Anything less is a gross injustice.

Egypt, Jordan, and Syria maintained control over those Palestinian territories until 1967, when Israel surprised its neighbors with assaults by land and air. The "Six-Day War" resulted in Israel capturing the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank and Jerusalem from Jordan, and Gaza from Egypt. These territories have been occupied by the Israeli military ever since, making it the longest military occupation of the modern era. In accordance with Theodor Herzl's vision for Der Judenstaat, after the 1967 war Israel began demolishing Palestinian homes and building Jewish-only settlements in these territories.

A few last events of historical significance since 1967:

• From the 1960s until the 1980s, the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) was a major leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). This organization was very powerful in refugee camps in Lebanon.
• Lebanon suffered from a brutal civil war from 1975-90, with the PFLP siding with the Shiites against US-backed Maronite Christians.  Israel took advantage by invading southern Lebanon and murdering about 20,000 people in 1982. It was the Sabra and Shatila massacres that earned Ariel Sharon, then an Israeli general, the title of "The Butcher of Lebanon."
• In 1987 there was a major Palestinian uprising called the "first intifada" (intifada means "uprising" in Arabic), during which time the Hamas party was formed as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. By now the PFLP had declined considerably within the PLO.
• The first intifada eventually led to the Oslo Summit, where Israel agreed to withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank and begin a process of working towards Palestinian self-government. In return Hamas' rival Fatah party agreed to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The Oslo Accords were completely ineffective, with Israel continuing to occupy with West Bank and controlling the air and sea of Gaza, enforcing a brutal blockade on the latter that today keeps Gazans on the brink of starvation.
• After the failure of Oslo there was a second intifada in 2000, which eventually led to Israel building the apartheid wall (the most expensive construction project in Israeli history) in 2002 and withdrawing Zionist settlements from Gaza in 2005. 
• Hamas won relatively free and fair elections in Gaza in 2006. Anticipating a US and Israel-backed coup de'tat by rival faction Fatah, Hamas preemptively expelled (in some cases violently) Fatah members of Gaza's security apparatus. Israel responded with a brutal blockade of Gaza that continues until today. In contrast to Hamas, many Palestinians perceive the Palestinian Authority to be a puppet of the US and Israel. In light of Mahmoud Abbas' recent statement regarding the right of return for Palestinian refugees, who can blame them?

In light of Israel's settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem and the apartheid wall, Palestine's map now looks something like this:



So that's my brief overview of the history of the conflict. I left out a lot of things and brushed over quite a few others, but hopefully over the course of my time in Palestine I provide lots of additional facts and statistics to describe what is happening there.

And briefly, here's where I am at personally in my life: I just shipped my belongings back to California and have left NYC for good. I feel happy and sad and am in the process of a large transition in my life, and that would be true if I weren't traveling to Palestine! I love NYC and have many dear friends there. I will miss it a lot, and am the same time I'm looking forward to being with family and old friends again.

Nana Osei Yao Akoto II

I am writing this from the Central Region outside of Cape Coast, where I am visiting some friends. Tuesday I will head to Accra, and Friday I fly back to NYC. My role in the school building project is, for the most part, over. I stayed as long as possible, and when I left about half the walls were plastered. After the walls, the floors will be plastered, and all that is left after that is to paint.

Our money situation, while it is still tight, has been mostly resolved. Trina came through with a donation last minute that will cover the bare minimum, and there's still hope to bring electricity to the school, since it won't cost much money (probably no more than $400, maybe less). Even if we don't do it now, it's such a simple task we could wire money to Kwame to do it after we're gone. He'll be back in Naama in October anyway for his job at the School of International Training (SIT), which is where I first got to know him on my trip studying abroad through the same program.

We have yet to hear back from the local government about our water project proposal, but Kwame can cover that if it is approved. On Friday, my last full day in Naama, I gave a tutorial to a committee of village residents on the solar equipment that we plan to use for a water well. Our philosophy is that if the technology isn't teachable, it isn't sustainable. Luckily, I was taught well myself, and the committee seemed to understand the technology very well, evidenced by Kwame saying that he can manage the project without us if it's approved.

Trina and I have decided to start our own organization called Sankofa, of which I won't write much about yet here. We still have a lot of work to do, but this is our "launch project," which we didn't realize until Friday night at the goodbye ceremony the village had for me (Trina is staying until the school is completed). At the ceremony, the chief of the village, Nana Sarfo-Adu, told us that the school would be named Sankofa Primary School, named after our young NGO.

The ceremony was a moving experience for Trina and me. The love and gratitude that the people of the village have shown us has been truly remarkable. The council of elders named us King and Queen of Development in Naama. My official name in Naama is now Nana Osei Yao Akoto II, and I am obligated by my title to inform my family and friends that it is proper to use the term "Nana," out of respect for my position (I know this isn't gonna happen, but it would wrong to not even mention here).

The ceremony impressed upon Trina and me how much more work we have left in Naama alone. In addition to the school, electricity, and water, we still have to bring computers, help the village complete the Pre-K structure that they have been working on for years now, and build a Junior Secondary School (middle school), since the village doesn't have one right now. After we complete all this, we'll move on to the next phase of Sankofa. Until then, we much left to do here.

A State of Liminality

Moments ago I gave a printed proposal to the chairman of Naama's council of elders. The proposal asks the Municipal Government to fund our project to bring water to the village of Naama. We have offered to provide a solar-powered water pump and oversight and management of the project, and we are asking the government to provide about 7,500 cedis, which is about $5,500 USD. Right now it feels like a long shot that they will approve our proposal.

If I've gotten used to anything during this project, it's the feeling of being in limbo, a state of suspended liminality between certainty and uncertainty. I know what the task is for each day, but the greater scheme of the project remains obscure. Right now, if the government approves the project, it will most likely be done in a week or so. If not, we'll postpone the project until the next time we come to Naama for more development. Even if it were approved, I wouldn't see it happen. I leave the Ashanti Region on 28 August, which is this Saturday. My role in this round is almost complete, after almost four hectic weeks.

School construction is going well. The roofing was completed yesterday, and today our workers began plastering the walls in earnest. After that come the floors and then painting. Our funds are extremely tight right now. We are banking on a donation that I have no control over. If it doesn't come, we could be in trouble. Like I said, a constant state of uncertainty and certainty. This has been complicated by the fact that my wallet was stolen this week, making me quite broke and eliminating our insurance if the donation doesn't pan out. It's been chaotic, but I think we just might be ok.

The school looks amazing already. The structure is way more impressive than the old one, and the people in the village are very excited about the building. It is remarkable how much money is needed for this, compared to the resources that the poor community members actually have. $7,000 can build a structure like this if planned, but those resources are way beyond the means of the people here. Drilling a well is an analogous case of this.

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but we're not out of the woods yet. We have hope, but in the meantime we can only struggle to stay afloat.

Crunch Time

It's been an eventful week. School construction has continued its progress, and now the walls are complete. The next stage is the roofing, which we anticipate to take about five days. We start this phase on Saturday, because the cement plaster is drying until then. After that we plaster the walls and floors, and the only remaining task left is to paint. I will leave the region for Cape Coast on 28 or 29 August, and my role as overseer of the project will be complete. Latrina will watch the school construction complete.

The well is a separate matter. Shipping for the solar equipment has proven a nightmare. The first attempt was thwarted by UPS's designation of Ghana as a particular threat for terrorism (which baffles me on multiple levels). Now, the second shipping attempt is by USPS has apparently been stalled in Ghanain customs, after USPS washed its hands of the matter, Ghana's postal service may have the package, and we may be able to locate it soon (I will definitely let the donor of the equipment know when I know). If we get it by the end of my stay in Naama, I can teach it to the village leaders.

The drilling of the well, the purchase of the tank, and the piping is longer within our funds alone. The reason for this is that this is no longer a Peace of Minds Project. POMP is only our tax-exempt fiscal sponsor, so all donations given thus far will be tax exempt. The funding that Latrina and I had reserved for the well was used to purchase the tax-exempt service of POMP.

This change in the role of POMP resulted in differences and issues between the chair and Latrina and I over our roles on the board of directors and the role of our project in POMP (obviously there is a long story here that I don't have time to fully go into). As a result, Latrina and I are now overseeing this project as individuals.

What this means is that the unexpected cost of the tax-exempt service (over $1,000) has forced us to change tack. We are now looking at completing the project through using some of our own personal funds. though we have two potential donations coming soon that could help us. We are committed to completing this school project, even if it means using our own money.

The well, on the other hand, is a different story. Recovering the shipped equipment is our most urgent goal, and I am in Kumasi looking into it as I write this. With that said, I am optimistic that the municipal government may be willing to help with the well project. We will request that the government will cover all other costs and we can (hopefully) provide the solar powered water pump. We meet with the municipal chief (something like the county mayor) on Friday to discuss the well.

If the government is willing to support us, the well will be installed. If not, it is highly unlikely we can afford to construct the well (at least this trip) without additional donations. If anyone is willing to donate to this project, please email me, or better yet call 011233240627250. I will give an update to anyone calling (though admittedly it is a unreliable phone and it may take several calls before I can answer). These donations would not be tax-exempt, and the most convenient method would be wiring through Western Union (the nearest one to Naama is in Mampong, Ashanti Region, Ghana). It's crunch time.

Construction is staying steady, and now my American colleagues have joined me on the project. They have brought more funds, but not as much as I thought. It appears we are having serious complications with our bank account, which has made things difficult. Luckily, we have enough funds to complete the roofing, which will last us a week while we try to obtain the rest of our funds. I'm pretty sure that we'll have it worked out so the rest of the money can be wired by next weekend.

The school is really coming along. The walls are almost complete. All we need are our door frames, because the carpenter has been dragging his feet. We'll have them by tomorrow, and the walls will be complete by Tuesday. After that we move on to the roof.

The well is still giving us problems. The municipal chief has been dragging his feet on supporting us, but I think that will be ok as well. Time is already running out before I leave the region, which will be August 28 (only two weeks away). Hopefully that small time frame will force the ball to start rolling. The project has definitely settled down and lessened my stress level, even though is still constantly things to be done and personalities to balance. Village life is very relaxing, which is a plus considering that the intense school semester is right around the corner.

We also have another potential project for next summer. It would be building a clinic in another remote region in the district. If we decide to do it (which is really contingent on support from the local government for this project), we'll have construction plans ready by the time we return to the US so we can begin fundraising. All things considered, our project is still looking good, as long as we can obtain the rest of our funds.

The Best I've Ever Seen

The first week of construction is done, and what an eventful week it was. The village gave Kwame and me a rousing welcome on Monday. They were elated and excited about the project, and I got a much better idea of what they want out of it. And by the end of the week I fully understood why this enthusiasm among the people in the village was necessary for this project to be successful. The project is heavily reliant on communal laborers.

The men and women of the village provide communal labor for the construction process. The women carry blocks and water to the school site on their heads in the morning, and the men mix and cement, sand, and water and carry it to the foundation. We are paying locals to make blocks and to cut the lumber. As they work most of the day, we feed the men lunch as compensation.

This project, even though it involves no actual education, has reminded me just how many social problems are involved in education, not just in Naama but everywhere. I can't name all of them off the top of my head, among them are hunger, cynicism, and alcoholism (ranging from moderate to extreme) among the workers, widespread illiteracy, poverty, tension between the contract workers and the villagers, injuries, and in a few cases undiagnosed mental disorders. I am left with the uncanny feeling, not for the first time in Ghana, that I am closer to my hometown than the thousands of miles suggest.

I also have come to understand the malnutrition among workers and children in the village much better this time around. These farmers work with the simplest of tools, with ground that is very hard, for very little money. The work is so difficult, they must eat a greater portion of food than their children (though their wives get a raw deal, since they work the farms too) just to have the energy to work. They need to eat more bread to win more bread. I have done my share of manual and menial labor, but my body remains unable to do their labor for longer than short bursts. It is very difficult to accept (especially for the well-fed Western mind), but the children can't eat as much as they should for legitimate reasons.

When I watch the communal laborers working and playing, I am reminded of a scene in my favorite war movie, Platoon. The main character describes his fellow soldiers as "grunts,"
hailing from small towns you've never heard of, doing the work the rich refuse to do. That's how these workers are. Some have fathered and mothered more children than they have the means to provide for, some are raging alcoholics, but almost all are hard workers just trying to provide their children with a better opportunity than they had. They are, as Charlie Sheen's character says in the film, the best I've ever seen.

We've gotten support from the local government, who said they will give us whatever support we need. This means we'll be able to give the village a water well and the school electricity. We've also made it a goal to devote one of the new classrooms to a computer lab, which the villagers are more enthusiastic about than anything else. We live in the age of information technology, and they want access as much as anyone.

We've organized a committee with two men and one women. The two men are in charge of procuring lumber and organizing labor, respectively, and the woman is in charge of keeping us informed on the women's issues in the project. We've also been getting local media involved, and I'm sure we'll have some reports coming out in newspapers or on radio soon. Indeed, the eagerness of Ghanains to support local development has been one of the most pleasant surprises. As of now the foundation is complete. Next week we build the walls and start on the roof, before moving to the floor. So far, so good.

I'll conclude this post by reminding the reader that we still need all the help we can get, because the support of the local government can only go so far. Anyone willing to give a tax-exempt donation should email peace.of.mind.projects@gmail.com, or send a check made out to Peace of Mind Projects to

P.O. Box 1484
New York, NY
10027