33. Walking with Maya through an Israeli settlement in the West Bank

07/02/18 • -1 min

In episode 3 of the ‘Foreigners in Palestine’ series, our rubbernecking wide-eyed war reporter travels to Hebron, where she meets the luminously seen-it-all Maya, a 19-year-old Danish woman working with the Palestinian group Youth Against Settlements.

“Can I just ask you a question: does it seem at all scary knowing that someone got killed there before–or is it not even because people get killed everywhere?” – Rebecca, agape American

“Well, we went up to Tel Rumeida once and nearly got arrested again because the soldier knew me and we weren’t supposed to be there, and Jawad showed us a bullet hole from... the Palestinian who was shot on the ground recently, so...” – Maya, capable Dane

In this episode, Maya talks about her experiences in Hebron, interacting with soldiers at checkpoints, taking part in nonviolent demonstrations that incur violent reprisals, helping to organize the Open Shuhadah Street Campaign, witnessing multiple arrests of Youth Against Settlements (YAS) founder Issa Amro as well as that of 16-year-old Ahmad Azza, the disrupted commemoration of teenager Hadeel Hashlamoun after she was killed at Checkpoint 56....

We also hear about her experiences with notorious Hebron settlers, one known to yell “go to Auschwitz!” to Palestinians and foreigners, drive her car into crowds of protesting Palestinians and, on one occasion, chase Maya down the street; another drives around in an ambulance harassing people and preventing injured Palestinians from getting medical treatment...

A few of the places Maya and Rebecca walk through in this episode include: three Israeli settlements, Checkpoint 56, Hebron’s Old City and Shuhadah Street, a major thoroughfare now off limits to Palestinians (“Palestinians live here but they can’t use their front door, because they were welded shut by Israelis in ~2006... there’s a woman living up in one of those houses; her front door was welded shut while the family was still inside so they had to make a new door the same day in the back of the house”).

[audio http://archive.org/download/maya_settlement_walk/Maya_settlement_walk–REAL.mp3]

“Can I just ask you a question: does it seem at all scary knowing that someone got killed there before–or is it not even because people get killed everywhere?” – Rebecca, agape American

[audio http://archive.org/download/maya_settlement_walk/Maya_settlement_walk–REAL.mp3]

Previous Episode

32. Poppy and Lola in Nablus and Ramallah

It’s a classic story. A sultry summer’s night: Two suave British students of Arabic and one flustered American activist talk about being Western women in Palestine.

Rebecca: “So what’s it like traveling in the West Bank ?”
Lola: “Sometimes it’s just like commuting... “
Poppy: “It’s completely different for internationals, there’s not really the same restriction on movement. But even for the four months I couldn’t get into Israel, didn’t really bother me; it was like yea, I’ll go another day”
Me: “And can you say why you couldn’t get into Israel?”
Poppy: “Yea, because they thought I was an activist... but, oh well”
Me: “So you haven’t gone into Jerusalem yet..”
Poppy: “I did once.. but I had to go around a village checkpoint”
Me: “So you went into Israel without a visa?”
Poppy: “Yes”
Me: “Cool”

Episode 2 of our ‘Foreigners in Palestine’ series features Lola and Poppy—who were studying at university in Nablus before moving to Ramallah—and Rebecca, a frenzied American rambler then staying in Beit Sahour.

“I don’t consider myself an activist, not because I’m inactive, but because I feel the definitions of being an activist are too narrow. I came here with a heightened awareness of ‘oh i don’t want to be THAT person–writing a ‘travelogue’ or i suppose the modern equivalent would be a blog–but theorizing it to such a certain extent that I never actually looked at it.” – Lola

“In a way I don’t feel like I’m entitled to give an opinion (on The Conflict). I’ve got to say, I just don’t feel a lot of guilt for being an international in Palestine. Personally I don’t feel too connected to the colonial background. I have no historical connection to Palestine so why should I have an opinion on it?” – Poppy

“We do have a historical connection to Palestine. If you think about it linguistically, the second language here is English...” – Lola

“I always feel really guilty... but I also profit off my own guilt” – Rebecca

In a talk that comprehensively covers The West’s legacy of interaction with The East, the three discuss ‘analyzing cultures on their own terms’, ‘not presuming a line of zero cultural longitude,’ efficacy, appropriateness, and neutrality...

“What is like to be.. a Westerner in Ramallah, and what is it like to be here... studying in Palestine, as opposed to coming to Palestine for activism? Then again, I came here for activism and now I’m just hanging out” – Rebecca

“I don’t think there’s any value in me personally, as a British woman, lamenting the differences between Nablus and Ramallah–those are the two places I’ve lived ... I don’t think there’s any value in me lamenting a supposed loss of culture because that kind of narrative, in my eyes, assumes some kind of static culture that was always there and pure and idealized and historicized but that doesn’t necessarily exist because this has always been a contested and international place... Nablus is changing, Jericho is changing... Ramallah is also changing and maybe Ramallah is changing on a trajectory that is more easily mapped towards westernization / easternization so it’s easier for us to quantify that with our own experience but I don’t feel any need to lament it or feel guilty about living here.” – Lola

“I didn’t expect to see much firsthand occupation and everything... It’s definitely lot more visual than I expected it to be” – Poppy.

**Full disclosure: I, Rebecca, your freaked-out jewish-american host, the kind of host who roams through the messianic-nationalistic-apocalyptic Israeli settlements in Hebron at 2am strung-out and crying, found Poppy and Lola’s distance and intentional stepping back from the conflict really fascinating and challenging and complicating; I hope you also find this a rich discussion!

“I think that’s a cultural legacy that we have: we’re so aware that British people have come here and stated their opinions very loudly–it’s like: have you not had enough of us, people with our accents?” – Lola

[audio http://archive.org/download/poppy_and_lola/poppy_and_lola.mp3]

Next Episode

34. Penina on Souli : a joint Jewish-American / Palestinian book project

“When I first met him, it was at my mom’s house in Minnesota...
My mom is a rabbi.. He was giving a talk about his story and she loved him–as many middle-aged Jewish women do–he’s an incredibly charming person; that’s one of the pieces of his story... ”

Penina Eilberg-Schwartz is a Jewish-American writer/poet and electric guitar player with San Francisco-based band Little Teeth writing a nontraditional biography with and about her friend and former romantic partner Sulaiman Khatib, the Palestinian co-founder of Combatants for Peace.

“We’ve known each other for 10 years and... He’s been a really powerful and strange force in my life and the dynamics ... between us in the writing of the book, I think, have a lot to say and point to and question about other relationships in the context of The Conflict... I sort of see the book as joint struggle. I’m very aware of my position as a white Jewish-American writing a Palestinian story. I’m also aware that I’m a much younger woman and he’s an older man and there are certain dynamics that come along with that–and we used to have a romantic relationship–so that also frames our friendship now and our way of working and that’s a pretty... controversial thing, I think, in this context. There’s a lot of things that scare me about that... but I think also a lot of potential for doing something different than is usually done in literature about Israel/Palestine.”

[audio http://archive.org/download/penina_on_souli/penina_on_souli.mp3]