Hospitals, Rockets, and a Lesson in Irony

More on unpredictability...

I woke yesterday morning to blue skies and sunshine and strolled through Gan Sacher Park in Jerusalem to catch a bus down south to Be'er Sheva. A few people were out, lying on the grass in the warm winter sunshine. Dogs roamed around while their owners strolled slowly behind. And the gentle buzz of almost Shabbat life vibrated softly through the city. I phoned the secretary to the Ben Gurion University President to make sure that my meeting was still on -- it was cancelled at the last minute on Monday when an emergency, conflict-related meeting was called. But she assured me that all seemed well today and it would be safe to assume that I could meet with the President in the late afternoon as planned. Rolling through the green, rock-strewn hills leading south from Jerusalem, conflict felt forever away.

I have been working for the past several months to build a cooperative, joint initiative between the Israeli Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the Palestinian University Al-Quds in East Jerusalem. Our initiative is putting together a team of Palestinian and Israeli academics, computer scientists, and public health practitioners to construct a joint website for health information outreach for the region. In the Negev region, I have been working with an inspiring group of young Bedouin women to run a needs assessment and internet usage analysis in the Negev Bedouin community, where we are creating a prototype website in the hopes that it will provide information in an accessible and non-stigmatizing way to target severe health concerns, such as infant mortality. The work has been inspiring. It has shown me people's extraordinary commitment to working together for a common and necessary cause across a divide which can seem insurmountable. I wish more people knew these narratives about cooperation in the face of conflict. The stories are countless, and they give a very different face to the lives of people in this region and the ideals that they live through.

And now for the irony...I stepped off the Egged public bus beside the Ben-Gurion campus to a warm winter day in Negev desert. Life felt like it was slowly starting to return to Be'er Sheva. There were notieably more cars on the streets and students roaming around campus then when I'd been to the city earlier in the week, a city that still felt ghostly, waiting. BGU had made the decision to call graduate students and last year undergrads back to campus to resume classes, though they are all being held in bomb shelters for the time being (less than pleasant). Attendance by these students had apparently reached over 50%, which is quite significant given continuing threats and abundant fears. As I opened my laptop to prepare for my meeting and glance at the news, I couldn't help but feel optomistic.

Until, of course, I saw the headlines. The IDF had shelled the UNRWA headquarters in Gaza, displacing hundreds of civilians seeking shelter, and the Al-Quds hospital in Gaza City was engulfed in flames after being caught in the crossfire. As my advisor at BGU, the Director of Epidemiology, had anticipated, it was only a matter of time before a hospital and what remains of health care infrastructure in Gaza would be hit. It was almost unavoidable. I had spent the previous afternoon at the headquarters of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, working with them on a fundraising campaign to purchase and deliver urgently needed sanitary equipment and medical supplies to Gaza. The fourth shipment of medical equipment had gone out the day before, laden with supplies including 5 ICU beds and baby formula. But mostly with prosthetic limbs. An entire truck nearly full to capacity with prosthetic limbs, and not nearly enough to meet growing needs. Hard even to think about. It paints a stark and heart-wrenching picture.

An hour later, I was sitting in the office of the university President with my advisor and mentor for our health outreach project. We were discussing how best to keep cooperation and dialogue going with our Palestinian colleagues during the present times. We were optimistic. We were thinking ahead to what the joint project could mean, the difference that it could make for all sorts of communities in the region.

And then the sirens went off.

We rushed into the stairwells -- the nearest "safe area" -- and huddled with the rest off the office staff. Waited, and listened. They were much more used to these occurences that I. Often the sirens go off several times a day. Often the alarms are false. Only rarely can you hear the rockets hit. Usually someone brings chocolate, and everyone waits quietly, hopes, prays, assumes they will be fine.

"Echad ... shtayim ... shalosh." We counted as the rockets hit, close, too close. I'm not usually given to panic, and it takes a lot for me to feel truly threatened, but this time, I was scared. We were all emotional. We heard the sirens wail, hoped that they hadn't struck campus (found out shortly afterward that they had hit just north of us, wounding six). Rumors had been circulating that Hamas may be attempting to target Soroka Hospital, the literal lifeblood of the Negev, serving the entire population in the South of Israel. The consequences of such an event are unthinkable. Like the situation in Gaza. Too stark to believe, even when it slaps you in the face.

We tried to continue our discussions from before, but somehow the rockets had made a mockery of our words. The ambulances wailing outside, the audible commotion. The pictures coming in from Gaza. The account of the workers at PHR. It's become just too much, leaders tearing at each other, catching the innocent in their crossfire. It's always the children that suffer the most, on both sides of the line.

I rode the bus back up north, hoping that the sirens wouldn't go off, allowing the silent tears to fall. When the sirens wail, the bus stops and its passengers unload quickly, lie on the side of the streets, cover their heads with their hands. The traffic wasn't moving. I never thought that my professors would be giving me lessons in how to protect myself from shrapnel.

I am amazed and inspired by the way that the professors and staff at Ben Gurion University and colleges like it in the Negev have continued their commitment to their work despite the daily sirens, the depressing atmosphere, the fear and insecurity. We had always thought that the Negev was immune, but no longer.

I think that it is important that people outside (and inside) of Israel know that there isn't consensus in Israel on what is going on in Gaza. There is a lot of fear, and at the bottom of it everyone wants to live in safety, in peace, without the sirens and the constant nagging insecurity. There are very smart people who feel strongly that there were other, better options, that diplomacy could have been possible and that there are ways forward beyond the violence.

More later, but for now, praying for a ceasefire, praying that the voices for peace grow louder, that you lend yours, that cooperation can continue beyond this. Cooperation is a narrative that we can't let go of. Even when the violence is so blinding.

Here's something that you can do now. Help Physicians for Human Rights-Israel purchase and provide urgently needed medical and sanitary supplies to civilians in Gaza. Visit our Facebook Cuase page and decide to act now -- join, invite your friends, donate as you can. Go to this link and engage : http://apps.facebook.com/causes/187475?m=7e3959a1&recruiter_id=384744

Complacency just isn't an option. Even when you close your eyes, the reality doesn't go away. You can still hear the sirens wail.

Down the Rabbit Hole

Sometimes life in today's Israel can be so bizarre, so entirely unpredictable and spontaneous, that the imagination of the Holy Land trounces anything Caroll's could have produced. This mixed up messy place -- the only bottom line here is predictable unpredictability. Its nuances inspire, its wounds make one weep, and complacency and routineity are, for me at least, entirely impossible.

For example, I offer a few snapshots from my past week:

Sunday: Visited a Palestinian professor with a British Lord in a West Bank village. Had to hitchhike home with the British Lord and a Palestinian boiler-maker due to border closures but was held up in route by a small altercation at the checkpoint and a minor brawl between two colliding truck drivers. Judging by the lengthy line of cars and trucks, the trickle of Palestinians being allowed across the border that day was moving slower than ever due to extra heightenings of the heightened seurity screenings. Thanks to profiling, we sailed through when our turn came at long last, with a nod and a smile. Spent the afternoon meandering through a coptic monastery with a visiting friend and eating hummus from the quietly famous stand outside Damascus Gate, served in a hipster coffeeshop in West Jerusalem.

Monday: Spent the afternoon and evening at a friend's moshav (small agricultural community) between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Picked lemons, nana, and parsely, wandered the little orchards and visited the family olive press, cooked dinner with homegrown vegetables, cheese, and labeneh, watched the stars come out in the chill winter sky, and saw the hills nearby from where one can hear rockets explode in the not so distance.

Tuesday: After working all day on a Palestinian-Israeli health outreach project, danced to funky electronic mixed beats in a cave-like bar with a mixed up group of Israeli friends and a small pack of roaming dogs.

Wednesday: Depressed by conflict and complacency (and the media's general lack of attention to the discourse and dissent that does exist -- thank you to Haaretz for giving it some real space today: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054265.html), started looking for ways to contribute to Physicians for Human Rights - Israel's efforts to deliver emergency medical equipment and services to Gaza. They have called for 700,000 USD urgently needed to provide lifesaving services to injured civilians caught in the conflict. See http://www.phr.org.il/phr/ for how to help. Also -- commisserated with the likeminded on the walls of Jerusalem's climbing gym and the floors of a hippies-only no nice clothes allowed reggae party near the Old City.

Thursday: Ran away for the afternoon to Ein Fara national park in Wadi Qelt, a deep valley running through the West Bank. The Israeli-owned park inside the mostly Palestinian-owned West Bank boasts some of the best and best developed rock-climbing in the Middle East. We cranked our way up limestones cliffs, shrouded in an other wordly silence and a warm winter sun, watching rock hyraxes play in the canyon below. Over one lip of the canyon and just beyond view, a Jewish settlement with its tell-tale red-roof homes glowed in the sunshine. Hardly a stone's through away, the minarets of a Palestinian village began to glow neon green as the sun lowered in the sky. From the walls of the canyon across from us, a few black-hooded monks emerged from dwellings hewn into a rock, threading their way to the monstery below. Below, the gushing Ein Qelt desert stream tumbled over, around the rocks, making its way through the valley and all the way to Jericho far off in the distance.

Friday: Left Ein Fara again, mid-afternoon after a dip in the fresh winter stream. The park closes early for the Sabbath - the hyraxes need their rest too. Breezed through the checkpoint and looked behind to see "the wall" snaking across the desert hills, 8 solid meters of concrete slicing across a landscape of biblical beauty. Biked to Mahane Yehuda shuk just in time to buy some hummus before the shabbos callers came out, black-clad ultra-orthodox men blowing their horns at us to shut down all commerce and signal the official onset of Sabbath rest. Ruthless and unyielding, they stalk through the shuk, "shabbos!" ringing from the already empty stalls. I bump into some friends, and we walk the empty alleys with a few of the city's poor and hungry, rumaging through discarded boxes of oranges and lemons. Already, Jerusalem is silent -- the cars are gone and I walk home through the middle of the empty streets, watching the Old City walls glow as the sun sinks beneath the horizon. No one in West Jerusalem is allowed to be alone for the Shabbat meal, and like the giant extended family that surrounds me, I cook and eat and laugh with friends and welcome in the day of rest. Shabat shalom -- feeling peace and wishing it was there for everyone.

Shabbat -- The sun shines winter warm and children play in the streets, their parents secure that no cars will come. Set up slacklines in Gan Sacher park with an Israeli climber friend and welcome in a flood of picnickers trying their luck at "tightrope-walking." The last little religious boy leaves with his dad, and my friend and I sit on the slacklines, drinking the local Goldstar brew and watching the sunset. In Tel Aviv for another friends' mother's performance art show - all in Hebrew but mostly children's stories, simple enough for me to relatively understand, and complete with a feast of cakes and cookies for all in the audience, baked by the actors as part of the show. Back in Jerusalem in time for an art and music website launch, 5 DJ party, in yet another cave-like Jerusalem bar, complete with two musician friends who live in old school buses in the forest and nearly as many dogs as people.


Another week now, deeper deeper down into the rabbit hole. I certainly couldn't have dreamt it. Who knows what tomorrow will bring??

Rockets in School Today

My professor in Be'er Sheva just called to tell me that a rocket landed next to my dorm at Ben-Gurion University. The warning sirens went off, and as far as we know, no one was hurt, though we may not have windows for a little while.

Strange to be living in a "war zone." Sitting in my cosy bedroom in Jerusalem, the sun has just set, and the only sounds are of dogs barking in the distance and an occasional car on passing on the street outside. The "situation" has affected my work - it seems almost silly to talk about Palestinian-Israeli cooperation under the circumstances, though we keep trying. It has affected my friends, some of whom have been called into the reserves. It has affected the atmosphere - fewer people around at times, more tension, more stress, more sadness. But it seems to me that it's easy to live in a bubble here or anywhere, to carve out normalcy and close your eyes to the images. My professors keep working at Ben-Gurion. The sirens go off, and they head into a safe room. But they keep working.

In Gaza though, there's no escape. Last night, 40 people, women and children mostly, tried to escape by hiding in a school building. There were no sirens for them, and no place to go if there had been.

It's hard for me to accept that there was no other way. I'm hearing more vengeance rhetoric than strategy. I'm seeing lives destroyed to protect others. While the rockets fall, the toll is always harshest for those who are caught in the crossfire. Somehow, the moral compass seems to be blowing in the wind.

Whatever your political views, here is a way to help. Physicians for Human Rights - Israel is leading the effort to provide immediate medical relief services to civilians in Gaza. They are in desperate need of financial support. Lives are lives, and there are a lot of them right nextdoor to me hanging in the balance.
http://www.phr.org.il/phr/

January 2nd, 2009: It's a strange New Year in Israel.

On the last day of last year, my plane touched down in Ben-Gurion Airport, bringing me back home to Israel after two weeks of traveling and trekking through SouthEastern Turkey. Three months and eleven days before, I had walked through customs to begin my work as a Fulbright scholar. I was nervous then, unsure of the world that I would enter, the people I would meet, the issues I would begin to understand and invest myself in. This time, the uncertainty was of a different variety. Only days before, Israel began it's airstrike on Hamas in Gaza, the drizzle of rockets into Israeli border towns became a downpour, and images of wailing Palestinian mothers, horrible horrible bloodeshed, and faces distorted by anger and fear began to monopolize the media. We had watched it all on little tv's in Turkish villages, the only foreigners around, unsure of what was being communicated and what the narrative was behind it all. This time, I walked out the airport doors into a world that I thought I was beginning to know but which had become more obscured to me than ever.

It was on the way home that the sms messages started coming in. "You're not in Be'er Sheva, are you?" My friend Jeffery Donenfeld had come back from Turkey with me to spend a few days in Israel, and we had decided to head to Jerusalem rather than to the Negev town that I have been working in. We were driving through the hills of Jerusalem in our shared mini-sherut as two rockets fell on and outside the city I'd been living in. The sirens went off and no one was harmed.

New Year's under the circumstances was difficult to engage with. New Year's has never been a significant celebration in Israel, as Israelis had already usured in the new year by the Jewish calendar on the holiday of Rosh Hashana several months before. Walking through the streets in Israel, you are more likely to be wished "Sylvester Sameach" (Happy Sylvester), after the patron saint of the Gregorian Calendar New Year's Day, emphasizing the celebration's Christian underpinnings.

On New Year's eve of 2009, Jeffrey, my British-Israeli friend Michael, and I caught a sherut to Tel-Aviv and followed a "peace on all sides" protest march through the streets of the city. 100, maybe 200 people marching and banging drums, chanting in Hebrew, and asking for an immediate end to the violence. The reactions were mixed. Some argued, most walked by, heading to the plans they had already made. The crowd stopped only once, pausing to count down the last seconds of 2008 in Hebrew. "Happy New War." We walked to the side, unsure of where we fit, what to think, how to engaged. We ended the night back in Jerusalem, sitting with my friend at the DJ station of a little cavernous bar as the first hours of the new year drifted in.

Life in Jerusalem carries on as before. More soldiers are about, and East Jerusalem has been under strikes and boycotts. Things feel a bit more tense, a bit more subdued. I'm continuing my work as I can, but it's difficult now. Al-Quds University in East Jerusalem is closed. Some of my meetings have been canceled. I'm off to chair the most important organizing meeting my project has seen yet. We'll see who is able to come and what we are able to conclude...