Why Didn't You Do Something?

One of my earliest memories is of the Nuremberg trials. I remember the black and white TV and my mother explaining to me what had happened to the Jewish people in Europe. As young as I was, I would always ask, "Why didn't you do something?" The answer was that there simply was no way to help, there was nothing we could do.

When I was a bit older I read The Diary of Anne Frank. I even incorporated a part of her story into my own diary. It seemed she was the only person who could understand my feelings of being not quite a teenager and having no one with whom to share my innermost feelings. Later I visited the home where she had been incarcerated with her family--it is now a museum.

Today I live in a dormitory with young girls just out of their teens who are attending the An Najah University here in Nablus, Palestine. I wish that Anne could meet them. I wonder what she would say about the lives they are leading. Things are not so different from what she described in her diary. The sad fact is that it is Anne's own
people, who learned so well the tactics of the Nazis, who are destroying not only the lives of the indigenous people of Palestine but also their culture and their future. If we were to make a museum of every home in Palestine that contains suffering, dying victims of this occupation, it would be the world's largest museum, covering an area that is home to several million people.

Will people someday walk these roads and remember that this is where the little boy died who was killed four days back for simply helping his grandfather reach medical care? He held no stone, he was walking away from the soldiers--and he was shot and killed. His grandfather died in the hospital a few hours later. Will we erect a monument for him and cry for the injustice? If so, then the roads will not be passable, for there will be far too many mo numents to those who died for no reason. The soldiers fire their guns as though bullets were cheap--frequently, and without asking questions.

As soldiers entered a house less than a city block from me a few days ago, they were announcing over a loudspeaker that they were looking for one particular person. Others began to get out of the way and in doing so were shot and killed. Murdered. An apartment resident rushed outside to move his car. The soldiers shot him dead and ran over his car with their tank. They proceeded on to kill three more people and wound twenty-two as they went about their search for a wanted man. One of the wounded is an ambulance driver.

This news never made the mainstream press. CNN was far too busy reporting the death of four Israeli soldiers in a tank that was blown up in Gaza on Palestinian land. The only news worthy of reporting was that Israel was trying to wipe out the terrorists
responsible and that many in Gaza were killed. Some of these "terrorists" that the Israeli government killed were toddlers. There were no apologies and there are no excuses. In the minds of those who control the military forces here, the Palestinians are no more human than the Nazis believed the Jewish to be. Their deaths bring
no sadness to the world, and their funerals are covered in the news with stories of how "Hamas is vowing revenge" and pictures of angry young men carrying a flag-draped body.

Who are these angry young men? They are people who see one of the greatest human tragedies occurring on their own land, to their own families, and who dare to care too much and to try to do something about it. These are real people who fall in love, have children, get married, and are extremely well educated. More than half of the students in this university are women. The girls who live in my dorm are all studying engineering. I admire their ability to hope and to study, under the most difficult circumstances, for a future that I find impossible to see.

For me, doing something means being here. It means being a witness--a witness to such a grave injustice that it often brings unbearable heartache. But sometimes it brings a raging anger and pain that Anne Frank would surely share with me, had she lived to witness it. Like many young girls here in Palestine, Anne's life was cut off before she could mature and grow. This is a daily occurrence for the children of Palestine. In my mother's time the Jewish people were killed; now it is the Jewish who are killing a people and their children.

Certainly one of the most vocal opposition groups to the current holocaust are Jewish people. I respect the Jewish people who are speaking out against this atrocity more than any other group who are working for the rights of the Palestinians. Many young Israeli men are currently in prison for refusing to serve here in the
occupied territories. Their lives are no doubt made difficult and painful. But in this apartheid situation it is a relief to find that there are some who have the courage to resist and, by going to jail, to do something. They are taking a huge risk and have chosen to look at the most obvious facts. The excuse that I often hear from many
Americans as well as Israelis is that they "simply didn't know" what is going on. But it's hard to be that blind now. Most of us can read, and the truth is readily available through the alternative media.

The United Nations is mocked by Israel while collective punishment, mass murder, and this constant reign of terror are ignored. Why have UN sanctions not been applied against Israel for their violation of human rights and for their continued mockery of the UN charter? That "why" is spelled U.S., not UN. With continuing U.S. support for Israel there will never be peace. Peace would mean the end to the
billions of dollars that flow to Israel each year from the U.S. No, Israel will never submit to peace, nor will America allow her to do so. That would mean losing the foothold here in the Middle East that holds the huge U.S. military–sponsored arsenal.

The world might have rejoiced when the Berlin Wall came down, but it is certainly ignoring the Israeli wall that is going up. Yet this wall might at long last mean that there will be a Palestinian state. It will be a state behind concrete walls, cut off from parts of itself, patrolled by Israeli guards, and reinforced with electric bolts to keep
everyone in. Such a state will be the world's largest prison. Already the walls are going up and further land is being confiscated. Refugees from the area already stolen by Israel are now in overcrowded refugee camps dating back to the 1940s. I just spent three months living in a refugee camp. and I have yet to find words to describe the day-in, day-out terror we were subjected to. Soldiers driving by in their tanks would simply fire aimlessly into the camp--just a way of saying "we are here, we hate you, and don't forget it."

Today I am in the city of Nablus, just up the road from that camp. This city is thousands of years old and is mentioned in the Bible almost 75 times as Shekum. It is here that Jesus, a person who saw a wrong and tried to right it and was thought by many to be a renegade, stopped and drank water from a well near where I am writing. Today, making that walk would probably be far more complicated. Would the Jewish soldiers classify him as a Jew or simply a "troublemaker" at their humiliating checkpoints? Would he be arrested or left to stand in the freezing rain? Would he be
shackled and handcuffed and left to sit in the mud? Or would he be forced to strip naked, as so many others are on a routine basis?

If he were to be declared a troublemaker, there would be no nice shelter to stand in, with windbreakers on three sides, as is possible for the Jewish settlers waiting for the bus. Jesus might find himself on the wrong side of an Israeli checkpoint, and he would discover that the roads around this unholy land are as difficult to maneuver
and as cold and forbidding as when he tried to spread a new word about loving your neighbor two thousand years ago.

You can still get hung on the proverbial cross here, but it is easier simply to shoot people--apparently, preferably the very young. Thirty-eight percent of the war deaths here in Palestine are of children. My personal experience assisting people with gunshot wounds to the head is becoming far too common.

I had never imagined Jesus growing up in such a cold place, as our Bible didn't portray the winters here. It is a damp and humid cold, and with no oil supplies, so essential to our American way of life, the people must depend on the most primitive means of heating their houses. During such a total occupation, even food is often not
available, let alone heat.

The military invaded the old city of Nablus without warning a few days ago. This is one of those beautiful, old, open-air places with historic arches and clean paths leading through a market that sells clothing, food, and just about everything else you could look for. This is the precious heart of Nablus, home to thousands of people
who live above their shops or in private homes in the old city.

When the soldiers invaded, they used the American-supplied weapons to tunnel their way from house to house. Their tanks and all of their armored vehicles sat below my window as the soldiers gained the confidence to proceed on foot. To move between
houses, they used explosives to blow holes in the walls, leaving the children and families to face an even more hostile environment. The soldiers looked like rats sneaking along beneath the window where I stood watching them. They paused, scurried, and moved as though they knew that they didn't have the right to be here.

Many of these soldiers are first-generation immigrants, brought in and used as fodder for the war machine. Israel has no jobs for the Arab natives who are imprisoned in their own homes and in refugee camps in Palestine--yet they have brought in 25,000 Thai citizens to work and farm their stolen land, and there are thousands more immigrant workers here from all over the world. Twenty thousand
Ethiopians have recently been given permission to immigrate here, perhaps to be used in this one-sided war and also to do the work that others find beneath them. By cutting off the indigenous Arab population of three million, Israel finds itself in need of those who actually want to farm this land.

On Thursday, the 20th of February, my day off from my work at the An Najah University, I joined the United Palestinian Medical Relief Center in the old city to try to bring some relief to the families trapped inside their homes. They were not able to leave or to even look out their windows for fear of being shot. News had reached us
by cell phone of desperately ill people trapped in their homes. With well-armed soldiers in bulletproof vests surrounding us, we set out from the clinic, wearing white cotton vests that identified us as working for medical relief. As an American woman, I often walked in the front.

We carried medicine bottles above our heads to show that we were only bearing medicine as we moved through the small homes of the people. These homes, built long ago, have low, narrow doorways. We stooped to enter these ancient homes that had already been "searched" by the soldiers. In one, an elderly woman sat weeping in the corner. While passing through, the soldiers had simply broken
everything. Here was a broken chair; there was the television set, no doubt earned by hard work, and now utterly smashed. The woman stood to greet us. She asked us to sit, to take tea. We explained we were only moving to help people, the children first. She brought out her pale, young great-grandson, only about seven years old. The side of his head had a huge lump and there were bruises on his face. The soldiers had hit him with their rifle butts. The child looked sickly at best and was thin and malnourished, as are so many of the children of Palestine. My grief was quickly
turning to anger.

What unearthly cause could have allowed a soldier to strike this child? Why? My only thought is that the Palestinians must not be seen as human in the eyes of those who do this. I have seen too many people left to sit in the mud for hours in pouring, freezing rain, while the soldiers laugh and exchange jokes, to believe that striking
a child is not done routinely. After all, there's the danger that he might grow up.

We moved through many houses. All of the children were sick and coughing. The doctor had brought antibiotics with him, and we gave injections and moved on. As a nurse, I would have hospitalized half of the babies for respiratory distress, but this was not an option.

We came across a shop owner. When the soldiers made their rapid advance into the city they captured almost anyone on the street. This man was merely closing up his shop, trying to protect his livelihood. The soldiers took this elderly man from the road and held him shackled as a prisoner in the cold rain for more than twenty-four hours, with only a sweater on. He was now coughing and deathly pale. We returned to him hours later and discerned that he might be having a heart attack. The dilemma facing the medical team as I moved on with the next group was how to get him to the hospital. There were soldiers everywhere, in front of us and behind us. To them, for this man to die was simply of no consequence--or perhaps it was part of the victory.
In the house of one family I held a baby girl burning with fever and coughing. She was too sick to protest my alien looks. I have spent enough time in Israel to know that they have some of the best medical facilities in the world. Why was this child so ill and so ignored by the world?

The soldiers have a mission in the old city. They are here to blow up stores, buildings and homes with explosives that implode. Minutes after leaving the first group, we come across a shop that has just been demolished. The air still carries the caustic smell of burning plastic and rubber, and soon we are all coughing. A refrigerator is lying with the door blown off, a sofa is upside down in the rubble, a
toy is here, clothing there. Another family is homeless. It looks so different as I stand here, versus staring at the television or photos. Here is a family who has lost everything. Only their good neighbors will help them pick up the pieces. A few feet from the building, part of the ancient archway has been destroyed. Just days ago I was walking through this part of the city, still intact. Now it looks as though there has been an earthquake.

I finally leave the group and stop to have some hot tea at a hotel. It's fairly new, built in the old city only a few years ago, and is partially open. The soldiers entered it last night and arrested one of my favorite waiters. I hear about the ridiculous questions that were asked of the staff as the soldiers entered. This is a large area where
anyone might stop in for tea or coffee. The waiter was arrested because the soldiers asked him if terrorists come there. Perhaps he should have said, "Yes, you are here before me." As it is, they arrested him. One becomes accustomed to this nowadays. No justification is needed to arrest anyone. They can be held in the most desolate conditions under what America now calls "administrative detention."

Through my work at the university I have found that many of the educated elite are following in the steps of Dr. Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Nehru and Nelson Mandela. They have all been arrested, imprisoned, beaten, humiliated. But they have all picked up and gone on. They are, after all, Palestinian men. One of the peace
activists who I came to know and love during my stay in the Balata Refugee Camp is currently being held, and there has been no attempt by Israel to explain why he is arrested, although Amnesty International has now taken up his case. We only know that he was taken off the road with a group of human rights activists who were
trying to help ambulances pass through checkpoints and to make life easier for the people. This is the crime. The latest news is that three people were killed yesterday. It is hard to confirm, and the figures keep rising. The numbers do not seem to matter much outside our circle here in Nablus, until one person has finally had enough. Until one person finally says "I have to do something," and crosses over that line and commits his fatal crime. Then the world will focus again on Palestine and the terrorists here. Until then, the true terrorists--who are in Washington this week to
ask for eight billion more U.S. dollars to continue to kill, maim, and destroy--live a comfortable life, well provided for.

arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)