Sr. Paulette's Posts from Palestine
Tiffin Area Pax Christi member Sr. Paulette Schroeder serves on a Christian Peacemaker Team in Hebron in the West Bank. She writes articles about her experience for several area newspapers. Two articles are printed below.
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Two articles from Sr. Paulette:
July 19, 2009. I'm sitting just outside of Hebron, West Bank, with 45 other Palestinians all in six taxis. We are waiting for the five Israeli soldiers stationed here to check all six taxis for any young Palestinian men and then to confirm their ID's. This checkpoint, a "flying checkpoint," was set up just for today to stop the taxis passing by on Route 60 for a security check. These flying checkpoints along with six hundred other more permanent checkpoints throughout the West Bank keep the lives of these people very restricted and difficult and, in my opinion, contribute to the violence which sometimes erupts in this land. This is indeed collective punishment. Such widespread punishment on all the people: farmers, teachers, students, families, people of all trades needing to pass through these checkpoints possibly several times a day is totally illegal according to Article 3 of the Geneva Convention.
Just this last Friday, mosque prayer day, other team members and I stationed ourselves near one of our four neighborhood checkpoints in Hebron. There near Ahwad's variety goods store -open every day in this vulnerable area as a form of resistance to the Occupation- we CPTers see eleven young men being detained by the two soldiers stationed at this checkpoint. Up to this moment the men passed by in constant numbers to go to the mosque, but now as the time gets very near for the Call, detentions begin with greater consistency. In questioning, one of the soldiers says he doesn't know these men; so they could be a threat. They need, therefore,to be checked. But, I wonder, what about all the unfamiliar women who passed by and the hundreds of other men? Did this soldier recognize ALL of them?
But now, back at this checkpoint outside of Hebron, I pass my time by conversing with the young woman beside me. She says she never knows whether she'll arrive at her classes on time no matter how early in the day she starts out for class. Another woman passenger seems to be on her way to join her family in Bethlehem. An older man quips a few remarks to lighten the air. One shabab (young man) makes several calls on his cell phone while the professional man in my same seat sighs, checks his watch, lays his head back. I notice the immense frustration. One never gets used to such humiliating times.
Forty minutes pass; five soldiers all equipped with M-16's return the ID's and motion for all the drivers to move on. Relief!... along with another humiliation and much frustration. Security???
Each time I write these articles from the West Bank, I realize that some readers may argue that I'm presenting only the Palestinian side of the conflict. Indeed I am. It has become quite obvious to me that our American mainstream media presents the "other" side very well. Please always feel free to email me at pauletteosf@hotmail.com.
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Through the Lens of a Peacemaker
August 11, 2009 I’ve always been involved in education: elementary, secondary, in the parish, in the retreat center, and among people from the streets who haven’t had the opportunity for classroom education. Here, from Hebron, Palestine, I’ve seen an urgent need to put my “teacher” hat on again and alert people in Northwestern Ohio about what is really happening in this contentious area of the West Bank.
Previous articles I’ve written for the newspaper have dealt with checkpoints, restricted travel, unrestrained settler violence, and harassment on the Palestinian community. I’ve challenged the reading audience to SEE with different eyes that which is not often printed in the United States. Though the Palestinians had NOTHING to do with the Holocaust of the Jews, though the Palestinians and pockets of Jews had lived peacefully together as neighbors here in Palestine before 1948, it has been the Palestinians who have had to surrender land , who have endured confinements behind the WALL, who have foregone educational opportunities, medical services, familial ties due to the “security” needs of Israel and due to the spinelessness of Western nations in holding Israel accountable to International Law. The is truly camouflage verbiage used by the Israeli government in regard to “natural” growth in the settlements, in its insistance and “need” for Hamas to stop its qassam rockets (Homemade weapons which have killed 7 Israelis in the last 4 years compared to several thousand Palestinians killed by the IDF), before the Israeli government will talk Peace, This curtain of “security needs” which Israel hides behind is meant to “pull the wool over” the American people and others. When people throughout the world see the truth, there is danger that their national governments will no longer pump funds into Israel for continued land confiscation, settlement building, demolition of Palestinian homes, construction of the WALL.
This past week the effects of this Israeli Occupation came to my neighborhood again in zoom-like fashion. Each day, young boys sell trays of sweets throughout the Old City of Hebron. As Ahmad, a 13 yr. old Palestinian boy, called out his chant for people to buy, a soldier at the Ibrahimi Mosque held his fingers over his lips and said “Shh.” Ahmad continued to chant. This enraged the soldier who then chased the boy at full speed down the road toward another checkpoint. Here he caught the boy and beat him with fist and boot/knee. Other soldiers pulled the soldier off the boy, while he continued to scream at the boy. The Palestinian boy crouched against the checkpoint barrier, crying for help. Shopkeepers gathered , examined the boy’s injuries, and asked CPTers to alert the police. Both a policeman and the Captain of the soldier examined the boy, and heard both his and shopkeepers’ testimonies. The boy then went for medical attention.
Like other peace groups, we publish this information on our website CPT.org, hoping that people like yourselves will take the time to learn of the misery the Occupation inflicts upon Palestinians.
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