11/17/2009
Hi Folks....for the past week I have been staying in the village of Beit Ommar..south of Bethlehem.It is one of the villages involved in the Palestine Solidarity Project and will be featured at a presentation at the First Parish Church in Cambridge this Thursday night(announcement below)..I hope you can make it. The speaker is the wife of the Palestinian nonviolent activist Mousa abu Maria with whom I am staying..I have attached a piece about him which Bekah, a long time activist, American Jew..and his wife published last summer. We often hear the general American public talk about the need for Palestinian nonviolent resistance so this is a good opportunity to hear about its breadth and depth..It turns out that Salma.. Palestinian activist is from this village as well.

For all its poverty, lack of economic opportunity (typical of Palestine) Israeli military visits and nightly military checkpoint at its entrance ,Beit Ommar is a charming town. We (international visitors) and I sit on Mousa"s balcony in the sun (actually, that was a last week memory..it is getting quite cold now) overlooking a small valley filled with homes and adjoining gardens. Now that the tomatoes in these gardens have been harvested the local sheep are allowed to freely feast on the vines..which makes for easy winter cleanup!..The village dogs ( I understand there are many such pets) are kept in homes during the day but let out at night which makes for a night full of barking frenzy. The contrast is striking as I have not seen a dog during my entire week here.
Internationals have mostly been twenty-something "couch surfers" from all over who stay for a night or two..to learn about life in villages outside the cities. I took two UK visitors up to the Tent of Nations for an afternoon of farm work this week..digging irrigation trenches around the fruit trees as the rainy season will be here soon.

Last week Mousa took us to into a home to meet with some of Beit Ommar's women..a wonderful time. Lot's of dream exchanges..some commonalities eg: life with less house work..but the suffering of these women whose sons have typically been arbitrarily arrested for long periods of time without charges is so sad. It is just impossible for us in the US to wrap our minds around this situation, the waste of human life and opportunity because of time spent in Israeli jails. One mother talked about her smart son who dreamed of being a doctor but after six years in prison is forced to rethink his goal. Another mother described her son not leaving the house ever since his return from prison one year ago. Mousa himself recently released from his third prison term—fourteen months held without charges. His release was won by a good Israeli lawyer and, he readily acknowledges an Israeli judge who agreed there was no cause. Lucky but expensive and another fourteen months of life 'gone'.

Back to the Palestinian women who are filled with nonviolent resistance. One woman described how a day earlier she was on the bus in Ramallah..there was a child on the bus holding a Palestinian flag(now actually legal after many years). An Israeli soldier borded and ordered the child and flag to accompany him off the bus. The woman stood up, said NO and eventually reached a compromise giving the soldier the flag but not the child.

Similarly last week at the nearby weekly demonstration against the confiscation of village land, a Palestinian woman whose son had also been in prison and whose home was demolished, attends each week dressed in her finest clothes with a large flag and berates the Israeli soldiers with absolutely no fear. She crosses the imposed barrier and proudly walks on to her land carrying her flag and giving the peace sign with outstretched arms.
much inspiration..

Just a word more. I have been spending my mornings in the Center's kindergarten..where I am sharing activities with the students and teachers designed to innoculate against effects of trauma. We do lots of yoga (accompanied by universal language of meows and moos of 'animal' stretches), self regulation activities and cooperative games to build mutual trust. We have been working with the large parachute I brought..and today was a hallmark in that they had enough self control to give each other rides in the middle. Lots of self control and cooperation are needed. I speak no Arabic but the children are very patient and eager..they all know my name which is translated as "thigh" in Arabic.
Take care,
Ridgely