It's Getting Hot

Police sitting in the shade of their umbrella overlooking Isawiyya.  

April 28, 2015

Yesterday, an 18 year old was shot in the stomach by the IDF in Jenin. He died this morning due to complications. He is the third Palestinian to be killed by Israeli forces in recent days; a 17 year old was killed in East Jerusalem on Saturday for allegedly running at Israeli police "wielding a knife," at a checkpoint, and another Palestinian man was shot dead in Hebron on Sunday after he tried stabbing an Israeli soldier.

A-Tur, a Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem, and the home of the 17 year old who was killed at the checkpoint, was put under curfew. There have been sporadic clashes there since the shooting on Saturday, his funeral was last night.  

Last night 2 more people were arrested in Isawiyya, the Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem that sits opposite my classrooms at university. The entire place was barricaded with concrete blocks. This morning as I walked to class I noticed the police had not only roped off the area at the top of the hill, but they had propped up an umbrella to sit under to stay cool.

Temperatures are also hitting a crazy and sudden high—we went from pleasant spring directly into summer with no easing into it. Tomorrow is supposed to be over 90 degrees (30C)—a hamsin, desert heat storm, is landing on our doorstep.

I can’t help but remember a conversation I had with my roommate. It was November, and it was raining in Jerusalem. It was the first rain of the season; the streets were flooding and it was torrential downpour for days. I had never seen that much constant rain before.

October and November had been particularly tense times in Jerusalem. There were almost daily outbursts in the Old City over policies to limit access to al-Aqsa mosque. There were several intentional accidents where people were run over and killed by cars. There were reports of random stabbings at train stations and bus stops. There was a brutal attack on a synagogue. The city was rippling with tension.

My roommate and I were on our way to university and walking through the puddles, pretending as if the umbrella we had was actually preventing water from falling on our heads.

“I like it when it rains,” she remarked off-handedly. “The attacks stop.”

And stop they did—at least in our comfortable disillusionment in the Jewish side of Western Jerusalem. Things quieted down, people were lulled again into a false sense of calm.

Here comes the warm weather again, and clashes and protests against the occupation are rising to the surface again. I can’t help but think about a scientific study I heard of that showed the relationship between high temperatures and violence. Solomon Hsiang published a resounding study in 2013 that analyzed the relation between hot weather and conflict.  “For every standard deviation of change,” explains The Scientist magazine, “levels of interpersonal violence, such as domestic violence or rape, rise by some 4 percent, while the frequency of intergroup conflict, from riots to civil wars, rise by 14 percent.” The hotter it is, the more likely violence is. 

And here we are. In the middle of a hamsin. The beginning of summer breaking out. I can’t help but hold my breath.

There are two important demonstrations happening tomorrow, organized by the activists of Free Jerusalem including a protest against the collective punishment in A-Tur. They will meet at 8:30 at the entrance to Mt. Scopus Campus of Hebrew University. http://goo.gl/B7CgmV

And there is another march to show solidarity with Gaza youth against the siege, tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. in front of the Prime Minister's house. http://goo.gl/eVJPLs

 Things are heating up here.

*See: Hsiang, Solomon M., Marshall Burke, and Edward, Miguel. 2013. "Quantifying the Influence of Climate on Human Conflict." Science, 10.1126/science.1235367.  

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/36822/title/Climate-Change-and-Violence/

Memorial Day

From the "Monument to Future Victims of the Conflict" 

April 21, 2015

It is Israeli Memorial Day. Flags have appeared everywhere seemingly overnight. The music on the radio has shifted to a slow and somber mood. You hear it the moment you step onto the bus where the bus driver nods to you with an air of equal solemnity. 

At 8pm, we were driving. A siren sounded, and 5 women with roots in America and various connections to this place got out of the car. We stood on the side of the road in silence and camaraderie. The seconds passed. We got back in the car; we kept driving. 

Everyone has lost someone here due to the conflict(s) and wars. Whether it is a young soldier who died this summer, November 2012, Lebanon, Sinai, Yom Kippur, or a friend or family member who was blown up on a bus, in a restaurant, on a street corner. Someone stabbed or attacked randomly. Everyone here has someone. Today the national trauma is worn on the sleeves of every Jewish Israeli. 

Israel recognizes 116 soldiers and civilians who died this year.

They're not alone in mourning.  2,314 Palestinians died in Gaza this summer, and 58 in the West Bank this year. This is not including the thousands injured, displaced, or imprisoned.  The UN released a report that said the Palestinian death toll in 2014 was the highest ever since 1967. You can read the report here.

Tonight, to commemorate these lives, we attended an alternative memorial ceremony hosted by the Combatants for Peace and the Bereaved Family Forum. The event is unique. It was the 10th year that they brought together Palestinians and Jews to share different stories of loss and to call for an end to the cycle of violence. We heard from a Palestinian woman who's father was shot and killed randomly by a settler. We heard from an Israeli who's brother committed suicide while serving in the army. We heard from a Palestinian man who's 10 year old daughter was shot by a soldier outside her school. And an Israeli mother shared her story of losing her son while he served in Lebanon. It was moving to sit in this hall, filled with people who also chose to memorialize this day differently. 

I told a young Israeli whom I know that I was going to this ceremony. She is self-proclaimed to be the most rational, secular person. She was raised in Jerusalem by an American mother who immigrated to Israel and works with an organization fostering relations between Palestinian and Israeli kids in Jerusalem. And yet. She told me that this day, this one day is too much to bear to also include dialogue. Today is a memorial for her friends; it's overwhelming enough as it is, she can't hold onto both stories at the same time. I hadn't thought of that until she shared it with me. 

She is going to Mount Herzl for the ceremony that takes place at the military cemetery. She told me that every year, she sees more friends standing there, mourning someone that they lost. And each year, they get younger. It never ends, she said. It just continues, the cemetery keeps growing. 

It is for that reason that I believe that alternative events like tonight are essential: to create a place to lay all grief on the table, to be vulnerable and remember together. To find humanness in each other, even in our worst moments. This is the only way to stop the graves from multiplying each year. To prevent the pain held by those left standing, to bring an end to the never-ending list of names that echo when the siren sounds.