Tensions in east Jerusalem

Yesterday the Israeli army entered the Al-Aqsa mosque compound at the end of friday prayers, sparking protests in east Jerusalem and Abu-dis. This comes after attempts by Israeli settlers to enter the mosque in the last couple of months.

I was in a cafe in the old city of east Jerusalem when i saw scuffles break out on the TV. I headed towards the mosque and went past groups of Israeli soldiers and riot police. I witnessed a group of Israeli riot police confront a single stone thrower in one of the narrow streets in the old city (bottom picture).

The invasion of the mosque is a direct challenge to the right of Palestinians to worship peacefully in east Jerusalem. The Al-Aqsa mosque is one of the holiest sites in the world for Muslims.

The broader context is very important here. The Israeli government and settlers have declared war on the right of the Palestinians to live in east Jerusalem. This war involves bulldozers and housing permits rather than tanks and F-16s.

In the last 15 years more than 1,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished in east Jerusalem. Not a single settler home has been demolished.

Heidi Schramm writes in this week's Al-Ahram that, "according to a confidential European Union report leaked in March 2009, Israel 'is actively pursuing the illegal annexation' of east Jerusalem by uprooting the Palestinian population and expanding settlements" (25 Feb - 3rd March 2010).

When i got back from east Jerusalem at the end of the day the protests had spread to Abu Dis. Local youths had blocked off a main road and set fire to rubbish (top picture). Earlier in the day an Israeli army jeep in Abu-dis had been pelted with stones.

Dear Diary.....

David Ben-Gurion is Israel's 'founding father'. The airport in Tel Aviv is named after him and a bust of him greets you on arrival. Public buildings are named after him, and his image has been used on the Israeli shekel.

Here is an extract from his diary, dated 1st January 1948, written as ethnic cleansing operations against Palestinians were getting underway:

"There is a need now for strong and brutal reaction. We need to be accurate about timing, place and those we hit. If we accuse a family - we need to harm them without mercy, women and children included. Otherwise, this is not an effective reaction. During the operation there is no need to distinguish between guilty and not guilty" (Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, p.69)

Teaching the university students

It has been a real pleasure teaching the students from Al-Quds university. Mostly they are highly articulate, intelligent, friendly and funny.

The last couple of lessons we have done 'interviewing' (all in english of course!). They interviewed me about life in Britain and why i had come to Palestine.

Then i got one of them to assume the role of a famous person (they chose Yasser Arafat) and the rest of the class asked him or her questions. This lead to some interesting debates about strategies for the Palestinian liberation movement.

Then i ask them some questions. This sparked a very good debate yesterday after i asked 'what are your hopes for the future?' A male student replied, 'To have four wives'. At which point he was taken to task by some of the women in the class (most of whom wear the hijab), who argued that this was an unequal relationship and was not a necessary part of Islam.

Another reply was, 'to see Palestine free'. To which another student replied, 'it is not enough to hope you have to do something'.

British imperialism and Palestine

I am currently reading Ilan Pappe's The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, which i bought from the bookshop in the American Colony hotel in east Jerusalem.

Apparently this is the hotel where Tony Blair stays when he is here as middle east 'peace' envoy (laugh, cry, or be sick? i can't decide....)

I can't think what he makes of the bookshop, as most of the books put forward well researched and cogent arguments which are the opposite of everything he stands for.

It is interesting to read in the first chapters of Pappe's book the role played by the British before Israel was created. Zionists often portray themselves as a plucky independence movement, fighting not only 'threatening Arabs' and but also the might of the British empire, which occupied Palestine up to the 1940s.

As Pappe shows, whilst it is true that there were tensions between the Zionists and the British (culminating most famously in the bombing of the King David hotel in Jerusalem), overall the British strengthened and emboldened the Zionist movement. This goes right back to Lloyd George who, as Pappe writes, "supplied his government...with a host of 'strategic' considerations for why Palestine should be colonised by the Zionist movement, which were mostly infused by his own overriding distrust of, and disdain for, 'Arabs' and 'Mohammedans', as he called the Palestinians".

The British repression of the Palestinian revolt in 1936 severely damaged the fighting capacity of the Palestinian national movement, leaving them unable to resist the attacks by Zionist militias in 1947-48 which drove Palestinians from their homes. Pappe records instances in the 1930s of Zionist militia units working with British troops to attack 'rebellious' Palestinian villages, and being taught by them how to use weapons effectively against villagers.

Lastly, Pappe records that in response to Zionist bombings of bridges, military bases and the King David Hotel, "the British reacted mildly - especially in comparison with the brutal treatment they had meted out to the Palestinian rebels in the 1930s". The response was partial disarmament and arrests, not executions and use of military force.

Some believe that Israel today has become the ultimate 'rogue state', escaping the control even of the United States. But i think the relationship between Israel and the world's biggest imperialist power (then the British, now the US) remains generally the same. Despite some tensions, Israel acts within limits laid down by its paymasters. The function of those limits is to ensure that Israel is an effective and obedient watchdog for imperialist interests.

O rainy town of Bethlehem....

I had a day off today, and decided to visit Bethlehem despite torrential rain and storms.

I had arranged to meet a friend outside the church of the nativity (birthplace of a famous person i believe), and waited outside in the inclement weather before retreating to a horrible tourist cafe.

I then had lunch (not in the horrible tourist cafe) with my friend. She is French and living in Bethlehem for 5 months working for the Alternative Tourism Group.

The fact it was the day of rest, as well as the horrendous weather, meant the streets were largely deserted. Most shops were closed, save for some fruit and veg sellers, and the amusingly titled 'Stars and Bucks cafe' (with the same logo...).

However it was quite nice to wander the beautiful streets of Bethlehem with hardly a soul around.

Protests grow in Hebron

There was a major protest today in Hebron, which comes after a couple of days of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers in the city. Many of my students in Abu Dis have gone to the protests and teachers in the Arab Institute who live in Hebron went home early because of increased checkpoints.

The immediate cause of the protests is the decision by the Israeli government to annex the Ibrahimi mosque and designate it an 'Israeli heritage site'.

The fact that they announced this days before the annual protests to remember the 1994 massacre of 26 Palestinians in the Ibrahimi mosque by an Israeli settler, makes it even more inflammatory.

As an aside, i notice an advert on the website of the Israeli paper Haaretz advertising 'Israel's favourite charity - make more Jewish babies'. For which read: If we slack off we might be overrun by those pesky, uncivilised Arabs. Don't we normally call that racism?

Reflections on teaching

My teaching timetable is now in full swing, and is quite varied. I teach university students, older women, and children aged from 8-16 at the community center, teenage boys at the Arab Institute and girls aged from 13-15 at the UNRWA school.

I have always been a careful planner when it comes to teaching and it is no different now. I like to have thought through and planned every lesson fully before i teach it. This can, however, become slightly time consuming!

When it comes to teaching english language, i am dealing with the fact that i see language primarily as about communication between people. I am fairly weak when it comes to the formal 'rules' of language. I have taken the approach to my lessons that language can be learned by it being a vehicle for other activities i.e. reading literature, discussing issues and doing role plays.

There are very few problems with 'discipline' here. My approach to any students who do cause problems is to say 'If you really don't want to be here i don't mind, go and play football in the sun', or something similar.

Finally, it is impossible to detach education from the realities of the occupation. I am told that during the last intifada, many schools were taken over or destroyed by the Israelis, so there is a problem with finding good school buildings and a lack of resources for new ones. Teachers and students struggle everyday to work hard and deal with all the ways the occupation interferes in their lives, from queing at checkpoints to being seperated from family members who are in prison or stuck on the other side of the separation wall.