Public witness with Women in Black

In January of 1988, a small group of Israeli women donned in black clothing came together in Jerusalem and raised a black sign in the shape of a hand with white lettering that read 'Stop the Occupation.' Women in Black, Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel, have held weekly protest vigils ever since to express their belief in peace and to demand that the Israeli Occupation of the Palestinian Territories come to an end. Protests against the Occupation soon spread to other cities around Israel and then to other countries. On Friday, January 15, our delegation joined the weekly vigil at Hagar (Paris) Square, a major traffic intersection in West Jerusalem. We were greeted warmly by the organizers and given signs in English, Hebrew, and Arabic to hold up. About forty people gathered that hour – young and old, women and men, Israelis and internationals. (Besides our group, a few members of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel were there.)

I first learned of Women in Black in the late 1980s, shortly after they began protesting the Occupation. I was very glad to have this opportunity to join their vigil, especially after our delegation had seen for ourselves the suffering of Palestinian people from the Occupation. Women in Black declare in a flyer that the Occupation is "morally wrong and obstructs the path to peace" and that its practices "violate international law and undermine the foundations of decency and morality." They acknowledge "reversals in the peace process," but "are more convinced than ever that there is no military solution to the conflict." Only an end to the occupation will bring a peace "based on the just interests of both peoples. "

The response of passers-by on foot and in vehicles reminded me of the response our group in suburban southern California received when we were protesting the build-up to a U.S. war with Iraq. The many horns honked in support, peace signs, or thumbs up were encouraging. The thumbs down were discouraging, the shouts of traitor or "I hope you die in a terrorist attack" disturbing. Women in Black are also heckled with sexual slurs, which were particularly unsettling.

I talked to two of the women after the protest ended, asking them why they have continued to protest every week for 22 years. The first one told me that she came because the occupation had not ended. Ruth El-Raz, one of the co-founders of the group, told me that she no longer has hope that change will come but that she must live as if there is hope; that they are "a symbol." She wanted me to report that Women in Black has become an international movement of women of conscience who hold vigils to protest violence in their own part of the world, including war, inter-ethnic conflict, militarism, the arms industry, racism, and violence against women or in neighborhoods . Each vigil is autonomous, though all the women wear black to symbolize the tragedy of the victims of violence. What unites them is their "commitment to justice and a world free of violence."

Meetings in Bethlehem

One of our delegates, Tana, wrote this entry on some of our meetings in Bethlehem.  Tana was also on a delegation in 2006.

(From 1/13/10)
After spending the night in a refugee camp with a gracious Palestinian family we traveled to Bethlehem to the Holy Land Trust (HLT). This organization is an NGO started in 1998 with the goal of strengthening Palestinian communities for the future by training in non-violence direst action. They have 4 programs non-violence centers each. The program areas are travel encounters, Palestinian media and news, Community television, and leadership training.

I recall being impressed with their work in 2006 and I am again. They sites direct numbers and places where their work occurs. They presented fresh and creative ideas. I liked the cornerstones of their Peacekeeper program for youth. These cornerstones include 5 steps. Praise people. Give up put downs. Seek wise people. Notice hurt. Right wrongs. I think all of us can do better at each one of these cornerstones.
HLT noted a lack of leadership for the future and they are inviting potential leaders to intensive workshops based on nonlinear thinking. The goal is the development of leaders prepared for the future with skills in co-existence, justice building, and non-violence.

In the afternoon with visited with Wi'am Palestinian Conflict Resolution Center. The founder was instrumental in bringing CPT to Hebron. He was a friend to Gene Stoltzfus the founder of CPT. His statement, "Love your country, don’t over generalize and don’t be extreme," has stuck with me.

In the evening it was time to cook carrot salad and vegetable stew. We had visitors on the roof [see Nick's post below].

-Tana

Take a Sip of Life

Joyce wrote this poem for our delegation blog.


"Take a Sip of Life"

Tea leaves welcome all
Sage, mint, a bit of sugar

In a Palestinian village
The elder talks
And a young boy
carries a tray of sweet tea
To welcome strangers.

Injustice of a home invasion
The event is told
And a young boy
carries a tray of sweet tea
To welcome strangers.

We are humbled
We learn true hospitality
We hear the pain of daily life
We hear the passion for Palestine
Our hearts and minds cry out for jsutice

Sweet tea bridges our lives
We will brind home these stories
We have much to integrate
We are eager to tell our experiences.

Tea leaves welcome
Mint, sage, sweet tea
Hospitality has a new meaning for us all.

Soldiers on the roof

I was on potato-peeling duty for dinner in the CPT apartments, and was lamenting the fresh bag of potatoes I'd just been given, when I heard someone yell that there were soldiers on the roof. Since I will take confronting people with guns over peeling potatoes any day, I dropped everything, grabbed my camera, and ran upstairs.

When I got to the roof, Paulette was arguing with maybe six soldiers about their right to be there. After talking with others, it seems I arrived rather early in the encounter, though I did miss her trying to shoo them away (literally by waving her arms at them and saying "shoo! shoo!"). They had also challenged her to prove she lived there, though that didn't really go anywhere.

Paulette had a camcorder, and I began recording video on my camera as well (though the batteries died shortly thereafter). Pete was also taking multiple photos.

As the soldiers still refused to leave, we broke into a round of "Joy to the World." I hope no videos surface of this, as I was definitely singing in the key of H. They climbed to a higher level of the roof, and we followed them.

The soldiers began arguing with Paulette about their practices in Al-Khalil and various other relevant issues, and I don't remember the specifics of that conversation. After a while, Paulette went back downstairs, and I found myself alone with the attention of a semi-circle of soldiers.

"Forgive me," I said. "I'm new here, and I can't really speak to what's happened. But I just want to say what I've observed. There's all this fear that everyone has a knife, or a gun. You've mentioned specific attacks that happened five months ago, or several years ago, anywhere in the country. I'm from the United States, which in some places is a very violent country. I've lived in a city where people are killed every day, often for the color of their skin, not once every five months. I've worked with kids who live in neighborhoods where nine-year-olds are carrying guns and selling drugs. But if someone where to ask me if I wanted the army to come occupy the city to make it safer, I would say absolutely not. I would be horrified by the thought."

That launched us into a very long conversation, most of which I'm sorry to say I can't recall all that well, so what follows will just be snippets of what I remember. At some point, some of the other delegates started talking to the soldiers, so that after a while I was talking to just one of them--Yadid (which means "friend"), the tallest, who I was later told had been acting disrespectfully to Paulette before I arrived. Joseph and two Canadian girls, who were traveling independently and staying the night with CPT, also joined in.

There was some argument between the soldier and one of the girls about territory and history, but I tried to keep the conversation on the current actions of the military.

What I would call Yadid's central argument was that the occupation, checkpoints, and detentions in the street are all necessary to keep people safe and prevent terrorist attacks. He also claimed that if Israel were not occupying Palestine, then the Palestinians (I presume; it was more of a "they") would be occupying Israel. I told him that while I did not at all agree with that position, if it were the case, CPT would be there working with them. He seemed genuinely glad to hear that.

He mentioned his desire to keep his family safe, and that became our common ground. I told him I, too, want his family to be safe, and we acknowledged that we had the same goal and different ideas of how it could be achieved.

Yadid had a very different impression of the safety of Palestinian areas than I. "If I came into these places without my vest and my gun, they would throw rocks at me or shoot me," he said. I replied that I had walked through these neighborhoods, and had never felt unsafe. "Yes," he said, "because they know you're their friend."

"Why can't you be their friend?" I asked. "And besides, I have had Palestinians tell me 'Shalom' because they think I am Jewish. I have still felt completely safe, and nothing has happened to me."
I also talked with him about some of my research on terrorism, and he seemed genuinely interested in it. I talked about Jihad, since he had asked about September 11, and he jumped at my comment that concessions would not appease that breed of terrorist, linking them to Hamas. Hamas, I assured him, is Islamist nationalist, and is a very different kind of terrorist organization. I told him a psychiatrist had found that 50% of suicide bombers out of Gaza had their homes destroyed as children, which traumatized them and thrust them into a desparate situation.

"And why were their homes demolished?" he asked triumphantly. I told him they were built without permits, and he responded, "It is the same in any country! What happens in your country if someone builds something without a permit?"

One of the Canadian girls jumped in and pointed out that elsewhere one would pay the fine and be done with it, whereas here they must pay a fine, have their home demolished, and pay for the demolition anyway.
I added that of the over 6,000 building permits requested inthe Hebron district in 2009, only 13 were granted. He commented on the subjectivity of data, but I think such a startling hard number gave him something to think about.

Finally, the people below must have gotten impatient with us, because we were called in for supper. The soldiers were invited to join us (on the condition that they leave their guns outside), but they said they couldn't. I got Yadid's e-mail address on the condition that I would not bombard him with pro-Palestinian literature. "I think you are completely wrong," he told Joseph and me, "but maybe it is good that you care about something enough to come all this way. It is better than sitting at home and doing drugs."

That, to me, became the most important part of the conversation. It is neither an easy nor a common thing to respect the value of another's passion when it fuels a position so opposed to one's own. Seeing that recognition gave me hope for dialogue between the various sides of this conflict.

They left when we did, which suggests they were just waiting for us in order to save face.

When I reflected later in the evening on what had transpired, I realized something else I had observed: in the past, soldiers have been scary to me. I have placed upon them the "older than me/taller than me" impression. This changed Wednesday night. Talking to Yadid, I realized he was just a kid, probably younger than me (I'm guessing twenty, because Israelis generally go into the army at 18 and he commented that he has nine months left). He had a gun and a uniform, but it did not make him more informed than me, and I did not have to yield to his authority. At the same time, he became a real person. It's hard to explain, but I feel that conversation greatly helped me to understand the soldiers here.
 
-Nick

Up Hill Both Ways, Peaceful March to Al Fakhiet

On January the 9th, CPT participated in a march to demand safe travel for the children in the South Hebron Hills district who struggle everyday just to make it to and from school. These school children constantly experience violence and harassment from nearby settlers. As a part of a community strongly committed to non-violence, they persist in their efforts to get to school without responding angrily or with retaliation. Instead, these kids have been forced to change routes in order to avoid settler encounters, switching from the short and direct route of 20 minutes, to the middle path of about 40 minutes, and when the hassling continued, eventually finding a new way that takes almost 2 hours to walk. This new way provides a massive buffer zone from any settlements so that settlers would have to go well and truly out of their way in order to continue to scare or harm the children.

You can imagine what it would feel like having to travel more than three hours to and from school when it need only take you a total of 40 minutes. Unfortunately, while the attacks may be less frequent, they have certainly not stopped. Although the Israeli army is legally obliged to provide safety to escort children, it cannot be said that they are diligent in this task. Recently the army confiscated and destroyed the school truck, previously used to carry the younger ones to school. Another common occurrence is the systematic destruction of the rocky road used. Whatever the motivation of these acts, from army or settlers, it is amazing and inspiring to see the community respond not with retaliation or defeat, but with creativity, wanting to bring attention to their children's right to walk safely and peacefully to school.

This is why we felt so honoured to join in on what turned out to be a special day of significance and festivities. Despite the fact that only ten minutes prior to the commencement of the march, the military declared an unexpected Closed Military Zone around the entire area where the march was to take place, closing roads to internationals and media personnel. Nevertheless, the march went on as planned and was lively and optimistic in spirit. Not only did we have the chance to hang out with these precious and brave kids, we experienced genuine Palestinian hospitality and traditional Palestinian dance.

What a treat! It is refreshing to see a culture still so strongly celebrated amidst the testing conditions of the ever-present occupation and its devastating effects. This small step may help the children on what seems like an uphill trip both ways.

well visits and new perspectives in At-Tuwani

I'm not sure what I expected on January 9th as we arrived in the village of At-Tuwani in the South Hebron Hills. What I discovered was about a dozen homes in a small, resilient community. But it was also a misleading discovering. If I told you that Tuwani only gets electricity for about four hours each evening from a generator and that families have no running water but must rely daily on trips to the well or cistern, you might imagine a village of a past decade in a desert far away. In reality, Tuwani could have consistent electricity and running water in each home. If you visited one of the neighboring settlements of ideological Israelis next to At-Tuwani, you would stumble upon manicured lawns with flowering bushes, green trees, and possibly even a swimming pool. It's not the remoteness that is limiting At-Tuwani's resources; it is the Israeli government and continued occupation of the West Bank.

In this context, under this constraint of what many Americans (including myself) consider basic resources, I was unsure of what the atmosphere of the village would be like. But instead of finding fear or discouragement, we were welcomed with kindness, hospilitity, and a pride for this land that could not be taken away.

One of the most enjoyable adventures I had in At-Tuwani actually related to the lack of running water. On the morning of the 10th, a few of us ventured out with our leader to the village well, to gather the daily water. Coming from the Pacific Northwest, water scarcity is not something with which I am familiar. Feeling very much like a newbie and especially like a spoiled American, I helped grab the empty containers and bottles and headed over to the cement slab covering the village well. Upon opening the metal door, we all eagerly peered in, while Sarah reassured us that if we fell in, there were indeed metal rungs along the side for us to climb up. Not feeling too reassurred, one of us gently lowered our red bucket down to the water, perhaps 30 feet below. At this point it was quite good that our experienced leader intervened, seeing that our first several scoops and haul ups of the bucket produced only a few inches of water. More gusto was required. After we mastered the art of hurling the bucket vigorously into the well and hauling it up hand over hand, we filtered it using a hankerchief, packed up our bottles and began the journey back up the hill to the home where we were meeting. For us it was a fun adventure. In a week or so, we'll return to our homes and the convenience of running water with the twist of a faucet. It is hard to realize that while we'll be doing this, the people (specifically the women) of At-Tuwani will continue to make daily trips to their well to collect water, not because running water is not logistically possible, but because of the refusal of the occupying government to provide basic services to these people who have lived on this land for generations.

On the 11th, our group left the small village of At-Tuwani to return to Al-Khalil. While I felt I had gained a new and valuable life skill from drawing water that one morning, I also can't help but be startled to realize that At-Tuwani is not unique in its oppression. I have learned that it is one village to represent villages and people all over the West Bank.

More blog posts coming!

To those following this blog,

Sorry we haven't been able to provide more posts on our adventures here in Israel/Palestine.  A combination of an internet outage at the CPT Hebron apartments and an extremely tight travel schedule has left us without the ability to get things posted for the last few days.  I can assure you, however, that more posts are in the works and will be up soon.

Tomorrow we head to Jerusalem, where we'll be for the rest of the trip, so internet access should be much more consistent.

Thank you for your support and patience!

-Nick (the blog coordinating delegate)

PS - Joseph posted something earlier tonight.  See below!

The Two Susi(e)yas

A couple days ago while staying in the At-Tuwani village with the on site CPT team we began to venture to Susiya village. Even the transportation was quite interesting. We crammed all 14 of us into one van not including the driver. We sat on the floor, in each other's laps, whatever way we could manage. I felt like we were being smuggled which made the experience even more enjoyable as we got to know our fellow delegates in a completly different and much more personal way. Most of got out to walk the rest of the way to the village because the van simply could not handle the weight as the terrain shifted to much more rocky conditions.
Our guide immediately pointed out the difference betweeen Susiya village and Suseya settlement. Susiya village was filled with scattered "homes" which most of us would later label as tents. I make this distiction because all of their homes had been demolished and the tents are constructed without permits and are therefore facing demolition orders. In the distance you can see the main neighborhood of the Suseya settlement consisting of well constructed permanent homes with green lawns, red roofs and, paved roads. The Susiya village is obviously in stark contrast. The homes are anything but permanent, with rocky roads and desert terrain filling in between. Water is constantly at settler disposal in the settlement, and extremely limited in the village. Many of the Susiya village inhabitants are even in possesion of land deeds dating back to the Ottoman Empire, but their land continues to shrink because they lie in dreaded Area C within the West Bank. The village is also completly surrounded by people that ultimately want their removal. A military base as well as the settlement synagogue lie behind them thus increasing their interaction with settlers and and decreasing land for their livestock and crops. The comparisons don't stop there. I don't believe that it is possible for there to be a living situation that is in greater contrast than these two Susi(e)yas because of the occupation as well as our American tax dollars.

Life under occupation

This is hard for all of us here to believe, but we're only wrapping up our first full day in Al-Khalil (Hebron).  It has certainly been a full one, and I can't possibly touch on everything we've done and learned--nor will I try.  Instead, I will focus on the military occupation here in the city.

Hebron is unique in that it contains Israeli settlers within the city itself (in addition to bordering settlements), so it is divided between Israeli (H2) and Palestinian (H1) control.  The area in which we are staying, and where the experiences I'll be discussing happened, is the Israeli-controlled Old City.

Simply put, the Old City is a bombed-out shell of what it once was.  Access for Palestinians is limited by checkpoints, road blocks, and Israeli-only roads.  Many Palestinians live or work on roads where only settler vehicles are allowed, or sometimes where even Palestinian pedestrians are forbidden except when traveling to and from their own homes, restricting visitors.  Soldiers stop young men and sometimes children at random to check their IDs or search their bags.  All of this is in the name of security, which seems to mean the security of the 200 to 400 settlers living inside the city.

After supper last night, I went with three other delegates and John and Drew, full-time CPTers, on a patrol.  CPT patrols the area to watch for soldiers who are detaining or otherwise harrassing Palestinians, and to be a visible international presence.  Surprisingly, we did not encounter any soldiers walking the streets.

Our first encounter with the soldiers was going through a checkpoint.  Being light-skinned, we were able to walk straight through; the soldiers ignored the blaring metal detector and buzzed us through the turnstyle.  Understand that this is not a checkpoint that separates some clear Palestinian section from a clear Israeli section.  Palestinians must pass through the metal detector and turnstyle to visit friends, go to mosque, work, and basically just to carry out their lives.

Though we had no problems getting through, I still found it extremely uncomfortable to walk trough a confined space while being watched by men with automatic weapons.  The feeling was not one of peace or of security.

A couple hundred meters past the checkpoint, we encountered a soldier on guard who asked us where we were from.  We told him we were from the United States, and he let us go.  This became a common experience; "American" seems to be a bit of a magic word for the soldiers.

On the way back, we stopped to watch a lone man passing through the checkpoint.  Where we had barely broken stride, he was forced to repeatedly walk through the metal detector, and lift his shirt and pant legs to demonstrate that he was not carrying a weapon.  "It's not nice," one of the soliders called out to us, "but it's my job."  While there are plenty of aggressive soldiers, a common attitude seems to be that they are merely doing their duty.  And since military service is compulsory in Israel, many of them probably don't even want to be here.

Checkpoints, however, are merely one of the most innocuous practices of the military.  Today, as we were finishing our lunch, we got a call from John and Drew asking for backup at a home invasion in progress--soldiers had entered a Palestinian home, without clear reason, and were detaining the family.  This, unfortunately, is far from unheard of here.

We hurried to the location, but on the way we passed a group of soldiers heading the other direction, who turned out to be the soldiers in question.  I noticed one of them was carrying a large pry bar.

We took time to sit with the student who lived there with his family while he recounted the story.  The soldiers had entered the home and held the family in one room while they searched the rest of the house.  Then they went upstairs and broke into the student's study room, refusing his offer to unlock it for them.  Drew and John arrived, along with a partner of theirs, and argued with the soldiers, telling them they needed either a warrant or a written order from their commander, as per Israeli law.  "I am the law," one of the soldiers responded.  Finally, after several minutes of standoff, they left.

The idea behind CPT was to have individuals willing to make the same sacrifices for peace that soldiers make for war.  Today, hurrying through the streets and hearing the story of the home invasion, I felt what I imagine to be something like what a soldier feels--I'll call it a proud urgency.  Someone needed our help.

I am averse to using military and war metaphors for peace work, but throughout the rest of the day I have been thinking about how this situation needs more soldiers--the CPT kind of soldiers.  There are 1,500 Israeli soldiers in Al-Khalil.  Imagine what 1,500 peacemakers could do.

"What's the purpose of your trip to Israel?"

"What's the purpose of your trip to Israel?" was the question asked by six different Israeli security officials of Sarah* and On Earth Peace executive director Bob Gross this past weekend, in the course of more than twelve hours in the custody of Israeli airport security. Eventually, Bob and Sarah were denied entry, jailed and deported from Israel—barred from re-entry for ten years. On Tuesday, they arrived back in the United States, instead of meeting with thirteen others arriving in Israel for a peacemaking delegation which the two were supposed to lead in Israel and Palestine, January 6-18.

What was the purpose of their trip to Israel? This fifth annual Middle East delegation co-sponsored by On Earth Peace and Christian Peacemaker Teams is an immersion in the realities of the current moment in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What are those realities? A nonviolent movement is on the rise, again; this week, over a thousand international activists attempted to enter into Gaza from Egypt, bearing humanitarian and medical aid. A separation wall continues to be built by Israel, dividing Palestinian families and communities and taking Palestinian land. Israelis live in fear of suicide bombers. Many Palestinians who live under blockade and military occupation continue eking out daily life without access to safe water, medical care, or basic foods. Some Israelis and Palestinians who are weary of decades of bloody conflict are creating nonviolent pathways to resolving the situation.

The remaining thirteen members of the delegation entered Israel without incident. The peacemaker delegation, including seven members of the Church of the Brethren, will visit with Israeli and Palestinian peace, social justice and human rights groups, and will be hosted by families and community leaders. From these visits and meetings, delegation members will learn gain an understanding of Palestinian and Israeli perspectives and concerns. Delegate Shannon Richmond of Seattle, WA, is a recent college graduate in criminal justice and violence studies, who has spent time traveling in South Africa and Mexico. In the days before leaving, she said, “I am anxious to see how nonviolent action works in real-life circumstances, rather than just reading about it!” Upon returning to their home communities, delegates will be prepared to speak of what they have learned and experienced first-hand.

Back home in North Manchester, Indiana, Bob Gross reflected on the interrogation and deportation experience. “During our time being held with Israeli security, we saw many other people coming under additional questioning as well. Almost all those pulled aside were people of color. Most were of Arab and African descent. We’re clear that Sarah’s Egyptian heritage as well as her photographic documentation of Palestine via the internet were motivating factors in their decision to deport us. In addition to this racism, there is also the Israeli government’s fear of anything that seems to value Palestinian equality or human rights, which means that those of us who are committed to nonviolent peacemaking are considered a threat.”

Supporting that struggle – for Palestinian rights as well as Israeli rights, for safety, equality and security for all people in the Middle East – is the real purpose of the On Earth Peace delegation this month, and of Bob and Sarah’s aborted entry into Israel.

*Sarah’s last name is kept confidential to protect her from further scrutiny on subsequent trips to the Middle East.

###

On Earth Peace provides skills, support, and a spiritual foundation to face violence with active nonviolence, through ministries of education, reconciliation, and community organizing. On Earth Peace is rooted in the Church of the Brethren, an historic peace church in the Anabaptist and Pietist traditions, with a three-hundred year commitment to radical discipleship, service and peacemaking.

www.onearthpeace.org

Should peace be a process?

(This blog entry is by Mary Cox.)

I am sitting in Al-Khalil's CPT apartment right now. We just arrived (6:30pm) in Al-Khalil (the Arabic name for Hebron) by bus and then walked a ways to the apartment.

But before arriving here, we spent the day in Jerusalem. After eating breakfast in the Hashimi Hotel, we gathered up on the rooftop of the hotel, overlooking the Muslim quarter of the Old City. It was beautiful, bright, and a refreshing greeting after such a long day of travel yesterday.

The main event of the day was meeting with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). This is a political organization that started in 1997 and is dedicated to ending the Israeli occupation and achieving a just peace for Israelis and Palestinians. To dramatize the problems of the occupation, ICAHD focuses on home demolitions by working to prevent homes from being demolished (sometimes standing in front of bulldozers) and by illegally rebuilding some homes after they've been demolished. The following picture is of a demolished Palestinian home we saw in Jerusalem.


We took a tour of Jerusalem led by ICAHD, and I began to think about lots of questions. I need to think and question....we all do! One area in particular that I gave thought to today: Negotiation.

One of the things I love about President Obama is his overall willingness to engage in international negotiation. And the U.S. has played a prominent role in negotiations in the past with Israel and Palestine. But what I considered today is that making peace into a process is exactly what Israel wants and needs in order to continue their occupation, because negotiating takes time, and it always has the potential to fail. As long as Israel can continue to appear willing to negotiate...as long as they can continue to make offers to the Palestinians, and as long as the Palestinians continue to reject Israel's offers, then Israel looks like they are trying for peace, and Palestine looks like they are not cooperating. This gives Israel more apparent legitimacy, and more time to continue expanding settlements.

But how could the process ever be on equal terms? How could Palestine ever actually accept any of Israel's offers? -- All of the offers Israel has given to Palestine have truly been unacceptable: separating Palestinians from each other, cutting them off from Jerusalem, and controlling the water sources, by retaining the land bordering the Jordan River, for example. So of course, Palestinians have turned down the offers.

Is this a situation in which negotiation will not help the Palestinians and Israelis? It's not actually in Israel's best interest to negotiate. Right now, they are in control of so many aspects of the area, that they only stand to lose through real negotiations. It seems like the only way that negotiation would really be a viable option is if both the Palestinians and the Israeli government genuinely wanted it and could gain something from it. The last question I will leave you with then is:

How can we change the situation so that Israel would want to negotiate fairly?

-Mary Cox