A trip to Palestine resulted in
deportations and harassment by security as the Israel authorities step up
attempts to intimidate or frighten future travelers to the area. During our
trip we experienced CS gas, checkpoints, apartheid in action and military harassment
of Palestinians. Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin relates his experiences as a member of
the group.
Departure
I joined the group in Dublin airport on the morning of September 8th and we flew out to Istanbul where we waited in a transit area cafe for a couple of hours. As it turned out our flight departure lounge for Tel Aviv was next to the cafe where we were sitting and we noticed that an extra layer of security was being prepared by ground staff for the Tel Aviv flight. After boarding, and a smooth Turkish Airlines flight to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, we disembarked and queued up for passport control. I was on my own and after 2 or 3 questions (what was the purpose of my trip, had I been to Israel before, etc). I was given a one month visa and waved through. Meanwhile, however, trouble was brewing as I could hear the two Irish girls at the kiosk next to me being asked to bring the group leader over. I went directly through to the arrivals hall as I had not checked in any bags. Then began a long wait as myself and the few who got through unhindered discovered that security had rounded up as many of the group as they could find including those who had decided to wait in the luggage hall rather than in the arrivals hall. In all 21 were detained and 6 questioned, and of those 4 were deported (Elaine Daly, Fidelma Bonass, Joan Nolan and Stephen McCloskey) a few hours later. The four who were detained were informed that they were being deported to prevent 'illegal immigration' even though they had valid passports and return tickets. Around 4am the others were released and we finally boarded the bus and made the journey to our hotel in Bethlehem.
I joined the group in Dublin airport on the morning of September 8th and we flew out to Istanbul where we waited in a transit area cafe for a couple of hours. As it turned out our flight departure lounge for Tel Aviv was next to the cafe where we were sitting and we noticed that an extra layer of security was being prepared by ground staff for the Tel Aviv flight. After boarding, and a smooth Turkish Airlines flight to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, we disembarked and queued up for passport control. I was on my own and after 2 or 3 questions (what was the purpose of my trip, had I been to Israel before, etc). I was given a one month visa and waved through. Meanwhile, however, trouble was brewing as I could hear the two Irish girls at the kiosk next to me being asked to bring the group leader over. I went directly through to the arrivals hall as I had not checked in any bags. Then began a long wait as myself and the few who got through unhindered discovered that security had rounded up as many of the group as they could find including those who had decided to wait in the luggage hall rather than in the arrivals hall. In all 21 were detained and 6 questioned, and of those 4 were deported (Elaine Daly, Fidelma Bonass, Joan Nolan and Stephen McCloskey) a few hours later. The four who were detained were informed that they were being deported to prevent 'illegal immigration' even though they had valid passports and return tickets. Around 4am the others were released and we finally boarded the bus and made the journey to our hotel in Bethlehem.
West Bank wall and turnstiles
Fact Finding Program
Our tour, though coordinated in Dublin,
was organised by the Siraj Centre, a non-profit organization licensed by the
Ministry of Tourism and based in Palestine. Our Fact Finding Program included
meetings with prominent peace activists, political officials, human rights
organizations, settlers and Jewish tour guides. This makes the deportation of
our group leader, Elaine Daly, even stranger as she has been organising trips
with the Siraj Centre every year from Ireland since 2006.
Sat 9th Sept: Day 1 Bethlehem
On our first morning we attended a
talk by Prof. Mazin Qumsiyeh, a local university professor and activist, at the
Natural History institute who emhasised the strong link between biodiversity,
political struggle for the land and its safeguarding for future generations. It
was interesting to note that it had been his son who had first drawn the
infamous ‘shrinking’ map of the Palestinian territories showing their loss of
land from 1946, 1947, 1967 to the 2000s.
Entrance to Aida refugee camp
CS gas
Afterwards we headed over to the
Lajee Center, a cultural centre beside the main Palestinian refugee camp
in Bethlehem for a talk and a traditional dance display from the local
children. Soon however they switched off the air-conditioning and when we asked
why we were told that tear gas was coming through the system. Directly outside
the window local youth were throwing stones at the Israeli army at the far end
of the road. Soon more and more tear gas came into the building and the windows
and doors were shut. For most on the tour it was their first experience of the
burning effects of CS gas yet for the members of the Lajee Center it had become
merely a nuisance. After about a half hour we were able to leave and go for a
short tour of the area. We passed under the arch of Aida camp with a giant key
symbolising the principle that Palestinian refugees, both first-generation refugees
and their descendants have a right to return. On our left were simple concrete
buildings while on the right the street is cut off from Jerusalem by the
Israeli West Bank wall and covered in murals and graffiti.
Wall mural, Aida refugee camp
Sun 10th Sept: Day 2 Hebron
The next day on the way to Hebron we
stopped off at a small park beside a main road containing the tomb of Baruch
Goldstein, the religious extremist who carried out the 1994 Cave of the
Patriarchs massacre in Hebron. Goldstein killed 29 Palestinian Muslim worshippers
and wounded another 125. He was then overpowered and beaten to death by the
survivors. Goldstein was not allowed to be buried in a Jewish cemetery but his
current burial site still attracts Jewish extremists. We drove on to the Cave
of Patriarchs or Ibrahimi Mosque where the Goldstein massacre took place. There
are now two separate entrances, one for Muslims and one for Jews, both of which
we were able to enter. This building is over 2,000 years old is believed to be
the oldest continuously used prayer structure in the world. However, it was
outside the Mosque at the military checkpoints we witnessed Israeli apartheid
for the first time. Palestinians are barred from the using the street and our
guide was apprehended by two soldiers. Our group complained to the soldiers but
only our guide responded saying he would get a taxi and meet us elsewhere. In
the end, the group spontaneously applauded our guide for his patience and perseverance
as he was removed from the area. Our waiting bus had only been 50 metres around
the corner...
Ibrahimi Mosque, Hebron
We walked through streets of Hebron going through different stages of clearance. In some places only a few Palestinians were left in the old stone buildings and Israeli street signs had been erected pointing to Jewish places of interest. In other streets nets had been used to stop settlers throwing objects on the shoppers below. Afterwards we were brought to meet with a settler where some asked questions about the settlements and their legality but this ended up with some storming out and others realising how it easy it was to become an Israeli citizen and participate in the land confiscations.
Ibrahimi Mosque, Hebron
We walked through streets of Hebron going through different stages of clearance. In some places only a few Palestinians were left in the old stone buildings and Israeli street signs had been erected pointing to Jewish places of interest. In other streets nets had been used to stop settlers throwing objects on the shoppers below. Afterwards we were brought to meet with a settler where some asked questions about the settlements and their legality but this ended up with some storming out and others realising how it easy it was to become an Israeli citizen and participate in the land confiscations.
Mon 11th Sept: Day 3 Jerusalem
Our guides were Palestinian and
Jewish and both were equally as good when it came to explanations and answering
questions from our group. As we drove through East Jerusalem it was pointed out
by our Jewish guide that Palestinians pay taxes yet their areas had bad roads
and poor rubbish collection services.
Tues 12th Sept: Day 4 Nablus
In Nablus we visited Jacobs Well
Church, and then to Balata Camp to meet with a representative from the Yafa
cultural Center. The centre was set up in 1996 by the Committee for the Defence
of Refugee Rights and offers a range of educational and creative programs to camp
residents. We were brought around the closely-built neighbourhoods of the camp where
some ‘streets’ were less than one metre wide. After lunch we had a tour in the
old city of Nablus and visited the Samaritans Museum. The bustling old city
gave us a feel for what many areas should have looked like and felt like without
occupation.
Yafa cultural Center, Nablus
Wed 13th Sept: Day 5 Ramalah
We began the day driving to Ramalah
to meet with a speaker from Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS). BDS has
become an extensive movement against Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.
It is also a Palestinian-led movement made up of unions, academic associations,
churches and grassroots movements across the world (https://bdsmovement.net/).
We also met with a representative from Al Haq, an independent Palestinian
non-governmental human rights organisation also based in Ramallah
(http://www.alhaq.org/). According to their website: 'Al-Haq documents
violations of the individual and collective rights of Palestinians in the OPT,
irrespective of the identity of the perpetrator, and seeks to end such breaches
by way of advocacy before national and international mechanisms and by holding
the violators accountable.' In the afternoon the group were brought on a
sightseeing tour of Jerusalem which I did not participate in due to feeling
unwell. Instead, I went with our Palestinian tour guide back to Bethlehem on
the public bus instead. As the bus approached the wall we all had get off and
pass through the many turnstiles and barricaded-off pathways to get to the
other side of the wall. The queues moved quickly enough as the military
generally do not carry out checks on Palestinians going home to the West Bank
from Jerusalem in the evening. It is in the early morning that the long queues
form as workers are stopped and permits scrutinised on the way to work in
Jerusalem.
Old City, Nablus
Thurs 14th Sept: Day 5 Bethlehem
Old City, Nablus
Thurs 14th Sept: Day 5 Bethlehem
The next day I went back to
Jerusalem from Bethlehem on public bus No. 231. At a major checkpoint a male
and female soldier got on the bus while about a third of the bus got off to
have their permits checked outside. They questioned a Palestinian woman with
children for about ten minutes on the bus before suddenly leaving the bus
again and letting the others back on. These checks, the roadworks and traffic
jams into Jerusalem added up to about 30 minutes onto our journey, a journey
which should have taken only around 20 minutes. In the centre I crossed the
road and entered into the Old City through Herod's Gate. I headed through the
old city markets to the Al-Aqsa Mosque but at various Israeli military check
points I was stopped and informed that the Mosque was only open in the
mornings. There were 4 or 5 groups of about 20 Israeli soldiers each walking
and singing down the narrow streets towards the Western Wall. The area was
being prepared for a swearing-in ceremony for Paratrooper recruits taking place
that evening. After walking the Via Dolorosa and around to the Damascus Gate I
got the bus back to Bethlehem. Later, after dinner with the group in a
Palestinian restaurant in Bethlehem, a few of us took a taxi to visit the
Banksy's Walled Off Hotel about ten minutes drive away. The 'Walled Off' sits
beside the massive wall which is covered in graffiti executed in many styles by
various artists. Boasting the 'worst view in the world' the lobby contains a
collection of art and there is a museum upstairs. People sat outside on the
veranda between the hotel and the wall having a quiet drink in this most
incongruous of places.
Mural near 'Walled Off' hotel
Fri 15th Sept: The Dead Sea
For our last day the group decided
to visit the Dead Sea. After arriving at the resort, getting to the water's
edge meant walking down layer after layer of beaches as the Dead Sea
evaporates. The recession of the water's edge is believed to be about 1 m (3
ft) a year. The speed and breadth of the recession of the Dead Sea was a
fitting symbol for the recession of the West Bank itself as more and more
settlements and walls reduce further the size of the Palestinian territories.
Early
the next morning we were back
on the bus to Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion airport where there was some
anxiety as
the security checks were known to be more stringent in the departures
area than
in arrivals area. (Why? a form of damage limitation?) Once again our
group was
held up to the last minute for our flight to Istanbul. We had a much
more
pleasant time in Dublin airport where a welcoming committee was waiting
for us
with a Palestinian flag. Elaine and the other deportees had decided to
hold off publicising the deportations so as not to create any
unnecessary
difficulties for the rest of the group's departure from Tel Aviv. Of
course,
our problems were nothing compared to the daily experiences and
hardships of
the Palestinian people being forced through turnstiles, having to obtain
multivaried permits, losing land and dwellings, enduring constant
military
checks and an oppressive political/legal system (like the 17C Penal Laws
in
Ireland) all because of a particular nationality or religion. The trip
left an
indelible impression on us as individuals and as a group which would not
be
easily removed by the self-serving rhetoric of an all-powerful occupying
force.
Since our return the issue of the deportations has been raised in various articles in the national newspapers. It has also been brought up during question time in the Dáil (the Irish parliament). Despite not being able to return to the West Bank again, Elaine is already planning to organise two trips to the West Bank from Dublin for 2018. All aboard!
By Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin (September 2017)
All photographs copyright Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin
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