[Peace] [Fwd: Do They Talk to You?]Jan 15 email from Human Shield, Dr. Annie Higgins, available for questions/answers from the trenches...

[Jeff Brooks]

Jan 15 email from Human Shield, Dr. Annie Higgins, available for
questions...

Dear BNCPJ, SEAC, etc.

Darlene is a Silicon Valley technology worker, friend, and....

.....along with Annie, an occasoinal human shield....

.....Darlene is available for speeches and email discussion....

....she is Jewish.







=================
Hi all,

I met Annie Higgins when I was in Palestine this past May -
July. She was one of the internationals along with me and 15
others that went to Balata Refugee Camp which is next to Nablus
in the West Bank. She returned to the USA while I was still
in Palestine out of prison on bail fighting deportation. She
returned to Palestine fall 2002. She writes very interesting
articles - first hand experience - she speaks Arabic.

I'm passing this article on to you. Please feel free to
forward it on to others.

Darlene Wallach


-------- Original Message --------
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 08:08:10 -0800 (PST)
From: Zaytoun <zaytoun02 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Do They Talk to You?


Do They Talk to You?

Annie C. Higgins

As I was walking from the house at the top of the hill, occupied from
beginning to end of the sixteen-day invasion of Jenin Refugee Camp in
October/November, schoolboys on the road asked me this question. It is a
refrain that punctuates my comings and goings, and it is one that leaves
me tongue-tied.

The question is not, “Do you talk to them?” because anybody can do that.
What matters is if they respond with words rather than gunfire. The
nature of the soldiers’ response is a source of curiosity for people who
are always in danger of being shot rather than spoken to. The initial
question is often followed by “What do they say?”

I had just come from the Abul-Hayja house, delivering fresh vegetables
to the family. As I approached, I called out to let the hidden snipers
know this was a humanitarian visit, and that I was not someone to fear
and shoot at. They did not talk to me immediately, but after a short
wait two armed guards appeared on the balcony. One asked me where I came
from, and then said that his mother also lives in America, in New York.
I told him I could have my mother call his mother to converse. The idea
rattled him slightly and then found a responsive chord. Another armed
guard opened the door and escorted me past another two guards before
reaching the single room where the family was confined, whereupon the
officer supervised my five-minute conversation from the threshold.

When I visited the house before Ramadan, I asked an officer how long the
Army would be here, until the start of Ramadan? He replied, “Way beyond
that.” Venturing a little humor, I asked, “Will you be fasting for
Ramadan?” Instantly he arched the brows over his bright blue eyes and
clicked his tongue in the Arabic expression for “no.” But he also caught
the humor and smiled, though he would not even consider my constant
request to permit the thirteen family members fifteen minutes of fresh
air per week.

One day during a brief lull from the tanks shooting at children in the
middle of downtown, I walked by a passageway between limestone buildings
in the Old City. A group of soldiers in new uniforms were at the other
end in an inner courtyard, and the officer called to me, motioning me to
come inside, “I just want to talk to you.” I thanked him, but went my
way. I was wary since an international had been confined by soldiers for
hours until escaping the night before. Afterwards I wished I had talked
with him, but the closed space had made me uncomfortable.

Later that day I accompanied a man whose family had been expelled from
their home by occupying soldiers. They had taken refuge with relatives,
but he wanted to get clothes and food from the house. He approached
first, feeling quite confident because of his Hebrew. The soldier at the
window refused and had no interest in negotiating. I walked up the few
stone steps to the porch and spoke with the soldiers at the front door.
The spokesman refused in a soft-spoken way, but said to come back after
4:00, in about two hours. I knew that transport would be impossible: We
came in an ambulance because the householder’s car had been turned back.
I pressed the soldier again and he agreed, but said that only I could
come in. I persevered and got him to let the homeowner go in by himself.
He returned with armfuls of meat from the freezer, clothes, and
valuables as the soldiers are well-known for their looting. The soldier
I spoke with helped carry things, even though the troops were eating
lunch.

This is a familiar pattern. When the soldiers give an absolute refusal,
it is often because they are eating a meal, or getting ready to change
shifts which leaves them vulnerable.

One day I volunteered to accompany a water-tank truck past a
recalcitrant tank full of soldiers. I summoned a soldier to the hatch
and he appeared just so I could see his glasses, but he was adamant that
we could not pass until after 4:00 p.m. He ignored my continued
questions and disappeared inside the tank, snapping the hatch shut.

While I was waiting for the truck, some boys asked me to help them
across the street. The danger was that the tank would open fire on them
for the crime of returning home after visiting relatives. I walked
across the street and turned the corner with them, calling out to a
crowd of boys to stop throwing stones at the tank As I came into the
intersection, a transport vehicle disgorged a contingent of foot
soldiers who were now aiming huge rifles at the boys and firing shots in
our direction. The boys surrounding me, as I provided international
accompaniment, called out, “Tahani, do you want to go to heaven?”
referring to the destination gained by anyone killed by the Army. I
considered the question as I walked forward, a smile as my shield. I
kept telling the other boys to stop throwing stones, and one that I was
escorting seconded my motion, “We just want to cross the street.” They
did and went their way. I had come around two sides of the block, and
now turned to complete another leg of it. As I approached the
intersection, a tank came roaring through. As it passed, some of the
boys ran close behind with their David-style weapons and called out in
Arabic, “I love you.” There was no verbal response from the soldiers.

Soldiers refusing to serve in the Occupied Palestinian Territories tell
how they are trained to make the children fear them, for otherwise they
will not dominate the population. With all its murderous successes, the
Israeli Army has failed to a large extent in this. Children follow
tanks, jump up on the back, steal the loudspeaker, sling a rope around
and skid behind. There are certainly people who fear the Army: “She has
been timid ever since the April invasion,” explains a grandmother of a
pretty little girl whose name means “light-filled/Nouran.” But her
shyness is an exception.

Back to the intersection in full sight of the parked tank, I am still
urging the boys to stop throwing stones and to stay back, while I motion
to the blank window of the tank not to shoot and I call out to this
effect, though from a distance. The water truck arrives and parks. We
have over an hour to wait. I am in the intersection with the boys over
the driver’s objection to leave them to their peril: “Where are their
parents?” The boys back off a bit though they are still present. The
soldiers shoot less though they are still in evidence. As I climb into
the cab of the truck, several of the boys give me the greatest
compliment, “You are good/malih!” an honor bestowed with enthusiastic
approval.

We use the time to make another water delivery and return see the tank
ascending the hill. We follow behind as it is nearly 4:00. However
soldiers insist that we back up, and my appeals to quench the thirst of
neighbors are in vain. After we return to the intersection, I see why.
There was an armored personnel carrier behind us, and they did not want
us in the middle of the convoy as they changed shifts.

Of course, others talk with the soldiers but it is usually when ordered
to answer questions. When the Army went in force to turn a house upside
down looking for a wanted man, one of the thirty soldiers saw a liquor
bottle that the resourceful housewife had retrieved from the rubbish for
preserving olives. It contained some of the yellowish olive-preserving
water and the soldier asked her, “Is this whiskey,” unlikely in the home
of observant Muslims. With perfect English and perfect irony, she
replied, “Yes.” Her young sister-in-law’s house was searched also, but
by a single soldier. When he saw a blanketed bundle, he asked her,
“Baby?” She had the same answer, “Yes.” “Ohhhh,” he said, urging his
comrades outside to hush their voices to a low volume.

Samih tells me of the time they were looking for Iyad Sawalha, and asked
about his whereabouts. He said he had only heard his name. The officer
told him that Iyad was a “mukharrib,” which does not translate exactly
to the English word, “terrorist,” but they use it thus. When Samih saw
that the officer was reasonable -- “many of them are democratic” -- he
told him that before they look for a wanted man, they need to look for
the reasons that he is involved in resistance against the occupier: What
is happening every day throughout Palestinian lands? He also told the
officer that Sharon and Arafat had become sweethearts. The officer
laughed. But Samih said that if a soldier looks angry and determined, he
doesn’t try to talk with him.

I think of the soldier who ran up to the body of young Fuad Abu Ghali.
His murderous confusion had boiled into one concern as he shouted,
“Where is the weapon?” – the imaginary reason that impelled him to kill
his contemporary. As he held a rifle to the ambulance driver’s head, it
didn’t occur to me to discuss democratic processes. I sought only to
calm his rage.

On another occasion, a soldier asked me quizzically, “Where did you come
from,” pointing his gun from behind the heavy blanket covering the
window. I had called out to inform him that I was nearing the occupied
house, but I had surprised him by coming from a door in a wall at the
side of the path. It was explained later that a sentry at the top of the
hill communicates via a headset in his helmet, to alert his fellow
lookout down the hill of any movement from above. I had not come from
above. I appeared without warning. Hence his query, “Where did you come
from?”

Do the Occupation soldiers talk to me? Sometimes. Sometimes they ask
where I come from. As they make bristling armaments of homes and
orchards and intersections, I have the same question for them: “Where do
you come from?”




Postscript: No conversations but the language of firepower last night
and this morning [14-15 January 2003] as Israeli Army forces pummelled a
section of the Sani’iyya District in east Jenin from the air in their
pursuit of Palestinians. Meeting resistance from the ground, it took the
Army from 7:30 p.m. to 3:30 a.m. to capture four Palestinian men.
Refugee Camp residents said it sounded like the April invasion.

Dr. Annie C. Higgins specializes in Arabic and Islamic issues, and is
conducting research in Jenin, Occupied Palestine.



Annie Higgins in Jenin, Occupied Palestine