A Little Story of the Occupation: With the American Friends Service Committee to Jenin (2006)

Those who have nothing they’re willing to die for are not fit to live.

—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

To give you a flavor of the life of one innocent abroad, a close call—for me and more vitally the Palestinians who experience this regularly.

The hour was late, the staff from the American Friends Service Committee and I were all tired, night was coming, we’d eaten very little all day. We’d passed 5 checkpoints on our way to Jenin and did not look forward to returning by that same route. We’d observed in the morning long lines of cars on their way south, which would have been our direction when returning. So we decided to drive thru Nablus, visit someone, have dinner, and return to Ramallah by an alternative route that would have minimum checkpoints. Part way there–a roadblock. Taxis waiting on the northern, Jenin side. We saw a few people walking over the earth mounds out of Nablus. We decided that Fida, Tahija and I would walk in while Thuqan drove around to meet us on the southern edge of Nablus. This would make possible a leisurely visit for at least 3 of us in Nablus.

Vehicles blocked by earth mounds

We soon discovered that this mound was only one of many, a series, stretching for at least 1 km, some 6 of them, dirt and stones heaped up, the road ditched. Fida had trouble walking up and down the mounds because she was recovering from a recent car accident and limped shakily. After 3 ascents we heard a gunshot, it echoed thru the canyon. The wadi scene was beautiful, the shot perplexing, we had no idea where it originated, where it was directed, and what it meant. Maybe hunters. We continued walking.

Then we heard shouting from high up in the hills, spotted 2 people, perhaps soldiers. Fida wasn’t sure what their message was. But she shouted in return, surprising Tahija and myself, in English, “I have a broken leg, I was in a car accident”–as if this might persuade soldiers to show some mercy. Instead: another shot. We ducked behind dirt mounds. We inched our way back and retreated, not sure the shot was fired at us or to warn us. Later Fida suggested they had shouted, “Go back or we will shoot you.” We chuckled about her choice of response–a broken leg, please have mercy.

Tahija & Fida

Later, discussing this with Neta Golan, co-founder of the International Solitary Movement, she confirmed a suspicion I had: “You are lucky, some soldiers would simply shoot and not shout. No one in the whole world would notice.”

Discussing why the blocks and why the firing later with Thuqan whom we’d phoned to meet us–it was now nearly dark and I suggested in jest that maybe if we waited another 30 minutes we could walk under the noses of the soldiers, forgetting they might have had night vision equipment–we came to the following interpretation: the Israelis had created the blocks after a martyrdom bombing  in Tel Aviv, stationed the soldiers, and sealed Nablus completely. Why Nablus when the bomber came from Jenin? Short-term punishment, recognized universally as collective punishment and illegal under international law. And long-term strategy to decimate the industrial and commercial center of Nablus. The 3 of us were mere blips on the radar screen. Nothing personal, you understand, just caught by circumstance.

While riding back to Ramallah I asked Tahija more about her years in Sarajevo–born and raised there, a Muslim, living thru the 3 year siege of the war. “For years after the siege had ended,” she told us, “I’d hit the ground when hearing loud and sharp sounds. Duck and cover. I’m over that now, and perhaps stronger for the experience. I can travel as I’m doing now (she just returned from 2 days in Gaza visiting AFSC programs), my husband worries about me, but I’m not afraid. Perhaps facing death does this to a person, makes me more able to take the big risk.”

I mentioned my pilgrimage experience in Cambodia in 1995 during the last days of the Khmer Rouge, hearing artillery fire each morning and evening, walking a narrow path thru the minefields. With an outcome similar to hers: I was strengthened by the experience of surviving fear, not immobilized by it. But I wondered aloud, what would I do now if coming under direct fire again? How might I have responded if in Jenin camp during the Israeli invasion of 2002? Will I be willing to enter Gaza next spring (2013) with the Israelis constantly attacking? As Art Gish from the Christian Peacemakers Teams said to me, free to die, free to live.

LINKS:

AFSC in Palestine

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Heartbreak & Hope on Mothers’ Day in Dorchester

It is impossible to teach without the courage to love, with the courage to try a thousand times before giving up. In short, it is impossible to teach without a forged, invented, and well-thought-out capacity to love.

—Paulo Freire

Photos

The Mothers’ Walk for Peace, 13th annual, 3.6 miles, about a 70-80 minute walk, at a good clip, held this last Sunday morning in the sun and cool air, drew maybe not a record number of participants, nor a record number of Quakers, but the crowd was sizable. It was also loud, cheery, rambunctious, and filled with grief. A strange combination: grief and joy. The grief of losing loved ones thru youth violence, and the joy of being with others who’ve similarly suffered.

I was deeply touched when hearing Tanya David, the mother of a young girl speaking to the crowd at the end of the walk. She said, Unlike many of you, none of my children have died because of street violence. But my daughter, Kyle, was shot thru the spine and lost 97% of it and her spinal function. The doctors say she will be paralyzed form the waist down for life, but I don’t believe that. Then her daughter spoke, a lively, beautiful, articulate girl, speaking from her wheel chair about all of us joining together to stop the violence, in part by offering forgiveness to perpetrators.

Kyle David: “Forgiveness is the way”

The muses brought me to the side of the stage for this talk, I’d not anticipated who would be speaking or how much I needed to photograph them. Using my wide-angle lens and not having the best position—I was reluctant to climb on the stage—I’m not sure I made anything significant. But I felt the emotion, the marriage of anger, grief, and energy from the stupid and preventable violence happening daily on the streets and in the parks of Dorchester and Roxbury and other stricken regions of our cities.

Louis D. Brown Peace Institute

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Rage, rage against the dying of the light: A continuing journey to the Levant

By addressing the issues of water inequity, resource management, and waste, Skip Schiel is…creating a body of work that has both immediate and future relevance far beyond the Middle East.

—Sara Burke, co-editor, Peacework magazine

Skip Schiel with photography students, Gaza, 2005, photo by Ibrahem Khadra, Quaker Youth Program staff

Can you help?

I plan to return to Palestine/Israel in the summer of 2009 for another 3-month residency. As on my previous 4 journeys of discovery since 2003, I will volunteer my photography to organizations in the region, such as the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information and the American Friends Service Committee. For them I make photos; and I use a set to portray conditions and struggles—conditions of danger and oppression, struggles for freedom, justice, peace, secure living, and reconciliation. I agree with the eminent Israeli scholar, activist, and writer, Jeff Halper, that a new Middle Eastern Confederation is possible, drawing together contending parties into a union based on compassion and synergy. Think Europe prior to 1945 with its seemingly endless wars; and think the European Union, hopefully burying war as an instrument of change.

Rachel Corrie on YouTube

I’ll continue with my usual themes: hydropolitics, Bethlehem, Gaza, youth, non-violent resistance, holy sites, and Quakers. I assemble exhibits, slide shows, publications, a website (teeksaphoto.org) and a blog (skipschiel.wordpress.com). In the fall and winter of 2008 I traveled for 10 weeks on the West Coast from Alaska to California and the South from North Carolina to Florida, presenting my new multi media shows—more than 60 venues to some 2000 audience members (teeksaphoto.org/Pages/PublicPresentations.html). Plans are underway for returns to the South in fall 2009 and in 2010, New Orleans, the Gulf Coast, and the Deep South. In addition, people have been encouraging me to have a professional video team construct a DVD of one or more of my presentations, enabling wider distribution of my photos.

Old City wall, Jerusalem, 2006

Light attracts me—the light of the Mediterranean region and the light of all the wisdom teachers, the luminaries, of that region. With an open heart, I hope to deepen my eye, my vision, to encompass both Palestinians and Israelis as they struggle against seemingly intractable forces to right the wrongs and correct the errors in the many legacies playing out in this region—“rage, rage against the dying of the light,” as Dylan Thomas wrote.

Skip Schiel in Dheheshe refugee camp, Bethlehem, 2003, photo by Mark Dahoud

Chief among the legacies besetting the region and the world: colonialism, the Jewish Shoah (holocaust) with its millennia-old predecessors in Christianity, the Palestinian Nakba (the catastrophe coinciding with the founding of the Israeli state in 1948), the role of the United States giving its unswerving validation of Israel, and the lack of beneficence from Arab states to the Palestinian movements for justice. In the new era of Obama-Biden, perhaps we can realistically hope for constructive change.

Dheheshe refugee camp, Bethlehem, 2003

With funding from private donations, grants, and money I raise through my slide shows and print sales—and with the irreplaceable support of my Quaker community— I will only ask my hosts for housing and a food stipend. If this is
not feasible, I shall simply donate my services.

Erez checkpoint/border terminal with Israel, from Gaza side, 2008

The cost of this upcoming journey—fees, airfare, photo equipment and supplies, uncovered housing, food, and local transport while in country, and postproduction expenses—is approximately $10,000.

Mens’ clothing store owner, Ramallah, 2007

Realizing many of us are in serious economic crisis and perhaps unable to be as generous as we might wish, I’d deeply appreciate any sort of contribution, large or small, whether money, airline ticket benefits, equipment (photographic or computer) or prayers. I welcome your suggestions about making this journey. You could also help by organizing a showing of my slides or photos in the fall and winter of 2009. Please visit teeksaphoto.org and skipschiel.wordpress.com for examples of my photography and writing on various themes.

Checks can be made out to “Skip Schiel” and mailed to 9 Sacramento St, Cambridge MA, 02138-184 or use PayPal on my website.

Israeli settlement/colony near Ramallah, 2005 c.

In the struggle is the hope,

—Skip

What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow—this is the whole [Torah] Law, go and learn.

—Rabbi Hillel

The Rising of the Light photo archive, 2009

Slide shows & print exhibits available

Testimonials

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The One State Option for Palestine & Israel Conference + The Harvard-MIT Gaza Symposium

PHOTOS: One State for Palestine-Israel?—a conference

PHOTOS: Gaza Symposium

VIDEO: Conference Summary Statement (DRAFT)

Four packed days about Israel-Palestine, from the scholarship angle, not so much the activist. Two days at University of Massachusetts Boston for the conference, One state for Palestine/Israel: a country for all its citizens? And 2 days at Harvard-MIT for a symposium about Gaza, the 2nd annual such symposium.

Gaza Symposium at Harvard University

I was tremendously excited to be swimming in this heady sea of deep thinking concerning Palestine/Israel. Contemplate this list of luminaries, in one city in one relatively compressed period: Ilan Pappe (Israeli Jewish academic and author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine), Meron Benvenisti (Senior Israeli geographer and former director of the West Bank Data Base, author of Sacred Landscapes), Richard Falk (UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories), William Corcoran (president of American Near East Refugee Aid, ANERA), Anat Biletzski (former chairperson of B’Tselem—Israeli Information center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories and Professor of Philosophy at Tel Aviv University), and Sara Roy (Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard),

Also: Congressman Brian Baird (Washington State representative recently in Gaza), Leila Farsakh (Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Boston), Phyllis Bennis (Fellow and Head of the ME Program at the Institute for Policy Studies), Nadia Hijab ((Senior Fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies), George Bisharat (Professor of Law at the University of California), Joel Kovel (author of Overcoming Zionism and Distinguished Professor of Social Studies at Bard College, recently fired presumably for his political views), Smadar Lavie (Distinguished Visiting Professor International Studies at Macalester College), Saree Makdisi (Professor of English and Comparative Literature at UCLA), Nancy Murray (founder and president of the Gaza Mental Health Foundation, Inc, on the advisory board of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation), Ali Abunimah (Palestinian political activist and co-founder of the on line Electronic Intifada), Andrew Whitley (director of the UN Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA), and people I’d not heard about who were highly lauded by others at the 2 gatherings. Most were academics, professors, authors, and most were over the age of 60, but some were younger; some were activists as well as writers. One, Sami Abdel Shafi, was prevented by Israel to leave Gaza so we could only hear from him via phone link at Harvard’s Law School, of all places.

For the first time dealing with Palestine/Israel I felt I’d entered the realm of metaphysical light—its power of illuminating dark places. Where, I’ve asked, is the wisdom from the Holy Land that will help us solve this crisis?

So number 1 impression was being with peers as we considered the issue that is foremost in my life.

Congressman Brian Baird, recently returned from Gaza

Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Number 2 was the set of insights I gained, new perspectives, questions, and perhaps some loss of innocence and erroneous preconceptions. About one state, its viability, the obstacles facing it, the fact that very few support it, whether key players such as government officials, or grass roots populations such as the Palestinians and Israelis. Hearing from the president of ANERA (the group I went into Gaza with on my first venture there) about the details of the devastation was demoralizing. In fact, about Gaza, the situation is much worse than I expected. No lifting of the blockade and little challenge so far to the impunity of Israel.

However, balancing this, and spoken mainly by Richard Falk, the movement is experiencing a rise in the concept of rights, international law, accountability. A shift from bargaining to demanding human rights—I see the end of Israeli impunity.

Most agree that the global community is now focusing more on Israel-Palestine, that dire as the situation is for Palestine and Israel, Israel has increased the risk to its global acceptance. That is, they are losing credibility as evidenced by the rise in mainstream media attention to the plight of the Palestinians. They are becoming a pariah state, much like South Africa during apartheid.

Professor Smadar Lavie: Israeli Feminism and the One State Solution

Ali Abunimah: Challenging the Consensus Favoring the Two State Model

Third impression might be a confirmation of my direction, Israel-Palestine, especially visiting there—so many called for on the ground visits, get those damned feet wet!—and depicting what I experience, challenging myself and others, staying on the road.

Fourth and related to some of the above is the apparent acknowledgement by major institutions that significant transformations are required to deal with the conflict. So, Harvard, MIT, University of Massachusetts, and the universities the speakers were from are all now wedded in a joint challenge to conventional thought and practice. Not the entire institution, of course, but by agreeing to host the two events and continue employment of the speakers, they are giving a sort of imprimatur to perspectives that challenge the dominant argument supporting Israel.

I assume some if not many attending, especially younger people, students—since the venues were institutions of higher learning—may have experienced mind shifts as a result of dropping by for a few sessions. This is seeding the future.

Professor Ilan Pappe: Proposal For A New Israeli Political Organization: Building A Movement For The One State Solution

Saree Makdissi, giving the Conference summary statement draft

On a more personal note, I felt gratified to have seen a few of my Gaza photos streaming from the screen at the Gaza symposium thru the slide show Nitin prepared. All the other photographers in the show had been in Gaza recently, some during and most after the slaughter, so my photos were more like backgrounders. I felt they held up. And my Gazan friends might be proud that their friend’s photos—and them—were represented.

I took detailed notes during the entire 4 days; what I’ll do with them remains a mystery. I could sort thru them and write them out more fully, I could simply browse them from time to time to be refreshed, or I could store them somewhere perhaps never to be read again.

Another impression is that the twin events served as the Readers’ Digest of perspectives about Palestine/Israel. Not to demean the conference and symposium, not to compare it with what some people regard as the dumbing down of literature by Readers’ Digest, only to suggest we were presented a capsule view of a wide span of perspectives. So that, if interested, we can dig into selected speakers later. I believe plans are to publish a book within the year from the conference and put the papers from the symposium on line.

Talking with Ken B recently to digest the powerful experience he was troubled by the tightness of the conference schedule, allowing little time for expansion of thought by the speakers and discussion by the audience. Everyone seemed rushed, not the best atmosphere for deep deliberation. The symposium was more spacious in time.

I asked Ken what he thought the overarching objective of Israel was in attacking Gaza recently, a question not much dealt with at either event. Is it Israel planting a warning: do not transgress the limits we establish or you (in the West Bank) will be next. Uri Avnery’s analysis of the “boss has gone mad” idea, comparing it to the Mutually Assured Destruction, MAD, policy of the Reagan era, might be germane. Certainly it is more than the prima facie argument of stopping the rockets since there are other methods for doing this, perhaps much more effective and not generating the blowback of the attacks—such as ending the siege. Is it something akin to ethnic cleansing, but instead of removal it’s containment, a thought voiced at the symposium? Is it to cause slow death thru disease and demoralization, rotting from inside the civil and social structures of the Gazans? Is it a playing out of a perhaps millennial-long suicidal tendency among Jews—doing exactly what prompts the outer world’s hatred? The perpetual outcast, pariah, monster? Could Israel not have foreseen the negative world opinion? Is this not mass psychosis?

Unmentioned, burning deeply in my heart during the entire 4-day proceedings, was Fadia Daibes Murad, now dead. I’ve written about her on my blog. I considered mentioning her at some appropriate point but never found it. How many would have known her, or cared? Not more than a handful I surmised. This added to my grief: being with so many knowledgeable and active people about Palestine/Israel, and so few would be able to share my grief. Thank god for the blog and the responses it’s generated, the caring people, both those who knew her and added their insights, and those who didn’t, who took the time to grieve with me.

Despite this pain from Fadia’s death, from the agony of the troubles generally, I felt healing and inspiration—for me, for others active in the movement, and for the people of the Levant.

I invite those who attended either event to post their interpretations here.

Gaza Symposium

One State for Palestine / Israel: A Country for All Its Citizens?

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Travel Journal, North Carolina to Florida, February 12, 2009—day twelve

At home in Cambridge Massachusetts I am now recounting my trip to southeast USA with my photographic presentations about Palestine & Israel, in 15 parts, one for each day.

Photos from the trip, In passing: the south :: February 2009

Report of the trip

Photos in this entry from Bureij refugee camp in Gaza, May 2006, part three

How’d I end up here? An apartment I’m sharing overnight with 3 students from Georgia State College and University (a name I asked about without getting a definite answer, an enigma), after a Gaza show to about 40-50 mostly students and a few faculty, on my way south, further south, tonight Valdosta Georgia, then Jacksonville Florida. Inexorable progress, true at least for this tour.

The show went very well, despite arriving just 10 minutes before show time without sufficient time to put out photos and literature and collect my energy. Questions about Hamas, secularization, USA response, Christian Zionism, action. I’d prepped the audience for the first time with a strong dose of history, which seems to have helped. That history with its inherent fascination conveys some of my motivation for dwelling on Gaza, besides my friendships, the AFSC, the horrors, etc. No hostile remarks. Indeed I seem to be encountering a strong willingness to see Israel-Palestine thru the lens of Palestinian oppression.

Ragdha’s family and compound in the Bureij refugee camp, Gaza Strip, May 2006—brother

Sister

Earlier and thanks to Dave and his friend C (now with tenure as sociology prof at University of South Carolina Aiken), and the blessings of her department chair which would ward off complaints about my perspective, I showed a brief version of Gaza during the noon hour. I’m learning how to shrink the show, starting later after the titles, concentrating on personal stories. This leaves about 10 minutes for discussion. An older man quizzed me about “collateral damage”: Doesn’t war entail the injuring of innocents, the unfortunate injury? Implying that Israel is not culpable for its infliction of suffering on civilians. I replied that the use of white phosphorus, the apparent deliberate targeting of UN facilities and schools and medical institutions, the attacks on the so called “safe house” soldiers forced residents into, plus any number of other killings as at demonstrations, strongly suggest the motivation, at least at times, is to destroy all Gazans, ultimately to drive them out—or create “ethnic containment” to be contrasted with ethnic cleansing. Ultimately for what purpose, I need to ask: the withering away of the Gazans?

I turned the question to others who seemed to concur. Later, a woman approached C to complain about my show, threatening to write or phone the department chair. Ah ha, C had wisely prepared for this!

Truly, I relish the controversy. I feel confident that my arguments and evidence will stand up against criticism. And now I must guard against smugness, another affliction I find common among Quakers. The thought that I have the truth, all those opposed are wrong. I must cultivate humility and good listening skills. Always listening for the heart of the matter, what causes the heat: Fears that Jews will be attacked. Cognitive dissonance from awareness without admission. Culpability. Shame.

Sister

Brother

A attended the Aiken show, good to see him; he treated C and me to Thai food.

Two folks I think from the university videoed me, promising to send me a copy. I gave them a copy of the show. This just after Dave and I had discussed putting some of my presentations on tape. Others at various venues have asked about this. I might be drifting toward this; the requests are a good sign that someone appreciates my work.

C is a sweet soul generous, compassionate, knowledge, soft. I enjoy knowing her, staying with her, her home immaculate, her office a shit heap. She told me about her semester on ship, teaching sociology as the 700 students cruised around the world with stops in places like Namibia, South Africa, Bahia in Brazil, and other conflict spots. She suggested to me that I could join such a program as an instructor. Maybe for later, for my retirement.

Mother

Father

Dave, who drove me from Aiken to half way to Milledgeville, meeting Chris and Caitlin for the rest of the ride, is as always energetic and faithful, maintaining his strong belief in social change. Despite some of my earlier misgivings I think we’re becoming buddies in the struggle.

During this ride thru the agrarian countryside of South Carolina and Georgia, my phone rang: R from Cambridge, checking in. We chatted about civil disobedience; he asked me about my latest exploits with women, I joked with him about S, being stuck in the car with her and two other women in the night, lost, in the vacant country, and so maybe we should consider a motel room, shacking up. He confessed that he is living vicariously thru me. He also wanted to tell me about the nation-wide Israel apartheid organizing he’s doing in Boston, and that he is planning to attend the one state conference at end of March in Boston. We might do this together. Rick, a radical Jew as I term him to his face, is one of my best buddies.

Ragdha

Brother and sister

During my infrequent and short rest periods I do email, revise the schedule on my website, read computer news and mail, take care of occasional business, revise a show, walk, chat with hosts, snack and nap.

—February 12, 2009, Thursday, Milledgeville Georgia

Breakfast

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Travel Journal, North Carolina to Florida, February 11, 2009—day eleven

Bureij refugee camp, Gaza Strip, May 2006

At home in Cambridge Massachusetts I am now recounting my trip to southeast USA with my photographic presentations about Palestine & Israel, in 15 parts, one for each day.

Photos from the trip, In passing: the south :: February 2009

Report of the trip

Photos in this entry from Bureij refugee camp in Gaza, May 2006, part two

Now that Fida [director of the AFSC youth program in the West Bank] has taught me the characteristics of a refugee camp I can pick out the vertical construction, narrow passageways, poverty, and preponderance of kids. I’ve not yet seen raw sewage in the streets, one of the conventional images of the camp, nor piles of garbage. Thanks to Ragdha’s brother, Mohanad and younger brother whose name I’ve forgotten, I saw more of the camp, street life and family life. We visited the family of 2 brothers in a different family, 1 of which had been shot 3 times during the various intifadas. He proudly showed us his photo album of images made while recovering in hospitals in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Mohanad explained that sort of international support has dried up. Someone shot now earns little outside help. More

After a long, nearly long lost and losing drive from Athens Georgia to Aiken SC, about 4 hours driving in the dark, under a full moon, thru the empty countryside, thanks to wrong directions derived from Google maps by 3 young women of the Georgia State University-Athens. Pulling in at 1 AM, C hosting me but now long asleep, me waking 5 hours later feeling fully refreshed. But will I crash mid show today or tonight, falling sleep at my computer switch?

Went like this, yesterday: show at Emory, the Candler School of Theology, the show Bethlehem, slotted into a 50 minute lunch period. Hate that. I just started the show and quit it at the time-defined moment but it felt not only abruptly truncated but deflated somehow, with minimal energy—the part definitely not standing for the whole. Students were more or less mute. Beth, my host, confided that the student body tends to conservatism, and that there is a strong presence of Christian Zionists. She explained that she’d hoped I’d help light a little fire. I doubt I did, if anything I smothered whatever embers might have been aglow.

The woman introducing me, who’d picked me up from K and B’s, a poet, told me about her recent experience in Palestine/Israel and the general region. In Palestine don’t drink the tap water. Enter Israel, drink the tap water. Enter Bethlehem, don’t drink the tap water. I asked her to read her poem during her intro. Encapsulating, the part standing for the whole, one of the main points of my work on Palestine-Israel, this might have been the major “take away” of the event.

Later, Beth Corrie—Corrie? Are you related to Rachel? She’s my cousin, first cousin, 8 years my junior—explained to me that the student population, all graduate students, are new to activism, or haven’t yet reached that stage. Also activism waxes and wanes in Atlanta, is slowly recovering after a recent peak.

I pumped her for data and stories about Rachel and here’s what I learned: Rachel had been precocious in art, able to write a better poem at age 4 than Beth could as an adult. She danced, made puppets, drew, wrote. Thus, Beth thought, she had an inordinate level of compassion and sensitivity. Her mother, Cindy, started an alternative grade school that Rachel attended, and in this context Rachel attended the conference about poverty that she spoke at—age 10.

Cindy and Craig, her parents, quit all they were doing after she died, Cindy her various jobs, Craig his insurance business, to devote full time to circulating Rachel’s story. Each family member was affected by Rachel’s death, each moved slightly or dramatically forward in social activism.

Beth is on the faculty of Candler, working with high school youth bringing them on campus for an early experience in seminary, and teaching a college course that is something about conflict resolution, I believe. She has her PhD and must be now about in her mid 30s. She hosted me. She chose an 11 by 14 photo of kids playing in Beit Lahiya, because, she said, It feels hopeful. She offered me the going price, $20—I gave her the photo, both to thank her for her hosting and to honor her for her relationship with Rachel (and all the information she gave me).

Too bad my Bethlehem show was so weak, and the discussion vapid. No one stayed later to discuss, even tho we offered pizza. I had to whisk out of the room so another group could use it.

The evening show went better, Gaza to about 30 mostly students at Georgia State University in Athens, a huge campus of 30,000 students, the campus reverberating with the din of construction. Here I was hosted by S, Palestine-American, part of a student activist group about the Mid East. She was most gracious and thoughtful, picking me up from the half way point that Beth dropped me at, treating me to Thai food in the lazy college town with many bars, then driving me thru the night to meet Dave in Washington Georgia. I’m so sorry, she said, when realizing someone had made a huge mistake in directions, and she was not carrying a map.

S’s family, with roots in Palestine, is more immediately from Jordan. She returns there regularly. Never to Palestine. Her friend,  the ever laughing and rasping, A, is also Palestinian, but her family is from Syria. They had many in-jokes to share as we drove and ate, laughing regularly. One stream of jokes was about their over attentive parents. When telling these jokes, they would feign an Arabic accent. One joke was about the word crackers, the name of S’s dog. Why crackers, daddy? It was the first word I learned in English.

Ha ha.

They were very worried driving with me thru the night, and not happy about driving back without a white male in the car. One wore a hijab, S is dark skinned. Thus the worry.

Riding with them to meet Dave I received the feeling what hanging out with a young woman that age—S is 21—might mean. As socially engaged as they are, S at least, they talked endlessly about food, shops, styles, etc, a step, a small step, from high school banter. Not for me.

Some of the more vexing questions from the shows: one state vs. two states, inside information about Hamas, election (yesterday it happened in Israel, outcome unknown to me at this point, I’ll soon check), action ideas, Boycott-Divest-Sanction campaign, local campaigns, but nothing about Rachel, nothing about me personally. At a recent show one young man later asked me privately how to prepare for a career in photojournalism like mine. Answer: practice photography incessantly and learn all you can about your area of concern.

I met JM at the Athens show, an older man wearing a suit, but very astute about the Israel-Palestine issues. And active. He bought a photo, snatched much literature, talked to me at length later about links with his church community, the Presbyterian mission group that I think I heard about in December on the tour south.

It’s all about networks.

Y wrote a long loving letter about her recent medical issues. She mentioned in her letter not trusting me with confidential information like this. She wrote about my grand daughter E’s love and hate of certain words, and how this drives her mom K nuts. But, Y, the writer, said: not to worry, it indicates that E is thinking about words. Maybe you and I could make a list of words with the feelings attached. Y would have made a fine parent, and, given certain adjustments on both our parts, a fine life partner.

Driving to Aiken last night with Dave, he was excited about tour prospects, namely Florida and other regions of the south. He suggested cuts I could make in Bethlehem, apologized for squeezing me into a narrow time slot for today’s show at the University of South Carolina, Aiken, and for spotting me in such widely distant regions, like Aiken. Confessing, I wanted you here in Aiken. He also suggested we make a DVD of some of my shows, maybe like Anna Baltzer’s, or maybe like Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth. I lean toward that general idea if it can be more than me sitting calmly like Anna presenting a tepid show. Something with chutzpah.

One of my biggest fears on this tour is forgetting to pack something vital when I shift locations, such as my computer or the adapter or my wallet or my notebook. So far, nothing of note left behind. But, ejecting from the car yesterday afternoon, between B and S, I must have left my Popular Achievement cap in B’s car. Then arriving in my room last night, as if in a dream, there was a pair of what I think is my underwear, left here from my first tour in summer 2007. An equal exchange?  The cap is no problem. I borrowed a replacement from Dave and have multiple Popular Achievement caps at home. So far I believe I have my computer, adapter, wallet, and notebook.

—February 11, 2009, Wednesday, Aiken SC, with Dave’s friend C

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Travel Journal, North Carolina to Florida, February 10, 2009—day ten

At home in Cambridge Massachusetts I am now recounting my trip to southeast USA with my photographic presentations about Palestine & Israel, in 15 parts, one for each day.

Photos from the trip, In passing: the south :: February 2009

Report of the trip

Photos in this entry from Bureij refugee camp in Gaza, May 2006

Yesterday [May 19, 2006] Marwan [from the Gaza Community Mental Health Center, a friend and colleague of the woman, Ragdha, who invited to her home in the camp] picked me up from my flat. We sped south thru the city, about 5 km to the Bureij camp with his 2 boys, one crying the entire trip. More

Netzarim Junction, once a notorious Israeli checkpoint/strangulation point

In the streets of Bureij refugee camp, Gaza Strip, May 2006

Two dreams: in one I was with a woman I’d just met and we’d decidedly come together, with some intimacy expected. We laughed, spoke deeply, sat next to each other, and found some strong affinity. But then I might have reached too far: I nudged her under the table with my leg, a form of caress, and she looked horrified, moved away. Was this the end of our dalliance?

In a 2nd dream, possibly related, I was either reading something a well known Israeli activist had written, or was actually helping him write it. He confessed that he’d … someone, a woman, using a term that I can’t now recall which we understood to be code for attracted. I was puzzled. Wasn’t he happily married? Had his wife died? Had they separated? Was he engaging in adultery?

Yesterday’s 2 shows, Georgia State University and Kennesaw State University, went very well. About 10 for the first, 60 for the second, the first in a medium sized room, the “Lanier Suite,” in the student center, and the 2nd in a large auditorium. Both Gaza shows looked and sounded good, and I do believe I’m perfecting my acting-performing style. It’s as if I’ve learned the script and I’ve polished my act.

The GSU showing, attended by an equal mixture of white and black people, was sponsored by the newly formed Progressive Student Alliance, organized thru the good offices of the local American Friends Service Committee, thru Tim, the peace action man. The students seemed well versed in the history and general reality of Israel-Palestine, indicating by their questions their comprehension and passion. One Black man in particular asked me about the role of the French and British. I misunderstood, thought he’d asked about their contemporary role, and so I went off the mark in detailing their current roles. He corrected me by mentioning the word Balfour. We then discussed the onset of Zionism and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, a direct precursor to the current debacle raging in the Mid East.

Three AFSC staff attended, B, with an alluring mouth, but suggesting she is demoralized, depressed, hopeless, L, who read the Dr. Mona part in my show, and R. I learned later that E, who’d volunteered to read the parts of Yusef and Belal, is a history prof there and faculty adviser for the group. He seemed moved to tears during his reading. After one of his long silences while reading I offered to find someone else. He soldiered thru, and later bought 2 of my large photos.

I think this show resonates with college students. The AFSC’s Popular Achievement program is college and high school students, and Belal, Adham, and Yusef are roughly the age of this audience. Plus Rachel Corrie. A captivating linkage, perhaps.

The evening show brought out a rabbi who’d been at other similar presentations. He questioned me on my interpretation, laying out the case for Israel much as Dershowitz does. Rather than debate him I asked if anyone would like to respond. And a man with roots in Gaza did, cogently and gently. I wonder, however, if I’m ducking my responsibility by using this deflecting technique. My intention is to engage more members of the audience in conversation, turning it from them to me, to them to them.

I noticed that he’d not seen what I’m sure I showed and seen what I’m sure I didn’t show. Instances: he said I’d not said that Egypt sealed the border after The Great Breakout of January 2008 when Hamas broke thru the barrier between Gaza and Egypt—I had. He said I’d not shown the fighting between Fatah and Hamas—I had. He asserted that I’d not admitted that rockets target civilians—I had and shown a corpse from such a rocket attack. As if he came with his own presentation embedded in his mind and projected this over what I showed. A powerful form of self-deceit that I’m sure I myself suffer regularly.

The second man responding was also from Gaza. I’d asked during my intro who’d been to the region, who might be Palestine, who from Gaza? And the 2 had self-identified. I learned later that Mai Carter was in the audience, about to publish a book about Israel-Palestine peace and justice groups, probably arriving late and leaving early so I never had a chance to thank her for helping me find venues. I’ll do this by email.

Community water, probably not safe to drink without treatment

A major highlight was fostering the meeting of a Muslim and a Jew with promises that they might more regularly attend each other’s events and might collaborate on a joint event. The Jew, a young man, very sweet and loving and humble, told me he was with campus Hillel, the Israel advocacy committee chair. He spoke with the 2 men with relatives in Gaza. I thought of my meeting with Alex during the vigil for Gaza at Harvard’s graduation, the two of us calmed down when Hilda intervened by asking if we’d read Sandy Tolan’s extraordinary book, The Lemon Tree.

The main links currently that help find venues seem to have come thru AFSC, showing once again the power of community.

C hosted the first show, a very young shy woman, slightly overweight, wearing boots, short skirt, low bodice blouse with bulging breasts. She was one of the main initiators of the Alliance.  T hosted the Kennesaw show, a philosophy prof, tall, with long hair, stately, handsome, teaching a philosophy of peace class that drew many of the students.

The entire day unfolded mysteriously. To the last minute I wasn’t sure where to go, how to get there, who’d meet me. Everything worked perfectly—from meeting the bus to the Atlanta Marta station at the last minute, finding the venue at GSU, arranging the equipment, resting at the AFSC, eating there, finding a ride to Kennesaw thru Tim at the AFSC, a young energetic peace builder with a knack for community organizing, meeting a young sparkling Iranian woman, Ozzie or Azita, riding with Tim to Kennesaw, meeting T at Kennesaw, then riding home with G who hopes to start a small business combining peace building with tourism. Providence ruled mightily.

Students at GSU, reinforced by Tim later, told me about plans for local BDS, Boycott-Divest-Sanction, campaigns. Apparently the CEO of Starbuck’s is a major supporter of Israel, recently devoting one day’s profit to the state. Home Depot’s CEO purportedly does the same. There’s a local linkage between the police in Atlanta and in Israel, sharing technology and techniques. This needs to be revealed. And of course there’s Motorola and Caterpillar, which most people tuned at all to Palestine-Israel seem to know about. This idea of linkage and BDS seems to be mainly what grips students. It recalls the anti-apartheid days and the campaigns against clothing produced in sweatshops.

Manager of an athletic club, now largely unused because of the tightened restrictions preventing teams from playing outside Gaza

I wrote M a relatively perfunctory letter (compared with the volumes I once wrote), acknowledging her writing about Bread and Puppet Theater and insomnia (forgetting to mention her loving how well her nephew performed in a play) and not asking a single question (such as about her survey). I think this is an improvement and shows I’m making progress toward slicing away, distancing, erasing her from my obsessive focus. Indeed, I think of her only during a rare fleeting moment. I am an enigma to myself: how I seem to forever remain at the stage of pubescent adolescence, unable to manage my emotions. Is this contorted loving related to secondary trauma? Will I succumb and become helpless and destitute, or will I survive and finally grow up, settle down, raise a family?

Too bad I don’t have more down time in Atlanta. Walking briskly from GSU to AFSC with L and B, I remembered my few days here 2 years ago during the US Social Forum, how hot it was, how I was coming to terms with separation from Y, meeting her new man friend D, living at the Atlanta Buddhist dojo, walking thru poison oak with D, suffering for weeks later. And beginning the first of my 3 southern tours. I remembered an earlier trip, in 1999, in Atlanta for about one month as I prepared for a 4-month sojourn thru the south volunteering my photography and retracing parts of the Pilgrimage of the Middle Passage in reverse.

I’d like to visit First Iconium church, renew my friendship with its pastor, Tim McDonald, chat with Utsumi and Denise (the monk and nun who I think are at the Oak Ridge pagoda now), and wander around the neighborhood of Southeast Atlanta. But especially, explore Sweet Auburn once again, the homeland of Martin Luther King Jr.

Alas, today I leave for Athens Georgia. Someone is picking me up at 11 this morning, driving me to Emory (I must rehearse the Bethlehem show, which I’ve not shown since December). Then the Athens show this evening and staying somewhere yet a mystery to me. Tonight I meet Dave M, tomorrow in Aiken SC, then back to Georgia and eventually to Florida.

Shop, empty shelves because of the blockade

Proprietor of the shop showing his credit ledgers—”If I have the items they want to buy and they don’t have the money, I always extend credit.”

I often think of my dad in his business travels. How long was he away? Did he miss his son and daughter and wife? What did he do on those trips? Was he faithful or was he more like me, independent and yearning? I recall appreciating his absence, since we had a troubled relationship. I remember mom taking Elaine and me to a small neighborhood restaurant on Stony Island Avenue (I could probably find the building now, long changed). I’d eat the same meal each time: hot turkey sandwich, probably accompanied by powdered potatoes. Unlike my father I have no one waiting for me to return, other than perhaps Kate and Ella.

The weather has been seasonably mild, chilly at night. Last night was full moon, the sky was hazy, occluded. Full moon means my moon-mother returns. At this moment, Y is either asleep or preparing for her upcoming trip to Ethiopia. I hope to see her before she leaves. Soon I will hike over to the community room for wifi and email and webwork, then pack, then leave.

B and K have been generous hosts, B preparing me yesterday with maps and directions for my uncertain journeys, K giving Gail directions last evening. Each day I march with a new parade of people, each with their own story, each solidly or tangentially linked to Palestine/Israel and me.

—February 10, 2009, Tuesday, Atlanta, with B and K

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Travel Journal, North Carolina to Florida, February 9, 2009—day nine

At home in Cambridge Massachusetts I am now recounting my trip to southeast USA with my photographic presentations about Palestine & Israel, in 15 parts, one for each day.

Photos from the trip, In passing: the south :: February 2009

Report of the trip

Photos in this entry from Death & Mourning in Al-Bureij refugee camp, Gaza Strip, January 2008

While in the area south of Gaza City we heard shooting, Awni rightly concluded this was from a funeral. He’d heard Israelis had recently invaded Al Bureij refugee camp, some Palestinians killed, and guessed the funeral was in Al Bureij. We reached the camp moments later to join a huge throng of men of all ages—women don’t attend these events unless immediate family in which case as either they with the family lead the parade to the cemetery or ride in cars to join the mourners for the burial—and eventually Awni dropped me off with Adham to join the marchers. More

As if a rampaging dream factory, my mind last night seemed totally focused on Gaza. Each time I awoke to pee, every 2 hours or so, I dipped into yet another dream about Gaza. All were benign, none violent, some ominous. In one I was helping decide how a group could get into Gaza. In another, Ibrahem appeared. I do not remember any of them in detail, not even my feeling state.

A pleasant uneventful train ride from Greenville SC to Atlanta (later, checking my notes from July 2007, I confirmed my suspicion that I’d departed from Greenville for Boston, the end of my first southern tour in 2007), about 3 hours, $30, sleeping part of the way, reading, writing, arriving to meet B and drive to his home, meeting his wife K, who heads the local library system, settling in with a light breakfast of grape juice, oatmeal with raisins, and hot cocoa. Then Atlanta Friends meeting which I could barely remain awake for. Despite what some commentators thought was a gathered meeting, I found it tepid and boring, with the usual platitudes. Only one message remains for me, a song sung by an extremely obese woman with tears in her eyes—about what I do not recall.

Then my turn: the Gaza show to about 10-15 listless souls, one of the dreariest presentations yet. Maybe my sleepiness, maybe their disinterest, maybe my condemnatory attitude about Quaker silence. Perhaps I stifled them with my introduction: berating friends for their silence. But I did extol or try to redeem Quakers by mentioning our Cambridge meeting deciding to sign the Interfaith Peace Declaration and donate $10,000 to the Gaza Community Mental Health Program. The press of time weighed on me as well, B informing me earlier, several times, that 1-hour is about the upper limit.

A question from audiences that repeats is how much support does Hamas get by Gazans? And I have to honestly answer, I’m not sure (nor is anyone probably). Hamas was elected because it’s honest and helps people and may be more effective that their rival, Fatah, in ending the occupation, not because of their platform that calls for the end of Israel by violence. Chagrin at their tactics, extra judicial executions for one. Waxing and waning depending. Now I’m not sure. Hamas claimed victory because it survived the recent vicious assault, Israel claimed victory because of how much of Hamas it destroyed.

Later at the community dinner, I chatted with J and A, who I know from 1999 when, on a small pilgrimage I’d designed in the south after I’d skipped out of the Middle Passage Pilgrimage , I’d visited them in their home, using their computer. They were both curious about Israel-Palestine history, A asking me to sit with him to lay it out. Before I got very far others sat with us and the conversation shifted.

Does your community ever have programs about Israel-Palestine? I asked A.

No, too controversial. And we have many Jews here. Instead we talk about where to put the compost pile. And similar topics.

I thought, Here I am, an unusual resource, why not persuade me to give an informal show?

Well, the food was good, the conversation engaging, and the wifi worked so I arrived early for the community dinner, stayed late.

The setting is a co-housing project, very large, some 60 households. Folks formed it I believe it in the early 1970s, with significant help from Atlanta Friends meeting (Quakers do education and housing very well, political work poorly, in my view.) Sited in a mixed income, mixed race neighborhood (Eastlake), with few Quakers now living in the co-housing, it has turned into a gated community. B explained that to gain financing the funders required gates. Pioneers thought they would accommodate the funders and then remove the gates. Too late—others moving in demanded the gates remain. Residents have not reached a compromise about when the gates might remain open, like on evenings and weekends. So we have a gated community.

Surrounding this community the homes tend to be rougher, smaller, and crime is a significant factor. People like B, who has retired from what I think was a job with the state to become a full time activist, have not been able to effectively link with key elements of the surrounding community, such as churches.

While sitting on the porch of the community center I noticed a few Blacks, and while walking to the center, more African American children, but very oddly, none appeared at the meal, except for a Black woman I’d seen at meeting, who seems to be a guest.

B and Kathy have a relatively small home, 2 levels, downstairs with the guest room where I stay, my own toilet, a sitting and dining area, and a small kitchen with minimal counter space. Upstairs they have at least 2 bedrooms, another toilet and maybe either a 3rd level or another room. They did not raise their kids here, 2 sons and 1 daughter. (Their screen saver is a photo of one son with his wife, each looking longingly lovingly into the eyes of the other.)

The immediate neighborhood is fenced in, access controlled by the gate and a locked door. Houses conjoin and cluster. Kids abound, playing safely throughout the acreage. There is a small pond, a stream, a field which they rent out to organic gardeners, other garden space, woods, and surrounding this, the scary (to some) neighborhood that is excluded.

With B’s advice I walked the area. A long walk, more than 3 miles, till my knees ached and my left foot began a rare blister thru my sandals. Around the golf course, past elegant and expensive homes, and into the dreaded neighborhood of relative shacks. Rich and poor, nearly side by side. White and black, neighboring unhappily.

My plans for the next few days are set for shows, but not for transport and hosting. I wrote Dave and local hosts last night, hoping for some clarification this morning before too long. How do I get to the next site, Georgia State University, and then to Kennesaw State tonight? And tomorrow’s sites? All this—I’m sure, I’m certain, I have faith—will become clear later.

Appearances at universities and colleges sound good, but occasionally this means a student in a shriveled organization has booked a small room, done minimal publicity, able to draw only a tiny audience, which may or may not be receptive and eager. I shouldn’t be too dire: occasionally many attend and the reception is solid. I have yet to garner a major official booking at a university or college. Oddly enough, if I were to generalize, so far the most enthusiastic and engaged audiences have been elders at retirement communities. Are they among the few populations that have the time—and energy—for difficult topics?

I’d been curious about Jimmy Carter’s book tour: what is the book, and why the tour? What is his primary message? I found an interview with him that revealed: he is hopeful, with the Obama administration and what he knows of current Israeli politics, that peace is possible and could arrive soon. I am skeptical. And said so in a posting I sent last evening to my lists, linking to his interview, questioning his assumption that the 2 state solution is the most viable plan and the most accepted. I added a note about my tour.

Not mentioned in the interview was the upcoming election in Israel. Signs are not sanguine. An extreme right wing government might assume power, led by Bibi Netanyahu and with the extreme right wing Lieberman in the cabinet.

B and K seem to be a happy couple. They range around each other in love and admiration and understanding. They are yet another model of success as a married team. They look approvingly at each other, fill in blanks left in stories told by the other without interrupting or contradicting. They are a team, a 2-some, a unit. As I’ve felt only piecemeal with my 2 main partners, X and Y. So again I wonder—why does this seemingly universal knack for couplehood appear to be absent from me?

Planning to review and download all my photos from this trip, mainly from the mountain waterfall walk with David, I discovered an error message: Card is not formatted. I couldn’t access the files. Something electronic snapped, maybe a directory. I’d just been photographing yesterday on the local walk and all seemed to work well. Can I retrieve files with special techniques and software? I should have followed my discipline and downloaded more frequently. I plan to do a web search today when I get access. And save the card till I return home. This could be a blow, but not a serious blow—I’ve done little significant photography on this journey.

As I write, 7:20 AM, the sky is glowing bright orange. Squirrels and birds forage. The temperature is mild. Sunset is dramatically later than Boston at this time, and sunrise also. We are further west. The moon has been full. I’ve greeted my dear mother Pearl regularly. I hope she is proud of her son and forgives me all my many transgressions.

—February 9, 2009, Monday, Atlanta, with B and K

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Travel Journal, North Carolina to Florida, February 8, 2009—day eight

At home in Cambridge Massachusetts I am now recounting my trip to southeast USA with my photographic presentations about Palestine & Israel, in 15 parts, one for each day.

Photos from the trip, In passing: the south :: February 2009

Report of the trip

Photos in this entry from Gaza Visits the Israeli Consulate in Boston, January 2009

“Dying” in the lobby of the Israeli Consulate, 4 arrests for nonviolent “divine obedience” to the suffering of the Gazans

It is 5:11 AM, the train I ride seems about 1/4 full, mostly Black people, and only a few awake like me. Martha who married a Gazan man 7 or so years ago after meeting on an Internet Christian chat room hosted me. Very generously and graciously since she had short notice and we’d asked her to drive me to the station for the 5 AM train.

Driving to the station last evening to try to buy a ticket I noticed I’d been here before. Maybe on the first south tour, June 2007, ending the junket in Greenville and boarding a train home.

Pulling into Martha’s neighborhood I thought it recognized it as well. Later, walking, I concluded I’d not been here. I surveyed the neighborhood, an old mill workers’ residential area, with rudely built homes, and a factory, once a mill, which now seems to house a medical supply company.

I met Martha 2 years ago on my first swing south after the US Social Forum. She struck me as slightly odd, marrying a Gazan, passionate about the Palestinian cause, and totally ineffectual. Or so it seemed to me. But she came thru for this act of hospitality.

Earlier David B took me out for a long romp thru the woods around Brevard, high into the mountains for a look at a place called Three Falls. The day was warm, the trails relatively crowded, the falls partially iced from the recent frigid weather. Ice means white, water means black, thus, the falls were outlined and highlighted. Making a set of splendid photos, perhaps.

During the hike and while driving David confided to me more about “the deep hole I’m in.”

So we shared tales, me about X, Y, and M (leaving out F and Z) and he about his wife and his new woman friend.

We connected. As I do with most people on these trips, finding a piece of me that is in them, a piece of them that is within me. And they leave pieces of themselves with me, and I of myself with them. In this way we begin a conversation, interchange information, ideas, emotions, and build community. It is an unforeseen offshoot of these tours.

I believe I’ve truly advanced from an earlier stage of obsession over certain women. I’m not writing endlessly long letters—actually and in my head— to such as F and M. I allowed the last letter from M to mellow in my mind and heart, glancing at it from time to time, in no rush to answer it. Maybe I’ll let it mellow (or molder) for weeks. Maybe I’ll never answer it, just let it drift into oblivion, yet another of the 1000s of unresponded to messages from the heart.

Last night as I lay in the high bed Martha provided for me, after a shower, after washing my laundry (noticing I’d lost my blue Hike underwear, the type of underwear I love best), after eating fake fish and left over roast (without the meat) I realized thinking about the Gaza slide show: I’d left out a key part of the Gazan history: the Hamas takeover, both thru the election and the coup. So I simply opened the slide show and inserted the history. Without photos, unfortunately, because I have scant Internet access where I am now.

~The train is cruising breezily thru towns, often directly down the town’s vulnerable middle, and the southern countryside, North Carolina to Georgia, a 3 hour ride, soon in Atlanta. Others remain on the train and will this evening be in New Orleans. The whistle blows, the car rocks gently side to side. I await the opening of the lounge car so I can purchase coffee. Or maybe I’ll nap, last night was a short sleep.~

—February 8, 2009, Sunday, aboard the train from Greenville to Atlanta, the Crescent, NYC to New Orleans

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Travel Journal, North Carolina to Florida, February 7, 2009—day seven

At home in Cambridge Massachusetts I am now recounting my trip to southeast USA with my photographic presentations about Palestine & Israel, in 15 parts, one for each day.

Photos from the trip, In passing: the south :: February 2009

Report of the trip

Photos in this entry from Bethlehem—Anticipating Christmas, 2007

Three days before Christmas, 2007, on winter solstice, an exploration of the holy city: ruins and potentials

Shepherds’ Field near the Greek Orthodox complex, Beit Sahour

Byzantium church ruins, about 400 CE, at Shepherds’ field (#1)

Chapel in the cave beneath the church ruins

Skulls of monks killed by Persians in the 7th century CE

One dream before the usual meanderings: with a much younger man (Igor?) we’d climbed high up some tower. Time to go down. How to go down? I spotted a stack of chairs that reached nearly to us. However reaching the chairs required a leap across about 4 feet of space and the belief that the chairs were intertwined enough to remain intact, not crumble to the ground. Seemingly with much deliberation and with no discussion with me my friend leaped across the chasm, grabbed and then stood on the chairs, and the chairs held. He’s succeeded. Could I?

My turn. Would I or would I not leap? A classic dilemma. I hesitated, thinking to myself, I’m much older than he, I might not be able to stretch far enough, I might not have enough strength to hold on to the chairs, the chairs might collapse under my weight. For a rare dream occasion, this dream did not end before resolution. I chose not to leap. I was afraid.

I am back in North Carolina, in the western mountains, crossing the border, driven by David B, a 50 year old (looking much younger) man who is graciously attending to my every need. Today he will take me hiking into an area known for its many waterfalls. Precisely why Dave M, my organizer, lined up this location which requires so much extra driving and difficulty in finding overnight hospitality puzzles me. But I’ve been able to present Gaza to 2 more venues, College Walk, a retirement community, and Brevard College, known apparently for its fine music training. Old and young. Great contrast.

Some 60 elders turned out for the afternoon show at College Walk, many, Phyllis, my overnight host, tells me from outside. I intended to truncate the show more severely than usual because of the audience’s age, but I clicked the wrong button and found myself in the hospital section, maybe not a very good choice for folks who might be ill and close to death. Despite this, the show seemed reasonably well received. All stayed, the conversation was heated.

A slender handsome white mustached man wearing a tan sweater asked for the microphone during the discussion, and then strode up to the front of the group. He had a frozen expression, a serious grimace. I sat down, expecting a discourse. Which he gave: a very well presented justification for Israel, and a condemnation of my viewpoints, the usual claim that I’m biased and angry and unfair. I am a propagandist, a skilled, highly intelligent propagandist. Why had I included so little of Israel’s position in the show?

Rather than attempt to debate him, refute point-by-point, I turned the question to the audience: Was I fair or not? I asked. Heads nodded both ways. I was tempted to ask for a show of hands. Fair or unfair? I didn’t, hoping others would express a variety of viewpoints. And they did, a split decision. I was tempted to rebut with Carter’s line: You don’t believe me? Go there yourself, see for yourself. But, given the age of most—at least mid 70s—I doubt this would be appreciated.

I’d prefaced my show with remarks about age, how many stellar activists are the age of many in the audience. Art and Peg Gish, Uri Avery, quoting Art about Free to die, then free to live. (In my leap dream I had not reached the point of “free to die.”)

This was easily one of the most spirited discussions of the tour. I’m grateful. It is in sharp contrast with the discussion at the evening show, or the past 2 discussions at private colleges. Those latter were mostly zero discussion, no controversy. Boring. Last night at Brevard College not quite that, a series of probing questions after we emerged from what might have been stunned silence following the show. Very quiet. An elder with a heavy British accent said, I think we need silence. We’re shocked.

Har Homa Israeli settlement (or colony)

Ending with Rachel Corrie’s martyrdom does not generate vociferous audience applause.

It did however lead last night to a discussion about martyrdom. This was a result of an observation about how we malign Islam in the West, distorting its principles. I offered a case study: martyrdom. We claim the 911 attackers believed they’d go to paradise and have easy access to virgins. True or not they were willing to give their lives for their ideals.

We dismiss this. And forget that early Christian tradition is replete with martyrs—and possibly with equally implausible expectations. Also Jewish resistance to Roman occupation. Also the Quaker tradition with the Valiant Sixty. Martin and Malcolm were shaheed, martyrs, as were the Kennedy brothers.

I wish not to myself readily dismiss criticism like that at the elder show. And I admitted: by being so strong with my positions I might alienate some audiences, turn them off. Horrible. I only wish to be faithful to the truths I’ve discovered.

Second Shepherds’ Field

Roman Catholic version of Shepherds’ Fields

Beneath the ruins

Contemporary Roman Catholic church

At Brevard, tho a college, among the group of some 20, only 2 students showed up. One darted out during the history section, then lingered to peer thru the window of the door. He entered once more, sat for about 5 minutes, fled. The other, a pudgy fellow with a sweet but uncomely face, unable to look me in the eye (autistic?), said he is from Syria, of mixed parentage. He is angry at how distorted Islam and Arabic culture are in the West. He offered that so few students attended the presentation because of the short notice and “most don’t care.”

And so it is, and so it was, and so it will be.

I reside with Phyllis S divorced 20 yrs ago, not remarried or partnered, her ex dying 2 years ago, no relations with him. We agreed that the single life offers much. She’s been in this home in the retirement community for some 6 years, knows everyone, and referred several times yesterday to how transient the population is. This has to be one of the core experiences of living in such a community: coming and going, the ultimate going.

She and David are part of the local Quaker community. Apparently some were at the afternoon show yesterday. And they with the Greenville Quaker community were able to pull together hospitality for me tonight—back to Greenville. The Brevard Quakers, mostly David, on very short notice, organized yesterday’s 2 shows. The Quakers meet at College Walk retirement community. Such is the power of community.

David B is an appealing character, forthright, honest, impassioned, confused. He is reeling from a recent separation. His wife took their 2-year-old daughter to live in LA. He is working with something called Brainscape, a technology whose founder claims to solve brain related problems, such as depression, and—thinking of M, asking him specifically about her problem—insomnia. With this technique he assesses brain patterns, inserts the findings into a computer program which outputs music of certain patterns. Music is the healing agent. I asked, Any clinical studies?

In the works. Some 10,000 people have experienced the technology, many of them partially or whole healed.

Beit Sahour, a section of Bethlehem

Bethlehem

I feel a cold coming on, thru my throat. I owe M a letter for a change, and today might be the day.

Bethlehem at night

After breakfast at the Breakfast Skillet, known for its early morning cuisine, sharing it with Ann and Jason, my host at Converse College, he drove me for 2 hours to my next stop, Spartanburg. We discussed his work at Converse as campus minister, who he counsels and what problems they bring. He concentrates on problems of the spirit, belief, faith. So we discussed how we learn faith. I told him my story about the Middle Passage pilgrimage—coming to faith the long way.

I’d surveyed the student center where his office is. And where my Gaza exhibit hangs, along a hallway, usually devoted to student work—about 20 photos, proudly living there for 2 weeks. I’ll make sure friends in Gaza know about this. The girl in hospital, who smiled so delicately at me, is among the community at the college. Is she alive, is she ill, is she home?

—February 7, 2009, Saturday, Brevard, NC

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