Topic: Great injustice being done to Palestinians

topic by
Someone
11/28/2001 (10:00)

Great injustice being done to Palestinians

By Virginia Quirke

AL KHALIL: By mid-morning the young schoolgirls in blue and white striped pinafores have finished school for the day. They congregate in the hallway and wait for a teacher to escort them the short journey home. As one of the teachers at thisgirls' school here, Darren Irvine's job has come to include guiding groups of 6-14 year-olds safely past the harassment they often receive from Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers along the street.

The group's first encounter begins right outside the school gate where an armed soldier sits in the shade of his guard post accompanied by a handful of pre-school Jewish toddlers. The arrival of the Palestinian school goers prompts the bored youth to launch an onslaught of name calling and hissing. Further along the street, soldiers stationed on a nearby rooftop seized from Palestinians, train their binoculars on the trail of girls below. One soldier lets out a piercing wolf whistle to the delight of his friends. 'This is part of the daily harassment outsiders rarely see,' Irvine sighs.

The 35-year-old Irish man went to Al Khalil last August to teach English. But after witnessing too many scenes of what he calls 'great injustice' he decided to look for a way to bear testimony to what it is to be a Palestinian living in Al Khalil - a city bitterly divided between Palestinians and Jewish settlers.

The Palestinians' lot is not properly represented in the media, Irvine charges, so he decided to advance people's awareness himself by keeping a 'video diary'. 'I want to carry a message of what it is like to live under military occupation. I want to give these Palestinian kids a voice.'

Children tell him how they are afraid of the Jews and in class they write about the soldiers who have taken over the rooftops of their houses and urinate over the side. They tell him about the Israeli youngsters who sit beside soldiers at guard posts and demand to see their identity cards. Ayah, a 16-year-old pupil, says she is unable to sleep at night because of 'the voice of the Israeli helicopter', which hovers above her house.

This city is a cauldron of religious fervour and enmity. It is the only city in the occupied territories where the Israeli military still exercises direct daily control over a substantial part of the population and is frequently the flashpoint for violence between the 400 militant Jewish settlers who live in heavily guarded enclaves, surrounded by 120,000 Palestinians.

The Palestinian residents here are frequently subject to a total curfew in order to protect the lives and well being of the settlers. The beginning or end of the curfew is heralded through a megaphone by soldiers driving around in jeeps.

The schools attended by thousands of Palestinian children are often closed down, their pupils instead becoming prisoners in their own crowded homes - while the children of their Jewish neighbours are free to stroll around in the street with Israeli soldiers stationed there to protect them.

Irvine teaches at the Qurduba School. On a good day 160 children between the ages of 4-16 make it to school for a class that lasts under 45 minutes. 'This is hardly enough to educate our children,' says school director Faisal Abu Hakal, 'but you never know when a curfew will begin or end, so the kids need to get home early.'

At the lacklustre government ministry, director of civil affairs Jamal Nofal has dozens of files bulging with official records of 'daily incidents in Al Khalil'.

The most recent statement came from a young Palestinian boy who was slapped in the face by a soldier, for no apparent reason, he said, while walking to school. All this information is diligently relayed to the Israeli district coordinating officer here in the hope that soldiers might be reprimanded for their behaviour or the movement of school goers and teachers might be facilitated during times of curfew. But nothing has changed. 'These are the repercussions of occupation,' Irvine says.

So by keeping a video diary, Irvine hopes to relay the message that peace in the region is not possible until military occupation ends. He rejects the notion that the Jewish settlers live through the same daily struggle as Palestinians. 'Sure, they live in fear, but unlike the Palestinians, they are free to go wherever they want, whenever they want. They don't live with the same nightmares as Palestinians,' he says. 'Regrettably, most people don't realize this yet.'

reply by
Barb
12/1/2001 (21:42)

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Neither Jews or Arabs OWN the 'right' to occupy Israel. We are all leasing this earth while we're here. Frankly, I think the earth belongs to animals, not humans. All humans do is muck it up, dirty it, pollute it, fight, etc.