2004_04_07-18


When I left the checkpoint and walked along the empty street
(empty partly because it was Friday, the Muslim weekly holiday,
and partly because most shops have been shut down by the army)
I came closer to the Jewish area, indicated by signs like these:

"Negotiations and "the Political Horizon" are the causes for the bloodshed.
May the year of "the one who comes to kill you" end
and the year of "be you the one who kills him first" begin."

Palestinians leave Hebron by the ten-thousands, The pretty house next to the inscription "Gas the Arabs" is deserted. Down on the Shuhada Street I asked the woman in the doorway: "Do you live here?" "Yes, but all the shops were closed by the army." Again, ugly graffitis everywhere, accompanied by Stars of David. .

This is one of many checkpoints which close off the H-1 zone. I am not allowed to enter. I do enter .the "Jewish part" of the Patriarchs' Tomb (ma'arat ha-makhpelah).

Security barriers everywhere, a soldier sleeping, other soldiers ask for my I.D.- check it, pass it on, are suspicious, discuss me, let me go..   I walk around to the entrance for Muslims. The Friday service is over, but I am not allowed in "for your own safety", I'm told.

Ester L. waves to me from beyond a checkpoint. I want to join her: "You are not allowed to meet her there". I walk around and around until I reach another checkpoint. Two men have to identify, to lift their coats above the heads. I say I only want to visit a certain organization. "I have a German passport, though not right now with me." After several phone-talks condacted by the nice soldier I'm allowed in. "How can you do this job?" I ask the soldier. He shrugged: "I've been doing this for 3 years now."

I manage to see the "Abraham Our Father" neighborhood. The Jewish settlers live above this market-road. They keep throwing garbage on their cousins. For isn't Abraham believed to be the father of both of us? A net was stretched , it holds the garbage above the heads.

closed closed closed

It is April 14 now, and soon the battery of my computer will run out, as it does all the time.
I have worked on this composition for 7 days, while training the first dreamer trainee on "Noah's Shore".
On one of these days I found the Israeli Minister of Tourism in the hot sulphur spring of "Noah's Shore".
He "belongs" to the extreme Right.
Still, we made a fine connection, and my prejudices were shattered.
We met several times and I'm hoping for a fruitful cooperation.
Because of this hope I felt even more concerned about making this page convey my message:
I am not blaming!
who am I - the daughter of the murdering nation - to blame the children of the murdered?
But I am screaming, shouting, yelling :

"Give up your defensiveness, your artificial, exterior armour!
Become what you are meant to be;
Ya'acov who turned his enemy into his brother!"

This triangle stone on the alternative path from Cortuba's school comforts me.