Nigel accused me of being a bleeding heart, knee-jerk liberal.
Perhaps I am, perhaps not. It still doesn’t change the fact that my
back hurts.
"Why did I try to carry that kid?" [Photo right, resting my
back] That is the question which I keep asking (and to which Nigel gave
the above answer). The kid–maybe 15 or 16–was almost throwing up, but
he clearly had the presence of mind to roll over on his side. Perhaps I
should have taken that as a sign that he just needed a few minutes to
recover. But he was writhing there on the ground, and the scent of gas
in the room was palpable.
So I yelled upstairs to the shabab (men between 14 and 44) to
come down, to help me, there is an injured kid. Finally, one of them
came down, informed me that the kid didn’t need an ambulance, but that
we should try and get him upstairs and closer to some fresh air. So I
grabbed his legs, the other fellow grabbed his shirt, and we carried
him up this narrow, unfinished staircase. The kid was a bit on the
chubby side and I strained my back so bad that I couldn’t walk right
for hours.
I keep telling myself, no, Michael, you were being a nice guy,
you were genuinely worried, but part of me wonders whether I just
wanted to carry an injured Palestinian youth like I’d seen on TV (you
know, Americans, too much TV, imitating TV, that kinda thing). Just for
the full "Palestinian Experience."
Yesterday was definitely a part of the "Palestinian
experience." The day before, Birzeit University student leaders had
decided to head down to the nearest Israeli checkpoint between Ramallah
and Jerusalem and throw stones at Israeli soldiers. Of course the
decision was made to leave at 9:00 a.m.–an unreasonably early hour for
college students in any country–so they really meant 10 a.m., and by
1:30 p.m., most of the University was still chatting and laughing on
the quads, soaking in the warm spring sun.
With weather like that, I reasoned that they wouldn’t want to
ruin the day with tear gas and ambulances. I’m not a very good judge of
resolve, though, and the decision to leave was made and carried out
while I was shaving back home. It was catch up ball then. I missed them
by no more than ten minutes, grabbed a cab to Ramallah, thinking the
protest would take place at the Surda bypass road like the first
Ramallah area protest I went to. But not a creature was stirring at the
interesection, not one lonely shab, so I took the
cab the rest of the way to Ramallah, and grabbed another one to
Jerusalem. The trip wasn’t that interesting, so I won’t prolong it. The
PNA was redirecting traffic, so our cabbie took back roads that met up
with the Jerusalem road near the airport–a mile or two further south
than I wanted to be. I got out right in front of two Israeli army
jeeps, greeted the soldiers with a "How ya dowin," crossed the street,
and grabbed another cab back north. A minute later, I was there.
The first few minutes were the most adrenaline producing of the day. At the outset, Palestinian police were aggressively trying to keep the
students from passing their hastily constructed lines, but their efforts were, for the most part, unsuccesful. Their efforts were hindered by both
logistics and culture. First, the departure of the students was made in less than half-an-hour, leaving the PNA almost no time to prepare an
effective blockade. Secondly, the all-male Palestinian police force was loath to touch any of the young women heading to the protest, and
while they were trying to convince the women to turn back, the men would sprint through their lines.
Several times, PNA police yelled to me "IRJA’! IRJA’! YALLA!" (go back, go back, GO!), but I always responded "Sorry?," feigning ignorance
of the language. This was usually sufficient to make them go away, but once I encountered a fellow who knew enough English to ask
"PRESS CARD! PRESS CARD!" and when I only produced a passport, he yelled, "NO PICTURES! LEAVE! GO!"
Beyond the haphazard PNA road block, Birzeit students were rapidly defining the landscape of the protest, piling dumpsters and large,
unidentified metal objects into a makeshift barricade. Then I witnessed a cheezy, cliched moment–one student had, with the help of some friends, shimmied up the post of an street sign (all in Hebrew,
warning Israelis that they were entering Area A or PNA territory) and planted a Palestinian flag at the top.
Moments later, Israeli troops arrived and pushed us back with few tear gas canisters (I got a nice full blast when I had to run through a cloud of it).
In an ironic bow to history, Israeli troops had occupied the makeshift barricade no more than five minutes after the Palestinian flag was planted.
The location the students had selected was really stupid. The street was located in a narrow valley with steep hills on either side. It was territory
more befitting an ambush than a clash. There was only one direction you could run to, and the wind just pushed the tear gas up the street. Israeli soldiers rapidly took control of the hillsides, gaining positions which virtually surrounded the forward point of the protest.
At one point, soldiers occupied positions on the roofs of building directly above the protesters. This was the only time that Palestinian youths
were close enough to hit the soldiers with stones–just try throwing a rock onto the roof of a three story house. Not hard. This was also one of the
few amusing moments of the whole day. One Israeli soldier stood up on the roof and held his hand up, palm forward, with his middle finger perpendicular
to his palm and his fingers (signifying a man’s genitals), and waved it at the protesters below. The word in Arabic that goes with this gesture is "Khuud"
(take this) and is equivalent to "giving someone the finger" in the States.
The soldiers retreated from this position shortly, and the protest–with one abortive attempt by the PNA to break it up–settled down to
rocks, tear gas, so-called "rubber" bullets, ambulances carrying off the injured every five or ten minutes, and foreign journalists in flak jackets
and construction helmets conveying dramatic reports over their cell phones.
I should mention that back pain was not the only injury I suffered at the protest. I got hit by a rubber bullet. Really! I swear to God! (OK,
fine, so it was just bouncing along on the ground and smacked against my pant leg. Be that way). I jumped up in surprise and whipped my
head around to see what had so aggresively and violently shaken the hem of my pants. There were a few Palestinians standing behind me,
and I started to grin sheepishly when I saw them doubled over in laughter at my stunned reaction.
It should be mentioned that the term "rubber bullet" is a bit of a misnomer. More accurately, these bullets are marble sized balls of steel
or aluminum covered with a very thin, hard-plastic sheath.
The protest lasted until the sun set, and then with a last few wistful tear gas encouragements from the Israeli soldiers, everyone just started heading home.