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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Strict Curfew Crushes the People of Tulkarem
Wednesday 28 August @ 09:54:43 |
 by Kristin Razowsky
Tulkarem is located in the Northern section of the West Bank, Palestine. The city population equals roughly 60,000 people with 45 surrounding villages swelling the population to 150,000. There is one refugee camp located on the edge of Tulkarem totaling approximately 17,000 people. To the west, Tulkarem stretches as far as the line which has been the West Bank’s border with Israel since 1967. Israeli settlements are slowly creeping around Tulkarem, and there is one main checkpoint in and out of the city. Tulakrem has been under heavy military occupation for roughly the past two years. Two months ago a 24-hour-a-day curfew was imposed.
My name is Kristin Razowsky, known to my friends as flo. I am a resident of Minneapolis, Minnesota. I have been in Tulkarem for the past 10 days as a means of witnessing and helping to educate people in the United States to the reality in Occupied Palestine. What I have seen, the stories I have heard, the reality of this so-called life saddens me beyond belief.
The curfew that exists within Tulkarem is continuous. Theoretically six days a week, the curfew is imposed 24 hours a day. In theory, one day a week the curfew is lifted for four to six hours. But in practice, it is often extended longer then six days. Sometimes the soldiers enter the city during a period of lifted curfew, begin shooting and immediately shut the curfew down.
Life under curfew is basically house arrest. No one is allowed to exit their homes lest they face beatings and/or arrest. Some people have not been to their homes in months because they were trapped in transit while visiting relatives or friends when the curfew began. No two places have a lifted curfew at the same time, making travel between two towns impossible.
Children cannot go to school. During the spring, final exams took 42 days to complete due to sporadic ability to open the school. Now school is due to open in one week, but most students are not optimistic that they will be allowed to attend. Children are not allowed outdoors to play and adults are not allowed out to work. This city of 60,000 has become a ghost town inhabited by souls behind shut doors and shuttered windows. It is very eerie to know there are people out there day and night but they are unreachable, sitting, waiting.
This is a life lived under complete control of an occupying force. The reasons? Terrorism. The reality? People. Normal everyday people, no different then any of us, wanting only normal lives, but instead being forced to live a life of resistance. The U.S. media paints a picture of people that want no peace, a people that are forcing Israel to defend herself.
The reality I see here is the opposite. This is a reality that wants only peace, that is willing to negotiate, willing to take less then what was theirs, and this body of Israel that depicts itself as desirous of peace, day in and day out continues to expand, swell herself to take more and more and push the occupied people further and further into a corner.
What else could a people do but resist, attempting to hang onto some sort of life. It is interesting, common and sickening to me to hear of CNN reports about Israel making steps towards peace by pulling out of Bethlehem on the very same day that the Israeli Defense Forces raided the refugee camp four blocks from where I stay—at 3 a.m. attacking the camp with Apache Helicopters, and Armored tanks, back up by APCs, jeeps, and soldiers with semi-automatics and grenades. At 3 a.m. in the morning, everyone, women, men and children, were ordered out of their houses and into the streets, so that house-to-house searches could be conducted. Several houses were searched twice, once in the morning, once later in the day. Forty-nine men were arrested, handcuffed and blindfolded, and taken to the local IDF station. At the station, the men were photographed and documented, some beaten and then released midday into an area with a strict curfew. One man was murdered and many were injured. A basketball court was shelled. Later that night after the soldiers had pulled out, two tanks returned, stationed themselves at the entrance of the camp and shelled into the camp for about 10 minutes. Nothing more than an announcement of their presence. It is common here for the tanks that patrol the city to fire unprovoked simply to say they are here and in control.
I sit with the friends I have made here and talk of life, of the world, of this occupation. I look into their eyes, hear their words and glimpse their reality.
These are the people we are told are terrorists, the people that are being collectively punished, brutalized for the actions of individuals who have chosen to face violence with violence. In these conversations, in these meetings with families who have lost sons and brothers, I know these people are not terrorists. The fact that Israeli women and children have been killed because of this conflict saddens me, but what also of the Palestinian women and children that have been murdered by the IDF. The children whose games consist of mock funerals and playing soldier arresting the terrorist.
Everywhere I go in Palestine, as soon as people find out that I live in America, they ask me to do something to stop the American backing of this Israeli crusade. I do not believe that the government that supposedly represents us will come to their senses as far as using their super power status for good, so it is up to us. Somehow we need to figure out the answers to stop these crimes, because people are dying, losing their homes, their hopes and we the citizens of the mighty United States are paying for it. Educate yourselves, divest, travel to Palestine and see for yourself, attend speaking forums. Do something.
My name is Kristin Razowsky, my friends call me flo. I am an American born Jew of Russian ancestry. I love who I am, am confident and comfortable within myself, my heritage being a part of that. I do not see what I see because I am a self-hating Jew, as some would suggest. I learn what I do with an open heart and mind and the teachings of my family history to guide me. I do not normally wish to box myself in with labels and titles, but I think with this issue in particular it is of vital importance for me to walk this land as a Jew that supports this Palestinian resistance, to attempt in all of this madness to create some sort of balance within the dynamics of this world.
Please take this feeble attempt of mine to convey this situation, and put it in your heart, open yourself, and imagine for just a minute of the reality here. It is hard for me and I apologize for not being able to adequately transfer this information to you, but I hope this is a glimmering that will grow. That all of our educations will blossom together.
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