In keeping with the spirit of Hannah's blog this week, and with the video we made about Rema Khawaja and the Ni'lin Women's Demonstration, I have decided to focus this blog on women workers, and to give you some insights about gender and the labor market here.

One of the things I respect so much about DWRC is their dedication to gender equity. DWRC places a special emphasis on building and recruiting women's leadership at all levels of the labor movement, but especially at the top levels of union organizing, which is where the majority of decisions effecting women workers would be made. DWRC also holds regular training sessions for trade unions where women's participation must be at least 30%. Additionally, DWRC encourages women to speak out at training seminars, and holds special classes to educate women workers about their rights, so that they can be more effective and confident when addressing conflicts in the workplace.

Traditionally, trade unions are dominated by men, but DWRC is doing great work to challenge this space. Even the most progressive and socially conscious trade unions world-wide still operate under a pretense of collective fraternity and brotherhood. It's hard to change this, and while one can argue that this is just an issue of semantics, the language alone still marks a distinct order that women do not belong to, and whether it is intentional or not, the language creates an immediate space that is inaccessible to women.

Of course, it is so much more complicated than language alone. Access to equality for women in the workplace is not just about the words we choose to describe a collection of workers, its not just about the language of the legislation that does or does not protect women's rights. Usually, it is more about what is unwritten and what is unsaid. It is about a social structure that exists world-wide where women are not raised to be leaders, where they are not encouraged to speak up and speak out, where they are not encouraged to be decision makers.

This problem is not specific to Palestine, but throughout the Arab region we in the West tend to have a negative view of the possibility for women's leadership to occur here, we project our own concept of freedom and rights and from this view we assume that women here have no choices, no opportunities.

In some ways this is too true; but there are not a lot of choices or opportunities for Palestinians in general, and so of course this will negatively effect choices and opportunities for women and girls.

But this is also completely contrary to what I see here, because here in Palestine I see a real opportunity for women's leadership to emerge. Conflict creates the space for change, it creates a context where new ideas and movements emerge, where new norms can be born, and can be embraced.

In Palestine more and more women are working as a result of the occupation. The Israeli crackdown on work permits for Palestinians, coupled with the rising consumer price index (in Palestine, prices of basic goods rose over 10% from 2007 to 2008) and high levels of chronic underemployment have forced more and more women to go out and work. True, the majority of these women are working in agriculture or in the informal sector, but the point is they are working, which provides the perfect opportunity to organize them.

Moreover, when a woman works to contribute to her household's needs, there is an opportunity for her to become a more active decision maker in her family's future, there is a form of empowerment, of equality taking place, even if it so small that we don't immediately recognize it, it exists and it is something that can grow, that can evolve.

For herself, she may not have the opportunity to go back to school, she may not have the life that she wanted, that she would have choose for herself, but she may encourage her daughters to have their own life, she may think twice about the opportunities they can have, and as a contributor to the family's income, she might feel more comfortable speaking up when it comes to the future of her own daughters.

And for her sons, without consciously trying, she is already showing them the importance of women's work. Something may change in them, in her sons, something can change that will effect their future decisions about how they treat and respect their own wife, their own daughters, and what kind of future they would want them to have.

But, of course, I am being optimistic, of course, there are still problems.

Women in Palestine already make the majority of university graduates, but women's participation in the formal labor force is just 14%.

Rising levels of unemployment and poverty (compounded by policies of occupation) are the primary culprits. World-wide in times of recession women are the first fired and last hired, and Palestine is no exception.

Working women here also face the same discrimination that working women everywhere face, and I will be the first to admit that here, this discrimination is compounded by cultural barriers that keep women close to their family home.

If a woman lives in Ramallah, then there are many local opportunities for her to engage in professional work, but if she lives in Nablus or Jenin, she would have to travel two, maybe three hours one way to Ramallah, she would have to pass through at least two checkpoints where she may be physically or verbally abused by Israeli soldiers, and she would probably spend a long time each day just sitting at the side of the road, waiting for the approval to let the bus she is traveling in go.

Beyond the cultural norms regarding women working outside the home, most families don't want their daughters exposed to this kind of emotional and psychological violence, and I can't say I blame them.

But on top of this, there are also structural restrictions regarding women's work, which stem from the institutionalization of cultural norms. Article 101 of Section 7 of the Palestinian Labor Law prohibits women from performing "hazardous or hard works."

Article 101 of Section 7 also prohibits women from working at night, or working overtime hours during any stage of a pregnancy. Although article 103 and 104 of Section 7 guarantee women a ten-week, fully paid maternity leave, and provide further protection against any dismissal based on this leave, women in the Palestinian private sector routinely complain about being arbitrarily dismissed once they have announced a pregnancy, and there have been studies conducted confirming their complaints in the private Palestinian banking sector.

And like almost everywhere else in the world, working women in Palestine receive a lower wage for the same work done. On average, women working in the West Bank make only 65% of their male counterparts salary. But in Gaza, women make 77% of their male counterparts salary. Why? Because Hamas has actually embraced an equal pay for equal work scheme, and has actively recruited women to work in all sorts of public sectors, including as police officers.

Of course, the situation of women and of women's rights and freedoms is complicated here, and cannot be measured in terms of equal pay, nor should it be measured just by women's participation rates in the workforce. There are mechanisms and motives behind every action regarding the rights of women and women's work here, in Gaza and in the West Bank, from Fatah to Hamas.

What we should keep in mind is at the end of the day whatever work women do here they should be contributing to the decision to do it. They should be encouraged to be leaders whether in the office or in the home, to contribute intellectually to the work they do, their opinions should matter, they should be listened to, and their contributions should be respected equally.

Can this happen in Palestine? I believe it can and in my office here in Palestine it already does happen. But beyond this, on a wider-scale I see a space for respect and collaboration between men and women to evolve.

And I think that on some level these kinds of relationships, the collaboration between men and women here, the level of respect between men and women here has always existed. It may at first appear as if there are vast cultural norms that cut equality short, and in some respects I agree, but I also think that equality may just be operating on a different level then it does at home, and we can't expect things to be exactly the same.

Already, in the time I have been here, I have met incredible women from all walks of Palestinian life. Women who are true leaders, who raise their children to be leaders. Women who are speaking up and speaking out about all kinds of issues, women who are not afraid to tell you what they think, and who are telling you what women here really want, which is sometimes incredibly different from what I, as a woman, want.

***To get the true feeling of Palestinian women at work, please watch the videos Hannah and I made about the women's demonstration in Ni'lin

Yesterday morning Yousef Amira, the 17 year old from Ni'lin who was shot twice in the head with rubber coated steel bullets died in the hospital in Ramallah.

Yousef was shot by Israeli soldiers during the funeral of ten year old Ahmad Musa.

Its hard to figure out what to say, its hard to describe what Ni'lin has lost this past week.

Yes, they have lost two young boys, but is that all, is this all they have lost?

It may be the most important thing they have lost, it may be the most precious thing they have lost, but the loss in Ni'lin is so much greater than this. The loss is compounded by the loss of land, the loss of jobs, the loss of freedom, the loss of rights.

In the international community we spend a lot of time talking about rights, we talk about basic human rights, we talk about a rights based approach to development, we talk about securing human rights, about giving dignity to all. We spend a lot of money to be educated about these things, but everything you really need to learn about rights you can learn in Ni'lin.

In Ni'lin, people have lost their rights. They have no right to stand up to say that Israel cannot build a wall on their land. They have no right to stand up and say they refuse to have the only entrance to their village be through an Israeli-controlled tunnel, they have no right to stand up and say they refuse the economic degradation that the wall and the tunnel will impose on them, that they refuse to lose their jobs because they will be unable to get to work, that they refuse to lose a sense of security for their children, their children who they love with all their hearts.

They have lost their rights, and yet they are refusing to accept this loss, they are refusing the Israeli bulldozers that work on their land, refusing the soldiers that occupy their village, that shoot their kids, and over what? Over the loss of their rights.

And for their part, their children refuse to just sit and watch as their future disappears, as their land disappears, as the life that they know, the only life that they know, the life that they love, their life on the land of Ni'lin is taken from them.

They have no right to say anything. They have no right to go to demonstrate, to show the world what they are losing, and now to demonstrate means to risk losing your life.

These rights are worth fighting for, so for all of us who believe in rights, why aren't we doing more to protect the rights of the people in Ni'lin?

If we believe ourselves to be a part of an international community dedicated to promoting rights, then why aren't we doing more to protect these rights?

All I know is right now, there is almost no one protecting the rights of the people of Ni'lin.

At Yousef's funeral procession from Ramallah to Ni'lin the Palestinian Authority closed the road from the hospital in Ramallah to Ni'lin, holding up the funeral procession for 2 hours.

I thought the PA was supposed to help protect the rights of Palestinians, but it appears that in Ni'lin, they don't even have the right to bury their children.

The PA claimed the roadblock was to prevent Hamas supporters from attending the funeral in Ni'lin, and arrested five people because they were carrying Hamas flags.

But the PA also refused to permit anyone at the roadblock to take pictures or video, and I was harassed by a PA security agent who demanded that I give him my SD card and video tape.

"No," I told him, "I don't have to."

"Show me what you have on your camera," he insisted.

"I don't have to," I told him again, "You told me to turn off the camera and I did, khalas," I said.

"You don't have the right to speak to me in that tone," he replied.

This is all getting too crazy for me, now none of us have rights, and I can't even keep track of which rights we are all losing.

I have been going to Ni'lin for two months, and as intense as things have been there I have never once, not once, been told by the Israeli Army to hand over a tape, or even turn off my camera for that matter.

True, the Israeli Army once shot Hindi's cousin Ahmad in the hand with a rubber bullet, aimed for the video camera (which he was using at the time) but they have never come up to us and told us we don't have the right to film.

But the PA, the PA who is supposed to be the voice of a democratic Palestine, the future of a free Palestine, wants me to hand over tapes of kids from Ni'lin sitting down in the road to protest the roadblock preventing them from burying the body of their brother, their cousin, their friend?

When did grief, when did loss, when did the death of two young boys become so ultimately political, and why?

Do rights politicize everything?

Why should it be this way? Why can't it be about what it is, the simple fact of what is right and what is wrong, the loss of two young lives, the loss of two kids, two innocent, unarmed kids.

When the funeral procession was finally allowed to move, the residents of Ni'lin were determined to show the world, or at least whoever was watching, what the loss means to them.

When we reached the entrance to the village the Israeli Army was waiting, armed with live ammunition, attack dogs, and an industrial strength water canon.

They had occupied two houses next to the village entrance, the smell of teargas was in the air.

But yesterday, nobody needed any help to cry. 6,000 men, women, and children walked past the army to bury a child in the land he was born in, in the land that belongs to him, in the land of Ni'lin.

I didn't go inside the cemetery. In so many ways it is too much for me to deal with, and like I said before when writing about Ahmad's death, these are not my kids. Although I know Ni'lin appreciates all the international support that came to share their loss, its still their loss, and I at least can give them that right.

And so I stood outside the gate, playing with the kids, hoping that their future will include some basic rights.

*****I just wanted to add that all of my thoughts on rights were ultimately inspired by Hindi and Viv, who gave me the following quote for an Advocacy Project press release last night: “Israel has been using excessive violence since the start of Ni’lin’s peaceful protests. Their violence has resulted in the death of 2 boys. These murders have left the village in shock and sadness, but we will not let it break us. We know we are standing up for a right cause, which is our land and our future. We are resisting one of many Israeli measures which are considered illegal under international law. Israel may have access to the use of violence, but we have the determination to stand up against their violations of basic human rights. This is what unifies the village and our peaceful struggle will not end until our rights are being met.”

You can read more interviews with Hindi by following the below links:

http://i2.democracynow.org/2008/8/1/israeli_troops_kill_two_palestinians_in

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9731.shtml

When I was writing my last blog it was 3 AM, Hindi had left for Ni'lin hours earlier and I had no updates.

I kept thinking to myself, what if it is a kid that I know, should I mention it could be a kid that I know, does it matter if it is a kid that I know, is it more effective, is it more real if it is a kid that I know?

Shouldn't we care just the same about any kid, every kid, whether we know them or not?

And still, as I added pictures one by one to my blog, clicking on each link and copying and pasting and uploading, an endless process it seemed, I kept thinking, what if it is this kid, what if it is this kid?

And so today it has been confirmed that it is this kid.

Already, it was one of my favorite kids, whether I knew him or not, all of these kids are my favorite kids, but now I can tell you that this kid, this kid, this is a kid that I know.

When I took these photos last Friday the army had blockaded the main entrance, again. We stood in the road, they fired teargas and rubber coated steel bullets at us.

"Yalla jheesh!" he yelled at me. "You yalla, jheesh" I yelled back.

He smiled at me and gave me the two finger V. Everyone stood there, in the road for a while, and finally we turned around to leave. He was sitting on the top of a brick wall, watching the army, I waved goodbye, and once again he gave me the V.

I was all set to write about the West Bank municipality strike which just took place here. Today I spent my day in Azzoun, interviewing municipal workers about their demands and meeting with union organizers. On the trip home to Ramallah, which is long and hot and extended by two unnecessary checkpoints, I thought all about what I was going to write, I had everything planned out in my head, but that's the problem in Palestine, nothing can ever be what you plan for, nothing can ever be what you want it to be.

When I got home Hindi told me a 10 year old boy was shot dead in Ni'lin. He told me the kid was shot in the head with live ammunition by an Israeli soldier. I don't know how to react to this. I don't know how to explain what I feel, and this is not my child, I can't even imagine, I can't even begin to comprehend what his own mother feels.

I read things here constantly that break my heart. I see things that make me want to pack up and go home. I have done hours upon hours of interviews where I can't even imagine the life the person talking to me has lived, even though they are sitting right next to me and I know it is all too true.

I try to stay focused on labor, on economics, on the rising consumer price index, I try to direct the interviews to social protection, but Palestinians have too many stories to tell.

There are so many stories, so many heartaches, so many problems, and there are only so many battles you can pick. How do you choose what means most to you when everything here is so inexplicably valuable?

For me, my battle is Ni'lin.

Ni'lin has my heart here, and although Ni'lin does align with my Advocacy Project plan for DWRC, the truth is I keep going back to Ni'lin because I am in love with those kids.

Palestine has a lot of cute kids, and one can argue that kids everywhere are cute, but the ones in Ni'lin, I don't know what else I can say about them, I don't know how I can describe them to you, I don't know how to tell you how they make me want to never leave Ni'lin.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about how to get funding for a long term project focused on the kids in Ni'lin. I have thought about getting every kid I meet in Ni'lin to tell me a story. I have thought about asking every kid in Ni'lin what they want. I have thought about building a youth center in Ni'lin where every kid can have access to internet, blogs, and video cameras. I have thought about just letting them show me what they see, letting the world see what they see, letting the world see that soon enough, if the construction of the wall does not stop that these kids in Ni'lin won't see what they see, that what they see will be forever altered, that it will be forever changed.

I wonder if the wall will change them. I wonder if they will stop being what they are, if they will stop being who they are, or if it will make them more of what they are, more of who they are. I wonder how they can still be kids, how they can still find the time to laugh and play, how they find the energy to shout "hello! what is your name?" every time I encounter one I haven't had the pleasure to meet yet, and how the ones I have met all can remember who I am, and are as equally happy to see me as I am to see them.

I wonder where they get this from, where they could possibly find this happiness, this trust, this love, but then I guess it comes from Ni'lin. Even now, as the kids that they are, they know what they have. And even now, as the kids that they are, they are not willing to let it go.

These are kids that know what is happening, that know what they are losing, and that know what has already been lost.

There is no excuse for this death. There is no excuse for what is happening in Ni'lin. There is no excuse for this loss of a life that should be able to be described as barely having been lived.

But kids in Ni'lin have already lived lives that are beyond the years they hope they can continue to live, that I hope they can continue to live, beyond the years that one of them will no longer live.

Before the second intifada in 2000, there were 125,000 Palestinians working in Israel. This number reflects over 25% of the entire Palestinian workforce, which currently stands at 700,000.

In 2002, Israeli security concerns reduced the number of Palestinian work permits to 7,532, leaving over 110,000 Palestinians unemployed. Since 2002, the number of work permits issued has depended on the political climate and have gone up and down, though never returning to the natural rate of employment before the intifada. For example, in 2004 the Israeli government issued 33,386 work permits to Palestinians employed in Israel, Israeli controlled industrial zones, and the Israeli settlements, but this number has recently dropped again.

Official estimates for 2008 are not available, but DWRC estimates that it is less than 20,000. Meanwhile, in 2008, Israel granted over 2,000 work permits to Eritrean immigrants alone. On top of this, Palestinians are subjected to special criteria for work permit eligibility. Palestinian men seeking an Israeli work permit need to be aged 35 or over, and must be married with children. No other nationality is subject to these restrictions.

The problem of work permits for Palestinians is exceptionally complicated. On the one hand, Palestinians need to stop relying on the Israeli labor market. But in order to do this, Palestine needs both private and public sector growth, which is complicated by the restrictions on imports and exports. Domestic businesses in Palestine are only sustainable when they are local. Any Palestinian business that has several branches, one in Nablus, one in Gaza, one in Ramallah, and one in Bethlehem will face extraordinary logistical difficulties in both the movement of goods and the movement of their workers. Any company involved in imports and exports will have to be able to incur higher costs, as imports and exports are taxed twice, once by Palestine, once by Israel, thus cutting into profits.

So while I want to see Palestinians less dependent on the Israeli labor market, I realize that it is impossible to break the cycle of dependency until policies hindering the Palestinian economy change. And further complicating the domestic labor market is the fact that Israel needs Palestinian labor. Just last year, the Israeli Association of Contractors and Builders lobbied to increase the number of Palestinian construction workers who have permits to work in Israel by 10,000. They claimed that 5,000 additional workers were needed immediately in order to meet the demand of the Israeli construction boom.

Ironically, the majority of these Palestinian workers would be involved in building the illegal Israeli settlements that are crossing over the green line, taking the land of their families and friends. This is exceptionally problematic, but for many Palestinians there is no choice to be made. The choice to work in the settlements comes in the form of choosing whether to meet your family's immediate needs, or prolong their suffering. And when I say prolong their suffering I mean that regardless of whether Palestinians take these jobs in the settlements, the settlements will continue to expand. There is no shortage of immigrant labor in Israel. And at this time, there appears to be no reflection on behalf of the Israeli government regarding the international stop work orders issued for the settlements that encroach on the green line.

Moreover, the restrictions on work permits have created a real insecurity for Palestinians, and I don't just mean in terms of the numbers that are being issued. Palestinians continue to work in Israel, permit or no permit, and Israeli employers continue to hire Palestinian workers, permits or no permits.

This past week a Swedish journalist visited DWRC to get background information for an article he is writing about Palestinians employed in Israeli construction. Its a particularly interesting topic, since construction employs most of the Palestinian workers in Israel. Many Palestinian construction workers who used to work in Israel are unemployed due to the restrictions on work permits. Many try to find local employment, but it doesn't pay as well and is harder to come by, leaving many workers chronically underemployed. To get a first hand account of what it is like for these workers, we arranged for the journalist to meet with 8 construction workers, half employed legally in Israel, half illegally.

For the legal workers, they complained about routine, on-the-job discrimination, which included receiving unequal pay for the same work as their Israeli counterpart, inadequate benefits, and uneven application of labor laws. For example, Palestinian laborers who work legally in Israel are subjected to Jordanian labor law, even though Palestine has issued its own labor law, and even though immigrant laborers in Israel (from China, Africa, India, and South East Asia) are protected by Israeli labor laws.

Legally employed Palestinian workers must pay Israeli social security taxes and Israeli union dues, even though they receive no social security benefits from Israel and receive no protection from the Histadrut, the Israeli union to which they pay dues. On average, union fees and social security taxes, which are automatically deducted from their monthly wage, equal 28% of their total monthly paycheck. Yet they will never receive these benefits, they will never receive the pension that they have paid into.

Moreover, two of the legally employed workers explained that in regards to Jordanian labor law, Israeli employers often pick and choose what sections of the law they want to apply. Under Jordanian labor law, Friday is the mandatory day off from work, as it is a holy day, but both workers explained that they were expected to work on Fridays, as Israeli labor law and Israeli employers don't recognize Friday as a holy day. One worker explained that to complain about working on Friday means to lose your job. But to make matters worse, he explained, losing your job can mean losing your permit, as your permit often ends with the contract for your work.

For the illegally employed workers, which are the majority in Israel, things are even worse. The four illegally employed construction workers described their daily trip to work: at 4 AM they arrive at a discreet place close to the Israeli border to meet the smuggler who takes them across the line to Israel. They pay the smuggler 50 NIS, a heavy price when they expect to make anywhere from 150 to 300 NIS that day. The smuggler has a van and they must wait until at least 20 workers show up for the trip, the van doesn't fit 20 workers, it only fits 10, but they pile in, one on top of the other. There are different smugglers every day, they tell us. Most of the smugglers are Israeli settlers who are routinely waved through the checkpoints due to their special license plates.

They prefer to go with the settlers because it is safer. The other smugglers have to take the back roads, and try to get the trip done as quickly as possible, so they drive 80 or 90 miles an hour on dangerously narrow, mountainous roads.

Once they make it to the Israeli side they make their way to their place of work, where they work for 12 hours, with no social protection, no work injury protection, no occupational health and safety standards, and no breaks. Construction has the highest incident of work injury in the world, and the illegally employed construction workers explained that many workers get injured at their jobs.

What happens to them? Their employers drive them back across the border and dump them on the Palestinian side. There might be a hospital less than 1 mile from their work site, but they can't go there, the employer cannot risk it and neither can the employee: they are illegal, they have no permission to be on Israeli soil.

Then there is the issue with the pay. Since they are illegal, they are technically day laborers, even if they have worked at the same place for years. They should get paid daily, they need to get paid daily, especially considering they are paying 100 NIS to the smuggler for their roundtrip commute. But too often the employer tells them tomorrow, tomorrow you will get paid.

Tomorrow might not come. The worker may not get to work, something could go wrong, the smuggler might not show up, the border might be closed, or the employer might be gone, along with the wage.

I asked the illegally employed workers if they had to go through the smuggler, if they might not just try walking along the porous sections of the border alone. Yes they said, many do this, but it is sometimes worse. The border police will shoot you. Just last week, they shot dead a 17 year old boy who was crossing to work. If you get caught with the smuggler, one man explained, you may get beaten, arrested, and detained, but at least you will still have your life.

This past week I took my first real trip to Jerusalem for a meeting with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation to discuss their support for DWRC and the independent labor movement within Palestine. At the end of August DWRC, with the help of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation, will be hosting representatives from the German Trade Unions to discuss strategic support for independent labor unions within Palestine.

The timing of my meeting was particularly interesting, as the International Labor Organization (ILO) had just released a report on The Situation of Workers in the Occupied Arab Territories. While the report was quite comprehensive in assessing the effects of occupation on the labor movement in Palestine, it lacked a critique of the labor movement itself, and failed to address the political alignment of labor unions within Palestine or the domestic difficulties independent labor unions in Palestine have encountered.

Last year, DWRC established the Federation of Independent Unions- Palestine (FIUP), the first independent labor coalition within Palestine. The goal of the FIUP is to increase the collective bargaining power of Palestinian workers by creating a coalition of labor unions that advocate solely for workers' rights. Because social security and social welfare legislation in Palestine is virtually non-existent, and because the trade unions that currently exist too often serve political rather than social purposes, there is a great need for the union services FIUP can provide. However, in Palestine, as I have too often observed, people have a hard time getting what they need.

Last year FIUP was denied the proper paperwork to establish itself as an independent union, including the documents necessary to establish a bank account, thus rendering its formation ineffective. Although the Palestinian Authority suggested that FIUP reapply for approval in the future, the Ministry of Labor indicated that they would not be approved until the PA passed a new labor law, which has seen no progress in the past year. To the best of my ability I expressed DWRC's frustration at the current standstill over FIUP's status, and how until the PA issued FIUP the documents it needs to establish a functioning union the independent labor movement remained tied by internal bureaucracy.

In Palestine everything, both internal and external, is an uphill battle. It's exceptionally frustrating at times, but it is nice to know that Palestinians aren't completely alone. The Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation assured me that they would do everything they could to advocate for the approval of FIUP, which, inshallah, will happen sometime soon.

Speaking of which, inshallah has become a permanent part of my vocabulary here. I think I used this term quite often when I was home and when I was in Arabic class, but it wasn't the same. I would say, inshallah I will not fail another Arabic quiz. Inshallah I will finish my wajib so I can go to bed before 3 A.M. Inshallah I will get a seat on the subway. Inshallah I will make it to econ recitation.

I don't think I really understood inshallah before I came here. So I will tell you some of the things I say inshallah for now.

My colleague at DWRC, Rula, who I was supposed to be working with shoulder-to-shoulder all summer was diagnosed, out of nowhere, with cancer. She was one of Eliza's favorite, most beloved co-workers at DWRC last summer. In fact, when Eliza first got to Palestine she stayed with Rula's family. Inshallah Rula will come back to work, but I know this won't happen.

And my favorite place in Palestine, quite possibly my favorite place on earth, has been living under a military curfew for over a week. Ni'lin has been completely occupied by the Israeli military. All the entrances have been sealed, people cannot leave the village to get to work, shopkeepers cannot open their shops, women cannot buy the necessities they need for the kids who melt my heart. You are not allowed to walk in the streets. Hindi has stayed at his family home in the village to shoot video for Al Jazeera International and network with international media, who have actually been fantastic at drawing attention to the severity of the situation in Ni'lin.

On Saturday my friend Emma and I were allowed entrance into Ni'lin, despite the military curfew. The villagers had planned a demonstration for Saturday at 6 P.M. They had planned to break the curfew to fly 200 Palestinian flags over the construction site of the wall. This never happened. I can't properly explain what did happen, so I won't even try. What I will say is that for a long period of time it didn't look like Emma and I would be leaving Ni'lin, but eventually we did leave and now I just hope we can still go back.

Inshallah, tomorrow a group of us from Ramallah will be allowed to enter the village to bring food relief and medical supplies. Inshallah the people of Ni'lin can have a normal life.

Please join the Ni'lin Village Facebook Group
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=18853218651

Read more about Ni'lin
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-palestinians-israel-barrier.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/07/2008769287944940.html

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=30351

View all my photos of Palestine
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27122280@N02/

I have received quite a few questions and comments from friends, family, and the Advocacy Project about the current ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, so I figure I will give you some insights into what appears to be all over the news in the U.S.

Palestinians in the West Bank are very concerned about the plight of people in Gaza. I hear this constantly. Whenever Gaza is mentioned it is always said "they suffer so much more than us." As I mentioned before, the suffering in Gaza is something that I can't even imagine. Even the worst things that I have seen thus far have no comparison. In Gaza, as I told you before, 700,000 people are currently unemployed. Gaza only has 1.5 million inhabitants, yet UNRWA estimates that 1.1 million of them are currently dependent on UN food aid. There are whole sections of Gaza that have been living without electricity or running water. Last week, my office in Ramallah had a conference call with our office in Gaza. When I asked my supervisor Raed how they were doing there he said, "In Gaza people laugh so they do not cry."

Life in the West Bank, life in Palestine in general, is hard. This was one of the first phrases I learned here: الحياة في فلسطين حقيقية

It means life in Palestine is real. In Gaza, life is beyond this. So in regards to the ceasefire, most people I talk to have hope that it means that people in Gaza will be able to live. That they will be able to eat, that their lights will come back on, that they will have water, that their kids can go back to school, that they can get gas for their cars so that they can get to work, that private sector employment will return, that imports and exports will resume.

But ceasefire or no ceasefire, Gaza, and the West Bank, are still Palestinian territories under military control. The future of Palestine is dependent on the goodwill of political entities who are no closer to negotiating a sustainable Palestinian state (with sustainable borders and a plan for freedom of movement both within the West Bank and between Gaza and the West Bank) and who have no comprehensive plans for addressing the needs of the 4,562,820 refugees who live in a constant state of longing
الرغبة في الرجوع
waiting to return to their home.

So in the West Bank, there is hope that the ceasefire will start to alleviate the immediate suffering of the people in Gaza, but life continues to be real. At the DWRC, we advocate for workers rights. We offer training courses and seminars to increase workers skills, we work on legislation to strengthen the social security system for Palestinian workers, we run emergency unemployment programs, we offer free legal aid, we work on legislation to protect the rights of women in the workplace, and design programs to encourage more women to enter the workforce. We build independent labor unions within Palestine, which is exceptionally important because here in Palestine most unions affiliate with political parties and serve political goals. We seek to protect the rights of Palestinian workers employed in Israel, who have to pay Israeli union dues although they receive no benefits from either the union or the Israeli state.

And we work on poverty eradication. This is the hardest part. How do you eliminate a problem over which you have no control? In Palestine, poverty comes from the outside. It comes from the checkpoints that prevent people from getting to work, it comes from the settlements and the wall that takes the farmers' land, it comes from the Israeli policies that control imports and exports, thus limiting private sector growth, from the policies that have recently limited the ability of Palestinians to get work permits in Israel, yet encourage the immigration of laborers from India, Eastern Europe, and South East Asia. To see the video we made and hear the voices of people suffering from these problems, please watch here:

This week I am working on a video project for the DWRC to be presented at the 8th Annual Civicus Assembly in Glasgow on June 21st. The theme of this year's assembly is People, Participation, and Power. Dr. Hamdi Khawaja, who will be representing DWRC at Civicus, asked me to help him prepare a presentation highlighting social movements in Palestine resisting poverty and unemployment.

We decided on a brief documentary video about Ni'lin, which is a topic near and dear to Dr. Hamdi's heart, since Ni'lin is his family village. As I have told you before, Ni'lin is also Hindi's (Eliza's old roommate) village. I have become quite attached to Ni'lin, not only because it is the place Hindi and Dr. Hamdi call home, not only because it has adopted one of the most innovative and momentous struggles against the effects of occupation, but also because Ni'lin has the cutest kids in the world. I have seriously never encountered this many adorable, funny, melt-your-heart kind of kids in one place. They all speak English better than I speak Arabic, they all want to talk to you, and will do almost anything to get your attention. Once they have your attention, they will attempt to impress you with their ability to read and write in English, ask you all about your life, where you live, why you are here, how long you are staying, and when you will come back to visit them. The whole time they never stop smiling and laughing. I could spend my whole summer just hanging out with the kids in Ni'lin.

Ni'lin organizes at least 2 weekly demonstrations against the building of the wall, which has already started despite legal appeals. Yesterday, the demonstration was set to start at 6:30, so Hindi and I planned to get there around 3:00 to interview people for the video project before heading to the demonstration. Dr. Hamdi had arranged 2 interviews for me, and Hindi had arranged 3 more, but we only had time to complete 2. Between playing with the kids and the endless cups of coffee and tea that their parents thrust on you, it is hard to stick to a strict schedule when in Ni'lin.

But we did manage to get an interview with Ayman Nafi, The Municpality President of Ni'lin. When the interview was over and the camera was turned off he turned to Hindi and spoke quickly in Arabic. When he was finished Hindi turned to me and said "He wants you to know that the people of Ni'lin count on people like you coming here to tell their story. He said we count on you because our own media is very weak and the international media that does come often depicts a bias towards Israel, it does not get our message heard. He said he wants you to know that we do not hate Americans, we do not hate anyone, we are only against the Israeli policies that have oppressed us and have threatened our standard of living. He says we are happy you are here and we need your support, we count on you, we need you to go home and help bring attention to our struggle."

It is indeed hard to imagine this struggle and understand what is at stake if you have never seen it with your own eyes. But really, the problem here is not so different from historical problems at home. I have been thinking a lot about the creation of cities and suburbs in the U.S., and how federal programs segregated public spaces, thus controlling how different populations of Americans lived. Inequalities are never accidental. It is no accident that in the 1950s American suburbs were lily-white, while African Americans were segregated and confined in inner cities separated by the construction of federal highways. It is no accident that white Americans became the primary recipients of modern wealth, through access to federally backed credit markets and home loans that black Americans were systematically denied access to. 60 years later, Americans are still challenging the ramifications of federal policies that separated how Americans live, the policies that have created vast inequalities in American life. The difference is the realization of rights. Today, 60 years later, Palestinians are still struggling for equal rights.

So visualize this, you walk up a dirt road lined with stones and cactuses. There are goats grazing, kids playing. As you walk further you can see the olive trees, they are exceptionally important to the economics of the village. Then you see a valley full of fertile land, a stream of water runs through the middle of the valley. The first time I was in Ni'lin I thought, oh what a nice little stream, until I was told it was raw sewage that runs from the settlement.

Straight across the valley you see the settlement. You know it is a settlement because it has McMansions with satellite dishes and paved roads. It is protected by a military post and you can see the tanks parked in the road. Through the zoom of my video camera, or if you have binoculars, you can see the settler kids playing on their lush green lawns. They have jungle gyms. The kids in Ni'lin are their neighbors, but they couldn't be further apart. Not unlike America in the 1950s, the settlements are a suburban oasis of privilege, and not unlike the white Americans who fought to keep the suburbs white, who believed that the suburbs belonged solely to them, Israeli federal policies of segregation have created a sense of settler entitlement.

But Ni'lin is determined to challenge this space. Lately, the demonstrations have been all about making noise for Ni'lin. Yesterday, in addition to flying Palestinian flags/kites over the settlement, people beat drums, blew kazoos, and used loudspeakers to make the settlers aware of the fact that wall or no wall, the people in Ni'lin are still their neighbors. Despite the presence of the Israeli military, it was mostly peaceful. The last time I was in Ni'lin, this wasn't the case. Although the villagers held another noise demo and remained non-violent, the Israeli Army fired at least twenty rounds of teargas. However, no one really left, and so the soldiers crossed the sewage, came up the hill, and eventually dispersed everyone by firing rubber bullets and bombarding non-violent noisemakers with twenty more rounds of teargas at close range. That night, while the people of Ni'lin slept, the Israeli Army drove through the village with an industrial noise machine from 2:00 AM to 4:30 AM. The next day, the Ni'lin Non-Violent Coordinating Committee got a letter from the settlers that if the villagers of Ni'lin did not stop bothering them with their noise demonstrations they could expect regular military incursions into the village of Ni'lin.

This is life under occupation. Ni'lin has drums, kites, and kazoos. The settlers have the Israeli army. If there is a more disproportionate situation, I cannot think of what it might be.

I have only been at work for a week and I already feel like I have done more than I do all semester (Arabic homework excluded). The DWRC is working on so many projects right now that there is very little time to bring me up to speed on everything. Rather, I have been thrust right in the middle of the Palestinian policy debate regarding occupation, economics, organizing, and labor rights.

My first day started out with assisting in the finalization of an open letter to be submitted to the UN High Level Conference on World Food Security. Dr. Hamdi, Coordinator of Legal Research at DWRC, is also the Director of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) in Palestine. In Palestine, food relief is not enough. Eradicating the food insecurity problem will only come through the change in the policies that have created it. Poverty and food insecurity in Palestine is not due to production. Palestinians are more than capable of taking care of themselves but are limited in their ability to achieve this because of the effects of living under occupation. Agricultural production and access to markets in Palestine is dependent on Israeli policies, and food insecurity stems from this systematic separation of Palestinians from their fertile land.

This past week, I attended two meetings the DWRC held with US based groups visiting Palestine to assess the situation on the ground and learn more about the contributions DWRC has made to eliminate unemployment, organize, and train the Palestinian work force. In both meetings, the groups were really shocked to hear how the standard of living, if you can even call it that, in Gaza has deteriorated. In the US, all our news about Gaza is politically motivated and doesn't properly explain the humanitarian crisis there.

The DWRC has an office in Gaza, but everyone in my office in Ramallah keeps telling me how our colleagues there have their hands tied. Many of our colleagues in Gaza are unable to get to work. Due to the Israeli closure of Gaza's borders, and the complete shut down of exports and imports, Gaza hasn't received a fuel shipment since April 2, 2008. My supervisor, Carine, told me that people are running their cars on cooking oil, which has serious environmental ramifications, and as a result you need to wear a mask or cover your mouth when you walk down a crowded road. In the past, DWRC has run emergency unemployment projects in Gaza, but because of the Israeli siege, the DWRC cannot properly plan or implement any projects in Gaza to organize unemployed workers or alleviate the suffering there. This past year, 95% of the private sector closed down due to the inability to import raw materials for manufacturing, and then export a finished good. In Gaza, 700,000 people have lost their jobs. Over 1 million are dependent on UN food relief.

Here in Ramallah, which can sometimes feel like a bubble, it is hard to imagine this. Ramallah is a bustling society with markets everywhere you turn. There are tons of construction sites and beautiful buildings and views and tons of people who are just as busy as me. When I get home from work, there are always elaborate dinner plans that include all of my roommates, their friends, and tons of conversation and laughter. There is also an abundance of laptops, digital cameras, and other electrical devices in our living room, and everyone is always confused about which electrical cord belongs to who.

Yesterday my roommate Anan bought me a baby bunny. On the corner by our house they sell rabbits for consumption, which shouldn't bother me at all, except for the fact that I had a pet bunny as a child, and ahibtu arnaaby ktheeran (I loved my bunny a lot). So now, in addition to several roommates and friends, and tons of electrical appliances for communication and information facilitation, our house contains Mish Mish Ahmadinejad, my black and white baby bunny.

With Mish Mish in my lap, we discussed the potential sustainability of a rabbit farming project in Gaza. They are definitely easy to grow, multiply quickly, and provide adequate nourishment. But we identified two problems: there is not enough produce to feed people, much less the bunnies, and then there is the problem of getting the bunnies in. Even bunnies as cute and harmless as Mish Mish are turned away at the border into Gaza.

I am finally settled in Ramallah and I must say that of all the Advocacy Project Fellows this summer I am definitely the luckiest one. I am replacing my dear friend Eliza's position as a Peace Fellow with the Center for Democracy and Worker's Rights (DWRC) here in Ramallah. Thanks to Eliza's work last summer, I have been welcomed with open arms. And thanks to Eliza, I had everything figured out before I arrived. Eliza's roommate from last summer has arranged almost everything for me. I can't really explain what it was like to finally meet him. Between endless hours of G-Chat over the past 3 months (which included some much needed help with my Arabic homework) and everything Eliza has told me about him, it was like being reunited with someone I already knew and loved. At the DWRC, everyone wanted to talk to me about Eliza. "Sadeeqa Eliza, Sadeeqa Eliza" (which means Eliza's friend) is all I heard for the first hour of my first day on Thursday. And so, because I am Eliza's friend, I have been welcomed with open arms.

But I think Palestinians welcome everyone this way. It is nearly impossible, or at least extremely difficult, for anyone from Ramallah to have met me at the airport in Tel Aviv, or even in Jerusalem, so Eliza's roommate directed me to ask someone to borrow their phone and call him when I got in to Almanara, which is just minutes from his house in Ramallah. I couldn't quite imagine someone just giving me their cellphone. But before I even had both of my feet out of the cab in Almanara I was surrounded by six people asking me if I needed help with my bags, if I knew where I was going, if I was hungry, if I needed anything at all. What I really need, I told them, is a phone. Six cellphones were simultaneously thrust at me. This is Palestine. It is home to the most generous people on earth.

I know most of you reading this want to hear about my experience with the checkpoints. I am not going to tell you about it. Regardless of whatever hassle I might have, for me the checkpoints are nothing. At the end of the day my life and my livelihood is not dependent on getting through. For hundreds of thousands of Palestinian workers, getting through the checkpoints to go to work means everything. It means the difference of a daily wage, whether they can support their families and offer their children a future. For me, the stakes of being stopped, questioned or detained are not even remotely applicable. My job with the Advocacy Project and with the DWRC is to advocate for these workers, and so it is their experience I will be telling you about.

It just so happens that Eliza's old roommate is from the village of Nilin. Right now, there are plans to build the separation wall through the village of Nilin, which will confiscate 2700 dunums of the villagers agriculture land and completely surround the village, cutting off Nilin's access to schools, hospitals, markets, and of course, the majority of jobs. Nilin is a village of 5,000 people, most of whom are employed outside of Nilin. The construction of the wall will seriously jeopardize the economic survival of nearly 30-40% of the workers in Nilin, who are currently employed in Israel.

The village has been organizing all kinds of non-violent protests against the wall for the past two weeks, which included calling for a general strike. Today, which is Friday, we went to Nilin for a demonstration. Close to 300 people prayed on the land that belongs to them, and their fathers before them, and then walked up to the site of where the wall will be built. Along the way, there were black pits of soot from where the Israeli Army has already started burning the olive trees. It is an incredibly difficult situation, there is no good way to describe what the people of Nilin will face if they lose their livelihood to the wall.

But in Palestine, even in the most compromising situations, there is always hope. In Nilin, I made my new best friend, a third grader who attends primary school in Ramallah where her father works. Her English and my Arabic are on the same exact level, and so we sat under a 100 year old olive tree exchanging new words and email addresses. When I got back to Ramallah she had already sent me an invitation to chat. And so, here in Ramallah, in Nilin, in all of Palestine despite everything else there are always these beautiful things, these things, in the words of Darwish, that make life worth living.