Huwara checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus
This autumn marks the 10th anniversary of my first investment in a camera, and the first trip I made with it, which was to the West Bank. Also, this year marks the 20th anniversary of my first ever trip to Israel and the West Bank, which I did with a group of friends and fellow students who were part of the Middle East Studies Program, based at the time in Cairo.
This small part of the world has been formative in how I think about things. It’s where I learned what rotting bodies smell like, what loving one’s enemy looks like, what dehumanization does to people, and what astounding beauty there is when people refuse to hate when that’s the natural thing to do. It’s the only place so far where a soldier (Israeli) has put a gun to my body and demanded my camera because he was nervous about what I might have just captured, and where a group of preteen kids (Palestinian) has threatened to beat me with metal pipes because I might be a Jew or, if not that, an American whose country had days earlier invaded Iraq. It’s the only place where I’ve been driven to church by a Muslim who months earlier had survived a helicopter attack on his car and bore the disfiguring scars on his body.
But what I most remember when I think of this place is the people, Palestinian and Israeli alike, with whom I’ve had the privilege of eating, laughing, sharing stories, and eating some more. I’m tempted to write some examples here, but they are too many and this space can’t do them justice. So I’ll just say that I’m forever grateful for the hospitality and the education, and for letting an imperfect guy from 6,000 miles away come visit from time to time.
Following are fifteen more photos from that first trip with a camera in 2006. They focus on Palestinian life in the West Bank and East Jerusalem:
Landscape in Yanoun, a small village near Nablus
Village life in Yanoun
As an Israeli soldier looks on, a young Palestinian man reaches for the razor wire at the Israeli-built Separation Barrier in the West Bank village of Bil’in. The village has been the site of a weekly protest against the barrier since 2005.
Israeli soldiers arrest a Palestinian resident of Bil’in during the demonstration at the Separation Barrier. The route of the barrier was condemned by the International Court of Justice as well as Israeli human rights groups since it often juts deep into Palestinian territory. In Bil’in, the barrier separates the village from more than half of its agricultural land.
After the protest at the barrier, a man on the edge of the village uses a slingshot during a clash with Israeli border police (out of view).
Icons in the Burqin Church, or St. George’s Church, in the West Bank village of Burqin, located just west of the city of Jenin. One of the oldest churches in the world, it is here that tradition says Jesus healed ten lepers.
It is also near here that, three years earlier, the taxi I was riding in had come to a grinding halt on a dirt road when a tank emerged in front of us, seemingly out of nowhere (it had been in an adjacent olive grove). Moving at high speed perpendicular to the road to intersect us, it crashed onto our path not even 100 feet in front of us, swiveling its turret toward our windshield. Before the dust from our respective vehicles had a chance to settle, a soldier using a loudspeaker ordered us to turn around; the road was closed and entrance into Jenin forbidden. The tone and weapons pointed at us left no room for conversation. We turned around.
Abuna Firas, parish priest of St. George Melkite Greek Catholic church in the West Bank town of Zababdeh, leads his congregation in morning worship.
Palestinian children march through downtown Ramallah to protest the targeted killing two days earlier of three young brothers, ages four through nine, in Gaza City. The sons of a Palestinian intelligence officer, they had been on their way to school when masked gunmen opened fire on their car.
At 5:37 a.m., Palestinian laborers on their way to work in Israel wait in line to cross through the Israeli-built wall at the checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem.
At 6:39 a.m., Palestinian men continue a long wait to cross through the checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem.
A Palestinian woman in the Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem pours coffee for her guests and family members at the entrance to her home.
A Palestinian man walks with his hand tenderly placed on his granddaughter’s back in the Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem
High school students sit in class at the Latin Patriarchate school in the West Bank village of Taybeh. This Christian village is home to the Taybeh Brewing Company and an annual Oktoberfest.
A flower grows in front of a home demolished hours earlier by Israeli authorities in Isawiya, a Palestinian neighborhood on the edge of Jerusalem. Building permits are often difficult for Palestinians to obtain in and around Jerusalem, forcing many to build illegally in order to house their families. Many of these homes are subsequently demolished.
Palestinian high school students from the Friends School in Ramallah sit at the base of the Separation Barrier after painting a mural that would be used for their school’s Christmas card.
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Note: By writing “my first investment in a camera” at the top of this post, I inadvertently obscured the fact that this investment was made possible by my parents’ generosity toward its purchase. Thanks again, mom and dad.
