[2008] Figs

[2008] Figs

[2008] Map of the West Bank

[2008] Map of the West Bank

8/22/2008

View from the youth...

Saturday, August 16, 2008

One of our Beit Jala youth opened himself up on video in a way I hadn’t expected—both because I hadn’t thought he was as interested in sharing personal experiences and because I hadn’t know that these experiences were prevalent in the seemingly more calm and middle-class town of Beit Jala. He told us on the camera that Israeli soldiers used to come to his house in the middle of the night and make everyone vacate the house, sometimes half-naked. He said they would rummage through household items and break things, finally leaving giving the explanation that they “hadn’t found anything”. Seeing the fear on this otherwise self-confident and happy young person was a bit heart-breaking. I can only imagine the impression 2am raids with gun-toting and screaming soldiers must have had.

A few days earlier, Nora had accompanied a few of the young men who wanted to film a fallen down house which looks more like a castle. They showed here the one hundred-odd bullet holds and where whole sections of the walls had been destroyed during the Second Intifada, probably in 2001. The youth now go there to write graffiti and hang out.

What would my childhood have been like if, instead of selling homemade cookies at the park, I'd been playing in bullet-ridden bombed out houses? Where would I be now?

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