"The seed of revolution is repression" - Woodrow Wilson

A wall taller and longer than the Berlin Wall separates Palestinians from Israel proper, requiring them to get special permission to visit sites like Jerusalem that we take for granted as accessible. Most Palestinians haven't seen the bulk of their own country, because they've been living in refugee camps for the last 70 years.

So much of the uniqueness of my experience here in Palestine specifically is what it is like living under an occupation. It isn't an experience you can even begin to imagine if you're not experiencing it on a daily basis, and my experiences don't even begin to touch on what it is like for the community here as a whole. I'm here for three months, I'm American, I have a plane ticket out of here come November, but for many, this is their lives for the indefinite future. To me, the biggest part of living under occupation has been the sense of unease in the air every day.

We have this idea of the Israel/Palestine conflict being ages old, but it's not. Prior to 1948, Muslims, Christians and Jews all lived in Palestine without conflict, or with minimal conflict. Following the end of World War II, Britain and the US, in reparation for the damages done to the Jewish population during the holocaust, decided to lobby for and create a Jewish state, which became Israel. Israeli settlers came and launched a war that lasted until the 1960's, destroying villages and cities that were already in place within Palestine. It wasn't an empty landscape. These were people's homes and neighborhoods and grocery stores. So Palestinians were forced to flee into refugee camps, where many still continue to live. Four refugee camps exist within the borders of Nablus and their populations continue to grow while the area provided for the camps doesn't, creating huge amounts of overcrowdedness and poverty. Imagine a family of 8-10 living in one small room-- this is usually the reality for Palestinian refugees.

So when we hear about the intifadas, or of Palestinians throwing rocks at tanks, or the view of Israel as an illegitimate state, and we have this idea of these armed uprisings, it is in response to the extreme repression these people are under. Today I saw the Israeli/West Bank barrier, a wall longer and higher than the Berlin wall that physically prevents people from moving around their country. The checkpoints, barriers, and psychological sense of fear here all keep people paralyzed. And I've heard stories about how people from the camps haven't even seen the rest of Nablus, how people have never left Nablus for fear of never being allowed back in, or haven't seen Jerusalem because they physically can't get there because they need to apply for permission from the Israelis and  have been repeatedly denied for no reason, or can't bring themselves to leave the country because they may never be allowed to come back to their families.

Since I've been here, there are Israeli F-16's flying overhead daily, Israeli tanks and soldiers within city limits, sometimes raiding refugee camps for any number of reasons, and being able to hold people without due process or bringing them up on charges. Again, my neighborhood and community here is very insulated. We don't live in the poorest regions or near the refugee camps where raids most often occur, but these are the experiences of the kids I'll be working with, and it's an important part of being here, so I would be remiss to let it go without mention.