Notes from Palestine: closures and the denial of Palestinian rights

Yesterday we started to see folks posting on social media about a military siege of the West Bank. For years, the Israeli military has been installing heavy duty metal gates at the entrances to villages and cities, while also consolidating the roads Palestinians are allowed to use. Ultimately Palestinian cars and bodies are permitted to access only limited roads the Israelis leave open to them. These roads can be easily and quickly sealed off to create an immediate and full closure at any time the Israelis wish to.

How this translates into daily life is of course the denial of Palestinians right to movement. A dentist friend could not get to her clinic in Jerusalem today. Truck drivers could not carry produce to markets. In our local vegetable market, around half of the stalls were closed at 11 am because the sellers could not travel from their homes to the market. It's not only a day he loses his income, in this heat the produce will rot if it sits and he loses his goods as well. If this continues, the produce won't make it to the market either. You get the picture without our going on to talk about the effects on the women who embroider with us. Or on their loved ones. The story is the same for every household right now. Palestinian life is fully halted and waits at the mercy of the Israeli occupiers.

And because there is never any warning of what is to come, anyone who was away from home when the siege began cannot even return. Until who knows when... Our tatreez project manager had to travel to Amman, Jordan, to sign papers and has found it impossible to return to her children and home. She's been trying since Thursday to get back and is told she may not succeed on Monday, even later. Can you imagine living with such uncertainty...when can I get back to my kids?!

Once Sarab Atway, a designer and partner artisan in our project, said the only thing we can rely on in Palestine is that nothing is dependable. That's a haunting truth. 

In the West Bank, the illegal Israeli occupation has been working since 1967 to ethnically cleans Palestinians by rendering life untenable. Of course the siege is happening now but the system of gates, checkpoints, and the very infrastructure of the roads has been in the works for decades to allow the siege to be implemented so quickly and easily.

Israel's control of Palestinian borders, forcing all West Bank Palestinians and goods through King Allenby Bridge, is also a denial of Palestinian right to movement. And this is one of dozens of rights denied every day. 

Palestinians have been forced to endure injustice for so long that it's become normal for the world. This is not normal. This is not right. This must not endure.