Courageous People Willing to Take Major Steps Toward a Saner Future

By Bill Dienst MD

Friday Afternoon, March 11, 2005 La Notre Dame Hotel, Jerusalem

We are now at the beginning of our final homestretch of this journey. A major winter cold virus, which I think we acquired on the plane going into Amsterdam, has moved in and made its way around the bus where we have commingled and inadvertently incubated the germ. It has now afflicted at least half of our delegation, including myself; but we all plug along in spite of illness and exhaustion as if there is no tomorrow . . . because in a sense, there isn't. Most of us fly back to Seattle in less than 40 hours.

By Bill Dienst MD

Friday, March 11, 2005 Jerusalem

Out of sheer exhaustion, I was finally able to get some meaningful sleep last night for the first time on this trip: Way too much stuff going through my brain and it is overheated; it has been impossible to just shut off at night.

I awake early and look east down the hall window here at La Notre Dame. I catch the sun rising over the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane. It is Friday, the Muslim Holy Day. The Mueza'ins are calling their faithful to prayer. The Jewish Sabbath will start at sunset tonight.

International Solidarity Movement

This morning, my friend Peter and I walk toward Damascus Gate in the heart of Palestinian East Jerusalem. We visit hostels where activists from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) hang out. We meet mostly young idealists from around the world: England, the USA, Japan, Portugal, Spain, Germany, Sweden Bulgaria, etc. Many are guarded, until they figure out just who in the hell we are. Then slowly, they become more comfortable. Some who have been here a while have become a bit jagged around the edges.

by Bill Dienst

March 10th, 2005, Jerusalem, Kfar Saba, Tel Aviv and Jaffa (Yafo)

Old Jerusalem

We left Bethlehem in the rain this morning and moved to Jerusalem. Now we're at La Notre Dame just across from the Old City; with medieval walls that were built in the 1500's. More specifically, we are across from New Gate, one of two entrances to the Christian Quarter, and one block east of the Green Line, which used to separate Jordanian controlled Jerusalem from Israel, prior to 1967.

We are a few blocks east of where we met with progressive Israeli activists three days ago, and where Israeli interrogators are known to torture Palestinians; and where some of Jerusalem's best nightspots are. We are also only a few blocks west of Damascus Gate, the heart of the Palestinian City, which goes to bed early.

By Bill Dienst MD

March 8, 2005 in Hebron (Al Khalil in Arabic)

The main rode to Hebron that Palestinians have taken for years is blocked, so we have to take an alternate route. We cross the Israeli military checkpoint that blocks the Southern entrance to Bethlehem. We pass a Palestinian Refugee Camp, and past clusters of Israeli settlements collectively known as the Gush Etzion block, south of Bethlehem. We see how new Israeli settlements start out as illegal outposts of a few rows of mobile homes, and over time turn into Southwest style villa townhouses that would fit right in if we were in Southern California. Then there are the military bases taking up even more West Bank land to guard the settlements.

We arrive at one of the first, and one of the most ideologically right wing settlements in the West Bank, Kiryat Arba'a. We pass the checkpoint, and are allowed inside past the electric fence into the heart of this settlement of 6,500 people. It is the largest in the central Hebron area, but there are now 5 other Jewish enclaves within the Old City with an additional 400-500 Jewish Settlers: Tel Rumeida, Beit Hadassa, Beit Romano, Abraham Avion, and the Gutnic Center. They are supported by between 1500 to 2000 Israeli soldiers.

By Bill Dienst MD

On Monday March 7, the Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility met with Mr. Mordechai Vanunu at St. George's Hostel in East Jerusalem. Mr. Vanunu is famous around the world for exposing Israel's secret nuclear weapon's program at the Dimona nuclear facility in the Negev Desert in Southern Israel.

Mr. Vanunu explained his life's story to our group. He was born to a Jewish family in Morocco. When he was 10, his family immigrated to Israel. After high school, he completed his compulsory military service in the Israeli Armed Forces. He then finished a year studying physics at Tel Aviv University. When he was 22 years old, he was hired on at Israel's Dimona Nuclear facility, in a top secret lab 23 meters underground. His job was to help in producing plutonium.

He described himself as being 'apolitical' at this stage of his life, and simply in need of a job. He worked at Dimona for 9 years, starting in 1979. In the 1980's, he also witnessed the production of materials to produce a hydrogen bomb. He left Dimona in 1985, and returned to the University, studying Geography and Philosophy.

By this time, he had become a political activist, and was active in "Peace Now" against Israel's elective war and occupation in Lebanon. He also had developed very serious concerns regarding Israel's ambitious nuclear weapons program.

By Bill Dienst MD

March 7, 2005 in both East and West Jerusalem

Crossing the Bethlehem checkpoint is becoming routine; the absurd and surreal now somehow normal. All 19 of us flash our passports reflexively to the soldier, and we after waiting our turn in a line of cars, zip right through from Bethlehem to Jerusalem where ordinary local Palestinians are forbidden to go.

ICAHD

We arrive at the Central part of West Jerusalem, just to the West of the Green Line in the Russian Compound. We are at the headquarters of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), an Israeli group formed to resist the destruction of Palestinian homes by the Israeli Army. Its leader, Jeff Halper, was not available, so we were treated to the dynamic young Jewish-American activist Jimmy Johnson's presentation about the current Reality on the Ground.

Jimmy started with the consequences of the Oslo Accords, and finished with the unilateral measures, including the building of The Wall, by the current Sharon government during the past 4 years.

During the Oslo process, the West Bank was divided up into Areas A, B and C. Area A was to be under Palestinian Civil and Military authority; Area B under Palestinian civil authority, but Israeli or joint military authority; and Area C under Israeli Civil and Military Authority. As the maps were drawn up for Camp David, 45 % of the land in the West Bank became Area C, that is, under direct Israeli control, and under control of the settlements.

By Bill Dienst MD

(March 6, 2005, in Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and Ramallah)

Washington PSR delegation landed at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv at 2 am this morning, and made it up the hill to Jerusalem, then South though our first Israeli military checkpoint, arriving at 4 am local time at the Casa Nova Hotel in Manger Square in Bethlehem, about 200 feet from the Church of the Nativity. We are allotted 3 hours rest, and then begin our first day in the Holy Land ten time zones ahead of our circadian rhythm, which we left back in Seattle. We're off!

Our mission today will be to visit the Ramallah/El Bireh area in the Northern West Bank, which is now essentially sealed off from Bethlehem, in the Southern West Bank. Although Ramallah and Bethlehem are only 35 km apart, we must traverse two major Israeli military checkpoints in and out of Jerusalem to get there. We are fortunate, for our delegation members carry American, Canadian, and Swiss Passports. We just flash them as the young Israeli soldier boards our bus, and he waves us through; a relatively minor inconvenience. Not so for your ordinary Palestinian. They risk humiliation, verbal and physical abuse, detention and may be turned back at any time. Our Palestinian guide has been unable to visit the Northern West Bank for over a year now. He is quite grateful traveling with us, so he can finally do so.