Today on DemocracyNow!, Amy Goodman interviewed three women peace activists: Dr. Jumana Odeh, Michal Sagi, and Rana Khouri. Each women has a special relationship with the checkpoints in the Occupied Territories and shared their personal stories.
Dr. Odeh is a Palestinian Mulsim who lives in Jerusalem and is the Director of the Palestinian Happy Child Center. As the title of her center indicates Dr. Odeh works with children and told the story of one epileptic child and the general requirements to get past a checkpoint in medical situations.
And I got lots of calls from my patients, especially that particular child, who was around six, and he had epilepsy. And they ran out of their anti-epileptic drugs, and they lived in a village next to Ramallah. So his father was calling, pleading for help, that they tried to enter Ramallah because the curfew was lifted only for two hours. They were not allowed to enter Ramallah within those two hours. And he was asking for medication. And he told me that `My child is seizuring, he’s fitting; he’s having his seizures on the checkpoint, right on the checkpoint while the soldiers were watching, and they are not allowing me.’ So I had to jump into that checkpoint, run to that checkpoint, give him the medication, calm down the child. And I remember him saying to me, “Please, I don’t want to fall down again! I don’t want to fall down again!” I’ll never, ever forget this story.
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Michal Sagi is a Jewish Israeli who is the Executive Director of SHILO – Jerusalem’s Family Planning, Educational, and Counseling Center and is involved with Checkpoint Watch, a women’s human rights organization which observes Israeli check points in the Occupied Territories. When asked why she is involved with the checkpoints Sagi replied:
I need to go there. I cannot ignore the things that are happening, the things that are being done by using my name, my citizenship. I feel the need to witness and not to be able to say, “I didn’t know. I didn’t see,”
After this comment Amy Goodman asked Michal Sagi to explain what the checkpoints are like, Sagi replied:
A checkpoint is not like here in the airport where someone wants to go in and is being checked for security, but nobody questions his or her right to go on board. In the military checkpoints around the West Bank and around Jerusalem, the soldiers can decide who is going to pass and who is not going to pass. On top of that, the majority of checkpoints are not between Israelis and Palestinians. Most of the checkpoints are separating a Palestinian village from a Palestinian town. So if — let’s say that you’re living in Hewara village, which is southern to Nablus, and you want to get to Nablus in order to get dentist treatment or for shopping or for university, school, whatever the daily needs that one need, they should go out in the morning, early. They would stand at the checkpoint, sometimes for hours, without knowing if they’re actually going to make it, if they’re actually going to pass it, because the rules are keeping the — they keep changing the rules. One day everybody are allowed in, and the next day only people over 35 are allowed. One day students can go inside to university, and one day, no. People are being detained for hours, for checking, but also as a mean of punishment.
Sagi went on to explain that the Israeli military was disturbed by her presence there referring to her as a traitor, but also sometimes getting other responses which were more positive.
And last but not least is Rana Khouri, a Christian Palestinian, who graduated from the University of Michigan. She is the Deputy General Director of the International Center of Bethlehem. Amy Goodman asked her why she returned to Palestine:
Rana Khouri: You mean on this tour? I think for a number of reasons. One, is to show that the conflict is not about religion. The fact that three faiths are presented here, the stories are different, but there is a common aim, which is to end occupation, end the Israeli occupation of the Palestinians. And the fact that it’s not about religious differences. It’s about land. It’s about the denial of human rights for a nation, a people. (emphasis mine)
Rana Khouri went on to explain a personal story.
When we talk about checkpoints, it’s a very personal experience with myself, because I feel that the checkpoints were responsible partly for the death of my father, again, an American citizen. And a year and a half ago, he had a massive heart attack, and he was to be transferred for a hospital in East Jerusalem because there are no good health system in the West Bank or in Palestinian cities and areas. And at the checkpoint, he was held for four hours, trying to — I mean, the man was almost dead.
And the reason why he was held was the fact that he had the wrong permit. He was — he’s a hotel owner, and he has a permit that — as a merchant, meaning he goes into East Jerusalem or in Israel as a merchant. And on that day, because he was not — there was a closure that merchants could not go in Jerusalem, he needed a medical permit. The man was in an ambulance. For four hours he was held at a checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. And then the only way to solve the matter after four hours of trying to connect to people was to call an ambulance from Jerusalem, where he was transported from that ambulance of the West Bank to an ambulance in Jerusalem in order to go to a hospital.
I don’t want to copy and paste the whole article so I recommend going and reading it. There is an interesting discussion of how 39 babies have died on the check points as well as other information about obtaining medical permits to get access to hospitals. I’ll leave you with Michal Sagi’s thoughts:
Continuing the occupation is destroying Israeli society. It’s harming us severely. We’re corrupting a second and third generation by occupying another nation. And by the way, I think it’s going to happen to you, as well, if — but that’s again, a different story.
AMY GOODMAN: Meaning?MICHAL SAGI: Meaning, you cannot occupy a civil society and control a civil society and stay human and stay democratic and stay good human beings.
AMY GOODMAN: And you’re talking about?
MICHAL SAGI: Iraq.