When Children Know the Word 'Settler' Before 'School'

Hyper-vigiliance and Olive Trees

A comrade helped me out with this post. They asked me various questions and with their magic fingers live-transcribed what I said. I have edited the text for readability.

1.) As activists we see and hear on social media, in the news, from Palestinians living abroad the example of resilience and resistance against oppression. How did being there physically in Palestine teach you about the day to day struggle of the Palestinian people?

Seeing the everyday resilience of Palestinians and how it manifests in concrete terms, the colonisation was always there in the background but irrespective of what violence, harassment or intimidation that Palestinians were subjected to, there was this quiet determination to continue doing whatever was necessary to sustain life. Phrases like “existence is resistance” or “we teach life, sir” become much more palpable because we could see what it looks like with our own eyes. Sumud in concrete terms was invaluable. We can read about it or listen to interviews, but seeing it for oneself was the main thing we learned by physically being there.

To see for oneself how colonial time can impose itself at any time was also important. Being there was similar to being anywhere else in terms of the beautiful landscape, usually the countryside was very quiet. But settler-soldiers could appear any time with guns or armed settlers could drive around in ATVs. They could detain Palestinians that were trying to graze their sheep. They could even arrest them and take them away. Settlers could come and attack. There was always that precarious quality. Even when things were peaceful or quiet there was always the potential for something to happen at any time. Even at night, Palestinians would be hyper-vigiliant. If they heard the dogs barking or an unusual sound, the family would immediately wake up, go out and have a look. To see these realities for oneself was invaluable.

This extended to the children too. Sara was the youngest at one and a half years old. When the family would say the word mustawṭinīn (settlers) she would become very alert and scared. That was always there in the background. The immediate shift into a hyper-vigiliant survival mode.

2.) We know that the Israeli state continuously works to make Palestinian people’s lives difficult by limiting access of Palestinians to the basic necessities of life such as education, healthcare, food, water, electricity etc. How did Palestinians work around the oppression of the settler state and find ways to maintain their way of life?

Education, healthcare, water, food, I can try and talk a little about all of these. All of the villages were surrounded by settlements. The village that we were in had two settlements. Both of them used to be illegal, even in Israeli “law”. Of course, they are all illegal, they are all war-crimes, but one of them was retroactively “legalised”. Even the ones that were “illegal” had mains electricity, mains water supply, big and well-paved, sign-posted roads. Palestinian villages however had unpaved, dirt roads, sometimes you needed 4-wheel-drives to access these because the roads were so bad. There were two number plates. Palestinians have green and white, and the settlers had yellow ones. Even the Palestinian cars that went on main roads would often get stopped by police, they would also need to go through all the checkpoints.

In terms of water and electricity, the settlements had mains supplies but for electricity the Palestinian villages would need to use wind-turbines and solar panels. There was a wind turbine to generate electricity for our village. Just after we left, settlers came and destroyed it.

For water, each house had large plastic water tanks and would pump water from the wells. The settlers would sometimes poison these wells. There were no municipal services like waste disposal, so Palestinians would need to burn waste, including plastic, definitely not supportive for their health.

In terms of healthcare, the main town close to us was Yatta which had the main hospital. The main road leading to Yatta had been closed off since October 2023. People would instead find side roads and enter with a car, but sometimes these were also closed by the settler military using flying checkpoints. Palestinians would drive to the checkpoints, someone from the city would drive up from the other side and an exchange of people and goods would happen there.

There were charities based in Al Khalil (Hebron) where doctors would go from village to village and do check ups for people. Medicine however was quite expensive.

In terms of education, the family we stayed with had access to a primary school in the village next to us. Most of the road went through the Palestinian village so children could walk to the school themselves. The two older children in our family would walk down the road, meet some of the other children from another part of the village and would walk together to the school. Sometimes if there were settlers driving around in ATVs then we would accompany the children to school for their safety. In the area of Susiya, the road leading to the school was much closer to the settlement so they needed activists to accompany the kids much more regularly. In terms of access to education, it seemed to be that the school was mainly a primary school. I’m not sure to what extent there was access to secondary education. Even though they gave a lot of importance to education, access to schools for older children was limited because transport had been made so difficult for Palestinians. Some days teachers would be delayed at checkpoints and not make it to class. My Arabic was not strong enough to ask more about this. In terms of women’s education I am also not sure. All of the schools we went to were integrated with all genders in the primary schools.

3.) In the face of the open and continuous repression that the Palestinian people were facing, what were some of the ways that the people would find joy and keep high spirits amongst themselves in the village?

A lot of it was to do with the children. In all of the villages they would be playing, making games and toys using ordinary things that were around. They would play in big groups and spend lots of time together. There was also the aspect of neighbours visiting each other. The doors of the houses were always open and basically anyone could just come and visit one another in the village. It was much more permeable than in the West where everything is focused on privacy, separation and isolation. This was the main way of relating amongst people. It was much more socially permeable and vibrant.

A lot of the things that the Palestinians did in terms of work was done together. Different generations would do things together. If they were planting olive trees, the children would bring the water. Hajj Khalid, the grandfather would be digging the channel so the water could flow to the olive tree roots. When they would do the cheese making, the great grandmother, grandmother, mother would all work together and Sara the daughter would insist on helping by eating the cheese and spreading it all over her face. If we took her away from the cheesemaking she would begin crying! The inter-generational coming together in all aspects of life was quite inspiring.

Often, maybe unhealthy dynamics could also be magnified. Things like patriarchy. Aishe was nine years old and her older brother was one year older than her. It was clear how they were treated differently in how Aishe would be told off or expected to bring the tea, or clean up. Whereas her brother was not really scolded or told things like this. In this sense there were both advantages in supporting each other and being together, but that thing of being together also potentially reinforced patriarchal and other structures that could be problematic.

The respect for elders was very high. There was always a sense of looking out for each other where the elders would look out for the younger people and the younger people would look out for the elders. There was a high level of intergenerational care.

Religion was also a big part of maintaining the joys of life. Prayer was very important. We were there during Ramadan.

The whole family would fast and break the fast together for example. The two older children (9 and 10) also participated and would wait for the Iftar time to break the fast so they could eat. The whole family would have one big plate, share the food and everyone would eat from the same plate. People would always look out for each other (though little Sara was more focused on grabbing things for herself!) If great grandma wanted an egg or wanted tea, someone would notice and pour the tea for her. It was also quite joyful during those meal times.

We were always enjoying little rituals like tea or coffee which was made for everyone. Everyone would participate. Al Jazeera Arabic was on most of the time, but the kids would watch programs and cartoons that had songs for the kids. They didn’t really have musical instruments, but I’m sure that other families would have been more musical. I didn’t really see story tellings but maybe these happened in more informal contexts.

One of the limitations was that there was no community space for the village because the danger from settlers was always there. As such, there wasn't any communal market or fair where people could come together. As such, a lot of the dynamics in the village were focused on the family and extended family who would occasionally come to visit.

4.) We understand for Palestinians living under occupation, their attitude to the Settler state was overwhelmingly antagonistic. What were their views in relation to wider politics around the world? What were their thoughts for example about the United States and the UK?

Aishe was the nine year old and had very negative views towards the United States. Even she understood this reality clearly. Because of our limitation of language, we couldn’t really get more subtle details about what exactly their views were. We could get a sense of what they were and we could also get a sense of differences. Some people would watch Al-Jazeera Arabic, others would watch other news channels like Al-Mayadeen or Palestinian channels. I assume that represented different perspectives that they held. We couldn’t get a sense of the details of what particular views were or what people thought about specifics due to our lack of language skills.

In Ramallah, a very middle-class bubble existed. There were Palestinians who had views supporting a two-state solution or views against the resistance. They also experienced difficulties but had some sort of income where they could manage day-to-day living. One of the daughters was in a school next door to Ramallah. Sometimes a checkpoint would be set up and she would wait on the school bus for hours. Her family were middle-class and had a car, would go shopping etc. There was certainly a spectrum of views as with any place and people. There’s no flattening of Palestinians as a homogenous group when it came to what they believed. There was a real variety of different views amongst them.

5.) What was the attitude of the settlers and soldiers to yourselves as foreign non-Palestinian activists supporting the Palestinian struggle?

They had a very strong victim mentality. When settler soldiers were detaining Ahmed (the dad of the kids) just as he was grazing his sheep, one of them with his big gun told the activist I was with, “you have come here to kill us all”. Eventually, they took Ahmed to the military base. In Susiya, another village we went to, a settler came with his dog and, going close to where Palestinians were grazing their sheep, he started saying things like “I am the descendant of Abraham and Jacob” and “I am the descendent of kings, all this land belongs to me”. There was a high level of psychotic delusion amongst the settlers.

There were some similar interactions with soldiers and police too. In terms of how they related to us as foreign activists, in settler culture one of the things they said about us is that we are all anarchists. There was a settler “film-maker” who was making a film about the “anarchists” (us) in the West Bank. I should have told them “You think I’m an anarchist? I’m much worse. I’m a communist!”

There was also the framework of “outside agitators”. The idea that we were coming from the outside just to cause trouble. In terms of how the police, military and settlers when grazing their sheep would relate to us was just ignoring us. Settlers could “technically” be arrested (though usually they never were) if they were caught doing attacks. They would usually mask up and attack at night. In those contexts, they wouldn’t distinguish between activists and Palestinians.

The police and army would take our personal details by photographing our passports, visas and ID’s and ignore us afterwards. Hebrew speaking activists would engage with the army and soldiers and one incident led to a lawyer coming on the phone in defense of the Palestinian farmers. The lawyer said to the soldiers what they were doing was illegal and this caused them to back off. In some incidents like this we could directly engage, but for those of us who didn’t speak Hebrew this wasn’t the case.

When we came back, there was no direct harassment from the British state but this time it was such an unpleasant experience coming back to the empire. Usually when I come back to the UK from being abroad there is a slight unpleasantness. This time, coming back from a directly colonial context and then seeing shops, advertisements and things celebrating the UK was extremely unpleasant. I joked to friends that maybe I should open a meditation center in Amaan so I can spend less time here and go to Palestine more often.

A friend that I had talked to who had been to Palestine many times who I talked to before I went said something very useful. While you are there, you sort of just get through it because you don’t have a choice, but it really hits you when you come back. I certainly found that to be the case. There was a long period, especially the first month, where I felt a lot more tender, fragile and hyper-sensitive. On an emotional level I became almost like a child, with a lot of feelings of “what about me?”. I was much more affected by things that I normally wouldn’t be affected by.

I worked around this by seeking emotional support from friends and comrades, but many had their own things going on and were not so available. I lost quite a lot of people I thought of as dear friends as a result and this has only compounded the pain of coming back, it still hurts so much. Eventually, I reached out to a wider circle of people, including people I knew less well to spend time with. This really helped a lot with getting myself back on track. There is still some tenderness and fragility, but gradually it is getting better and the old levels of resilience are slowly coming back.

6.) During the trip, what were some of the things that you felt that you did well and correctly in terms of your time being there, supporting the Palestinian people and documenting the atrocities of the zionists.

Being with someone who had a similar political framework, as well as being non-white helped a lot. We did not need to explain a lot of things about day-to-day racism to each other as we already knew. A lot of the activists were white and not necessarily aware of how white supremacy could manifest in their attitudes and in organisational spaces.

Staying with a Palestinian family was a definite strength. Many activist groups had their own “activist houses” where they were living in the vilages but within their own space. This meant they were slightly disconnected from the people in the village. The CJNV group made a lot of effort to connect to the village and maintain a good relationship by having community meals and engaging in social interactions. For us staying with the family meant we were completely immersed in the day-to-day living of the people.

Living in a shared communal space can potentially be difficult. However, because both of us had Indian backgrounds, we were familiar with communal living to some extent. The family had one room where we all slept and ate. There was not much privacy which might be difficult for those not used to this style of life. However, it meant we got much closer to the family and it greatly helped strengthen our bond. This was a definite strength.

7.) With the benefit of hindsight, if you could go back to that first day of arriving in Palestine, what would you have done differently on your trip?

Knowing Arabic would have been very helpful because then there is a level of communication that would be more beneficial. The activist I was with had been learning Arabic online, with a teacher, for a year, and could do basic communication. Unfortunately, I didn't know any.

Even not knowing Arabic, it was still worth going because I could communicate through online translators, but it does limit what could be possible.

We could have more actively connected with other activist groups. This was done to a certain extent because there is an exisitng activist support network in Palestine. One group was the Centre for Jewish Non-Violence that had a well organised three-month program of protective presence. All of them were Jewish and most of them had some form of zionist upbringing. They were able to overcome this conditioning and become anti-zionists. In the program they would have Arabic classes and many of them knew Arabic already. We’d connected with them and they gave us briefings about what would happen if we were arrested or detained. They provided transport and drove us from Jerusalem to Masafer Yatta. That group was one we connected quite well with. There were a few Signal groups for transport, long-term planning and short term callouts.

Having a car would have been beneficial for us. We were on our own and not with an organisation. We instead connected with the existing network of activists there. Other groups had their own cars so if there was a callout they could go straight to that. We had to wait for someone to take us and sometimes we couldn’t make it to different callouts. We were more restricted in where we could go. Sometimes we were limited to the local area closer to the village where we were staying. Renting a car would be quite expensive so handling this contradiction was a bit difficult. Many times other activist groups would help us out with travel.

In general, we did work well together with different activist groups. There were times where there was miscommunication and slight disagreements but overall things worked quite smoothly.