The Violence Of Curfew

"Oh God, please tell Sharon to end the curfew by this Saturday so I can go to school." This is how mysecular, eight year old daughter, Areen, has put herself to sleep for the last two weeks. Areen, like so manyothers here, have turned to the divine powers to intervene in ending the five-month Israeli military curfewthat is imposed on Palestinian cities, villages and refugee camps in the West Bank. As post 9-11 globaldiplomacy patiently deliberates about how to proceed after the failure of the Oslo Peace Accords, Israel issystematically destroying Palestinian livelihood, and with it, any hopes for a future reconciliation betweenthe two peoples.

Israel’s systematic destruction of everything Palestinian is not new, at least not to the Palestinianswho have survived, thus far, decades of Israeli destruction. What is disturbing, however, is that thisdestruction is being done in full view of the world community. To add insult to injury, the destruction of ourlives is openly discussed and agreed to by Israeli judicial and political institutions.

Setting aside the political assassinations, the military onslaught that took place when Israel violated theOslo Accords by invading Palestinian-controlled areas, the F-16’s and the 60-ton Merkava battle tanks thathave rampaged Palestinian cities for two years now, the thousands of Palestinian civilians and some electedofficials that have been imprisoned without charge or trial, the acres of olive groves that have beenbulldozed, the Israeli settlements that have never ever stopped growing, setting aside all of this and muchmore, I would like to focus on a less visible aspect of this systematic Israeli destruction of Palestinianlivelihood.

It is casually termed in an Israeli military euphemism as curfew. It is better described as militarycurfew. In a more legal, human rights terminology it is called collective punishment, and as a pen-palrecently pointed out to me, it is more accurately described to a western audience as a lockdown. Call it whatyou will, the continuous policy of forcing, at gunpoint and tank barrel, 1.5 million Palestinians to remain intheir homes is one of the most sophisticated forms of violence around, only to be outdone by the occupationitself.

Some who attempt to justify Israeli occupation will say curfew is much less brutal than other means theIsraeli army regularly uses, and thus should not be spoken about in such harsh terms. For the sake ofargument, let me explain in a personal sense, especially to my Israeli neighbors, what curfew does toindividuals, families, businesses, and schools. I will let each reader reach their own conclusions on what theworld should expect from Palestinians, let alone Palestinian refugees, in the coming years.

First, an Israeli military curfew is not a limited curfew that is sometimes applied to minors in variousAmerican cities. When Israel applies a curfew upon Palestinians it is total, comprehensive and unannounced.Businesses close, schools dismiss, government offices lock their doors, pharmacies are closed, and medicalservices are, for all intent and purpose, inaccessible to the public. How is this so? This total closure isaccomplished by Israeli jeeps, tanks and armored personnel carries roaming the narrow Palestinian streets withloud speakers notifying all, in an awful Arabic accent, to go home. This announcement is regularly accompaniedby rapid machine gun fire in the air and the exploding of tear gas canisters and stun grenades in the openmarkets to make sure people get the message. If the closure takes place in midday, within a maximum of sixtyminutes the city will turn into a ghost town. If the closure is announced during early morning hours(5am-7am), as has increasingly been the case, the city never wakes up.

While under curfew/lockdown families are confined to their homes. With 50% of Palestinians living inhouseholds averaging 7 persons, of which 91% of the households live in overcrowded conditions -- more than 1person per room (source: www.pcbs.org) -- parents and children alikebecome quickly agitated. Add to this that after nearly two years of continuous Israeli destruction, thePalestinian economy is in severe recession and thousands of families are not able to stockpile enough basicfood stuffs to get them through until the next lifting of the curfew. 

Per capita real income declined by 12percent for year 2000 as a whole, and by a further 19 percent in year 2001. Additionally, the share ofthe Palestinian population now living below the poverty line (US$2 per person per day) is currently estimatedat 45-50 percent (source: www.worldbank.org)! These startling numbers don’tfaze the Israeli leaders, who continue to send their soldiers to wreak havoc on our lives. Israelis, soldiersand citizens alike, have come to the ludicrous belief that the more Palestinians are battered the more Israelicities and civilians will be safe. It is a sad state of mind, just as sad as thinking that bombing Iraq willpromote U.S. interests at home and abroad.

After a day, or two, or three - or in the case of Nablus, 66 - of being locked down for 24-hours one’snerves become on edge. Physically, the lack of exercise starts to set in and muscles become stiff. Even whenthe curfew is lifted for a few hours one does not have time to think about anything but stockpiling food forthe next lockdown and rushing to work in an attempt to do a week’s tasks in 4 or 6 hours. 

Personally, I havetwo slipped discs that require me to regularly walk for exercise. For five months, we have been imprisonedevery evening by Israeli curfew and thus walking the streets of Ramallah, absorbing the summer’s cool nightbreeze, is condemned to our memories. The physical price I pay is living with a continuous electric currentthat flares down the back of both of my legs and awaking many nights to painful leg cramps. 

My two girls,Areen and Nadine, 2 years old, are starting to show the lack of exercise in their physical build. My wife,Abeer, miraculously is able to stay fit as she holds together our family life by keeping up with the householdchores, continuously playing with our girls in order to keep their attention off the occasional tank or jeepthat comes rumbling down our street, and rationing our supplies just in case the intermittent lifting of thecurfew is cancelled.

From a business perspective the situation is extremely bleak. Although we go through the motions of beingemployed when curfew is lifted, deep down inside we know better than to think we can sustain this pace formuch longer. The great majority of companies have lost their business feasibilities and many have already losttheir ability to keep employees onboard. The significant business concerns that remain active in the economydo so out of a national duty to their country and employees and with a progressively diminishing hope that theend of occupation is near. 

For those lucky enough to still have a job, the majority are having curfew daysdeducted from their salaries. This deduction amounts to workers getting paychecks that are cut by 10-50%,depending on the month. An increasing number of Palestinians who have the ability to do so have chosen, orwere forced, to leave Palestine in search of employment elsewhere. In the beginning of the Intifada, this waslimited to individuals; today entire companies are contemplating taking their operations elsewhere. For thoseof us remaining home, the natural aspiration of career-building has been replaced by a slow recognition thatwe are rapidly falling behind in our professions and may never be able to get back on track - a dauntingpersonal realization, especially for those that have the luxury to leave.

For students, the nerve-racking reality that schools and universities will be disrupted for yet anotheryear is inexplicable. Throughout thirty-six years of Israeli occupation, Palestinians prided themselves onhaving one asset that not even the harshest policies of the occupation could take away - their minds.Traditionally, education was second only to family in Palestinian life. Universities managed to hold classesand graduate students throughout many year of crisis. Day-cares, elementary schools and grade schools neverfaced conditions that caused their prolonged closures or forced sustained disruptions. But today, with theseemingly calm Israeli policy of curfew, all of this has changed. 

As the words of my daughter depict, eventhird-graders are feeling the structural damage that is being caused by the disruption of the educationalsystem by the curfews. To add additional complexities to the policy of destruction, the curfews areaccompanied by closures, which separate every Palestinian population center from the every other, thus puttingIsraeli military roadblocks and checkpoints between students and their school or university. Some villageshave actually had Israeli Caterpillar bulldozers dig up the roads leading in and out of the village andreplace them with mounds of dirt. These Palestinian villages, for the past 24 months, amount to open airprisons, worthy of using the word lockdown instead of curfew. In short, it is now common knowledge inPalestine that an entire generation has been sentenced by Sharon to illiteracy, or at best, ignorance.

Setting aside the fear instilled in every household by yet another Israeli military phenomenon ofhouse-to-house searches, which take place day and night while the curfews are imposed, this is how we havelived for the last five months. If my youngest daughter exemplifies the effect of curfew on Palestinianchildren, then her first set of words - "dabbabeh" (tank), "naqelet jonnood" (personnelcarrier), "tayyara" (fighter jet) - portray the challenge we face to rehabilitate an entiregeneration. A ray of hope may be that she sometimes refers to Israeli soldiers as, "Ammou" (uncle).

Those of us that have not lost any family members to this madness feel lucky. Those of us that still haveall of our utilities intact cannot complain. Those of us that can claim to still be employed are thankful tothose investors that remain engaged in Palestine. Those of us that are lucky, cannot complain and are thankfulare rapidly becoming a minority in Palestine.

Word on the street has it that we will be under 24-hr curfew/lockdown throughout the upcoming Jewishholidays. As my Israeli neighbors prepare for their holiday season, I wonder if they would join my daughter’snightly prayer for her school to open as scheduled. In the meantime, we will continue to build our statebetween curfews.

Al-Bireh/Ramallah

Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American businessman living in the besieged Palestinian City of Al-Bireh in the West Bank.He is co-author of  HOMELAND: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians  (1994).