Some thoughts after visiting Jabel Johar

Some thoughts after visiting Jabel Johar
November 24, 2002

Hi everyone,

I guess it's odd that I have so much time to write and reflect in one day. Probably won't again for several weeks. I had just spent a lot of time thinking this afternoon about the young boys I met near where the new settlement is being built, and how deeply the situation disturbed me.

I have often felt that the children here for the most part are not like normal children. Most Palestinian children are far too well mannered, as compared to US children. They're generally nonaggressive, compared to American kids. One of the psychologists with Doctors Without Borders pointed this out to us this spring. And so much smaller. They're too responsible too soon, like tiny adults knowing too much. And you see that in their knowing eyes. It's haunting.

And then you see the settler kids, well dressed and well fed, and taking absolute delight in defacing buildings and assaulting Palestinians and human rights workers alike, verbally and physically. Actually, an odd combination of hatred and delight. They know they're supposed to hate us, and they get rewarded when they do these things. They are just carrying out the actions of their parents, not really seeming to see that this might be something wrong to do. By the time they're old enough to know, I think they've been doing it so long it's just normal or a hard habit to break.

And then there is a group of Palestinian boys, maybe 7-12 years old, that we encounter on a regular basis. It's the same batch of kids mostly, dirty, scrawny, not in school. If you follow the Hebron reports, this is the group of kids we often have throwing stones at us. And I've often thought, 'what is it that seems different between settler kids throwing stones, and these boys throwing stones?’

I think it is the look in their eyes. In these kids, there is anger, and disturbing emptiness. Somehow their parents or families don't or can't look after them, say the neighbors. In addition, being boys their age, they are particularly vulnerable to attacks from settlers or soldiers. The border police go after them first, down at the schools. There is nothing there except each other, and that is challenged every day. I've heard other NGO workers in town say every group has tried to set up a program to help them, but nothing has worked.

There's kind of a futility in their eyes when you try to converse with them, and then they throw small stones at you the second you turn your back. Sometimes neighbors have said, "They think you are settlers." But then we speak to them in Arabic that we're not, and the neighbors tell them also, and this gives them pause for about two seconds, and then they start in again. Not terribly aggressive, but mechanically repetitive.

Two days ago, one of the kids grabbed my hat off my head. Not knowing what else to do, I bear-hug-grabbed him, took back my hat, and scolded him in Arabic. And I felt the kid in my arms, not really struggling, and everybody else watching, and I got the sense that this is what they were looking for somehow. Is it attention? Or a violent reaction? It was almost as if some of them had a 'just kill me' look on their faces. There is not much for them to live for here, especially now if a new settlement is going up in their neighborhood.

I've also been thinking about boys we've seen whose families do look after them. There are two houses in particular, the boys in each are cousins to each other. Their grandparents' house was demolished the same night as the shootout in Hebron, they lost everything. In one house as I sat, the 12 year old was extremely agitated. He kept getting up and leaving the room, and eyed us suspiciously. Suddenly, spontaneously, he threw the glass he had in his hand across the room and through the door, where it shattered. His mother and sisters were shocked and began scolding him. He erupted back and stormed out. His sister said, "We are sorry. He thinks you must be settlers, but we told him you are not. On Friday night (of the shootout), they came and took one of his puppies. Last night, the soldiers came to this house and searched it three times, and took his other puppy. This morning, he found his first puppy outside, shot full of holes and half buried in the dirt." Later he came back into the room with tears in his eyes.

In the other house live two girls and two boys. Their father died in the conflict a few months ago. The girls are at the top of their class, studying constantly. The boys now blow off school completely. Their mother can't make them go. The daughters speak freely and easily with us strangers, the boys are unreachable. My teammate remarked to me, "the girls seem to see that their education is what will help them survive in this world. But the boys aren't concerned with survival. It's like they don't even want to live. Sitting there I thought, these kids will grow up to be the next suicide bombers." It was a chilling thought. But, sitting in the middle of a neighborhood that was about to be bulldozed, where soldiers come every night and beat the men, where children's puppies are killed and border police teargas the school on a regular basis, they are deeply traumatized. I also wondered what they had to live for. For what there still is, I don't think they can see it anymore.

There are lots of suicide bombings that go off 'prematurely,’ or with only killing one other person, or only killing the bomber himself. There is a rising trend of individual or small groups of teen boys who are not affiliated with any Palestinian militia who are becoming suicide attackers. We've seen a woman in front of our eyes try weakly to stab at soldiers at a heavily armed checkpoint, then refuse to run away, and heard of several other such incidents. We've heard it repeated here a few times, a growing part of suicide attacks, are suicide.

-Le Anne