It is a custom that has been repeated all too often these last weeks. In the memory a deceased Palestinian, their enlarged photograph is plastered across the shops, mosques and buildings of villages and cities. With the current Middle East conflict steadily escalating, each passing day sees new posters crowd out those that have not yet had time to become familiar.
Since the beginning of the clashes September 28th, of the 162 people killed and over 7000 injured, approximately 95% have been Palestinians. Of these, the Red Crescent reports 25% are boys under the age of 18. Their faces now cover the walls of their community. Why are Palestinians risking the rubber and steel bullets to throw stones at Israeli soldiers? The answer is locked up in years of brewing frustration.
Khalid, 29, is the coach of a boy's soccer team from Deheisheh refugee camp. He has grown up here and shares the desire of most his fellow Palestinians for peaceful co-existence with his Jewish neighbours. He proudly describes having a Jewish sports colleague come to his home for dinner. But according to Khalid, peace cannot mean a simple lack of violence.
"Peace is possible, but not now. Peace must be fair. How Palestinians and Israelis live now is not fair. How the Israelis have treated us is not fair."
Khalid's disillusionment with the peace prior to the current unrest is shared by his neighbour Muna Muhaisen, a Palestinian journalist. According to Muna, and the current violence has been a long time in coming. "People are so fed up." Expressing the reckless desperation fuelling the uprising she added, "Everybody just wants it to blow to hell".
The frustration and anger of Palestinians like Muna and Khalid stems from a multitude of grievances with the Israeli occupation over the last 50 years. Perhaps most significant is the plight of the Palestinian refugees. In 1948, over a hundred Palestinian farming villages were vacated in the face of the advancing Israeli and Jordanian armies. The fleeing peasants took refuge in UN tent cities in Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank and Jordan. All assumed that they would soon be returning to their farm lands. Fifty two years later, these same refugee camps remain; the tents exchanged for cramped and naked concrete buildings. The populations of these camps have since doubled and tripled, while their physical dimensions have remained the same. Largely as a consequence of these the camps, the UN Department of Social and Economic Affairs lists Gaza Strip as the fourth most densely populated area in the world. In Gaza, where 80% of the 1.5 million Palestinian population are refugees, most of the camps do not have drinkable running water, or fully functional sewage systems.
Over the years, frustrations have further compounded as Palestians have watched helplessly through the barbed wire, as one by one, the hill tops around them have been claimed by Israeli settlers. The majority of these settlers comprise Jewish immigrants from various nations fleeing their own difficult circumstances. Most are enticed by attractive housing packages offered by the Israeli government with the goal of assisting diaspora Jews to 'return' home. According to the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP), a U.S. based monitoring organization, there are approximately 200, 000 settlers and 200 settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In the West Bank where 3 million Palestinians live, they take up 60% of the area. These settlements, the equivalent of a modern Canadian suburb, are isolated and self-sufficient housing complexes interconnected by roads designed to systematically bypass Palestinian areas. Complete with trees, grass, street lights and play grounds the settlements are in stark contrast to the refugee camps that in some instances they neighbour. Despite dozens of UN Security Council Resolutions since 1968 condemning settlement expansion and the protests of numerous international human rights organizations, construction and expansion continues unabated. According to FMEP, settler population growth in 1999 was three times that of Israel proper. Symbollically, the current clashes in Bethlehem, Ramallah and Gaza, are staged close to these settlements.
Those Palestinians who are not refugees have also had their share of mounting frustrations. Since March of 1993, travel for Palestinian between the West Bank and Gaza has required a difficult to obtain Israeli permit. In conjunction with a coloured license plate system that distinguishes Israeli cars from Palestinian and Israeli military checkpoints on all major routes, Palestinians have been forced to endure heavily restricted mobility. Palestinian travel prior to the current clashes inevitably involved the humiliating ritual of showing one's identity card to young Israeli soldiers and random searches and detainments. As a consequence of the limited ability to travel many Palestinian families and friends have been separated for years. Gazans working or studying in the West Bank often do not see their family for years at a time. Despite the great significance of Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa mosque to Palestinians, most adults have yet to visit it themselves.
Due to the depth to which these frustrations penetrate Palestinian society, the current uprising has united Palestinians from vastly different political stripes, from Muslim fundamentalists to Israeli Arabs. All seem to share a general sense of betrayal by the peace process and the long endured institutionalized discrimination. For years, peace has been discussed, documents signed and hands shaken. Yet, for Palestinians like Muna and Khalid, there has been no discernable improvement. Refugees are still in their camps, settlements expand, travel remains restricted. Perceiving all other avenues exhausted, the only recourse has been the all too familiar stones and a new Intifada-- a Palestinian term for 'uprising' or 'struggle'.
Oscar Wilde once wrote that the most dangerous man in the world is he who has nothing to lose. This is perhaps nowhere more evident than in the Palestinian men and boys on the front lines. Ahmad Issa, also from Deheisheh, is a 15 year old whose brother's poster has covered the camp's walls after being shot by an Israeli soldier. According to Ahmed, there are only two alternatives. Palestinians can either quietly suffer their bleak situation indefinitely or "fight with honour for freedom and for the blood of those who have died." For Ahmed, "At least this way we can live and die with dignity."