Only Democracy in the Middle East Brings to you Fascism, Live!

Salaam alaikum to all of yinz.

Hope all of you are well and busy doing the things you do. I have had a busy week over this way. Seemingly never ending. Haven't slept much but that was my choice. I'll break these last 7 days up into a few sections:

1. Guest Teacher at the "First Palestinian Circus School."

2. Queeruption 9 Nature Party and Tour of Temple Mount/ Dome of the Rock.
Protest in Jerusalem, Israeli security uses unnecessary force to stop it.

3. Protest in Bil'in. Israeli army uses excessive violent force to crush the demonstration.

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1. Guest Teacher at the "First Palestinian Circus School."

Monday, 7 Aug 2006

I received a random email from my juggler friend in Seattle. She asked me if I have ever heard of the "First Palestinian Circus School." I hadn't. So I did a quick search.

The circus school is in Ramallah, initiated by one Shadi Zmorrod. I sent him an e-mail to inform him that I was in Palestine and also do some circus performing in Hebron where I live.

Excitedly, he called me back the next morning. He told me about the circus and their goals and their mission and the recent problems they have been faced with, financially and structurally.

I decided to, upon his request, join them the next day during circus practice.

When I arrived, I found several kids juggling.



Other were doing acrobatic weight sharing type stuff. Then there were a few students learning the trapeze.





Another circus perform from Italy was teaching stilt walking with hand-made stilts from the day before in Palestine.




I met with Shadi. He was great and really happy to have me there. I showed him photos on my camera from our sixth (I think) circus that we (the Tel Rumeida Circus for Detained Palestinians TRCDP) performed next to the checkpoint in Hebron the night before.




(Photos from the Israeli checkpoint outside of our house)



I had some tea and cigarettes with Shadi. Here's the scoop:

Shadi has been doing theatre/circusd work since he was 13. Now, 14 years later, his dream of opening up a Palestinian circus school is starting to crystallize.

Funding and trainers from Belgium, however, have fallen through. One week before the trainers and the funding was to arrive, the plan was cancelled due to the "political situation."

But that has not stopped Shadi or the devoted students. They have decided to train the students as trainers-- with the small skills that some of them already possess.

With the cancellation by the Finnish government of the financial support for the circus, the question remained: Should we continue to quit?

Continue was the choice. The Ashtar theatre has decided to donate their space to the school for 3 weeks. I arrived on the fifth day of the circus. Food is also being donated. Transportation, rent, faxes, and phone, just to name a few of the costs, are all being paid for from the pockets of Shadi.

In an email to the community at large, Shadi makes a call for help:

******"Begin"*******
Concerns: Israeli aggression frustrating plans of the First Palestinians Circus School

Ramallah, July 25, 2006

Dear,

We at the First Palestinian Circus are very sad to announce you that due to the current instability in the region, our first big activity, the training workshop of three Belgian circus artists already had to be cancelled at the very last minute.

All the work that had been put into the three weeks training is gone by an ugly wind that the Israeli helicopters moved over Lebanon. As in an Arabic saying: "the bullet that doesn't kill bothers” and these bullets seem to bother our life, culture, studies and dreams.

Not wanting to render to despair, and continuing to pay the price of the brutal Israeli aggression, we have decided to continue the workshop among those motivated people who have some basic skills to organize a first circus initiation workshop, Between the 2nd until 18th of August 2006 with the grand opening day for the circus school at the 18th of august.

We will continue to work hard to start up the First Palestinian Circus School in Ramallah.

Although to be able to do this we do need some support. Due to the cancellation of the Belgian workshop, we lost out on the necessary funding to pay accommodation, catering, transportation, and many circus materials we already bought.

Therefore we are calling out to all our friends over the world to give the First Palestinian Circus School a little push to stand up and accomplish its dreams.

What can you do?

- Support the basic costs for the workshop in August and the start up of the
Circus School in September by donating some money on account number 461556-5-510 of the Arab Bank, in El Ram, BR Code 9110 mentioning: Shadi Zmorrod The First Palestinian Circus School
- Ship or send us some specific circus materials.
- Come to Palestine and provide us with some training in circus techniques, pedagogical approaches of working with circus to develop the social and meteoric skills of children.
- Pass this message on to other possible interested people.

Do you want to be kept informed of what we are doing? , we ask you to send us a little Message to s.zmorrod@gmail.com mentioning: please keep us informed of future developments of the First Palestinian Circus. And we will make sure we send you a regular update.

Please contact us for any further information.

Thank you very much for your consideration and time, and hope to meet you in the future.


Best regards from Occupied Palestine,


Shadi Zmorrod
Initiator of the First Palestinian Circus School
s.zmorrod@gmail.com
+972 54 567 1911
Ramallah
Palestine

*******END**********

Some friends in Europe are sending some cash when they can and friends in the community are helping out. But they need equipment. That is their main desire... If any of my circus friends out there have any extra juggling pins or poi or juggling balls or devil sticks or staff or anything of this sort, let me know.

After chatting with Shadi I toured the rest of the school. I took an hour and a half long class of trapeze with them.


I took one class before in San Francisco so had a little training. So i helped out with support. Then I taught some juggling with the kids and also did some acrobatics with the guys.

It was actually quite nice the whole day. I got a huge workout that I wasn't necessarily expecting for the day. They invited me to return for the whole of next week but, because of the work in Hebron, I cannot. But I will be there 3 days to teach. Then, on Friday, the circus school is having their grand opening celebration--a combination of the circus skills that they have been learning. This is on Friday the 18th. Katie and I have been invited to do our fire show for them. We humbly accepted.

If you would like to read more about the First Palestinian Circus, go to:

http://www.circus2iraq.org/default.asp?page=51

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2. Queeruption 9 Nature Party and Tour of Temple Mount/ Dome of the Rock.
Protest in Jerusalem, Israeli security uses unnecessary force to stop it.

Wed 9 Aug

Nature Party was had outside of Jerusalem at a natural spring. i forget the name of it but it was quite beautiful. The moon was full and the spirit was pretty nice.

Lots of chatting about what we do here in Hebron. Several people asked for my number so they can come by the West Bank and join us in the ISM.

There was food and some full moonlight dipping in the spring. I brought my poi and three of us did some fire dancing.







Stayed up very late chatting with these world travelers and locals--

Thurs 10 Aug

But we had to be on a bus by 8AM. Queeruption was splitting off into two groups to tour Jerusalem. One went on a tour of the Jewish Arab area and learned the history of the oppression of these Jews by the Israeli government and their history of resistance to this oppression.

Although I had already been to the Dome and Temple Mount, i wanted to take the tour of it, grab some history by the guide from Hebron region.



Learned a lot. A history of the Knights Templar that used to be there. Walked the route that Arien Sharon and his entourage did which sparked the intifada in September 2000.



What's inside the Dome of the Rock? -- the first stone created by Allah is housed there.

It was a fun tour but the real fun came later.

About 200 members of Queeruption 9 joined the demonstration in Jerusalem instead of the World Pride parade. Our goal was to bring to light the fact that being queer is great and it is political-- and that having a pride parade in a country occupying another country just a few meters away dismantles the whole idea of being gay and proud. "No pride in occupation!" So we had a demonstration.





Many people came up to me, somewhat angry, for "infiltrating" what was supposed to be a pride parade-- not an "anti-war" parade. Why are you waving your Lebanese and Palestinian flags? Go home! Well no. Our friends in ASWAD, a queer Lebanese group is being hit by Israeli-American bombs as we stood there. And there are now 1000 dead people in Lebanon are many are suffering in both Lebanon and Palestine while world pride waves their rainbow flags and refuses to confront these issues.





So we at Queeruption 9 showed our teeth for those in Palestine and Lebanon- and our solidarity with them and the oppressed people and queers of all the world. That is world pride!

But the Israeli police, security, and even the military was there. They decided to impose a law: Lebanese and Palestinian flags are illegal in Israel. At least for the day. So they rushed at the crowd and beat many and a few were arrested. It was totally unnecessary use of force, unprovoked by the demonstrators demonstrating in the "only democracy in the Middle East."





They then said that we were chanting too loud and that was grounds enough for them for even more force to be used against us. But we all stuck together. Many queeruptors went to the police station for prison support. The rest went back to Tel Aviv to prepare for the protest in the West Bank village of Bil'in the next day.
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3. Protest in Bil'in. Israeli army uses excessive violent force to crush the demonstration.





This morning, about 70-80 queeruptors and Israeli anarchists joined Palestinians and internationals with the ISM in the village of Bil'in in the West Bank. Israeli is confiscating and destroying Palestinian farmland to build the apartheid wall which will seperate Palestinian land from Palestinian land.

Queeruption 9 decided to join the weekly Friday demonstration against the wall. Though the ISM has an intensive 2 day training for days like this, queeruption had something similar. Two days of a few hours of training on what to expect, what to wear, what to consider, how to handle youself if there is conflict with the soldiers involving tear gas or sound bombs or rubber bullets.

After a small meeting at the ISM house, a few hundred protestors took to the streets carrying fake dead bodies to represent the victims of Israeli violence in Palestine and Lebanon.





We were en route to the the wall being constructed by Israel. No sooner did we turn the corner that the demonstrators found the Israeli army waiting for us.

Decided during the meting was who would be in the front line, who would be arrest support should anyone be taken away, who was arrestable. For me, I was on the medical support team. Since I have training as an EMT, and because I cannot get arrested again, being not in the front line and more so on the side suited me well so I could assist any injuries that might occur.

Just moments after we reached the soldiers, they started to fire sound grenades. If you don't know about sound grenades, well, they're a little scary at first. The soldiers were throwing these orange canisters into the middle of the crowd and at the front line. There was no warning that I heard-- only a huge boom sound and a cloud of smoke.

Some of these things were landing right next to people. Then I noticed that the soldiers were beating women and men with their sticks. I heard many screams so I started to make my way to the front line to assist.

At this point, however, the soldiers started to fire rubber bullets. Rubber bullets are really live bullets covered in thin layer of rubber so "they don't penetrate the skin." Later in this story you will hear the contrary.

So I heard these bullets whizzing past my head--even though they are supposed to fire only at the feet. They are also only supposed to fire from a distance further than 50 meters. Many cameras and eyeballs witnessed the contrary to this, too.



So, as I made my way to the front to assist those who were hurt. I felt a bite at my left hip. After a moment I realized I was hit. A sound grenade moments after landed next to me and exploded. I was stunned for a moment from the sound and the pain accumulating in my leg. As I inched my way to the side of the road and toward the front line, I paused behind a pile of bricks and construction material.

All of a sudden I heard a "Hey!" from 10 meters beside me. There, I found two soldiers pointing their guns straight at me. To my recollection, I didn't see the special rubber bullet attachments that fit at the end of their rifles. OH SHIT are the words that crossed my mind firstly.

I escaped from the bricks and away from the soldiers. Then I felt the next bite in the back of my left calf. Typical-- Israelis hitting you from behind. The soldiers did it today and the settlers did it last month in Hebron. I don't know if coward is a good enough word for them.

But the bullets kept coming. Though it is stated and in most cases is true that you shouldn't run as a pack in situations like this, it is what happened this day. Many of these interational quueruptors had never been to a demonstration like this before-- let alone in a place under brutal occupation by Israeli forces. So the natural instinct was to run for many of them.



The bullets whizzed past as people covered their heads. Sound bombs and their noises and bursts of smoke also littered the stream of people. I stopped eventually to see what hit my leg.

This is what I found



My ear was ringing at this point from the sound shock. I now found myself needing medical attention. But I heard that a demonstrator was hit with a rubber bullet in the head at close range. One person said they saw cerebral fluid exiting the wound. I wanted to go and help but I could barely move my leg.

An Israeli anarcho-medic came to me and suited me up with a bandage. I asked her where the person was whom was hit. She wasn't sure... In the bushes somewhere she said. As I tried to find out more information to go and help sound bombs started to fall near us--way at the back of the line.

Friends then made me take a break, there's enough people they said in the front of the demo who can help him. My hip started hurting as I made my way to a safe house with a red crescent ambulance parked in front.

A very kind medic named Khaled on his day helped me out some more. A woman in her fifties from Michigan was also hit in the back of her leg as well. She was lying down from dizziness and bleeding slightly.

Then I heard the news from some others about the person that was hit in the head with a bullet.



The activist is in critical condition. He was shot on the neck and just above his right ear with 3 rubber bullets at close range. He has had surgery at Tel Hashomer hospital to remove a rubber bullet that was lodged in his skull. Currently he is in a medical induced coma in moderate but stable condition, but has sustained brain damaged of unknown severity.

Today I heard that he may not be able to see or walk afterhe recovers. Insha'allah this is just a rumor.

Another woman with whom I work in Hebron has suffered a fracture in her skull and brain contusion after a soldier beat her with the butt of his gun. She is currently hospitalized in Hebron, West Bank and is conscious but unable to walk. She was also beaten on her legs and sustained minor injuries.



I visited her tonight in the hospital. She will be released tomorrow. She is vomiting and cannot walk on her own -- but tomorrow we will arrive to pick her up at the hospital in a big pink limousine.

All in all, fourteen people from Bil’in, Israelis and internationals, have been injured.

All of those who were injured will be gathering their info and thoughts and pouring it into the laps of the court to try and do something about this unneccessary use of violence against non-violent protestors.

Probably nothing will come of this-- they get away with everything, but worth a try.

Regarding my injuries, I went to the ER after I visited my friend. Any injuries inflicted as part of the intifada-- whether from soldiers or settlers, are free of charge. So Rena and my treatment, our X-rays,




doctor visit, vital signs, discharge notes, Rena's stay in the hospital for 3 days-- all covered. I ask myself would my homeland do the same for me? Even the veterans don't get that kind of treatment. Maybe I'm just an idealist.

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Today I took the day off of work. I am supposed to teach at the circus school tomorrow but I may need one more day of rest. I took it easy today. Shabbat was surprisingly quiet here on the streets of Hebron.

Last night the soldiers broke into the house of our friends the Abu Haikals. They were also canvassing the neighborhood going into the house across the street. They were "looking for evidence." A typical excuse that holds no bearing. Harrassment is the real excuse.

Here, soldiers mingle with illegal settlers as international activists try and enter the house to document what is happening behind the closed door.



Tonight we had some tea on our roof with the Abu Haikals- Ala and Mohannat.



They're great. But we're afraid they may be calling us tonight because the soldiers will uninvitingly enter their house again.



Some of our co-workers are at the checkpoint now because soldiers are detaining four Palestinian men because they think they "have a bomb." Again, just bullshit harrassment.

It is now midnight. In exactly two weeks Mars will be the closest to earth that it has been in recorded time. No one alive today will ever see it again.

Mars represents the god of war. And with that proximity to the earth, things going awry is an understatement for the potentiality of what the leaders of our planet can (and will) do because "god told them to do so."

may goddess pray for us all.

Signing off.
Jonas