Dear Friends and Supporters,

About three weeks ago, four university students from France arrived at the PFTA office as part of a year-long research project on olive oil producing countries in the Mediterranean.  Coincidentally, Nasser Abufarha, the director of PFTA was scheduled to attend and give a presentation at a fair trade fair in France about two weeks after their arrival.  To facilitate communication with fair attendees, Nasser asked one of the students, Jean, to accompany him on the trip.  

After the fair, Jean attempted to return to Palestine the day before Nasser and flew to Amman and arrived at the Jordanian border expecting a routine baggage check and passport stamp.  He had been in both Palestine and Israel before (just five days earlier) and had had no problems entering, exiting, or living in the area.  All of Palestine's borders are controlled by Israel, which means that even if someone enters and exits Palestine through the West Bank or Gaza, they receive an Israeli passport stamp, and a taste of a ferocious Israeli border security program.  So, Jean, who had no attention of ever returning to Israel still had to pass through an "Israeli border" to go to Jericho and catch a bus to Jenin (where he left the bulk of his belongings and his three friends).  Israel wanted to know why a French citizen had come to Israel, left for five days to Jordan, and wanted to return.  Jean replied that he had gone home to France via Jordan to visit family and was now "returning to Jenin in Palestine."  Woops!  According to Israel, there is no Palestine, it simply does not exist, and it is incredibly irritating to border guards to hear tourists use the term "Palestine" or "Palestinian" thus implying a claim to the land that is not Zionist in nature.

The border guards wanted to know why Jean wanted to visit Jenin and what he was doing there.  They also tried to make very clear to him their morally reprehensible view that, "Jenin is in Israel, there is no Palestine."  In the end, Jean received a beautiful new red stamp in his passport that read "ENTRY DENIED", and walked back to Jordan.  

The next day, Jean tried again, this time with Nasser who had, in the meantime, returned to Jordan from France.  Nasser went to both the Israeli embassy in Jordan and the border crossing with Jean.  At the border, he explained what was going on, what Jean was doing (which he described as touring the Mediterranean), and that he was finished in Jenin and was returning to Jerusalem to meet his friends.  Therefore, there would be no reason to deny him entry, he had no nefarious intentions, and by preventing him entry, Israel would be hurting only its own image.  The border guard apologized to both of them, claimed there had been a misunderstanding and informed them that Jean would be admitted in very little time, after they received clearance.  Nasser was told to leave the area and Jean was told to wait.  By the time Nasser got into a taxi on the other side of the bridge, Jean was on the phone telling him that the Israeli Ministry of Defense had deemed him, "a threat to the State of Israel", that he had received another beautiful red stamp, and that he was returning to Jordan.  Jean will not be allowed to enter Israel or Palestine for the next ten years.  Ehud Barak (the Israeli Minister of Defense) seems like he should have better things to do.

This story is interesting because it brings to light the quasi-official policy of keeping Palestine closed to tourists, strengthening the isolating hold Israel maintains on its population.  I've never had the courage (or foolhardiness) to tell Israeli border guards my real plan when entering the area.  I suppose that's a good thing, because if I had, I would have been denied the chance to write my thesis by Israel and later would have been denied the chance to visit friends by Israel.  The story also brings up the issue of who owns this land, and Israel's willingness to have its official representatives (ie border guards) openly state that there is no such thing as Palestine.  It feels like we're back in the era of Golda Meir, who, during her time as Prime Minister, declared that there was "no such thing as Palestinians…they simply did not exist," thus ridding Israel of responsibility for the narrative of al-nakba, the event in 1948 when 800,000 Palestinians fled their homes in terror and, until this day, despite UN resolutions to the contrary, have never been allowed to return or receive compensation.

Sometimes, Israel really does make it seem like they own the land.  They certainly do set up checkpoints all over the place, drive their Jeeps and Hummers into villages, walk around the surrounding farm fields in military formation and, in the past few days, have blocked every single inter-city road in the West Bank, completely isolating regions from each other.  But then you see who Palestine really belongs to when you get in a shared taxi and the driver goes around a dirt roadblock by driving through a field, when a father tells you of his family's 600 year history in a certain village, and when a farmer tells the soldiers, "Even if you shoot me, I will still pick my olives."  Palestine is under occupation, but it is certainly still Palestine and the determined people who live here are Palestinian.

Salaam,
Andrew Pappone


The House of Fair Trade Newsletter is a weekly email newsletter sent from the offices of the Palestine Fair Trade Association in Jenin, Palestine with stories and experiences from the ground in Palestine.  You are receiving this email because you or someone you know asked me to put you on the list.  If you do not wish to receive these updates, please let me know.  If you know of anyone who would like to subscribe to this email list, please have them email me with the word "subscribe".   I welcome any questions or comments.
For past issues please contact me or visit auphr.org.

The views expressed in this newsletter are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Palestine Fair Trade Association.

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