Report from Umm el Fahm 3/24/09

I arrived at 11am on Tuesday March 24th, via highway 65 to Umm el Fahm. Highway 65 was adorned with military and police (I counted men in three different types of uniforms), blocking the intersections that lead into each Palestinian village. At the intersection of Umm el Fahm, there was additionally police on horses, as if they were preparing for a riot. Approximately one mile away from Umm el Fahm sat a large coach bus, the kind Greyhound uses. This was the Kahana bus.

In Umm el Fahm I viewed approximately 30 demonstrators standing about, close to the entrance of the village. Umm el Fahm is one of the larger villages in Wadi Ara, however it is still a village and not a city, due to the economic and political stifling caused by discriminatory Israeli policy. The boarders of the village stretch all of the way to the top of a large hill, almost connecting it to Mei-ami settlement. In this area , between Umm el Fahm and the settlement there is a road, this is the road where the Kahana held their march, according to the villagers of Umm el Fahm. In addition to the Palestinian demonstrations, whom looked to be mostly teenage woman, I noticed ten left-wing Israelis who were mostly a combination of clad in black, punk teenagers and middle-aged women, with big smiles. There was no visible organized demonstration, that is, mostly people looked as if they had gathered by the front entrance of the village, and were met by military and police. Then it started to rain.

As the rain poured down, I retreated to my car for cover. The rain was hard and the air was cold, so many of the demonstrations went under the awning of a cafe. As well, the military in full riot gear was standing under the awning. Yes, demonstrators and military getting out of the rain together. Other people looked as if they were leaving, so I turned on the car, the radio and began to leave. While still inside Umm el Fahm the news from the radio reported: stay away from Umm el Fahm, it is very dangerous, stones are being thrown, people are going to the hospital and the highway 65 is closed. None of this was true, but the media was still demonizing the residents of Umm el Fahm as violent people, despite that 20 feet from me demonstrators were standing peacefully.

Of course something did happen in Umm el Fahm. I left before the "action" began, so I don't know exactly how things changed from the quite demonstration to the images of residents running from tear-gas and throwing stones in response. When I asked people that stayed at the demonstration what happened, they informed me that the Kahana never walked inside the village, and after I left, the army almost randomly began shooting tear-gas and rubber-coated metal bullets at the unarmed crowd. Later in the evening, I watched a report of the demonstration on an Israeli news channel. You can hear one of the soldiers say "Good, I shot the whore."