July 6, 2003 
Why I returned to Palestine – Presentation - Rama Mari
http://www.peaceboat.org/english/voyg/pv/41/spe/030706/





Palestinian International Student, Rama Mari, and the flag of her people

The morning Rama began her long journey from Palestine to Peace Boat all the checkpoints were closed. Curfew the day before had stopped her making any travel plans, and the only way out of the country was to slip past the checkpoints and climb over the mountains.

At the risk of being shot by Israeli soldiers, Rama hiked the dangerous paths and rode by car to Jericho. The border guards at the bridge to Jordan confiscated all her papers and photos for censorship - she still hasn't got them back - before letting her pass to continue her journey to join Peace Boat in Japan.

Rama says that days often have to be planned around the rules given by an 18-year-old Israeli soldier, and whether there is a curfew or not. The only way to tell if the checkpoints are open or closed before arriving there and being confronted by heavily armed Israeli soldiers, is by sniffing the air for signs of tear gas.

Rama describes these daily humiliations of Palestinians as a complete disregard for human rights, telling of how Israeli soldiers can enter any Palestinian house at any time without a warrant, and that the vast majority of Palestinian men as well as many school-aged boys have been put in prison - a three month sentence can be given without a crime - despite this being illegal under the Geneva Convention.

During the Israeli invasion of 2002, Rama was locked in her house for over a month and a half, waiting and watching continuing bad news of bulldozers and tanks demolishing Palestinian homes. One day there was a knock at Rama's door, and before she had the chance to open it, Israeli soldiers shot the lock through and burst into her house, smashing up furniture and firing their guns into the walls. They searched all the rooms before stealing her mobile phone and moving on. Because of the curfew and ban on all movement on the streets, many bodies in homes were not found until after the fighting had stopped weeks later.
 
 

With friends after her presentation about life in Palestine

So why did Rama return to a troubled life in Palestine after living as a refugee in countries including Lebanon and Jordan? Currently over four million Palestinians live in crowded refugee camps outside Palestine. The vast majority of these refugees are denied many basic civil liberties, the right to work and political representation. Rama was among the 100,000 refugees who were granted the right to return after agreements made under the Oslo Accords. Describing herself as one of the lucky ones who was able to go back to her homeland, she said that her reasons were to find out what was actually happening in Palestine.

Rama confessed her scepticism about the possibility of success for the mainly US-brokered Road Map peace plan. According to Rama, one glaring omission is its lack of provisions to deal with the plight of the Palestinian refugees - an issue that has been demanding attention since the first refugees were forced from their homes to make way for the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

Other barriers to a lasting peace include the continued construction of new Israeli settlements and a new and widely despised separation wall which starts well inside the Green Line - the pre-1967 division between Israel and Palestinian territories. The nine-meter high, fortified wall cuts through Palestinian villages and traditional farming lands, as well as cutting off access to the bulk of Palestine's vital water resources.

Once the four stages of the wall are complete, it will deprive the Palestinians of approximately half their land in the West Bank and divide the remaining areas into three separate cantons. These totally enclosed areas would be surrounded by military checkpoints, effectively making them outdoor prisons - drawing into question the basis for a viable Palestinian state envisaged in the Road Map.

These, and numerous other reasons have drawn many to the conclusion that the Road Map document lacks a clear grounding in reality. It fails to recognize the root causes of the conflict and therefore is unlikely, at the end of the process, to produce sustainable solutions. It is for these reasons that makes this offer unacceptable to the majority of Palestinians and why internationally, there are serious reservations about the Road Map's potential success.

Once Rama had returned to Palestine and seen the cycle of bloodshed that children witness from an early age, and the sense of hopelessness that results from years of oppression, lack of opportunities and the constant fear that oneself, family or friends may be targeted by the Israeli authorities at any time, she started to understand what a suicide bomber was and the motives that drive them. She stressed to the audience that she is completely opposed to them, but wondered how they could be called terrorists and the State of Israel, with its record of collective punishments and systematic human rights violations not.

Rama remains optimistic however. Her solution, which she admits would be difficult to put into practice due to the amount of hatred there is between both sides today, as well as Israel's desire to have exclusive rights to the [Palestinian] land, would be the founding of one bi-national, secular state, with equal rights for all people. This comes from her conviction that the root to the conflict is the [Zionist] belief that it is possible to have one state that gives land to only one group of people and recognizes only one religion, essentially dehumanizing the other and denying their fundamental rights to exist.