A visit to Yazan

Palestine is celebrating the 4th day of its biggest holiday - Eid Al-Adha, akin to our Christmas, complete with a shopping frenzy right before it starts. Then each day, after dressing the kids in their new outfits, the family sets out to visit each and every relative, and everyone tries to forget about the occupaion. Which works up to a point.  If the extended family lives within the confines of the village or city, they can move easily from house to house or neighborhood to neighborhood, carrying traditional sweets and gifts for the children, and a festive mood prevails.  But not so easy if their aunts, uncles and cousins live in another town.  Then the experience can be like it was for my friend Mohammed and his wife, Samar.

The day before the Eid they needed to go to visit their older son, Yazan, about 30 miles north of their home city of Nablus.  The Israeli soldiers, whose duty it is to monitor the movement of Palestinians in the spaces between the cities, towns and villages, were of a mind to interfere with family visits.     So they were operating the checkpoint with a heavy hand.  They pushed Mohammed, his wife and several other families into a small room where there was hardly space for them to stand, and made them wait, and wait and wait while the soldiers checked their documents, and their packages, and their handbags.-- as if this were the border with another country. The process of checking IDs is easily accomplished by computer in only a few minutes. But as if to show maximum disresspect for the native population whom the solders now held as virtual captives, the security measures were prolonged enough to cause babies to cry and adults to argue.

Finally that miserable ordeal was over, and the captives were released back into their own land to continue their journeys.  Mohammed and Samar headed a bit further North to reach Magido Prison, an Israeli prison located right on the border btween Israel and Palestine.  For the convenience of Palestinian families who want to visit their sons and brothers, there are a set of gates on the Palestinian side of the border.  And for the convenience of the Israeli guards there are gates on the Israeli side also.

Hence my friends could eventually see Yazan, and the 45 minute visit was extended 15 minutes by the benevolent authorities in recognition of the Palestinian holiday.  However, gratitude for this gesture was tempered by the fact that the entire journey took 13 hours instead of the 6 hours usually required for such visits, and it was peppered with intentional acts of humilation along the way.

Yazan had been arrested last February 11 for failure to report the fact that an Egyptian man had tried to recruit him into a terrorist group.  As Mohammed said, the Israelis should have thanked Yazan for his refusal to accept such an offer. Instead, he was accused of the crime of not going straight away to the occupying army to inform them of the enemy in their midst.  After his arrest, he was scheduled for court appearances 6 times, and his parents made the difficult and exhausting trip to be present to offer support and hopefully to bring Yazan home.  But each time his trial was postponed . The last and final court date was for the day following this visit.

And so it was that Yazan was finally sentenced to 11 months, including time served, for his "failure to report".  His family will continue to suffer the necessary humiliations in order to visit him until he is released, free to return home to the larger prison that is Palestine under occupation.