It's 9am now. Another relatively sleepless night. Yesterday at around suppertime, one of the caretakers of the building we were in came in and made the hand gestures of an explosion. There was a second suicide bombing in Jerusalem in less than 30 hours.. "We're going to eat shit tonight" he said.
The fact that they didn't come into Ramallah the night of the first suicide attack was itself a problem. Big attacks need big planning.. They need mobilization. They need the calling up of reserves. Every night that passed from the day of the bombing pointed to a larger and more permanent invasion..
Yesterday night, the army came into Ramallah and had their way with a few of the houses and a few of the men. We heard shooting and the movements of a mechanized force.. Though we all waited, none of us getting even a moment of sleep, they never came. They just rode around shooting for a while, then left..
My brother and another Canadian are sleeping now.. They find safety in the day, as do most people around here.. Many at the GIPP office (out of which we are based) are not in yet, though they usually come in at 7:30. They're probably sleeping too.. Tonight, we'll probably do it all again..
There is no reason to believe the Israelis aren't coming. Tanks are amassing on the outskirts, and have cut all routes in and out of Ramallah.. Also, people have reported the movement of mobile army housing and water tanks - both sure signs of a prolonged stay.. The only thing keeping them out of here is their policy, which is not to give back land that they take over.. By that logic, Ramallah will have to be the last place they take..
Yesterday night was something else. A rally was called for that night at 10pm, a very peculiar time to hold any sort of rally. There was no media there except for Dr. Bob of NBC (apparently he did med at McGill). No.. No media. No locals. Only a handful of internationals and a bunch of PA (Palestinian Authority) soldiers.. The usual protocol for these things is for a few of the internationals to go to each of the various "hotspots" - areas that are active and therefore targeted by the Israelis.. These are, for example, the UPMRC offices, the HDIP (not sure what they do), and PARC (the place with the TV tower and reporters).
Something was amiss, though. Some of the protesters there were pushing with surprising virulence for us all to go into The Compound -- Mu'qaata'a as we call it. That's where the Ra'ees (head; Yasser Arafat) is. Those protestors basically looked like they were taken.. For some reason, they had developed this instinct of trying to protect the leader.. They were attached beyond reason. One of them seemed like she would say or do anything to get us into the compound and keep us there. A few of us walked to the compound to see what was up. What we saw was a man who had more food than he could know what to do with; more weapons than he could use; and everything to lose.
Almost all of us made it very clear that we were not willing to die in a room full of pictures of Arafat. This guy is reviled by most of us. He is a head of state, not the leader of a people. But you can't say that in the compound. In the compound, and in most of Ramallah, people think that though he is imperfect, he is the only hope they have. Right.. Aside from holding us at gunpoint, they could have pressured us no more. But some things absolutely did not compute.. The first guy into the Compound the last time around did not even want to think of staying.. This guy is god-like in the protester movement. Something just didn't compute..
We ended up leaving, though we were lightly harassed by soldiers.. None of the internationals stayed I don't think. What we saw was a little bit of how Arafat works. What we saw was the first circle of corruption..
I don't know what'll happen in light of the fact that we decided not to stay.. It'll probably take a bunch more late nights before we can figure any of it out..
Here's hoping we can help : )
tarek : )