stones and bullets

For the past couple of days, Ana and I have been sitting at a bus station in Qawara Bani Zeit. Well, really a covered blue cement bench next to a road. We were sitting there as it is right next to the boys’ school. In the past, there have been some pretty serious interactions with the army in the schoolyard.

Often, military jeeps will pass through the town. You know it because the whole community starts this whistling to alert everyone else at the other end. The armored trucks seem to slow down at the boys’ school, (some will say) provoking youth to respond by throwing stones. The soldiers can retaliate as they see fit... tossing loud sound bombs or tear gas into the schoolyard, shooting rubber bullets, or perhaps live ammunition as they did in 2003, killing 2 kids. Another time, some students were chased out to a nearby hillside where 16-year-old Rafat was seriously injured from gunshots. Kids are harassed on their way to school, sometimes prevented from arriving, and in general, seem to be targeted for little games by soldiers.

You will often see photos of Palestinian shebab (young boys and men) hurling stones at protests towards soldiers. I’ve seen it at demonstrations, too. Stone throwing is a complicated issue. People debate whether or not it is a nonviolent act. Tossing stones at bulletproof tanks will not likely cause harm, but I think it can be argued that it intends to... rendering it, in my opinion, as NOT a nonviolent act of resistance. What it definitely DOES do is encourage soldiers to respond with crowd-dispersing or deathly weapons, that is for sure. Why do they do it in the first place? At the most recent protest, I asked an 18-year-old what he thought about it... he replied that the soldiers have guns, Israel has bulldozers, what else do these kids have... nothing but the ground they are standing on.