Behind the Green Line: International Students Learn Lessons of Occupation

4 October 2000

“Oh, you have no idea how good it feels to be awakened by the warm sun on your face and not by a wailing ambulance,” says a well-rested friend as she enters our house for a morning visit. She lives in Ramallah with a Palestinian family, and of all the international students studying at Birzeit University here in Palestine, her home lies the closest to one of the myriad focal points of conflict between the Palestinians and the Israeli Army (the IDF) – the Al Bireh checkpoint on the road between Ramallah and the nearby West Bank Jewish settlement of Bet El. Last night, she decided to stay with a friend in Birzeit town, a place that provides refuge from the hostilities yet won’t allow you to live in complete ignorance.

About half of the international students live in this old village named for its quantities of olive oil, while the other half chose Ramallah as a residence or even Jerusalem, a forty-five minute trip away. The town has yet to see more than a small dose of the violence that has engulfed most of Palestine and even spilled over the Green Line into Israel proper. For this simple yet profound reason, Birzeit has given ‘home’ a new meaning. Yet six days into the conflict, known locally as the Al Aqsa Intifada, the emotional weight of war levies a burdensome tax on the populace of foreigners and citizens alike.

Birzeit University has been closed since Saturday, and will likely remain so indefinitely as the conflict persists. Most of the Palestinian Birzeit students participate in the uprising against the IDF, and at least one thus far has been killed. The war hangs over the community like a maritime fog, and for the international students the honeymoon phase has past. No longer can most students rely on the surge of adrenaline that follows the collapse of routine. Nor can the sanctity of self-imposed house arrest retain its luster after days of board games and old movies. We cannot close our eyes to the destruction of human decency, though we know the fight is not ours. It is precisely this fact instigates feelings of depression among some, and unabated activism among others. Whether that activism is manifested in peaceful protesting, article writing, or stone throwing, it summarily describes feelings of rage, oppression, helplessness, weariness, and despondency.

The single unifying factor of the international students at Birzeit is, no less, that we are foreigners not borne of occupation. As a roving helicopter and illumination flares interrupt the placid Palestinian sunset, thoughts turn to the people for whom this situation has been a reality for generations. Tuesday morning, while the temporary cease-fire offered a modicum of quietness, conversation with a local Christian shopkeeper bade me ponder a simple question. Which is easier to believe. The average Palestinian is willing to die in a human wave of fanaticism rather than share a religious shrine with another faith? Or the average Palestinian has only known life under an iron fist of crippling military occupation; the promise of freedom often dangled in front of him like a carrot, only to be lost at the crack of the stick (or a rubber bullet)? Perhaps both contain an element of truth. But only the latter depicts the broad picture, the real catalyst of the uprising. Even the smallest spark can start a forest fire. A local Muslim student, who is lying low during the current uprising, confirms the answer.
    “I’m realistic,” he says. “Becoming a martyr is not the way I will help the future of Palestine. But I feel a great sadness for those who fight and are killed, because they believe there is no other way [to end the occupation].”

Helplessness? Oppression? To a visiting student these quickly cease to be romantic abstract feelings. But we’ve learned first-hand that we simply can’t learn such a lesson from a book, a lecture, and least of all CNN. For the most accurate education, try living through a war behind the Green Line. I know a few who’ve been doing it for a lifetime.