Day 3 of the Delegation: USPCN Enters the West Bank

Day 3 of the Delegation: USPCN Enters the West Bank

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Arriving early morning in the West Bank, we were warmly greeted by Adnan of the Freedom Theater, located in the heart of Jenin refugee camp. The majority of the camp’s 14,000 residents were displaced from the Carmel region of Haifa during the Nakba.

Adnan unfolded the story of the theater, including the political conditions that led to its creation. It begins with an Israeli settler named Arna Mer-Khamis, who was a member of one of the zionist gangs that carried out the Nakba before transforming politically into a radical supporter of the Palestinian people.

During the First Intifada (1987-1993), Arna went to Jenin to help teach children in the refugee camp, where the Israeli occupation engaged in vicious repression of education by closing schools and jailing most teachers. She supported the residents of the camp as they established a community-based education system by teaching from home to home, and created Stone Theatre on the roof of a family’s building. This theatre was bulldozed by the Israelis in 2002.

In 2006, Freedom Theatre was established by Arna’s son, Juliano, who revived the soul of the Stone Theatre from the rubble. Today, the Freedom Theatre stands out as a model of cultural resistance, “not a replacement for other forms of resistance, but part of the whole liberation struggle.” It has produced several original plays that celebrate the stories of Palestinian resistance, and offers classes in acting, photography, film making, and creative writing.

We were then guided through the rest of Jenin refugee camp. At its entrance, a monument, the Circle of the Right of Return (right), identifies all the villages in 1948 Palestine from which the camp residents were expelled. The buildings in the camp—printed with bullet holes and posters of martyrs—told their own stories of struggle. On April 4th, 2002, during the Second Intifada, the Israeli military invaded the camp, laying siege to the ½-of-a-kilometer-sized area with 15-20 bulldozers that razed 300 meters of homes to the ground, some of which had residents in them who were buried alive.

Palestinians and our supporters everywhere still remember this massacre, as well as the heroic resistance of the camp. It took many years for residents to rebuild their homes and structures, and Adnan stated that the process was made even more difficult by the Palestinian Authority, which failed to distribute aid intended for reconstruction in a timely manner.

A trip to Balata refugee camp was postponed, and we visited the beautiful Old City of Nablus instead, where we toured all its memorials of the resistance of the Second Intifada.

But the highlight of the day was Jenin refugee camp, which remains a steadfast beacon of resistance in all forms. We look to their resilience as an inspiration, and understand that our weapons of honor and dignity are stronger than any occupier.

Until Liberation & Return,

USPCN
June 4, 2018