Occupation 101

The greatest enemy of knowledge in not ignorance . .

The greatest enemy of knowledge in not ignorance it is the illusion of knowledge. .

The greatest enemy of knowledge in not ignorance it is the illusion of knowledge. Stephen Hawking

Any violence by a large population

is not because these people are more violent than any other.

It's an alarm, it's a sign, it's a signal

that something is wrong in the treatment of this population.

Where is the outcry?

IRELAND

Where is the voice of the day?

Where is the voice of the people?

ALGERIA

INDIA

AMERICA

Malcom X: They attack all of us for the same reasons.

All of us catch hell from the same enemy.

We're all in the same bag, in the same boat.

We suffer political oppression, economic exploitation,

and social degradation.

All of them from the same enemy.

SOUTH AFRICA

Mandela: It is useless and point futile

for us to continue talking peace and

non-violence against a government whose

reply is only savage attacks on an

unarmed and defenseless people.

This year will be a year of violence.

This year coming, the keynote is violence and the slogan is attack!

I am minded of young David.

HOLY LAND

I am minded of young David, the shepherd boy.

Who stood up before the great warrior of the Philistines.

Young David having all the courage!

There must be someone somewhere.

There's got to be somebody somewhere that cares.

Young David took that one small stone

and the faith of his God

and slay the giant Goliath!

Cry out!

Occupation 101 .

Occupation 101 voices of the silenced majority

A Pathe dispatcher shows the scene in Jerusalem

as Jewish and Arab mobs clashed in the center of the city.

It remains to be seen

whether a threatened full-scale war will materialize.

Soldiers take over homes and

snipers don't hesitate to shoot at

anything that moves in front of them

which includes journalists as well.

As a journalist,

the more you look into the issue of Israel and Palestine,

the more you sense that something is not quite right.

Alison Weir Journalist & founder of "If Americans Knew"

The images and the narration are out of synch,

a little like a foreign film that has been awkwardly dubbed.

Damaged homes and roads destroyed

and only skeletal remains of cars

even food and medicine are ever scarce.

As you look into it for yourself,

you begin to suspect that there is something extremely odd going on.

The more you look into it, the more you begin to feel it is not just odd,

it is deeply disturbing.

Our media portray Mid-East violence

as though it's an inherent part of the culture and region,

implying that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an ancient problem with little hope of solution.

Israeli soldiers reign destruction

in all areas of the West Bank.

The "City of Peace" is under siege

and the Church of Nativity is under

fire by heavy military artillery

Hundreds of citizens are stuck inside

the church without any food or medicine.

These mis-perceptions come from the fact that we're only hearing a fraction of the story.

You are about to witness images and testimony, largely hidden from mainstream America.

This place draws many people, whether they're Jewish, Muslim, or Christian.

Kathleen Kamphoefner Christian Peacemaker Team

This is a holy place to significant numbers of us, in the world.

We all have an interest in sort of seeing what is this land, and what's the situation here.

And, once you come, if you open your eyes at all,

you can't miss the problems and the patterns that are here.

I think it's hard to understand what occupation is.

I think it's a foreign concept for many Americans; what it's like to live under military occupation.

The definition of an occupation is when a foreign army

occupies your land physically and controls your life.

In addition, Palestinians under occupation,

Allegra Pacheco Israeli human rights lawyer

- and this why there's so much struggle against the occupation -

they're not citizens. They don't have rights.

They don't have civil rights. They're under a military rule.

This is a particular kind of occupation, that's both military and settler occupation.

Phyllis Bennis Institute for Policy Studies

Bishop Allen Bartlett Diocese of Washington

Settlements are areas of Palestinian land which are selected,

and whatever is there, whether it's roads, or whether it's villages, or homes,

they are bulldozed, and then a new town is built on the hilltop.

One very good friend is Rodina Jabber.

She and her husband, Ata, have landed in a rural valley near here called the Ba'a.

And it's pretty clear these settlements want this land.

It's some of the best agricultural land around here.

So that valley has had repeated home demolitions.

Rodina, herself, has lived through two home demolitions.

They are living now in their third house.

A bulldozer arrived with soldiers

I was totally shocked and began to

argue with them not to demolish my home

so they began to beat me

and pull my hair.

As the bulldozer was to begin the demolition

I remembered that my

son was sleeping inside

so I ran towards the house to get him

as I ran the soldiers tried to hold me back

They began beating and kicking me

and pulled my hair

I managed to push one to the ground

and ran inside to my son

and carried him out like this.

Rodina and her children were once again homeless,

and had to endure living in a tent for many months.

Her husband, Ata, was even imprisoned for protesting the destruction of their home.

As I was cooking for my children

I noticed that one of my daughters

had tied a rope to a tree and around

her neck to attempt to hang herself

I asked her "What are you doing?"

she said "how can we live outside

in the sun like this?

I don't want to live. I'd rather to die."

It was a miserable time for us

imagine a mother seeing her own

child trying to kill herself.

Their mental condition ia awful!

They don't even sleep at night

they ask: "mommy! What's that?

Check if it's the army!"

3 days ago, the army came at night

and my children began screaming

from all directions

and the soldiers are yelling for my ID

in the middle of the dark

I tell them not to be fearful

and try to calm and console them

but I'm even more afraid than they are.

Here, you have Palestinians that have no input whatsoever in the policies that are made.

Jeff Halper Israeli Committee Against Home Demolition

They're not on the City Council.

They're not in any of the decision-making bodies on the West Bank or Gaza.

They're certainly not in the government.

The policies are made in order to ensure Israeli control.

So the law is designed in a way, in a very cynical way

to prevent Palestinians from building, and to keep them confined in little islands.

So that most of the land of the occupied territories is free for Israeli settlement.

These are armed settlements, about 190 of them,

Richard Falk U.N. Human Rights Fact-finding Commission

spread all over the West Bank.

Settlements are strategically built colonies of Israel

that are connected by a network of roads

which separate each Palestinian community from the next

and confine their ability to expand.

They are often constructed around the best farmland and water resources.

They are surrounded by barbwire.

They are armed inside.

Settler residents are required to be armed by the Israeli military.

And they are defended from the outside, by the Israeli military itself.

The purpose of these settlements today,

number one,

is to continue the Israeli control and domination of the occupied territories.

Allegra Pacheco Israeli human rights lawyer

And the bottom line in all of this is to make Palestinians leave the country.

It's a very hard term, I know, but in a sense, it's a kind of ethnic cleansing.

The Israeli government and the Israeli army is not dealing with people as equal.

I mean, I think that that's the main problem that Palestinians are not considered,

Yael Stien B'tselem - Israeli Human Rights Group

or not perceived as equals to Israelis.

There is no specific discrimination against Palestinian Christians

Douglas Dicks Catholic Relief Services

as opposed to Palestinian Muslims. It's a shared suffering.

Christians see themselves very much a part of the Palestinian national movement.

Father Drew Christiansen United States Catholic Conference

They identify with the Palestinian people as being their people.

Palestinian Christians have difficulty getting to churches on Sunday morning

if they wanted to come to Jerusalem,

because they don't have that permission, or that legal right,

according to the Israeli government, to come to Jerusalem, for worship.

This, I picked up in a home of a wonderful Christian family in Beit Jala.

Thomas Getman World Vision International - Jerusalem

And this is the kind of armor-piercing weaponry

that's being used against civilians, innocent civilians.

It's not easy to tell everything, you know

it's easy to say some words

but you can't tell how do you feel

As every body I want my children to be happy

to live their right life as children

we just think about one thing

where can I put my children

while they are shooting?

They didn't want to go to school

because they are scared to come back

and there is no house

they don't want to go without me