"Curfew," as Practiced by Israel, Means the Enslavement of a People

By Brother Patrick White

"In Batir, your village, the curfew is lifted? " I inquired, as I met him for the first time in what seemed an age. Our Palestinian gatekeeper at the university had not reported for work for five weeks because of the prolonged, intensive and blanket curfew on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during the Gulf war.

Surprised, I expected the gate keeper's usual patient engaging smile as a response. Instead his face creased with anxiety when I mentioned the word curfew.

"It's my 10-year-old son. They have taken him. He was arrested. He has been at the military headquarters in prison for 12 days now.

"Why, why?" I asked, bewildered.

"They lifted the curfew on our village. We were told the curfew was raised at 8 am and would start again at 4 pm. He went to see friends outside the village. The Israelis suddenly imposed the curfew again at midday. My son did not know this and was walking home. Soldiers arrested him." He looked despairingly at me. "My wife travels every day to try to get him. She is told the judge will see him in court. The fine is a minimum of 500 shekels ($250), the minimum!"

Curfews at the Drop of a Hat

Western newspapers are told that both the blanket curfews and the accompanying military closed areas orders imposed on 1.7 million Palestinians are now raised. And they are told that life is now normal. How untrue! Curfews and closed military areas can be imposed on the population at the drop of a hat. The curfew, like the sword of Damocles, hangs over the population. One boy throwing a stone, a small incident, means the whole population of that town or village is punished.

The introduction of a new set of permits allowing Palestinians to travel to work in Israel is an added element preventing their freedom. Only a few thousand of the 110,000 who normally work there have managed to acquire this card. Many wait in line for a whole day to be dismissed curtly without a permit. Even those who manage to return to their jobs discover many Israeli employers will now hire them only on a daily basis. This way, the employers do not have to pay social security and other benefits.

One fortunate Palestinian man who works for tourism proudly showed me, in addition to his identity card, a wallet full of different colored permits, each with a passport photograph, giving him freedom to move. He was given permission to travel from Bethlehem to other areas of the West Bank, to go to East Jerusalem, to enter Israel and so on.

Examples illustrating the atomization of a people abound. Just last night an anxious student—she started her studies six years ago and her fiance is still waiting for her to complete them—telephoned to inquire whether she could come to Bethlehem to see me about her senior English seminar. She lives in Tulkarem in the north. It is virtually impossible for her to travel without obtaining the batch of permits similar to those issued to the man who works for tourism. Bethlehem University, one of the few that are officially open, is in reality unable to operate because students are not able to travel except for those in the immediate area. Whatever was considered "normal" before the Gulf war has certainly not been restored!

Yesterday, both Israelis and Palestinians attempted to take desperately needed baby food and powdered milk into the Palestinian town of Tulkarem. Tulkarem. has not only endured an intensive, prolonged curfew since the beginning of the Gulf war, but had previously suffered frequent curfews over many months. Because the relief workers were prevented from entering Tulkarem, they attempted to drive to the town of Nablus, pursued all the way by the Israeli army. When eventually they arrived at the hospital in Nablus, they found the hospital surrounded by armed Israeli troops. The special baby foods were not delivered as planned.

Israeli friends tell me that the whole tempo and approach of the Israeli occupation has intensified. The Israeli soldiers consider they are waging war against the Palestinians and behave accordingly, although the Palestinians are an unarmed civilian population.

Definitions of Genocide

An Israeli woman lawyer quoted to me the 1948 United Nations conventions on "The Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide." The convention's definition of genocide includes acts other than killing. Genocide included a situation where a racial or ethnic or national group, whether in whole or in part, is subject to conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, either in whole or in part. She maintains the present situation in the occupied territories is designed to do precisely that. The curfews and the 1,500 military orders are acts of war against a civilian population. She claims their whole legal basis is questionable.

The whole tempo and approach of the Israeli occupation has intensified.

A further definition of the 1948 United Nations description of genocide included measures to prevent births within a group. Visa regulations preventing thousands of Palestinians from reuniting with their families have been extensively used for decades by the Israelis. They are now intensified. Most of the Palestinians who went to Jordan for short periods of time before the Gulf war were prevented from returning to their families on the West Bank.

In the poem, "Gray's Elegy," the word curfew " referred to the bell that rang in the evening calling people to their homes. It is an inappropriate word to describe the situation here. Internment, imprisonment, a yoke normally reserved for cattle imposed on a people, serfdom, or slavery all may be more suitable.

And that makes me reflect. My favorite program on the BBC World Service is entitled "Off the Shelf. " A book is beautifully read in adapted episodes. I am now listening with interest to the touching and acutely spiritual story of Jacob. He is a deeply religious Jewish young man held in captivity as a farm hand by a Christian peasant community in a remote village in l7th-century Poland. The title of the book is The Slave.

Brother Patrick White teaches at the Vatican sponsored Bethlehem University in the West Bank.