Report filed June 2nd Dhisha Camp
I spent the late afternoon at the Dhisha refugee camp inside Bethlehem. This is the largest of three refugee camps in this area, holding 12,000 people in tiny cramped stinky quarters. Stinky is the word, for the smell of sewage was very strong as we entered the camp. Still, we were greeted by smiling faces and awkward voices saying "how are you?" as they practiced their english on the Americans with cameras.
We had an appointment with Naji Ohda and his lovely wife Suheir. "We keep our home lovely inside", explains Suhier, "because it is so terrible outside. Inside our small homes we feel as if we an escape and have some peace. It is therefore very important to keep the house lovely, clean, and beautiful." The home was indeed lovely, clean, and beautiful. The family was warm, intellegent, well read, and genuine. I understand why they have been chosen as leaders in this camp of 12,000.
The camp was created by the United Nations in 1948 to receive the Palestinian refugees who fled Israel during the war that marked her birth. (Click this link to see the UN resolutions) Gradually cinder block homes have replaced the tents. The roads are one car wide, and twist through the ghetto.
The refugees have never been able to return to their homes. "We have tried", says Naji. Painfully, he explained how he took his mother to visit his fathers home and spoke with the women now living in his family home. "The government gave me this home", she told them. Naji brought friends to picnic on the farmland that was his fathers. Then he brought more people from their village..., until they were arrested. Now the wall prevents them from returning.
The UN pays for the camp, providing basic education, lights, sewage, and other necessities. The refugees had children, but they are not permitted to expand the camp onto the surrounding land. Naji points to the nearby hillside, "that land", he explains, "has been taken for the expanding Israeli settlement."
Naji and his wife sit on a governing counsel of 15 who settle disputes and see that the camp is properly run. "We have representatives from all the political parties, Fatah, Hamas, the Arab Brotherhood", he explains. "This way, everyone is heard, and the camp remains peaceful.
"I was born here", explains Naji, but this is not my home. This is not a nice place to live. We are farmers who used to press olives for oil and wood. See, we have family photos of the way is was before they took our homes."
His wife, Naji interjects "This Israeli women says to me "Lets Love each other", but I say "yes, you want me to love you, but you stay in our houses, you take all that we own, you want me to love you, but you arrest, drag me by my hair, - if you love me, go back to Poland. How you want me me to love you when you forbid me to discuss the right of return? But you speak of Holocaust, all of Europe is guilty of the Holocaust, not Palestinians. I ask you, what is love? I dream of Peace. I say, come and stay with us, live a dally life of suffering, with check points, the wall, you can not imagine the suffering. They do inhuman things to the women in the prisons. Every night I am afraid. Live with us and you will learn what is love. Perhaps this will open your heart?"
"Always the media says we are terrorists. Nobody asks why we struggle since 1967 or 1948?
"I am an employee in the ministry of health. No salary for me for 1 and 1/2 years. We never stop thinking we are Palestinians. "
"Remember only that I was innocent and, just like you, mortal on that day, I too had a face marked by rage, by pity, and joy, quite simply, a human face." Benjamin Fondone, Died in Auschwitz, 1944.
I shared this quote with Suhire. "Yes", she said, "this is my voice too. But they do not hear me."
Briefly, I consider explaining that, bad as it is, the refugee camp is not Auschwitz, but then I think better of it. She is educated, proud, filled with rage, pity, joy, and love for her people, her children, and the air she breathes; but she is not permitted to visit Yad Vashem. Who am I that I should say such things?
The signs are sponsored by "IWagePeace.Org" and "Combatants For Peace.Org." Both signs will be received at services at the Berlin Mosque, in Berlin CT at 1:00 P.M. Friday June 8th, at Congregation Mishken Israel in Hamden CT on Friday June 8th at 8:00 P.M. and on Sunday, June 10th, 10:30 A.M. at Woodmont United Church of Christ, in Milford CT. The public is welcome at all services. Proper attire is required. Inside the Mosque, Men should wear modest clothing with long pants, women should dress modestly with long paints or full length dresses with long sleeves and head scarf.
For information call: Bruce A. Barrett at (203) 710-5675, email him at IWagepPeace@.mac.com, or visit his web site www.IWagePeace.Org
Children in the camp. 
