CPTnet
November 20, 2004

AT-TUWANI DIARY: "All this for five kids going to school"

[Note: Below is an excerpt from CPTer Joe Carr's diary that he sent to his
supporters. For pictures of the children from Tuba village taking the long
route to school on donkeys, see
http://www.cpt.org/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album82&id=04_11_02_
kids_go_long_way_on_donkey2

and

http://www.cpt.org/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album82&id=04_10_27_
Ugo_watches_Tuba_children_going_home]

 November 1, 2004

Today we tested yesterday's promises made by the Civil Administration. The
children took the risky short path where the CPTers were attacked the first
time.

The short path should only take the children twenty minutes, so after thirty
we started to get worried. We called Omar, who was walking with the
children, and he said they were on the short path and there were settlers
but no soldiers. So Bob and I cruised up the short path to find them, risk
or not. A few minutes later, the group came strolling down the path past the
settlement, accompanied by an Australian camera crew, three Palestinian men,
an IDF jeep, a settler security jeep, and then us CPTers.

"All this for five kids going to school," I thought. I remembered many
older Americans' stories they tell their children about having to walk to
school ten miles in the snow, up hill, both ways. I imagined these kids
telling their children about needing an armed escort from a foreign army and
the presence of media and human rights observers from around the world.

See the kids on the short path:
http://www.cpt.org/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album82&id=04_11_01_
kids_walk_past_ma_on_on_short_path1

As we passed the settlement . . . an older settler came out of his house. In
perfect American English, he hollered, "Go away, you're not wanted here, you
stir up the pot, nobody wants you here!" I guess he either didn't check with
the Palestinians, or he doesn't consider them people.

After we got the children safely to school, a group of soldiers arrived and
detained us and the Palestinian men. . . . The soldiers said the children
weren't to use that road again and should go middle way, on the other side
of the outpost, and they'd send a jeep at noon to accompany them. We found
good posts on the mountain to watch from, ready to intervene if necessary,
and waited. No jeep arrived, but the children took the middle way with two
Palestinian men regardless.

They came upon a settler farming, who frightened the children. After seeing
us and the children, another settler came out with a gun and his young son,
and the children decided to go ahead and walk the long way home without a
donkey. I stayed on the neighboring mountain to watch the settlers and make
sure they didn't try and follow the children or make trouble. The settler
kept his gun trained on me and even invited his son to look through the
gun's scope at me. I . . . remembered the words of the Prophet of love,
peace, and justice, "Don't be afraid of those who want to kill you. They can
only kill your body; they cannot touch your soul." (Matthew 10:28), and I
was less afraid. But I still decided to take off my red hat and watch the
settlers from behind a large rock. Eventually, I rejoined the rest of the
group and we walked back to our house in Tuwani, frustrated but not
surprised about the outcome. We can never anticipate how those kids will get
to and from school.