Protective Presence: Accessing the IDF Mindset in the West Bank
“Charlotte, you were AMAZING today!” the leader of our organization, whom we’ll call Eytan, writes in our WhatsApp group. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him praise anyone, and the caps bowl me over. He is pleased because when I engaged Satan in conversation he was ‘out of action’.
I haven’t done much; he’ll be back in action tomorrow and all the days after. But the scenario is unprecedented. Settlers don’t sit down for long chats with activists. I feel grateful that Satan gave me a glimpse of his mindset. I write a letter, thanking him for his time, thanking AI in my heart for providing tons of Bible quotes proving God likes peace and forbids violence. I had to doublecheck that God said the same things in the Old Testament (yes, but less). My father once told me that God only changed from bloodthirsty to turn-the-other cheek in the New Testament. I bet that was one of those times when people believed the human race would progress infinitely. Like we did after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Now that I’d provided quotes justifying why I was doing Protective Presence, I asked him for more quotes to justify why he was terrorizing Palestinians. I envision a lengthy communication—a chance to create a crack and let some light in. I fold the letter and put it carefully in my pocket. But it is a long time before I see Satan again; and never when I’m doing Protective Presence. Perhaps I did take him out of action for longer than I imagined. Perhaps he didn’t quite like the idea of kicking me anymore?
But the violence continues. A fellow activist gets punched in the face; her glasses break and blood runs down her cheeks. Another activist gets pepper-sprayed at nighttime.
Eytan must still be pleased with me, because I spend the morning of my next shift driving around with him, documenting road blocks that the settlers have erected. Eytan moves back and forth, yakking into his phone in three languages, lifting some of the rocks out of the way.
In the afternoon he gives me the task of accompanying another Palestinian to the police station in Shar Binyamin. Another namby-pamby job in the best shift ever. Anything to get away from violent settlers! Sami wants to make a complaint, but he can’t enter the Jewish settlement unless a police officer accompanies him. As usual, I trot back and forth between sharing cigarettes with Sami and exhorting the police to pick him up already. We’re sharing our fifth cigarette when another Palestinian pulls up. I am delighted! Surely if there are two people waiting the police are more likely to do their freaking jobs? I skip over to the new fellow and offer him a cigarette, while he and Sami swop stories.
Suddenly, a heavily armoured army vehicle screeches to a stop in front of us and two soldiers get out; an Ethiopian girl and a girl with stringy brown hair. “What are you doing here?” I explain what I’m doing. They ask to see our identification and go into a huddle. One of their phones rings. “This is for you,” they tell me.
Mystified (I don’t even get calls on my own phone) I take the soldier’s cell. “Hi, is this Charlotte?” says a kind, soothing voice. “This is Angie; we met a couple of days ago in Mukhmas.”
I thought it must be another activist, checking that I was OK because the army was there. (I wasn’t connecting the dots, all right?) “Hi Angie! How are you?” Heartiness to mask the fact that I don’t have a clue who Angie is. I have to do this every shift—activists exude affection as though they’ve known me for years and I don’t have a clue who I’m talking to. There are a lot of activists, all right?
“Were you moving rocks from an army blockade this morning?” the kind voice continues.
“No. The army took my passport, you know.”
Jekyll changes to Hyde and a snake hisses in my ear. “Yes you were! It’s illegal to dismantle blockades erected by the army. Do you know that’s an arrestable offense?”
The penny drops. “I didn’t move any rocks. I didn’t touch a fucking rock.”
She barks down the phone for some time. “Don’t move! Stay right where you are!” she commands me, while the soldiers confiscate my passport, along with the identity documents of the two Palestinians. I phone Eytan. He tells me that if they took my passport away this means I’ve been detained. He’d send someone down to help me.
What does being detained mean? A night in prison? A week? Righteously absolved from Protective Presence…please let me be arrested! Meanwhile, an opportunity to learn another mindset. Maybe even open a crack. The soldiers stand duty at the checkpoint to the settlement. Trapped and at my mercy. I trot after them. They are roaring with laughter as I approach.
“The store was accused of racism against Blacks so they were trying to hire an Ethiopian,” chuckles Ethiopian, “but what if she’s from Yemen? They offer her both foods; she samples both.
Stringy shrieks with laughter. “They argue whether she’s a light Ethiopian or a dark Yemini!”
“I love that TV show,” says Ethiopian.
Ahh, the light dawns. Crikey, we’d never see white people arguing about whether a visible minority was Black or First Nation on Canadian TV (because they only wanted to hire a Black person).
I stand patiently by until they notice me. “Do you guys feel ashamed about what’s happening here, like I do? Our calculating opportunist Bibi forging a Faustian pact with racist extremists like Ben Gvir and Smotrich just so he can stay in government. Do you actually like what you’re doing?”
Stringy is pissed. “We’d like it more if you troublemakers didn’t cause problems all the time.”
“I’m causing problems? The settler terrorists hurt people every day. The whole world is turning against us because of a bunch of loonies and a government that sanctions their actions. Don’t you believe in law and order?”
“You think your Arab pals believe in law and order? They don’t want peace; they’ve always wanted to drive us into the sea.”
“So we need to stoop to their level? Try to drive them into the sea in return, when we have all the power?”
“Look at our history,” Ethiopian chimes in. “Who started every war? They did. Who offered every peace deal? We did. Enough already. This is the only land we have and people shouldn’t feel fear in their tiny land. The Arabs hate us. So it’s time for them to go to one of their 49 lands.”
Intelligence considers cracks that let the light in. I look at Ethiopian earnestly. “But a bunch of vigilante terrorists don’t get to decide that. They can’t rampage around hurting people. We can’t abandon law and order because we decide that some victims don’t deserve it.”
“This is law and order!” Stringy shouts. “They go to the police, they lodge a complaint. They call us, we come.”
“After two hours when the terrorists have gone already. Terrible things are happening every day and the world knows. Aren’t you listening to me? If the world turns against us, they might join forces like they did in WWII. They’re not going to let us keep doing this.”
“The world hates us anywhere. Everyone is anti-semitic,” Stringy insists.
“They don’t hate us. They hate what we’re doing. Justifiably.”
“Hmm,” Ethiopian muses. “Attacks on Jews in Canada because they don’t like what Israelis are doing on the other side of the world? Make sense?”
I turn gratefully back to her intelligence. “No, of course not. They’re nuts. Black and white thinkers, like the settler terrorists.”
“Lots of countries are doing bad things. Are the Canadians protesting against Sudan? Or Syria? Nope. Only Israel.”
“Exactly!” I reply with heat. “They hold Israel to a totally different standard.”
“They hate us,” says Stringy triumphantly.
“Do you know the day after October 7 lefty loonies were demonstrating outside the Israeli embassy…against us?”
“How could they be against us after that massacre?” they ask, aghast.
“That’s like…disgusting,” Stringy says.
“I know! Those fucking lefties, claiming more compassion than the right, about immigrants and minorities…what about the fucking Jews? You don’t pick and choose who you feel compassion for, if you’re truly compassionate.”
Israelis plunged into a nightmare after October 7th and they’re just emerging with PTSD. If you didn’t feel compassion for us on October 8, you’re either ignorant of our joint history, or racist. Just like if you’re not living your life like we’re in a climate crisis, you’re either ignorant or selfish. I challenge anyone to prove differently.
I agree with Stringy; it is disgusting. I wax emotional about how the army is all our children, and how we Jews must stick together, for that is how we’ve survived up until now. Stringy reveals she is a settler herself. We part the best of friends. They return our identification and wish us well.
