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February 12, 2010
Not under her watch
Machsom Watch is monitoring Israeli checkpoints.
RHONDA SPIVAK
Former Winnipegger and Israeli citizen Ronee Yaeger is a founder of Machsom Watch, a well-known human rights organization made up of Israeli women who monitor the treatment of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers at checkpoints in the West Bank. (Machsom is the Hebrew word for checkpoint.)
Yaeger addressed an audience of about 30 people at an event sponsored by the United Jewish People’s Order recently in Winnipeg.
Yaeger, “who now lives half of the year in Israel and half of the year in Toronto,” told the Independent that she founded Machsom Watch in 2001 as a result of her previous experience in Latin America.
“Prior to [founding Machsom Watch] I had worked for eight to 10 years in the field of human rights in Latin America, so I understood the importance of documentation. I understood that it was important to record at such and such a date, at a certain place, this and this happened. You do this in the hope that eventually, in time, history will correct things,” she said, and, eventually, injustices can be addressed.
Yaeger also said that Machsom Watch “have access to any checkpoint [in the West Bank] but we can’t get to all of them quickly.”
The white-haired Yaeger noted that, “Most women that [stand at the checkpoints] are white haired and look like grandmothers.... This is a good thing,” because soldiers realize that, “I could be their grandmother.” Yaeger said she has never been afraid that a soldier will hurt her.
“I think that soldiers should thank me for what I am doing,” for “standing there and helping save them from doing things that they will have to live with,” Yaeger insisted. “I was once at a small checkpoint and all of a sudden a [Palestinian] man was taken behind a structure so we couldn’t see him.”
She said, then they saw a man with a television camera filming a pastoral scene nearby. “We called him over and he started filming, and we told the soldier that this was a TV camera and he’s an American.”
Yaeger said that Machsom Watch’s women stand “where the soldiers allow us. Generally ... close by.”
Some soldiers do not like the presence of the Machsom Watch women, said Yaeger. “I have been spat at,” she said, but added, “Some soldiers are decent.”
Standing at a checkpoint once, Yaeger saw a young Palestinian man smiling. Next, she said, a soldier told him to “stop smiling,” and the man said, “I’m not.” Yaeger said, the soldier then apprehended the man and took him into a van.
“We didn’t know what happened to [this detainee],” she said, so Machsom Watch followed the van to a military prison.
“[We] decided to check out military prisons,” she continued. As a result, the women now record events occurring at Israeli prisons as well, “because some day those recordings can be used to right wrongs.”
Additionally, the women are now able to watch the proceedings of Israeli military courts, where young Palestinian men often appear. According to Yaeger, one man from Ramallah, filming scenes of Palestinian life for a university class, was apprehended after filming a checkpoint.
“He [was] jailed for three months for doing an assignment,” said Yaeger. “Only lately have we been able to find a system to track [what happens] to these people.”
In Yaeger’s view, the United States ought to stop funding Israeli settlements beyond the 1967 border, the “occupation” must end and “there ought to be difficult, intense negotiations” between Israelis and Palestinians.
The results of negotiations could be either “a two-state” or “one-state solution,” Yaeger said, noting that, “whatever happens, happens ... our job is to stop the occupation.”
Yaeger said she feels “connected to the Jews that live in Israel” but “I can’t say I love Israel.” She added, “I’m not so sure I am married to the idea of a state [of Israel]. I am married to the idea of Jews [and Jewish life] surviving, and I’m worried that there will be a blood bath [in the region], such that there will be mass deaths.
Machsom Watch calls for the end of Israeli “occupation” but, Yaeger said, the women who go to the checkpoints vote for various parties in Israel. “No one asks anyone how they vote,” she said, noting that, in fact, “a co-founder of Machsom Watch is a very [religiously] observant person.”
Asked about the activities of Machsom Watch, Danny Seaman, director of the Israeli government press office in Jerusalem, told the Independent, “As long as the activities of Machsom Watch are done with the purpose of observing, not interfering with the IDF, then it is welcome. The army is not opposed to the women being there, and they are welcome to bring to the attention of soldiers their need to fulfil their obligations [at all times].... The IDF is a people’s army and we are a democratic state and they are citizens of the state, and the army is sometimes grateful for their presence.... There are hundreds of thousands of soldiers and the army isn’t perfect as much as we strive to be.... It’s good to have someone point out [things] at times.”
When asked if he was aware of times when the women were not acting merely as observers, but possibly interfering with the IDF, Seaman responded, “To a large degree they observe and are welcome.”
Rhonda Spivak is a Winnipeg freelance writer and editor of the Winnipeg Jewish Report.
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