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While Hip Hop cats in Oakland were stepping to the Mayor, several of their Bay Area Hip Hop comrades have been made a dangerous trip overseas to Palestine to see first hand what exactly is going on in the middle east. Among the folks who made the trek are DJ Sake-1 of the Local 1200 DJ Crew and Samantha who is a spoken word/ rap artist for Freedom Fighter Records. For those who are here in the Bay Area, she was the young woman who rocked the crowd during the Anti-War rally which drew 100 thousand people the other week. Thus far they've sent back several disturbing eye witness accounts of what's been going on over in the war torn zones. We will share those with you next issue. Props to our Hip Hop brothers and sistas for taking the initiative and taking their activism to new heights. Here's a transcript of their first two reports back to the US. DJ Sake One speaks:It's Tuesday in the West Bank, and I'm calling you from Nablus. I just wanted to let everybody know that we're OK. We're in Nablus. We came in last night. The city is under military occupation and invasion right now. There were apparently two car bombings last night, and Israel is retaliating. They were demolishing houses last night. We observed a house being demolished. There was also a textile factory fire last night, and the Israelis would not allow the Palestinian firefighters access to the fire. We went down to try to intervene. We were told that if the Palestinian firefighter did not leave, they would be shot. We left and then observed a huge tractor demolishing the factory and a home. There have also been indiscriminate shootings. The city is under total curfew. We left to visit the school today. The school was closed today because of curfew. The children were getting shot at by the Israeli police; we were shot at. Everybody's fine. They were just shooting to scare us. Right now we're in Nablus, and we'll be here. We're on our way to Balata camp now. We stayed with a brother named Ahmed who works with the ISM. We'll be moving probably into another house tonight. We'll try to let you know, but we don't have e-mail access. It's incredible here, an amazing reality, and an amazing resistance. I'm glad we're here in Nablus which seems to be the center of a lot of the resistance. Thanks and much love. -DJ Sake One-DJ Sake One Speaks: peace yall . .. just a word from tha third . . . i am in Qafir Qalil, a village in the metro area of Nablus (northern Palestine). For the past two days myself and four comrades (two from Puerto Rico, two from Italy) have been working with the Qafir Qalil community to assist them in completing their annual olive harvest. Olives are a staple product in occupied Palestine and, under the occupation, their economic, cultural, and nutritional significance has magnified. The occupying Israelis understand this, as do the settler Jews who (much like the cowboys of the Manifest Destiny genocide of the 1800s etc) run roughshod over much of Palestine with the implicit support of the Israeli state. Today, after some harrasment and minor threats from settlers, the village of Qafir Qalil completed its annual olive harvest, to the great pleasure of the villagers (today is the second day of Ramadan, the high holy month of muslims; with a sunup-to-sundown fast the rule for 95% of the residents of Nablus, this is very important as work is difficult and the usage of indigenous productds -- with access to areas outside of Nablus severely restricted by Israel -- is key to survival). The news in Nablus proper is not as encouraging. This area is a center of armed (and non-violent) resistance, with over 25 shaheeds (martyrs -- those who died fighting the Israeli occupation) since the start of the Second Intifada (in 2000). Today, a 12-year old Palestinian boy was shot in the Oskar village in Nablus by Israali soldiers. We do not know if the boy is dead but ISM activists on the scene said he lost a large amount of blood and it did not look good. This is a near-daily ocurance here; over 2,000 casualties since the start of this Second Intifada. Resistance here is strong and there are few who doubt that Palestine will be free. Prime Minister Sharon is presently moving to consolidate his right-wing regime (the more doveish Labor Party has left his coalition) and most here see little reason to believe he will not continue to rule Israel. The presence of Jewish settlements is, perhaps, the most obvious clue that the Knesset is digging into, rather than looking for ways out of, occupied Palestine. More news at 11 . . . i love yall dearly -DJ Sake One- |