Brodeck

Nguyen

Mideast fight isn't foreign to South Sound

LORRINE THOMPSON, THE OLYMPIAN

Originally published Monday, May 6, 2002

After more than two weeks hunkered down in Bethlehem with a Palestinian family, Phan Nguyen was surprised to find it was coming home to Olympia that unnerved him.

"It was weird. You can walk freely. I'd hear a truck and think of a tank. Or I'd hear a plane and think of jet fighters," he said.

Nguyen was haunted by gunfire he heard one night on his trip. The next day he learned that a 60-year-old man had been shot while bringing home groceries.

He'd heard a man being killed, he realized.

Nguyen's time in Bethlehem from late March to mid-April "felt like forever," he said. "It felt like a lifetime."

And he plans to return.

Olympia residents Nguyen and Mark Brodeck are among a small number of South Sound residents who have visited Israeli and Palestinian cities and refugee camps in recent weeks, while the conflict there has escalated to gain worldwide attention.

They traveled with agencies working toward peace in the region and greater international awareness of events in the West Bank and Gaza.

"I felt called to go and witness what was going on so I could come back and tell people about it," said Brodeck, 46, a fiscal analyst with the state Department of Transportation.

Both men say their trips stunned and educated them in many ways, and they will work for better understanding and treatment of Palestinians.

The visit "puts a more personal side to it," Nguyen said. "You can't just leave. It's no longer just a story in the news."

Nguyen, a computer consultant with The Evergreen State College library, visited Bethlehem with the International Solidarity Movement.

The organization was founded "to bring an international presence to the West Bank," he said. "Palestinians think no one pays attention to them, no one cares."

Reasons for the trip

He made the trip because he'd learned a lot about the ongoing conflict and thought the Palestinians were suffering through an illegal occupation and terrible living conditions. But he also thought the media weren't telling the full story.

"It's very different when you're there," he said.

Nguyen entered Bethlehem shortly before Israeli troops invaded, then remained for more than two weeks, living with three families in a three-story building they had built.

The adults and children were ordered to stay inside all day after the invasion began, which became a problem because they were running out of food.

For the most part, the city was a ghost town, with deserted streets and people only seen as fleeting shadows through windows.

"Once a week, the Israelis would lift the curfew so people could get food. They would run out to the markets, get as much food as they could, and then run home," Nguyen said.

He was surprised at how Western the Palestinians were, Nguyen said. They watched American movies, knew American celebrities, commented on U.S. politics (one of his hosts liked Clinton better than Bush.)

He absorbed the fears of his hosts when Israeli tanks clattered noisily down streets, or random gunfire was heard.

"There was always fear that (Israelis) would run in and round up the men, as happened in other camps," he said.

All of the men in the building had been detained at one time. One of the children, 8-year-old Awad, has nightmares about his father's arrest.

Nguyen can relate to the disturbing memories.

He was helping transport sick and injured Palestinians one day when Israelis stopped the ambulance, interrogated everyone, and bound the driver and led him away in a line of other bound Palestinian men.

During an attempted visit to Beit Jala with a large group of activists, Nguyen and other group members were shot at by Israeli soldiers. The soldiers shot at the ground in front of the group, but the bullets broke apart and spread out to injure seven of the group and a journalist.

Nguyen was hit in the finger with shrapnel.

Despite that, he plans to return to the region soon because the movement to help Palestinians is gaining momentum, he said. "We're making a difference."

Fellowship of Reconciliation

Brodeck admits he felt a bias toward Israel when he began his trip during the past two weeks in April.

He traveled with a group from the Fellowship of Reconciliation, which opposes war and violence in any region.

"I wasn't prepared for what I saw," Brodeck said. "I wasn't prepared to see an occupation of a foreign land."

He saw many, many heavily guarded checkpoints throughout the West Bank, tanks and heavily armed soldiers "everywhere," roads that are open only to Israelis.

He entered Jenin on April 25, joining a Greek convoy bringing food and supplies into the city where fighting had leveled about four city blocks.

"You could see people living in the buildings with the walls blown out, It was like doll houses," he said.

Rubble was everywhere, and "you could smell (bodies), you could smell the decaying flesh."

To Brodeck, it looked like much more than a sweep by Israelis to locate terrorists. "I call that a massacre," he said.

Like Nguyen, Brodeck said he finds it difficult to believe news reports anymore.

"Not after seeing that," he said.

Both men said they believe Israel's occupation of the West Bank, its many settlements in an area set aside for Palestinians, are illegal and are a root cause of the conflict.

Suicide bombings and attacks by Palestinians "are reprehensible; I think we all agree," Brodeck said, but the answer is not more heavy-handed military action.

The answer is a just, "two-state" solution, Brodeck said, and he plans to spread that word as often as he can.

"I'll speak to anyone who wants to have me."

Lorrine Thompson covers Thurston County and health for The Olympian. She can be reached at 360-754-5431 or lcthomps@olympia.gannett.com.

For more information

- For a news Web site that collects reports from "noncorporate" media on events in Gaza and the West Bank, and Palestinian issues, go to www.indymedia.org.

- For a news Web site with extensive details on events in Israel, the Israeli military and government, go to www. debka.com. The site received a Forbes award in 2001.

The Olympian Copyright 2002

back to Terror in America index