Crossing Surda
A record of going to and from work

Since March 2001, the Ramallah-Birzeit Road? has been disrupted by a checkpoint manned by Israeli soldiers, APC's and sometimes tanks. This road was the last remaining open road connecting Ramallah with Birzeit University and approximately thirty Palestinian villages?

On December 9th, 2002, I decided to record my daily walk to work across the Surda checkpoint to Birzeit University. When the Israeli Occupation Army saw me filming my feet with my video camera, they stopped me and asked for my I.D. I gave them my American passport and they threw it in the mud. They told me that this was "Israel" and that it was a military zone and that no filming was allowed. They detained me at gunpoint in the winter rain next to their tank? After three hours, they confiscated my videotape and then released me. I watched the soldier slip my videotape into the pocket of his army pants. That night when I returned home, I cut a hole in my bag and put my video camera in the bag. I recorded my daily walk across Surda checkpoint, to and from work, for eight days.

All people including the disabled, elderly, and children must walk distances as far as two kilometers depending on the decisions of the Israeli army at any given time. When Israeli soldiers decide that there should be no movement on the road, they shoot live ammunition, tear gas, and sound bombs to disperse people from the checkpoint.?

Emily Jacir
2003

It is now May 2004 and the situation has worsened. I can no longer move freely through the borders with my American passport. I can not make the project "Where We Come From" today. I am no longer allowed to enter Gaza, and certain Palestinian towns in the West Bank. Israel is relentlessly moving forward in the construction of the Apartheid Wall which began in the spring of 2002.

Where We Come From
30 framed texts and 32 photos

2001-2003


"Where We Come From" is based on my "freedom of movement" as a Palestinian with an American passport, a document which allows me this basic human right. I utilized my passport to access Palestine for Palestinians who are prohibited entry into their own homeland and/or who are restricted movement within it. The question we are always asked at the borders: "Did someone give you something to carry?" was also an inspiration for this piece.

This piece comes out of my own personal experience of the constant back and forth between Palestine and whatever country I happen to be residing in at the moment. My parents themselves do not have the access I have to our own country. They cannot leave the boundaries of Bethlehem because their I.D. cards place them there.

Each time we made our way back home in the 70's, 80's, and 90's, we witnessed the unrelenting proliferation of settlements, checkpoints/borders, and the calculated fragmentation of our people and our lands into smaller and smaller spaces. Israel has divided us into unnatural fragments based on our identity cards such as East Jerusalemites, West Bankers, Gazans, Israelis, Jordanians, Americans, and so forth.

Israel has implemented some of the most draconian and violent military tactics in history to prevent Palestinians from entry into their own homeland as well as the ability to move freely within it. No Palestinian can move freely within the West Bank or Gaza. Measures such as checkpoint/borders, barbed wire, tanks, and soldiers with M-16's have encircled every town and village. Palestinians are killed trying to cross these borders. Those that do have the ability to move are subjected to the worst forms of humiliation at every crossing in an effort to discourage people from entering or moving around the country. These measures have been implemented and designed to fragment and destroy the fabric of our entire people. The situation is now so extreme that going to Jerusalem is as impossible a dream for a Palestinian in Syria as for a Palestinian living 8 kilometers away in Beit Jalla.

Emily Jacir
March 2002