Determined to Stay: Part I

by Jody Sokolower
This nonfiction text details native populations' struggles against the brutal injustices of colonization by focusing primarily on the history of Silwan, a village in Palestine that has been controlled by the Roman and Ottoman Empires, England, Jordan, and Israel.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV–Afterword
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. embassy
    a building where diplomats live or work
    When then-President Trump announced in January 2018 that he was moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, he threw US support behind Israel’s claims to the city, despite international law that forbids Israeli occupation of Jerusalem.
  2. profound
    far-reaching and thoroughgoing in effect
    We visited Dheisheh, the refugee camp near Bethlehem where Zeiad grew up; we went to Jerusalem and Hebron and Ramallah. The trip had a profound effect on all of us.
  3. apartheid
    a social policy of racial segregation
    I saw apartheid first-hand, a different aspect in every city we visited: In Bethlehem, Israel’s apartheid wall makes a big loop right through the center of the city, cutting Palestinians off from their families, schools, hospitals, and their olive groves.
  4. barge
    push one's way
    The Israeli settlers barged onto their land to erect tents and hold Jewish services; sharpshooters in the guard towers shot at them when they tried to take care of their animals or harvest their olives.
  5. lush
    produced or growing in extreme abundance
    Because of the Silwan Spring (Ein Silwan in Arabic), it was a lush picnic spot for people in the area, with cool running water and shady caves to explore in the hot summers.
  6. determined
    characterized by great firmness of purpose
    The Israelis see control of the Old City and the area around it as central to their plans to make Jerusalem the capital of Israel. Because Silwan is so close to the Old City, the Israelis are trying to force Palestinians to leave the village. But the Silwanis are determined to stay.
  7. gilded
    made from or covered with gold
    Brand new stone walls that mimic Old City architecture towered over the front gate, which was adorned with a gilded golden harp—the symbol of King David—and gold lettering in Hebrew and English.
  8. siege
    an action of an armed force that surrounds a fortified place
    We had come to visit the center of a very different perspective on the neighborhood: that of Palestinians living in a village under siege.
  9. incarcerate
    lock up or confine, in or as in a jail
    “Once you’ve been arrested or spent time in prison, it’s almost impossible to find a job here,” he said.
    “That’s true in the United States, too,” Karen said. “Once you’ve been incarcerated, the punishment goes on and on.”
  10. incentive
    extra pay or reward given to employees for good performance
    A major aspect of Israel’s strategy for claiming all of Jerusalem is offering incentives to Jews to move into Palestinian neighborhoods, including those in Silwan and in the Old City.
  11. accord
    a written agreement between two states or sovereigns
    Israeli settlements are communities of Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Jewish ethnicity, built on lands designated as Palestinian in the Oslo Accords, which Israel signed in 1993.
  12. customs
    the place at an airport or port where officials screen incoming travelers and goods
    Just a few months earlier, a friend of mine who wanted to do a public health project in Bethlehem had been turned away at the airport; Israeli customs agents found information about her on the internet that revealed that she was critical of Israel.
  13. iconography
    the system or use of familiar images as symbols
    It is loud inside, echoing voices selling everything from baby clothes and chess sets to spices sculpted into huge gold-and-russet pyramids, and more religious iconography than I had ever seen.
  14. array
    an impressive display or assortment
    When I reached the bottom, suddenly I was in another universe: a fancy underground Israeli mall, a sanitized, upscale version of the Old City, with wide stone sidewalks, carefully pruned trees and flowers in pots, and an international array of stores: Abercrombie & Fitch, Tommy Hilfiger, North Face, Swarovski, and a supermarket-sized drugstore.
  15. resilient
    recovering readily from adversity, depression, or the like
    “And the third is the City of David, how they are using archeology to destroy Palestinian Silwan. But we are resilient. Each time, we are resisting, fighting back.”
  16. advocacy
    active support of an idea or cause
    We started doing home visits to all the children who had been detained. The original idea was advocacy—to see if the children needed legal help or other services.
  17. provoke
    provide the needed stimulus for
    But one morning, when the children were busy at school the Israelis started throwing teargas and sound bombs, and shooting rubber bullets. We don’t know what had provoked them (if anything).
  18. detain
    deprive of freedom; take into confinement
    In 2012, Madaa interviewed thirty children from Silwan, ranging from seven to seventeen years old, who had been arrested and detained.
  19. repercussion
    a remote or indirect consequence of some action
    If you are Israeli, you can say whatever you want without repercussions.
  20. loophole
    an ambiguity that makes it possible to evade an obligation
    He figured out how to use the Absentee Property Law and other loopholes to steal the Abbasi house and many others.
  21. municipal
    of or relating to the government of a district
    “The settlers have their own army, their own budget, their own rules. They didn’t come here like normal strangers. They came with protection from the police, the municipal government, and the courts. So we are fighting against the state, not against ordinary people trying to steal something that is not theirs. It’s not a fair war.”
  22. prod
    a pointed instrument used to provoke into motion
    The second time he was beaten with cattle prods, he was hurt so badly that the ambulance had to come.
  23. inferior
    of or characteristic of low rank or importance
    They think they are so smart when they want Sara’s generation to grow up in fear. They think they will stop them from thinking about the situation, that they will feel inferior and they will not do anything.
  24. repression
    a state of forcible subjugation
    When I was a child and even a teenager, the situation was much better. Even though we were under occupation, we used to have fun. The repression wasn’t so intense.
  25. consecrated
    made, declared, or believed to be holy
    To get back to the Lutheran Guesthouse, we had to walk up the narrow, stone-paved Jewish Quarter Road past settlers’ houses and newly consecrated synagogues.
  26. visceral
    coming from deep inward feelings rather than from reasoning
    Although I have lived in the United States my whole life, much of it spent teaching about and fighting racism, I have never had such a visceral experience of white privilege as in the streets of Palestine.
  27. cornerstone
    the basic or fundamental part on which something depends
    As Jawad and Nihad had explained, the City of David National Park is the cornerstone of the Elad development organization.
  28. stake
    a right or legal share of something
    Recently, it’s also called Jerusalem Walls National Park, laying out a stake to all of the Old City and the areas surrounding it.
  29. emeritus
    honorably retired from assigned duties
    According to one of those experts, William Dever, professor emeritus at the University of Arizona:
    From the beginnings of what we call biblical archeology, perhaps 150 years ago, scholars, mostly western scholars, have attempted to use archeological data to prove the Bible.
  30. shaft
    a long vertical passage sunk into the earth, as for a mine
    So they excavated quickly to reach the earliest layers.
    In order to do that, the developers reinforced the excavation pit with concrete poured into shafts bored down from the surface into bedrock far below, destroying artifacts along the way.
  31. endeavor
    earnest and conscientious activity intended to do something
    He wrote a letter to Zionist leader Baron Rothschild in 1917 that said, “His majesty’s government view[s] with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this project.”
  32. facilitate
    increase the likelihood of
    He wrote a letter to Zionist leader Baron Rothschild in 1917 that said, “His majesty’s government view[s] with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this project.”
  33. revolt
    organized opposition to authority
    The Palestinians organized the Great Revolt, a general strike and a rebellion that lasted from 1936 to 1939, demanding independence and an end to colonial rule, but they didn’t succeed in forcing England to leave.
  34. partition
    divide into parts, pieces, or sections
    Despite Palestinian protests, the United Nations agreed to partition Palestine—giving more than half, with almost all of the access to the Mediterranean and arable land, to the Zionists.
  35. arable
    capable of being farmed productively
    Despite Palestinian protests, the United Nations agreed to partition Palestine—giving more than half, with almost all of the access to the Mediterranean and arable land, to the Zionists.
  36. jurisdiction
    the right and power to interpret and apply the law
    And the city of Jerusalem—important to Muslims, Christians, and Jews for religious reasons—was designated an international city under the jurisdiction of the United Nations.
  37. uproot
    move forcibly from a homeland into a new foreign environment
    Beginning that fall and escalating in 1948, the Zionists began a well-planned strategy to kill, terrorize, and uproot the Palestinian population.
  38. stipulate
    make an express demand or provision in an agreement
    UN Resolution 242 was passed in November 1967, a few months after the end of the Six-Day War. It stipulated that Israel withdraw from all the territories it occupied in the 1967 war: the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), Gaza, the Golan Heights (part of Syria) and the Sinai Peninsula (part of Egypt).
  39. intifada
    an uprising by Palestinians against the Israeli government
    I was a teenager during the First Intifada. The First Intifada was a huge resistance movement of Palestinians against the occupation. It started in 1987. Every community was organized. We really believed we would win our independence.
  40. exacerbate
    make worse
    On top of that, Oslo postponed the question of who controls Jerusalem and it didn’t do anything about Israeli settlers moving into the areas that are supposed to be Palestinian. So the Oslo Accords exacerbated the problem with Israeli settlements in the West Bank that started in 1967.
Created on Thu Aug 08 09:44:50 EDT 2024 (updated Thu Aug 08 16:21:37 EDT 2024)

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