A director and filmmaker who grew up in Bloomington-Normal is home for a few days to give a talk about civilian peacemaking efforts in the occupied West Bank.
Quinn Wilson went to the region last fall with Community Peacemaking Team [CPT], a Chicago-based organization that partners with the Mennonite Church of Normal. He'll give a free talk about his experiences at 7 p.m. Sunday at the Mennonite Church, 805 S. Cottage Ave. in Normal.
“For example, we would go to a checkpoint in Hebron,” he said. “We’re observing school children going in and out of the checkpoint. There’s a guard, there’s gates, there’s guns, there’s cameras and, you know, 4-year-olds are going back and forth through this checkpoint to be able to go to school.”
Part of Wilson's role was to report data to the United Nations and act as an observer. His delegation also toured historic sites in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where about three million Palestinians live in settlements controlled by Israeli Defense Forces.
“We went to this one Palestinian village that’s been there for 100 years—this is in Area C in the West Bank, so they’re under Israeli military control. There is no court. There is no judge. It’s all a military occupation,” he said.
Two months prior to his trip, Wilson said a Palestinian settler was killed at a playground in Area C. Israeli forces were ordered to demolish the playground. The local community asked Wilson’s delegation to sit with them on demolition day.
“If there’s international people here, we’re much more likely to have a stay to the demolition,” they told him.
It was Wilson’s second trip to the West Bank; he originally visited in 2018 on another invitation from the Mennonite Church of Normal.
“In 2018, we were like, we’re here, we’ve got our vests on, we’ve got our notebooks and we’re counting,” he said.
This time was more tense. The group was asked to stand back and told they weren't supposed to be there. It was clear to Wilson the Israeli military wasn't as welcoming of third-party observers.
“Even just between 2018 and now, there’s been this amplification," he said.
Made in the U.S.A.
Wilson said Americans have become more aware of the conflict since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks near the Israeli border with Gaza. Still, he encounters people who conflate the situations in Gaza and the West Bank, which are separate land masses with separate governments.
While the conflict in the West Bank is less publicized, Wilson saw the impact of prolonged military occupation in the region, which has been largely funded by the United States.
Wilson noted a 2018 study which determined Aida Refugee Camp in the West Bank to be the world’s most tear-gassed community.
“As we walked around the community, we would see tear gas canisters on the ground from literally the night before’s incursion,” Wilson said. “What was printed on the side? 'Made in the U.S.A.'
“Most of the home demolitions that I’ve heard about anecdotally, and have seen and taken photos of—what do you think the name on the side of the bulldozer is? It’s Caterpillar.
"This feels a world away, but it’s actually right next door. We are a part of this whether we want to be or not.”
Finding hope
During his trip, Wilson asked a tour guide in East Jerusalem what gives him hope.
“He said, ‘I hope to be buried here.’ I think that tells you a lot about the situation and how the Palestinians are feeling in the West Bank about the hope for the future,” he said. “It’s very bleak. They have very little opportunity to resist.
“One of the slogans of the West Bank is ‘existence is resistance.’ Simply to get up and go to school, or to go to work, come home, cook a meal and go to bed—that’s a victory.”
Wilson said it’s hard to see a path to reconciliation without a change to the United States’ involvement—or acknowledging the disproportionate human cost to Palestinians, who are restricted from carrying weapons in the West Bank.
“There’s gotta be a way to move forward, but we’re just in this super polarizing time. No one wants to give any ground. It seems rather hopeless at the moment, but there’s nothing we can’t do if we listen to each other and work together.”
