community alternatives

I'm waiting for my photos to upload right now and I wanted to take this time to reflect on something I've been thinking about while I've been here.

In the U.S. I talk with people a lot about how to deal with violence within communities, without relying on the State, prisons, or police. Usually I talk about this in terms of sexual violence but I think it applies to other acts of violence as well. Here in Palestine, I have seen some very concrete manifestations of such alternatives which have taught me a lot.

In Tel Rumeida, there is no Palestinian police force. The only official "authorities" are the Israeli police (border police and regular) and the IOF (the soldiers). Of course the Palestinians cannot rely on any of these forces for protection. Yet Tel Rumeida is a community, and this sense of community extends to the rest of al Xhaleel (Hebron) as well.

One international woman arrived one evening in Al Xhaleel from Al Quds by herself. Her bag was stolen from her. Not knowing what to do, she called a couple of our Palestinian friends from the region. They arrived immediately and asked around, according to the description of the person who had stolen this woman's bag. They were able to figure out who it was almost immediately. They called his family and explained that this woman, who was here in solidarity with the Palestinian people, was like family to them, and that anything anyone did to her was like doing it to their own families. The family of the thief was extremely apologetic and promised to have the bag back to her with all of its contents within 2 minutes. Our Palestinian friends brought this woman to the house of this family where she retrieved her bag- with every cent and everything else still inside. All of this happened in less than two hours.
I have never heard of a police force as effective as this.

I have more examples if anyone wants to talk to me about it, but since they're more personal (not for me, but for friends) I don't feel like it's okay to post them here. In general though, I think that the examples prove that community systems of holding one another accountable can work incredibly well and are much more effective at this than any State based solution I have ever seen.