Brookline to Palestine: Local Activist Tells Her Story

This column was written with assistance by Linda Dittmar

“People think Palestine is not their problem,” said Trudi Frost of Brookline, who briefly visited the West Bank in December before quickly being jailed and then deported.

But, said Frost, “The same system of violence used against Palestinians is coming back here," referring to the tactics employed in the mass immigration crackdowns that have resulted in widespread arrests, the detentions and deportations of legal residents and the shooting deaths of U.S. citizens.

Frost, along with another Asian American, Irene Cho, were the focus of a little publicized campaign to get the two women freed from Israeli detention, where they were held from Dec. 12 to about Dec. 19, partly in an Israeli prison for women. Thousands of letters were sent on their behalf, following an outcry by Palestine solidarity groups and the activist Korean diaspora group, Nodutdol. But their detention earned little notice in the U.S. press, aside from a report in Drop Site News, which along with social media posts about the campaign caught the attention of Sampan.

STANDING UP: Trudi Frost traveled to the West Bank to support a family whose home was said to be at risk because of Israeli settlers. Photo by Adam Smith

Frost’s and Cho’s story is a brief footnote in the ongoing effort by activists to take a stand against Israeli settler and military violence in the West Bank. The two women are among a large number of volunteer activists from around the world who have over the decades traveled to the West Bank — often under the guise of being tourists ­— with groups like the International Solidarity Movement and returning to bring attention to the plight of Palestinians in the occupied area. A small number of these activists have been harmed or killed. Most others have quietly been detained and deported.

Settler and military violence have long plagued the West Bank, as Palestinian homes have been taken or demolished, families bullied and terrorized, and olive trees destroyed. As Palestinians are increasingly being killed, injured and displaced in the West Bank, the United Nations has been ringing alarm bells over what it calls the “escalating Israeli settler violence, with the acquiescence, support, and in some cases participation of Israeli forces.”

For Frost, who was adopted from China and identifies as queer, the taking of homes feels personal. She said when she came out in college, she was essentially kicked out by her adoptive family.

“I know what it’s like to be thrown out of my own home for no fault of my own,” she said.

While Frost says she was not harmed by Israeli authorities and described her detention as largely uneventful, she did say the prisons appeared to be infested with flees or bedbugs or both, and claimed that some authorities she encountered made racist comments to her, such as calling her “No Eyes.”

Cho, interviewed separately by the Sampan, said that she too felt several officials made racist comments. She gave a version of what happened that was similar to Frost’s account.

In mid-December both women met with other volunteers at the Abu Hamam family residence in northeast Ramallah. Shortly after their arrival on a rainy day in the West Bank, the two were told by Israeli soldiers to leave or they would be arrested. Several other volunteers fled, but Frost and Cho stayed, telling the Sampan they didn't want to leave the family's pregnant mother home by herself. They were arrested and sent to an Israeli prison. Israeli authorities told them that they were suspected of being in a closed-off military zone, and they were told to leave but defied orders. The Sampan viewed an Israeli police document provided by Frost about her arrest, and at times that account differs from what Frost told the Sampan. The two, for example, did not tell the police they were there as activists nor that they knew each other. Frost said this was on the advice of a lawyer.

Both women say they were never convicted of breaking any laws and were told by their lawyers in Israel that the Abu Hamam home was outside the closed military area that officials told them to leave from in the first place. But officials told Frost she was not following the military’s orders to leave, with Israeli officials asking later why she would attempt to stay, while being told as a visitor in a foreign country to leave by armed officials, according to the police document viewed by Sampan.

But at least one Palestinian activist group claims that the rule did not apply to settlers who were allegedly allow to remain in the area.

Frost said she has been barred from returning to the area for at least 10 years, because of a new Israeli law that bans some travelers for taking public positions such as promoting boycotts of Israel. The Israeli police had created a file on her that included her past social media posts, employment information, and other materials. An email sent to the Israeli police seeking comment was not returned by press time.

Cho said she was startled to find the police somehow identified her — wearing a face mask and glasses — among a crowd in a New York Post photo of a protest in opposition to the detention of activist Mahmoud Khalil from months earlier in New York, and included it in her file.

Now that she's back in the U.S., Frost told the Sampan she worries about what will happen to the Abu Hamam family, which included a grandmother and grandfather, pregnant mother, and teens. She had heard the family was already being harassed by settlers.

Around the time of Frost's interview with the Sampan, Israeli forces, according to a Feb. 1 report in Al Jazeera, had raided a community in the same al-Mughayyir area of east of Ramallah.

“It is so clear to me that what is going on is wrong,” Frost said. “These settlers have been especially violent. … The family had been attacked over the past year.”

“I hope that concrete action and coverage can keep the family safe and that the impunity of settler thugs comes to an end.”