Blog # 23 June 30, 2014
Zionist doctors and Jewish values
It is probably not a good idea to write a blog after two glasses of wine, particularly after three weeks of abstinence (except for that lovely Taybeh Beer), but sometimes drastic measures are needed. I have checked into a funky old hostel in Jaffa that was clearly a Palestinian home before everything happened and I am sitting in a café watching the flow of beautiful people: the hipsters and the yuppies and the old-lumpy-young-at-heart like me. The sidewalk restaurant spilling into the street feels like a cross between Soho and San Francisco; gentrification on steroids and delicately rolled cigarettes, (have any of you gorgeous people ever heard of lung cancer?); a stream of beautiful millennials with tattoos and fancy dogs and partially shaved heads. I feel like I am back in the good old USA where our troops are off doing Allah-knows-what in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc, etc, and we are obliviously obsessing about our lattes.
After two weeks mostly in the West Bank, the women look pretty naked, there is more than enough cleavage and thigh, men are stroking their lady friends in overtly sexual ways, and I am taking a long hard look at “Western norms.” I order a shrimp and eggplant dish drenched in garlic and olive oil as a metaphoric culturally transitional meal. I must admit I have a strong urge to just get up and walk away without paying the overpriced bill, just charge it to the occupation I will say, (this is my version of civil disobedience), but I don’t. Most of the folks I have been sharing lives and humus with cannot legally be here, let’s not even mention their yearning for a little dip in that gorgeous Mediterranean water, waves cresting, stretches of white sand, (“they” do like to swim you know)…. and I have to admit I kind of got used to being called “Habibti,” and my Arabic “pet name, Alusi,” (my spelling with apologies).
The day started in the Old City in the Austrian Hospice with a predictable conversation with two lovely older guilt ridden Germans who talked about how hard it is to say anything critical of Israel because…(the HOLOCAUST) is literally screaming at our table between the German Rye and the labneh, and I am trying to introduce the concept that it is actually okay. In fact, as a Jewish American, I think that it is imperative; the Germans (after the unforgiveable horror) have done their share of breast beating and reflection and reparations; as some Israeli wrote, The Holocaust is Over. They take my website enthusiastically and I assure them that my book was translated into German, though of course I have no idea what the actual title was given the wild world of publishing.
Last night I tried to make small talk with my first-in-a-while Jewish Israeli cab driver. Me: “It’s been really hot here.” Him: “No it’s not.” Oh right, the people who do not know how to say I’m sorry. Unfortunately this morning I was bullied standing on line for my train ticket, got yelled at by some pretty girl at a counter at the central bus station in Jerusalem when I asked for directions, and got no reassurance from the bus driver that this was indeed #480 to Arlozoroff in Tel Aviv. When I finally worked up my courage to confirm my hopes about the bus, this blond something said abruptly, “Of course.” We all have our psychopathologies, but really?
I spent the afternoon at an extraordinary organization called Physicians for Human Rights Israel. Ran Cohen was somewhat more optimistic than usual. Although the Knesset is probably about to pass the force feeding bill, the prisoners’ hunger strike ended (resolution unclear) and this has taken a lot of energy. “We won the battle but lost the war.” For the first time in history, “We got the Israeli Medical Association aboard and this is surprising. They were vocal and said clearly physicians do not do this and discussed this [force feeding] as torture.” The IMA was clear that force feeding actually involves the cooperation of doctors and that they would not be able to protect them in a court or even the International Hague. This change in attitude may be related to a new head of the medical ethics committee, Dr Tami Karni, as well as intense international pressure. Ran was very excited to see the commitment on the part of the doctors, the understanding that medicine and doctors were being used as political tools. The new law that is being argued in the Knesset today states that each case of forced feeding will be brought to a civil regional court (like Tel Aviv) and then if it is allowed, a doctor may participate without risk of punishment. The Israeli government is framing this as a desire to save lives, (not). On a TV program, when some big macher said that there will be no doctors willing to do forced feeding, the government’s legal advisor replied, “We will find the Zionist doctors who are concerned of Israeli security.” So much for Zionism. Framing is obviously the key. The US does it so why not Israel?
Last week, PHR Israel had a big success when a committee (that had seemed hopeless) decided to take private health services outside of public hospitals. Until now, in public hospitals, there were private patients that doctors would see and charge, using the hospital facilities, thus creating a boutique type practice on the back of the public system. There was a long campaign against this and, “We succeeded, after it lost in the supreme court! This was a public campaign, seven million citizens will benefit with a more equal health care system, oriented towards the public,” as well as bucking the Israeli trend towards privatization, (as I say, learning the worst from the American health care system).
Another recent PHR I success involves the citizenship law. Since 2003, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza who married Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, were not allowed what is called family reunification, ie, they could not get legal status to live in Israel with their spouse. The implications of this cruel bill is that one of the couple, usually the woman, is left with no status, either cannot live with her husband or more likely is here illegally. Their children born in Israel are Israeli citizens. This is reminiscent of the undocumented in the US. At this point, since 2003, 20 to 25,000 couples got married and did not get status for the spouse who could be deported at any time, has no health care, cannot enter most bus stations, malls, or any place where racial profiling increases the risk of being asked for an ID. They cannot drive legally, attend university, or obtain welfare benefits. After the NGOS in the human rights community took the battle to the supreme court and failed, PHR I started a long campaign to promote social residency, which separates legal status from social rights. This allows people access to health care and welfare regardless of their status. The State of Israel will not give one new Palestinian citizenship due to the demographic war, but PHR argued that the Palestinians are here, they are not temporary, they are married to Israelis, and they are human. PHR became of aware of this issue when they started seeing desperate Palestinian women in their open clinic. Now with ACRI and Kayan (a Palestinian feminist organization, they have “a foot in the door;” they won a court case that allows spouses with permits but no status to register for health funds. This covers 8,000 families, “so this is beginning, from nothing to something is big.” This work is part of PHR I’s advocacy for the right to health for all.
The refugee issue also keeps PHR busy. Since 2003 50,000 refugees or asylum seekers (or if you are Netanyahu, “infiltrators”), have crossed the Egyptian Sinai into Israel, mostly from Sudan and Eritrea. Many of them, (an estimated 25% of the Eritreans) were kidnapped, tortured, raped, or held for ransom in the Sinai by a Bedouin clan. The Israeli response, wrapped in the hysteria of the threat to the Jewish nature of the state by these disease carrying, Muslim criminal elements, was to build a fence along the border with Sinai, so new refugees are no longer entering and the border is sealed.
They also built a detention center called Holot, which means Sands, where asylum seekers and refugees are sent without a trial or judicial review for an indefinite period of time. It is “open” in that they can step out into the desert, but they need to be there for three roll calls per day, and from 11 pm to 6 am. It is an utterly miserable place. Two days ago, 600 men defiantly marched to Egypt, stating they want to go someplace where they can move their lives forward. They were brutally arrested again and sent back to prison, all documented on video and PHR I was there to help the injured. Ran explains that the Israeli government is working to make these people miserable and has actually sent a few hundred to Sudan where many are reported to be detained, in danger, tortured, or imprisoned. Thirteen families have reported their loved ones missing ?imprisoned, ? murdered. A few have been sent by plane to third countries, mostly Rwanda and Uganda; Israel has some unofficial agreement with these folks. In Rwanda a few have been detained as documented by the UN commissioner for refugees.
At this point Ran notes, there are 50,000 refugees here, this is not a demographic catastrophe. Israel is a first world country, it could be a model for refugee absorption and it has done it before with one million Russians (many of whom were not Jewish, but at least they were white). Meanwhile, Lebanon and Syria are both faced with one million Syrian refugees each with much less resources. The least the Israeli government should do is to investigate each person’s refugee and asylum issues and protect them until it is safe for them to return. Ran notes ironically that the whole discussion about protecting the “Jewish nature of the state” really leaves out the nature of Jewish values, this is all about numbers. PHR is once again working on the separation of legal status from social rights and they have had some successes. In January 2014, the government adopted a plan to treat HIV positive refugees and established a small mental health clinic for these deeply traumatized people, so there is a glimmer of recognition regarding the right of health, even for people who are African and poor and so desperate they will walk across deserts and endure unbearable suffering to come to a place that might provide work and opportunity.
PHR I also focuses on the occupied territories, and Ran describes a report that will be published in a month investigating basic health indicators for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and comparing them to Israelis. Let’s just say that everything looks bad, even basic life expectancy is divergent by more than 10 years, as well as maternal and infant mortality, availability of medications, clinicians, specialists, etc, etc. This gives PHR the opportunity to talk about responsibility and control; if the Israeli government controls the territories as the occupying force (which it is) then it is responsible for the health needs of the population under its control. Netanyahu brags that, “Israel saves lives of Palestinian children while Palestinians are kidnapping teenagers; this is nonsense. The Palestinian Authority is paying for the care in Israel, and for decades, the Israeli government has prevented development and actually ‘dedeveloped’ the Palestinian health care system as well as controlled and reduced access to the major East Jerusalem hospitals.” The facts speak for themselves as we say.
And then there are all the other projects: “torture always an issue, the victims are refugees and prisoners.” There is work on the freedom of movement of doctors and patients in the occupied territories, the Saturday mobile clinic as usual, the Tel Aviv open clinic and much efforts to educate Israeli students in universities on the right to health by taking them on tours of East Jerusalem, the Negev, Bedouin villages, south Tel Aviv, Lod, Ramle. Ran notes, “The students are more and more open to it, the problem was with faculty not wanting us to come and talk, but things are getting better.”
Sunday, July 6, 2014
Blog # 22 June 23, 2014 Tarnishing the Israeli Brand
Blog # 22 June 23, 2014 Tarnishing the Israeli Brand
Our meeting with Omar Barghouti, one of the leaders of the boycott, divestment, and sanction movement, starts in a stairwell since the office where we are meeting is locked. (Palestinian time runs, how do I say this? with less urgency? perhaps related to the cycles of the moon? Still trying to figure this out as an obsessive Westerner.) He is talking about how the Palestinian Authority is “existentially necessary” for Israel, how a single democratic state is the long term goal, not ideal, but a more ethical solution than anything else.
We get ushered into an open office and Omar starts officially talking; words just pour out of him so rapidly, succinctly; I struggle to keep up. Things have really changed in the past year. What many do not realize is that BDS is now a mainstream Palestinian movement that is supported by almost everyone, it is not an isolated fringe activity. Even Fatah supports BDS. The strategy is anchored in international law and Omar explains, “Targets Israel because it is a regime of occupation, and apartheid. This is not about being Jewish.” The Israeli establishment clearly considers BDS a strategic threat. Netanyahu mentioned BDS 18 times when he gave his talk to the UN; second only to Iran (but who’s counting?). Omar states, “Israel does not know what to do with nonviolent movements.” This defeats the narrative of the Palestinian as terrorist. I think of the Israeli official who admitted, “We do not do Gandhi well.”
While there are well funded, well organized efforts to Brand Israel as a “beacon of democracy” (to quote Netanyahu), to highlight Israeli artists, academics, gays, to present a “pretty face,” all this “washing [ie pink washing, green washing, etc] gets wiped out by one massacre.”
In 2014, Omar asserts BDS is in a different place: the financial, economic sphere. The Gates Foundation recently divested from G4S, a private security company which is known to torture prisoners, builds the Israeli security apparatus, and is deeply involved in the occupation. The CEO committed not to renew the contract with Israeli prisons, the first time such a public statement has been made. It does not matter that BDS was not mentioned. It does matter that a large company decides that it is too (economically? politically? strategically?) costly to do business with the Israeli state. Obviously, pressure will continue until the company comes through on its promise.
Omar informs us that major banks and pension funds in Europe have divested from the top five Israeli banks involved in the occupied territories. Apparently the Dutch are saying that if these banks have operations with companies in the territories, they will divest from the entire bank. “Do not punish the crime, punish the criminal.”
It has always been difficult to figure out which products come from the settlements, and Omar agrees that it is too hard to boycott settlement products. They are often disguised or relabeled, (like from the Netherlands), but it is very realistic to boycott companies that operate in the occupied territories, so the tactic should be boycotting companies rather than products. I take note of this development.
Unlike my Massachusetts governor who is swooning over high tech ventures with Israeli companies, the German government announced that it will not work with all high tech Israeli companies including those in East Jerusalem. The European Union is not joining the BDS movement, but implementing their own guidelines in response to grassroots pressure, so they will not give grants for research in the territories. The Luxemburg pension fund divested from the top five Israel banks. The Norwegian pension fund divested from Israeli companies involved in settlements, but then they took Africa Israel off the list because the company denied involvement. The Israeli group, Who profits? went to the Jewish settlement of Gilo and documented their presence, but Africa Israel said that Gilo is not in the occupied territories (you know, just part of the expanding Jerusalem neighborhoods.) Organizers demanded that they consult the UN who might know a bit more about international law, and the Norwegians got the message and divested. From 2013-2014, four US academic organizations endorsed BDS. These are all major developments. Really big.
Omar has a subtle kind of sarcasm. He says that the Israeli government has been totally high jacked by the settler movement and this is new. The labor party is a kind of “smarter Zionism,” but the leadership is now a “dumber Zionism.” Israel is no longer even pretending to stand for peace, co-existence, etc. The academic and cultural boycotts have tarnished the Israeli brand. Even John Kerry acknowledged that there was something seriously wrong with settlement building. In much of Europe, people choose not to buy Israeli products. “We rely on the grassroots to build pressure,” even though in the international world, “the Israeli government is untouchable,” is not held accountable for obvious unjust practices. So, “do one church, one university at a time.”
The delegates want to talk about the nitty gritty, on-the-ground issues that come up. Omar is asked if there are any mutual funds that are BDS compliant. “Not yet, but it is in process.” He explains that SRIs (socially responsible investing), do not use BDS language (though they traditionally avoid military and environmentally damaging companies), but the change is coming.
We then engage in a fascinating discussion that speaks to Jewish privilege and Jewish power on the left. At the Jewish Voice for Peace conference last year, Omar spoke. He notes that supportive Jewish voices on the BDS issue give it legitimacy and fends off the accusation of anti-Semitism. On the other hand, Jewish voices run the risk of expropriating Palestinian voices, thus entrenching Jewish exceptionalism and maintaining the belief that only Jews are “allowed” to criticize Israeli policy. This actually is a form of anti-Semitism, a promotion of the fear of Jews; of Jews as powerful, who will destroy you if you criticize Israel (thus you need the cover of left wing Jews). This is not good for anyone, but many Zionist groups thrive on this fear.
Omar maintains that while Jewish voices are critical, it is equally critical to work in coalition, such as with the American Friends Service, the Presbyterians, Adalah NY, etc. Jewish Voice for Peace, who initiated the TIAA CREF divestment campaign, pressuring the company to divest from companies that profit from occupation in their SRI portfolio, now works in a wider coalition called WE DIVEST; they are careful not to monopolize the movement but are ready to counter the charge of anti-Semitism. The recent success in Boston with Veolia is related to a large coalition that included union groups as well as Jewish and other faith based organizations who brought a wide variety of complaints against the company, one of which included its behavior in the occupied territories.
Another delegate wonders how to work in academic institutions like Brandeis that are largely hostile to the BDS movement where there are something like eight “pro-Israel groups,” (I would like to redefine what it means to be pro-Israel but that is for another conversation.) Omar explains that he went to Columbia University in the 1980s where there were 20 “pro-Israel” groups from right to left, and six “pro-Palestinian students.” They felt completely isolated, so they found coalitions with Blacks, Latinos, feminists, liberal Zionists who were opposed to the occupation (which was a radical idea back then). They worked on mutual interests such as opposing war, improving the environment. He reminds us that now as well as then, it is important to select a target that makes sense within your community, look for levels of complicity in international law, for instance, and potential for cross movement work; the company’s offenses have to go beyond oppressing Palestinians. Thus it makes no sense to go after a company that makes some great cancer drug in Israel or the settlements, but it makes a lot of sense to link the activities of G4S in building the US/Mexico wall and walls in the territories. “Trying and failing is not okay unless it leads to education, otherwise it is not strategic.”
But what if there are no Palestinian led BDS organizations, like in Boston where there is a lot of BDS activity? Omar advises that we must fill the vacuum until the Palestinian community becomes more active. There are lots of challenges that discourage Palestinians in the US, from fears related to targeting post 9/11 to Islamophobia. Omar remarks that many in that community are not politically active, but their sons and daughters are. He notes that campus based Students for Justice in Palestine (SJPS) are no longer having Jewish leadership and that leadership is often coming from Palestinian women. “I understand having Palestinian voices up front, but this is a universal issue. I do not believe in identity politics. The anti-apartheid movement was my movement. I was doing something right as a human, I own this as my own struggle.” Focus on effectiveness, the quality of the work, anti-racist principals.
In response to another question about how to work in progressive community organizations that partner with Israeli groups on community development, racial and economic justice issues, etc, Omar suggests that we need to open the conversation, to “South Africanize the issue.” As an example he asks, what would we have done if Boston University was working with a South African university on cancer treatment during the apartheid era? Yes, that is good for humanity, but the research institution is also complicit within an apartheid system and this collaboration would have been inappropriate. He suggests we ask Palestinians about joint research projects with, for instance, Tel Aviv University. It is fine to do research with Israelis, but not with Israeli funding (ie institutions). So in our hypothetical case, Boston University should fund the research not Tel Aviv University, thus not legitimizing a university that is complicit in the occupation. In the same vein, Israeli film makers, artists, and poets can be invited to festivals in a “BDS friendly way.” For instance at the Edinburgh festival, the Israeli embassy in London paid a film maker to screen her film. The festival was told that if they accepted this money, people will boycott the festival. The festival returned the money from the Israeli film maker, and paid for her to show the Israeli film; “there must be no institutional links.” In another example, Omar explains that a Canadian LGBT artist in a Scottish festival found out that an Israeli artist was sponsored by the Israeli foreign ministry. The Canadian put pressure on the festival, wrote a letter to every artist. The Israeli embassy said the artist is pro-Palestinian, this is a dissenting voice, etc. “But
we do not care about content; this is not about censorship, it is about funding.” The Israeli sponsorship was cancelled and artist came to the festival.
A particular challenge involves communities of color who often come to Israel on religious pilgrimages or as cultural exchanges. Omar explains, “It is easy to get a free trip to Israel, so South Africanize the issue.” If you want to come on a “fact finding mission, then do it without complicity, do not cross the picket line. This is happening more and more. Israel helps us to convert people, if they come on an honest fact finding mission, they see what is going on.” We talk about our African-American Governor Duval Patrick as a particularly challenging case. Omar advises that the “the black community is key to BDS, we need to win them.” There is already a high conversion rate among young Jews (see the work of Peter Beinhart) who at this point are largely somewhere between apathetic about Israel to supportive of Palestinian rights, but clearly different than their Zionist parents and grandparents. The Israel machine focuses on African-Americans, Native Americans, the Asian community, framing the issue as, “Jews are the indigenous people!” Join us in our struggle. Colonialism in conveniently overlooked. African Americans, students, women leaders, are invited to Israel to promote an historic Jewish Black alliance, we led the civil rights movement and we can do it again.
Friends of Sabeel, the Kairos document, Christian liberation theology, work to counter this Zionist ideology, but it is a frustratingly slow process. Omar advises us that, (thinking of the recent alliance between Cornell and the Technion), the Israeli establishment will continue to score big successes at high levels; the US establishment is profoundly “pro-Israel,” (in the classic use of that word). “Forget the big elephants, chip away, and attack smaller things. The Technion was not selected because it was the best, there was a well-planned conspiracy and work was done before to make it happen.”
I am beginning to feel like a white civil rights activist, working in the south in the 1960s. The parallels are striking and the historical connection revives me. Time to take all of this conversation home.
Our meeting with Omar Barghouti, one of the leaders of the boycott, divestment, and sanction movement, starts in a stairwell since the office where we are meeting is locked. (Palestinian time runs, how do I say this? with less urgency? perhaps related to the cycles of the moon? Still trying to figure this out as an obsessive Westerner.) He is talking about how the Palestinian Authority is “existentially necessary” for Israel, how a single democratic state is the long term goal, not ideal, but a more ethical solution than anything else.
We get ushered into an open office and Omar starts officially talking; words just pour out of him so rapidly, succinctly; I struggle to keep up. Things have really changed in the past year. What many do not realize is that BDS is now a mainstream Palestinian movement that is supported by almost everyone, it is not an isolated fringe activity. Even Fatah supports BDS. The strategy is anchored in international law and Omar explains, “Targets Israel because it is a regime of occupation, and apartheid. This is not about being Jewish.” The Israeli establishment clearly considers BDS a strategic threat. Netanyahu mentioned BDS 18 times when he gave his talk to the UN; second only to Iran (but who’s counting?). Omar states, “Israel does not know what to do with nonviolent movements.” This defeats the narrative of the Palestinian as terrorist. I think of the Israeli official who admitted, “We do not do Gandhi well.”
While there are well funded, well organized efforts to Brand Israel as a “beacon of democracy” (to quote Netanyahu), to highlight Israeli artists, academics, gays, to present a “pretty face,” all this “washing [ie pink washing, green washing, etc] gets wiped out by one massacre.”
In 2014, Omar asserts BDS is in a different place: the financial, economic sphere. The Gates Foundation recently divested from G4S, a private security company which is known to torture prisoners, builds the Israeli security apparatus, and is deeply involved in the occupation. The CEO committed not to renew the contract with Israeli prisons, the first time such a public statement has been made. It does not matter that BDS was not mentioned. It does matter that a large company decides that it is too (economically? politically? strategically?) costly to do business with the Israeli state. Obviously, pressure will continue until the company comes through on its promise.
Omar informs us that major banks and pension funds in Europe have divested from the top five Israeli banks involved in the occupied territories. Apparently the Dutch are saying that if these banks have operations with companies in the territories, they will divest from the entire bank. “Do not punish the crime, punish the criminal.”
It has always been difficult to figure out which products come from the settlements, and Omar agrees that it is too hard to boycott settlement products. They are often disguised or relabeled, (like from the Netherlands), but it is very realistic to boycott companies that operate in the occupied territories, so the tactic should be boycotting companies rather than products. I take note of this development.
Unlike my Massachusetts governor who is swooning over high tech ventures with Israeli companies, the German government announced that it will not work with all high tech Israeli companies including those in East Jerusalem. The European Union is not joining the BDS movement, but implementing their own guidelines in response to grassroots pressure, so they will not give grants for research in the territories. The Luxemburg pension fund divested from the top five Israel banks. The Norwegian pension fund divested from Israeli companies involved in settlements, but then they took Africa Israel off the list because the company denied involvement. The Israeli group, Who profits? went to the Jewish settlement of Gilo and documented their presence, but Africa Israel said that Gilo is not in the occupied territories (you know, just part of the expanding Jerusalem neighborhoods.) Organizers demanded that they consult the UN who might know a bit more about international law, and the Norwegians got the message and divested. From 2013-2014, four US academic organizations endorsed BDS. These are all major developments. Really big.
Omar has a subtle kind of sarcasm. He says that the Israeli government has been totally high jacked by the settler movement and this is new. The labor party is a kind of “smarter Zionism,” but the leadership is now a “dumber Zionism.” Israel is no longer even pretending to stand for peace, co-existence, etc. The academic and cultural boycotts have tarnished the Israeli brand. Even John Kerry acknowledged that there was something seriously wrong with settlement building. In much of Europe, people choose not to buy Israeli products. “We rely on the grassroots to build pressure,” even though in the international world, “the Israeli government is untouchable,” is not held accountable for obvious unjust practices. So, “do one church, one university at a time.”
The delegates want to talk about the nitty gritty, on-the-ground issues that come up. Omar is asked if there are any mutual funds that are BDS compliant. “Not yet, but it is in process.” He explains that SRIs (socially responsible investing), do not use BDS language (though they traditionally avoid military and environmentally damaging companies), but the change is coming.
We then engage in a fascinating discussion that speaks to Jewish privilege and Jewish power on the left. At the Jewish Voice for Peace conference last year, Omar spoke. He notes that supportive Jewish voices on the BDS issue give it legitimacy and fends off the accusation of anti-Semitism. On the other hand, Jewish voices run the risk of expropriating Palestinian voices, thus entrenching Jewish exceptionalism and maintaining the belief that only Jews are “allowed” to criticize Israeli policy. This actually is a form of anti-Semitism, a promotion of the fear of Jews; of Jews as powerful, who will destroy you if you criticize Israel (thus you need the cover of left wing Jews). This is not good for anyone, but many Zionist groups thrive on this fear.
Omar maintains that while Jewish voices are critical, it is equally critical to work in coalition, such as with the American Friends Service, the Presbyterians, Adalah NY, etc. Jewish Voice for Peace, who initiated the TIAA CREF divestment campaign, pressuring the company to divest from companies that profit from occupation in their SRI portfolio, now works in a wider coalition called WE DIVEST; they are careful not to monopolize the movement but are ready to counter the charge of anti-Semitism. The recent success in Boston with Veolia is related to a large coalition that included union groups as well as Jewish and other faith based organizations who brought a wide variety of complaints against the company, one of which included its behavior in the occupied territories.
Another delegate wonders how to work in academic institutions like Brandeis that are largely hostile to the BDS movement where there are something like eight “pro-Israel groups,” (I would like to redefine what it means to be pro-Israel but that is for another conversation.) Omar explains that he went to Columbia University in the 1980s where there were 20 “pro-Israel” groups from right to left, and six “pro-Palestinian students.” They felt completely isolated, so they found coalitions with Blacks, Latinos, feminists, liberal Zionists who were opposed to the occupation (which was a radical idea back then). They worked on mutual interests such as opposing war, improving the environment. He reminds us that now as well as then, it is important to select a target that makes sense within your community, look for levels of complicity in international law, for instance, and potential for cross movement work; the company’s offenses have to go beyond oppressing Palestinians. Thus it makes no sense to go after a company that makes some great cancer drug in Israel or the settlements, but it makes a lot of sense to link the activities of G4S in building the US/Mexico wall and walls in the territories. “Trying and failing is not okay unless it leads to education, otherwise it is not strategic.”
But what if there are no Palestinian led BDS organizations, like in Boston where there is a lot of BDS activity? Omar advises that we must fill the vacuum until the Palestinian community becomes more active. There are lots of challenges that discourage Palestinians in the US, from fears related to targeting post 9/11 to Islamophobia. Omar remarks that many in that community are not politically active, but their sons and daughters are. He notes that campus based Students for Justice in Palestine (SJPS) are no longer having Jewish leadership and that leadership is often coming from Palestinian women. “I understand having Palestinian voices up front, but this is a universal issue. I do not believe in identity politics. The anti-apartheid movement was my movement. I was doing something right as a human, I own this as my own struggle.” Focus on effectiveness, the quality of the work, anti-racist principals.
In response to another question about how to work in progressive community organizations that partner with Israeli groups on community development, racial and economic justice issues, etc, Omar suggests that we need to open the conversation, to “South Africanize the issue.” As an example he asks, what would we have done if Boston University was working with a South African university on cancer treatment during the apartheid era? Yes, that is good for humanity, but the research institution is also complicit within an apartheid system and this collaboration would have been inappropriate. He suggests we ask Palestinians about joint research projects with, for instance, Tel Aviv University. It is fine to do research with Israelis, but not with Israeli funding (ie institutions). So in our hypothetical case, Boston University should fund the research not Tel Aviv University, thus not legitimizing a university that is complicit in the occupation. In the same vein, Israeli film makers, artists, and poets can be invited to festivals in a “BDS friendly way.” For instance at the Edinburgh festival, the Israeli embassy in London paid a film maker to screen her film. The festival was told that if they accepted this money, people will boycott the festival. The festival returned the money from the Israeli film maker, and paid for her to show the Israeli film; “there must be no institutional links.” In another example, Omar explains that a Canadian LGBT artist in a Scottish festival found out that an Israeli artist was sponsored by the Israeli foreign ministry. The Canadian put pressure on the festival, wrote a letter to every artist. The Israeli embassy said the artist is pro-Palestinian, this is a dissenting voice, etc. “But
we do not care about content; this is not about censorship, it is about funding.” The Israeli sponsorship was cancelled and artist came to the festival.
A particular challenge involves communities of color who often come to Israel on religious pilgrimages or as cultural exchanges. Omar explains, “It is easy to get a free trip to Israel, so South Africanize the issue.” If you want to come on a “fact finding mission, then do it without complicity, do not cross the picket line. This is happening more and more. Israel helps us to convert people, if they come on an honest fact finding mission, they see what is going on.” We talk about our African-American Governor Duval Patrick as a particularly challenging case. Omar advises that the “the black community is key to BDS, we need to win them.” There is already a high conversion rate among young Jews (see the work of Peter Beinhart) who at this point are largely somewhere between apathetic about Israel to supportive of Palestinian rights, but clearly different than their Zionist parents and grandparents. The Israel machine focuses on African-Americans, Native Americans, the Asian community, framing the issue as, “Jews are the indigenous people!” Join us in our struggle. Colonialism in conveniently overlooked. African Americans, students, women leaders, are invited to Israel to promote an historic Jewish Black alliance, we led the civil rights movement and we can do it again.
Friends of Sabeel, the Kairos document, Christian liberation theology, work to counter this Zionist ideology, but it is a frustratingly slow process. Omar advises us that, (thinking of the recent alliance between Cornell and the Technion), the Israeli establishment will continue to score big successes at high levels; the US establishment is profoundly “pro-Israel,” (in the classic use of that word). “Forget the big elephants, chip away, and attack smaller things. The Technion was not selected because it was the best, there was a well-planned conspiracy and work was done before to make it happen.”
I am beginning to feel like a white civil rights activist, working in the south in the 1960s. The parallels are striking and the historical connection revives me. Time to take all of this conversation home.
Blog # 21 June 28, 2014 part two In the container
Blog # 21 June 28, 2014 part two In the container
The bus station in Bani Nayi is hot, humid, and thick with exhaust fumes from idling vehicles that have seen better days in the seat and shock absorber department. The service has to fill with passengers before it leaves and we are in a holding pattern. I am sitting next to a young woman wearing a hijab with sparkly threads, a long coat, long sleeves and leggings. I cannot imagine how hot she feels cradling an infant and trying to keep a one year old in his seat. As she negotiates the crying baby, the discrete breast feeding, and attempts to pour mango juice into a bottle while it drips over the infants plump thighs, I feel like we are mothers everywhere and it is time to mobilize for the tasks at hand. Chocolate wafers appear magically from my bag and the little boy stares at me with large brown eyes; he never blinks, ever.
I am wheezing from all the dust and pollution and marveling at what passes for advertising in the local markets. While most of the signs are in Arabic, I am mystified by a clothing store called, “White Woman,” another “Lady Chic,” the “Golf Plastic Industrial Company,” “Four Seasons Furniture” (do they have four seasons here?) There is clearly a lot lost in translation which seems to be a metaphor for much that is happening in these parts.
We jolt by fields of vineyards and then there is a lush green vineyard that is surrounded by a wire fence and coils of barbed wire. It is the only fortified field I see and it is owned by a Jewish settler who has bought this land and comes, armed with military guards, to harvest his grapes. This is another metaphor.
My understanding is that there is some Israeli law/directive that mandates the use of seat belts in the occupied territories but that Palestinians view this as another oppressive Israeli directive, rather than some really good advice, so I watch the on/off seat belt dance as we drive, a quiet (self defeating?) act of resistance. I have not seen any car seats for children, so the mother buckles in her toddler, more as an attempt to restrain him in the back seat. The much to loose belt soon comes off and she wraps her arm tightly around him, trusting herself more than those Israeli laws. He turns a bag of pretzels upside down and we are both back in mothering mode. A honey toned woman’s voice croons on the radio, I can pick out the word “Allah,” but remain mostly lost in translation again.
We pass mountains of watermelon, car skeletons piled in junk yards like corpses, overflowing garbage bins, and soon find ourselves zigzagging up and down the Container Road, a vertiginous highway built specially for Palestinians that takes travelers miles out of their way, keeping that area “clean” for settlers. (see the language of racism, entitlement, and fear) The service slows to a halt as we approach a massive traffic jam at the Container Checkpoint. Passengers get off and the driver asks me to move forward. I cannot tell if this is part of the checkpoint strategy. White American lady nearer to front? I decide to check the time and see what happens. It is a useful distraction and keeps me from total aggravation.
10:05 traffic slows
10:10 full stop, cars and trucks everywhere
10:14 more aggressive honking, we creep forward, the driver offers us water, we are unbearably hot, I picture myself melting into the warm sticky seat like some kind of Wicked Witch of the West
10:16 a large truck traveling in the opposite direction needs to make a wide hairpin turn and the vehicles on the opposite lane cluster together to give him space, a truck with sheep stops next to us and the sheep is panting rapidly and looks deathly ill and thirsty, the drivers keep looking back at the suffering animal with clear concern but no water
10:19 we pull ahead in the breakdown lane on the right and now there are four lanes of traffic that need to merge into two, annoyance and frustration is rising and there is more talking and yelling between drivers
10:20 full stop
10:22 driver negotiates a merge into lane number three
10:24 driver asks for my passport and pours through my history of travel, Cambodia? There is thick black smoke beyond the checkpoint, a mix of burning garbage and tires adds to the smell of exhaust, I ponder how the occupation increases global warming
10:27 two soldiers are working the checkpoint and they glance into the service, do not check any documents and wave us through
Really?
Suddenly passengers start laughing, joking, the driver pulls out a bag of wafers and passes them around. A victory over the oppressor, time for celebration. There is almost a sense of unity built on the experience of common, indiscriminate, mindless suffering. The official Israeli line is that checkpoints are necessary for security, a holy cause that is used to justify the oppressive minutiae of occupation.
As we approach the village of Kalandia with its arched entry, I see a rotary and a dead olive tree. I think of the gorgeous watered (stolen) olive trees at the entrance to the Jewish settlement of Ma’ale Adumim and I want to weep. Perhaps the Kalandia tree has died of sorrow as well as neglect. As we skirt the Kalandia checkpoint, the traffic once again backs up in a crazy jumble of vehicles, some trying to get through, some trying to get around, and everyone trying to survive.
I imagine doing this every day, morning and evening, to get to work or school, or to meet a friend in Ramallah. The endless waiting and uncertainty, the never knowing when and if you will get where you are going. This kind of brutality is powerful and suffocating and it is the universal experience of the people who are living in this prison, their lives effectively under total control at the hands of young Israeli men and women with little life experience, their minds filled racism, boredom, fear, and the power that comes with the gun.
The bus station in Bani Nayi is hot, humid, and thick with exhaust fumes from idling vehicles that have seen better days in the seat and shock absorber department. The service has to fill with passengers before it leaves and we are in a holding pattern. I am sitting next to a young woman wearing a hijab with sparkly threads, a long coat, long sleeves and leggings. I cannot imagine how hot she feels cradling an infant and trying to keep a one year old in his seat. As she negotiates the crying baby, the discrete breast feeding, and attempts to pour mango juice into a bottle while it drips over the infants plump thighs, I feel like we are mothers everywhere and it is time to mobilize for the tasks at hand. Chocolate wafers appear magically from my bag and the little boy stares at me with large brown eyes; he never blinks, ever.
I am wheezing from all the dust and pollution and marveling at what passes for advertising in the local markets. While most of the signs are in Arabic, I am mystified by a clothing store called, “White Woman,” another “Lady Chic,” the “Golf Plastic Industrial Company,” “Four Seasons Furniture” (do they have four seasons here?) There is clearly a lot lost in translation which seems to be a metaphor for much that is happening in these parts.
We jolt by fields of vineyards and then there is a lush green vineyard that is surrounded by a wire fence and coils of barbed wire. It is the only fortified field I see and it is owned by a Jewish settler who has bought this land and comes, armed with military guards, to harvest his grapes. This is another metaphor.
My understanding is that there is some Israeli law/directive that mandates the use of seat belts in the occupied territories but that Palestinians view this as another oppressive Israeli directive, rather than some really good advice, so I watch the on/off seat belt dance as we drive, a quiet (self defeating?) act of resistance. I have not seen any car seats for children, so the mother buckles in her toddler, more as an attempt to restrain him in the back seat. The much to loose belt soon comes off and she wraps her arm tightly around him, trusting herself more than those Israeli laws. He turns a bag of pretzels upside down and we are both back in mothering mode. A honey toned woman’s voice croons on the radio, I can pick out the word “Allah,” but remain mostly lost in translation again.
We pass mountains of watermelon, car skeletons piled in junk yards like corpses, overflowing garbage bins, and soon find ourselves zigzagging up and down the Container Road, a vertiginous highway built specially for Palestinians that takes travelers miles out of their way, keeping that area “clean” for settlers. (see the language of racism, entitlement, and fear) The service slows to a halt as we approach a massive traffic jam at the Container Checkpoint. Passengers get off and the driver asks me to move forward. I cannot tell if this is part of the checkpoint strategy. White American lady nearer to front? I decide to check the time and see what happens. It is a useful distraction and keeps me from total aggravation.
10:05 traffic slows
10:10 full stop, cars and trucks everywhere
10:14 more aggressive honking, we creep forward, the driver offers us water, we are unbearably hot, I picture myself melting into the warm sticky seat like some kind of Wicked Witch of the West
10:16 a large truck traveling in the opposite direction needs to make a wide hairpin turn and the vehicles on the opposite lane cluster together to give him space, a truck with sheep stops next to us and the sheep is panting rapidly and looks deathly ill and thirsty, the drivers keep looking back at the suffering animal with clear concern but no water
10:19 we pull ahead in the breakdown lane on the right and now there are four lanes of traffic that need to merge into two, annoyance and frustration is rising and there is more talking and yelling between drivers
10:20 full stop
10:22 driver negotiates a merge into lane number three
10:24 driver asks for my passport and pours through my history of travel, Cambodia? There is thick black smoke beyond the checkpoint, a mix of burning garbage and tires adds to the smell of exhaust, I ponder how the occupation increases global warming
10:27 two soldiers are working the checkpoint and they glance into the service, do not check any documents and wave us through
Really?
Suddenly passengers start laughing, joking, the driver pulls out a bag of wafers and passes them around. A victory over the oppressor, time for celebration. There is almost a sense of unity built on the experience of common, indiscriminate, mindless suffering. The official Israeli line is that checkpoints are necessary for security, a holy cause that is used to justify the oppressive minutiae of occupation.
As we approach the village of Kalandia with its arched entry, I see a rotary and a dead olive tree. I think of the gorgeous watered (stolen) olive trees at the entrance to the Jewish settlement of Ma’ale Adumim and I want to weep. Perhaps the Kalandia tree has died of sorrow as well as neglect. As we skirt the Kalandia checkpoint, the traffic once again backs up in a crazy jumble of vehicles, some trying to get through, some trying to get around, and everyone trying to survive.
I imagine doing this every day, morning and evening, to get to work or school, or to meet a friend in Ramallah. The endless waiting and uncertainty, the never knowing when and if you will get where you are going. This kind of brutality is powerful and suffocating and it is the universal experience of the people who are living in this prison, their lives effectively under total control at the hands of young Israeli men and women with little life experience, their minds filled racism, boredom, fear, and the power that comes with the gun.
Blot # 20 June 22, 2014 part three Naqab "What do I know? I am just a Bedouin?" A lot.
Blog # 20 June 22, 2014 part three Naqab
“What do I know? I am just a Bedouin?” A lot.
My glasses (somewhat symbolically) have broken; perhaps my brain does not want to see any more, but there is so much to witness. Even with my eyes closed I can hear the military jets overhead as we drive towards the unrecognized Bedouin village of Alsira in the Naqab (Negev). My old emergency glasses leave me with a headache, double vision, and a sense that the world I am experiencing is intensely out of focus, which in reality it is.
Khalil al-Amour greets us and invites us up to his shaded patio for water and juice. He has a sun brown, open face with laughing eyes and a quirky sense of humor. He points to the demolition order glued on his door, dated September 2006. It is addressed, “To the house owner,” has no checks next to the list of grievances, and is signed by some official who clearly cannot distinguish one Bedouin from another. The form is a photocopy. Khalil is a math and computer teacher and just received his law degree. He works with Adalah, a legal group that advocates for Bedouin rights in Israel and is leaving soon for Geneva for a UN conference on the rights of indigenous peoples. He is busy preparing for his son’s wedding and for the upcoming month of Ramadan. Have I challenged any of your preconceptions yet?
Clothes pins clip a map of the Naqab onto the grating over a front window where rows of socks are also drying. He explains that Bedouins used to live in the entire the Naqab, 13 million dunams, (approximately three and a quarter million acres). They had no major problems during 400 years of Ottoman control and 30 years of the British mandate and then came 1948. 90,000 were expelled, most fleeing to the Egyptian Sinai desert, some went to Jordan, and 11,000 remained. The Israelis “relocated” them to an area called the Siyag, a fenced in reservation and closed military zone. The Bedouin were traumatized by the massive expulsion and by the confiscation of 90% of their land. The Israelis kept shrinking the land available to the Bedouin and expanding the southern city of Be’ersheba. They took 80,000 dunams to build a huge military airport nearby.
I start counting the number of planes roaring overhead. More Jewish cities were built in the area, but the Bedouin stayed and married and made babies, so now there are more than 200,000. “We are a big surprise.” The Prawer Plan (a plan to dispossess the remaining Bedouin and transfer them to townships) is currently frozen, but it will squeeze the population which represents 30% of the Naqab population into 2% of the land. Dimona, the Israeli nuclear reactor, (the one that Israel has officially denied for decades), is located in the southeast area of the proposed relocations. (Health hazards anyone?)
Khalil remarks in a disconcertingly cheerful manner, “It really drives me crazy sometimes. Most Israelis are very stupid, listen to the media, the lies. How do we have these smart people, Jewish people are not stupid, [but] their behavior towards Bedouin and minorities is very strange. I expect more understanding with the Holocaust…. And it is worse and worse.”
Bedouin have repeatedly rejected efforts to push them into poverty stricken, crime ridden townships. “We are not good friends with cities!” Khalil explains, “I am half Polish and half Bedouin!” His daughter interrupts for his iphone. He explains that he was studying in Be’ersheba at the teacher’s college and sleeping in the park. A gas station offered him a part time job, but it was not enough money for rent as his family was very poor. He laughs and says this Polish couple who had lost their own child, adopted him and took care of him for three years. When they got older, Khalil took care of them until they died and then he returned to his village.
His son is a physiotherapist, studied in Jordan, works in Be’ersheba, but returns home every day. Another son is studying medicine in Moldavia, but he will also return. “We love the desert, this is our life.” He explains that not only does he have a demolition order on his house, but also on his animal bins and his generator. The orders are created from an aerial map and he is #67. He remarks ironically that being #67 reminds him of the Holocaust. “Nazi is a behavior. They created this regime.” Khalil has good Jewish friends who also get very angry.
He explains that there are 45 unrecognized villages; everyone of them is named, some are new, some are old. The Israelis took the fertile lands; Ariel Sharon had a large ranch in the Naqab. The Bedouin have limited access to water, pay very high rates, have no electricity, no nearby schools or clinics. We drove into the town partly on the road to the airport. “We paved the road, connected to the water system, made solar energy, established two daycares for the children. We take care of ourselves.”
In the townships, they are offered high mortgages and a small plot of land, (remember this is a traditional agricultural society with goats, cows, and sheep to herd). He says this life is particularly hard for the women. They can’t make cheese, can’t do their traditional farming, can’t weave rugs. “They have no value.” They are given a microwave and washing machine, (Israelis talk of modernization and improved living standards), and are “humiliated, no respect.”
“We have lived marginalized and neglected, no problem, we can live the next 60 years. They won’t even let us do that. Let the Bedouin live.” He takes us on an extraordinary tour of his property and at every stop he smiles and explains how much he loves his solar panels, loves his chickens, loves his mulberries, olives, sage, fresh eggs, the man is deeply in love with the land he lives with and he is deeply happy. His friends thought he was crazy, but he researched on the internet and learned how to set up solar panels; his friends were finally convinced when they noticed his refrigerator was working 24 hours per day. He traveled to Canada and the US, (even went to Las Vegas and is happy he does not smoke, gamble or drink), to learn about solar energy.
Every year he would make 50 liters of olive oil from his trees, but he noticed they were dying from lack of water. Back to the internet and youtube and he developed an ingenious system for collecting grey water, with pipes, collecting tanks, pumps, and filters, and providing drip irrigation to his rejuvenated trees. He is beaming as he shows us the lush clusters of happy olives. “I am not a genius, I am regular.” But he loves his chickens and scoops up three eggs, he eats two fresh eggs every morning and only feeds the birds natural grains. We look across the brown rolling desert to the huge military area where he used to go to school and where his people used to bury their dead. He visited for the first time in 32 years with a group that went to maintain the cemetery.
And then he is back picking white mulberries for us, (the taste is a cross between blackberries and strawberries). He remarks that he traveled to the US with the Tree of Life Conference and laughs, “I was almost converted to Christianity!” He was hosted by Christians and Jews. We look up at the antennae for his phone and internet and the router attached to the corner of his house. He jokes that a bird sometimes nests there and so he also has twitter. As we leave his house in points to a large collection of ants and he assures us (cheerfully) that he never kills them. “They were here before me.” Apparently they are co-existing quite successfully.
We wander through the dry dusty neighborhood, women are cleaning, cooking, children scatter about; there are manually rotating solar panels, a “white house” for community gatherings and celebrations, other homes of varying sturdiness. The village put up an ironic sign denoting the location of the town. In Arabic it says “Alsira,” the English is misspelled as “Alsra” and in Hebrew it says, “Established in the Ottoman Empire.” Like I said, the guy has a sense of humor. Below the sign is a triangular warning sign, again tongue in cheek, with a house and a bulldozer, warning the hapless visitor that they are now entering a demolition zone. Such dangerous, uneducated, unimaginative people these Bedouins!
This village has no sheikh, but rather a local committee of five people that provide leadership. There are two big clans and five family groups representing 70 individual families and over 100 children. There is also a Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages. There are no women in leadership, but two that are very active. Khalil reminds us that this is a conservative community, there is some polygamy, but “I am an open minded guy.” Now a days, girls do not get married before 18.
Last year our delegation visited the village of Al Araqib, north of Be’ersheba. Khalil explains this village has “the saddest story,” which includes expulsion in 1948, repeated land confiscations, returning to the village, Israeli military spraying fields and animals with Round Up, multiple legal cases, repeated demolitions. (see blog from 2013) Last year the villagers were living in the cemetery (“First time in history the dead people protect the live ones,”) and the Jewish National Fund had planted the Ambassador Forest on their land, rows of water hungry Eucalyptus trees. Last week the Israeli forces demolished everything in the cemetery, approximately the 70th demolition. Now the villagers are under the trees, using blankets for cover, they are “upset and nervous,” and the sheikh who was “warm and happy,” is feeling “angry.” Rabbi Arik Ascherman was arrested at the cemetery site and the demolitions have attracted attention from international NGOs and the UN.
Khalil asserts, “Our voice will be heard.” In the past, a delegation of Native Americans came and wrote an urgent letter to the Israelis. “I am optimistic. We don’t have the privilege to give up. This is racism.”
I have counted twelve military planes screeching overhead, breaking the desert silence.
As we drive back to Ramallah passing near Hebron, we see Israeli forces marching with flags in some kind of military formation, we see a group of soldiers breaking into a house, our eyes burn from tear gas wafting from the city. Later we learn that Palestinians have been killed in Nablus, Hebron and in Ramallah where an Israeli sniper shot an unarmed man watching from a roof top. Later that night the IDF conducts an incursion into Ramallah, (remember area A under control by the PA???) in front of the Palestinian Authority police station, the PA does nothing to protect its people (it is in obvious collusion with the IDF), and when the IDF leaves, the enraged crowd attacks the police station and the PA attacks the crowd.
The media and the streets are filled with stories about the missing boys, (Yeshiva students? Armed right wing settlers? Paramilitary? Everyone has a theory) and Netanyahu’s blind rage. The entire Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza is under attack because three young men are missing, because Hamas and Fatah are talking, because the farce of the peace process has been laid bare, because, well because they are here and they are Palestinian. And that, it seems, is a crime in itself.
“What do I know? I am just a Bedouin?” A lot.
My glasses (somewhat symbolically) have broken; perhaps my brain does not want to see any more, but there is so much to witness. Even with my eyes closed I can hear the military jets overhead as we drive towards the unrecognized Bedouin village of Alsira in the Naqab (Negev). My old emergency glasses leave me with a headache, double vision, and a sense that the world I am experiencing is intensely out of focus, which in reality it is.
Khalil al-Amour greets us and invites us up to his shaded patio for water and juice. He has a sun brown, open face with laughing eyes and a quirky sense of humor. He points to the demolition order glued on his door, dated September 2006. It is addressed, “To the house owner,” has no checks next to the list of grievances, and is signed by some official who clearly cannot distinguish one Bedouin from another. The form is a photocopy. Khalil is a math and computer teacher and just received his law degree. He works with Adalah, a legal group that advocates for Bedouin rights in Israel and is leaving soon for Geneva for a UN conference on the rights of indigenous peoples. He is busy preparing for his son’s wedding and for the upcoming month of Ramadan. Have I challenged any of your preconceptions yet?
Clothes pins clip a map of the Naqab onto the grating over a front window where rows of socks are also drying. He explains that Bedouins used to live in the entire the Naqab, 13 million dunams, (approximately three and a quarter million acres). They had no major problems during 400 years of Ottoman control and 30 years of the British mandate and then came 1948. 90,000 were expelled, most fleeing to the Egyptian Sinai desert, some went to Jordan, and 11,000 remained. The Israelis “relocated” them to an area called the Siyag, a fenced in reservation and closed military zone. The Bedouin were traumatized by the massive expulsion and by the confiscation of 90% of their land. The Israelis kept shrinking the land available to the Bedouin and expanding the southern city of Be’ersheba. They took 80,000 dunams to build a huge military airport nearby.
I start counting the number of planes roaring overhead. More Jewish cities were built in the area, but the Bedouin stayed and married and made babies, so now there are more than 200,000. “We are a big surprise.” The Prawer Plan (a plan to dispossess the remaining Bedouin and transfer them to townships) is currently frozen, but it will squeeze the population which represents 30% of the Naqab population into 2% of the land. Dimona, the Israeli nuclear reactor, (the one that Israel has officially denied for decades), is located in the southeast area of the proposed relocations. (Health hazards anyone?)
Khalil remarks in a disconcertingly cheerful manner, “It really drives me crazy sometimes. Most Israelis are very stupid, listen to the media, the lies. How do we have these smart people, Jewish people are not stupid, [but] their behavior towards Bedouin and minorities is very strange. I expect more understanding with the Holocaust…. And it is worse and worse.”
Bedouin have repeatedly rejected efforts to push them into poverty stricken, crime ridden townships. “We are not good friends with cities!” Khalil explains, “I am half Polish and half Bedouin!” His daughter interrupts for his iphone. He explains that he was studying in Be’ersheba at the teacher’s college and sleeping in the park. A gas station offered him a part time job, but it was not enough money for rent as his family was very poor. He laughs and says this Polish couple who had lost their own child, adopted him and took care of him for three years. When they got older, Khalil took care of them until they died and then he returned to his village.
His son is a physiotherapist, studied in Jordan, works in Be’ersheba, but returns home every day. Another son is studying medicine in Moldavia, but he will also return. “We love the desert, this is our life.” He explains that not only does he have a demolition order on his house, but also on his animal bins and his generator. The orders are created from an aerial map and he is #67. He remarks ironically that being #67 reminds him of the Holocaust. “Nazi is a behavior. They created this regime.” Khalil has good Jewish friends who also get very angry.
He explains that there are 45 unrecognized villages; everyone of them is named, some are new, some are old. The Israelis took the fertile lands; Ariel Sharon had a large ranch in the Naqab. The Bedouin have limited access to water, pay very high rates, have no electricity, no nearby schools or clinics. We drove into the town partly on the road to the airport. “We paved the road, connected to the water system, made solar energy, established two daycares for the children. We take care of ourselves.”
In the townships, they are offered high mortgages and a small plot of land, (remember this is a traditional agricultural society with goats, cows, and sheep to herd). He says this life is particularly hard for the women. They can’t make cheese, can’t do their traditional farming, can’t weave rugs. “They have no value.” They are given a microwave and washing machine, (Israelis talk of modernization and improved living standards), and are “humiliated, no respect.”
“We have lived marginalized and neglected, no problem, we can live the next 60 years. They won’t even let us do that. Let the Bedouin live.” He takes us on an extraordinary tour of his property and at every stop he smiles and explains how much he loves his solar panels, loves his chickens, loves his mulberries, olives, sage, fresh eggs, the man is deeply in love with the land he lives with and he is deeply happy. His friends thought he was crazy, but he researched on the internet and learned how to set up solar panels; his friends were finally convinced when they noticed his refrigerator was working 24 hours per day. He traveled to Canada and the US, (even went to Las Vegas and is happy he does not smoke, gamble or drink), to learn about solar energy.
Every year he would make 50 liters of olive oil from his trees, but he noticed they were dying from lack of water. Back to the internet and youtube and he developed an ingenious system for collecting grey water, with pipes, collecting tanks, pumps, and filters, and providing drip irrigation to his rejuvenated trees. He is beaming as he shows us the lush clusters of happy olives. “I am not a genius, I am regular.” But he loves his chickens and scoops up three eggs, he eats two fresh eggs every morning and only feeds the birds natural grains. We look across the brown rolling desert to the huge military area where he used to go to school and where his people used to bury their dead. He visited for the first time in 32 years with a group that went to maintain the cemetery.
And then he is back picking white mulberries for us, (the taste is a cross between blackberries and strawberries). He remarks that he traveled to the US with the Tree of Life Conference and laughs, “I was almost converted to Christianity!” He was hosted by Christians and Jews. We look up at the antennae for his phone and internet and the router attached to the corner of his house. He jokes that a bird sometimes nests there and so he also has twitter. As we leave his house in points to a large collection of ants and he assures us (cheerfully) that he never kills them. “They were here before me.” Apparently they are co-existing quite successfully.
We wander through the dry dusty neighborhood, women are cleaning, cooking, children scatter about; there are manually rotating solar panels, a “white house” for community gatherings and celebrations, other homes of varying sturdiness. The village put up an ironic sign denoting the location of the town. In Arabic it says “Alsira,” the English is misspelled as “Alsra” and in Hebrew it says, “Established in the Ottoman Empire.” Like I said, the guy has a sense of humor. Below the sign is a triangular warning sign, again tongue in cheek, with a house and a bulldozer, warning the hapless visitor that they are now entering a demolition zone. Such dangerous, uneducated, unimaginative people these Bedouins!
This village has no sheikh, but rather a local committee of five people that provide leadership. There are two big clans and five family groups representing 70 individual families and over 100 children. There is also a Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages. There are no women in leadership, but two that are very active. Khalil reminds us that this is a conservative community, there is some polygamy, but “I am an open minded guy.” Now a days, girls do not get married before 18.
Last year our delegation visited the village of Al Araqib, north of Be’ersheba. Khalil explains this village has “the saddest story,” which includes expulsion in 1948, repeated land confiscations, returning to the village, Israeli military spraying fields and animals with Round Up, multiple legal cases, repeated demolitions. (see blog from 2013) Last year the villagers were living in the cemetery (“First time in history the dead people protect the live ones,”) and the Jewish National Fund had planted the Ambassador Forest on their land, rows of water hungry Eucalyptus trees. Last week the Israeli forces demolished everything in the cemetery, approximately the 70th demolition. Now the villagers are under the trees, using blankets for cover, they are “upset and nervous,” and the sheikh who was “warm and happy,” is feeling “angry.” Rabbi Arik Ascherman was arrested at the cemetery site and the demolitions have attracted attention from international NGOs and the UN.
Khalil asserts, “Our voice will be heard.” In the past, a delegation of Native Americans came and wrote an urgent letter to the Israelis. “I am optimistic. We don’t have the privilege to give up. This is racism.”
I have counted twelve military planes screeching overhead, breaking the desert silence.
As we drive back to Ramallah passing near Hebron, we see Israeli forces marching with flags in some kind of military formation, we see a group of soldiers breaking into a house, our eyes burn from tear gas wafting from the city. Later we learn that Palestinians have been killed in Nablus, Hebron and in Ramallah where an Israeli sniper shot an unarmed man watching from a roof top. Later that night the IDF conducts an incursion into Ramallah, (remember area A under control by the PA???) in front of the Palestinian Authority police station, the PA does nothing to protect its people (it is in obvious collusion with the IDF), and when the IDF leaves, the enraged crowd attacks the police station and the PA attacks the crowd.
The media and the streets are filled with stories about the missing boys, (Yeshiva students? Armed right wing settlers? Paramilitary? Everyone has a theory) and Netanyahu’s blind rage. The entire Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza is under attack because three young men are missing, because Hamas and Fatah are talking, because the farce of the peace process has been laid bare, because, well because they are here and they are Palestinian. And that, it seems, is a crime in itself.
Blog # 19 June 22, 2014 Yaffa Part two Crying and shooting
Blog # 19 June 22, 2014 Yaffa Part two
Crying and shooting
We have not had enough sleep in days and are suffering from that weariness that comes with bearing witness to injustices that seem overwhelming, over and over again, and standing in solidarity with people who have no other choice but to get up and do it again.
Ronnie Barkan, a friendly, energetic, probably early thirties Israeli joins us for lunch in Jaffa at a hangout known for its excellent salads and spicy political conversation. A member of Boycott from within and Anarchists against the wall, he is like a bolt of rapid fire inspiration and provocative ideas. We all celebrate the historic decision by the Presbyterian Church to divest from three companies that support the mechanics of occupation: Hewlett Packard, Motorola, and Caterpillar, and then dive into the humus and eggplant and an intense historical and political discussion. Ronnie explains that as a young teen he struggled with his impending mandatory army service for six years, “You know we are prepared for the army since kindergarten;” he did not want to be “a parasite,” as Israelis refer to refusers, and then there was Avigdor Lieberman’s “no duties, no rights.” He got drafted and during the first two months, he decided he could no longer eat meat. A week later he decided to leave the military, “My only obligation was to humanity.” He waited 1 ½ years in the military, doing very little, occasional office work, doctor’s appointments; but his superior would not send him to jail. The endless limbo and waiting felt like a terrible punishment.
He is quite clear that there is no Israeli left, no peace camp, and that the core issue is the refusal of liberal Zionists who really are good people, support human rights and equality, etc, but are unable to face the facts of 1948 and the implications of the creation of a Jewish state. Many folks are ready to end the occupation, may even acknowledge the Nakba, but discussing full equality for Palestinians and the right of return for millions of refugees created as a consequence of that war is unthinkable and deeply threatening. The big crisis facing folks who actually believe in democracy is that Jews are now no longer the majority in the land Israel controls “from the river to the sea,” so Israelis are facing the uncomfortable idea that a shrinking minority of Jews will be ruling a growing majority of non-Jews. That is increasingly hard to justify and looks really bad in the international community of which Israel wants to be a part. Ronnie finds folks like AIPAC refreshing because at least they are honest and sometimes even proud of their racism. It is easier to argue with them! Yes the ethnic cleansing happened, it was absolutely necessary for the survival of the Jewish people, and the only big problem is that we haven’t finished the job. OK, now we know where everyone stands.
Ronnie describes Israel matter-of-factly, as an apartheid state, a system based on one racial/ethnic group oppressing another. He sees the Israeli Courts as the main vehicle of apartheid; he sees Zionism as fundamentally racist and supremacist, and the country profoundly undemocratic for all of these reasons. He finds the argument that we must work to protect Israeli democracy “a discourse of lies,” because there never was a democracy. “It is impossible to be both moral and Zionist.” His clarity is refreshing; his absolutism and style reminds me of white male activists from my student movement days: very politically correct but unaware of their white male and in this case, Ashkenazic privilege; women, Sephardim, nuance and gradual political growth are not part of his discourse. On the other hand, I understand his utter frustration with Israeli politics.
Between pita and pickled beets, mint lemonade, and warm falafel, we listen intently, questioning, asking for clarification. He cites the expression: “shooting and crying,” ie the comment made by some famous Israeli (was it Golda Meir?) that, “We will never forgive the Arabs for making us kill their children.” How did we ever blame the victim for our crimes? He recommends a book by an early Matzpen member, “The Un-Jewish State,” and tells us the story of the first Jewish political assassination which happened pre-1948 when an orthodox Jew who was anti-Zionist discussed the idea of living together as equals with the King of Jordan. This kind of thinking was profoundly threatening to the Zionist movement and the guy was killed.
Ronnie reviews the recent law that requires ultra-Orthodox Yeshiva students to serve in the army, “to share the burden;” they need to fill their quota of bodies ready to defend the state. This is seen by many ultra-Orthodox as an attack by the state on the religion of Judaism; in a sense criminalizing the study of Torah at the altar of Zionism. (Is he in sympathy with the ultra-Orthodox? Are they the definers of Judaism? What about their treatment of women or their racism towards Arabs?) This law has also served as a rallying cry to unite the many different sectors of ultra-Orthodoxy into a unified block, much of it anti-Zionist and not interested in being modernized and molded into a nationalistic Israeli macho man. I am starting to see those photos of tens of thousands of black hatted men in Jerusalem rallying against the draft in a (very slightly) more sympathetic light.
Ronnie is an optimistic kind of guy; in 2005 the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement was not in the public discourse and now even Kerry mumbled the words as he flummoxed around the broken “peace process” and for the first time in history suggested that the Israelis might be at fault. BDS is now affecting churches, businesses, and perhaps most importantly, cultural and academic events. Ronnie works with groups of activists who write letters and petitions to churches, artists, pressures performers to avoid coming to Israel, researches companies profiting from the occupation, creates educational events. There is no neutral position in this battle. Music may be a universal language, but performing in a large hall in Tel Aviv is a political statement. This is not a normal situation. Despite the small numbers, BDS is now part of the public and intellectual discourse; the national fight against the BDS movement is now organized by the Ministry of Strategic Affairs who also deal with the other big enemy of Israel: Iran!
While Ronnie sees political change happening, he feels the struggle really is not centered in Israel, but rather the EU and the US, and he is leaving to work in Europe, hoping to piece his activism together with some IT, web building, teaching, some way to support himself while trying to change the world. He feels that once apartheid ends, (insh’allah), then it will be time to work within a multicultural Israeli society, to build just and democratic institutions and to learn to live together as equals despite the differences that drive people apart. I love his youthful optimism. His absolutist political style makes me wonder if he ever goes beyond the choir or if that is even his goal.
Now, as we sip our final cup of thick coffee, two conscientious objectors sit in Israeli jails and another 20 high school students, shministim, have signed a letter stating their objections to serving in the military. NBC is producing a major extravaganza called DIG, partially financed by the Israeli Ministry of Trade. The series is focusing on archeology in Israel/Palestine, particularly in Silwan where Palestinians are being dispossessed and a profoundly politicized sham of archeologists are setting out to prove the existence of the City of David. (The Jews were here first theory of archeology.) They were filming in Jaffa last week and Ronnie was there, disrupting the set, causing a fuss, calling attention to the propaganda disguised as education and entertainment. They did not arrest him, he explains, as that did not fit the script. Maybe next time.
Crying and shooting
We have not had enough sleep in days and are suffering from that weariness that comes with bearing witness to injustices that seem overwhelming, over and over again, and standing in solidarity with people who have no other choice but to get up and do it again.
Ronnie Barkan, a friendly, energetic, probably early thirties Israeli joins us for lunch in Jaffa at a hangout known for its excellent salads and spicy political conversation. A member of Boycott from within and Anarchists against the wall, he is like a bolt of rapid fire inspiration and provocative ideas. We all celebrate the historic decision by the Presbyterian Church to divest from three companies that support the mechanics of occupation: Hewlett Packard, Motorola, and Caterpillar, and then dive into the humus and eggplant and an intense historical and political discussion. Ronnie explains that as a young teen he struggled with his impending mandatory army service for six years, “You know we are prepared for the army since kindergarten;” he did not want to be “a parasite,” as Israelis refer to refusers, and then there was Avigdor Lieberman’s “no duties, no rights.” He got drafted and during the first two months, he decided he could no longer eat meat. A week later he decided to leave the military, “My only obligation was to humanity.” He waited 1 ½ years in the military, doing very little, occasional office work, doctor’s appointments; but his superior would not send him to jail. The endless limbo and waiting felt like a terrible punishment.
He is quite clear that there is no Israeli left, no peace camp, and that the core issue is the refusal of liberal Zionists who really are good people, support human rights and equality, etc, but are unable to face the facts of 1948 and the implications of the creation of a Jewish state. Many folks are ready to end the occupation, may even acknowledge the Nakba, but discussing full equality for Palestinians and the right of return for millions of refugees created as a consequence of that war is unthinkable and deeply threatening. The big crisis facing folks who actually believe in democracy is that Jews are now no longer the majority in the land Israel controls “from the river to the sea,” so Israelis are facing the uncomfortable idea that a shrinking minority of Jews will be ruling a growing majority of non-Jews. That is increasingly hard to justify and looks really bad in the international community of which Israel wants to be a part. Ronnie finds folks like AIPAC refreshing because at least they are honest and sometimes even proud of their racism. It is easier to argue with them! Yes the ethnic cleansing happened, it was absolutely necessary for the survival of the Jewish people, and the only big problem is that we haven’t finished the job. OK, now we know where everyone stands.
Ronnie describes Israel matter-of-factly, as an apartheid state, a system based on one racial/ethnic group oppressing another. He sees the Israeli Courts as the main vehicle of apartheid; he sees Zionism as fundamentally racist and supremacist, and the country profoundly undemocratic for all of these reasons. He finds the argument that we must work to protect Israeli democracy “a discourse of lies,” because there never was a democracy. “It is impossible to be both moral and Zionist.” His clarity is refreshing; his absolutism and style reminds me of white male activists from my student movement days: very politically correct but unaware of their white male and in this case, Ashkenazic privilege; women, Sephardim, nuance and gradual political growth are not part of his discourse. On the other hand, I understand his utter frustration with Israeli politics.
Between pita and pickled beets, mint lemonade, and warm falafel, we listen intently, questioning, asking for clarification. He cites the expression: “shooting and crying,” ie the comment made by some famous Israeli (was it Golda Meir?) that, “We will never forgive the Arabs for making us kill their children.” How did we ever blame the victim for our crimes? He recommends a book by an early Matzpen member, “The Un-Jewish State,” and tells us the story of the first Jewish political assassination which happened pre-1948 when an orthodox Jew who was anti-Zionist discussed the idea of living together as equals with the King of Jordan. This kind of thinking was profoundly threatening to the Zionist movement and the guy was killed.
Ronnie reviews the recent law that requires ultra-Orthodox Yeshiva students to serve in the army, “to share the burden;” they need to fill their quota of bodies ready to defend the state. This is seen by many ultra-Orthodox as an attack by the state on the religion of Judaism; in a sense criminalizing the study of Torah at the altar of Zionism. (Is he in sympathy with the ultra-Orthodox? Are they the definers of Judaism? What about their treatment of women or their racism towards Arabs?) This law has also served as a rallying cry to unite the many different sectors of ultra-Orthodoxy into a unified block, much of it anti-Zionist and not interested in being modernized and molded into a nationalistic Israeli macho man. I am starting to see those photos of tens of thousands of black hatted men in Jerusalem rallying against the draft in a (very slightly) more sympathetic light.
Ronnie is an optimistic kind of guy; in 2005 the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement was not in the public discourse and now even Kerry mumbled the words as he flummoxed around the broken “peace process” and for the first time in history suggested that the Israelis might be at fault. BDS is now affecting churches, businesses, and perhaps most importantly, cultural and academic events. Ronnie works with groups of activists who write letters and petitions to churches, artists, pressures performers to avoid coming to Israel, researches companies profiting from the occupation, creates educational events. There is no neutral position in this battle. Music may be a universal language, but performing in a large hall in Tel Aviv is a political statement. This is not a normal situation. Despite the small numbers, BDS is now part of the public and intellectual discourse; the national fight against the BDS movement is now organized by the Ministry of Strategic Affairs who also deal with the other big enemy of Israel: Iran!
While Ronnie sees political change happening, he feels the struggle really is not centered in Israel, but rather the EU and the US, and he is leaving to work in Europe, hoping to piece his activism together with some IT, web building, teaching, some way to support himself while trying to change the world. He feels that once apartheid ends, (insh’allah), then it will be time to work within a multicultural Israeli society, to build just and democratic institutions and to learn to live together as equals despite the differences that drive people apart. I love his youthful optimism. His absolutist political style makes me wonder if he ever goes beyond the choir or if that is even his goal.
Now, as we sip our final cup of thick coffee, two conscientious objectors sit in Israeli jails and another 20 high school students, shministim, have signed a letter stating their objections to serving in the military. NBC is producing a major extravaganza called DIG, partially financed by the Israeli Ministry of Trade. The series is focusing on archeology in Israel/Palestine, particularly in Silwan where Palestinians are being dispossessed and a profoundly politicized sham of archeologists are setting out to prove the existence of the City of David. (The Jews were here first theory of archeology.) They were filming in Jaffa last week and Ronnie was there, disrupting the set, causing a fuss, calling attention to the propaganda disguised as education and entertainment. They did not arrest him, he explains, as that did not fit the script. Maybe next time.
Saturday, July 5, 2014
Blog # 18 June 22, 2014 Tel Aviv Zochrot: Bending the arc towards justice
Blog # 18 June 22, 2014 Tel Aviv
Zochrot: Bending the arc towards justice
So why
should Jewish Israelis care about what happened to the people they defeated 67
years ago? The Arabs rejected the
Partition Plan, there was a war, (they started it), we won, yalla, move on. That is what I call the
dominant paradigm in both Israel and the US. Eitan Bronstein, founder of an
organization called Zochrot, (Remembering) is a little older and little greyer
than when I last saw him, but still driven by the need to bring the history of
the Nakba, the Palestinian experience of 1948, into Israeli consciousness. His
intensity and conviction is powerful.
I am pleased to see he has a new office that reflects the growing
success and activities of the organization.
In 2001, he was touring a Jewish National Forest and noted that while
there were signs about Roman ruins, and biblical sites and Mamelukes, there was
no documentation of an obviously neglected Palestinian village, (Imwas). “The houses were shouting to me,” the
cemetery, the stones, “like an obvious blindness.” He was working with Neve
Shalom, Wahat Salaam, the only consciously Jewish/Palestinian village devoted
to co-existence in Israel, talked with his friend Omar, and they decided to put
up signs reflecting the more recent history. This got picked up by a journalist, there was an article in
kibbutz newspapers, then a list of Palestinian villages on sites of kibbutzim.
Tom Segev wrote about this in a column in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, and
the idea took off.
Eitan
explains that this work, “Has to do with my own colonizer identity, signage is
colonizing practicing.” As Ben Gurion said, “In 1948, we took over the land,
now we have to take over the map.” Eitan states, “Our way to de-colonize is to rename.” He sees
the mission of Zochrot is to educate Israeli Jews and civil society about the
Nakba and the more controversial right of return for Palestinian refugees, and
to take responsibility for the Nakba.
This is not just Palestinian history, it is Israeli and human history,
“part of my own history.”
There are
many invisible pieces of this puzzle.
According to Eitan, the 1948 war did not happen between two sides where there
was a winner and a loser; the war was mainly between Jewish Israeli fighters
and Arab armies, not the local civilians on the ground. Israel lost some of the
battles when they encountered an Arab army: the Old City of Jerusalem or the
region of Latrun, but many of the victories were over civilians who were not
prepared to do battle. Additionally, the Nakba happened before the war, during
the war, and after the war. He
finds the most convincing evidence is the testimonies of Israeli fighters: “Expulsions
was easy, shoot a few shots, tell people to leave; it was not a military
challenge from the thousands of Palestinians.” So he sees this history as a
systematic expulsion of a civilian population by armed units followed by the
destruction of their villages to prevent return, thus the Nakba continues. He
adds that this is not the Israeli understanding of history, most now know the
word, Nakba, but most people do not really comprehend its meaning.
To
complicate matters, the Israeli government passed the Nakba Law in 2011 which creates
financial sanctions for any commemoration of the Nakba by an organization
funded by the state. On Israeli Independence Day a Jewish state should celebrate,
not mourn! This created an
atmosphere of fear and threats around the commemoration of the Nakba. On the
other hand, the law raised a lot of interest. There was a huge scandal over an
earlier law that actually said that anyone who commemorated the Nakba on Israeli
Independence Day could be sent to jail for one year. Fortunately this did not
pass. Eitan explains, imagine if
the US forbid any mourning or protest by Native Americans on July 4th
or Thanksgiving. Even Australians
remember the day they attacked and massacred the aboriginal population.
Since
Zochrot is not funded by the state, it is still a legal organization. Universities
are also closed on Independence Day, so students do not organize
commemorations. Two years ago, students at Tel Aviv University initiated a provocative
commemoration on Nakba Day which raised a lot of attention and a big argument
in the media. The university permitted the event, but the government said this
was not okay because it violated the spirit
of the Nakba Law which was to prevent all such events. At this point, Nakba
commemorations occur on May 15th, the day Israel declared
independence, but the national independence day celebrations occur according to
the Hebrew calendar, so the days are usually not the same.
I find it an
interesting historical point that while most Palestinians in Israel lived under
military rule until 1966, ie, they needed permits to travel within Israel, this
rule was lifted on Independence Day, no permits were needed. So on that day,
Palestinian families for years would visit their villages for personal, mostly
quiet, less political family gatherings.
15 years ago, they held their first March of Return on Israeli
Independence Day, so the issue is becoming increasingly politicized and public
and Zochrot is in the forefront of this struggle.
Zochrot is
involved in a number of extraordinary projects:
1.
Alternative tours like the one we did to the
destroyed village of Lifta
2.
Creating the only Hebrew map of destroyed Palestinian
villages
3.
Documenting all the destroyed villages since the
beginning of Zionism through the 1967 war, and locating 678 localities,
including 22 Jewish localities destroyed in 1948 by Arab armies and 62 Palestinian
localities destroyed before 1948. Eitan explains that when Zionists “redeemed
the land,” they destroyed the Arab structures. Land owners were sometimes Palestinian, Lebanese, and other
large, often absentee landowners. Eitan was told that the Golan was empty and
only had Syrian army bases there, but Zochrot documented 127 Syrian villages with
approximately 170,000 people.
4.
Preparing an educational study guide for high
schools. While they cannot get
officially invited to schools, they train teachers to use their material and to
include the information in their lessons.
While teachers can get fired and have been bureaucratically threatened,
Zochrot advises them to be “discrete,” to introduce the idea of “multiple
narratives.” This reality
obviously poisons the atmosphere for many teachers who want to explore this
topic in depth.
5.
Writing a very successful, practical tour guide
in Hebrew and Arabic, with 18 routes to different places in the Nakba with
photos, maps, and history
6.
Creating a book called Awda (Return) with
imagined testimonies for possible futures after the right of return for
Palestinian refugees is implemented.
There are twelve stories, six by Jews and six by Palestinians.
7.
Creating an inakba app for iphones, a free
download that uses GPS, and accurately shows all villages, photos, and related information
8.
And there are a host of educational workshops,
symposiums, film festivals, websites, and coalitions with other groups such as Badil,
Al Haq, and Palestinians in the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, as well as Israeli
Zochrot’s most controversial work, I suspect, is on the
right of return for Palestinian refugees. Eitan explains, “We support the right
of return based on the right to choose or to compensate with reparations; it is
the choice of the refugees.” How
to actualize this is a very big challenge, it is clearly not practical for
people to expect to return to their old homes, often places are not there, some
are vacant, or now encompass a different community. “We try to show how
implementation is not putting us in more danger and will actually favor peace
and prosperity.” He is not talking about symbolic numbers, like the Geneva Initiative
and other agreements. “We do not accept that ideology,” and as an example he
explains: in practical terms, find out how many people want to return. “So
let’s say here are one million Jaffa refugees, maybe 100,000 may return. “How do we do that, so must prepare to
absorb these folks, so when, how, time frame, (one million Russians came, it
takes time).”
He continues that he favors a one state solution where everyone
can live in equality, where the state is no longer a Jewish state. “This is the
core reason of the conflict and is very problematic. In the context of the Mideast,
this is a good recipe for constant war. We already have a big Israeli
collective here, a culture. Hebrew speakers will continue and be enriched by
Arabs. Everyone should be
bilingual, why not? We are in the Mideast; Jewish tradition
and culture will continue but not as a state.”
So how did Eitan come to
such an idealistic and some might consider radical position? “We began right after
the onset of the Second Intifada, a crisis of the left.” In October 2000, he
had, “My last crisis with Zionism. I finally understood that the problem is
Zionism. Many more Israelis are exposed to this knowledge,” but they are still
a minority. Many Israelis acknowledge the Nakba, but cannot deal with the right
of return, but “it is not possible to dismiss.” Thinking back to the hundreds of children we saw playing in
the barren concrete streets of the Balata and Aida Refugee Camps and the
massive security apparatus and concrete walls that the Israeli government and
military continue to erect in their increasingly ghettoized efforts to protect
themselves, it is clear that it is time to think beyond the dominant paradigm
and Zochrot is clearly a good place to start.
Blog # 17 June 21, 2014 Saffuriya, part three Memory keeper
Blog # 17 June 21, 2014 Saffuriya, part three
Memory keeper
I first met Abu Arab and his museum of artifacts from destroyed villages last year. Jonathan warns us to be respectful and to remember that, “this is his Holocaust,” Abu Arab, a tall man with thick greying hair and a twinkle in his eye, recognizes me and greets me with a warm handshake and smile. First we wander among old dusty farming equipment, peddle powered sewing machines, tattered clothes, rows of pots of multiple sizes, a cross between a museum and a cemetery holding a life gone by. Listening to his story reminds me of the speak bitterness talks I first heard from elderly Chinese women in the 1970s and from a host of subsequent traumatized people from all over the world. I think of Edward Said’s words to the effect that people survive by telling their stories. I remember Herzl’s comments about Palestinians (he probably said Arabs) “No culture, no folklore, no heritage.” What did he know?
Abu Arab was born in the vibrant town of Saffuriya in 1935; he remembers a time of peaceful relations between Arab and Jew. His family were peasants and fled in 1948. They were attacked during Ramadan, bombed by two aircraft, 80% of the 7,000 villagers fled, mostly north to Lebanon. After 28 days, they were taken by the Red Cross to Beirut, and then to a village in Syria, but ultimately returned to their village. There is a quiet intensity to his voice, which rises with indignation, hands gesturing for emphasis. Months later, the villagers received ID cards and months after that were told to leave in 48 hours or be shot. They were told to remove all the furniture from their homes and their possessions were confiscated. The villagers appealed to the courts; they had IDs denoting place of birth, (Saffuriya), place of residence, (Saffuriya), occupation (farmer). Over the course of five months 80 villagers were killed, shot while collecting food for their families. Some ten Jewish settlements and moshavim were built on the bulldozed site.
Abu Arab wants recognition of this crime and the right of return for internal and external refugees. He states this conflict is all about land, it is a struggle against Zionism, not Jews. He advises us: “Tell the truth, do what is good.” School children come here to learn the stories of their grandparents and to understand that these discarded artifacts are actually the treasures documenting village life. I can imagine the village women cooking and embroidering, the families collecting olives, the collections of sisters and brothers and cousins playing in the fields. I am always impressed by the simple humanity and dignity held in Abu Arab’s memories and words.
In the past few years, I have heard so many of these narratives and poured over hundreds of historical photos in the course of making my own documentary film, (www.voicesacrossthedivide.com, my contribution to telling and owning the story of the Nakba. I have come to understand that it is not only a tragedy for the Palestinians but the ethnic cleansing of Palestine is an integral part of the history of the creation of the State of Israel, just as much as the history of Native Americans or African slaves is part of US history. There is no “dual narrative” here. The Nakba is not an alternative history, it is the narrative that is invisible in Israeli society and the textbooks for all Israeli children, Palestinian and Jew. It is a story that must be heard.
Memory keeper
I first met Abu Arab and his museum of artifacts from destroyed villages last year. Jonathan warns us to be respectful and to remember that, “this is his Holocaust,” Abu Arab, a tall man with thick greying hair and a twinkle in his eye, recognizes me and greets me with a warm handshake and smile. First we wander among old dusty farming equipment, peddle powered sewing machines, tattered clothes, rows of pots of multiple sizes, a cross between a museum and a cemetery holding a life gone by. Listening to his story reminds me of the speak bitterness talks I first heard from elderly Chinese women in the 1970s and from a host of subsequent traumatized people from all over the world. I think of Edward Said’s words to the effect that people survive by telling their stories. I remember Herzl’s comments about Palestinians (he probably said Arabs) “No culture, no folklore, no heritage.” What did he know?
Abu Arab was born in the vibrant town of Saffuriya in 1935; he remembers a time of peaceful relations between Arab and Jew. His family were peasants and fled in 1948. They were attacked during Ramadan, bombed by two aircraft, 80% of the 7,000 villagers fled, mostly north to Lebanon. After 28 days, they were taken by the Red Cross to Beirut, and then to a village in Syria, but ultimately returned to their village. There is a quiet intensity to his voice, which rises with indignation, hands gesturing for emphasis. Months later, the villagers received ID cards and months after that were told to leave in 48 hours or be shot. They were told to remove all the furniture from their homes and their possessions were confiscated. The villagers appealed to the courts; they had IDs denoting place of birth, (Saffuriya), place of residence, (Saffuriya), occupation (farmer). Over the course of five months 80 villagers were killed, shot while collecting food for their families. Some ten Jewish settlements and moshavim were built on the bulldozed site.
Abu Arab wants recognition of this crime and the right of return for internal and external refugees. He states this conflict is all about land, it is a struggle against Zionism, not Jews. He advises us: “Tell the truth, do what is good.” School children come here to learn the stories of their grandparents and to understand that these discarded artifacts are actually the treasures documenting village life. I can imagine the village women cooking and embroidering, the families collecting olives, the collections of sisters and brothers and cousins playing in the fields. I am always impressed by the simple humanity and dignity held in Abu Arab’s memories and words.
In the past few years, I have heard so many of these narratives and poured over hundreds of historical photos in the course of making my own documentary film, (www.voicesacrossthedivide.com, my contribution to telling and owning the story of the Nakba. I have come to understand that it is not only a tragedy for the Palestinians but the ethnic cleansing of Palestine is an integral part of the history of the creation of the State of Israel, just as much as the history of Native Americans or African slaves is part of US history. There is no “dual narrative” here. The Nakba is not an alternative history, it is the narrative that is invisible in Israeli society and the textbooks for all Israeli children, Palestinian and Jew. It is a story that must be heard.
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