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Israel threatened by the ‘Palestinian Gandhi’

On December 10th 2009, in a small village of Bil’in, north of Ramallah in the West Bank, the home of 39-year-old school teacher Abdallah Abu Rahmah was raided by Israeli military forces who blindfolded and tightly fastened his hands together with zip tie cuffs. Frightened and confused, his wife and three children could only watch as he was hauled out of his home into the cold winter night and taken away in one of the seven military jeeps.

Almost nine-months later, having been imprisoned in weather-beaten tents at the Ofer military detention camp, prosecutors (failing to provide a single piece of documentary evidence) convinced a military courtroom to convict Abdallah Abu Rahmah for his involvement in coordinating “illegal” weekly marches and “incitement” with the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements. These charges, although unreasonable, are not as ridiculous as the ones he was acquitted on, which were taking Israeli tear gas grenades and canisters (weapons that recently killed activist Basem Abu Rahma and have injured others) to create an artistic peace sign.

Protests against the conviction have already begun with large gatherings outside Bil’in where many waved Palestinian flags and yelled out the injustice in Arabic and Hebrew. Israeli soldiers hiding behind clouds of suffocating smoke and ballistic shields regrouped to drive off the demonstrators.

Since 2004, Abdallah Abu Rahmah has organized and led Bil’in demonstrations with the grassroots movement Bil’in Popular Committee that pushes for nonviolent resistance against the illegal fence/wall and the Israeli occupation. These nonviolent movements have become inviolable and more widespread in the West Bank over the years. Despite human rights violations, Israeli soldiers continue to arrest, kidnap, torture, threaten with deportation or even kill those who demonstrate for self-determination.

Within a country that speaks to Palestinians with firearms, bulldozers, and land encroaching, Abdallah Abu Rahmah has been lauded by many as the “Palestinian Gandhi” for his devotion to maintaining a nonviolent stance as he leads the movement. But now Abdallah Abu Rahmah is facing up to 10 years imprisonment for “legitimately exercising [his] right to freedom of expression in opposing the Israeli fence/wall,” according to Amnesty International.

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Norweigan government divests from companies involved in Israeli settlements

Over at Mondoweiss, which I’ve recently discovered has perhaps the most thorough coverage of nonviolent action challenging the occupation of Palestine, there is a post today announcing a big victory for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign:

The Norwegian government has divested its pension fund of two Leviev companies that build settlements in the occupied West Bank on the grounds that the international community regards territory east of the ’67 line as occupied.

Experiments with truth: 8/18/10

  • Students from various schools and universities in the Philippines traded the four corners of their classrooms for the streets last Friday to join the National Youth Walkout and appeal for more government support for the education sector.
  • On Monday, hundreds of protesters started a sit-in outside the legislature, fueled by mounting anger over the government’s cross-strait policies and the expected passage of a controversial trade agreement with China later this week.

Student protests Palestinian suffering through art

Twenty-one-year-old art student Emily Henochowiz sounds to be at ease with herself while giving an interview to the Village Voice as she says half-jokingly:

“I guess I can be grateful to the IDF for giving me the chance to see the world in a new way.”

Donning a pair of black rimmed glasses, the self-designed art on the left lens intentionally obscures what was once her eye before she lost it after being hit by an Israeli Defense Force (IDF) tear-gas canister.

Emily was born a grandchild of Holocaust survivors and from an Israeli father that emigrated to the U.S. raising her in Potomac, Maryland. Emily became a creative artist and eventually attended Cooper Union Art Program in Lower Manhattan. She then went over to Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem as an exchange student. Her main focus was to make art, study history, and improve her Hebrew.

During her stay, though, she witnessed how Palestinians were being treated by Israeli settlers. This slowly started to show through her drawings. In one case a group of settler’s taunted Palestinian children with prayers.

This experience ultimately drew her in to political action with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a Palestinian-based organization of volunteers (one having been the late Rachel Corrie) who push for nonviolent demonstrations against the IDF. As the Village Voice reports:

Emily says her ISM protest activities were about the Palestinians, to prove to them that ‘it’s not all of our people’ who are against them. ‘It was important for me to tell them, “I’m Jewish, and I support you,’’ she says. “We’re a people like any other, which is part of the reason we’re in the situation we’re in!” Not the self-serious type, she laughs and adds, “Just because we went through the Holocaust doesn’t mean we aren’t racist, too!”

Among her work is some creative graffiti against the Israeli construction of The Wall that separates Palestinians from their land. Emily took part in a dozen demonstrations throughout her semester, but it was the day after the massacre on the Mavi Marmara that brought her face-to-face with IDF soldiers firing tear-gas grenades.

On that day, she was waving an Austrian and Turkish flag at the Qalandiyah checkpoint near the West Bank in protest against the flotilla attack. A few boys from a distance started throwing rocks at the soldiers. Even though the rock throwers were not in close proximity to her, IDF soldiers fired tear-gas at close range directly at Emily. Two canisters hit on either side of her feet, but the third smashed directly into her left eye. Blood began running down her face, covering her Nakba T-shirt.

As Emily collapsed a Palestinian woman instantly ran over, caught her, and wrapped her arms around Emily’s body while simultaneously applying gauze to her injured eye and dragging her off to the side.

Emily was then rushed to Hadassah University Hospital only to find out after examination that she’d have to undergo surgery to remove the eye. Upon her fathers arrival from the States, he discovered that the room next to hers was holding an injured prisoner from the Mavi Marmara flotilla. At one point one of the doctors approached her father and asked:

“Are you Jewish? Because, then, how could your daughter be involved in such an activity?”

Emily however is not alone. There are many other Jewish Americans who have been outspoken against the Israeli government’s actions towards Palestinians. She has made her drawings a plea for others to take notice of the injustices visited upon Palestinians. Even though she has lost her eye in the process she remains upbeat:

After all, her political activism, she adds, “was a real change from who I was before—an experiment, in a way. And it ended in me losing my eye. But it’s OK.”

Emily continues to write and draw at her blogspot Thirsty Pixels and has no plans on giving up as an artist.

The Boycott Israel Movement

In this video, Paul Jay from The Real News Network interviews Shir Hever, an economist at the Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem and the author of the forthcoming book Political Economy of Israel’s Occupation, about how the growing worldwide boycott of Israel is effecting that country’s economy.

HEVER: The effect is hidden by the Israeli various bureaus of statistics and the Manufacturers Association, for example. There was one survey that showed 21 percent of Israeli exporters reported on average 10 percent loss of income because of the boycott, which was related specifically to the attack on Gaza in 2008-2009. But this report was censored. This report was removed from—was never published, it was only leaked to the media once, and it’s impossible to get it, because the Manufacturers Association know that if that information reaches people who support the boycott movement, that will empower them and give them more confidence to continue their efforts.

Hever also has an interesting response to Jay’s question about his position on the controversial cultural and academic boycott of Israel:

HEVER: We at the Alternative Information Center published a report about Israeli academic institutions, and our argument is basically that the big universities in Israel—actually, all of universities in Israel, with the exclusion of the Open University, have been actively participating in acts of repression against Palestinians, discriminating against Palestinian students or not accepting Palestinian students, and not allowing freedom of protest, not allowing professors to research certain topics that are considered inappropriate or not loyal enough, providing benefits to the Israeli army or to officers, and developing weapons. So we have a list in this publication, which you can download from our website, of every Israeli academic institutions and what kind of crimes they’re involved in, and you can make your own decision whether you want to boycott these institutions or not. And the same goes for a lot of other kinds of businesses in Israel—not necessarily businesses that have their factories in the occupied Palestinian territory (of course, those are clear examples of colonialism), but also factories that don’t offer equal employment opportunities for Palestinian citizens, factories that embrace the army and gives discounts to soldiers, factories that contribute to the army. And so you see that the vast majority of the Israeli economy is very strongly intertwined with the project of Judaification and Zionism. So there is a very strong argument for boycotting every Israeli product, or at the very least for boycotting every Israeli product until Israel is able to differentiate and to give accurate and fair information about its exports—which exports come from the occupied Palestinian territories, which aren’t; which companies offer equal opportunities, which aren’t. And it’s not just about economic boycott, it’s also cultural boycott, because we don’t want to give the impression that Israel is a normal country, that you can just have it as part of a tour of performances of various famous artists. So we’re asking famous artists not to come and perform in Israel. That would be legitimizing the Israeli apartheid.

To see the report on the involvement of Israeli academic institutions with the occupation of Palestine, click here.

Protesters dance in Hebron

The International Solidarity Movement posted a video (above) of a “dance protest” in Hebron last Saturday – where three dancers playing the role of soldiers searching three Palestinians – as a response to the YouTube video of Israeli soldiers dancing near the illegal settlement of Tel-Rumeida.

They performed in front of the gate that closes off Shuhada street and prohibits all Palestinians from using it. The demonstrators called for justice and the opening of Shuhada street, and for the inhabitants of illegal Israeli settlements to leave the city and take the soldiers with them.

The demonstration, held weekly on a Saturday afternoon, then turned and paraded through the town. As they approached the market the peaceful protesters’ path was blocked by a line of soldiers armed with M-16 rifles – some of whom were seen kicking and hitting protesters. After a short sit-in the protest continued by turning around and heading towards the Old City.

Israeli activists gave speeches in Hebrew aimed at soldiers and settlers, calling for an end to the Apartheid situation in Hebron. One settler living in a house from which Palestinians were evicted threw water down on protesters but this did not dampen their spirits. Palestinians and international activists chanted together: “One two three four, occupation no more, five six seven eight, stop the killing, stop the hate.”

Hamas and Hezbollah beginning to appreciate nonviolent action

Israeli troops approach a model of a ship representing the Gaza aid flotilla during a demonstration by activists in the West Bank in early June.

At the beginning of the month, the Wall Street Journal ran an interesting article about Hamas and Hezbollah’s newfound interest and appreciation for nonviolent tactics following the Israeli raid on the Free Gaza boats at the end of May and other nonviolent actions by activists in Palestine:

“When we use violence, we help Israel win international support,” said Aziz Dweik, a leading Hamas lawmaker in the West Bank. “The Gaza flotilla has done more for Gaza than 10,000 rockets.”

[...]

Hamas’s turnaround has been… striking, said Mustapha Barghouti, a prominent Palestinian advocate for nonviolent resistance. “When we used to call for protests, and marches, and boycotts and anything called nonviolence, Hamas used these sexist insults against us. They described it as women’s struggle,” Mr. Barghouti said. That changed in 2008, he said, after the first aid ship successfully ran the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

“Hamas has started to appreciate just how effective this can be,” Mr. Barghouti said.

Hamas has started organizing its own peaceful marches into the Israeli-controlled buffer zone along the Gaza border and supported lawsuits against Israeli officials in European courts. Hamas says it has ramped up support for a committee dedicated to sponsoring similar protests in Gaza.

Mr. Dweik, the Hamas lawmaker, recently began turning up at weekly protests against Israel’s West Bank barrier.

Apparently, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was so impressed by the effectiveness of the Free Gaza Movement that he has called on his followers to participate in the next flotilla.

Ghaleb Abu Zeinab, a member of the Hezbollah politburo in Beirut, said it was the first time Mr. Nasrallah had forcefully and publicly embraced such tactics against Israel.

“We saw that this kind of resistance has driven the Israelis into a big plight,” he said. Organizers in Lebanon say they have two ships ready to sail, but no departure date has been set.

While I’m happy to hear that these groups are beginning to see nonviolent action in a new light, I question how wise it would be to include members of Hezbollah or Hamas in any future flotilla, primarily since they have not renounced violence. Like it or not, their involvement would only make it that much easier for Israel and the corporate media to justify another attack and discredit the campaign to end the blockade of Gaza. It is clear from experience that nonviolence is most effective when it is not tainted by violence or even the hint that those involved in any given action may turn violent.

Kristof on nonviolence in Gaza

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof writes this week about the growing trend toward self-conscious nonviolent resistance among Palestinians against Israeli occupation. But he is also quick to point out its shortcomings, as in his account of one action in Bilin:

Most of the marchers were Palestinians, but some were also Israeli Jews and foreigners who support the Palestinian cause. They chanted slogans and waved placards as photographers snapped photos. At first the mood was festive and peaceful, and you could glimpse the potential of this approach.

But then a group of Palestinian youths began to throw rocks at Israeli troops. That’s the biggest challenge: many Palestinians define “nonviolence” to include stone-throwing.

Kristof, often sensitive to matters of gender, points out that women may be leading the charge toward a truly nonviolent resistance in Palestine:

But imagine if Palestinians stopped the rock-throwing and put female pacifists in the lead. What if 1,000 women sat down peacefully on a road to block access to an illegal Jewish settlement built on Palestinian farmland? What if the women allowed themselves to be tear-gassed, beaten and arrested without a single rock being thrown? Those images would be on televisions around the world — particularly if hundreds more women marched in to replace those hauled away.

He tells of one case in which a women’s movement was successful:

Most Palestinian demonstrations are overwhelmingly male, but in Budrus women played a central role. They were led by Mr. Morrar’s quite amazing daughter, Iltezam Morrar. Then 15, she once blocked an Israeli bulldozer by diving in front of it (the bulldozer retreated, and she was unhurt).

Israeli security forces knew how to deal with bombers but were flummoxed by peaceful Palestinian women. Even when beaten and fired on with rubber bullets, the women persevered. Finally, Israel gave up. It rerouted the security fence to bypass nearly all of Budrus.

While it may be that women will play a pivotal role in future nonviolent action in Palestine, men can do it too. If Palestinians, truly want to make progress—and galvanize international opinion—against Israeli power, they should follow the lead of these women and men calling for unyielding, courageous, nonviolent resistance. If they want to continue making matters worse, they can keep throwing rocks and launching rockets.

Experiments with truth 6/23/10

  • More than 100 gay rights protesters marched in Toronto on Saturday to demand greater rights for all minority populations marginalized because of their gender, sexuality or socioeconomic status.
  • Students and staff at 100 colleges and universities in Great Britain are protesting funding cuts that could keep 200,000 people out of universities next year.
  • Students at the University of Puerto Rico voted to end their two-month strike against massive budget cuts on Monday after agreeing to a package with the administration that includes an extension of tuition waivers, the cancellation of a fee that would have drastically raised education costs, a commitment not to arbitrarily punish strike participants, and rejection of school privatization plans.
  • Israeli soldiers injured several protesters on Sunday in an attack on a nonviolent demonstration against illegal settlements and the construction of the Israeli separation wall in the Palestinian village of Beit Jala, near Bethlehem.

Experiments with truth: 6/21/10

  • About 100 rallied in Media, Pennsylvania on Thursday to demand that policy makers increase business taxes to help close the state budget gap, rather than cutting education and social services.

Israel eases Gaza blockade

The New York Times reports:

Under intense international pressure after its commandos killed nine activists aboard an aid flotilla trying to breach its blockade of Gaza last month, Israel on Thursday announced what it called “adjustments” in its policy, promising to ease the entry of civilian goods by land while maintaining its naval blockade.

The announcement, which offered few details, said that the security cabinet had decided to “liberalize the system by which civilian goods enter Gaza” and to expand the inflow of construction materials for civilian projects that are under international supervision.

Israel has still barely budged on the Gaza blockade since the Freedom Flotilla incident, but they are at least beginning to recognize that their legitimacy among the international community in the future depends not on accusing activists of terrorism but on changing their profoundly repressive policies toward Palestinians. To the extent that the actions of the activists have cast light not on themselves and on the Mavi Marmara disaster but on the conditions that are undermining the prospects of peace, they are successful. The more they eschew violent resistance in the future, the more powerful their message will be.

Palestinian ‘national football team’ protests separation wall

As the World Cup began in South Africa on Friday, Palestinians from the town of Bil’in formed a “national football team” and marched, along with dozens of Israeli and international activists, to the separation wall.

Sporting Palestinian uniforms, the players erected a goal next to the wall and began playing. After kicking several soccer balls over the fence to land that was once owned by the village, Israeli soldiers responded as they have in the past, by fired tear gas at the participants. According to the Friends of Freedom and Justice – Bil’in:

They then came through the fence, and arrested 6 journalists, four of whom were soon released… The tear gas canisters fired also caused large fires on the dry ground around the olive trees. Soldiers fired more canisters, aiming for the groups of villagers attempting to put out the flames.

While Ahlul Bayt News Agency said that the nonviolent protesters “did nothing but kick footballs,” the video above clearly shows that several of the youth involved did unfortunately throw rocks as well.

Experiments in Truth 6/16/10

    Hear Michael Nagler on the Freedom Flotilla

    A notice came in from The Metta Center for Nonviolence:

    Just a quick update to let you all know that Metta president Dr. Michael Nagler will be doing an interview addressing the flotilla situation, tomorrow (Wednesday) morning at 8:30am [Pacific Standard Time] on KPFA radio here in Berkeley. If you are local to the Bay Area, you can tune in to 94.1 FM at 8:30am; or you can also listen live online on KPFA’s site. After broadcast the show will be archived on this page on KPFA’s site. I believe there’ll a call-in component to the interview, so be ready with your questions!

    Michael Nagler, a literature professor at Berkeley, is one of the most articulate voices advocating for nonviolence in the United States today. We highly recommend his courses about nonviolence, which are available for free online, as an introductory resource on the subject.

    Gandhi and King on the Mavi Marmara

    The recent attack on the Mavi Marmara has inspired discussions of the techniques of nonviolence in the mainstream media. Here at Waging Nonviolence, we have already lamented what appears to have been a lack of discipline on the part of the protesters. However, an interesting commentary by Lane Wallace in The Atlantic shows how misunderstandings about the basic principles of nonviolence play a role in skewing coverage of and opinion about the events.

    Information is still murky, but what Wallace gets right in her piece is that Gandhi was insistent that one should always defend oneself with nonviolence, not physical force, if one is able. When the Israeli military raided the ship, they hoped to send the message that the blockade of Gaza would remain firm. In the aftermath, Israel has claimed the activists had terrorist connections.

    By breaking from strict nonviolent discipline, the activists played into this narrative, giving it a measure of plausibility and shifting the field of interpretation. Wallace says, expressing the sentiments of many:

    [T]here is at best a naivete, and at worst a disingenuousness, in provoking a fight and then complaining noisily that a fight broke out. The activists decided to take on the Israeli military. It doesn’t matter whether the military should have resisted their passage to Gaza, in a moral sense; the fact remains that Israelis had been very clear that they were going to take whatever measures were necessary to stop the boats. So the activists knew they were going to meet resistance. […] There are no lack of individuals, groups, or nations who use violence as a means to an end. But if you decide to step in that world, you can’t complain when your opponent uses violence in return.

    Wallace is sympathetic to nonviolent activism and her piece is an indication of the extent to which the Free Gaza movement has lost control over the interpretation of the events. Even while inspiring worldwide condemnation of the unjust Gaza blockade, what has most disturbed me is the character of much of the outrage it has inspired. The Turkish president’s assertion that Turkey will “never forgive” the killing of the ten protesters, protests in Ankara featuring hardliners burning Israeli flags and offering chants of “death to Israel.” This in turn has predictably inspired protests by Israeli hardliners equating Turkey and Hamas and claiming, “We came with paint guns and got lynched.” Israel’s bellicose actions and statements are of course responsible for this, but the activists on the Mavi Marmara bear some responsibility as well.

    However, Wallace makes a critical, faulty assumption in her analysis of nonviolence and one that is frequent among those who are casual observers of it. She writes that the problem with the flotilla was that it “went into the confrontation looking for conflict, to draw attention to their cause.” Citing Gandhi and King she says that “[q]uiet, uncomplaining courage is harder and less satisfying than provoking an opponent.” Unlike the Gaza protesters, when “Martin Luther King, John Lewis, the Freedom Riders and the rest of the non-violent protesters for civil rights set out, they knew what they were walking into. And if we admire their courage, it’s because they walked into a hailstorm without so much as a word of complaint.”

    Both Dr. King and Gandhi were very keen to use nonviolence to inspire confrontation and they did so in conjunction with some of the most profound words of complaint the world has ever known. Even in particular instances of direct action, “complaining” was important (think of C.T. Vivian confronting Sheriff Jim Clark in Selma). They were also persistently held responsible for being agitators who caused violence. The purpose of nonviolence is to put the violence that is the lifeblood of segregation and colonialism on display and excavate the hatred and fear that drives it. The problem with the flotilla was not in provoking and revealing the character of Israel’s death grip on Gaza. The provocation worked perfectly in demonstrating that only deadly force can support Israel’s current policies. The problem is that by failing to stick to the principles of nonviolence the Free Gaza movement failed to take the opportunity that was given to them.

    Nonviolent means usually have a more direct relationship to political outcomes than violent means. When militants fire rockets into Israel for the purpose of protesting the Gaza blockade, the substance of what they are doing is completely divorced from the political outcome. When a flotilla of aid tries to break the embargo, there is consistency between the means and the ends. But attacking commandos—even those trying to stop a flotilla—is not. Maintaining consistency in means and ends can be extremely difficult, but it is why Gandhi thought the methods were more truthful.

    Wallace both underestimates how difficult it is to maintain nonviolent discipline in the face of highly trained uses of violence and misunderstands the purpose of nonviolent protests. But her impressions of nonviolence are not uncommon and something those of us who use nonviolent means should keep in mind going forward.