Volunteers with the International Solidarity Movement are encouraged to write personal reflections about the work they engage in with Palestinian communities, the events they experience, and the people they meet. These journals offer the human context often missing in traditional reports or journalism. These articles represent the author’s thoughts and feelings and not necessarily those of the International Solidarity Movement.
Today Tubas prisoner’s society held a rally outside the Red Cross building in Tubas to commemorate prisoner’s week.
Students at Al Quds Open University in Tubas also held a vigil for the families of prisoners in the university grounds
At the university vigil students gave prisoners’ families trees to plant. Each tree was the same age as the amount of years the person had been in prison.
Palestinians in Israeli jails are political prisoners, charged under a military apartheid legal system. The detention of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails has no basis in international law.
The prisoner’s club took me to meet two families of prisoners. One was the family of a man imprisoned during the Intifada. His family told me that they had been imprisoned because the army were looking for their family member and that, in 2005, the Israeli Occupation Forces attempted a targeted assassination in Tubas using an Apache helicopter killing four people, three of them children. The attack failed to kill its intended target.
Another family told me of the conditions faced by Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails. Prisoners used to receive money from the Palestinian Authority to pay for food in the canteen. However, since the international sanctions on the Hamas government these have ceased. Money from prisoners’ families is not getting through and prisoners are living on bread and water. One prisoners mother told me that the prison authorities often turn off the water and electricity. Family visits are severely restricted and many prisoners families cannot enter 1948 Israel to visit their loved ones.
April 17th is recognized annually by Palestinians as Prisoner’s Day
At this moment, negotiations on a prisoner exchange are in full swing.
The term “negotiations” is really inappropriate. “Haggling” seems more fitting. One could also use an uglier expression: “trafficking in human beings”.
The planned deal concerns living people. They are being treated like goods, for which the officials of the two sides are bargaining, as if they were a piece of land or a load of fruit.
In their own eyes, and in the eyes of their spouses, parents and children, they are not goods. They are life itself.
Immediately after the signing of the Oslo agreement in 1993, “Gush Shalom” publicly called on the Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, to free all the Palestinian prisoners.
The logic was simple: they are in reality prisoners-of-war. They did what they did in the service of their people, exactly like our own soldiers. The people who sent them were the chiefs of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) with whom we have just signed a far-reaching agreement. Is there any sense in signing an agreement with the commanders, while their subordinates continue to languish in our jails?
When one makes peace, prisoners-of-war are expected to be released. In our case, this would not only be a sign of humanity, but also of wisdom. These prisoners come from all the towns and villages. Sending them home would release an outburst of joy all over the occupied Palestinian territories. There is hardly a Palestinian family that does not have a relative in prison.
If the agreement is not to remain just a piece of paper, we said, but be imbued with content and spirit – there is no wiser act than this.
Unfortunately, Rabin did not listen to us. He had many positive traits, but he was a rather closed person, devoid of imagination. He was himself a prisoner of narrow “security” concepts. For him, the prisoners were goods to be traded for something. True, before the founding of Israel he himself had been held in detention by the British for some time, but, like many others, he was incapable of applying the lessons of his own experience to the Palestinians.
We considered this a fateful matter as far as the peace efforts were concerned. Together with the unforgettable Faisal Husseini, the adored leader of the Palestinian population of East Jerusalem, we organized a demonstration opposite the Jneid prison in Nablus. It was the largest joint Israeli-Palestinian demonstration ever. More than ten thousand people took part.
In vain. The prisoners were not released.
Fourteen years later, nothing has changed. Prisoners have been released after completing their sentence, others have taken their place. Every night, Israeli soldiers capture a dozen or so new “wanted” Palestinians.
At any one time, there are some 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, male and female, from minors to old people.
All our governments have treated them as goods. And goods are not given away for nothing. Goods have a price. Many times it was proposed to release some prisoners as a “gesture” to Mahmoud Abbas, in order to strengthen him vis-à-vis Hamas. All these suggestions were rejected by Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert.
Now, the security services oppose the prisoner exchange deal for the release of the soldier Gilad Shalit. And not because the price – 1400 in exchange for 1 – is exorbitant. On the contrary, for many Israelis it seems quite natural that one Israeli soldier is worth 1400 “terrorists”. But the security services raise much weightier arguments: if prisoners are released for a “kidnapped” soldier, it will encourage the “terrorists” to capture more soldiers.
At least some of the released prisoners will return to their organizations and activities, and that will result in more bloodshed. Israeli soldiers will be obliged to risk their lives in order to arrest them again.
And there is something else lurking in the background: some of the families of Israelis killed in attacks, who are organized in a very vociferous lobby connected with the extreme right, will raise hell. How could this pitiful government, devoid of any public standing, withstand such pressure?
For each of these arguments, there is a counter-argument.
Not releasing the prisoners leaves the “terrorists” with a permanent motivation to “kidnap” soldiers. After all, nothing else seems to convince us to release prisoners. In these circumstances, such actions will always enjoy huge popularity with the Palestinian public, which includes many thousands of families that are waiting for the return of their loved ones.
From a military point of view, there is another strong argument: “Soldiers are not left in the field”. This is held as a sacred maxim, a mainstay of army morale. Every soldier must know that if he or she is captured, the Israeli army will do everything, but everything, to get him free. If this belief is undermined, will soldiers be as ready to take risks in battle?
Furthermore, experience shows that a high proportion of released Palestinian prisoners do not return to the cycle of violence. After years in detention, all they want is to live in peace and devote their time to their children. They exercise a moderating influence on their surroundings.
And as for the thirst for revenge of the families of “terror victims” – woe to a government that gives in to such emotions, which, of course, exist on both sides.
The political argument goes both ways. There is pressure from the “terror victims” – but there is even stronger pressure from the family of the captured soldier.
In Judaism, there is a commandment called “ransom of prisoners”. It arose from the reality of a persecuted community dispersed across the world. Every Jew is obliged to make any sacrifice and pay any price for the release of another Jew from prison. If Turkish pirates captured a Jew from England, the Jews of Istanbul paid the ransom for his release. In today’s Israel, this obligation still holds.
Public meetings and demonstrations are now being held for the release of Gilad Shalit. The organizers do not say openly that the aim is to push the government to accept the exchange deal. But, since there is no other way to get him back alive, that is the message in practice.
One cannot envy the members of the government who find themselves in this situation. Caught between two bad options, the natural tendency of a politician like Olmert is not to decide at all and postpone everything. But this is a third bad option, and one which carries a heavy political price.
The strongest emotional argument voiced by the opponents of the deal is that the Palestinians are demanding the release of prisoners with “blood on their hands”. In our society, the words “Jewish blood” – two words beloved by the Right – are enough to silence even many on the Left.
But that is a stupid argument. It is also mendacious.
In the terminology of the Security Service, this definition applies not only to a person who himself has taken part in an attack in which Israelis were killed, but also to anyone who thought about the action, gave the order, organized it and helped to carry it out – prepared the weapons, conveyed the attacker to the scene, etc.
According to this definition, every soldier and officer of the Israeli army has “blood on his hands”, along with many politicians.
Somebody who has killed or wounded Israelis – is he different from us, the Israeli soldiers past and present? When I was a soldier in the 1948 war, in which tens of thousands of civilians, fighters and soldiers on both sided perished, I was a machine-gunner in the Samson’s Foxes commando unit. I fired thousands of bullets, if not tens of thousands. It was mostly at night, and I could not see whether I hit anybody, and if so – who. Do I have blood on my hands?
The official argument is that the prisoners are not soldiers, and therefore they are not prisoners-of-war, but common criminals, murderers and their accomplices.
That is not an original argument. All colonial regimes in history have said the same. No foreign ruler, fighting an uprising of the oppressed people, has ever recognized his enemy as legitimate fighters. The French did not recognize the Algerian freedom fighters, the Americans do not recognize the Iraqi and Afghan freedom fighters (they are all terrorists, who can be tortured and held in abominable detention centers), the South African apartheid regime treated Nelson Mandela and his comrades as criminals, as the British did to Mahatma Gandhi and the fighters of the Hebrew underground in Palestine. In Ireland, they hanged the members of the Irish underground, who left behind moving songs (“Shoot me like an Irish soldier / Do not hang me like a dog; / For I fought for Ireland’s freedom / On that dark September morn…”)
The fiction that freedom-fighters are common criminals is necessary for the legitimation of a colonial regime, and makes it easier for a soldier to shoot people. It is, of course, twisted. A common criminal acts in his own interest. A freedom fighter or “terrorist”, like most soldiers, believes that he is serving his people or cause.
One paradox of the situation is that the Israeli government is negotiating with people who themselves have served time in Israeli prisons. When our leaders speak about the need to strengthen the “moderate” Palestinian elements – they mainly mean these.
That is a feature of the Palestinian situation, which I doubt the existence of in other occupied countries. People who have spent five, ten and even twenty years in Israeli prisons, and who have every reason in the world to hate our guts, are quite open to contact with Israelis.
Since I know some of them, and some of them have become close friends, I have wondered many times about this.
At international conferences I have met Irish activists. After several pints of Guinness they have told me that they know no greater joy in life than killing Englishmen. I was reminded of the song of our poet Nathan Alterman, who prayed to God “Give me hatred grey like a sack” (for the Nazis). After hundreds of years of oppression, that’s how they felt.
Of course, my Palestinian friends hate the Israeli occupation. But they do not hate all Israelis, just for being Israelis. In prison, most of them have learned good Hebrew and listened to Israeli radio, read Israeli newspapers and watched Israeli TV. They know that there are all kinds of Israelis, just as there are all kinds of Palestinians. Israeli democracy, which allows members of the Knesset to vilify their prime minister, has made a deep impression on them. When the Israeli government showed a readiness to negotiate with Palestinians, the best partners were to be found among these ex-prisoners.
That is also true for the prisoners that are to be released now. If Marwan Barghouti is released, he will be a natural partner in any peace effort.
I shall be very happy when both he and Gilad Shalit are free.
Uri Avnery will be leading a workshop at the Bil’in Second Annual International Conference. Click HERE for details and registration.
The look in their eyes gave it all away. They knew something was wrong – how could they not? Only sixty-five years ago my grandparents were running from young soldiers dressed in green, with machine guns strapped to their under-developed arms, with officers sending them orders, with their uniform trousers tucked into their calf high boots. Those same soldiers who were charged with sexually assaulting women, killing innocent civilian children and with swastikas on their arms inspired the tactics of soldiers you find at Israeli checkpoints today that we have seen throughout out journeys over the past week. It’s sick. It’s enough to make a skull smile.
When will the zionist advocates, the belief in an ethnically centred Jewish state, realise that if you try to snuff out a culture, blow out its light and extinguish its values – they will only unite into a fighting force? Just as the Jews did? All you have to do is experience the beauty of Palestinian family hospitality and values, the rich taste of home grown humus and the colours of the hijabs which adorn the proud role of Palestinian women, to realise that whatever plan, zone or border one builds – it will never break the will of such a tenacious people. When will the zionist followers learn that playing poker with some of the brashest profit-driven corporations on the planet is a venal and dangerous game? Just as Coca Cola and IBM were complicit in the Holocaust crimes and as Carmel Agrexco and EDO MBM are today, when it is these cultures turn to role the dice and shuffle their hand, they will pull out the wrong card and suppressed community anger will eventually pop and explode? And when will the zionist believers realise that destroying a human civilisation next to ‘their borders’ wreaks long term consequences? That what must also be counted in the costs of war, are the trampled vegetation, the charred trees and the carcasses of livestock who have innocently strayed within the territories of human greed? Unfortunately, it is these policies of ecocide and this ignorance which will ultimately be the undoing of the arrogance of the human species.
For me, not only is the situation desperate and disparate, but, more than anything, an embarrassment – an embarrassment for all that my holocaust-surviving grandparents fought for. Lying in their graves, they turn, turn and turn in sheer disbelief. If only their suffocated silence could screech their thoughts of, ‘WHAT IS GOING ON??!!’. For all the nights they slept rough, for all the food they were starved of, for all the limbs they lost and all the holocaust-remembrance ceremonies held ever since 1945 – the justification of divisions in the name of security is a farce when we have learnt many times that two, three, ten or twenty cultures can co-exist in peace. So, I write this personally for all you young Jews out there – realise that every innocent Palestinian death, every crop-trashing and every person who is being actively robbed of their livelihood, their homes, their water and, above all, some semblance of dignity, is being done in your name and in the struggles your grandparents fought so hard for.
The Judaic culture has a great and wonderful history of strength, solidarity and resistance – today we may not be a great race – but we can, once again, be a great people. Just as my grandparents (and many of yours too) stared back death in the face with hope for peace – we can do too. Remember, the only thing more powerful than the British and American Governments and NGO’s who are funding the occupation, is the British and American civil population. The time has come, the stakes are raised and the mirror is holding high the glinting reflections of what our grandparents dreamt of. Tear down the Israeli ghettos and the wall of death and say, ‘No nations- No borders- not in my grandparents, mine or my future generation’s name.’
Re-Ignited in Palestine: Tel Rumeida Circus for Detained Palestinians by The Shmoogster
The Tel Rumeida Circus for Detained Palestinians had their first reunited circus extravanganza last night. Due to heavy rains, our flames were dampened 2 weeks ago when we attempted to have our first 2007 circus show in Tel Rumeida.
Last night, however, Katie and I brought our fire poi and our fire juggling torches to H2, and filled those Occupied streets with glee.
H2, for those of you who may not know, is an area of Hebron that was divided up under what was called the “Hebron Protocols” in 1997. H1, making up 80% of Hebron, was to be granted limited autonomy under the supervision of the Palestinians Authority. H2, where the Tel Rumedia neighborhood is located, was placed under the full control of the Israeli military.
What this translates to is that anyone living in H1 (under ‘limited ‘autonomy’) is subject to arbitrary home invasions and incursions by the Israeli military. In H2, however, under the control of the Israeli army, things are a lot more intense and unbelievable…
No Palestinians are allowed to drive cars of any kind in H2. If you are sick, you must be carried through the checkpoint where an ambulance may be waiting for you on the other side. Same hold true for pregnant women, who have to move from Tel Rumeida some time before giving birth to ensure that they are close to a medical facility.
Tel Rumeida is unlike any other place in the West Bank. Illegal, extremist settlers live side by side with the Palestinians, often in Palestinian homes whose residents fled from the soldier and settler violence. Settlers carry M-16 rifles as they walk the streets with their families. Settler youth and, at times, settler adults, throw stones at and spit on Palestinian women, men, and children, while the Israeli soldiers stand idly by.
At the checkpoint in Tel Rumeida, soldiers will detain Palestinian men for sometimes hours while the soldiers do a “security check.” This should normally take just a few minutes, but often the soldiers will detain the men for hours, just because they feel like it.
The Tel Rumeida Circus was initiated as a response to de-escalate these situations. Katie and I were playing with our circus toys with the Palestinian children on Shuhadda Street. On this street, settlers commonly break Palestinian windows and throw stones at Palestinians and international human rights advocates.
The kids do not usually enter the street because they are afraid of being attacked by the violent settlers. But when we would arrive with out juggling pins and poi, smiles stretching from ear to ear would be seen galloping down the stairs to join on for our quaint circus show.
We noticed on one of these days that a Palestinian man had been detained at the checkpoint for quite some time. Katie and I decided to bring our mock-circus performance to the checkpoint. It was already an absurd scene– 18 year old Israeli soldiers detaining a Palestinian man at a crappy little checkpoint, separating Palestinian land from Palestinian land. So we decided to add to the absurdity while adding a bit of non-violent intervention to the scene.
So we brought our show to the checkpoint. Our attempt was to put the soldiers in a better mood which would lead into them releasing the Palestinian detainee. Katie and I improvisationally announced: “We are the Tel Rumeida Circus…” We spun our poi and juggled our pins there, next to the checkpoint. And it worked. After a little while, the Palestinian was released and we departed back down Shuhadda St. And we would return as often as we could to Shuhadda St with our equipment, making our spontaneous circus shows when a detention was occurring.
We eventually grew and started to teach the kids how to do circus tricks.
And we would do our TRCDP fire show every Friday night…
So last night was our special Palm Sunday Performance of TRCDP. (Actually, that was just a coincidence). Our audience of Palestinian children was so excited—it had been over 7 months since we last performed on those streets in H2. The internationals were pretty excited as well.
Two Israeli soldiers could be seen several meters away. I saw one of them on the phone…
We played with our fires for nearly half an hour.
Our circus soundtrack blasted from on of the Palestinian shops.
As we finished, a tank whirled around the corner in our direction, but our circus had already been extinguished. Maybe they were coming to stop us. Maybe they were coming to join us. Regardless, we will reunite there every Friday. And TRCDP has already started planning to get our show on the road. Our goal is to perform at as many permanent checkpoints as we can. We’ll see you at a checkpoint near you.
All of this circus stuff was preceded by Land Day. There a handful of places where non-violent demonstrations against Apartheid were taking place. I found myself at the demo in Bil’in….
Bil’in Commemorates Land Day
All over the West Bank on Friday and Saturday, non-violent demonstrations were enacted against Israel’s Apartheid Wall and Israel’s theft of Palestinian land.
This year was the 31st anniversary of “Land Day,” a day when Palestinians commemorate the killing of six Palestinians in the Galilee in 1976. Israeli troops killed these non-violent demonstrators during peaceful protests over the confiscation of Palestinian lands.
Land Day’s theme encompasses the Palestinian struggle against foreign occupation, the strive for self-determination, and national liberation. Today’s theme additionally focused on Israel’s Apartheid Wall and the denial of freedom of movement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Simultaneously, non-violent and direct actions were taken against Israel’s current system of Apartheid throughout Palestine. Palestinians were joined by Israeli and international solidarity activists in the villages of Bil’in, Umm Salamuna, Budrus, and Qaffin, among other places.
In Bil’in, the non-violent demonstrations have endured for well over two years now. Israel’s Apartheid Wall has stolen around 60% of Bil’in agricultural land. Still, Palestinians in Bil’in march every Friday against this obstruction and blatant barrier to peace. With their numbers usually in the hundreds, the demonstrators continue to march to the Wall, where Israeli army routinely responds to the non-violent demonstrators with tear gas, sound grenades, and rubber bullets.
On Saturday, the commemoration of Land Day, things weren’t very different.
About 150 Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals gathered outside of the mosque in Bil’in. Posters were plastered to the walls bearing the message of Land Day.
Half way through the march to the Wall, separating the Palestinians from their land, one could spot Israeli soldiers hiding out under olive trees, lounging out in the backyards of Palestinians, waiting for the chance to intervene with the demonstration.
When I arrived to the gate in the Wall, a soldier was holding up a piece of paper and was speaking in Hebrew. Presumably this was their “Closed Military Zone” order. Palestinian and international press were already on the hill beside the gate. As the rest of the march showed up, slogans were thrown, “No to the Wall. No to Occupation.”
On the other side of the wall, an Israeli police water tank waited to shoot its high-powered hose at the demonstrators. They have used this in the past. Though I have never felt it, others have said that the chemicals the police put in the water make it “feel as if your skin is peeling off when it hits you.”
Demonstrators, demanding to get to their land on the other side of the Wall, began trying to dismantle the barbed wire that the army placed on the inside of the Wall. The police tank then began shooting its hose towards the demonstrators. They fired the hose a few times before the soldiers eventually crossed the barbed wire and into the non-violent crowd.
With their shields and helmets and guns as protection, some soldiers started to push at the demonstrators. Against the soldiers’ armor, some rocks were thrown by some of the Palestinian boys. In response, the army started to throw sound grenades from over the fence in the direction of the demonstration.
The army then crossed the demonstrators who had gathered at the gate and began to fire rubber bullets towards the direction of the rock throwers. The marchers who were still working on getting to the gate began to retreat from the firing, and back toward the village.
This left the demonstration in two parts—a “divide and conquer” tactic I think.
Soldiers tried to arrest one Palestinian protestor but the crowd around him “de-arrested” him by locking extremities. Several Palestinians were forced to the ground with Israeli shields. Some sound grenades were thrown in intervals. Off in the distance you could hear the army shooting rubber bullets at the crowd who had retreated.
Slogans and chants were made towards the army. After about an hour, the demonstration came to an end and people began heading back to the village. Memory told me that the army would continue to fire sound grenades and tear gas as the peaceful demonstrators were retreating. And today was no different.
As the Israeli soldiers were coming back from firing at other section of the demonstration near the village, they crossed us and began to fire tear gas. Three or four Palestinian boys were slinging rocks from the bottom of the hill towards the armed Israeli soldiers at the top, and the boys began their new targets.
But every few meters you would hear a canister hit the ground and see the smoke rise from it. Nearer to the village, I could see a water tank on a Palestinian’s rooftop which had been hit with presumably live ammunition.
Land Day in Bil’in ended with no arrests and minor injuries.
At the Checkpoint also ended with no arrests or injuries.
Last Saturday, photographer Khaled Jarrar exhibited his photos at the Qalandya checkpoint. The name of the exhibit was called “At the Checkpoint.”
Qalandya checkpoint is not located on any border. Instead, the checkpoint has been erected between the Palestinian towns of Ramallah and Qalandya refugee camp, on one side, ar-Ram and Occupied East Jerusalem on the other. Thus Palestinians are forcibly parted from Jerusalem– the historical, economic, spiritual, and physical heart of the West Bank.
Passage through Qalandya checkpoint has become nearly impossible for most Palestinians, and for those needing to reach nearby Jerusalem. In order to reach home, work, and families, Palestinians must cross through this fortress-like structure. Passage is denied to Palestinians without an Israeli-issued Jerusalemite residency I.D. or permit. Palestinians– women and men, young and elderly, are all subject to this form of collective punishment.
Eligible Palestinians must usually exit the car on either side of the massive barrier, make their way through a maze of turnstiles, gates, Israeli soldiers and security, metal detectors and video cameras, before exiting the other side where they can board another vehicle to reach their destinations. This nightmare is even worse when a medical emergency is involved. Palestinians seeking medical attention are often refused crossing by the Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint.
Several of us volunteers met Khaled a little while before the exhibit was to go up. We scoped the scene– are there soldiers present? Available space to hang the photographs? It was little windy that day but we had to wait for the right moment. There were a few local and international media outlets present… And then it was time.
There were about 10 of us there at Khaled’s car. Each of us took 3-4 photographs, pre-wired for hanging, so that we could just find a spot on the fence and begin the art exhibit.
After 5 minutes, all 60 or so photos were hung. I heard some Hebrew being yelled from the top of the Apartheid watch tower, but I wasn’t sure if it was directed at us or not. Passers-by started to walk in the direction of the makeshift gallery to see what all the commotion was about. Cars that were waiting to cross through the gate in the Apartheid Wall began to pull into the parking lot next to the checkpoint, and the drivers joined the observers at the art show.
The photographs displayed scenes at the numerous checkpoints that Israel has erected through the West Bank. Photos of Israeli soldiers screaming at elderly Palestinians as they waited to cross the barrier to reach their families and friends; endless lines of Palestinians waiting for hours in the hot sun, just to reach their homes; sound grenades exploding at peaceful demonstrations; Palestinian hand wrapped around barbed wire that the Israeli army placed near the checkpoint.
Khaled told me that he “wants to share the pain and plight of the Palestinians with the world.” He pointed towards the checkpoint. “This is what the Palestinians have to deal with everyday. A wall separating them from their land, from their families, from Jerusalem. Through my photos, I want to show the world the injustices we are living with everyday.”
Just the day before, as I mentioned in my last dispatch, the Israeli military shut down the YMCA-sponsored bicycle race. The race was a symbolic race against Israel’s Apartheid system, scheduled to bike from Ramallah, past Qalandia checkpoint, all the way down hill fdor 30 miles or so to Jericho, one of the most ancient cities on the planet.
Khaled was there taking photographs, his camera lens sticking out the back of the van in which he was riding. He snapped a few of me just a few minutes before we got to a small checkpoint where the Israeli army halted our exhilirating bike race. You can read my bike race story at: http://joeskillet.livejournal.com/12220.html
Khaled rushed home that night and developed and framed his photographs. There were a handful of pictures now hanging up at Qalandia checkpoint of that botched bike race the day before.
More people started to arrive, people coming in through the fortress from Jerusalem, and others going to. Dr. Mustafa Barghouti even showed up. Dr Barghouti is a doctor who was trained in the former Soviet Union – He headsthe Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, that he established back in 1979.
Here he is attending the “At the checkpoint” exhibit:
and here he is being surrounded by Israeli soldiers a couple years ago:
The photo exhibit stayed up from 1pm -4pm. There were no reported incidents of the Israeli Occupation Forces intervening.
Like the Tel Rumeida Circus for Detained Palestinians, Khaled plans to take his show “to a checkpoint near you.”
How Palestine became “Israel’s Land” by Sonja Karkar of Women for Palestine, 31 March 2007
For Palestinians, theirs is not the land of conquest, but the land of their roots going back to time immemorial. Such a lineage does not rely on a biblical promise like the Jewish claim that God promised the land to Abraham and his descendants, and is therefore, the historical site of the Jewish kingdom of Israel. It belongs to the people of Palestine by the simple fact of their continuous residence repeated through birth and possession going back to the earliest Canaanites and even those people living there before recorded history. They were there when the Israelites invaded the land, occupied it, and held it intermittently as wave after wave of other conquerors came and went, and they were still there when the Romans put an end to Jewish Palestine by destroying Jerusalem in 135AD. If a religious basis is sought, then the Palestinians can lay claim to being the descendants of Abraham’s son Ishmael who is regarded the forefather of the Arabs. But actually, Palestinian rights are enshrined in the universally accepted principle that land belongs to its indigenous inhabitants. Thus, the modern day struggle for this land by European Jewish immigrants who have no connection with Palestine other than through their religion is a colonial enterprise that seeks sovereignty for an “external Jewish population” to the exclusion of the indigenous Palestinians who, regardless of faith – Jewish, Christian or Muslim – have lived together for centuries.
Although eager to accept the UN Partition Plan of 1947 which recommended that 56% of the land be set aside for a Jewish State, 42% for an Arab state and 2% for an internationalised Jerusalem and its surrounds, the world has not said a word about the land that was seized by Zionist terrorists before the State of Israel was proclaimed on 14 May 1948. Through a series of shocking massacres, the territory assigned to the Jews suddenly became 77% resulting in more than 750,000 Palestinians being forcibly expelled and dispossessed of their homes, personal property and their homeland. The Jewish State then came into being without waiting for the United Nations Commission – prescribed in the Partition resolution – to hand authority progressively over to the Jewish and Arab leaders for their respective states. And after the 1948 war, Israel declared Jerusalem its capital in contravention of its internationally-recognised status of corpus separatum – a status that is still recognised. Effectively, the new state of Israel was not only created in violation of, it continued to violate, the very resolution which Israelis now look to as giving them sovereignty. The Arab state imposed by the UN Partition Plan without consultation and in contradiction to the UN charter – which should have upheld the majority indigenous Palestinians’ right to self-determination – has since been deliberately and methodically whittled away by Israel, leaving nothing but isolated non-contiguous parcels of land to some 4 million Palestinians.
Around 170,000 Palestinians remained in what became Israel, the largest number of whom resided in the Galilee area, originally a designated part of the Arab state under the Partition Plan. These Palestinians also became the victims of Israel’s land grab policy. Over 438,000 acres, which was more than the total Jewish land holdings at the time, were confiscated and a further 400,000 acres were marked for confiscation. After Israel won the 1967 war, the total territory of Palestine came under Israel’s rule. It annexed East Jerusalem, despite the Holy City’s internationally recognised status and began implementing its Jewish settlement program with a vengeance. The Palestinians in Israel were increasingly aware of their precarious position politically and declared a national strike, known as “Land Day” on 30 March 1976 against Israel’s continuing ruthless land expropriation. An affinity was quickly felt between Palestinians everywhere and “Land Day” was adopted as a sort of national Palestinian day which is commemorated by Palestinians and their supporters around the world each year. This awakening of national consciousness had an unequivocal political message: end the occupation and allow self-determination of the Palestinians in a sovereign state living in peace side by side with Israel.
Thirty-one years later, the message is till resonating, but the Palestinians are further away from seeing a solution than ever before. Daily, Israel is taking a bit of land here and a bit of land there, to make all of Palestine “Israel’s Land”. The problem then will be, what to do with 5 million Palestinians with no land? There are only a few possible, but criminal solutions – transfer, collective imprisonment, apartheid, and/or ethnic cleansing. Alternatively, Israel can disengage from the West Bank to the 1967 borders or agree on a single, democratic state for all. Without a just solution, the struggle for Palestine’s land will continue.
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