Category: In the Media

Meeting with Adam and Huwaida of the International Solidarity Movement
Interview by Linda Wolf

Linda: You too just got married, yes? What a time and place to be newly weds! But life really does go on. Adam, you’re Israeli and Huwaida is Palestinian? Where did you meet and where are you two from?

Adam: Yes, we’re from the states. I’m Jewish, not Israeli. We both have US passports. We’ve both been working in Israel for a long time. We met when we worked together with Seeds of Peace.

Huwaida: I’m Palestinian. My parents are from here. I was born in the US and lived there most of my life.

Adam: She was conceived in Palestine!

Linda: I’m sure you must have heard this before, but when I arrived here, not even yet off the plane, and mentioned that I might be working with the ISM, someone called me a self-hating Jew.

Adam: Yes, I’m the ”King of self hating Jews!“

Linda: What is the philosophy behind your work with ISM?

Adam: The Philosophy behind, and the impetus for, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) developed out of the realization that many people don’t know that a Palestinian non-violent movement exists. It was not receiving attention or support domestically, internally or externally. And it needs the support of foreigners to help support it and be a resource for it, because when internationals are present the IDF is more on guard not to exercise violence when the people respond to the situation non violently.

Linda: This seems to be the most important reason.

Basically, when Palestinians try to go out and march, or protest their situation, or remove a roadblock to the entrance of their village, they face the possibility of extreme violence and intimidation from Israeli soldiers. Even before a stone is thrown, an action on behalf of Palestinians can be seen as violent, and the response of the IDF is often to fight back, starting with rubber bullets, and then going to live ammunition. But, when internationals are present, the dynamic changes. This brings the international media, who will take an interest even when it’s only a few Palestinians, if you have internationals there. But, for the past few months, the media has been limited in its extent to move in the West Bank, and we haven’t been getting as much media as we would like. The visibility is very important as it helps quell violent reactions.

Linda: We’ve been listening to a lot of people and it’s clear this is a very critical time right now. How are you dealing with all this?

Huwaida: I am the one who sends out the email alerts to the international community. I’m beginning to feel like things in this situation are so normal; everyday, I hear the same thing. Today, for example I was putting out an email alert, when I got call about an incident in one of the occupied villages – soldiers opened fire at a checkpoint where no internationals were and shot a 17-year-old girl in the head. Her uncle, a man I know, called it in. The sad thing is that this doesn’t surprise me anymore.

If you go to the Gaza checkpoint and see the way the soldiers treat Palestinians, as we saw when we were monitoring, they are herded like cattle. And if they don’t comply with the soldiers at the checkpoint, or if one person complains, one soldier can hold 50 people back from crossing, deciding their fate for the rest of their day. These people may have set aside 2 hours to get through the checkpoint and might have to wait many more, if they’re lucky at all, to get through that day. If they get restless and reactive, and ask questions, a soldier will toss a tear gas canister or concussion bomb. I have to ask myself so often, how can anyone have so little regard for human life and human suffering.

When you’re Palestinian, your life is totally determined by soldiers and the people with the power over you. What the Palestinians see is that even if they are in the right, there is no one there to hold the soldiers accountable. That’s what the importance of an international presence is for.

Linda: When we were in Gaza we met a group of ISM folks. I have to say they looked a little bored that day. I know what you’re doing is incredible work, but on this trip we’ve heard some criticisms of ISM, not from those folks we met, but from others in the ”peace movement.“ I say that in parentheses because the word peace has come to have a very different meaning to me since coming here.

We’ve heard three specific criticisms. One is that you won’t work with Israeli peace organizations. Another is that ISM international activists leave here only having had an experience of actions without having a strong contextual grounding, a good sense of history or broad overview. The last is that you are not balanced, you represent only one side of the picture – that of the Palestinian suffering – and leave out the Israeli point of view.

Adam: We all feel we have not been as active as we want to be, or as some expect us to be, in terms of direct action; especially the last few months, because the situation is so grave. Curfews, and invasions, checkpoint closures make it harder to be active. A lot of what people are doing here is, yes, helping ambulances and medical personnel, these kinds of things, but a lot have spent time sitting and talking to families and community leaders and community activists and learned a lot. I’ve listened to people, who have been here working with ISM, give talks in the US, who have spoken brilliantly, not so much about themselves but giving voice to those they heard. This is very valuable. I know from living in the US that the Palestinian people don’t have much of an identity in the US except as terrorists. By coming here, working and witnessing what is going on, talking to the people, and going back home and sharing what they’ve seen and heard, ISM people have a very important role in helping people get a broader sense of what it is to be Palestinian. They can describe their situation and explain how it is for them to live under occupation.

About not working with Israeli peace groups: Having worked with Seeds of Peace, I’m very aware of many of the Palestinian and Israeli organizations, and the focus of most Israeli peace groups is different than ours. Ultimately, the focus of ISM is peace, but in the immediate, our focus is freedom. These are two different concepts and not well understood. In my assessment of the way I think Palestinians see it, Palestinians are looking for freedom and peace and Israelis are looking for peace and security.

Linda: Or security and peace.

Adam: The dynamics used to achieve freedom are different than the dynamics used to achieve peace. I don’t know if, for the most part, Israeli peace groups have internalized this concept in their work.

Huwaida: The ISM has been portrayed as an internal peace group and in that sense Israeli peace groups would ask why we don’t want to work with them, but speaking as a Palestinian womanÉI believe in the power of the people to affect change, and non-violent direct action as means of liberating ourselves and bringing an end to the occupation. There are so many reasons why Palestinian people feel disenfranchised from non violent ways of action. Non violence has been tried in so many forms and what they see and experience is that it has been met with so much violence, so it’s hard to believe that non violence will work. There has been no indication it will work.

I am a firm believer, as are the people who are involved in ISM in nonviolence. We are calling other people to join us, based on a resource we can use which is international solidarity. If we call on good people, by-pass all the resolutions which are resolutions that aren’t being adhered to, forget the governments that aren’t upholding justice, like the US, that aren’t respecting our rights, but calling on average citizens from all over the world, regardless of race and religion, people with an inherent belief in the freedom of all people, to come stand with us, this is a way to extend our voices and work with the power of the people against injustice.

So the International Solidarity Movement is a Palestinian led movement, against occupation, which actively calls on people from all over the world, including Israel, to join us. As people, not as organizations. We’ve seen the phenomena of international solidarity. It is increasing and spreading, and to answer the question why don’t we work with Israeli peace groups, we do work with them, whenever they want to join us as people. When we call for an action, anyone can join, but this movement is a Palestinian movement for freedom and peace, and being such seeks to work with Palestinian people, who feel disenfranchised, people who don’t believe.

Linda: What I hear you saying also, is that sometimes you leave it up to the Palestinian community as to whether they want Israeli activists to join in with them or to not.

Huwaida: It’s left up to the communities whether Israelis are welcome. For the most part, by their own governmental laws Israelis can’t go into the occupied territories, it’s illegal for them. There’s a sensitivity that dates back to Oslo and the whole peace process. During the 7 year peace process Palestinian groups worked with Israeli peace groups, and steps were taken towards normalization of relations which were seen as benefiting only Israelis. While the whole world was talking about peace, the Palestinian economy was going downhill, check points were being instigated, homes demolished, settlements built… So Palestinians believe that they were mislead by this peace process and the Israeli peace groups were in it for how it would benefit them, without achieving justice and freedom and an end to occupation.

In general, this is a lot of what people are sensitive about. Sometimes, you encounter cynicism. People ask, are you a peace worker, because the word peace has come to mean something different. Palestinians think organizations of peace had their eyes shut to what was really happening. When you have your home demolished, and you have no one to cry to, you become cynical to the word peace, and peace doesn’t mean justice.

A lot of people became skeptical. Not all, but this was especially poignant. The Palestinian system of NGOs cut relationships. They issued decrees of no more contact with Israeli groups, unless they specifically, outrightly advocated the implementation of the UN resolutions, including 194, the right to return. This laid out what most people were feeling. We don’t want a cooperation with Israeli organizations that only benefits one side. Israeli peace groups felt hurt by that. They complained about the fact that Palestinians were cutting relationships with them, and making it harder for them to work in their community and accept peace and justice, what we’re all working for. But again, this was the stance of Palestinian civil society, this what we found. It wasn’t against Israeli civilians, but asked, under what banner do they stand? The banner of Peace Now, when I know Peace Now is a Zionist, and doesn’t believe in Palestinian right to return.

All Palestinian organizations and villages say, you’re welcome as individuals, no matter what religion, to join us in our struggle, but don’t come under the name of your group, because we don’t agree on guidelines, and I don’t want my situation to benefit your organizations mission.

Linda: What I’m understanding has to do with what Adam said, that for the Palestinians freedom is the first requisite for peace and any group or person who wants to join the Palestinian people in their struggle has to have this first and foremost as their primary intent. Including pushing for implementation of the UN resolutions, which thus far Israel has not implemented.

Adam: The Palestinian position is if they accept the 1967 borders, which is 22% of the land (they are giving up 78% of their land), they are willing to negotiate, willing to the adjust the green line in exchange for West Bank, where there are settlements.

Additionally, they are seeking to solve the refugee problem. They are asking for Israel to acknowledge the Palestinian peoples’ right of return. The PLO recognized there was also the question of how many people would be allowed to exercise that right. There are a whole list of options that are being talked about; some refugees accepting to go to a 3rd country, like Canada, to resolve issues, or to stay in whatever country they find themselves in now, like Lebanon, but at least from the negotiating position of the Palestinians, the importance is to adhere to international law and UN resolutions which means giving back lands, including lands that have been taken over illegally. And there is the question of compensation for the refugees. Settlements are an issue as well. It’s technically a war crime to establish settlements in occupied lands. So, the Palestinian position is 22% of the land, resolution of refugee problem that is fair and equitable, and to share Jerusalem.

I think most people would find the Palestinian position reasonable, and I think that is the answer to all Israeli critics out there. Now, the catch phrase these days is, Palestinians must make the painful decision to choose peace, but the Palestinians want to chose first is freedom and no one is laying that out for them. It is all wrapped up in accepting an Israeli peace deal, and it’s a shame that Palestinians are in such a weak position. All they are asking for is to uphold international law.

Linda: The Israeli position I’ve been hearing while I’ve been here has been that for the Palestinians to have their freedom and peace, they have to stop the terrorism.

Adam: The terrorism stopped for 4 years. I know for sure because I was here; in 1998 and 99 and 2000 there were no suicide bombings. This was a result of cooperation between Palestinian security agencies, Israeli security agencies and the CIA, and yet, you had a prime minister on the Israeli side in 2000 promising to deliver an end of conflict and making best offer, which didn’t even come closeÉand wanting to declare in Camp David, an end to conflict when they hadn’t even talked about refugees.

I spoke to my congressman when I was in the states, about activists being beaten up, having cameras broken, getting bloody eyes, for trying to deliver food to refugees in the camps. My congressman actually told me that we were being violent by failing to obey Israeli soldiers’ orders.

Linda: What I’m worried about is the day when one person in a group of internationals gets killed. It hasn’t happened yet, but when it does, everything could change.

Adam: There was a doctor already who has gotten killed.

Linda: But, not from lying down in front of a tank. You’re putting your lives on the line every time you do an action. We met with the director of a Palestinian organization working on a very grassroots level, putting people together for peace and understanding and he said there is a quote that goes something like First you resist with your body and if you can’t do that, you resist with your voice, and if you can’t do that, you resist with your heart.

Adam: I’m afraid of the way things are spun in the media, when they’re reported, that the mantra that’s put out is that we are aiding and abetting terrorists and if soldiers have to run us over, it’s because we’re the ones who are wrong. In these days, in America, most people would be willing to buy this, unfortunately.

I hope people in the US are questioning what happened in_____, the village in Afghanistan where US soldiers bombed a wedding party. Forty people, mostly women and children were killed, and 120, injured. Initial reports were that they were responding to enemy fire, hunting terrorists.

Huwaida: We very much believe and support active resistance and we invite people to join us. Some people believe the only way is to turn into a human bomb and attack the other side who is attacking you. We don’t believe this way. We believe in non-violence. I hear it so much, wouldn’t it be great if the Palestinians had a massive non-violent movement; what if Arafat was like Gandhi? You’d have your own state. The nonviolent community is small now, but it’s both of us, Palestinians and internationals, and we are going to persist and put our lives on the line. The International Solidarity Movement is critical also because how are you going to help Palestinian parents, families and communities believe that they can be non-violent and stand up and speak out for themselves when 17 year-old girls get shot in the head. What is going to give them the hope that they can keep part of a Palestinian nonviolent resistance movement?

We don’t provide any false hope or notion that we won’t be attacked or face violence. There are three options. People can continue turning into human bombs and sacrifice their children who are going out to attack innocent Israeli children, civilians, and non combatants, which I and everyone I work with is opposed to; or we can do nothing, or we can use our bodies and voices and call for other voices and bodies and continue to resist. We have a right to confront their might with the belief we have that the power of the people will eventually overcome.

We know there is more suffering to come, but we’re suffering as it is and we can’t just sit and do nothing. And I, we, don’t think anyone believes that we have the power or force of arms to confront the Israeli military; that is not an option. So we use what we have, ourselves.

Just so you know, back in December or January, some high official was asked what would you do if 10,000 people marched on a settlement. He said, “either we shoot them, or we let them go, and we’re not going to let them go.“ Palestinians have good reason to fear. But one thing I am adamant about not having portrayed is that the ISM is an international movement that has the notion that we need to teach Palestinians the nonviolent way. That’s one of the first questions I am asked: Are you coming to help them be nonviolent? Because, Palestinians are always labeled violent.

People see so much violence because of the occupation forces, and then you listen to news and hear Palestinians have been violent, it’s the Palestinians who are violent. I almost want to explode. I can’t stand to hear the term. Palestinians are so abused with this term. The majority of the struggle has not been violent, it has been nonviolent and we are so misunderstood.

The sad thing that they don’t realize is what they’re doing is creating more suicide bombers and more people willing to sacrifice life in this way. I called a kid I’d worked with at Seeds of Peace once recently. He was a member for four or five years. Lots of Israeli kids loved him and he stood for peaceful resistance. I had to argue with him on the phone. His city was invaded, I could hear the missiles as we spoke, they must have been 10 yards away from him. And he was saying, Sharon is killing us; he wants to wipe out of terrorists, but he’s creating people like me who are willing to sacrifice our lives. People are fighting for freedom, we don’t have bombs to drop on them, but we will turn ourselves into bombs if we have to. Either Palestine is liberated, or else ever Palestinian is going to being wiped out.

I don’t see what Sharon is doing now as elevating or providing more security for Israelis. Sadly, when we encounter Israeli soldiers, they aren’t going to provide security for Israel, because they’re teaching Palestinians to hate them more. Every Israeli soldier will tell you I don’t want to be here in this Palestinian city, I’m only doing my job, they say there are terrorists in this city and I am going to find them.

If you want to join us, come join in with our platform, to end the occupation. But don’t come with any other banner, come opposed to the occupation. That is the stand we take. The ISM is not an organization. It is people who are standing together from all over the world, for freedom. The freedom: to be able to live life without restrictions put on us by the Israeli military government; freedom to elect and chose our own government; freedom to move freely in our own future state, in our own lands; freedom to be able to pursue an education, make a living; freedom to live.

Right now freedom would be able to open door and go to local market, without being afraid of tanks coming down the street, and opening fire. Before, freedom meant going to another village; now it means just going down the street to the neighbor’s house.

by Justin Podur & Neta Golan
Originally published by ZNet

An interview with Neta Golan

Neta Golan has been described as “a legendary figure” and is one of very few Israelis who has been arrested, beaten, and harassed repeatedly for working against the Israeli occupation of Palestine. She lives in the West Bank where she works with the International Solidarity Movement.

You have said that one way or another this occupation is going to end. That’s far from a foregone conclusion to most. What makes you so sure?

Every occupation, every colonial society that has ever been established, has ended — with the exception of the Americas, which required a genocide to take place. I don’t think a genocide is possible in this situation. The only way Israel could expel the Palestinians is under a regional war. Under the smokescreen of a regional war, Israel could try to do the ‘transfer’ that is planned and proposed by the extreme right.

I don’t think a regional war is in the US’s interest right now, and without the US’s blessing Israel wouldn’t be able to do it. So I think eventually Israel will tire, as the British tired in India or the French in Algeria or the Indonesians in Timor. Ultimately, it will end.

There are differences between Israel’s occupation and the ones I just mentioned. 1948 Israel is a settler state and it is certainly colonial, but the difference between it and France in Algeria is that the Israelis in the 1948 borders don’t have anywhere to go. The occupied West Bank and Gaza strip, though, are more classic colonies. The settlers can, and will, come back when those occupations end.

But how many will die before that, unnecessarily? How much suffering will it cost?

Even though I’m sure it is going to end, it still needs people to make it happen. So we have to make it happen, and we also have to try to make it happen as soon, and with as little suffering, as possible.

Where do internationals fit in to making the end of occupation?

One possible way the occupation could end is by the international community pressuring Israel. There’s certainly a case under international law for doing so. Both settlements and collective punishments are illegal under international law.

International pressure played an important role in ending apartheid in South Africa. The boycotts were effective, and more important of course was the resistance on the ground. If there was a full withdrawal of the international community, I believe the occupation would end.

But where has the international community been? Until the first intifada, no one even knew Palestinians existed.

As for internationals who come independently, to work with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) they’re addressing several problems. One specific problem is that Israel uses excessive force to oppress Palestinian popular resistance of any kind. Israel does not differentiate between combatants, nonviolent demonstrators, and people who are just trying to live. Everyone gets lethal force. And what happens is that the Palestinians don’t want to go as sheep to the slaughter. The occupation is a pressure cooker and it’s explosive.

If popular struggle is closed by snipers, and if the international community accepts it, then resistance will become more and more violent. The open avenues are the ones that involve people blowing themselves up. If you can’t have a dignified life, you die fighting. Killing civilians is a crime, there’s no question. But it’s important to recognize that if people have something to live for they don’t do this.

Is there proof? When Palestinians believed Oslo would bring them peace, they waited seven years. Through seven years of expanding settlements and checkpoints, expanding provocations, Palestinians waited because they thought it would bring them peace. After seven years they recognized it as a smokescreen for occupation, and it exploded into the intifada.

The intifada itself started with stone-throwing, which was met by sniper fire and machine gun fire from tanks.

What we want to do with the International Solidarity Movement is keep an avenue for popular struggle open. When we accompany Palestinians, because of the racism of the whole system, the army doesn’t treat us as targets the way they treat Palestinians. We want to expose the racist nature of the conflict by doing this, and also to simply try to protect people so they can try to resist politically.

Palestinians asked the world for an international protection force. Such a force would have reduced violence. Israel and the US prevented it, with the US vetoing it in the United Nations. Since our governments are acting to sustain the occupation, civilians have to come here themselves to work as a civilian protection force. The hope is that at some point our governments will follow.

What do you think happens if we fail?

Every Arab civilian in the world knows that their blood is cheap.

Iraqis, Afghanis, Palestinians. They are paying a high price for the West’s racism, being killed, humiliated. Those things create terrorism. Israeli and US state terror and the reaction in ‘retail’ terrorism are two sides of the same coin and they can’t exist without each other. We’re creating that, feeding it, in the Arab world. And one source that feeds it, that tells Arabs their blood is cheap, is what is happening in Palestine.

For Westerners to say we refuse to do this, we refuse to believe that our lives are worth any more than Arab lives, is an important message for all of us. It makes everyone safer.

Bush, Sharon, they’re leading us down a road very dangerous for our future. For our present! The West has already paid a little bit, with the attacks in New York, for the hatred they are creating. There will only be more backlash. So for those of us who want a sane world, for those of us who don’t want to live in a world that is at war, resisting this conflict in a just way is in our own interest.

Interesting that you mentioned ‘a sane world’. Here in Israel, and I guess elsewhere, we’re the ones who are thought of as ‘insane’. I’m sure you’ve been called ‘crazy’, no?

One problem is the disinformation. Hardly anybody who would call us ‘crazy’ knows what’s going on here and if they did, if they came here, they would be motivated in the same ways that we are. But they would have to get up from behind their televisions.

In the Israeli media, the only image of Arabs is violence. The human side, the suffering, is hidden from us. I believe that if they saw people, just like them, suffering the way they are, they would be motivated the same way.

I’m a Jewish Israeli. As a Jew, I carry a wound. I know my people suffered a genocide. They tried to tell the world; people didn’t come, believe, know, want to know, do anything.

Some did. A few did, and they were called ‘crazy’ at the time. I want to do for the Palestinians what those ‘crazies’ did for the Jews, I want to take their example, and the truth is that it’s easier for us to do what we do now than it was then. There are Israelis who support our work here.

Israeli society is going through a collective turn to fascism. It is supporting assassinations, extra-judicial executions, openly. These things are really scary. I feel it, I feel like we’re in the middle of an unfolding catastrophe and I think, quite often, of those ‘crazies’ in Germany who resisted. I feel closer to them all the time.

Many of the activists who have been coming here are also working on an ongoing basis with the ‘anti-globalization’ movement. If it’s all part of a movement for justice, what do you think the next steps should be?

I would love to see the tens of thousands of people who go to a G-8 meeting or a World Bank meeting come here, where the terrible decisions they make are actually being implemented. With several thousand activists we could dismantle checkpoints, break sieges of all kinds, we could make a real difference on the ground where the policies are actually being implemented. I think it would be great to disrupt the implementation of the policies rather than only the planning of them.

Politically speaking, a kind of anti-imperialist, anti-neoliberal force could reach out to moderate Muslims. Muslims’ choices seem to be imperialism or resistance that takes a fundamentalist form. What about resistance that is anti-imperialist and not fundamentalist? If our ideas could reach, and interest, the Muslim community it would add strength and depth to both movements, and give new avenues and political options to people.

Click here to listen to the Democracy Now! segment with Adam Shapiro.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government of national unity has run into a serious crisis after he sacked four ministers from a key coalition party, the ultra-Orthodox party Shas.

The four Shas ministers and several deputy ministers from the United Torah Judaism party were dismissed for not backing an economic austerity plan introduced to pay for the recent military offensive against the Palestinians.

Under Israeli law, the sackings come into effect after 48 hours.

At that point Sharon could find himself leading a minority government.

Sharon’s economic proposals would have cut welfare spending and increased taxes, but were rejected in a vote on Monday night.

Correspondents say the ultra-orthodox ministers balked at the withdrawal of special government subsidies for Orthodox religious students, who do not have to serve in the Israeli armed forces.

Meanwhile, the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reports the army has again raided the West Bank cities of Bethlehem and Jenin this morning, and has re-occupied the entire city of Tulkarm.

We turn now to a talk given this weekend in New York by International Solidarity Movement activist, Adam Shapiro. ISM activists have been taking direct action since the beginning of second Intifada, from rebuilding demolished Palestinian homes to taking food and medicine inside besieged Palestinian areas. Two weeks ago, ten international activists brought food to the Palestinians trapped inside the Church of the Nativity. Dozens of activists were jailed and deported. Five are still in an Israeli prison.

Adam Shapiro is a Jewish-American who lives under Israeli occupation in the West Bank. He is engaged to Palestinian-American Huwaida Arraf. Shortly after Israel tanks broke into Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Ramallah compound at the end of March, Shapiro entered the compound in an ambulance. He helped build a makeshift clinic in one of Arafat’s presidential offices. Then he shared a much-publicized breakfast with Arafat in the compound.

The story of a Jewish New Yorker risking his life to protect Palestinians was picked up across the corporate media. The New York Post dubbed Shapiro “Jewish Taliban.” In a confrontational interview with Shapiro on Fox News, host John Gibson called him a “turncoat.” On CNN, Paula Zahn accused him of promoting suicide bombing. His parents received so many death threats that they were forced to leave their Brooklyn home. They now live under police protection. This is Adam Shapiro, talking about why he does what he does.

Huwaida Arraf interviewed by the Socialist Worker

Could you give your impressions of the scale of Israel’s devastation in places like the Jenin refugee camp?

Jenin is unimaginable–the level of destruction that has been wreaked on this refugee camp and the amount of terror that people have gone through.

The International Solidarity Movement was among the first people to sneak into Jenin refugee camp when it was still closed off, and those who went there said they were seeing people under the rubble–trying to pull people out from under the rubble of their own homes.

I’ve continued receiving reports from our internationals there, who have told me that even when Jenin camp opened up a little bit and people were in the streets again trying to bury their dead, women and children were walking around dazed, looking at their homes that were flattened. People say they see pieces of bone and flesh everywhere. One of our members reported to me seeing a whole midsection lying on the ground.

I don’t how you term that anything short of a massacre. It was even declared that by Terje Roed-Larsen, the UN envoy, who said that he saw the body of a child who was killed, and so this wasn’t going after the terrorists.

They arrested more than 4,000 men, and we don’t know what’s going to happen to them. Our members got into a village on the outskirts of Jenin, where some of the men who were detained were dropped off–in their underwear on the edge of the city. Many had been detained and abused for a week at minimum, and they didn’t know what had happened to their families.

We had people collecting their personal stories, and they were all the same–they were bound, blindfolded, stripped of their clothes, tortured. You could see open flesh wounds even after a week, cigarette burns on these peoples’ necks and backs–in addition to being kicked around, denied decent food and interrogated.

And all this is justified as Israel going after the terrorists. In Israel’s mind, every Palestinian man, woman and child is a terrorist–and that’s all they have to say to justify opening fire on unarmed civilians, demolishing unarmed civilians’ homes.

I live in Ramallah, which has been quiet for the past week, but I’ll tell you what quiet is. For almost two weeks, quiet has been hearing explosions about every hour–not knowing what’s being blown up, but knowing that the Israelis are dynamiting doors and going into buildings. Everyone remains under total curfew, and if you’re seen walking around during curfew, you’re an open target for the snipers stationed in different buildings.

So people in their homes have almost gotten used to these explosions and hardly ask anymore what that was–because it’s just another building, it’s just another supermarket, it’s just another home that they’re entering.

About four days ago, we took a group of foreign civilians through the streets, marching under the banner of a white flag. We were delivering humanitarian aid, and we were walking down the streets, but people were only waving to us from inside their homes–because they were afraid to come outside.

We heard gunshots in the distance, and again not knowing what it was. But when we made our way to the local hospital, a 7-year-old boy had been brought in with a bullet to the shoulder. And they had picked him up where? In front of his house. He was playing in front of his house and got shot.

These things are almost impossible to put into words. But these are the things that we’re seeing. In Ramallah, commercial buildings have been burned to the ground, clinics shelled, lawyers’ offices turned to rubble, many of the homes, the windows broken and shattered. The first day we were actually allowed to come out of our homes and onto the streets, either you were stepping on bullets, glass or twisted metal.

There’s nothing that hasn’t been hit. If they’re going after the “terrorist superstructure,” why did they dynamite my local supermarket while no one was in there? They broke into the ministry of education and stole all kinds of files–kids’ school records dating years back.

They’re targeting the very infrastructure of Palestinian society. And this is on top of the civilian deaths. So it’s unmistakable what kind of terror the Palestinian people have been subject to at the hands of the Israeli military.

What do you think about Israel’s justification for its war on Palestinians that it’s only acting in self-defense?

There’s a lot of violence here, and violence perpetuates violence. So we must look to the source of the violence, which is occupation. That is unmistakable and undeniable. The continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, their continued harassment and abuse of human rights of the Palestinian people, stripping them of their dignity and denying them their freedom–that is violence in itself.

Even when the media claim that there’s quiet–when they use the terms “cease-fire” or “period of calm”–we who live in the Palestinian territories don’t see calm. Every time you go to the edge of your own town, you see Israeli soldiers. You face abuse. You face basic violations of your dignity at the hands of Israeli soldiers.

Yesterday, for example, our van with foreign civilians was stopped by Israeli soldiers at one of the entrances into Jerusalem, and as they were checking all of our IDs and trying to justify why they were holding us up, they said, “We live with animals.” I said, “Who are the animals?” And they said, “Those people on the other side.” And this is, I’m afraid, the mentality of some of the people who are put at checkpoints to dominate Palestinian people.

That kind of abuse, even in periods of supposed calm, is violence in itself. And then, of course, when you see any kind of resistance–any kind of march, any kind of demand for freedom–it’s violently put down by brute military force that violates international law and human rights.

That is going to breed violence, and the cycle goes on. That breeds a resistance, and there are different kinds of resistance. People are pushed to resistance that has targeted innocent civilians in Israel, which we don’t agree with that at all. But we understand. We have to understand that in order to bring it to an end. The international community, if not Israel itself, has to take uncompromising steps toward ending the occupation.

At the same time, it seems obvious that Palestinians remain committed to resisting Israel’s rule.

People have been locked in their homes, and there’s a sense of fear–but also of having seen the worst that can be dished out. I haven’t sensed one bit of willingness to give up or to submit.

I was among the civilians who went into Yasser Arafat’s compound to protest the siege and express solidarity. There were 300-plus Palestinians inside with the president, from his advisers to security to regular workers in the president’s office–all of them living with no electricity, no running water, the Israelis were surrounding the compound and firing. And they still said that no amount of Israeli terror will lead us to submit. That’s something that I heard from every security guard that I talked to, right up to the president.

That doesn’t mean that we’re not pleading with the international community to intervene. But it does mean that no amount of terror that Israel can inflict upon the Palestinian people will lead them to submit and give up the struggle for freedom.

Because it’s basically a human struggle for the basics that I think every person in the world can identify with. It’s to be able to live with dignity, with respect for human rights and free of foreign domination–to be able to raise your kids and send them to school without worrying that they’ll be harassed by a soldier.

What do you think people in the U.S. should do to show their solidarity?

Those of us here were heartened to see all of the demonstrations and solidarity and outrage over Israel’s action all over the world. The one thing we ask is that people don’t tire of putting the pressure on. And not only by demonstrating, which is widely known about, but by calling your congressional representative and the White House.

The statements coming out of Congress and the administration are so blatantly pro-Israel. And they get away with it even while Israel is committing what I’m sure will be found to be war crimes. It’s good to demonstrate. But small things like calling or writing or faxing your congressperson every day is a very effective thing to do. A combination of both, I think, will help change American foreign policy.