Ballad of a Small Victory

by Karl Dallas

The Battle of Nablus
tune: English traditional, “The Bold Princess Royal”

On the last day of June in two thousand and two
In the city of Nablus the pleasures were few
The Israeli army had invaded the town
And the people were terrorised by the tanks roaming round.

We were ten internationals come into this land
To see what was happening and perhaps lend a hand.
We were Christians and Muslims and atheists and Jews
And all were determined to see what we could do.

For eight days a curfew all day and all night
And anyone on the streets could be shot on sight
But the people determined to reclaim their streets
And so we marched with them the curfew to beat.

Next day in the morning we woke from our dreams
To hear that the army was invading the homes
Of many brave fam’lies who had done nothing wrong
And so we decided to see what could be done.

We went to a house where the soldiers had gone
And twenty or so people they confined in one room.
We found a way in and we banged on the door
Saying we come in peace and in the name of the law.

Outside in the street while the folk gathered round
Some more of our number from all over the town
They gave us a warning that a tank was in view
So they sat down to stop it and they saw what they should do.

All the time in the house we persisted to try
To speak to the soldiers but they gave no reply
Instead they fired tear gas and exploded grenades
But our comrades were steadfast Though none could came to their aid.

They were only five people, brave vessels of light,
Confronting without weapons all the enemy’s might
The soldiers took hold of them and dragged them away
And one of their number was taken that day.

At length in the house the soldiers did say
We will take our leave if you’ll go away.
We consulted our comrades to see what to do
And at eight in the evening we decided to go.

Despite this small victory we should never forget
That the invading army oppresses them yet
Even while all our hearts with joy did abound
They were killing two young men elsewhere in the town.

The statesmen are weeping salt crocodile tears
At the plight of this people for so many years
But remember the teargas and the tank on that day
All carried the trademark: Made in USA.

Democracy Now!: International Solidarity Movement Activist Adam Shapiro, On the Role Americans Can Play in Bringing U.S. Media Attention to the Palestinians

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.

CNN: Interview with Adam Shapiro, Huwaida Arraf

Transcript originally published by CNN

Paula Zahn, CNN anchor: As events unfold in the Middle East, Adam Shapiro and his fiance, Huwaida Arraf, are here in America watching. The couple had been working in Israel with the International Solidarity Movement, a pro-Palestinian group advocating the non-violent end to Israeli occupation.

You might remember that Shapiro, a Jewish New Yorker, tried to evacuate the wounded during the Israeli assault on Yasser Arafat’s Ramallah compound, and was trapped inside along with Arafat.

Last week, his fiance helped a group of pro-Palestinian activists get food to those holed up inside the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. She was later detained by Israeli soldiers. The couple returned to America, so that they can get married on May 26.

And Adam Shapiro and Huwaida Arraf are with us this morning — congratulations on…

Adam Shapiro, International Solidarity Movement: Thank you.

Zahn: … the marriage news.

Shapiro: Thank you.

Zahn: What happened to you when you were essentially arrested for trying to get food and water into the compound — or into, you know, Bethlehem?

Huwaida Arraf, International Solidarity Movement: Well, after we had approached the Church of the Nativity and got the food inside, food that was desperately needed by the Palestinians inside that had been denied this for months, we also put international activists inside in the hopes of providing an international civilian shield, if you will.

After that, the 13 activists that remained outside and did not go into the church started leaving the area. We got the food inside, we got the activists inside, and we tried to leave nonviolently. We were, of course, detained, dragged off the scene by Israeli soldiers, and then detained inside the Peace Center for about seven hours.

In the middle of the night, we were taken out of Bethlehem, split between men and women. There were eight men and five women. We were tied, hands and feet tied and thrown in the back of a jeep. And then at least the women — we didn’t know what was happening to the men. At least the women were driven around Jerusalem in the middle of the night after they had taken our phones. They had taken our IDs, and they dropped each woman off in a different location in the middle of the night with nothing on us.

After we saw this happening to the first woman, we all protested, and I got slapped across the face. We were dropped off, told to shut up and just report to a certain location at 9:00 in the morning, which we did in good faith.

And after that, we were all split up again in different locations. I was with a British woman by the name of Jo Harrison (ph). We were taken to a detention center at the airport, not being told what was going to happen to us, except that we were being deported, which we protested right from the beginning. We said we are not going to accept being dragged out of Palestinian territory, in which Israel has no sovereignty, and then put on a flight out.

Zahn: How did you expect to be treated though, when you clearly were in an area that the Israeli military had declared off limits to everyone and including journalists?

Arraf: Well, as international civilians, we are concerned with upholding international law. We don’t respect the sovereignty — Israel has no sovereignty in Bethlehem. And according to — as according to international law, what they were doing by denying civilians food and medical treatment was illegal, and we were just concerned with providing this humanitarian aid to the civilians no matter what that meant to us.

Zahn: Adam, what is the release of these Palestinians represent to you? Is this the first step on getting things back on track in terms of a potential political settlement?

Shapiro: Possibly. However, I think it’s a very dangerous precedent to set. We have the Israeli army surrounding the church, surrounding the presidential compound, forcing negotiations upon the Palestinians at their own discretion, at their own will.

And what we have here is the exiling of basically 13 Palestinians out of the West Bank to foreign countries, and 26 to the Gaza Strip. I hope this doesn’t represent the beginning of large-scale expulsion of Palestinians, which as we have heard from members of the Israeli cabinet, this is what many people on the right wing in Israel, many people who support the solidarity movement, want. They want Palestinians out of the West Bank.

Zahn: I’m going to give both of you a chance to something that was written about you in an article that — well, actually you co-authored the article. There has been much analysis of what the two of you said. Let’s put those up on the screen now.

You wrote that the: “Palestinian resistance must take on a variety of characteristics, both violent and nonviolent. But most importantly, it must develop a strategy involving both aspects. Nonviolent resistance is no less noble than carrying out a suicide operation.”

And then “The New Republic” concludes that — quote — “Shapiro and his fiance are indeed activists, just not for peace.”

Now, if you read what was up on the screen, some people could lead to the conclusion that you were promoting suicide bombing.

Shapiro: If I may…

Zahn: Why would they be wrong?

Shapiro: If I may answer that. The article that we wrote was actually in response to another article written by a Palestinian, who said the Palestinians could not be nonviolent. And so we were addressing within the context of the debate over whether the Palestinians could use violence or could not use nonviolence or could use nonviolence. So it was, first of all, within that context.

Secondly, these are, of course, taken from — at the very end of a longer piece…

Zahn: Sure.

Shapiro: … in which we were advocating that you have to deal with the reality on the ground. The reality on the ground is that Palestinians are living in a context of extreme violence. The occupation itself is violence, as has been pointed out by many international organizations, including the United Nations.

And the Palestinians, you know, they feel, unfortunately, that they are helpless against this overwhelming force of Apache helicopters and F-16s, and sometimes feeling this hopelessness that they must act out violently in order — the only way to be heard and only way to get their message out.

And so we were trying to say that the emphasis actually was that we had intended to put, which was taken out of context, was that it can be both violent and nonviolent, that it doesn’t have to be just violent. That there can be nonviolent resistance, and this is what we were calling for. This is what we advocate.

Zahn: But you advocate violence…

Shapiro: That there should be…

Zahn: … in some situations?

Shapiro: That — no, no, that there is already violence. The resistance, I mean, as you see, you report on suicide bombings all the time and on the military attacks, but that there has to also be nonviolence. That’s what we are calling for.

There already is violence. We’re not advocating it. It’s already there. It’s on the ground. We’re working with people and with Palestinians who want to promote nonviolence, and that was the context of the whole article.

Zahn: And you have been subjected death threats for some of what you have said. How is your family getting along?

Shapiro: Thankfully…

Zahn: Can you go back home?

Shapiro: Yes, I have been home, and thankfully my family is safe, and the death threats are subsiding. But actually just recently, my father lost one — he teaches mathematics, one in a public school and one in a Jewish day school, a Yeshiva, and just this week he was fired from his Jewish day school job.

Zahn: And you think that’s a result…

Shapiro: Absolutely.

Zahn: … of maybe some of what you have said and the reaction to it.

Shapiro: Absolutely.

Zahn: All right, Adam and Huwaida, we’ve got to leave it there this morning. Thank you very much for coming in.

Shapiro: Thank you.

Arraf: Thank you.

Zahn: Appreciate your time.

“Palestinians won’t give up the struggle”

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.

International Activists Reach the Door of the Church of the Nativity

By Larry Hales

We walked right in to Manger Square–“right through the front door.” The writer in me wants to create some suspense, but I am ecstatic–my heart continues to beat at the rate it was when we were walking through.

We were planning the night before and were planning around another demonstration led by clergy. Our plan was to walk to the checkpoint before Bethlehem and protest. This morning we decided to participate in this action but to also continue on if the participants of it were stopped.

Well, we were stopped and the clergy weren’t so much interested in pushing through as they were in just challenging the checkpoint.

After this action, which lasted only about 30 minutes we decided to take a route through a monastery. No one expected us to get through this way either because the soldiers were very close, and if they were looking, would be able to see us. But, they didn’t and we continued on into Bethlehem.

The city was a ghost town, it was on curfew and it was almost completely quiet–at first. As we walked on, people began appearing at their windows and cheering us on. It was very powerful to see these people looking out and throwing up peace signs, children and elderly people. Our presence gave them hope and as we continued we began to see more and more people, mostly children coming out of their homes. They wouldn’t come out on the streets but they were coming out.

We stopped after having walked for quite awhile, and we began to plan for the march on the Church of the Nativity. No one thought that we would have gotten as far as we did. We planned and planned and waited and planned; finally, some of us decided to talk to some families that had gathered just in front of their homes, a few of them were fluent in English.

They were entirely full of gratitude–they let us into their homes and served us coffee–these people are resilient. Their lives are being put on hold by an occupying force; they can’t go to work; their children can’t go to school, yet, they were so willing to share with us. Some even invited me to stay with them.

Time began to get short; so, we had to go with the plan we had, which was for five of us to cross the barricade with water and food but we didn’t think that we would get through; and so, we were considering that the action would be symbolic at best. We waited some more and finally set on our way with a box of water and a bag of rice–meant to be symbolic of course because in the church there is barely any water, let alone a way of cooking the rice.

People began coming out more. I guess the word had gotten out. There was a group of Palestinians just before the barricade and some walked to it with us, holding down the barbed wire so that we could walk over it.

When we saw Manger Square we thought the siege had ended. It was empty except for an M1 Abrams tank. We walked on and at the halfway point, Israelis began yelling for us to stop. These soldiers doing the yelling didn’t have on their Kevlar helmets or their rifles–they were caught off guard.

We continued on through the yelling and made it to the door of the Church. When there we were instructed to sit by Huwaida. We did and the soldiers threw smoke canisters to block the press from seeing us. We knocked at the door and yelled that we had food; the soldiers looked on, the smoke rising. The tank moved so as to scare us. The media began moving so the smoke wouldn’t block their view. We held our hands up while yelling at the people inside to open the door, then, the soldiers moved towards us started pulling us up and throwing the food away from the door.

They were attempting to hold us but we were leading them more than them us. They tried to confiscate cameras, but we refused and they capitulated. However, they did drag some people. The soldier holding me was telling me how he didn’t agree with what was going on but that it was his job. He seemed to be a good man.

We were put in one area and Ted Koppel came over and interviewed Huwaida. He got the entire incident, all the cameras did despite the smoke. When he finished we came to the conclusion to walk out. The soldiers weren’t prepared for this. They tried to stop us but we defied them and kept on walking ’til we were clear of them.

The action was one of the most spectacular things I have ever seen, and the people I was with are some of the most brave people I have ever known. Tomorrow we will begin to try and get some people in Hebron and the Gaza Strip. I will be going to Hebron. More to come.

* Larry Hales is one of two members of the Colorado Campaign for Middle East Peace who have joined many internationals in Palestine to nonviolent resist Israel’s illegal military occupation of Palestine.