The global intifada

16 October 2011 | Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, Jamal Juma

Palestine is an international symbol of struggle against occupation, racism, and colonialism. On October 15, 2011 the world gathers in what some have called a global intifada, to stand up against imperialism.

The first time an international activist came up to me and sincerely thanked me for a speech in which I had promised that we as Palestinians would never give up our struggle until we have reached liberation and justice, I was surprised. Now I have learned to understand the importance of our struggle for the rest of the world and the responsibility that necessarily follows. As long as Palestine resists, there is hope for more than our own people.

In 2010, The South African Trade Union Congress wrote, “The (Palestinian) struggle has become a global symbol of resistance against apartheid, occupation and colonialism in our age.”

This statement describes exactly my experience in over a decade of innumerable encounters and collaborations with international activists from all over the globe. The Palestinian struggle not only has a global dimension, it has inspired people globally.

Whether it’s British activists ready to go to prison for their solidarity actions with Palestine, a deeply felt speech by an activist of the farmers’ movement in Mozambique recalling the Palestinian resistance, or the fact that a Palestinian will never go without a standing ovation in front of a Cuban audience, theirs are true expressions of global solidarity with Palestine. Other deep gestures of togetherness and common struggle were the tribal ceremony in which I received from one of the elders of the First Nations in Canada a ring to protect me from my enemies, or the residents in Norway’s most northern city forming two competing solidarity groups, or the signs reading “Occupy Wall Street, Not Palestine” and “Tear Down This Wall Street” appearing on the banners of the protesters in the popular movements of the United States who are standing up right now in their streets, demanding justice.

We have all seen the slogan, “We are all Palestinians.” The Palestinian cause and our resistance to Israeli occupation and apartheid are an intrinsic part of the imagination of many people and the global struggle against colonialism, racism, and war. People all over the world stand in solidarity because they know our struggle is also their struggle. This connection is the true global solidarity.

Our symbols of struggle, like the keffiyeh, have become symbols of struggle all across the globe. The word Intifada is understood in almost all languages of the world. The Mexican activists in Oaxaca in 2006 called their uprising an Intifada and many Kashmiris use the term as well.

Our common, borderless struggle is the reason why Stop the Wall calls each year for the International Week against the Apartheid Wall. From 9 to 16 November in Palestine and around the globe–from Australia to Canada, and from Norway to Argentina–people will mobilize for worldwide actions to participate in this global action week. This year, once again, we will be able to feel this spirit of solidarity and joint struggle for our liberation as part of the global struggle for justice, peace and humanity as part of the emerging global Intifada.

There are moral, political, and historical reasons that the Palestinian struggle is an international symbol. Each one of these reasons is in and of itself a victory for the movement to free Palestine and can be credited to Palestinian grassroots activists.

After centuries of suffering caused by colonialism’s system of racial discrimination, slavery, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and slow genocide, the world’s people now feel a moral obligation to protect human rights. The effects and conditions of imperialism have been rejected as the mechanisms of tyranny and destruction of our species. Today, in modern times, those under occupation in Palestine face human rights violations of the kind experienced by colonial subjects, which gives the Palestinian solidarity movement a moral imperative.

The strength of our people and our steadfastness against Israeli occupation is an inspiration. Israel’s unique combination of colonialism, apartheid, occupation, and drive to permanently displace our people creates a multilayered system of mechanisms of repression. Many around the world admire the fact that the Palestinians haven’t surrendered.

Palestinians have a strong identity and a large diaspora. Those that have been deported, relocated, exiled, or who have migrated from Palestine have sought abode in the rest of the world’s countries as refugees or immigrants. The over six million refugees, despite facing pervasive discrimination, have been able to live and identify themselves proudly as Palestinians. They have not only preserved their culture and identity but also challenged conditions of poverty and isolation, so as to keep the Palestinian struggle in the hearts and minds of the world.

Historically, the Palestinian popular resistance against occupation has not isolated itself but become part of international political alliances, especially those existing before the Cold War ended. Palestinian revolutionaries identified themselves with other struggles around the world, such as the struggle against apartheid in South Africa by sending resources and other support to the resistance movement. Good relationships with progressive countries were built intentionally, while the wider network of solidarity was cultivated consciously.

And finally, Palestine in its confrontation with Israel represents the global progressive movement’s confrontation with imperialism and colonialism far beyond the Middle East. As Palestinians stand up to Israeli crimes, peace, freedom, and justice are strengthened for all.

Today, the moral and political support that Palestine has received historically from the international community is reflected back to us in the inspired actions of the alter-globalization movement. It has served as an inspiration for nearby and global spheres, from Tunis to New York City, as masses of citizens recognize the destruction of imperial globalization.

At the beginning of this year, the people in the Arab world rose up, took to the streets and squares, and made crucial steps on the long road towards a just and free Middle East. The Palestinian Intifada has become Arab; the walls of fear from dictatorship have been torn down. People in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Syria, and beyond have inspired the world with their courage. They have shown that people, determined and united, can make a difference. They themselves have been inspired by the Palestinian Intifadas, the actions of popular struggle and endurance of Palestinian resistance, and the dignity displayed by innumerable Palestinian activists in front of repression, arrests, torture and humiliation. Now, uniting in a day of action on 15 October, the mobilization of people all over the world occupying streets and square has been expression of what has recently been coined the first global Intifada.

However, the global impact of the Palestinian struggle is not only an outcome of our struggle, it is the result of the very character of our oppression. The over six million Palestinian refugees who have been expelled by Israel from their homes and lands and who have been scattered all over the world for more than sixty years are now ambassadors for our cause. Furthermore, the Palestinian struggle is a global issue by creation. It was the international community gathered in the United Nations that decided the fate of our lands–completely ignoring our right to self-determination–and which has, over the decades, documented Israeli violations of our human rights and international law, condemning them regularly but never acting to stop them.

Knowing that we are linked not only by the complicity of the governments and corporations that support and profit from Israeli apartheid, but also by a common struggle with people around the world is important. It is necessary we remind ourselves over and over about this.

The October 15, 2011 day of protest has galvanized people around the globe and in Palestine. Together, as a unified front against racism and imperialism, a spirit of solidarity for liberation of all people, Palestine stands against imperialism on October 15 and every day.

Jamal Juma is the coordinator of the Stop the Wall Campaign.

Honeymoon in Gaza

16 October 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

I had just finished off a plate of homemade bread knaffe yesterday with a family in the south of Gaza, when we got the call: farmers in Beit Hanoun, a village in the north of the Gaza Strip, requested that ISM volunteers accompany them to pick olives near the buffer zone.

The buffer zone.  I had heard of this area back in the fall of 2002 when I had come to the West Bank for the ISM’s first olive harvest campaign.  Back then, Israeli two-ton Caterpillar bulldozers were crushing homes, orchards and all other life forms to create this dead zone between Gaza and Egypt.  Israel displaced more than 10% of the population of Rafah, Gaza’s sourthernmost town, at that time, making Palestinian refugees from 1948 refugees yet again.

Today, this unilaterally-imposed 300 meter buffer zone extends all around the sliver of land that is the Gaza strip, to the north, east, and south, an effective kill zone for all who dare enter it. (To the west is the sea, also patrolled by the Israeli navy).

Nonetheless, I was excited about the idea of going out with the farmers. I love picking olives! I love being out on the land, feeling the hard purple and green fruit pop off the branches and onto a tarp spread on dirt below. And besides, we weren’t going inside the buffer zone – those trees were long gone – just in some area nearby.

L, the woman who had baked the deliciousknaffesnack, and J, her husband, had also lost the majority of their farmland to the dead zone. J had just finished telling me about it, and L was quizzing me about my love life.

“Do you have any children?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“Why not? Children are wonderful. I have five.”

I provide the response that seemed easiest at the moment. “Well I just got married a few months ago.”

“You should be on your honeymoon!” she exclaimed.  “Where is your husband? Your husband should be here!”

Alas, I’m not sure if she really believed I was married, and I promised that next week I would bring photographs of my wedding.

The next day, Saturday, our group head to Beit Hanoun to pick olives.

“Be prepared to get shot,” said Saber, the founder of the Local Initiative of Beit Hanoun, an organization which works with farmers in the buffer zone to resist the Israeli occupation through nonviolence.  “The Israeli army, they don’t distinguish between foreigners or Palestinians,” he added, pointing to the fluorescent yellow vests and megaphone we had brought along.

Then why are we here, I wondered. Surely not for our physical prowess in picking olives. But I understood that he was making sure were fully appraised of the situation. The task may seem mundane, but here there is always a risk.

We drove out to the edge of Beit Hanoun, where the trees suddenly stopped and nothing but barren land lay between us and the border.  It was a sunny day in Gaza, and if you squinted your eyes and looked really carefully, in the distance, army towers could be seen, and beyond them, the town of Sderot in Israel.  Surely, there could be no danger from the Israelis back here, I thought, we are much farther back than the designated 300 meters.

Turns out I was right and I was wrong.

Mohamed AshureShimbari and his family had already begun picking olives by the time we arrived, on a small plot of land next to a cement block house. Every time the Israelis invaded Gaza, they locked the family in a room, and used their house as a base.  And though we were indeed, 800 meters from the border, the area was far from safe.

We began picking olives, and the elderly farmer who owned the land seemed exhausted, not from picking olives, but from living life in Gaza.  J too, though in his mi-50s and younger, had had that look as well. After his family had lost everything in 1948 and fled to Gaza, J had managed to by farmland after working in Israel for over twenty years, as an electrician, a restaurant worker — “everything” — only to see it taken yet again.

In this area of Beit Hanoun where we were picking what was now the barren buffer zone, ten years ago been filled with orchards of lemon, orange, grapefruit and olive trees.  There were also greenhouses of tomato, eggplant and cantaloupe.  Saber pointed all around, explaining what was where and how there was no clean water.  I couldn’t imagine it.  It was like pointing to the Sahara desert and saying, “ imagine these sand dunes are jungle.”

We picked for a couple of hours, occasionally breaking for tea, when someone called out “jeepat.”  Jeeps.  Israeli army jeeps were patrolling the border.  Then came a tank.  A few people stopped picking, to peer at the tank.

“What’s it doing?” I asked.

“Showing they are strong,” one of the young Beit Hanoun volunteers answered.

The army was relatively far away, but apparently, one never knows if the Israeli army will shoot at you. Since Operation Cast lead in 2009, the U.N. estimates that Israeli tank and gunfire killed five Palestinian civilians, three of whom were children and injured twenty in areas near the buffer zone.

After we stripped the trees of their olives, we dumped them into large, 40 kilo bags and then head back into town.  The day passed without incident, as it should have, but it was no honeymoon.

From the clothesline to her son, Hebron mother copes

13 October 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

On Thursday 13th October Mohammed Maher Abu Rumaila was arrested by the Israeli Army as he was returning to his home in Hebron’s Old City. The Israeli army alleged that Mohammed had been throwing stones in the Old City the day before Wednesday and he is now being held in Gush Etzion Prison.

In an interview today with ISM volunteers Mohammed’s mother, Fatihia Abu Rumaila, explained.

“Mohammed was arrested in the street. The Israeli’s said he had thrown stones, but he didn’t. He was working in Israel at the time they say he was throwing stones.”

The 20 year old’s family believes he will appear in Court on Sunday 16th October 2011. Fatihia explained that the family cannot afford to pay for a lawyer, and therefore Mohammed will be represented by a lawyer from the Prisoners Club. She feels “heartbroken, sad and scared,” and all she can do is hope for justice.

Fathia says:”I am afraid of letting my children leave the house but what can I do forcing them to stay in side will just create another prison for them.”

The court of Mohammad was postponed until the 23rd of October, which is a very common used procedure of the Israeli court system continuing postponing courts. He has been taking to Ofer prison where he properbly will stay until his court.

Soldiers harrasing Hebronite youth on Wednesday the 12th of Oct after a small protest in the city

Mohammad was arrested the first time in the spring 2009 when he was17 years old and kept in Israeli prison for three months at that time the alleged crime was caring a small knife in the old city where he lives. His little brother Ahmad was arrested in the spring 2010 when he was 13 years old. Ahmad as well was unrightfully accused of throwing stones and spent two weeks in prison.

Fatihia and her family live in the heart of the Old City, an area known for it’s confrontational and violent Zionist settlers, she says.

“We are suffering from the Jewish settlers. They throw stones at us about twice a month, and they steal our clothes from our clothes lines.”

The anthem of Nabi Saleh: “Release our prisoners or arrest us all”

15 October 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

The Friday demonstration in Nabi Saleh celebrated the release of three long term prisoners but protested the continued imprisonment of the remaining 5,000.

A demonstrator stands his ground as the Israeli military fires tear gas canisters.

The demonstration started out by visiting the house of prisoner Said Tamimi.  Tamimi has been in prison since 1993, but his fellow prisoners who were arrested with him, Nizar Samir Tamimi and Ahmad Tamimi, will be released on Tuesday.

The demonstration continued towards the entrance of the village lead by the mother of Said Tamimi, chanting and singing slogans to honor all the political prisoners and protesting the illegal Israeli occupation. Before reaching the entrance of the village, the Israeli Occupation forces shot tear gas and sprayed foul-smelling “skunk water” at the demonstrators. After 2 hours the demonstration went back to the center of Nabi Saleh, and it was announced that all demonstrators were invited on Tuesday to a party for the released prisoners with the words:

 The release of Palestinian prisoners are a Palestine wedding. Therefore we will celebrate it with an appropriate party.

The demonstration then continued until dawn. The IOF shot a massive amount of tear gas directly at demonstrators and an uncountable amount of rubber coated steel bullets, injuring several of the participants.The Israeli Occupation Forces attempted four times to enter the village but they were repelled. The soldiers also attempted to occupy a house near the entrance of the village but the family living in the house withstood. Instead the Israeli soldiers occupied the front garden of the house causing damage by puncturing a water tank with a tear gas canister, and a car window was broken.

The prisoners from Nabi Saleh who are going to be released as a part of the prisoners swap between Hamas and Israel all faced life time sentences. Ahlam Tamimi was sentenced 16 life terms accused of driving a man to Jerusalem who blew up a restaurant in 2001. She will be sent to exile in Jordan. The two other prisoners getting released are Ahmad Tamimi and Nizar Samir Tamimi. Along with Said Tamimi, who will remain in prison, they were accused of killing a settler and have all been in prison since 1993.

Since Nabi Saleh’s regular Friday demonstration began in 2009 against the land grab by illegal Israeli settlers, 10 % of the 500 citizens in the village have been arrested. Two members of the local Popular Committee are still in prison.

Naji Tamimi was arrested on the 5th of March in 2011. He is sentenced to one year in prison. Bassem Tamimi who was arrested the 24th of March 2011 has still not received a sentence. The main evidence brought against both men is the testimony from Islam Dar Ayyoub a 14 year old boy. It has been proven that during the interrogation of him, Israeli Youth Law was violated several times.

The alleged charges against Bassem and Naji Tamimi are among others that they organized and participated “in unauthorized processions” and that they organized youngsters to become a stone throwing “brigade.”

There is no east: Olive harvest in Gaza

15 October 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Gaza doesn’t have very much farmland left.  The expanding no go zone imposed by Israeli bullets and bulldozers constantly erode the amount of land left for Palestinians to farm in Gaza.  Mohamed Ashure Shimbari lives on the edge of the no-go zone.  If you look east from his land you see the no go zone, what Israel euphemistically refers to as “the buffer zone.”  Little grows there.  Israeli bulldozers regularly come to kill anything which has managed to find a life there.  You can see the destroyed well which once provided water for the orchards that used to cover the no-go zone.  Now, there is no water, and no life, only a zone of death. Israel claims that the buffer zone is “only” 300 meters wide, but Mohamed’s land is about 800 meters from the border, and still he is afraid. The Israelis often shoot into this area, especially at night. The olive harvest has begun in Gaza.  The Beit Hanoun Local Initiative and the International Solidarity Movement went to Mohamed’s land to help him harvest his olives today.  The trees are pregnant with fruit, green and black olives line the branches.  Mohamed’s family depends on these olives to live. We join Mohamed and his sons in the morning, the weather is beautiful and the trees are picturesque.  We spread plastic under the trees and begin to pick.  Thankfully, it is quiet.  The Israeli’s are not shooting today.  We work quickly, stripping the branches of olives, climbing up on ladders or into the branches of the trees to get at the higher olives.  Unreachable olives are smacked with a stick to knock them off the tree.  Any olives that fail to fall onto the plastic sheeting are carefully picked up; these olives are too precious to waste.  The olives are transferred into bushel sacks.  Tomorrow, they will be processed, either cured for eating or crushed for oil. As the sun climbs higher into the sky and the work becomes hotter we break for tea.  We decide to walk over and visit Mohamed’s neighbors, a Bedouin family.  We meet their young son Abed who has just come home from school.  He walks five kilometers to school every morning, and he walks home at night, he does this with his sister and his brother.  Abed is 10 years old.  He is a shy kid; he wants to be a dentist when he grows up.  He doesn’t seem to think that peace will ever come to his family, that they will ever live a life without worrying about the shooting from the Israeli’s at night.  He lives a life of three directions, north, south, and west. There is no east really, you can’t walk that way, you would be killed.  His family is forced to truck water from Beit Hanoun, the well that they used to depend on for water has been destroyed by the Israeli’s.  His mother comes out; she tells us that she prays for peace, for a life with water and without fear of the bullets. We return to work the olives.  Tree by tree, up and down the rows, we move gathering olives.  Mohamed tells us about his life.  When the Israeli’s invade Gaza his home is one of the first places they came to.  Not because they are afraid that he has guns, but because they want to use his house.  He and his family are locked in one room while the soldiers use his house as a base for their attacks on Beit Hanoun.  During Cast Lead his family was locked in the room for 23 days while the IDF carried out their slaughter on Gaza. Throughout the world, the olive is a symbol of peace, but in Palestine it is also a symbol of people’s ties to the land.  The no-go zone east of Beit Hanoun is constantly expanding. Every year or two the Israeli bulldozers come and destroy even more land.  Mohamed’s house is now on the edge of the no-go zone.  Maybe next year his house will be destroyed, the olive trees which we are picking from will be uprooted. Yet maybe his house will be spared, after all, if it is destroyed where will the soldiers sleep when they invade Gaza?