Tag: Interview - Page 7 - International Solidarity Movement

Interview with Hashem Azzeh: “They want me to move but I will never give up, we are still fighting until we get our freedom”

18h December 2013 | International Solidarity Movement | Occupied Palestine

Hashem Younes Azzeh is a 50-year-old resident of Tel Rumeida, he is married with 4 children and is a graduate of Hebron and Jordan Universities.

Can you tell us about the situation in Hebron in general and why it is unique in the West Bank?

The city of Hebron is divided into two parts. One part is called H1, it is under the Palestinian Authority control and H2, which is under the Israeli military control. And here in my house we are in Tel Rumeida. Tel Rumeida and Shuhada Street are under Israeli control. This was agreed on in the Hebron agreement 1997. The other unique thing about Hebron are the settlements [Hebron is the only place in the West Bank where settlements have been created within the city]. There are four settlements around the area where we are here. One of them is right next to my house (Tel Rumeida). There are only two or three meters between me and the settlers. The second settlement is called Beit Hadessa. The building used to be a boys school before it was confiscated and turned into a settlement. The other one is Beit Romano. Like in the case of Beit Hadessa they took a school building which was controlled by the Palestinian Authority before.

The next settlement is called Avraham Avinu; it is in the middle of the city. The Palestinians used that space as the main vegetable market in Hebron, the old market. It was confiscated in the year 1994, after the Ibrahimi mosque massacre [In 1994 a settler named Baruch Goldstein, entered the mosque and started shooting. He killed 29 and injured over a hundred Palestinians before he was shot. Today in the settlement of Kyriat Aba, there is a memory stone for him, saying that he died fighting the enemy. He is celebrated as a hero.]

Can you tell us a bit about the development in Hebron, especially in H2 over the last years?

I will talk about Shuhada Street first. Shuhada Street was the main street in Hebron. It connected the northern and the eastern part of the city. When the army closed the street, 1800 shops were blocked. 500 shops were closed through military resolutions. The army blocked the shops with metal, to prevent the owners from reopening them. Though not only shops, also houses were blocked by the army, so people could not get back into their homes.

In 2000 they imposed a curfew on the city, which lasted until the end of 2003. The official statements state that the curfew lasted for 167 days. That is correct but only for the old city. It is not the case for Shuhada Street and Tel Rumeida. There the curfew lasted for three years in total. No one could get out of his house. The army gave us one hour a month to let us do our shopping. After the end of 2003 they started to soften the curfew. We now had one hour every two weeks. In the whole year of 2004, we lived under a night curfew. That lasted until the middle of 2005. When I say night curfew I mean from 6 o’ clock in the evening to 6 o’clock in the morning. After 6 o’clock in the evening you could see no one on the streets, it was completely empty. No one could go out of his house, no one could go to the hospital, no one could do anything. They finally abolished all the curfews in the middle of 2005.

At that time the International Committee of the Red Cross decided to help the Palestinians who are living here, by distributing a box of food for each family once a month. They stopped it in the late 2012. They thought the situation was much calmer and the assistance was not needed any more. That led to many Palestinians moving from here. They moved for two reasons: The first one is an economical one. They couldn’t survive because everybody had lost their jobs. The other was for security reasons. The army and the settlers, particularly the army came all the time and attacked the houses and their inhabitants. The Palestinians wanted to save their lives. That is why they moved. 350 families lived on Shuhada Street and Tel Rumeida. Last year, there where only 48 families left. Also the school in H1 has changed. It used to be a school for just girls. There used to be over four hundred students, who attended this school, but over time the number dropped to seventy. We, as the popular committee of parents, decided to talk to the Ministry of Education to turn it into a mixed school, to increase the number of students and therefore save the school. That is what happened. It is now a mixed school, with 171 students.

How is the daily life of Palestinians who live in H2?

The situation in Hebron is extremely tense, especially in Tel Rumeida. There are no shops open and no public transportation. We don’t have any clinics here and no ambulances can reach us. If someone needs to go to the hospital, we have to carry the patients by hand through the checkpoint and the ambulance will wait for us behind it. There is no way for them to come to the patients directly in H2.

The Palestinians who live here, have to go to H1 to buy their goods. In order to get there, they have to pass the checkpoint at Shuhada Street, which is called checkpoint 56. The soldiers check every bag that we carry.

In general the daily life is really horrible. Our children get harassed on their way to and back from school. We get controlled and searched at the checkpoint every day. The army drew red lines in front of some of the checkpoints. We have to wait behind this line until we get called by the soldiers one by one to pass. Some streets in Hebron are now separated by a fence. The Palestinians are only allowed to walk on one side of the fence. The soldiers have the power to arrest any Palestinian who walks on the other side of the street.

What experiences have you had living door-to-door with the Israeli settlers?

Well, about the settlers. When they came in 1976, they started confiscating land and houses. Since then the amount of settlers increased constantly and still is. The settlers harass us by throwing stones, garbage and sometimes human shit.

The settlers are the commanders in charge here. They even have power over the soldiers, they will do whatever the settlers will tell them to do. They abuse our children on their way to school. That is why we invited internationals to come here. EAPPI [Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel] has been here since 2003. We also started contact with ISM and CPT [Christian Peacemakers Team] after that. We wanted them to observe what is going on here. We used to have daily harassments from the settlers towards our children. A lot of them suffer from psychological diseases. The children here, including my own, can’t sleep well at night. The light has to be on all the time. If we turn it off they get scared. They can’t fall asleep if we don’t stay with them until they fall asleep. They always expect soldiers or settlers to come and attack. Many children still wet their pants at the age of fourteen and fifteen. We treated these problems with the doctors from Doctors Without Borders. But that is not enough; we want to treat these troubles more in the association that we created in Tel Rumeida.

In what way does the constant presence of the Israeli army affect your daily life?

There used to be monthly searching in our houses. The army came at night with big dogs. They stormed the houses, woke up everyone- even the children are not spared. We have to leave our house, even when it was cold outside. These searches can take up to three hours or more, all the while insulting us and our children. Sometimes they write graphite on our doors for example “gas the Arabs”. The Israelis offered us money once to leave our houses, a huge amount of money. When we refused they closed all the entrances to our house. I used to climb a six meter wall to access my home. When my wife was pregnant I had to carry her all the way, when she was about to give birth. It took us three hours to get to the hospital. At the checkpoint the army would not let us pass without checking our ID and searching us, even though they recognized that my wife was in a labour.

Another issue is that we have to get a permit to harvest our olives from the Israeli army. [Without having to give a reason, the army can refuse these permits; many farmers are unable to access their land throughout the West Bank]. Settlers regularly destroy our trees and steal the olives. I personally have not been able to get any of my olives. I have fifty trees and could not harvest any of them. The olive trees are an important part of our culture. If you grow an olive tree you will have to wait fifteen years before you can harvest the olives. So when you have to watch the settlers stealing your olives or uprooting the trees, you become crazy because there is nothing you can do. The army also built a watchtower on my brothers’ house; they are everywhere all the time.

What is your personal experience with the illegal settlers and the Israeli army?

The settlers who live next to me cut the water pipes that lead to my house. I lived without water for three years. I therefore got in contact with international and human rights organizations. At least we were able to replace some of the pipes. Then the settlers came and uprooted all of my fruit trees. They attacked my wife when she was pregnant with our first child; she lost it in her third month. She was pregnant again but the settlers beat her when she was four months pregnant and she lost that baby as well. Later they stormed my house shooting bullets in the wall and destroying all my furniture. These are just examples from an endless pool of incidents.

I am next to the settlement. All of the settlers here are extremists. They closed all of my accesses to my house. My neighbour is the leader of the Jewish National Front. He has two stickers posted to his wall. One of them says “God gave us the right to kill Arabs and we love it”.

Once the army came to my house arrested my son, who was five years old at that time. They accused him of throwing stones. When the soldiers came to take him, my son was playing on his computer. The soldiers just laughed while arresting him. When I asked him, if there were sure that they actually saw my son throwing the stones they said no, the settlers told them it was him.

The army and the settlers have done a lot to me here. They want me to move but I will never give up, we are still fighting until we get our freedom.

What kind of hopes and expectations do you have for the future? Or what solutions do you see?

Actually as Palestinians, we accept many solutions. The PLO accepted the two state solution. And after that the Palestinian Authority also came to agreement with Israel to approach a two state solution. But even after 20 years of negotiations nothing has happened. On the contrary, the Israelis started confiscating more land and more houses to spread the settlements, they want to control everything. The Israelis were rather open with their demands; they want to keep the wall in Jerusalem and the natural resources. They also won’t give up the settlements, the army and the borders that they created. Another issue is that they still refuse to accept the right of return for the Palestinian refugees. So how is a two state solution going to work, if all these demands have to be met? For me there is a logical and acceptable answer, for us Palestinians, if Israel removes their troops and the borders from 1967 and they remove the wall and leave East Jerusalem as a capital for us, if they give us our borders, the airports the two state solution is a possibility. But that is not what Israel wants. They are talking about a pure Jewish state. A pure Jewish state will have a huge impact on us, it means that they want to cleanse this land from all the Palestinians, Christian or Muslim. I believe they wanted to cleanse the Christian Palestinians first to show that this is a conflict between Judaism and Islam, but that is not true. We are not against Judaism; we are only against the occupation. Every Palestinian has close Jewish friends. We are simply against the occupation not the religion. But the Israeli plan is to dismiss everybody from here. At times we had lots of discussions with Israelis. I said to someone before if you want to keep all of these things, let us think about one democratic state. Let us live together in harmony. I think that will be the best for everybody. You will see how peace will come.

What about your plan for the future?

For me personally it is clear, I will never move until I die or we get our freedom. I will keep my house with my family and my resistance. We encourage the other Palestinians who moved from here to return back to their houses. This is what our associations does here in Tel Rumeida, we offer Palestinians support in case they move back here. We help them find a job, we have free health services and we support and protect each other.

An interview with Hakima Hasan Motlaq on positive resistance and women’s empowerment in the village of Asira al-Qibliya

6th December 2013 | International Solidarity Movement | Asira al-Qibliya, Occupied Palestine

Could you tell us a bit about yourself?

My name is Hakima Hasan Motlaq and I am from Asira al-Qibliya where I have always lived. It is south of Nablus and I’m 35 years old and I am married. I am the head of the village’s women and children’s resource centre, Retaj. This is a voluntary role. Our main aim is the empowerment of women across many fields, education, culture, and financial empowerment if we can.

Would you be able to tell us a bit about the village of Asira including some of the history?

Asira is a very old village with Roman ruins. So it dates back to the Roman age with a lot of evidence of the Ottomans being here as well. Some of the Roman ruins lie in the west of the village. The village lies 14 Km south of Nablus and is 6,440 dunams in its size. The population is 3,200. But 50% of the population are refugees of the 1948 war mostly coming from Haifa.

The economy of the village relies on agriculture especially olives, figs and almond trees. A few people work as employees of the Palestinian Authority (PA) or other groups, often NGOs. Other than this people work as builders or sometimes with cows and sheep.

Is there problems with unemployment or a lack of work in the village?

Yes. We have many graduates from the university and they have no chance of work even though they have graduated. Some young people are able to stay and work but others have had to move to Nablus or Ramallah as there is such little work in the village.

So my group Retaj have actively tried to help the women in particular who are struggling to find work. Many are stuck at home cleaning or cooking rather than living their lives. We have many workshops to help them and get them to improve themselves.

So obviously unemployment is a big problem for the village but what other sorts of problems is the village facing at the moment?

The water is a major problem. We don’t have our own water supply so we are forced to buy water in tanks for 140 shekels at a time. However in 2002 a project started with the water. Before we had our own water from local springs but the nearby settlement with the Israeli army took this for themselves. But yes in 2002 this project started but the Israelis have kept stopping and starting work ever since by withdrawing their permission for it to go ahead and then changing their minds again. Water is very expensive for us. A big family needs about two tanks a month.

Another problem is the dust which is caused by the quarry and lorries going to that quarry and back again. The pollution has caused children, and babies in particular, breathing conditions such as asthma.

We also don’t have somewhere to put our rubbish. A car comes once or twice a week but this is not enough especially in summer when the flies and smell becomes unbearable. Seven children are disabled which has been blamed by doctors on the pollution from the quarry when the mothers were pregnant.

Also, with the quarry the lorries come through the one road in the village and it’s very dangerous. We had a strike to try and stop them and said to the lorries that they could not pass. But the problem is that they need to work even if it is dangerous for the people. So yes the quarry is a also a big problem.

The school is also too far from the village. The children have to travel a long way as we don’t have buses to them. Especially in winter this is very difficult.

Wild pigs have also been a problem.

In Deir Istiya complaints have been made that settlers have released wild pigs to disrupt the olive farming, is that the same here?

Yes. The problems with the pigs have only been taking place in the last 2 or 3 years so we definitely think the settlers from Yizhar are behind it. They attack people’s gardens and where food is stored as well as the crops on the farmland. Another village near here found boxes of insects that were released onto the land and destroyed much of the olive harvest so this is something that the settlers have been doing in this area for a while.

It sounds like the village has many challenges facing it. But to make this all even worse you have disruption caused by the nearby settlers. But do the settlers ever come to the village itself?

The main problem we face is the occupation and the settlements. In the beginning the settlement had only 18 dunams of land that had once belonged to Asira. But now they have 1,800 dunams of land taken from 6 villages including Asira but also Burin, Madama, Huwwara, Urif and Einabus. But also they come to the villages up to 3 times a week at the moment. They burn cars, burn trees, burn crops. So we’ve had to stop planting crops nearby to the settlement as they always come and destroy whatever we plant.

When they come at night they are also causing a big problem for the children in particular. The children suffer from insomnia, bed wetting and their performance at school is worse all due to the psychological effects of this constant fear. Even when they play you can see it. They are always playing violent games like “settler and Palestinian” where they hurt each other. This is their favourite game and they pretend to shoot each other and all the parents are scared for their children and the psychological damage that is being done to them.

But even worse than this in recent times rather than just coming and throwing stones settlers have come with guns. Last year a man was shot in the head. We have a video of this incident. [Yizhar is considered the most violent settlement in the West Bank due to the number of reported incidents coming from there.]

So in the face of all these problems caused by the settlers what has the village done to try and make things better?

We can’t really do anything. But when they come the whole village comes and protects the houses at threat. This is to protect and support these people. Clashes between us and them happen all the time. But when we go to the court for these families the courts do nothing as they are Israeli courts. We are in a struggle with them [the settlers] all the time.

It sounds really difficult to do anything to directly stop this. But can you tell us some more about the women and children’s resource centre and the group Retaj that you are part of? What is the role they are playing in making things better for the village?

The idea we had for Retaj was to work with women with the help of other organisations. We created it this year on January the 14th and wanted to do something good for the village’s women and children. We currently have 70 members and have seven in our council which decides what we’re going to do and runs the group. I am the head of the organisation. The majority of the 70 women who are our members are housewives although some are younger university graduates. Our members who are housewives find that once the children have gone to school and they have done the housework they have nothing to do. So they come to Retaj. They want to improve and empower themselves as many of them left school at a very young age. They see education as a great way to do this.

We put on many workshops for them from stuff like pregnancy workshops, to healthy eating to help their children’s health but also workshops on First Aid as we don’t have a medical centre here in Asira. So now if anyone is injured, for example from the tear gas inhalation which affects the children particularly, the women in the village know what to do whether it is in the village or in her house specifically. Once women have finished the First Aid course they are given a bag of medical supplies so they really can make a difference. Recently a child hurt themselves falling over and one of our members got there and helped them until the ambulance came [ambulances are often hindered traveling to and from the nearest hospital in Nablus as two Israeli checkpoints lie on the route.] In fact this workshop has been so useful we do it for women and men now. Another incident saw a car accident happen in the centre of the village. A woman who had done the workshop managed to help out someone who was quite badly injured. This makes me happy as it feels like we are really doing something useful and positive.

So what other sorts of workshops do you do?

We do many other workshops, for example growing vegetables. They can then sell them and it gives the housewives a chance to earn some money for the family which helps a lot. I would say that for the woman in the family almost all the stress falls on her. The man leaves the house early in the morning and the woman is left with the children. She has to look after them and then cook and clean. Because she is in the house all day she is far more aware of the problems the family is facing whether it is fear of settler attacks, pollution or not having enough money. In fact the extra money that can be earned by selling vegetables can also help to put their children into the university.

We also have psychological workshops as well. They talk about the fears they have and what’s on their mind. A lot of the women really enjoy these workshops as they have a lot to say living where they do with such day to day problems.

We also have many widows and women whose husbands have left them. So they come to Retaj searching for a chance to earn money or just learn about herself by increasing her knowledge or culture. But we also do more practical workshops on women’s rights as many women are unaware that they have any. Many women do not get the land from their families that they are entitled to inherit. So we can offer women the chance to go to court and fight for this and support them when they are nervous as they are not use to these sorts of legal environments which are dominated by men.

So what does Retaj do for the children of the village?

We work with the children a lot as well. After school there is nothing for the children they are just in the street. This year 3 children have had accidents in the street with cars. One child now has a shorter leg, such was the extent of his injuries.

We do many workshops. We did one for art but it was only 2 weeks which wasn’t good as we need more long term courses and projects. So we have focused on English lessons as their English is very poor. We get about 60 children a week. We have three lessons a week for English.

Music lessons are also 3 times a week and we have over 60 children for this. Mostly playing the guitar but also singing as well. We took them to Ni’lin to a musical festival to perform with a London choir and also in Nablus with a French choir. So far we’ve also had two concerts in Asira.

But now the music lessons have stopped as we don’t have any more volunteers until February. So we’ve been trying to think what we can do with them instead. Last week we went to the zoo in Qalqiliya for example.

They also do psychology workshops with the YMCA. They draw what they feel and we tend to focus this on children living closest to the settlement.

So who are the volunteers?

In English and music all the volunteers are international. Initially I did some English lessons but it was too much work as I have a lot of other things to do with Retaj. Then ISM and other groups started doing the English lessons.

But sometimes the psychology and art workshops are run by groups and individuals from Palestine.

And how are these projects funded?

We have no income source so everyone is a volunteer. We don’t want to have to ask the children for money we just want them to learn. Trips like the one to the zoo last week was paid for by the YMCA. We proposed to them that they do this and they were happy to and took 18 children on this trip.

But this is a problem with having a lack of money. The Retaj centre is a very old building that needs work. The building was in fact donated by a woman of the village for us to use. But yes it does need work. Some groups are happy to help including Première Urgence but they can’t fund the whole renovation.

As you come into the village you see that a water project is going on and you mentioned it briefly earlier. Can you tell us a bit about this?

It’s funded by U.S. Aid. It’s been carried out by a company from outside Asira so we have little to do with it. But it is very important for the village as water is so expensive. However I believe the village council has made a mistake with this project as we have so little involvement. Yesterday the company dug into the ground and there was no electricity for four hours.

But another issue is that the settlers attack it all the time. One time they burned down the room with all the equipment in it. On other occasions they have stolen materials and take the CCTV tape when they do this. Because of this the company wants the village to put a guard by the project at night but this would be very dangerous for someone as they would definitely be attacked.

For me I also find this difficult as it’s U.S. Aid funding it. The U.S. government protects Israel. It gives them arms. Not only this but they say we are guilty and Israel is innocent. We are terrorists and the Israelis are victims. The truth is that the U.S is lying and don’t care about us and whether we live or die. They give us small projects but give the Israelis money and guns to kill us. I boycott all U.S Aid projects and refuse to work with them. With this project in particular something is wrong anyway. When work started in 2002 the Israelis immediately took more land for the nearby settlement and said go ahead and have your water project. But when there is pressure on them to not take more land they oppose the water project. So only while we lose will they allow us this small project.

What does the future hold for Retaj and Asira?

We hope the future will be good for Retaj and the women and children of the village. We want to be involved with other projects that will empower people in the village. We hope that we can have a specific centre for the children to learn English and music but also do other things we haven’t done before like sports. We also want the children to learn how to perform dabke (a traditional Palestinian dance). We have started to meet other women from villages around Ramallah and Nablus who are doing similar things or want to start to. This looks like it might be really useful and we can share skills with each other. We have already helped some potential new groups with the applications they need to complete to become registered groups or organizations.

So yes, hopefully the future will be good for Retaj and Asira. Insha’Allah [if God wills it].

Interview with Saeed Amireh: “The occupation affects our life in so many ways, economically and socially.”

28th November 2013 | International Solidarity Movement | Ni’lin

Saeed Amireh is a 22-year-old resident of Ni'lin, the son of a farmer, who has been active in the popular resistance since 2003. — Saeed Amireh is a 22-year-old resident of Ni’lin, the son of a farmer, who has been active in the popular resistance since 2003.

Can you tell us a bit of the history of Ni’lin?

In the past, Ni’lin used to be part of the area which is within the ‘48 borders now. In 1994, when the Palestinian Authority came, Ni’lin became part of Ramallah city. So now Ni’lin is located exactly at the green line of 49 and about 27 kilometres west of Ramallah. The village is part of the West Bank but not under Palestinian control. It is completely area C and therefore under Israeli control.

After 1967, when the West Bank was occupied, Ni’lin has been suffering constantly. Since that time, the Israelis began to build colonies on our land, starting with Ni’li in the north of Ni’lin in the early ’70s, you can see that they stole the name from our village. Then Hashmonain in the south, Qiryat Sefer, Mattitjahu and then Naaleh. So there are five Israeli colonies. They also built an apartheid road called 446 that separates Ni’lin into two parts. Due to these constructions, the villagers have lost a great part of their land. The majority of the people here are farmers and their main income source comes from harvesting their land.

Besides that, Ni’lin has two main olive oil factories; the export is another major income. Ni’lin is famous for its olive oil production and for their cactus industry. Just like Hebron is famous for grapes, Jerico for bananas. During this period, intensified by the construction of the wall, Ni’lin lost about 5000 hectares of land out of a total of 5800 hectares, so there is only 800 hectares left. We have been fighting against this land grabbing and confiscation.

We also lost many people who were killed, injured or arrested, in some cases we still don’t know where they are. Many people have also left the area. We used to be about 12000 inhabitants, now we are only 5500 people left. They left to Jordan or to other locations in the West Bank in area A or area B, others went to Europe, the United States. Actually the majority went to Germany, mostly to Berlin.

Why does Ni’lin have Friday demonstrations against Israeli forces?

The demonstrations were a response to the construction of the wall. And we started our non violent, unarmed protest, as I told you, together with international and Israeli activists

What about the village’s struggle in terms of the occupation?

The struggle began in 2003 when the wall construction started. They began in Budrus and Ni’lin at the same time. They started in the north of Palestine until they reached our village. They moved very fast, there was not a lot of resistance on the way. The people were still tired from the repression of the Second Intifada. And since the Intifada was armed resistance, there was not room for everybody. That is the difference between the armed and unarmed resistance. In the unarmed resistance everybody can join and be involved. That makes it more powerful.

So when the wall construction continued, we had the first meeting here in Ni’lin in 2003. That was the beginning of the popular committee and the popular struggle movement in the whole of the West Bank. The first protest was in Budrus, where we joined the people from there. The soldiers were surprised, seeing how people returned to the tactic of the unarmed resistance after the Second Intifada. In the beginning it was only a few people who joined, many were afraid. During that first demonstration the soldiers drew a line and told us, anybody crossing that line, can consider himself dead. So we held each others hands, counted until three and then jumped at once over that line, of course they couldn’t kill us all.

We were soon more than three hundred, from all the villages. Seeing this, more than sixteen villages started doing protesting as well. Israel did not approve at all of the demonstrations but had to stop the construction of the wall in Ni’lin because they feared another uprising. Only after they were finished with the wall in all the other places, they returned to Ni’lin to finish their job in 2008. During that period the poplar struggle developed. We created popular committees. In Ni’lin we had a committee representing all the political parties, the farmers, several organizations and families. We started organizing our protests together with internationals, Israeli peace activists and journalists. That is another big difference to the Intifada. During the Initfada, there wasn’t a focus on media or on involving Israeli activists. They actually helped us a lot, in order to understand the Israeli military law and the occupation. They have been teaching us and have been a really strong inspiration and motivation for us. Especially the Anarchists Against The Wall, they are the best.

How has the resistance changed in Ni’lin over the last few years?

In the beginning we were so many; we were ready after the two Initifadas. But the suppression was heavy and the protesters became less and less. This is a big problem, because every struggle needs its sources of support. And without this support, a few people put in all their power until they reach a point where they can’t continue. Many people got arrested and injured and could not continue to attend the demonstrations.

Why did you begin to engage in the protests?

In 1997, I had a very significant personal experience. My father took me to the protest for the first time. We used to demonstrate against the colonies, peacefully as well. The man who organized the protest, his name was Atallah Amireh, was snipped with live ammunition in his head and in his heart. The Palestinian authority just had a funeral for him. Whenever someone dies under the occupation, we honor that person. We call them martyrs. We try to support the family and make them feel better, their relatives died trying to protect their home. Anyway, this man was shot in front of me. At that time I did not really understand why. I did not cry, but I was just astonished.

Since then my whole life has changed. Some people may ask my father, why he brought me to the demonstration in the first place. Because I was so young, I was seven and the demonstrations are very dangerous. Why would a father do this to his children? But you know, if our fathers don’t confront us with the reality of the occupation, it won’t be good for us. That is why they show us the reality of life from the beginning, so we can get used to it. We don’t live in an illusion when we are young, suddenly realizing the hard facts of life when we grow up.

You know we are a very big family. I have four brothers and three sisters. And I have lots of cousins, my brothers and sisters; they all have cousins their same age. I didn’t, so my father always took me with him. Everywhere he went, to all his friends and to all his serious meetings. All this time, I was never brought along as a child; he introduced me as a friend of his. And I also wouldn’t allow anyone to treat me like a kid. So even though I was still a child, they treated me like a man, even as a leader. Very early on, I had big responsibilities put on me.

I got my first real chance, when the construction of the wall began in 2003, which was the most recent time after the Second Intifada.

What is the current situation in Ni’lin?

At the moment, there are many arrests. We tried to resist the expanding of the colonies. We even went to the court to file a lawsuit against Ni’li, when they confiscated our land. But they are still expanding, with dozens of new houses on our land. We are unable to do anything. They are also starting to construct a tunnel. The brutality in Ni’lin also increased. There is a new commander responsible for the area here. He wants to suppress our village, because despite everything they have done to us, the shootings, the arrests, the killings of the five people, the people are tired but they don’t give up.

From January to April this year, they arrested 16 people, and then they stopped briefly, only to intensify their repression in October. They invaded the village every day, arresting more people. In total there are 42 people from Ni’lin in prison now. Despite all this, the voice against the occupation rose. A new thing is that the soldiers started to confiscate computers and other technical devices from the village, because they know that this [the media] is our weapon. In July the army asked for permission to use live ammunition from the Israeli courts, even when there are cameras filming, which they got.

In 2008, they killed Ahmud Musa, who was ten years old at that time. The soldiers claimed they had to respond with violence, otherwise it would have been considered as a sign of weakness. The murderer of Ahmud Musa was never charged with any crime.

They also try to fill the village with drugs to weaken the movement. This is causing lots of trouble in our social life.

What effects does the occupation have on your family?

I will tell you about the history of my family. We were refugees from Jaffa. We were expelled in 1948 to Jordan. Before that my family used to live in the old city of Jaffa. We came back to the West Bank in 1968. Just my grandfather and his closer family, the rest stayed in Jordan. Some of them refused to come back, because they did not want to agree to the points that were made with the Oslo agreement. They were fighters in the PLO. When we tried to come back to our land in Jaffa, we realized that it was impossible for us to do so. That is why we came to Ni’lin, which is the closest point to that area. Everything else was closed.

The first thing is that we lost all of our land in Ni’lin. We have no more land, except the land we live in, with our house and garden. We lost the first part, when the buildings of the colonies began. The biggest part of our land though lies behind the wall now. We used to have 260 dunams of land; we are now left with six or seven today.

Since we used to be farmers but didn’t have any land anymore, we had to find a different source on income and of existence. My father used to have permission to work within ‘48, that way he still earned enough money to support his family. In 2008 however, he was arrested for joining the peaceful protest against the wall and they wouldn’t extend his permission so he became unemployed. We had no more farming land and no more work, which was a very big problem for us. Since that time, several things have happened. Many of us were arrested. I was arrested, so were my two brothers and my father. My sister and my mother were injured with live ammunition. Another problem was the night raids. The soldiers used to come to my family house; they invaded it more than 25 times. They would always come in the night, wearing masks with their dogs. Once they isolated us in one room, but my little brothers, who were about four at that time, were still asleep. So when they woke up, we were all gone, locked up in one room. That was a shock for them, they started to shout and scream. This experience left a mark on them. Up until now, they sometimes pee without realizing it, because of their fear.

My mother also has developed panic attacks due to all the stress she has been going through. These attacks come in moments when she is anxious and under a lot of pressure or stress. It started during the Intifada and increased during the period after 2008, when so many of us were arrested, injured and our financial situation deteriorated. My father has been unemployed for the last six years. There is no more land, no more work left here. The occupation affects our life in so many ways, economically and socially.

Interview with Wael Dawabsheh: “Israel, you will be punished for your use of torture against us”

24th July 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Team Nablus | Duma, Occupied Palestine

The International Solidarity Movement had a conversation with Wael Dawabsheh, a clinical psychologist with the Torture Rehabilitation Centre in the West Bank. He told us about his work with torture victims.

Wael Dawabsheh, clinical psychologist for the TRC

International Solidarity Movement (ISM): What is the Torture Rehabilitation Centre and what work do you do?

Wael Dawabsheh (WD): Our centre started working in the West Bank in 1999, continued through the intifada in 2002 and until now. We are a group of psychiatrists, social workers and psychologists. We work with arrestees, people who have been in Israeli prisons and people who have been exposed to torture, as well as their families. We also work with injured people and the families of martyrs.

We have two programs – outreach and in-office, meaning some of the people we work with come to our offices whilst we see others in their own homes. We work in many places in the West Bank, from the north to the south including Jenin, Nablus, Hebron, Ramallah and around Jerusalem.

Our centre works with people because they have been exposed to torture in many different ways. I think our centre was the first working with the people of the West Bank who have suffered torture. We try to visit every case, but because of the large area and large number of people who have been in Israeli prisons it is just not possible to cover all. Because of this, we have to priorities the most difficult cases and those who are suffering the most.

We have a relationship with the Ministry of Prisoners and Ministry of Health and they sometimes refer to us these most difficult cases. We work with children’s groups and adults groups, both for women and men, but most of our work is with individuals. We also have a community awareness unit, who do workshops around the villages and in refugee camps. We explain our work in these workshops and then afterwards we start to work with anyone who has experienced the issues that we speak about and who need help.

ISM: What are the most common methods of torture used by Israel on Palestinians?

WD: The types of torture used by the Israelis are both physical and psychological. I think the main method of torture the Israelis use at the moment is solitary confinement of prisoners in a small dark dirty room for many days or weeks. During this time the guards and soldiers continually shout abuse and bad words at them. In the beginning when they first arrest them they tie or handcuff their hands and cover their faces with dirty sacks or blindfolds. This creates very bad psychological effects.

Another method of torture currently used we call shabih in Arabic. They tie the prisoners with their hands behind their backs and put them on a very small chair – if they move at all in any direction they will fall down. They put people in this position for many hours.

Another method also forces people to endure very uncomfortable conditions for a long time, but in another way – they keep the prisoner standing for a long time in the sun or in the rain, depending on the season. After that, they increase the effect by using the same conditions in the rooms – if it is hot, they open it to the heat, or to the cold in the winter.

Many, many methods are used by the Israelis to torture Palestinians – they don’t allow for prisoners to see their lawyers, or their families for many weeks or months. Some prisoners don’t see their families for years. The food is very dirty and very bad, especially at the start of the arrest because they put all the youth in very small rooms and they can’t cook their own food. Instead, it is brought to them and it is not good or healthy. The prisoners also don’t have a bathroom in this small room – they have to use something else, like a bucket instead. They also don’t allow them to take a shower for many days and even when they do it is only for a couple of minutes, without privacy because there is no door to the shower stall.

I think these are the main methods – in the past they used shaking, grabbing the prisoner’s neck or head and shaking it – this is very dangerous, one person died after being tortured in this way I think. After that, the Israelis stopped using this method as much – not completely, they continue to do this sometimes. Another issue is that people are suffering from many diseases which are not treated in prison – if they take them to the doctor it is only when they are very ill. I don’t know the number of prisoners who have died in Israeli prisons because they were not treated for their diseases.

ISM: As you said, the Israelis use both physical and psychological torture. Is there a difference in the methods of torture that are used between time in interrogation and in jail?

WD: The first weeks are the most dangerous and difficult for the prisoners because the methods of torture are used more. They use methods that I mentioned before, generally putting prisoners in a small isolation room – which we call zenzana in Arabic – because they want information from them. After this time, maybe two months or a little less, they send them to another prison, with a larger group of prisoners. After that there is less physical torture.

Israeli soldiers posing for a photo with a female Palestinian arrestee blindfolded and handcuffed

However, not being permitted to see their families, not being allowed access to a doctor and not being allowed to have things that they need can also be considered torture. Everyone has heard about the Palestinian hunger strikers – some prisoners have stopped eating for weeks or many months because they need something from the Israelis which they are not permitted.

ISM: What types of trauma do people that you treat suffer with?

WD: Most suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), especially women and those younger than eighteen. Some people also suffer from depression and a small number of others have schizophrenia. There are also some cases of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and some have epilepsy, because during the torture they have been hit in the head or the Israelis have used very noisy music during their time in prison.

The majority of the people that we work with experience PTSD or depression; we generally work with them for three or four months, in about twelve sessions – or more depending on the level of suffering. We work together as a team – psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers. We give medication to some people if necessary; the psychiatrists see these cases and prescribe the appropriate medicines. But this is a minority and they generally take medication for a short time – maybe a course for three months or six months.

ISM: How do people who need your help know about the TRC?

WD: Some of our cases know about our centre through the media outreach we used to do. Every week we had a small feature on television or radio, so one of us would be on this and speak about our work. Sometimes we would speak to our cases on the phone on the program so people could hear how it was effective. However, due to a lack of funding we had to stop this recently. For the last nine years or so we had a newsletter every month about our work. This contains news about our centre and the stories of some cases, with their photos if they give permission for them to be included.

We also do workshops in the villages – for example, I would go to visit a village like Burin and speak to the cultural centre there or the municipality or any other society. We tell them that we will come soon to do a workshop with people who have been in prison or have been injured by the soldiers. So then we come and speak about our work in the workshop and talk to the people – afterwards, people ask many questions about how we can help them and we give them our address and phone number.

After that, some cases come to the centre, or some prefer to continue with the outreach program in their homes. Some people prefer us to visit them at home because they don’t like people to know that they are seeing us in the centre. Some youth also have a problem to move from their homes to the centre, especially when the checkpoints are difficult – there is a danger that they may be arrested again.

The children that we work with we often treat with group therapy – last week we finished summer camps in Jenin for our cases. This year though, because we have problems with funds, we could only have a small summer camp. These children are mostly suffering from PTSD mostly – generally this is because their fathers are in Israeli jails and the trauma is caused by the deprivation and the prison visits every two or three months.

From four in the morning they take buses to inside Israel, in the south in the Naqab prison or Bir Saba, or far in the north – it’s a long way and it’s very difficult for them. They tell some stories, about the checkpoints, about the cages in the prison. When they see their fathers, there is a wall between them, they can speak only by telephone. For years they weren’t able to hug their fathers or shake hands with them, it’s forbidden. I think for children under five, it is allowed for them to see their father without a wall every three or four months. These children suffer from many problems, such as bad dreams.

A prisoner talking to his daughter by phone and separated by a wall — A prisoner talking to his daughter by phone and separated by a glass wall

ISM: Do you also work with children who have been arrested and interrogated and experienced torture themselves?

WD: Yes, but this year and for the last couple of years this has not been such a large number. However, this does depend on the area; for example in and around Jerusalem and in Hebron, there are many child arrests because there are a high number of Israeli soldiers there. So, from time to time we do work with many children who are arrested there.

In 2012, we worked with small groups of children from the Nablus area. Most were about sixteen or seventeen years old. They stayed in prison for about six or seven months. Some of them, we work with them for two months and the Israelis arrested them again.

We work with cases of children who were arrested when they were sixteen and when they’re freed they are twenty-five, twenty-six, having spent six or seven years in prison. But now, the number is not large. I think, now there are around two hundred and thirty-six children arrested in Israeli prison.

ISM: Can you tell us about the state of Palestinian prisoners in general?

WD: Every month we have some visits to Palestinian prisoners or we see in the news about the prisoners. Three or four years ago, there were over ten thousand Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Now there are five thousand, including two hundred and thirty-six children and twenty-three or twenty-four women. About one hundred and twelve prisoners have been in prison since before the Oslo Agreements of 1993.

Now I heard in the news that during Ramadan they will release forty of them because the Palestinian Authority said that they won’t negotiate unless Israel stops building settlements and releases these prisoners. They have been in jail for over twenty years, since before the Oslo Agreements. This is very bad for our Palestinian presidents because in the past they must release them in the time. Before 1993, there was no relationship between Israel and Palestine and there was no Palestinian Authority. When the Oslo Agreements were made the Israelis should have released all Palestinian prisoners but, as you know, after that, years and years passed and after 2000 the intifada started and everything was stopped.

ISM: On the TRC website, you say that you want to eliminate the culture of impunity felt by perpetrators of torture, how do you do this and what obstacles do you face in doing so?

WD: We write reports on our cases and tell people how much the Palestinians are suffering because of their treatment in Israeli prisons. In the past we used to send them to many lawyers in the West Bank who we had relationships with.

Some cases we turn into case studies, along with photos of the prisoners. We translate this into English and put the information on the website, as well as taking the case studies to conferences around the world, in Europe, Australia, South America and Africa. We also sent many of the studies to the UN, and other centres from around the world have come here to visit the cases and have done interviews with them.

We have taken four or five cases to the Israeli courts, taking all the papers and reports and show that these people were suffering because of being in Israeli prisons. We testify as psychologists, social workers or psychiatrists, saying that we treated this person in our centre and have a report saying that he is suffering from “1, 2, 3”. So this is what we can do about fighting impunity in the courts. The process of the court cases that we are working is still ongoing – they didn’t finish until now.

But the main thing is to do case studies about the people we work with and send them to the media, conferences and provide them to the groups that come to visit. The main project with this was with the UN, in 2002. However, now, we have some difficulties in our centre so we had to stop many of these projects. At the moment we only treat people, because for the last two or three years we have been only seven or eight social workers and psychologists so we cannot cover all the areas and visit all these people. We need a big team for that.

ISM: And why is it so important that there is not impunity for torture?

WD: It is forbidden to torture any person around the world so we need to show the world that the Israeli “democratic state” uses torture on Palestinians in their prisons, because they regularly present the Palestinians as terrorists in the media. But now the world knows that we are under the Israeli occupation and we must show that our people are tortured by the Israelis.

ISM: Do many torture victims file complaints in the Israeli legal system?

WD: Most of them don’t go to the Israeli court; only a small number go through this process. Some of them have reports from Israeli hospitals saying that were tortured. But people are only referred to Israeli hospitals if the torture has been particularly bad, from the first hours of the arrest.

I work with four or five youth who have epilepsy because the Israelis hit them in the head with guns or against the wall. One boy was beaten with a stick in the head when they arrested him at a checkpoint. He lost consciousness and fell down on the floor. He wasn’t treated well in prison – they didn’t give him any medicine and when he left prison, he suffered from epilepsy every three weeks, because he has a trauma. So in our centre we gave him medicine for epilepsy. But the majority of these cases are suffering until now, because we cannot completely cure epilepsy.

One of my cases used the Israeli reports from when he was in prison and went to court four years ago. They took him to an Israeli hospital to check him for two three days and he had a new report. When he went back home the Israelis called him and said to him “we will give you 200,000 shekels if you stop the court process” but he refused. After that they came and arrested him again. They brought him to Huwwara camp for hours and they tried to scare him saying “we will put you in prison again” “we will kill you” “you will die”. But he continued his case until now, it is not finished. Some of the cases take years in court.

ISM: Do you think the main reason Israel uses torture is to get information from the arrestees?

WD: I think the torture is not only used for information. It is also to punish people, to destroy their personality and resistance and to punish their family. Some people don’t do anything and they still imprison them. In Arabic we call this idari, meaning a sentence without time restrictions. In English I think it’s called administrative detention. Some people go to court and they give him six years and then they will be free. But other people, they put them in prison three months and three months, six months – because they claim that they are dangerous. So, some of them spend years in Israeli prisons without going to the court because they can put anyone in prison without trial.

ISM: Sometimes do people make false confessions if they are tortured, giving invented information just to make the torture stop?

WD: Some of them say things that they haven’t done, especially children. They scare them in prison because it is the first time for them and they are young, they don’t have previous experience. The Israelis punish them or say “we will bring your family to the prison”, “we will damage your family house” so they are scared and will admit to something that they didn’t do. But the majority are strong when they face torture, but all of us are human.

ISM: There is a recent case of five boys in Hares who admitted under torture to throwing stones at a settler car. Afterwards in the court, they retracted these statements (take action for the Hares boys here). Do these kind of cases happen regularly?

WD: This happens. They say in the court that they didn’t do it, and that they only admitted to it before because they were under torture. I heard similar stories in the Hebron area, with a child who was seventeen. There was an Israeli car accident and the driver died in the car. The Israeli authorities said that children threw stones, so he died because of the stones. I read in the news that they wanted to give the boy 25 years in prison because he killed a person, but in the court the Palestinian lawyer said that if this did happen, when he threw the stone he didn’t mean to kill, it was an accident.

We have many difficult and dangerous stories. Some people spend many years in prison without having done anything. During 2001, 2002 and 2003 the situation was very bad and inside Israel everyday many people were killed; some people went to Israel and put bombs on the buses. During that time, in the Israeli court they gave all prisoners many years in prison, Maybe they did something which should have had a one year or two years sentence, but the judge gave them ten years. Some cases in Burin, their families told me about these cases and they are still in prison, for twelve or thirteen years.

ISM: As a clinical psychologist, why did you choose to work with torture survivors?

WD: I am one of the people who was exposed to torture. When I finished High School in 1992, I wanted to continue studying in Russia as a dentist but the Israeli authorities wouldn’t allow me to cross the border. They sent me back and said to me “you must go to the Israeli army tomorrow”. I went to the crossing every day for a month and every day they put us in a camp and took our IDs from the morning until 4pm – and at the end they always said “come back tomorrow”.

The last time I went, I was asked “where are you going?”, “why are you going to study there?” and many other questions. After I answered, they said “it is forbidden for you to go out but if you help us, we will allow you to go”. I refused and instead, I stayed here and studied to be a psychologist at An Najjah University in Nablus.

While I was at university I was arrested by the Israelis twice, once for six months and then again for two months. It was the same thing for all of us, we were told “you have done something in the university, in the political movements”. When I finished my studies, I got a one-year diploma here in Palestine and after that I started working in the TRC from 2003. I’ve been working here for 10 years.

ISM: Do you see differences in the regions of the West Bank regarding the use of torture?

WD: There are no differences, we see the same cases all over. But it depends on the situation in the area – for example, during the intifada Nablus and the north were very bad, so in Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarem, we had a large number of prisoners, whereas from Ramallah there were not so many. In Hebron and in the Jerusalem area, many are under eighteen or they were in the prison under eighteen.

Abu Karam Maswathi, blindfolded and hadcuffed with his son, surrpunded by soldiers (Photo by ISM) — Abu Karam Maswathi, blindfolded and hadcuffed with his son in Hebron (Photo by ISM)

However, I think in all places the methods of torture are the same – often the Israelis pressure them to be a spy and work for them. They especially use the children for this, they scare them, or maybe they say to them “we will help you, we will give you money”. They don’t necessarily ask them directly to be a spy, instead they just say “tell us who throws stones, how many people are in the area and what are they doing”. Some of the prisoners become spies because of this.

I went to Gaza last year – it was my first time there. We have a relationship with a rehabilitation centre there so we went to speak to the people. In Gaza, they give people permission to come to the West Bank to go to the hospital or to go to Israel, but at the checkpoint, they don’t allow people to actually leave even though they have permission. Instead they try to make them be spies, saying “we will give you a permit to go to the hospital if you help us”. We have many cases like this.

ISM: We know that Israel has signed treaties that ban the practice of torture including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Convention against Torture, do you have a message for the Israeli authorities about this?

WD: I would say to Israel, if you are talking about democracy and human rights, you must tell the government to stop all methods of torture against us. The world knows that you have occupied us and one day you will be held accountable in a court. The court could be Israeli, Palestinian or European and you will be punished for your use of torture against us.

As Israeli or Jewish people, you suffered from torture sixty years ago or more; if in the past you were the victims how can you now be the perpetrators? Why? You occupied our land and anyone under occupation has the right to fight. If you believe in peace you have to leave our land and be our neighbours.

ISM: Do you want to add anything else?

WD: Being in Palestine you can see everything that is going on around, how we live but in the past our life was even more difficult. Today is comparatively okay, now you can move from place to place but in the past that was very difficult – there were always many checkpoints.

But Palestinians are still forbidden to go to Jerusalem, it is surrounded by the wall. During Ramadan they are allowing some people to go on Fridays – women are permitted at any age but men can go only if they are over the age of forty. Eight years ago, before they started to build the wall, you could move freely to any place. Now they don’t allow anyone to go to Jerusalem. Many young people have never visited Jerusalem, nor do they know about Haifa or Jaffa. In the past every week or month we used to go to Jerusalem with our fathers or friends, as we now go to Ramallah or Nablus. But now it is closed.

They speak about freedom but that’s only for the media. Go to Qalandiya and you will see how they treat people at the checkpoint. But I believe that this wall and the occupation must end and the Israelis know that. They know that their state is for some time but not for ever.

We have workshops in Jerusalem and Haifa with Israelis social workers called Physician for Human rights and we speak about many things. Some of them say “yes, we must leave from West Bank and Gaza and be neighbours” but they don’t do anything against their government.

Third interview with Ilan Pappé: “All international activists that come to Palestine should be VIP’s…they should Visit, they should Inform and they should Protest”

18th June 2013 | International Solidarity Movement | Haifa

Ilan Pappé is an Israeli academic and activist. He is currently a professor at the University of Exeter (UK) and is well known for being one of the Israeli “new historians” – re-writing the Zionist narrative of the Palestinian Israeli situation. He has publicly spoken out against Israel’s policies of ethnic cleansing of Palestine and condemned the Israeli occupation and apartheid regime. He has also supported the Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, calling for the international community to take action against Israel’s Zionist policies.

Activists from the International Solidarity Movement had the opportunity to talk to Professor Pappé about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, Israeli politics and society and the role of the international community and solidarity activists in Palestine, resulting in a three part series of interviews which will be released on the ISM website in the coming weeks.

This is the final section; the role international community and solidarity activism in Palestine. Find part one on the ethnic cleansing of Palestine here and part two on Israeli society and politics here.

International Solidarity Movement: If, as you said in the previous interview (Israeli politics & society), support from the European Union (EU) and the USA is not going to stop, what could the international community do or what should change in order to force Israel to implement and respect international standards?

Ilan Pappé: We need a European spring. In the sense that we all know that if the European political leaders would only reflect what the European people want, the policy of European countries would be much tougher on Israel. Today, governments do not reflect what the people want or think. So the question is how do we transfer the pro-Palestinian sentiments of the people of Europe to the governments of Europe. By the way, this situation is the same in the USA.

I don’t think that Americans are more pro-Palestinian than Europeans, but they are starting to have enough of Israel and they would like the USA to concentrate on their own growing internal issues. But again, political leaders do not represent this wish. We had the same problem in South Africa; it took 21 years for the first European civil act against South African apartheid, which came in the form of economic sanctions. So it’s a very long process. What the international community must do is find ways of convincing their political leaders that it is both ethically and politically better to adopt a much tougher policy against the illegal Israeli occupation. The EU is a good example here because they have strong connections and relations with Israel, they essentially treat them like a member of the EU. When the boycott campaign started, it was the EU who first tried to get Israel to act in a different manner. That was just a small beginning, there is still a lot to be done, but for me, this is the right direction: a process from below towards the political elites.

ISM: There are many European politicians that would like Israel to be a member of the EU. Do you think this is possible, and if so, what will that lead to?

IP: Maybe is a good idea because then Israel would need to change its entire governmental policy, which is currently violating many EU laws. On the other hand, that could be a problem because it may just lead the different governments of the EU to accept Israel’s cruelty and violations. I still think that the best strategy is to explain to these pro-Israel politicians that history will judge them really badly because of their positions. The problem is that politicians don’t have the tendency to look beyond tomorrow. The only way is to explain to them that when this situation changes (in our case, when the occupation ends and when Palestine will be free), they will be on the wrong side in the history books, because they were the politicians that were supporting a state of apartheid.

It is similar for those politicians who were supporting Benito Mussolini. If politicians feel comfortable with being on the wrong side, that’s okay. But if they want to be portrayed in the history books as people who were working for peace and justice, they need to change their positions and friendships before it is too late. Israel has been kept alive because it serves a lot of strategic and military functions for the West, not because of its morality. Reality isn’t how the Christian Zionists see the world; thinking that Israel should be supported because it represents some kind of moral value. This kind of support has been overcome today, and this is also thanks to the work of the BDS campaign, it is one of the few victories we had.

ISM: In which way is international solidarity useful? What is or what should be the role of international activists in Palestine?

IP: I think that international aid, which is a bit different from solidarity movements, is often problematic. On one hand, it allows the Palestinians some level of existence, but on the other it kind of pays for the occupation and for Israel’s mistakes and violations. But the International Solidarity Movement is different: it is not about money but about people coming to help other people. As long as this injustice is happening, I think it is really important that ISM keep coming. All international activists that come to Palestine should be VIP’s. I mean they should Visit, they should Inform and they should Protest. ISM is doing all these three together, but maybe sometimes one less than another, because of particular circumstances or because of the lack of resources, and this is a pity. I think it’s essential to do them all together.

I think that ISM’s main role is to be the ISM’ers of the outside world. I once visited the Basque country, and I noticed that there was a distance between ISM and the boycott movement there, which is a shame because they should definitely work together. What ISM sees in Palestine is the result of the BDS movement’s work outside Palestine, and it works. It is not only about solidarity on the ground, which is very important, but also solidarity from outside.

You cannot replace the liberation movement – the Palestinians have to liberate themselves, nobody can help them with that, not even I, but we can and we must show solidarity with their liberation. This solidarity can be shown on the ground, but mostly by acting in the country that activists come from. It is about finding the right balance. I remember one of the first ISM groups that came to Jenin, after the terrible massacre of 2002. The fact that somebody came, was interested and sympathetic and supportive, meant a lot to the people.

We can see how much effort the Israelis are putting into preventing you from coming here, and I think that’s a good indication – proof that you are doing something right. I would be worried if tomorrow Israel said all ISMers are welcome – that would mean you’re not doing something right.

Protest against the construction of the wall in Al Walaja

ISM: What about the BDS campaign, do you think that an academic and cultural boycott could be an effective instrument against the Israeli occupation?

IP: I was always a great supporter of the BDS movement. As it did in South Africa, it will also play an important role in changing the reality on the ground here. But it is a long process and we need to be patient.

In the case of Israel, the academic and cultural boycott is particularly important, because Israel sees itself as a European and democratic country in the middle of the Arab world. ‘European’ not because of the economic relations it has with Europe, or because it sells tomatoes in Holland – among others it also has strong economic relations with China, Russia and Africa – but because it is part of the European cultural and academic elite. If European academic and cultural institutions say that they do not want to work with Israeli institutions because of Israel’s behaviour, I think it would send a very strong message.

The cultural and academic boycott (unlike the economic one, which only affects the occupied territories) makes a huge and direct impact on Israeli society, and it is only when that happens that Israelis will talk about what is happening in Palestine. For example, the only time that the Israeli press – and sometimes international media as well – talks about the occupation is when someone like Stephen Hawking says he is going to boycott an event organized by Israeli personalities. Before the spread of the boycott movement, it was only when there were bomb attacks in Israel that Israelis remembered that there is an occupation. Now this issue is brought up more regularly, when a famous pop group or author refuses to come, or when an important university in the USA says that they do not want to work with Israeli universities. This type of boycott is really important, and it is the main thing that the international community can do.

Pro-Palestinian activists hold a boycott protest during a football match between Scotland and Israel

International solidarity movements sometimes think that they should have an opinion regarding, for example, the one-state or two-state solutions, but this is actually not their business. It is up to the Palestinians and Israelis to decide how they are going to live. What international movements can do is to create the conditions for a reasonable dialogue. But we need to end the occupation before starting to speak about peace. The Israeli trick has for many years been to try to convince the world that peace will end the occupation. But we know that actually this goes the other way around: we end the occupation and then we will start to talk about peace. I think that ISM, the BDS movement and the Palestinian solidarity movements are all grassroots organizations that do not accept the Israeli diktat “Peace will end the occupation”. These organizations are not part of the peace talks but instead they work on ending the occupation and the apartheid.

ISM: What would you say to people that believe that cultural and sport events should not be politicized?

IP: Well, it was very effective in the case of South Africa. In fact white South Africans only began to think about apartheid when the big sports teams of South Africa were not invited to international sporting events. Moreover, I think that sport is political. For example, Israel is going to host the UEFA Under-21 football tournament, and the Palestinian football team has not been invited. Palestinian players from Gaza will not even be able to go to Israel and see the tournament. Sport is political if it is not free for everyone to participate.

Academia as well is clearly political. Israeli academics, when they are abroad, think they are Israel’s ambassadors. Synagogues abroad see themselves as Israel’s embassies. When Israeli academics see themselves as ambassadors, and represent something that most decent people abroad will see as unacceptable, then people have the right to show their rejection.

And nobody tells these people that they represent Israel, they say it themselves. There was a big debate in the Basque country about the Israeli singer Noah – whether people should boycott her concert or not. People went to her website and saw she had written that she represents Israel on her tour. So she wasn’t coming just as a singer, but as a representative of Israel. We are in 2013 and if you say that, it means you represent what Israel represents, and what Israel is doing today. Therefore you are a legitimate target of the boycott.

This is the last of a three part interview series: Ilan Pappé in conversation with the International Solidarity Movement.