Tag: USA Speaking Tour

By Ali Moossavi
Originally published in The Arab American News

If a Palestinian and an Israeli walked into an Orthodox church, most people would expect a punch line.

On the evening of Nov. 7th at St. Mary’s Orthodox Church in Berkley, Michigan, that’s precisely what happened, in front of 60 participants wanting to listen and learn. What the Palestinian and the Israeli had to say, however, was no joke.

As the audience gathered to listen, the odd couple – the Palestinian farmer Ayed Morrar and the 23-year old Israeli punk rock scenester/anarchist activist Jonathan Pollack – brought to life the struggle against the separation wall Israel has constructed allegedly to prevent suicide bombings.

Many critics in Israel and throughout the world counter that it’s an apartheid wall, to control and stifle Palestinian society, while illegally annexing land inside the “Green Line,” the internationally recognized border between the Jewish state and the Occupied Territories.

It was when the non-violent struggle against the wall erupted in the village of Jayyous in 2002 that protests spread to other West Bank villages. The protests garnered international support, from activist organizations like the International Solidarity Movement as well as organs of international law, most notably the 2004 ruling by the International Court of Justice, which ruled the wall illegal.

In response to the protests, which have been non-violent, the Israeli Defense Forces and Border Police have used tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets, live ammunition and batons in efforts to suppress the actions. Pollack himself was hit in the head by a tear gas canister in the village of Bi’lin from approximately 20-30 meters at the end of a demonstration.

“I heard a shot and I turned around,” he said, in the stairwell after the event, “and I saw the canister flying towards me and I had the time just to turn my head and it hit here, above the temple.”

In addition to the tear gas canister, Pollack was also shot four times with the rubber bullets at various times.

“I couldn’t walk for two weeks because of internal hemorrhaging,” he said during the presentation.

The presentation began with Tel Aviv-born Pollack explaining the foundations of the present conflict with a PowerPoint display, from the origins of Zionism and the 1948 war to the beginning of the settlement project and the current intifada. He described the three levels of citizenship: full citizenship, permanent residency for East Jerusalemites and orange IDs for Palestinian residents of the Occupied Territories.

After that introduction, he proceeded to break down the official propaganda surrounding what he called the marketing of the wall.

According to him, only 5 percent of the wall is a 25 foot high concrete structure, about twice as high as the Berlin Wall, while the overall length is “double the length of the Green Line,” he said. The rest of the “wall” is a series of barbed wire fences and other obstacles. Additionally, 80 percent of the barrier is built on Palestinian land, making the seam line a permanent military zone.

“That means, if you want to enter the West Bank, then you must have permission from the military authorities,” Pollack noted.

He went on to describe the effect the wall had on Palestinian life. Qalqilya, once the richest city in the area, is now caged from four sides. Unemployment has risen from 13 percent to a staggering 80 percent since the wall was built. As a result, after one year of the wall’s construction, one-third of Qalqilya’s residents have left, according to official statistics; Pollack feels the number is higher.

“The wall is not a means of security, but as a means of ethnic cleansing,” he said.

The impact that Pollack described on the Palestinians was further elaborated by Palestinian farmer and Budrus resident Ayed Morrar.

Morrar made clear that the Palestinians want peace, but on the condition that peace cannot occur in the absence of freedom. The occupation, he said, is a catastrophe not only for Palestinians, but for any nation and the catastrophe can be felt in the destruction of Palestinian culture, economy and in their lives overall.

To give an example, Morrar described his daily routine – to go to his job in Ramallah, he has to go through two different checkpoints. Another routine is suffering the treatment meted out by Israeli soldiers.

“One time they arrested me in 1989, and they put us in the military bus. I saw Hebrew writings by Israeli soldiers,” he said, writings that said the best Arab is a dead one.

He went on to describe the impact the olive tree has on the Palestinian economy and life, especially when the Israelis uproot them. The olive tree is mentioned in the Qu’ran and the Bible, grandparents pass on proverbs about the tree’s wonder and that a 5,000 year old tree stands in Jenin, the sight of an Israeli assault in April, 2002.

“We really cry when we see them uprooted,” Morrar said.

Afterwards, the speakers showed a video of non-violent protests from the past two years, where unarmed demonstrators were beaten and concussion grenades were used, sometimes exploding right beside what appeared to be children. In one shot, Palestinian protestors were viciously beaten, only to have their ambulance windshield shattered by a tear gas canister and explode inside the vehicle after they had been placed inside.

Despite having endured violence and attending hundreds of protests, both Pollack and Morrar were in good spirits. Their tour had already lasted three weeks and they have two more weeks to look forward to. Morrar summed up their optimism this way:

“This is our slogan: ‘We can do it.'”

Palestinian, Israeli tour Bay Area to support non-violent resistance to military occupation

By Katherine Corcoran

Originally published in the Mercury News

Ayed Morrar, 43, a Palestinian, puts his arm on the back of Jonathan Pollak, 23, an Israeli, and says, “He’s like my son.”

The two are touring the Bay Area through Wednesday, when they will address a Stanford University class on the Israeli-Arab conflict, as part of a national speaking campaign on what they call the little-known, non-violent resistance movement in the Palestinian territories.

Pollak is fasting in solidarity with Morrar, who is observing Ramadan. They are staying in homes and attending fundraisers sponsored by Arab-American and Jewish families. Still, their integrated, peaceful resistance against Israel’s military occupation and the barrier it is erecting in the West Bank gets scant attention in the United States and the rest of the world, they say.

“We have to show people the real situation there to win the occupation, because the propaganda shows us as criminals,” Morrar said last week, sitting in the Los Altos living room of Lisa Nessan, who is Jewish. “We are against violence from any side, against killing by Israelis and Palestinians.”

Their tour, which started in New York and goes to Seattle, Minneapolis, Detroit and other major cities from here, is sponsored by the International Solidarity Movement, a pro-Palestinian group that recruits and trains international observers and activists to protest in the Palestinian territories. The group gained world headlines when American protester Rachel Corrie was killed by an Israeli bulldozer in 2003, and British student Tom Hurndall was shot in 2004 by an Israeli soldier, who was later convicted of manslaughter.

But like anything having to do with the Middle East conflict, claims to non-violence or peace get drowned out in a din of competing voices and events. Last week marked another bloody string of violence, with Israeli troops targeting Islamic Jihad militants, who killed five Israelis in a revenge suicide attack.

Critics say the International Solidarity Movement is not really about peace. They cite writings by its leaders that acknowledge a place for armed resistance in liberation movements.

“They don’t pick up guns or throw bombs. But they don’t oppose those who do, either,” said Yitzhak Santis, director of the Middle East Project at the Jewish Community Relations Council in San Francisco. “It’s propaganda. They want well-intentioned, good-meaning people to support them. But what goes on on the ground is something quite different.”

Complicated story

Still, Morrar, a government worker who must clear two checkpoints to get to work in Ramallah, and Pollak, a graphic artist from Tel Aviv and an activist since his teens, are part of a growing number of opponents to the Israeli occupation. They want to tell their side of a complicated story in the United States, a steadfast supporter of Israel in foreign policy, and a place where many charge the news accounts are biased toward Israel.

“It’s time we voice opposition to policies that are being carried out in our name,” said Pollak, referring to Israelis who are against the occupation.

Their current focus is the wall Israel is building in the West Bank, which in parts veers from the agreed-upon border and cuts into Palestinian territories, separating villagers from their jobs and farmland. Supporters of the wall say it has cut violence against Israelis by 90 percent.

The wall, which has been ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice in the Hague, has sparked a peace movement that had difficulty finding a place amid the almost ever-present bullets and bombings.

Condemning violence

“We need everyone, children, women, old people to join the struggle. With all the violence, they couldn’t get out there,” said Morrar, adding that his and Pollak’s group in the Palestinian territories, Popular Committees to Resist the Wall, condemns all violence, including armed resistance. “The military struggle has no role for the people.”

In talks in Bay Area churches, universities and labor halls, Morrar and Pollak show footage of women in abayas at the wall, shouting peace slogans through bullhorns, and international protesters spraying peace signs on military vehicles — all being hit by Israeli soldiers with tear-gas canisters and rubber bullets.

Morrar doesn’t deny that non-violent demonstrations draw members of Hamas and Fatah, political parties with militant arms. But he says his group doesn’t refuse any protesters, as long as they follow the rules of peaceful resistance.

“If we refuse them, they will go to the violent way,” said Morrar, who has been jailed five times, once for six years in the 1990s, and bears a long, deep scar from a gunshot wound on his upper arm. “To struggle does not mean to kill. To kill is to lose your humanity.”

By Liz Anderson
Originally published in The Journal News

WHITE PLAINS — “The Wall” snakes between Israel and the West Bank, often wandering deep into Palestinian turf. As it is built, it cuts people off from their jobs, their schools, hospitals and even the fields where they tend their crops, forcing them to travel back and forth through checkpoints that can be closed at any time.

Palestinian Ayed Morrar, 47, and Israeli Jonathan Pollak, 23, have found common ground in launching nonviolent protests of the barrier under construction in their native land. Yesterday afternoon, they brought their message of resistance to the Community Unitarian Church in White Plains as part of a New York City speaking tour.

Morrar helped lead his village, Budrus, in more than 50 demonstrations that succeeded in pushing the wall’s edge back from his village. Pollak has participated in more than 200 demonstrations in the West Bank.

Ayed called Israel’s presence in the area a “catastrophe.” But he said Palestinians have two choices — to “keep all your life crying” or to struggle against it, which he called “easier for your spirit.”

Their presentation included a brief history of the region, film clips of several protests, and pictures of the barrier, which varies in its construction from razor-wire fences, earthen berms and other obstacles to concrete slabs.

Pollak called the wall an “apartheid barrier.” He said he believes Israel has built it on Palestinian land to further “cantonize” the area, seize control of its water resources, preserve many existing Israeli settlements, and grab as much land as possible.

“You call it apartheid. I call it a security wall,” Florence Glazer, 71, of Yonkers, told Pollak. She asked him if he would support the wall if it were on Israeli turf.

“I personally don’t think building barriers between people is any way to protect for the security of anyone,” Pollak replied.

Glazer said later that she had expected more of a debate between traditional Israeli and Palestinian positions. Still, she said, she learned something about the wall’s intrusion past the traditional border and into Palestinian turf.

“It bothers me,” she said of that fact.

Zuhair Suidan, 61, of New Canaan, Conn., a Palestinian, said speeches such as yesterday’s are “a small seed” in promoting peace. “Unfortunately, I think they are working against major policies and powers that are opposing their message,” he added.

Morrar, he said, succeeded in moving a portion of the wall “in one little town.” But overall, Suidan said, “the violations are pervasive.”

Cheryl Zuckerman of Scarsdale said she had tried to get other people she knows from synagogue to attend, but finds it hard to convince people to view their religion and politics separately. Still, “very gradually, people are coming out that want to listen,” she said.