Hundreds of Palestinians and Israelis demonstrate weekly against Jewish settlements in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem.   

Over the last few years, the intensity and breadth of the solidarity actions for Palestinian rights dramatically increased.     

The second Intifada was followed by a campaign of non-violent direct-action, popularized in the West Bank by a joint Palestinian-Israeli organization, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). Based on the Freedom Summer campaign of the U.S. civil rights movement, the ISM (see http://palsolidarity.org/ ) has brought waves of internationals into the West Bank and Gaza to accompany Palestinians in their resistance. The overwhelming majority of Palestinian resistance is creative non-violence.   

Inside Israel, a new generation of Jewish activists join Palestinians to fight the occupation.   

Globally, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign has grown more in its first five years than the anti-South African apartheid boycott campaign grew in its first twenty, according the National Boycott Coordinator, Hind Awwad. October 22-24, Montreal is hosting a global BDS conference (see http://www.bdsquebec.org/ ).   

ISM co-founders Adam Shapiro and Huwaida Arraf launched the Gaza Freedom Flotillas – ships carrying Pro-Palestinian activists and humanitarian aid to break Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza. There is now a Canada Boat to Gaza being organized (see http://canadaboatgaza.org ).   

For Jews, solidarity with Palestinians is also a platform for our own growing resistance against the Jewish right and the extremist politics of Zionism, just as the U.S. civil rights movement became a springboard for new feminism, gay rights, the anti-Vietnam war movement, etc..   

This photo essay shows a small sample of the visual resistance for Palestinian rights going on this summer. Unless noted as taken by ActiveStills (www.activestills.org, and  http://www.flickr.com/photos/activestills/ ) , photos are by Scott Weinstein, member of the Independent Jewish Voices. (see http://ijvcanada.org ).   

Bil'in, a small (international) village at the centre of non-violent direct-action.

 After the Friday noon prayers, villages throughout the West Bank dramatically and theatrically confront the occupation.  Bil’in with the help of Israeli lawyers, just won a legal case pushing back the Wall that was expropriating their land for the nearby Jewish settlement. Invited by  the Bil’in Popular Committee (see http://www.bilin-ffj.org/ ), The Independent Jewish Voices Canada joined this June demonstration in solidarity with the boycott of the Israeli diamond trade, which accounts for 1/3rd of the Israel’s export economy.   

Bil'in residents, Israelis and internationals walk up to the army gates separating Bil'in from the military zone protecting the settlement, take down the barbwire and open the gate.

A resident defies the army across the road.

Behind this youth, a section of the army is photographing the protesters, and coordinating their counter-attack.

The Israeli army begins by shooting tear gas over the protesters at the gates into the support crowd 1 - 200 meters away. Bil'in Popular Committee leader Bassem Abu Rahmah was killed last year by a tear gas canister fired into his chest.

Soon, the olive groves are full of tear gas smoke and fires.

The dry summer grass ignites easily from the hot tear gas containers.

Demonstrators extinguish the fires to protect the precious olive trees.

Burnt field from one tear gas canister.

Then the army invades again (they raided the village the night before arresting a teenage resident). Everyone escaped today.

After the protest, Popular Committee organizer Iyad Burnat hugs his daughter. Iyad was pleased no one was seriously injured or arrested this day.

 His colleague, Abdallah Abu Rahman’s imprisoned last December, was convicted in August by the Israelis for weapon’s possession (he had spent tear gas canisters), incitement and organizing illegal marches. An international campaign is mobilizing for his release.  (see http://www.popularstruggle.org/freeabdallah )   

Jooneed Khan addresses Bil'in solidarity rally in Montreal. (see Tadamon! http://www.tadamon.ca/ )

Boycott & Resistance from Within   

The most critical resistance against the occupation now is taking place inside Jerusalem. Israeli government and settlers are attempting to take over the Palestinian sections of East Jerusalem, and this has ignited outrage from Israeli anti-occupation activists.   

Benny, an Israeli farmer and member of Rabbis for Human Rights at a Silwan, East Jerusalem solidarity demonstration, pleads with the international community to save Israel from committing suicide.

Silwan, a Palestinian community in East Jerusalem is under assault by the Israeli government with the aid of settlers. This house stolen by settlers, is a good example of their justifiable paranoia.

Zionist archaeology is used to colonize Palestine. This Zionist archaeological project called The City of David is rapidly digging underneath Silwan, desecrating Muslim graves, expropriating territory, and most threatening of all, rushing toward the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third most holy Muslim site. If it starts to crack...

These Israelis have joined the Silwan community, mobilizing large numbers of people to protest the City of David and the settler take-over of Silwan. (see http://www.awalls.org/ )

Silwan settler tries to drive over Israeli protesters in August. Their tee shirt says "We refuse to be enemies". Photo ActiveStills.

Al Kurd family in front of their Jewish settler-stolen house in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem. The Al Kurds who live now in the 'garage', are helping organize resistance against the slow-motion Israeli occupation of their community. ISM member Emily Henochowicz who lost an eye protesting the deadly raid on the Gaza Freedom Flotila, stayed with the Al Kurds family, they fondly recounted, (see http://thirstypixels.blogspot.com/ ).

Jasmine played Israel's national anthem off key in front of the police at the Sheikh Jarrah protest. They asked her to play "something Israeli".

Noted Israeli author David Grossman at a Sheikh Jarrah solidarity protest. He has recently joined (as of this writing) 150 Israeli authors, actors and artists pledging to boycott any cultural events inside the settlements in the West Bank. Photo by ActiveStills

Cynthia Nixon, actor in Sex And The City, along with other American actors, pledged to support the boycott of events inside the settlements.

Mia, an Israeli army resister, is arrested in Sheikh Jarrah. Photo by ActiveStills.

Mia, banned from Sheikh Jarrah because of her arrest, now gives tours with the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions, about how Israel colonizes Palestinian East Jerusalem. Section of the Wall in background. (see http://www.icahd.org/ )

In Tel Aviv, clowns denounce the occupation of Sheikh Jarrah. Photo by ActiveStills.

A country where Palestinians refuse to disappear    

A Palestinian is forced to walk beneath one of the Israeli-only highways inside the occupied West Bank. This tunnel is under Route 443.

Palestinians and Israelis attempt to take down the gate barring Palestinians from Route 443. Photo by ActiveStills.

The Bedouin Al Arakib village inside Israel , declared "illegal', was destroyed four times recently by the Israeli government. Photo by Orin Ziv, ActiveStills.

Palestinians, Israelis and internationals help clear the rubble of destroyed Al-Farisiya Bedouin village. Photo by Orin Ziv, ActiveStills.

Rebuilding Al Arakib village, Israel, this July. Photo by Orin Ziv, ActiveStills.

In Hebron, the struggle against ethnic cleansing is brutal. Ex-Israeli soldiers who served in Hebron formed Breaking the Silence (see http://www.shovrimshtika.org/index_e.asp) now take people on tours of Hebron. Shaduah Street from left to right: Jewish settlement, Israeli soldier, cleansed Shaduah Street, photo of street from several years ago, empty shops, graffiti of the terrorist Jewish Defence League.

Shaduah Street resistance. Her neighbours have been evicted by the settlers and the army, but this Palestinian woman from a 2003 photo, still remains today.

Hebron. Also from a 2003 photo, despite the hate graffiti and ammunition fired into their house, this Palestinian family remains today.

The freedom flotillas to break the siege of Gaza are global news. Both Canada and the US are planning boats for 2010. (see http://canadaboatgaza.org ). Photo from web.

غزوة غزة

بأكتبلَك

من جوه حصار

بأكتبلَك من تحت جدار

كان يوم شايل سقف الدار

بأكتبلك من أرضي الحِبلى بالأحرار

بأسمي وبأسم الشهدا والثوار

… بأكتبلَك

… وفي حلقي مرار

   ***

غزوة غزة

غارسة في قلبي سيف من نار

جيش جرار

كل سلاحه جبن وعار

وشعبي الأعزل واقف صامد

وإنتوا بتختلقوا الأعذار

   ***

أنده لك

ألاقيك محتار

أسيادك ماسكينلك ذِلة

وإنتَ حمار

لا بتحسب إيه أخرة صمتك

ولا عارف مين اللي بياكلك

ولا بكره مين راح يحتلك

ما هو لازم حيجيلك الدور :

مرسوملنا كلنا إدوار

   ***

الأخت الكبرى

بايعة شرفها ، ويّا الغاز ، للسمسار

وولادها لو ولّعوا شمعة

أو قالوا بصوت عالي كلمتهم

العسكر يحرقوا دنيتهم :

أسوار جواها أسوار

   ***

غزوة غزة

شاهدة عليكوا ليوم الدين

مساكين

باصين لكن مش شايفيين

طول ما إنتوا في ليل الخوف مساجين

على فين رايحيين ما إنتوش عارفيين

   ***

غزة يا أخويا مش حتموت

ولا حتسلم

ولا تنهار

أقفل بابك ، سد ودانك

الّف الف حكاية خسيسة

مهما حتكدب

مهما حتهرب

حتماً برضه حيجي نهار

The Invasion of Gaza

Besieged

I write

From underneath my collapsed roof

I write

From my persistent land

I write

In my name

and for the fighters

and the martyrs

I write

Bitter …

I write

***

The invasion of Gaza

pierced my heart

with a poisoned spear:

Planes and bombs

Unarmed people

A world

that doesn’t see or hear

***

I call on you

You are confused

Clueless, manipulated, used

For you too they have a plan

but you can’t see your time is near

***

The invasion of Gaza

will scar you

to the end of days

You can’t move

and you can’t think

You’re stuck in fear

***

Gaza, my friend,

will not collapse

surrender

or die

Plug your ears

Close your eyes

Believe their lies

No matter how long

falsehood survives

the sun shall rise

When I left Montreal on February 15th I knew that this would not be a predictable trip.  From all that I’d heard, the border crossing from Egypt to Gaza (at Rafah) was unpredictable, at best.  Yet I did not hesitate to pack and go, backed by the support and endorsement of many groups and individuals.

The need to lay the ground for sending larger Canadian delegations, the show of support to the suffering people in Gaza and the importance of witnessing and reporting the reality in the besieged territory were the major reasons and motivations behind this trip.

It was also important for individuals and activist groups to challenge the brutal and unjust siege of Gaza, since countries worldwide, for the most part, were either participating in it or silent about it.

Map: The tiny Gaza strip measuring an average of 8km x 40 km. (from Google Earth)

Map of Gaza

Photo 1: Blocked at the border.

The trip was not an easy one.  My first two attempts to cross from Egypt to Gaza ended at the Rafah border crossing when the Egyptian authorities denied us exit announcing that, “the border is closed”.  International activists, including myself, held a picket in front of the gates.

Photo 2: Tunnel police.

Tunnels between Egypt and Gaza are the lifeline for the besieged population of the strip.  It is an industry that is flourishing and a few are making millions out of it.  The tunnel industry is not sustained by arms smuggling, although some weapons must be passing through.  The profits made through this trade are the reason the Egyptian government will never be able to crush the smuggling industry despite turning the border area into an army base.  The only way to crush the tunnel trade, and also curb the arms smuggling, is to lift the siege and allow legal exchange of goods between Gaza and the world.

Photo 3: International delegations.

I met many internationals at the border, both individuals and small delegations from Britain, France, Jordan, the US as well as Bosnia.  All were denied passage to Gaza.  But when larger delegations were on the horizon: Code Pink from the US and Canada and Viva Palestina from the UK, the Egyptian government succumbed to the pressure and opened the border.

Photo 4: Two borders.

The contrast between the inefficiency at the Egyptian side of the border and the simple but efficient setup on the other side is astonishing considering the lack of resources available to the Hamas government in Gaza.

Photo 5: Targeted assassination.

In the Jabalia refugee camp (one of the most populated and dense areas in Gaza) Israel assassinated Nizar Rayan, a Hamas leader, by bombing the apartment building he lived in, killing him and over 10 members of his family in addition to other neighbours. A tent now stands in place where the building used to be, between the heavily damaged neighbouring buildings.

Photo 6: I don’t want to make new friends.

How do you react when a 13 year old tells you that the death of his friends is so painful that he does not want to make friends anymore?

Photo 7:  This is what my factory looked like.

To remind the world how his factory was before Israel destroyed it, the owner placed a photo in front of the ruins. The destruction of this factory is not unique, Israel flattened anything that stood (houses, factories, schools, mosques and even plantations) in an area extending up to two kilometres from the border.

Photo 8: Tents again.

How many times will we have to build then move back to tents again?

Photo 9: We don’t want handouts …

We want our houses back and we want security, she told us.

Photo 10: “We don’t like your democracy.”

Israel also targeted the Palestinian Legislature in Gaza city.

Photo 11: Gaza is still beautiful.

Sunrise at the Gaza harbour is spectacular, despite the warning gunfire heard whenever a fishing boat leaves the harbour. The Israelis are always trying to intimidate. 

One thing was clear to me by then, my last morning in Gaza before heading back to Egypt: The Palestinians will not disappear.  Their persistence and determination to continue their lives as normally as they can, despite all difficulties, is the pinnacle of peaceful resistance.

In an arbitrary 15 years from now, the past two weeks (and, unfortunately, the remaining time to come) will be remembered with images of disturbing death and injury, reports of complete destruction of an already weakened Gazan infrastructure; thousands of IDPs; an unreachable humanitarian crisis and stories from survivors. Yet there is another memory which may leave an impact on the dynamics of the region and the North American perception on the entire 60-year-old conflict.

Without question, the North American media has often shown sympathy with one side more so than the other – an unfortunate, but natural occurrence. At the same time, however, a digression from such a grievance is vital. The aforementioned complaint does not take into consideration the surprising slight shift in the coverage of the war and humanitarian crisis. Oft-repressed opinions and oft-ignored facts are being given the opportunity to be expressed. Fierce criticisms of Israel and piercing predictions of the ramifications of the war are flooding major newspapers.

Unapologetic opinion pieces about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are being published every day. Aside from asserting truths about the conflict during an extremely pertinent and bloody time, a common cause cannot be found amongst the authors. The claims of the Israeli government in regards to the operation and the facts about the humanitarian crisis are two points of contention which have been repeatedly brought up. The commentary has also, unsurprisingly, treaded outside the proximity of the current conflict. It is extremely hard to discuss this war without considering 60 years of context. And it is this particular tangent which may leave a legacy in popular discourse and thought about the conflict at large in North America – a region in dire need of another perspective. Underdog ideas seeping into the mainstream allow for a slim, but potentially momentous opportunity for the balance to be tipped toward a more equal and fair footing.

The rise of commentaries has also thrown out a rather pathetic and almost saddening punch to Israel’s public relations monopoly. Active writers, in print or online, have rushed to assist in and showcase the “unravelling” of Israel’s claims of self-defence and cries of moral responsibility. Fingers are viciously being thrust toward the direction of the political timing of the war, the Israeli breach of ceasefire; the failures of Israel’s propaganda machine this time around, and the unfathomable denial of the existence of a humanitarian crisis. Even the International Red Cross, a thoroughly neutral organization, came out with a statement which condemned and criticized Israel for its complete lack of compliance (and fatal defiance) of the organization’s attempt to reach injured and starving Gazans.

There generally seems to be an air of exasperation, as though the war has become one of the final pieces in a long and painful Jenga puzzle, with the prophetic early quivering of the tower just beginning. These sighs of being fed-up most poignantly found within the brief titles of the daily commentaries.

American historian Mark LeVine’s seething article “Who Will Save Israel from itself?” featured in Al-Jazeera discusses the gun with which Israel has shot itself in the foot, albeit with an extremely unsatisfactory answer to the title question. Robert Fisk’s repeated commentary in The Independent has asked and answered age old questions from an insightful and firsthand perspective, in such pieces as “Why do they hate the West so much, we will ask,” and “Why bombing Ashkelon is the most tragic irony.” Gideon Levy’s “The Time of the Righteous” in Haaretz unwaveringly with silent solemn anger lashed out against all supporters of the Israeli so-called “defensive war,” claiming that “anyone who justifies this war also justifies all its crimes.”

The BBC’s Paul Reynolds brought to the public’s attention, early on, the question of Israel’s propaganda in “Propaganda war: trusting what we see?” Khalid Rashidi’s “What you don’t know about Gaza” in The New York Times wrote a quick and to-the-point piece with “a few essential points that seem to be missing from the conversation [in the press] about Israel’s attack…”

Former Israel Defense Force soldier and now Oxford professor Avi Shlaim’s furious article in The Guardian, “How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe” labels Israel as a rogue state. Just recently, the Times Online reported that Israeli soldiers coming back from the frontline were revealing the sort of “ruthless tactics against Hamas” being used. One soldier claims that he was shocked to see the neighbourhoods in Gaza as though “we [had been] bombing them for years.” Naomi Klein also got in on the action when she posted “Israel: Boycott, Divest, Sanction” on her online blog. And the list continues tirelessly.

This proposed shift is not solely about politics, just as the situation in Gaza is not. To approach the conflict as such is to approach it with a narrow and propaganda-cluttered ideological mind. The Palestinian issue is about a mounting humanitarian crisis which has existed for far longer than 18 days. Our governments (save for the Venezuelans) may not be taking the appropriate action required to address the atrocities being committed by Israel, but challenges to the mainstream discourse through the mainstream discourse allow for the general populace to gain the critical information necessary for change in the policies of our own states toward any country oppressing another people. On January 14, the president of the United Nations General Assembly, Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, described the slaughter of the Palestinians as genocide. The tower begins to sway a bit more.

This is the silver lining in the clouds of white phosphorous over Gaza.