Filed under: Palestine
This piece can also be read in the September 2006 Issue of Punk Planet.
Standing at the window of my Gaza Strip apartment, having heard the Apache helicopter circle a time or two around the block, I watched it drop a missile, glowing red, two blocks away. It was just past dark, people were still in the street. I grew up in the United States, I can’t begin to count the number of Hollywood renditions of such an act I have watched on the big screen, but nothing prepares you to see a piece of machinery, manufactured in your own country, drop a bomb in the neighborhood where you are living. Earlier that day on the same street, I watched children play and women weave their way through the crowd with baskets of fresh herbs balanced on their heads.
Rachel Corrie, a skinny creative free spirit entered my life right after the twin towers came down on September 11th. She contacted me while looking for others to organize with in opposition to the bombing of Afghanistan. We organized a contingent made up of grey haired grannies, a peace scout troop of hippie kids, our hesitant friends and at the last minute, a few drunks from the local bar. The thirty of us made peace dove costumes from worn out hotel sheets and danced down the street in an annual community parade. Far from having a direct impact on the reality of the Middle East it was an exercise in the power of community creativity, with lots of late nights, papier maché, and glue guns. Two years later, the bombing of Afghanistan was still under way and the attack on Iraq imminent. Rachel, armed with a new understanding of the situation in Israel and Palestine from her college studies, took off for the region to volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, ISM. ISM is a rag tag crew of internationals from all over the world who descend on occupied Palestine to take part in non-violent actions against the Israeli occupation. In various villages the locals have called for support, for eyes and the protection that comes free with our western skin.More…
It is impossible to look at the situation in the Middle East without starting with Israel and Palestine. The names Bin Ladin and Al Zarqawi have become household names, for many American families the only Arab names they know. Both leaders of armed networks have released several videos defining the reasons for their actions, in almost all cases the demand for Palestinian freedom is made clear. Noam Chomsky pointed out in a recent interview on Democracy Now! that most analysts agree due to the timing of the recent kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah that it was at least partly an action to reduce the Israeli attacks on Gaza by forcing them to fight on two fronts simultaneously. In order to ever envision peace in the Middle East it is critical to understand the situation in Israel and occupied Palestine.
Israel was created in 1948 on land that was already inhabited by Palestinians. This came to be through a Jewish nationalist movement called Zionism which, in the early 20th century, had gained momentum due to the atrocities of the Holocaust and the growing persecution of Jews all over the world. Countries like our own, were not accepting Jews as they fled Germany, ships were even sent back at the border. Britain was in control of the Palestinian territories at the time and facilitated the creation of the state of Israel. So that’s where the conflict begins, two people and one land. Possible solutions could have included the creation of two states where both people would each have their own government or the creation of one state where they would share a government made up of representatives of both people. Instead, 750,000 indigenous Palestinians were forced off the land where their families had lived for hundreds of years by powerful militias that soon became the Israeli military. The Israeli government currently controls all the land and the Palestinians live under military occupation with no country of their own. The majority of Palestinian people do not even live in the occupied Palestinian territories; many still live in refugee camps on the borders of the surrounding Arab countries. Those who remain in the occupied territories have been without rights, living under military law for almost 40 years. Today, many are still being forced off more and more of their land. At this point the occupied Palestinian territories cover 22% of what used to be their original homeland.
In January 2003, Rachel Corrie stepped foot in the Middle East. She had heard the call for internationals to come to Rafah, the poorest community in all of occupied Palestine and one that has suffered enormous loss at the hands of the Israeli Occupation. Rafah is in the southernmost part of the Gaza Strip, a tiny 25 by 7 mile strip of land with 1.5 million inhabitants, one of the most densely populated pieces of land on earth. Rafah was under intense siege by the Israeli military at this time, similar to what we have seen the last few months, in fact, consistently for the past 5 years. Rachel wrote home often:
“I have been in Palestine for two weeks and one hour now, and I still have very few words to describe what I see. It is most difficult for me to think about what’s going on here when I sit down to write back to the United States. Something about the virtual portal into luxury. I don’t know if many of the children here have ever existed without tank-shell holes in their walls and the towers of an occupying army surveying them constantly from the near horizons. I think, although I’m not entirely sure, that even the smallest of these children understand that life is not like this everywhere. An eight-year-old was shot and killed by an Israeli tank two days before I got here, and many of the children murmur his name to me – Ali – or point at the posters of him on the walls.”
She spent a majority of her time in Rafah along the border area with Egypt. This area is made up of UN built refugee camp concrete homes crammed together into very tight blocks, often with more than 10 people sharing two rooms. Rafah is a town of 160,000, and in the last five years more than 500 civilians have died at the hands of Israeli soldiers, 150 of them children. The constant attacks on all elements of life in Rafah have resulted in the collective punishment of the entire community. Rachel was working with a group of internationals walking children to school, sleeping at water wells and homes along the border to prevent the Israeli Military from destroying them, and attempting to bring media attention to the situation. On March 16th, while attempting to defend the Nasrallah family home from being demolished, a US made Caterpillar bulldozer of the Israeli Military ran her over, and then backed over her again. I found out on National Public Radio that she died within an hour. She was 23. The US has refused to complete a formal investigation into her death.
After Rachel’s death, occupied Palestine spiraled into my life changing overnight from a far off concept of a mythical religious war zone to a land of people who have been forced to live under inhuman conditions at the hands of the Israeli military for forty years. As Rachel had explained to me before she left, this occupation could not exist without the 4 billion plus dollars that our country gives Israel each year. Israel has been the largest receiver of US foreign aid for decades. 75% of this money must be spent on US made weaponry. After Rachel’s death, I went to Gaza as a delegate for a sister city project between Olympia, Washington, and Rafah. What I saw did not in any way resemble what the media says about the region – a perpetual cycle of violence from a 1000 year old religious conflict where Israel is defending itself against hate filled Arabs. The reality I discovered more seemed more like a modern day version of the ethnic cleansing of the Native Americans that occurred last century here in the states. When you walk down the street in Israel it feels like you could easily be in the States, cross an arbitrary line in the sand, marked by large concrete walls and military checkpoints, and you find yourself in the occupied territories where poverty prevails. The contrasts are tremendous.
The difference between what I would witness living in occupied Palestine and how the events were portrayed in the media displayed an elaborate system of misinformation. The missile I saw fall in my neighborhood in Rafah resulted in the killing of a twenty year old man and the wounding of ten civilians, five of which were children. This was described by Israel as a “counter terrorist action.” The man who died may have been suspected of a crime but he had no trial, no justice. The use of words to disguise the reality I was experiencing is common practice. “Destroying access routes for terrorists” means bombing major roads, bridges and neighborhood streets. “Creating a wider border zone” means the arbitrary shelling and eventual demolition of the homes of 16,000 people, most made refugees already once in their lifetime. “Destruction of terrorist infrastructure” means the bombing of power plants, schools, and civilian homes. “Preventing terrorists from smuggling weapons from Egypt” means surrounding Gaza with walls, making it a virtual open air prison, suffocating the economy and preventing access for basic UN food supplies and medicine. “Having no negotiating partner for peace” means the kidnapping of over 35 democratically elected Palestinian Parliament Members and 10 cabinet ministers and the bombing of the Palestinian Prime Ministers Headquarters. And it reaches absurd levels, these war crimes are carried under military operations with names such as “Operation Rainbow” and “Operation Summer Rain.”
These measures are taken by Israel most often in the name of security against the armed resistance to the occupation. There are militant factions of religious extremists within Arab society who shoot homemade rockets into Israel and vow to use violence to wipe out Israel. Looking out my balcony in Rafah I would often see armed men driving through the streets representing a specific faction within Palestinian society. Violent extremist elements can be found throughout almost all societies. In the United States we have right wing religious anti-abortion groups who have murdered doctors or the Minute Men who shoot Mexicans attempting to cross our border. In Israel the religious extremist groups take the form of Settlers who against international law, choose to live inside the occupied Palestinian territories. This would be similar to moving Americans into Iraq and setting up gated communities. I traveled to three different villages in the West Bank as an international to witness the constant attacks on Palestinian families by Israeli settlers who live in the outlying areas, who use intimidation and violence to clear out the villages to claim “their divine right to the land.” I harvested olives in the West Bank where the previous year settlers killed two villagers while they were harvesting on their own land, walked with Palestinian girls to school as settler youth threw stones at them, and spent the night at a rural village where settlers have poisoned their sheep, cut down their olive trees and beat up the elders. So what is it that defines Hamas and Hezbollah as “terrorists” and Israeli settlers and right wing Christian groups not terrorists? Arundhati Roy explains that “terrorism is the symptom not the disease” and the term as it is often used today means victims who refuse to be further victimized.
On January 25th, I was able to observe one of the most democratic elections ever to occur in the Middle East. Hamas, considered a “terrorist organization by the US” for its violent resistance to the occupation and participation in sending suicide bombers into Israel, swept the parliamentary elections. The US and Israel responded immediately but cutting off funds to the Palestinian Authority including tax money paid by Palestinians. A close friend and pharmacist in Gaza has not been paid in 6 months due to these sanctions. I spoke to many Hamas supporters who expressed that they were voting for change, that the Fatah leadership focused on negotiations and Israel refused to talk. Instead the occupation has taken a stronger and more violent hold on their communities. I also heard hopes that a lot of the government money that had ended up in the pockets of corrupt Fatah leaders would return to the communities. Hamas runs numerous social service programs throughout the territories including women’s clinics and children’s centers.
Now that I have returned, the time I spent in the territories has given me a fresh perspective to filter through the news that flows from the region. This most recent escalation was portrayed by the media as beginning with the killing of two Israeli soldiers and the kidnapping of Gilat Shalit, while they were on duty. What was missing from most of the coverage I received were the names of the two brothers, charged only with being members of Hamas, who were taken from Gaza by Israeli forces the previous day. Very little was said about the 9000 Palestinians held in Israeli jails, 1000 of which have never been charged, including women and children. Israel responded to the kidnapping with collective punishment from the first day by bombing the main electrical plant in Gaza impacting over half of Gazas residents and the local hospitals. Mona Al-Farra, a physician in Gaza City gives this report of the current situation,
“Gaza became a big prison for its’ citizens, especially during the last 5 years. We have faced different episodes of violence, but this time is the worst, these atrocities have left one third of the population suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSS), as an outcome of going through traumatic experiences of home demolition, killing of family members, being at a site of shelling, assassination, and having the feeling of living in a big prison. The borders are closed most of the times which means we are not allowed in or out of our country, it has been closed completely for more than a month . And there is economic hardship, with high unemployment that reaches to 70%. Most people live under poverty levels in crowded towns, villages and refugee camps where the housing conditions are very limited and lack basic infrastructure.”
There are clearly militant groups who are a threat to the security of Israel but punishing all civilians in an attempt to reach the small violent extremist sectors of society is not working. Just in my four months I witnessed daily acts of intimidation, illegal arrest and imprisonment by Israeli soldiers, the suffocation of the economy, the blocking of medical aid and basic food supplies, the destruction of infrastructure, assassinations without trial, and the murder of innocent civilians. I witnessed the construction of the massive wall that is currently being built to completely enclose the West Bank and even to divide it internally into three sections. The construction of the wall, or “Security Fence” as it is referred to by Israeli leaders, is stealing Palestinian land and resources, including water. I spent time in Bil’in, a small village in the West Bank, that is losing sixty percent of its agricultural land so that the wall can annex a settlement into Israel. These acts of collective punishment are the true threats to Israel’s security. The majority of Palestinians want the same thing the average Israeli, that the average American wants: a home, an education, an ability to provide for their children. But for the average Palestinian family these things are at perpetual risk of being taken away. These policies are leading to insecurity and pushing people to take more extreme measures to attempt to survive and maintain their dignity. They may benefit the weapons industry and certain strategic resource goals but they are making no one safer. In fact I can’t think of a policy that could more readily build hatred and push a society in the direction of violent response than Israel’s perpetual acts of collective punishment.
As far away as the Middle East may seem, it is the United States who has the power to change this situation. Our government makes its supportive stance clear, not only through the billions of dollars of aid, but also through our consistent approval of Israel’s actions, and our constant veto of any resolution brought to the UN criticizing Israel. George Bush spouted “Israel has the right to defend itself” as we rushed an order of precision satellite and laser-guided bombs to Israel one week into the attack on Lebanon. According to Noam Chomsky, “the United States regards Israel as virtually a militarized offshoot, and it protects it from criticism or actions and, in fact, overtly supports its expansion, its attacks on Palestinians, its progressive takeover of what remains of Palestinian territory.” Grassroots efforts are growing to change our government’s response but more people are needed to really have an impact.
Standing in my brown hoodie holding a fancy digital camera next to a woman with her head covered who is picking her ancestors olives and loading them on to her donkey is a bit of a culture shock. But we are able to communicate and the look of appreciation in her eyes makes it clear that her struggle to pick these olives and to stay on her land is the same struggle as ours in the States for an end to US military domination. According to the International Solidarity Movement
“International citizens have played a key role in the Palestinian nonviolent resistance over the last 6 years. It is vital that this worldwide support for Palestinians continue so they are able to challenge the illegal Israeli occupation with dignity, strength and nonviolence. The International Solidarity Movement renews its call for international civil society to act when the governments of the world will not and join the Palestinian nonviolent resistance!”
Even though the media never covers the village wide marches, the strength of Palestinians choosing to remain on their land against all odds, and the weekly actions against the Wall, nonviolent resistance is alive and well in the occupied territories. Dr. Mona Al-Farra explains “Israel aims to break the Palestinian people’s will and determination to achieve their inalienable national goals. I said before they will not succeed and I am saying it again and again. It is impossible to control an entire nation using collective punishment and continuous occupation. It is impossible to confiscate am entire nation’s right of freedom and self-determination.” Palestinian society has been under siege for so long and Israel, even with the forth largest military in the world for a country the roughly the size of New Jersey, has not been able to destroy its foundations. This is simply because the human potential for unity, sacrifice, organization, determination and patience will always prevail over missiles and tanks, no matter how large or how many. And there are so many opportunities to support them in their struggle. Through our sister city project we have shown art made in Rafah, sold embroidery made by women in the refugee camps in our local fair-trade store, fundraised for playground construction and medical supplies and most importantly simply connected people in our two communities. So many social organizations have been created within Palestinian society to help it remain intact in the face of occupation, volunteer opportunities abound. Numerous organizations provide two week educational delegations to the occupied Palestinian territories, from the Middle East Children’s Alliance to Christian Peacemaker Teams, giving Americans the opportunities to see the situation with their own eyes.
On February 27th of 2003 Rachel wrote,
Anyway, I’m rambling. Just want to write to my Mom and tell her that I’m witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide and I’m really scared, and questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature. This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don’t think it’s an extremist thing to do anymore. I still really want to dance around to Pat Benatar and have boyfriends and make comics for my coworkers. But I also want this to stop. Disbelief and horror is what I feel. Disappointment. I am disappointed that this is the base reality of our world and that we, in fact, participate in it.
The morning after I saw the missle fall, when I was sitting at breakfast with the family whose home Rachel died defending, I asked if they had heard all the F16s and seen the attack. The father smiled with his usual cynical twinkle in his eye, “it’s normal, this is nothing unusual.” Attempting to remain uninvolved in these realities is an impossibility. Whether I chose to come to Rafah or not, simply by being an American citizen I am impacting this family. Not only the foreign policies, but also simply maintaining the status quo here in the United States is supporting Israel’s human rights abuses; it is having an impact on individuals worldwide. If we don’t support the current situation then we have to take an active role in globalizing an alternative, and I believe that getting to know one other and our realities is a powerful way for this to grow, we may be a bit behind but the globalizing of popular struggle is clearly underway.
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