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“Peace Needs Bridges not Walls” - Recollections from Occupied Palestine
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Flo Razowsky
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During Israel’s “Operation Defensive Shield” of 2002, in which the entire West Bank was heavily invaded and the Palestinian population was under a 24 hour a day military house arrest for months on end, I made my first trip to the occupied Palestinian territories on a fact finding mission. What I found changed my life forever.
I saw tanks in the streets around the clock; I saw men and young boys that were forced to sneak out into the streets like thieves in order to find food for their hungry families during curfew, a time when the military did not allow stores or markets to open. I heard gunshots and explosions day and night. I sat with mothers as they tried to shield their infants from the tear gas that would seep into the house from under the door.
During that time, I saw Israeli military bulldozers begin to arrive in the Palestinian olive groves and uproot the trees. I watched, as did the Palestinians in the beginning, in disbelief and incomprehension, as these bulldozers uprooted and took away the olive trees. In September of 2002 the Wall was just beginning to be publicly talked about. Palestinian farmers were just beginning to find notices, written in Hebrew and strewn about in their fields, informing them that their land was to be confiscated for a “security barrier”. No one knew what was going on; no one understood what it all meant or what the ramifications would be. And then the bulldozers began to arrive, without announcement, in the groves. It only took a day or two for the farmers to realize that they could either continue to stand by and watch, dumbfounded, or they could take action and endeavor to save their livelihoods. Most chose the latter.
It is almost three years later, the Wall is scheduled to be completed by this summer and the farmers are still fighting. July 9 was the one year anniversary of the controversial International Court of Justice decision stating, “Construction of the wall and its associated régime are contrary to international law”. Yet construction of the Wall continues.
Dubbed a “security barrier” by Israeli and American mainstream press, the Wall is being built deep within the Palestinian territory, in effect, annexing almost 49% of the West Bank to Israel, giving Israel control of the most fertile agricultural lands of the West Bank and access to the largest water aquifer.
I’ve spent 17 months since August 2002 in occupied Palestine, seeing firsthand the Israeli occupation. I’ve seen the cities and villages subject to months-long house arrest, I’ve seen Palestinian children that have to enter through Israeli military checkpoints day after day in order to attend school, I’ve seen babies tear gassed while asleep in their beds and I’ve seen the Israeli apartheid wall grow from it’s first day of construction. I’ve witnessed armed Palestinian fighters patrolling the streets of their refugee camps awaiting the inevitable Israeli invasions, and I’ve seen members of the Palestinian nonviolent resistance brutally attacked by the first world armed Israeli military.
Villages such as Bil’in, in the western Ramallah district, at least three times a week as of May this year, were active in demonstrating and attempting to stop the work on the Wall through direct-actions. Weekly, the Bil’in Popular Committee against the Wall is creating scenes at the site of construction such as a mock wall they themselves built in order to tear down; a gallows from which were hanging the bodies of Justice, Peace, Freedom, and Self-determination; and chaining themselves to their olive trees along with international and Israeli activists.
Leaders of the nonviolent resistance in Bil’in, as all the nonviolent leaders across Palestine, are targeted by the Israeli military for organizing these acts of resistance. Abdullah Abu-Rahme, a leader in the resistance of Bil’in, has been imprisoned since July 15 of this year for his participation in these nonviolent acts of civil disobedience. Abu-Rahme is being held without bail due to a military judge’s ruling that he is “too dangerous” to be released on bail. At the time of his arrest, Abu-Rahme was with Israeli and international peace activists inside a large prop constructed to look like a bridge with a banner that read, “Peace needs bridges not walls.” For this, Abdullah Abu-Rahme has been deemed too dangerous to return home for the remainder of his court proceedings.
Unfortunately, Abdullah Abu-Rahme becomes only a statistic, not a unique entity. And even more unfortunately, that statistic becomes buried under the layers of mass media, focused on demonizing any people willing to rebel against the injustice and inequalities of the powers that be. If we were allowed by our news sources to acknowledge these attempts of nonviolent resistance on the part of the Palestinian people looking to protect themselves and their livelihood, and if we were given the opportunity to recognize the reality of the occupation within the streets and lives of Palestine, we would no longer be able to label their attempt to survive as “terrorism.”
Of the top 600 entries found when doing a Google search for the topic “nonviolent Palestinian resistance”, the only US mainstream news source found was USA Today which merely referenced the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). The ISM is a Palestinian-led movement that brings internationals to Palestine in order to participate in nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation. This USA Today reference was only one sentence long and was included as an interviewee’s response to questions. In all of those 600 Google entries, there was not a single mainstream source that reported on the Palestinian civil society nonviolence movement. In comparison, a search using the words,”Palestinian violence” found 5 entries within the first 30 of mainstream US news sources referring to Palestinian violence.
The most recent focus of the US media, being heralded as a great move towards peace, is Ariel Sharon’s plan to disengage the Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip. This plan, which is creating waves amongst the international Zionist community, fails to admit or allow recognition of the fact that at the same time, settlements in the West Bank are at this moment being expanded. The residents of the village of Bil’in hear the construction rumble non-stop as the settlement of Manorah, built on their agricultural land, is enlarged.
Media coverage of the disengage plans fail to report on these expansions and new settlement constructions. Palestinians on the ground recognize this situation for what it is - a release of politically disadvantageous land for expansion within a much more strategic and resource rich area. But the world only receives the first half of the story in which the Israeli government is giving up something important without taking anything more because peace is so very important to them. We are led to believe that for peace, Israel is willing to give up everything while the Palestinians are only interested in the total destruction of the Jewish state. The situation on the ground begs to differ.
Flo Razowsky is a Jewish American peace activist dedicated to ending the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Ms. Razowsky, who works with the International Solidarity Movement in Palestine, has been jailed numerous times within Israel and forcibly expelled from the country due to her nonviolent peace work alongside Palestinian and Israeli activists against the Occupation. In the Twin Cities, Ms. Razowsky works with the Palestine Solidarity Coalition MN. You can reach her at faydle@yahoo.com. |
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© 2005 Women Against Military Madness. All rights reserved.
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Complete September 2005 Index - click here
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