rafeefsworld's posterous http://rafeefsworld.posterous.com Most recent posts at rafeefsworld's posterous posterous.com Tue, 19 Jun 2012 12:26:00 -0700 Let's Talk About Popular Resistance in Palestine http://rafeefsworld.posterous.com/lets-talk-about-popular-resistance-in-palesti http://rafeefsworld.posterous.com/lets-talk-about-popular-resistance-in-palesti

Ahhhhh, I do love a good argument.  I have already received feedback on my last post.  One Palestinian activist brought up an important point:  how did my post help the struggle?  He was concerned that my post was simply criticizing everything that was going on in the West Bank villages' struggle and that such criticism publicly only hurts "the cause". 

So first, let's look at what I said, and what I DIDN'T say.  I said that Israeli activists needed to have a better analysis of power relations when it comes to their interactions with Palestinians.  I said that Israeli activists are not needed for a Palestinian popular resistance.  I also said that they SHOULD be involved in protest.  I said that the Bil'in MODEL (which is a term used to describe the type of protests that originated in Bil'in in 2005 and has been adopted by all the villages that are commonly considered part of the "popular struggle" in the West Bank to this day) is not the only model, and not everyone thinks it's a good one.  Finally, I said that what is currently being called "popular resistance" is not actually popular.

 

Popular Resistance?

What currently exists in the West Bank is a series of villages who are all directly affected by either the Wall or Settlements who engage in weekly protests.  The protests are highly symbolic.  Bil'in popularized the idea of "themed" demonstrations, where costumes, props, and specific messages were used to garner media attention.  Though the themed demos have for the most part died down, the focus and implied messages have spread to demonstrations which have sprouted up off and on in various villages, mostly in the Ramallah and Nablus districts, since 2005The message that has been taken up is one of a "joint struggle" or "joint resistance".  It is heavily reliant on media attention, international solidarity action and support, and for the joint part, Israeli activist participation. These demonstrations have been highly successful in a number of ways.  First, they have managed to get the image of unarmed demonstration into the mainstream media around the world.  The connections built during these joint demonstrations have been used in other campaigns, particularly international campaigns for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions.  The presence of Israeli activists has become part and parcel of this strategy.  It was further entrenched with the creation of the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee, an organization begun by leaders in Bil'in which seeks to represent and coordinate the messaging and support for the village resistance internationally.  Beyond the obvious issues with a committee designating itself the coordinators of the struggle (with no democratically elected body, for example), my issue with the body is that it has defined popular struggle in Palestine in this specific way (weekly, symbolic demonstrations focusing on media, international attention and support, and Israeli joint activity).  The problem is, there's a whole sector of the Palestinian society, the vast majority of it, that haven't bought in to this version of "the struggle".

So what?  Of course, there's room for all kinds of strategies.  As I hope I made clear above, this model of struggle, what I like to call The Bil'in Model, has been very useful in a variety of ways: it has gotten the New York Times, for example, to cover unarmed protests.  For many Israelis, it has broken the invisible barrier of the Green Line, allowing more people to see the realities of certain parts of the Israeli Occupation.  But this model has also had some huge downsides.  And when a group of Palestinian women activists expressed frustration with the current state of affairs, I felt the need to address it.

The Evolution of Israeli Activists

A focus of my previous post (and, in fact, many of my previous posts) was about Israeli activists.  Again, I think a little background might help in explaining my points.   I first went to demonstrations in the West Bank in 2003.  The same year (actually, 1 week before I arrived) the presence of Israeli activists in demonstrations became internationally known when an Israeli was shot in both legs by soldiers at a demonstration in Mas'ha, Salfit district.  That group of demonstrators, little more than half a dozen, was the beginning of the Anarchists Against the Wall, a group of Israeli activists that had begun to join demonstrations and direct actions confronting the construction of the Annexation Barrier.  They weren't the first Israeli activists to participate in actions in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, but they did have a very clear analysis of their role as allies from the oppressing population.  They were active in Budrus, Biddu, Beit Liqya, Saffa, and other villages throughout the 2nd half of the Second Intifada.  Very few of these activists are still active today in Palestine.  Those that are, continue to demonstrate an amazing capacity to support and serve the Palestinian cause.  Some, through years of developing relationships, are considered friends by their Palestinian counterparts. These Israelis who wanted to work with Palestinians approached it with caution and humility.  With hundreds of Palestinians being killed each year, and daily demonstrations that were often deadly, the Israeli activists in 2003-2005, led by activists who had worked as solidarity activists in other capacities in other countries, understood the dynamics of power involved in what they were doing.   But there's a new generation of Israeli activists.  Many of the Israelis currently coming to West Bank protests did not experience the ground-breaking work that the activists during the Second Intifada had to do.  They came in 2005, to Bil'in, where the demostration leaders, who spoke Hebrew and had worked in Israel, embraced them and coined the phrase "joint struggle".  There was an important paradigm shift.  Rather than Israeli activists seeing themselves as allies (using the framework of white allies in People of Color movements in the U.S., or straight allies of LGBTQ activists), the new Israeli activists saw themselves as part of the struggle.  It's 'them and the Palestinians against the Israeli state'.  The problem, of course, is that this invisibilizes the privilege these activists carry with them.  While they all pay lip--service to the fact that in an Apartheid state they have access to privilege, they seem to think that that goes away when they are at a demo in Palestine.  Or, more specifically, that those privileges have nothing to do with any interaction they have with Palestinians outside of the state's treatment of them. 

Perhaps most importantly, Israelis seem to have forgotten that most Palestinians would rather not work with them at all, or only under the most specific criteria.  Again, because the villages' struggle has become the popular struggle, the participation of Israelis is rarely questioned.  Even worse, when Israelis are not welcome (or even not welcome on the same terms as they are in other villages) there is a sense of disdain on the part of those Israeli activists, rather than acceptance.

From Martin Luther King to Malcolm X

It is an imperfect analogy, but part of the shift that the Palestinian women I addressed in my original statement have alluded to is one from a politik of collaboration to one of "Palestinian Power".  Though they have not taken up the mantra of armed self-defense that the Black Power movement of the U.S. in the 1960's had, there is a critique of the current state of Palestinian organizing that seeks to seperate itself from its reliance on International funding and support and Israeli activistsBy the late 1960's, Blacks in the American south were telling their white allies to go home and work in their own communities.  In Palestine, young activists have said a number of times that they reject the term "joint struggle" not because they are unwilling to have Israelis participate in the fight for Palestinian liberation, but because of the form which that participation has taken.

 

The struggle in Palestine is a long way from the mass protests, strikes, and collective action of the 1st Intifada or the first anti-wall protests.  It seems to have evolved, for the moment, into a struggle to counteract Israel's powerful PR machines and to present another "face" of Palestine.  What it has gained in international support, however, has been accompanied by the desertion of the Palestinian streets.  Pretending that an international PR campaign accompanied by small scale acts of symbolic defiance is a replacement for mass grassroots mobilization is a mistake.  It frustrates those who recognize the disparity between what is presented to the outside world and the reality of resistance on the ground and, I would argue, it diverts precious time and energy.  Communities facing immediate displacement, land theft, imprisonment and injury are forced to spend more time courting international and Israeli funds than inspiring a mass movement. 

The international campaign is vital, and it's working.  It is a critical place for Israeli and international activists to leverage their privilege and add another layer of pressure on Israel.  Nothing in my previous post takes away from that.  But Palestinians need to be allowed to shape their own grassroots movement, without a framework dictated by money and influence that until now has led most Palestinians to stay home. 

Imagine, one year from now, mass protests in the Palestinian streets.  Civil disobedience, general strikes, mass non-compliance and unarmed protests.  The residents of Nablus and Jenin, refugees and villagers, amassing at checkpoints and burning Israeli-issued pass IDs.  Israelis and internationals providing money for one giant legal fund, donating cameras, providing website support for the Palestinian bloggers, writing to their local newspapers, and, of course, continuing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign.  Specific palestinians events joined by Israeli and international supporters, who provide a strategic element to the demonstration (de-arresting, diversion, documentation).  Demonstrations inside Israel to coincide with demos in the Palestinian communities.  Emergent coordination that comes organically from a desire to actually coordinate, not control.  No role for the Palestinian Authority, who can be left to manage their bantustans.  That would be a popular struggle.  It would be something, wouldn't it?

 

 

 

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http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/707236/at_the_beach.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4woSrdVmduW5 Bekah Wolf rafeefsworld Bekah Wolf
Mon, 18 Jun 2012 14:33:00 -0700 Message of Solidarity to the Lady Badasses http://rafeefsworld.posterous.com/message-of-solidarity-to-the-lady-badasses http://rafeefsworld.posterous.com/message-of-solidarity-to-the-lady-badasses

It has been exactly 1 year since I last wrote on this blog.  Frankly, I just couldn't excuse yet another American Jew writing about their "experiences" in Palestine.  But then, I became more and more familiar with a whole new (to me) group of writer/activists:  the young, fabulous Palestinian women who have been tearing up twitter, blogs, Nabi Saleh and Ramallah streets, making many of the same arguments that I was intending to make here. I became inspired.  I decided I would write, mostly just as a shout out into the world:  you women are right, 100%, and it's sooo obvious you're right, even an American girl who lived in Palestine for more than a few months could figure it out.  Now, I have no intention of putting words in anyone's mouth, not to mention the fact that no two of you amazing women think exactly the same way about everything, but I had a couple of things I just wanted to say:

 

1) No, Israeli activists should not feel entitled to being treated as equals by you.  Trust, comraderie comes with sacrifice, and an analysis of power.  I don't give a fuck how many demonstrations they've been to; until they live under military occupation or apartheid, they have no fucking idea what resistance is about.  And yes, that means they should defer to you, and not be arrogant asses.  Concretely, that means they should follow your lead in any relationship: if you want to invite them for coffee, or to work on a project, right on, but they shouldn't be inviting themselves along.  And dear God, if they start talking about their arrests/injuries/treatment by Israeli forces, tell them to live in constant fear of having their house raided in the middle of the night and incarceration for years without charge, and then come talk to you (or me).

 

2) Yes, your voices are way more important than international or Israeli voices on this subject. I'm highly skeptical of any project that is aimed at "making your voices heard" unless they're designed by you.  Your voices are out there, folks need to shut up and start forwarding.

3) No, the "Bil'in model" of "popular resistance" is not the only one, and no, not everyone thinks it's a good one (the idea that "popular" is defined as "a few people in a few villages, funded and supported by the PA" seems suspicious to me, too).

4) No, you don't need internationals, and certainly not Israelis.  In fact, I would argue in some ways we do more harm than good (especially if all we're going to do is be a temporary presence, without speaking Arabic or providing structural support, and smelling bad). And no, I don't think you need to be polite and generous to internationals, just because they "came all that way" or are "also getting hurt".  We do so because our governments support the soldiers and the guns.  We should take the heat for a while, be a distraction for the soldiers or something.

5) There are internationals who will support you even if you don't use the term "non-violent". 

6) Good solidarity activists will support you in what you need while not just blindly following any Palestinian initiative.  They will keep the proper balance between being supporter, comrade, and friend, depending on what you want, & will be wise enough to know when they don't know what the hell they're talking about.  They will also take responsibility for making shit happen.  Only shitty solidarity activists sit around waiting for direct orders from Palestinians (and bitch about being bored when they don't have any).  Good allies get what's needed from what you say, give suggestions for how to get it done, and then do it!

6) If any of you have really curly hair, please get in contact with me:  Rafeef is in need of a godmother. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/707236/at_the_beach.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4woSrdVmduW5 Bekah Wolf rafeefsworld Bekah Wolf
Tue, 12 Jul 2011 02:19:18 -0700 Allow Me to Be One of the First http://rafeefsworld.posterous.com/allow-me-to-be-one-of-the-first http://rafeefsworld.posterous.com/allow-me-to-be-one-of-the-first My name is Rebekah Wolf Gomez.  I became an Israeli citizen in 2007 as the only way to ensure I would be able to stay with my husband, a Palestinian from the West Bank, and not fear deportation from the Israeli government, which they did do to me in 2005. 

I unequivocally, unabashedly, and with total pride call on everyone across the world to Boycott Israel, in particular, everything called for for boycott by PACBI.  I fully support the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions and in all of my public speaking outside of Israel I call for support for BDS and will continue to do so.

I am making this statement because the Israeli government recently made it illegal to do so.  There is much discussion about whether or not people should sign statements against it with their own names. People are referring to the "decline" in Israeli democracy.  Many want to know the risk involved.

My husband, the people of his village, and indeed in all of Palestine, have not had the luxury of deciding how "risky" an act of defiance against Israeli occupation and apartheid will be.  So long as Palestinians risk imprisonment, injury, and death for the sake of freedom, I won't cower in the face of much less risk.  I think every other Israeli citizen should do the same.  Worry about having your bank accounts frozen is no excuse at all.

Israel: come and get me.  Tariq Al Ayn, Beit Ommar.  The military's knows the way.

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http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/707236/at_the_beach.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4woSrdVmduW5 Bekah Wolf rafeefsworld Bekah Wolf
Sun, 13 Feb 2011 07:45:36 -0800 Speaking in Santa Fe Just After Yousef's Death http://rafeefsworld.posterous.com/speaking-in-santa-fe-just-after-yousefs-death http://rafeefsworld.posterous.com/speaking-in-santa-fe-just-after-yousefs-death

A video of a talk I did in Santa Fe, NM on January 30, 2011

 

 

Bekah Wolf - Santa Fe, NM 01/30/2011 Part 1 of 2 from Another Jewish Voice Santa Fe on Vimeo.

Part 2

Bekah Wolf - Santa Fe, NM 01/30/2011 Part 2 of 2 Q&A from Another Jewish Voice Santa Fe on Vimeo.

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http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/707236/at_the_beach.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4woSrdVmduW5 Bekah Wolf rafeefsworld Bekah Wolf
Sun, 06 Feb 2011 09:36:16 -0800 When My Partner Went to Jail http://rafeefsworld.posterous.com/when-my-partner-went-to-jail http://rafeefsworld.posterous.com/when-my-partner-went-to-jail A lot has been written recently about my good friend Jonathan Pollak's recent incarceration in Israel for his participation in demonstrations. Understandably, there was international outrage at his sentence—3 months for non-violent assembly. It made me reflect, however, on a totally different incarceration in my life, one that can only further illustrate the extent of Israel's apartheid. Jonathan's partner, activist Eilat Maoz, wrote a piece about walking Jonathan to prison, and the glimpse it gave her of the life of the families of other political prisoners. I also got a feel for that life, with one critical difference: my partner is Palestinian.


In December, 2007, I said goodbye to my then fiance (now husband), and left Palestine for a trip home to the United States. I hugged him goodbye in the streets of Jerusalem, where he had entered illegally to see me off. It was the last hug I gave him for a year and a half. I, too, was in a relationship with an activist, a man committed to justice and liberation. He just happened to be Palestinian.


I did not get to say goodbye to Mousa when he was imprisoned on April 11, 2008. I didn't know he would be going to jail. He was held for 9 days without charge, before his lawyer (the same lawyer who represented Jonathan) was informed that he was going to be held in administrative detention. This meant that he would be imprisoned immediately and indefinitely. His court hearings were held in secret; none of his family (not even me, who holds Israeli ID) was allowed to attend. While Jonathan's trial and sentencing were a farce of a civilian “democratic” legal system, Mousa's was not even that. Hearings were held in secret at the prison in the middle of the Negev desert, evidence was presented without his lawyer being present. We spent months guessing what the Shabak might be accusing him of; we still don't know for sure.


The only physical contact I had with Mousa was a handshake we sneaked at the end of his Supreme Court hearing in May, 2008, the only time he entered a civilian court, and the only hearing his supporters, and myself, were able to attend (his family, of course, were not even allowed to this, since it was held in Jerusalem).


In September, 2008, after just over 5 months in detention, Mousa's detention was extended for another 5 months. When it became clear that he may spend years in jail, that there was no way to know when we'd be able to continue our lives together, we decided to marry so that I would be allowed to visit him. None of his siblings were given permits to travel into Israel by Red Cross buses, to visit him. His elderly father did receive clearance, and visited him for the first time after Mousa was in jail for three months (common for “security” detainees, who are not allowed contact with visitors or, oftentimes, lawyers, for the first three months of “investigation”). Mousa signed a power of attorney with the International Red Cross and empowered a member of his family to stand in for him in signing our marriage contract; we could not meet even for that.


I visited Mousa for the first (and what ended up being the only) time in December, 2008, a year after I said goodbye to him. As an Israeli ID-holder, I was afforded a few privileges my father-in-law was not. I got to choose where to board the Red Cross bus that takes families from all over the West Bank to visit the families of the nearly 3000 prisoners at Al-Naqab (Ketziot) prison. I chose the bus from Jerusalem, which left at 6am, rather than the one from Hebron, closer to my home and to the prison but leaving at 4:30am because of the time it took to get through the checkpoints. I couldn't just drive up to the prison to visit. Palestinian prisoners are treated by the International Red Cross the same way prisoners of war are in many ways and visits are coordinated with the military prisons through them.


On the three hour trip down the coast and along Gaza (this was during “Operation Cast Lead” and the dozens of women on the bus looked anxiously at the horizon over Gaza, watching the jets and helicopters flying over), I made quick friends with two women who gave me a crash course on the process of the visit. The entire experience would take 10 hours (plus my 2 hour trip back and forth from our town in Hebron District) for a 45 minute visit. You had to pay close attention to the guards, who call out the names of the prisoners when it is their turn for a visit. I had not brought lunch, and the women, whose husbands, though from Jerusalem, were being held in Israeli military prison, gladly shared food with me.


As we entered the yard outside the visiting hall, I soon realized why this was an all-day affair. Visits were coordinated for several districts on the same day. Over 600 women and children (only a handful of men are given permits for these visits) filled a cement courtyard. I spent most of the next two hours pacing around the fenced-in area, trying to keep an ear out for my husband's name.

My group was finally called and we went into an indoor holding area where we were strip-searched and led into another waiting area. One man asked me if he was allowed to wash his hands. I pointed him to the sinks, confusedly thinking that he didn't know where he could wash up. When Mousa's name was called and I walked through the maze to the visiting room, chuckles rose through the room. An older woman explained they had thought I was a guard, insisting, when I asked, that it was because of my navy-blue jacket, and not because of my light complexion. I sat across a window from Mousa for exactly 41 minutes. We talked about nothing through phones attached to the wall that made it sound like he was a million miles away. I scanned his face for evidence of the event even more horrific than his sudden incarceration—when he narrowly missed being shot in the head by an Israeli soldier in January, 2008 but was hit with shrapnel which cut his eye and head.

The visit was over too soon, and I lined up with the other women to gather our packages (another strange Palestinian tradition, since heads of households are so often in jail, they are allowed to buy gifts from the canteen and have them given to their visitors. Mousa bought me a big jug of my favorite cola and chocolate bars).


For the next 6 months I was prevented from visiting Mousa. His father visited once, and multiple visitors were not allowed, and on three other occasions the military decided he needed to be moved to court dates (sometimes days ahead of time) or other prisons on the days of visits.


The worst thing about administrative detention, even worse than the secret hearings and the security excuses for preventing visits, is the uncertainty of it all. As the day of his current term of imprisonment would approach, his entire family and I would wait, virtually holding our breath, to see if his attorney would be informed of the Shabak's intention to extend his detention. For Mousa, it was even worse, as the guards would not tell him even when a decision was made. In early January, 2009, we received a phone call from another man in the village who's relative was also in An-Naqab. Mousa had managed to pass on the message that he was being released. In total disbelief, I called his lawyer, who assured me that Mousa was not being released. But other prisoners had heard the guards telling him he was free, and watched him walk out with a bag of his belongings. His family slowly gathered at the house. Kids were scrubbed, food was prepared, and even though I thought the lawyer would know, I too put on a clean shirt and waited.


At around midnight, when it was clear that Mousa was not coming home that day, I received a call. On a smuggled phone Mousa told us that the guards had in fact told him he was being released, and went so far as to escort him to the gate of the prison, before essentially saying, “just kidding.” This final torture, giving him hope and then tearing it away, temporarily broke him. He agreed to be exiled-to stay out of Palestine for 3 years in exchange for his freedom. Again, hope was dangled in front of him—the prosecution agreed to the deportation, and he was taken to the bridge to Jordan. His father and I raced to meet him, I began making plans for a life in Jordan, or Dubai. After hours of waiting at the bridge terminal, he was put on the bus over to the Jordanians, and was able to sit with his father as they crossed (Israel would not allow me to cross over the same bridge, so I had to travel two hours north to the bridge to Jordan from the Galilee, where Israelis were allowed to cross). Minutes before I crossed into Jordan (I had already paid the tax for crossing, in fact) I received a phone call. Mousa told me to wait, he was not being allowed into Jordan. Jordanian officials said the Israeli government hadn't coordinated the deportation with them, and he would not be allowed in. Once again, I thought I was hours away from seeing him again, only to be heartbroken.

I cannot imagine the ride back over the bridge, Mousa having to get off the bus and return to the prison guards. I know his father returned home broken. When Mousa and I spoke again he told me the shabak at the bridge terminal was very interested to know about this strange American girl with Israeli ID who had come all that way to see him. When told that I was his wife, they laughed, telling him no international girl would ever wait for him, and he should give up on ever having a life with me.

His family and I returned to waiting. In February, 2009, when the Shabak requested and received a third extension of his detention, another lawyer was able to get the court to reduce the time from 6 months to 4 months, and a commitment that it would not be renewed. Even with a court order indicating his day of release, we were not convinced. On June 14, 2009, the family once again began to gather at our house. We studiously discussed anything other than Mousa. Just after 5pm, I received a phone call.

“I'm free”. He said.


3 hours later he was home. He had been in jail for 14 months and 3 days. I hadn't seen him free in over one and a half years.


When I read Eilat's piece on Jonathan's incarceration, I thought it would be a good idea to present the experience of the spouse of a Palestinian prisoner. I asked friends of mine in Beit Ommar why no one wrote an article for the newspaper about the experience of Palestinian wives of prisoners, and if they'd like me to help them write one in English. Everyone of them laughed. “Ya Bekah”, they said, “who would read it? It's not news, it's life.” The wife of a Popular Committee member in Beit Ommar asked me if I'd like to write something about how to cook chicken “the Palestinian way”; it would be more news-worthy.


My experience was entirely average for Palestinian women. It is estimated that over 90% of the Palestinian adult male population has been in prison, often several times (this was Mousa's 3rd imprisonment). Palestinian women carry their households and maintain hope in the face of unbelievable odds. Even for the majority of Palestinians who are sentenced to fixed periods of time, their release is not a given (as is the case with two activists from Bil'in, who were detained after their release dates and had their detentions extended). Life in Occupied Palestine is marked by uncertainty. An entire society lives in limbo, never knowing when a family will be torn apart, and when it will be reunited.


There has been quite a bit of Israeli and international media attention around the imprisonment of Jonathan Pollak, as well as other signs of increased repression of left-wing Jews inside Israel. 10,000 people, some wearing stickers of Jonathan, marched in Tel Aviv against the Israeli Knesset's plan to investigate Israeli human rights and other progressive organizations last month. Yossi Sarid, a former Israeli cabinet member and now journalist with Haaretz, wrote about a recent visit to Jonathan while in prison, lauding Jonathan's commitment to justice and activism. The attention is well-deserved: Jonathan has been one of the most hard-working, dedicated activists I have ever known. And yet I can't help but feel a little frustrated with all the attention his case has received. Israel didn't 'finally' cross a line when it started oppressing Jews. Jonathan's case should be used as a plum line, to measure just how racist, how undemocratic Israel really is. He is the worst there is of the unarmed variety of Israeli political activists (a designation he should be proud of), and he is getting a third of his sentence reduced for “good behavior”. No one should be held in prison, least of all for fighting the injustice of a state, but let's not forget the greater outrage: how Israel treats the 4.5 million non-citizens, and 1 million more second-class citizens, under its control.


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http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/707236/at_the_beach.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4woSrdVmduW5 Bekah Wolf rafeefsworld Bekah Wolf
Fri, 28 Jan 2011 11:28:00 -0800 Yousef is Gone http://rafeefsworld.posterous.com/yousef-is-gone http://rafeefsworld.posterous.com/yousef-is-gone

Youssef

 

Yousef was the quiet one. As I look through photographs of the past few months' demonstrations in Beit Ommar, I can find only one with Yousef, though he was always there. He was the older brother who was always tagging along while his cousin Ahmed, and brother Mohammed were marching at the front of the demonstrations. The three of them were fixtures at our events, whether it was summer camp, English class, or marches against settlement expansion. Yousef was the goofy one, with the adolescent mustache and too-big feet. He usually hung in the back, but he was always there.

 

Palestine Solidarity Project has been discussing how to commemorate the last death of a teen in Beit Ommar. Mehdi Abu Ayyesh, who was shot by Israeli soldiers on March 4, 2009 and died, having never regained brain activity, in October of 2009, got very little attention, his shooting overshadowed by the critical injury of an American activist in the West Bank a week later. So we've been discussing how to best honor this teen, 2 years later, and how we could connect it to all the other killings throughout the Palestinian Territories these past few years. I do not want to add Yousef to the list.

 

This morning, at around 9 am, 100 Israeli settlers (“my people”, so Israel would have me believe), carrying semi-automatic guns, broke into two groups and invaded Saffa (a “suburb” of Beit Ommar). Yousef was with his family among their grapevines when the settlers approached and began shooting. Yousef was shot in the head. He is clinically dead, though his parents cannot bear to remove his heart machine. The settlers remained in the area for nearly two hours, shooting another young man in the hand, as Palestinians from Sourif and Beit Ommar, carrying sticks, tried to protect their houses and their sons. Two hours, before the Israeli military, who can show up in the area in 5 minutes when we are planting trees, came and led the settlers back to Bat 'Ayn. No arrests were made. Settlers said they were shot at, and I can do nothing but shake my head at the absurdity of that statement. Israeli media reported “clashes” without questioning what the settlers were doing in a Palestinian town to begin with. All of this involved settlers from Bat 'Ayn, a settlement Mahmoud Abbas thinks should be allowed to stay.

 

I've been working in Palestine for almost 8 years. I have been to the funerals of 8 youth killed by Israeli forces and have mourned the loss of many more. Yousef is the first kid who had been in my home. The first one who I had sat with and worked with and joked with and ate with.

 

Of course, every young person killed in Palestine has friends and a family. The fact that I knew him is totally unimportant to the world at large, or the bigger political picture. But the fact remains: I look at his picture and he is familiar. I remember how he walked, how he sat, how he smiled. Yousef, ya ibni, you will be missed.

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http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/707236/at_the_beach.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4woSrdVmduW5 Bekah Wolf rafeefsworld Bekah Wolf
Sun, 19 Sep 2010 06:41:03 -0700 Duty-Bound http://rafeefsworld.posterous.com/duty-bound http://rafeefsworld.posterous.com/duty-bound I am much better suited as a social critic.  In my last post, I tried to include a more positive slant (after my usual rant about the ridiculous attitude of most Israeli activists, who are riding on the shoulders of the work done by committed activists who earned the trust of Palestinians over a long period of thankless grunt work spanning years).  I wrote about another initiative of Israeli women who were committing civil disobedience by driving Palestinian women and children into '48 without permits, to see the sea.  I argued, and still believe, that such an action, where Israelis are taking substantial legal risk, is an important step for these anti-occupation activists.  Often so-called solidarity activists are interested in the fight for the oppressed, up to a point.  That point seems too often to be where participation in the struggle comes at some personal cost.  It is refreshing, then, to see Israelis willing to take some serious risk to confront occupation.

I unfortunately got a little too optimistic, believing that somehow because they were willing to risk some personal freedom (in the unlikely event that they get arrested) for what they believed, that they would also naturally have better solidarity politics altogether.  And so here's a new caveat to my original caveat of my critique of Israeli activists (for those of you who continue to read after that sentence, I thank you.)

See, it's not enough to take a risk.  It's not enough for an Israeli to say, "I, too, will go to jail for Palestinian freedom".  It's a good step, a significant step, but there is a second part to the sentence, that only a spare few seem to have really integrated into their consciousness': "I, too, will go to jail for Palestinian freedom, because it is my duty to do everything I can to prevent the continued oppression of an entire people in my name."

I'm a big fan of the concept of duty.  Many leftists, especially so-called anarchists and all new-agey people, seem to be afraid of the idea.  Certainly, they think it is contradictory to the concept of "liberation", as if somehow freedom is synonymous with "no responsibilities".  It's an annoying trait of leftist activists, which I could write about for ages, but I digress.  My point is, too many solidarity activists, and nearly all Israeli activists, including almost all of the women involved in the smuggling trips, seem to think that they're doing the Palestinians a favor; one that should be rewarded (the phrase, "what do you want,a fucking medal?" has run through my head a thousand times the past month.).  This is certainly not helped by the fact that Israelis and other Palestine solidarity activists seem so damn eager to applaud the great sacrifices they themselves, and others of their groups make.  It's almost as if they're saying, "see what we've done?  Don't demand more of us, and don't expect more, we've done what we can, and we should be applauded for it".

So here's what I'd like to say to all the folks out there who are interested in Palestinian liberation:
 The truth is, without living here, day in and day out, one cannot possibly know the horror, the grinding, unending, unbearable pain of occupation.  You cannot begin to understand what it means to raise a child under the constant gloom of not being able to control their environment, their personal safety even inside their own homes (I am only beginning to understand, as I prepare for the likelihood of my daughter's father going to jail again).

What Israel has done to you/could do to you/will do to you is nothing, nothing compared to what it does to Palestinians living under its shadow every day.  And yes, we solidarity activists, Israelis and internationals, are needed, and desired here.  But it is also our duty, our responsibility, as relatively free people who have declared ourselves solidarity activists, to risk some comfort, some safety, some personal freedom for the freedom of others.  We do it because we're supposed to, and we should do it whether anyone else knows we do it, or not.

In the words of my dear, famous friend Nora Barrows-Friedman (hell yeah I just dropped that name): it's not about you.

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http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/707236/at_the_beach.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4woSrdVmduW5 Bekah Wolf rafeefsworld Bekah Wolf
Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:45:00 -0700 Israelis Taking Risks http://rafeefsworld.posterous.com/israelis-taking-risks http://rafeefsworld.posterous.com/israelis-taking-risks A couple of weeks ago an Israeli activist chastised a Palestinian activist on a public listserv (run by
Israeli Anarchists Against the Wall) for not giving enough credit to the Israeli activists who had been arrested at a weekly demonstration. The Palestinian, a noted academic, activist and professor had, erroneously, written that the Israeli activists who were arrested blocking the Israeli military bulldozers had been released without processing whereas the Palestinians had been taken to court. The exchange, while only one instance, was indicative of a common thread amongst many Israeli activists. The Israeli wrote,

“I was with the arrestees - we were all (Palestinian and Israelis TOGETHER) We were all charged, all judged, all sat together from morning to evening in police stations. The only difference is that the 5 out of 15 arrestees (all Israeli) got more severe punishment because we had files for previous arrests.  we got 180 days not to get close to the wall in [the village].”

While other Israeli activists may not have had the gall to write such a ridiculous statement (one would presume they realize that the “more severe punishment” faced is the theft of land and livelihood and imprisonment behind a fence built by an occupying army), the underlying premise—that Israeli anti-occupation activists are somehow equal partners in a “joint struggle”-- is quite popular across the Israeli anti-occupation movement. While the idea of a “joint struggle” has very little support amongst Palestinians, it is an attractive proposition for radical Israelis who are enticed by the idea of being identified with the occupied, rather than the occupier. Even those radical Israeli activists who would reject any idea of an equal partnership, on the principle that such partnership is impossible while Israelis enjoy freedoms of the occupier class while Palestinians do not, cannot avoid seeking credit for the risks they do take to confront their government's policies, which almost always amount to nothing more than a night in jail.

The goals of these committed activists are genuine. They believe that they cannot only oppose the
policies of their government by writing letters or standing on the street corners in Tel Aviv, but
must also support the Palestinian struggle physically, by joining their demonstrations and exploiting the racist policies of the Israeli military who will treat a demonstration where Israelis are present differently than one where they are not. Israeli activists have been injured, arrested, and in some cases jailed for their support of the Palestinian liberation struggle and many of them have dedicated enormous amounts of time and energy to the cause. Many would argue, however, that it is the least they can do.

The undeniable facts remain: Israeli activists are not subject to occupation. They return to their homes after a demonstration, fairly safe in assuming that their houses will not be raided by armed men, their families will not be arrested and held as collateral until they turn themselves in, they will not face years in jail for participating in these demonstrations. No Israeli has been killed in a demonstration, though they have been participating by the hundreds since at least 2003. Serious injury to an Israeli is extremely rare, even more rare than for their international counterparts, and nowhere near as common as an average Palestinian activist. The fact that the majority of Israeli activists, even those working with the Anarchists Against the Wall, served in the Israeli military, makes them all the more culpable. The stakes, too, are incomparable. Though some liberal Israeli activists wax philosophical, proclaiming the fight against the occupation is a fight for “Israel's soul”, the “punishment” suffered by Israelis for the occupation is nothing compared to the suffering of the people whose lives and land are occupied.

Yet another very different sort of action was also organized a few weeks ago by Israelis and
Palestinians, and it may serve as a new model for Israeli anti-occupation activists. Last month, a group of middle-aged Jewish Israeli women decided to try to find a group of Palestinian women who would want to be smuggled across the Green Line. For the Israelis, their aim was to challenge a law that prevents Palestinians from traveling freely throughout historic Palestine while Israelis are allowed to do so. They wanted to open a debate inside Israeli society about the logic of the checkpoints, and Israelis' “blind obedience” to immoral laws. The Palestinian women contacted readily agreed, supporting the political aims and thrilled at the opportunity to see the sea. After the trip, the Israeli women proclaimed their action in a national newspaper, signing their names to a document they titled “we will not obey”.  What made this action unique was that for the first time, an action was organized where the Israeli participants risked more, had more to lose, than the Palestinians. While a Palestinian woman caught inside Israel could face jail time, it is relatively unlikely. Often, when Palestinian men are caught working inside Israel without a permit (as thousands do) they are fined and brought back into the West Bank. Even when they are given jail time, it is only a few months, and women are very rarely jailed for such activity. In comparison, imprisonment for people accused of smuggling people illegally into Israel is common, and can be for a year or more. These Israeli women took every precaution to protect the Palestinian women involved while simultaneously publicly announcing their “crime”.

Surprisingly, hundreds of Israelis, most of whom also come from mainstream Israeli society, have
signed up to participate in similar actions. Word of the trips spread quickly throughout the Palestinian communities where the women live and dozens have already volunteered for future journeys. What was particularly refreshing about this action was that all of the responsibility, and much of the risk, fell to the Israelis. Rather than relying on the Palestinians to organize the protest, to accept total responsibility for its success or failure, the Israeli women first asked the Palestinians what they wanted to do, and then organized it. The Palestinians just had to show up for a day at the beach. And while there were of course a few moments of anxiety as the women passed through the checkpoints, and the Palestinians knew full well that safety from arrest was not guaranteed, they also knew that the Israeli women were willing to do everything in their power to accept the risk and responsibility themselves.  In their statement, the Israeli women did not focus on their possible punishment, but on their duty as citizens of an occupying country to defy the “illegal and immoral” laws of their government. Quoting Henry David Thoreau, they wrote,

“when a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the
refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrun and
conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not
too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the
more urgent is the fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is
the invading army.”

In emphasizing the duty of Israeli citizens to rebel against their occupying nation, no matter the risks, these women demonstrated true solidarity. They did not seek praise or gratitude, describing themselves as ordinary citizens engaging in a simple act of defiance that can and should be replicated. WhenIsraelis begin to truly risk their personal comforts and freedom in the struggle for the freedom of Palestinians, then perhaps they will earn the privilege of considering it a joint struggle. Meanwhile, for a short time, the responsibility for resisting the occupation lay squarely on the shoulders of Israelis, who did so while at the same time providing a few Palestinians with something they greatly desired and deserved—a small taste of freedom.

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Mon, 23 Aug 2010 13:44:30 -0700 A Note About Blogging from Palestine http://rafeefsworld.posterous.com/a-note-about-blogging-from-palestine http://rafeefsworld.posterous.com/a-note-about-blogging-from-palestine I have resisted blogging for, well, since the invention of the blog, because while those who have been in my company know I have no problem giving my opinions about anything and everything in person, it always seemed a bit presumptuous that people would ever take the time to read what I had to say. 

But a few days ago I looked around and thought to myself, damn, I have one hell of a weird life, and figured people might be interested (or horrified, or amused) to hear about it.  So, I started this blog, and shamelessly used my daughter's name, which is a) cool, and b) somehow less self-aggrandizing (at least in my mind).

And so here I sit, in my well-appointed bedroom full of matching furniture (stylish, not garish like some of the stuff you see around here) listening to the far-off rat-a-tat-tat shooting of the Israeli military at their firing range over in the Etzion settlement, just a couple of miles from here.  Mousa (my husband) is watching some dramatic Arab soap-opera (very common during Ramadan) and Rafeef is sleeping comfortably.  Tonight, just like every other night before I go to sleep, I will check that the doors are locked and barred, and note where my shoes are, and check that the camera is easy to grab, and leave the bathroom light on, and make sure my phone is in reach, all  just in case this is the night that the Israeli military breaks down my door, invades my home, and takes Mousa away from me, again.

Life in Palestine

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http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/707236/at_the_beach.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4woSrdVmduW5 Bekah Wolf rafeefsworld Bekah Wolf