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In Palestine, to Exist Is to Resist
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Dan Clore
Feb 5, 2012, 8:24:54 AM2/5/12
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News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/12582/in_palestine_to_exist_is_to_resist
January 24, 2012
In Palestine, to Exist Is to Resist
Behind the headlines, Palestinians are using nonviolent direct action to
protest the status quo.
BY Melinda Tuhus
Few readers of mainstream media are aware of Palestinians' longstanding
creative efforts to use non-violent direct action in their struggle for
self-determination.
WEST BANK, PALESTINE – On November 15, Mazin Qumsiyeh and other
Palestinian activists boarded public bus number 148, an Israelis-only
bus that normally takes Jews from the Israeli West Bank settlement of
Ariel to Jerusalem. The bus took the group to the Hizma checkpoint, just
outside the northern entrance of Jerusalem, where activists resisted
authorities’ efforts to remove them. Eventually, as a camera broadcast
the action online, eight people were pulled from the bus and arrested.
They were charged with “illegal entry to Jerusalem” and “obstructing
police business.”
Qumsiyeh hopes this recent “freedom ride” – possible because a bus
driver let them ride by mistake, he said – will spark the same kind of
response that its namesake did across the United States in the early
1960s, when interstate bus trips helped end racial segregation in the
South. Qumsiyeh, author of Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of
Hope and Empowerment, says other examples of nonviolent resistance
include protests of the separation barrier (which many Palestinians call
an “apartheid wall”) that has effectively turned 10 percent of
Palestinian land into Israeli land since its construction began in 2002;
school girls holding class in the street when they can’t get to their
schools because of Israeli interference; and farmers braving Israeli
intimidation to harvest olives. “For us to exist on this land is to
resist,” says Qumsiyeh, who teaches at Bethlehem and Birzeit universities.
Most readers of mainstream media in the United States think of the First
Intifada (1987-92) as the stone-throwing uprising and the Second
Intifada (2000-2004) as the attack of the suicide bombers. They may have
heard of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, started in 2005
by more than 170 Palestinian civil society groups. (The movement aims to
curtail benefits accruing to businesses that benefit from the
occupation.)But few are aware of Palestinians’ longstanding creative
efforts to use nonviolent direct action in their struggle for
self-determination. Those efforts, from the tax revolt in Beit Sahour
during the First Intifada to creative actions led by Palestinians like
Qumsiyeh, are often supported by both international and Israeli
activists. And they are proliferating.
Ghassan Andoni, cofounder of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM)
and a leader of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement between People,
says nonviolent direct action by Palestinians opposed to the Israeli
occupation started before the First Intifada. “Activities included
throwing military identity cards issued by the occupation as a way to
tell the occupier that we don’t recognize your authority and there is no
contract between us,” Andoni said in an interview in Bethlehem in
mid-November. “Then we stopped paying taxes and submitting monthly
reports saying, ‘No taxation without representation.’”
The First Intifada also saw the creation of autonomous communities all
over the West Bank. “We established our own economy to detach from the
occupation,” Andoni explained. Large protest marches and solidarity
campaigns were also organized with international activists and Israelis.
ISM has staged “die-ins” in front of Israeli tanks, and its members have
chained themselves to homes the Israeli government wants to demolish,
and obstructed the Israeli army from imposing a curfew. As popular
resistance among Palestinians has spread, Andoni increasingly sees ISM’s
role as supporting local nonviolent initiatives.
Bil’in, a village near Ramallah, is one such initiative. Residents of
Bil’in have mobilized against Israel’s West Bank security barrier. Since
construction of the fence began there in 2005, villagers have staged
various events. After the release of the film Avatar, with its story
line of the occupation of Pandora and the rape of its resources,
Palestinians painted themselves blue to look like Pandorans. On another
occasion, they lugged a television to the fence and cheered their
favorite teams during a World Cup tournament to show that normal life
would go on.
Bil’in activists photograph and videotape every protest. “The camera is
our gun,” says Iyad Burnat, who heads the resistance committee in the
village. In 2011 the barrier was moved a short distance away from its
initial location in Bil’in, on orders from the Israeli High Court. But
much of the village remains on the Israeli side of the fence, and
protests continue.
What is the ultimate goal of nonviolent action, beyond stopping the
security wall and ending the occupation? “One state or two states?” is
not the right question to start with, Qumsiyeh says. “The right question
to ask is, ‘What is the right thing to do that will guarantee the safety
and security and peace and humanity of everybody in the long run?’ Once
we can agree, we’ll work toward that.”
ABOUT THIS AUTHOR
Melinda Tuhus is an independent journalist with 25 years of experience
in print and radio, including In These Times, The New York Times, Free
Speech Radio News and public radio stations.
--
Dan Clore
New book: _Weird Words: A Lovecraftian Lexicon_:
http://tinyurl.com/yd3bxkw
My collected fiction: _The Unspeakable and Others_
http://tinyurl.com/3tyj9cq
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Skipper: Professor, will you tell these people who is
in charge on this island?
Professor: Why, no one.
Skipper: No one?
Thurston Howell III: No one? Good heavens, this is anarchy!
-- _Gilligan's Island_, episode #6, "President Gilligan"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/12582/in_palestine_to_exist_is_to_resist
January 24, 2012
In Palestine, to Exist Is to Resist
Behind the headlines, Palestinians are using nonviolent direct action to
protest the status quo.
BY Melinda Tuhus
Few readers of mainstream media are aware of Palestinians' longstanding
creative efforts to use non-violent direct action in their struggle for
self-determination.
WEST BANK, PALESTINE – On November 15, Mazin Qumsiyeh and other
Palestinian activists boarded public bus number 148, an Israelis-only
bus that normally takes Jews from the Israeli West Bank settlement of
Ariel to Jerusalem. The bus took the group to the Hizma checkpoint, just
outside the northern entrance of Jerusalem, where activists resisted
authorities’ efforts to remove them. Eventually, as a camera broadcast
the action online, eight people were pulled from the bus and arrested.
They were charged with “illegal entry to Jerusalem” and “obstructing
police business.”
Qumsiyeh hopes this recent “freedom ride” – possible because a bus
driver let them ride by mistake, he said – will spark the same kind of
response that its namesake did across the United States in the early
1960s, when interstate bus trips helped end racial segregation in the
South. Qumsiyeh, author of Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of
Hope and Empowerment, says other examples of nonviolent resistance
include protests of the separation barrier (which many Palestinians call
an “apartheid wall”) that has effectively turned 10 percent of
Palestinian land into Israeli land since its construction began in 2002;
school girls holding class in the street when they can’t get to their
schools because of Israeli interference; and farmers braving Israeli
intimidation to harvest olives. “For us to exist on this land is to
resist,” says Qumsiyeh, who teaches at Bethlehem and Birzeit universities.
Most readers of mainstream media in the United States think of the First
Intifada (1987-92) as the stone-throwing uprising and the Second
Intifada (2000-2004) as the attack of the suicide bombers. They may have
heard of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, started in 2005
by more than 170 Palestinian civil society groups. (The movement aims to
curtail benefits accruing to businesses that benefit from the
occupation.)But few are aware of Palestinians’ longstanding creative
efforts to use nonviolent direct action in their struggle for
self-determination. Those efforts, from the tax revolt in Beit Sahour
during the First Intifada to creative actions led by Palestinians like
Qumsiyeh, are often supported by both international and Israeli
activists. And they are proliferating.
Ghassan Andoni, cofounder of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM)
and a leader of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement between People,
says nonviolent direct action by Palestinians opposed to the Israeli
occupation started before the First Intifada. “Activities included
throwing military identity cards issued by the occupation as a way to
tell the occupier that we don’t recognize your authority and there is no
contract between us,” Andoni said in an interview in Bethlehem in
mid-November. “Then we stopped paying taxes and submitting monthly
reports saying, ‘No taxation without representation.’”
The First Intifada also saw the creation of autonomous communities all
over the West Bank. “We established our own economy to detach from the
occupation,” Andoni explained. Large protest marches and solidarity
campaigns were also organized with international activists and Israelis.
ISM has staged “die-ins” in front of Israeli tanks, and its members have
chained themselves to homes the Israeli government wants to demolish,
and obstructed the Israeli army from imposing a curfew. As popular
resistance among Palestinians has spread, Andoni increasingly sees ISM’s
role as supporting local nonviolent initiatives.
Bil’in, a village near Ramallah, is one such initiative. Residents of
Bil’in have mobilized against Israel’s West Bank security barrier. Since
construction of the fence began there in 2005, villagers have staged
various events. After the release of the film Avatar, with its story
line of the occupation of Pandora and the rape of its resources,
Palestinians painted themselves blue to look like Pandorans. On another
occasion, they lugged a television to the fence and cheered their
favorite teams during a World Cup tournament to show that normal life
would go on.
Bil’in activists photograph and videotape every protest. “The camera is
our gun,” says Iyad Burnat, who heads the resistance committee in the
village. In 2011 the barrier was moved a short distance away from its
initial location in Bil’in, on orders from the Israeli High Court. But
much of the village remains on the Israeli side of the fence, and
protests continue.
What is the ultimate goal of nonviolent action, beyond stopping the
security wall and ending the occupation? “One state or two states?” is
not the right question to start with, Qumsiyeh says. “The right question
to ask is, ‘What is the right thing to do that will guarantee the safety
and security and peace and humanity of everybody in the long run?’ Once
we can agree, we’ll work toward that.”
ABOUT THIS AUTHOR
Melinda Tuhus is an independent journalist with 25 years of experience
in print and radio, including In These Times, The New York Times, Free
Speech Radio News and public radio stations.
--
Dan Clore
New book: _Weird Words: A Lovecraftian Lexicon_:
http://tinyurl.com/yd3bxkw
My collected fiction: _The Unspeakable and Others_
http://tinyurl.com/3tyj9cq
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Skipper: Professor, will you tell these people who is
in charge on this island?
Professor: Why, no one.
Skipper: No one?
Thurston Howell III: No one? Good heavens, this is anarchy!
-- _Gilligan's Island_, episode #6, "President Gilligan"
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