We began this day with a walking tour of the old city of Yaffa with Sami, a master historian, activist and resident of Yaffa. To understand the devastation the Palestinian Yaffa residents have suffered, it is necessary to understand that history here started way before 1948. Located on a hill, in pre-1948 Palestine, Yaffa was the cultural center of Palestine consisting of fertile land and a seaport whose importance goes back to ancient times. Until the 1970's, the city's most important commodity was - you guessed it - oranges. (As Israel moved from an agricultural to an industrial state, it ceased the orange exportation and "gave" the Jaffa label to Spain. No more orange orchards exist in Yaffa.)
Beginning in the second half of the 19th century, the city began developing fast as a result of the economic success and demographic expansion. So they began building neighborhoods around the old city, to the north in what eventually became Tel Aviv and to the south, the Ajami neighborhood. At the center of the city was an Ottoman clock tower, a market, a mosque, a prison, a taxi station, in other words, a city center. The city also had a railroad line. The Palestinian population had free access to the entire Arab world. So, said Sami, his grandfather could take a taxi from Yaffa to Beirut, to Jordan, to Egypt. But in 1948, that all changed.
First, the Jewish terrorist group the Stern Gang, hiding a truck load of TNT in oranges, exploded the city center, destroying numerous shops, homes and other buildings. 26 children died in this explosion. The Stern Gang claimed that they did this because there were Palestinian terrorist groups hiding here. The story has not changed much, has it? Of the 120,000 pre-1948 Palestinian population, all but 3,900 were expelled from Yaffa. And these 3900 were penned into a ghetto surrounded by a fence, shtetl style, Ajami. And because the Arab countries were viewed as Israeli enemies, the 3900 remaining Yaffan Palestinians had no contact or knowledge of any family members that may have made it to Egypt or Syria or Saudi Arabia. Sami asked us to think about what it would have been like to go from being surrounded by extended family, neighbors and friends to being isolated and not know where family ended up. To go from having your neighborhood doctor, butcher, caterer, dressmaker, merchants to almost no one. This Sami called the second catastrophe. 1400 years of history was wiped out and Yaffa was "Judaized," as the early Zionist desired. Names of streets were changed to Hebrew names that translate to things like "Miracle to the Gentiles" and "Lover of Israel"(Sami asked us what we thought it would be like to be a Palestinian living on Menachim Begin street?). This the Palestinians call the "Nakbah," the "Catastrophe."
But there were two more catastrophes yet to come. The second was the "Present-Absence" law we discussed yesterday - where once the Palestinians were driven at gun point from their homes, the homes and property were deemed abandoned and confiscated by the state. The winter of 1948-49 was a cold one. And so the Yaffan Palestinians found themselves knocking on the doors of their own homes asking the new Jewish immigrants for blankets. Imagine, asked Sami, what this does to a person?
The third catastrophe was co-existence, the practice of bringing new Jewish immigrants not only into the Ajami ghetto but into the Palestinian homes in a strange form of communal living, sharing bathrooms, kitchens with those who may have just killed your brother, uncle, cousin in the many wars that followed.
Now, the Yaffan Palestinians are experiencing a fourth catastrophe: a housing crisis. We met with yet another activist at lunchtime who explained that of course the Ajami Palestinian residents do not own the homes in which they live, the state of Israel does. No changes, improvements or structural repairs are allowed without a state permit and hopefully by now you realize that such permits are not issued. So, al Palestinians who have "renovated," (read maintained) their homes are living illegally. Recently, the state has been coming to the population and demanding fines. Since, says the government, you renovated this house in say 1965, at the time you would have owed us 60,000 shekels, today that fine is 1,000,000. Another way to expel the Palestinian population from their own homes. The Palestinians have formed a committee to, nonviolently, fight this system, protect their homes.
Sami then introduced us to an 85 year old pharmacist who runs the same pharmacy run by his grandfather and father before him. I have videos of both Sami's story of 1948 and the devastating psychological effect on the Yaffan Palestinians and of this pharmacist (who asked me if I was going to be submitting the video to Playboy :)). He told us that most buildings were destroyed and that the Israelis did not want Arabs in Yaffa because the Arabs were savages who needed to be killed. Newspapers reported Mossad agents whose specialty was the murder of children. Rabbis announced that it was a mitzvah to kill Arabs (this is also reported by Israeli historians documenting the settlement movement).
Today, Palestinian children are forbidden to study their own history. Only the Zionist version of the history of the area is allowed. Sami himself was fired for teaching Palestinian history in a private high school. So, Sami pointed out, while the Palestinians of Yaffa were under military rule until 1966 (a form of oppression in and of itself), after 1966 it was the control of the educational system that controlled the Palestinian Yaffa population. (Now linguistics come into play here. We often here Palestinians living in Israel referred to as "Israeli Arabs." This is an incorrect term but if a Palestinian living in Israel refers to himself as a Palestinian, he is viewed as a bad citizen, not loyal or grateful to the state of Israel.)
At any rate, on the committee that controls Yaffa education sits a member of the Israeli security force, Shabak. This committee appoints all the schools' headmasters, which are, of course, political appointments. They also develop the curriculum and the textbooks. In a review of Arab textbooks used from first to fourth grades, Sami's group found 4000 mistakes in grammar and linguistics. Today, one of his projects is fighting for the Palestinians to be involved in curriculum development.
So, now you have a flavor for the history and suffering of a people. What, you are hopefully asking, is being done? Hopefully, you let in my not-so-subtle statements on the numerous nonviolent resistance in which the Palestinian community is engaged. But there are also Israeli Jews who are resisting. Let me tell you, for now, the story of two, to be continued tomorrow.
Shministim: the Shministim are a group of young people, around since the 1970's actually, who refuse to serve in the Israeli army specifically because to do so would be to become the oppressor. We met with Roz, a member of the 2008-09 Shministim. From a small village, she had never heard the word “occupation.” She describes herself as living in a bubble. When she was 15 years old, she went to a vegan, ecological summer camp where she was transformed. First, because there was the Shmnitism from 2005 there and, for the first time, she heard about refusal. You should understand that refusing is not really an option in Israel. You just always know you have to go. So by the time you are 15, you start thinking about the unit you want to be in. Her father wanted her to be in the same unit in which he served. Her feminism added to this, it was like an opportunity to be a female warrior.
Nonetheless, she began to talk to the 2005 class of refusniks where she first heard about the occupation. Although it bothered her that the refusniks were breaking the law, she understood that if Israel is violating the human rights of the Palestinians, then Israel cannot be a democracy. To keep the spirit of democracy, you must refuse to participate or the law is nothing more than an instrument of a fascist state. So, she took a tour of East Jerusalem, for the first time.
The guide she had told her that she was on a road only for Jews. This was new information for her. Again, how is this democracy? It looked to her like the most racist thing that could ever be. In addition, she saw a wall that clearly divided the land between the beautifully blue-skied Jewish side of Israel and the poverty stricken Palestinian side of the Occupied Territories. She felt that someone has been lying to her, hiding the reality from her.
Deeply emotionally affected, she told her guide she wanted to join a demonstration and joined a demonstration in Bil’in, a refugee camp known for its weekly NONVIOLENT demonstrations that are regularly tear-gassed by the IDF. This was R's first demonstration ever and it was at the demonstration that she heard about the land confiscation. At the demonstration, the Israeli soldiers formed a strong line to stop the demonstrators from going to the wall. The demonstrators sat down and the soldiers began to throw tear gas, beat the demonstrators and haul them away. She found this appalling because the demonstrators were simply people trying to make a statement in an allegedly democratic state.
After that, she went once a month to a demonstration at the various refugee camps, met regularly with the 2005 Shminitism group, and told her parents that maybe she would refuse. In 2009, when she reached the age of 18, she knew she would refuse. She formed a group with the other class of 2009 refusniks, knowing she would be imprisoned and determining how they wanted to refuse. In total, she was in prison for four months. The imprisonment was not continuous. Here is how it works. In Israel, you have to serve unless you are Orthodox, religious, mentally impaired, or a conscientious objectors, which was the reason she asked to be released from service. But pacifism is defined here such that you have to state that you would never respond nonviolently to any situation, even if, for example, “a terrorist raped your sister in the street” (the actual question they posed to her). It cannot simply be an ideology. In her ordeal, Roz faced ten officers, nine of them men, who verbally attacked her and tried to trick her, treating her as if she was a liar. They also asked her, for example, if she was getting raped and called the police, what about the fact that the police would "do the violence" for her? Also, she could not say anything political, like saying the word “occupation,” as that would have disqualified her for the conscientious objection category. So, she did not pass this committee.
The next step is that on her actual draft day, she refused to follow the draft order. The army treats these young people as soldiers violating an order and subjects them to a military trial. The sentence can be 7 – 35 days in prison, a random sentence that depends on the judge and/or the judge’s mood. Once you serve the sentence, the process starts all over again, going to the same base, refusing the draft order, and again being sentenced and imprisoned. In the end, she asked for the mental officer to whom she explained that after 4 months imprisonment, she was asking to be released on the basis of being mentally unfit to serve. She could not mention anything political. (The army often railroads the refusers into this category to avoid statistics on those refusing on political grounds). Roz also talked about having to stay on the base while waiting for a place in prison, the base on which, of course, everyone around her was a soldier. They called her “soldier” on the base. They gave her orders which, by the way, if she failed to follow, subjected her to additional prison time. (The orders were typically trivial, like an order not to sit on a certain bench). These young people are incredibly brave and face not only prison time but social and job discrimination in a militaristic state that values soldiers above all else.
But what of those who do serve? Meet Yonatan. I will tell you Yonatan's story first but I need to remember my request of you before I started - that when you read something particularly disturbing, you take a breath before you walk away. Y's story is intricately wound up in the BDS movement - the boycott, divestment and sanction movement against Israel. I know your reaction - just breath first and let Yonatan tell you his story and then tomorrow we can talk about BDS in greater detail.
Yonatan was a Zionist leftist who went into the army believing he was protecting his country, following his father's dreams. Yonatan was an air force pilot, a captain in a black hawk squandron. After realizing that he was not protecting his country and that none of the mythology that he had been told by the Zionist educational system was true, he formed the group of airforce pilots that led a refusal movement in 2003. These soldiers stated that they loved their country but they would not participate in attacks that harm innocent Palestinians. It led, of course, to Yonatan's disharge from air force. He then became active in the human rights movement in Israel to end the occupation.
A year and a half later, with refusnik organizations, Yonatan formed “Combatants for Peace.” Their mandate was that it was important to refuse but also you must correct the wrongdoing of which you were part. You must also meet Palestinians against whom you had been fighting who are also supporting the nonviolent struggle. Referencing Martin Luther King, Yonatan said that this was all in order to liberate the Palestinians from being oppressed and the Israelis from being oppressors.
When he started to explain his reason for refusing to internationals, he realized the need to put pressure on that community to put pressure on Israeli government and that it was ok to stand on a stage and call for action against the Israeli government. He first called for sanctions against his country shaking on a stage in London first, shaking.
Then he heard about the Palestinian call for BDS, a nonviolent action that he saw as a very natural ending point, or a place to reach in his path from being an obedient soldier to what he calls a peace activist and Boycott from Within activist. (Boycott from Within is the Israeli Jewish group that has endorsed the Palestinian call for BDS).
In the beginning, the group felt they were army people who had erred and who will will lead the charge for peace. Eventually, he understood that this is also a militaristic way of thinking that was unhelpful. Instead, he needed to put that urge to "lead the charge" aside and understand that he is a supporter of the Palestinian struggle. So now, this former Israeli air force pilot practices being a supporter by flying the Palestinian flag.
While nationalism is not his thing, he thinks it is crucial that the movement be led by the Palestinians and the Israelies be part of the struggle without deciding what methodology or path the struggle takes. Instead, the Israeli Jews must learn to follow the lead of those that you formerly oppressed.
Yonatan explains to people who disagree with Boycott from Within that the goal here is, for example, to stop the army raids in Bil’in, where the IDF is kidnapping teenagers, that the group seeks to stop the arrests of the Palestinian leaders of the nonviolent struggle (remember Jamal from our discussion the other day?). Most of all, he wants to stop the criminal bombardments on houses in Gaza and the killing of innocents, all of this without killing the soldiers, the prison guards, or the air force pilots. So, what he can do is support the most extreme but nonviolent form of struggle of the Palestinian people, the boycott, divestment and sactions movement against the state (not the people) of Israel.
I think that is enough for today. We heard more from Yonatan and Ronnie, another member of Boycott from Within, about the political aspects and goals of the group. But I will let you first absorb the stories you heard from Sami, Roz and Yonatan, breath, cry, rage before I ask you to come back to this painful table. Please, please, please, and please again know that these Israelis stressed to us that boycott of the Israeli government's actions is in no way anti-semitic. And as Americans, remember the post September 11th phenomenon of the conflation of being anti-Bush to being unpatriotic. You see? Israel is a country and the consequences of being a country are that it is bound by laws that demand human rights for all. As a country, then, it is subject to criticism and counter-actions when it violates those laws and the very principles of equality we hold so dear on which those laws are based.
Breath.
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