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Commentary :: Middle East
Part II, ISM Activist Reflects On The Occupation Of Palestine
Interview continued. Joshua Brown responds to questions about the role of ISM in protecting the homes of families of "suicide bombers" from demolition by the Israeli army and other controversial issues.
Q - Part of the non-violent direct action in which you participated was protecting the homes of families of suicide bombers. Someone responded to your Palestine Diaries with an accusation that ISM supports suicide bombing. How would you respond to that point of view?
Joshua - The idea that the ISM may be staying in the home of martyrs to encourage more suicide bombers exhibits extreme ignorance of the situation. The Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 33, outlaws collective punishment. The families of "suicide bombers" have done nothing wrong. In fact they have suffered the loss of a child directly resulting from the illegal occupation of Israel on the Palestinian people. So the Israeli army carrying out home demolitions and the arresting and deporting of family members, all of these actions are in violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
And as international human rights activists as non-violent direct action committed individuals, we were staying in the homes of families of martyrs in an attempt to protect their international human rights. In general the notion that ISM would support suicide bombing as a strategy is ludicrous. Anyone who is interested should look at the web page for the ISM www.palsolidarity.org and also an affiliated group, the Rapprochement Center www.rapprochement.org. In these publications you will see that ISM is committed to non-violent direct action.
If fact, it is providing and encouraging an alternate strategy to suicide bombings. It is showing the international community and the Israeli army and most important the Palestinian people that through non-violent direct action that we can make concrete gains for the Palestinian people. We can create an improved condition for the Palestinian people through non-violent direct action. History has proven the effectiveness of non-violent direct action.
I'm speaking from my experience. The ISM is extremely important during this Intifada because it has not yet developed a mass movement, non-violent broad-based element like the first Intifada had of people going out in the streets en masse opposing occupation having their voices heard and working together in a peaceful way to create a better present situation and forge a foundation for a better future.
Also this relates back to an earlier to an earlier violence. For myself and others who were there - through our discussions - we understand that Sharon and his government will only use acts of violence as an excuse for more violence about the Palestinians. Some Palestinians said that, "Sharon has no better ally than Hamas."
Q - Joshua, you described the extreme difference between the lives of Palestinians and settlers. Could you talk about this?
Josehua - Well there are certain aspects of settlers' lives that I was able to observe though most of the details of their lives I was not aware of. I saw them from a distance and witnessed settlers primarily when they were driving or going from one place to another. There was a presence of settlers or settler police in Jerusalem. They walked around with machine guns slung over their shoulders.
But, a couple of my observations from that removed sort of macro perspective - in the evening we went on the roof (of the house we stayed in) at the Balata Refugee Camp. We were trying to observe the military activities. We would see tanks moving, flares shot through the air - the headlights of the tanks. Another consistent feature of the night landscape were the headlights of cars about half to 3/4 up the hillside traveling at a regular American speed - 50 miles an hour or so. Life at the speed of occupation in most places and of curfew is very, very slow - where motion is prohibited for most. Viewing this motion of 50 mph or so, I was very perplexed. I asked people what this could be and found out that this is a settler road.
In contrast, when you look at the roads around Nablus - you see they are dug up in places as roadblocks. They have smashed cars and rubble from nearby buildings scattered on them. There's no upkeep - no ability of the municipalities to keep up the roads. There are military checkpoints. And cars are prohibited from moving on the streets. But the tanks didn't go on the settlers' road. There were no roadblocks either. During the day, I could see settlers in their SUV's, pick-up trucks, and fancy cars with the yellow Israeli license plate passing through military checkpoints at almost full speed - where we would be consistently rejected. And Palestinians almost without exception would be rejected and forced to either turn back or hike around through the mountains for many hours in the sun. Settlers could pass through these checkpoints with ease. The settlements are built on hilltops overlooking the Palestinian reality - looking down on the Palestinians in so many ways. Insulated from the harshness that they are part of creating for the Palestinian people. So it's -like I was saying before about the new generation of Israeli citizens inside "Israeli proper". Those young people are looking around and questioning the validity - the correctness of the situation. Whereas the settlers have recently chosen to leave their situation in other countries and come to further the expansion of the Israeli state. Frankly I see them as extremists, religious zealots and fundamentalists. These people have made a conscious choice to come and steal land from the Palestinian people.
Q - You've also alluded to their lifestyles - nice gardens in a dessert, nice houses, they have water when Palestinians have none.
Joshua - Yes the situation with water is very important. The majority of the wells in Israel and Palestine are in the West Bank This means that most of the water for Israel and Palestine comes from Palestinian land. The Israeli army controls all of the wells, therefore they control all of the water that goes to Israelis as well as Palestinians. So water that is taken from Palestinian land is given preferentially to Israeli citizens and settlers and secondarily to Palestinian people on whose land the water is extracted. My experience in the Balata camp was that the water for the toilet, bathing, cooking was not always available. But what I've been told - not having visited that settlements is that they have an uninterrupted flow of water, they are able to maintain gardens, wash their cars, and own swimming pools. I don't find it hard to believe. Whether it's speed of movement or access to water - the inequities are obvious.
Q - Joshua, we've talked about "suicide bombers" or "martyrs. You've told me of the grief of a parent whose child has blown himself up. You've also told me of parents who would have done anything to prevent that child from taking such an action. But many Palestinians revere the suicide bomber or martyr. When Americans think of a martyr, I imagine they think of Martin Luther King, a non-violent individual - or Ghandi.
Joshua - I guess I'll start from the American Heritage Dictionary - it says, "a martyr is one who chooses death not to sacrifice religious principles." It also says, "One who makes great sacrifices or suffers much in order to further a belief, cause , or principle."
I think the American Heritage Dictionary explains this for me. But I will elaborate slightly. People who fight back against Israeli occupation are the only heroes that the people have. They are the only ones attempting to counterbalance force against the violence and human rights violations of the Israeli occupation. They are the main, visible resistance to the attempts of Israel to erase the Palestinian people from the land and from history. So the Palestinian people have been sort of left with a lack of options for who their heroes will be. George Bush is never going to be a hero of the Palestinian people. Ariel Sharon is never going to be a hero of the Palestinian people. Yasser Arafat has been put in a position where he has no power to negotiate. So Arafat has little chance of being a hero of the Palestinian people.
The Palestinians who work with non-governmental organizations, with children, in the community and who are dedicated to nonviolent direct action, generally expressed to me that occupation is a "slow death." No one has any certainty about their future or real hope for a life under occupation. Palestinian people are put into a difficult position of accepting a slow death or in the case of what the West calls "suicide bombers" choosing a fast death instead. I think it's very interesting that these Palestinian people who are dedicated to non-violent direct action phrase it that way. "Occupation is a slow death." Or, some individuals may "choose" a fast death. So from a perspective of non-violent social change I found this very important.
The occupation has caused some people to choose a violent response. It has also caused some people to be paralyzed by fear, in their homes, in their minds. The occupation has also inspired some people to organize a campaign to bring internationals to support the non-violent direct action of the Palestinian people. In the media you would never hear these things side-by-side. "The slow death of occupation creates several responses." People can decide to die quickly, people can be paralyzed, or people can respond by organizing within their communities and calling for international support to organize non-violent direct action. The people of Palestine need some hope for the future in order to avoid becoming paralyzed by fear and I think that the harshness and the severity of Sharon's government and their reoccupation of all the Palestinian land has created a situation where the knee-jerk reaction in the search for heroes has been to look to those who have been killed by the Israeli army and those who have chosen the ƒ¢â€š¬…€œquick deathƒ¢â€š¬‚ of a violent response. I feel confident that as time wears on the organized forces of non-violent resistance will find their rightful place amongst the heroes and the inspirations for the struggle against occupation.
Q - When you look at the media, there is much question about what acts of war are and are not legal. There are many criticisms of Israeli actions. Could you comment?
Joshua - Israel is committing a laundry list of human rights violations against the Palestinian people such as collective punishment and humiliation, home demolitions, detention without charges, the torture of detainees, targeted assassinations and use of Palestinians as human shields. In terms of pure legality, do the actions of the Israeli government or the IDF violate laws? The answer is yes.
The US is also in violation of domestic and international laws when we look at US aid to Israel. The US is in violation of its Arms Export Control Act which stipulates that American weapons can only be supplied for "legitimate self-defense." The US is in violation of its Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits military assistance that engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights. The US is also in violation of the Proxmire Amendment, which bans military assistance to any government refusing to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or allow inspection of its nuclear facilities. Which Israel refuses to allow inspection of its nuclear facilities. Israel is in violation of UN resolutions 194, 242, and 338, which call for recognition of the Palestinian refugee's right to return and several other points. Israel is in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention which prohibits collective punishment which is defined as, "punishing anyone for something that he or she did not personally do." Also I wanted to mention when it comes to the IDF's use of Palestinians as human shields, they are even in violation of their own High Court which has ruled this to be illegal.
Q - And Josh, you yourself saw someone used in that manner.
Joshua - Yes, a neighbor of the Al-Titi family was used by the IDF as a human shield the night that myself and another international were arrested from the home. He was forced to bang on the door of the house while the soldiers stood at the street pointing their guns and lights into the alley at this man. They later broke open the steel doors on the street level of the Al-Titi home and shoved this man into the open door as if to see if anyone was going to shoot - and once that did not happen they came in behind him with their guns and scanned the area. It's unbelievable to see this occur even after the Israeli High Court rules in accordance with international law that this is illegal. Legality or illegality of certain policies is in no way a hindrance to US foreign policy and aid to Israel and it's no hindrance to the modes of operation of the Israeli army inside the occupied territories.
Q - That's fine, as long as Americans don't see it?
Joshua - Yes, when we would argue with the soldiers to try and get them to stop humiliations tactics or occupied homes the soldiers would respond to our criticism by saying, "You can tell the BBC or whatever you like, these are our orders or this is our policy." I thought, it's useful to us that they're aware that we will be sharing this information with someone - but it's unfortunate that that's insufficient to keep them from doing it.
Q - I think this trickle of information compared to the onslaught of information we find in the press, it's much less accessible information. If we were to hear this on a daily basis on TV or pictures were shown on a regular basis it would be dramatic.
Joshua - It's amazing for me to see the photos that I took and to look at the photos others have taken. Some of the photos I've seen are worthy of the front page of the New York Times or the cover of Newsweek or Time magazine. But they'll probably never end up there.
Q - Joshua, you're a member of SUSTAIN. What is that?
SUSTAIN, which stands for Stop US Tax Funded Aid to Israel Now is an organization that began in Washington DC and has now grown to have over 15 chapters across the US. The goal of SUSTAIN is to educate American citizens about the US role in the war that the Israeli government is waging on the Palestinian people in the occupied territories. Our goal in educating Americans about the US involvement in Israel and Palestine is as the name implies to remove economic and military funding to Israel because of what this money is being used for. It's for what is referred to as "unspecified funds" that can be used by the Israelis for whatever it chooses. And the military weaponry - F16's. Apache helicopters, Black Hawk helicopters, tanks, Hell Fire Missile Systems, M-16's, military expertise and training, service on the weaponry. I just spoke with a man from Texas at a facility where they repair Apache helicopters from Israel and sent them back. There's an intricate web of military support and aid from US to Israel. It's quite unbelievable once you become aware of the US funding of the war against the Palestinian people. To hear George Bush and other US government officials speak of the US role in the Middle East as an unbiased peacemaker - the violence of the Israeli government against the Palestinian people is made possible through US tax dollars. I don't think this qualifies us as an unbiased peacemaker in Israel and Palestine.
SUSTAIN is also currently engaged in a campaign to raise awareness about the Caterpillar and their role in the occupation of Palestine. Caterpillar Diesel Heavy Equipment has a contract with the Israeli government to supply the bulldozers that are used to destroy Palestinian homes and create roadblocks and to destroy the infrastructure of Palestinians cities and towns. And these are clear and gross violations of human rights and international law and we think that the American public should be made aware of Caterpillar's unethical dealings and we hope to educate Caterpillar to the extent where the understand that supplying these bulldozers to Israel is more of a liability than its worth and we hope to encourage them to pull out of the contract with the Israeli government and focus on the positive things that they do - building homes, not destroying them, building infrastructure, not destroying it.
End of Interview
#file_1#
Joshua - The idea that the ISM may be staying in the home of martyrs to encourage more suicide bombers exhibits extreme ignorance of the situation. The Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 33, outlaws collective punishment. The families of "suicide bombers" have done nothing wrong. In fact they have suffered the loss of a child directly resulting from the illegal occupation of Israel on the Palestinian people. So the Israeli army carrying out home demolitions and the arresting and deporting of family members, all of these actions are in violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
And as international human rights activists as non-violent direct action committed individuals, we were staying in the homes of families of martyrs in an attempt to protect their international human rights. In general the notion that ISM would support suicide bombing as a strategy is ludicrous. Anyone who is interested should look at the web page for the ISM www.palsolidarity.org and also an affiliated group, the Rapprochement Center www.rapprochement.org. In these publications you will see that ISM is committed to non-violent direct action.
If fact, it is providing and encouraging an alternate strategy to suicide bombings. It is showing the international community and the Israeli army and most important the Palestinian people that through non-violent direct action that we can make concrete gains for the Palestinian people. We can create an improved condition for the Palestinian people through non-violent direct action. History has proven the effectiveness of non-violent direct action.
I'm speaking from my experience. The ISM is extremely important during this Intifada because it has not yet developed a mass movement, non-violent broad-based element like the first Intifada had of people going out in the streets en masse opposing occupation having their voices heard and working together in a peaceful way to create a better present situation and forge a foundation for a better future.
Also this relates back to an earlier to an earlier violence. For myself and others who were there - through our discussions - we understand that Sharon and his government will only use acts of violence as an excuse for more violence about the Palestinians. Some Palestinians said that, "Sharon has no better ally than Hamas."
Q - Joshua, you described the extreme difference between the lives of Palestinians and settlers. Could you talk about this?
Josehua - Well there are certain aspects of settlers' lives that I was able to observe though most of the details of their lives I was not aware of. I saw them from a distance and witnessed settlers primarily when they were driving or going from one place to another. There was a presence of settlers or settler police in Jerusalem. They walked around with machine guns slung over their shoulders.
But, a couple of my observations from that removed sort of macro perspective - in the evening we went on the roof (of the house we stayed in) at the Balata Refugee Camp. We were trying to observe the military activities. We would see tanks moving, flares shot through the air - the headlights of the tanks. Another consistent feature of the night landscape were the headlights of cars about half to 3/4 up the hillside traveling at a regular American speed - 50 miles an hour or so. Life at the speed of occupation in most places and of curfew is very, very slow - where motion is prohibited for most. Viewing this motion of 50 mph or so, I was very perplexed. I asked people what this could be and found out that this is a settler road.
In contrast, when you look at the roads around Nablus - you see they are dug up in places as roadblocks. They have smashed cars and rubble from nearby buildings scattered on them. There's no upkeep - no ability of the municipalities to keep up the roads. There are military checkpoints. And cars are prohibited from moving on the streets. But the tanks didn't go on the settlers' road. There were no roadblocks either. During the day, I could see settlers in their SUV's, pick-up trucks, and fancy cars with the yellow Israeli license plate passing through military checkpoints at almost full speed - where we would be consistently rejected. And Palestinians almost without exception would be rejected and forced to either turn back or hike around through the mountains for many hours in the sun. Settlers could pass through these checkpoints with ease. The settlements are built on hilltops overlooking the Palestinian reality - looking down on the Palestinians in so many ways. Insulated from the harshness that they are part of creating for the Palestinian people. So it's -like I was saying before about the new generation of Israeli citizens inside "Israeli proper". Those young people are looking around and questioning the validity - the correctness of the situation. Whereas the settlers have recently chosen to leave their situation in other countries and come to further the expansion of the Israeli state. Frankly I see them as extremists, religious zealots and fundamentalists. These people have made a conscious choice to come and steal land from the Palestinian people.
Q - You've also alluded to their lifestyles - nice gardens in a dessert, nice houses, they have water when Palestinians have none.
Joshua - Yes the situation with water is very important. The majority of the wells in Israel and Palestine are in the West Bank This means that most of the water for Israel and Palestine comes from Palestinian land. The Israeli army controls all of the wells, therefore they control all of the water that goes to Israelis as well as Palestinians. So water that is taken from Palestinian land is given preferentially to Israeli citizens and settlers and secondarily to Palestinian people on whose land the water is extracted. My experience in the Balata camp was that the water for the toilet, bathing, cooking was not always available. But what I've been told - not having visited that settlements is that they have an uninterrupted flow of water, they are able to maintain gardens, wash their cars, and own swimming pools. I don't find it hard to believe. Whether it's speed of movement or access to water - the inequities are obvious.
Q - Joshua, we've talked about "suicide bombers" or "martyrs. You've told me of the grief of a parent whose child has blown himself up. You've also told me of parents who would have done anything to prevent that child from taking such an action. But many Palestinians revere the suicide bomber or martyr. When Americans think of a martyr, I imagine they think of Martin Luther King, a non-violent individual - or Ghandi.
Joshua - I guess I'll start from the American Heritage Dictionary - it says, "a martyr is one who chooses death not to sacrifice religious principles." It also says, "One who makes great sacrifices or suffers much in order to further a belief, cause , or principle."
I think the American Heritage Dictionary explains this for me. But I will elaborate slightly. People who fight back against Israeli occupation are the only heroes that the people have. They are the only ones attempting to counterbalance force against the violence and human rights violations of the Israeli occupation. They are the main, visible resistance to the attempts of Israel to erase the Palestinian people from the land and from history. So the Palestinian people have been sort of left with a lack of options for who their heroes will be. George Bush is never going to be a hero of the Palestinian people. Ariel Sharon is never going to be a hero of the Palestinian people. Yasser Arafat has been put in a position where he has no power to negotiate. So Arafat has little chance of being a hero of the Palestinian people.
The Palestinians who work with non-governmental organizations, with children, in the community and who are dedicated to nonviolent direct action, generally expressed to me that occupation is a "slow death." No one has any certainty about their future or real hope for a life under occupation. Palestinian people are put into a difficult position of accepting a slow death or in the case of what the West calls "suicide bombers" choosing a fast death instead. I think it's very interesting that these Palestinian people who are dedicated to non-violent direct action phrase it that way. "Occupation is a slow death." Or, some individuals may "choose" a fast death. So from a perspective of non-violent social change I found this very important.
The occupation has caused some people to choose a violent response. It has also caused some people to be paralyzed by fear, in their homes, in their minds. The occupation has also inspired some people to organize a campaign to bring internationals to support the non-violent direct action of the Palestinian people. In the media you would never hear these things side-by-side. "The slow death of occupation creates several responses." People can decide to die quickly, people can be paralyzed, or people can respond by organizing within their communities and calling for international support to organize non-violent direct action. The people of Palestine need some hope for the future in order to avoid becoming paralyzed by fear and I think that the harshness and the severity of Sharon's government and their reoccupation of all the Palestinian land has created a situation where the knee-jerk reaction in the search for heroes has been to look to those who have been killed by the Israeli army and those who have chosen the ƒ¢â€š¬…€œquick deathƒ¢â€š¬‚ of a violent response. I feel confident that as time wears on the organized forces of non-violent resistance will find their rightful place amongst the heroes and the inspirations for the struggle against occupation.
Q - When you look at the media, there is much question about what acts of war are and are not legal. There are many criticisms of Israeli actions. Could you comment?
Joshua - Israel is committing a laundry list of human rights violations against the Palestinian people such as collective punishment and humiliation, home demolitions, detention without charges, the torture of detainees, targeted assassinations and use of Palestinians as human shields. In terms of pure legality, do the actions of the Israeli government or the IDF violate laws? The answer is yes.
The US is also in violation of domestic and international laws when we look at US aid to Israel. The US is in violation of its Arms Export Control Act which stipulates that American weapons can only be supplied for "legitimate self-defense." The US is in violation of its Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits military assistance that engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights. The US is also in violation of the Proxmire Amendment, which bans military assistance to any government refusing to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or allow inspection of its nuclear facilities. Which Israel refuses to allow inspection of its nuclear facilities. Israel is in violation of UN resolutions 194, 242, and 338, which call for recognition of the Palestinian refugee's right to return and several other points. Israel is in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention which prohibits collective punishment which is defined as, "punishing anyone for something that he or she did not personally do." Also I wanted to mention when it comes to the IDF's use of Palestinians as human shields, they are even in violation of their own High Court which has ruled this to be illegal.
Q - And Josh, you yourself saw someone used in that manner.
Joshua - Yes, a neighbor of the Al-Titi family was used by the IDF as a human shield the night that myself and another international were arrested from the home. He was forced to bang on the door of the house while the soldiers stood at the street pointing their guns and lights into the alley at this man. They later broke open the steel doors on the street level of the Al-Titi home and shoved this man into the open door as if to see if anyone was going to shoot - and once that did not happen they came in behind him with their guns and scanned the area. It's unbelievable to see this occur even after the Israeli High Court rules in accordance with international law that this is illegal. Legality or illegality of certain policies is in no way a hindrance to US foreign policy and aid to Israel and it's no hindrance to the modes of operation of the Israeli army inside the occupied territories.
Q - That's fine, as long as Americans don't see it?
Joshua - Yes, when we would argue with the soldiers to try and get them to stop humiliations tactics or occupied homes the soldiers would respond to our criticism by saying, "You can tell the BBC or whatever you like, these are our orders or this is our policy." I thought, it's useful to us that they're aware that we will be sharing this information with someone - but it's unfortunate that that's insufficient to keep them from doing it.
Q - I think this trickle of information compared to the onslaught of information we find in the press, it's much less accessible information. If we were to hear this on a daily basis on TV or pictures were shown on a regular basis it would be dramatic.
Joshua - It's amazing for me to see the photos that I took and to look at the photos others have taken. Some of the photos I've seen are worthy of the front page of the New York Times or the cover of Newsweek or Time magazine. But they'll probably never end up there.
Q - Joshua, you're a member of SUSTAIN. What is that?
SUSTAIN, which stands for Stop US Tax Funded Aid to Israel Now is an organization that began in Washington DC and has now grown to have over 15 chapters across the US. The goal of SUSTAIN is to educate American citizens about the US role in the war that the Israeli government is waging on the Palestinian people in the occupied territories. Our goal in educating Americans about the US involvement in Israel and Palestine is as the name implies to remove economic and military funding to Israel because of what this money is being used for. It's for what is referred to as "unspecified funds" that can be used by the Israelis for whatever it chooses. And the military weaponry - F16's. Apache helicopters, Black Hawk helicopters, tanks, Hell Fire Missile Systems, M-16's, military expertise and training, service on the weaponry. I just spoke with a man from Texas at a facility where they repair Apache helicopters from Israel and sent them back. There's an intricate web of military support and aid from US to Israel. It's quite unbelievable once you become aware of the US funding of the war against the Palestinian people. To hear George Bush and other US government officials speak of the US role in the Middle East as an unbiased peacemaker - the violence of the Israeli government against the Palestinian people is made possible through US tax dollars. I don't think this qualifies us as an unbiased peacemaker in Israel and Palestine.
SUSTAIN is also currently engaged in a campaign to raise awareness about the Caterpillar and their role in the occupation of Palestine. Caterpillar Diesel Heavy Equipment has a contract with the Israeli government to supply the bulldozers that are used to destroy Palestinian homes and create roadblocks and to destroy the infrastructure of Palestinians cities and towns. And these are clear and gross violations of human rights and international law and we think that the American public should be made aware of Caterpillar's unethical dealings and we hope to educate Caterpillar to the extent where the understand that supplying these bulldozers to Israel is more of a liability than its worth and we hope to encourage them to pull out of the contract with the Israeli government and focus on the positive things that they do - building homes, not destroying them, building infrastructure, not destroying it.
End of Interview
#file_1#
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