As I prepared for a grueling fact-finding trip to Israel and the Palestinian West Bank (occupied for 46 years), Secretary of State Kerry announced that Israel and the Palestinian Authority had agreed to resume peace talks without preconditions.
Maalinta wafdigayga u duulay gobolka, Israa'iil waxay ku dhawaaqday inay ansixisay guryo dheeri ah oo loogu talagalay dadka degan Israa'iil: "Israa'iil waxay soo saartay qandaraasyo lagu dhisayo ku dhawaad 1,200 oo guri oo laga dhisayo Bariga Quddus iyo Daanta Galbeed," sidaana London Financial Times, "isaga oo ka soo horjeeda Maraykanka iyo Falastiiniyiinta ee ka soo horjeeda balaadhinta deegaamaynta Yuhuudda saddex maalmood ka hor bilowga la qorsheeyay ee wadahadalka nabadda."
Waa isla sheeko hore oo niyad jab leh, iyadoo Israa'iil ay muujinayso xiisaha ay u qabto nabadaynta.
Haddaba intaanan u gudbin waxa la yaabka leh ee dhiirri-gelinaya Daanta Galbeed, aynu qirno warka xun: falastiiniyiinta ayaa si tartiib tartiib ah guryahooda looga saarayaa, lagana reebayaa biyihii iyo geedo saytuun ah oo qarniyaal jiray, maalin kastana ay bahdilaad ku hayaan dadka Israa’iiliyiinta ah iyo kuwa la degay. dawladda Israa’iil oo ku xad-gudbid aan kala joogsi lahayn xuquuqdooda bini’aadminimo taas oo ka sii daraysa inta badan ee dunidu meel fog ka eegto.
But here’s the good news: Across the West Bank, Israel’s occupation has given rise in recent years to a nonviolent “popular resistance” movement that should be an inspiration to people across the globe. This unarmed resistance has persisted in the face of Israeli state violence (aided by U.S.-supplied weapons and tear gas), lengthy jail sentences for nonviolent protesters and widespread xariga iyo xadgudubka carruurta.
Waxay ahayd mid ku habboon in lagu laabto Mareykanka 50-kiith Sanadguuradii Maarso ee Washington sababtoo ah Martin Luther King Jr. iyo dhaxalkiisa rabshad la'aanta xagjirka ah waxaa ku baaqay dhaqdhaqaaqayaasha Falastiiniyiinta ku dhawaad tuulo iyo magaalo kasta oo aan booqday iyada oo qayb ka ah wafdiga xaqiiqo raadinta.
Like King, leaders of the Palestinian popular resistance – from intellectuals to grassroots villagers who’d been repeatedly jailed – spoke to us about universal human rights, about a human family in which all deserve equal rights regardless of religion or nationality. “We are against the occupation, not against the Jews,” was the refrain among Palestinian activists. “We have many Jews and Israelis who support us.”
Runtii waxay ahayd mid dhiiri galin leh inaad la kulanto dhowr ka mid ah geesiyaal reer binu Israa'iil ah who’ve supported the nonviolent resistance, often putting themselves in the frontline of marches (their jail sentences are tiny compared to what’s dished out to Palestinians). They are admittedly a small minority, thoroughly ostracized within Israel – a society that seems as paranoid and militaristic today as our country during the McCarthyite Fifties.
NABI SALEH: In this village near Ramallah that’s being squeezed by settlers, a leader of the iska caabin caan ah deegaanka waxed poetic about Israelis who’ve supported their struggle: “After we started the popular resistance in 2009, we saw a different kind of Israeli, our partner. We see them as our cousin – a different view than the Israeli as soldier shooting at us, or the settler stealing, or the jailer shutting the cell on us.” The story of Nabi Saleh was compellingly told in an atypical New York Times Magazine Maqaal uu qoray Ben Ehrenreich,Tani ma Meesha Sadexaad Intifada ka Bilaaban Doonto?"
"Ma fududa inaad noqoto mid aan rabshad lahayn, laakiin ma jiro askari lagu dilay dhagax," ayay tiri hogaamiyaha dhaqdhaqaaqa ee Manal Tamimi. “Waxaan rabnaa inaan caalamka tusno inaanan ahayn argagixiso. CNN, Fox News, waxa aanu nahay argagixiso, is-qarxiyeyaal. Waxaan ku sugnaa gobolada; weligaa ma maqlaysid dad degay oo weeraray Falastiiniyiinta.”
As we were leaving her house, Manal added: “You need to be our messengers because your tax money is killing us. You are our brothers in humanity, but you are part of the killing.”
Like our 1964 civil rights martyrs in Mississippi – Schwerner, Cheney and Goodman – Nabi Saleh reveres its martyrs: Mustafa Tamimi iyo Rushdi Tamimi.
BIL’IN: If you saw the Oscar-nominated documentary “5 kamarado jaban,” then you know of the seven-year-long, partly-successful battle by the villagers of Bil’in to drive back Israel’s “separation wall” (aka the Apartheid Wall) – which was positioned to confiscate nearly 60 percent of their land, separating farmers from their fields and olive trees. It’s an sheeko dhiiri galin leh Rabshado la'aan geesinnimo leh, oo ay la socdaan dhaqdhaqaaqayaasha caalamiga ah (iyo Israa'iiliyiinta) ayaa ku soo qulqulaya Bil'in si ay u taageeraan iska caabinta tuulada.
"Internationals" ee ku nool Daanta Galbeed oo jirkooda ku dhejiyay khadka si ay u taageeraan halganka Falastiiniyiinta ee aan rabshadaha ahayn waxay i xasuusinayaan ardayda Maraykanka iyo kuwa kale ee "koonfurta u socday" 1960-yadii si ay u taageeraan dhaqdhaqaaqa xuquuqda madaniga ah.
We stayed overnight in the homes of Bil’in residents. Iyad Burnat, the brother of “5 Broken Cameras” director Emad Burnat, talked with us past Saqda dhexe about the importance of media coverage, international support, and creative, surprise tactics in a successful nonviolent movement (like using their bodies to close an Israeli “settlers-only” road). “In Bil’in we don’t use stones. The Israeli soldiers use that – kids throwing stones – to attack our people.”
Iyad waxa uu ka mid ahaa daraasiin falastiiniyiin ah oo aanu la kulanay kuwaas oo aad uga xumaaday dhaq-dhaqaaq la’aantooda hadda iyadoo bulshadooda ay ku jiraan darbiga, degsiimooyinka, isbaarooyinka iyo waddooyinka waaweyn ee Israel oo keliya. "Way ii fududdahay inaan tago Mareykanka ama UK halkii aan aadi lahaa Jerusalem, oo 25 kiiloomitir u jirta."
Like our Selma martyrs – Jimmy Lee Jackson, Rev. James Reeb and Viola Liuzzo – Bil’in has its nonviolent martyrs: Bassem Ibrahim Abu Raxmah iyo Jawaher Abu Raxmah.
EAST JERUSALEM: One of the most powerful and educational movies on Israel/Palestine is the 25-minute documentary, “Xaafadayda” – which exposes the Yuhuudayn of Bariga Qudus by focusing on a Palestinian family facing eviction from their home of 47 years in the middle-class neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. We sat down with the “stars” of the movie, the al-Kurd family, outside the part of the house they still can live in. Absurdly, zealous and aggressive Jewish settlers occupy the front part of the house. As we approached, I caught a glimpse of the settlers behind their Israeli flag. (Watch the movie halkan.)
Middle-aged mom Maysa al-Kurd and her 94-year-old mother told us they’ve lived in their East Jerusalem house since 1956, having been forced to flee Haifa during the 1948 “War of Independence.” Settlers are now using intimidation in hope of forcing them to flee again. With half a home, the al-Kurd family is luckier than dozens of others in Sheikh Jarrah who’ve been driven out of the neighborhood completely. (Many Palestinians are refugees two or three times over.)
With the help of Israeli and international activists, the al-Kurd family has fought for years to live in peace and dignity in what's left of their house. If you watch “My Neighborhood,” you’ll see grandson Mohammed, then in the 7th-grade, announcing that he wants to be a lawyer or journalist battling for human rights when he grows up. Two years later, he holds to that dream.
Maysa al-Kurd asked us to tell her family's story to President Obama – and, if we can't reach him, to tell their story in social media. She wants to ask Obama "if it would be acceptable to him if his own kids were harassed in their home; if not acceptable for his kids, then he shouldn't be silent" when Palestinian children are suffering.
HEBRON HILLS: Near the end of our tour of the West Bank, we visited the beleaguered but unbowed village of Al Tuwani in the South Hebron hills, where expansion-minded (“God gave us this land”) Israelis in nearby settlements have terrorized the village and sabotaged their fields and water. For “lack of a building permit,” Israeli soldiers demolished their village school and mosque. It struck me that being Palestinian in some of these remote locations was akin to being black in rural Mississippi in the 1950s, facing continuous intimidation from lawless Klansmen (like these armed and sometimes-masked settlers) backed up by state power.
But Al Tuwani has resisted – with women taking new roles in the economic sustenance of the village, with young Italian solidarity activists (Hawlgalka Dove) accompanying the men into the field as a “ protective presence” and videotaping any confrontations, and with Israeli human rights lawyers defending their right to rebuild their community.
Haweenay hogaamiye ka ah tuulada, sida dad badan oo Falastiiniyiin ah, ayaa naga codsatay inaan ku laabano guriga si aan uga doodno muuqaalada warbaahinta ee Falastiiniyiinta inay yihiin argagixiso: “Waxaad aragteen Falastiin runta ah, ma aha waxaad ku aragto warbaahinta. . . Runta u sheeg aduunka.”
While it was inspiring to see nonviolent “popular resistance” groups persisting across the West Bank, I felt ashamed and angry as a Jew to hear Palestinians document the relentless drive by the “Jewish State” to Judaize East Jerusalem and intimidate and humiliate West Bankers into leaving their cities, towns and villages. Everywhere we went, we heard complaints about day-to-day hardship — checkpoints, Jewish-only highways, blocked Palestinian roads and how drives to work or school or neighbors that once took 15 minutes now take several hours.
Seeing these “facts on the ground,” I kept asking myself NOT “Why have many Palestinians turned to violence and terrorism?” – but rather, “Why so few?”
I’m not the first or only one to think that thought. In a moment of candor in 1998, hawkish Israeli politician Ehud Barak admitted to Haaretz reporter Gideon Levy: "If I were a young Palestinian of the right age, I’d eventually join one of the terrorist organizations.” (Barak wasn’t punished for his candor – Israelis elected him prime minister a year later.)
As hard as we tried, it was difficult to find a single Palestinian (or Israeli peace and justice activist) with much hope for the Kerry-led peace process; they fear that talks will again be a pretext for continued Israeli expansion into Palestinian land. We were repeatedly reminded that at the beginning of the Oslo “peace process” in 1993, there were about 260,000 Israeli settlers living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem – and that number increased to 365,000 by the time Oslo fell apart seven years later. Today, there are well over 525,000 oo degay.
Everywhere you travel in the West Bank, you can see Palestinian villages on hillsides or in valleys – and newer, gleaming Israeli settlements on the hilltops above, startlingly green thanks to abundant, diverted water. During the Oslo talks, then-Israeli foreign minister Ariel Sharon was quoted as telling a rightwing party to "run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements.”
Many in the nonviolent Palestinian resistance also have little faith in the Palestinian Authority – seen variously as weak, corrupt, “an Authority with no authority,” and a junior partner in administering the occupation. “We want a third Intifada, the Palestinian Authority wants to prevent it,” an activist told us.
Their faith is in spreading the grassroots resistance within Palestine, and gaining international support. We were told over and over: Without outside pressure on Israel, there will be no end to the occupation and no justice. Which is why every Palestinian nonviolent activist urged us to support the qaadacaada Israa'iil oo ujeedadeedu ahayd in la soo afjaro qabsashada – and they emphasized that boycotting is a supremely aan shaki lahayn xeelad.
All drew parallels to the successful, international boycott that forced South Africa’s apartheid regime to the bargaining table. And some mentioned another success – the boycott of Montgomery buses led by Martin Luther King.
Jeff Cohen soo booqday Israa'iil/Falastiin oo qayb ka ah wafdi uu kafaalo qaaday Nabad-dhisayaasha diimaha iyo Guddiga Adeegyada Saaxiibada ee Mareykanka, laakiin aragtiyaha halkan lagu soo bandhigay waa kaligiis. Wuxuu madax ka yahay Xarunta Park ee Warbaahinta Madaxbanaan Kulliyadda Ithaca, halkaas oo uu ku yahay borofisar ku-xigeenka saxaafadda. Waxa uu bilaabay kooxda ilaalinta warbaahinta CARWADA 1986-kii, waxayna aasaaseen kooxda firfircoonida ee internetka RootsAction.org in 2011.
ZNetwork waxa lagu maalgeliyaa oo keliya deeqsinimada akhristeyaasheeda.
Nalasoo