Next Up for the Arab Spring

Yesterday I woke up to a text from a friend– Qaddafi found and captured. My first instinct was the question the validity of this news, considering that his sons had been falsely declared captured various times. But this time the news was real– by the time I got to my desk at work various videos were available showing the deposed Libyan authoritarian captured, and eventually dead. I thought about this throughout the day yesterday, and kept wondering what this means for the rest of the Arab countries currently experiencing some revolutionary upheavals.

If I were to predict this, which I will here in writing, this is how I see the future playing out.

While we can judge the images that have been broadcast on news networks around the world in various different ways– and I must confess that I wasn’t a fan of the videos– the images are available for the likes of Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen and Bashar al-Assad of Syria to view.

Saleh has already been bombed once during the revolution in his country. That means two things for the purposes of his likelihood to step down as president of Yemen. Firstly, perhaps the illusion that he is invincible has been shattered. We all believe that authoritarian rulers with unchecked power are shielded from reality and, perhaps are oblivious to what is happening outside of their own circles, where advisors and lackies protect them from knowing anything about the world outside of their palaces. This level of being blinded by power is most familiar to us when we think of dictators like Saddam Hussein and Hosni Mubarak.

Secondly it has already been demonstrated very clearly to Saleh that his security is breachable by those of his people who oppose his rule and that they are willing to depose of him through armed means. Yemen’s uprising has been mostly peaceful, although violent crackdowns have been prompted by the government against the people and those moments the people respond .

With the new images of Gaddafi’s capture and execution circulating I would be surprised in Saleh doesn’t step down in the fashion of Mubarak and Ben Ali within the coming few weeks. At the moment there is a Gulf Cooperation Council peace deal on the table for Saleh to sign, which would end his 33-year rule and grant him, his family, and his inner circles amnesty. The opposition has become unhappy with the deal because Saleh has imposed so many meaningless demands on the deal in an effort to stall signing it or stepping down. And today the UN passed a resolution requesting he sign the GCC deal and step down in an effort to pressure him. All of these events are sealing Saleh’s fate, and he must have realized by now that his fate can be much different from Gaddafi’s, or it can be the same. But he will lose his power in the end.

Once Saleh steps down I predict that Syria’s Bashar al-Assad will be next to go. Syria and Bahrain’s leadership will be the last two of those who brutally repressed the opposition movements to remain standing. As an aside, I am not sure what may happen in Bahrain, as the majority of the opposition supports the Wefaq party, which calls for a constitutional monarchy rather than the deposition of the monarch altogether. However in the long run, if negotiations fail between the people and the government, the people may shift position and demand the removal of the king altogether. We have to wait and watch to see what may happen on the Bahrain front.

In Syria, however, the people have sustained their pressure against the government, even while the government has suppressed them brutally. Disturbing news comes out of Syria daily as well as told anecdotally to me through friends who were recently in the country. A UN resolution to punish the Syrian government for its crackdown against the people was vetoed by Russia and China at the UN Secruity Council. And in further developments, Britain expressed that along with its allies in the operation in Libya, they can repeat a similar operation in Syria. There are many warning signs against Bashar al-Assad, whose regime thus far appears rigid in their insistence to maintain power over Syria. But after Gaddafi’s capture and execution, and after Saleh is gone, Assad will find himself in the most compromising position yet.

Young and Palestinian: Israel’s Greatest Fear

Have you ever felt that your mere existence presents a threat? All of us young Palestinians are made to feel that we are a threat to the existence of an entire state (an apartheid, pariah state, but a state nonetheless). Not because we’ve committed any violent acts. I for one have never committed a violent act against any person or nation. Not because we’ve deliberately threatened anyone. Simply because we exist.

There were not supposed to be any young Palestinians. The plan of the founding fathers of Israel was that we would forget who we are, where we come from, our language, our cities, that Palestine ever even existed. We were supposed to become Syrian, Lebanese, Jordanian, Egyptian, Iraqi, American, French Chilean, Brazilian. The expulsion from Palestine was supposed to erase our memories. David Ben Gurion‘s famous quote still resonates with Palestinians everywhere as a preposterous prediction: “The old will die and the young will forget.” A people who have been so deliberately harmed, oppressed, abused, and largely ignored and shunned by the world can really never forget.

I have been reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and much of his own rhetoric on memory and the restoration of dignity by remembering who we are has resonated profoundly with me. It reminds me of two things. First: there is an assumed passiveness, perhaps even a stupidity, on our part (the oppressed) promulgated and internalized by our oppressors. That is first, we are easily conquered. Occupation, expulsion, forced labor, enslavement, whatever the crime, it is easy to harm and hurt us, to take from us whatever resource is desired be it land, labor, minerals, etc. This is why any resistance on our part is considered unwarranted, confusing, preposterous, and unnecessary. As is turns out, this is what Malcolm X was up against when he was building his own movement and reminding Black women and men of their history, their achievements, and their dignity.

And second, that we will accept being overpowered and will forget about it. Move on, sluggishly, accepting any other opportunity to just passively survive. Based on his autobiography, I believe this is what frightened America most about Malcolm X. He was young, he was Black, he was gifted, and he was not afraid to remember who he is, where he came from, and the necessity in demanding his rights.

Palestinians the world over, from the least political to the most, have refused to forget a most basic fact: we are Palestinian. When someone who holds Zionist ideals really wants to jab at me personally, she will say something that is a very basic foundation myth of Israel, yet entirely false: Palestine never existed. There. They think they have succeeded in demolishing my entire identity by speaking three very irresponsible, false, unfounded words. The truth is this does not shatter my identity. Its hurts a little, but only on the surface. This is what I say to young Zionists: If 63 years of displacement and Diaspora, occupation, humiliation, suffering, sieges, bombs, fear tactics, smear campaigns, lies, lobbies, racism, ethnic cleansing, and genocide have not shattered my identity, why would you think your three careless and meaningless words will?

I am young. And I am Palestinian. And I have never threatened anyone or any nation or any people. Yet I, and millions of young Palestinians like me remain Israel’s greatest fear. It is clear that we will never forget. They were right that our old will die. They have. But before they’ve passed on our elders have reminded us of who we are and what we need to do. That one day we will achieve what they were unable to: a return to a free Palestine.

Hey! Its Non-Violent!

On Sunday, June 5th, the Palestinians will once again demonstrate their resilience to the world by standing up and fighting back. And no, this is not a violent fighting back. They will not be bringing weapons, or training in combat. They are fighting back in the same way that the most remembered leaders of freedom struggles fought: through non-violence. This piece in Foreign Policy discusses how much mainstream discourse has blamed the oppressed for their oppression: that if the Palestinians would only choose non-violent struggle Israel and its allies would concede to their demands. Put simply, this claim is false. It is entirely disconnected from reality. Much of the tactics employed by Palestinians over the years have, in fact, been non-violent. But a violent response from the Israelis often turns them violent.

The First Intifada, of course, is the best example. For anyone who knows about the Intifada, I believe that the most ubiquitous image we have is that of children throwing stones at Israeli soldiers. First, stones thrown by children against an occupying army is not unique to the Palestinians. Consider stone-throwing against authority across the world– in Mexico, Kashmir, Germany. A Vietnamese man once told me that as a child he threw stones at American tanks as they rolled through his neighborhood. Second, the First Intifada was characterized more by its organized non-violent nature than its violence:

For the first few years, it involved many forms of civil disobedience, including massive demonstrations, general strikes, refusal to pay taxes, boycotts of Israeli products, political graffiti and the establishment of underground schools (since regular schools were closed by the military as reprisals for the uprising). It also included stone throwing, Molotov cocktails and the erection of barricades to impede the movement of Israeli military forces.

Third, what harm could possibly fall a solder, dressed like this from a child throwing a stone?

Still, the youth demonstrators who are planning Sunday’s March on Jerusalem are taking all the necessary precautions to prevent the children from throwing stones. During the May 15th march to Qalandiya, the youth organizers reported that the group of men who started throwing stones, inciting others to do so, then turned around and made arrests. They were infiltrators. And this is the Israeli media machine with which these organizers have to deal.

To drive the message about non-violent resistance home, and to push that message to audiences around the world, the youth have created the following promotional video, pumping it with images from India, Birmingham, Soweto, Berlin, Tunisia, and Egypt.

Remember on June 5th that the protests have been non-violent. And Palestinians are not waiting for their Gandhi. They are all Gandhi! Their non-violent movement is  an organic, grassroots movement that is not waiting for a single leader. All young Palestinians are leading the movement. Stand in solidarity with the youth of Palestine, who want only to live in freedom and in dignity.

Qalandiya Checkpoint

As I said, the Qalandiya checkpoint deserves its own very special post. It is a special kind of oppression that has been mastered by Israel, and it really deserves some praise.

I spoke briefly before about the mechanisms of separation between Palestinians that Israel has devised. Palestinians in the West Bank, in Jerusalem, and in Israel proper all have different forms of identification. People in the West Bank have West Bank or “green” IDs. They can travel in areas “A” and “B” of the West Bank (Palestinian Authority controlled) but not in Areas “C” (Israeli controlled). For example, yesterday we had to cross a checkpoint to go to the Dead Sea, which is in area “C”. We were allowed in because two of us were carrying US passports, but they could have just as well turned us away. Then we saw signs for a fresh water spring and did not get as lucky at that checkpoint. We were turned away because two of us were carrying “green” IDs.

Palestinians in Jerusalem carry Jerusalem or “blue” IDs. They can travel in all of those territories. However, if it is proven that they live anywhere other than in Jerusalem, they get their Jerusalem IDs taken away and the state replaces them with “West Bank” IDs, effectively barring them from entering Jerusalem or “Israel proper”. The reason for this is the Judiaization of Jerusalem, which I wrote about before. By various means Israel is trying to decrease the number of Palestinians in Jerusalem and transferring them (yes, ethnic transfer) into the West Bank. By emptying Jerusalem Israel can unilaterally make it the capital of Israel and ban even more Palestinians from entering Jerusalem.

Palestinians who live in Israel proper carry Israeli citizenship but are not treated equal to Jewish Israeli citizens. After all, it is the Jewish State and if you’re not Jewish in a Jewish State you are not equal. There are few borders through which Palestinian citizens of Israel can cross into the West Bank where other Palestinians who share a culture and an identity are a majority. This matrix of separation and control has effectively created almost three divided Palestinian populations within the same territory, and that is not to mention the refugee status Palestinians of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon who cannot even dream of seeing Palestine. Jews in this country, however, all have Israeli citizenship, and they can come and go anywhere. No separation mechanisms are set up for them. They have separate roads to drive on and different color license plates so they can drive on them.

Qalandiya is the main and permanent checkpoint that separates Palestinians in the West Bank from Jerusalem and from Palestinians outside of the West Bank. Qalandiya is a monstrosity.

If you have a visitor’s visa or a Jerusalem ID or a permit to visit Jerusalem in your West Bank ID you can go to the bus station in Ramallah and catch a bus to the Qalandiya checkpoint. Then you have to get out of the bus and walk through the checkpoint. (Unless you have a foreign passport with a visa. In that case you can stay on the bus and the soldiers will check your passport on the bus. I always encourage foreign passport holders to walk through the checkpoint at least once). Walking through the checkpoint the separation and the dehumanization continues.

The checkpoint is a giant momentary prison. Meaning that in the few minutes while one walks through she is in an animal cage. To get to the soldiers there are a sequence of barriers and corridors. People have to wait at the whim of the soldiers. They usually allow three people in at a time, and between those three people they typically allow several minutes to pass before they let anyone in. Meanwhile Palestinians are left waiting in multiple lines in cages–literally long cages in corridors. Not only are there wire fences on your left and your right as you wait, basically the exact width of a human being. But the fenced wire also covers the top of the corridor. Literally, Palestinians pass through cages to get to Jerusalem.

Once as I crossed Qalandiya I heard a conversation between two men who did not knwo each other. Above the cage we stood in, a bird was flying. One man said to the other, “Look at that. Look at the freedom that bird has. It has more freedom than we do.” And the other man replied, “You’re wrong. That bird is also carrying Palestinian ID.”

The Apartheid Wall just outside the Qalandiya Checkpoint.

Reads "Long Live a Free Palestine"

Al-Quds (Jerusalem)

If I talked (or typed) for days I could not capture everything I have been thinking about Jerusalem. Of all the places to see in Palestine, Jerusalem is the most painful. When I first arrived in Palestine a friend from DC was in Jerusalem for work. I spent a few nights in Jerusalem with her, far from the old city, but constantly looking out in the distance hoping to get a glimpse of the Dome of the Rock– that sight which really solidified being in Palestine for me last year when I came for the first time. Mostly my friend and I hung out with folks in East Jerusalem’s bars, talking about Palestine. It was her first time witnessing Israeli Apartheid. And it was the beginning of my trip here– my eyes teared up a lot at the conversations we had.

A few weeks later I went back to Palestine with another friend. We traveled around the old city this time. East Jerusalem (occupied since 1967) is overflowing with video cameras and Israeli soldiers. This is a control mechanism, to keep watch over the Palestinians and to show them without a doubt that they are constantly being watched. Reading this cannot reveal how terrifying the reality is– you need to see it to believe it. In the West Bank anyone you mention Jerusalem to grows very sad at the thought of how close the city is yet how impossible it is to get there. Palestinians with West Bank ID cannot enter Jerusalem, although the city means so much to Palestinians. Palestinians inside Jerusalem have Jerusalem IDs– they can go in and out of the occupied territories and the 1948 territories (“Israel proper”). This is apartheid– it is systemic separation and differentiation, not only between Palestinians and Israelis but between Palestinians as well.

While Jerusalem is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, at the same time it is the most depressing. There is a sadness over the city, and after I leave it that sadness manifests itself into a depression for me that lasts for several days. The second time we returned to Jerusalem we wandered around East Jerusalem, not in the Old City. By chance we stumbled into the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and into a protest there against the forced expulsion of the families from their homes (again!).

We hung around the demonstration for a while, speaking with the families. There were lots of Israeli Jews as well, and I realized that this was the peace movement– Israeli Jews who do not necessarily acknowledge things like the Right of Return for Palestinian Refugees, or who do not acknowledge that they are colonizers living on stolen land. It was also bizarre that when the protest was over they got into their buses and went back to their first world homes in West Jerusalem– land stolen in 1948 rather than in 1967.

While we were among the protesters Haneen and I found the families who were expelled from their homes and spoke with them. They were extremely sad, but somehow still hopeful. They are still fighting in the courts, knowing that they will probably fail to get their rights back in the colonizer’s legal system. Of course their neighbors from the neighborhood are also in danger of eviction.

I saw two things that day that I need to recount here. While we were speaking to the residents in the demonstration I noticed that there were three groups of Israeli enforcement authorities standing across the street: soldiers, police, and private security detail. The soldiers were sitting atop a small hill across the street carrying guns and video cameras! Nothing takes me aback more than those video cameras that are everywhere in East Jerusalem. Mind control– Big Brother is Always Watching!

Second incident, while Haneen and I were waiting for the bus going back to Ramallah we watched a young Jewish Israeli settler walk by us and turn into the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, which is now closed by a checkpoint on Fridays because the Palestinians are “causing disturbances” (because apparently being kicked out of your home is not reason to be upset). At the checkpoint, the man who was dressed clearly like an Israeli Jewish settler because of his religious dress walked right through, waving at the soldiers on his way in. Minutes later a Palestinian man crossed the street to go to his home in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, from which he will also be expelled soon, and was stopped by the soldiers and had to present his ID. Reader, please remember that the Jewish settler is now living in someone’s evicted home and at the same time is being protected by the state.The soldiers and the settlers illegally came to this Palestinian man’s neighborhood and now have the right to check his ID upon entering or leaving. In his own neighborhood.

If this is not apartheid, what is? The Judiaization of Jerusalem is a reality in Israel’s attempt to unilatterally make it the capital of the Jewish State and to ban Palestinians from the right to reach Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a microcosm of Palestine– it is being cantonized into Bantustans and slowly being confiscated but more rapidly than the whole of Palestine.

I will have a post only about the Qalandiya checkpoint next (main checkpoint separating West Bank and Jerusalem). It deserves its own section. Believe me.

Keys to pre-1948 Palestinian Homes

Store in Old City

Zaatar in a store in the Old City

Live Music at the Jerusalem Hotel in East Jerusalem

Old City of Jerusalem

Haifa, My City

This past weekend Haneen and I headed up to Haifa for the weekend. We caught a ride with some friends we made in Ramallah. As soon as we entered the ’48 territories (Israel) I told Haneen to look closely under any forests she sees to find destroyed homes that mark the presence of a destroyed Palestinian village. And before I even finished my sentence a forest appeared on our right and sure enough destroyed Palestinian homes lay at the bottom of the trees. These forests were planted by the Jewish National Fund through the 1950s after the Palestinians were ethnically cleaned and their villages destroyed to erase any trace of their existence. So in reality this was not a ecological contribution but the erasing of a people. The absurdity is how can Israelis see these houses today and continue to believe that no one lived and built this land before they dispossessed them?

When we got to Haifa we asked to be dropped off at a street near the Baha’i Temple, which is full of Arab owned restaurants and cafes. We sat down for coffee and chatted with the wait staff until a friend I made in Haifa a few weeks before came by to pick us up. He was taking us to the home of another friend I made in Haifa whose family he wanted us to meet. The father prepared an AMAZING meal and while I got into a long and heavy political and literary (Palestinian) conversation with the parents, Haneen and our five new friends sat outside talking, smoking argileh, and drinking beer. Haneen and I both felt like we had known this family for years. It was a strange yet welcome feeling and I really felt at home.

We stayed with them in Hallisa– my grandparents’ neighborhood in Haifa. Before 1948 when my grandparents lived there, Hallisa was a middle class neighborhood. Today it is a predominantly Arab neighborhood, it is poor and run down. Our friends called it a slum and it is burdened by drugs and violence. Walking to the house we were staying in we saw a car with someone’s name on it, and our friends told us that this car belonged to a young man who was shot dead outside of his home. It is rough here and the residents were facing eviction by the Israeli government a few months ago.

The following day Haneen and I woke up early to go to the beach where we spent half of our day. At the beach I sat in the water and became lost in my thoughts, particularly thinking about the dispossession of my people from this land and my grandmother’s stories about the beach and about the view of the ocean from their house. But every time I got lost in my thoughts I would be awakened suddenly by my surroundings and the realization that this is not the same Haifa. Here the Palestinians who remained are living in slums at worst and at best attending university where they are forced to study in Hebrew– not their native tongue. This while they are indigenous to this land and in a few year’s time will make up the majority of people living in this country again.

And then there was the bus incident. On our way back from the beach to Hallisa we took the bus that would drop us off walking distance from our destination. I spoke to the driver in English because he was obviously not Arab and I cannot speak Hebrew. I told him we would like to be dropped off at Hallisa. “Hallisa you say? Not Khallisa? So you are Aravim (Arab)?” Yes, we are Arab. “And you don’t speak Hebrew?” No, we only speak Arabic and English. “And you go to Hallisa of course you are Arab. Only Arabs go to Hallisa.” OK– so can you tell us when we get there? “Yes, I will tell you when I get there.”

The boys in the back of the bus got very rowdy and loud and began bothering the passengers. The same bus driver assumed that they were Arab and in a derogatory tone he started to yell at them: “Ahmad! Ahmad!” Then broken Arabic to tell them to shut up. Haneen and I were confused because the boys were Jewish, not Arab, but it was assumption he made and refused to back down. Another Jewish passenger, male in his early forties, came to the front of the bus and told the bus driver to do something about those kids. The bus driver said, again in broken Arabic, “Can you speak Arabic? Tell them in Arabic, Ahmad! Shut up!” The passenger argued with the bus driver that the kids were Jewish, not Arab, but the bus driver insisted that they were Arab. Haneen leaned over and told me that for the first time in her life she believed that the way she feels must come close to being Black on a White bus.

After the loud kids in the back got off the bus, the driver told us he was pulling up to Hallisa. He went off route (we know this because the women on the bus started to yell at him about making a wrong turn) and told us that if we got off here we are to make a quick left and quick right and we would find ourselves in Hallisa. When we got off the bus, we asked and found out that we were lied to but the bus actually goes all the way to Hallisa. It was an odd type of racism that inspired that bus driver to kick us off the bus, but the Palestinians there understood. They were appalled by the story, but they understood the situation nonetheless. The responses we heard were, “Yes, that is how it is here”. We got on another bus (incidentally the same bus route) with an Arab driver and he got us to Hallisa.

When we got to Hallisa we washed up, ate, and went back out to explore the neighborhood and see my grandparents’ house. On a hilltop in Hallisa is a mosque called the Mosque of Hajj Abdullah. Hajj Abdullah was my grandmother’s uncle– he built the mosque and it is one of the few mosques in the ’48 territories that remains a mosque. Most were either destroyed or turned into bars or animal barns. Directly behind the mosque is the house my grandmother used to live in with her family. In 1948 she would have been 14 years old. Her sister and my grandfather’s brother were married, and my great grandfather rented a room in their building and the first floor as a grocery store from them. My grandfather was 18 in 1948. My grandmother and grandfather would not get married until my grandmother was 19 and they were refugees in Damascus. I will write more about them in a later post.

That day as we were going to see the old house on the hilltop in the Hallisa neighborhood in Haifa we met two of my distant cousins: one from my grandmother’s family and one from my grandfather’s. This is the Diaspora, and I have experienced it many ways before but this face of the Diaspora I have just experienced for the first time. The Diaspora is young enough for you to see your family, but old enough for you not to know them. Some photos below:

Reads "Masjid al-Hajj Abdullah".

View from my grandparents' house-- just like my grandmother used to tell me

Walking up to search for the house

My grandparents' home before the ethnic cleansing. The ground floor was a corner store.

View of old ground level grocery store from an opening in the outside wall.

Dome of my great great uncle's mosque.

Ramallah

Ramallah is nothing like I expected it to be. I immediately had mixed feelings about it, and talking to folks just reinforced those feelings. On the one hand, Ramallah is one of those Palestinian cities into which the Israel Defense Forced no longer enter. The Palestinian flag is everywhere here– as opposed to Jerusalem which is being annexed by Israel and the Israeli falg is everywhere. (Not that flags really mean anything to me as someone who does not like nationalism, just that its an indicator of the place’s politics, especially here). Ramallah is cosmopolitan and has a little bit of everything. You’ve got your music and arts scene, you’ve got your depoliticized and your political scenes, religious and secular, etc. There are internationals everywhere who mis with the locals, and sitting at a bar after hours is the best place to meet young, active people. The BDS and one-state movement is alive here, and (unfortunately) so is the two-state movement. Its a beautiful city to live and work.

However I got the feeling that you could easily forget the occupation living in Ramallah. Not completely of course. People here cannot go to Jerusalem, for example, and this is something that they cannot forget. They are also forced to purchase most of their products from Israel, they still stop at checkpoints between cities. I remember my friend said, “They are making our prison bigger and prettier, but its still a prison”. It seems Israel is punishing Gaza, and in the same way “rewarding” the West Bank, almost to create examples out of either population for the other. Gaza, look how we are easing restrictions in the West Bank. West Bank, watch how we strangle Gaza.

The problem is that the Palestinian Authority is part of this system. I believe that Salaam Fayyad is unilaterally creating the Palestinian state in the West Bank. This is a serious problem because to get the state the Palestinians will have to give up everything else– the Right of Return for refugees, Jerusalem, and so on. Also, what exactly is the state going to look like? Bantustans and cantons carved into 22% of Historic Palestine? What will connect Gaza and the West Bank? How will the economy of a Palestinian State sruvive in the shadow of Israel? What will happen to the Palestinian citizens of Israel? What will happen to the refugee? Don’t these populations have a say? On and on and on.

Nonetheless, I have included photos of Ramallah. Its a wonderul place. Next I’ll write about Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

Hiking near Ramallah!

An amazing hiking trip, early enough int he morning so that the sun did not fry us. It was only interrupted by a couple of settlers reversing their car on the freeway upon seeing us asking us, “What are you doing here?” Really? I think the real question is… what are you doing here?

Gaza Freedom Flotilla

I will begin by mentioning that a few years ago the leading Jewish academic Judith Butler gave a talk at Temple University about the ethics of anti-Zionism. The most powerful statement she made, which resonated deeply with me, was that Israel is threatened by democratic liberalism. She went on to explain what she meant: that anti-Zionism, from which Israel is so afraid, is simply a call for Israel to be a democracy for everyone and to implement international resolutions in giving the refugees their right to return to their homes.

International law, in my opinion, is a farce, it is a joke. Over the past few years we have seen that the jurisdiction of international law extends over poor countries, but it does not punish the colonizer for their violence against the colonized. Israel is a case in point: European colonizers displaced the indigenous Palestinian people 62 years ago and the United States and European nation-states that have a vested interest in maintaining this colonial system—in fact the last one remaining—will go to extremes to ensure that Israel maintains its domination.

One of Israel’s greatest weapons, aside from those they employ to repress militarily, has always been its propaganda. The best example is the creation myth: “A land without a people for a people without a land.” Not Palestinians, but Israeli historians have revisited the documents of the founding of the state of Israel and have re-written the history: the Palestinians are not accidental refugees of war, but were ethnically cleansed from their homelands. There was a plan in place which was implemented village by village and city by city to rid Palestine of the Palestinians. (For examples of these revisionist historians and histories see Benny Morris, a Zionist Israeli Jew, and Ilan Pappe, an anti-Zionist Israeli Jew). The Palestinians have been telling this history for years–including both my grandparents. Americans in particular still lack education on the history of the creation of the state of Israel. This is a shame predominantly because we are Israel’s greatest funders. Instead of spending our money on the urban public education system or healthcare for our citizens, we send $5.5 billion a year toIsrael, which is used to maintain an illegal occupation, to keep the Palestinians that were expelled in 1948 out, and to punish anyone who wants to stand in solidarity with Palestine and the Palestinians—and the freedom flotilla is an example.

Israel is not losing the unwavering support of the developed world, and it will not be condemned by international law in any meaningful way. Israel (and everyone else) knows this, so why should it change its violent tactics? The international community has long given Israel the green light to use its military capacity to the fullest—from its creation until today. Israel was not a miracle, nor was its creation story impressive. Israel was created through ethnic cleansing and can only be maintained through repression and violence. The truth is I personally was not surprised by Israel’s act of violent piracy in the Mediterranean. After the 1,500 Gazans killed last year in the Gaza massacre, who really is shocked that Israel killed 9 activists? Moreover, I am not expecting a serious response from any government or any international organization. The powers of the UN are seriously compromised when the US can veto any plan of action that can check Israel’s power and put an end to its Apartheid regime.

What Israel is losing, however, is its propaganda machine. At this point media is so easy to come by, so why would any of us look to the corporate media for our information? What will really pose a challenge to the state of Israel are people all around the world whose greatest power lies in pressuring their governments through solid grass roots movements to pressure and isolate Israel, as the world did with South Africa, until it ends its Apartheid. Negotiations between the PA, Israel, the US, and the EU are useless. Such negotiations have revealed a historic trend whereby Israel only gains more land, more power, and greater support. Negotiations assume a certain equality between the parties involved which does not exist between the Palestinians and the Israelis. With the Palestinians living on 12% of 22% of their historic lands (Palestinian controlled territories in the West Bank), what can they possibly negotiate? To negotiate you need leverage. This is why the ANC and Nelson Mandela refused to negotiate with the racist, white Apartheid regime in South Africa. And this is why today the South African peoples, more than anyone on earth understand that Israel is a pariah state and can only be checked through a movement of the people—like the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Campaign (BDS).

The boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement is growing. It remains a small force of international activists, but this year more student bodies at universities are pressuring their administration to withdraw all funds that support the Israeli military and settlements, and more artists have cancelled their shows in Israel (Carlos Santana, Elvis Costello, and Gil Scott Heron). This is the critical moment and these are the crucial movements that will put an end to Israel’s unchecked power and domination. The Gaza Freedom Flotilla is just one part of this growing movement, and in the end it is ordinary people who will support other ordinary people against racist governments such as Israel, South Africa before it, and Jim Crow USA before that.

Here in Palestine, the Palestinian are not so much shocked at how low Israel can go, because more than anyone else they have been victims of this domination. Most people here are surprised at how brash and unpremeditated the attack on the Freedom Flotilla was. In other words, Israel is destroying its own image. People here are aware that attacks on international supporters (rather than on Palestinians) creates an international outcry. And the outcry is beginning, but I think that the greatest result of this outcry will be the growth of the grassroots base of the solidarity campaign with the Palestinian people, which in time will create the necessary conditions to isolate Israel as a pariah, apartheid state—like South Africa. In my personal opinion the attack on the Gaza Flotilla demonstrates that Israel knows that it cannot go on this way much longer. The Israeli state is holding on to its domination and pushing the limits while it can.

Entering/West Bank

The Israeli border is the scariest border I have ever crossed. So much that my nerves begin acting out weeks in advance of traveling and I keep strategizing in my mind, I keep reviewing my story and searching for any holes they can poke. After the crossing I always let out a deep breathe in preparation of inhaling the breeze of my homeland. A Palestinian professor of mine once told me that he would rid the world of nostalgia if he could. I agree in one sense that nostalgia produces a lack of self-criticism and completely falsifies reality. But there is something good to be said about nostalgia—it keeps you connected emotionally and existentially to something you’ve lost. I think its just important not to let that nostalgia give you a false sense of reality. But I digress.

After taking my big breathe across the bridge in Palestine I knew that the worst was over. Anyway now I have my visiting visa stamp on my American passport. I’m good for three months to go wherever I want in this country… right? My cab arrived in downtown Nazareth and my cousin picked me up and took me to my aunt’s house. We had dinner—the best dawali (stuffed grape leaves) I have ever had (confirmed by others)—and then I argued for half an hour with my cousins about how I need to get into the West Bank. I told them I would not relax until I crossed a checkpoint and got into the West Bank. Then, getting to Ramallah would be a piece of cake, and within two days I would begin my internship. They finally agreed. The closest point into the West Bank is Nazareth-Jenin, and there my uncle Maan’s friend from his youth would be waiting to pick me up and take me to stay with them in Jenin for a night. That crossing closes at 3pm, which was when I got into Nazareth. I was never going to get through that way. My next option was to go through the Barta’a checkpoint. So my cousins made their way and so did Amo Mahmoud. This was an hour out of the way. When we got there we couldn’t find the checkpoint, so a young Palestinian man offered to come with us in the car to show us the way. When he got us there I thought this would be it. I told my cousins I would see them in a few weeks.

I walked into the checkpoint with my bag and confidently handed over my passport, revealing the page my visa was stamped on. The soldier behind the window examined it too closely. He flipped through it and begin saying, “Falasteeni! Falasteeni!” (Palestinian, Palestinian). I did not reply. “Do you have a hawiyyah?” (hawiyyah is the Palestinian ID which is issued by Israel to Palestinians in the West Bank. Its restricts their movement to the West Bank only. Palestinians with this ID cannot even enter East Jerusalem).

“No!” I replied, “Only American.”

He kept repeated Falasteeni and I kept repeating no, only American. Then he told me to wait on the bench. I sat and looked up to find another Israeli soldier walking above me, his M-16 pointed directly at me. I decided to look away quickly. Looking around me (rather than up) I realized what this checkpoint looks like: a prison. As Palestinian women and men passed through the checkpoint waiting for the turn stiles to be turned on they stand in tiny cages waiting for further instructions from the soldiers—pass or do not pass. Enter the West Bank or do not enter the West Bank. I was awakened from my deep thinking by a young Palestinian man who was turned away at the window too. “Why did they turn you back?” Unsure as to whether or not I should be talking I looked up at the soldier with the M-16. “I don’t know. He keeps asking me for a hawiyyah but I don’t have one. I have a US passport.”

“Oh” he said, “That happened to me last year. I have a Jordanian passport and a hawiyyah. I tried to travel with my passport and they found my ID and I got in trouble. They are trying to figure out who has IDs”.

Before we finished this conversation three more young men were turned back, each asking why I wasn’t allowed through. These young Palestinians gave me a greater sense of security—the Israeli soldiers seemed less threatening when Palestinian men and women passed through the checkpoint or sat next to me and talked to me. About 15 or 20 minutes later another Israeli man comes from a door I hadn’t seen before, carrying my passport, and just in case I was a threat, and in case the guy standing above us with the M-16 was not enough protection for him, he was escorted by another soldier with an M-16, his pointing to the ground but his finger on the trigger. I smiled to myself at such a ridiculous scene: three soldiers, two with an M-16 and one with my passport just to confront me.

“I am sorry” he said, “This visa will let you go into the West Bank, but after this you cannot leave, you have to stay in the West Bank.”

So I agreed. “That’s fine,” I said. I knew he was not telling the truth because I had been here with the same visa and I’ve gone in and out of the West Bank. I also knew that there were checkpoints through which I would be able to enter the West Bank without them looking at my passport. But why was he saying this? After I agreed this soldier changed his mind.

“No, actually wait. I want to check something else one more time. Can you sit down again and I will be back in five minutes.”

“Sure,” I replied, “Take your time.”

He left again with his escort. I was completely confused by the whole encounter. I went to take my seat again with the young men who had more questions and advice about where I should go if I get turned away. Fifteen more minutes went by before the soldier came back with his escort carrying the M-16, again. I walked over a met them half way.

“Sorry I made a mistake. Actually you cannot go into the West Bank on this visa. This is a B-2 visa it is only good for Israel, not the West Bank.”

There are no visas for the West Bank. I knew he was lying to me. So I argued, first telling him that I had a B-2visa last year and that I got into the West Bank fine with it then. Then I told him that I could go through Qalandia in Jerusalem and no one would even check my passport. He insisted that there was nothing I could do and that I simply could not enter the West Bank. I knew he was not telling the truth but I did not know why. So I went back to my seat to gather my belongings and I told the guys what I was told. They told me that I should go through Jabra checkpoint, another hour and a half away closer to Tulakrem.

We did go to the Jabra checkpoint and here we simply drove right into the West Bank—no questions asked because we were in a car holding Israeli license plates, of course. How arbitrary the checkpoints are. You go in and out of the territories based on the whims of Israeli soldiers. Just the weekend going from Jenin (in the West Bank where my cousin came to pick me up) to Nazareth (1948 territories or “Israel proper”) my cousin’s car was completely emptied and searched for two hours—because of me. Not sure what about my US citizenship raises red flags but they asked my cousin if I gave her any weapons or if she thinks I was given any weapons. Me, who is terrified of any weaponry and wants to rid the world of them. And the crazy thing is my taxes fund this madness. Rather than giving me health insurance or improving the public schools I graduated from, my taxes fund this apartheid military state. Obama, what are you doing?