NOTE to people near Bethlehem-Beit Sahour area: We need you here tomorrow
(Thursday) and Friday mornings at 9 AM at Ush Ghrab. Thursday up the hill
and Friday below the hill for planting (see below).
At around 3 PM today (Wednesday), a friend who lives near the area of the
threatened land of Ush Ghrab called to say the military just arrived and are
bulldozing the top of the hill. As I explained in a previous email, this
hill of over 1000 dunums is in Beit Sahour surrounded by Palestinian homes
on all sides. From this hill the soldiers shelled the town destroying and
damaging many homes. But the Israeli occupation army vacated the military
base in 2006 (a site of nonviolent resistance for many years). I arrive
within five minutes and see extensive activities. The soldiers show me an
order issued January 29th 2010 with a map showing closure for a significant
size (much more even than the original military base). I call some people
and they call others and soon we have over 40 people. The order is in Hebrew
and no one reads Hebrew. Later at night, we do partial translation and it
is typical of all Israeli orders: using vague justifications of security to
achieve what is clearly land thefts, harassments, etc. The private land
owners have decided last week to plant trees on Friday. WE will expand this
and also asked people to come Thursday to the site. Video at:
(but again please understand
this is amateur video). Please join us and support popular resistance
Thursday and Friday.
The quick response by many activists to the phone calls got me to think
about why there are so many people willing to drop everything and work for
justice while other people (e.g. soldiers) blindly obey orders manifestly
illegal per International law or simply stay silent (silence is complicity)?
There were many white South Africans who joined the ANC and other indigenous
liberation movements while others stayed silent or participated in the
crimes! There were many Israelis who abandoned Zionism and joined the local
struggle. Others go about their daily lives oblivious to what is happenning
behind the fences of segregation (Geder HaHafrada in Hebrew). But why would
one employee of Yad Vashem obey orders and simply tell all visitors of the
perpetual victimhood and that Zionism is the answer while another gets fired
for simply pointing out to a few visitors that just down the hill is the
ethnically cleansed village of Deir Yassin where the future leaders of
Israel committed a massacre of indescribable brutality in 1948.
What exactly distinguishes people? Why does someone like Alan Dershowitz
choose to support torture, support racism, and defend war crimes and crimes
against humanity? And why does someone like Hedy Epstein, a survivor of the
concentration camps, choose to go on hunger strike to support the besieged
and impoverished 1.5 million people of Gaza? Why does a Palestinian
politician drive a gas-guzzling SUV and wear nice suits while other
Palestinians choose to stand in front of a Bulldozer or an army tank and get
shot or thrown in jail? Why does a privileged white person in America
choose to be silent and pay taxes that go to kill Iraqis, Afghanis, and
Palestinians? Why does another privileged white person choose to come and
join us here in the struggle? Rachel Corrie, a young 23 year old American
student was intentionally crushed by an Israeli bulldozer while trying to
defend a Palestinian pharmacist home. Tom Hurndall and others paid dearly.
Thousands of Internationals come here annually to support our struggle. Why
do millions remain compliant? Is it not true that “silence is complicity”
and “you can’t be neutral on a moving train”?
It would be superficially and wrong to say things along the line of having a
conscience can differentiate people. We all have seen people switch and
join the struggle all the time telling us that it is indeed not people by
ideas and education. So what can convince them to change? A colleague
wrote once that those who comply live more comfortably but they are like the
“house slaves”. In the time of slavery, there were field slaves who were in
the sun all day doing the work and then the privileged house slaves who
dressed nicely, fed nicely but who were still slaves. They got promoted to
house slaves by being more compliant and trustworthy (to the masters). I
personally believe the slave owners were also slaves. I believe those who
rejected the system and yes occasionally got the whip, those were free in
their hearts and minds. Today, I believe those who are suffering are in
many ways freer and more comfortable in their skin than all the privileged
masters and house slaves. I believe that freedom comes to the slave owners
themselves when they free their slaves and when in the meantime the house
slaves refuse to be house slaves. In our situation here, I believe many
Israelis and Palestinians are enslaved and they don’t even know it. There
are few who managed to shed the self-imposed chains around their brains (as
my late grandfather advised us when we were kids). I find that the
friendship and support of those is the best bliss in life. But still the
question lingers of why people behave teh way they do and, perhaps more
importantly, how do people change. We would like to hear your views on this.
What can help us reach people to get them to show some moral fortitude, to
show some spine, to shed their chains, to be free of being oppressor or
oppressed? I want to share your views with the rest of the world (these
emails reach tens of thousands of people). If you share your view with me
please tell me it is OK to post it at the website http://www.qumsiyeh.org or you want
kept private.
If you reached here thank you, and if you live near Bethlehem area, come
join us Thursday and Friday mornings (9 AM) for planting trees (Friday
only), for camaraderie, for activism, and for expressing moral courage.
Desertpeace 