Another Day of Rage

Fadi Quran has a face to his name, and he's studying for his MA at Birzeit University. Which makes us friends since you know.

Anyway, Democracy Now's Amy Goodman interviewed him a couple days after Sunday's special Nakba which for the first time saw Palestinian refugees in the bordering countries protesting and some succeeding in crossing over to Palestine (and in this man's case, all the way to Yafa). This nascent youth movement is solidifying quite quickly. In a way, I was filled with contempt at the hunger strikers who had at their heart pure and noble intentions but I was convinced that starving one's self was not going to yield any positive change and that other tactics (something along the lines of the US civil rights movement in the 60's) would prove to be more effective. But what did I know. So quick to judge and all that. Turns out that here, in this Palestinian society I live and breathe in everyday, there is such a movement. The hunger strikers formed the face of it, set things in motion, and then branched out to adapt to the quickly changing circumstances. The brave resistance going on in the villages of Nabi Saleh, Nil'in, and Bil'in every Friday for years now hasn't achieved that proper media coverage/awareness it needs. The youth movement is drawing upon the villagers' example and seeks to employ non-violent resistance. To say that Palestinian non-violent resistance is a relatively new concept is unbelievably wrong. It was just that throwing rocks against an army turned out to be more interesting for the world, the whole David verus Goliath thing. Yet the first intifada started off as a civil protest with syndicated strikes and Palestinians refusing to pay Israel taxes and their rejection of their military issued ID cards. Then came the hard hitting stuff as Israel responded with sadistic brutality, using the "break their bones" quota for the rock throwing youth.

What does Fadi have to say about a third intifada?

"I honestly—currently, I don’t think it’s going to be a third intifada, or uprising, in the sense that we saw in the First Intifada, 1988, and in 2000. I see that what’s going to develop now is something more similar to the civil rights movement in the South in the United States in the 1960s, where it wasn’t an ongoing uprising. It was more of a—you know, different events, people in their own communities organizing the Freedom Rides or organizing boycott campaigns. That’s what we’re going to begin seeing in the West Bank and Gaza, in the 1948 territories, and even in refugee camps. So it’s going to be that type of organic grassroots movement, and not an all-out uprising. Now, I think that if, at some point, our goals are not being achieved, if freedom still seems far away, then the pressure that we all feel as Palestinians due to Israeli oppression will likely lead us to an all-out uprising. But I think in the next maybe month, two months, it’s just going to be this type of escalating civil rights movement, people demanding equality, people demanding justice."

THANK YOU. We need direction because what kind of resistance will aimless rock throwing on Israeli military jeeps and soldiers will that be? Just another excuse to victimize poor Israel even more and to dehumanize the scum of the earth Palestinians. We need to build up awareness (people still scoff at BDS, dear God), educate, really work on building grassroots movements.

The youth movement which is STILL nameless and so shall be referred to here on the blog as PalestineYouthMovement--PYM-- is behind the Day of Rage set for Friday, May 20th. They are following up on the success of Sunday's Nakba commemoration which is good to see because continuity is integral. Key meeting points all over the West Bank and Gaza Strip have already been named and the purpose is to basically make our presence as an occupied people to the IOF and the watching world as even more salient. No doubt tomorrow there will be a lot of tear gas, but it's sending a message. The brown people are revolting the so-called western way, and the Occident's offspring are responding with violence. What a perfectly imbalanced equation right there. It's better to come with family and friends, to raise only the Palestinian flag, to be armed with scarves and plastic bags for the tear gas, and to watch out for the damn musta'rabeen and Israel's "elite special forces".

Ramallah: At 7am transportation will be provided to those who congregate around the Manara square to take them to Nabi Saleh. For those who consider it a criminal offence to wake up that early on a weekend, the protest will start later on in the morning at the entrance of Qalandiya's refugee camp and will proceed to the checkpoint.

RESIST IS TO EXIST.