"Hunger strike a signal to world's oppressed"

{I was fortunate and honored to have interviewed Khader Adnan on Wednesday, April 18th a day after his release from the Israeli Ramleh prison hospital.}

Khader Adnan recounts his 66-day fast in Israeli jail that has made him a symbol of Palestinian resistance.

When Palestinian hunger striker Khader Adnan called his mother at 11:30pm on Tuesday night, she burst into tears. "He told me, 'Mother I am on my way home,'" she said. “For the first time in months my heart was at ease again." For Palestinians, Khader Adnan has become a symbol of resistance and steadfastness, or sumoud, after he waged a 66-day hunger strike against the Israeli prison service. He began his hunger strike immediately after his violent arrest by Israeli soldiers on December 17, 2011. He was detained under what Israel calls "administrative detention", a policy adopted from the era of the British mandate. Under administrative detention, Israel can detain a prisoner for up to six months, renewable indefinitely, without ever charging the prisoner or presenting any evidence against them.


There are currently more than 4,500 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, over 300 of those, in administrative detention. Adnan’s hunger strike, which eventually attracted international media attention and solidarity from around the world, inspired other administrative detainees to go on hunger strike. Hana Shalabi went on strike for 43 days before she was released and deported from her village in the West Bank to Gaza. Five others are now in the Ramleh prison hospital, including Bilal Thiab and Thaer Halahleh, who have not eaten for 52 days. After more than two months without food, Adnan’s lawyer brokered a deal in February with Israeli officials that saw him released on April 17. Coincidentally, that is the same day Palestinians commemorate Prisoners Day, which was marked this year by the open-ended hunger strike of 1,600 prisoners. 


Sahar Francis, director of the Ramallah-based rights group Addameer, saw Adnan's hunger strike as a catalyst for this current mass hunger strike movement. "I definitely think the successful hunger strike of Khader Adnan and his release was a main feature in inspiring the 1,600 prisoners to carry out this act now, which is a continuation of what they began in September 2011," he says. "It should be noted that a successful hunger strike depends a lot on internal support, international pressure from the EU and UN, and the policy of the Israeli prison authorities." Khader Adnan, who was was reunited with his family just before midnight on Tuesday, after visiting the families of the prisoners in Arrabeh, seven of whom are serving life sentences, later spoke to Al Jazeera.


Al Jazeera: You've undergone the most difficult experience of your life and have been separated for months from your family. Why did you first stop by the families of other prisoners before seeing your own, and how does it feel to be free again?

Khader Adnan: Every day we live through Prisoners’ Day and its special symbolism. I went to see the families of those imprisoned before seeing my own family as a token of appreciation for their support during my imprisonment and their enduring anguish at having loved ones behind the bars of the Israeli occupation. My freedom is incomplete because of the prisoners who I've left behind. We salute all of the prisoners; Lina Jarbouni [the longest serving female prisoner], Sheikh Ahmad Hajj [the oldest prisoner on hunger strike], Omar Abu Shalalah, Jaafar Ezzedine, Hassan Safadi, and of course Thaer Halaleh and Bilal Thiab. I was received by Bilal Thiab's mother in [the nearby village of] Kufr RaI and relayed to her his message of endurance and commitment to his hunger strike.

After 66 days of refusing food, you spent 53 days recuperating. Did the treatment at the hands of the Israeli officers during your imprisonment improve after you ended your hunger strike?

No, not at all. Up until the last day in the prison hospital they would embark on ways to humiliate me, such as opening the door to stare at me whenever I would use the bathroom or shower. When I was hunger striking, they would purposely eat and drink in front of me. They would insult me, call me a dog. One told me that they still haven't done anything to me yet. Their manners are so unscrupulous. They tried to provoke me by repeating that my wife was unfaithful to me, and that my daughters were not mine. What else could they do? They banned the media from covering my case, proof that they are afraid of the truth. Even after I ended my hunger strike, as I was being transferred from the hospital in Safad to Ramleh, they did so in a way so that no one could see me. They kidnapped me and pushed me through an inner garage. My appeal was held in the hospital cafeteria! Is Israel that afraid of showing its true face to the world?

 How did you manage to find the resilience and strength in continuing your hunger strike, especially after the three times your family visited you?

[Hurried laugh] I don't know how I did it. All strength comes from God, and when I began my hunger strike I knew that it would be until freedom or death … sometimes I am puzzled myself! Israel granted permission for my family to see me not out of the goodness of their own hearts, but because they thought that the sight of my family would be enough to pressure me into eating again. It achieved the opposite effect, and I was further inspired to challenge my jailers. I've spent many sleepless nights from the pain my body was going through. However, my family's happiness, my people's happiness, and the free people's happiness all over the world made me forget that I've ever experienced pain throughout my hunger strike.

Sixteen hundred Palestinian prisoners are on their third day of an open-ended hunger strike in Israeli jails demanding improved living conditions, including the right to family visits and the right to receive family photographs. Will this tactic succeed in translating a popular resistance movement outside of the prison walls amongst Palestinians?

My stance will always be with the prisoners, whether next to them, behind them, or in front of them. From the Gaza Strip to the West Bank to the '48 territories and the exile, every Palestinian is obliged to stand united. We are all the children of the same cause, and one people living under the same occupation. I saw so much support from our family in 1948 Palestine, from the Palestinian doctors and nurses, the Palestinians in Haifa, the school girls from Nazareth who wrote an assignment on me … I will never forget their love. The mass hunger strike is a signal to all oppressed and vulnerable people everywhere, not just Palestinians. It's a message to everyone suffering from injustice, under the boot of oppression. This method will be successful, God willing, and will achieve the rights of the prisoners. I ask God to move the consciences of the free people around the world. I thank them all, especially Ireland, for they have stood by my hunger strike. I ask them to stand in solidarity with all the Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in the past, present and future, with our tortured and oppressed people who live under the injustice of occupation day and night.
 
As the Palestinian prisoner to go on the longest hunger strike and survive, how does it feel becoming a symbol not just for Palestinian steadfastness but for resistance among other oppressed people?

During my days in the [Meir Ziv] hospital in Safad, occupied pre-partition Palestine, I was reminded of the holiness and the glory of this land. Being close to the resisting countries of Lebanon and Syria all gave me further incentive to defy the Israeli prison authorities, which I don't recognise. I have barely presented anything worth of value to the Palestinian cause. I work at a bakery and sell zaatar, and will continue to do so to remind every Palestinian that their roots are deeply entrenched in this land, among the olive trees and the zaatar.

Source: Al Jazeera

Israeli forces attempt to arrest 2-year-old Palestinian child

As published on Electronic Intifada on Wednesday

Mo’men Shtayeh probably owns a John Cena shirt, the WWE wrestler who the Palestinian kids hero worship, their shrill voices echoing in neighborhood streets of Cena’s catchphrase, “You can’t see me!” accompanied with waving a hand in front of their faces.

Mo’men Shtayeh has seen and knows too much. There is a chance — nay, a probability — that due to witnessing the Israeli army’s brutality and severe oppression in his village of Kufr Qaddoum, Mo’men might have grown up to be a warmongering Islamist (or perversely, a Tea Partier).

Mo’men Shtayeh represents a threat to the security of the Israeli racist occupying state. Apparently, it is well known that due to his savvy nature, Mo’men has been involved in drawing up specialized blueprints to attack enemy bases.

So it all makes perfect sense that the most moral army in the world, the Israeli Defense Forces, the fourth strongest army, the upholders of the beacon of democracy and godly light, tried to arrest Mo’men on Monday, 2 April.

The thing is, Mo’men is two-and-a-half years old.

Murad Shtayeh, the coordinator of the popular resistance committeee in Kufr Qaddoum and the father of little Mo’men, told The Electronic Intifada that heavily armed Israeli soldiers raided his house on Monday at 5:30pm. Two soldiers remained outside, two others went in the house, shouting they were going to arrest Mo’men.

“Mo’men was going inside the house,” Murad said, “when the soldiers suddenly took off from where they had been standing. They came running to the house like they were in a marathon, very fast and urgent, like a bunch of crazies.”

The soldiers claimed that Mo’men had not a nuclear warhead, or a submachine gun, but the most dangerous item in the world — a slingshot.

“Of course Mo’men didn’t have a slingshot in his hands!” scoffed Murad. “And even if he did, so what? He’s a kid.” For crying out loud.

The soldiers were adamant that Mo’men hand over his slingshot (which he doesn’t own) because he was using it to aim at the soldiers. What’s more, they wanted Mo’men to hand himself over to them too.

Bashar Shtayeh, Murad’s cousin, was also present at the scene. “The soldiers in the house drew their weapons and pointed them at the family,” he said, “threatening them that they would not leave unless Mo’men was handed over to them.”

A loud, angry arugment persisted for half an hour between Murad, other villagers who had come to see what the commotion was all about, and the soldiers. The soldiers then left, having cemented yet another moral meltdown in the occupation’s history. Not that they had morals in the first place.

But what of the toddler? Needless to say, Mo’men was terrified by what was going on around him.

“What can I say, of course he’s affected by this,” Murad said. “He was very scared. He’s doing slightly better now.”

Kufr Qaddoum began its weekly popular resistance protests in June 2011, against the encroaching illegal settlement of Qedumim that is built on the village’s land and to open the main village road that leads directly to Nablus.

The Israeli oppression against Kufr Qaddoum doesn’t just happen on Fridays. It occurs on a daily basis.

“Obviously, they thought this stunt — whether carried through or not — would serve as a punishment for us, but the truth is that it will not deter us from our protests,” Murad declared.

“Every day and night we have five to seven soldiers in the village harrassing us. Sometimes they come in with their dogs and fetch cars and houses. Yesterday [Tuesday] at 9:30pm the soldiers set up a checkpoint on one of the inner streets of the village.”

Mo’men Shtayeh, your little two-and-a-half-year-old self highlighted the absurdity, the idiocy, the shameful nature of the Israeli occupying army. May the force of John Cena be with you.

Editor’s Note: The family’s name is Shteiwi, not Shtayeh.

Palestine: Inside the Home of Hana Shalabi

Al Akhbar English published my interview with Hana Shalabi's sister Zahra on Hana's 40th day of hunger strike

On my Electronic Intifada blog, I wrote:

There are no words left after this. I picture Hana lying in a hospital bed, enduring an incredible amount of physical pain in addition to the taunts of the Israeli soldiers around her, who tell her over and over again that she will not survive, that she is not Khader Adnan, that the world does not care about her, that she will die alone and forgotten.

I don’t want to immortalize her; I just want her to live.

By: Linah Alsaafin
Published Monday, March 26, 2012

Burqin, Occupied West Bank – A tent, decorated with the flags of Palestinian political factions and posters of 29-year-old Hana, adorns the front yard of the Shalabi family home. On the eve of Mother’s Day, the tent had received a steady stream of visitors since the morning. Teachers and students from Burqin’s secondary school, members from the village’s women and farmers’ societies, and mothers of Palestinian martyrs gave the family long-stemmed roses and flowers, enough to form a huge bouquet.

Hana’s elderly mother Badia spends most of her days sitting inside the tent. She can’t stand being inside the house – it reminds her too much of Hana’s presence.

For the past 40 days, Hana Shalabi has been on hunger strike, consuming only water. Being held under so-called administrative detention, an outdated policy that Israel uses frequently to arrest and hold Palestinians for an indefinite period of time under the pretense of security threats based on “secret evidence,” Hana hasn’t been formally charged with any crime. Her health is deteriorating rapidly and according to the last inspection carried out by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel last week she is at risk of “imminent death.”

Zahra Shalabi leads the way into the small but immaculate house. Zahra begins talking earnestly about her sister Hana, who despite being nine years her junior is the closest to her.

Hana’s elderly mother Badia can’t stand being inside the house – it reminds her too much of Hana’s presence.“Everything Hana did in this house now feels like a dream,” Zahra says, adding that “she would wake up in the morning and make tea or coffee for us both. Sometimes I can’t believe she is not here anymore.”
Hana is one of five Palestinians who have been rearrested by Israel after being released in the October prisoners’ release between Hamas and Israel, in violation of the deal’s conditions. Prior to her release in October, Hana had spent 25 months in prison under administrative detention, which can be renewed every six months.

During the last family visit, Hana informed her mother that she would begin a hunger strike if her detention was renewed for the sixth time. When the prisoners’ deal came out, it was a welcome and joyous surprise.

“We were all filled with immeasurable happiness,” recounts Zahra. “Hana couldn’t believe she was out of prison. We stayed up past midnight on the day she was released, just chatting and laughing so much. She told me stories about life in prison, the types of dinners she’d cook with the other female prisoners, the sanitary conditions of the cells, all in a joking way.”

The four months between October and February were trouble-free days, bursting with dreams and ambitions. Hana loved to socialize and meet with people. She was busy with getting her papers in order to register for university, with her eyes set on enrolling at the American University in Jenin. She wanted to get her driver’s license, and later buy a car. She went on a shopping spree, buying new carpets and curtains for her bedroom, as well as new clothes since she couldn’t stand to wear the ones she owned before her imprisonment. Also she dreamed of getting married and of finding the perfect man to spend the rest of her life with.

Hana is one of five Palestinians who have been rearrested by Israel after being released in the October prisoners’ release between Hamas and Israel.On February 16, at 2:30am, Zahra woke up to the sound of unusual noises outside the house. At first, she thought it was a few stray dogs, but then came the unmistakable rumble of an Israeli army jeep. Hana woke up in a frenzy, gasping “The Israelis, the Israelis!” She confusedly thought that the occupation soldiers had come for her brother Ammar, who spent two weeks in prison after the Palestinian Authority arrested him in 2009 on the baseless accusation of weapon possession. The thought of getting rearrested did not cross her mind until the Israeli commander called her name.
“She began jumping around like a caged bird,” Zahra says. “She was panicking, and kept repeating over and over again that she was not going to go with the soldiers because she didn’t do anything.”

The soldiers raided the house, making the inhabitants sit on the floor. One soldier grabbed Hana, who tried to push him away. He began beating her. Another unit went upstairs to her brother Ammar’s house, and scared the children by charging in with police dogs.

Clad only in light pajamas and prevented from dressing more moderately, Hana was taken outside in the cold by “Officer Shalom,” who interrogated her for five minutes. Shortly afterward, she was taken away and almost immediately began her hunger strike after being subjected to more beatings and forced to undergo a humiliating strip search in the presence of a male soldier.

Posters of Hana are plastered inside the house. On one wall is a large framed picture of her martyred brother Samer, who was shot by Israeli soldiers in September 2005. The picture had a Fatah subheading denoting his membership of Fatah’s armed military wing, Al-Quds Brigades.

When asked about Hana’s Islamic Jihad affiliation Zahra gives a small smile. “She’s not really Islamic Jihad. She doesn’t belong to any faction. When Israel imprisons you, their security services ask which political faction you belong to. Hana chose Islamic Jihad on a whim.”

Israel offered Hana a reduced sentence of four months on March 3 after 17 days of her hunger strike but she was adamant that she would only break her strike if she was released immediately. Again, it should be noted that no one knows why she is being held or what the evidence against her is.

“Is Hana Israel? Is she the US?” Zahra asks angrily.

“Does she have missiles or rockets? Where is the threat to Israel? Why can’t we visit her? I know Hana, we grew up together. She has done nothing. It’s the biggest injustice for Hana to die in prison, because she is innocent. I am sure my sister will not make it through another seven days. My sister is dying,” Zahra says as she begins to cry.

She continues by saying, “I would never place my enemy in my sister’s position. We remain steadfast despite the pain exploding within us. I would not wish this on anyone.”

Israel offered Hana a reduced sentence of four months on March 3 after 17 days of her hunger strike but she was adamant that she would only break her strike if she was released immediately.The Shalabis appreciate the moral support that has come from not just Palestine, but all over the world. However, they want that support to turn into action, to secure the immediate release of Hana, as she languishes in the Israeli Me’ir Hospital in Kfar Saba, where she was transferred to on March 20. Every time there is a court hearing to assess Hana’s appeals the family’s nerves are stretched thin in a psychological tug of war, only to have their hopes plummeted after every trial postponement.
On Monday, March 19, Hana’s parents met with the President of the Palestinian Authority (PA) Mahmoud Abbas at the PA compound al-Muqataa in Ramallah. They asked him to secure the release of their daughter. Abbas replied that he would do his best, but Zahra dismisses his claims.

“Why does he call himself a president if he can’t use his diplomatic powers to release my sister? I don’t believe he is even trying. When Hana was arrested for the first time in 2009, ‘Captain Faisal’ the Israeli officer waved some papers in our direction when we demanded to know why she was getting arrested. He told us the PA gave him the secret file they had on her.”

Zahra is a thin woman who has grown old before her time. Her eyes are pits of sadness and she unexpectedly breaks down into tears in the middle of talking levelly for long uninterrupted stretches. She has trouble sleeping at night, often dreaming of her sister coming toward her with her hands cuffed, imploring Zahra to get them off of her. She wakes up fitfully, and says that she feels her sister’s pain.

“Her weakening heartbeat is my weakening heartbeat. Her stomach pangs are my own stomach pangs. If she dies, I hope she haunts the dreams of everyone who is responsible for her life, everyone who could have done something to secure her release but didn’t. The reality is that the world has failed Hana. What can we do other than put our faith and trust in God?”

Imperfect revolution: Palestine’s 15 March movement one year on

What was the 15 March movement really about?(Issam Rimawi / APA images)

As published on Electronic Intifada

On 17 February 2011, a group of young activists gathered in one of Ramallah’s nondescript cafés to plan for a revolution. Some already knew each other, others didn’t. They Skyped with four activists from Gaza in a meeting that initially focused on translating efforts on social media to action the ground, with the aim of reigniting the Palestinian street into demanding its rights from the oppressors once again.

This was the overture to the short-lived “15 March” movement, as it was dubbed by the local media after the event that took place on that day last year. The movement called for national reconciliation and used the rallying cry of ending the Hamas-Fatah division. Large protests took place in Gaza City and in Ramallah, where they were subsequently hijacked by Hamas and Fatah supporters and security forces, respectively. Many of the 15 March protesters were beaten up.

The movement petered out relatively quickly, and on the surface it seemed like that was that, just another unsuccessful minor chapter in Palestine’s history of factions, youth groups and political blocs. But who were the activists who called for the protest, and what was 15 March really about?

Breaking the mold

Before the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, different activists had contemplated arranging a big event on a particular day. Hamas’ stronghold on the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian Authority’s control over the West Bank severely stifled freedom of expression and curtailed individual rights, creating a tense atmosphere not unlike that of a police state. Speaking out — however casually — against the wrong political faction would result in an arrest, a beating and threats. Youth activists were determined to break through the mold of autocratic rule by their own leadership, which they saw as an arm of the Israeli occupation.

As the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt played out, a few solidarity protests were organized by the activists in Ramallah. Demonstrators were beaten up and harassed by the Palestinian Authority’s preventive security forces. A protest or demonstration couldn’t take place in the West Bank without getting an approval or a license of some sorts from the PA. At the same time, many Facebook groups and pages against the Fatah-Hamas division and Israeli occupation began to appear, boasting tens of thousands of followers.

Ebaa Rezeq, an activist from Gaza, found out about the initiative from blogs and Facebook, before friends asked her to be a part of the group. “They were only starting work by talking to drivers, salesmen, families at home, schools and universities, trade unions and associations,” she recalled. “It wasn’t about getting youth groups and activists recruited; it was about getting the public involved and this was one of the reasons why I believed in this movement.”

Somehow, the date decided on for the protest was 15 March. The two main organizing groups with assertive roles were in Gaza City and Ramallah. Activists in Gaza decided to base the event around ending the division between Fatah and Hamas, which harmed them more than it did to the Palestinians in the West Bank.

A shallow slogan?

However, not everyone agreed that ending the division was the priority. Murad Jadallah, a member of the youth group Hirak Shababi al-Mustaqil (Independent Youth Movement) stated that there was no doubt the slogan “The people want an end to the division” was shallow to say the least. “It does not offer any implication as to what caused the division — which was the result of the absence of a unified national resistance strategy, not because there was one government in Gaza and another government in the West Bank — but at the same time it was a unifying slogan that that was easy for people to repeat.”

Activist Fadi Quran concurs that the slogan, modeled after the famous Egyptian chant of “The people want the fall of the regime,” was a soundbite that the local media could carry more effectively. The group in Ramallah wanted something that addressed and unified all Palestinians, because, as Jadallah put it, the last twenty years of the “peace process” had solidified the reality into geographical splits and concessions, in addition to disenfranchising refugees from the political process. Therefore, the demand for Palestinian National Council elections was introduced, with every Palestinian regardless of where he or she is based having the right to vote.

“Calling for PNC elections was not something new,” Jadallah pointed out. “The Hirak Shababi or other youth groups didn’t invent this call. It is merely a translation of the political concept introduced at the beginning of the 1990s, ‘Reorganizing the Palestinian house.’ That time period demonstrated that the Palestinian house, the Palestine Liberation Organization, had no democratic foundations as the mechanisms of decision-making were undertaken by an executive body within the PLO based on dictatorial ones.”

Hunger strike dynamics

Two days before 15 March, a hunger strike and sit-in by the youth began at Manara Square in Ramallah’s city center. Activists got wind of news that Fatah, along with other political parties, was planning to co-opt the event. Therefore, a pre-emptive action was necessary in order to convey the message of PNC elections louder than the parties’ mantra.

Maath Musleh spent 21 days on hunger strike. There were initially nine hunger strikers, but dozens more slept at Manara Square. Some were politically affiliated, others were not. They were attacked on more than one occasion by PA security thugs, and had their tent burned down. Musleh achieved seniority in the tent set-up because of his commitment to the hunger strike, and was determined not to impose any kind of structural leadership in the tent. The hunger strikers began to form their own dynamics, and pushed forward two more demands: the release of all political prisoners held by Fatah and Hamas, and an end to the propaganda wars implemented by both factions against each other.

“There were some people in 15 March who were against our hunger strike,” Musleh said. “They were convinced we were in over our heads.”

Tents were set up in the centers of Nablus, Bethlehem, Jenin and Gaza City. The coordination between the activists was poor and fragmented. Fadi Quran attributes that to what he calls the “tyranny of completely horizontal groups.”

“We didn’t have a clear process for decision-making, which largely fell on those who were capable of pushing their ideas forward. In many cases that fell upon me, but I wouldn’t say it was leadership as much as tyranny, unfortunately — something I’m learning from.”

There were three different driving forces involved in 15 March: the hunger strikers, the other groups in the different cities, and the Ramallah-based group that numbered around thirty activists. As a result, there were a lot of demands coming from three dynamics without consulting each other first which contributed to obscuring the main message they had all set out to achieve, unity of all Palestinians through PNC elections.

“We learned that we couldn’t mobilize people by calling them to stand with us,” Quran said. “We have to introduce ourselves, make our plans known, what we stand for, what we were working on and towards. This much wasn’t even clear to the people within the group, so how were we supposed to let youth be part of something we still weren’t clear on?”

Media circus

The reconciliation deal between Hamas and Fatah was signed on 11 May, an empty gesture that changed nothing. Before that, five activists from 15 March met with PA president Mahmoud Abbas. As they entered the office, a media circus was waiting for them. The activists asserted that they would not speak in front of the cameras, thus blocking the media stunt, but which the PA still later used to create divisions by telling the protesters at Manara Square that the activists who met with Abbas saw themselves as leaders of the movement.

None of the activists expected the meeting with Abbas to change anything. They presented him with their demands: PNC elections, an end to media incitement and the release of political prisoners, which they had a list of. Abbas was flippant in his reply, blithely telling them that the PA holds no political prisoners. Needless to say, the meeting was unproductive.

The lack of strategy was telling, and that reflected in the disintegration of relations within the movement and between other groups. Mistrust, frustration, breakdown of communications, certain activists making decisions on behalf of the group without informing them beforehand were evident as a result of the absence of principles and values that were not firmly set at the beginning.

Maintaining momentum

“We were lucky that Land Day [30 March] came,” reflected Musleh. “Then we had a protest for Prisoners’ Day on 17 April, which kept the momentum going. Every Friday we’d hike through the mountains to protest in Nabi Saleh, but mobilization was nonexistent.”

The Hirak Shababi activists knew that Manara Square wouldn’t transform into Tahrir Square overnight. Palestinians are exhausted after more than six decades of suffering and sacrifice. Tensions between 15 March and Hirak Shababi accumulated, with the former accusing the latter of being politically affiliated and doubting its motives.

“Hirak Shababi has two features that explain why a year later, we’re still a movement whereas 15 March fell apart,” explained Jadallah. “Historically, Palestinian political parties derive their legitimacy and credibility from affiliation to a party or faction, and the experience of getting arrested by Israel. There was a fear on 15 March’s part of being swallowed up by Hirak Shababi, thus eliminating their qualities of leadership which were based on their English language proficiency, and their reliance on social media.”

One year later, the situation in Gaza remains dire. And freedom of expression is still repressed, according to Ebaa Rezeq: “In addition to receiving regular summons for interrogations, activists like Asmaa el Ghoul got a lot of death threats for writing critical articles about the situation. Mahmoud Abu Rahma [of the human rights group Al-Mezan] was stabbed by masked men for criticizing the resistance. It’s extremely dangerous to write while in Gaza.”

Breaking the fear barrier

Over in the West Bank, the mood is more optimistic. The number of activists has grown, and 15 March broke the fear barrier that made people think twice before protesting in the street. Jadallah stressed how the need for continued coordination gave birth to other initiatives, such as Palestinians for Dignity (against Israeli-PA negotiations).

The groundswell is not just in the West Bank. The 15 May (Nakba Day) protest commemorating the ethnic cleansing of Palestine was coordinated with Palestinian refugees in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, with some of the protesters succeeding in crossing the borders to Palestine. Later on in the year, in Haifa, a group with a large followers’ base called Hungry for Freedom originated from the September-October general prisoners’ strike.

“The right message should be directed to the appropriate place,” Jadallah said. “We need to regain the situation of directly confronting the occupation because that will cost Israel dearly, as well as uniting all Palestinians.”

“There is a collective identity we’ve developed,” Quran said. “This identity may look very disintegrated on the surface but at its core is a collective entity of youth who disagree on many things but agree on much more essential values.” The question is how to preserve that. Following his recent arrest while taking part the third annual Global Open Shuhada Street protest in Hebron, Israeli soldiers interrogated him about how the major protests were coordinated. “I know something is right when the Israelis are panicking about it,” he said.

Regardless of all the accusations of being a failure, 15 March managed to bring the cause back to the rest of the Palestinians. The past year involved an ongoing process of experimentation, always subject to adaptation and evolution. The street has become a place of expression of people’s interests, and community organizing has built awareness and injected Palestinian society with the spirit of volunteerism and resistance that Salam Fayyad’s state-building policy managed to corrode. For all of the revolution’s imperfections and trials, Palestinian youth are putting us back on the course to liberation.

Interview with Injured French Activist in Nabi Saleh

On Friday February the 3rd during the weekly popular resistance protests in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, Israeli border police fired tear gas canisters at head level directly at a group of unarmed protesters who were perhaps 25 to 30 meters away from the border police and who were merely chanting, nothing more. It should be noted that the border police are known for their vicious disproportionate and violent reactions to these kinds of protests, more so than the army itself. One tear gas canister lightly grazed the cheek of a Palestinian female protester, before hitting a French activist in the back of her head and, still propelled by its velocity, continued its course to hit a Dutch activist in his waist.

The video above, shot by local activist Nariman Tamimi, clearly captures the moment and leaves no room for doubt as to what hit the French activist, contrary to the lies emitted from the IDF spokesperson and other Israeli officials on Twitter who initially and outrageously claimed that the activist was injured from a rock thrown by a Palestinian.

Firing tear gas canisters at high velocity directly at unarmed protesters has become the staple of the Israeli army’s reaction in popular resistance protests. Two months ago, Nabi Saleh resident 28 year old Mustafa Tamimi was killed after an Israeli soldier opened the back door of the armored jeep and shot a tear gas canister at Mustafa’s face from a distance of three meters. The army has paid lip service to conducting its own investigation within the incident, which if carried out will be anything but impartial.

Today I sat down with the French activist, 20 year old Amicie P. and her Palestinian fiancé Aram S. to discuss the details of the actions that took place yesterday. The injury seemed pretty serious at first, owing to the fact that there was a large amount of blood, so it was a huge relief to see Amicie sitting next to me casually smoking cigarette after cigarette with a bandage swathed around her head.

Do you remember the moments right before the Israeli border police fired at us?

Amicie: “I was discussing with Diederik [the Dutch activist who was injured in his waist] about when we were going to leave to Ramallah. We agreed to stay for five more minutes. I wasn’t aware of when I got shot. I just felt something hit my head. It hurt me so much. I fell down and couldn’t seem to get up. People were carrying me because I wasn’t able to stand on my feet and the Israeli [border police] were still shooting at us. I wasn’t able to run. The medic Muhanad Saleem was screaming at them to stop shooting.

“I was really so afraid. I didn’t know if my injury was serious or not. I saw a lot of blood and thought of Mustafa and how he was killed in December.”

Aram: “I have asthma. I inhaled a lot of tear gas and couldn’t think clearly. I tried to help her then found myself away from her. I went mad when I heard that she was taken to one of the Israeli jeeps but it turned out that that didn’t actually happen. I was afraid they were going to deport her because she didn’t have her passport with her.”

Amicie: “The soldier asked if I were Palestinian. They wanted to take me inside one of the jeeps. They were shocked when they found out I was French. One of the soldiers panicked and took me behind from where the rest of the soldiers were standing, behind a jeep. I didn’t know if he wanted to arrest me or not but he wanted me to go inside the jeep.”

Did the soldiers try to treat you?

Amicie: “The soldiers tried to help me while I was waiting for the ambulance to come. They put some sort of liquid on my head—I think it was water—then tied a bandage on the wound. I was lying on the ground and was really scared because the soldiers were all around me looking down at me and holding their guns. They told me I was hit by a rock thrown by a Palestinian. It’s crazy because it’s so obvious that I wasn’t.

“When I was in the ambulance one soldier kept opening the door to ask for my full name, many times. The soldiers were talking about how I wasn’t a Palestinian but French. I didn’t have my passport with me, so I only gave them my first name. I wasn’t treated inside the ambulance.”

You were taken to Ramallah Hospital. What happened there?

Amicie: “I stayed at the hospital for only an hour. They took an x-ray of my head and stitched the wound up. I have to go back in another week for a check-up, and I might get the stitches removed by then.”

Amicie studies political science at the University Po Lyon back in France. As part of the program, students have to spend one year living and studying abroad in a foreign country. As her specialty is Middle East politics, Amicie came to Palestine August 1st 2011, where she enrolled in the Palestinian and Arabic Studies program at Birzeit University. Her visa expires in two weeks and she plans on going to France before coming back to Ramallah. She’s worried that in light of what happened on Friday she won’t or at the very least face a lot of trouble getting back in. When I asked her if she wanted to file a complaint against the Israeli army (or something similar) she expressed her frustration to me:

“I really want to do something but I don’t know what. It’s great for media attention because I am French, an international but at the same time I don’t want to have future troubles with my visa.”

Has any of the international media gotten in touch with you?

“Only the French ones, like Rue89, radio network Europe1, TF1, Le Nouvel Observateur.”

What was the reaction of your parents back in Lille?

Amicie: “My mother was really shocked. She said I shouldn’t go to any more protests, because my injury could have been worse. The French consulate called me yesterday evening to tell me that some newspapers would be getting in touch with me, so it would be better for me if I told my family beforehand.”

Amicie met Aram at the UN bid for statehood rally in Ramallah back in September (“The two state solution is impossible,” she slipped in.) The two have attended other demonstrations in the city, but this was their first experience in a village involved with the popular struggle.

Says Aram: “I’m so proud to know the people of Nabi Saleh. I can’t find the right words to describe the people; they’re so amazing. I didn’t feel like I was in a stranger’s home. They welcomed us and were so helpful. I felt like I was in my parent’ home. I want to go back and see them again, especially this old woman.”

Amicie: “It’s really impressive to see how the villagers live like that every day. The demonstrations are dangerous but that doesn’t stop the children from participating. The Israeli army’s response yesterday was really aggressive.”

Would you attend another Nabi Saleh protest?

Amicie: [laughs.] “Maybe not this Friday. I’d like to, but I feel frightened after what happened to me.”

Aram: “I’d go to another protest, but not with her. I don’t want to experience the feeling of almost losing her again. That feeling of 10, 12 minutes of not knowing whether she was going to be okay or not…I saw her kuffiyeh, all red from her blood. It’s crazy.”

Amicie: “It’s crazy the Israeli army shoots right at the people. Crazy that they’re still doing that after what happened to Mustafa. In demonstrations in France, the tear gas is normally shot at the ground so it’s not dangerous.”

How do you see the situation in Palestine in five years time?

Amicie: “In Nabi Saleh…I’d see the situation getting worse. I’m sorry, I know you wanted to end this on a positive note, but I’m pessimistic about these kinds of things. I feel like the majority of Palestinians don’t even care anymore [about resisting the occupation.]

Aram: “It’s because people owe the banks a lot of money. Salam Fayyad’s [state-building] policy has changed Palestinian society for worse. Everyone is now into their own selves. We weren’t like this five years ago. After the experience in Nabi Saleh…I feel like Ramallah and Nabi Saleh are two different countries, even though they’re only twenty minutes away from each other!”

Memories of the First Intifada

I interviewed my strong wonderful mother in response to #Intifada1

"We lived in a state of normalization. We had settlers coming to buy from Palestinian grocery stores. It was like we accepted the occupation. The occupation would always take and take and take, but there wasn't a strong enough reaction from the Palestinians. That is, until the intifada happened."

This is how Mama starts off reminiscing about the first intifada, which exploded on December 9th twenty-four years ago. Her eyes are bright, and her voice is excitedly animated as she recalls random memories of the first three years of the intifada, which she witnessed from living in the Khan Younis refugee camp.

My mother got married and moved from Ramallah to the Gaza strip where my dad's family were. In refugee camps, the action was always brewing due to a number of elements. People in refugee camps generally suffer more because of the memories of dispossession coupled with their current cramped and squalid living conditions weigh heavily on their shoulders. The refugees and their descendants live with the knowledge of having a bleak future, so even though resisting Israel by staging demonstrations, rock throwing, and spraying graffiti on buildings elicited a strong and disproportionate reaction from the Israeli Occupation Forces (Yitzhak Rabin's Bone Breaking policy comes to mind), the general attitude among these Palestinians was, "We already have it bad, how worse could it get?"

Palestinians living in the cities had relatively more stable lives, so there was a lot more to lose. As Mama put it, "في المدن كان الخوف اكثر ولكن التضحية اقل"

Mama kept emphasizing over and over how the intifada was a true popular uprising in every sense of the word. "It united people. Every house shared the same experience; every family had a martyr, a prisoner, an injured person. The best thing about the Intifada was that it broke the fear barrier and ended the barefaced normalization."

"Everyone would participate," she continued. "Everyone! Men, women, children were all seen on the streets demonstrating. There was a harmonious unification of all the political factions. Statements would be released in the name of all factions, and they would all be in agreement about the time of strikes and protests."

She remembers how at first, the Israeli soldiers would walk around in groups of three, four, or five. Once a soldier walked astray from his group and found himself inside a chicken coop. He was petrified, and literally pissed himself from fear. From that day on, there were now twelve soldiers in one group.

Arrests were widepsread and common. One uncle got arrested once, my youngest uncle twice, and my dad three times. One of those arrests came three days after my brother was born. I asked Mama how badly that affected her, in her delicate position.

She looked at me increduously. "I had just given birth, I was still in pain, what was I supposed to do? I told your dad 'God be with you' and that was that."

I pressed her to divulge some personal experiences. She was silent for a moment, before suddenly bursting out laughing.

"One time a group of soldiers barged into your grandparents' house and began asking each of your uncles what they did for a living. When they got to your father he replied, 'I sell chickens at the souk.' I wanted to laugh so badly. They believed him and thankfully left without destroying anything. They were known for going inside the kitchen and spilling the olive oil on the floor, mixing sugar with salt, ripping open the bags of flour...your grandmother and I were each wearing a dayir [a full black skirt with deep pockets] to hide all our gold in."

"We were under curfew so many times. The soldiers would come rumbling in their tanks, not jeeps, and the whole house would shake like a leaf. They would announce the curfew in the early hours of the morning, always coupled with the foulest language ever. You son of a... and Your mother's..."

I always find it a bit rich for my parents to stir up a World War III at home every time I announce my decision to go to the village of Nabi Saleh the next day for their weekly protests. They weren't some squares quaking from fear during the intifada. When Mama was 8 months pregnant with my older brother, she walked into the Nasser Hospital in the hopes of glimpsing those who were martyred or injured on that day. Doctors thought she was there to give birth but she shook her head and said, "No, no. I just want to have a look."

I asked her if she could envisage another true popular uprising, another intifada. It doesn't make sense to me, how twenty four years later we are still more occupied than ever before and living under the most atrocious conditions. Of course, Salam Fayyad's economic normalization under the guise of "state-building institutions" is partly to blame, along with the Palestinian Authority's collaborative and corrupt nature and Hamas' self-centered sanctimonious interests. Before launching into yet another diatribe about the dangerous failure of this so-called Palestinian leadership, I'll end with Mama's answer.

"Listen, after the on-going Arab revolutions, anything is possible. I for one had no hope in Egyptians revolting on a mass scale. But they did. Then I shared in the opinion that the Syrians were too depoliticized and wouldn't revolt, but they did. We had a huge chance of another intifada during the Gaza massacre in 08/09. But the PA brutally suppressed us. It just goes to show you that everyone cares only about the seat they hold. But a day will come, soon enough."

Elmaz Abinader Interview

Published by the IMEU .

I had glimpsed Elmaz Abinader a couple of times during my visit to the building in Birzeit that the Palestine Writing Workshop and Palfest jointly share. Her dark curly hair moved enthusiastically as she spoke to her students around the makeshift table in the next room, fitting the lively astute character that one gets an impression from her blog posts on the Red Room online community website. Although Elmaz was born into a Lebanese family, she lived in the US her whole life. Most of her work (Children of the Roojme, a Family’s Journey from Lebanon, In the Country of my Dreams) centers on Arabs or Arab-Americans coping and dealing with antagonistic measures present in their daily lives. It was interesting to see where this particular theme fit within her experience of teaching for the first time in the occupied West Bank, and her perspective on the role of creative writing in Palestine.

You’re involved with VONA (Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation). Explain a bit about how the event pans out.
It happens every year, on the campus of Berkeley, and always the last week of June/first week of July. I was actually one of the founders. People have to apply for it. The workshops run for about two weeks, and each week is different. We have very famous writers of color teaching, and about five hundred people apply every year. We accept around one hundred and twenty applicants. Some of them stay in residency where we have it, and they work on their writing for the entire week with a master teacher. We do a big reading at the end. Yeah it’s very special.

What are the tips or advice that you found most helpful?
What happens in the standard American society is that people of color become exoticized. Some people look at their themes, their topics and their stories and think “oh how unusual, how different.” So the actual work on their writing never gets done. This kind of perspective gets in the way. So at VONA we say “ok, we’re all writers of color and we all have these special types of stories, now let’s get to working.” So it gives them a better opportunity to get the development in their writing.

Have you ever travelled to a different country to teach a workshop?
I taught at Egypt for one year [as a Fulbright scholar]. I had a wonderful time there. I’ve mostly taken my performances out of the country. People get in touch with me that way and learn about me through their questions. I spend a lot of time talking to journalists, teachers, radio and television people.

Has there been a particular environment that you found difficult to teach in?
There are different ways that environments can be good and different ways that they can be difficult. For instance in Egypt, it was difficult because students were oriented to tests. So the idea of a classroom discussion, the idea of free thinking, was very hard for them to grasp. I would tell them a story about my life and they’d ask if that was going to be on the test. On the other hand, they were so enthusiastic and open. They were also very easy to teach. Everything has a particular kind of challenge and a particular kind of advantage.

Have you ever worked with disadvantaged youth or minorities?
I don’t really work with youth that much. I mostly work with university students, adults about creative writing and the theories of teaching creative writing. I teach people so that they can in turn teach or work. My university is located in a town called Oakland which is a very integrated place, and I have a project there. Many of the people of color there are not serviced well (the public school system is not that great), so my graduate students go out to the different populations in the city and offer them writing workshops.

Where did you hear about the Palestine Writing Wprkshop? Explain how your workshop- the Writer Cultivator training worked.
[Palestinian-American poet] Suheir Hammad connected me with [the founder], and it went from there. [For the training] we had three different parts to it. One part was I approached the students as writers. I did exercises and activities that showed different approaches to pulling their writing out of them, (even though they are all well-known published writers here in Palestine) yet there’s always another way to go about your writing. And then I approached them as teachers, and I asked them how they planned on going to a population of a particular age they’ve never met before and teach them how to do creative writing, and what they can find inside themselves that makes them good teachers. The final part the students went to teach at four different refugee camps – Jalazon, Qalandiya, Qaddoura, and the Am’ari. Then they would come back to report to me and we would analyze the way their classes went, how they can prepare for their next class, what the sequence of classes needs to be, etc. Their students (the refugee girls) are going to have a celebration at Sakakini Cultural Center, a big reading on July 30th. I’m not going to be here!

There’s a lot of talk about creative economy. How sustainable do you think that will be, particularly in its creative writing form here in Palestine?
I think the possibility is huge, but the steps are going to be small. First of all, you have a very strong literary community. There are key literary figures like Walid Abu-Bakr and venues like the Sakakini Center. The key figures are the strong pillars of the literary community here, and they recognize this need, along with the Palestine Writing Workshop’s philosophy and mission, to create this need. I think you’re going to get a lot of writers and you’re going to get a lot of classes, but the transition to getting publishers and editors is going to be the difficult part. You can send foreigners in here to teach, but you have to create your own publishing industry, it has to be interior money. The job will be to make it so spectacular that people can’t ignore it, like the music scene here, and then when people can’t ignore it they’d want a piece of it.

Are you aware of any writing communities here in Ramallah/West Bank?

Other than PWW and Palfest? No, I just met individual writers and they all seemed to know each other. On Wednesdays we have our classes at La Vie. Last week it was over at 4pm, and my students hung around, they didn’t leave. I left, but they went into the garden and started doing writing exercises with each other. It was so nice. They took advantage of the moment of being together –there were six of them here—and when I came back someone told me that the last student just left. People are hungry for that establishment of community. I have that back at home, where I have five people come over, and we sit and write, then break for lunch, then go back to working on our stuff.

Do you think that writing especially in oppressed societies is used as an outlet to escape one’s reality or as a platform to convey to others what they endure on a daily basis?
One of the things that literature can do is all of those things, but it is better, for me at least, if they do it through narrative and poetic forms. For instance, I know more about World War One from good stories I’ve read and films I’ve seen. When you see peoples’ lives inside a political situation and they tell a story, whether it be a love story or a story about their garden, everything has got to do with how often they’re going to see their lover or how much water their garden needs respectively. In this way literature actually corrects history by bringing it to the people level off of the government level. One problem with getting Palestinian literature outside of Palestine is that you need a range of voices, not just one person or a character that people come to rely on as representing the story of Palestine. We need a variety of voices, for them to be complex and complicated and not always about the political situation, but about everything such as whatever people are dreaming about. I learned the most about Palestinian literature by talking to Walid [Abubakr]. He gave me a really good perspective on who the uppercomers are, and the dearth of writers of the last generation.

What has been the most striking aspect of your current crop of students?
They’re very smart. One of the things I always say in my teaching world is as soon as I stop learning from teaching I will stop teaching. These writers are so creative and so smart and even though they needed some guidance on how to teach, as soon as the door was opened they just took off. They’re also so sweet, offering to take me places on my first day here. I feel like I’ve made friends even though I’m a hundred years older than everybody.

How important is the potential in creative writing in society under occupation?
I think it’s where the most potential is. In the mainstream societies they’ve written themselves into a corner. I feel like I’m reading the same crap over and over. One of the things I’ve fantasized about was creative writing teaching articles, and teachers and creative writers throughout the world would show for example how a story from Palestine and a story from Sri Lanka can have a dialogue in a classroom. Because we have online capabilities, we can go global. There’s a kind of democracy to it that the publishing industry never had, which also means that the crazies can get through [laughs].

Your upcoming memoir The Water Cycle deals with the shaky concept of identity and cultural relationships. Did you feel as a child/teenager that you had to compromise a part of you in order to fit in? Or was it mainly confusion?
My whole childhood. My family lived in a town where there were no other people of color. The pressure to be part of the society, to look like part of the society, act like part of the society, to hide things about our home life was enormous. It was that time in American history where people were ‘assimilationists’, and so my name was changed when I went to school to Alma-Ann, I was dyed blond for a wedding, there were all kinds of pressure. But of course the more you push something the more it pushes back. My Arab ties would be stronger if I spoke Arabic, but I believe that I feel as much part of the Arab diasporic literary community as I do in the American literary community.

What has been the best thing you’ve learned from your students so far?
The best thing I’ve learned from my students is that you can write under any conditions. One of my students was teaching at the Sakakini Center. Her family arrives, she picks up her baby, and she continues teaching. There’s a hunger to be heard.
Writers in the US including myself are always saying I don’t have time I don’t have the space I need to be spoiled but people here have to go through checkpoints, and wait for all kinds of crap before they get to sit down and do their writing.

Nariam Tamimi Interview

Originally published by Electronic Intifada.

The first time I went to Nabi Saleh someone pointed out Nariman Tamimi to me. I had already figured out she was the imprisoned grassroots activist Bassem Tamimi’s wife, and as we politely exchanged greetings I blurted out, “Your face is so familiar, like I know I’ve seen you before.”

“Probably at one of the protests in Ramallah or Qalandiya, I’m always demonstating,” came the nonchalant reply.

Along with his cousin Naji Tamimi, also in prison, Bassem has been a leader of the Nabi Saleh Popular Struggle Committee and before his arrest was at the forefront of the weekly demonstrations confronting the Israeli army. The protests were kick-started a year and a half ago after settlers from the adjacent settlement of Halamish further expropriated the village’s main water supply, the spring of al-Kaws.

Bassem has been jailed in Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank since his arrest on 6 March on the basis of “incitement” and “organizing unlawful protests,” a claim which he defiantly rejected. The army’s evidence against Tamimi is a confession made by two village children who were abducted from their homes in the middle of the night, subjected to torture and denied legal counsel. The European Union representative to the UN Human Rights Council has expressed concern over the arrest of Tamimi and other human rights defenders (“European Union Expresses Concern Over Persecution of Bassem Tamimi,” Popular Struggle Coordination Committee, 16 June 2011).

Tamimi was arrested eleven times prior without ever being convicted of an offense. With the start of the weekly protests in Nabi Saleh his wife Nariman and their children have been targeted by the army, with Nariman spending time behind bars and the two oldest sons suffering injuries from tear gas canisters.

There’s a running joke in the village that Nariman unofficially adopts female activists as her daughters. Now as we sit at her kitchen table, chatting like old friends, it’s clear that she must not be characterized as just Bassem’s wife. She’s a mother of four studying international law and she’s been instrumental in documenting every Friday protest.

At one point during the interview, Nariman looks straight at me with her clear blue eyes and declares, “I, Nariman Tamimi, was injured, arrested, had my son injured, a demolition order placed on my house and my husband arrested. But despite all of that I believe that having inculcated peace in my children, the kind that stems from the inside, it will give away to fruitful results. I can’t shout that I’m for peace while holding up a gun.”

Linah Alsaafin: What is your role during the weekly protests?

Nariman Tamimi: I initially joined the protests as a medic, since I knew basic first aid and took courses with the Medical Relief agency. My role is to film and document the violations committed by the Israeli army against the protesters and the villagers. I also deliver first aid to those who need it. I work with B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization.

LA: How hard do you find it not to join in the protests while documenting?

NT: It’s difficult to film and at the same time join the protest — especially because of my belief that these protests are legitimate and peaceful, and we are asking for our rights. But of course I’m aware that I could be endangering myself if I do participate, and that the army will prevent me from filming. They already try to stop me from filming even when I don’t participate. Every journalist or cameraperson or any documentarian must be objective and not get caught up with the protesters chanting, but for me this is hard to do and I had already warned B’Tselem about this.

LA: As we know, the village is not united on the protests because of Israel’s repressive response affecting the entire village. What do you think of this and how has that affected your relationship with the opposition?

NT: Everywhere you go you’ll always find the positives and the negatives, the supporters and the opposition. But I think that if you find yourself on the positive side then the negative factors will only serve as more encouragement for you to continue on, because the bullet that doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.

LA: How have your children coped with the arrest of their father?

NT: My kids went through a more traumatic experience, and that was my detainment. The arrest of a father is unfortunately a widespread phenomenon in Palestinian society, but for children to have their own mother arrested is unquestionably harder to cope with than the arrest of a father. The mother can act the role of two parents and be there for her children in the way a father can’t. Of course, Bassem’s arrest distressed them, but my children are strong and know better than to let it affect them negatively. The effects of the future on them all comes down to how we raise our children. We instill in them love of their country, the sacrifices needed to secure our rights, et cetera.

LA: What is your opinion of the term “nonviolent resistance?”

NT: What is nonviolent resistance? Is it when a soldier shoots at me and I thank him? I think that in order to protest nonviolently one must be convinced from within, where there isn’t any malice or hatred and the hearts communicate with each other, so this internal goodness and peacefulness must broaden out externally. But nonviolent resistance doesn’t mean that a soldier can enter my house, violate my woman and I remain passive. On the contrary, I’ll respond back. Nonviolent resistance is mostly verbal; we respond back with words, but if a stone was the response or comeback then that doesn’t mean it is a weapon. It is more of a message than a weapon.

After being subjected to enormous pressure from the violent tactics of the army for hours and having the soldiers firing tear gas non-stop and then barging into houses, throwing rocks at the soldiers is more of a retaliatory symbolic message.

Our war from the onset is against the media and that is what was missing from the previous protests in our history. The Israelis made did a report about Nabi Saleh on their Channel 2, and they named it “The Deadly Play,” because according to them, when a child stands in front of the army jeep, the cold-hearted villagers make sure to document that without caring about the safety of the child.

LA: Naji Tamimi has already been tried and convicted [and sentenced to a year in prison and a 10,000 shekel fine]. Bassem’s trial is once again postponed to 27 August. The evidence against your husband is the coerced confessions extracted from two youths from the village. How hopeful are you about his case in light of the European Union’s concern over his persecution and arrest?

NT: [Since] the EU paid lip service to Bassem as a defender of human rights, and the fact that Bassem didn’t do anything wrong, then the way I see it, the EU must work to secure his release. That’s the way I understand it. Naji — my maternal uncle — agreed to the deal put forward by the court, the prosecutor and the lawyer because of his refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the court itself. If he gets jailed for two and a half years, what will that be for?

The deal at least gave him a year and a fine; it will be a lighter load on him even if it meant confessing to the charges brought against him. But the court, if you confess or if you don’t confess, has the power to sentence you in any way its likes. Bassem, on the other hand, went in the complete opposite direction. He didn’t agree to sign the deal even though it means that he’ll get a prison sentence of two and a half years, based on a confession from a 14-year-old boy whom the Israelis beat up — even the judge went crazy when he saw the [recording of the] interrogation.

If Bassem does get that sentence because of the coerced confession from a youth, then I believe that with a deal his presence with us here is more advantageous than his time in the Israeli prisons because of his contacts and the movements he works with. Israel believed that in arresting Bassem and Naji, they had finally caught the organizers of the protest. What the Israelis don’t realize is that there is no central organizer here in Nabi Saleh — even a child can decide what to do and what not to do, and so the Israelis believed that in arresting the “two leaders” they can effectively kill off the protests, but that hasn’t been the case at all. We have more people joining in, the protests continue to take place and develop week after week, and our momentum hasn’t been stopped at all.

LA: Tell me a little about your arrests.

NT: The protests started in December 2009. The first week I didn’t participate. The second week I got injured. The third week I was arrested for a day after the soldiers viciously beat up me and the other villagers. They cursed us and used appalling words. The fourth week I was arrested for the second time and I was held for ten days, but I honestly feel that that my detention did not affect me detrimentally at all.

My spirits were kept high and that particular experience only reinforced me to carry on because Israel tried to silence our words of truth. B’Tselem had observed that I was in vantage points where there was a lack of camera presence and approached me after I was released from my second arrest as a sort of protection for my suspended sentence of three years. However that in no way grants me immunity from the unpredictable actions of the Israeli soldiers, as they took my [card showing that I work for B’Tselem], beat me up again and threw it away. There is no such thing as immunity in Israeli discourse.

LA: Have the protests been centered on primarily raising awareness, and do you see this kind of resistance spreading across the West Bank?

NT: Definitely, the protests have caused a lot of awareness and the evidence is that we have Palestinian youth coming from different districts in the West Bank who are committed to going to Nabi Saleh every week. Activists from Israel and the international community are part of the popular resistance that is key to forming the awareness that leads others to denounce Israel as an occupying force and a military state, which is why our war is against the media.

It is a good sign to see more and more people getting convinced and exposing Israel’s crimes and atrocities in a way in which the world can understand them. This current resistance is inclusive of all the members of society, much like the first intifada, which was a true popular uprising, and I do believe that the current protests will spread because of their result of undermining the state of Israel and attracting international responses. The more that increases, the better it is for us.

LA: Do you believe that being so heavily involved in the protests, you have changed as a person or have had your line of thinking altered?

NT: At the start of the protests, I used to see Israel solely embodied as an armed soldier, the army, the interrogator, the female soldier who killed Imm Nizar [editor’s note: Bassem’s sister and the mother of Nizar Tamimi who was arrested in 1993 and is currently serving a life sentence. She was killed after a female soldier accosted her and hit her on the head when she came to Nizar’s court hearing in 1993].

As the popular resistance continued week after week, I began to realize the humanity in the Israeli activists, like [Israeli activist] Jonathan [Pollack], for example. I started to think more humanely about Israel; after all, didn’t Jesus Christ say “love thy enemy?”

That is why I am convinced that peace in sync with harmony must be internalized as well as being a vital part of your internal being. I used to feel incredulous whenever I heard the philosophical words of loving your enemy because I didn’t know what that meant, but I do now.

This love that comes from deep inside your soul is effervescent and has the energy to spread and affect the enemy in a favorable way. I’m sure psychology can explain this type of communication. I’m at peace with myself and I’m happy that my children, despite being put through such acts of violence, are able to grasp and accept the idea of loving a non-Zionist, non-occupying Israel.

100th Anniversary of Women's Day

Sometimes, we wish we were guys instead. We love our mamas. So it's not about the additional freedom (although we were raised up as equally as our brothers, well almost) it's more about not having to put up with the wackiness that comes with the female package. Gossip, slander, getting checked out by every girl we thoughtlessly intruded on their breathing space, their needy ovaries, and just sheer silliness:

[about random dude] "OMIGOSH he just saw me eating. What if he thinks I'm a fatass?"*

 But then we were always so well endowed in advanced sagacity than from the rest of our peers.

And to demonstrate that, Global Voices has interviewed one of us about this dear pet of ours.

Palestine: Life in the Eyes of Two West Bank Students

And to really culminate Women's Day, here's a nice piece from Queen Noor, who is so unlike her present day brown-nosing sit-in.

Women's new empowerment will not be suppressed easily, however. So far, these have not been the traditional stories about women -- especially Muslim women -- that tend to show up on the news. Many do not imagine Arab and Muslim women have much in common with their counterparts in the West because of the selective, damaging and stereotypical images that the media commonly present. When I married King Hussein in 1978, reporters were constantly asking me how a progressive, educated, American woman could go live in such a repressive culture. Those reporters did not know the Arab women I did -- the doctors, lawyers, professors and entrepreneurs -- many of whom became friends and advisers as I set my priorities for public service.

*True quote.

Palestinian human rights NGO Al-Haq with this video. Just a reminder that some women are not all emancipated.

Interview with Mohammed Hanif

Mohammed Hanif is a Pakistani author who wrote the much acclaimed book A Case of Exploding Mangoes which was published in 2008. The Palestine Writing Workshop hosted him last month as their latest writer in residence, where he taught a workshop "Writing from Life". It took a bit of bribing, but he agreed to a quick interview, showcasing his generous philanthropic self.





*Tell us a little bit about your book, "A Case of Exploding Mangoes"

It has 304 pages. It’s a love story. It is a dictator novel. It contains some jokes and one very tasteful sex scene.

* What influenced you to become a writer?
I tried becoming a farmer, it was difficult and dull at the same time. So I became a writer.


* How has your time in the air force affected your work?
Yes. It has ruined my punctuation.


* Did you always want to write, even during your childhood?
No, I wanted to become a spiritual guru, then an astronaut, then a fighter pilot, then a cricketer, then a rock star but never a writer.


* Going with the stereotype that novelists are usually egotistical, how do you feel about your own work?
As some one said accusing a novelist of having a big ego is like accusing a boxer of having violent tendencies. But trust me the process of writing itself is a very humbling experience.


* What made you want to come to Palestine to give this workshop?
Because they asked me. Because I had visited Palestine a decade ago and wanted to return. And may be as one of the workshop participants pointed out, I just wanted to look cool.


* Who are your favorite authors, and why?
Chekov. Because he turns the very ordinary stuff of life into compelling stories.

Best Year/Age in you life?

Twenty three. First job, own apartment.

Writing or reading?

Reading.

Coffee or tea?

Coffee when I'm writing, so tea mostly.

All time favorite book:

Chronicle of a Death Foretold.

Your impression of Ramallah in up to five words:

Cafe society. Road works.

Advice to Palestinian youth:

Reading books doesn't turn you into a wimp.

Advice to the young soldiers in the IDF:

Oy, put that gun away and go back to school wherever in Ohio that is.

One state or two state solution?
One state.


Who would win in a fight, Hitler or Netanyahu?
Netanyahu because he has the benefit of hindsight, might have learnt from the other guy's mistakes.


If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
To be able to write without using adverbs.

Who would you like to invite to a dinner party?

Truman Capote and Dr. Aiman Al-Zawahiri.

Finally, tell us a joke.

Jordanian Immigration to me: You name is Mohammed and you can’t speak Arabic?

Israeli Immigration: Can yu really teach people how to write?