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.

Palestinians for Dignity: Saeb Erekat, Go Home

As posted on Electronic Intifada

More pictures can be found here

Under the pouring rain, Palestinians for the first time took part in a protest right in front of the Palestinian Authority compound Al-Muqata’a, which has become to symbolize, as one of the more lavish foreign funded state-building projects, an illusion of authority under the Israeli occupation. In her article describing the PA’s spatial organization of state structures, Linda Tabar quotes an official who describes the Muqata’a as an image “of grandeur that creates the impression we have a state.”

The protest, organized by a group of young Palestinians who called themselves Palestinians for Dignity, was against the farcical “negotiations about negotiations” currently taking place in Amman, Jordan between the PA represented by unelected chief negotiator Sa’eb Erekat (who incidentally, resigned his post after it was revealed that the Palestine Papers were leaked from his office in 2011) and the Israeli delegation, headed by Yitzhak Molcho. A third meeting is expected to run today between the two sides, after the first two were conducted last week on January 3rd and January 10th respectively.

From the statement released by the youth, the ongoing negotiations have once again commenced without any pre-conditions:

Counting on the same fruitless and failing process of the past two decades, the negotiations contradict past PLO statements that have explicitly rejected negotiations until settlement expansion is frozen, borders are clearly referenced and defined, and the fulfillment of the release of all political prisoners.

It has become increasingly obvious that the PA and its leadership have stopped pretending to sugarcoat their salient acts with their occupier, which does not reflect the interests of the Palestinians. In fact, twenty years of failed negotiations have only made the life of the average Palestinian more miserable as a result of the enhanced state of occupation they live in, as the rapid land grabs and construction of settlements are implemented with the full knowledge and even blessing of the negotiating team of the PA.

The statement continues,

Palestinian youth are fed up with illegitimate representation, a national consensus that does not unite them, and of a future state that does not guarantee the rights of the majority of the Palestinian people, in specific, Palestinian refugees in exile. We demand a strategy that is supported by political, economic, academic and cultural boycott of the Zionist entity, the strengthening of the steadfastness of the people, and preparation for direct elections to the Palestinian National Council (PNC) representative of Palestinians across the world.

The protest didn’t say silent for long. In my opinion, Palestinian silent protests are an oxymoron. Pretty soon, abetted by the expressive posters, vigorous chants were shouted by those in attendance who numbered around one hundred. Plainclothes police once again “infiltrated” the protest, but their faces were familiar to many who were involved in the now obsolete March 15th youth movement.

Chants called for Saeb Erekat to go home, and asserted that the right of return was not for sale. One variation was that the blood of the martyrs was not going to be sold out. Negotiations and normalization were used interchangeably in the chants as in this context they were really synonymous after all. One popular chant was “Right of Return, Freedom, National Dignity/ عودة, حرية, كرامة وطنية”

The plainclothes police moved to the other side of the street, the side of the Muqata’a. They watched us from inside their cars and a couple even took pictures, which forcibly reminded me of the Israeli army during the weekly protests in the village of Nabi Saleh who carry out the same act. After an hour and a half, the protest was over, but not before the youth shouted that if the message today wasn’t heard by the PA leadership, then there will be more protests to follow.

Shortly afterwards, one young man from Tulkarem who participated in the protest (and who prefers to remain anonymous) was attacked and arrested by the PA security forces. His arrest lasted for two hours, including an hour of interrogation about the names of the people who were chanting against the PA.

There is no longer a psychological barrier of fear against the Palestinian Authority and its security forces. Their interests are to consolidate their elitist status while the majority of the Palestinians continue to suffer from a two-tiered tyranny: The Israeli occupation and its bestial policies, and the suppression and stifling rule of the main Palestinian parties, Fateh in the shape of the PA in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. We will not stand by anymore on the sidelines, as outdated so-called representatives negotiate our rights away with the same side that is continuously oppressing us. It is simply ludicrous, shameful, and outright embarrassing that these negotiations still occupy a space in the Palestinian political spectrum. Only free men and women negotiate, and for all their money, expensive cars and villas, and security coordinated travel permits, the Palestinian leadership is still at the end of the day occupied by Israel and its whims.

UPDATE: The incident with the arrested young man, Said al-Edreesy, is now public

The Nabi Saleh Children

UPDATE: A more politer version of this article is found over at Electronic Intifada.

Prologue:

[Freedom in Colors. I sent the link to my dad, adding "I know I'm pushing my luck here but can I please go?" The reply was unexpected and sweetly succint: "Yes, you may go, but please take your sister with you." I was ecstatic. All the doom and gloom from the past week disappeared in a puff of smoke. I was going to Nabi Saleh again. I was going to see the other activists. I was going to hug and squeeze and smother my little Spiderman with kisses again.]

Jana, Dana, Rand, 'Ahd. Salam, Areej, Mahmoud, Ahmad. Ranin, Hamada, Osama, Shatha. And of course, Samer aka Spiderman, and Hisham aka Batman.

Ask each child about what happens every Friday and you'll be left reeling at their solemn impassivity. They sound mechanical, a bit put off at having to repeat what they no doubt have already done to other activists. Some look at you, others fiddle with the bracelet you're wearing.

Spiderman doing what he does best

Lara, called by her pet name Lulu. She's two and a half years old, has chubby cheeks (plenty of room to draw on!), and her hair is twirled into pigtails. She doesn't talk and stares either at the ground or past your shoulder. Last year her mother threw her out of the window from the second floor of the house. The IOF were firing tear gas inside the house and everyone inside was suffocating. Lulu, along with the others who managed to escape outside, had to flatten themselves on the ground as the tear gas whistled and exploded over their heads. The incident certainly has its traumatic and psychological scars; for a while Lulu hated her mother, thinking that she threw her out of the window on purpose.

Jana spent a few months in the US, so she understands and speaks some English. Ask her where she lived in America, and she'll reply, "West Palm-en Beach." Ask her what goes on every Friday and she'll reply, "We go out to the maseera [protest]." Ask her to elaborate a bit more, and she'll comply. "The soldiers fire tear gas and live ammunition, and the shabab throw rocks. I'm not scared of the soldiers." I wonder, is it not criminal for "live ammunition" to be part of a five year old's vocabulary?

Samer, my special little Spiderman, climbs on your knees, makes himself comfortable and starts talking. He can't pronounce the 'r' sound and substitutes it for 'y'. "The army comes every Friday. When they leave I throw rocks on their jeeps. I'm not scared of them then."

'Ahd on the left, Areej on the right. Both taunting the soldier. "Shoot me! You're scared, look at you hiding behind your gun! Inta majnoon!" And just to make it more clear, they said it in English: You are CRAAAZY!

Izz is eleven years old but acts like he's forty. He dodges my hand. "What do you want to draw on my face for-do I look like a baby?" He puts his hand on his chest before tapping his head once, in the old man gesture of thanks-but-no-thanks. I watch his skinny figure walk away, his shoulders squared, his voice deepening whenever he raises it.

Salam is the youngest child of Basem and Nariman Tamimi. He's a natural Beiber, straight naturally highlighted hair almost covering his eyes. He was initially very reluctant to share in the fun, latching himself onto his mother like a barnacle, burying his face in her leg. Later I saw him running, holding onto a string of balloons, with a sun and a moon painted on each cheek.

Ranin is ten years old. She doesn't take part in the protests themselves but watches them from her rooftop. "When the soldiers get angry, they start shooting tear gas inside the houses. We're worried about my sister Ro'a, she's only nine months old." I asked her about whether she thinks the protests actually mean anything. "Even if you all didn't come, the army will still be here. Today at least, you made us have fun."

This Friday in Nabi Saleh was planned as a day of color and fun. Balloons, clowns, face-painting, kite-flying, the works. It was dubbed as "freedom in colors." It was a day centered on the children, for them to live one day as normal carefree kids, a day to temporarily make them forget about their reality that consists of soldiers, jeeps, and tear gas. The idea was for the children to take their kites, made from plastic bags and newspapers, and fly them at the spot where the Israel jeeps park, before the children then advance over to the neighboring hill. Because the soldiers won't fire at children, right?

We painted faces, mostly flowers and hearts and the flag of Palestine. I took out my artistic prowess on one face as I drew tiger stripes with aplomb. Nearby Manal Tamimi was getting interviewed about her predictions for today: "No, I don't think the army will be better to us this time, or any less dangerous." The hours leading up to noon prayers were filled with kids playing with hula hoops, little girls comparing their body art, the older boys engaged in a game of football. Prayers weren't even over yet when the IOF pulled in with their jeeps and got out to line up in front of the smattering of children who were at the end of the street at the time.

There's a distinct acridness in the air. The villagers are immune to it, but i could feel it tingling on my upper lip and just inside my nostrils, making me sneeze some fifty times.

One of the kids planted a Palestine flag on the jeep. Woot woot!

This time, the border police, more sadistic than the army, were the ones who faced us menacingly. More children came down, a couple holding their kites. Last week, the IOF gave us at least ten minutes of chanting before unleashing the tear gas. This week, without the presence of diplomatic consuls, their true colors didn't hesitate to come out. The older people barely had time to congregate when the sound bombs began. I was inside Manal and Bilal Tamimi's house, and the women were hurriedly closing all the windows because by then the tear gas had already filled the air. Chancing a look outside, I saw two border police violently pushing and shoving Maath Musleh, the guy behind the Nabi Saleh online live streaming, who was decked out in his usual Press vest.

Things calmed down briefly, and everyone went outside. Hamada, Spiderman's older brother, had a kite in his hand but seemed unwilling to go out. Hamada was once hit by a tear gas canister in his side which caused internal bleeding and damage in his liver and kidney. The injury was quite serious, and his family had feared the worst. Thankfully, he is all healed now. I picked up the tail of the kite and we stepped outside together, his mother encouraging him all the way. There was barely any wind. I had to throw the kite up in the air and Hamada would have to shorten and tug at the string while simultaneously running backwards. He couldn't run more than five steps because the border police, with the army behind them, were standing right there. After a few more tries we finally succeeded in keeping the kite aloft for a few seconds.

We then chanted as usual, singing Fairuz's song about kites, and sat down on the burning asphalt. The commander went to his jeep and the loudspeaker on top crackled in urban Arabic, "This is a closed military zone. You have five minutes to disperse or we start shooting." This was met with jeers and cat calls. A chant then started up, "Show us the papers! Show us the papers!" referring to the nonexistent legal document that specifically states whether Nabi Saleh is in fact a closed military zone or not.

There's a difference between the army and the border police. Essentially they're part of the same wrapper, but while the army soldiers look passive and impervious to our actions and slogans, the border police positively drip with malevolence and hostility. Their eyes don't stare blankly ahead, they rove from one face to another, and whisper to each other little first-world jokes and sneer as our chants become more vociferous.

One minute passed. Their stances shifted, grew more aggressive, so we stood up. "This is a closed military zone. This protest is illegal!" the loudspeaker blared out again. How-and I'm struggling with words here-ironic? Paradoxical? Ridiculous? And so much more. Today was supposed to be all about the children. For them to live one Friday not plagued by tear gas or the frightening explosions of the sound bombs or being confined to their houses. The children were to parade their faces and fly their kites. But the IOF can't differentiate between children and armed threatening forces.

"You have five minutes."

I kept my eyes on the tear gas canister in one of their hands. But I didn't see it getting thrown, and I was suddenly engulfed in white smoke, with the flurry of people moving all around me. I squeezed my eyes shut and then opened them again-big mistake. They immediately began to burn, really burn, and once again I stumbled blindly into one house, down the stairs, eyes glued together and streaming, trying to inhale deeply, a permanent saw against the back of my throat. You think you don't panic when the tear gas hits you because you don't throw your arms up in the air shrieking with fear and pain, but in all honestly I was thinking about not losing my cool too much to actually pay attention to what's happening around me. Later I was told the canister was right between my feet, and guys were yelling at me to move to the side. Downstairs I paced back and forth, counting down the minutes until everything in my body went back to normal, my heart thudding dully. I was trying to figure out what happened, well that was a no-brainer really but did they just fire tear gas into a crowd filled with children? Where does Shakira's laudable work for children fit in here? Oh that's right, it doesn't.

The tear gas got so bad we had to stay in the houses. The children were kept preoccupied with cartoons but after a couple of hours they grew restless. I went upstairs with Manal to help make tea for over twenty people ("Please use plastic cups," I implored her) and the kids followed shortly after, opening the veranda doors inside the kitchen and going outside.

Kids Vs Army

Jana, Rand and Salam making their voices heard at the Israeli jeeps below

The Nabi Saleh children began singing nationalist songs. The oldest couldn't have been more than twelve years old. A bunch of them went around the back of the house and stood in front of the armored jeeps, peace signs at the ready. Spiderman followed them. Without warning, the fucking IOF shot tear gas at them from a close range. The wiser ones skipped away and ran back to the house, poor little Spiderman stayed where he was and got the full blast. He was obviously terrified and in pain. Later, back in his mother Manal's arms, he had finally stopped crying. Manal asked him how the gas had affected him. He answered, "3adi, zay kul muya [murra]." The same, like always.

That's some profoundness for you.

Some soldiers don't want to be in a village firing at civilians using disproportionate force. They are just there to do their "duty". The border police want to be there, they don't exactly garner up sympathy in court cases once they get exposed for beating up an unarmed Palestinian. We went back outside and asked one of the soldiers, why do you shoot at children? The answer we got was mind-blowing and drenched in sadism: "Because I want to." That statement illustrated itself as once again the tear gas started. One canister hit ten year old Areej square in the back. She fell like a sack of bricks.

Every child has a right to a childhood. The Nabi Saleh children are denied this right. Jana and Rand were watching Cartoon Network when the sound bombs went off yet again. Jana barely raised her head, tiredly saying "Khalas. Stop it." After a few minutes Rand got bored and opened the door. She came back to where Jana was curled up on the couch, tapped her shoulder and said, "Yallah, let's go see the army again." It's cute, it's bitterly funny, it's heart-breaking to see them act this way, as if that's completely normal. I wonder how these kids will turn out to be. I wonder if they ever think of Israeli children whether they are innocent, and if later the bitterness and jealousy over these Israeli children living in such relative comfortableness and security will begin to manifest destructively.

Our own heroes, Spiderman and Batman.

"For decades, the conflict between Israelis and Arabs has cast a shadow over the region. For Israelis, it has meant living with the fear that their children could be blown up on a bus or by rockets fired at their homes, as well as the pain of knowing that other children in the region are taught to hate them."

Dear Obama, fuck you.

Palestine Youth Voice in a Letter to Me

I got the most touching letter after I wrote about my parents' undesired reaction to my partaking in protests from Anonymous, who represents the collective Palestinian activists. Emphasis is mine.

A Letter to Linah
In reply to her blog post: http://lifeonbirzeitcampus.blogspot.com/2011/06/unwanted-reaction-to-nabi-saleh.html

To Linah,

You’re part of us. We are part of you. Just wanted you to know that we all went through, and still do, the same with our parents. We understand the worries of our parents for their children. But our worry for Palestine is just greater. We understand very well that a lot of sacrifice has to be done. And we are ready to give these sacrifices. Our struggle is not for political solutions. Our struggle is for our rights. I for one have participated for the first time only in March 15. Not because I didn’t believe in the cause before that, but I just didn’t believe in the fruitless protests. I’ve been in hunger strike for 21 consecutive days (30 days in total) and slept on Al-Manara for more than 40 days. Not to get Hamas and Fateh to agree, but to unite the Palestinians here and in exile. That’s why our first demand was the PNC elections. The past 3 month of my life is more precious to me than the whole 25 years of my life. I met people that are the world to me. They’re not politicians they’re revolutionaries. The ladies who led the protests and the movement were an inspiration to me. I’ve witnessed first-hand the reason the word Freedom and the word resistance in Arabic are feminine.

We are still struggling. We see the light at the end of this dark tunnel. And we will reach there eventually. If we didn’t, having the honor of the attempt is enough for me. Other than the ladies, Abul Qasem El Shabbi was an inspiration to me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzdDMQLAo5w

I’m aware of all the opportunists around us. But I for one have taken the decision. I had two choices. One is to sit home go to my work get rich and my world would be revolved around me. Or the second was to stand up and make my world revolve around Palestine. I chose the second. I believe that the movement I’m part of now may not achieve our rights. But for the past 3 months I lived proud like I never did. I loved Palestine like I never did. And for the first time in my life, I don’t have dreams at night of what can I do to free Palestine. I’m living that dream. This is the first step. But I’m living it.

I’ve never loved in my life. So I was always shocked to see what people in love do. They go through useless hell to be together. My love is Palestine. And I’m willing to sacrifice everything for it. At the end, it’s not about how you die. It’s about how you live. If I ever had children, I would want them to talk about my actions to their peers, not repeat my words blindly.

Dear Linah, I was honored to meet you in Nabi Saleh. You showed extreme courage there. Hope to see you in front lines more. If I don’t, I know, we all know that our backs are safe with people like you.

Hopefully sooner rather than later we would be reminiscing about this in a free Palestine.

The belief is all I got now. I couldn’t convince my parents, but I surely live in peace with myself. If I die tomorrow, I will know that I have nothing to regret.

Stay safe and strong.

Sincerely,

A Palestinian

Posted by Palestine Youth Voice at 2:40 AM

Thank you. I can't find the words to express my gratitude for this letter, a simple thank you will barely suffice.

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.

Palestinian Youth Movement(s) Rising

Oh, there they are! Turns out that they were not just a hunger striking one-off group intoxicated by the successes of  the revolutions of Egypt and Tunisia, but are in fact building a movement complete with seminars that will educate and teach members and activists the true effectiveness of non-violent resistance. Why don't they have a name though? The Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) isn't something that is too mind-boggling to come up with. Anyhoo, we are thrilled. One year from now and this movement will have caused some significant positive changes. Well, at least we hope they do.

We knew about the demonstration that was going to take place at Qalandiya but we didn't see the point of going since the usual outcome is always getting tear gassed, and we didn't see how that will help in anything. We believe in effective useful means you see. As it turns out, the rock throwing yesterday started only after the IOF began firing tear gas canisters, and it was mostly from adolescents. Imagine instead, sticking flowers in the guns of those scaredy-pants soldiers. How disarming will that be! Trust us, we are not turning on the sarcasm full wattage here. We honestly want to see these creative non-violent resistance tactics succeed.

Kieron Monks reports that the superficial PA-sponsored festivities around the Manara square were  meant to divert from the main effort taking place at Qalandiya. We didn't see any "sea of yellow flags" in Ramallah though.

Fadi Quran, one of the youth movement's senior figures, defined success by progress. "In the long run, this will be useful for building unity of purpose," he said. "You can see there is more trust between the people, we have the numbers and the connections."

Before the event, the movement had convened seminars to educate youths on strategies of non-violent resistance, as well as providing advice on how to cope with police brutality. The efforts will intensify toward future actions, but the traditional resistance of burning tires and throwing stones will not change overnight.

"We need to give the world a picture of non-violent Palestinian resistance," Quran said.

Maybe then the world can acknowledge Palestinian self-determination. It is so heartening to see Israeli activists taking part in the Nabi Saleh protests. Joseph Dana does a pretty fantastic job documenting what goes on every Friday there. Speaking of which, we hereby introduce you to Zochrot, a little Israeli organization dedicated to the remembrance of the Nakba. The video "highlights the basic psychology of the Israeli public who use the Holocaust to justify their colonization, dispossession, and subjugation of he Palestinians." This kind of free democratic nation houses wax-like scary eye make-up self-acknowledged racists. That is just so weird. The logic here is so clear cut: My family suffered unimaginably during the Holocaust and I have a right to live in this country. Fuck the Palestinians, they didn't have to lose three brothers at the hands of the Nazis!



Mainstream non-violent resistance and a very profound education for both sides. Israelis, Palestinians have a right to live in this country. Palestinians, Israelis are victims of their own governments and theocratic lunatics. There needs to be more independent thinking and critical awareness from the Israeli public, because this is not an equal conflict. There are the oppressors, and there are the oppressed. And as Desmond Tutu once said, "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."

To round off, Fadi Quran says,

"...we're going to continue training in nonviolence, and we're going to continue marching in nonviolence until it is very clear in the international media who is violating human rights."

Sign us up already!