DAY ONE - Immigration and Intimidation

The trip was organised by a friend at Goldsmiths University. Roughly 25 of us were going and most of us were booked on the same flight from Luton airport to Tel Aviv. Having been up at the crack of dawn, we were under strict instructions to split up as soon as we reached the gate at Luton so that we wouldn't be identified as a group.

Israeli immigration is notorious for delaying people and, on occasion, refusing entry to those they suspect of any kind of political activism in relation to Palestine.
For the purposes of the Israeli immigration interrogator, I was traveling alone on a tourism trip to Tel Aviv. The first rule in Israel when visiting the West Bank is don't mention the West Bank!

Upon landing at Ben Gurion airport, I walked through the terminal to the huge immigration hall. The female interrogator barked questions at me:
'Why are you in Israel? What do you know about Israel? Do you know anyone in Israel? Have you been here before? What are you going to see? Have you got accommodation booked? Don't you know there was a war here recently?'
The implication is that no-one in their right mind would want to visit Israel! I answered as naively as I could and after staring suspiciously at me for a few seconds she waved me through. I was stopped again briefly at the exit of the airport and asked the same questions again by a fat guy in uniform but managed to convince him also that I was here to experience the wonderful world of Zionism.

Some of the other members of the group weren't so lucky. All the asian people or those with arabic sounding names were stopped and held for 5 hours under interrogation. We had to leave them behind and they met us much later that evening at the guesthouse. The whole process is not one of intelligence gathering or security (the questions are repetitive and basic), it is merely intimidation. They identify those whom they suspect are likely to sympathise with Palestinians and try to make the whole experience of entering Israel (in order to reach Palestine) as difficult as possible. That way, they hope, you'll think twice about coming back!

A mini-bus was waiting for us and we immediately got a taste of the daily discrimination Palestinians suffer when our driver was accosted by a security official demanding to see his papers. The papers were duly produced and we were on our way but the persecution continued further down the road when an Israeli policeman decided to close the road we were trying to take at a crossroads. A lively discussion ensued in Hebrew but the upshot was we had to drive an extra 45 minutes round the mountainside to reach the West Bank border. Apparently the policeman decided to divert us for no other reason than he identified the driver as Palestinian. This is how the apartheid state operates.

As dusk fell we crossed into the 'occupied territories' (the West Bank). We drove straight through the checkpoint (it's easier getting into the West Bank than getting out!) but saw 3 men lined up against the wall with their hands tied behind their backs. Checkpoints are one of the many faces of the new so called 'enlightened occupation' that oppresses through what I call 'aggressive bureaucracy' and less through overt, wholesale violence (the whole system is still ultimately founded on violence).

The Israeli's largely succeeded in suppressing the second Palestinian Intifada (the violent uprising against occupation - literally means 'shaking off') through brutal and unbridled violence against the mostly defenceless Palestinian civilian population. The oppression of this population now takes a different form (although the violence and threat of violence is still very much an aspect):

• Freedom of movement is severely curtailed by the hundreds of checkpoints all over the West Bank,
  
• perpetual checking of papers degrades and inconveniences,
  
• house demolitions with the excuse that the relevant building or modification permit was not granted (such permits are almost never granted to Palestinians),
• the building of the apartheid wall (declared illegal by the International Court of Justice),
  
• expropriation of farmland on a massive scale,
• imprisonment of thousands of Palestinians without trial,
  
• destruction of agriculture in the name of 'security requirements'.

Of all these 'aggressive bureaucracy' tactics, the one that impacts on most Palestinian lives most regularly is the checkpoint system.



Checkpoints
Palestinians are routinely held up for hours at checkpoints for no other reason than to make their lives difficult. These checkpoints are on the main Palestinian roads, around major cities and also within cities (most notably Hebron). Their main purpose is to prevent the freedom of movement around the West Bank. A journey that would normally take 30 minutes can take up to 5-6 hours due to delays at checkpoints. The Israeli military also use checkpoints to shut down access to and from major towns for days on end as a means of collective punisment. Many people die every year at checkpoints whilst trying to get to hospital. Palestinian men are regularly humiliated (made to stand on one leg etc.) or physically abused at checkpoints by bored Israeli soldiers. Students in particular are singled out for special treatment and often stopped from reaching university. We heard stories of books being stolen and students being beaten up at checkpoints.
The checkpoint system allows the occupation to tighten its stranglehold on the West Bank at will, often at the whim of whatever officer happens to be in control of a particular checkpoint at any one time.
It should be stressed that most of the checkpoints are within the West Bank and so have little or no security value to the state of Israel. Strategically however, they form part of a network that seeks to split the West Bank up into small enclaves of Palestinian towns. The other elements of this network are the apartheid wall and the settler roads (on which Palestinians are not allowed to travel). Freedom of movement between these Palestinian enclaves is minimised by the occupation.

Above is Qalandiya checkpoint between Nablus and Ramallah. (one of the biggest) Buses and taxis wait here on both sides as Palestinian cars are not allowed to cross.
Above is a checkpoint on the road to Ramallah from the South

To our great relief, the whole group was reunited in Beit Sahour (near Bethlehem) late that evening. We were staying in a family run guesthouse on a hillside overlooking the whole of the town. Here's some shots from Beit Sahour (famous for it's shepherds):

Oppression & Resistance

When I discuss the Palestinian issue with people who have not researched it, I am often presented with the proposal that there are 'good' Palestinians and 'bad' Palestinians. The 'good' Palestinians are the ordinary civilians and the 'bad' are the evil, irrational terrorists (personified by the bearded Hamas militant with an AK47). It is this division of the Palestinian people that the Israeli propaganda machine broadcasts. The 'baddies' are the ones doing the active resistance and the ordinary Palestinians are just caught in the violent indulgences of these fanatics. This classification allows the Israelis to justify the periodic massacres of Palestinians by bleating: "We were just trying to kill the baddies. They are using the civilians as human shields so we had to kill the civilians as well."

This is a nonsense. The overwhelming majority of Palestinians participate in(in some way) or support the resistance. Hamas were democratically elected to power in 2006 in Gaza largely because they were willing to continue the resistance while Fatah (the other major political party) had become corrupt and ineffective. History shows that the Palestinians will vote for whichever party will be most effective in defending them through resistance.

The question then is, why do they bother? Surely they would be better off without the resistance? Is the resistance not bringing death upon them? In the context of my previous post, the Palestinians have made unimaginable concessions to Zionism. They have lost the vast majority of their homeland. They have lost their liberty and the Zionist forces are now trying, and succeeding in, expropriating the remaining 5th of the Palestinians country. The very real threat is that the Palestinian people are being wiped from history and slowly wiped off the map.

In the face of the perpetual injustices against them, Palestinian resistance is entirely justified and necessary. The Palestinians are fighting for the very simple right to freedom. The picture above shows a Palestinian boy throwing stones at an Israeli tank, a common activity amongst Palestinian children. It is a symbolic act of defiance rather than a violent act but is often met with live ammunition. The desperation that the Israeli occupation brings means Palestinians are willing to die for their fight for freedom however wretched a form that fight may take (stones and homemade rockets are usually the extent of their armory).

The fight for freedom is a cause that has been repeated many times through history but in modern times has been clouded with the label of 'terrorism' that is liberally splashed across the Western Press with no reference to the historical context of the conflict.

The 'crazy terrorist' label is one which has been successfully applied to the military wing of Hamas. Most recently, the responsibility for the Gaza massacre was left squarely on the shoulders of Hamas for their indiscriminate and irresponsible firing of home made rockets into Israel. What was largely left out of our news coverage was the fact that Hamas had been impeccably observing a 12 month ceasefire when Israel attacked and killed 6 Palestinians in November. The inevitable retaliatory rockets fired by Hamas gave Israel its justification (in the eyes of the world) for their massacre of Palestinian civilians which they had been planning for at least 6 months. Israel was supposed to have loosened the siege of Gaza as their side of the ceasefire. They never did. The following link shows an Israeli government representative admitting that Hamas had been observing the ceasefire:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SILJxPTqjAM

Hamas had also offered to renew the ceasefire with Israel for a further 12 months. This rubbishes the idea that Israel was acting in 'defence'.

The motive? Hamas was always seen as an unreasonable party. They refused to recognise Israel as a country and therefore were not fit to negotiate peace with (I personally do not see why one side should be allowed to demand recognition as a pre-cursor to peace talks, particularly given the historical context but this was an acceptable excuse apparently). However, when elected, Hamas officials offered Israel a 10 year truce in return for withdrawing to the 1967 borders of Israel (ie an end to the illegal occupation of the West bank). A demand seconded by none other than the UN. The excuse for not negotiating a just peace with Hamas was fading.

What the Israelis set out to do with their massacre of the Gazan population earlier this year was as follows:

a) to demonstrate to the world again that they were under attack by Hamas militants (a claim which was simply untrue but was nonetheless bought wholesale by the Western media);
b) to further radicalise the population in order to perpetuate the idea that there was no reasonable party in Palestine to negotiate peace with;
c) to ensure that any talk of a withdrawal to 1967 borders as a just peace settlement was taken off the table (despite this being an express demand issued by the UN);
d) to replenish some of their 'deterrence capacity' lost in their defeat at the hands of Hezbollah in Lebanon;
e) to improve public opinion of the ruling party in Israel just 2 weeks before the national elections.

None of these motives have anything to do with the protection of the 'security' of the Israeli people and most in fact have quite the opposite effect. 'Security' is used by the Israelis constantly as the excuse for every kind of persecution of the Palestinians, not least in relation to the apartheid wall they are building and the military checkpoints that cover the West Bank. I will be experiencing the effects of both of these means of persecution first hand and will be writing here about those experiences.

The Palestinians are not seeking to defeat the Israelis militarily, that will never happen. The Israelis have one of the most powerful armies in the world (including an aresenal of over 300 nuclear war-heads). The resistance is therefore, at this time, largely symbolic and represents the Palestinians refusal to be beaten in the face of terrible adversity and persecution. The alternative is simply to fade into obscurity and accept a status as second class human beings in their own homeland.

Finally, there are two things that need to be said about resistance movements in more general terms:

1. The resistance is a product of illegal military occupation and oppression, not vice versa. The resistance (usually in its more radical and extreme form) is often used by the oppressor as justification for perpetuating the oppression of a people but this is purely propaganda.
2. The violence of the oppressed (the resistance) cannot, and should not, be equated to the violence of the oppressor. They are totally different in motive and morality. The first is justified on the grounds of basic human rights, the second is justified on the grounds of imperialistic and economic gain.

West Bank!

I'm flying out Sunday (12th) to the West Bank in Palestine for 2 weeks and thought I would do a blog and a bit of amateur journalism while I'm there as it's such an unusual place to go for a Summer holiday!

A brief history lesson to explain why I'm going to the West Bank (this is far from comprehensive):

The Zionist movement started as a political movement in Europe before 1900. The basic Zionist theory is that the land of Palestine was granted to the Jews by God in the Bible and it is therefore their birth right to live in Palestine. They believed that Palestine should be an ethnically pure Jewish state.

In 1917, Britain was in control of Palestine. Lord Balfour (a British MP) promised a 'national home' to the European Zionist movement in Palestine. He believed that this would please the Jewish lobby in the US which would ultimately benefit the UK. At this time, the population of Palestine was 5% Jewish and 95% Palestinian Arab. Up to this point, Jews, Muslims and Christians had lived in Palestine side by side peacefully. It is Lord Balfour's declaration that began the modern conflict, not some ancient religious war as the popular media would have us believe.

Jewish immigration to Palestine ensued. A Zionist government was set up in Palestine and soon began a campaign of terrorism against the British who still ruled the region. The Zionist forces blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem killing 90 British. Zionist terrorism of the population and the British forces eventually persuaded the British to leave Palestine. The United Nations then took control and, in 1948, granted the Zionist forces 55% of the land (the best land) in Palestine. At this time (after mass immigration) the Jewish population was still only 1 third of the total population and owned just 6% of the land. The UN however decided to ignore the basic right of the Palestinians to their land.

To achieve a Jewish majority, the Zionist forces had to get rid of the inhabitants of Palestine, the Arab Palestinians. 1948 saw the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. 13,000 Palestinians were killed by the Zionists many of them massacred in their villages and 750,000 chased from their homes. 400 Palestinian villages were raised to the ground (90% of the Arab villages within the1948 borders). How this ethnic cleansing process has been all but wiped from popular history is typical of the impunity with which Israel is allowed to act to this day (with the backing of various super-powers) The ethnic cleansing process continues today through forced evictions, compulsory purchase orders, house demolitions and refusal of building permits to Arab Israelis.

Israel has never been content with what the UN had granted them in 1948. They wanted the whole of historic Palestine and in 1967 they launched a war against their neighbours. They occupied the West Bank and it has been under military occupation ever since (40 years of military occupation). The UN immediately declared the military occupation illegal and has condemned the occupation periodically since then. Israel's foreign policy in the West Bank (and indirectly in Gaza) is still today dominated by the desire to assimilate the whole of the West Bank into Israel.

In order to annex more land in the West Bank, Israel encourages Jewish settlers to set up home on Palestinian land. All the settlements in the West Bank have been declared illegal by the UN. During the so called 'peace process' that Israel's closest ally, the US brokered in 1993-1995, Israel doubled the number of settlers in the West Bank. See the attached map for the history of the annexation of land in the West Bank. With this settlement policy, Israel seeks to ensure that a 'two state solution' (granting the Palestinians an independent state alongside Israel) is totally unworkable by setting up strategically placed settlements on Palestinian land. The settlers are heavily armed and regularly attack Palestinians tending their land and going about their daily life.

Palestine is now split into 2 refugee concentration camps, Gaza and the West Bank with Israel in the middle. It is virtually impossible for Palestinians to enter or leave their own country and moving within it is nearly as hard. The Israelis control all border crossings. They control land, sea and air space. Water resources are redirected away from Palestinian villages into Israel and into the illegal Israeli settlements. Many Palestinians must now buy their water back from the illegal settlements in order to survive. The threat of violence and death is constant. The Gaza massacre grabbed the headlines but we heard little or nothing of the 5,000+ Palestinian men women and children killed by Israelis between September 2000 and February 2007 before the Gaza massacre (in which 1,400 were killed). The Palestinians still, over 60 years on from the original ethnic cleansing operation, do not have their own independent state.

For more info see this film 'Occupation 101':

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5315818265146715477&hl=en

So why am I going? What has it got to do with me?

1. I want to see for myself how the illegal occupation of the West Bank affect Palestinians today. I have read many books on the subject but first hand experience gives the best insight.
2. The Palestinians themselves ask activists to come and see what their life is like under military occupation. The view we get from the BBC and Western media is consistently pro-Israel and fails to show a) the historical context of legitimate resistance in Palestine and b)the true impact of the illegal occupation on peoples' lives.
3. The British are ultimately to blame for the suffering of the Palestinians. Zionism would never have got off the ground without the backing of the British empire first (the state of Israel as is would not be economically or militarily viable without the support of the US). The British effectively handed over the Palestinian's country to a third party (the Zionist political movement). I therefore feel some sense of responsibility to do what little I can to highlight the injustice.
4. The Palestinian issue is part of a wider, global issue that is US imperialism. Israel
is only able to operate the way it does because of US military aid and diplomatic support (Israel benefits from the most US aid of all countries in the world). To understand the motives of the US / Israel alliance in Palestine is to understand the evils of imperialism the world over.

Why do I think activism makes a difference? The typical attitude of today is that ordinary people cannot change the world. Politics is the domain of the politicians alone and we should let them get on with it. On the contrary, I believe that the only way things change is when ordinary people organise and take action. Granted, this must be en-masse to be effective but there are precedents to this kind of ethical activism. It is grassroots activism that highlighted the injustice of Apartheid South Africa and eventually led to justice for the Black majority. There is a similar movement growing against the US-Israeli oppression of the Palestinians. Justice for the Palestinians is the moral cause of our generation. Viva Palestina.