Sharon is 20 years old and is a leftist activist. She works in a library categorising documents. She shows me a pamphlet from 1941 published in Palestine by the British Army and giving a glossary of terms in Arabic. It is an artefact from a time when the world was in flux; the Israeli state had not been created; the world was at war; the horror of the holocaust was underway, hidden in Nazi Germany and much of the world (including Palestine) was still under the dominion of a disintegrating British empire.
“It’s genuine. This is the sort of history you do not get in Schools here...In school they teach you the land was empty, they wouldn’t show you something to make you think about the people who lived here before.”
Sharon’s mother is Iranian and her father is Scottish, she is all Jewish Israeli. At 12 she decided what she was getting taught in School didn’t make sense. The message that all ‘Arabs’ were terrorists and wanted to kill her and that the land she lived in was a wilderness before the Jews came didn’t ring true for her. She now spends her free time engaged in activism against the occupation.
Israeli activists (variously known as “dissidents,” “leftists” or by some in right wing Israeli media “Self Hating Jews”) are a small but significant portion of the effort to end the occupation, Famous war correspondent, author and film maker John Pilger describes those he interviewed as being among the bravest he ever met.
Owing to the holocaust, the manner in which the Israeli state was created and operates is subject to deep sensitivities. Those Israelis who criticise the Israeli state can often find themselves victims of accusations of betraying the memory of Jews who died as a result of other nation’s racism and intolerance.
At 1pm every Saturday afternoon, a group of elderly women stand in a square in Jewish West Jerusalem opposite the Centre for Jewish centre and hold black signs reading “End the Occupation” in Hebrew and English. When we arrive to join them we are greeted by the sight of red haired women screaming at them in Hebrew as they stand passively by:
“She told us we should be ashamed that we will burn for this, that we are no better than terrorists, how can we call ourselves Jews, all this..I am used to it by now”
Ruth El Haz is a Psychotherapist and is one of the founders of the Women in Black, a world-wide network of women committed to peace with justice which began in Israel in 1988. Their tactic is not to chant, but rather it seems, absorb abuse with dignity as they make their point that the occupation must end.
“We get called whores, we get called traitors but all we are asking for is a just peace”
Ruth further explains her motivations:
“I have a need to be heard and that I am against the occupation of any country. I am not against my country, I am not against the state of Israel. I want two countries for two peoples. I hope in 20 years time we’ll be able to have that situation, but meanwhile I want my own country to be a country of human beings.”
In a country where the idea of God given right often overrides a humanist, rights based morality to Ruth is an atheist (or secular Jew).
“At the age of 14 I decided that if there is a God he cannot just pick one people, all he can hope for me is that I am decent to other human beings.”
Contrary to what the right wing in Israel says, Israeli Activists do not hate themselves or their culture, in fact nationalism plays apart in motivating many of them. Activists are often Zionists (Jewish Nationalists) who feel that the Occupation is damaging and weakening Israel, others are motivated by ideals such as equality, justice and peace.
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| Jeff and I |
Jeff Halper is the founder and director of the Israeli Committee Against the House Demolitions (ICAHD) one of the most respected Human Rights organisations in Israel and Palestine. In 2006 he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for for his work "to liberate both the Palestinian and the Israeli people from the yoke of structural violence". He has been in the peace movement since he got to Israel as an American Jew over 40 years ago and is an author, anthropologist and lecturer
I put it to him Pilger’s comment that Israel Activists are amongst the bravest he has seen but he brushes it off.
“Actually it’s the other way around, Palestinians would be shot for some of things I do..We are protected because we are Israeli..We are courageous in the sense that we go against public opinion, but even that isn’t a big deal”
Jeff has been arrested on multiple occasions, he stands in front of bulldozers; he rebuilds Palestinian homes demolished by the army and works on raising awareness of the issues at home and through tireless international advocacy. While Jeff stress the importance of getting the international community engaged, informed and putting pressure on Israeli to change the situation described by ICAHD as “apartheid” he paints a picture of a society in Israel itself unwilling or unable to meaningfully engage with their recent history and the occupation on their doorstep.
Last weekend on May the 15th the Palestinian people commemorated the Nakba. It was the 63rd anniversary of the occasion when 700,000 Palestinians became refugees in 1948 while fleeing from the advances of the newly formed Israeli army, who were expanding the borders of the newly established Israeli state. The day was marked by protests which and an Israeli response which saw 13 people killed and scores wounded or arrested. I ask Jeff about the Israeli attitude towards this commemoration, which is prohibited within Israel itself under the recent Nakba Law:
“I don’t think there is an Israeli attitude; I don’t think Israelis know about it...”. As we speak we are sitting in a plush region of West Jerusalem just a short walk away from where the West Bank begins
“Take a look around, people have never heard of the Nakba, people have never even heard of the occupation! The Arabs are our permanent enemy, that what everybody believes, but it’s not articulated and therefore you are made immune to anything political...It’s like people say themselves ‘I don’t have to feel guilty because they brought it on themselves’”.
ICAHD want to see end to the occupation, and lobbies European Governments to this effect (he has given up America, where he see’s congress as completely dominated by pro Israelis). He is hopeful and positive that International Recognition of a Palestinian State in September will lead to the occupation disintegrating.
Jeff thinks the idea of Jewish state itself is not viable:
“You can’t have a State in the 21st century that’s ‘Jewish’, it’s an ethnocracy, not a democracy and anytime you privilege one ethnic group over another, it’s racist. It’s not sustainable, and I think Israelis know it’s not.”
Israeli society prides itself in being a welcome haven for Jews worldwide and a strong sense of community and kinship is often evident in Israel, however, Jeff explains there is a conspiracy of silence, enforced by the media, the education system and strong social pressures. Even if perhaps Israelis know somewhere deep down that a people are being oppressed and degraded to fulfill the dream of a Jewish State, they are willing to put it to the side:
“In a way you know are being lied to your whole life, but it’s comfortable, why go against it.”
I tell Jeff about the Soldier at Qalandia checkpoint outside Jerusalem I met a few week ago who was intelligent, friendly and talkative but who found it hard to believe that I was living safely, happily and welcomed in a Palestinians town
“You should read the Koran...There you find out that Muslims celebrate death, they celebrate darkness..Jews represent the light”. He said it to me from behind a mesh face where I was standing to watch hundreds of Palestinians make their daily trek through the cages and turnstiles on their way to low paid jobs. The soldier said later that things were not perfect, and that he became an officer in an army to “make a change.”
“They don’t think” Jeff simply said.
Those who have the potential to really make a change are the activists; those who have seen the light and have had the brains and courage to reject a powerful mix of socialisation and propaganda to reject the view that the occupation is necessary or acceptable. Rather than finding self hating Jews, I found in people who had no problems with low self esteem what so ever, but rather felt a responsibility to do something about what is happening in their country.
I met Sharon again on the day of the Nakba in a quiet coffee shop in peaceful West Jerusalem. A day when Israel once again answered stones with bullets, confined more Palestinians to prison for commemorating injustice, wrecked more families and took more lives. Sharon was planning to leave to attend a demonstration. I ask her if it’s difficult, to go against everything, to stand up for what she believes in even though she most go against society to do so.
“Of course it’s difficult.”
So why does she do it?
“What choice do I have? You can’t just see what is going on, sit back and do nothing”
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