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MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 12/30/2001: You've got to hand it to these international activists, they are succeeding at the moment at least in drawing attention to what the Israeli occupation is really all about, they are putting their bodies on the line, they have now finally after so many years and provocations begun to organize and demonstrate for real. But there are a few serious problems in this.
First of all this group of a couple of hundred of "internationals" should never have aligned themselves with the terribly repressive Arafat regime -- the Palestinian people definitely yes, the Arafat regime definitely not. By going to visit Arafat last week and by letting Arafat use their visit as a photo-op for his manipulation of the European governments to send his corrupt regime more money, the "internationals" have been used for political and propaganda purposes they should have been smart enough and careful enough to avoid. Indeed, many of the serious complaints they rightly have about what has happened to the Palestinian people should also be addressed to Arafat and his cabal of Israeli/American annointed Palestinian VIPs; for it is a regime very much complicitous in the terrible neo-apartheid conditions of repression and poverty the Palestinian people now languish under.
Furthermore, the small group of American Jews among the "internationals"-- calling themselves "Junity" even though when they gathered in Chicago earlier this year the largely incestuous "Junity" crowd numering less than the "internationals" now in occupied Palestine couldn't even agree on a Statement about what they stood for -- was unfortunately among the instigators in running over to get photographed with Arafat.
As for what to expect from all this... Unless this group of internationals can quickly figure out a way to substantially increase their numbers, their following, and their staying power -- however dramatic, however sincere, however even courageous -- they will not really impact on the situation and will be just one more of the panoply of newsstories and photo opportunities generated by the Intifada. The Israeli government clearly has the means and the determination to outmanuever them; and has been doing so literally for decades now, each year the situation for the Palestinian people worse than before. Small and essentially leaderless as they are, they will be harrassed and infiltrated, they will be kept out of "closed military areas", they will be told to leave and not return as their visas expire, if need be they will be "detained" and "escorted" to the airport.
Sad to say, the history of what is primarily Christian non-violence in dealing with the Israeli occupation, now nearly 35 years old, is not a very uplifting story to recount. And in the end, of course, it is the very countries the "internationals" come from who have primarily funded, armed, and protected the Israelis over all these years; and now they do so for the Arafat regime which doubly occupies the Palestinian people in a situation far worse than before it came to be.
5 From Denver/Boulder Join Over 200 Internationals in Unprecedented Action
Press Release - 12/29/2001: Amid tear-gas and sound bombs, five Coloradans joined dozens of Palestinians and over 150 internationals in nonviolently pushing back the Israeli military from their illegal checkpoint near Surda village -- a busy checkpoint between the Palestinian town of Ramallah and Bir Zeit University. For nearly six hours the international activists controlled the checkpoint, denying access to Israeli tanks and armored vehicles and keeping it open to all Palestinian traffic.
"For the Israeli military, tear gas and sound bombs are their polite warnings to move," said Coloradan Ben Scribner. "Clearly our level of coordination caught the Israeli soldiers by surprise and proved to them and the rest of the world the power of organized nonviolence."
After soldiers from two Israeli military jeeps attacked a line of protestors with tear gas, Coloradan Val Phillips suffered gas inhalation from two cannisters thrown at her. "I couldn't breathe at all. I was terrified," said Phillips. "Yet, I can't believe Palestinians ? who just want to go to school and work -- have to live with this every day of their lives."
Later at the same location an Israeli tank, two jeeps and an armored personnel carrier confronted a dozen activists attempting to nonviolently keep a main road open to Palestinian traffic. Israeli soldiers came out of their vehicles and began dragging people away, punching and kneeing people and in one case an American from Seattle was severely jabbed by an Israeli soldier's machine gun. Yet the line held.
Israel illegally maintains over 140 military checkpoints throughout the West Bank and Gaza, denying Palestinians access to education, commerce, medical care, and travel. Two days previous Coloradans witnessed Israeli soldiers humiliating and degrading Palestinians who were simply trying to go to work or school.
| Mid-East Realities | www.middleeast.org |
| Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/12/531.htm |