Lara Tries To Go Home

Our delegation arrived safely in Palestine a couple weeks ago. We exited our plane at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport, built on part of a Palestinian town of Lyd, most of whose inhabitants either fled in 1948 during the Nakba and remain in refugee camps in Amman, Jordan or Ramallah, West Bank living under deplorable conditions, or they live as second-, third-, or fourth-class citizens in what remains of town, now part of Israel. The removal of 17,948 of Lyd's population of 19,000 in 1948 was led by former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, hailed as a peacenik by those unfamiliar with his history of brutality that continued through the First Intifada (during which Rabin implemented a policy of breaking the arms and legs of any Palestinian who threw a stone at an Israeli tank, jeep, etc.) and beyond. Rabin wrote the following in his own diary shortly after 1948 attacks driving out almost 95% of Lyd's non-Jewish population:

"After attacking Lydda [Lyd] Ben-Gurion would repeat the question: What is to be done with the population?, waving his hand in a gesture which said: Drive them out!. 'Driving out' is a term with a harsh ring, .... Psychologically, this was one of the most difficult actions we undertook." (Soldier Of Peace, p. 140-141 & Benny Morris, p. 207)

His guilt and psychological struggle didn't prevent him from giving orders to do the same to neighboring villages ('Imwas, Yalu, and Bayt Nuba) 19 years later.

The struggle of remaining inhabitants of Lyd (now citizens of Israel) for recognition as equal human beings and their isolation from their fellow Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza, and the Diaspora is documented beautifully in one of my favorite documentaries about Palestine: Slingshot Hip Hop, documenting the rising Palestinian hip-hop movement as resistance to oppression through the spoken word.

Anyway, arriving at Israel 's airport, named after Ben-Gurion himself, our delegates waited anxiously in line for passport control, hoping we would not targeted given our desire to meet with Palestinians. Israel recently denied entry to Noam Chomsky, who was on his way to give a talk at a Palestinian university, to name but one example. Those eventually interrogated from our group were no surprise—two Palestinian delegates, simply trying to visit their homeland.

They each told us their stories that night, but I'll focus on the story of just one: Lara.

Lara stood in line next to a large group of young Jewish Americans talking excitedly about coming on vacation to Israel . They were breezed through with a smiling, "Welcome to Israel ." When Lara reached passport control, they didn't bother asking her any questions. Her name was enough. Security escorted her to another room where she was held for over an hour. First, they asked for her phone number in the United States . She gave it to them… What will they do with it? They asked where her parents were born. " Gaza ," she answered. That was all the questioner needed to know. "You will have to visit the Ministry of Interior," he said, and took her into a third room.

"What is your father's name?" Lara answered. "I know," he replied.

"What is your mother's name?" Lara answered. "I know," he replied again.

"What is your father's mother's name?" "What is your mother's father's name?" "What is your mother's mother's name?" She answered each question and with each he replied, "I know."

When the interrogator asked, "What is your father's father's name?" Lara replied that she actually didn't know because he died long before she was born. But he knew, and before her eyes he sketched out the family tree of her own family, most of them uprooted from their homes by the Israeli Army. He said "Your grandfather' s name is Sayyid. And your father's name is not only Ahmad. It is Ahmad Mahmoud Sayyid Elborno."

Lara asked, "If you know the answers to all these questions, why are you asking me?" but he didn't respond. He continued:

"What date did your grandparents get married?"

"I don't know. Do you know what date your grandparents got married?" she challenged him.

"Your grandparents were married on September 3, 1958."

Then he began to show Lara photographs from Palestinian ID cards, asking if she was related to them. She didn't recognize any of them, until the last one: a older man in a grey suit.

"That's my grandfather, " she said, looking into his elderly face blown up on this interrogator' s screen. She was surprised because it was a recent photograph of him, even though he has not been to Palestine in many years. Why and how did they get a photograph of him, carrying on a new life far away after being pushed out?

Finally, he moved on to Lara's sister, explaining that she had been here last year. "Why?" he asked.

"Tourism," Lara replied.

"But you're from Gaza ."

"So Gazans cannot be tourists?"

Lara finished her story to us: "I must have forgotten that being from Gaza is a crime. After an hour and a half, my passport was stamped and I was told to enjoy my stay in Israel ."

We thought as a group about Lara's question as to why she was asked so many questions that Israel already knew the answer to… Was it to stall time to keep her longer? Was it to catch her if she lied? Was it to gather more intelligence about her family? Or was it to show who had the power in her own homeland.

Shortly after our arrival, our group visited Erez checkpoint, the northern crossing into Gaza . Of course, we couldn't enter Gaza, which remains under siege with full Israeli control over the shoreline, airspace, borders (except Rafah, which Egypt itself closed in part due to pressure from Israel and the US), and the land itself with buffer zones and invasions. Fishermen cannot fish to feed their families. If a Palestinian student in Gaza gets a scholarship to study in the United States … Too bad. They mostly likely can't get out. Gaza used to export millions of flowers… no more (once, people in Gaza carried thousands and thousands of carnations to Rafah checkpoint and dropped them there as an act of creative protest). Adequate fuel can't get in. Adequate medicine and medical supplies can't get in. Adequate food and water can't get in. People can't get in. People can't get out. Gaza is an open air prison.

On the way to Erez checkpoint, Lara shared with the group some of the items that Israel prohibits or often blocks from Gaza :

Cilantro, jam, chocolate, French fries, dried fruit, notebooks, toys, coriander, light bulbs, candles, clothing, shoes, mattresses, sheets, blankets, pasta, tea, coffee, nuts, shampoo, conditioner, books, musical instruments, and crayons.

[Sources: "Why Won't Israel allow Gaza to import coriander?" (Haaretz Israeli Newspaper) and "Guide: Gaza Under Blockade" (BBC). List of commercial goods allowed only at certain points here.]

Lara has family and land in Gaza that she has never seen, but along with musical instruments and coriander, she's not allowed in. But Lara went to the window to try to go home anyway. She showed the seemingly bored young female solder her passport and said that she wanted to enter to go her family, whom she's never met.

"I'm sorry," the soldier replied, and slid her passport back. "You need a coordination. "

"What's a coordination?" Lara asked.

"You need to call to get permission to go to Gaza ."

"Permission from Gaza ?"

"No, permission from Israel ."

"Why do I need permission from Israel to go to my own land?"

The soldier didn't seem to understand the question.

We hope that the flotilla and upcoming new boats will continue to raise awareness of the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza . But the people in Gaza don't need sympathy. They need freedom, and they need justice. They don't need food; they need the ability to cultivate, catch, export, and import their own food. They don't need our money; they need the ability to thrive and to grow their own economy. They don't need our "help." They need our support, which is exactly what the flotilla was and is all about.

My friend Lara doesn't need permission to visit her land. It is her right—period. The fact that Israel consistently denies the rights of Lara and millions of other Palestinians to access their land in Gaza , the West Bank, or anywhere in historic Palestine does not make their rights questionable or debatable. They are non-negotiable, like any human right. It's as simple as that.

The Aftermath of the Flotilla

Last night marked one week since Israel's attack in international waters on the Mavi Marmara Turkish humanitarian ship bound for Gaza, killing nine. One by one, the hundreds of witnesses aboard the vessels have been returning home to tell their stories after being stripped of any and all footage. By confiscating all non-military evidence of the incident, Israel has been able to successfully dominate the narrative, at least in the US where news of the attack had begun to dwindle by the time witnesses were released. One wonders, if Israel is conveying the whole story of what happened that night, why eliminate every single other piece of documentation? What does Israel have to hide?

According to hundreds of eyewitnesses, the Navy shot at the boat and threw tear gas and sound bombs before boarding the ship, and then hit the ground shooting. The videos released by Israel show those aboard the ship attacking soldiers with sticks. Israel claims that the deaths were an accident, that the soldiers were startled by the sticks and thus forced to shoot people to defend themselves.

Now let's put things into perspective. In 2005, the Israeli Army removed 8,000 ideological settlers from Gaza, many of them kicking and screaming with sticks and rocks in hand. The Army managed not to kill or even shoot a single one of them. Do sticks from Turks hurt more, or is it not about the sticks at all?

As Dr. Norman Finkelstein pointed out, Israeli officials met for an entire week prior to the flotilla to plan precisely what they intended to do. The Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren himself stated that the Mavi Marmara was simply "too large to stop with nonviolent means." It's hard to believe that this was an accident.

While the world focuses on the flotilla and Gaza, Israel's restrictions on Palestinian rights in the rest of Palestine continue to tighten. On Friday, soldiers surrounded the Old City in Jerusalem to prevent Muslim men from praying at Al-Aqsa mosque. Only those younger than 15 or older than 40 were allowed through. Hundreds of men gathered outside the metal bars installed by the Army around the city gates. Frustrated, many men sat down to wait to pray on the sidewalk, but soldiers on horseback pushed through the crowd, forcing the men to scatter.

It's important to note that many Palestinians wait for years to receive a permit to visit Jerusalem for just one day. Sometimes the permits are valid only for a few hours. I saw a woman in Beit Sahour whom I'd met in Syracuse last Fall. She said it's easier for her to travel to New York than to go 10 miles away to Jerusalem. She said often permits are sent to the wrong village and families fall over themselves to get the permit to the right person in time, often failing. At the gates, some men argued with the soldiers, close to tears, not knowing if they would ever get another chance to realize a life-long dream of praying at their country's holiest site.

Eventually, hundreds of men began to gather next to the wall of the Old City and across the street. If they could not enter, they would pray as close as they could. As the call to prayer rang out (at least sound can overcome walls), a noticeable calm came over the space as they bowed down in unison. The soldiers stood over the group, some filming with cameras. In the middle of the group were an olive tree and a young child who stood by himself, watching.

When the prayers ended, those who hadn't brought prayer mats wiped the dirt off their foreheads and gathered with others across the street where an imam had started to speak. Lara, a Palestinian delegate in our group translated bits and pieces of what he said.

The sermon was about the importance of compassion and justice in Islam. There they were, being denied their religious freedom, and they were talking about compassion. The imam asked that their prayers be accepted even though they could not be in the house of God. At one point, he raised his finger and called out the following: "Someday, we will live in a place where it doesn't matter what color your skin is, or where you're from." With every sentence the group resounded in a collective "Amen."

After the prayers, hundreds of women and older men poured out, one of whom told me he'd seen a man beaten by the Army for calling out against Israel's attacks on the flotilla. This is likely precisely what the Army wanted to avoid by keeping Muslims from congregating at the mosque, and they had been largely successful, at least so they thought.

Just as I was turning to return to the hotel, I heard a chorus of women's voices coming from inside the city walls. Soon a large group of women emerged carrying a Turkish flag and singing out familiar calls for justice and praising those who gave their lives to free Gaza. The soldiers thought that keeping the men out would be enough, but they had underestimated the women.

Israel has also underestimated the international civilian community, which continues to speak out. Day and night, we watch protests around the world unfold one after another, seemingly stronger and larger by the day: Japan, Paris, India, Oslo, Australia, and beyond. This is being called "Israel's Kent State."

Far more significant than protests is the fact that worldwide disapproval has been transforming into concrete rejection of normalization with Israel, including major victories for the Palestinian movement for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) on Israel until it complies with international law.

This past week, the student body at Evergreen College voted to divest from "Israel's illegal occupation." Before she was run over by Israeli soldiers in a US-made Caterpillar bulldozer in Gaza, Rachel Corrie had attended Evergreen. Along with divesting, students have voted for a "Caterpillar free" campus. You can support the students by clicking here.

A week before the flotilla, Italy's largest supermarkets COOP and Nordiconad announced a boycott of the Israeli produce company, Carmel Agrexco. Four days later, Deutsche Bank (Germany's largest bank, worth more than $1 trillion) announced divestment from Elbit Systems, an Israeli firm that supplies technology for Israel's military, settlements, and Wall (as well as the Wall between the US and Mexico). Deutsche Bank was one of the company's largest share-holders.

The next day, it was announced that Sweden's largest national pension funds were also divesting from Elbit. (Norway did the same more than one year ago.) Going a step further, the Swedish Port Workers Union announced last Wednesday that it would temporarily stop handling Israeli cargo in response to the attacks on the flotilla.

On the same day, Britain's largest union, Unite, passed a unanimous motion "to vigorously promote a policy of divestment from Israeli companies" and to boycott Israeli goods and services as in "the boycott of South African goods during the era of apartheid."

Then yesterday, the Pixies canceled their upcoming concert in Israel in response to Israel's attack on the flotilla. Musical artists Klaxons and Gorillaz canceled as well. This on the heels of cancelations by Santana, Gil Scott-Heron, Snoop Dog, Sting, and Elvis Costello.

These are but a few of the BDS victories that have happened just in the last month. The movement that officially began in 2005 crossed its first threshold in 2009 (having gained in four years the same momentum it took the BDS movement against South Africa 20 years to achieve), but 2010 has brought it to a new level.

Last month marked 62 years since 80% of the families in Gaza were displaced during Israel's creation, the Palestinian Nakba. And this week marks 43 years since Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and West Bank. The Occupation has been in place 70% of Israel's life-span so far. It is not temporary. And it is but one part of the problem. Along with Israel's discrimination against Palestinians within Israel's de-facto borders and outside historic Palestine, the Occupation will not be stopped voluntarily by Israel. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said: "Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." I spoke with a member of Boycott from Within (Israelis supporting the Palestinian BDS Call) paraphrased a common phrase during the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa: We will bring them to their senses, or we will bring them to their knees. For Israel, as was the case for the South African Apartheid government, the former has simply never worked.

A People United Will Not Fall

As I'm sure you've heard, less than 60 hours ago at least 9 people carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza on a six-ship flotilla were killed by the Israeli army when it attacked one of the ships. Dozens were badly injured. The ships were in international waters and had stopped overnight, expecting to continue transporting more than 10,000 tons of aid to Gaza the next morning. Most of those killed and injured were Turkish.

I am chilled knowing that I was meant to be on the Mavi Marmara boat had I not already committed to this delegation, and I wonder if I could have been as brave as the others on board. I feel a great kinship with Turkish Palestine solidarity activists with whom I worked during my years living in Ankara and although I am no nationalist, I was proud to carry a Turkish flag today.

We here in Palestine are stunned, not by Israel's immorality (Israel has committed far worse crimes), but by its arrogance. Israel assumes it can kill anyone it wants anywhere it wants with impunity. Israel is wrong. And this, like the 2008-2009 War on Gaza (Operation Cast Lead), should be a turning point in international opinion and, more importantly, international action.

Nine hours after the night-time killings, we went to Ramallah and joined with a crowd of hundreds demonstrating (see photos here) in solidarity with their Turkish brothers and sisters who fell for freedom in Gaza. It was a moving scene as people locked their stores to take to the streets waving Turkish flags alongside Palestinian ones, chanting that the profound sacrifice of these martyrs for them would never be forgotten. The crowd's enthusiasm never wavered as it moved through the bustling city of Ramallah, eventually ending at a Turkish International Center.

One of our delegates speaks Hebrew and happened to be at the end of the crowd when she recognized Israeli News Channel 2 cameras setting up pointed away from the crowd (I didn't think Israeli TV went into Ramallah but she's lived in Israel and was 100% sure of what she saw). She translated to us the words spoken in Hebrew by the reporter: "Here in Ramallah, life is going on as usual. People here seem apathetic to what happened at sea, showing that it's really not that big of a deal."

In Ramallah we heard news of a similar protest near Qalandia checkpoint where an American young woman named Emily lost her left eye when she was shot in the face with a tear-gas canister. The story felt all the more real when we met that night with representatives from the popular committee of the nearby village of Ni'lin where a young man from California named Tristan Anderson was shot in the head with a tear gas canister at a peaceful demonstration. For a long time it was assumed he would be brain-dead for life, but it seems he's making progress and has finally begun to speak.

Our meeting was held in Bil'in, where we spent the evening with one of the leaders of the popular committee on resistance in the small village that has lost more than half of its land to the Wall. The last time I was at a demonstration in Bil'in, we were hosed with water cannons. Now I learn that the Army has started hosing people with chemicals or pepper spray in the water, stuff that won't rub off and smells terrible.

Since my last visit, Bassem Abu-Rahme, a warm and energetic friend to many who have marched in Bil'in, died from being shot in the heart with a tear gas canister as he yelled at soldiers that his Israeli activist friend was hurt. We watched a movie about Bassem and I remembered how enthusiastic and glowing he was. No more, although his memory lives on through pictures on every family's wall, and in the minds of the thousands who have come from around the world to confront Israeli Apartheid in this small village.

The resistance in Bil'in has continued every Friday for more than half a decade. I am reminded each time I come of the extraordinary resilience of the people. More than 85 of 1,800 inhabitants have been imprisoned, with many more beaten, gassed, and shot at. The house in which we were staying has been raided eight times in the middle of the night. Our host is wanted by Israel for his leadership in this village known for its nonviolence. He dined with us and left, saying it was too dangerous for him to stay.

Usually when I come to Bil'in, the first place I go is to the home of my friends Abdallah and Majida, and their beautiful girls, Luma and Layan. This time, there was a third child -- Laith, their first boy -- but someone was missing. Abdallah Abu-Rahme, one of the leaders of Bil'in's popular nonviolent resistance against the Wall, was abducted by soldiers in the middle of the night, with Majida and the rest of the family unable to stop it. His crime: Abdallah has been charged for possession of weapons because he gathered empty tear gas canisters that were shot into his village and put them together to form an enormous peace sign (click on the link for the photo... you have to see it to believe it).

In the morning our friend from Jerusalem was late to pick us up. He said they couldn't buy amenities because a general strike was called in East Jerusalem. Later we visited Sakhnin, a Palestinian town in the Galilee. The entire town had been on strike and people were out at night demonstrating and singing "Biladi, Biladi" (My Country, My Country). Our host told us about Israeli efforts to separate Palestinian society, calling Palestinians in Israel "Arab Israelis" and claiming they are separate from the Druze, Bedouins, Jerusalemites, and Palestinians in the 1967 occupied territory and the Diaspora. These classifications serve to undermine the unity of the Palestinian people but, my host smiled, they have not succeeded, as evidenced by so many protests and strikes around Palestine for the people of Gaza and their supporters.

Yesterday, Egypt finally opened Gaza's Rafah crossing to allow Palestinians, food, water, medical supplies, and more in and out. It seems even Egypt has a breaking point. In the United Nations, representatives from multiple countries (including the UK, but not the U.S.) issued harsher words than I have heard from them in the past (albeit not harsh enough). Sadly, ten Palestinian deaths have never prompted an emergency meeting in the UN; Palestinians' lives are considered cheaper than those in other countries. Who knows how long Rafah will stay open or what will come of the UN lip-service, but it shows the power of international solidarity to wake up the world and force people to talk about this issue. Those who fell on the Mavi Marmara were people of conscience with the courage to do what our government and others have not: end the siege of Gaza. Their deaths will not be in vain.