{"id":128430,"date":"2014-07-07T16:38:18","date_gmt":"2014-07-07T16:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=128430"},"modified":"2014-07-07T16:38:18","modified_gmt":"2014-07-07T16:38:18","slug":"despite-crackdown-palestinians-organize-long-term-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/war-terrorism\/despite-crackdown-palestinians-organize-long-term-peace\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite crackdown, Palestinians organize for long-term peace"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bethan Staton<\/span><\/p>\n

Conflict has erupted in Israel and Palestine after the discovery of the bodies of three Israeli teenagers early last week\u00a0week, whom the Israelis say were kidnapped by Hamas. The Western media, for its part, has focused on the street battles between young Palestinians and the Israeli military, rushing to print photos of young Palestinian men throwing rocks and of masked Hamas militants\u00a0armed at a press conference<\/a>. However, these\u00a0images are\u00a0far from the whole story.\u00a0On the ground Palestinian groups are acting to turn\u00a0this rage into long-lasting nonviolent organizing.<\/p>\n

Last week, the Israeli military sent tanks and troop reinforcements to the border between Israel and the Gaza strip and began heavy airstrikes that have\u00a0killed at least seven\u00a0<\/a>Palestinians \u2013 the most recent development in the crackdown on Palestinian life that followed the disappearance of three settler teenagers approximately two weeks ago. Even before the bodies of the teens were found last\u00a0Monday evening, Israeli had launched a large-scale incursion into West Bank cities, raiding some 2,200 homes, arresting 419 Palestinians and killing at least six.<\/p>\n

The discovery of the boys\u2019 bodies, elicited sorrow, fury and \u2013 for some Israelis \u2013 a desire for revenge. Tuesday evening, crowds of Israelis chanted \u201cdeath to Arabs\u201d as they stormed through the streets of Jerusalem. The next morning, the body of 16-year-old\u00a0Palestinian Mohammed Abu Khaider, who had been seen being forced into a car the night before, was found in a forest.\u00a0In many ways, the violence and loss is unsurprising for Palestinians: It is, after all, an everyday reality here. But the intensity of the raids, scale of arrests, and very visible increase in threatened and actual violence from right-wing Israelis means the situation now feels different. For those working in the resistance movements, these are challenging and uneasy times. But they are also far from hopeless.<\/p>\n

Jamal Juma, the coordinator of Stop the Wall, a coalition of Palestinian organizations, has experienced crises like these before.<\/p>\n

\u201cStop the Wall started in 2002, in a very difficult and bloody situation,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had massacres all over Palestine. But, despite that, we started organizing people in popular resistance.\u201d\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cAt the moment,\u201d he continued, \u201cwe are experiencing very brutal invasions, which remind us of the invasions that happened in 2002. They are sending a strong message to Palestinians: that nothing will be tolerated.\u201d<\/p>\n

The response in the streets, Juma maintains, has largely been neither obedient nor violent, but careful: marches and protests rather than \u201cpeople shooting each other.\u201d When the Israeli army launched Operation Brother\u2019s Keeper last week in Hebron, groups like Youth Against Settlements mobilized by supporting families whose homes had been raided with calls and solidarity visits \u2013 essential practical support in the context of enormous isolation and fear.<\/p>\n

Next week, beginning on July 9, the Stop the Wall coalition will launch what it hopes will be a broader and more unifying campaign. Scheduled to begin on the anniversary of the International Criminal Court\u2019s decision on the illegality of the separation wall, the campaign will focus on two areas. In Hebron, a city fractured and closed off by Israeli settlements, the aim is explicitly to \u201clift the siege\u201d through a burst of nonviolent demonstrations. In the Jordan Valley, where full Israeli control and settlement activity mean home demolitions are a constant threat, Palestinians plan to launch the Popular Council to Save the Jordan Valley, which seeks to unite the work of activists working across the region to document violations, coordinate resistance and support in the case of resistance, and mobilize media coverage.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the first Intifada we had strong trade unions, strong women\u2019s institutions, youth movements,\u201d Juma says. \u201cThese were the main causes of the Intifada, in fact. But now these structures are weak. We need to invest in them, to build them up.\u201d<\/p>\n

In recent years, Palestinians have responded to the humanitarian issues like dispossession or eviction, and the broader questions of occupation and colonialism, with a slew of creative tactics. Protests villages like Ein Hijleh, established in an abandoned village in the Jordan Valley, have drawn international media attention. Although the camps themselves are often quickly destroyed, the networks and awareness created by these projects are harder to break.<\/p>\n

In Israeli society, too, nonviolent resistance and support for Palestinians still exists. And especially after the alarming violence and frightening racist incitement of the last few days, the awareness of a need for this organizing is stronger than ever. Ruth Edmonds explained to\u00a0WNV<\/i>\u00a0that, while\u00a0racist and nationalistic Israeli discourse is being amplified by social media, it is clearly on the rise. As a result, she said it\u2019s important that we pay attention to the voices for peace inside Israel that are being ignored.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is utterly vital we recognize and pay attention to the voices which do not grab so much attention,\u201d she said. \u201cIn Jerusalem over the next few hours there will be a number of vigils organized by various Jewish Israeli organizations to end the violence and racism now, before it gets out of hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, after the events of the past two weeks the appetite and patience for non violent resistance could well be wearing thin for many. The situation on the ground, Juma explained,\u00a0is \u201cboiling\u201d \u2014 and as the temperature rises, it could likely explode.\u00a0Issa Amro, an organizer with Youth Against Settlements in Hebron, is keenly aware of the difficulty of promoting nonviolent organizing in this context.\u00a0\u201cUnfortunately, not all of our campaigning works so well,\u201d he said. \u201cThe international media continued to focus on just one side, as if settlers were the only civilians.\u201d<\/p>\n

The feeling that nonviolent means of resistance is ignored by the world leads to immense disillusionment. In April, for example, Palestinian prisoners embarked on a hunger strike in Israeli jails to protest administrative detention. Despite the fact that detainees \u2013 who are effectively being held indefinitely without trial \u2013\u00a0went on hunger strike for more than 50 days, their plight was largely ignored by the world. Eventually, it came to an end when the Israeli government hurried through a bill that legalized force-feeding.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe spread the message of nonviolence, but unfortunately the violence people experience does affect us,\u201d Amro said. \u201cA small protest we held was met with tear gas and rubber bullets.\u201d<\/p>\n

He explained that movements like Youth Against Settlements are growing, but that violence such as the construction of new settlements inevitably has an effect.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis operation [by Israel] is a massive barrier to the goal of creating a nonviolent movement in Palestine,\u201d he said. \u201cIsraeli authorities are doing this to provoke people.\u201d<\/p>\n

To Juma and other organizers, the important thing is that people\u2019s rage at the violence that is inflicted on them get organized into long-lasting movements.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen 400 people confront the Israeli military in Balata or Ramallah or Shuafat, there\u2019s not a movement behind them, it\u2019s just people defending themselves, reacting to provocations,\u201d he said. \u201cWe saw that in the first Intifada. It was a people\u2019s reaction, going to the street and demonstrating. But at some time this needed to be organized. That\u2019s how we need movements to form, through leadership, and through organizing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bethan Staton\u00a0is a writer and editor based in Israel and Palestine. Her work has appeared in publications including\u00a0<\/span>New Internationalist<\/em>,\u00a0<\/span>Left Foot Forward<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>PolicyMic<\/em>, and she writes regularly for\u00a0<\/span>Palestine Monitor<\/em>.\u00a0This piece<\/a> was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bethan Staton Conflict has erupted in Israel and Palestine after the discovery of the bodies of three Israeli teenagers early last week\u00a0week, whom the Israelis say were kidnapped by Hamas. The Western media, for its part, has focused on the street battles between young Palestinians and the Israeli military, rushing to print photos of young […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,16],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-128430","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news","7":"category-war-terrorism"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128430\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}