NOTE
to people near Bethlehem-Beit Sahour area: We need you here tomorrow
(Thursday) and Friday mornings at 9 AM at Ush Ghrab. Thursday up the
hill and Friday below the hill for planting (see below).
At around 3 PM today (Wednesday), a
friend who lives near the area of the threatened land of Ush Ghrab
called to say the military just arrived and are bulldozing the top of
the hill. As I explained in a previous email, this hill of over 1000
dunums is in Beit Sahour surrounded by Palestinian homes on all sides.
From this hill the soldiers shelled the town destroying and damaging
many homes. But the Israeli occupation army vacated the military base
in 2006 (a site of nonviolent resistance for many years). I arrive
within five minutes and see extensive activities. The soldiers show me
an order issued January 29th 2010 with a map showing closure for a
significant size (much more even than the original military base). I
call some people and they call others and soon we have over 40 people.
The order is in Hebrew and no one reads Hebrew. Later at night, we do
partial translation and it is typical of all Israeli orders: using
vague justifications of security to achieve what is clearly land
thefts, harassments, etc. The private land owners have decided last
week to plant trees on Friday. WE will expand this and also asked
people to come Thursday to the site. Video at:
(but again please understand this is amateur video). Please join us and support popular resistance Thursday and Friday.http://www.qumsiyeh.org or you want kept private.
The quick response by many activists
to the phone calls got me to think about why there are so many people
willing to drop everything and work for justice while other people
(e.g. soldiers) blindly obey orders manifestly illegal per
International law or simply stay silent (silence is complicity)?
There were many white South Africans
who joined the ANC and other indigenous liberation movements while
others stayed silent or participated in the crimes! There were many
Israelis who abandoned Zionism and joined the local struggle. Others go
about their daily lives oblivious to what is happenning behind the
fences of segregation (Geder HaHafrada in Hebrew). But why would one
employee of Yad Vashem obey orders and simply tell all visitors of the
perpetual victimhood and that Zionism is the answer while another gets
fired for simply pointing out to a few visitors that just down the hill
is the ethnically cleansed village of Deir Yassin where the future
leaders of Israel committed a massacre of indescribable brutality in
1948.
>What exactly distinguishes people?
Why does someone like Alan Dershowitz choose to support torture,
support racism, and defend war crimes and crimes against humanity? And
why does someone like Hedy Epstein, a survivor of the concentration
camps, choose to go on hunger strike to support the besieged and
impoverished 1.5 million people of Gaza? Why does a Palestinian
politician drive a gas-guzzling SUV and wear nice suits while other
Palestinians choose to stand in front of a Bulldozer or an army tank
and get shot or thrown in jail? Why does a privileged white person in
America choose to be silent and pay taxes that go to kill Iraqis,
Afghanis, and Palestinians? Why does another privileged white person
choose to come and join us here in the struggle? Rachel Corrie, a young
23 year old American student was intentionally crushed by an Israeli
bulldozer while trying to defend a Palestinian pharmacist home. Tom
Hurndall and others paid dearly. Thousands of Internationals come here
annually to support our struggle. Why do millions remain compliant? Is
it not true that “silence is complicity” and “you can’t be neutral on a
moving train”?
It would be superficially and wrong
to say things along the line of having a conscience can differentiate
people. We all have seen people switch and join the struggle all the
time telling us that it is indeed not people by ideas and education.
So what can convince them to change? A colleague wrote once that those
who comply live more comfortably but they are like the “house slaves”.
In the time of slavery, there were field slaves who were in the sun all
day doing the work and then the privileged house slaves who dressed
nicely, fed nicely but who were still slaves. They got promoted to
house slaves by being more compliant and trustworthy (to the masters).
I personally believe the slave owners were also slaves. I believe
those who rejected the system and yes occasionally got the whip, those
were free in their hearts and minds. Today, I believe those who are
suffering are in many ways freer and more comfortable in their skin
than all the privileged masters and house slaves. I believe that
freedom comes to the slave owners themselves when they free their
slaves and when in the meantime the house slaves refuse to be house
slaves. In our situation here, I believe many Israelis and
Palestinians are enslaved and they don’t even know it. There are few
who managed to shed the self-imposed chains around their brains (as my
late grandfather advised us when we were kids). I find that the
friendship and support of those is the best bliss in life. But still
the question lingers of why people behave teh way they do and, perhaps
more importantly, how do people change. We would like to hear your
views on this. What can help us reach people to get them to show some
moral fortitude, to show some spine, to shed their chains, to be free of being oppressor or
oppressed? I want to share your views with the rest of the world
(these emails reach tens of thousands of people). If you share your
view with me please tell me it is OK to post it at the website.
If you reached here thank you, and if
you live near Bethlehem area, come join us Thursday and Friday mornings
(9 AM) for planting trees (Friday only), for camaraderie, for activism,
and for expressing moral courage.
Source >DesertPeace | feb 10
Libreria Ritorno al Reale
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Archivio EFFEDIEFFE :Cerca nell'archivio EFFEDIEFFE tutti i nostri articoli dal 2004 in poi.
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