OK, fair point.  But, does anyone really think that rocket was aimed at Jordan?

Israel loves to divert criticism by claiming that the world is unfairly biased against it.  It’s a painful truism that shockingly atrocious human rights violations take place all over the world every day, with barely even a sideways glance from the international media.  It’s also true that when Israel demolishes someone’s house, injures a peaceful protestor, or restricts aid to Gaza, the world pays more attention.  The UN gets involved, as do European governments, international media, and certainly, the Arab world (and you know, occasionally the USA).  This, to some more right-wing pro-Israel people, constitutes clear evidence of anti-Semitism, and nests perfectly into a well-established part of the Jewish psyche, which says the whole world is always out to harm the Jews.

I certainly do not mean to in any way downplay the suffering of the Jewish people at the hands of others, throughout history.  However, in the case of Israel, isn’t the attention a good thing?  Since its birth as a nation, Israel has had the attention and support of most of the western world – none of this is new.  International attention on Israel could help to solve issues in the nation – and to create a more stable, peaceful region.  It has worked before!   And what’s the other option?  For the world to get distracted by another global conflict and for Israel, out of sight, to let human rights violations spin out of control, and to promote policies and actions that make peace in the Middle East even less achievable?

Obviously, the current situation in Israel/Palestine is not tenable – for anyone.  Do pro-Israel folks want the world to give up on peace in Israel?   Obviously not, but they need to recognize that international attention is going to include (very deserved) scrutiny, and that general world opinion is usually pretty valuable.  The world has a good, you know, worldview.

Oh, and by the way, if you are planning a trip to Southern Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, OR AQABA this week, travel safely!

Israeli activists will hold vigils and protests today in the cities of Tel Aviv, Haifa, Wadi Ara, Beer-Sheva,  Kfar Yasif,  Gan Shmuel Junction, Tira, Taybe, Raanana, West Jerusalem, and of course, Sheikh Jarrah.  They do so in recognition of the harrowing fact that it has been a year since the eviction of the Hanoun and Ghawi families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah on August 2, 2009, and since then, the situation in East Jerusalem has only gotten worse.

Day of Solidarity Poster

Activists protesting today do so with the knowledge that over the past year, there have only been more home demolitions and evictions, more settlers in the heart of Palestinian neighborhoods, more expansion of existing Israeli neighborhoods, and more planning for new Israeli neighborhoods disguised as expansions of Israeli neighborhoods.  It continues to be almost impossible for Jerusalem Palestinians to legally build in their own neighborhoods, which the municipal government has made sure to keep in a condition far inferior to the surrounding Jewish neighborhoods.   The Separation Barrier continues to be built (currently, near Wallajeh),  and as radicalism grows in both the Israeli and Palestinian populations, the critical voices of peace activists, Israeli and Palestinian, continue to be persecuted.

Yet, today’s demonstrators also know that their response to the home evictions has ignited an unprecedented protest movement in Sheikh Jarrah, drawing thousands of people to protest harmful actions by their own government, which threaten the possibility of ever achieving peace in the region.  They have also seen an increasing international criticism of Israeli policy in East Jerusalem, with the result that for many months, in this past year, settlement activity was effectively halted (OK, admittedly, it’s not anymore!)

International activists can take a cue from the Israelis protesting all over Israel today.  Clearly, the criticism of international leaders has an effect on Israeli policy in East Jerusalem, and we should all be doing our part to let our governments know what we think about home evictions and settlements in East Jerusalem, and to make it clear that we will not stand by and watch the possibility for peace in Israel/Palestine crumble.  As Israeli activists will chant all over the country today, “Sheikh Jarrah, don’t despair, we’ll still end the occupation!”

I teach English in Hebron. There. It’s said. The seemingly innocuous statement that generates an onslaught of questions, quizzical looks, and widened eyes. To be fair, it’s the type of statement that one does not often hear from a nice Jewish girl from New Jersey, living in Jerusalem.

“What compels you to do that?”

The question always catches me off-guard. What doesn’t compel me to do that? I teach students whose depth of experience is only matched by their quest to learn. And as we go through each lesson, I feel that it is I who am the student, sitting at the feet of those who offer their wisdom and friendship unreservedly, despite my very different background. Who entrust me with personal accounts of their lives in occupied cities and villages, and with rational political views for which they could be jailed. Facing the deepest of tensions, the most stifling of conditions, their first impulse remains kindness, not suspicion. They walk upright in an increasingly crooked world, and offer their hospitality to me with pride and honor.

I travel every Thursday, using only Palestinian transportation. I leave from Jerusalem – a city which my students are prohibited from visiting. I take a bus, then a shared taxi, passing a few shekels to the driver, so that he can take me southward, alongside the wall, then past Palestinian villages and the settlements that cut through their land. Past a man on a donkey, soldiers hitchhiking home, signs pointing towards the Jewish neighborhoods of Efrat, Kiryat Arba, Be’ersheva. Fewer signs to Hebron, Dura, or Yatta, but then again, most cars on the road are Israeli anyway. It’s incredibly difficult for Palestinians to get around here.

We travel past Gush Etsion, a huge cluster of settlements with white single-family homes and red roofs, who comfortably watch the happenings in the West Bank from behind thick-paned windows. Then past the poverty of a refugee camp, more villages and towns, and a shockingly beautiful landscape of white rock and olive trees.

I arrive in Hebron. Yes, the Palestinian part. H1. In Arabic, Al-Khalil. Not the part whose Palestinian population has been all but completely driven out (See my previous post on Shuhada street). The Palestinian part, which is the largest city in the West Bank, and by far, the most tense.

Exhausting my limited Arabic vocabulary, I signal the driver to stop on busy Ayn Sarah (Sarah’s well) street. I have a few minutes to walk around the downtown area. I am the only woman in sight with my head uncovered, and although I have been careful to fully cover my body, my jeans make me stick out like a cowgirl in Paris. I attract some glances as I walk down the street: despite the presence of several international human rights organizations operating here, I am usually the only other “westerner” that I see all day. This apparently also occurs to the children that I pass, who shout “Hello! Welcome to Hebron!” as I walk.

Hebron/Al-Khalil is incredibly resilient. Despite decades of crushing suppression and violence in the city, the city is (generally) alive and vibrant. Once an example of how Jews and Muslims can live together in harmony, Hebron is now an example of the complete opposite. Only when I am in the Palestinian part of the city, watching people greet each and every person they see (and taking offense when the proper greeting is not said), do I see vestiges of the fact that the name of the city in both Hebrew and Arabic is derived from the word “friendship.”

My students study English so they can advance in their college entrance exams or in their engineering studies at Hebron Polytechnic University. They obligingly follow the lesson that I have prepared, but invariably the conversation turns to politics. In Hebron, talking about politics is a way of life. We talk about the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Fatah – then we talk about the Israeli army, the Israeli government policies, Jerusalem, and the future of a Palestinian state. We can’t resist talking about the United States – they are interested to hear what the American media and public says about Palestinians and the Arab world – it’s a novelty to talk to me, an American who loudly denounces “Islamophobia” within my country. It’s world-changing for me to talk to them. They give me context for their experience, a context I would otherwise never have.

Activism in Palestine/Israel takes many forms. This part of the world plays hosts to a truly incredible number of protests, who serve their purpose by making the news and drawing attention to injustice and oppression. However, there are also activists who pick olives, teach art, set up after-school programs, work in clinics, train entrepreneurs, and otherwise improve the quality of life here.

I am so honored to teach English in Al-Khalil/Hebron, and even more honored to learn values, fortitude and strength from my students there.

For more on what I mean about the two parts of the city, here’s One minute in Hebron: lively, active “H1″ vs. Israeli-controlled ghost town “H2.”

Sometimes it’s just too easy. I mean, really. Sometimes, the total idiocy of your political enemy just makes it so much easier to promote your ideas.

This week, the Jerusalem Municipality requested that Ir Amim, a Jerusalem-based non-profit organization, remove its study tours of East Jerusalem from the events listing on the municipality website.

Ir Amim is an Israeli non-profit organization which promotes a politically sustainable future for Jerusalem, and a Jerusalem which respects the welfare and dignity of all its residents – Israeli and Palestinian. Ir Amim’s tours of East Jerusalem are highly informative – showing the historical and political background of Jerusalem’s role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They allow the participant to better interpret and contextualize the almost constant stream of provocative events in Jerusalem which fill the national and international news almost daily.

Ir Amim was asked to remove their tours from the site because of political content. But…this is the same website that has events from right-wing political organizations such as Elad, who is responsible for the dangerous and provocative excavations in Silwan, and the Gush Katif Museum, though Ynet claims the Jeruslaem Municipal government is “‘unaware’ of the plan to open the museum and is in no way associated with it. “ Obviously, some right-winger thought he could pick and choose which organizations should be allowed to advertise in this public/government space. And equally obviously, when his request that Ir Amim removed their tours became public, it generated MUCH more publicity for the tours! Wouldn’t you want to know what the municipality doesn’t want you to see?

So, anyway, if you’re in the Jerusalem area, look up the next Ir Amim tour. You can find the information on their website or just wait, they’ll probably be back on the Municipality website pretty soon.

By Rebecca Kirzner

My plea.

Dear Reader. Perhaps you have been hearing about the large protest event in Sheikh Jarrah Saturday, March 6th. Your enthusiasm is justified. It brought together thousands of people, Israeli and Palestinian, for a common cause of restoring justice to the Palestinian families in the neighborhood who lost their homes to settlers. It generated a huge amount of attention, both within and without the country, and of course, in the blogging world. Perhaps you will hold it up as a shining example of how a small group of activists can create a movement – of what can happen when we Israelis, Palestinians, and the international community, stand together for change.

VIdeo clip played at protest, the song title means “A Call to You All” to join the struggle.

This would be a slightly skewed view of the event that Saturday night. The demonstration was not the first time that Israelis and Palestinians stood together to protest the evictions in Sheikh Jarrah, nor will it be the last. Saturday’s mega-event was not the culminating goal of the struggle – justice is. Peace is. And although some of the speakers united the crowd of 3,000 with messages of solidarity, justice, and change, others, with divisive words, isolated the Israeli left which had never before come out this strongly in support of their neighbors in Sheikh Jarrah.

So please, reader. Do not dwell too long on that Saturday’s protest. It was monumental. (And major KUDOS to the organizers!) But it should not be the focus.

When speaking about recent events in Sheikh Jarrah, it is important to contextualize them within the greater situation in Jerusalem within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Sheikh Jarrah is a Palestinian neighborhood just north of the Old City of Jerusalem, and as such, is part of the “historic basin” area. It lies over the Green Line, in East Jerusalem, meaning that while some consider it a neighborhood in Israel’s capital city, others consider it part of the West Bank, which should be returned to Palestinian control.

In a two-state solution, the future of Jerusalem remains highly contested. Many factors complicate a division of the city, with the western part remaining the capital of Israel, and the eastern part becoming the capital of a future Palestinian state. These factors include, but are not limited to, the existence of Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, and access to the Old City. Many proposed solutions, however, are demographically based, incorporating Jewish neighborhoods into Israel and Palestinian ones into Palestinian control.

In these solutions, Sheikh Jarrah is no longer part of Israeli Jerusalem (as it has been since it was annexed into the city in 1967). This fact is very threatening to much of Israeli society who believe that the area is and should remain legally part of Jerusalem, and also worry about whether its proximity to the Old City would pose security issues for the State or limit access to Jewish holy sites in the area.

The home evictions in this area as well as the efforts of Nahalat Shimon International to build a settlement there, are part of a greater attempt to “Jew-ify” the historic basin of East Jerusalem. Doing so would put a wrench in demographically-based proposals leading to a two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Not only does such activity make the city nearly impossible to divide along demographic lines, it also creates a ring of Jewish settlement around the Old City, disrupting the contiguity between Palestinian neighborhoods, and making a clear statement that the entire area should be in Israeli control. In addition, the legal precedent being set for the home evictions is one of recognizing pre-1948 ownership rights for Jews – imagine the chaos that would ensue if the Palestinians demanded the same rights to return to their homes in Israel! But then again, they probably wouldn’t be able to… creating yet another discriminatory system.

Here’s videos of these settlers praising mass murderer Baruch Goldstein.

Problematic, huh? That these settler groups, with support from the Israeli government, could effectively thwart the entire two-state solution? Now, that’s something to protest!

I am proud to say that I have attended almost every single protest in Sheikh Jarrah since their inception. I remember when they consisted of a tiny group of 30 people marching down Ben Yehuda Street to the neighborhood to protest in front of the houses, now occupied by settlers, with their Palestinian owners living in tents in the street in protest. I remember the really violent weeks, when the police tried to quash the protest by arresting large groups of non-violent advocates for justice. I remember the protest growing to fifty people. To one hundred people. To two hundred people. And more. I am so proud to say that I stand next to truly the most inspirational people in the world – those who are not afraid to speak out against their government, and demand peace and justice, in any type of physical or political climate, even in the face of arrests and violence from police and settlers.

So, please, Reader. Realize something here. Whether you were inspired by the speeches last week or turned away from them… whether you recognized your own voice and opinions in the slogans of the chanting masses, or whether they seemed too radical, the protests are a desperate cry from those who see in these home evictions a threat to peace in the region, to justice and values that both Jews and Muslims share, to safety and security, and to a viable future for the city of Jerusalem and the two nations that lay claim to it.

Video from the most recent protest March 12, soundtrack mostly in Hebrew.

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total; of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.” – Robert Kennedy, address delivered at the University of Capetown, South Africa, June 6, 1966.

What will be the history of this generation, and which small acts carried out by which individuals, groups, governments, and campaigns will come to define the first decades of the 21st century? Perhaps it will be an era about which we can recount with pride to our children’s children – an era in which we were part of the force that “bent history” and an era in which we witnessed a “small portion of events” catalyzing a real change for global justice.

On Thursday, February 25, such an event will be taking place in cities around the world. The “Open Shuhada Street” campaign seeks to unite the voices of activists in a common cry for an end to the discriminatory and racist policies which make life intolerable for the Palestinian residents of Hebron/Al-Khalil, and which threaten human rights everywhere.

Open Shuhada Street! February 25, 2010 International Day of Action from Open Shuhada Street on Vimeo.

In over 25 cities worldwide, from Hebron to Cape Town to Prague to New York, supporters of human rights will close streets, petition the Israeli government, and hold protests, vigils, lectures, movie screenings and panel discussions in solidarity with the Palestinians who live the daily realities of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. This series of coordinated events intends to protest the closure of a street which long served as the commercial, historic, and religious center of Palestinian life in Hebron, but has been closed in the name of security for the Jewish settler population.

Hebron is one of the largest cities in the West Bank, and Shuhuda Street was once the heart of its City Center. Following the 1994 Baruch Goldstein massacre of unarmed Palestinians worshipping in a mosque, and fearful of a Palestinian counter-attack, Israeli law-enforcement authorities implemented a total legal and physical separation of the city’s Jewish and Palestinian residents. The entire City Center was placed under Israeli military control with access rights exclusively reserved for Israeli settlers and soldiers, de facto evicting tens of thousands of Palestinian residents and shutting down over a thousand Palestinian businesses.

The area, once a vibrant, busy city center, now is functionally a ghost town. The businesses, long closed, wait for their owners to reclaim the inventory locked within, and to erase the hateful graffiti written on the welded doors. Families, forced to flee to different neighborhoods of the city, have been waiting in anticipation of a return to their houses and possessions for many years. In reality, Israeli military-imposed movement regulations prevent Palestinians from entering Shuhada Street at all, and Palestinian vehicles from driving through most of the City Center. Those unable to flee the stifling restrictions and the virtually unaddressed settler violence in the area are forced to find new ways to survive, even if it means sometimes entering their houses by climbing over the rooftops.

The policies constitute a violation of Palestinian rights of movement, safety, property, and many others, not to mention breaches in international humanitarian law. The acts cause the suffering of the Palestinian population in an effort to protect settlers, many of whom are ideological radicals whose violent acts are in effect, sanctioned by the lack of military or police action.

The closure of Shuhada Street is but a microcosm of the greater injustice of the occupation of the Palestinian territories. Although it is clear to us that more fundamental systematic change is essential if there is to be just peace in this troubled region, this campaign to open Shuhada Street is an important catalyst that brings together the passion and mobilizing capacity of activists from around the world to stand in solidarity with the people of Israel and Palestine in the struggle against racism and discrimination. This conflict does not belong only to Jews and Arabs. In this era of hyper-globalization, we are all surely implicated in this conflict and thus responsible for holding peoples and governments accountable to ensure that human rights and dignity are protected. Change only occurs when there is pressure from both within and without. International pressure has proven, throughout recent history, to be a positive and effective tool for change. With sufficient pressure on the Israeli government, it remains an attainable hope that Shuhada Street will again be opened to Palestinians and that life can return to the streets of Hebron.

This Thursday’s activities will demonstrate that there is a global community who believes that racism does not end when a city is forcibly segregated, that ignoring violations does not make them go away, and that “history of this generation” can be written by raising awareness and a global chorus of voices against bigotry in all forms.