Resisting Oppression

There was another another suicide bombing, this time in Jerusalem. A young woman from a refugee camp in Nablus blew herself up. My God. This has meant that getting to and from Jerusalem went from difficult to nearly impossible, due to Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks, and I did not attempt it this weekend.

This week three of us went to a demonstration in Beit Awwa, not far from Hebron, a place where the separation wall is to go up. It was organized by ISM, another international group with a mission comparable to ours but which is secular. (The differences between ISM and CPT are numerous, but I won't bother with them here!) Anyway, ISM invited us.

It was quite a scene. Practically the whole village turned out, except for those who were working and those who were in school. Even one school let the children out of classes to attend. It was a middle school for girls, and they were all there in their school uniforms, and some of them spoke quite passable English. Anyway, we were there to accompany them in their display of resistance and opposition to the building of this wall and the militarization and land confiscation that goes with it. The Palestinians seem to believe that the presence of internationals lowers the risk of violence from the Israeli soldiers.

The demonstration was an impressive display, until a group of young men started throwing stones. I did not see what started first, the stone throwing or the tear gas. I think it does not matter, though. It is like dealing with small children---it does not matter who started it, because both sides were in it.

To give it some perspective (and I saw all this very clearly, because shortly after it started, I was right up front), the stones were no more than about 5 inches in diameter. They were not boulders. The Israeli soldiers had humvees and other armored vehicles, bulletproof vests, M-16 rifles and oozies. The Palestinian men had rocks. I counted 22 soldiers. There were around 500 villagers, I would estimate--although ISM claims there were over 1000--and no more than a couple of dozen stone throwers.

According to my research, no more than 5% of Palestinians are armed, and those who are have very low-tech weapons, no match for the carefully armed (by the United States) Israeli army. This explains why those people who believe that only violence will get the Israeli army out of Palestine have turned to terrorist acts.

So the young men threw stones and the army shot tear gas bombs, lots of them. I learned a lot about tear gas that day. They shot the bombs right into groups of people, right into the groups of girls, who were huddled together. Shortly after, they started with rubber bullets. I counted 12 people taken away in ambulances. They had to be taken all the way to Hebron, because Beit Awwa does not have a clinic that could handle them. Hebron is not far in distance, but bad roads and hills makes it a 45 minute trip. And then there are army checkpoints along the way, and they do stop ambulances.

The injuries were from rubber bullets, and from tear gas bombs exploding into groups of people, causing the people closest to them to collapse. Two of those taken away by ambulance were from the girls school. There were lots of people--in fact, almost everyone--affected by the tear gas, but most did not need medical treatment.

Of course there were no injured soldiers. The rocks are no threat to them. Why not just sit in the armored vehicles and let the men throw stones? Why not just drive away to a reasonable distance, where they can still observe but not be hit by stones? Why not negotiate with the demonstration organizers, made up of Palestinians and internationals, to allow them to demonstrate all they want if they stop throwing stones? Why this extreme reaction? I don't get it.

It was a battlefield, and the Palestinians lost, as they have been doing from the beginning. When it was over, I asked myself what was the purpose of that. The Palestinians gained nothing from the exercise. Because of the stone throwers, the international press will continue to label them "terrorists." Never mind that they were a small minority of the demonstrators, the vast majority of whom were peaceful. Never mind the actions of the soldiers. I worry that when 22 soldiers can so easily put down 500 or so villagers, then the exercise becomes disempowering for the Palestinians, not empowering.

But then I was thinking about the importance of resisting oppression, especially your own oppression. Demonstrating is a way of saying that you refuse to go along with it, that you refuse to just passively roll over in the face of human rights violations on a massive scale. I think that some form of resistance, even if it fails, must be good for the spirit.

During the fracas, I gave out a lot of handy-wipes and Kleenex to crying little girls. I felt like the Sandra Bullock character in the movie "Two Weeks Notice," carrying handy-wipes to a demonstration. Don't ask me why I always have them with me...

Afterward, many people thanked us for being there. One guy told me that they believe that if internationals had not been there, then the soldiers would have used live ammunition. I asked him if that could really be true. He said he had seen it himself. I can't judge if it is true or not, but even if it isn't, the perception becomes important. Because then our presence enables these villagers to mount some resistance in a space that feels safer to them.