A time to put our bodies on the machine

Reports and commentary from Forward and from Al Monitor

A site for giving money to the camp is at Sumud Freedom Camp: A Right to Remain

Fadal Amar (L), with participants from the Centre for Jewish Nonviolence, regained the Amar family’s Sarura home through the actions of the freedom camp. Amar’s family was evicted 20 years ago in 1997. He held an Ottoman ‘tabu’, or land deed, to the property. His brother was born in a nearby cave. Photo by Gili Getz

EXCLUSIVE: Israeli Police Broke My Arm, But They Can’t Stop Me From Resisting — Or Speaking Out.

By Sarah Brammer-Shlay, Forward
May 30, 2017

On the morning of Wednesday, May 24, I woke up in the Palestinian village of Sarura, also known as Sumud Freedom Camp. Palestinian residents of Sarura had been displaced from their homes 20 years prior and a coalition worked to return those families to their community. For the past eleven days there has been consistent Palestinian, international and Israeli presence at the camp that has withstood three IDF raids and is a clear act of resistance and Sumud, Arabic for steadfastness.

I left Sarura that morning with a few friends and headed to Jerusalem. On our way back we noticed that at nearly every Palestinian village we passed, there was a line of soldiers there enforcing a checkpoint, restricting Palestinians from getting in or out; the occasion — Jerusalem Day.

I drove to Jerusalem that day ready to use my body to stop the violence of the occupation and prevent the right-wing March of the Flags from storming through the Muslim Quarter. On Jerusalem Day, thousands of right wing nationalists parade through East Jerusalem waving Israeli flags, often yelling “death to Arabs” and vandalizing Palestinian shops. Israeli authorities force shop owners to close “for their safety.” It is a day when occupation is celebrated. I know though that as a Jew I must resist occupation.

The #DisruptJDay demonstration was organized by IfNotNow, Free Jerusalem, and All That’s Left — an unprecedented collaboration for a Jewish-led confrontation of the violence of the occupation. For the past three years, I have been active with IfNotNow, a movement led by young American Jews to end our community’s support for the occupation.

The occupation of East Jerusalem stares you in your face. Birthright groups walk through it and Jewish summer camp trips ignore it but, after 50 years of occupation, our communal ignorance is no longer acceptable. It is time for our community to face the fact that Jewish and Palestinian residents of Jerusalem do not have equal access to basic resources such as water and electricity — Jerusalem is not “united” or “reunified”, it is divided along ethnic, religious, economic and social lines.

Months ago, we decided to plan a demonstration with Israelis and other Diaspora Jews living in Israel on Jerusalem Day. Every year, Israeli Border Police march through Damascus Gate, into the Muslim Quarter to force Palestinians to close their shops. This is all in service of the March of the Flags, whose official route unnecessarily takes them through those streets on their way to the Western Wall.

About 20 minutes into our nonviolent sit-in at Damascus Gate, Israeli police viciously grabbed my left arm from behind and I heard a pop, pop, pop. Immediately, I felt immense pain and realized that I could not bend my arm. After violently grabbing my arm, the officer shoved me. I stumbled, hardly able to walk. In a matter of moments, the Palestinian Red Crescent medics were by my side and soon stabilized my arm and eventually walked me to the ambulance.

For those who marched on Jerusalem Day, the occupation is to be celebrated. But a growing number of Jews around the world know the occupation is a horrific system of violence and oppression that must be resisted at every opportunity.

Mario Salvio — leader of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement — famously said, “There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part. You can’t even passively take part! And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop!”

That was what we attempted to do last week: put our bodies upon the gears, wheels, levers and entire apparatus of the occupation Machine, which has been functioning at top speeds for 50 years. Our sit-in aimed to stop the Israeli police from entering the Muslim Quarter and closing Palestinian businesses, therefore forcing the March of the Flags to be rerouted and enter through another gate.

We hoped to symbolize to our our community back home the ways that Israel uses violence against Palestinians in order to protect the interests of occupation and right-wing violence.

More than 60 of us gathered in the Muslim Quarter in the hours before the “sterilization” — what Palestinians call the process of the police forcing them to close their shops. When the moment came, about 25 of us linked arms and blocked the police from entering Damascus Gate. The rest joined us as we sang in hebrew — “Olam Chesed Yibaneh”, the world will be built with love — and chanted “Diaspora Jews say, End the occupation!”

Moments after we started singing, a crowd of nearly 200 right wing youth (who had started their celebrations a few hours earlier than the sanctioned march) charged at us. In spite of a long history of right-wing violence, the police did nothing to intervene. Minutes later, the police turned on us, initially pulling us away one by one. They choked us, threw us carelessly to the ground, dragged us across the rough stones, and screamed in our faces to further intimidate us.

They piled us on top of each other in a barricaded area, until we were a mangled mess. Once it was clear that we were going to continue to sing and chant, they attempted to remove us from the area entirely, using even more violent tactics. I was linking arms with another person when they grabbed me from behind and broke my arm.

Once I was in the ambulance, the Palestinian Red Crescent medics asked me if I wanted to go to an Israeli or Palestinian hospital. I struggled with this question, nervous that an Israeli hospital would not give me the best care if they found out why I broke my arm. But I decided to go to the Israeli hospital because my friend I was with spoke Hebrew and not Arabic.

After checking vitals and x-rays for 3-4 hours, doctors determined that I had fractured the upper part of my arm above my elbow. On Sunday, they told me I would need surgery since if it is not healed correctly, I would forever have a limited ability to bend my arm. Over the past several days, I have needed support to do the most basic things such as bathe, open a bottle of water, take off clothes, etc.

In a matter of seconds, the Israeli police removed my agency.

What I’m experiencing in this moment is a small example of how the occupation is used to take away agency from the Palestinian people on a daily basis. Each and every day, Palestinians are subjected to arbitrary checkpoints which delay their travel, restricted water which strips them of basic dignity, home demolitions which tear families apart, and constant surveillance that has seeped into every aspect of Palestinian society.

I am broken but not finished. Police violence will not deter me from using my position as an American Jew to fight the occupation. And, in this 50th year of occupation, I’m calling on the entire community to join me in fighting back.

Sarah Brammer-Shlay is a member of If Not Now, a movement to end the American Jewish community’s support for the occupation.

Jews from many countries pitch their tents and help rebuild Sarura. Photo by Max Schindler

Israelis join Palestinians in peaceful Hebron protest

The Israeli army disrupted the peaceful protests held by Palestinian and Israeli activists in a village south of Hebron to help the local communities return to their land.

By Daoud Kuttab, Al Monitor
June 01, 2017

Long before the 1987 Palestinian intifada, the Arabic term “sumud,” meaning steadfastness, best reflected the form of resistance undertaken by Palestinians in the occupied territories. The act of sumud was neither violent nor militant. It reflected the hugely important act of staying put on one’s land and refusing to budge no matter what.

This is the term that Palestinians, Israelis and diaspora Jews recently applied to their unique act of nonviolent resistance in the largely abandoned village of Sarura, located south of Hebron. On May 18, activists arrived in Sarura to support the villagers who have been harassed and intimidated to leave their homes by Jewish settlers and the Israeli army. Some 300 local Palestinian, Israeli and foreign volunteers set up camp in Sarura and helped the town’s villagers to return. They did so by rehabilitating the caves they were living in and preparing wells and other basic infrastructural elements in Sarura.

Sami Awad, director of Holy Land Trust, one of five groups that organized the Sumud Freedom Camp campaign, told Al-Monitor that the idea for the campaign was in the works for over six months. “We wanted to plan an activity that is proactive and not reactive,” he said. “We wanted to create an experience that can demonstrate nonviolence without necessarily having to provoke a confrontation. We opted for the term ‘sumud’ because our goal is to help the people be steadfast on their land.”

Awad said he was inspired by the Standing Rock protests and wanted to reproduce these types of activities in Palestine. “We have already spoken to people from various global movements supporting minorities and marginalized communities, and they said they are interested in visiting our Sumud Camp,” Awad said.

Although Palestinians and their Israeli and Jewish guests might have tried to avoid confrontation, they failed to prevent the Israeli army from doing so. In a span of 12 days, the Israeli army came to the camp and tried to break it up three times, without making any arrests.

The Israeli army brought bulldozers and demolished all the established structures on May 29. It seized all tents, mattresses and even a car. Ironically, at no time did the army declare the camp a closed military zone.

Southern Hebron is known to be an army shooting range, although no training is taking place there. Because of the settlers’ and the Israeli army’s opposition, efforts to facilitate the return of local populations who have been pushed off their land have failed — even though there is no legal basis to prevent the local population from returning to their land and to welcome guests as they wish.

Ilana Sumka, the Jewish-American founder of the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, wrote a powerful op-ed on the May 29 incident for the Israeli daily Haaretz. Titled “Punched, Dismantled, Unbowed: How Diaspora Jews Are Unsettling the Occupation,” Sumka’s strongly-worded article denounced the State of Israel and occupation practices against Palestinians. She wrote, “In our West Bank protest camp, being a Jewish nonviolence activist is no immunity against manhandling by the Israeli soldiers [whom] I grew up in America believing were our superheroes who’d protect me from harm.”

The five coalition partners organizing the Sumud Freedom Camp in Sarura are the Holy Land Trust, Combatants for Peace, IfNotNow, South Hebron Popular Committee, All That’s Left: Anti-Occupation Collective and the Center for Jewish Nonviolence.

Awad believes that the steadfastness of the campers and the Palestinian residents, in spite of the Israeli army’s repeated attempts to disperse them, gives hope that a new kind of nonviolent movement will become sustainable — one that involves a wide range of local and international coalitions and volunteers and one that will remain nonviolent even as the other side resorts to violence.

The Sumud Freedom Camp became a huge hit on social media (with #WeAreSumud trending) when Israeli forces manhandled the volunteers and prevented them from supporting local Palestinians.

AJ+ published a video report on May 22 of the protests, while the campers live-streamed videos and posted photos, blogs and stories all week.

The Sumud Freedom Camp’s organizers initially struggled to raise funds. But hours after being attacked by the Israeli army and having their camp destroyed, they managed to crowdfund thousands of dollars, according to Awad.

Online crowdfunding also allowed the organizers to set up a database of interested supporters.

Nonviolent protests are not new to Palestine. Israel deported Palestinian nonviolent leader Mubarak Awad in 1988. Yet, after 50 years of occupation, the idea of having Israelis and diaspora Jews supporting Palestinians and coming to spend time and live with them is a new and significant development. Activists in the Hebron, Bethlehem and Ramallah areas often carry out nonviolent activities.

Although sumud might sound like a passive act, anyone following the Sumud Freedom Camp’s activities can see it’s anything but.

If these efforts prove to be successful, they could very well spell the beginning of a major and strategic change in the relationship between the occupier and the occupied.