Sunday Perspective July 25, 2004
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A ‘Freedom
Summer’ of Non-violence
In a compelling turning
point, a group launches peaceful campaign to protest the Israeli barrier
By Gary Fields
Among
the questions raised in the aftermath of the International Court of Justice
Opinion on the Israeli Wall, one that remains hidden but is no less critical
for understanding the next phase of the conflict is the impact of the decision
on the Palestinian resistance movement against the Barrier. The fact that
Palestinians have organized nonviolent protest against the Wall is rarely, if
ever covered by the American media preoccupied as it is with Palestinian
violence and corruption. Yet, Palestinian resistance against the Wall is
already embedded in a landscape of nonviolent protest operating in the shadow
of the Barrier that promises to change the nature of the conflict this
summer.
For
the past 18 months, nonviolent demonstrations have proliferated in West Bank
localities where the Wall threatens to isolate residents from their land and
undermine their livelihood. Concurrently, this period has witnessed the
growth of a fledgling political movement operating outside both the Palestinian
Authority, and the various Islamic parties. Spearheaded by prominent
Palestinians such as human rights activist, Mustafa Barghouti, this movement
known as the “Palestinian National Initiative,” is seeking to forge
a secular, democratic resistance to occupation. Together, local
organizers of nonviolence against the Wall along with numerous other
Palestinian organizations, and the Palestinian Initiative are planning an
ambitious campaign of nonviolent resistance to Israeli occupation with a focus
on the most poignant metaphor of occupation, the Wall.
Dubbed
“Freedom Summer” to coincide with the 40th anniversary
of the celebrated events of the American civil rights movement, this campaign
represents a compelling political turning point in Palestinian efforts to end
37 years of Israeli military rule. Organizers of Freedom Summer are
contemplating a nationally coordinated series of nonviolent actions at selected
sites in the West Bank comprising Palestinians, Israelis and Internationals,
along with a mass march from Jenin in the North, to Hebron along the route of
the Wall.
As
a new and largely untested political force, however, the Palestinian Freedom
Summer campaign confronts two critical issues: first, whether
Palestinians will respond in numbers sufficient to make the nonviolent campaign
successful, and second whether Israelis will respond to the campaign of
nonviolent resistance with lethal force.
Mass action needed
Ghassen Andoni, Director of the Palestinian Center for
Rapprochement Between People and a central organizer of Freedom Summer,
acknowledges the importance of a large Palestinian base for the campaign.
Mass action is needed, he explains, to overcome the limitations of
circumscribed demonstrations in individual localities. For this reason
organizers are aiming their efforts more broadly, modeling the nonviolent
campaign this summer on the historic events in Mississippi.
As
to how Israeli army and police units will respond to the events planned for the
Palestinian Freedom Summer, perhaps the best indication was given June 26th
during a demonstration against the Wall in the West Bank town of Ar Ram near
Jerusalem.
When
on that day Israeli army and police units fired an initial volley of concussion
grenades at the Ar Ram demonstrators, they were clearly sending more than a
warning to the 3000 peacefully protesting the expansion of the Separation Wall.
Indeed, the explosions that cracked through the afternoon air, and the violent
onslaught unleashed against the marchers by Israeli forces over the course of
the next two hours were intended as
an unambiguous message.
Peaceful protest against the Wall in the Territories occupied by Israel,
whatever the outcome of the World Court decision, will not be tolerated.
Much
like the actions coordinated by Palestinians against the Barrier in other
localities, the march in Ar Ram was organized as a peaceful protest against
what has come to be the most overt symbol of Israeli control over Palestinian
society. The event in Ar Ram, however, had three distinguishing
elements.
Firstly,
Ar Ram marked the initial day of activity against occupation and the Wall
associated with Freedom Summer. Secondly, organizers aimed at numbers not
in the hundreds typical of recent demonstrations against the Wall, but in the thousands. Finally, this march was to have a larger presence of
Israelis and Internationals joining in common cause with Palestinians against
the Barrier.
I
came to the Ar Ram demonstration with five busloads of Israelis and Internationals,
who would link up with a contingent of roughly 2000 Palestinians. Arabic
and Hebrew chants could be heard accompanied by a Palestinian bagpipe band of
50 musicians.
The
march had been going fifteen minutes when Israeli soldiers, without provocation,
charged toward protestors and unloaded the initial volley of stun grenades at
the crowd. In the next instant they fired the first of hundreds of teargas
canisters as peaceful protest gave way to the sounds and smell of violence.
I
had been photographing the demonstration near the Israeli barrage and became
engulfed in the initial volleys of tear gas. As I began my escape, I ran into a
shocked bagpipe player from the march and can not forget the bewildered and
dispirited image he presented, his bagpipe still in hand.I also heard all
around me what sounded like rocks hitting the nearby buildings. They were
bullets. Israel army and police units were firing live ammunition at
peaceful demonstrators!
I
watched Israeli forces pummel the crowd for the next two hours with tear gas,
concussion grenades, and live fire. I witnessed Israeli special forces,
identifiable by black ski masks, move alongside Israeli army and police
personnel, seeking out demonstrators to beat and arrest. I captured on film the
beating and arrest of Mohammed Mansour, one of the lead organizers of the
nonviolent resistance campaign against the Wall in the town of Biddu. After the
arrest of Mansour and injuries to 50 demonstrators, the Israelis finally ended
the siege. The air was thick with teargas.
Response to force in question
Based on the day’s activities
and the aims of Palestinian organizers, it promises to be an intriguing summer.
Whether Palestinians will heed the call by organizers of Freedom Summer to
engage in nonviolent resistance in sufficient numbers when confronted by
Israeli force to make the campaign a political success is an unanswered
question. Palestinians have a difficult task ahead. They confront
an occupying power with one of the world’s most formidable military
arsenals, backed by the world’s lone superpower, the U.S. There is
hardly a more classic case of David and Goliath.
On
the other hand, the World Court Opinion creates an enormous opening for
Palestinians to build a mass based nonviolent resistance movement to the Wall
and occupation. The Opinion unambiguously states that the Wall is illegal
and calls upon the International Community to enforce the decision.
As
it confronts this new reality, however, Palestinian society hovers in a pattern
of political uncertainty, poised between on the one side a Palestinian
Authority in disarray, and on the other side the various Islamic parties.
Barghouti insists, nevertheless, that between these poles is a huge
constituency for a third political force. How the leadership of this new
movement can use the opening created by the World Court to galvanize a
Palestinian public trampled upon for the last four years by Israeli occupiers,
and mobilize this public for a campaign of nonviolent protest will be something
to watch closely in the weeks ahead. The whole world will be watching.
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Gary Fields, author of Territories of
Profit is a professor in the
department of communication at the University of California, San Diego. He
recently returned from Israel and the West Bank as part of a delegation
sponsored by Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace.
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune