Where The Line Is Drawn XXIII

11 Forbidden Roads: Jerusalem, 2004 (pp. 171-178)
This short chapter must be read in its entirety to be appreciated.

"My agitated mind revived the memory of the death of a relative soon after the occupation. He had been driving alone near the Latrun salient, close to the border with Israel. He was stopped by an army jeep and killed. The soldiers took his black-and-white-checked keffiyeh, dipped it in petrol from his car and set his corpse on fire. A few days later his burnt remains were found by a shepherd." (pp. 175-176)

"The Israelis have been inflexible, allowed to get away with their crimes because of the sympathy felt towards them because of the Holocaust. But this emotional dispensation would eventually run its course." (p. 177)

Israel is also supported for strategic reasons, which cannot last indefinitely.

Once, in a discussion about Israel in a magazine letter column, I argued that all states should be secular and was accused of advocating an Islamic state. The argumentative principle here is: if you dislike what someone says, then denigrate it whatever way you can, even at the expense of forgetting the content of what was in fact said.

Where The Line Is Drawn XXII

Shehadeh writes that certain well dressed and assured members of the Palestinian Authority would never feel any guilt or responsibility because they did not:

"...have an active populace ready to hold [them] accountable." (p. 170)

There are two concepts of leadership: those who "...managed to remain where they were - on top..." (ibid.) and those who encourage and give a lead to popular action.

"...I wondered who to blame for the death of the young men in Jenin. Israel and its brutal policies, of course, but also the Palestinian leadership for its failure to lead. If it couldn't assume responsibility for its own people, its failure was criminal." (ibid.)

Shehadeh condemns "...the appalling actions of the Palestinians who killed innocent civilians..." (p. 159), the brutal policies of Israel and the criminal failure of the Palestinian Authority. I agree with him - but, living on a peaceful, racially mixed street in the North West of England, I am not in danger of being fired at by both sides.

Where The Line Is Drawn XXI

"Perhaps it was a mistake not to bring up the subject of how [Henry] could situate his office in a house that had been taken by force, with no compensation paid to its original owners. Yet somehow we had to conduct our friendship on a plane above and outside politics. How long this would be possible, I didn't know. I suppose it would depend on whether I could remain calm." (p. 158)

There is a spectrum of possible responses from not caring how Henry had acquired the building to severing all contact with Henry - to bombing his office. Shehadeh is somewhere on the spectrum between not caring and severing contact. Some people think that anything that a government does is right.

Where The Line Is Drawn XX

"Shehadeh's Jewish Israeli friend, Henry:

"...lived in an attractive, quiet area with parks and clean, well-ordered streets - amenities that our cities could not enjoy after the large-scale confiscation of Palestinian land." (pp. 155-156)

"What made our meetings easier was that this time Henry and I were politically on the same side. My heart was not with this armed struggle against Israel, which I saw as futile, but I was still trying to understand and make sense of it all and needed Henry's help." (p. 156)

Injustice can and should be opposed by campaigns, demonstrations, lobbies, boycotts, strikes, occupations and, unless we are pacifists, sometimes by armed struggle. Communities and individuals certainly have a right of self-defense against an oppressive state.

Accidental Associations

Because of a reference to the Azores in Julian May's The Many-Colored Land, I reread "Hob's Leviathan" in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: Worlds' End and then remembered what was happening with my family and also my work in 1993, twenty six years ago. See also Literary Associations.

Where The Line Is Drawn XIX

10 Crossings During The Second Intifada: Ramallah, 2000 (pp. 155-170)
"In September 2000, five years after the Oslo Accords, came a second, more violent intifada. Israel immediately imposed more restrictions on movement and forbade us from using many of the roads." (p. 155)

In September 2000, I stopped working in Merseyside and started to work in Lancashire. This meant that I again lived full-time in Lancaster instead of commuting once or twice weekly to a bed-sit in Merseyside. Over the years, the bed-sit had moved from Crosby to Southport, both in Sefton, to Knowsley to Liverpool. Of course, I did not have to pass through military check-points while traveling.

Although I am involved in political activities, I am no way as well informed as many of many comrades on foreign affairs and international struggles. I remember that Palestine was an issue when I was at University in Dublin in the 1960s and when I was at Manchester Polytechnic, 1981-'82. Then this second intifada was still in the future. I was also under pressure at work in 2000 and might have been even less aware of less immediate (to me) issues.

"...in West Jerusalem...the municipal government, which was also responsible for East Jerusalem, provided well for all its Jewish residents while neglecting its Palestinian residents." (ibid.)

There is injustice and resistance.

Where The Line Is Drawn XVIII

"It was distressing to realise that rather than encouraging back leading Palestinian cultural icons, artists and writers like Kamal Boullata, Mourid Barghouti and Samia Halaby - many of whom Israel actually refused to allow to return - Israel was instead allowing thousands of policemen to control us, quelling any dissent to the deal that they had signed with Arafat." (p. 142)

Political leaders have signed a peace deal but cultural leaders are refused entry and thousands of police are needed to enforce the deal? Political leaders sell out unless they are held to account by a mass movement.

Where The Line Is Drawn XVII

Shimon Peres, the Israeli foreign minister, attended the UNESCO conference for just four minutes and did not speak - but it could be reported that he had attended.

"The meeting was a charade. We were not given the chance to present our ideas for future cultural projects. The objective was purely political." (p. 137)

"...during the negotiations leading up to the Oslo Accord, the US State Department was willing to take Israel at its word and believe that they had stopped expanding the settlements. At the time we reported that we had seen with our own eyes that the settlers were building across the road. But the State Department chose not to believe us." (p. 138)

The Israeli army stopped some people who were fixing a road leading to Palestinian villages. A soldier explained, "'This is the State of Israel. This route does not need to change. This road needs to remain the way it is. With holes. Because this is the territory of the State of Israel.'" (p. 141)

How many people have decided what they will see before they look?

Where The Line Is Drawn XVI

At a UNESCO conference called "Peace - the Day After," Raja Shehadeh pointed out that the Palestinians were still under occupation and that the occupiers were deliberately settling their population in occupied areas. An Israeli professor replied that, whereas Palestinians were always speaking about the past, Israelis could speak of 3000 years of history. Shehadeh was speaking about the present.

Another scholar said that it was a lie that there was an occupation. Something very strange happens to the truth when groups of people acting in their perceived collective interests are unwilling to acknowledge the consequences for others. If life is alright for me, then it must be alright for everyone else and it is their fault if it is not. In fact, we are connected. When my savings earn interest, the wealth represented by that interest has not been created by my labor. When wealth is not money but land, the land seized by some is lost by others although it is possible later to deny that the others were there.

Where The Line Is Drawn XV

9 Mad: Ramallah, 1993 (pp. 129-153)
"Each town had essentially been made into a Palestinian ghetto within areas controlled and owned by Israeli settlers." (p. 130)

"There were empty plots of land next to the camp, but they were not allowed to expand their camp onto that land... We passed hilltop Jewish settlements that were expanding fast." (p. 134)

"The world outside Palestine and Israel was trying its best to make the new 'peace' seem real. They didn't care about justice. They just wanted calm - at any price." (ibid.)

How many people, seeing the headline, "Peace," think that all the problems have been solved and that anyone who says otherwise is an "extremist"?

Where The Line Is Drawn XIV

7 An Interlude: Jerusalem, 1980 (pp. 111-117)
"Israeli military courts were a parody of real courts. Israeli officials used their legal expertise to devise ways of justifying the theft of our land." (p. 111)

"Half a century of occupation and despite its large number of Arab customers [the Israeli bank] continues to avoid using a single word of Arabic in any of their statements and letters." (p. 112)

Shehadeh's father had spoken English to Jewish colleagues in Mandatory Palestine but, after 1967, Israeli officials defiantly responded in Hebrew. The military government did not introduce Hebrew into schools in the West Bank or Gaza. Israel "...was looking for ways to encourage Palestinians to leave." (ibid.)

Shehadeh attended Hebrew classes where the teacher said that the land was mainly empty when the Jewish immigrants arrived. When Shehadeh, in his shaky Hebrew, disagreed, she merely commended his use of the language.

Some Arabs learned Hebrew in order to understand orders bellowed by soldiers and to avoid being shot. When the class was featured on Israeli TV, the teacher asked them to read the new Hebrew names of streets in the Arab quarter. He also translated graffiti: "'Mavet le aravim. Death to the Arabs.'" (p. 117)

Where The Line Is Drawn XIII

"The closure applied only to Palestinians, not to Israeli settlers, who could still come and go as they pleased and terrorize the population. Many settlers used Tireh Road, where I lived. One day, they stopped the mayor's son, his wife and his child in their car. They pointed their guns at him, intending to kill him, but the baby began to cry. The settlers said they would have killed him if it hadn't been for the child." (p. 106)

Underground leaders coordinated nonviolent resistance, such as the closing of shops early in the day.

"...the army came and closed the vegetable market. They turned over boxes of vegetables and threw the dough at the bakery on the ground. They then tried to force the shopkeepers to open their shops, but the whole town remained closed in solidarity." (ibid.)

(I am not quite sure about the use of prepositions in that second sentence: "...at the bakery on the ground.")

The Israelis wanted to show the visiting US Secretary of State, George Shultz, that they had the area under control. Hence, the attempt to suppress protest and also the deployment of a massive number of soldiers.

"During that week every single Palestinian in the street was stopped and had his or her identity card confiscated. The soldiers had orders to be as strict and brutal as possible." (p. 107)

Did the soldiers receive such orders or did they just act that way anyway? Shehadeh probably does know what orders they were given. In Britain, we can tell whether the police have been instructed to be hostile or helpful towards a demonstration. Once, many of us were pushed, shouted at and arrested, then released without charge.

Where The Line Is Drawn XII

"This was a war different from other wars. This wasn't a war between armies following the rules of engagement. This was a war between combatants and civilians. To the Israelis we were all potential terrorists against whom the worst behaviour was justified." (pp. 104-105)

Comments:

every civilian is not a potential terrorist;
every potential terrorist is not an actual terrorist;
the worst behavior cannot be justified and indeed incites responses categorized as "terrorist."

"Clearly the Israelis were following the recommendations of their American supporters, who advised them to close off the Occupied Territories and do what they had to do - ruthlessly, quickly and without observation by journalists." (p. 105)

Questions:

Why did the Americans support this repression?
Was it public knowledge that they had made these recommendations?
What did the Israelis "have to do"?
Why did it have to be done without journalistic observation?

Where The Line Is Drawn XI

Raja Shehadeh went to the headquarters of the Israeli Civil Administration for the West Bank to conduct two trademark objection cases. At the gate, a young soldier, surrounded by jazz magazines and listening to jazz on a radio at high volume, ordered Shehadeh to "'Close the door.'" (p. 96) When Shehadeh turned to the open door closest to him, the soldier said that he had meant another door further away. When Shehadeh refused to be ordered about like this, an older soldier, also present, offered to close the door.

The young soldier ordered the older man to search Shehadeh thoroughly. Taking Shehadeh behind a curtain, the older soldier did search him although not very thoroughly. When they returned to the counter where the young soldier was looking through a book, another man passed through without being asked to show ID. When the older soldier asked why the second man had not been asked for ID, the young soldier replied, "'Jews don't need passes.'" (p. 97)

This attitude, applied consistently, can only provoke violent resistance from some of its recipients.

Where The Line Is Drawn X

At the scene outside the police station (see the previous post), a bus-full of Israeli soldiers were stamping their heavy boots on the floor while chanting, "We want cola." It was in this atmosphere that the army officer told the two human rights lawyers to do him a favor and leave. Normal military discipline and accountability were absent.

"...my father had been returning home from his office when he was murdered in the driveway of [his and his wife's] house by a collaborator working for Israel. Much as we tried to get the Israeli authorities to investigate properly and bring the perpetrator to justice, our efforts failed and no one was ever charged with my father's murder... I suspected the government was relieved by the death of a moderate peace-seeker like my father. His death marked for me the end of my expectation of a peaceful settlement.
"I had done all I could to pursue the investigation and keep it going." (p. 94)

"Israel was fighting for the retention of this land. We were fighting to end the occupation in accordance with international law, which gave us the right to resist. That was how I saw it." (p. 95)

Where The Line Is Drawn IX

6 The Bougainvillea: Ramallah, 1988 (pp. 89-110)

"...the minister of defence, Yitzhak Rabin, like a stern father reprimanding his unruly children, had announced his policy of 'force, might and beatings'..." (p. 89)

"How could we have imagined that a time would come when thousands of soldiers would pass through towns, villages and refugee camps in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, breaking all accepted human rights norms, stopping passers-by and humiliating them, beating them or detaining them, shooting at unarmed demonstrators and imposing long-term curfews on entire communities under the orders of their highest-ranking officers? What was the point of producing another report when this was well-known throughout the world? What was the role of a human rights organization at a time like this?" (p. 90)

Witnessing an assault on a Palestinian man by Israeli soldiers, Shehadeh and his colleagues go to the police station to report a crime. There are at least forty soldiers outside the police station, also soldiers entering and leaving the building. Screams can be heard from inside. Jonathan Kuttab, Shehadeh's colleague, states his business to an army officer who tells them to leave and pushes them away. They go. Filing a complaint would have meant filling out forms, providing a statement and leaving their names and credentials - a futile exercise.

Where The Line Is Drawn VIII

5 The Sea: Akka, 1971
"On 18 May 1948 Akka fell to Israeli forces...
"Mary and her family were forced out of their home and, along with the remaining Palestinians, were confined in a small section of the Old City that they could leave only with the permission of the occupying Israeli forces. There they heard about a massacre of some seventy Palestinians. Many now regretted their decision to stay..." (p. 82)

Where The Line Is Drawn VII

"Over the course of two days thousands of mostly Palestinians and Shiite Lebanese were killed when Israeli troops under Sharon's leadership allowed their Phalangist allies to enter [two Palestinian refugee camps] under the light of Israeli flares." (p. 77)

I learn more by rereading and quoting than just by reading. Hopefully, these blog posts either inform others or encourage them to read Raja Shehadeh's book.

Where The Line Is Drawn VI

"...we Palestinians were subjected to harsh treatment by the Israeli forces - ]long curfews, house demolitions, censorship, and restrictions on academic freedom and travel. Most aspects of our life were curtailed in some form or another and subject to permits from the military authorities. The occupation determined my present and my future. I waited in long lines for permits and endured constant harrassment by the military on the way to and from my office. Even a task as simple as installing a telephone was an ordeal requiring a military permit that was difficult to obtain." (p. 25)

"...while encouraging these settlements to prosper, the Israeli military authorities pursued a policy of stifling Palestinian development by refusing to grant permits vital for building the necessary infrastructure for investment and economic progress." (p. 62)

"Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who was religious, must have reasoned that it was more important to follow the will of God than a promise to a secular president - not to mention that it was politically more expedient for his party, Likud, to pursue the colonization of Palestinian territory and make available free land for his electorate." (p. 63)

God, expedience and electoralism are a winning alliance.

When a population is stifled as a matter of policy, then some of its members will resort to armed resistance. To ignore the repression, then condemn the "terrorism," is a moral cop out.

Where The Line Is Drawn V

See recent posts.

"As the settlements advanced and more land was taken using means that we were helpless to stop through legal action, I became more certain that the policy of the Israeli government was to throw us out altogether. All this was to make room for Jews from the West..." (p. 65)

"...there was turmoil in the occupied West Bank, mainly involving settler violence." (p. 66)

"[The Israelis] had a good welfare system, free education all the way through university, free health care and a pension scheme that meant the family's well-being did not rely on their children." (p. 12)

"They had a deep appreciation of Western classical music and an excellent music radio station, which I listened to, as well as superb live concerts and a music academy that produced world-class musicians. They were creative and organised. Why not learn from them?" (pp. 13-14)

"I was also highly impressed by the socialist kibbutz experiment." (p. 14)

See above. Why not the contents of pp. 12-14 without the contents of pp. 65-66? Why a state that makes room for immigrants by driving out residents? Why not a state that provides welfare, education, health, pensions, music and socialism for everyone within its borders? Such a state would be safe for Jews and for everyone else.

Where The Line Is Drawn IV

See recent posts.

4 Naomi: Jerusalem, 1981 (pp. 59-77
"We Palestinians decided to stay put despite all the efforts of the occupiers to make life difficult for us in order to encourage us to leave." (pp. 60-61)

"...I was investigating the illegal ways in which the settlers had registered a local company to circumvent prevailing Jordanian law prohibiting the sale of land to foreigners without permission from a local authority. Meanwhile, messianic rabbis, such as Zvi Yehuda Kook, were claiming that the settlement of the land was by divine command. I remember wondering what could be so divine about a process that was preceded by stealth and illegality." (pp. 61-62)

"God moves in a mysterious way..."

"Israel reneged on the promise it had made to US president Jimmy Carter not to build more Jewish settlements in the West Bank." (p. 63)

No government has a monopoly on breaking promises. I live in Britain which has been called "Perfidious Albion."

A rabbi sang, "Thus may all Israel's enemies perish," when an Arab mayor lost his legs because a settler terrorist group planted a bomb in his car. (pp. 63-64)

Where The Line Is Drawn III

See the previous post.

3 Visiting Jaffa: Jaffa, 1978 (pp. 29-57)
Shehadeh visits Sarah, a Polish woman whose parents had escaped from Poland to Israel. Sarah and her husband live in Jaffa in a house that had formerly belonged to an Arab family. She says that many people were displaced by the Second World War but continued with their lives whereas Palestinians have languished in refugee camps living off charity for three decades. She finds this despicable.

"Throughout [Sarah's] neighbourhood, the Arab families received no grants and no services. Every attempt was made to make their lives so unbearable that they would leave." (p. 50)

"As we passed the empty houses I thought about how their inhabitants had left them fully furnished as they fled. They had no time to gather anything during the Nakba. There was large-scale looting after the city was evacuated." (p. 52)

Later, speaking to another woman, Shehadeh thinks:

"I felt like asking this middle-aged woman how she could establish her nursery on land expropriated from villagers who were now forced to live in crowded refugee camps with no land to cultivate for themselves. I wanted to shake her out of her equanimity." (p. 55)

Where The Line Is Drawn II

See the previous post.

No government has a monopoly on injustice.

"He knew that Jordan would do everything it could to stop him and others who supported Palestinian statehood, and he paid the price for his politics. His Jordanian passport was withdrawn and he was disbarred." (p. 11)

"In 1953 he won a case against Barclays Bank that allowed Palestinian refugees access to the accounts Israel had seized from them, resulting in the return of substantial sums of money to the holders of these accounts." (ibid.)

"But Israel, which was now behaving with imperial arrogance, was not interested in peace with the Palestinians." (ibid.)

"I had published my first book on human rights, The West Bank and the Rule of Law, which was getting considerable attention and I then believed it could help in curbing the abuses that were occurring, such as the acquisition of Palestinian land for Jewish settlements, the demolition of Palestinian houses, the closure of banks, the collective punishments and restrictions on free speech and assembly." (p. 23)

"...the Likud government under Israel's sixth prime minister, Menachem Begin, was speeding up the establishment of Jewish settlements. Over a hundred were established in our midst." (p. 24)

"The occupation was turning into a colonial regime that deprived us of our land and gave our natural resources, our land and water, to their own people. In every way, large and small, it affected our lives and restricted our prospects. To fight this we Palestinians were left to fend for ourselves." (p. 25)

"...I can see not only the beautiful walls of the Old City but another wall, ugly and concrete, that looms on the horizon, demarcating a new separation causing further hardship for non-Jewish residents. I can still see Silwan, which is now under vicious attack by the right-wing settler organization Ateret Cohanim, which is trying to evict Palestinians, take over their homes and revive what they claim was the City of David." (p. 27)

Two responses to past injustices: either perpetrate fresh injustices or work to end the causes of injustice.

Does humanity need to be divided into armed nation-states? Unfortunately at present, yes, but not I believe indefinitely. While states, instruments of coercion, at best a necessary evil, do exist, they should treat everyone within their borders with full equality.

Do we need walls between communities? No. Certainly not walls designed to maintain inequality.

Where The Line Is Drawn by Raja Shehadeh

Raja Shehadeh, Where The Line Is Drawn (London, 2018).

1 The Stamp Collector: Ramallah, 1959 (pp.1-4)
"For nineteen years after the Catastrophe in 1948, or the Nakba, when around 750,000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes and Arab villages were razed to the ground with the end of the British Mandate and the establishment of Israel, we lived in the part of historic Palestine under Jordanian rule. How could we have known then that in a few years Israel would occupy our land, that over the years we would cross its borders so frequently and that our entire life would come to be dominated by the country with the unmentionable name?" (pp. 3-4)

2. Henry: Tel Aviv, 1977 (pp. 5-28)

"He was an articulate, thoughtful man who had begun his career as a lawyer in Jaffa in 1935 under the British Mandate. In 1948, during the Nakba, he lost his practice, his home and all his properties, and he had to start all over again in Ramallah." (pp. 7-8)

"These new Palestinians [PLO] were responding to years of deprivation. In the UN refugee camps in neighbouring Arab countries they had been turned into passive human beings dependent on charity, living under the surveillance of their Arab 'hosts' while they waited for their interminable suffering to end. The image of the new Palestinian was liberating, energizing." (p. 10)