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?