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| photo by Stella Carroll |
As (Jesus) came near and saw the city (Jerusalem), he wept over it, saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized…the things that make for peace!” [Luke 19: 41 & 42, NRSV]
It is dark except for some soft ambient light leaking over the wall from two street lights outside. Six people are sitting in chairs outside the front door of a small concrete house. They form a circle with a small table in the middle holding tea and sweets. The light reveals their silhouettes: two young Palestinian men and four international Ecumenical Accompaniers leaning towards each other across the table. The conversation is intense, reflective and enquiring: peppered with humor and joyful laughter.
Without warning, a stone sails over the wall from the street landing at the edge of the circle. The sound of its bouncing across the concrete punctuates a word or two of the conversation before it comes to rest. The conversation continues. There is non verbal consensus that a dash to the gate to catch the vandals will be futile. Responding to the minor intrusion with a chase will result in a hail of rocks as soon as they return to the circle. So they choose to resist by remaining in their places and continuing their conversation. The continued existence of their circle is their resistance.
The courtyard has received stones, firecrackers and sparklers in the past. Resistance to these incursions by the children of the village has included, talking to them about the danger to people inside, speaking to the leaders of the village, joining them outside the wall to enjoy the fireworks with them, asking the older children to control the younger and retreating from the courtyard to the safety of the house. The only result has been an unarticulated agreement not to escalate the frequency or the intensity of flying objects.
The conversation of the six shadows inside the courtyard circles around the concepts, ideas and possibilities of resistance. What kinds of resistance are effective? What are the costs to the resisters and the oppressed in the process? Where, on the scale between violence and non violence, is the place of effectiveness and the consistency with commitments to justice, love and human rights and dignity?
Noor and Mofaq have much to resist. They have lived all of their lives in the Palestinian village of Jayyous. They are now in their early 20’s and are studying at the University. In 2002 and 2003 they experienced the building of a high steel double fence barrier that has separated their families from their land west of the village. The barrier is administered by the Israeli military. It is six kilometers inside the United Nations green line between Israel and Palestine on occupied Palestinian territory which includes their land. Mofaq just recently received a permit to go to his family’s land where they have begun harvesting their olives. Noor has applied for a permit but has not yet received one. Each day their families head out to their land with uncertainty. They never know whether their permits will be received as valid or whether there will be new exclusionary rules to be enforced by the Israeli soldiers.
In addition to experiencing restricted access to their families’ lands, Noor and Mofaq have experienced restricted travel in Palestine and Israel all of their lives. They cannot commute to their jobs or to the University without the daily possibility of being randomly stopped at Israeli military flying checkpoints where they are questioned and their Identification and permit papers examined. They would have to have special specific permits to travel to or through Israel or into Jerusalem, permits which they would have extreme difficulty getting if they could get them at all. Also, they live in a village where the Israeli military can come late at night to serve papers and arrest young men. The military entered Jayyous eight times during the past three months. The soldiers enter homes without knocking, sometimes using sound bombs. They break down doors and search houses (sometimes with dogs) to serve the papers or take away a boy or young man. Noor and Mafaq are constantly in danger of being the next targets of these Israeli military incursions.
Therefore, the question of resistance is very personal to these young men as they verbalize their thoughts and struggles over tea and cigarettes in the courtyard outside the home of the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Accompaniers. It’s personal when they consider violent or non violent resistance, or whether the two can exist side by side or whether there is a sliding scale of possibilities along the line between them.
They are aware that the people of Jayyous have given up demonstrations against the building of the barrier. It had been the first village in Palestine to resist the building of a separation barrier between the farmers and their land in occupied Palestinian territory. The leadership later decided that the cost to the farmers was too great: tear gas was killing their chickens and making their animals sick, passing through the gates was becoming more and more restrictive and abusive, permits were more difficult to get and reprisals were perceived in more frequent army incursions and arrests of boys and young men. A less costly resistance would be to refuse to leave the village and their farms: to resist by continuing to exist where they were not wanted. Noor and Mafaq are seeking ways to expand practices of resistance. For them, “to exist is to resist” is not enough.
The young boys on the street outside the EA’s house are experimenting with forms of resistance. They resist the soldiers by throwing stones at their army vehicles and at international strangers. They resist by purchasing toy guns and practicing intimidation and coercive power on each other and sometimes on the strange internationals dwelling in their village. They then observe what happens. What are the consequences? What is the resistance to their actions? Is the cost acceptable?
As another volley of stones mixed with some sparkers comes into the conversation circle of the EA’s and the two young men, their theoretical conversation becomes a practicum. What can be done to resist this incursion? The advantage in this situation is the ability to meet face to face with the adversaries. The two young men are known and respected in the village. One runs an internet café for the teenagers. Therefore, they can go out to talk to the boys. They can use their influence and reason. They can explain that the EA’s are not the enemy. They know the young boys. They see each other on the street every day in this small village. The EA’s will be able to play games with the boys, cheer for the Jayyous volleyball team that competes with regional teams, discuss football (soccer) and wrestling that the boys see on TV and practice English conversation with them. The boys will learn to protect the EA’s when the soldiers are in the village. EA’s will maintain a presence with the parents, uncles and aunts and report their stories to people in their home countries. And so relationships will trump confrontation. Resistance will become unnecessary.
Resistance presents a more difficult challenge when it is against the actions of the Israeli army that is backed with all the power: military, economic and political. Add to this the combination of barriers and travel restrictions that isolate Israelis and Palestinians from each other. Complicate the challenge more with three religious faiths competing for the same holy sites and struggling with factions among themselves. Then top it off with new Jewish immigrants from nations around the world seeking to settle in the disputed Palestinian territory, and a conclusion could be reached that, in the words of the all powerful Borg meeting the Federation Star Ship Enterprise in outer space, “Resistance is futile.”
For the younger generation in their 20’s resistance is not yet considered futile. The possibilities of many forms of resistance are considered and new forms discovered. And just as the young boys experiment with rock throwing in their village, modes of resistance will be put into action. This young generation will not be satisfied with only quiet intellectual conversations with friends in the cool of the evening.
There are many minor forms of resistance being expressed daily in farm villages. It is difficult to measure the risks or the effectiveness. But the efforts continue. In one village the farmers approach the barrier gate with their heads held high, their eyes meeting the eyes of the soldiers. If the soldiers resist passing a farmer then other farmers will respond with their own forms of resistance. While some surround a soldier and argue others will take advantage of the confusion. They will mill around, get in and out of their vehicles, exchange bicycles, send a flock of sheep through while another without the proper permit will dart through the gate and go on his way. One day the soldiers stop all bicycles from passing. Ordinarily 5 to 10 bicycles would be ridden to the fields each day. One man resisted the new restriction. He argued, waited a while, and then argued some more until the soldiers phoned up the chain of command. Finally he was able to pass through the gate.
Other times the farmers will use sarcasm and humor with the soldiers. One day the soldiers were late and the keys that they had would not open the lock on one of the gates on the far side of the road. One farmer said to the soldier who was explaining the situation, “Shoot it!” Another time, when the soldiers refused to let a vehicle through, the driver unloaded the boxes in his car to carry them across. Each time he took out another box and threw it on the ground he shouted at the soldiers in Arabic, “sabah ilkher,” (“good morning!”).
Other forms of resistance are less spontaneous and more deliberate. A farmer lived and worked in Tel Aviv for many years before barriers and restrictive permits made it impossible for him to continue. He now lives in Jayyous with his family. They are very poor. He is unable to get a permit to work in his fields. The family rations their electric power to a couple of hours a day. It’s all they can afford. They raise a few animals and some vegetables and some fruit trees in the yard around their house in the village.
This farmer is fluent in Hebrew. He has maintained connections with friends in Tel Aviv. He believes that a way to peace is interaction between Palestinians and Israelis. Therefore, with his friends in Israel, he has organized three different tours for Israelis into Palestine villages to give them the experience of Palestinian life under Israeli occupation. It takes some planning because Israel does not permit its citizens into the West Bank. The latest tour was in the first week of October. A bus filled with fifty Israeli citizens stopped in Jayyous where they met and listened to two farmers tell about their situation. They met in the municipality. As soon as they had been shown the countryside and the separation barrier, they were seated and served refreshment in the Palestinian tradition of welcome to a guest.
Several of the visitors had never been in the Palestinian territory even though they had been born and lived in Israel all of their lives. Many were very uncomfortable with the way their government and military were treating the Palestinians. And a number of Palestinian youth met Israelis without military uniforms and guns for the first time. It was hard for them to accept that these visitors were not the enemy. When the Israelis got back on the bus to continue their tour, the farmer joined them. Palestinians and Israelis waved to each other as the bus left.
Resistance was expressed that day with Palestinian hospitality. Also, the Israelis were resisting the restriction upon them not to go to the Palestinian territory. Legal, political and physical barriers were necessarily resisted so that hospitality and conversation between two peoples and among three faiths could take place.
There are other expressions of resistance that are more costly. There continue to be shootings and bomb threats by Palestinians, Israeli settlers and the Israeli military. Armed settlers are invading Palestinian farmland with threats and to steal olives during this harvest season. Israeli soldiers resist stone throwing at vehicles by taking young teenagers from their homes in the middle of the night. There is an element of Palestinians advocating armed resistance against the occupation. Israeli soldiers respond with air raids on Palestinian cities and armed incursions over borders to punish support for terrorists.
What kind of resistance will the next generation of Palestinians choose? What kind of resistance will the next generation of Israelis choose? Every form of resistance has its costs. Young Israelis who accept the draft pay a cost as they join a military culture that tends to treat the Palestinians as enemy and as the other. They learn to hate and fear and solve conflict with coercive force. Draft resisters pay a price of prison and withheld support for college education and good employment.
Young Palestinians pay a cost. If they accept resistance as just continuing to exist, they risk their dignity and collaborate with hopelessness. They also may ultimately loose their land which is daily being appropriated by settlers. Other forms of active resistance bring military reprisals and pain for families and friends. Boycotts and demonstrations invite hardships on workers and families. Armed resistance brings war, injury and death.
Hopelessness, reprisals, pain, war, injury, hardship and death linger in the shadows just beyond the circle of light where the two young Palestinian men and the four Ecumenical Accompaniers sit together passing tea, sweets, and ideas across the small table of hospitality in their midst. The contents of the shadows are held back by their mutual trust and a commitment to a resistance that respects all of humanity and demonstrates a reverence for the land. They intently speak their thoughts and questions. The clatter of incoming stones has faded. But the echo of violent resistance to oppression rolls on. Does not the surface of the earth need to be broken and cultivated to receive and nurture the crops? Does not the olive tree need pruning to encourage a bountiful harvest? All listen intently for answers.
In the silence one of the young men reveals his dream of a day when he can travel to Tel Aviv, buy some fish, grill it on the beach, go for a swim and lay on the sand watching the stars bless the people and the land. His dream resists all of the barriers that separate him from the sea that he can only view in the distance on a clear day.
His dream pushes back the destructive shadow dwellers just a little. The vision dwells among his listeners, tenuous and fragile, not totally convincing. It’s an ancient form of resistance given from the God of the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims. It settles on the tiny table of hospitality among them and merges with the hospitality of the earth giving forth its fruit for all of humanity. The message is cradled in the sand of the beach and proclaimed by the stars shining over one man’s dream and over all nations. They sit silently for a long time.
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