Monthly Archives: March 2011

‘Generation Oslo’ in the streets

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I have been writing a series of short profiles of young Palestinian activists for the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU). Read all of the profiles here. (Three have been published so far, with more to come.)

Here’s an excerpt of the profile of Fadi Quran, one of the March 15th protest organizers in Ramallah:

Quran says it was the upheaval of the second intifada that thrust him into politics.

“I was in the seventh grade when it [the uprising] began. Prior to that I was very interested in science and in physics, in doing physics research,” he said. But when the uprising came, childhood friends were wounded by Israeli gunfire; others were forced to emigrate to the US.

Quran followed his passion for science to Stanford, where last spring he completed a BS in Physics and a BA in International Relations. He then returned to Ramallah to pursue a master’s degree in Palestinian law at Birzeit University and work on an initiative to bring renewable energy to Palestine.

Back in Palestine, he also became active in encouraging urban Palestinians to support the “popular resistance” movements in outlying West Bank villages. With the momentum of the Egyptian uprising, his activism has consumed him.

He is inspired by the spirit of revolutions past: “We want democratic representation first and foremost and then move to nonviolently challenging the occupation in the same sense that Martin Luther King Challenged segregation in the south, and in the same sense that Gandhi challenged British colonialism in India.”

“We’re trying to move toward that goal. March 15th is seen not as an end in itself but the beginning of a new generation of struggle.”

March 15th: Arab revolution returns to Palestine

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From the blog 'Occupied Palestine'

Youth activists in the West Bank and Gaza seized initiative Monday, beginning a planned wave of demonstrations a day early in a bid to outmaneuver Hamas and Fatah authorities who they say want to co-opt their movement.

Activists on the ground reported that as many as 5,000 people joined civil society demonstrations (Palestinian flag only) in Gaza, converging on Unknown Soldier Square, where protesters have camped out for the night. In Ramallah, 10 young people are on a hunger strike in Manara Square, with others demonstrating in support. (Abdullah Abu Rahmah, the Bil’in nonviolent struggle leader, was reported to have saluted the hunger strikers, hours after he was released from the Israeli prison at Ofer.)

Ad hoc groups of youth organizers were gearing down for a major unity and democracy protest on Tuesday March 15th. Fearing an Egyptian-style uprising, authorities in the West Bank and Gaza planned their own demonstrations for Tuesday in attempt to pass the movement off as their own. Police in Gaza have also arrested and allegedly tortured at least one protest organizer, while the PA the West Bank is maintaining close surveillance on activists there. Police in both areas did not physically interfere in Monday’s protests.

The youth outflanked the authorities on Monday, descending into the streets 24 hours early. This tactic appears to have worked for now. Tuesday will be another test as to wether the young activists can get their message across without interference from Hamas and Fatah and the respective security forces in both places.

The political morass in Palestine is arguably more complex, and more intractable than that in Egypt or Tunisia, and this is reflected in the variations in the stated aims among the protesters. Some are calling for the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority; others are not. There appears to be unity on one point, however: the need for new elections to the Palestinian National Council, the long dormant parliamentary body of the PLO. From a March 15th Movement press release:

-          Democratic Palestinian National Council (PNC)  elections based on a one-person one-vote electoral system that guarantees equal representation for all Palestinians around the world (Gaza Strip, West Bank, 48 territories, refugee camps, and in the Diaspora). This necessitates a complete overhaul of the PNC’s structures and the establishment of new electoral procedures.

This is a departure from the conventional approach to Palestinian unity. In conversations with several March 15th organizers in the past two weeks, each stressed to me that their movement is demanding something much more than dividing of ministries between Hamas and Fatah. Fadi Quran, one of the protest organizers in Ramallah (who is said to be one of the hunger strikers), told me the idea is to build a broad based liberation movement vis-a-vis Israel. This what he told me in a short profile of him I wrote for the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU):

“We want democratic representation first and foremost and then move to nonviolently challenging the occupation in the same sense that Martin Luther King Challenged segregation in the south, and in the same sense that Gandhi challenged British colonialism in India.” “We’re trying to move toward that goal. March 15th is seen not as an end in itself but the beginning of a new generation of struggle.”

This is the overall understanding among these activists: official political unity is not an end in itself. It’s a necessary step toward remobilizing the Palestinian national movement. And Monday appears to have been something breakthrough in that direction.

More March 15th links

Video of Monday’s demonstration in Gaza’s Unknown Soldier Square

Photos of the Gaza demonstration

Laila El-Haddad (Gaza Mom): Palestine Calling

Rawan Abu-Shahla in The Electronic Intifada: Why Palestinians will protest on 15 March

IMEU press briefing with youth activists

Human Rights Watch: Gaza: Investigate Torture of Protest Organizer

Haaretz: IDF is preparing for mass civil uprising in West Bank

On Twitter: Gaza Youth Break Out

Anthony Weiner: Extremist

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From Weiner's House website.

Democratic US congressman Anthony Weiner, has made no secret in the past of his right-wing views on Israel, for example endorsing the Zionist Organization of America’s opposition to the two-state solution.

But Thursday night Weiner, who represents parts of Brooklyn and Queens, revealed himself to be a true pro-settler extremist. He was speaking at a debate on the Goldstone report at the New School in New York, with former congressman Brian Baird (D-WA), moderated by New York Times columnist Roger Cohen.

Baird, one of the few members of congress who has spoken out in support of the Palestinians, came across as measured and reasonable, while Weiner was combative and a little rude. Still, based on rhetorical fire, I would say weiner won the first half of the debate. But then he began a series of statements that placed him far, far outside the mainstream debate on Israel-Palestine, and also disconnected from reality, declaring, for example, that the eastern border of Israel is the Jordan River.

In Weiner’s mind, there is no such thing as an illegal settlement; the Goldstone report was authored by Libya; and the West Bank is not occupied because, he says, it’s “in Israel.”

The key turning point was when Weiner declared, referring to the West Bank: “There’s no occupation there either.”

At that moment, Roger Cohen asked Weiner to clarify, asking him: “You’re saying there is no IDF presence in the West Bank?”

Weiner’s reposnse: “Yes.”

Later on, Weiner again: “There are people who believe that settlement activity is going on in Palestinian territory. … I don’t believe that.” He specifies that all the settlements are “in Israel.”

Cohen pressed him: “The western border [of Israel] is the Mediterranean. Where’s the eastern border?”

Heckler from the audience: “The Jordan River!”

Weiner: “The Jordan River.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7AQ8rq12rI]

Mondoweiss has more.

Israel’s airport detention facility ‘like a black hole’

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I got to see the inside of Israel’s immigration detention system during my eight days in detention in January 2010 prior to my deportation. I was and am still struck by how little information has been publicly aggregated about these detention facilities.

I was reminded of this when Ali Gharib passed along this profile of Israel’s detention system from Global Detention project. The article includes a brief description of the airport detention facility I was in. On one point this account is incorrect: the facility can hold up to six people in a single cell, and I’m guessing more than 100 people total, far more than “2-4 people at a time.” But the description of the facility being “like a black hole” is accurate:

  • Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv has a small transit detention facility that is used to hold people who are denied entry into Israel or for people who are awaiting flights removing them from the country. Established in 2010 (Goren 2011), the facility reportedly holds no more than 2-4 people at a time, and generally for only very brief periods of time (Berman 2011b). However, according to a source in Israel, occasionally authorities have confined people for long periods of time at the facility, particularly in cases where detainees physically resist deportation and airlines refuse to allow them to board (Berman 2011b). This source said that the facility could be used by authorities to “break down” people and convince them to “voluntarily” leave the country because the facility is like a “black hole” with little space and detainees are not allowed any form of recreation (Berman 2011b). In February, media reports revealed that the government was intending to use the airport facility for detaining families as they await deportation, spurring one rights activist to accuse the government  of committing a “moral stain that will not be erased” (Goren 2011).