Co-Resistance in Israel and Palestine: an interview with Sahar Vardi & Micha Kurz

Dear friends, 
as many of you will be aware, Israel activists Sahar Vardi and Micha Kurz recently completed a speaking tour of Australia.  This is a 20 minute or so video interview I did with them before they spoke at the Melbourne forum organised by  Direct Action and Under the Hammer.  

I also video recorded the actual meeting and I hope to post that up in full in the coming week or so. 

The Direct Action and Under the Hammer meeting with both Sahar and Micha was a great success. The Under the Hammer Activist Artist Hub was packed to capacity with standing room only, with around 70 people in attendance.  The room became so full we need to remove the table which we had set up for Micha and Sahar at the beginning of the meeting to make more room for people to sit. 

Please find below the interview with Sahar and Micha and some photos from the meeting.

In solidarity, Kim 

***

Co-Resistance in Israel and Palestine: an interview with Sahar Vardi and Micha Kurz

 Under the Hammer Activist Artist Hub packed out as people wait for the meeting to start.

 Sahar and Micha waiting for meeting to start.

 We had to remove the table to allow more room for people to sit.

Micha and Sahar speaking at the meeting

Public Forum: Palestine - Activist Artists Story Telling

 

Dear friends,

on Monday, 10th September in Melbourne, I am privileged to be speaking with Palestinian artists/activists Samah Sabawi and Dr Rand Hazou at a forum being organised by Platform Youth Theatre and Under the Hammer Activist Artist Hub.

 

If you are in Melbourne, please join us!  The details for the meeting are below.

 

In solidarity, Kim   

 

Image design - Sonja Karkar

 

Person. Project. Practice.
Activist artist’s story telling.
Palestine.

With Samah Sabawi. Dr Rand Hazou. Kim Bullimore.
...

Monday 10 September, 7pm

Under the Hammer Activist Artists Hub
159 Sydney Rd Coburg, Melbourne
Donation at the door.

"What does it means to be an activist artist?". Platform Youth Theatre and Under the Hammer invite you to join us for an informal story telling and conversation night with three long time activist artists who will share what it means to them and tell their stories about Israel's occupation and the Palestinian struggle for human rights and self-determination, using theatre and artistic practice to build human capacity and redress the systemic inequalities created by Israel's apartheid and occupation policies.

Dr. Rand Hazou is theatre academic and facilitator with experience working across a variety of creative projects. In 2004 Rand was commissioned by the UNDP to travel to the Occupied Territories in Palestine to work as a theatre consultant running workshops for Palestinian youths. In 2009 Rand was awarded a PhD in Theatre and Drama at La Trobe University. His thesis examined political theatre in Australia dealing with Asylum Seekers and Refugees. In 2011 Rand was awarded a Cultural Leadership Skills Development Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts to develop The 7arakat/Harakat Project, involving a series of theatre-related initiatives between Australia and Palestine. As part of this project Rand travelled to Palestine in October 2011 to participate in an internship with Al-Kasaba Theatre in Ramallah. For more information visit: www.7arakat.com.au http://vimeo.com/27465283

In September 2011, Rand Hazou was invited to visit the Aida Refugee Camp in Palestine to attend the production of Handala presented by Alrowwad Cultural and Theatre Training Society (ACTS). The play assembles onstage a cast of characters inspired by the cartoons of Palestinian artist Naji Al-Ali. Alrowwad, which means ‘the pioneers’ in Arabic, was established in 1998 and focuses on work with the children and women of the camp using theatre and artistic practice as a means to build human capacity and redress stereotypes of Palestinians. In this presentation, Rand will recall his experience attending the performance of Handala in the Aida refugee camp and will examine the significance of the notion of ‘sumud’ or steadfastness in the Palestinian non-violent struggle. The presentation will consider how the concept of sumud informs the strategy of ‘beautiful resistance’ employed by ACTS in their creative practice and how theatre and performance in Palestine can be usefully conceived as both a resistant practice and as a peace building tool.


Samah Sabawi is a writer, political analyst, commentator, author and playwright.. She is co-author of the book Journey to Peace in Palestine and writer and producer of the plays Cries from the Land and Three Wishes. Sabawi is currently developing her third play Tales of a city by the sea - a love story set against the backdrop of Israel's bombardment of Gaza in 2008-2009.

Samah will be talking about writing the Palestinian narrative and reading from Tales of a city by the sea. A draft of her play received this feedback by Gaza Literature Lecturer Dr. Hairder Eid currently residing in Gaza:

I got so emotional towards the end of the play so much so that I couldn't hold my tears! The play brought back the memory of the massacre. I was at the harbour when the first free Gaza boat arrived; and I was there when it left. I thought I "knew" the play's fictional characters. Most of what they say is so familiar, with some very few exceptions. I wondered what the reaction of the Gazan audience would be, if the play is ever performed in Arabic here? I am honored that you decided to share it with me.”


Kim Bullimore is a long-time socialist, political activist and anti-racism campaigner. Kim is a volunteer with the International Women’s Peace Service, the only all women international peace team working on the ground in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. She writes regularly on the Palestine-Israel conflict for the Australian newspaper, Direct Action and has been published by a range of web-journals, including Electronic Intifada, and Palestine Chronicle. In 2010, Kim co-organised the first Australian national Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Conference in support of Palestine.

 

She is also the author of BDS and the Struggle for a Free Palestine, which appears in the new book, Left Turn: Political Essays for the New Left, edited by Antony Loewenstein and Jeff Sparrow.Kim has a blog at www.livefromoccupiedpalestine.blogspot.com

Bullimore will be talking about the role of the Cultural Boycott against Israeli Apartheid and the role the artistic community here in Australia can play in supporting the Palestinian struggle for human rights and dignity.

James Crafti (MC) is an activist artist currently engaged in a Community Cultural Development Masters at the Victorian College of the Arts. James has directed several plays with Platform Youth Theatre and La Trobe Student Theatre and Film Office including Seven Jewish Children and The Deserters. James also acted as an assistant director on Melbourne Worker’s Theatre’s Yet to Ascertain the Nature of the Crime a play focusing on violence and racism towards international students.

 

Recently Crafti set up Under the Hammer an “activist artists hub” in Coburg designed to bring communities and political artists together to challenge the status quo.  

 

 

RE-BLOG: Haikus for Palestine and Operation Days of Penitence (2004)

Dear friends,

as you will be aware, I have started to "re-blog" some of my posts from my very first blog, Palestine Eyewitness, which documented my first visit to Palestine in 2004. 

Please find below my second "re-blog" installment.  This installment is a little different in that it is a series of Haikus (or Japanese) poems which were written by my friend and team mate Hannah.   

Hannah is an American Jewish activist and is just one of the amazing women I have been fortunate to work with and become friends with in Palestine.  Hannah wrote the Haikus in the first days of "Operation Days of Penitence", which was the name given by the Israeli military to their 17 day assault on Gaza from September 30 until October 16, 2004.  The name given by the IOF was given in recognition of fact that it coincided with the Jewish religious holiday, Yom Kippur.

More than 130 Palestinians were killed, including approximately 30 children.  It was the largest Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) assault on iGaza since the start of the Al-Aqsa intifada in September 2000.

At the time, it was my first experience in Palestine of an all out assault on the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza. Like our Palestinian friends in the West Bank, we anxiously followed the news of what was happening closely. I recall at the time being shocked, distressed and angry at what I read, saw and heard.  

During the assault, Israel sent in an estimated 200 armoured vehicles into Palestinian towns, village and densely populated refugee camps.  The IOF  launched regular raids into civilian areas, attempting to carry out extrajudicial assassinations and firing on Palestinian targets from the air and ground.  The IOF sealed of sealed off Palestinian villages and townships, restricted both the freedom of movement of Palestinian civilians, as well as humanitarian/emergency relief workers. In the 17 day operation, they destroyed large areas of agricultural land and destroyed Gazan infrastructure, destroying schools, businesses and other public works.  In particular, the IOF also dug deep trenches across several main roads, severing sewage, water and electricity lines. Hundreds of Palestinians homes were also destroyed.

During the operation, tens of thousands of Palestinians in Beit Hanoun, Izbet Beit Hanoun and parts of Jabalia camp  were under siege. Many thousands of civilians were unable to leave their homes.

In one of the poems, Hannah mentions Kate, another of our team mates who is also an American Jewish activist campaigning in support of the Palestinian people.  At the end of her post, Hannah includes a list of the those killed in the first days of the assault and asked her friends, family and networks to not ignore the assault and Israel's actions.

After leaving IWPS several years ago, Hannah and another team mate, Dunya, went onto found Birthright Unplugged, which as its website notes originally "began, in part, as a response to fully-funded, Jewish-only trips to Israel and as a rejection of the notion of a “birthright” for Jewish people to the land of Israel/Palestine.  Israel has denied Palestinians the internationally recognized right of return for refugees, instead creating a “Law of Return” that extends citizenship benefits to any person of Jewish heritage, thereby excluding millions of Palestinians from living in the land in which they were born".

Birthright Unplugged is designed to offer opportunities for people to gain first hand knowledge and to  use that knowledge to make positive change in the world.  In particular the group focuses on support for Palestinian led non-violent campaigns of all kinds that seek to pressure Israel to comply with international law and supports their participants' getting involvement in human rights-based and justice-oriented efforts, including contributing to the international  Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

Today, Hannah is also works with Adalah in New York in support of the Palestinian BDS campaign.

I hope that you will find this series of "reblogs" interesting and that they may provide, in part, some insight of what was happening on the ground in Palestine at the time.

Please note that due to being very new to blogging at the time, a number of my earliest posts on Palestine Eyewitness are all dated 4 November.  The posts had been written at earlier dates and shared via email with friends, family and supporters.  My blog was not established until some weeks into my trip, so where possible I will noted the date of when the post was originally written, as well as the date posted on Palestine Eyewitness.

In solidarlity, Kim

****** 

Haikus for Palestine

Original blog here

 

Written 1 September 2004, posted on Palestine Eyewitness on 4 November 2004

Kim writes:
I thought you might enjoy reading some Haikus (Japanese style poetry of 3 lines and 17 syllables) that one of my IWPS colleagues, Hannah, has written as part of her regular report to family, friends and other Palestinian Human Rights supporters in the USA.

The Haikus are just a snapshot of many of the things we experience here, both good and bad.

Hannah has provided some explanation for them in her introduction, but I will add a little additional explanation about one or two things.

For example, there are two Haikus listed under the title Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur is the Jewish festival of the Day of Atonement. It is the day is considered to be the holiest and most solemn day of the Jewish year, as it is the day of repentance and atonement when Jews repent for the sins of all Jews and try to atone for them .

Hannah and another team member, Kate, are both Jewish and this year for Yom Kippur they distributed/pasted-up a penitance prayer in two of the closeby illegal settlement (see http://www.womenspeacepalestine.org/)

It has been during Yom Kippur, that the Israeli govt and the IDF has launched their operation in Gaza calling it "Days of Penitance". As of today, over 60 people have been killed (one third of them under the age of 15 years) and 300 people wounded.

Hannah's Haikus reflect both the good, humourous, the bad and the ugly, including the brutality of the occupation but also the hope and the resiliance of the people of Palestine.

cheers, Kim 

*

Hannah writes: 

October 1, 2004
Dear friends,I can’t believe it’s October already, the month that I come back to the US. I’ve started to think about my presentation, so you’re welcome to start thinking about where and when you’d like me to present. :) I think I’ve been boring myself with articles, but from boredom springs creativity, right? So for this e-mail, I’ve composed 17 haikus (they’re 17 syllables each, so it seemed an apt number). 

I’m afraid they’ll be quite incomprehensible to those of you who are not here with me, but hopefully you’ll understand and/or appreciate some of them. There are a few Arabic words in them. "Alhamdulilah" means "Praise God" and is said all the time here. "Nos nos" literally means "half half" but can be translated as "so-so."

On a more serious note, I’ve included at the end only a few of the names and ages of those killed in Gaza in the past 48 hours. I j!ust heard that Israeli security forces have dubbed the operation "Days of Penitence," as they supposedly try to force militants to repent. I find this gross misuse of the Jewish tradition absolutely disgusting.

Enjoy the haikus, and please don’t ignore the growing list of victims of this war and occupation.

Child in Jayys

She sings for us in English

"We Shall Overcome"

Demo in Budrus

All arrestees get released

Alhamdulilah

Does the donkey have

a name, I ask. "No," she says.

He: "His name is Bush."

Fatima comes in

Sheds her hijab and her coat

Sprawls out on our couch 

Settler women

Called by soldiers at checkpoint

Come to harrass us

Bus stopped for hours

Why? I ask the soldier there

"Bureaucratia"

"Hamil." Lovely word.

Pregnant. Used both for women

And the olive trees 

Zajid sweeps the floor

Three years old, he’s almost four

Hope in Palestine

Border policeman

"How my English?" he asks me.

"Nos nos," I respond.

Killing in Gaza

The army shoots randomly

Forty, forty-one…

On the birth of our friends’ twins:

W-ard’s two new siblings

Cousin Zajid wants to share

"No, they’re both for me."

Faisa brings home twins

Says to me about the girl

"Heba looks like you"

On Sounds:

Vehicle blares sound

In the village, jeep or truck?

Curfew or veggies?

Gunshots in Hares

A wedding or invasion?

Laughter. A relief.

On Yom Kippur:

Waiting for nightfall

Our landlord searches for stars

Asks, "Does the moon count?"

Houses demolished

Kate:"Did the soldiers repent

Before or after?"

Writing my haikus

Lesson in being concise

Palestine in brief

The following is a list of 18 people killed yesterday in Gaza. Overnight last night and throughout the day today, the toll has risen to 40-something dead and at least 130 wounded:
"The Ministry of health released the following list of residents killed in the military raid conducted on Thursday; the ministry said that the list is not final yet;
1.Tawfiq, Al-Sharafi, 24, Jabalia.
2.Saed Mohammad Abu Al-Eish, 14, Jabalia.
3.Mos'ab al-Barade'ey, 21, Jabalia.
4.Fathi Al-Sawaween, 23, Jabalia.
5.Khalil Abu Naji, 23, Jabalia.
6.Ahmad Madhi. 16 Jabalia.
7.Usama Al-Barsh, 21 Jabalia.
8.Abdul-Hai Al-Najjar, 21, Jabalia
9.Rafat Jadallah, 23, Jabalia.
10.Sofian Abu Al-Jedyan, 40, Jabalia.
11.Mohammad Al-Habal, 60, Beit Lahia.
12.Hamza Ahmad, 24, Jabalia.
13.Mohammad Al-Jabeer, 17, Jabalia.
14.Mohammad Al-Hilo, 60, Jablia.
15.Mohammad Al-Masrey.
16.Rami Thaher. Jablia.
17.Atef al-Ashqar, Jablia.
18.Sofian Abu Al-Jidyan, 33, Jablia."