Dear friends,
please find below an interview published by Red Flag with my good friend, Jameela Jubran, a Palestinian activist who recently returned to her homeland, visiting Palestine for the first time in 33 years. It is a moving account of her visit, as well as informative and inspiring.
In solidarity, Kim
**
Returning to a Palestine transformed
an Interview with Palestinian activist, Jameela Jubran
by Corey Oakley: Red Flag: 25 November 2013
Returning to a Palestine transformed
Corey Oakley | 25-Nov-2013
Occupied Hebron: wire protects Palestinians from the refuse thrown from above by Israeli settlers.
Jameela Jubran
had not set foot in Palestine for 33 years. But the death of her father
last year, and a desire to see the truth about the Israeli occupation,
drove her to return to her homeland. What she found, alongside the
horror of Israeli occupation, was an inspiring new union movement. Red Flag’s Corey Oakley talked to her about the experience.
The most iconic images of the Palestinian resistance are those of
fire and fury. The mass demonstrations, the armed fighters and most of
all the kaffiyah-clad young people staring down Israeli tanks with nothing but rubble from the street.
But there is another side to the resistance. A quiet, enduring
defiance; a refusal to relinquish hope, identity and dignity in spite of
all the years of dispossession. The grandmothers who still hold the
keys to the home they were evicted from so many decades ago. The
children who have never seen their homeland, but proudly assert “I am a
Palestinian”.
It is this element of the Palestinian struggle I am reminded of when
Jameela tells me how she took a clump of dirt from her father’s grave in
Florida, all the way back to her family town Beit Sahour, near
Bethlehem.
“It is a saddening thing for me to remember that he was buried in
America, away from Palestine, the land that he loved, and that he
instilled love for in us”, she says. “I felt like I wanted to do
something symbolic to unite him with the land. So I asked my daughter to
bring some soil from his grave in America, and I took it with me. She
brought it from America to Australia, I took it from Australia to
Jordan, and from Jordan I crossed the bridge and took it with me to
Palestine, and I sprinkled the soil on the graves of my grandparents,
his own mum and dad.
“I know he is not there, but every minute I was walking around in
Palestine, often I would have tears in my eyes, saying to myself, ‘Baba,
I am doing this for you, seeing this for you’.”
The Palestine of today is very different to what Jameela remembers.
In 1980 there was, as now, an occupation. But it was possible to move
relatively freely around the occupied territories, to travel from the
West Bank to Gaza, and even into Israel itself – “Palestine of ’48”, as
Jameela calls it.
Today the West Bank has been so broken up by checkpoints, Jewish-only
settlements and segregated roads that any semblance of normal life is
impossible. Journeys that once took 10 minutes can now take hours.
Travelling from one part of town to another can mean negotiating
numerous Israeli checkpoints.
‛Ghost Town’
Of all the places Jameela visited, Hebron was the “the saddest
place”. Hebron is the only Palestinian city in the West Bank with a
Jewish settlement in its centre. Four thousand Israeli soldiers severely
restrict the movement of tens of thousands of Palestinian residents,
all in order to defend 400 settlers who have taken over the heart of the
city.
“The old city is known now as ‘Ghost Town’”, Jameela says. “It is
just like a military zone. To make room for these 400 settlers, they
evacuated 1,800 shops and the houses above them. The shops are closed
by metal gates, which are welded shut, so the owners cannot come back.”
Forty-two percent of the apartments in central Hebron have been
abandoned by their occupants. For those who remain, it is a terrifying
existence. Raja`a Abu `Ayesha, one of those who stayed, says, “Our house
is like a cage. It is completely fenced in, including the entrance. My
grandfather set it up that way to protect us, after settlers broke all
our windows. Our house looks like an island surrounded by a sea of
settlers, soldiers and a violent atmosphere.”
Shuhada Street, the once bustling centre of the old city, is
deserted. Palestinians are not allowed to enter. With an Australian
passport, Jameela could have walked down the street. “Mohammad, who was
showing us around, told us, ‘You can walk if you want – I cannot walk.’
We thought to ourselves: ‘No. Mohammad, who lives inside the old city of
Hebron, cannot walk this street. So we are not walking it.’”
Among the most sickening indicators of the attitude of the settlers
are the rubbish-filled wire nets (see photo) that string above the
narrow streets, below the houses now occupied by settlers. Jameela
explains, “As people walked down the street they kept having rubbish
thrown at them by the settlers – nappies, old rubbish, empty milk
bottles, other bottles, anything.
“It was disgusting. So the NGOs, along with pro-Palestine activists,
they helped the Palestinian residents build wire netting above the
street. So now you as you walk down the street you see the rubbish
trapped above people’s heads in the narrow passage leading up to the
mosque.”
This is the everyday contempt that the heroes of “civilised” Israel display to the people whose land they occupy.
It is difficult to speak out openly, and not just because of the
Israelis. Jameela tells me about the reaction when she challenged a
Palestinian policeman on a bus about their role in enforcing the
occupation. “I looked at people around me, the Palestinians, and they
were looking at me and mouthing ‘Shut up, shut up’, and putting their
hands across their mouths.
“They are terrorised by the Palestinian police, who are terrorised by
the Israelis. The Palestinian Authority is intimidating its own people
into silence. People cannot speak their mind – I was only able to
because I have an Australian passport.”
But in spite of everything, the resistance does continue. There are
many popular committees and local groups organising across the villages
and towns of the West Bank. Some of the most visible – and the most
independent from the Palestinian Authority – have been the protest
movements against the Apartheid Wall in Bi’lin and other villages. But
there are also signs that a new workers’ movement is emerging.
The centre of this movement is Tulkarem, a city in the north-west of
the West Bank. “Tulkarem embodies all the suffering of the
Palestinians”, Jameela says. “Right on the wall. It is choked not only
by the wall, but by the Israeli factories, which were established in the
early 1980s.”
Six-month strike
Tulkarem is in Area C, one of the parts of the West Bank completely
controlled by Israel. Some Israeli capitalists find it cheaper and
easier to build their factories there.
“Each factory acts as a settlement”, Jameela explains. “Confiscating
land and terrorising the people by terrorising their health.”
These factories produce all kinds of potentially harmful materials. Chemical fertilisers, plastics, polish, paints.
One of the most notorious factories is Sol Or. Although it employs
only 90 workers, three have recently died of cancer, almost certainly
attributable to the poisonous bromine gas produced there, and the
appalling health and safety conditions. Several other workers have died
from burns.
The Israeli capitalists who built factories there did so because they
could evade Israeli taxes and pay workers the absolute minimum – 50
shekels (about A$15) a day, which is way below the poverty line.
But this year the situation has been transformed. Jameela recounts:
“The workers organised to take strike action – they went out for six
months. The strike continued until the company broke down completely,
and the new management had to negotiate with the workers and give them
their health conditions, their back pay and everything else.
“The ripple effect of this strike was enormous. Six other factories
wanted to strike, but their owners told them, ‘Don’t strike, we will
give you everything you want.’”
A key part of the strikes’ success was the role played by a new union
organisation, the Palestine New Federation of Trade Unions.
“They are completely independent from the Palestinian Authority”,
Jameela says. “Some of the delegates are either former members of
leftist organisations or still members. One activist in the union is on
the central committee of the Palestine People’s Party. But, he told me,
he refuses to impose the agenda of certain organisations over defending
workers’ rights.”
This is an important positive in a context where the Palestinian left
has often acted as a loyal opposition to Fatah, the main grouping in
the PA, and most of the other unions are under the influence of the PA.
“People started to want something else”, Jameela explains. “Because of
their independent stance, these unions have gained a following,
especially after these big strikes. Now they have 5,000 members.”
This new movement is still in its early stages. But it provides a
glimmer of hope for the future. I asked Jameela how confident she was
that a new mass movement would erupt in the territories – the much hoped
for third intifada.
She told me the response she received when she asked the same
question of activists and union organisers in the West Bank. “It is not a
question of if. It is a question of when.”
- See more at: http://redflag.org.au/article/returning-palestine-transformed#sthash.XOmCHIVf.dpuf
Occupied
Hebron: wire protects Palestinians from the refuse thrown from above by Israeli
settlers.
Occupied
Hebron: wire protects Palestinians from the refuse thrown from above by
Israeli settlers. - See more at:
http://redflag.org.au/article/returning-palestine-transformed#sthash.XOmCHIVf.dpuf
Occupied
Hebron: wire protects Palestinians from the refuse thrown from above by
Israeli settlers. - See more at:
http://redflag.org.au/article/returning-palestine-transformed#sthash.XOmCHIVf.dpuf
Jameela Jubran
had not set foot in Palestine for 33 years. But the death of her father
last year, and a desire to see the truth about the Israeli occupation,
drove her to return to her homeland. What she found, alongside the
horror of Israeli occupation, was an inspiring new union movement. Red Flag’s Corey Oakley talked to her about the experience.
The most iconic images of the Palestinian resistance are those of
fire and fury. The mass demonstrations, the armed fighters and most of
all the kaffiyah-clad young people staring down Israeli tanks with nothing but rubble from the street.
But there is another side to the resistance. A quiet, enduring
defiance; a refusal to relinquish hope, identity and dignity in spite of
all the years of dispossession. The grandmothers who still hold the
keys to the home they were evicted from so many decades ago. The
children who have never seen their homeland, but proudly assert “I am a
Palestinian”.
It is this element of the Palestinian struggle I am reminded of when
Jameela tells me how she took a clump of dirt from her father’s grave in
Florida, all the way back to her family town Beit Sahour, near
Bethlehem.
“It is a saddening thing for me to remember that he was buried in
America, away from Palestine, the land that he loved, and that he
instilled love for in us”, she says. “I felt like I wanted to do
something symbolic to unite him with the land. So I asked my daughter to
bring some soil from his grave in America, and I took it with me. She
brought it from America to Australia, I took it from Australia to
Jordan, and from Jordan I crossed the bridge and took it with me to
Palestine, and I sprinkled the soil on the graves of my grandparents,
his own mum and dad.
“I know he is not there, but every minute I was walking around in
Palestine, often I would have tears in my eyes, saying to myself, ‘Baba,
I am doing this for you, seeing this for you’.”
The Palestine of today is very different to what Jameela remembers.
In 1980 there was, as now, an occupation. But it was possible to move
relatively freely around the occupied territories, to travel from the
West Bank to Gaza, and even into Israel itself – “Palestine of ’48”, as
Jameela calls it.
Today the West Bank has been so broken up by checkpoints, Jewish-only
settlements and segregated roads that any semblance of normal life is
impossible. Journeys that once took 10 minutes can now take hours.
Travelling from one part of town to another can mean negotiating
numerous Israeli checkpoints.
‛Ghost Town’
Of all the places Jameela visited, Hebron was the “the saddest
place”. Hebron is the only Palestinian city in the West Bank with a
Jewish settlement in its centre. Four thousand Israeli soldiers severely
restrict the movement of tens of thousands of Palestinian residents,
all in order to defend 400 settlers who have taken over the heart of the
city.
“The old city is known now as ‘Ghost Town’”, Jameela says. “It is
just like a military zone. To make room for these 400 settlers, they
evacuated 1,800 shops and the houses above them. The shops are closed
by metal gates, which are welded shut, so the owners cannot come back.”
Forty-two percent of the apartments in central Hebron have been
abandoned by their occupants. For those who remain, it is a terrifying
existence. Raja`a Abu `Ayesha, one of those who stayed, says, “Our house
is like a cage. It is completely fenced in, including the entrance. My
grandfather set it up that way to protect us, after settlers broke all
our windows. Our house looks like an island surrounded by a sea of
settlers, soldiers and a violent atmosphere.”
Shuhada Street, the once bustling centre of the old city, is
deserted. Palestinians are not allowed to enter. With an Australian
passport, Jameela could have walked down the street. “Mohammad, who was
showing us around, told us, ‘You can walk if you want – I cannot walk.’
We thought to ourselves: ‘No. Mohammad, who lives inside the old city of
Hebron, cannot walk this street. So we are not walking it.’”
Among the most sickening indicators of the attitude of the settlers
are the rubbish-filled wire nets (see photo) that string above the
narrow streets, below the houses now occupied by settlers. Jameela
explains, “As people walked down the street they kept having rubbish
thrown at them by the settlers – nappies, old rubbish, empty milk
bottles, other bottles, anything.
“It was disgusting. So the NGOs, along with pro-Palestine activists,
they helped the Palestinian residents build wire netting above the
street. So now you as you walk down the street you see the rubbish
trapped above people’s heads in the narrow passage leading up to the
mosque.”
This is the everyday contempt that the heroes of “civilised” Israel display to the people whose land they occupy.
It is difficult to speak out openly, and not just because of the
Israelis. Jameela tells me about the reaction when she challenged a
Palestinian policeman on a bus about their role in enforcing the
occupation. “I looked at people around me, the Palestinians, and they
were looking at me and mouthing ‘Shut up, shut up’, and putting their
hands across their mouths.
“They are terrorised by the Palestinian police, who are terrorised by
the Israelis. The Palestinian Authority is intimidating its own people
into silence. People cannot speak their mind – I was only able to
because I have an Australian passport.”
But in spite of everything, the resistance does continue. There are
many popular committees and local groups organising across the villages
and towns of the West Bank. Some of the most visible – and the most
independent from the Palestinian Authority – have been the protest
movements against the Apartheid Wall in Bi’lin and other villages. But
there are also signs that a new workers’ movement is emerging.
The centre of this movement is Tulkarem, a city in the north-west of
the West Bank. “Tulkarem embodies all the suffering of the
Palestinians”, Jameela says. “Right on the wall. It is choked not only
by the wall, but by the Israeli factories, which were established in the
early 1980s.”
Six-month strike
Tulkarem is in Area C, one of the parts of the West Bank completely
controlled by Israel. Some Israeli capitalists find it cheaper and
easier to build their factories there.
“Each factory acts as a settlement”, Jameela explains. “Confiscating
land and terrorising the people by terrorising their health.”
These factories produce all kinds of potentially harmful materials. Chemical fertilisers, plastics, polish, paints.
One of the most notorious factories is Sol Or. Although it employs
only 90 workers, three have recently died of cancer, almost certainly
attributable to the poisonous bromine gas produced there, and the
appalling health and safety conditions. Several other workers have died
from burns.
The Israeli capitalists who built factories there did so because they
could evade Israeli taxes and pay workers the absolute minimum – 50
shekels (about A$15) a day, which is way below the poverty line.
But this year the situation has been transformed. Jameela recounts:
“The workers organised to take strike action – they went out for six
months. The strike continued until the company broke down completely,
and the new management had to negotiate with the workers and give them
their health conditions, their back pay and everything else.
“The ripple effect of this strike was enormous. Six other factories
wanted to strike, but their owners told them, ‘Don’t strike, we will
give you everything you want.’”
A key part of the strikes’ success was the role played by a new union
organisation, the Palestine New Federation of Trade Unions.
“They are completely independent from the Palestinian Authority”,
Jameela says. “Some of the delegates are either former members of
leftist organisations or still members. One activist in the union is on
the central committee of the Palestine People’s Party. But, he told me,
he refuses to impose the agenda of certain organisations over defending
workers’ rights.”
This is an important positive in a context where the Palestinian left
has often acted as a loyal opposition to Fatah, the main grouping in
the PA, and most of the other unions are under the influence of the PA.
“People started to want something else”, Jameela explains. “Because of
their independent stance, these unions have gained a following,
especially after these big strikes. Now they have 5,000 members.”
This new movement is still in its early stages. But it provides a
glimmer of hope for the future. I asked Jameela how confident she was
that a new mass movement would erupt in the territories – the much hoped
for third intifada.
She told me the response she received when she asked the same
question of activists and union organisers in the West Bank. “It is not a
question of if. It is a question of when.”
- See more at: http://redflag.org.au/article/returning-palestine-transformed#sthash.XOmCHIVf.dpuf
Jameela Jubran had not set foot in Palestine for 33 years. But the death
of her father last year, and a desire to see the truth about the Israeli
occupation, drove her to return to her homeland. What she found, alongside the horror
of Israeli occupation, was an inspiring new union movement. Red Flag’s Corey
Oakley talked to her about the experience.
The most iconic images of the
Palestinian resistance are those of fire and fury. The mass demonstrations, the
armed fighters and most of all the kaffiyah-clad young people staring
down Israeli tanks with nothing but rubble from the street.
But there is another side to the
resistance. A quiet, enduring defiance; a refusal to relinquish hope, identity
and dignity in spite of all the years of dispossession. The grandmothers who
still hold the keys to the home they were evicted from so many decades ago. The
children who have never seen their homeland, but proudly assert “I am a
Palestinian”.
It is this element of the
Palestinian struggle I am reminded of when Jameela tells me how she took a
clump of dirt from her father’s grave in Florida, all the way back to her
family town Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem.
“It is a saddening thing for me to
remember that he was buried in America, away from Palestine, the land that he
loved, and that he instilled love for in us”, she says. “I felt like I wanted
to do something symbolic to unite him with the land. So I asked my daughter to
bring some soil from his grave in America, and I took it with me. She brought
it from America to Australia, I took it from Australia to Jordan, and from
Jordan I crossed the bridge and took it with me to Palestine, and I sprinkled
the soil on the graves of my grandparents, his own mum and dad.
“I know he is not there, but every
minute I was walking around in Palestine, often I would have tears in my eyes,
saying to myself, ‘Baba, I am doing this for you, seeing this for you’.”
The Palestine of today is very
different to what Jameela remembers. In 1980 there was, as now, an occupation.
But it was possible to move relatively freely around the occupied territories,
to travel from the West Bank to Gaza, and even into Israel itself – “Palestine
of ’48”, as Jameela calls it.
Today the West Bank has been so
broken up by checkpoints, Jewish-only settlements and segregated roads that any
semblance of normal life is impossible. Journeys that once took 10 minutes can
now take hours. Travelling from one part of town to another can mean
negotiating numerous Israeli checkpoints.
‛Ghost Town’
Of all the places Jameela visited,
Hebron was the “the saddest place”. Hebron is the only Palestinian city in the
West Bank with a Jewish settlement in its centre. Four thousand Israeli soldiers
severely restrict the movement of tens of thousands of Palestinian residents,
all in order to defend 400 settlers who have taken over the heart of the city.
“The old city is known now as ‘Ghost
Town’”, Jameela says. “It is just like a military zone. To make room for these
400 settlers, they evacuated 1,800 shops and the houses above them. The
shops are closed by metal gates, which are welded shut, so the owners cannot
come back.”
Forty-two percent of the apartments
in central Hebron have been abandoned by their occupants. For those who remain,
it is a terrifying existence. Raja`a Abu `Ayesha, one of those who stayed,
says, “Our house is like a cage. It is completely fenced in, including the
entrance. My grandfather set it up that way to protect us, after settlers broke
all our windows. Our house looks like an island surrounded by a sea of
settlers, soldiers and a violent atmosphere.”
Shuhada Street, the once bustling
centre of the old city, is deserted. Palestinians are not allowed to enter.
With an Australian passport, Jameela could have walked down the street.
“Mohammad, who was showing us around, told us, ‘You can walk if you want – I
cannot walk.’ We thought to ourselves: ‘No. Mohammad, who lives inside the old
city of Hebron, cannot walk this street. So we are not walking it.’”
Among the most sickening indicators
of the attitude of the settlers are the rubbish-filled wire nets (see photo)
that string above the narrow streets, below the houses now occupied by
settlers. Jameela explains, “As people walked down the street they kept having
rubbish thrown at them by the settlers – nappies, old rubbish, empty milk
bottles, other bottles, anything.
“It was disgusting. So the NGOs,
along with pro-Palestine activists, they helped the Palestinian residents build
wire netting above the street. So now you as you walk down the street you see
the rubbish trapped above people’s heads in the narrow passage leading up to
the mosque.”
This is the everyday contempt that
the heroes of “civilised” Israel display to the people whose land they occupy.
It is difficult to speak out openly,
and not just because of the Israelis. Jameela tells me about the reaction when
she challenged a Palestinian policeman on a bus about their role in enforcing
the occupation. “I looked at people around me, the Palestinians, and they
were looking at me and mouthing ‘Shut up, shut up’, and putting their hands
across their mouths.
“They are terrorised by the
Palestinian police, who are terrorised by the Israelis. The Palestinian
Authority is intimidating its own people into silence. People cannot speak
their mind – I was only able to because I have an Australian passport.”
But in spite of everything, the
resistance does continue. There are many popular committees and local groups
organising across the villages and towns of the West Bank. Some of the most
visible – and the most independent from the Palestinian Authority – have been
the protest movements against the Apartheid Wall in Bi’lin and other villages.
But there are also signs that a new workers’ movement is emerging.
The centre of this movement is
Tulkarem, a city in the north-west of the West Bank. “Tulkarem embodies all the
suffering of the Palestinians”, Jameela says. “Right on the wall. It is choked
not only by the wall, but by the Israeli factories, which were established in
the early 1980s.”
Six-month strike
Tulkarem is in Area C, one of the
parts of the West Bank completely controlled by Israel. Some Israeli
capitalists find it cheaper and easier to build their factories there.
“Each factory acts as a settlement”,
Jameela explains. “Confiscating land and terrorising the people by terrorising
their health.”
These factories produce all kinds of
potentially harmful materials. Chemical fertilisers, plastics, polish, paints.
One of the most notorious
factories is Sol Or. Although it employs only 90 workers, three have recently
died of cancer, almost certainly attributable to the poisonous bromine gas
produced there, and the appalling health and safety conditions. Several other
workers have died from burns.
The Israeli capitalists who built
factories there did so because they could evade Israeli taxes and pay workers
the absolute minimum – 50 shekels (about A$15) a day, which is way below the
poverty line.
But this year the situation has been
transformed. Jameela recounts: “The workers organised to take strike action –
they went out for six months. The strike continued until the company broke down
completely, and the new management had to negotiate with the workers and give
them their health conditions, their back pay and everything else.
“The ripple effect of this strike
was enormous. Six other factories wanted to strike, but their owners told them,
‘Don’t strike, we will give you everything you want.’”
A key part of the strikes’ success
was the role played by a new union organisation, the Palestine New Federation
of Trade Unions.
“They are completely independent
from the Palestinian Authority”, Jameela says. “Some of the delegates are
either former members of leftist organisations or still members. One activist
in the union is on the central committee of the Palestine People’s Party. But,
he told me, he refuses to impose the agenda of certain organisations over
defending workers’ rights.”
This is an important positive in a
context where the Palestinian left has often acted as a loyal opposition to
Fatah, the main grouping in the PA, and most of the other unions are under the
influence of the PA. “People started to want something else”, Jameela explains.
“Because of their independent stance, these unions have gained a following,
especially after these big strikes. Now they have 5,000 members.”
This new movement is still in its
early stages. But it provides a glimmer of hope for the future. I asked Jameela
how confident she was that a new mass movement would erupt in the territories –
the much hoped for third intifada.
She told me the response she
received when she asked the same question of activists and union organisers in
the West Bank. “It is not a question of if. It is a question of when.”
Returning to a Palestine transformed
Corey Oakley | 25-Nov-2013
Occupied Hebron: wire protects Palestinians from the refuse thrown from above by Israeli settlers.
Jameela Jubran
had not set foot in Palestine for 33 years. But the death of her father
last year, and a desire to see the truth about the Israeli occupation,
drove her to return to her homeland. What she found, alongside the
horror of Israeli occupation, was an inspiring new union movement.
Red Flag’s
Corey Oakley talked to her about the experience.
The most iconic images of the Palestinian resistance are those of
fire and fury. The mass demonstrations, the armed fighters and most of
all the
kaffiyah-clad young people staring down Israeli tanks with nothing but rubble from the street.
But there is another side to the resistance. A quiet, enduring
defiance; a refusal to relinquish hope, identity and dignity in spite of
all the years of dispossession. The grandmothers who still hold the
keys to the home they were evicted from so many decades ago. The
children who have never seen their homeland, but proudly assert “I am a
Palestinian”.
It is this element of the Palestinian struggle I am reminded of when
Jameela tells me how she took a clump of dirt from her father’s grave in
Florida, all the way back to her family town Beit Sahour, near
Bethlehem.
“It is a saddening thing for me to remember that he was buried in
America, away from Palestine, the land that he loved, and that he
instilled love for in us”, she says. “I felt like I wanted to do
something symbolic to unite him with the land. So I asked my daughter to
bring some soil from his grave in America, and I took it with me. She
brought it from America to Australia, I took it from Australia to
Jordan, and from Jordan I crossed the bridge and took it with me to
Palestine, and I sprinkled the soil on the graves of my grandparents,
his own mum and dad.
“I know he is not there, but every minute I was walking around in
Palestine, often I would have tears in my eyes, saying to myself, ‘Baba,
I am doing this for you, seeing this for you’.”
The Palestine of today is very different to what Jameela remembers.
In 1980 there was, as now, an occupation. But it was possible to move
relatively freely around the occupied territories, to travel from the
West Bank to Gaza, and even into Israel itself – “Palestine of ’48”, as
Jameela calls it.
Today the West Bank has been so broken up by checkpoints, Jewish-only
settlements and segregated roads that any semblance of normal life is
impossible. Journeys that once took 10 minutes can now take hours.
Travelling from one part of town to another can mean negotiating
numerous Israeli checkpoints.
‛Ghost Town’
Of all the places Jameela visited, Hebron was the “the saddest
place”. Hebron is the only Palestinian city in the West Bank with a
Jewish settlement in its centre. Four thousand Israeli soldiers severely
restrict the movement of tens of thousands of Palestinian residents,
all in order to defend 400 settlers who have taken over the heart of the
city.
“The old city is known now as ‘Ghost Town’”, Jameela says. “It is
just like a military zone. To make room for these 400 settlers, they
evacuated 1,800 shops and the houses above them. The shops are closed
by metal gates, which are welded shut, so the owners cannot come back.”
Forty-two percent of the apartments in central Hebron have been
abandoned by their occupants. For those who remain, it is a terrifying
existence. Raja`a Abu `Ayesha, one of those who stayed, says, “Our house
is like a cage. It is completely fenced in, including the entrance. My
grandfather set it up that way to protect us, after settlers broke all
our windows. Our house looks like an island surrounded by a sea of
settlers, soldiers and a violent atmosphere.”
Shuhada Street, the once bustling centre of the old city, is
deserted. Palestinians are not allowed to enter. With an Australian
passport, Jameela could have walked down the street. “Mohammad, who was
showing us around, told us, ‘You can walk if you want – I cannot walk.’
We thought to ourselves: ‘No. Mohammad, who lives inside the old city of
Hebron, cannot walk this street. So we are not walking it.’”
Among the most sickening indicators of the attitude of the settlers
are the rubbish-filled wire nets (see photo) that string above the
narrow streets, below the houses now occupied by settlers. Jameela
explains, “As people walked down the street they kept having rubbish
thrown at them by the settlers – nappies, old rubbish, empty milk
bottles, other bottles, anything.
“It was disgusting. So the NGOs, along with pro-Palestine activists,
they helped the Palestinian residents build wire netting above the
street. So now you as you walk down the street you see the rubbish
trapped above people’s heads in the narrow passage leading up to the
mosque.”
This is the everyday contempt that the heroes of “civilised” Israel display to the people whose land they occupy.
It is difficult to speak out openly, and not just because of the
Israelis. Jameela tells me about the reaction when she challenged a
Palestinian policeman on a bus about their role in enforcing the
occupation. “I looked at people around me, the Palestinians, and they
were looking at me and mouthing ‘Shut up, shut up’, and putting their
hands across their mouths.
“They are terrorised by the Palestinian police, who are terrorised by
the Israelis. The Palestinian Authority is intimidating its own people
into silence. People cannot speak their mind – I was only able to
because I have an Australian passport.”
But in spite of everything, the resistance does continue. There are
many popular committees and local groups organising across the villages
and towns of the West Bank. Some of the most visible – and the most
independent from the Palestinian Authority – have been the protest
movements against the Apartheid Wall in Bi’lin and other villages. But
there are also signs that a new workers’ movement is emerging.
The centre of this movement is Tulkarem, a city in the north-west of
the West Bank. “Tulkarem embodies all the suffering of the
Palestinians”, Jameela says. “Right on the wall. It is choked not only
by the wall, but by the Israeli factories, which were established in the
early 1980s.”
Six-month strike
Tulkarem is in Area C, one of the parts of the West Bank completely
controlled by Israel. Some Israeli capitalists find it cheaper and
easier to build their factories there.
“Each factory acts as a settlement”, Jameela explains. “Confiscating
land and terrorising the people by terrorising their health.”
These factories produce all kinds of potentially harmful materials. Chemical fertilisers, plastics, polish, paints.
One of the most notorious factories is Sol Or. Although it employs
only 90 workers, three have recently died of cancer, almost certainly
attributable to the poisonous bromine gas produced there, and the
appalling health and safety conditions. Several other workers have died
from burns.
The Israeli capitalists who built factories there did so because they
could evade Israeli taxes and pay workers the absolute minimum – 50
shekels (about A$15) a day, which is way below the poverty line.
But this year the situation has been transformed. Jameela recounts:
“The workers organised to take strike action – they went out for six
months. The strike continued until the company broke down completely,
and the new management had to negotiate with the workers and give them
their health conditions, their back pay and everything else.
“The ripple effect of this strike was enormous. Six other factories
wanted to strike, but their owners told them, ‘Don’t strike, we will
give you everything you want.’”
A key part of the strikes’ success was the role played by a new union
organisation, the Palestine New Federation of Trade Unions.
“They are completely independent from the Palestinian Authority”,
Jameela says. “Some of the delegates are either former members of
leftist organisations or still members. One activist in the union is on
the central committee of the Palestine People’s Party. But, he told me,
he refuses to impose the agenda of certain organisations over defending
workers’ rights.”
This is an important positive in a context where the Palestinian left
has often acted as a loyal opposition to Fatah, the main grouping in
the PA, and most of the other unions are under the influence of the PA.
“People started to want something else”, Jameela explains. “Because of
their independent stance, these unions have gained a following,
especially after these big strikes. Now they have 5,000 members.”
This new movement is still in its early stages. But it provides a
glimmer of hope for the future. I asked Jameela how confident she was
that a new mass movement would erupt in the territories – the much hoped
for third
intifada.
She told me the response she received when she asked the same
question of activists and union organisers in the West Bank. “It is not a
question of if. It is a question of when.”
- See more at: http://redflag.org.au/article/returning-palestine-transformed#sthash.XOmCHIVf.dpuf
