Update from the ISM on Activities and Detention

ISM Update on Detained Activist and a Report from Budrus

1. "The Waiting Room" UK activist arrested Sunday, in Kufr Thulth,
Salfit region remains in detention; Report from the detention center

2. The Meaning of Sumud, Budrus, November 1, 2004-11-09
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1."The Waiting Room" UK activist arrested Sunday, in Kufr Thulth,
Salfit region remains in detention; Report from the detention center

Hannah, UK

Report via mobile phone from the detention center in Hadera, North
of Israel

I'm in the waiting room. I've done a lot of waiting in the last two
days; waiting to be questioned; waiting to be charged; waiting to be
released; and now I am waiting to be deported. Yet these few hours
could never compare to the endless waiting that the dispossessed
nation of Palestine has had to endure since 1948. Day in, day out,
they wait, at checkpoints, in prison, behind walls and gates, they
wait to harvest their crops, to go to school, to see a doctor…and
the waiting continues.

Why is it that the kindness and compassion of oppressed people
chokes my throat and wells my eyes? A chocolate wafer biscuit was
that act of kindness in the deportation room; crying women in post-
soviet states, who have to leave this inhospitable land of Israel.
Each individual story may be different, but I imagine they are
weeping for the same reason-the same shattered dreams of funding
their children through school with money earned cleaning toilets in
rich people's homes. For the younger women, the thought of
returning home to a life without opportunity or ambition; and I
think about the reason that they are even here at all-to fill the
jobs left vacant by Israel's previous cheap labor, the Palestinians.

I feel overcome with anger, despair and a sick, sick feeling of
powerlessness. I know on my stronger days, I believe we can fight
the injustice and we must. But, here, today, I don't want to be
motivated or energized. I just want to sit here and be sad.

Random conversations with Israelis tend to depress me. My taxi
driver last night told me that when he was a child he used to go
with his father to Palestinian towns to shop and eat at their
restaurants. Now he thinks that the wall must be built, so that the
Israeli army can control the Palestinian people. I explained to him
that the wall will annex approximately 50% of the West Bank. He
says that a fair price to pay for the security of Israelis.

A conversation about British comedy shows on TV with the security
guards here in the detention room, becomes an outlet for opinion-
that the United States should bomb Iran, because the people who live
there are animals, not humans. I think I will stop talking to
people now. Instead I will focus on the bland stars on U.S. dating
show, with Hebrew subtitles.

XXBigRed

Statement from Hannah prior to the report:

So, yesterday I was arrested. I was at a demonstration in the
Palestinian village of Kfur Thulth, with a large number of
international and Israeli activists supporting the villagers in
their protest against the continuing theft of their land by the
Israeli military and by illegal settlement expansion. Two plain
clothes policemen targeted me and told me they wanted to ask me some
questions and asked to see my passport. I didn't have my passport
in my bag - it was back at the village. Other activists tried to
stop them taking me away in the jeep, but it was clear that they
wanted me specifically, so there was little point resisting. They
said they were 'confused' about my name, and later in the police
station I was told that I was charged with 1. not having my passport
on me (although some friends immediately went back to the village
and brought my passport to them); and 2. causing confusion about my
name (interesting charge!).

I was questioned by Shabak, the Israeli intelligence service, asking
which organizations I belonged to. I was co-operative. I was told I
didn't have the right to have a lawyer present, so I explained in
that case I was unhappy to answer any further questions.

I was released from the police station at 11pm on the condition that
I present myself at Ariel Police Station today at 10am. They kept my
passport.

I don't know what to expect. They may want to deport me, or they
may decide to release me on certain conditions. I am remaining
optimistic at this stage!

What is clear, is that the State of Israel is pursuing a policy of
criminalizing human rights workers in the Occupied Palestinian
Territories, and increasing criminalizing Israeli human rights
activists who are opposing the occupation. Hundreds of human rights
workers are denied entry to Israel each year. As the occupier,
Israel is obliged under international law to facilitate passage to
the territories they are occupying. As international witnesses to
the crimes of the occupation, human rights workers are perceived to
be an enemy of Israel.

For a report on yesterday's demonstration:
http://www.palsolidarity.org/DesktopModules/Articles/ArticlesView.asp
x?TabID=0&Alias=Rainbow&Lang=en-US&ItemID=599&mid=10400

For updates see: http://www.palsolidarity.org

May be seeing some of you guys soon :-(

xxBig Red
Hannah

Latest update from her attorney is that "we are waiting"

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2. The Meaning of Sumud: Budrus, Monday, Nov. 1, 2004.

We thought that the face-off with the border police would be the end
of the action. They had stopped throwing stun grenades and making
threats. All was relatively quiet, and some of us thought that they
would simply pack up and move on, at which point we could visit a
bit with the villagers and be on our way. Instead, it was the
beginning of another phase of the confrontation.

The place was Budrus, a Palestinian village in the Israeli-occupied
West Bank. Budrus came to nonviolent resistance by its own
efforts. Last year, they decided that the entire village - men,
women and children - would take part in blocking the efforts of the
Israeli Occupation Forces to build the Apartheid Wall on their land,
destroying millennium-old olive trees in the process, and separating
the villagers from much of their remaining farms and orchards, as
well.

I suppose that if the villagers had possessed F-16 fighter-bombers,
Apache helicopters and Merkava tanks, as do the Israelis, they might
not have chosen nonviolence. However, we saw no evidence that they
had even small arms or explosives, which is the most that
Palestinians have been able to acquire for defense, even in the
larger cities.

By mid-afternoon, around two hundred villagers gathered in front of
the mosque, along with thirty ISM volunteers who converged from
Ramallah, Tulkarem and Nablus. As we headed down to where the Wall
was being built, a dozen Israeli activists also joined us.

The foreigners were planning to be in the front lines, on the
assumption that Israeli soldiers are more respectful of their
lives. However, the Palestinians were too fast for us and first to
confront the soldiers. As the soldiers stopped some, others slipped
by, and soon the construction area started to fill up with
nonviolent resisters of various nationalities, ethnicities and
genders.

The Palestinian women were particularly impressive. They not only
were among the front ranks, but slapped the soldiers on the arm when
they tried to put their hands on them. A few stun grenades were
used (to little effect), but the quarters were much too close for
tear gas, which would have overwhelmed demonstrators and soldiers
alike. We knew that we had achieved something of a victory when the
construction equipment left the area. As there seemed little point
in remaining, we then headed back to the village.

The border police had not quite finished with us, however. They set
up a line near the village, and although they let everyone pass,
they stayed in place. Perhaps they just wanted to make sure that no
one tried to return to the construction site, but as we stood facing
them, I couldn't help but wonder how long the village youth would
let this provocation stand without reaction.

The first stones hit the ground and rolled away, but one bounced up
and hit a policeman on the leg. That was our cue to get out of the
way, but it was also an opportunity for the cops to lob tear gas and
stun grenades at us and the boys. We hauled out our onions and held
them to our mouths and noses. The gas didn't slow us down for long.

Now the police decided to make the village pay. They broke the
doors of several shops and houses and searched them for young men,
wrecking furniture and other belongings in the process. They also
fired on the boys, mostly plastic-coated steel bullets, as far as I
could tell.

All of this was gratuitous. After chasing the bulldozers away, we
had no reason to return to the construction site, if this was their
concern. If the police had left, nothing else would have happened.
Now a small war of attrition was under way, with the kids throwing
stones and the police using this pretext to inflict more serious
bodily and material damage. We learned afterward that several youth
were taken and beaten with batons away from our view, and several
more were shot with plastic-coated steel bullets.

Everyone but the IOF soldiers and police said, however, that they
were glad for our presence. According to them, it would have been
much worse otherwise. One man was detained with fifteen foreign
volunteers standing by, and while the detention itself may have been
unnecessary, it was apparently done by the book in under an hour,
and the detainee's ID card was returned. I stayed with the man for
most of his detention time, and asked the reason for it (harassment)
and if he needed anything (no). Afterwards, I asked him to tell me
frankly if our presence made any difference. He said that, indeed,
if we hadn't been there, he would likely have been detained for a
much longer time, his ID withheld for up to a week, and he would
probably have been beaten, as well. One vote of confidence.

We were also concerned that the advantages of our presence might be
lost soon after our departure. Although most of us left, therefore,
a small group decided to spend the night. The soldiers in fact
asked us how long we might be staying and where. I responded that
we were planning to stay as long as the village wanted and wherever
they wished to house us. We therefore spent a peaceful night and
left the following morning.

I cannot say that the action went off without a hitch, and our
debriefing covered things that we might have done better. However,
the most important objective was to show solidarity with the
villagers and to participate in their resistance. The Arabic word
for this is sumud ("steadfastness"). It means that Palestinians
will never accept to leave. It is the job of the rest of the world
to assure that they never have to.

Paul