Fault Lines Issue 2: Deported, but not Demoralized

Deported, but not Demoralized
An Interview with Brooke Atherton


Brooke Atherton is a Bay Area activist dedicated to fighting Israel’s repression of Palestine. On June 24, six days after Brooke was deported from Israel, Fault Lines talked to her via e-mail. Writing from Beirut, Brooke wanted to stress that this situation is not about her; it is about the movement for a free Palestine…

Fault Lines: What were you hoping to accomplish while in Israel?

Brooke Atherton: I went to Palestine to study Arabic and do support
work for the International Solidarity Movement’s
Freedom Summer campaign: A mobilization of the
Palestinian people for justice, for rights and for
freedom. Like the civil rights movement in the United
States, India's national liberation movement and the
anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, Freedom
Summer will utilize nonviolent direct action
strategies and tactics to overcome oppression by challenging illegal Israeli occupation forces and policies.

FL: Why were you deported from Israel (what were the
official reasons, what were the real reasons)?

BA: Ultimately, on Thursday, June 18, an Israeli judge
ruled in court that solely based on “secret evidence”
proving my connection to the International Solidarity
Movement, I was considered a security threat and would
not be allowed to enter the country. The
International Solidarity Movement is a Palestinian-led
movement of Palestinian and International activists
working to raise awareness of the struggle for
Palestinian freedom and an end to Israeli occupation.
(I do work with the International Solidarity Movement,
but I never provided this information to Israel, so
the evidence they have is based on some form of
surveillance.)

FL: What should other activists fighting for Palestinian sovereignty
learn from your ordeal?

BA: Israel’s decision to deny my entry proves a couple of
things to us: first, that our work in exposing the
racist and brutal nature of Israel is working.
They are so threatened by our work that they will go
to extreme lengths to detain and deport someone who
has no resources except my ability to witness and
report what is happening to Palestinians under
occupation. Israel is so threatened by this exposure
that it is going to extreme lengths and expending
resources to squash the truth. This should lead us to
continue to do what we are doing by spreading the
truth about what is happening in Palestine to people
in the U.S. (Israel’s biggest financial and political
supporter) and by visiting Palestine (and I encourage
people who can to do so).

Secondly, my experience is only a hint of the level of
repression that Palestinians must endure in resisting
the occupation every day of their lives, since they do
not have the privileges of internationals. Israel
continues to deny the right of over 5 million
Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland.
Israel maintains a systematic policy of brutally
repressing Palestinian communities and organizations
that use non-violent means to struggle for justice and
freedom. This repression ranges from preventing
internationals who want to work with these groups from
entering the country, to regular arrests and assaults
upon, and murders by, Israeli soldiers of both
Palestinians and internationals who participate in
non-violent actions with Palestinian groups. In the
last few months alone, Israeli soldiers have murdered
at least five people during non-violent demonstrations
against Israel’s annexation wall in the West Bank, and
during Israel’s deadly and destructive attack on
Rafah, Gaza, in May, Israeli soldiers opened fire on a
peaceful demonstration killing against the attack, killing at
least ten Palestinians, including five children. This
week four non-violent Palestinian protesters were
arrested at a peaceful demonstration against the
annexation wall and are now facing interrogation and indefinite imprisonment.

Despite this brutal repression, Palestinian resistance
to Israel’s occupation and ethnic cleansing continues; the village of Az-Awiyya has been daily stopping
construction of Israel’s annexation wall for two weeks
now. Palestine solidarity activists need to continue
to support this resistance, whether through education,
media work, direct action, etc. in the U.S. or by
traveling to Palestine to work with the International
Solidarity Movement. People considering going to
Palestine should not be afraid to try because of what
happened to me, this would allow Israel the victory in
squashing our efforts at solidarity. Many people are
getting in to Palestine every day, others like myself
are at least making it costly and difficult for Israel
to continue this policy by challenging it through
non-violent resistance and legal appeals, and there
are always back up plans.

FL: What are your plans now?

BA: To study Arabic in Beirut, Lebanon and learn about the
experiences of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon
volunteering with a Palestinian-led women’s
organization that works in the Palestinian refugee
camps in Lebanon.

For more information, visit http://www.palsolidarity.org.