Posts by Mikopeled:
Nabi Saleh, Summer 2012
October 4th, 2012By Miko Peled
Israeli soldiers, good only for fighting unarmed civilians, can’t handle a serious fighting force.
This past summer I drove once again from Jerusalem to Nabi Saleh, a small village in the West Bank known for its ongoing resistance to Israel, and this time I noted the landmarks along the way: Ofer military Prison, built like a fortress, grey and menacing where countless Palestinian political prisoners are held because of their resistance to Israel, often without trial. Modi’in Elit, an Israeli city built for orthodox Jews only, many of them new immigrants, on lands that belong to the neighboring village of Bil’in. A sign along the way reads: “By Order of the Military Commander, Israelis and Israeli Vehicles are Prohibited from Entering the Palestinian Villages Along This Road.”
I ignored the warning sign and continued along “this road” which winds through the hills of the central West Bank and I could see terraces covered with olive trees and grape vines. I noted also that although many of the Palestinian towns and villages along this road are known the world over as centers for non-violent resistance to Israel, and although Israelis are prohibited from entering them, they remain unmarked. Only the Israeli settlements are clearly marked. I note the contrast between the heavily stone-built Israeli settlements and the natural landscape, and it seems as though the settlers are on a mission to rape the country and leave it scarred.
Earlier that week I called Bassem Tamimi and asked if I could come to Nabi Saleh on Thursday and stay there till after the weekly protest on Friday.
“You want to spend the night in Nabi Saleh and return home Friday after the protest?”
“Yes”
“Ahlan wa sahlan, you are welcome.”
It was late in the afternoon on Thursday, when I reached the village and the heat was unbearable. The thermometer in my mother’s little white Suzuki showed 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 Fahrenheit). We sat in the living room, Bassem’s kids were playing around in another part of the house and from time to time the youngest, Salaam, would come in to complain about his older brother.
There are about 500 people in Nabi Saleh and I asked Bassem if he knows when people came to live in this beautiful corner of the West Bank. He smiled and told me the following story: The village elders were sitting in the square by the mosque one day when someone walked by and asked one of them how long he had been living there. “I don’t know” he replied, “but I do remember sitting right here one hot afternoon, when all of a sudden Adam showed up looking for Eve.”
I reminded Bassem of the day I visited him about a year and a half earlier. It was my first visit to the village, and I wasn’t sure if he would remember. He had spent 13 of the last 18 months locked up in Ofer prison. But as we spoke I could see that it was coming back to him.
“Yes, it was a very violent day. I remember exactly, and I remember you came with Ali Abu Awad from Beit Ummar.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Ali disagrees with the stone throwing” Bassem added.
“Yes, he does.”
Ali is a Palestinian friend of mine, well known and admired among activists; He is a veteran peace activist himself from the town of Beit Ummar near Hebron.
“My father was Matti Peled, I said, “Do you know who he was.”
“Matti Peled,” his face lit up. “Yes, of course.”
Bassem told me that in the aftermath of the second intifada a few veteran Palestinians with a history of resistance got together to offer people a different way of resistance. “The Al Aqsa intifada did not give an answer to the occupation and we needed a different way to resist. The non-violent resistance was what we chose.” He continued, “But we don’t all agree on the issue of the rocks. The rock is a symbol of the Palestinian struggle.” Bassem said to me. “I don’t think we can tell our youth they have to accept the army presence and the violence that army inflicts on them and sit and do nothing. Throwing rocks at the army is not violence.” Other Palestinians disagree.
We talked about the protests and the struggle against Israel for many hours. “The Israelis that join us here at the weekly protest,” he said “I don’t see them as outsiders or as just expressing solidarity. I see them as partners.” We agreed that in the end the best solution, is a single democracy where we can live together in peace.
Since the non-violent protests began a couple of years ago, the village gets regular late night raids and young boys and men are arrested, beaten and tortured regularly. Much of this is recorded and made available on Youtube by Tamimi Press and others. But Bassem told me that resistance and the IDF brutality are not new to Nabi Saleh. “The resistance in the village began before the first intifada.”
Bassem also told me that in 1993, as the Oslo accords were being signed in Washington, DC, and many of us naively believed Israel intended to make peace, he was arrested and tortured. “They shook me so hard that I was in a coma for several days. When I awoke I was paralyzed, I didn’t know if I would ever get out of bed. Once I was released I found out that my only sister was killed by Israelis.”
In the evening, we sat outside and I had dinner with Bassem and his family. Later on people came for coffee and fruit and stayed to talk until late into the night. One serious problem the people of Nabi Saleh have to face daily is the ongoing violence from the settlers who live in the settlement Halamish. It was built on Nabi Saleh land and its residents are hardcore, fanatical, religious Israelis and they are particularly violent. The night before I arrived they burned a row of olive trees just below the village.
I was awakened the next morning to the sounds of shots being fired. I got dressed quickly and stepped out. Bassem and his wife and a few neighbors were already outside. In the distance we saw a cloud of tear gas and heard the shouting of soldiers and saw young Palestinians running on the hills. “That’s another thing that is different in Nabi Saleh,” Bassem explained. “The resistance is not limited to certain days or times, our youth engage the army regularly.” It was only 6:30 am and the heat was already oppressive. “There is no wind to blow away the tear gas.” Bassem said sounding worried, “if it stays like this, it will make things very difficult during the protest.”
After mid day prayers we set off on the march. I counted about 150 adults and thirty kids. Soldiers waited for us on the road just down from the village, but we walked in the other direction, up the hill, overlooking the main road and Halamish.
Within minutes countless soldiers in full combat gear began climbing the hill towards us. They were moving very slowly and very steady. It had to be over 100 degrees by that time and the climb was steep. Having been an infantry soldier in the IDF myself, I knew that for the soldiers in their gear it had to be hell. How stupid can they be? Regardless of what nonsense they were being told, they were not saving the world from tyranny or terror — just chasing a few unarmed peace activists.
The soldiers were closing in on us so we moved back towards the village only to be met by Israeli border police, also armed to the teeth. One of them placed his hand on me and yelled out: “this one is detained.” So many soldiers, so much effort and all they had to show for at the end of the day was a few other Israeli activists and me, whom everyone knew would be released by the end of the day. One soldier, a woman with long brown hair, looked at me intensely, and through the plastic cover of her helmet she said: “you are Jewish, you should be ashamed to be here.” “Why?” I asked, “Jewish people should always fight injustice.”
As the others and I were all driven away by armored military vehicles I could see that the village was swarming with hundreds of soldiers running around, pretending to be in a combat zone. Luckily for them, there was no enemy, no army for them to fight. As Hezbollah proved in 2006 when they humiliated the Israeli army, Israeli soldiers are only good for fighting unarmed civilians, they can’t handle a serious fighting force.
As the army jeep with me in it drove away, I recalled that six months earlier 28-year-old Mustafa Tamimi was shot and killed on that very road. He died from his wounds on December 10, 2011, my fiftieth birthday. He was shot in the face with a tear gas canister during the Friday protest as countless people were watching. The jeep from which the shot was fired was easily identifiable, but it simply drove away. As I looked at the soldiers around me all I could think was: “which one of you murdered Mustafa Tamimi?”
Has The Zionist Inquisition Come to These Shores?
June 30th, 2012By Miko Peled.
According to a report published Feb 7, 2012 by The Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security, titled “Terrorism in the Decade Since 9/11,” written by Charles Kurzman, – Muslims in the US pose “a minuscule threat to public safety.” The report states among other things that out of 14,000 murders that took place in the US in 2011 not a single one resulted from Muslim extremists. It further states that 20 Muslim-Americans committed or were arrested for terrorist crimes in 2011, down from 26 in 2010 and 49 in 2009. Besides the fact that the numbers are declining, the worst case was 49 people out of a population of over five million Muslims living in the US. So why are Muslim Americans being singled out at airports? Why is Congressman Peter King, so dedicated to investigating a community where such an insignificant number of people have been involved in violent crimes? It would seem that like the inquisition, which in the 15th century persecuted its victims in Europe and then followed them to the Americas, Zionist persecution of Palestinians (and by default, Muslims in general), has reached the US.
One can understand why Israel, a racist chauvinistic state keeps thousands of Palestinians in jail. Israel is at war with the Palestinians and will not tolerate any significant resistance to its brutal ethnic cleansing campaign. So like any other rogue state, Israel places freedom fighters in prison. Israel uses the security excuse to humiliate and discriminate against palestinians, even when the Palestinians are law abiding Israeli citizens. And in terms of numbers, according to the Palestinian prisoner support and human rights association Adameer’s latest report, the total number of Palestinian political prisoners in Israel is 4610. Out of those there are 322 administrative detainees 203 child prisoners 31 of them under 16 years of age. They site 6 female prisoners and there are 27 Palestinian Legislative Council members who are imprisoned and 456 prisoners from Gaza who have not received any family visits since 2007. A map of Israeli prisons and detention facilities in Israel demonstrates more than anything that Israel is indeed a prison state.
Compared to other inmates, those placed in the CMU have little contact with the outside world. It is reported that at least $14 million is spent on surveillance of the prisoners in CMUs and that a counterterrorism team in West Virginia monitors all their verbal communication. In contrast with ordinary inmates, in ordinary prisons, where the visitation standard includes unlimited contact during visitation day, CMU prisoners are banned from any physical contact with visiting friends and family, including babies, infants, and minor children. All communication is done using a phone through a glass wall. According to family members who I met, loved ones often travel for over ten hours spending time and money to reach the CMU and once they arrive, if the phone doesn’t work the prison officials will not allow them to continue the visit. According to the Center for Constitutional rights, “Individuals detained in the CMUs receive no meaningful explanation for their transfer to the unit or for the extraordinary communications restrictions to which they are subjected. Upon designation to the unit, there is no meaningful review or appeal process that allows CMU prisoners to be transferred back to general population. Many CMU prisoners have neither significant disciplinary records nor any communications-related infractions. However, bias, political scapegoating, religious profiling and racism keep them locked inside these special units.”
One aspect of the Holy Land Foundation case that should certainly raise serious questions is the fact that two expert witnesses were brought in from Israel. A Mossad agent and an Israeli army intelligence officer, two sources of intelligence known for their illegal activities worldwide and their horrific record on human and civil rights. One would do well not to trust or to take at fee value any information emanating from these sources as they are well known for their lax attitude toward the truth. Both men were identified only by first names which were probably not their own, yet they had provided what the prosecution considered important evidence.
This goes to the childish awe with which Americans hold the Israeli security services. The word of Israeli security seems to be as unimpeachable here as it is in Israel. This is frighteningly similar to court cases in Israel where Palestinian political prisoners are conveniently not allowed to face their accusers who are often security officers with first names only. The excuse is of course, “security considerations.”
In Israel it is acceptable to disguise all crimes against Palestinians with “security” considerations. It seems that today this the case in US as well.