Whose Security?

"Security" is an all-encompassing word for Israel that can justify virtually anything. Security is the reason for the Wall, the checkpoints, the home demolitions. It's the pretext for denying entire families from getting permits to access their own land that's been isolated by the Wall. Entire fields of olive trees have been razed to the ground for security purposes. No other explanation needs to be given, all of this is just done to ensure security. But whose security are we talking about? Who is being protected by all these measures, and who is really under threat?

Well, a little over a week ago, the Israeli army evicted about 250 settlers from a Palestinian house that they had been occupying in Hebron. The settler who said he bought the house (an American businessman from New York) said that this was his ancestral home, that the land belonged to him, and that he would not leave it. Some of the settlers who helped him occupy the house even threatened to start fighting with the army if they evicted them. And when the soldiers eventually got around to evicting the settlers, they did get really angry. But they didn't take it out on the soldiers, as they had threatened to do.

Instead, they took out all of their anger on the Palestinians. All over the West Bank, there were settler attacks on roads and in any villages that are unfortunate enough to have a settlement nearby. Palestinian houses were burned, cars were destroyed, buildings were vandalised, stones were thrown at people. There's even a video of a settler shooting two Palestinians point-blank.

You would think that these attacks would prompt a response from the army or the police. You would think that the authorities, who are supposed to provide security, would crack down on the settlers who were perpetrating these attacks. But the day after all this happened, I was in a car driving to a village up north, and along the road, we saw that at least one army jeep was stationed at the entrance to every Palestinian village. They were stopping people from entering villages, searching cars, etc. The fact that they were stationed at the villages doesn't seem to make sense. Shouldn't they be stationed at the settlements? Since it was the settlers who were attacking the Palestinians?

But instead, it's the Palestinians who got imprisoned in their own villages, who were subject to the humiliating roadside searches, who were treated like suspicious criminals just for entering or exiting their homes. So it's the Palestinians who were attacked, and the Palestinians who then paid the price and were punished for being attacked. It's all backwards.

And this is part of the security-mania that's everywhere in Israel. Israel's security is threatened, Israel is the vulnerable state, Israel needs to protect itself by any means necessary. But why does the occupier get to define what "security" is? Why does the settler who's sitting on stolen land and who's armed to the teeth get to say that the Palestinians threaten his security? Why does the soldier with his gun to a Palestinian's head get to say that he's enforcing security? And does Israel really think that it can achieve security by repressing an entire people?

The oppressor shouldn't be the one to make the security claim. And it definitely shouldn't be able to gain uncritical and unlimited international support for this claim. The entire dominant conception of security in relation to Israel-Palestine needs to be reversed. We have to look at the reality of the situation, and think about whose security we actually need to look out for. And we need to realize that security can never come from repression.

Resistance

On a slightly different note from my other posts, there are some really amazing, exciting things going on in the West Bank right now. Acts of resistance are springing up in lots of different villages, and the people are able to sustain the momentum from these initial acts, and turn them into regular, sustained resistance movements. These kinds of things are important to talk about because they're coming in the face of all the repression and harship that the people face on a daily basis.

The village that I'm most familiar with that's been rising up lately is called Jayyous, it's north of where I'm living. Right now, the Wall goes through village land, isolating most of the farmland that belongs to it, and cutting off 7 of the 8 artisan wells that serve the village. There's a gate through which villagers can pass to access their farmland, but nobody can pass unless they get a permit from Israel, and for most people, getting a permit is almost impossible. So for a village where 85% of the people are (were) farmers, most of whom can no longer access their farmland, this is absolutely devastating. Also, the gate is controlled by Israeli soldiers, who only open it once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and once in the evening. If you miss the opening, then too bad, you have to wait around. And keep in mind that this is all on Palestininan land, and all Jayyous land. In essence, the Israeli soldiers are in charge of who crosses from one half of the village to the other. It's absurd that the soldiers should have any jursidiction at all here.

But recently, there's been so much resistance in Jayyous because Israel has just implemented a court decision to move the Wall back a little bit. Might sound like a good thing, but it really isn't. With this decision, about 200 olive trees will be uprooted, in addition to the hundreds that have already been uprooted - some of them dating back to the Roman era - and almost 6,000 square kms of village land will be permanently confiscated. The villagers will have no access to their farmland, not even through the gate that's currently opened three times a day. In fact, there will be no gate at all. So what's going to happen to the village? What will the people who rely on that farmland do? It's not like they can all just move to the nearest city and find jobs.

So the people resist. They've been having these strong weekly demonstrations, and they aren't letting up. Normally the soldiers come and shoot tear gas and rubber bullets and sound bombs to quell the protests. Two weeks ago, though, the villagers somehow caught the army off guard, and they were able to march right to the Wall, where they proceeded to take rocks, sticks, anything they could find, and destroy the gate. People started tearing pieces of the gate off and taking them home. Really amazing, they actually tore down the gate, part of the Wall, this ultimate symbol of their oppression.

Obviously the soldiers didn't appreciate this, so they arrived on the scene firing rubber bullets and whatnot into the crowd. Over the next week, the soldiers continually threatened the villagers, coming into the village at 2 or 3 in the morning to harrass and intimidate people, carrying out door to door investigations, threatening to use massive violence if another protest took place.

So, in the face of these threats, what do the villagers do? Do they back down and allow their livelihoods be stolen from them? Well, no. Actually, they do the opposite. The next demonstration was even bigger than the earlier one, with everyone in the village, women, men, old people, youth, everyone coming out to demonstrate. They simply will not back down, will not let up, and will not stand for the perpetuation of occupation and increased colonization. Allowing this to happen isn't even an option for them. This is their home, and they're not giving it up, and no amount of threat or repression is going to change that.

The spirit of resistance that these people have is really incredible, and really inspiring. And this spirit is spreading around the West Bank, so now there are many villages doing similar things. I don't think the army knows what to do with them, because they've tried about everything short of mass arrests, and nothing is stopping the villagers. And at this point, the villagers are so strong and have so much momentum that if they try mass arrests, the people will become even more militant. In the end, the demonstrations probably won't directly result in the Wall being torn down. But it's the spirit that's important. By keeping this spirit alive, and by spreading it around the country, the resistance to occupation is certainly not going away, no matter what the people are up against.