Israel Threatens (another) Palestinian Advocate of Non-Violence
Daoud Nasser is one of my heroes. His family owns a plot on top of a hill between the village of Nahalin and the illegal settlement of Neve Daniel. When you enter the land, there is a stone which reads “We Refuse to Be Enemies.” I’ve been there many times, and I know few other Palestinian families who encourage visiting Jewish groups (I’ve visited the Nasser’s most often with Encounter) to sing and pray, and who take such joy from the expression of all faiths in their home.
From Mondoweiss:
Their story is a both typical and unique. The land has been in the family’s hands since the Ottoman times, but beginning in the early 1990s, the Israeli military has sought to confiscate the property. Undaunted, the Nassar family have developed their land and established the ‘Tent of Nations‘ project, whose activities include “educating local children from the refugee camps about rural Palestine, hosting young people for camps and activities such as open-air theatre, and acting as a forum for internationals and Palestinians to get to know each other”. The Nassars have also grown strong links with international supporters, including in Germany, the USA and UK.
Daoud sent out the following e-mail on Thursday:
Today at 2.00 pm in the afternoon, 2 officers form the Israeli Civil Administration guarded by Israeli soldiers came to our farm and gave us NINE demolishing orders for nine ( structures) we built in the last years without a building permit from the Israeli Military Authority. The demolishing orders are for: tents, animals shelters, metal roof in front of both old houses, the restrooms (Shelters) , a water cistern, a metal container and 2 underground renovated cave structures. One officer was writing the demolishing orders and the other was taking pictures with two cameras, Israeli soldiers were following them everywhere and pointing their guns on us.
The demolishing orders were written in Hebrew and I refused to sign receiving them. We have 3 days only to react against those demolishing orders. The timing for delivering the demolishing orders was plant properly and purposely on Thursday, in order to make it difficult for us to try to stop those orders by the Israeli court within 3 days, because of the Jewish weekend (Friday and Saturday). The idea is to make it impossible for us to act quickly. I contacted our Lawyer and he will write an opposition and send it to the military court on Sunday morning. We hope to get a paper from the court through our Lawyer on Sunday morning to stop the demolishing orders.
We would like to ask you to be prepared and alert for actions, if anything might happen. We will keep you updated and will guide you for actions but please forward this E-mail to your friends.
PLEASE be prepared for actions… Thank you for all your solidarity and support.
They are trying to destroy our spirit, but we are determined to resist and overcome the Evil with GOOD and justice will prevail.
Blessings and Salaam,
Daoud
[email protected]
2Sam 12, all over again.
It’s funny… you’d almost think that Israel wants to suppress nonviolent resistance instead of allowing it to grow as an alternative to violent resistance.
One of these days, Israel…. One of the days I’m gonna knock you to the moon!
JG- apologies for possibly missing your sarcasm, but that’s one of the dangers of a blog.
But in case it’s not sarcasm- isn’t it obvious that Israel wants to suppress nonviolent resistance? Doesn’t every authority figure want to suppress all forms of resistance against it, nonviolent or otherwise?
Have fun knocking Israel to the moon, but it seems that nonviolently resisting Israel might be more successful.
For decades, Palestinians murdered Jews to advance their national interests. Instead of discrediting their ideology, the Israeli government chose to discredit their violent tactics, and did so rather successfully. The flip side is that the ideology of the PLO, to create a state, became accepted, even by all Israeli governments.
Today, all a Palestinian has to do to advance their national interest these days is not kill Jews, and everything will be granted them – unlimited foreign capital, access to all markets, a private army. Many are still having trouble adjusting to the new paradigm – DON’T kill and get what you want. It must translate strange into Arabic.
I wonder what will be the consequence if Israelis privately “resisted” the creation of a Palestinian state: handed out information on boycotting Palestinian products. Confiscated and burned Palestinian produce. Actively sought to undermine Palestinian international diplomacy. Violated Palestinian cities with mass marches and stone throwing. Attempted to indict Palestinian leaders in European courts.
Would Jewschool readers still support non-violence in this case, or is some non-violence more equal than others?
How much pressure is needed to force Israel to relinquish control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including occupied Arab East Jerusalem?
I’m not sure.
But whatever the pressure entails, whatever brilliant mix of violent and nonviolent, Israeli, Palestinian and international pressure, I support it. At the moment the Israeli state bends like a reed or snaps like a dry branch and the Palestinians across the Green Line start dancing the hora in Palestine square – that’s the moment when I’ll start thinking about how to strengthen the state of Israel.
I think nonviolence is a better, more strategic option. But the important thing isn’t the tactic, it’s the outcome: an Israel that no longer occupies, that can no longer occupy. A cat with a bell. A dog with a muzzle. A weak old man ashamed of his past and eager to please the neighbors.
While it would be nice to have an Israel that is like Germany in the 50’s, eager to look nice in new democratic clothes, I’ll settle grudgingly for an Israel more like Serbia after the NATO wars – broke, humiliated, and resentful. As long as the pro-occupation camp is defeated in every sense of the word.
That’s what Jewish liberation looks like in 2010.
Just so it’s all clear A-mouse. My loyalty is to a post occupation future Israel. I’m as loyal to that entity as you are to the occupation enforcing “actually existing” Israel. My Israel gets to exist only if your Israel is eliminated.
I’m not here to support the Palestinians. They way I see it, the Palestinians are supporting my team in the struggle to defeat yours. If all goes well, the future Israel will be so antagonistic to the fundies, settlers and hawks, that thousands will eagerly emigrate back to Russia, America and France.
Then maybe I’ll go back home.
B’shana haba’a b’yerushalayim hamechuleket.
You said it better than I ever could. THIS is the new left, the irresponsible left, the left that has no solutions to achieve real peace – the one where other people stop trying to kill Jews. THIS is why they are no longer in power in Israel, why they have been rejected by successive Israeli elections and now reside on the english language version of Haaretz.
This is no longer about human rights and human lives to the new left, it is about infantalism – about being proven right, and forcing a nation that rejected their denial of reality to be humiliated, the way it humiliated them at election time. Che says it perfectly, this isn’t about justice for Palestinians, it is about justice for HIM, about destroying HIS enemies and proving HIM right.
Thank you for your honesty, grotesque though it may be,
“I wonder what will be the consequence if Israelis privately “resisted” the creation of a Palestinian state: handed out information on boycotting Palestinian products. Confiscated and burned Palestinian produce. Actively sought to undermine Palestinian international diplomacy. Violated Palestinian cities with mass marches and stone throwing. Attempted to indict Palestinian leaders in European courts.”
Most of that is already happening! And stone-throwing is hardly non-violent – we’re fairly clear on that. But you consider a “mass march” to be “violating a city”? Presumably you refer to the non-violent rallies conducted in Tel Aviv by Israelis, permits and all. I certainly hope you don’t go to any rallies in cities, or that’d make you a hypocrite.
Also, you’re assuming that the goal of most Palestinian activists is the end of Israel rather than the end of the occupation. Most BDS activists state the latter as their goal, and it’d be intellectually dishonest to conflate that with the goals of, say, Hamas. All of the above point to holding Israel accountable for its actions. When you try to turn that argument around, it should be about making the PA accountable to its people as well as the outside world, and NOT about resisting the creation of a state. THAT’S the key difference.
(Unless you honestly believe that the existence of Israel is incumbent on it being never accountable for its actions. In that case, JG’s view rings even more true!)
BTW, thanks for painting a broad brush with regards to JG’s ONE view. I’m certainly not going to dismissively dismiss your comments as the dismissibly dismissable of the dismissable right.
Anyone who thinks I represent the average member of the Jewschool community isn’t reading properly. That said, in public, I try to carefully appear to be in the mainstream of the Jewschool community.
That said, there is something I appreciate about this community. Jewschoolers on the left don’t play the game of supporting one view or another because of sympathy for Palestinians. This is a community concerned about the holiness of the Jewish people. My sense, is that folks on the left here (as opposed to the new left you confuse me with) care more about a Jewish future we can be proud of than the likely success or failure of the Palestinian national project.
That’s their business.
When I write New Left (TM) I’m referring to the New Left of sheikh jarrah fame, which published a manifesto that sounds an auful lot like what you wrote, JG. You can appear hoever you want, and believe whatever you want. I’m not here to pigeonhole you. I thought you are proud of being the New Left, which is no longer forced to tie problems to solutions, but instead ties ideology disengaged from reality to solutions. I don’t think permitting the murder of Jews adds to their holyness, and the vast majority of Jews agree. We’ve had enough korbones.
“All a Palestinian has to do to advance their national interest these days is not kill Jews, and everything will be granted them”
This seems an incredibly dismissive way to refer to people who are spending their lives working for peace in very difficult conditions.
It sounds to me like fear of acknowledging the humanity of real individuals.
Yeilah, what you wrote appears to be nonsensical. Please explain how stating that Palestinians who don’t kill Jews will have everything they want granted them, with only minor qualifications, equates to fear of acknowledging the humanity of “real individuals”.
I actually think your grouping all Palestinians together under the mantra of “people who are spending their lives working for peace in very difficult conditions” is quite dismissive of “real individuals” who have not done any such thing, and have and remain committed to violence against Jews and other Arabs they don’t agree with.