Category: Writing

Articles by Mya Guarnieri

How does Israel stop Palestinians from protesting?

by adminin Israel, Palestine, Politics, Writing

Al Jazeera English, October 19, 2015

Israeli police came to activist Adan Tartour’s home in Jaffa at half past midnight on October 7, and pounded on the door. When the Tartours opened it, police said that they had an arrest warrant.

Adan Tartour, 18, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, was put under arrest for “suspicion of violence and terror” – only because she’d signed up to take a bus to a protest in Nazareth.

Tartour, and other activists, were detained on suspicion of planning “illegal” demonstrations.

“They had an arrest warrant for me and my father,” Tartour explains, adding that this was the case with other female detainees. “They were arrested with their fathers… It’s humiliating and chauvinistic,” she told Al Jazeera.

She and her father were taken to a local police station before being transferred to Nazareth, where they arrived at 4:30 in the morning. During the interrogation, which began at 5:30am, police repeatedly told Tartour that she “is a shame to her family” and that her actions are “not good for her family”.

She felt that this orientalist appeal to “family honour” was an attempt to dissuade her from protesting.

“But what they don’t understand is that our [Palestinian] families stand by their daughters,” she says.

Rights groups say that dozens of Palestinians are being detained in what they describe as a wave of “preventive arrests” that reflect Israel’s attempts to quell Palestinian resistance against its excessive use of force against protesters and the extrajudicial killings of Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

According to Adalah, the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, the detainees have been subject to preventive arrests before they attended demonstrations. Like Tartour, most of those detained have no criminal record.

As of today, between 160 to 200 Palestinian activists have been arrested either before or during protests, according to Adalah. Of those detained, 40 are still being held as Israeli authorities seek to lengthen their imprisonment.

Sawsan Zaher, a lawyer with Adalah, says that these arrests are illegal. “According to Israeli law, you cannot arrest a person based on the fear that in the future they might commit a crime,” she explains, adding that stopping people from protesting is a “violation of their right to freedom of expression”.

It’s not only demonstrators and their family members who are being locked up. Several bus drivers who attempted to transport protesters to Nazareth – but were turned back by police outside of the city – were later arrested.

“Police claimed that the drivers themselves had participated in an ‘illegal’ demonstration,” Zaher says, even though the protest “did not need authorisation in the first place” and despite the fact that the buses did not actually reach the protest sites.

The buses were also impounded. As of October 13, the vehicles were still in police custody.

Not only have the courts upheld requests to extend the activists’ detention, but they have also, at times, accepted highly questionable “evidence”.

“Judges referred to onions [found on demonstrators] as an indication that the protesters meant for a violent demonstration,” Zaher explains. “We have never seen onions being referred to as a legal defence.”

Onions are sometimes used as temporary treatment for exposure to tear gas, which Israeli military and police forces regularly use on peaceful Palestinian demonstrators.

Zaher adds that judges have also detained Palestinian citizens based on investigation material to which she and other defence attorneys do not have access.

In one case, a minor who doesn’t know Hebrew was being held on the basis of a “testimony that was written in Hebrew” and signed by the child.

Minors’ legal rights are being violated in other ways, as well.

According to Israeli law, minors’ parents should be informed and are allowed to be with their child during questioning. Children may also have a social worker present, and minors should not be interrogated after 10:00pm.

Lawyers have seen some or all of these rules ignored by Israeli authorities during this wave of arrests.

Farah Bayadsi, a lawyer representing a number of activists and minors who were detained, echoes similar views about police preventing detainees from getting the legal counsel they are entitled to according to Israeli law.

“A police officer intervened when I was giving a 14-year-old teenage [girl] legal consultation before her interrogation, as [provided for in] the law. The policeman kicked me out of the office and told me that my time was up,” Bayadsi says.

 

For some, the recent events are reminiscent of the Israeli military regime that ruled over Palestinian citizens of the state from 1948 until 1966.

Shira Robinson, an associate professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University and the author of Citizen Strangers: Palestinians and the birth of Israel’s liberal settler state, remarks, “There were tonnes of preventive detentions” of Palestinian citizens of Israel between 1948 and 1966. “It was the name of the game.”

She offers the example of Israeli authorities’ attempts to stop the commemoration of the Kafr Qasim massacre, which took place in October of 1956.

In the days and nights before the anniversary, “Israeli authorities would round up known activists ahead of time. That was standard fare”.

Zaher says that it’s unnecessary to look that far afield. She remarks that the manner in which Israeli police and courts have handled protesters points to a fundamental difference in the way the state treats and views its Palestinian citizens versus its Jewish ones.

Ultimately, she says, Israeli authorities handle Palestinian citizens similarly to Palestinians in the occupied territories: “It doesn’t matter where you are – if you’re Palestinian, you’re an enemy and you’re a threat.”

The Israeli legal system, Zaher continues, “is based on a perspective of a Palestinian … as an alien. When they are viewed as an enemy and this is anchored in the law, then you have the legitimisation to do anything”.

While Adan’s father was released early morning on October 8, her detention was upheld and extended by an Israeli court. After four days, she was let go with the caveat that she might be taken in for additional questioning, and under the condition that she stay away from Nazareth for two weeks.

She is also “forbidden from joining protests”.

And that’s the ultimate goal, according to Tartour and others: The Israelis want to frighten Palestinian citizens and thus stop them from demonstrating.

Reflecting on her experience, Tartour is troubled by a number of things, particularly the treatment of minors, the court’s role in upholding and extending detention, and the state’s attempts to depict Palestinian protests as illegal.

When Tartour appeared in court and her detention was extended, Tartour recalls: “The judge said because of what’s happening in the state … they couldn’t interfere with the police’s work. So what is the courts’ job?”

Read the longer version at +972 Magazine.

 

 

Which is the ‘right’ side of the Green Line these days?

by adminin Israel, Palestine, Writing

+972 Magazine, October 12, 2015

Thursday morning: I wake up and check the news this morning to see what happened last night and then head to the doctor’s in north Tel Aviv. I’m 24 weeks pregnant — yes, with a Jewish-Palestinian baby. My physician in Florida, where we live now, has advised me to keep up with my medical care in Israel even though I’ll only be here for six weeks to freshen up my research for the book I’ve just sold.

I’m a few minutes late to my appointment . When the doctor’s door opens, the woman who is scheduled after me steps right on in. She shuts the door in my face. I check the list next to the door and announce the time of my appointment aloud.

“So, it’s your turn,” the other women who are waiting say. They urge me to knock and assert myself.

I knock and the patient who just entered opens the door. “I’m sorry,” I begin, “but I had the 8:40 appointment.”

She shrugs, smiles. “But you were late.” And the door slams shut in my face again.

“Israelim,” Israelis, one of the women smirks.

When the door opens again and the patient emerges, I’m quick to make my way into the doctor’s office. We talk for a few minutes about what tests I’ve already had in the States, their results, and how I’m feeling. At my American doctor’s insistence, I’ve brought my medical records with me. I offer them to the doctor. He says they’re not necessary and then he sends me on my way to get checked for gestational diabetes.

As I’m leaving, there’s a commotion in the lobby. A Filipino man has followed an elderly Israeli couple into the building.

“They hit my car!” he shouts in English.

No one responds.

“You hit my car!” he tries again to the couple.

The clerk — a Palestinian citizen of the state I spoke to on my way in — goes about his business. Another elderly couple puzzles over a piece of paper.

“You hit my car and you’re angry with me?” his voice indignant.

I step onto the sidewalk just as the Filipino man is heading towards parallel parking.

“Look,” he says, pointing. “I was there, they pulled in and hit me, and then they got out, didn’t apologize, and yelled at me.”

“Israelim,” I say.

“Look at how much room they took!” he continues, pointing to the couples’ vehicle, which was, indeed, taking up two spaces. “And they hit me!”

The worst part, he tells me again, is that when they got out of their car, they started shouting at and blaming him rather than apologizing.

I think of Israelis’ reactions to the events of this week — their inability to reflect on what has brought Palestinians to this point. I think of Israelis’ unwillingness to understand the stabbings as violent responses to the violent occupation that began in 1948 for some and 1967 for others, depending on who you ask.

I think of what’s happening, specifically, in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, where Israel has taken most of the land and resources and is constantly expropriating more. Where there isn’t enough land and houses for normal population growth, where Palestinians are forced to build “illegally” because the Israeli government refuses to grant them the necessary permits. Where one might have to then pay for the demolition of their own home.

Where the economy has been crushed by the occupation; where there is no freedom of movement; where the lack of freedom of movement further suffocates the economy, feeding only the sense of desperation.

Where there is no hope. No hope for anything — a decent job, a good income, a normal life. Where there is little trust in the PA or politicians or negotiations that wrought the current reality, Oslo, or the negotiations that are resurrected from time to time just maintain an unbearable status quo.

I think of the place my former students live, the place where they left home every morning for school, uncertain that they would make it through the checkpoints and arrive, let alone on time. The place where a student might find that a friend hasn’t made it — maybe his classmate has been taken to administrative detention. Or maybe he has been shot. Who knows? One’s fate is just as uncertain as the roads in the territories.

The stabbings are screams of frustration, rage, despair, hopelessness. They’re the screams of people who are lost, who have no leadership and see nothing on the horizon. I think of the Israelis’ inabilities to hear these screams; I think of how they hear no one’s voices but their own.

Next to me, the Filipino man is still going on about his car.

He’s looking for consolation, which he won’t get from the elderly couple. I simply repeat back to him what he’s already said to me. “Israelis don’t take responsibility for their actions,” I say. “Instead, they get angry and blame others.”

He shakes his head and cradles his face in his hands as he stands on the sidewalk, looking at the damage done to his vehicle.

Later that day, when I arrive back at the city center, I notice a pile of old hand-painted tiles on the sidewalk near my apartment. They’ve been placed there, neatly stacked one on top of the other, by the Palestinian workers doing the renovation in the building next to mine.

I pick a tile up, brush the dust off, and examine it. I contemplate taking it back to Florida to join the other pre-state tiles I collected in both Tel Aviv and Bethlehem — souvenirs from a time when things were different, from a time when the land wasn’t divided. Remnants from a time when there was still such a thing as Palestinian Jews.

One of the workers joins me on the sidewalk. “Something interesting to you here, miss?” he asks.

“These,” I say. “Are they garbage?”

“Yes, that’s why they’re here.”

As we’re talking, another stabbing is taking place. This time, it’s in Tel Aviv.

“It’s a pity,” I say, “to throw these things away.”

“Death,” he says. “That’s what’s really a pity.”

Read the full article at +972 Magazine.

88 pieces made it into the ACCH’s biennial show

by adminin Miscellaneous, Writing

Broward Palm Beach New Times, September 15, 2015

The Art and Culture Center of Hollywood is a quaint yellow building with stately palm trees and well-landscaped shrubbery. Usually, it’s the art inside that’s controversial — not the politics surrounding the place. But over the summer, Jane Hart, who had been the curator for eight years, and who was instrumental in building the center’s reputation as a standout in the contemporary art scene, left the institution amid rumors of friction with administrators. As “an act of solidarity,” two high-profile curators who were slated to serve as jurors for a major upcoming art show likewise stepped down.

Though the well-loved Hart has not been replaced, the center seems to be managing fine so far with independent curators. Another well-admired denizen of the local art scene stepped in to save the day just in time for one of the ACCH’s most important shows: the Seventh All-Media Juried Biennial. One of the most significant art events in the state, Hollywood’s Biennial takes place every other year. Awards will go to Best in Show, First, Second, and Third places as well as Honorable Mentions.

Michele Weinberg is curating the show. Weinberg is the creative director of Girls’ Club gallery in Fort Lauderdale. She has designed a mosaic for Hollywood ArtsPark colored-asphalt crosswalks and sidewalks in Tampa, and murals for Celebrity Cruise Lines and for Facebook’s Miami offices. Lately, she’s been doing thought-provoking but playful pattern work with tiles and rugs.

For the Biennial, which has an opening reception on the evening of Friday, September 18, nearly 400 established and emerging artists from across Florida (the contest is open only to state residents) submitted their work for consideration. Of their 1083 entries—which ran the gamut from paintings, sculptures, performances, video, computer-generated images, and installations tailored especially for the site—only 88 pieces made the cut.

Weinberg explains that the jurors — including Elizabeth Cerejido, a former curator at Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts, and and Marisa J. Pascucci, a curator at the Boca Raton Museum of Art — picked “the most realized” works, works that have some “sort of statement that’s gelled and is alive in that piece.” She characterizes the art included in the show as “risky and inventive,” and said that much of it “has a narrative to the storytelling.”

While the layperson such as myself might not always see the narrative, the works are provocative in the least. Justin Gaffey’s “Attached”—composed of steel, acrylic, string, and graphite on a wood panel—offers a female figure that partially obscured by red threads. The strings are taut, evoking a feeling of tension. The image asks the viewer to consider, perhaps, the nature of our relationships: do they support us or tie us down? Is the woman’s weight straining the threads? Or do ties that bind pull on her?

Molly Khorasantchi’s vibrant oil on canvas “Roots of Feelings 2” is slightly more abstract. A coiled orange line—its size inconsistent, its edges undefined—stands against a backdrop of assorted colors and shapes. Small blocks of geometric forms appear occasionally, emerging from an image that is at once chaotic and coherent.

Jane duBrin’s “posing” presents a haunting image rendered in vine charcoal on canvas. The portrait depicts a man or woman, eyes closed, facing the viewer. We don’t get details, only the contours of the person’s face. The effect is an ethereal image that reminds of the fleeting, transient nature of existence.

To this casual viewer, Eddie Arroyo’s work feels particularly relevant to the South Florida location of the biennial. The acrylic on canvas “1 NW 62nd Street Miami, FL 33150”—one of Arroyo’s intriguing “Miami Portraits” series—seems to offer some commentary on the South Florida art scene. Although it depicts a corner in Little Haiti, adjacent to Wynwood, the latter is referenced in graffiti that’s been hastily scrawled on the wall of a local business. Considering a portrait of place, which references another place, has a profound effect on the viewer.

Like other “Miami Portraits,” no people appear in this image. The only figures that are present in the series are those that are depicted in the street art or advertisements that are part of the landscape. It begs the question: is a Miami empty of its inhabitants still Miami? What is a place without its people?

Award winners will be announced at the opening reception and will receive cash prizes ranging from $2000 to $400. The reception will be held from 6:00 to 9:00 PM and is free to ACCH members. Non-members may attend for $10; tickets will be available at the door and credit cards will be accepted. The bar will be open and light hors d’oeuvres will be served.

Autumn Casey’s “Waiting in Purgatory but at Least There’s Chairs and it Feels Musical” will appear at the ACCH alongside the biennial. Casey’s installation includes video and sculpture and blends found objects with items from the artist’s personal life—resulting in an experience of “existential uncertainty,” according to the ACCH’s website.

Also on display will be the exhibition #acchfocus, consisting of 52 winning images from the ACCH’s 2013-2014 Instagram contest.

The Biennial exhibition will run September 19 through November 1.

The Nameless Islands

by adminin Miscellaneous, Writing

Roads & Kingdoms, August 4, 2015

I’m in a kayak, alone and three months pregnant, paddling through jade water, trying to reach an unnamed island off the shore of Big Pine Key, Florida. The mangroves that have waded offshore—tangles of long grey legs topped with a mess of bright green leaves—point me towards a strip of beige sand. A smattering of white clouds, underlined with a quick brushstroke of grey, have been tossed against the blue sky.

Picturesque, quiet, meditative, it seems like the type of place where nothing could go wrong. Still, something about the scene strikes me as absurd—God forbid, something happens, what do I do? Call for help and say that I’m… where? In the water, headed towards a place with no name?

I push ahead, trusting not in God but Eric.

He’s the manager of the Barnacle Bed & Breakfast and, when I called a week ago, he assured me this trip was do-able. I’d spent days pouring over an atlas, comparing it to Google Earth, to find Florida’s last unnamed islands. Though there’s a surprising number in Florida’s waters, they seemed concentrated in the Lower Keys.

“Unnamed islands?” Eric said when I told him the purpose of my trip. “Hell, we got us some of those right out here.”

A native of Monroe, Louisiana, Eric’s got the accent to prove it. I imagined him gesturing to the Atlantic, which waits off of the Barnacle’s small, private beach.

“Shark Island, Bird Island, and Picnic Island,” he went on. “That’s what locals call ‘em, but they ain’t marked on no map.”

He put me on hold as he double-checked a nautical chart.

I wouldn’t be surprised if these were in a place like the Philippines, an archipelago of thousands of islands and poor infrastructure. But in the United States? In 2015? It’s hard to believe that things could still be in flux—that places could be without names, that an atlas says one thing, Google Earth another, a local a third.

But Eric came back and confirmed, “Yeah, they ain’t got no real names,” adding that they’re “close” to the Barnacle.

“You in good shape?” he asked. “Or, reasonable shape, even?”

“Yeah. I’m pregnant, but I’m a runner.”

“We got us some kayaks here. You can borrow one and paddle on out to the islands.”

As he lowered the vessel into the water that morning, Eric assured me that there was no way I could get lost.

But, “wait,” he said, just before I pushed off. I turned around. Eric stood on the dock in the navy blue basketball shorts, white tank top, and flip flops.

Everything looks the same out there, Eric warned. I could get disoriented. If I ended up in the wrong canal, I should pull my kayak ashore and ask anyone around for help.

“Everyone knows us. Worst case, if it’s too far for you to walk back, they’ll call and I’ll come pick you up.”

“Alright,” I looked ahead, towards the end of the canal. “Have a good day.”
Eric didn’t respond. I faced him and noticed his look of hesitation.

“You don’t really need to worry about this,” he began, “you’d really have to be tryin’ to get there…” But, whatever I do, I shouldn’t take a left and then another left because that would put me in the Atlantic, where there’d be nothing between me and Cuba but 90 miles of open water.

Now, as I paddle towards the channel Eric told me to avoid, I struggle to recall the details of our conversation. Was it left? Or am I not supposed to go right?

Read the rest of the article at Roads & Kingdoms

Presidential hopefuls in Ft. Lauderdale today; meet the underdogs

by adminin Miscellaneous, Writing

Broward Palm Beach New Times, July 31, 2015

Today there’s a presidential candidate plenary — that’s a fancy word for “big meeting” — in Fort Lauderdale, and five candidates are going to be here to speak at the Urban League’s national conference.

Surely, you’ve already media-overdosed on Clintons and Bushes by now, so here are some details you may want to know prior to today’s event.

Martin O’Malley 

Floridians might not be familiar with Democratic hopeful Martin O’Malley. But O’Malley, 52, is no newcomer. He’s got more than two decades of political experience under his belt.

O’Malley began his political career at 28, when he was elected to the Baltimore City Council. After eight years in that position, he ran for mayor. Although he is widely credited with reducing crime in Baltimore — which was crime-ridden when O’Malley took the reins in 1999 — critics have questioned his “zero tolerance” policies and argue that he did little to improve quality of life for the urban poor.

In 2007, O’Malley launched a successful bid to become governor of Maryland. After two consecutive terms, he announced in May that he’s throwing his hat into the presidential ring.

Pointing at his weak showing in the polls thus far — O’Malley is behind both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders — the Atlantic dubbed him “The Long Shot.” But as O’Malley himself points out, he was the underdog when he ran for mayor. And yet, he won.
Indeed, O’Malley’s platform is likely to appeal to Democrats looking for something left of Hillary.

His vision, as described on his website, would see America transformed: O’Malley emphasizes breaking the cycle of poverty by leveling the academic playing field with affordable child care, universal pre-K, and “debt-free” college for all. He’d like to break the big banks’ and Wall Street’s grip on the economy, wrench low-income Americans out of the cycle of poverty, and revive the middle class. He proposes raising the minimum wage, advocates for greater workplace equality for women, and calls for sweeping immigration reform that would “expand our tax base, create jobs and lift wages — benefiting our country as a whole.”

O’Malley also wants to fight climate change and protect retirees by expanding social security. His platform shows a greater focus on domestic issues than on foreign policy. National security, O’Malley argues, would be achieved not through military ventures but, at home, by strengthening the economy and the middle class.

Not to rain on anyone’s parade here, but the reforms O’Malley proposes are overly ambitious at best and wildly unrealistic at worst — depending on whether the House goes Democrat or Republican.

Major donors: It’s worth noting that O’Malley comes in 16th on the New York Times’ list of “Which Candidates Are Winning the Money Race So Far.” He has raised a paltry $2 million. Compare that to Hillary’s cool $47.5 million.

However, O’Malley has managed to woo a small number of Hillary’s potential fundraisers and donors. He could also find significant support in Hollywood, where, in some circles, Hillary isn’t considered liberal enough. Dixon Slingerland, who raised nearly $1 million for Obama’s presidential bids, is reportedly throwing his weight behind O’Malley.

“Prominent members of a Massachusetts Democratic fundraising network that boosted Barack Obama” have hosted fundraising events for O’Malley, the Boston Globe notes. And, setting campaign finances aside, O’Malley has already surrounded himself with key players who helped catapult Obama into the White House. This “long shot” could give Hillary — and Bernie Sanders — a run for their proverbial money in the Democratic primaries.

Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders’ name may sound more familiar to Floridians, as he’s spent some three decades in politics, beginning his career as mayor of Burlington, Vermont. He went on to spend 16 years serving as Vermont’s congressman. He is currently in his second U.S. Senate term.
Sanders, who has described himself as a “Democratic socialist” in the past, kicked off his Democratic presidential campaign with a shindig on the shore of Lake Champlain. Ben & Jerry’s founders — who are Sanders supporters — were on hand, as was free ice cream. The event, which also included live music, is Sanders’ way of “trying to demonstrate he can mount a plausible campaign for the presidency without wooing the billionaires,” Russell Berman wrote in the Atlantic.

But I’d argue that the laid-back, grassroots launch was about more than fundraising. It also reflects Sanders’ platform-for-the-people. Like O’Malley, Sanders appeals to Democrats looking for something to the left of Hillary. But Sanders is doing better in the polls than O’Malley and has managed to raise a nothing-to-sneeze-at $15 million for his campaign.

Here’s where Sanders stands on the issues:
Sanders argues, correctly, that the American people are standing at a crossroads. We must choose between continuing “the 40-year decline of our middle class” and growing inequality versus fighting “for a progressive economic agenda that creates jobs, raises wages, protects the environment, and provides health care for all.” To stop the country’s “slide into economic and political oligarchy,” Sanders has proposed campaign finance reform through, among other things, supporting a constitutional amendment.

Sanders points out that not only is the gap between the rich and the rest of us growing but unemployment is higher than the official numbers. To combat this, he has supported an increase in the minimum wage and “opposed NAFTA… permanent normal trade relations with China… and other free trade agreements” because they take jobs away from Americans. Along with U.S. Congressman John Conyers Jr. (D-Michigan), Sanders sponsored the Employ Young Americans bill, which would see billions of dollars allocated to vocational training and jobs for youth.

Sanders wants to keep combating climate change; he also seeks to continue protecting workers’ rights to paid family leave, paid vacations, and paid sick time.

It’s worth noting that while O’Malley’s platform focuses on what he will do, Sanders’ website is cleverly written in the past tense — emphasizing what he’s already done in D.C. to begin addressing all of these issues.

Major donors: The American people. Ten million dollars of Sanders’ campaign funds have come from small contributions of less than $200.

Ben Carson
As an African-American, some commentators will try to draw parallels between Republican candidate Ben Carson and President Barack Obama. But they’ll be hard-pressed to find many parallels, professionally or politically. While Obama was a senator when he ran for president, this is neurosurgeon and writer Ben Carson’s first step into politics — that is, besides his sharp words at a 2013 National Prayer Breakfast.

Carson’s website trumpets his humble upbringing. A native of Detroit, Michigan, Carson grew up in poverty, raised by a single mother who didn’t finish elementary school. But it’s a pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps tale: Carson worked hard in school, got good grades, and went on to Yale University. Later, he attended the University of Michigan School of Medicine and did his residency at Johns Hopkins. The American dream.

Today, Carson’s platform is unlikely to appeal to those who didn’t manage to get out of the old neighborhood in Detroit. Call him a conservative’s conservative (or a liberal’s nightmare). His website labels Obamacare a “looming disaster” and the Affordable Healthcare Act a “monstrosity.” Guess what his solution is: “More freedom and less government in our health care system.” This, he claims, we lead to “lower costs” and “more access.”

Yeah, tell that to the health insurance company I spoke to in 2006, when I was in graduate school, who told me it would cover “everything but” my reproductive organs for only $450 a month.

Carson says keep Guantanamo Bay open, affectionately referring to it as “Gitmo,” despite the human rights’ violations that occur there. Carson would like Congress to stop funding Planned Parenthood, likening abortion to slavery. And, in the wake of two separate shootings that killed two moviegoers in Louisiana and nine African-Americans in Charleston, Carson believes we must protect the Second Amendment, AKA the “right to bear arms.”

Major donors: While their political views are worlds apart, contributions to Carson’s campaign look surprisingly like Sanders’, with 80 percent coming from “donations of $200 or less,” the NYT reports (noting, however, that this is just a portion of campaign funds).

 

The long road to Bethlehem: part three

by adminin Israel, Palestine, Writing

+972 Magazine, July 27, 2015

The New Year comes and passes. It’s January 2014 and I’ve been living in the territories for almost a year. But rather than becoming more comfortable in my new surroundings and feeling like my usual curious and adventurous self—I am the woman, after all, who has traveled some 20 countries, mostly alone—I find myself turning inwards. I prefer to stay in Bethlehem, close to home.

This is not me.

The occupation and the checkpoints, particularly the flying checkpoints, have something to do with the change: on my way back to Bethlehem from Ramallah one afternoon, a flying checkpoint pops up near Jabaa’. As the soldiers take the IDs of everyone in the service taxi, I don’t know what to do—do I give them my American passport or my Israeli teudat zehut?

In theory, I could be headed from Qalandia—which is technically part of East Jerusalem—to Hizme, which is in Area B. I’m legal here, I tell myself. Or am I? I try to picture myself on the map that shows the zones: A, B, C.

Where is Jabaa’?

Where am I?

Who am I supposed to be right now?

It happens again as I’m driving back to Bethlehem from Jerusalem one afternoon. I’m on the little, rolling two-lane road that takes me to Beit Jala. Usually, I glide by the small army base on the edge of Beit Jala and from there, it’s a short drive to Bethlehem and I’m home. But today: when I bank the hill, I see soldiers standing in the middle of the road—a road I’ve never seen them on—checking IDs as Palestinians drive into Beit Jala. But why? If checkpoints are about security, then why would they be scrutinizing Palestinians headed into a Palestinian area? Are they looking for someone? Are they making sure that no Jewish Israelis are headed into Area A? Are they enforcing segregation?

Whatever the army’s doing there, I panic, slam on my brakes, and make a U-turn in the middle of the road, just meters from a soldier. As I speed away and he grows smaller in my rearview mirror, I realize the stupidity of what I’ve just done. I realize how suspicious it must have looked.

I also realize that I’m not sure how I’m going to get home. If there’s a flying checkpoint outside of Beit Jala, surely things will be tight at Checkpoint 300, too. There’s one more way in—a settler’s checkpoint that leads to a road that eventually splits and takes me to Beit Sahour, which neighbors Bethlehem.

But what if there are soldiers at that fork in the road, too?

I call Mohammad and ask him what I should do.

“Go back to Jerusalem, have a coffee, and try again.”

“What if the soldiers are still there?”

“They won’t be—they won’t stay forever. By the time you get back, they’ll be gone.”

Intellectually, I know that this is true. I’ve seen flying checkpoints many times before and I’ve seen them disappear as quickly as they appear. But something inside of me has changed and I find myself less able to use my head and reason through things. All I know is what I feel and I feel like the soldiers are everywhere.

Indeed, they showed up at a neighbor’s house recently—even though we live deep in Area A—asking about another neighbor’s rifle. Not only do they seem to be everywhere, they seem to know everything, even what people have in their private homes.

No, under occupation, even homes aren’t private.

I feel like the soldiers will never go away, they’ll stand there on the road between Jerusalem and Beit Jala forever and that’s the route I always take, that’s my “safe” road, and now they’re there and I’ll never get home.

Read the full article at +972 Magazine

The long road to Bethlehem: part two

by adminin Palestine, Writing

+972 Magazine, April 26, 2015

I was sold on the apartment. But my landlady wasn’t sold on me yet.

We went upstairs and sat in her salon. Once a porch, it had been closed in with glass windows and offered a view of the hills surrounding Bethlehem. It was one of the few vistas that wasn’t ruined by the occupation. There was no wall, no checkpoints, no military bases, no settlements.

As my landlady took her seat across from me, she handed me a small, wrapped hard candy. She apologized for not offering me coffee. I realized how much she needed to rent the first floor out.

“You aren’t the first to come see the place,” she began, adding that she’d turned the last applicant down because she suspected that he was a Jew. Under no circumstances would she rent to a Jew.

She looked at me, her gaze shifting from one of my eyes to the other, as though she was trying to read what was behind them. I understood that she was waiting for some sort of a reaction. I smiled.

“Happiness is more important than money,” she continued, explaining that it was important to her to find the right person for the apartment. The house was special to her—not only because she’d grown up in it but also because it had witnessed so much of Bethlehem’s history.

The cornerstone was laid in 1808 when someone built a tiny, stand-alone room next to the well. Several other one-room houses followed, making a half-moon around the well, creating an open-air courtyard. In the early 1900s, the cluster of rooms was turned into one large home. The courtyard was closed and the second story was built. New floors were laid with the hand-painted tiles common to the Levant—a reminder of the years when trains connected Beirut and Damascus to Jerusalem and Jaffa.

But those days didn’t last. The Middle East was carved up, including Palestine. During the Nakba, my landlady’s family left Jaffa empty-handed: her father lost his business; they lost their money, home, and belongings. Christians, they fled to Bethlehem where they had roots and family. A few years later, in the early 1950s, they moved into the first floor of this house, a once-wealthy family of seven crammed into two bedrooms.

But the place emptied as her brothers left to find work abroad—the West Bank’s economy wasn’t great and it only got worse under the occupation. Thanks in large part to the remittances her brothers sent back to Palestine, her family scraped together enough money to buy the whole house. Eventually, my landlady followed in the previous owners’ footsteps, moving upstairs and renting out the space beneath her. In the beginning, many of her tenants were students who came from other Palestinian cities and villages to attend Bethlehem University. But as the occupation deepened—a process that was facilitated by the Oslo Accords and the creation of the Palestinian Authority—the economy all but ground to a halt and Palestinian tenants were increasingly unreliable.

During the hard days of the Second Intifada, when Bethlehem was under siege, the first floor was full of stranded students who couldn’t pay rent. After that, my landlady decided only to rent to ajanib, foreigners. She began to rattle off the list of recent tenants, telling me their names, their jobs, where they’d come from, and why they’d left Palestine. Most of her renters had had cushy NGO gigs. I didn’t tell my landlady that I wasn’t collecting a foreigner’s income; that my wage was set by the PA’s scale and that I was making the same as a Palestinian professor would. Another reason to leave Jerusalem—I couldn’t afford it on a West Bank salary.

“I must ask you,” she said. “What is your religion?”

“I don’t see how that’s really relevant.”

“What is your religion?” she insisted.

“I’m secular,” I said.

“Because, me, I’m Catholic.”

“That’s nice.”

“And I’m from Palestine,” she continued. “Where are you from?”

“America,” I said.

“No one’s really from America—” she began.

“—except the Native Americans,” I interrupted. “You know, the Indians.”

“But, clearly, you’re not Indian,” she smiled. “So where did your people come from?”

“My people?” Since I was young, I’d always answered such questions by saying “I’m Jewish.” Clearly, I couldn’t say that now. I unwrapped the candy, put it in my mouth, and smoothed the wrapper out on my knee. I imagined the square before me as a map; I mentally traced the circuitous route my Sephardic and Ashkenazi ancestors made.

I realized she was waiting for an answer. But all the countries my people had passed through seemed loaded. As I went through the list in my head, I became more and more convinced that naming any of them would reveal my Jewish background.

“My people—oh, you know, they’re from here and there. Everywhere, really. I’m very mixed.”

She glanced at the wrapper on my knee. I crumpled it up, used my fingers to push it into the palm of my hand.

“Part of my family came from Italy,” I said. “Guarnieri.” Though I was usually annoyed by it, in that moment I was glad for this remnant of my first marriage—an Italian last name. Different from the one my Italian ancestors on my mother’s side had carried, but Italian nonetheless.

“Now I have a question for you,” I said. “My husband will be spending part of the week with me. Is that okay?”

Some Palestinian landlords forbid female renters from having men over—it was best to check in advance. My partner and I had also decided to say that we were married as few people date openly in Palestine.

“Is he really your husband?” my landlady asked. “Or your boyfriend?”

“Well, we’re planning to get married,” I answered, mentally adding to the end of the sentence: if his family will approve.

“So he’s your boyfriend.”

“Yes,” I said, in Arabic.

“How many boyfriends do you have?”

Both the feminist and the old-fashioned lady who live uncomfortably together inside of me balked at the question. But I knew that I had to answer it. “Just one,” I said.

“Some of these foreign women have a different man coming over every day,” my landlady said, shaking her head. “I can’t have that here. The neighbors will talk. But if it’s just one boyfriend—and your relationship is serious—ahlan wa sahlan.”

Welcome. I’d passed the interview. The place was mine if I wanted it and provided I would stay for at least a year. Could I promise her that? How long had I been here? What was my visa situation?

I told my landlady that I’d just signed a two-year contract at the university and that I wasn’t too concerned about the bureaucratic issues.

“The Jews don’t like foreigners, you know. Four, five years and no more visa,” she wiped one palm with the other. “You’re done.”

I nodded.

“How long have you been in Palestine?”

“Over six years,” I answered, wishing I were a better liar, rushing to add that I’d been working as a journalist.

That seemed to satisfy her curiosity. But, in the months that followed, she would put things together. And later, during the 2014 war—after we’d lived in the same house for almost a year, after a visitor mistook us for mother and daughter, remarking on our similar features and frame and coloring, and after we’d felt our shared home shake when rockets hit the earth—my landlady would come into my apartment and ask: “You’re Jewish?”

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The Long Road to Bethlehem: Part One

by adminin Palestine, Writing

+972 Magazine, March 28, 2015

It wasn’t the soaring arches or the elegant windows, with their curved caps. It wasn’t that the first room of the house was built in 1808. It wasn’t the jasmine that, like a woman letting down her hair, released its heavy perfume at night. It wasn’t the olive, loquat, lemon, almond, and apricot trees that filled the garden. Nor was it that the fruit from that garden seemed sweeter here in Bethlehem than it was in Jerusalem.

The apartment’s biggest selling point, in my landlady’s opinion?

The well.

She showed it to me the first time I saw the place, before I’d decided to rent the apartment. The well was hidden behind a curtain in the kitchen. She pushed the fabric back, revealing a deep recess in the wall. Inside the nook stood a pump and, on the floor, a large stone with a wrought iron handle. My landlady, who was in her seventies, gave the handle a tug. The rock lifted. There was a clunk as she placed it on the kitchen floor.

My landlady got on her knees and peered into the hole, a spot of night surrounded by chiseled white.

“See?” she tapped my calf, signaling that I should get on the floor, too. I obliged her.

I peered into the well. I didn’t see anything. But I could smell the collected rainwater below us.

My landlady put her hands on my back and pushed herself up. As she brushed the dirt off her knees, she explained to me that, if I were to take the apartment, we would share the well. And while our neighbors’ taps would run dry—as they always do here, eventually—we would never go without.

I remembered a long, waterless weekend I’d spent in Bethlehem in 2010. An American friend who lived and worked there had invited me to come celebrate his birthday. I was living in Tel Aviv then and had only been to Bethlehem once before, to work on an article for The National. The photographer who’d been assigned to the story also had Israeli citizenship. Unlike me, however, he had a car. That day, we’d left the Bethlehem area via the settler checkpoint outside the tunnels—a checkpoint we should have breezed through as two Jews riding in a yellow-plated vehicle. But the female soldier stopped us and asked for my ID. Nervous about the fact that I’d been in Bethlehem, which is off-limits to Jews who hold Israeli IDs, I gave the solider my American passport. She rifled through it looking for my visa. When she didn’t find it, she rolled her eyes at me, sighed, and asked me in Hebrew, “Where is your identity card?”

The photographer and I talked our way out of trouble. But I was rattled by the experience and feared that I’d be arrested the next time I was caught. Still, when my American friend asked me to come out to the West Bank for his birthday, I said yes. I told myself that I didn’t need to think too far ahead—I’d worry about leaving when it was time to leave.

When I got there, I found my friend’s house filthy; his kitchen sink overflowing with dirty dishes. “The water’s out,” he explained. He showed me how we could flush the toilet and brush our teeth using the water he’d saved in plastic bottles ahead of time. I would learn later that other friends keep buckets in their showers to collect the grey water. Because this is what you do in the West Bank, where you’re always waiting for the taps to go dry, where the Jewish settlements you can see from your window or that you pass on the road—the nice, neat, clean settlements that are locked away behind fences and surrounded by security—have green lawns and full swimming pools.

Despite the water shortage, what was supposed to be an overnight trip to Bethlehem turned into three nights of sleeping on my friend’s couch. Every time I thought about leaving, I remembered my confrontation with the female soldier. There are checkpoints on every side of Bethlehem: how could I get out of here without getting caught? And this time I was without a car: wouldn’t it be even more difficult on public transportation? Because I’d be coming out of a Palestinian area, I’d be on a Palestinian bus. And while settlers’ buses just roll through the checkpoints, Palestinian buses are always stopped, passengers IDs are always checked.

I couldn’t figure it out, and I dreaded the soldiers, so I just stayed. And stayed. I joked with my American friend that it would be easier for me to go to Jordan and take a flight from Amman to Tel Aviv than it would be to just take the bus home.

Finally, on the fourth day, I realized that I couldn’t just wait out the occupation. The checkpoints and soldiers weren’t going to disappear. And I needed to take a shower. I had to get back to Tel Aviv somehow.

When I left my friend’s apartment that day, I had no idea how I’d get home. Nor did I know that Bethlehem would soon be my home; that I’d end up moving here less than three years later, into a house—a house with a well—owned by refugees from Jaffa.

 

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Netanyahu’s nation-state bill is profoundly counterproductive

by adminin Palestine, Writing

The National, 29 November 2014

When I left Palestine this summer, I was relieved to leave the Israeli flag behind. No more blue and white ensign snapping at military checkpoints. No more Star of David standing high over army bases. Saying goodbye to the Israeli flag would also mean putting an end to my ambivalence about it.

Upon seeing it, there was always a moment of familiarity. After all, it bears the Star of David and I grew up with this symbol in my home. As a child it dangled from my neck in the form of the Hebrew pendant – passed down from my great-grandmother – that my mother made me wear.

But the same symbol enraged me. How dare these Zionists appropriate my religion, my culture, my family and the Hebrew language? The language is not theirs. It belonged to another one of my great-grandmothers, who lived in Eastern Europe and recorded all of the family’s deaths and births, not in Yiddish but in poetic Hebrew. She marked all these events on a piece of paper that she carried with her to the New World, Hebrew pressed to her bosom as she crossed an ocean. The language belonged to her. It belonged to all of us.

How dare the Zionists put the Star of David on their flag? How dare they, under the false pretence of ensuring the safety of my people, occupy another? How dare they besmirch Judaism in this way? Not only have they occupied Palestine, they’ve occupied Jewish identity.

Shlomo Sand’s latest book, How I Stopped Being a Jew, could be understood as a reaction to both occupations. It also seems like a response to a state that has become open about its preference for an ethnocracy over a democracy, as evinced by the “Jewish nation-state” bill.

If passed, the bill, which received overwhelming support from Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet, would result in the equivalent of a constitutional amendment declaring Israel the nation-state of the Jewish people. This is alarming considering that approximately 20 per cent of its citizens are non-Jewish Arabs. It also has implications for migrant workers and African refugees who live in Israel.

Sand, an Israeli professor at Tel Aviv University, is a historian and the author of The Invention of the Jewish People. In How I Stopped Being a Jew, which is not nearly as personal as the title suggests, Sand notes a number of moments that made him question his secular Jewish identity as well as the privilege that comes with that identity. Two particular experiences stand out.

The first was his daughter’s difficult questions about a Jewish holiday that celebrates, among other things, the death of non-Jews and Sand’s struggle to answer her.

The second was witnessing discrimination at Tel Aviv airport. As Sand breezes through security, he sees a Palestinian citizen of Israel detained. As a non-Jew, she is automatically considered suspect.

In the pages that follow this recollection, Sand writes: “What is the meaning, then, of being ‘Jewish’ in the State of Israel? There is no doubt about it: being Jewish in Israel means, first and foremost, being a privileged citizen who enjoys prerogatives refused to those who are not Jews, and particularly those who are Arabs.”

This seems to be the heart of the book and it’s also an apt description of the conflict. But it doesn’t come until too late in the book. Rather than using his personal experiences to tease out the inherent contradiction of the “Jewish and democratic” state – which seems the most powerful way to question the status quo – he spends most of the book engaged in an odd attempt to prove that there is no such thing as a secular Jewish identity.

I get his reasoning. Sand is hitting at the very foundation of the Zionist project. The early Zionists, who had internalised anti-Semitic stereotypes prevalent in Europe at the time, wanted to shake off the yoke of the diaspora Jew.

The diaspora Jew, or the image of one, was that of a frail figure, pale, weak and easily intimidated. In Eretz Yisrael (the land of Israel), the new Jews would stand strong. And they would be secular.

Sand, however, doesn’t manage to convince that there is no such thing as secular Judaism. In part because, as he acknowledges, secular Jewish identity is hard to define, making it equally hard to disprove.

He runs through a list of things that might be considered secular Judaism, shooting them all down. However, the list is by no means exhaustive and Sand can’t possibly anticipate the many ways individuals construct their secular Jewishness.

And, in some places, Sand resorts to assertions that unintentionally play into the Zionists’ hands. He takes care to say that he is not conflating Judaism with Zionism. But because his rejection of secular Judaism stems, in part, from his reaction to Zionism, he’s acknowledging and tacitly agreeing to the Zionists’ claim on Jewish identity.

The book is at its most confusing and most powerful in its final pages when Sand describes his connection to Tel Aviv and the Hebrew language.

“I inhabit a deep contradiction,” Sand admits. “My deep attachment to the place serves only to fuel the pessimism I feel towards it. And so I often plunge into a melancholy that is despondent about the present and fearful for the future.”

But I’d venture to say that many readers won’t make it to the end of his book, because he’s spent most of it alienating the people who most need to be a part of this conversation: self-defined secular Jews.

Rather than rejecting secular Judaism and engaging in the counterproductive business of attempting to delegitimise others’ identity – which will only make them cling to it more tightly – Jewish identity should be detached from Israel and understood as something that has and can transcend time and place.

The nation-state bill only underlines the importance of doing this.

If Jewishness was understood as something that isn’t dependent on land, Israel would be forced to loosen its grip on Judaism. The state could then instead embrace democracy and all of its citizens – whether they are Jewish, Palestinian, or just Israeli, as Sand defines himself.

Sand would like to see this happen within the context of a two-state solution that would, eventually, lead to an Israeli-Palestinian federation. I’d like to see this happen under the auspices of one democratic state. But, ultimately, we both hope – hope against hope – for the same thing: freedom for all of those who live between the river and the sea.

*Illustrative photo by James Emery, via Flickr

Israel cracks down on anti-war protesters

by adminin Israel, Writing

Al Jazeera English, 5 August 2014

More than 1,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel have been arrested by the Israeli police since the country’s military offensive in Gaza began in early July, according to a lawyer representing a number of the detainees.

While some have been arrested for protesting the Israeli incursion into Gaza, dozens are currently being held without charge. Many say they have been detained based on policemen’s “lies”, while some have been beaten to the point of needing medical care.

Maisa Arshid, an attorney for dozens of the detainees, said that the crackdown on Palestinian citizens is only getting worse, with 20 to 30 Palestinians getting picked up every week in the Nazareth area alone.

“All of them are accused of participating in illegal demonstrations,” Arshid told Al Jazeera, adding that “part of these demos were permitted by the police themselves”.

In many cases, the Israeli authorities have presented no evidence that the accused have participated in a protest other than a police officer’s word. Arshid also said that the police frequently hold people for short periods without registering their detention, likely putting the number of those who have been picked up by the police even higher than 1,000.

When the wave of arrests began earlier in July, Palestinian citizens were detained and quickly released while others were placed under house arrest, or ordered to do community service. But as Israel’s assault on Gaza has gone on, Palestinian citizens have been subject to much longer detainments.

This week, Arshid visited a group of detainees who had been held without charge for nine days. “Each day the court is delaying their hearing,” she said, adding that hearings initially scheduled for Sunday, were pushed back to Tuesday.

This way of prolonging their detentions has a chilling effect on demonstrations against the war in Gaza and “terrorise the population” into silence, Arshid argued. “If people in the street know that people have been arrested for nine days, it will prevent protest.”

Israeli police provide a security presence when Jewish-Israeli leftists protest against the war. But these activists are facing increasingly violent attacks from their countrymen.

Moriel Rothman-Zecher attended Tel Aviv’s most recent demonstration against the ongoing Israeli operation in Gaza, which drew approximately 5,000 protesters. There were only a few hundred right-wing counter-demonstrators, Rothman-Zecher told Al Jazeera, “but they were really, really energetic”.

Israeli police stood between the two groups, preventing any potential clashes, but when the protest ended, right-wingers confronted the anti-war protesters on the street. They shouted at the demonstrators, calling them “smelly traitors”. A counter-protester who was carrying an Israeli flag began to beat someone with the flagstick, while another started hitting an anti-war protester on the head with a crutch.

Rothman-Zecher said that the right wing “desire for violence” is not new. “But there’s a new level of acceptability,” he said.

He used the Jerusalem Day protests – when right wing Israelis march to mark the “reunification” of the city – as an example. In the past, it “was nationalistic and aggressive” but leftists would be shocked to hear right wingers openly chant “Death to the Arabs”, Rothman-Zecher said. “It was under the surface but it was still surprising. Now it’s become the baseline.”

Although no one is organising the counter-demonstrations – and Rothman-Zecher pointed out that they tend to come from poor, marginalised communities – he argued that Israeli leaders are responsible for right wing violence.

“When the leaders of the country call openly for revenge and violence, of course it becomes kosher,” he said. He added: “You have members of Knesset calling for population transfer, [a former] member of Knesset [boasting] that [he] killed Arabs… I believe very strongly that discourse shapes reality.”

Palestinian citizens have recently also been arrested for “incitement” for calling for demonstrations against the ongoing Israeli offensive. Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, points out thatthese citizens “were arrested even before any demonstrations began”.

Among them was Rafaat Awaishi, who Israeli police placed under house arrest without a hearing, after he posted a call on Facebook for people to join protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Noting that Awaishi’s hearing was scheduled for July 13, “the same day that the police-imposed house arrest is to end”, Adalah called the police-imposed detention a “denial of due process”.

The conditions detainees face also seem intended to deter protests. According to Arshid, several of her clients have been beaten while in custody and needed medical treatment for their injuries. During an interrogation, police allegedly removed a detainee’s kuffiyeh [traditional Palestinian scarf], urinated on it, and then put it back on the man’s neck, Arshid said.

The arrests and detentions seem to be part of a broader crackdown on dissent and freedom of expression. On Wednesday, the Israeli Knesset heard a bill that proposes to outlaw “discrimination against soldiers in uniform” the Jerusalem Post reported.

Pnina Tamnu-Shata, the Knesset Member who presented the bill, pointed to protests against Israel’s Operation Protective Edge as proof that Israel “must set limits for words of incitement against soldiers. Not everything is allowed in the name of democracy”.

Palestinian citizens who attend Israeli universities have already been subject to disciplinary hearings and expulsion due to remarks made on Facebook against Israeli soldiers. In a letter to the Council of Higher Education in Israel, the Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) likened the universities’ monitoring of Palestinian students’ social media accounts to a “witch hunt”.

In a press release, ACRI stated that “only Arab students have been punished, even though the social forums are simmering with racist comments by Jewish students, which raises a concern that the heads of the institutions are acting according to patriotic and emotional motives that do not align with their professional obligations”.

Saher Jeries is a 22-year-old marketing and advertising student who lives in Haifa. He said he was at a protest there, standing in the back, when police officers began to beat him. He and other protesters were put on a bus where they were held for six hours before they were driven to the police station for interrogation.

During questioning, Jeries found that the Israeli police were not only trying to control the discourse about Gaza, but also seemed intent on reshaping his identity. “They said to me, ‘You’re Christian, why are you doing things like this?’ As though I’m not part of the [Palestinian] people,” Jeries said.

*Illustrative photo by tola via Flickr