Protesting – nonviolently

Palestinian ‘resistance’ movement leader gives tour of West Bank life in the Bethlehem area and answers questions about his life, how he defines violence, and why he studies the Holocaust.

By LAUREN GELFOND FELDINGER
Sami Awad 311 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Sami Awad 311
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Sami Awad would give his life in the struggle for Palestinian independence, but he will not throw a stone. A leader in the grassroots Palestinian nonviolent resistance movement, the 39-year-old drives through the outlying Bethlehem area on a recent afternoon, pointing out farmland that has been appropriated, houses demolished, and homes walled in by the security barrier.
At the Anastas family home, he points out what he says has become a stark symbol of the conflict: “The house is surrounded by the barrier on three sides; on the fourth side, they are not allowed to open the shades because Rachel’s Tomb is here on the other side of the barrier and so is the army.”
Back in his Bethlehem office, information about Palestinian resistance and leadership training sits side by side with books about the Holocaust, Zen meditation, nonviolence and forgiveness. Over his desk are two framed photos: an uncle being dragged away by IDF soldiers, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Awad grew up in Bethlehem, with the collective memories of the 1948 war a shadow over his daily life: His civilian grandfather, trying to hang a white flag, was shot dead on his roof by a sniper in west Jerusalem, as Arab irregular forces and the Palmah battled each other to take over the Musrara neighborhood.
When the Palmah seized their home, the mother and seven children fled to Bethlehem, homeless and penniless, leaving the grandfather’s corpse buried in the home’s courtyard. Awad’s father grew up in an orphanage in east Jerusalem, which did not have room for all his siblings; the rest were sent to orphanages in Jordan and Lebanon. His father became principal of a Bethlehem orphanage school; Awad grew up on the orphanage grounds.
Surrounded by the children of refugees from the ’48 and ’67 wars, poverty, and soldiers who manned his neighborhood daily through the first intifada, Awad as a teen was full of rage. After finishing undergraduate and graduate studies in the US, he came back to Bethlehem and founded The Holy Land Trust in Bethlehem.
He dreamed that his organization could empower and mobilize the Palestinians in a struggle against social, economic and political injustice and toward peace, using theories of nonviolence, self-empowerment and mutual respect.
Like dozens of leaders active in socalled popular resistance committees (not to be confused with the Gaza group that participated in the abduction of IDF soldier Gilad Schalit) since 2003 across the West Bank “seam” area – between the security barrier and the 1949 armistice line – Awad has spent hundreds of Fridays rallying in Palestinian villages against army activities.
He is most frequently in Walaja, a farming village straddling Bethlehem with fewer than 2,500 residents, where locals have lost access to most of their farmland because of the barrier’s route.
The Supreme Court ruled last week that the route would not be moved, and as the building of the barrier continues, the village stands to be surrounded soon on all sides, with one exit through a checkpoint.
Awad points out the famed “al- Badawi” olive tree there, believed to be 5,000 years old, now standing in the route of the bulldozers.
When he is not demonstrating in the villages, he rallies volunteers to rebuild houses, and protests military rules and court orders that, he says, deny Palestinians basic human rights. He also trains Palestinian political, community and business leaders in the principles of nonviolence and mutual respect, and organizes local and international volunteers to participate in Palestinian community building.
The journey has not been easy. West Bank Palestinians feel progressively hemmed in and disenfranchised by Israel, but are divided over how to react.
Israeli forces at the weekly protests he visits use “tear gas, rubber bullets, stun grenades... too many times to count [and] live ammunition a few times,” he says.
Military sources within the IDF Central Command acknowledged the frequent use of tear gas and occasional use of foul-smelling water cannons and rubber bullets to disperse crowds at West Bank protests. This includes those in Walaja, where they said protests almost always include stone-throwing, sling-shots, or damage to property. The sources also told The Jerusalem Post that the IDF makes limited and infrequent use of live ammunition – 22-mm. caliber – against specific perpetrators of violence, under extreme circumstances and regulations.
While Israelis question whether Palestinian “resistance committees” are genuinely nonviolent, Palestinians debate among themselves what is the best path to self-determination.
Against this backdrop, Awad spent a day with the Post to share the story of his life, his definition of “nonviolent resistance” and “occupation,” and what he thinks needs to happen before Palestinians ask for statehood recognition.
What was it like being a youth during the first intifada?
My father was the principal of an orphanage school; my mother was head of a nursery school [but] the Israeli military closed all schools for two years. Alternative home schooling functioned instead. I only saw soldiers and settlers with guns; this was how I defined “Israeli.” Soldiers just a few years older than me were rude to my very gentle father... I saw soldiers raiding the orphanage, arresting students for throwing stones, provoking students, always yelling, taunting the children in Arabic, cursing. The children would throw stones at them and they would shoot.
In one incident, my father and I carried a student who was shot in the leg to the hospital; [afterward,] he was put in prison for throwing stones. My mother was always saying, beware if the army jeep comes. The jeeps were everywhere and the sense of fear of the other was very much a part of our life. Anything you needed done had to go through the army – “civil administration” – which then was located in Bethlehem.
We lived under military orders and a completely different set of laws than the average Israeli.
Israeli citizens did come to shop, and Palestinians worked in Israel and could go to Tel Aviv – it was peaceful in terms of these interactions, but I didn’t have personal interactions, and I didn’t have the same freedoms as Israelis or my American cousins... It [intensified] this feeling of isolation.
How did the story of your grandfather influence you?
My father talked a lot about the house and the neighborhood where they lived [in Musrara], always affirming that it was Jews, Christians and Muslims who lived in that area [as] good neighbors [until] Jewish forces took over the neighborhood and kicked out the Christian and Muslim families.... This for me was a message not to stereotype an entire community [over] the acts of a few.
My father ended up in a Jerusalem orphanage, where he could see his family house on the other side with a Jewish family living there. A big sentiment was also the fact that his father was buried there.... We went several times to see the house; later it was destroyed to build a main street. His grave and remains were probably destroyed. But our grandmother always insisted not to seek the path of revenge and retaliation, but reconciliation and peace.
So I grew up with this, and after 1967, my own experience of the occupation every day. I grew up with lots of anger.
The challenge for me was having our family story and suffering and at the same time having my grandmother, father and mother telling me not to be focused on anger and revenge but on reconciliation.
How did you go from outraged teenager to adult devoted to nonviolence?
My uncle Mubarak was a big answer to my frustrations. In 1983 he came back from the US, where he had studied child psychology [and] discovered Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr.... He started the Palestinian center for the study of nonviolence in Jerusalem. Through [his organization] I started planting trees on lands that were being confiscated, going to protests for ending the occupation... [we were] trying to build the Palestinian economy, encouraging local home farming...
It was nonviolent and empowering.
The underground leadership issued pamphlets at night or broadcast from pirate stations; at demonstrations we beat on drums and pots and pans. I felt very patriotic, nationalistic. The first two, three years was a wonderful time; we felt there was a massive movement taking place.
This was also the first time I met the other, Israeli side – young people were joining us at many demonstrations; sometimes there were even more Israelis than Palestinians. I discovered Israelis that I didn’t know existed... many of these Israelis are still my friends to this day – it really shifted my mind-set.
But after three years, Palestinian unity gave way to political factions who wanted credit, and there started to be factional fighting, even killing and accusing people of being traitors.
There was no physical threat to Israelis [by nonviolent resistance], but the [authority of the] Israeli military was threatened, and they were beating people [for] raising a Palestinian flag, for example.
[Raising the Palestinian flag was a criminal offense under Israeli law.] I never threw a stone, but was beaten and detained.
Then, in 1988, my uncle was arrested for his involvement in civil disobedience.
He took his case to the High Court and they issued orders to deport him to the US – he was a dual citizen.
An Israeli professor at the Hebrew University went on a hunger strike in solidarity – this was very powerful for me.
After he was deported, I thought I could fill his shoes, but father decided in essence to send me out of here to the US, to go to school. I got a BA in political science and an MA in peace and conflict resolution at American University in [Washington,] DC, and came back one week after graduation in 1996, really excited. But not long after, I realized that the reality on the ground was not one achieving peace. Leaders were meeting in Paris, Oslo, Geneva, Cairo, but the people were not involved, and the peace process was only between politicians, so I shifted my focus to nonviolent activism, and in 1998 founded The Holy Land Trust.
Then the second intifada broke out and cafes and buses in Israel were being blown up. There were large numbers of Palestinian and Israeli casualties. How did you feel?
Sickened. I was disturbed by any attack of violence against Israelis or Palestinians. We talk politics, but when you talk to an Israeli or Palestinian mother who lost their sons, they are not consoled by politics or the numbers of the other side. Even if there is a legal argument in international law to defend yourself by any means, including armed resistance and violence, I cannot accept or condone it.
Why did armed Palestinian groups get so much support in the second intifada? There was rejection of nonviolence because many had connected the process of negotiations with nonviolence and said negotiations had failed, especially militant factions. The Israeli military also understood how powerful nonviolent protest was in the first intifada [and] didn’t want us to engage in nonviolence either – not because they wanted violence, but because they felt nonviolence gave Israeli and international attention to human rights violations and abuses.
We grew tremendously, but the number of children killed by the Israeli military in the first two months of the uprising was [very high and] a lot of violence of the Israeli military was at street demonstrations – people did throw rocks, and the army [often] shot with live ammunition or rubber bullets [according to B’Tselem reports]. They were more violent in their response than in the first uprising.
It was a major wake-up call for many Palestinians to see unarmed resistance as not achieving results.... We insisted and continued insisting that nonviolence is the only option, but we were rejected and accused of being traitors or members of the CIA or Mossad. I was interrogated by political factions and we were asked to justify our activities... [they] tried to stop us. The Israeli peace movement went into hibernation as well.
Many people [on both sides] gave up.
Now, a decade later, there are several unarmed Palestinian groups, but no consensus about nonviolence; what is the debate?
You will hear Palestinians say “it is not nonviolence, it is popular resistance.”
Many Palestinians and internationals think that nonviolence means being passive and nonconfrontational. They hear nonviolence and think negotiations, everybody getting along with each other, dialogue circles, kumbaya and let’s be friends. It is not that. It is standing up strong for your rights in a way that does not undermine the humanity of the other – physically, emotionally or spiritually.
This is different than dialogue or negotiations... if I know something is legally mine and if you have no right to it, I will resist nonviolently without insulting you or fighting with you, but I will even sacrifice my life not to lose my right. I will accept any response from you – even violent – [but] you will not change my tactic or make me violent or revengeful against you. This is resistance.
We also have to try and understand what the other side is thinking and feeling.
What is the connection between “nonviolent resistance” and understanding Jewish experience? I ended up researching and going to Auschwitz and Birkenau to find out what happened in the Holocaust and how it affects the mind-set of Israelis today. It was a very powerful experience to see as close as possible what happened – and to see what Israeli youth who go on these trips are learning: how to defend, how to be strong, not to trust others.... I even heard several guides say that given the chance, Arabs and Palestinians would do the same – that was a complete revelation; it completely changed my perspective in a second.
These 13-year-old kids have been dealing with trauma of the past and maybe of the future... they don’t trust anybody...and in a few years they are going to be at a checkpoint. I said, looking at them, the soldiers are not evil [but] probably really scared, and to them I’m [a] threat at the level of the Nazis. I started deeper research into the Holocaust and communal post-traumatic stress disorder... now I think that the additional definition of nonviolence is also about healing.
The whole world completely neglected the trauma of the Jewish community, and the response has been lots of financial and political support, but that does not heal trauma. Nonviolence breaks the myth that Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims are out to destroy. By standing up for our rights but not using violence, they can’t see violence and say, “See, you can’t trust them.” Israelis don’t view violence as a tactic – even a wrong tactic – to gain legitimate rights, but as “they want to kill us, throw us into the sea,” and this fear rhetoric is used by Israeli politicians and the media.
We are developing a new teaching manual about the Holocaust to understand the mind-set of a soldier. I want a Palestinian activist to understand, how does it help a soldier to have any compassion for you if you yell at him? By Palestinians engaging in a long-term strategy and continuous acts of nonviolence, they can begin breaking that psychological wall that needs to break before the cement wall.
Israelis charge that these “popular resistance committees” are not truly nonviolent. Is throwing rocks or destroying a military fence violence?
Acts of violence and nonviolence are not just determined by the person acting, but also by the recipient of the action. So if a soldier really feels threatened by a rock thrown at him, then it is violence. If the soldier does not feel threatened, this means it is not physically violent, but does not mean it is nonviolent from a strategic, moral and philosophical point of view. Personally I would never throw a stone and I will always discourage people from throwing stones. Language can also be violence. If I yell at a soldier and he feels insulted or violated, then this is also violence... spiritual violence against ethical norms and values.
Part of our training is that once you engage in nonviolence it doesn’t mean that the other side will engage in the same way. The Israeli military is expected [by the people] to be violent. We do lots of work with children and communities to make sure it’s clear that we do not want a single stone thrown, [but] the children have anger, frustration, and suddenly there is a person in front of them to vent against and he is fully armed.... But it takes a lot of discipline to be engaged in nonviolence, so we should not just excuse people who throw stones. If you cannot be disciplined than you should not participate.
For people to engage in nonviolence, they have to be trained at the level of discipline as soldiers in the army. An American colonel who was in the Vietnam War did a training [session] here – he said that 70 percent of what US soldiers train is not arms but commitment, steadfastness, team work, survival.
There are several nonviolent resistance networks.... It started in Budrus, and I am involved in the Bethlehem area – Masara, Walaja, El-Khader, Beit Sahur, Beit Jala, Irtas. [Protesters] have never tried to break a fence built on a historic border between the West Bank and Israel; the fences [that have been attacked] are always on Palestinian farmland. It is very insulting and dehumanizing when building a fence on [private Palestinian] land and then saying it is public domain and [we] can’t touch it.
The army always declares any area where there is going to be or is a protest a “closed military zone.” They come with photocopies of documents in Hebrew that we can’t understand, and that is supposed to be enough justification. But it is land that belongs to Palestinians and not to the military; people are protesting on their own property, and we never go into a military base or settlement; it is only on Palestinian land.
What influence can the small networks of such committees have?
One roadblock preventing nonviolence from evolving into a mass movement is lack of leadership. Our organization has a leadership development program that is in demand to fill this gap – we have already trained 220 Palestinian leaders, including some in the popular resistance committees, including [cousins] Bassem and Nami Tamimi [the now-imprisoned leader of the Nabi Saleh protests], women’s, youth, health, children’s organizations, and local political activists from Fatah and other factions.
Last year, we had a special training for 100 members of political factions, including Hamas affiliates, PFLP [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine], and the Palestinian security forces. Forty percent were women. Some that we trained will become very, very influential leaders in the very near future. We also want to reach 100 women leaders in Gaza, but they have not been able to get permits [from Gaza to the West Bank].... We have to be creative, with nonviolent events that make Israelis understand the Palestinian point of view and not want to remain silent.
You are Christian and have said there is a myth that the nonviolent Palestinian movement is fueled by Christian Arabs. What is the reality?
The leaders who have come to our trainings are 98% Muslims. The nonviolent movement is led by Muslims.
What has been the most surprising reaction you have gotten to a nonviolent activity?
I was in El-Khader in front of a house that was being demolished. It was hot and the protest was peaceful; I was just talking to soldiers – soldiers are ordered not to respond. In the background you could hear the children and mother crying...
it was an old house built many years ago that they were going to knock down to build a road to the [Efrat] settlement. I asked, how could demolishing this house provide security for your family and not create instead a houseful of angry children? I kept talking and eventually one soldier just fell on his knees bawling. He was put in a jeep and driven away.
What are you advocating for Palestinians to do before asking for state recognition at the UN?
The [Palestinian] leadership [should] convince the Palestinian community that there has to be recognition of the civil and equal rights of both sides to live on the land. We all have a history on this land, and denying the narrative of the other is a waste of time and energy. The only thing we have access to is to respect and honor the other, learn from the other, and not use our own past to deny the rights of the other to be here.
Palestinians need to accept that Jews have always lived here.... The thing the Hebrew community ignores is that many Muslim families took in Jews and protected them in 1929 [anti-Jewish riots]. I am not saying that Palestinians should ever recognize Israel as a Jewish state, but recognition of both communities [having] full and equal rights to exist on this land should be the preamble to a political solution, mostly a two-state framework.
What is next for you?
There is a group of us who have a common dream to build a community where Israelis and Palestinians – Jewish, Muslim, Christian – can live together in peace, sharing not just a political point of view, but social [and] environmental concerns and research – like Neveh Shalom, but not only Israeli citizens. It will be self-sufficient in terms of food, harvesting rainwater....
We already have 50 people who are interested – Israeli and Palestinian, secular and religious – and ready to move in. But we are just in the research stage and doing a little fund-raising.
It sounds like a crazy idea, but there are practical models, and it is not as if Jews, Muslims and Christians are genetically created to struggle.