Mya Guarnieri2013-05-18T10:55:42-04:00Mya Guarnierihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=mya-guarnieriCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Mya GuarnieriGood old fashioned elbow grease.Five Members of US Congress Take Extreme Right-Wing Tour of West Bank Settlementstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.11038032011-11-21T15:17:22-05:002012-01-21T05:12:01-05:00Mya Guarnierihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mya-guarnieri/Alternative Information Center has just posted a summary of a story that appeared in Hebrew last week on Arutz Sheva, the settler-affiliated media outlet:
Five US Congressional Representatives recently conducted a "precedent-setting and historic visit" to Israeli West Bank settlements.... The five Republican members of Congress conducted the "in-depth tour" in cooperation with the Ariel Development Fund and the Strategic Unit of the Samarian Regional Council.
The all-male delegation included Randy Forbes (Virginia), Louie Gohmert (Texas), Doug Lamborn (Colorado), John Fleming (Louisiana) and Jim Jordan (Ohio). Representative Lamborn is particularly influential as chairperson of both the Republican Israel Caucus and the Congressional Israel Allies Caucus.
During the tour the congressional representatives visited the Cross Samaria Road, the Barkan Industrial Zone, the settlement of Ariel, and participated in a formal reception in the Nablus-area settlement of Har Bracha.
Because the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has effectively crippled the Palestinian economy, some Palestinian construction workers turn to the settlements for employment. While this type of a system that turns a sector of society into underpaid workers with few options for survival is known as "structural violence," Ariel Mayor Ron Nahman calls it "coexistence."
While Israel considers its settlement enterprise legal, many members of the international community do not. Those who question the legal status of settlements point to the Fourth Geneva Convention, which forbids occupying powers from transferring civilians to an occupied area.
This trip comes just three months after 81 US Congressmen visited Israel on a junket funded by the American Israel Education Foundation, a supporting organization of the pro-Israeli hardliner group American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).]]>Who Are the Palestinians?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.10169712011-10-19T16:19:09-04:002011-12-19T05:12:01-05:00Mya Guarnierihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mya-guarnieri/
The interviews I conducted in Ramallah reveal no clear consensus. But PA President Mahmoud Abbas's recent speech to the UN was enthusiastically received in Palestinian cities across the West Bank. For some, it represented, perhaps, a small victory--a moment when the voiceless were given a voice. But that begs the question: which voices are we still not hearing? What are their stories? What unites - and divides - the sometimes mutually antagonistic voices across their society as a whole? Who are these people, the Palestinians?
Arthur Neslen's groundbreaking new book, In Your Eyes a Sandstorm: Ways of Being Palestinian, holds many answers.
A collection of 51 in-depth interviews of Palestinians from all walks of life, In Your Eyes a Sandstorm introduces readers to everyone from ministers in the Hamas government, to ministers in the Israeli government, from sisters who were born and raised in Beirut's Shatila camp, to a drug dealer in East Jerusalem, from a Salafi Jihadist web manager to a West Bank zoo curator. Candid, colorful, and sometimes surprising, the portraits remind us that Palestinians aren't the monolithic group that the Western media depicts them as.
Neslen points his attention to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan. While these areas are crawling with journalists, Neslen brings us the stories that go overlooked--like that of Neriman al-Jabari, a 26-year-old widow of an Islamic Jihad leader who was assassinated by Israel in 2004--forcing the reader to interrogate pre-conceived notions about Palestinians.
Neslen's focus on interviewees in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories serves another purpose. As he points out, location affects both experience and one's sense of self. The Palestinians nearest to Israel seem to best know "the terror that conflict brings." Those inside of Israel--an oft-ignored group--wrestle with "identity contradictions that especially afflict Palestinians living close to Israeli Jews." They also offer a glimpse of the racism and segregation that plagues Israeli society.
Nuri al-Ukbi, a 66-year-old Bedouin man, describes the state's demolition of his village, Al Arakib. Nabila Espanyoli, a 53-year-old NGO director in Nazareth, recalls the difficulties she faced enrolling in university, due to discrimination. Tawfiq Jabharin, a lawyer in Umm al Fahem, discusses the state's policy of denying building permits to Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Tamer Nafar, a 29-year-old Palestinian citizen of Israel and founder of the rap group DAM, tells Neslen how all these impulses come together in his hometown of Lyd, just south of Tel Aviv:
"If you buy a map of Lyd, you won't find the Arabic neighborhoods on it... There are cops here all the time. You have no street lights, unemployment, drugs, and a [four]-meter-high separation wall between Arab and Jewish areas. You know when someone does something very ugly, and he doesn't want to look in the mirror? That's the wall."
In Your Eyes a Sandstorm also serves as a primer of Palestinian politics, history, and culture, grouping the interviewees by their generation and, thus, the events they have lived through. It's sophisticated enough to hold the attentions of those already involved in the issues but accessible to those who have just begun to explore the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, too. This is a difficult balance to strike and Neslen does so gracefully.
There was, for me, a slight stumble, however. In the introduction, Neslen describes himself as the son of "left-wing and anti-Zionist Jewish parents." He also mentions that "trust was often difficult to establish" with his Palestinian interviewees. It's a catch-22: Neslen can't not mention these details; but, naturally, some readers might wonder if Neslen's Jewish background was ever an issue. Was there tension with his interviewees? Why was trust difficult to establish?
One interaction was particularly intriguing. Reflecting upon his interview with an 82-year-old fisherman in Gaza, Neslen remarks, "Strangely and unexpectedly, I felt at home." This moment seemed worth exploring.
But this is a minor complaint. And Neslen probably made the right decision. His book isn't a memoir. If he'd introduced too much of himself, he would have run the danger of his story swallowing up those of his interviewees (a Jew in Gaza! A Jew in Palestinian refugee camps! How does he feel? There's no room for that but, still, it's a book I'd like to read).
In Your Eyes a Sandstorm is a gripping look at a society and people who are misrepresented by the mainstream media and misunderstood by much of the Western world. "The Palestinian question" - never the "Jewish question" anymore - is generally posed in a way that omits Palestinian's own experiences from consideration. Through these carefully-crafted portraits, Neslen gives Palestinians the space to begin to answer it for themselves.]]>Crisis, Shmisis: 81 Congressmen Head to Israeltag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9235552011-08-10T17:42:37-04:002011-10-10T05:12:02-04:00Mya Guarnierihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mya-guarnieri/falling into poverty. Schools are struggling. Cities teeter on the edge of bankruptcy.
And 81 U.S. Congressmen are off in Israel when they should be here, dealing with the mountain of problems facing the American people -- you know, the men and women who elected them.
Of course, Congressmen deserve a break. They need to relax and spend time with their families just like any other working stiff. But those 81 Congressmen aren't exactly on vacation. They're on a junket funded by the American Israel Education Foundation, a supporting organization of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). As AIPAC is a special interest group -- pro-Israel hardliners who support expansionist policies -- it is unlikely that the Congressmen will be getting a clear-eyed view of the country.
With perks like all-expenses-paid trips for government employees, it's no surprise that Israel is the largest single foreign recipient of U.S. aid. Israel receives three billion dollars worth of aid annually from the United States. America has committed to giving Israel a whopping 30 billion from 2009-2018. It's worth adding that Israel is not using these dollars to build schools or help the needy. Rather, the funds come in the form of weapons that are used to maintain the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.
And what are American taxpayers getting in return?
In his article, "Friends Without Benefits," Matthew Yglesias gives a succinct answer: "Israel does us no favors and is no use to us."
The Congressmen's trip to Israel illuminates this point. Not only is it useless to the American people, it's a distraction during a time when taxpaying U.S. citizens need and deserve the full attention of the representatives they elected.
As Josh Ruebner, National Advocacy Director of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, puts it,
"This August break is for Members of Congress to be at home, meeting with constituents to hear about our concerns. They should be listening to our anxiety about the economy and thinking through ways to dig us out of the financial mess they've created with their corporate giveaways, tax breaks for the wealthy and lax regulation of unscrupulous banks that are forcing people out of their homes with fraudulent mortgage documents."
While the disappearing act these 81 Congressmen have pulled is reprehensible, it's not surprising.
After all, this is the same Congress that showered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with standing ovations as he stood and spoke one half-truth after another. This is the same Congress that took the unusual move of breaking its own rules to pass a resolution about foreign policy -- wasting time and energy that could have been spent on pressing domestic issues.
So, no, this trip isn't shocking. It's just one more outrageous example of American politicians putting special interest groups ahead of the dire needs of the American people.]]>Israel's Blockade of Gaza: A Twenty-year-old Injusticetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9097782011-07-26T19:00:40-04:002011-09-25T05:12:01-04:00Mya Guarnierihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mya-guarnieri/
But Israel remains victorious on one crucial front. A tremendous majority of those talking about the blockade -- from the mainstream media to critics and activists -- use 2007 as the start-date, unintentionally lending legitimacy to Israel's cause and effect explanation, an argument that pegs the closure to political events.
According to the Israeli government, the blockade was a response to the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip. The stated goals of the closure are to weaken Hamas, to stop rocket fire and to free Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who has been held in Gaza since 2006.
But the blockade -- which the Israeli government has openly called "economic warfare" -- did not begin in 2007. Nor did it start in 2006, with Israel's economic sanctions against Gaza. The hermetic closure of Gaza is the culmination of a process that began 20 years ago.
It is important to note, first, the groundwork that made this process so devastating. In her definitive piece on the economic de-development of the Gaza Strip, published in 1987, Dr. Sara Roy uses data from the years of 1967 to 1985 to illustrate how the Israelis turned the Gaza Strip into a captive market and made Palestinian residents a labor pool dependent on Israel. This was achieved, in part, by limiting Gaza's exports and commercial production. These early restrictions (or economic warfare, to use the Israeli term) predate Hamas. So when freedom of movement was limited during the First Intifada, Gaza was already feeling pinched.
Sari Bashi is the founder and director of Gisha, an Israeli NGO that advocates for Palestinian freedom of movement. In an interview conducted with this writer, Bashi remarked that the gradual closure of Gaza began in 1991, when Israel canceled the general exit permit that allowed most Palestinians to move freely through Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It was then that non-Jewish residents of Gaza and the West Bank were required to obtain individual permits.
This was during the First Intifada. While the mere mention of the word invokes the image of suicide bombers in the Western imagination, it's important to bear in mind that the First Intifada began as a non-violent uprising comprised of civil disobedience, strikes, and boycotts of Israeli goods. So, that the general exit permit was canceled during this time suggests that this early hit on Palestinian freedom of movement was not rooted in security concerns. It seems, rather, a retributive act, intended to punish Palestinians for daring to resist the Israeli occupation.
Sporadic closures of the Gaza Strip started in 1993, Bashi continues, following a wave of suicide bombings carried out by Palestinians. Because a tremendous majority of Palestinians are not and were not suicide bombers, however, the restrictions on movement again constituted collective punishment for the actions of a few -- foreshadowing the nature of the blockade to come.
Over the years, there were other suggestions that a hermetic, punitive closure was on the horizon. "Movement [was] gradually restricted," Bashi says, adding that in 1995, the Israelis erected a fence around the Gaza Strip.
At the beginning of the Second Intifada, in September of 2000, Palestinian students were subject to a blanket ban, forbidding travel from Gaza to the West Bank. At this time, the Israelis also closed the "safe passage" -- an armored convoy that facilitated Palestinian movement between the Occupied Territories.
As the Second Intifada wore on, so did restrictions on Palestinians' freedom. In March of 2005, the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem and HaMoked penned a report titled, "One Big Prison: Freedom of Movement to and from the Gaza Strip on the Eve of the Disengagement Plan." That there was the need to write such a report -- and that the NGO's findings elicited such an alarming title -- suggests that the blockade was well under way at this time, more than two years before the Israeli government would have you believe it began.
B'Tselem's and HaMoked's March 2005 report stated that only a small number of Gazans were being allowed into Israel to work. Tens of thousands had lost their jobs due to the restrictions on movement.
The 2005 disengagement supposedly signaled the end of the Israeli occupation of Gaza. But, in reality, it brought more Israeli limitations on the movement of both people and goods. While the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access -- brokered by the U.S. and signed by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority -- should have eased those restrictions, it didn't. The number of day laborers exiting Gaza via the Erez Crossing offers a dramatic example. In January of 2000, before the Second Intifada began, an average of 17,635 day laborers passed through Erez every day. In January of 2005, that number had dropped to 49.
Throughout the years there were upticks and downturns in the amount of workers exiting the strip. And in 2005, too, there was a brief rebound. But in 2006, the small number of Gazans who were still working in Israel were banned from entering, cutting them off from their jobs at a time when the Strip's economy was thin to the point of breaking.
While the flotilla might have successfully brought the blockade into the mainstream consciousness, it missed an opportunity to really push the envelope by reframing the conversation altogether.
]]>What Israeli Democracy?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9003892011-07-18T13:38:55-04:002011-09-17T05:12:01-04:00Mya Guarnierihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mya-guarnieri/Israeli Knesset passed this week, has sparked a storm of controversy both inside Israel and within Jewish communities abroad.
The legislation effectively criminalizes Israelis who answer the Palestinian civil society call to join the BDS movement -- boycott, divestment, and sanctions -- intended to bring Israel in line with international law and to pressure the state into recognizing full human and civil rights for Palestinians. While many Israelis are uncomfortable with the BDS movement -- mistakenly seeing it as an attack on the state itself -- there are numerous Israeli peace groups and individual activists who have taken part in a targeted boycott of settlement products for years, refusing to buy anything that is manufactured over the Green Line. There are also a small number of Israelis who support the broader BDS movement.
Under the new law, both groups will be vulnerable to lawsuits. The complainant will not have to prove that his or her business was harmed by the boycott in order to sue someone. The law is retroactive and, if one is found guilty of participating in the boycott, he or she will be subject to steep fines.
The law was authored by Knesset Member Ze'ev Elkin, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line Likud party.
Criticism was not limited to the left-wing alone. The increasingly right-leaning Jerusalem Post penned an editorial against the legislation. It even sparked a bit of controversy inside of Likud, with a couple of party members likening the legislation to "third world laws."
But the criticism from both the left and right is problematic -- for the most part, it neglects the serious problems that were plaguing "Israeli democracy" long before the anti-boycott law was approved.
An editorial penned by the New York City-based Jewish Daily Forward offers an example. After criticizing the recent legislation, the author(s) go on to add, "It may be that when the Israeli Supreme Court hears the inevitable legal challenge to the anti-boycott law, it will rule it unconstitutional and prove, again, that a democratic system of checks and balances exist in the Israel polity."
In 2006, the Israeli Supreme Court struck down the binding arrangement, a policy that applies to migrant workers. Rather than respecting this decision, the Knesset recently passed legislation that is so severe human rights groups are calling it the "Slavery Law."
In 2007, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the position of the separation barrier in the West Bank Palestinian village of Bilin served no security purpose and ordered the state to move the fence. It took the state over four years to comply and, still, the villagers remain separated from some of their land.
More recently, the state has overturned the policy that made migrant workers who had children in Israel lose their legal status, calling it a violation of Israel's own labor laws. Despite the fact that the mechanism that made these women and children illegal has been struck down, the state is continuing to deport them.
Human rights organizations contest the state's non-compliance on a regular basis. Former Deputy Attorney General Yehudit Karp has twice sent letters to the current Attorney General, Yehuda Weinstein, in hopes of getting the state to comply with such rulings.
It's also important to bear in mind that the anti-boycott law is but one in a slew of legislation that some critics are calling "proto-fascist," currently making its way through the Knesset.
Of course, I would question the strength of any "democracy" that kept Palestinian citizens of Israel under martial law from 1949-1966. (And it goes without saying that the occupation, which began a year after martial law ended, is decidedly undemocratic).
Perhaps it is high time that we all start using Dr. Oren Yiftachel's term for Israel -- ethnocracy, a regime that "facilitates the expansion, ethnicization, and control of a dominant ethnic nation... over contested territory and polity."
The anti-boycott law offers a reflection of this term. As Mairav Zonszein of the independent, bloggers' collective +972 Magazine points out, "The boycott law makes no distinction between Israel and the Occupied Territories and thus is in effect a legalization and normalization of the occupation, the total erasure of the Green Line and the moratorium on the two-state solution."
She continues, "Instead of crying out about the violations of freedom of speech and the antidemocratic nature of the law, concerned entities, and first and foremost the US government, should be explicitly pointing out the message such a law clearly sends to the world about Israel's intentions vis-a-vis the two-state solution: primarily that it has none."
Indeed, the new legislation seems a desperate attempt to legitimize (and, by extension, better facilitate the expansion of) illegal settlements.
But the anti-boycott law also suggests that the term ethnocracy is no longer enough. For it is no longer enough to belong to the dominant ethnic nation, that of the Jewish people -- one must be Jewish and march lockstep with the hawks. Israel, it seems, is on the road to becoming an ethnocratic ideocracy.
No matter what name we use, the alarm sounding through Israeli society and the Jewish Diaspora should have been rung long ago -- the anti-boycott law is a symptom of a failed democracy, not a cause.]]>Americans Shouldn't Be Celebrating Bin Laden's Deathtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8567082011-05-03T09:52:55-04:002011-07-03T05:12:02-04:00Mya Guarnierihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mya-guarnieri/
Last night, the crowds cheered and sang before the White House and in Manhattan. And, today, the jingoistic, congratulatory op-eds hit the papers.
It's been particularly troubling to me, an American-Israeli, to watch these events unfold from Tel Aviv. I've heard too many Israelis justify the occupation of Palestinian territory with statements like, "They're animals, they celebrate when we're killed." I've heard the same rhetoric come from American mouths, "The Muslim world cheered after the 9/11 attacks."
Americans -- many of whom consider their so-called War on Terror morally righteous -- must ask themselves if the images of their celebrations really look so different than those that they condemn.
We must remember that a tremendous majority of the Arab and Muslim world did not revel in the horror of 9/11. The attacks were largely denounced -- from Ramallah to Pakistan and almost everywhere in between.
A death of a human being should never be celebrated -- whether that person was an innocent or whether he or she is guilty of an unspeakable crime. Bloodshed, and rejoicing in it, only perpetuates the cycle of violence.
Instead, I will spend today mourning. Not for Bin Laden, but for the thousands who were senselessly murdered on 9/11 and for the scores who died in the unnecessary wars that followed, wars that are sure to drag on for years to come.
]]>Israel Celebrates an Oscar and Prepares to Deport Childrentag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8291662011-02-28T12:41:36-05:002011-05-25T18:35:25-04:00Mya Guarnierihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mya-guarnieri/Strangers No More -- a documentary film that focuses on a South Tel Aviv school attended by zarim, Hebrew for foreigners or strangers -- has won an Oscar.
"Thank you most of all to the exceptional immigrant and refugee children from 48 countries at Tel Aviv's remarkable Bialik Rogozin school," Karen Goodman, co-producer and co-director said in her acceptance speech. "You've shown us that through education, understanding, and tolerance, peace really is possible."
So what is the Israeli government showing us by planning a mass expulsion of such children? Understanding and tolerance won't be found here. (And you'd better look somewhere else for peace, too).
After a five month delay (the expulsion was scheduled to begin in October 2010), which followed a year-long battle over the matter, the deportation of 400 children and their parents is scheduled to begin on Sunday -- just a week after Strangers No More won an Oscar. Just a week after a crowd in the US applauded the touching story of foreigners who find a home here in Israel. Just a week after the Israeli media runs its hip-hip-hooray! reports of the win, the Oz Unit will start rounding such kids up.
In fact on Sunday, the very day that the honor was awarded, South Tel Aviv's kindergartens were half-empty. Why? According to the Israeli news site Walla, parents kept their children home from school because they were so frightened of the immigration police.
Israel has prepared for the detention of the kids at Ben Gurion International Airport -- where some will await flights to countries they have never seen--by decorating a holding cell with cheerful drawings and fun, family games. But, in the words of Israeli Children, a grassroots organization that has been fighting the deportation for over a year and a half now, "Jail is jail!"
And it seems that strangers, non-Jews, will always be strangers in the eyes of the Israeli government -- no matter how tolerant and understanding the children might make the state seem to the world and no matter how much they might belong in Israel, their home. ]]>An Arab-American Speaks From Cairotag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8185292011-02-06T03:45:08-05:002011-05-25T18:30:24-04:00Mya Guarnierihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mya-guarnieri/An Arab-American, who must remain anonymous due to the Mubarak regime's crackdown on the media, writes from Cairo. I considered trimming this down for readability, but I worried that I would reduce this into a sensationalist news item rather than the thoughtfully written account of the protests that it is. Further, I did not want to censor the anonymous witness to these events in any way. So, it appears here, unedited. I apologize for the length:
Thursday, February 3
I woke up at 10am today to the TV, and have been writing this since I could get myself awake. I have been trying to gather information about what's going on; dozens of people have come and gone since I've been sitting on this computer, each one bringing in different bits of information.
The police are back on the streets with a vengeance, and so are the thugs. But they have not attacked the square (and that makes me uneasy), instead they are trying to cut it off. Many people were kidnapped from the streets around the Square, some roughed seriously, some put in taxis with a thug on each side and taken away, to a location we don't know. Foreign journalists have been threatened, pushed around, beaten, and had their equipment damaged and/or stolen. The BBC has reported that security services have entered the Semiramis Hotel and are interrogating foreign journalists. I have a friend who came from French TV at the Ramsis Hilton Hotel and I was extremely worried about him today, and in fact, his cameraman's camera was stolen in a scuffle. Foreigners have been beaten; journalists have been threatened; lawyers and activists have been arrested, and two human rights centers have been searched and their computers confiscated, the Hisham Mubarak Center and the Egyptian Center for Social and Economic Rights.
They are beginning a crackdown and Mubarak is falling back to his tactics of dividing people by putting fear in their hearts and by using violence and the threat of violence. Outside of where I've been all day, thugs have stopped and accosted men traveling alone or in pairs and roughed them up and let them go, or roughed them up and taken them to who knows where. This went on for hours outside where I'm writing. Sporadic gunfire can be heard as well.
A friend reporting from my neighborhood says that a police truck is randomly picking young men up off the streets.
I'm writing now and it's 10pm. I'm worried. Six or seven helicopters are flying over Tahrir Square although you would not know it. All foreign journalists are out of Tahrir; all cameras have been confiscated from the Square. There is no live coverage. And the helicopters are flying over the demonstrators, and Christiane Amanpour is making Mubarak look like he's a dignified, thoughtful man who cares about his country's people - instead of a thug who has impoverished and humiliated and lied to them every day of his reign.
Wednesday, February 2
Although yesterday's events have been the fodder for all media channels, I will nevertheless recount the day for you since it is freshest in my mind. I left the Square around 9pm on Tuesday, with thousands and thousands of people still along all the streets leading to Tahrir Square. I went to a local NGO where I've slept in order to watch the speech by Mubarak. It did not surprise me in the least. He was on TV precisely in order to show his strength, to discourage people, to make people feel weak and small. And in large part, it worked. Believe it or not, more than half of Egypt's population has never known any other president than Hosni Mubarak, any other politics than intimidation, any other regime than one of utter and depraved corruption.
We went home with friends who live far away after the speech and I left early to return to the Square. On my way in, I saw one small demonstration on Ahmed Orabi street, just by my flat, of maybe twenty young men, chanting "With my soul and blood, I would die for you, Mubarak". Between my home and the Square, I saw another four such demonstrations, with not more than 40 people at most. They were walking in the middle of the streets and blocking traffic and some cars were honking their horns in approval of their chants. Tal'at Harb Square was full of people chanting pro-Mubarak slogans.
There were not more than ten thousand people at Tahrir at 9am. It was still cool, the coldest night since the demonstrations had begun. The night's lack of sleep and cold was still on people's faces, in their joints. People have been sleeping with nothing more than a blanket below and a blanket above them. Some sleep on the sidewalk with nothing to cover them, and nothing under them except some cardboard; some have brought tents. Small fires were lit all around and groups collect around them to gather as much heat as possible. A friend of mine had spent the night in the Square because thugs prevented her from going home to a nearby neighborhood at night.
By noon, we had doubled our numbers, but twenty thousand or so in a place as large as Tahrir Square does not look impressive. The area around Bustan, Qasr al Nil, and Champollion Streets -- the area across from the side of the Egyptian Museum -- was full of pro-Mubarak people speaking to journalists and TV, making statements about how much they love the President, how much he's done for the country, and how the badly the demonstrators in Tahrir had been treating them. I kept my mouth shut around these groups on my way to buy whatever I could find from the closest bakery. These groups were inching their way closer and closer to the entrances to the Square.
By 2pm the pro-Mubarak camp was about a thousand people strong and they were pressing their way in slowly. Men formed a wall of locked elbows to keep them out. Three rows of men held up for about half an hour under constant pressure but eventually, the pro-Mubarak demonstrators broke through one part and revealed their intentions immediately: they ran to one of the small gardens along the side (about a meter higher than street level) and immediately destroyed three tents and trampled everything in their way. They tore down signs large and small and roughed up people in their way. But they could not advance further than this island. Their gestures and language was violent, but they were not suicidal and did not push further nor did they throw anything. But the men at their edge were pushing and shoving and shouting. Those further in were holding up their signs and slogans, some of which were eventually snatched and torn. The friction burst into violence as they began to throw stones, and several men were injured in the first minute and taken to the makeshift field hospital in the mosque. The violence turned against them and they were soon forced out of the garden and on to the streets facing the side of the Egyptian museum.
That's when the threat of violence became a constant part of our life in the Square. At the entrance to Champollion, Qasr al Nil, and Bustan streets it started to rain bricks and stones from 3pm or so. The army did nothing to stop this and they witnessed exactly how the violence began. The army had allowed these people in the Square in the first place.
The peace inside the Square was shattered and the situation remained tense until this morning. Barricades made of fencing, sheet metal, and traffic barriers were put up at all the entrances to the Square. People pleaded with the soldiers to move their armored cars in a formation to prevent pro-Mubarak forces from entering. At two entrances, the soldiers did in fact comply. Metal rods were used to break up any fencing and any sidewalk and any wall made of brick as this was the only ammunition available. People used all means at their disposal to transport this ammunition to the entrances to the Square: carrying them in sacks and bags, dragging them on what had been anti-Mubarak signs, making piles of them at spots behind the front lines. Men were instructed to wrap their heads with any covering then others helped them to tie cardboard onto their heads to diminish the damage of any blow they might receive from a flying brick or stone. The pro-Mubarak forces attacked from the Museum side; from one of the buildings facing the side of the Museum they threw Molotov cocktails at us. This battle of nerves and bricks and stones went on from 3pm until 6am this morning, but anti-government demonstrators won this battle, even though we were cut off and in a siege situation, one that continues until today.
There were many hundreds if not over a thousand injuries yesterday alone, mostly to the head and face. Broken noses, broken teeth, lost eyes, and bashed in head wounds were most common. The initial field hospital was far away from where most of the fighting took place yesterday and so the doctors set up another makeshift field hospital near Bustan street where the injured could be carried. They were performing the best they could under the circumstances, bandaging wounds, performing basic stitching, changing dressings, and calling in ambulances for serious cases.
Some of these pro-Mubarak thugs were caught, in the Square, because they had come in as part of the anti-Mubarak demonstrators; they were also caught from the streets around where they were roaming in groups and threatening and beating all people on the streets. After dark, it became safer in the Square than out because there was intermittent gunfire until early this morning. Several people died last night, and many more were injured by this gunfire. I left at first sunlight, around 6am, to a place where I could sleep not too far from Tahrir.
More than a million people had demonstrated in and around the Square on Tuesday without a single scuffle. The epitome of order and organization and civilization. People's IDs were checked as they entered the square and all bags were searched. The same scenario and procedure for entering the Square took place on Wednesday, but the pro-Mubarak thugs came in with violence as a goal regardless.
Saturday, January 29
There are rumors from early in the morning that the government has released the prisoners from the highest security prisons around Cairo, Abu Zaabal and Tura. (It turned out later to be true). I saw absolutely no vandalism in downtown Cairo in the area of Tahrir square although I was told that shops were looted in Mohandiseen along two of the major shopping streets. But there are absolutely no police of any kind on the streets anywhere. People are directing traffic by themselves quite efficiently.
On my way to Tahrir Square I see tanks and armored vehicles in front of the TV building, preventing traffic from heading into the Square or moving south along the Nile. Pedestrians move without any problems and I head to Tahrir. The NDP headquarters is still burning, black smoke swelling out from the hulk of the building. The aftermath of yesterday's events are scattered for everyone to see. The remains of the burning trucks, the streets littered with bricks and stones and metal barricades, broken signs and their twisted metal. And people everywhere walking around, inspecting the residue of Friday's events. People are walking around the NDP compound freely even as the main building still burns. Most of them have never been allowed in this compound.
A makeshift emergency aid clinic that was set up in a mosque a central area just off the main part of the Square on Tuesday is overflowing with injured people, doctors, nurses and others helping out. The doctor I spoke to told me that they'd treated 1,000 people since Tuesday, with 300 other cases in critical condition that were sent to hospitals, and that about 50 people had died in the clinic. I cannot vouch for these figures in any way, but this was for an interview for French TV that I translated.
The atmosphere in Tahrir square, however, was joyous. People were stunned at these events, most of all activists and the politically-inclined because no one could have dreamt up this scenario on Monday, a week earlier. People had slept in the Square on Friday night, and it has been, very literally, liberated territory since then, with people sleeping every single night. Live fire could be heard in the afternoon coming from the direction of the Interior Ministry, nicknamed here, of course, the Ministry of Torture, and the immediate area around the Ministry was a war zone of burned out cars and the carcasses of police trucks, bricks, stones and debris all over the streets.
On our way home on Saturday night and every night I have gone home since then, there have been "committees" of mostly young men blocking the major roads and the entrances to every neighborhood in Cairo. They are carrying sticks, clubs, batons, baseball bats, swords, knives, makeshift spears and anything that can do injury, and they're blocking the roads with everything that can stop a car or truck from passing. They search the trunk, ask for IDs and car registration; they're extremely polite and I've never felt safer. On my street the atmosphere is festive at night: men have brought down tables and chairs, water pipes and radios, and are hanging out. I told my cousin that every man who's got marital problems is now on the street enjoying the curfew and getting to know the street's residents better than anytime before. Perhaps for the first time in their lives, young men feel that they have some authority over their affairs.
Around midnight, we could hear gunfire and shouting from the apartment. There were responses to this gunfire and after a little while, we began to discriminate the different sounds: pistol fire, shotgun fire, machine gun fire. This lasted for several hours but we went to bed anyway, feeling completely safe with all the men on the street protecting us.
The next day we learned that they caught some of the thugs who fired because they eventually ran out of ammunition and were outnumbered ten to one. They were beaten to a pulp and turned over to the army and it turned out that they were informants from the local police station. This same situation played itself out in many neighborhoods of Cairo on Saturday night. By accident of course.
Liberation Square has organized itself into a settled community. There is a trash committee cleaning up the street, and people are treating them with respect that they've never had for their local garbage men. There is a "radio station" with microphone and speakers that is trying hard to keep unfounded rumors from spreading and reporting the major developments around Cairo, Egypt and abroad regularly. There is a committee that passes out water to make sure that no one goes thirsty. People have also brought in water, food, juice and blankets and passed them out in solidarity with those camping in the square. Young doctors organized a first aid field hospital at a mosque once the imam called for the injured to be brought into the mosque for safety. Until yesterdays' events, the events of Wednesday February 2nd, Tahrir Square has been a festival. And yesterdays' events forced people to organize themselves into defense committees: those breaking up the sidewalks, those carrying or dragging the rubble to all the entrances, young men breaking up any metal fences and dragging anything that can be used as a barricade to the entrances, and young men who have been putting their lives on the line throwing stones at the thugs, criminals and undercover police, that have been trying to break into the square since yesterday afternoon.
I have spent most of the last week at Tahrir Square and the downtown area. Last Tuesday was one of the most amazing events I've witnessed in my life with possibly more than a million people in and around the square, all of them sharing the hope of a better life without Mubarak and his corrupt and ruthless regime that has forced the ordinary Egyptian women and men to live in shame and humiliation because they are forced into a never ending cycle of poverty and all its related problems
Friday, January 28
No mobile telephones from around 10am.
Heavy police presence in my neighborhood of Mohandiseen on the two major roads around my flat, Ahmed Orabi and Gam'at Dowal Al Arabia.
The sermons before Friday prayers were calling for people not to demonstrate against the government, that demonstrators were being manipulated by foreign hands meant on creating divisions in Egyptian society. This in my neighborhood and others according to friends.
Demonstrators leaving the Mustafa Mahmoud mosque surrounded by police but no clashes until we reach Dokki Square about two kilometers away, where police presence was even heavier than around the Mustafa Mahmoud mosque. Police fired tear gas on demonstrators (by now we were over thousand people and still growing) so demonstrators moved toward Galaa Square on the Nile, where the Sheraton Hotel is. A very heavy police presence at the square preventing people from crossing the bridge toward Tahrir Square with four police trucks parked on the bridge, blocking the way across.
Demonstrators walk right up to the riot police cordon and do not retreat until riot police begin to fire tear gas. Young men begin to throw stones and break up the sidewalk tiles and concrete into pieces to use as ammunition against attacking riot police. Tear gas covers the square and stones continue to be thrown. Police attack and retreat but demonstrators do not break up. We can see tear gas being fired under the October bridge about two kilometers to the north and at Dokki Square one kilometer to the west. It is about 2pm. A tear gas canister falls into the cabin or a police truck and it starts to burn. Another canister falls into a balcony of a building on the square and sets it afire. Young men manage to force riot police to retreat and take over the four trucks parked at the entrance of the bridge. They open the hoods and dismantle the motors, and push one truck off the bridge. From behind and then atop the trucks, they push the riot police back further to the other side of the bridge. The security presence guarding the entrance to the Nile to the south - the direction of the Israeli embassy - is completely passive, watching the clashes, but not taking part whatsoever.
The bridge is taken and demonstrators move toward the opera house on the island of Zamalek. We can only get half way because of the tear gas. The same scenario taking place in front of my eyes is happening at every downtown street around Liberation square I learn from a car that is moving around different parts of central cairo to spread news of demonstrations. Tear gas, rubber bullets and shotgun pellets are being used by the riot police. Against stones. Many people are injured, many suffocating and retching from tear gas inhalation. Ambulances going back and forth moving people from the front lines of the demonstration to the rear.
My eyes and lungs are burning and I cannot breathe, cannot run. The police have flanked us from the garden and fired many canisters onto the street. The bravest kick the canisters off the sides. I'm moving back toward the bridge for air where I remain for 15 minutes. It's extremely crowded and I'm pushing hard to get to where I want to be on the north side along the railing to get the most fresh air. I don't understand the massive crowding. People are telling me not to retreat, that they have come from Giza, that there are thousands of them, but I'm dumb with lack of oxygen; I don't understand the significance of what they're saying.
I get the air I need and move back to Galaa Square, with difficulty toward the intersection to Murad street, and I see something I have never seen before in Egypt. Tens of thousands of people coming from the direction of Giza Square and the Zoo. They are moving peacefully, cheerfully on one side of the street and this flow of men and women continues for the half hour I remain there talking to a friend, trying to pull myself together to go back to the tear gas. They filed into the square and across the bridge directly, calmly. But certainly there must have been many street battles they left behind them. Whatever has taken place on the front lines of the bridge I don't know (though I can guess) but by the time I get to the main entrance of the opera house, the road is clear of riot police and I can see that the bridge leading to Tahrir square is also full of thousands of people. But the square itself is covered in white smoke. It is about 4:30pm now, just under an hour to dusk. The bridge is littered with stones and rubble from the broken sidewalks.
By the time I cross the bridge to the Cairo side of the city, night time is just around the corner. There is no more forward movement toward the square because the central part of the square full of white tear gas, the stench is nauseating and even burns my eyes from a few hundred meters away. The group I'm with now (I keep seeing friends, but the people I was with at the beginning of the day are lost to me for now) begin to move along the Nile to the south, toward the October bridge, Abdul Minim Riyad Square, and the NDP headquarters. Riot police trucks come from that direction and block the way. Immediately, within 30 seconds, the sidewalk tiles are broken up or taken in whole (each one weighs a good ten kilos). Some trucks are preparing to pass under the bridge, revving up their motors, to move towards the US embassy, and as they do, they are pelted by dozens of stones. Four or five trucks pass, one by one. None gets below the bridge without being hit many times, the steel-reinforced windshields of three or four being shattered as they pass. Everyone standing at the railing has thrown something. The trucks that have remained at the beginning of the underpass turn around and go back, and we chase them. It turns out they are empty of soldiers because they go to the entrances of the NDP headquarters and park broadside in front of each of the two major entrances.
The NDP headquarters are pelted. It seems a hopeless act of venting anger because the wall is about three meters high and the first floor windows are all reinforced with plexiglass. But people are nevertheless pelting. My mind says no, but I'm doing the same thing too. Some men manage to climb one side of the cement and brick fence and manage to get in the building, jumping like mountain goats. Others have pushed the police trucks in front of the gates enough so that people can pass through. The gates are broken and the NDP headquarters is now open territory for every Egyptian who has never been allowed to step into this compound. Everything inside is looted completely. All food and drink in this complex is brought down within fifteen minutes and passed out among the demonstrators immediately. Soft drinks, juice, water, sweets, and bags of sugar. Everything else is looted or broken on site: chairs, desks, computer screens and computers, standing fans, and documents are taken. Every car in the compound is scavenged. Then place is suddenly on fire and a cheer goes up in the air.
(I learned later that night and the following day from friends who live in various parts of the city that police stations around Cairo had been torched in the same way, people deliberately targeting their anger and their pent up feelings of humiliation against the police stations and their officers).
The museum is adjacent to the NDP HQ and demonstrators have spontaneously joined hands around the two main entrances to the museum to prevent looters from entering. It's a totally spontaneous reaction to the situation.
Abdul Minim Riyad square is on fire at several points. Four or five police trucks are burning black smoke. Others are flying around the square randomly, like a trapped animal, trying to run over demonstrators in an attempt to get out of the area. One on top of the bridge is also on fire blocking one of the exit ramps.
There are tens of thousands demonstrators everywhere now, moving in groups, heading in different directions. There are a series of battles around the front and back entrances to the TV building, just south of Abdul Minim Riyad Square on the corniche. Tahrir square is completely taken over except for the quadrant towards AUC, which leads both to the parliament in one direction and the Interior Ministry in the other. This is where there is a series of constant furious street battles of raining bricks, tear gas and various kinds of armed weapons between riot police and demonstrators. Live bullets are being used as well I saw the cartridges with my own eyes on Saturday morning.
These street battles continue around the AUC, Parliament, Interior Ministry quadrant and the TV building until 2 or 3am, but before midnight, the army comes in, at first in a pickup truck, small bus and two jeeps. Heated arguments break out between demonstrators about whether to let the first group of soldiers in or not. The soldiers are saying they are on the side of the people. I do not trust the army and the impassioned arguments go on for fifteen minutes. The military cannot go anywhere; they are totally paralyzed and surrounded and can only get out if they fire. They would not have been able to go through unless people let them through, which they did, only to discover that they were part of the Presidential Guard bringing in ammunition and tear gas to the Interior ministry forces placed around and protecting one of the most sensitive quadrants in the country. Later in the evening, several army jeeps are stopped and the soldiers removed as people discover that they are not coming to protect the demonstrators.
At one point in the evening, I am completely dumbfounded to find five tanks and many armored vehicles rolling in to the square. Demonstrators are overjoyed and climb on top greeting the soldiers as saviors. The chant that is heard like thunder: "The army and the people are one hand." I don't like it.
The tanks and armored vehicles move in around the museum. But at least one armored vehicle, at another part of the square, is burned (the soldiers were taken out first) as people don't trust their motives. Two jeeps are prevented from entering the square on Qasr al Nil bridge. They are turned into scrap metal in a matter of minutes when people discover that they are coming to reinforce the riot police. Heated discussions about what to do with the soldiers but they are not harmed, though terribly shaken.
By the time I made it home, partly walking and partly thanks to people who picked me up along the way, I learned that a curfew has been put in place, which explained why there was no form of public transportation and almost no traffic at all.
Thursday, January 27
A very heavy security presence underneath every bridge connection between Cairo to Giza by evening. Riot police trucks were placed on the bridges and below, with officers camping out for the night. Internet service is cut off around 9pm all over cairo. No sms service when I try it at midnight
. Wednesday, January 26
An incredibly heavy police/security presence on Wednesday at Liberation Square with tens of Central Security transportation trucks at every intersection into Liberation Square and around the Supreme Court, with dozens of police officers at these intersections. No trace of yesterday's demonstrations whatsoever. The graffiti had been painted over, the one burned car was removed, all the stones on the streets had been swept up, and all traffic was moving normally.
Tuesday, January 25
Unbelievable. Totally peaceful demonstrations, unprecedented and "spontaneous", throughout Cairo,not just in the downtown area, that continued in their various neighborhoods or moved toward Liberation square, the heart of downtown. The rhythmic, rhyming slogans that were chanted by thousands over and over were: "The people want the downfall of the regime" or "Collapse, collapse Hosni Mubarak," or simply "Get out". These demonstrations took everyone by surprise: ordinary people, activists, politicians, and the government as well. Even the people who had made the initial calls to demonstrate. Never before had demonstrations on this scale taken place in Cairo - not just in the downtown area but throughout the city.
Attempts by central security forces to break up the demonstrations with riot police using batons, and wearing helmets and carrying shields. Interior Ministry Central Security (basically riot police, or to use the Brave New World terminology, semi-epsilon morons, probably the lowest paid group of people in the country) forces using water cannon many times during the day on demonstrators and then firing hundreds of tear gas canisters against peaceful demonstrators camping out in the square starting at 1am on Wednesday morning, emptying the Square completely within half an hour due to the enormous number of canisters fired.
And the Arab-American author offers this general note about the protests:
Although the socio-economic and political situation in Egypt has been very bad for years and deteriorating year after year -- meaning that wages don't allow for a decent standard of living, public education is a joke, and public health care almost does not exist (and most people cannot afford private education or private health care) -- let alone the political situation which is intolerably oppressive and in the control of just one party, the party of violence, fear and corruption. There is no serious public dissent that is not immediately silenced by intimidation and outright violence. Still, no one believed what happened last Tuesday, January 25. I believe this surprised even the organizers who called for these demonstrations. It was the first time that a revolution had an appointment: January 25, 2011, 2pm.
There is no other name for what has taken place in Egypt other than popular revolution. Hundreds of thousands, millions of people have been demonstrating against this oppressive regime in every city in the country, from Damietta and Alexandria on the north coast to Aswan in the south. The only organization that can get a few hundred thousands on the streets would be the Muslim Brotherhood and they are not and have not been throughout their entire history, a revolutionary organization. The Muslim Brotherhood are also the only organization that has supported the Egyptian people by providing social services for the 40 million who live below the poverty line.
There is no unified political leadership to what is happening. But that does not mean that there are no opposition political figures in Egypt. These people, from all political currents, have spoken up since Tuesday.]]>The Palestine Papers Might Help the PA Create a Palestinian Statetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8146762011-01-28T17:11:56-05:002011-05-25T18:30:24-04:00Mya Guarnierihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mya-guarnieri/Palestine Papers -- 1600 internal documents that give a behind-the-scenes look at Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Since then, Middle East analysts, observers, and op-ed writers have been talking about the usual doomsday scenarios: the collapse of the peace process, a Hamas takeover of the West Bank, war, or (gasp!) a bi-national, one-state solution.
Of course, no one can predict the future. What we can discuss is possible outcomes:
1) The so-called collapse of the so-called peace process -- this happened a long time ago. The Palestine Papers just confirm what any man on the street in Tel Aviv or Ramallah could have told you.
2) A Hamas takeover in the West Bank? Not a chance. Any rumblings in the West Bank will be squashed by the PA and Israel. (Again, the close collaboration between the two was no secret before the Palestine Papers). Some have speculated that the Palestine Papers would spell the death of the PA -- the Palestinian people would be so enraged that the PA is willing to give away so much, including the right to return which is considered sacred by many Palestinian refugees, that we might see a Tunisia-like scenario erupt in the West Bank.
Or so the thinking went.
But, so far, that hasn't happened. And it won't. Because the Palestinians know that protests and riots would give Israel an excuse to reoccupy the whole of the West Bank. The status quo will remain. At least for now.
3) War? Between who? Israel and the PA? Unlikely. As the Palestine Papers prove, the PA is groveling and weak and either unwilling or unable to stand up to Israel. Israel and Hamas? Israel precluded that with its savage attacks on the Gaza Strip during Operation Cast Lead. And it is Hamas that is now keeping militant groups in check in the strip.
The way I see it, the Palestine Papers help pave the way for two scenarios:
1) The eventual establishment of a democratic, bi-national state (a beautiful, utopian idea--one I have, personally, supported for some time and that I'll address, yet again, in my next post) or the more likely outcome...
2) The PA continues its push for international recognition of a Palestinian state.
Guess which one makes me suspect that it was actually the PA that leaked the Palestine Papers?
The Palestine Papers suggest that the Israelis don't care about peace. What does Israel care about? Land, land, and more land. After the Palestinians offered up the "biggest Yerushalayim in history" -- even using the Hebrew word for the city -- Tzipi Livni waved them away because it didn't "meet our demands" for an Israeli annexation of Jewish settlements that are located deep in the Palestinian West Bank.
So why might the PA leak papers that show it making tremendous concessions and getting nothing in return? Why would the PA take the risk of alienating the Palestinian public?
To gain international support for a declaration of a Palestinian state along 1967 borders.
There's also the draft of a UN resolution against Israel's illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Yes, it's just a draft -- the UN has yet to pass the resolution and may not because of the US -- but its submission hints that the Palestinians might be turning to the UN for the same kind of support that Israel got in 1947.
Israelis talk a lot about the need for a peace process to establish a Palestinian state (conveniently ignoring the fact that their own state was the result not of a peace process but, in part, of a UN vote in November of 1947). But the Palestine Papers prove that this "peace process" just allows Israel to build more settlements and grab more Palestinian land. And the papers also prove that Israel is unlikely to make the sacrifices that Palestinians are willing to make.
While the Palestine Papers might make the PA look pathetic to some of its own -- and that's why the PA has distanced itself from the papers, of course -- the PA comes out looking quite sympathetic to the international community. And right now, as the PA pushes for international recognition, it's the international community that matters to them.
Mya Guarnieri is a freelance journalist who contributes regularly to Al Jazeera English, amongst other outlets.
]]>Nobel Peace Prize Winner Detained in Israeltag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.7416922010-09-28T10:33:21-04:002011-05-25T17:50:22-04:00Mya Guarnierihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mya-guarnieri/ denied entry to Israel and was detained at Ben Gurion Airport.
Maguire, an Irish peace activist and a co-founder of the Nobel Women's Initiative, was traveling to Israel to lead a delegation through Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The group intends to learn about the efforts of Jewish and Arab women who are actively working for peace and coexistence.
"Dedicating your life to peace should not be a threat to national security," commented Jody Williams, one of the six founders of the Nobel Women's Initiative, as she prepared to board a flight to Tel Aviv.
With the help of Adalah, a local NGO that advocates for the rights of Israel's Palestinian citizens, Maguire has begun fighting her deportation. Fatmeh El-Ajou, an attorney for Adalah, remarked, "We believe that the decision to refuse entry to Ms. Maguire is based on illegitimate, irrelevant, and arbitrary political considerations."
"All of her activities [in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories] were done in a peaceful and nonviolent form and all of her activities should be protected under the right to express her opinion," El-Ajou added.
Maguire has been a vocal critic of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians, including the siege on Gaza. This summer, she participated in the Freedom Flotilla, which Israel took over in international waters. The Israeli raid led to the deaths of nine internationals and sparked international outcry; Maguire, along with other activists, was detained and subsequently returned to her home country.
Deportation from Israel results in a 10-year ban from returning to the state.
According to El-Ajou, Maguire was so concerned that her repatriation might prevent her from returning to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories that she contacted Israeli authorities after she'd arrived Ireland. They informed Maguire that she wouldn't be barred from entering the country.
When she arrived today with a fellow flotilla participant, her colleague was permitted to enter Israel. But the Israeli authorities told Maguire that she was denied entry because of her participation in the flotilla.
Sabine Haddad, spokeswoman for the Ministry of Interior commented to The Huffington Post: "A few months ago [Maguire] was on the Rachel Corrie [a ship on the Freedom Flotilla]. After that she was deported. So she knows that she can't come to Israel. She says that she [checked] with the embassy before but she didn't do that."
Is Maguire's detainment politically motivated? Is it related to her support of the Palestinians?
"No," Haddad answered.
"She's not special, ok?" Haddad added. "She has to go by the law in Israel."
Referring to the state's position that Maguire was denied entry on the basis of her participation with the Freedom Flotilla, El-Ajou remarked, "This is the excuse."
What does detaining a Nobel Peace Prize winner say about the state of the Israeli government? Is it a strike against free speech? Is it punishment for supporting the Palestinians?
"It's both," El-Ajou responded. Maguire is being singled out because of her "commitment to alleviating the suffering of the people of Gaza and because of her wide activities seeking peace and justice," El-Ajou said.
Other prominent figures who are critical of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians have been denied entry to the country. In May, Noam Chomsky was barred from entering. In 2008, Professor Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian Territories, was detained as he attempted to enter Israel and was subsequently deported.
Maguire's detainment comes just two days after the end of the settlement freeze, which endangers fledging peace talks. Construction resumes. A Nobel Laureate is detained. Both moves cast doubt upon Israel's commitment to peace. ]]>Israeli and Palestinian Schools More Important than Peace Talkstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.7086172010-09-08T07:43:59-04:002011-05-25T17:35:19-04:00Mya Guarnierihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mya-guarnieri/
The school year.
The Israeli educational system is only slightly more promising.
The start of the school year saw the introduction of a pilot program that will make Arabic classes mandatory for students in 170 schools in the north of Israel. Speaking to the Israeli news site Walla, Dr. Shlomo Alon, Head of Arabic and Islam Education in the Ministry of Education, remarked: "We live in a country that has two official languages... Studying Arabic will promote tolerance and convey a message of acceptance."
Alon continued, "The state aspires to complete equality of citizenship. We will not deal with conflicts based on cultural identity."
The rhetoric is great but the reality of the pilot program is a bit dimmer. Haaretz reports that it is a response, in part, to greater demand for Arabic matriculation exams. This means that the classes are intended primarily for Palestinian-Israeli students. It is Jewish-Israelis, not Palestinian-Israelis, who need to learn how to accept Arabic-speakers.
Further, the pilot program is being conducted in Israel's North District--home to an Arab majority.
More encouraging are the Ministry of Education's plans to make Arabic compulsory across the country. And it's heartening that pilot program is the result of the tireless efforts and advocacy of The Abraham Fund, a local NGO that promotes "coexistence and equality among Israel's Jewish and Arab citizens" and was founded in the midst of the First Intifada.
But Israeli schools also hold some dark harbingers.
A recent poll conducted by Tel Aviv University professor Camil Fuchs found that 50 percent of Jewish-Israelis don't want Arabs in their classes. And while nearly two-thirds of those surveyed acknowledge that Arab citizens don't have equal rights, 59 percent are fine with that.
Racism takes other forms in Israeli schools. When school started last year, more than 100 Ethiopian students were barred from private ultra-Orthodox schools in Petach Tikva because of their ethnicity. More recently, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled against the segregation of Sephardi and Ashkenazi students in an ultra-Orthodox school-- and Ashkenazi students skipped school in response.
At the same time that the Ministry of Education is launching its pilot program, it is rewriting its textbooks in a bid to "move the emphasis from citizenship and democracy" while "strengthening Zionism and national patriotism," according to Hebrew University professor Dr. Ricki Tessler.
Even though 64 percent of students would likely agree with the statement "since its establishment, the State of Israel has engaged in a policy of discrimination against its Arab citizens," the Ministry of Education will see this sentence, and others like it, struck from textbooks.
While Israel bears a greater responsibility than the Palestinians--it was the Jewish state that created the refugee problem in 1948, discriminates against its Arab citizens, and continues to occupy and illegally settle the West Bank--the PA has some educational work to do, too. Many Palestinians know little about the Holocaust, a horrendous chapter in Jewish history that continues to make an impact on the Israeli psyche and, arguably, influences the Israeli government's policies for better or worse.
Two state, one state, or no state, our fates are bound together and our educational systems must reflect that. We must learn more than one another's languages--we must know each other's cultures, histories, and values. We must know each other's humanity.
That the peace process has been stalled for years--and is likely to stall again--points to the urgency of a bottom-up solution. Only when the people demand peace will peace come. ]]>Israeli soldier mocks Palestinian prisoners in photostag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.6831632010-08-16T10:58:33-04:002011-05-25T17:20:22-04:00Mya Guarnierihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mya-guarnieri/
Eden, the young Israeli woman, posted the pictures on Facebook and titled the album "Army... the most beautiful time of my life. :)" One shows her squatting before a group of bound Palestinians, presumably at or near a West Bank checkpoint, a smirk playing on her face. In another, Eden sits on a cement block next to a prisoner, whose eyes are covered with a strip of cloth. Her head titled upwards, she looks down her nose imperiously towards him.
Speaking to the Israeli daily Ynet, an Israeli army spokesman commented, "This is shameless behavior by the soldier. In light of the fact that she was discharged last year, all of the details have been turned over to the commanders for further attention."
Yishai Menuhin, the director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, a local NGO, commented to Ynet, "These types of pictures reflect the customary norms of IDF soldiers... and the treatment given to Palestinian detainees."
The comments on the photos left by Eden and her friends are equally disturbing as they, at best, show utter disregard for the Palestinian prisoners, and at worst, downright mock them.
One friend commented that Eden was "sexiest like that." Eden responded, "Yes, I know. LOL... What a day it was, look how he completes my pictures. I wonder if he's got Facebook. I have to tag him the picture. LOL."
First exposed by the blog Sachim, other Israelis expressed shock and disgust with both the photos and the responses left by Eden and her friends.
"These pictures really do speak for themselves; of course, [Eden] is no better or worse than thousands of other Israeli soldiers, and I'd like to hope a few years from now she'll be appalled, rather than amused by the memories. We may and should cut slack to the effect of conflict on a young person's sensitivity and moral standards - [Eden] by no means should be scapegoated for all excesses of the IDF - and remember efforts by separate individuals, even in uniform, to make an intolerable situation more bearable."
The picture I see in Eden's photos? An army that has forgotten the other's humanity--and has lost its own humanity in the process.
]]>An open letter of protest to the Israeli governmenttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.6821672010-08-14T09:01:15-04:002011-05-25T17:20:22-04:00Mya Guarnierihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mya-guarnieri/
After a year-long battle over the children's fate, the Israeli government recently approved criteria that will make 800 eligible for naturalization, leaving another 400 vulnerable to expulsion, along with their parents. Critics of the plan say that not only is the deportation inhumane-- and a violation of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, which Israel signed-- many kids will fall through the bureaucratic cracks. This will dramatically reduce the number of those who will get to stay and add hundreds to the number of those will be deported.
For example, there are 17 families--with 30 children between them--that will fall through the cracks because they came in on the "wrong" visas. With jobs lined up at embassies, they came on tourist visas and then, with the help of their employers, changed their status. Arriving from the Philippines in the early 1990s, a few with toddlers, their children now range in age from 8 to 25.
In 2005, when opened a window to migrant workers' children, these families applied. But, despite the fact that their children met all of the criteria, the state turned them away. Why? Only children of illegal residents were eligible for naturalization, they were told. Because they held work permits, they didn't make the cut.
Now, it turns out, they were the "wrong" kind of legal. They face expulsion to the Philippines, a country many of their children have never visited. Torn from their homes, these Israeli-born children-- many of whom are older than others who are being naturalized-- will be forced to grapple with a culture and language they don't know.
Although the odds are now stacked against them, one of these families is forging ahead with an application for residency nonetheless. To strengthen their case, they asked me to write a letter of support. Omitting their names, I am publishing the English translation here as an open letter of protest to the Israeli government:
Greetings,
I am writing this letter to give my support to the Del Rosario family.
In the year that has passed, I have gotten to know them very well. The parents are good people that honor Israel and teach their children to love the country. As practicing Christians, they feel a strong connection to the land and the Jewish people. Like many Filipinos, they feel it is an honor to live here.
Their children, aged 15 and 9, were born here from love and have grown to love this country. They are completely Israeli. I have visited them in their home, we've been together at parties and other events, and I saw, with my own eyes, that they speak Hebrew, they play in Hebrew, and I am sure that this is the language that they dream in. They love Israel--their home, our home--and they celebrate all of the Jewish holidays. It is very important to their parents that they will know Israeli and Jewish culture. Accordingly, it is important to me that Israel will give them the respect they deserve and that they give us.
In the time that has passed, I have become very close with the De Rosarios. They care for me and treat me as though I am part of their family. Similarly, we must care for them and treat them as though they are part of our family.
To do so is also to honor the history of the Jewish people... during the Shoah (Holocaust), the Philippines opened their doors to the Jews. Because of their strong connection to the Jewish people, they saved more than 1000 Jews. And it's worth reminding you that they wanted to allow more Jews to come to Philippines--there was even a discussion of giving one of their islands to us--but the war prevented this.
Israel must remember our debt. And Israel must honor the Filipino people as they honored us. I can't think of a family more worthy of respect than the De Rosarios, a family that will enrich our state.
As a citizen, I am signing this letter in the hope that Israel will make the right decision, that Israel will walk the road of honor. ]]>Israel Prepares to Deport Hundreds of Childrentag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.6679622010-08-02T17:33:58-04:002011-05-25T17:15:21-04:00Mya Guarnierihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mya-guarnieri/
The government also approved criteria that would make approximately 800 of the children eligible for naturalization. Children must have studied last year in the state school system, they must be registered for first grade or higher, they must have been here for at least 5 consecutive years, they must have been born here or arrived before the age of 13, they must speak fluent Hebrew, and their parents must have arrived on a valid work visa.
Families who are eligible to stay in Israel have 21 days to file their paperwork. Critics say that this window is too narrow and is likely to lead to the deportation of hundreds of kids who are eligible for naturalization but fall through the bureaucratic cracks.
Critics have also pointed out that the strict criteria might lead to the deportation of minors who meet all conditions except for one -- such as a child who is repeating kindergarten and is not registered for first grade; the children of parents who worked for embassies; or families who left the country for a short period in the last five years. Also of concern are the now-adult children of migrant workers. A generation born and raised in Israel, this group is ineligible for naturalization simply because they are over the age of 18.
Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who has been a vociferous proponent of the deportation, will examine the borderline cases.
The struggle began last July, when Israel announced its intention to expel all 1200 children of undocumented migrant workers. The move, a reversal of Israel's long-held policy against deporting minors, sparked outrage amongst Jewish Israelis and massive protests.
Responding to public pressure, the deportation was delayed until the end of the school year. In the meantime, Israel, which has no immigration law for non-Jews, formed a governmental committee to find a "one-time" solution to the matter.
Those who support the children argue that the kids are Israeli. They were born and raised here, speak Hebrew, attend local schools, and are a part of society.
Yishai, who has backed the plan for deportation despite the fact that the public and many Israeli politicians are against it, says the children are a threat to the Jewish character of the state. He has also stated that migrant workers bring "a profusion of diseases" to Israel.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- who has also expressed concern that the children of foreign workers might erode the Jewish identity of Israel -- praised the cabinet's decision to naturalize 800 minors while deporting the rest, calling it "reasonable and balanced."
Roei Lachmanovich, Yishai's spokesman, remarked on Sunday that the move is not a decision against the children. Rather, it is against the parents who, according to Lachmanovich, are illegal workers that hide behind their babies.
But many of the women lost their legal status after they gave birth as Israeli policy forbids migrant workers from having children in the state -- effectively forcing women to choose between keeping their baby or their visa.
Israeli policy also forbids migrant workers from getting married.
Migrant workers arrived in Israel in the late 1980s, at the beginning of the first Intifada, to replace Palestinian day laborers. Their population grew steadily throughout the 1990s and boomed in the early 2000s, with the second Intifada.
The last major crackdown on undocumented migrant workers began in 2002. Immigration police targeted fathers in hopes that their wives would follow them back to their country of origin, taking their children along with them. Instead, many women chose to stay in Israel and a community of single moms took root.
Today, Israel is home to approximately 300,000 migrant workers. Estimates of the number of undocumented workers vary, with some placing it as high as 250,000.
The Israeli government says that it aims to reduce the state's dependency on migrant workers. The government also hopes to clear the country of undocumented laborers. But critics point out that in 2009, the same year the plans to expel the children were announced, Israel issued a record number of visas to migrant workers. Critics refer to Israel's simultaneous deportation and importation of workers as the "revolving door" policy.
In the wake of Israel's decision to expel children and their families, the United Nation's Children Fund (UNICEF) issued sharp criticism of the revolving door. Regarding the deportation UNICEF remarked, "The government's policy is a gross violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child," pointing out that Israel is a signatory.
Human rights groups and Israeli politicians also slammed the decision. Haim Oron, head of the left-leaning Meretz party, called the deportation "brutal, random, and regretful."
In an op-ed penned for the Israeli daily Haaretz, Yossi Sarid, a former member of Knesset, questioned whether Zionism and humanitarianism can co-exist. Bemoaning the expulsion, calling it "despicable" and "evil", Sarid wrote, "The fools in the cabinet decided to let 800 children of migrant workers remain in the country -- but took the opportunity to deport 400."
Sarid called on the Israeli public to hide the children in their homes, "Let the representatives of the law look for them in the attic, in the basement, in the closets, under the beds; let the authorities tear them from your arms."]]>Israeli Victimhood: A Threat to the Jewish Statetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.6419082010-07-10T15:19:16-04:002011-05-25T17:00:24-04:00Mya Guarnierihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mya-guarnieri/
"Analysis: Trying one soldier for Gaza war crime doesn't solve root of problem," it read. Finally, a discussion of the Israeli army's culture of impunity, I thought. Or perhaps some reflections on a state that behaves as though neither the international community nor its own Supreme Court exist.
Imagine my disappointment when I read the article.
According to Haaretz military correspondent Amos Harel, the "real problem" is "that it is impossible to fight terrorist organizations embedded in a civilian population without civilian casualties." It also seems to trouble Harel that "the international community has evinced zero understanding for the impossible environment in which the IDF operates."
Rather than a call for accountability, the article was an exercise in Israeli victimhood.
The siege mentality. It's dangerous line of thinking that dismisses others' suffering and, simultaneously, breeds a culture of impunity. We're under attack, the thinking goes, so we must use any means necessary to defend ourselves--from violently boarding the Freedom Flotilla to the brutally executed Operation Cast Lead to the ongoing siege on Gaza.
Intended to weaken Hamas, all of these moves have, arguably, had the opposite effect. As the blockade continues, the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement is picking up. Operation Cast Lead brought international condemnation. Now, in the wake of the flotilla, the political tide continues to turn against Israel.
But Israel must do more than overhaul its policies regarding Gaza. It must look inside itself and acknowledge that the roots of the culture of impunity, now proving to be a threat to Israel's well-being, run deep. The first seeds were sown in 1948, with the dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Arabs. It sprouted with the settlements, which threaten both the establishment of a viable, sovereign Palestinian state and the prospect of peace. And the military occupation looms over Israeli society.
The culture of impunity is most clearly--and quantifiably--manifested in the army. Using figures obtained from the IDF, the Israeli NGO Yesh Din reports that from 2000-2009, soldiers were indicted in less than six percent of the cases opened by the Military Police Criminal Investigations Department (MPCID). All of the soldiers were accused of serious offenses, including looting, property damage, bribe-taking, assault, and unlawful shooting which, in some instances, led to injury or death.
89 percent of those indicted "were convicted," Yesh Din reports, "many of them as part of plea bargains that reduced the crimes they were charged with and mitigated their punishments." The other eleven percent of defendants walked as they were acquitted or the charges against them were dropped.
Israel, like any sovereign nation, has a right to defend itself. Soldiers, when faced with a mortal threat, also have the right to protect their lives. But neither Israel nor its army have the right to do so at others' expense. Nor do the state and its soldiers have the right to operate as though they are unaccountable for their actions.
Jews and Israelis, we must ask ourselves: where has wallowing in victimhood gotten us?
Together, the siege mentality and culture of impunity only conspire to keep us locked in a vicious cycle. Israel behaves as though the world is an enemy that it needn't answer to. When the international community responds, we use that as proof positive that we're under attack--conveniently forgetting that the attack is, in part, of our own making.
Our victimhood may yet prove to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. And because we--"a stiff-necked people"--have spent more than 60 years ignoring the cries of others, ours might fall on deaf ears.]]>