A big challenge to turning Americans on to the idea of action to support the human rights of Palestinians is that the situation appears to many as a) far away and b) totally hopeless. Try to talk up the issue, and you are likely to get a look that says, "Why should I pay more attention to something that is far away and totally hopeless? I already have enough opportunities to feel angry, depressed, and powerless."
Since this is the case, it's clearly a good thing if an appeal to action in support of Palestinian rights is a) something that is obviously doable by the person asked and b) comes along with a plausible story for how taking the suggested action will help make the world a better place.
While it won't solve all the problems of human beings on Earth, I claim that going to see the documentary "Budrus," about the successful nonviolent resistance of Palestinians and Israelis against the route of the Israeli "separation barrier" and its confiscation of Palestinian land in the West Bank village of Budrus, is an action that is within the reach of most literate Americans; and furthermore I claim that I have a plausible story for how this action would help make the world a better place.
1. This is a feasible action.
The film, which a Washington Post reviewer called "riveting" and "a sure-fire crowd-pleaser," and former AIPAC staffer M.J. Rosenberg called a "totally engaging" story of "regular people" who "take their fate into their own hands," is starting to be shown throughout the United States. In the next two months, scheduled screenings include: Washington DC, through November 11; Chicago, starting November 19; Minneapolis, November 26; Palm Beach, December 1;
Boston, December 3; Seattle, December 17.
Tens of millions of Americans live within 50 miles of one of the aforementioned cities; if you happen to be one of them, going to see this movie in the next two months is almost certainly a feasible action for you.
Furthermore, if you don't happen to live in or near a city whether there is a screening already scheduled in the next several months, there are still two things that you can feasibly do. One requires just the tiniest smidgen of initiative: you could keep an eye out for when the film is scheduled to show near you. The second requires a slightly higher level of engagement: you could ask yourself, is there a movie theater within 50 miles of me that sometimes shows low-budget movies that have won all kinds of awards? If there is, you could contact that theater and ask them to show it.
2. I have a plausible story that seeing this movie will contribute to making the world a better place.
If many Americans see this movie, it could lead to concrete changes in U.S. policy that would lead to real improvement in the ability of Palestinians in the West Bank to free themselves from the occupation by nonviolent action.
Today, Palestinians and Israelis are using nonviolent resistance to try to defeat the occupation in several villages in the West Bank. But these efforts are much less effective than they could be because they receive very little attention in the US. In particular, when the Israeli occupation authorities repress these efforts, it generates no comment in the US media or by the US government. This gives the Israeli occupation authorities a freer hand for repression. And when Palestinians and Israelis see that repression of nonviolent protest generates no U.S. response, that weakens the political case for nonviolent action.
Two months ago, an Israeli military court convicted Abdallah Abu Rahmah of "incitement" for organizing nonviolent protests in Bilin similar to those shown in the movie Budrus, as Ayed Morrar and Ronit Avni of the movie have noted. Abu Rahmah was sentenced to a year in prison.
As I noted at the time of the conviction, while the European Union protested, the U.S. was silent - not just the U.S. government, but also the U.S. media. Of course, the fact that the U.S. media didn't report this event contributed significantly to the fact that the U.S. government didn't feel compelled to respond to it.
Part of the reason that the U.S. media doesn't cover these developments is that for most of the U.S. news-consuming public, these developments don't have context. Of course, this is a vicious circle: the U.S. media doesn't report much on events in the West Bank, as a result of which most Americans don't have context, which in turn discourages the U.S. media from reporting on events in the West Bank.
But this vicious circle can be broken. The main political purpose of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla was to call world attention to the Israeli blockade of Gaza. When the Israeli military attacked the flotilla, it was a world-historical event. The flotilla generated press attention to the blockade, but more is true: the renewed press attention to the blockade established context that resulted in increased press coverage of the blockade that made little or no reference to the flotilla. Once the story of the blockade was out, a journalist could write a follow-up story about the blockade that stood a good chance of being printed.
And that's what Budrus could do: establish context for an American audience, so that when an Abdullah Abu Rahmah is convicted for protesting, the U.S. media reports on it and the U.S. government feels compelled to respond.
That would be a big change in the world.
But even if Budrus doesn't result in this world-historical change, it is likely to result in a smaller change that would still be worth your while.
If you have been following this issue over, say, the last twenty-five years, you know that there are images of Palestinians and Israelis that are constantly promoted to obstruct people from effectively advocating constructive actions to bring about a just peace: All Palestinians support violence. All Israelis support the occupation. Palestinians and Israelis can never cooperate or live in peace.
As claims about objective reality, these images are lies. But these images retain tremendous power. The situation is far outside the experience of most Americans, and that makes it easier to lie about it and get away with it.
If you watch this movie, you'll be vaccinated against these lies forever.
Furthermore, you'll gain a new superpower: the ability to effortlessly kill these lies on contact. Everyone knows that if someone claims that all Jews are greedy, all you have to do is to produce one example of a Jew who is not greedy and you vanquish their claim. After you see this movie, if someone says: "Palestinians support violence," you'll be able to say: "in Budrus, Palestinians used nonviolence." If someone says: "Israelis support the occupation," you'll be able to say: "in Budrus, Israelis helped defeat the occupation." If someone says, "Palestinians and Israelis will always be at war," you'll be able to say, "in Budrus, Palestinians and Israelis cooperated to defeat the confiscation of Palestinian land."
Wouldn't the acquisition of that superpower be worth the price of one movie ticket?
Follow Robert Naiman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/naiman
Robert Naiman: Budrus Shows 'White Intifada' Can Beat the Israeli Occupation
Ryan J. Bell: Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish: A Palestinian Martin Luther King
(MORE)
Well I wonder if Mr. Pollak was able to set aside his mindset when making “Budrus”, I doubt it. I think he (they) found an obscure story in which Israelis behave badly so as to suggest that it says something terribly negative about Israeli society as a whole. Anti-Israel propaganda works by shining a hostile light that is so intense it’s sole purpose to create emotive and politically charged language that contributes to it’s demonetization. Just Vision is able to produce films and (from their website): “.....increase media attention and international support for Palestinians and Israelis working non-violently to resolve the conflict.
Wow! The fact of the matter is that Just Vision is deeply entwined in the NGO networks that have associations with organizations that exist to de-legitimize Israel, look at the links they present on their web-site. So who funds this network building and film production? (MORE)
Your point is undermined because the violent ones got the attention while the nonviolent ones (like in your movie) did not. Therefore, violence is encouraged because it is ineffective. Now, if you are telling us to pay attention to the Budrus people and denounce the flotilla activists as the violent liars that they are, that would have been fine. But you did not.
Violent liars? Too rich. You misspelt "IDF"
"The flotilla generated press attention to the blockade, but more is true: the renewed press attention to the blockade established context that resulted in increased press coverage of the blockade that made little or no reference to the flotilla. Once the story of the blockade was out, a journalist could write a follow-up story about the blockade that stood a good chance of being printed."
In other words, the *violent* whatever-it-is was what provided that context. So that seems to undermine your point that nonviolence is what we need to be paying attention to.
Palestinians: Why Do They Attack Doctors and Ambulances?
http://www.hudson-ny.org/1654/palestinians-attack-doctors-ambulances
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Red_Cross_ambulances_hit_by_Israeli_strike
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGjHrLRH3uo
If you're speaking arabic, and talking about a multi-ethnic, multi-religious single state solution, it gets translated as being 'A call for the destruction of Israel' (and sometimes a call for genocide). On the other hand, if you're speaking hebrew, and talking about a single-ethnic, single-religious state solution, in never gets tanslated as being 'A call for the destruction of Palestine' (or a call to genocide).
Strange, isn't it.
And there is no way to destroy palestine, since it doesn't exist.
Ithe problem is that a that enterprise created an entity that did not previously exit in place of and in spite of a completely different entity with a completely different character that had up that point existed
the character of the land was in the course of just a few decades violently and illegally changed through the force of arms and geopolitical underhandedness
foul play!
And though those who are saying 'what we are doing is wrong, what we are doing is bad, we must stop it' are less of a problem than those who support what Israel is doing, it will take a lot more who are saying 'What WE are doing is WRONG, what WE are doing is BAD, WE MUST STOP IT NOW' before they can be said to be part of the solution.
Please don't accept what Mr. Naiman is telling you at face value. The Palestinians have spent years perfecting their image as innocent victims, but every once in a while the mask slips and the genocidal hatred of Israel and Jews is revealed.
http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2010/10/28/dont-preach-to-us-hamas-tells-secular-west/
"the National Information Directorate, was set up eight months ago following recommendations from an Israeli inquiry into the 2006 Lebanon war. Its role is to deal with hasbara - meaning, in Hebrew, "explanation", and referring variously to information, spin, and propaganda."
"An Israeli foreign ministry assessment of eight hours of coverage across international broadcast media reported that Israeli representatives got 58 minutes of airtime while the Palestinians got only 19 minutes."
"The hasbara directive also liaises over core messages with bodies such as friendship leagues, Jewish communities, bloggers and backers using online networks."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/02/israel-palestine-pr-spin
Decades of concerted efforts, manipulating governments and public perceptions, have helped enable Zionist Israel in their subjugation and duplicitous exploits of the Palestinians. The truth is here for anyone to consider, all they need do is take an objective look at these message boards and the links provided.
That's the kind of integrity you can expect.
(A British politician put up $10,000 of his own money as a prize to anyone who could actually show a 'responsible Arab leader' actually had made such a statement. When a man who has since gone on to become the named partner at the firm of choice for the high profile refused to believe that a 'quote' that had been promoted foryears was false heard the accurate translation of what had been said provided by experts in a courtroom, he called what Israel and the media had been feeding him 'an egregious, and likely deliberate, mistranslation')
"Islamic and traditional views reject the notion of establishing an independent Palestinian state...In the past, there was no independent Palestinian state....[Hence,] our main goal is to establish a great Islamic state, be it pan-Arabic or pan-Islamic."
-Hamas senior leader Mahmoud Zahar, September 22, 2005.
"Armed struggle [is] a strategy, not tactic...in the battle for liberation and for the elimination of the Zionist presence. This struggle will not stop until the Zionist entity is eliminated and Palestine is liberated"
-Fatah Sixth General Congresss, Bethlehem, August 2009
"in demanding the restoration of the refugees to Palestine, the Arabs intend that they shall return as the masters of the homeland and not as slaves. More specifically, they intend to annihilate the state of Israel."
-Egyptian politician Muhammed Salah al-Din, al-Misri, October 1949.
http://my.telegraph.co.uk/actuality/tag/iraq/
Seriously, I stand by what I said, if this is true, it is a watershed. I don't buy it. As for "genocidal statements", what else did the Arab nation have in mind in 1948 and 67? They weren't looking to occupy Tel Aviv for the great Hummos, they wanted to go in and kill everyone. President `Abd al-Rahman Muhammad 'Aref of Iraq ("Our goal is clear — we shall wipe Israel off the face of the map. We shall, God willing, meet in Tel Aviv and Haifa"). Palestinian leader Ahmed al-Shuqayri ("We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants and as for the survivors — if there are any — the boats are ready to deport them"),
http://www.powells.com/review/2002_07_25
The Israelis don't have to apologize for not allowing themselves to be slaughtered by your Arab friends. The Arabs failed in their genocidal wars, they (and you) need to deal with it and move on.
http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/don-t-confuse-us-with-facts-1.291302
Oh, and St.C, many people who feel the need to confront those who are promoting hatred and lies never bother to hodl meetings, because it is not necessary to make sure that those who are telling one sort of lie don't show up and end up having to either confront those who are promoting a diametrically opposed lie with the same goal as them. True grassroots movements don't have co-ordinating committees.
And to answer your question, this occupation has gone on for so long because the occupier stands only to benefit from its protraction. Only when the occupier loses the incentives to maintain the occupation, will this 'war' end. Support the BDS movement in denying incentives to the occupier.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ayed-morrar/post_1175_b_776257.html
If you can show where he claimed "that the Second Intifada was peaceful," or if you can show that the claim that he *actually* made was incorrect, I'll give you a dollar.
However, you yourself have denied history, and said awful things like "Palestinians didn't exist prior to 20th century."
You have no credbility on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and you ceratinly have proven that you are the one who twists history.
" Over 75% of its land was stolen and all its buildings
were destroyed in 1948 as the natives were ethnically cleansed (500+ other
villages and towns suffered the same fate). 10% of the Palestinian
refugees from Al-Walaja rebuilt their lives in the portion that remained
free from occupation before 1967. In 1967, the area was occupied and the
25% of the land that remains was targeted to be colonized. Already 33 homes
were demolished, 88 have pending orders for home demolitions, and the
remaining homes are being surrounded by the apartheid wall isolating them
from the remaining agricultural lands. In this demonstration
the villagers with internationals express their views of apartheid..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFn5FsR7j1c
For a UN fact sheet on Al-Walaja , see
http://www.unrwa.org/userfiles/2010070915338.pdf
Out of every hundred people who are made aware, you might get 1 person who decides to undertake the incredible hardship of looking at the label and finding an alternative every once in a while.
Out of every hundred of those, you might get 1 person who decides that they should actually tell the retailer what they are doing.
Out of every hundred of those, you might get 1 person who decides to switch where they shop based on the amount of those things that are in the store, and tell the retailer about it.
And that may help inspire those retailers to change their buying habits (which means that the people who benefit from the situation will have to pay a little more out of their own pockets for all those guys with guns), help inspire those like the recent musical guest on Colbert to not perform there (which means that those who benefit from the situation will know that there are people who so the difference between having the trappings of civilisation, and actually being civilised)
http://www.zochrot.org/index.php?lang=english
"We saw the men trying to push the soldiers, but none of them could do that…but I think the girls could do it."
"I never expected it would be a girl who would penetrate the soldiers' blockade."