Israelis Who Don't Know Occupation Can't Preach to Palestinian Stone-Throwers

[azurnoir]

Last week, veteran Israeli journalist Amira Hass stirred up a controversy in the media here with an op-ed in Haaretz that opens: “Throwing stones is the birthright and duty of anyone subject to foreign rule.” Hass, who has been living and reporting from the occupied Palestinian territories for 20 years, goes on to suggest that Palestinians should develop an educational curriculum on resistance to Israeli occupation that, for example, teaches to distinguish between soldiers as legitimate targets vs. civilians.

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Most Jewish Israelis will admit the “occupation” is bad, but few have ever gotten a taste of what it feels like to be anywhere near the receiving end of it. To do that you’d have to choose to experience it as a civilian alongside the Palestinian population, confronted with Israeli soldiers or settlers, which almost no Israelis do. No matter how liberal an Israeli you are, if you have not experienced it in some way, first hand, the concept of Israeli occupation has an entirely different meaning to you than someone who has.

This fact separates the majority of Israelis from the tiny minority of activists, journalists and NGO workers who have experienced it. I remember the first time I was in a West Bank village when the IDF entered and started shooting live gunfire. I remember the first time I saw little children in settlements no older than 8 or 9 throwing stones at Palestinians and myself and other Israeli activists; the first time an IDF soldier laid his hands on me and pushed me and repressed my right to protest. I remember being in the Bedouin village Al-Arakib (demolished over 40 times) when dozens of special army forces showed up at dawn in tanks, fully armed, to dismantle the homes of these citizens of Israel.

These are incidents I had to see to believe. Once I experienced the plausibility of incidents that seem so implausible, they became a part of my working assumptions and impacted how I read every news item in the media about life here. I was an anti-occupation leftist before these experiences, but after them, I actually had a cognitive and physical understanding of just a bit of what it is like to be a Palestinian living under Israeli control.

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/174880/israelis-who-dont-know-occupation-cant-preach-to-p/#ixzz2Qf28wLDj

[Jefferson23]

1. Thanks, good points, even the talk backs are well written. n/t

K&R

[azurnoir]

2. and from the forward yet too

no surprise that this gets buried pronto

[delrem]

3. Amira Hass seems to be singularly independent.

this is from wiki

"Her reportage of events, and her voicing of opinions that run counter to both official Israeli and Palestinian positions has exposed Hass to verbal attacks,... " and

"On 1 December 2008, Hass, who had traveled to Gaza aboard a protest vessel, had to flee the strip due to threats to her life after she criticized Hamas. She was arrested by Israeli police on her return to Israel for being in Gaza without a permit.

After residing in the Gaza Strip for several months, Hass was again arrested by Israeli police upon her return to Israel on 12 May 2009 "for violating a law which forbids residence in an enemy state." "

She's a very very courageous woman.