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Special Report |
LAST UPDATE September 27, 2005
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| July 17, 2005 |
Israeli & Palestinian IS – Together in Solidarity |
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| Eilat (second from right) and Niveen (right) with Peace Boat staff. |
Under the glare of spotlights, Eilat Moaz and Niveen Abu-Nijmeh stand together onstage in New York, side by side with smiles on their faces. To anyone who has followed the media coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict, this is an incredible scene. But for Eilat and Niveen, this is how it should be: an Israeli and Palestinian, who are not merely standing side by side in tolerance, but standing side by side in solidarity. Eilat, an activist with the Green Action NGO in Israel, and Niveen, a Palestinian activist from Palestinian Vision in East Jerusalem, came aboard Peace Boat as participants of the International Students (IS) programme to share their personal experiences and visions for peace. The IS programme invites students and young NGO workers from conflict areas to focus on dialogue across lines of conflict, and develop or enhance skills which contribute to peace-building initiatives in conflict areas. At the end of programme with Peace Boat Niveen and Eilat participated at the conference “The Role of Civil Society in the Prevention of Armed Conflict” at the UN headquarters in New York and in and Peace Boat’s open-air peace concert. |
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| Palestinian IS guest educator, Niveen Abu-Nijmeh from East Jerusalem |
Niveen:
“I haven’t spent a life in peace for over 20 years”. Formerly a bank employee, Niveen now actively promotes support for Palestinian independence and an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine through peaceful means. Niveen’s family relocated from refugee life in Jordan to East Jerusalem, and here she saw how the young people of her generation have become resigned to a life of occupation. She has not accepted this resignation. “I don’t want to feel helpless and useless. I want to achieve peace, and I hope for a better future,” said Niveen. “I believe young people have a lot of energy and we have to use that motivation to build our community.”
For Niveen, one of the most disturbing things which prevent many Palestinians from leading a normal daily life, are Israeli checkpoints. At least 360 checkpoints exist in the occupied lands, including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The checkpoints must be crossed several times everyday in order for Palestinians to go to work, hospital or school. “It sounds like it would be such an easy process, but it’s made longer on purpose. The checkpoint guards ask many questions, or open trunks of vehicles, so you can imagine how long that takes”, says Niveen. Curfews are also imposed upon the Palestinian settlements. When Niveen was a university student, she had to pass through a checkpoint from East Jerusalem to Bethleham. When checkpoints were delayed, she missed many lectures and exams. Eventually, Niveen and her friends rented a house near the university to circumvent the checkpoints, but then Bethlehem was invaded. This was the first time she had experienced such overt conflict as heavy artillery fired continually on a daily basis, some 50 to 100 meters from her rented home. “This experience was extremely difficult,” she said. “I don’t know how Palestinians and Israelis go through this everyday in the occupied lands”. |
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| Peace postcard workshop. |
That experience, however, moved Niveen to become active in the peace-building movement. But her ultimate motivation came in 2002 when the Israeli government built the “apartheid wall” in the disputed area of the West Bank. Effectively a 650 km separation wall between Israeli and Palestinian settlements, it is more than 30 times in length and double the height of the Berlin Wall. The wall, which does not even follow the borders established in 1967, serves to isolate 52% of the Palestinian communities into enclaves inside a military zone. “It doesn’t really protect peace or give security,” believes Niveen. “In my eyes I wonder why the Israeli government didn’t put the US$3 billion used to build it for peace rather than for further segregation.” |
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| Israel IS guest educator, Eilat Moaz from Tel Aviv. |
Eilat:
“I agree with what Niveen stands for politically, but I will tell you about the occupation from the Israeli side.” Eilat became politically active at the age of 12 when she joined a peace movement in Tel Aviv with the motivation of making the Israeli public aware of the consequences of occupation, which are rather absent from the everyday life of Israelis. Particularly Eilat works with Palestinian youths to expose the links between the occupation and socio-economic issues and how the Wall destroys Palestinian farms, traffic and communications. Eilat’s daily activity with her friends from Green Action and youth groups, is to go to Palestinian villages, which are left isolated by the Wall, and bring medicines and necessary life items to the villagers. On their return, they bring back Palestinian olives, oil and other farming products and sell them on the markets in Israel.
Eilat’s ultimate act of resistance to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land came when she decided not to join military conscription, in which every 18 year old has to join the army for three (for men) or two (for women) years. She decided not to pretend any disease or drug addiction, which is what some young people successfully do, but to state openly her moral and political reasons to refuse to join the army. When asked during the interview “What will Israel do if all our enemies cross our borders?” Eilat answered defiantly that she was more afraid to be told by the five officers interviewing her who her enemies are and what the borders are. Eilat was freed of serving the army due to conscientious objection and thus became one of the first “refusniks”, a group of young Israeli men and women, who have refused to serve Israeli army in occupied territories and who today number more than 600 members. |
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| Participants engage with Eilat in an informal chat session. |
Since that time Eilat was active in several youth peace groups, but her strongest engagement was with Green Action, which was initiated in 1994 by youth, who were against conscription and who wished to promote nonviolent direct action. These youth serve their community by working in non-militaristic organizations to improve socio-economic situations connected to occupation. “I cannot represent Israelis as most Israelis would like to be represented,” began Eilat. “But I would like us to understand the conflict a little bit better by explaining what kind of social mechanisms are used to create a society that has seen occupation for 57 years.” |
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| The People Building Peace Concert in New York City. |
In recent public opinion polls in Israel, more than 65% of population stated they are willing to withdraw from the Palestinian territories and that Palestinians have the right to establish a Palestinian state. Eilat’s activism, then, tries to expose how occupation is used to push out any other issue in public debate, such as unemployment, poverty, environmental protection, and privatization. The only relevant opposition is when connections are made between those who benefit from the occupation economically and politically. But, Eilat voiced her frustration, “If you think this way, then society will isolate you. But there are people like me who will point out and say ‘you are benefiting from this war, you are wrong and we must stop this now’”.
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| “Broadcast 2020”, the last lecture from the Israel and Palestine IS. |
Like Niveen, the building of the “apartheid wall” in the West Bank was an important turning point for Eilat. A written sign stated the wall’s gate would open three times a day for people to go to work and school, but this did not happen. A peace camp was established across the street from the wall, and the camp remained active for 8 months with the constant presence of Palestinian, Israeli and international activists, who were united in the same wish to open the gate of the wall for freedom of movement. When they managed to open the gate by themselves, one of Eilat’s friends was shot in the leg by an Israeli soldier guarding the wall. To their shock, the soldiers were using real bullets instead of rubber bullets or tear gas. “Not only was it terrifying, but it was the realization that we were portrayed as traitors and were now the enemy.” Despite the danger involved in effecting real change, Eilat and her friends continue to demonstrate against acts of injustice, including the “apartheid wall”. “I’m not sure how much change we can really make, but I know we are making change,” stated Eilat. “We have to invent ourselves as thinking citizens and citizens in full meaning, not in the very empty form where we remain in our apathy.” |
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| Eilat conducts an interactive game as part of “Broadcast 2020” |
From Jordan to New York City, Eilat and Niveen provided insight into the realities of living in a conflict area in a number of presentations and workshops, which actively included participants and guests on Peace Boat. Both Niveen and Eilat didn’t hesitate to ask them for their own ideas how the conflict in Near East could be resolved and how the USA or EU or the UN should help. |
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| The IS sing with Allison Boehm, Peace Boat’s guest relations administrator. |
Eilat and Niveen’s presence nurtured a feeling of mutual understanding, the understanding that “we are fighting for the same human rights”, as Niveen said. Peace Boat enabled them to look at their own society and themselves completely from the outside, where they could concretely see where true change can be made. “Peace is not a vague concept, but very important as long as we can articulate our cause against war. We have to discover our vision and how we want to see our society and lives in the future,” Eilat added. What is their vision? For their last session on Peace Boat Eilat and Niveen presented a futuristic telecast based on how they wish the world to look like in their lifetime: “abolishment of passport controls between Israel and the new nation of Palestine”; “a formal apology from the Prime Minister of Israel towards the Palestinian people”; “Hamas opens a youth center to promote dialogue and peace as an alternative to violence”; “the Israeli-Palestinian women’s party has a wide margin of public support”. Good luck Niveen and Eilat! |
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