[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [GushShalom] Gush Shalom activists sleep over at Arafat's compound.

[Al Kagan]

>From: "Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)" <info at gush-shalom.org>
>Subject: [GushShalom] Gush Shalom activists sleep over at Arafat's compound.
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>Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 21:30:01 +0200
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>GUSH SHALOM  pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 www.gush-shalom.org
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>International release
>October 5, 2003
>
>==   =   ==  =   ==   =   ==   =   ==  =  == ==   =   == 
>Yom Kippur 2003 - From Haifa to Ramallah
>Gush Shalom activists sleep over at Arafat's compound.
>==   =   ==  =   ==   =   ==   =   ==  =  == ==   =   == 
>
>[Here follows a description by Adam Keller and Beate Zilversmidt of their
>experience - from the shock of the Haifa suicide attack to spending the
>night at Ramallah as part of a group which provided a human shield for 
>Arafat.]
>
>Yesterday began as a routine Saturday, with news broadcasts focussing on
>the ongoing strike at Israel's seaports, the occupation pushed to the
>sidelines.
>
>For several weeks there had been no major assassinations nor suicide
>bombings - though people on both sides did get killed in "routine
>incidents". And it seemed that Sharon did not create too big of a wave by
>pushing through the settlement encompassing route of the "Separation
>Wall", nor by the 600 tenders for new settlement housing. The Bush
>administration appears to lose interest in mediating between israelis and
>Palestinians, with the roadmap shelved until after the Nov.2004
>elections.
>
>But the Saturday siesta was suddenly shattered by the shockwaves of the
>terrible event in Haifa. Emergency bulletins disrupted the leisurely 
>radio broadcasts, giving once again the gory details of a suicide
>bombing. This one claimed the life of nineteen people, with whole
>families wiped out as they sat at the restaurant tables. "Maxim" was a
>place jointly owned - and visited - by Jews and Arabs. Six of those
>killed were Palestinian Israelis, as were many of the wounded. (Did the
>perpetrator - a 29-year old woman lawyer from Jenin, reportedly seeking
>revenge for a dead brother and cousin - deliberately seek to strike at
>this oasis of coexistence? Or was "Maxim" chosen randomly, as a
>convenient place crowded with people?)
>
>After about two hours,  the ambitious Health Minister Danny Naveh spoke
>on the radio, urging the government to "seize this opportunity to get rid
>of Arafat." (He did not even bother to pretend that Arafat had anything
>to do with the bombing, for which responsibility was claimed by the
>Islamic Jihad.) Nave's lead was followed by a whole host of similar
>pronouncements by ministers, Knesset Members and officials, as well as
>"unofficial leaks" of "well-placed sources" at the prime minister's
>bureau.
>For us, that meant the urgent need to shake off shock and lethargy and
>mobilize in very short order a group to immediately set off for Ramallah.
>It is no easy matter to phone a person - even somebody who had earlier
>registered as being willing to act as a human shield - and say:  "Now is
>the time. Be ready within half an hour."
>
>In spite of several people being away from home in the Holiday weekend
>and some others getting cold feet, still the willing volunteers added up.
>Together with the Gush Shalomers came some young anarchists who have
>little use for Arafat or any other president but were convinced to oppose
>a move aimed at crushing the Palestinian people as a whole. Meanwhile the
>ISM was rallying its international volunteers, scattered in various West
>Bank towns and villages.  Altogether, at 9.30pm there were some thirty
>activists at the dimly lit rendezvous point outside Ramallah: Israelis
>from Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem, Californians, Canadians, Brits, Danes, a
>single Icelander...
>
>We made some contingency plans for the possibility of being blocked by
>the army and getting into Ramallah by side roads - a bit of a risky act
>in the dark - but in the event getting past the military roadblocks
>proved almost absurdly easy. A short drive, and there we were - at the
>gates of the Presidential Compound, whose Arabic name "Muqata'a" has
>become well-known to Hebrew speakers.
>
>Among the ruins of buildings destroyed in previous incursions by the
>Israeli army, were lurking a whole host of international journalists with
>TV-cameras, who immediately pounched upon Uri Avnery and other English
>speakers among the delegation. Just a few minutes after sneeking past
>soldiers we were in the midst of an impromptu press conference.
>
>"We are here as human shields to protect President Arafat," Uri Avnery
>was later quoted in Ha'aretz. "We will stay here just in case Sharon
>carries out an action."  And in the Jerusalem Post he was quoted as
>saying:  [we are here] "first and foremost to protect Israel from the
>catastrophe that would occur if Arafat were to be exiled, or killed.
>(...) If  Sharon decides to kill Arafat, this would be an unprecedented
>historic catastrophe for the people of Israel."
>
>Once past the journalists we were heartily greeted by Palestinian
>officials and activists. A whole lot of drinks and snacks were brought in
>and since most of us had skipped dinner we embarked upon the pitabread
>and humus. Then, we were conducted to the conference hall which had been
>converted into an improvised dormitory - a large room with completely new
>fittings, replacing those destroyed by the Israeli army in September a
>year ago.
>
>And then, there was the long night to get through, with the attempt to
>read Sharon's intentions from the ambiguous reports monitored on a
>squeeking small transistor radio, and the ears alert to any alarming
>sounds from outside. Some of the Israelis and internationals joined the 
>Palestinians on guard, and sat talking and exchanging views and anecdotes
>nearly the whole night through.
>
>The morning, after a fortunately uneventful night, brought
>reinforcements. Meretz activist Latif Dori arrived from Tel-Aviv, as well
>as a group of Italians who soon embarked on a recital of partisan songs.
>(On the Israeli radio news magazine Likud Knesset Member Ehud Yatom
>complained: "I stayed awake the whole night and listened to the news
>expecting to hear of the expuslion of Arafat. I am terribly disappointed
>it did not happen. And these leftists who provide Arafat with a defensive
>shield, that is terrible, a terrible fissure in Israeli society.")
>
>More Palestinians - not from the compound's staff - found their way to
>the Muqata'a. Ruwaida, a Ramallah boutique owner, came especially to
>distribute to the Israelis her own poem in Hebrew translation, a
>heartfelt appeal from a Palestinian mother to an Israeli mother. "I
>always give this to soldiers in checkpoints; these boys are already
>greeting me as 'Mom'."
>
>At noon, there was a meeting with President Arafat and Prime Minister
>designate Ahmed Qurei, followed by a well-attended joint press
>conference. Both Palestinian leaders sharply condemned the suicide
>bombing as a crime also against the Palestinian people.
>Latif Dori emphasized that he had come to show that not all Israelis are
>taken in by the demagoguery of one who refuses to make peace and builds
>settlements instead.
>Uri Avnery denounced the outrage in Haifa: "Whoever sent that young woman
>to kill 19 innocent people must have wanted to put the entire region on
>fire - by way of providing Sharon with a pretext for targeting Arafat."
>ISM coordinator Huwaida Arraf explained that the internationals felt they
>were there instead of the UN peace forces which should have long ago been
>sent to protect the Palestinian people.
>
>The Israeli and international human shielders decided to stay on in the
>compound throughout Yom Kippur, a time when there is a complete Israeli
>media blackout, which in the past was more than once the occasion of
>nasty surprises.
>
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-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu