A protest leader at the weekly solidarity rally in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem---not to be confused with the 'social justice' demonstrations taking place all over Israel.

I still don’t know what to think about Israel’s so-called “social justice” protests that are dominating the news here. I’m seeing a lot of headlines about this movement as the resurrection of Israel’s left, marginalized by the current hard-line government, now emerging with a more populist message. Here’s the NYT take:

“The left has risen back to life,” Shai Golden, deputy editor of the newspaper Maariv, said in a column on Sunday. “It hasn’t yet dared to let the words ‘occupation’ and ‘settlements’ cross its lips and to cite the social and economic price that they have cost Israel over the course of the past four decades.” The new movement, he added, would be “the social left.” …

The left hopes that in the coming year or two it could sweep back to power through a focus on social issues and then, in the bargain, shift the country’s external policy. The left would heavily curtail settlement building in the West Bank and has shown greater willingness to yield territory to the Palestinians and to share Jerusalem in a two-state solution.

Dena Shunra writing on Mondoweiss offers this rather rosy assessment:

What the activists want is nothing less than an entirely new social contract. They want to roll back the Shock Doctrine privatization, and regain a security network for what used to be the middle class, before Netanyahu and the neo-liberals sold off the assets – which had originally been taken over from the Palestinians, between the end of WWI and the 1948.

They don’t just want the government to fall; they want the system to change, from the ground up. They want to see a system which they describe as “fair” – a system where life is a playable game.

What will this mean for Palestine, though? What will it mean for the Palestinian citizens of Israel, and for the Palestinians living under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, or in exile? When the Israeli government falls, and the New Deal protesters are asking for is worked out in detail, Israel will be at a turning point. It can either continue as an apartheid state – or step back and reorganize as the kind of entity Azmi Bishara described as “a state for all its citizens”. The timing, so close to September and the declaration of statehood in the Bantustans of the West Bank, is fortuitous: it would be fairly easy to preempt that, and declare a single state, with a sharing of resources and power among all its citizens – which would allow the resources to be diverted from military adventurism to the sort of state that the protesters are demanding. It is a possible path from here to there, and the very first such possible path I’ve seen. There are, however, other possibilities: Netanyahu could pull out the war card, to galvanize people behind fear of a perceived enemy; or the Israelis might decide that they actually like living in an apartheid environment, and upon rethinking it, decide to maintain that structure.

The protests are radically different from anything I’ve seen in Israel, ever. I am cautiously hopeful that they could lead to one state, with equal rights for all, regardless of ethnicity, and an ingathering of Palestinian exiles. Inshallah.

But since when has a socially left Israeli government spelled justice for Palestinians? It was leftist Labor Zionists that executed many of Israel’s worst crimes, from David Ben Gurion in the Nakba to Amir Peretz in the 2006 bombardment of Lebanon to Ehud Barak in Operation Cast Lead.

In addition to that history, on-the-ground testimony from the protest by +972′s Dahlia Scheindlin and Joseph Dana throws another wet blanket on Shunra’s cautious optimism (emphasis added):

Many are saying that this is something new, especially after Saturday night turned into Israel’s largest-ever social protest, as Maariv’s print headline proclaimed. … The hyper-fragmented groups in Israel are listening to each other, hammering out common ground to combat shared economic desperation. Just don’t mention Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, or even the neutral local euphemism “medini” [lit: political/diplomatic] issues. Just leave out the institutional inequality most Palestinian citizens of Israel experience here – inequality of other groups is welcome. …

I learned this the hard way. After a number of conversations with protesters, including some of its organizers (the protests are actually notably non-cohesive) – it became very clear that one of the top strategic goals is to avoid being branded as “left.” Joseph feels the environment around this topic is so toxic, he has tried to avoid even raising questions about why a ‘social justice revolution’ does not address the inequality of all those living under Israeli control. …

On Friday, some protesters hassled other Palestinian protesters, citizens suffering from housing crises. It came to scuffles. The diminutive Palestinian flags they hung were removed. Joseph recalls the struggles against apartheid in South Africa and Jim Crow south. Can we imagine the ruling classes there demanding “social justice” without addressing their gravest internal injustices? What does the term “social justice” mean if so many who don’t have it are left out? Sure, let’s protest exorbitant housing costs – but why call it “social justice” if the very crux of social justice, namely equality, is not addressed? Can Israelis have a social justice revolution without speaking about the rights of people they control and occupy?

Later still on Friday night, one of the organizers told me that if I were to raise these kinds of issues, specifically ‘medini’ I would be thrown out of “his circle,” of people or tents. Why? “Because the only war is a class war,” he said, as if he had just recently skimmed the cliff-notes.

So on Friday, while the definition of “social justice” was being debated in Tel Aviv, I was hanging with more unapologetically anti-occupation Israeli, international, and local Palestinian activists resisting Israeli settlements in Sheikh Jarrah as they do every week. As usual, it was a modest protest (though the weeks prior saw some record crowds as well), and is not without critics, but at least this event’s message was more clear.

The middle sign in Arabic reads: "End the Occupation." How's that for clarity?

There was a major solidarity demonstration of Israelis and Palestinians in support of Palestinians statehood this week. Here are a few of my best images from the event, followed by a news and commentary link round-up. Note that in this case, the Jerusalem Post article is far superior to Haaretz, so I’m not even listing the latter. The exact political goals were somewhat ambiguous (two-state or one-state? liberal Zionist or anti-Zionist?) but it was inspiring to see so many Israelis marching in support of Palestinian rights, often led in their chants by Palestinian marchers. Read the articles to get more of a read on the finer nuances of the event.

Victory for Palestinian-Israeli Solidarity: more than 3,000 participated in the March of Independence

A Palestinian East Jerusalemite’s view of the joint march

4,500 march in Jerusalem for Palestinian state

Israelis, Palestinians in ‘joint Jerusalem rally’

3000 March Through Jerusalem for Palestine

Palestinians and Israelis march together

A Jerusalem rally in solidarity with Egypt. The sign reads: “Long live Palestinian-Egyptian cooperation against the occupation and American policy.”

I haven’t been inspired to write any commentary on recent events in Egypt and the rest of the Middle East beyond the occasional Facebook post. Maybe I will eventually. Pastor Alex Awad at East Jerusalem Baptist Church has had great sermons touching on these issues the last two weeks, and I hope to post them online soon. But heeding his challenge today to engage the news on these various events and not “change the channel” (I put this in quotes because our satellite TV can’t access any news channels right now anway), I read a few articles about Libya today and came across this in the NY Times:

A group of fifty prominent Libyan Muslim religious leaders issued an appeal to Muslims in the security forces to stop participating in the violence against protesters.

“We appeal to every Muslim, within the regime or assisting it in any way, to recognize that the killing of innocent human beings is forbidden by our Creator and by His beloved Prophet of Compassion (peace be upon him), ” the statement declared, according to Reuters. “Do NOT kill your brothers and sisters. STOP the massacre NOW! ”

This gave me chills because it so clearly echoes the words of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador the day before he was assassinated by US-sponsored thugs in 1980:

“Brothers, you came from our own people. You are killing your own brothers. Any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God, which says, ‘Thou shalt not kill’. No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you obeyed your consciences rather than sinful orders. The church cannot remain silent before such an abomination. …In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cry rises to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you: stop the repression!”

While the recent US veto of a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement construction was unsurprising yet still deeply disappointing, I hope and pray that my country finds its way to the right side of history in the midst of these converging freedom movements in the Middle East—not just with words, but with actions and truth!

A building demolition in East Jerusalem has provoked international condemnation including statements by Secretary of State Clinton, and leaders of the UN, EU, and UK, due to plans to build a new Jewish settlement in the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. The settlement will become one more link in a chain of Jewish enclaves encircling the Old City of Jerusalem, effectively cutting it off from the rest of Palestinian East Jerusalem and the West Bank. A few key facts in this particular case:

The hotel was declared “absentee property” by Israel after it captured and annexed East Jerusalem. The title was transferred to an Israeli firm, which sold it in 1985 to Irving Moskowitz, a Florida bingo king and patron of Jewish settlers. (Haaretz)

The vast majority of land on which Jerusalem is built, including the settlements in the city’s occupied eastern sector, is state land, and the property built on it can be purchased by anyone who is an Israeli citizen, or who is Jewish. Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, very few of whom have Israeli citizenship, must first obtain a special permit to purchase land or property there, with rights groups saying such permission is virtually unheard of. (Ma’an)

Nearly 500,000 Jews live in more than 100 settlements built since Israel’s 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The settlements are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this. (BBC)

This was the first building demolition that I was able to witness and photograph. Here are some key shots of the demolition and protests by Palestinians, Israelis, and international activists:

It’s not fun reading multiple news sources from the Middle East on a daily basis. But one key lesson of media analysis from the likes I.F. Stone and Noam Chomsky is that even by reading enough mainstream media the “truth” can slip out. I’m no Beautiful Mind schizophrenic looking for secret messages in the newspaper. But it is discouraging to read over and over again the prevailing media narratives of Israelis-only-as-victims and Palestinians-only-as-terrorists—and therefore mildly satisfying when a mainstream source like The Jerusalem Post slightly more accurately reflects the reality on the ground.

Today’s headline reads, “Border Police set to bolster IDF presence in West Bank,” and references police drills in which  ”One of the scenarios included a large Jewish demonstration during which Palestinians carry out a terrorist attack.”  So, far, so typical. (More recent drills have included setting up detention camps for Arabs in Israel!) But the following section of the story is honest enough to cite official sources on what kind of violence is currently the most severe:

While the IDF Central Command has noted a lull in terrorism in recent years, there has been an increase in civil disturbances in the West Bank, particularly surrounding the recent olive harvest, described by the defense establishment as possibly the most violent in Israeli history.

Since the beginning of October, the United Nations has recorded a weekly average of eight harvest incidents resulting in injuries and severe damage to property, including the uprooting and burning of thousands of trees.

Strangely, it doesn’t explicitly mention who is creating the current civil disturbances or who is responsible for “possibly the most violent” olive harvest in Israeli history. It doesn’t say who is committing the eight incidents per week of injuries and property damage, or, with the especially obnoxious use of the passive voice, “the uprooting and burning of thousands of trees.” Perhaps they uprooted and burned themselves. Only the final sentence of the article mentions “a spate of anti-Palestinian attacks, including one by settlers…”

Why is The Jerusalem Post so shy about directly naming the perpetrators of the current violence in the West Bank? Why are the very people responsible for the recent violence—Jewish Israeli settlers—not even mentioned until the final sentence of this article? Is it because deeply ingrained media narratives die hard?

The problem with an article like this that ostensibly reports the facts with “balance” and “objectivity” is that those not intimately familiar with the contours of the conflict could miss the main substance of the article—and rely instead on the prevailing narrative to fill in the cracks. On my lazier days, I just scan headlines, and skimming this headline, it would be reasonable to assume that the Israeli Border Police are increasing their presence to clamp down on Palestinians. Even skimming the article itself would only give you a vague sense of “a possible escalation in Israeli and Palestinian violence” with little indication of who the perpetrators of violence are in this case.

This kind of journalism reminds me of standard reports from demonstrations—from just about anywhere in the world—which often include the maddeningly ambiguous phrase “protests turned violent…” without having the courage to investigate or report on who actually began the violence in a given incident. This often leaves the assumption by implication that it was the protesters who became violent—when in fact, as any activist will tell you, it is often the police who land the first blows. Contacts among activists in Palestine routinely report that Israeli police and soldiers often fire tear gas or rubber-coated steel bullets even when a demonstration is completely nonviolent.

An earlier Jerusalem Post article included this nugget:

According to this officer involved with the project, the level of violence at the demonstrations has decreased dramatically in recent months. In the past, the Friday protests near the fence resulted in a number of wounded protesters, and occasionally, IDF soldiers as well. Lately, there have been about 60 demonstrators on a weekly basis, more than half, left-wing Israeli and foreign activists.

The IDF has recently arrested some of the key activists who organize the demonstrations. One of them, Abdullah Abu Rahma, was sentenced last week to a year in jail.

An additional factor which led to the drop in violence was a decision by the IDF Central Command to remove the Border Police units deployed every Friday to protect the fence from vandalism. While effective in protecting the fence, Border Policemen are sometimes said to be more aggressive in riot control operations.

So, while the JPost implies that jailing protest organizers was a factor in reducing violence at the demonstrations (huh?), it at least admits that “an additional factor” in reduced violence was the removal of aggressive Border Police units. (It fails to mention that several activists have been killed by the Border Police, including Bassem Abu Rahma, a relative of Abdullah Abu Rahma. Bassem’s brother was shot at point-blank range with a rubber bullet while bound and held by IDF soldiers.)

Again, it would take a very informed reader to glean what is actually taking place on the ground: The presence of a large number of Israeli and international activists—whom the IDF is less likely to shoot at—combined with the removal of especially aggressive Border Police units, has resulted in a dramatic decrease in the level of violence at protests. I got to experience this firsthand at a recent demonstration against the separation barrier in Al-Walaja—as our organizer friends had assured us, a large nonviolent crowd, including a good number of international and Israeli activists, and the soldiers held their fire.

Of course sometimes protesters do cast the first stone, and sometimes Palestinian commit violence—even terrorist violence. But only a careful reader of either article mentioned above would even realize that historically, consistantly, statistically, quantitatively, and qualitatively: Palestinians are more often the victims of Israeli violence than the other way around. This is not to minimize the massive violence perpetrated against the Jewish people throughout history, culminating in the Holocaust—but merely to state honestly the indisputable fact that the State of Israel consistently exerts overwhelming military violence to perpetuate the occupation. The casualty counts—civilian or otherwise—of their recent conflicts make this abundantly clear.

So with those important acknowledgements, here’s my main point: Now that Palestinian resistance to the occupation has turned largely to nonviolence and political negotiation, old narratives and assumptions need to change because they are based on a distorted picture of reality. Hopefully these cracks in the prevailing narratives will widen to the point that the Israeli, U.S., and international publics have a clearer understanding of the conflict, and can therefore more honestly advocate for a just resolution.

I’m still learning the happy medium between getting photos posted right away after an event, and doing a good job of retouching, keywording, and captioning at the same time. But I did want to get some posted on the Sojourners blog at God’s Politics, so here’s a link to that post. And here’s a slide show link. And here are some of my favorite shots from the day: