The campaign to expose "human rights" activists in South Africa (1)

Our farewell picnic to Ezra Nawi before his prison term for peaceful protest carried a new message to most Israeli picnics

Picnics, like almost everything else in Israel, are often political. Oz Shelach underscores this point in his collection of short stories, Picnic Grounds, where he describes how a history professor takes his family on a picnic in the pine forest near Givat Shaul, a Jerusalem neighbourhood.

The professor teaches his son some of the camping skills he learned while serving in the Israeli military, using old stones to block the wind and to protect the newly lit fire. The stones, we are told, are the remains of a village known as Deir Yassin.

Although Shelach does not say as much, Deir Yassin was a Palestinian village located on the outskirts of Jerusalem. The Jewish neighbourhood, which now stands in its place, was built not long after Israeli paramilitary forces evicted its Palestinian residents, massacring an estimated 100 men, women and children out of a total population of 600.

Shelach does not recount this history; he simply describes how the father builds a fire with his son and then ends the story by noting that the history professor “imagined that he and his family were having a picnic, unrelated to the village, enjoying its grounds, outside history”.

Many picnics in Israel take place in pine forests that were planted to cover the remains of hundreds of Palestinian villages destroyed in 1948. Wittingly or unwittingly these gatherings have a political effect, since the people enjoying their leisure time on these sites reenact the historical suppression of the Palestinian Nakba.

This past Saturday I also went on a picnic with my family, but in stark opposition to most Israeli picnics it tried to enact a remembering by exposing the continued domination and expulsion of Palestinians. We joined a group of Jews and Palestinians from Ta’ayush in the south Hebron desert to break bread together and bid farewell to Ezra Nawi, who the following day began serving a jail sentence for resisting Israel’s occupation.

We chose this spot because almost a decade ago the Palestinian cave dwellers who lived there were expelled from their ancestral land by Jewish settlers from Susya; these settlers were supported by the Israeli government, military and courts. Nawi and other Ta’ayush activists have, over the years, aided the expelled Palestinians to return to the last swathe of land they can still call their own. Today there is a small village made up of more than 10 tents, a few caves, several scores of sheep and chicken and a solar and wind-based electricity system.

Located just a few kilometres from where we sat is Um el-Hir, another small Palestinian village where in 2007 Nawi was arrested for protesting against the demolition of a tin shack. While the entire protest was filmed, the border police officers claimed that Nawi attacked them during the few seconds that he ran into the shack and that consequently were not captured on video.

Two points need to be stressed. First, the movie clearly shows how a few minutes earlier Nawi took a rock out of the hands of a Palestinian woman and threw it on the ground so that she would not use it against the police. Second, anyone who is familiar with the Israeli border police knows that if Nawi had actually attacked the officers it is unlikely that he would have been able to walk out of the shack.

Claims like these did not persuade judge Eilata Ziskind, who convicted Nawi. Based solely on the officers’ testimonies, Ziskind sentenced Nawi to a month in jail and an additional three years probation, during which if he is caught insulting an officer, disturbing the public order, participating in an illegal protest, etc, he will immediately be imprisoned for six more months.

This sentence is not a minor matter. The Israeli court has basically decreed that the only legitimate way to oppose the occupation is by standing on the side of the road with some kind of placard. Any form of civil disobedience or direct action, like lying in front of a bulldozer that is building the annexation barrier or demolishing a house, picking olives in a grove or walking Palestinian children to school in an area that has been classified a closed military zone, is now subject to harsh punishment.

Thus, Nawi’s conviction points to a relatively recent development regarding the restriction of resistance, to extremely passive modes of protest. And, in some cases, even these kinds of protests are prohibited, as in Sheikh Jarrah where activists are repeatedly arrested simply for demonstrating against the seizure of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem.

As Nawi put it during the picnic, in a country where laws are immoral, civil disobedience is obligatory; therefore, he continued, it will not be long before more of you will join me in jail. As he walked away, I looked towards the soldiers who stood gazing at us from a nearby hill, wondering whether soon picnics, too, will be considered acts of civil disobedience.

#1 written by Blacklisted Dictator

Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Zackie Achmat and Gavin Silber,
You state that Ezra Nawi is a “gay Israeli”. And you state that Jewish activists should break “immoral Israeli laws”.
But could you please write a “Writing Rights” article about the appalling legislation which is used by Hamas to persecute Palestinians in Gaza? Do you think that the persecution of gay Palestinians by Hamas is “moral” or “immoral”?
Could you please also write an article about how homosexuals are treated by the “immoral” Israeli state? As far as I am aware, they have the same rights as heterosexuals.
It is important that “Writing Rights”,which is supposedly concerned with gay rights, includes the full story of what is actually going on in the Middle East.

#2 written by Blacklisted Dictator

Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Zackie,
Do you support “homosexuals for Hamas”?
http://homosexualsforhamas.blogspot.com/
The Revolutionary 7 Point Plan for Homosexual Liberation in Palestine
REVOLUTIONARY COVENANT OF THE HOMOSEXUAL FRONT FOR THE LIBERATION OF PALESTINE DECLARATION OF ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PINK KEEFIYAH BRIGADES
(San Francisco, CA 1st of Safar, 1427 by the Umm al-Qura corresponding to March 1, 2006 in Accordance with the Calender of the Infidels)
We, the undersigned lovers of Palestine, proclaim our willingness to sacrifice our blood, saliva, rock-hard bodies, and semen for the cause of Palestine, Al-Quds, and the Architectually Beuatiful Al-Haram al-Sharif. We tremble with praise for the true prophet Allah, PBUH, as we remember the glorious and buff shahids that gave their bodies and wardrobes for the cause of Al Aqsa. We say with loud, proud voices, that despite the great sorrow in our hearts, we whole-heartedly lust for the day that we will dance through the streets of Al-Quds, liberating its holy sights from the Zionist Infidels as our nation is reborn. We shall dance to the beat of liberation as we march, pink Keffiyas draped around our muscular toned bodies, from the Cafes of Yaffo (Tel A**v), to the theatres of H**zliyah to the Dance clubs of R*hov*t. The cause of liberation passionately clings to our souls like an infant suckling tenderly nibbles on their most beloved pacifier. We therefore, proudly and loudly proclaim the following 7 Point program for liberation of All of Historic Palestine.
1. Full Support of the Hamas Charter of 1988
2. An educational program for all Palesitnian Youth documenting Al Naqba and the ensuing tragedy that befell the proud Palestinian Nation. Our educational network will focus on educating youth in
a. resistance struggles
b. Palestinian history, culture, anthropology, customns, and of course Palesitnian fashion
traditional Palestinian interior decorations.
c. educating youth in “alternative lifestyle choices” and highlighting the importance that
homosexuality has historically had in Palestinian Life
d. establishment of the Palestinian People’s Educational Center for the Study of
Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Sexual, Bi-Gender and Trans-Gender Lifestyles at Bir Zeit University
3. A rigorous Public Health campaign including increased distribution and education regarding
birth control, condoms, contraceptives, spermicides and rectal softeners.
4. Full recoginition of the important role Homosexuals play in the Palestinian struggle for Liberation and Independence. Gay Rights are intricately linked to the struggle for Justice and freedom in all of historic Palestine. The Pink Keffiyah Brigades will grant full support for Hamas in their struggle for Palestinian Liberation and look foward to a fruitful relationship with our revolutionary brothers.
5. We, the Pink Keffiyah Brigades shall establish Liberation Troupes to violently penetrate the Public Media and ensure that Homosexual Voices of reason and struggle are heard in the Palestinian Cause. In regards to the Media our goal must always be: Penetrate! Penetrate! Penetrate!
6. Advocate Strenous Adherence to the Laws of Islam while simultaneously advocating a Progressive Approach to the Shaharia, particularly focusing on innovative methods of interpretation that will help normalize Homosexuality and Homosexual Unions within Palestinian Society. As Palestinians push for their inalienable rights to all of Palestine, we will simultaneously pressure the Islamic Government of Palestince to authorize Homosexual Marriages and full Islamic Rights to both Partners of such Sacred Unions.
7. Advocate for the ordincation of Homosexual Islamic Imams and the Granting of Full Leadership privelages to any Muslim Male, irrespective of their Sexual Preferences or Alternative Lifestyles.
Revolutionary Leadership Council of Homosexual Palestinians
Loti-Ibn-Saud
Bruce-Al-Loti
Loti-Ibn-Loti
Abdul-Rahman-Al-Zarqawi
Omar Al-Saud
Moussa Ibn Loti
Yasser Abdel Rambo-Loti

#3 written by Blacklisted Dictator
Zackie,
Would you and your husband be safe in Gaza, or would you actually both be persecuted for being homosexual?
If you and your husband do go to Gaza and are arrested for being gay, would you want me to campaign for your release? I could send out some emails and post comments on your blog. Perhaps I coulde even start a Facebook site “RELEASE ZACKIE ACHMAT!”
In the circumstances, I refer you to the following:
Dr Mahmoud Zahar (Hamas) condemned homosexual marriage, saying: “Are these the laws for which the Palestinian street is waiting? For us to give rights to homosexuals and to lesbians, a minority of perverts and the mentally and morally sick?”