HopeAndDespair


Volume [7]	No. [1]	June 2010
Newsletter Home Page		NORCAL ISM Homepage

Hope and Despair

by Paul Larudee May 2010

The outlook for Palestinians has never been more desperate – nor more hopeful.

The desperation is easy to understand. Eight million Palestinians remain homeless. Whether they live in a crowded refugee camp or in Beverly Hills, Israel has denied them their homes for up to 62 years and is working hard to expel the rest.

image of boy in rubble of his Gaza home

The crushing Israeli restrictions on Palestinians is intended to destroy their ability to earn a living, get an education, maintain their culture, or even keep their families together. Under the new “infiltrator” law, it is now illegal for Palestinians in one part of Palestine to be in another part, and they are subject to “deportation” to the location shown on their Israeli-issued ID. Many who went abroad for education or work have been refused permission to return, and Jerusalemites are being expelled to the West Bank. More than 24,000 homes have been demolished. On top of that is the devastation of Gaza, with the threats and prospect of being repeated.

How, then, is it possible to feel hopeful?

The irony of major social change is that it typically occurs at a population’s darkest hour. The most repressive period of South African apartheid was after the passage of the 1987 “emergency laws.” However, the laws were the last card in the hand of the white supremacist government, and when they failed, apartheid was broken.

We are approaching such a point in Palestine. The scattered and nearly invisible solidarity groups that appeared (and then sometimes disappeared) with the first intifada in 1987-90 began to proliferate with the Sharon regime’s invasion of Palestinian cities in 2002. Now the groups are so numerous that they are treading on each others’ feet, and forming larger projects to challenge Israeli policy. The voyages to Gaza by sea and land, culminating most recently in the massive Gaza Freedom March and the flotilla to Gaza with 600 passengers and 5000 tons of cargo, reflect the change, as does the global BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement and the international legal challenges to Israeli policies, practices and officials. Warrants are now outstanding for the arrest of Israeli officials in several countries.

Israel is on its heels. By some estimates, up to a million Jewish Israelis have emigrated to other shores, propelled by better opportunity and to escape an onerous military service obligation. Israel is keenly aware that the outlook for a Jewish majority state is grim. Its Jewish population is at its lowest proportion ever, and declining rapidly. The officially listed level of 75% is in doubt, as many take “extended visits” abroad, and Israel has tapped out most sources of Jewish immigration.

The irony of major social change is that it typically occurs at a population’s darkest hour.

This explains the increasingly repressive policies toward the Palestinian population, as a means to restrain or reverse its growth. As with South Africa’s “emergency laws,” however, this will only delay the inevitable, and increase the suffering in the meantime.

That is why it is more urgent than ever to challenge Israel’s human rights violations with new and creative forms of nonviolent resistance. Our sister organization, the Free Palestine Movement, is planning an aircraft to Gaza later this year. The Free Gaza Movement continues to send boats, along with the Turkish IHH, the European Campaign Against the Siege, the Greek and Swedish Boat to Gaza projects, in which the Free Palestine Movement also participates. In addition, the Free Palestine Movement, the Palestinian Return Centre (UK) and the Al-Awda Palestine Right to Return Coalition (USA) are organizing Palestinian volunteers to fly to Tel Aviv to exercise their right to return to their homes. ISM, of course, continues to send volunteers to participate in the strong and still growing Palestinian nonviolent resistance movement, despite increasing obstacles from Israel.

The strength of these movements shows that the brutal acts of Israeli authorities are themselves a sign of weakness and despair, with the difference that the future prospects for a Jewish supremacist state are increasingly devoid of hope. When they, like the last white South African regime, realize that the only solution is to treat all humans as equals, they will rediscover the hope and peace that now eludes them.

Paul Larudee first went to Palestine in 1965 and has been active in the ISM since 2002. He is co-founder of the Free Gaza and Free Palestine movements.