Manara
Square, Ramallah
By Uri Avnery
17 January, 2007
Gush
Shalom
It was murder in broad daylight.
Undercover soldiers disguised as Arabs, accompanied by armored vehicles
and bulldozers and supported by helicopter gunships, invaded the center
of Ramallah. Their aim was to kill or capture a Fatah militant, Rabee'
Hamid. The man was wounded but managed to escape.
As always, the place was
teeming with people. Manara Square is the heart of Ramallah, full of
life, both walking and driving. When people realized what was going
on, they started to throw stones at the soldiers. These responded by
shooting wildly in all directions. Four bystanders were killed, more
than 30 wounded.
The routinely mendacious
army press release announced that the four had been armed. Indeed? One
of them was a street vendor named Khalil al-Bairouti, who used to sell
hot beverages from a small cart at this place. Another was Jamal Jweelis
from Shuafat near Jerusalem, who had come to Ramallah to buy new clothes
and sweets for the engagement party of his brother, which was scheduled
for the next day. Hearing that approaching bulldozers were crushing
vehicles in the street, Jamal ran out of the shop to remove his car.
That happened nine days ago.
A "routine" action, like so many others that take place in
the occupied Palestinian territories almost daily. But this time it
created an international uproar, because on that very day Ehud Olmert
was due to meet the President of Egypt, Husni Mubarak in Sharm el Sheikh.
The host was deeply offended. Do the Israelis despise him so much, that
they so lightly put him to shame in the eyes of his people and the Arab
world? At the end of the meeting, he gave vent to his anger in no uncertain
terms, in the presence of Olmert, who muttered some weak words of apology.
In Israel, the usual game
of passing the buck, known as "covering one's ass", began.
Who was responsible? As usual, someone low down in the hierarchy. The
Prime Ministers's people first suspected that the Minister of Defense,
Amir Peretz, had done it to trip up Olmert. Peretz denied any prior
knowledge of the action, and passed the buck on to the Chief-of-Staff,
who, he implied, wanted to bring about the downfall of both Olmert and
Peretz. The C-o-S transferred the responsibility to the Commander of
the Central Front, Ya'ir Naveh, a Kippa-wearing general known as especially
brutal, with extreme right-wing views. In the end it was decided that
some officer lower down had approved the action, and that all the responsibility
was his.
Even if you believe all these
denials - and I most certainly do not - the image is no less disturbing:
a chaotic army, out of control, where every officer can do as he sees
fit (or unfit).
TWO DAYS later, my wife Rachel
and I visited the place. It was early evening. Under an intermittent
drizzle, Manara ("lighthouse") Square was again teeming with
people. Traffic jams blocked all the six streets leading to the square
Zacharia, the Palestinian
friend who was accompanying us, was clearly worried. He tried to persuade
us not to go there so soon after the incident. But nothing happened.
Posters of Arafat were hanging
on the column in the center of the square and on some walls. In a mini-market
there were photos of Saddam Hussein. One of the walls carried angry
graffiti: "We Don't Need Your Aid!" (You the Americans? The
Europeans? The aid agencies?)
The four lions surrounding
the column in the square looked to me forlorn and helpless. One of them
is wearing a watch on his leg. The designer had added the watch as a
joke and the Chinese who were contracted to produce the lions according
to the plan did precisely that.
In the end we entered a coffee
shop. While we were sitting and enjoying the coffee, all the lights
went out. Before we could start to worry, people around us used their
cigarette lighters and cellular phones. After some minutes, the lights
went on again.
On the way home to the hotel
in a side street, we took a taxi. The driver, who did not know that
we were Israelis, talked all the way with his brother in Arabic on his
phone. He ended the conversation with three words: "Yallah. Lehitraot.
Bye." Yallah (something like OK) in Arabic. Lehitraot ("see
you again") in Hebrew. Bye in English.
WHEN WE told our friends
in Tel-Aviv that we were off to a conference in Ramallah, they thought
that we had taken leave of our senses. "To Ramallah? And now of
all times, after what has just happened there?"
The organizers of the conference
- Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, an international group of academics
- also hesitated. True, the conference was arranged several weeks ago,
but perhaps it would be best to postpone it for a week or two? Was it
wise to bring to Ramallah dozens of Israelis, less than 24 hours after
the killing?
In the end, it was decided,
quite rightly, that this was exactly the right time and place to convene
the conference. The representatives of 23 Palestinian, 22 Israeli and
15 international organizations were lodged for three days in a Ramallah
hotel, met, ate together and discussed the one subject that was on everybody's
mind: how to act together to put an end to the occupation which produces
daily horrors like the Manara Square killing spree?
It was important to hold
the conference precisely at this place for another reason: Since the
murder of Yasser Arafat, the connections between the Israeli and Palestinian
peace forces at the higher level had become tenuous. Unlike Arafat [incidentally,
Uri Dan, Sharon's confidant, recently put to rest any doubt that the
late Palestinian President was indeed murdered], Mahmoud Abbas obviously
does not think that they are important. That is one of the reasons -
one of many - for the pessimism that has infected parts of the peace
camp.
Therefore, the very fact
that such a conference was taking place was important. Israelis, Palestinians
and international activists mingled and sat together, proposed actions,
stressed the common aim. On the second day, the conference broke up
into smaller workshops, where participants from Tel-Aviv and Hebron,
Nablus and New York, Barcelona and Kfar-Sava put forward ideas for joint
actions.
There were also some stormy
debates, though not between Israelis and Palestinians, but about differences
of opinion that did not follow national lines. The most important one:
Should the main effort be devoted to action in the country or abroad?
The representative of an
Israeli group argued with much feeling that there was nothing to be
done inside the country, that all the efforts should be focused on winning
over international public opinion, on the lines of the world-wide boycott
that had been so successful against South Africa. In response, a Palestinian
activist argued that the only important thing was to influence public
opinion in Israel, which was, after all, the occupier. I also argued
that the main effort should be directed towards Israel, even if actions
abroad can be useful, too. I vigorously opposed the idea of a general
boycott against Israel, because - among other things - it would push
the public into the arms of the Right. (However, I do support the idea
of a boycott against specific targets that are clearly identified with
the occupation, such as the settlements, suppliers of certain military
equipment, universities with branches in the occupied territories etc.)
SOME DAYS later a comparable
meeting took place in the capital of Spain. But there was a difference
between the two conferences - much like the difference between Sun Square
in Madrid and Manara Square in Ramallah.
Madrid saw a congregation
of respectable personalities, Members of the Knesset (including supporters
of the government that is responsible for the bloodshed in Ramallah,
one of them a representative of a neo-Fascist party) together with some
notables from the Palestinian authority and their colleagues from Arab
and other countries. In Ramallah there came together the veterans of
the fight for peace, people who had stood fast dozens of times in a
cloud of tear gas and against rubber-coated bullets. One group of Palestinians
and Israelis, who arrived together late on the first day, came straight
from a demonstration in Bil'in, where the army had used a water cannon,
tear gas and also rubber bullets.
The guests in Madrid had
come by plane. The guests in Ramallah had a much tougher time getting
there. The Israelis had to squirm through checkpoints on their way in,
and even more on the way back. Israelis (except settlers) break the
law when they travel to the occupied territories. But for the Palestinians,
it was ten times harder to get to Ramallah. A guest from Nablus told
us that he had left home at 2 AM in order to reach the conference at
11 AM. The guest from Tubas, near Nablus, spent eight hours on the road
and at the checkpoints - much more than the time needed to get from
Tel-Aviv to Madrid.
The Madrid conference was
covered extensively in the Israeli media, day after day. The Ramallah
conference was not mentioned with one single word in any Israeli newspaper,
TV or radio station, except for a single line in the gossip column in
Maariv, which said: "Uri Avnery has temporarily gone to live in
Ramallah".
THE MADRID conference was
relevant mainly as proof that Israeli and Palestinian politicians can
sit together, even after all that has happened. What was the importance
of the meeting in Ramallah?
In the past, I have taken
part in many similar conferences that have borne no fruit. This time,
too, the obstacles are enormous. But more than ever, it is clear that
action must be taken against the occupation, and that the action must
be joint, consistent and well planned.
In five months, the occupation
will be 40 years old - perhaps the longest-lasting military occupation
regime the world has ever seen. At the conference, there was general
agreement that all forces must be concentrated in a great public campaign
to mark this shameful date and draw attention to the injustices of the
occupation, the harm it does not only to the Palestinians but also to
the Israelis, to bring the Green Line back into the public consciousness,
to act against the roadblocks and the Annexation Wall, and for the release
of the prisoners of both sides. For this purpose, the conference decided
to set up "an Israeli-Palestinian-International Coalition to End
the Occupation".
The continuation will depend
on the willpower, courage and devotion of all peace forces, and their
ability to cooperate beyond the roadblocks, walls and fences - one of
whose aims is precisely to obstruct such cooperation.
Time is pressing. Perhaps
that is why one of the lions in Manara Square has a watch.
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