Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

Munson: I would question the accuracy of some of the statements in this review of Yifat Kedar’s documentary Between the Lines (2001) about Amira Hass. For example, Sachs writes “from what the film shows, she apparently has no friends in Israeli society.” This seems implausible and biased. I do not know Amira Hass personally and I have not seen this film. But I do know Israelis who revere her–as I do.

Micah Sachs, Seeing between the Lines, (Review of Film about Amira Hass) - San Diego Jewish Journal, February 3, 2002

Amira Hass is probably the most committed journalist in Israel, for better or worse. When first assigned to cover Gaza by Israel’s best-known daily, Ha’aretz in 1991, she decided to spend part of each month living there. She permanently moved to Gaza after the Oslo peace accords.In 1997, well before the current intifada, she moved to Ramallah, in the West Bank. She remains there to this day, braving power outages, squabbles with the Israel Defense Forces and the Palestinian Authority, tanks and stonings. During her time covering the occupied territories, she has come to a simple conclusion, fervently held: the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank is a travesty.

If you tend to agree with her, then Israeli director Yifat Kedar’s documentary Between the Lines (2001), about Hass’s life in the West Bank, will confirm your convictions. But even if you don’t, you can’t help but empathize for this lonely, courageous and angry woman.

One of the great powers of film is its ability to make us understand those we might normally demonize. Among other reasons, Schindler’s List (1993) is a masterpiece because Ralph Fiennes makes the viewer understand how a person becomes a Nazi monster.

By showing direct evidence of the indignities, injustice and hate that Palestinians in the occupied territories endure, the film makes us empathize with them. But more importantly, it makes us - and hopefully Israelis - understand why one of their own would choose to live “behind enemy lines.”

It would be easy to dismiss Hass if she had a cozy relationship with the Palestinian Authority. But she does not. She needles P.A. leaders about corruption and lack of democracy just as ruthlessly as she hounds Israeli military flaks about the destruction of Palestinian crops.

When she writes, it is with the passion and conviction of a prophet. Her articles are not possessed with the tone of calm evenhandedness that American readers are accustomed to; her work (available at www.zmag.org/meastwatch/amira_hass.htm) is scathing, judgmental and accusatory.

Amira Hass, Where are the suicide bombers? Occupation Magazine, December 2007

The truth is that nearly every Palestinian has many reasons to be fed up with life to the point of suicide and thoughts of revenge, and those thoughts are not linked only to military attacks. Even without killing, the Israeli occupation regime kills – hope, plans, relationships, ways of life. Living among Palestinians brings daily examples of the thousands of shades that despair has, just as the regime of occupation and colonization brings with it thousands of variants of material and mental abuse. Every moment, people mourn for the lives they could have had and which they are not experiencing. How explosive is the daily insult which people experience, under a foreign rule that decides who will live in their own houses and who will not, who will have access to their lands and who will not, when the bulldozer will tear up your grandparents’ land in order to attach it to a highway and a green settlement, who will waste several hours every day at a checkpoint, who will send their children to university and who will send them to beg, who will lose their source of livelihood, who will see their family and when, and who will not. Massive is the insult felt by the many who depend on charity. Added to all this, of course, is the constant opprobrium of a disappointing and failed Palestinian leadership and the absence of hope in its ability to effect change.

Amira Hass, Two non-states - Haaretz, December 12, 2007

Immediately after the Hamas takeover of the security organs in Gaza in June, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas suspended, using executive orders, the work of the judiciary and law-enforcement systems there. It is possible to see this as a legitimate step against the de facto putsch carried out in the Gaza Strip. However, legal experts and human rights organizations in Gaza warned him that by so doing, he was paving the way for the establishment of a separate court system. How right they were.

Abbas ordered the police to stay home (and get paid for not working), and he forbade the judges to work in cooperation with the police force that Hamas established, having no alternative. Abbas suspended the work of the General Attorney in Gaza, Hamas appointed substitutes, and afterward it set up “The Supreme Justice Council” to run the court system and appoint judges instead of the PA’s “Supreme Judicial Council.” This body was ordered not to accept official documents issued by Hamas ministries and not to charge court fees so that the money would not go to the government coffers in Gaza.

The peak came at the end of November, when the Supreme Justice Council took over the court building in Gaza and informed the 48 judges that thenceforth they were under its authority and not the authority of the Supreme Judicial Council. The seven “Hamas judges” are the only ones working at present, and since there are no restrictions on them, they can at least conduct urgent trials as in cases of murder and robbery. Thus the final impression is that Hamas is more efficient than the PA.

The initial responsibility of the PA in Ramallah is not in doubt. After all, Palestinian judges continued to work with the occupation authorities, so why shouldn’t they also work in a reality of Hamas rule, for the sake of the public? And after all, before the military takeover Hamas won a majority in real democratic elections. That said, the Hamas government has also avoided alternatives such as seeking aid from independent jurists and human rights organizations to persuade Ramallah to put an end to the paralysis of the courts.

Amira Hass, Like on the first Land Day - Haaretz, November 14, 2007

“Armed Hamas policemen who were stationed in the streets and watching the masses of people marching toward the square, gazed down at the ground. Out of shame. They saw themselves the way the marchers to the memorial rally for Yasser Arafat saw them - like Israeli policemen on the first Land Day in Israel. It was women whose votes had led to the defeat of Fatah in 2006, so it was significant now that many women came to the rally. I saw one woman go up to an armed policeman and dare him: Kill me, you Shi’ite.”

This was related by a devout Muslim, a Hamas adherent who left the movement because of disagreements over matters of principle. The killing on Monday of six participants in the Gaza City rally by gunfire from Hamas police immediately raised questions concerning the strength and weakness of the Gaza Strip government and its rival - the Fatah movement in Gaza. The extent to which this is not a matter of absolutes can be learned from the viewpoints of two devout Muslims.

“The masses who came to the rally did not come for Abu Amar [Arafat] or for Mohammad Dahlan, or because they were promised NIS 200 or a phone card. They came out of hatred for Hamas,” says the former movement activist. A friend of his, who has remained a Hamas activist, agrees: “There has been a consolidation among some of the Fatah activists, because of anger and hatred for Hamas, after mistakes of ours that are impossible to ignore.” He himself approached policemen and asked them to conduct themselves with restraint and not to react to insults. He is convinced that what happened was caused by a loss of control by inexperienced young policemen - not part of a policy. He swears that the leadership’s intention is to reduce repressive ruling measures by the government. And he is convinced that Ramallah told Fatah supporters to initiate provocations and that the Hamas police indeed fell into the trap.
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It is all lies, says the former activist, like the claims that the first to have opened fire were Fatah supporters who had prepared for a confrontation. He supports his claim, inter alia, on the basis of a scrupulous examination of the direction in which the shots were fired. The Hamas police, he says, received a clear order to act with full force in response to any Fatah demonstration of strength.

Amira Hass, A moment before the lights go out - Haaretz, November 7, 2007

Alan Johnston, the BBC corresponded kidnapped in Gaza, related in an interview that at a relatively early stage, he started suffering from all kinds of aches because of the water he drank. This was the same water that the kidnappers drank, but Johnston’s unaccustomed body sent warning signals: This is not water that is fit for drinking. And this is the water that reaches most of the taps in the Gaza Strip. Salty, in a few places brackish to contaminated, with an oily consistency. That is clearly felt when bathing.The reason is an ancient one: overpumping because Gaza must make do with the waters from its aquifer alone. It is as if we were to say to the residents of Be’er Sheva: make do with the water that flows nearby. The water sources in the rest of the country are not for you.

Over the last few years, there have been some improvised private and public solutions. Private water purification plants in homes and commercial companies that sell purified water.
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The municipalities, for their part, set up large brackish water desalination facilities and several central taps. Thousands of people go there daily to fill up jerry-cans with water that will not taste like it came from a puddle and will not cause diarrhea, infections, kidney problems and who knows what else.

The electricity and fuel supply to Gaza has already been reduced to below the level of basic human needs. An additional reduction will affect the above solutions to the water problem, and beyond. “To darken Gaza,” as some of the security experts among us have recently proposed, does not end merely with darkened homes at night. You don’t have to be an expert in public health to realize that it would create an endless chain reaction of public health problems and environmental blights.

Mahmoud Abu Tala, a cancer patient denied medical care in Israel (B’Tselem)

Hass, Shin Bet prevented medical care to Palestinian cancer patient - Haaretz, October 24, 2007

The Shin Bet is refusing to allow a 21-year-old Rafiah man who is sick with cancer and in need of immediate medical care to come to Israel, even though he obtained permission from the Israeli Defense Forces’ Coordination and Liaison Administration.

The Shin Bet also arrested the patient’s father, who accompanied him to the hospital.

Mahmoud Abu Taha was diagnosed with cancer of the small intestine in August 2007. Treatment in Gaza was unsuccessful, and he lost a third of his body weight. In addition, he is not taking all of the vitamins he needs because of the shortage of medications in Gazan hospitals.

Because of his serious condition, the doctors decided to postpone chemotherapy and send him to Tel HaShomer hospital in Ramat Gan. According to Mahmoud’s brother, Hanni Abu Taleh, on October 18, they received permission shortly after they filed a request with the IDF. The father and his sick son drove in an ambulance to Erez Crossing, and after a half-hour wait, the father’s name was called on the loudspeaker.

According to the brother, the patient continued to wait in the ambulance, lying on a stretcher and attached to an oxygen tank and an infusion. After two hours, it was announced on the loudspeaker that he was denied entrance into Israel.

Some assassination plot - Haaretz, October 23, 2007

The Israeli opinion of the PA security services is fueled by images rather than reality. The details of this reality are precisely what caused the Palestinians to dismiss the dramatic Israeli report: After all, any two people can declare themselves a cell in one of the many groups of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, and the Shin Bet can declare any three Fatah members “a terrorist cell” and enhance the imaginary danger they represent. Young Palestinians, most of them Fatah supporters, joined the security services mainly for the salaries they offer in a period of chronic unemployment. Their military training and their skills are accordingly inferior.

The true motives behind the adoption of the title “Al-Aqsa Martyrs” are related to jobs, honor and power more than to an ability to act against the occupation. The arrogance comes at the expense of seriousness. And none of the Palestinian echelons, from the two governments to the “cells,” excels in its planning ability, a necessary condition for any “assassination plot” as for any struggle against foreign rule.

The Palestinian spokesmen were confused not because Israel “caught them in the act.” They were confused because again Israel provided an overly strident reminder of its true expectations of the PA: that it serve as an assistant prison guard, a subcontractor of the Israeli occupation. Since its establishment, the PA has oscillated between the two extremes: placating Israel and the United States, on the one hand, and convincing its people that it is leading them to the end of the occupation, on the other. At one point it arrests and conceals, at another it releases and conceals. Abu Mazen sometimes condemns Israel, sometimes calls Israelis “our neighbors.” On the basis of these imaginary neighborly relations, he invited Olmert for a return visit in “his state” (Jericho, for this purpose).

Hass, Id al-Fitr lost amid Gaza Strip closure - Haaretz, October 17, 2007

The hermetic closure of Gaza over the last four months has also left its mark on the currency still circulating: The notes are ragged and torn, a visible reminder of the severance of commercial ties between Gazan farmers and manufacturers and their external markets. Only basic necessities are allowed into the strip.

Buying new clothes for Id al-Fitr, which ends the month of Ramadan, is a long-standing tradition to which Gaza children look forward every year. Even during Gaza’s most difficult periods, the tradition of buying new clothes for the holiday continued. Other traditions, like family trips to Israel, lapsed long ago: It has been 16 years since Gazans were last allowed to leave the strip whenever they pleased.

But even those who had money to buy new clothes for the holiday went home disappointed, after discovering that there are no new clothes appropriate for the fall/winter season. That is because Israel has not allowed the necessary raw materials, such as cloth and thread, to enter Gaza. It is no wonder that some shopkeepers have decided to liquidate their businesses.

Appliance and computer stores have empty shelves; even the stock of light bulbs and electric cables is being steadily depleted. People are saving things they would not have saved in the past - even medicines: A. went to every pharmacy in Gaza City yesterday in an effort to buy a medicine imported from Egypt for his anemic wife, but came home empty-handed.

Hass, The 41st kilometer - Haaretz, October 15, 2007

A zoo. This is one of the ways that Palestinians describe the conditions under which nearly 1.5 million of them have been living: in an area of some 360 square kilometers, closed in on three sides by sophisticated barbed-wire fences, concrete walls and military lookout towers, and to the west by Israeli navy ships that seal them off from the sea. Overhead, in the sky, unmanned aircraft and hot air balloons continually photograph whatever happens inside this closed cage, which has seven gates connecting it to the world, all of which are sealed off almost hermetically.

During the past four months, Israel has permitted about 2,000 people to leave the Gaza Strip - a minority of them were ill; more than half were Fatah senior activists or loyalists who were fleeing from the Strip; and the rest were individuals holding dual citizenship or visas for prolonged stays abroad. For the sake of comparison: In 1999, 1,400 people a day went through the Rafah crossing point alone, in addition to the thousands who passed though the Erez crossing point, despite the permanent closure policy. Now, 1.5 million human beings are living with the knowledge that the length of their world is at most 41 kilometers long and 12 kilometers wide….

The governments of Israel, the United States and Europe see the hermetic imprisonment of 1.5 million human beings and the final destruction of Gaza’s economic infrastructure as a suitable answer to Hamas, at least until it falls.

Like Gideon Levy, Amira Hass is not simply a great journalist. She is a great human being.

Amira Hass, Disrupting the separation policy, Haaretz, September 25, 2007

Last Friday morning, the eve of Yom Kippur, Machsom Watch activists had to spend hours making frantic telephone calls and using their connections with high-ranking officials to enable three sick people to traverse the Qalandiyah checkpoint and reach Jerusalem for urgent treatment. Media reports had promised that despite the hermetic closure, humanitarian cases would be allowed through the checkpoints, but by noon, most of those cases had given up and returned home.

In other cases, Machsom Watch’s female volunteers try to alert commanders when soldiers are harassing people passing through the checkpoints. Months of correspondence and requests, reports in Haaretz and monitoring by B’Tselem resulted in two commanders being removed from the Taysir checkpoint. This did not stop a soldier from harassing people at that checkpoint a few months later, nor did it prevent similar abusive conduct at other checkpoints.

Haaretz, September 6, 2007

Its noon on Thursday and Khaled, a lawyer, noticed immediately: The older soldier checking IDs at the Zaatra checkpoing - south of Nablus - is being nice to people. The soldier looked inside the car, saw the three children, smiled and gave them candy.

Khaled’s first impulse was to refuse the sweets. Later he decided to give the soldier a break and not explain that the candy and the politeness do not alter the reality: this checkpoint, at the foothill of the sprawling settlement of Tapuah, is part of the whole complex of fences along roads, obstacles in side roads and dislocation of villages from their land and often isolating Palestinians living in the northern West Bank from the south.

On a summer day in 1944, my mother was herded from a cattle car along with the rest of its human cargo, which had been transported from Belgrade to the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. She saw a group of German women, some on foot, some on bicycles, slow down as the strange procession went by and watch with indifferent curiosity on their faces. For me, these women became a loathsome symbol of watching from the sidelines, and at an early age I decided that my place was not with the bystanders.

Amira Hass, Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land Under Siege (New York: Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company, 1999), 7.