When I feel you have my back. From an antizionist Jew to the left on challenging antisemitism

On challenging antisemitism by the left. What it means to me as a Jew with progressive values when Jackie Walker and Gilad Atzmon are being hosted in Glasgow this week.

Couple of things have happened in past few days in Glasgow to prompt this post. I actually found out about these in reverse order, but I’m starting with the easiest one to write about, Gilad Atzmon. My discussion and feelings about Jackie Walker being hosted by SPSC are down below.

Last night Gilad Atzmon played a gig at Tchai Ovna : a hippy/lefty tea shop in Glasgow. A friend casually mentioned it, after the gig had started. I was pretty wtf?! But by this time there was nothing to be done. So I’ve informed the venue of Gilad’s antisemitism and am, until told otherwise, assuming that they didn’t know of this beforehand. However they know now and if they book him again I will be more active against it.

I have only met Atzmon once – I went with a friend to a gig as he’s a really good saxophonist. My friend introduced me to him afterwards, and I was initially very happy about this, not just because the gig had been great. I like to meet other antizionist Jews as it can be a lonely path. At most Jewish cultural/religious events I avoid talk of Israel as I won’t lie, but also I hate confrontation and turning a spiritual occasion into a heated political argument. Jewish practise nurtures and calms me. Like doing yoga or whatever works for you. I feel at peace and nourished at this deep down level. I don’t know why it has this effect, but I don’t need to understand it to value it in my life, as it harms no-one else. I tend to have a separation between my different hobbies, interests, and choices. Those who also straddle intersections I often feel a connection and bond with as its exciting and useful for me to be able to discuss issues that relate to our shared intersections and I find helps me understand whats going on for me.

However the initial joy at being invited by Atzmon to sit and chat with him turned to confusion and then revulsion as he began denouncing what he sees as typical Jewish tribalism, as a superiority complex of being Jewish, and how Jews have brought centuries of persecution onto ourselves. After arguing for a short while (I have confrontation and find heated/aggressive verbal dialogue deeply unpleasant) I left. Subsequently I’ve discovered how antisemitic he is. To find examples I had a quick look at his blog and here are some recent examples:

an  arrogant yeshiva boy is subject to a historical continuum of harassment. Seemingly, Alliel didn’t bother to ask himself why is he chased and abused time after time by so many people in so many places.

Source: http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/2017/3/16/alliel-a-window-into-tribal-arrogance

“If I were a Jew,” [David Irving] said, “I would ask myself why it always happens to us?” At the time, I was a still Jew but I took up Irving’s challenge. I looked in the mirror and didn’t like what I saw so I decided to leave the tribe and I stopped being a Jew.

Source : http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/2017/2/16/exactly-who-is-it-that-is-in-denial

Although discovering that this alternative/lefty venue is hosting him shocked me, I don’t feel utterly powerless to challenge it. And that’s because over the years I have felt that many within the left will have my back when it comes to challenging antisemitism. It’s really moving to me to feel this. That especially within the Palestine solidarity movement but in the wider left I am not alone facing those prejudiced against me. It gives me a safety, and a courage. It gives me strength to fight alongside others against their oppressions knowing that they also have my back when it comes to antisemitism. It feels like we really can stand all together and be strong and united and beautiful and really bring about meaningful change to a world where all are liberated and free and safe.

So I feel deeply inside that if Atzmon again is booked to play this venue, that if I ask of it, others, not just Jews, will join me in publicly condemning them for giving this racist a stage. I feel secure in that and its incredibly moving to have that surety. Its just so beautiful and affirming and powerful and empowering.

Jackie Walker

[EDITED TO ADD : I have been told that she actually said she hadn’t heard a definition of anti-semitism she agreed with in the context of a particular workshop which was stating that criticism of israel was anti-semitic. Will update the text within this post when I know more but wanted to clarify that this is in contention as early as possible]

Sometimes antizionism is labelled antisemitism. Jewdas have a really cool primer on how to criticise Israel without being antisemitic and a longer piece discussing what antisemitism is and isn’t.

Last year Jackie Walker was in the media for being expelled and then reaccepted into the Labour Party on the basis of several comments she has made, in different formats, that many (including me) find problematic about Jewish people (which she identifies as also)

I consider “no platforming” an extreme tactic that should be kept for extreme cases where it is likely that a speech by someone will cause harm to another. In the case of Jackie Walker I disagree with her on very many things, and I do feel a bit threatened by her assertion (originally from known antisemites Louis Farrakan’s Nation of Islam) that “many Jews (my ancestors too) were the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade” (source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/anti-semitism-row-momentum-organiser-jackie-walker-readmitted-to-labour-party-following-racism-a7053966.html ) as this is the kind of language that supports and promotes anti-semitism. However I am not calling for her to be no platformed.

For a wider discussion of things she’s said try hope not hate. In brief she has joined predominantly antisemitic calls for Holocaust memorial day to focus on other genocides, however it already does. Antisemites seek to minimise the Nazi holocaust and so she stands in particularly bad company, as well as being ill-informed in making this call. She has also said she can’t find a definition of antisemitism she can work with, which again is kinda weird – jewdas have a couple of good ones (linked above) and its really just a basic antiracist stance with basic knowledge of the historical and current slurs, smears and falsehoods used against Jews.

Again, to be super clear, despite this I am not calling for her to be no platformed.

I do find it hard to swallow though that the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) are hosting her in Glasgow tonight. They claim she is “Accused of anti-Semitism for her anti-Zionist position” (source : https://www.facebook.com/events/376828286014487/ ) Which is just the inverse of zionist claims that all criticisms of israel are antisemitic. I am not in any way against her anti-zionism. Dismissing objections to her as coming purely from a Zionist standpoint is ridiculous and hurtful.

There are hundreds of excellent speakers about Palestine in the UK who are not tarred with her associations with antisemitism. It was not necessary of the SPSC to host her. It is provocative and divisive.

I have had over a decade within the anti-occupation, Palestine solidarity movement and I know that antisemitism and dismissal of such is a minority view. As I stated above I have felt that people have had my back. But what about someone new to challenging the Israeli occupation of Palestine? What if this is what they see – that being anti-occupation means supporting someone who has said what Jackie Walker has said only last year? She has not meaningfully retracted any of it, as far as I can tell, and I did go to look.

If this was more than an occasional one-off event I don’t know how welcome or comfortable I would feel within progressive movements. This kind of behaviour reinforces zionists’ narrative that we need a strong nation state because nobody else will be there for us. It chases Jews back into the hands of Jewish nationalism. Plenty of Palestinians are ready to condemn antisemitism and the movement purporting to support them should do the same.

Gaza, demonstrations, frustrations, privilege

I really don’t have a clear argument that I’m making, I’m just writing down my thoughts really, which are swirling and confused and distressed and contradictory.

The assault on the Gazans continue. I continue to not know how to respond. I sometimes make it along to the demonstrations here. But what do they mean? What do they achieve? A wonderful friend in Israel tells me how their demonstrations in Tel Aviv are attacked by right wing thugs. I feel so proud of the Israeli peace and anti occupation movements for their courage, not just in standing up to the uniformed and ununiformed forces that try to physically terrorise them into silence, but also for standing by their convictions, their ethics, against wider social pressures. I think of how glad and hopeful and beautiful it is to learn about the German anti Nazis in the 30s and 40s. How their bravery and personal strength and decency and personal honour inspires us today, though their resistance could be painted as a pointless act of suicide. Should we protest because, even though it feels like it doesn’t achieve change*, it is important in and of itself to demonstrate our convictions?

 

I was reading 500 Years of Resistance – the comic book – its introduced by Ward Churchill whose “Pacifism as Pathology” I revered at a certain point in my convoluted, ever-evolving relationship with violence. For example, those pictures to the right were taken seconds after I stopped being a pacifist, hit in the face by a police riot shield having sat in the road directly at their feet as they prepared to clear a road of our demonstration. Anyway, my response to Hill’s book was increasing horror, not just at the brutality of the European colonisers as they stole land and resources from the native peoples, but alse at the way Hill and Churchill seemed to celebrate the indiginous’ violent responses. And I was aware, that Churchill would quite rightly point out the priviledge of my position, living as a White person in 21st century UK. Yet still the killings distressed me. I don’t mean the armed, self defence against active attacks, but the cold blooded massacres and executions that are also described, and what I felt was glorification of the numbers killed in battle. I happened to have reached this book in my “To Read” pile at the same time as this latest war on the Gazans, and they swirl around in my brain together. Killing. Racism leading to dehumanisation of people making more pallatable their destruction. Lives treated as disposable junk. Individuals under assault because of their ethnicity and where their homes happen to be.

I don’t follow the news at all anymore. Ah the privilege. I get to not know about bombs firing clouds of indiscriminant murderous darts into residential areas, about hospitals destroyed and vital, in the sense of necessary to life, medical supplies being systematically blockaded from where they are needed. I get to not know about these things because the same act of random chance that meant a Gazan was born into an occupied warzone, led to my being born here. If I choose to, I can not know the details of the horror that is ongoing there, but if I’d been born there I would have no such option because the reality would surround me. And if I find merely reading about what is going on there is distressing, what must it be like for that to be your lived experience?

Other brave, beautiful friends, this time from outwith the Middle East have shared this “Sunday night after seeing the Shayjaia pictures was the worst night. Then, realising that when internationals were announced as being in Al Wafa hospital, Israel called to force evacuation before bombing it, and there were no casualties, wheras yesterday they bombed Al Aqsa hospital (without internationals in it as far as I know) with no warning which resulted in 5 dead and 60-70 injured staff and patients. And we don’t think there are any internationals at all currently free to ride with the ambulances.” The need for international peace volunteers to be in Gaza is clear. (I know people I trust who are fundraising to pay their airfare to try to get over. If you want to contribute, please message me, or leave a comment below and I’ll put you in touch) Why don’t I go? My initial reaction to my friend was to jump at going too. Why did I decide not to? Partly because of my pre-existing plans. I’m on a planned out pathway that will mean I have a lot more skills and knowledge in nursing in low resourse areas come January. That’s something I decided I wanted, and mapped out how to get there, have almost finished paying for the course (a diploma in tropical nursing) and have been organising my living and working arrangements for the temporary move to London for the 5 months of the course. I have a transcontinental loved one coming to visit me for 6 weeks in just over a fortnight (Woooot!!!) I’ve got a two week trip planned and paid for starting on Friday. So there’s all that. Which reminds me of one of Doc’s stories about contacting doctors during the Wounded Knee occupation/stand off in 1973. The doctors had all talked big about civil rights and wanting to support the movements of the day, so Doc had thought it would be easy to fulfill the occupiers request for medical support, however one after another each of the doctors had a “reason” for apologising, saying how much they’d love to go, but unfortunately they have a golf weekend planned, or whatever. All except one doctor who admitted straight out that it was totally what he believed in, but the Feds had guns, it was an armed standoff, and he was too scared to go. Anyway, Doc had some basic first aid skills at that point, so got back to the occupiers and explained the situation, and ended up going himself and being a part of what he later described to me as freedom, even though they were surrounded by guns. Oh yeah, and one of best bits of that story is that the doctor who had actually admitted his fears to Doc ended up going to Wounded Knee after all :)

So yes, I am scared. Its a terrifying war zone. The weapons being used are indiscriminantly killing and maiming people in Gaza. Even without being hit there’s the trauma of being surrounded by all that horror. By witnessing carnage. By being unable to switch off let alone sleep because of constant fear of the ongoing military assault.

And I have that choice. I can give in to inertia and not go to Gaza. I wasn’t born there. For the million that were, my nightmare is their lived reality, because the Israeli government, military and supporters decided that for them.

* Unlike other activism I am involved with, for example http://glasgowsolnet.wordpress.com/ which does offer a direct pathway to meaningful change in the short and long terms.

Gaza, my personal processing of the assaults.

War: the destruction of lives, communities and hope. The murders continue in Gaza. Friends and reports describe the horror. Homes and hospitals and means of survival for communities targetted by high tech weapons. Ineffective, but still, in my view, immorally aimed at civillians, rocket fire from Gaza is the widely reported response.

Gaza is a strange place. Before I went, in 2003, I had an image of concrete refugee camps. Otherwise supportive Israeli cousins warned me that though I’d been safe in the West Bank, Rafah, in particular, was different and super dangerous for us Jews. In my experience, being in Rafah was dangerous for almost everybody, especially those who happened to be born there, and an American and two Brits, but in lots of ways this Jewish girl was safer there than most places I’ve ever visited!

My first encounter as I entered Gaza for the first time was the Palestinian border agents. This is just having walked through the fortified road that takes you from the exit from Israel part of Erez, with IDF guns pointed at you, and following a heavily militarised “passport control” office, with constant surveillance from yet more soldiers and fear that I’ll accidentally do something to arouse their suspicions. And so, adrenaline unpleasantly adding to the hot, concrete, dusty, tired stimuli, I entered the Gazan passport control.

“Welcome to Gaza” beemed the smiling official. He was probably used to the confusion on internationals faces as we were shocked from our terror-yet-boredom (that weird combination of warzone emotions). After an effortless completion of the bureaucracy, he gave me advice on how to get to Gaza City, and I walked into the Strip.

From the shared taxi to Rafah I learned: Gaza is green! No, not the Hamas flags we are told adorn every home and headband, but leafy gree, field green, grass green, nature green. Gaza City is metropolitan. It has interesting looking shops, hotels, restaurants, fancy looking apartments, modern looking educational and healthcare institutions and parks. There’s a (now unused) checkpoint that divides the Strip into two, controlled by traffic signs, and there’s no forewarning or information once you’re there about how long it will be open or closed. If you are deemed to be crossing it when you shouldn’t, or without three people in your vehicle, you will be fired upon. But the soldiers are completely hidden from view, and its just these red and green traffic lights that let you know what their orders are. There is a never completed fairground with roller coaster by the seaside (Gaza has beautiful Mediteranian beaches) from the optimistic Oslo Accord days. Because Gazan children and teenagers would like to be able to have the same kind of fun as our own do.

To be continued.

Fight War Not Wars. Rachel Corrie – the American girl killed defending a Palestinian home.

The world, my world, narrowed to a single point. The war, the wars, that had filled my thoughts raged on around. The Iraq war buildup, occupation of Palestine, the assaults on Gaza, the poverty and inequality and sexism that for most exacerbated their desperate situation evaporated from my consciousness. The brutality of the occupation that for the past two months had crowded all else from my head, with its desperate importance – all that blurred to non existence.

“My back is broken.” The last words Rachel Corrie ever said. I dropped my mobile phone in the middle of dialling for an ambulance and took her head in my hands to stabilise her spine. Nearby the bulldozers and tanks were driving – normally impossible to ignore massive, armoured, roaring, military machines. Another international with incredible foresight took photo after photo.

We were in the Philadelphia Corridor. Land scraped clean of Palestinian homes over the past few years and made into a militarised buffer zone between the Israeli army’s newly erected steel wall and the half of Rafah that fell on the Gaza side of the border with Egypt. Even in overcrowded, desperate for space Gaza, this area was to be avoided. The only movement would be the frequent passage of tanks and APCs and armoured bulldozers and even then, even the Israelis wouldn’t tarry.

The world comprised of 4 people. I held Rachel’s head. On her right and left Greg and Will knelt beside her, focusing all they could to will her to survive. Four friends, one of whom’s life force was leaking out as we held her, told her we loved her and how awesome she was and how she was going to be ok. How she was going to do these awesome talks back in the states about how she’d survived being run over by an IDF bulldozer. As we desperately tried to keep our dying friend with us, while her body was breaking apart and there was nothing we could do. Helplessly I observed the thin skin around her eyes and ears blackened with blood from the bleeding in her brain. The depth and regularity fading from her breathing.

In less than an hour she would be declared dead and this tiny world would be the centre of global attention, as multinational media filled with news of an American girl killed defending a Palestinian home. Suddenly my world would be talking live on TV channels from every continent, confronting head on the USA and Israeli states when they tried to force us to hand over Rachel’s body to the IDF, the institution that had killed her. I would be on a call with a USA congressman. Emails and phone calls would flood in from around the world. We would give a packed out press conference to local and global media.

But at that moment there were just four of us in the world, and one was dying as we held her. Four kids from USA and UK whose life paths had happened to intersect in Palestine. Four kids in the most dangerous place in the Gaza Strip, and one of us was fading fast and there was nothing the rest of us could do about it.

This is what War means. This is the detail in every casualty statistic. People holding their loved ones as their soft flesh disintegrates from the sudden penetration of the hard metals of war; tanks, guns, bombs, shrapnel. Bodies and lives broken. For what?

Each war death is a unique human being, just like your mother, father, sister, brother and child. Communities deemed “war zones” by too powerful others living remote lives moving infantry pieces over plans of “strategic areas”. A little to the left and suddenly that village is ground underneath the caterpillar tracks of War. The tanks roll through. The fighter jets race overhead. Communities and lives are wrecked.

What possible question can this be the right answer to? How can destruction this brutal birth anything worthwhile? What dehumanising of other human beings, what racism must we hold to ever justify such slaughter?

Rachel was an incredible person. Please read from her own words. And know that the millions of others murdered for War are as unique and precious and their deaths as tragic and wrong.

Fight War Not Wars.

What Rachel Corrie gave me

I was with Rachel Corrie on 16th March 2003 when she was killed by the military industrial complex, or more proximally by the Israeli army via a soldier driving a bulldozer who was just one cog of that particular machine.

This is something I only bring up with close friends before, because it is ridiculously narcissistic to be talking about what the ending of such an incredible life as Rachel’s meant for me, still able to walk and talk and love and laugh and fight for a better world.

But now more than ten years on, I’m going to write this on my personal blog.

That day was like a pivot that I swung around and everything changed. I remember even just a couple of days afterwards looking with this fresh new clarity and certainty at what I’d thought before and feeling astonished. It wasn’t that I was naive about what occupation, war and capitalism could do, but that before my role in changing this was more like somebody playing an engrossing game – after Rachel was killed it became my life’s purpose. Afterwards this is what I can and do give my life for, whether that means because I die directly fighting for what I believe in, or because its what I dedicate the hours and days and years I have alive for.

Here’s a not too gruesome picture of just after she was run-over by the bulldozer.  I’m on the left with bleached hair. About now she says her final words “my back is broken” and all pictures from this scene show me holding her head, stabilising her spine as I was trained to by uncle Doc Rosen.

Who was Rachel to me that her killing was so pivotal? A friend, but not a close one. I attach to folks slowly and we’d only known each other about 7 weeks. I liked her well enough, but she was not someone who’s personality I instantly felt an affinity and close bond with. I imagine that that would have changed as time does to relationships especially in such intense surroundings. As I said, I did like her but she was not so close that her death would have changed things as much as they did.

A patient? Well yes, she was one of my first patients. And now, with ten years of caring for people as first aider and nurse, there is a particular hard to describe feeling, like a mixture of responsibility and mission and protection and advocacy, towards my patients, but I had yet to develop that back then.

No, it was because she was trying to make the world a better place. She had taken herself to Gaza, knowing it was dangerous and uncomfortable and scary, in order to try and change things.

My original motives were less clear and altruistic to be perfectly honest. Yes I wanted to make a difference, but I also wanted to experience a different culture and travel some more. I was curious and interested. And I hoped to also help some people. But it was a bit of an adventure as well.

And then the Israeli state apparatus killed Rachel in front of me. And the next day, in partnership with the USA government, tried to physically claim to her body whilst she was in the Rafah morgue.

I was with some other internationals in an internet cafe desperately emailing and reporting on what had happened. The media storm was in full swing. And I was informed that the Israeli army had given an ultimatum that either Rachel’s body was handed over to them, or that there would be a military operation (with scores of Palestinians inevitably killed in the process) in order to recover it.

And that’s when I felt it. No, no the people who’d killed her were not going to take her body. Not without getting through me first. And that was not going to be an easy thing for them to do.

I found this strength solidifying in me. Something I had felt before on occasion but never to this extent. Resolve. Like an iron rod running from the crown of my head, down through my spine and grounding me. I had power. Power to say No and for that to mean something. For me to be able to prevent something happening. That I was strong and capable enough to stand up to both the Israeli and USA states.

We all agreed it was wrong. A violation that the Israeli army should take the body of the person they had killed. I felt a surety that Rachel would not want this, and I knew I wouldn’t had it been the other way around. I also knew that we didn’t want anyone else to be killed, but I felt absurdly confident that it wouldn’t come to that, and I was right!

I don’t want to just now write again about the practical details of what happened, and the twists and turns, the wranglings, the intense cunning we needed, the taking chances and resourcefulness but Will, Greg and I somehow did it, and successfully arranged for Rachel’s body to not be taken by the Israeli soldiers, but to travel safely to Tel Aviv in a civil ambulance with one of us (Will) with her all the way. It was a few hours of focus and belief and determination and creativity that I just don’t think I would have been capable of before.

A crisis like that is a fire hotter than anything I would wish on anybody else, but within it swirling, confused, contradictory parts of me forged into purposeful solidity. Within it I changed at an essential level. The trauma of it all has taken years to get over, and like anything with a half-life, will never totally leave me. But that profound purpose and power and resolve will not only never leave me, but has only grown stronger over the years.

Those people and systems that poison and degrade precious life and beauty and environment? Each new wound that you inflict has an unpredictable, inverse effect that will lead to your deposition. Within each of us that witness and experience the depths that you will sink to, purpose and focus develops and resonates. And even still now, over a decade since she was killed, I will still meet new people who will find out that I was with Rachel Corrie and tell me how they were shocked and angered by her killing and took up or deepened their struggles for a better world because of it.

So, this then was the narcissistic version of Rachel’s death. And sheepish as I feel in posting it, this is my personal blog. And this was the effect that 16th March 2003 had on me. It was a fulcrum. You killed Rachel, and that created in me a strength and lifemeaning and clarity that is part of a growing global, timeless movement for a decent world.

On the 9th anniversary of Rachel Corrie’s death in Gaza

Nine years ago today a small group of us spent several hours using our bodies to non violently defend family homes in Rafah, Gaza, from Israeli bulldozers. And then one of those bulldozers just kept on going, crushing Rachel Corrie, 23, beneath it; she died within an hour.

Rachel wasn’t fearless – I remember one day when we were standing as human shields as municipal construction workers were rebuilding a well that had been destroyed by the IDF (Israeli army) seriously compromising the Rafah water supply. We were there every day over several weeks as the work was carried out, and while mostly this was incredibly boring (ever hung out at a construction site?) at times it was terrifying as snipers would shoot towards us. Because we were clearly identified as internationals and were standing between an IDF watchtower and the workers, these were warning shots; on other occasions municipal workers had been killed by IDF snipers hence our presence. I imagine that the IDF soldiers are pretty bored too. They’ve been subjected to years of propaganda dehumanising Palestinians and this together with the sure knowledge that they can get away with it means that putting a rifle into the hands of an 18 year old kid is a recipe for such killings.

Well one day the watchtower snipers started up, but didn’t just shoot their normal couple of shots, but kept going. We had our banner declaring in English, Arabic and Hebrew something about us being internationals and Rachel used the megaphone to shout over and over again in the direction of the shooting that we were international human rights volunteers and to please stop shooting at us; we never knew if they could hear us or not. The shots were whistling past our ears. Sometimes they hit the ground just in front of our feet sending up bits of rock. Rachel’s voice was getting increasingly shakey. I was trying to work out how accurate a sniper could be at that distance – they were clearly trying to scare us as the shots got closer and closer and I know that they can shoot killshots at that range, but supposing the wind suddenly changed? The distinctive crack meant it was high velocity bullets whistling past so surely they wouldn’t be affected by wind? But supposing one of the soldiers did slip, or just thought “screw it” – our lives were in their hands. We were all terrified. Rachel would pause and we would talk about how we wished we had a cigarette and that we could leave and try and cheer each other up. Finally, approximately 40-60 minutes later, the shooting stopped and we went to a nearby friend’s flat for a very shakey cup of sweet tea with maramiya (sage).

The wells were rebuilt; infrastructure is repairable, unlike destroyed lives. And there have been so many lives destroyed by the occupation. Thousands and thousands of Palestinians killed. Millions of children growing up in traumatising environments in Gaza and the West Bank* A 27 year old friend in Rafah has lost dozens of friends over the years to IDF bullets. These are not necessarily fighters; they could have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Like the street cleaner who was shot from a watchtower while smoking outside his house about an hour after Rachel died. We visited his family; apparently he had learning difficulties and still lived with his parents, and had no relationship with politics. And like so many other Palestinian deaths there has been nothing about him in the news, no accountability from the IDF, just another senseless murder in Gaza.

This post is a bit rambly, and that would probably have been a good place to end it, but I want to talk a bit more about Rachel. I only met her 6 weeks before she was killed, and got to know her a lot better after she was killed through reading her emails and other writing, and spending time with her family. To be honest I don’t know if we’d have been close friends if we’d just met normally. She had a very quirky sense of humour that didn’t match mine. I doubt very much that given a choice, it would have been my arms that she would have died in. But I did have that role, I stroked her hair and told her that she was loved as her body shut down.

I wish I had been closer to her, because from her writing an intelligent, compassionate and complex figure emerges. Within a short time she was aware of the complexity, the nuance, the conflicts of the situation. I’m going to stop with some of Rachel’s words. Please do as she did, and put the humanity back into how you think about other people. We are all individuals, with families, hopes, dreams, loves, fears, background contexts that affect our trajectories, and the ability to do amazing things in the world.

“we are all kids curious about other kids. Egyptian kids shouting at strange women wandering into the path of tanks. Palestinian kids shot from the tanks when they peak out from behind walls to see what’s going on. International kids standing in front of tanks with banners. Israeli kids in the tanks anonymously – occasionally shouting and also occasionally waving – many forced to be here, many just agressive – shooting into the houses as we wander away.” (Rachel Corrie, February 7 2003, accessible at http://rachelcorriefoundation.org/rachel/emails)

 

EDITED TO ADD : We’re having an event in Glasgow tonight to celebrate Rachel’s life. Its at Glas Uni but you don’t have to be a student to come :
Boyd Orr. Lecture Theatre E.
University Avenue just up from Byres Rd.
http://www.facebook.com/events/314851021908411/

* I will write about the effect that the occupation is having on Israelis soon. I absolutely condemn all civilian killings.

Give me back my Star of David!

On pages relating to justice for Palestine I see artwork using the star of david in creative ways to express how the state of Israel is oppressing Palestinians. And of course the Israeli state, with decades of unjust, murderous policies has the star of david as the main symbol on it’s flag.

Being Jewish is important to me spiritually. The star of david is one of our religious symbols, and though personally I prefer others, such as l’chaim (“life”) and the menorah, I still associate the star with my spiritual and ethnic practice.

But the state is Israel has inextricably bound that same symbol into political associations with Zionism. And so naturally the antizionist movement is cleverly and creatively subverting it.

I can’t speak for other Jews who reject Zionism as a part of their religious identity, but for me I find it horrible. I squarely lay the blame on the side of the aggressor – it is the Israeli state and its supporters who first shackled the star of david to the Israeli flag. It was and is they who are most vehement that to be Jewish one must also ascribe to the political ideology of zionism. The other side, who coopts the star in political artwork critiquing zionism is responding to the association laid down by the Israeli state.

But while all this is being played out, I just feel like screaming out (and hence this post!) “LEAVE MY RELIGIOUS SYMBOLS ALONE!” I am here, an antizionist Jew, and I am far from being an annomoly. That symbol is as much mine as every other Jew’s. It has spiritual meaning. My spirituality is not tied to a particular politics but is about my relationship with the All. The star of david is a symbol if that, and binding it to a man-made state, and to the political realm, is a theft and assault of my birthright as a Jew.

Shabbat shalom

My grandmother's candlesticks, with my Friday night candles.

This evening was a close run thing. Having to get some bits and bobs in town today I was racing the sun* to get home before sunset in order to light my weekly Friday night candles, in the candlesticks passed down to me from my grandmother. Afterwords I sat at a window watching the sunset, thinking of the world as it could and should be, the world that I celebrate and try to live weekly on the sabbath – a world of peace, freedom, equality, justice and sustainability.

But then I heard. In Nabi Saleh, a farming village in the West Bank a Palestinian, Mustafa Tamimi, was shot in the head with a tear gas canister by an Israeli soldier.

On being Jewish and antizionist

This is just a few thoughts and no doubt I’ll write more on this.

That I’m Jewish is meaningful to me. My skeptical friends don’t understand it, and think it at odds with my other beliefs, and that I can’t explain it in words doesn’t really help much! All I can say is that I experience strong, unexpected feelings in connection with Judaica, such as rituals, places and language. For example I feel a strong sense of grounding, peace and energy each week when I light candles just before sunset on Friday evenings to bring in the sabbath. Twice in my life I have gone to the Western Wall in Jerusalem, and both times was overpowered by emotion.

The Sandwich Man

I’m not great at languages, but I’ve travelled enough in less industrialised countries to value the importance of friendly greetings. So the first things I try to learn in the local language are “Hello” “How are you?” “I’m fine” “Yes” “No” “Please” “Thank you” and “I’m vegetarian”. Did I mention I’m rubbish at languages? Well, my pronunciation sucks too!

Luckily the old man in the sandwich shop in Balata – a refugee camp just outside Nablus in the west Bank – was incredibly patient, and after a series of mimes by us both, and me trying several variations on saying “Ana Nabeti” he seemed confident he knew what to make me. Another thing I’ve learnt from travelling is that normally trusting the locals is a good bet! I was right – shortly after he disappeared into a side room out wafted the delicious smell of omelette. I happily handed over some shekels and received a paper bag of neatly wrapped herby omelette in pitta bread and went off with my packed lunch to monitor an IDF checkpoint nearby.