[GushShalom] How the sacks with olives could only pass after a sit-in strike

[Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)]

GUSH SHALOM - pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 - http://www.gush-shalom.org/

[] How the sacks with olives could only pass after a sit-in strike
[] Dear Amram Mitzna - by Uri Avnery

[] How the sacks with olives could only pass after a sit-in strike
We got many sacks filled, and we even succeeded to let the Palestinians drive them 
home with their tractor. But let's start from the beginning:

It took us many hours to arrive at Salem village, the place of today's olive harvesting.
After all publicity about brutal settler interference with Palestinian olive harvest the 
army apparently had instructions not to refuse us access. So, very different from past 
experiences there was not declared a closed military zone, and the three Gush 
Shalom buses with volunteers mostly  from Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem were let through. 

But the army could not so quick change its nature, so they let us pass reluctantly 
several times letting us wait and wait at roadblocks, and insisting on twice 
investigating the place before we were allowed to go there. The activists had time to 
read the instructions; how to leave negotiations to the specific team, aand remain non-
violent even under army or settler provocation, and a special instruction for today: no 
eating or drinking; it is Ramadan.

There were all the time new obstacles: the Palestinian farmers who had asked for our 
help had until today not be allowed at all to get to their lands close to which settlers 
had built a new "outpost for the Alon Moreh settlement". And today, the army which 
granted the Gush Shalom group access, initially again wanted to exclude the 
Palestinians. After negotiations, they agreed to let six of them accompany us. The 
Palestinians created a fait accomplis: together with the six men came a whole group 
of wives and daughters, bringing with them a horse, donkey's, sacks, buckets and big 
pieces of nylon - to spread out under the trees.

It was a long, long cavlcade which climbed the half-hour way to the hilltop where the 
olive grove was. At some point Uri Avnery was invited to climb the horse's "backseat" - 
a surrealistic duo guiding us towards our goal.

Two hundred impatient olive pickers started immediately to spread to the trees. 
Immediately nervous shouts: the army doesn't allow us in this direction, please go only 
in that direction. It haad been agreed in advance not to confront the army: our purpose 
was to get the olives from the trees into the village; anything else was secundary.

Many of the Israelis were already experienced: "you should especially pick the green 
ones, and you can beat the tree with sticks to get the olives which hang high to fall to 
the ground." And gradually the buckets and sacks started to be filled.

Again and again the soldiers showed how upsetting the situation was for them: don't 
go here, go there - and not always consistent.  Some people started discussions, and  
the atmosphere became nearly relaxed. "We should make it closed military zone. You 
have cheated us: there are more than six Palestinians." "When you dont want the 
Palestinians to pick their own olives, why does Gush Shalom have to do it. Why not 
soldiers?"

When the sky started to darken the soldiers decided it was enough - it was difficult to 
leave behind so many ripe and fat olives, but we didn't want to spoil it t the last 
moment - the Palestinins would pay the price for that - and we embrked on the way 
down.

Then, upon arriving to the buses, it turned out that the Palestinian tractor, which was 
to transport the olives to the 3 kilometers away Salem village ws not allowed by the 
soldiers to use the only road (the same road over which it had rrived there) and they 
took the keys. That was the moment for a spontaneous sit in strike of a whole crowd 
blocking the road for all traffic. Our negotiators made clear that we hadn't wasted our 
day for letting the olives rot there, and that we wouldn't go away unless the tractor with 
the olive sacks was allowed to return to the village.
It was agreed that one of us, Teddy Katz, would join the tractor - for the soldiers to be 
able to shrug off responsibility, but at the same time for us - to make sure thaat the 
tractor wouldn't be harassed at a further point.

When the tractor started moving the Palestinians were cheering and thanking us as 
they didn't during the hours of harvesting before. 

It was as if the confrontation in the end with the army had turned us from goodhearted, 
naive people into respectable fellow strugglers - all this thanks to our "enlightened" 
occupation forces.

For photos: 
Rachel <avnery at actcom.co.il>

For more information:
Adam Keller, Gush Shalom spokesperson
info at gush-shalom.org
ph: 03-5565804 / 056-709603 

[If you decide to forward this message then, please, copy it and send it as a new mail -
 to avoid broken sentences.]

[] Dear Amram Mitzna - by Uri Avnery

Uri Avnery
9.11.02

                          Dear Amram Mitzna

     I don’t know you personally. We have never talked to each other. But I have been 
following your activities from afar - ever since, during the Lebanon war, you did 
something that impressed me deeply: you resigned your army post as a protest 
against Ariel Sharon’s mad adventure.
     Senior officers, who sacrifice their careers on a point of conscience, are rare in any 
army, and in the IDF even more so. That needs moral courage, which, to my mind, is 
more important than physical courage on the battlefield. 
     After Menahem Begin (a man who respected integrity and decency) brought you 
back to high command, I was frequently angry with you when you tried, as Officer 
Commanding Central Command, to appease the settlers. In spite of that, I hoped 
against hope that you would become Chief-of-Staff, knowing that in the new army 
formed during the years of occupation and oppression, there is no chance for a man of 
principle to be appointed to the highest army post. That is reserved for the Mofazes 
and Ya’alons.
     Now you are a candidate for another high office: chairman of the Labor Party and 
chief of its election campaign. I hope you will win. If you do, I shall not envy you.
     You will inherit a party that has come to the brink of the abyss. During 20 terrible 
months, it was Sharon’s despised kept woman, the same Sharon you protested 
against when he caused havoc in Lebanon. Now the Labor Party has helped him to 
cause even worse havoc in the Palestinian territories. Shimon Peres has convinced the 
world that the Bad Sharon, the man of Sabra and Shatila, has become the Good 
Sharon, a real peacenik. Binyamin Ben-Eliezer has done the dirty work, giving a Labor 
Party alibi to a policy of executions, destruction of the Palestinian infrastructure, 
demolition of homes, uprooting of trees, expropriation of land and setting up 
settlements at a crazy pace.
     Such a party will lose the elections by a knock-out. Who needs a second Likud? 
Certainly not the pensioners and unemployed, invalids and one-parent families, whom 
the Labor Party is wooing now, after not giving a damn for them for years. Neither do 
the Arab citizens, whom the Party is trying to seduce by a lot of chatter about “a 
political horizon”, while not even bothering to wash the blood off its hands.
     The Labor Party is courting disaster, and that would be a disaster for the nation at 
large. The extreme right will wield unbridled power. It will destroy any chance for peace 
for tens of years, perhaps for generations, perhaps forever. The Labor party will not 
even play the role of an opposition. It will leave a black hole behind it.
     It you win the nomination, you will have to change this situation dramatically and 
rapidly, and in the middle of an election campaign to boot. That will be an immense 
challenge. No party creates new political assets during elections; it can only realize 
assets accumulated throughout the years. The voters have learned that election 
promises are worthless. And now you are called upon to do something without 
precedent: to change the substance and the image of your party in the middle of an 
election campaign.
     That is unprecedented, but not impossible - on one condition: that your message 
be unequivocal, straightforward and sharp, without stuttering, without hesitation, 
without demagogy, without tricks, without gimmicks.
     Election experts and all kind of “strategists” will tell you that you must first use left-
wing language, so as to gain the leadership of the party, and later right-wing language, 
in order to win the voters of the center. If you do that, you will fail. Time is much too 
short. And that is not your way, anyhow.
     Your only chance of passing the test is to be you, express you own truth and state 
it clearly and honestly.
     The message must be simple and forceful:
     - Israel has no future without peace.
     - Peace is possible, if we are ready to pay the price.
     - There is a partner to peace. The great majority of the Palestinian people want 
peace. Yasser Arafat wants peace. (If you run away from that name, like the cowards 
do, your message will lose its credibility.)
     - Peace means a Palestinian state, the Green Line border with mutually agreed 
changes, Jerusalem the capital of the two states, evacuation of all the settlers from the 
Palestinian territory.
     - All settlement activity must stop at once. The money must be used for economic 
growth and social services.
     - Obligations and resources must be shared equitably.
      - An immediate cease-fire must be achieved, the IDF must be withdrawn from the 
Palestinian towns and villages.    
     - The peace negotiations must be resumed from the point at which they stopped at 
Taba; final agreement to be achieved within a year.
     This is a clear alternative. It will present the voters with a real choice. You must 
promise that if the right wins, the Labor Party will not join a “National Unity” 
government.
     Will this assure you of victory at the polls? Of course not. But you will have a 
reasonable chance, while the present way will surely lead to inevitable, shameful 
defeat.
     Even if the right wins this time, this clear program will allow the Labor Party to 
become a fighting opposition, whose banner will attract all those who will be 
disappointed by the right. It will be poised to re-conquer power. The opportunity will 
come when the public is finally  fed up with the methods of brute power and 
oppression, which lead only to endless bloodshed and economic and social 
devastation. Many people, more than one would believe, are waiting for that day.
     Much courage is needed for going this way. In the past, you have proved that you 
have this kind of courage. Let’s hope that you have it now. 


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