Laila el-Haddad has a searing account on her blog of what it has been like– yet again– to have to wait for many days at the Rafah crossing point as she tries to return to her own hometown and birth-place, Gaza.
She, her two-year-old, Yousuf, and her parents still haven’t gotten in.
Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) reads as follows:
- Art. 13:
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
Every single portion of this article is extremely important– for Palestinians as for all others of God’s children. In the US, pro-Zionist activists in the 1980s made a big campaign– with respect to the Soviet Jews– around just the”right to leave any country, including his own” portion of the text. And on the basis of their campaign to “Let my people go”, as they said, they affected the whole of the global balance during the Cold War.
Many of these same activists (and their beneficiaries, like Anatoly/Natan Scharansky) now don’t seem to care at all about the broad principles involved in Article 13, and the fact that it is applicable to all the peoples of the world, not just their own.
“Movement controls” is the technical term for all the many people-control mechanisms that the IOF have insisted on maintaining at all the borders around Gaza, as well as for the extensive people-corralling systems they maintain around each of the towns and cities inside the West Bank and the hundreds of checkpoints they maintain on roads and tracks deep in the heart of the West Bank.
The Israelis claim that these “movement controls” are needed to prevent the bombers and terrorists among the Palestinian population from harming Israelis. I can certainly understand that concern, and also want Israeli citizens to be protected from harm. But imposing real and continuing harm on the entirety of the Palestinian population, as these highly restrictive and always unpredictable movement control systems do, is not the best way– indeed, not even an effective way– of achieving this. Building reciprocal relationships of respect and human equality is by far the best way, over the long haul, to assure the security of Israelis, and of Palestinians.
(Who are every bit as human as Israelis. Do I need to say this?)
That’s why that whole, anti-humane system of governance the West Bank, Gaza, and Golan that is known as “rule through foreign military occupation” has to end. It is the occupation that has led to Israel erecting and mantaining this very damaging system of corrals, real large prisons, and “movement controls” throughout the occupied territories. This system obliterates the ability of Palestinians to pursue a normal human life. (You can read about some of the effects of this system in the big Quaker book on Israel and Palestine I worked on, that came out in 2004.)
The people who wrote the UDHR back in 1948 had a very vivid picture in mind, at the time, of the kinds of conditions of life that authoritarian governments like those in pre-1945 Germany or Japan had imposed on all the peoples who came under their rule. The kinds of freedom specified in Article 13 are crucial to human dignity and the possibility of living a hope-filled, predictable, and peaceable human life.
The Israelis occupation(s) and all the systems of movement control that have stemmed from them must end. Speedily. Let the negotiations over ending the occupations begin!
(Meantime, I haven’t said too much about Laila’s blog post there. Y’all should go and read it for yourselves.)
Another excellent window into the realities of the checkpoints and other controls is Emma Williams’ It’s easier to Reach Heaven than the End of the Street. Highly recommended.
Thank you. Her account is pretty damning. I attached this to a comment yesterday, and will re-post it if I may. Same horror, different eyes.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/793975.html
“In his latest speech, which infuriated so many people, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad uttered a sentence that deserves attention: “Every new Arab generation hates Israel more than the previous one.”
Of all that has been said about the Second Lebanon War, these are perhaps the most important words.
The main product of this war is hatred. The pictures of death and destruction in Lebanon entered every Arab home, indeed every Muslim home, from Indonesia to Morocco, from Yemen to the Muslim ghettos in London and Berlin. Not for an hour, not for a day, but for 33 successive days – day after day, hour after hour. The mangled bodies of babies, the women weeping over the ruins of their homes, Israeli children writing “greetings” on shells about to be fired at villages, Ehud Olmert blabbering about “the most moral army in the world” while the screen showed a heap of bodies.
Israelis ignored these sights, indeed they were scarcely shown on our TV. Of course, we could see them on Aljazeera and some Western channels, but Israelis were much too busy with the damage wrought in our Northern towns. Feelings of pity and empathy for non-Jews have been blunted here a long time ago.”
By URI AVNERY
http://nicholasm9.blogspot.com/2006/08/every-generation-of-arabs-hates-israel.html
A columnist in Ynet had an excellent response to one of Laila’s earlier whinings on the fact that the border was closed.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3333178,00.html
And Helena again confuses the symptom with the real problem. The occupation is an unfortunate result of the hatred which permeates the leadership of Palestinian society, and Israel’s racist neighbors.
As for the movement controls, those have been much harsher since the intifada. What Helena conveniently neglects to mention is that after 1967, Israel’s occupation allowed several Israeli Arabs and Palestinians, some of whom were extended family or even immediate family, to see each other after 19 years of complete separation.
After 1967, Palestinians could travel to and from Israel to work and go home. It was only with the intifada, particularly the 2nd intifada, that Israel resorted to the system of checkpoints and border controls that it has now. Israelis used to visit the territories too. For a while, Gaza was a place to go on Saturdays, shop at the markets, and eat in local restaurants (perhaps Israelis were “sipping lattes” in Gaza as well?).
The occupation and its most brutal consequences are the result of violence directed toward Israeli citizens and persistant Palestinian rejectionism. I could point out how long Israel’s neighbors have rejected that country’s right to exist in peace, but Helena does not allow facts counter to her one sided narrative to be posted on this site.
It’s a shame, really, that the people who most often claim that debate and discussion are stifled are in fact the worst perpetrators of that stifling.
So Joshua, now you’ve had your monthly opportunity here to try to change the subject from the realities of occupation to your ill-substantiated theories about Israel’s neighbors having rejected its right to exist (a peace treay with massive Egypt? peace treaty with Jordan? all meaningless? Israel would be just as well off without thsoe treaties?…. ??)
So, now you’ve had you once-a-month opportunity to state your case here, Joshua, tell us what you think of the whole text of the UDHR’s Article 13. Do you consider that somehow the “right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state [or occupied territory]” should NOT be a human right? Or that the right “to return to his [or her] own country” should not be a human right? Or do you think human rights should only be for some certain humans but not for others? Or do you think the massive application of collective punishment is just okay whenever any particular power has the military/coercive right to apply it?
Tell us, o Joshua, we are eager to hear your views on the topic of the main post here.
I didn’t change the subject at all. I pointed out that the real problem of the suffering which you profess to care about is due to the intifada and rejectionism, not because of Israel’s occupation.
I think Article 13 is fine. That does not prevent the Israeli military from taking measures to protect its citizens. Although you preface your remarks with the claim that you “understand” the Israeli’s “concern” with protecting the lives of its citizens, you really don’t give the Israelis any leeway to do so.
Unfortunately, in times of conflict, innocent people are inconvenienced, hurt, and even killed. For all your ranting of Israel’s “brutality,” it has conducted itself in a matter which is more restrained than most other states have and would when dealing with violence against its citizens.
Israel removed every single settler from Gaza. As such, one can no longer say that the occupation there is a pretext for a land grab, or that Israel was administering the Gaza strip for the benefit of its citizens at the expense of the Palestinians.
Perhaps you think that the Israeli military and government are now just restricting movement and entry because they are sadists or racists. I don’t see any basis for that. Rather, once Israel left Gaza, the Palestinian leadership interpreted that as a “victory” for resistance and decided to start launching more missles. They even went so far as to convert some of the former greenhouses into transit points for smuggling arms. Those same greenhouses which many American Jews raised millions of dollars to purchase on behalf of Palestinians (but I suppose that was just too patronizing, right?)
Ultimately Helena, the record over the past few years has been quite unfortunate, in that it shows that when Israel leaves an area, that area becomes a staging ground for attacks against Israel. This is not a pleasant fact, but it’s there nonetheless.
As the YNET columnist above noted, he is not a “Likudnik,” but someone who has advocated peace negotiations and is rather moderate in the scheme of Israeli politics. That same label applies to many others who have spoken out in favor of Israel in these conversations, despite the barrage of ad hominems launched against anyone who dares dispute this blog’s party line of “Palestinians good, Israelis bad.”
Facts may not suit your narrative, Helena, but you have to address them nonetheless.
Joshua,
Here’s a hypothetical for you to chew on. What if the Arab world – or indeed the Moslem world – were to unite into some sort of super state and “take measures to protect its citizens”. All of its citizens. How would that sit with you?
“…Laila’s earlier whinings on the fact that the border was closed.”
I would love to hear the sounds that would eminate from the mouth of Joshua were he to be subjected for so much as one day to even 1% of the conditions and treatment that Palestinians like Laila endure every day, day in and day out. I am willing to bet that those sounds would go well beyond whining.
“Here’s a hypothetical for you to chew on. What if the Arab world – or indeed the Moslem world – were to unite into some sort of super state and “take measures to protect its citizens”. All of its citizens. How would that sit with you? ”
The Arab world, of course, tried that in the 50s and 60s. Except that the measures were not so much for protection as they were for elimination of the one neighbor that did not neatly fit into the hegemony that they demanded of the region.
The result was disastrous, particularly for the Palestinians.
NYC residents pass through “dehumanizing movement control systems” every day on the way to work, US citizens every time they board a plane. Often they’re pulled aside while uniformed men search their bags for explosives (this happens all the time on the subway system here). Last time I flew home I was singled out for head to toe pat-down and personal q&a, while a gloved officer swabbed my luggage with explosive-detecting chemicals.
Somehow though I don’t resent the NYPD or TSA for encroaching on my civil liberties, since I know the blame lies with the shoe bombers of the world for making these measures necessary. I also doubt that the people likely to use the public transit system to commit mass murder are interested much in “building reciprocal relationships of respect and human equality.” Which in itself is a fine and worthy goal, but in the interim I don’t see how it substitutes for tangible security measures however obtrusive and dehumanizing.
I meant emanate, of course.
“you were a problem where you came from or they would not have moved you out and you are the problem in the ME and you will be the problem where ever you go…just get out and keep going”
From Laila’s comments section, in response to an Israeli commentator.
I can predict what responses I will get from you guys, but I will say it nonetheless.
Are you really so dishonest (or deluded) to compare a NYC subway check by the NYPD, or a TSA pat-down in an airport, to the checkpoint disaster in Palestine? Being mocked and beaten by sick teenagers with M-16s? Standing in a line of cars for more than 12 hours? Your fruits and produce, the annual fruit of your labor, rotting under the sun? Having to pass obstacle courses, including barbed wire and real mine-fields to get to work? Giving up your education because you can never make the classes? Losing your baby in the ambulance, because the sick bastard running the checkpoint was angry today? Not being able to see your beloved family for months, and years?
If you deny these, you have to pull your head out. And if you find some justification for it, you are like the citizens of Nuremberg in 1942.
I can predict what responses I will get from you guys
Then why bother? The checkpoints exist because the weapons smugglers exist. Pointing this out, Laila’s commentator from Haifa earns the eliminationist slurs.
Being mocked and beaten by sick teenagers with M-16s?
Not described in Laila’s account, but to whom are you referring ? Israeli soldiers don’t man the crossing. We’re discussing the border between Egypt and Gaza.
“The result was disastrous, particularly for the Palestinians.”
Oh so it was disastrous. So it’s not – not even remotely – the same thing as being “checked out” – having your luggage x-rayed – at a U.S. airport. Okay, well that’s a start, especially given that it’s come from you: it was “disastrous”. And since it’s clearly not got any better…well, it’s still a disaster. Okay. Great. Who’d a thought it? We’re singing off the same hymn sheet, Joshua.
Now as for another “strand” of your argument. Do you really think that “they’re” as “backward” today as they were forty years ago. Is that the conclusion that you drew from that 33-day “affair” this summer? If so I should think you were the only person who reached that particular conclusion. The IDF sure as hell didn’t. Even I – a complete stranger, thank heavens – to battlefields know that it’s not a good idea to assume that the next war you fight is going to be a reprise of one you fought 40 – or 55 – years ago.
But in a sense it’s a moot point – because it’s highly unlikely that there’s going to be an Arab super state any time soon. But only in a sense. Because what is surely on the cards – in our children’s lifetimes at any rate -is that other Moslem states will sooner or later be joining Pakistan in the “nuclear club”. And I shouldn’t be surprised at all if before this century is out two or three of them have submarines armed with nuclear missiles. It may be ninety five years away, but who’d bet against it, bearing in mind, say, what the world was like in 1911 and what it’s like in 2006.
What I’m saying is it’s not going to get easier for the Eretz – goyim that I am I’ve probably mispelled the word – Israel project. It’s going to get harder. And a lot more dangerous.
Which is why – surely – Helena is right and you’re wrong about the whither Israel question. The present course is going to take everybody in the region over the cliff. No guarantees with the Helena “way forward” – no guarantees with anything really – something completely unforeseen – a Mt. Saint Helena explosion times thirty could blot out the sun for a decade and “kill” agriculture as we know it – but something along the lines of Helena’s “way forward” is the best chance we’ve got.
Read: ‘”Movement controls” is the technical term for all the many people-control mechanisms that the IOF have insisted on maintaining at all the borders around Gaza, as well as for the extensive people-corralling systems they maintain around each of the towns and cities inside the West Bank and the hundreds of checkpoints they maintain on roads and tracks deep in the heart of the West Bank.’
Why did you decide that we are talking exclusively about the Rafah crossing? The barbaric “checkpoint phenomenon” is implemented all across the occupied territories. And these are not just the “whiney” Arabs and anti-Semitic Europeans talking; many of the most gruesome testimonials happen to be from Jewish soldiers who later develop PTSD and bravely decide tell some of truth to alleviate their guilt.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/793975.html
Also: ‘It’s Easier to Reach Heaven Than the End of the Street’ by Emma Williams.
Also: Many references in books by Michel Warschawski
The following website is supported by Israeli women who are regular observers at checkpoints. Photos, reports, etc are found at the website as well as a map illustrating the location of checkpoints in the West Bank. Most checkpoints separate Palestinians from Palestinians, not Israelis from Palestinians. True, the Rafah checkpoint is only one of too, too many!
http://www.machsomwatch.org/
Corrigan,
Just FYI, it’s “goy”, “goyim” is plural.
JES,
Goy. Goyim. Thanks.
It’s a curious old world. My neice – daughter of a lapsed Protestant (my brother) – is apparently completely at home – or as home as a shikse (spelling?) can be – in Hebrew. So much so that the local rabbi has asked her to teach Hebrew to the local Jewish kids. This world. Go figure.
Is there a Yiddish – or Hebrew – word for that kind of anomaly, that kind of implausibility?
Another chestnut from Laila’s comments section…
“fuck israel.hail hitler.why he didn’t just wipe them all.so the rest of world can live with minimal problem”
Joshua,
The presence of wing-nuts is not the monopoly of either side of this saga. And a jackass leaving a stupid comment on a blog doesn’t justify your arguments, mine, or anyone else’s. You could get a sense of humility by checking out some of the nutjob racist comments left on the Y-net comments section by the Judea-Samaria crowd. That is called the straw-man fallacy; it’s an easy way out to show an idiot on the other side and feel justified, but it will not lead us anywhere constructive. We all have to strive to marginalilze the idiots on all extremes, then maybe the saner people can have a say, and lead us away from this terrible precipice.