When I first heard of Robert McNamara's death, I did not immediately recognize the influence his life and legacy has had on me. I had not heard the name or thought of the man in a long time. My last memory of McNamara was being repulsed at his factual distortions regarding the Cuban Missile Crisis in the popular film, "Fog of War" (which I don't think I even bothered to finish).
It was a round-table discussion on Democracy Now! today featuring Howard Zinn and other prominent experts on U.S. history and foreign policy that touched on the significance of McNamara to a young radical like me. I had heard the name in history class, but it was not until I read David Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest that 'McNamara' became an intriguing name. He was quite possibly the very best and brightest of the best and brightest: the description given by Halberstam to President John F. Kennedy's highly intellectual team of advisers. Kennedy himself quipped: "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House - with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." Nonetheless, McNamara, Dean Rusk, McGeorge Bundy, and other Kennedy administration officials would be better known for their failures in Vietnam than their Rhodes Scholarships.
Despite the large cadre of failures who were swept into the historical dustpan with him, it was McNamara and his story that led me to give up on government. I doubted that any dramatic "change from within" was possible. I identified much more with the activists camped outside the White House screaming "Hey, LBJ, whaddaya say? How many kids did you kill today?" than with the misguided officials inside, who may have had greater access to power but had far less access to reality. I didn't see myself as a yes man or as someone who could ever compromise on my values. I couldn't identity much with even the likes of Daniel Ellsberg because despite his courage, he still played for the wrong team for much of his life. I can hardly see myself wearing a suit to work.
But McNamara gave me hope as well as disillusionment. He helped me realize that you don't have to have a 4.0 GPA to understand foreign policy or warfare. In fact, less-educated Americans were more heavily against the War in Vietnam than their university-taught counterparts. The masses took to the streets while McNamara was trying to figure out how many pounds of bombs to drop on Hanoi's children. Humanity is not something that comes from a campus or a book. While reading about McNamara for the first time, I was proud of myself for taking a bold stance against the War in Iraq and organizing my fellow students to do the same. I was proud of myself for NOT being a stooge of empire.
I may not have the opportunity to run the Ford Motor Company, the Pentagon, or the World Bank (McNamara ran all three at different times in his life), but I can run a peace group - and maybe a small non-profit some day. I'm certain I'll sleep better at night in my later years than McNamara did. Of course, that's not saying much.
I don't know how McNamara will be remembered by most Americans (if he is remembered at all). I just hope that history books don't continue to present him as someone who beat the drum the loudest for one of the bloodiest and shameful U.S. military campaigns only to recant his hawkish views and become a dove. This is an over-simplistic view of the man at best. He may have admitted that the so-called Vietnam War was a mistake, but he never acknowledged the blood on his hands; he never apologized to the military families back at home or to the children of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. He may have spoken out against nuclear weapons, but so have some of the most unapologetic American imperialists, such as Henry Kissinger. I question his motives for abolition: Every foreign policy wonk knows that if nuclear weapons were abolished from the earth, there would be no longer any (violent) means of deterring the United States' conventional military superiority for countries like North Korea.
It's quite possible that McNamara never saw the light. And I'm sure he doesn't see it now. I just hope the architects of the current occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan come to join the millions of Americans and the billions of people worldwide who have grown weary of war. I hope they become architects of peace.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
A Celebrity Never Dies
American Idols
By Jamie L Manson
Created Jul 02, 2009
America's obsessive relationship with celebrities hit a fever pitch this past week with the death of Michael Jackson.
The NBC and ABC networks cancelled their evening programming to offer impromptu "remembering Michael Jackson" retrospectives. On news radio, nothing else seemed to be happening with the exception of the requisite traffic and weather notifications. It even made the cover of The New York Times, and NPR had it as one of their top stories.
JacksonJacksonOutside of the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, a church-like atmosphere was spontaneously generated. Candles, iconic images, and prayerful messages covered the sidewalks. Mourners gathered in collective worship, singing, dancing, and praising as if they were attending a religious revival meeting. Newly minted T-shirts boasting "Long Live the King" were printed and snatched up within hours of the news.
A group of teenagers from a church in North Carolina who were engaged in a service project at our homeless outreach program took a break to try to get into the Tuesday memorial service at the Apollo. Although most of them were born no earlier than 1993 and couldn't name a Jackson song a week ago, they were crushed to find that a line stretching ten city blocks prevented them from entering the theater. But they couldn't resist being caught up in the hysteria.
Jackson's artistic force and his innovative genius were thrilling examples of the extraordinary power of human creation to lift human beings up through music and dance. And, yet, this massive, communal mourning seems empty at its core. Up until June 25, Jackson was a punch line for many comedians and entertainment publications. His contributions to popular culture seemed long forgotten. The scandals of his life and bizarreness of his lifestyle were at the forefront of our memories. He lived as a recluse in Dubai for years after his trial and no one seemed to miss him.
We did not really know him, yet we get emotionally charged over his death. Would another person tried for molesting children, whose death appears to be a result of a massive addiction to opiates, cause us such heartache? I wonder how authentic our grief is, and how much of it is another, celebrity-induced emotional fad.
A few decades ago, the novelist Walker Percy was asked in an interview to define religion. Drawing on the word's Latin root religare, which means literally "to bind fast," Percy defined religion as a radical bond between a person and reality that confers meaning to his or her life.
Celebrity culture, it seems to me, has become our religion. It is unreality posing as reality. It devours our attention and shapes our values and concerns. It has a unique power to move us and propel us toward action. Sometimes it even helps mold our consciences. We donate to a cause if "American Idol" has decided to "give back" to it. We become interested in Darfur because George Clooney insists on it. When Oprah made a documentary about building a girls' school in South Africa, millions were moved by her generosity. And who has been a greater promoter of Kabbalah spirituality in its centuries-old history than Madonna?
As much as I appreciate celebrities who use their enormous power for the good, I cannot help but be troubled by their capacity to dominate our minds and hearts. They lift us up in frenzy of concern that seems to fade as quickly as it erupted. Celebrity culture is fickle and faddish, and very often the social awareness the celebrities promote suffers the same fate. Remember Jackson's "We Are the World/ USA for Africa" project that set out to end famine in Ethiopia? He received an extraordinary amount of celebrity support and a mega-hit was born from it. Sadly, 25 years later, the situation remains the same in that region of the world.
So, for this week at least, Jackson is the object of worship and veneration in our cult of the celebrity. The heightened sense of loss suggests that we are so hungry for meaning, for some sense of the sacred, that the moonwalk and an epic music video are being spoken about as if they are sacraments.
But what I believe fuels our obsession with celebrities most is not their artistic or philanthropic contributions -- or even their scandals -- but their fame which serves as a symbol of our own deep desire to be known. Our preoccupation with them is in many ways a mark of our own yearning to be well-known. As communities decline and the act of socializing becomes more isolated by communication devices and social networking sites, we become less and less present to one another. This is why, I believe, sites like Twitter are so popular. We are so anxious to be recognized, that we feel the need to tell our every move to anyone willing to read about it. Unfortunately, this does not create the quality of presence that feeds the spirit and leads us into more intimate levels of knowing and being known.
Our country's preoccupation with Jackson's death this week illuminated for me the role of celebrities in our society: they are cultural golden calves that distract us from being present to one another and from recognizing the sacred working in our midst. Our cultish attachment to celebrities reveals the pathos of our culture. In our obsession with them, we are at once crying out for attention and being distracted from those realities that are most in need of our authentic presence. At its core, it suggests that we are hungry for meaning that no other cultural entity seems to be willing or able to make for us. We are starving for presence and looking towards American idols to offer us a fantasy of being known and a diversion from the challenge to know more deeply.
Jamie Manson received her master of divinity degree from Yale Divinity School where she studied Catholic theology, personal commitments and sexual ethics with Mercy Sr. Margaret Farley. She is the former editor in chief of the Yale magazine Reflections, and currently serves as director of Social Justice Ministries at Jan Hus Presbyterian Church, working primarily with New York City’s homeless and poor populations. She is a member of the national board of the Women’s Ordination Conference
By Jamie L Manson
Created Jul 02, 2009
America's obsessive relationship with celebrities hit a fever pitch this past week with the death of Michael Jackson.
The NBC and ABC networks cancelled their evening programming to offer impromptu "remembering Michael Jackson" retrospectives. On news radio, nothing else seemed to be happening with the exception of the requisite traffic and weather notifications. It even made the cover of The New York Times, and NPR had it as one of their top stories.
JacksonJacksonOutside of the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, a church-like atmosphere was spontaneously generated. Candles, iconic images, and prayerful messages covered the sidewalks. Mourners gathered in collective worship, singing, dancing, and praising as if they were attending a religious revival meeting. Newly minted T-shirts boasting "Long Live the King" were printed and snatched up within hours of the news.
A group of teenagers from a church in North Carolina who were engaged in a service project at our homeless outreach program took a break to try to get into the Tuesday memorial service at the Apollo. Although most of them were born no earlier than 1993 and couldn't name a Jackson song a week ago, they were crushed to find that a line stretching ten city blocks prevented them from entering the theater. But they couldn't resist being caught up in the hysteria.
Jackson's artistic force and his innovative genius were thrilling examples of the extraordinary power of human creation to lift human beings up through music and dance. And, yet, this massive, communal mourning seems empty at its core. Up until June 25, Jackson was a punch line for many comedians and entertainment publications. His contributions to popular culture seemed long forgotten. The scandals of his life and bizarreness of his lifestyle were at the forefront of our memories. He lived as a recluse in Dubai for years after his trial and no one seemed to miss him.
We did not really know him, yet we get emotionally charged over his death. Would another person tried for molesting children, whose death appears to be a result of a massive addiction to opiates, cause us such heartache? I wonder how authentic our grief is, and how much of it is another, celebrity-induced emotional fad.
A few decades ago, the novelist Walker Percy was asked in an interview to define religion. Drawing on the word's Latin root religare, which means literally "to bind fast," Percy defined religion as a radical bond between a person and reality that confers meaning to his or her life.
Celebrity culture, it seems to me, has become our religion. It is unreality posing as reality. It devours our attention and shapes our values and concerns. It has a unique power to move us and propel us toward action. Sometimes it even helps mold our consciences. We donate to a cause if "American Idol" has decided to "give back" to it. We become interested in Darfur because George Clooney insists on it. When Oprah made a documentary about building a girls' school in South Africa, millions were moved by her generosity. And who has been a greater promoter of Kabbalah spirituality in its centuries-old history than Madonna?
As much as I appreciate celebrities who use their enormous power for the good, I cannot help but be troubled by their capacity to dominate our minds and hearts. They lift us up in frenzy of concern that seems to fade as quickly as it erupted. Celebrity culture is fickle and faddish, and very often the social awareness the celebrities promote suffers the same fate. Remember Jackson's "We Are the World/ USA for Africa" project that set out to end famine in Ethiopia? He received an extraordinary amount of celebrity support and a mega-hit was born from it. Sadly, 25 years later, the situation remains the same in that region of the world.
So, for this week at least, Jackson is the object of worship and veneration in our cult of the celebrity. The heightened sense of loss suggests that we are so hungry for meaning, for some sense of the sacred, that the moonwalk and an epic music video are being spoken about as if they are sacraments.
But what I believe fuels our obsession with celebrities most is not their artistic or philanthropic contributions -- or even their scandals -- but their fame which serves as a symbol of our own deep desire to be known. Our preoccupation with them is in many ways a mark of our own yearning to be well-known. As communities decline and the act of socializing becomes more isolated by communication devices and social networking sites, we become less and less present to one another. This is why, I believe, sites like Twitter are so popular. We are so anxious to be recognized, that we feel the need to tell our every move to anyone willing to read about it. Unfortunately, this does not create the quality of presence that feeds the spirit and leads us into more intimate levels of knowing and being known.
Our country's preoccupation with Jackson's death this week illuminated for me the role of celebrities in our society: they are cultural golden calves that distract us from being present to one another and from recognizing the sacred working in our midst. Our cultish attachment to celebrities reveals the pathos of our culture. In our obsession with them, we are at once crying out for attention and being distracted from those realities that are most in need of our authentic presence. At its core, it suggests that we are hungry for meaning that no other cultural entity seems to be willing or able to make for us. We are starving for presence and looking towards American idols to offer us a fantasy of being known and a diversion from the challenge to know more deeply.
Jamie Manson received her master of divinity degree from Yale Divinity School where she studied Catholic theology, personal commitments and sexual ethics with Mercy Sr. Margaret Farley. She is the former editor in chief of the Yale magazine Reflections, and currently serves as director of Social Justice Ministries at Jan Hus Presbyterian Church, working primarily with New York City’s homeless and poor populations. She is a member of the national board of the Women’s Ordination Conference
Letter from an Israeli Prison
Letter from an Israeli Prison
by Cynthia McKinney
Original audio message available here:
http://freegaza.org/it/home/56-news/984-a-message-from-cynthia-from-a-cell-block-in-israel
A funny thing happened to me on my way to Gaza. Before I left for Gaza, I was giddy with excitement. The children needed school supplies. It was a last-minute, but urgent request. Please bring crayons for the children. And so I accpeted congtributions of crayola crayons, #2 pencils, pencil sharpeners, paint brushes, and crayola watercolors.
When I told people that I was going shopping to buy crayons for the children of Gaza, everyone wanted to donate. By the time I left, my suitcase could hold no more. So, full of expectation, I entered the airport in the U.S. headed once again to Larnaca, Cyprus where the Hope Flotilla, consisting of the "gree Gaza" and the "Spirit of Humanity" were to embark to Gaza.
The "Free Gaza" was to be donated to the people of Gaa so they could replace some of the boats confiscated or bombed by the Israelis during Operation Cast Lead.
It was a beautiful dream. And dream it had to be because I had tried to get to Gaza before. At the outbreak of Israel's Ooperation Cast Lead, I boarded a Free Gaza boat, with one day's notice, and tried, as the U.S. representative in a mulitnational delegation, to deliver trhee tons of mnidical supplies to an already-besieged and ravaged Gaza. But, during Opertion Cast Lead, U.S.-supplied F-16s raised hell fire on a trapped people. Ethnic cleansing became full-scale, outright genocide.
U.S.-supplied white phosphorus, depleted uranium, robotic technology, DIME weapons, and cluster bombs - new weapons creating injuries never treated before by Jordanian and Norwegian doctors. I was later told by doctors who were there in Gaza during Israel's onslaught that Gaza had become Israel's veritable weapons testing laboratory; and the people used to test and improve the kill ratio of their weapons.
The world saw Israel's despicable violence thanks to al-Jazeera Arabic and Press TV that broadcast in English. I saw those broadcasts live and around the clock, not from the USA but from Lebanon, where my first attempt to get into Gaza had ended because the Israeli military rammed the boat I was on in international waters that carried medical supplies. That boat, the Dignity, was completely destroyed in its encounter with the Israeli military.
Again, on a humanitarian mission aborted by the Israeli military. I am now known as Israeli Prisoner #88794. I am in cell number 5, Ramle Prison. How could I be in prison for collecting crayons for kids and trying to get the crayons to them?
The Israeli authorities have tried to get us to confess that we committed a crime. And while in the cellblock, I have kaccess to my clothes and a cell phinbe, but not the crayons or any clothing that has the word "Gaza" on it. Zionism has surely run out of its last legitimacy if this is what it does to people who believe so deeply in human rights for all that they put their own lives on the line for someone else's children. Israel is the fullest expression of Zionism, but if Israel fears for its security because Gaza's children have crayons then not only has Israel lost its last shred of legitimacy, but Israel must be declared a failed state.
I am facing deportation from the state that brought me here at gunpoint after commandeering our boat. I was brought to Israel against my will. I am being held in this prison because I had a dream that Gaza's children could color & paint, that Gaza's wounded could be healed, and that Gaza's bombed-out houses could be rebuilt.
But I've learned an interesting thing by being inside this prison. First of all, it's incredibly black: populated mostly by Ethiopians who also had a dream. My five cellmates have been here for about six months each. One is pregnant; they are all in their twenties. They thought they were coming to the Holy Land. They had a dream that their lives would be better. The CIA-installed puppet in Addis Ababa, President Meles, whom I have met, has put the once-proud, never-colonized Ethiopia into the back pocket of the United States, and become a place of torture, rendition, and occupation. Ethiopians must flee their country because superpower politics became more important than human rights and self-determination.
My cellmates came to the Holy Land so they could be free from the exigencies of superpower politics. They committed no crime except to have a dream. They came to Israel because they thought that Israel held promise for them. Their journey to Israel through Sudan and Egypt was arduous. I can only imagine what it must have been like for them. And it wasn't cheap. Many of them represent their family's best collective efforts for self-fulfillment. They made their way to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. They got their yellow paper of identification. They got their certificate for police protection. They are refugees from tragedy, and they made it to Israel. Only after they arrived, Israel told them "There is no UN in Israel."
The police have license to pick them up and suck them into the black hole of a farce for a justice system. These beautiful, industrious, proud young women represent the hopes of entire families. The idea of Israel tricked them and the rest of us. In a widely propagandized slick marketing campaign, Israel represented itself as a place of refuge and safety for the world's first Jews and Christians. I, too, believed that marketing and failed to look deeper. The truth is that Israel lied to the world. Israel lied to the families of these young women. Israel lied to the women themselves who are now trapped at Ramle.
And what are we to do? One of my cellmates cried today. She has been here for six months. As an American, crying with them is not enough. The policy of the United States must be better, and while we watch President Obama give 12.8 trillion dollars to the financial elite of the United States it ought now be clear that "hope," "change," and "yes we can" were powerfully presented images of dignity and self-fulfillment, individually and nationally, that besieged people everywhere truly believed in.
It was a slick marketing campaign, as slickly put to the world and to the voters of America as was Israel's marketing to the world. It tricked all of us but, more tragically, these young women.
We must cast an informed vote about better candidates seeking to represent us. I have read and re-read Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever imagined that I, too, would one day have to do so. It is clear that taxpayers in Europe and the U.S. have a lot to atone for, for what they've done to others around the world.
What an irony! My son begins his law school program without me because I am in prison, in my own way trying to do my best, again, for other people's children. Forgive me, my son. I guess I'm experiencing the harsh reality which is why people need dreams. I'm lucky. I will leave this place. Has Israel become the place where dreams die?
Ask the people of Palestine. Ask the stream of black and Asian men whom I've seen being processed at Ramle. Ask the women on my cellblock. [Ask yourself:] what are you willing to do?
Let's change the world together and reclaim what we all need as human beings: Dignity.
I appeal to the United Nations to get these women of Ramle, who have done nothing wrong other than to believe in Israel as the guardian of the Holy Land, resettled in safe homes.
I appeal to the United States Department of State to include the plight of detained UNHCR-certified refugees in the Israel Country Report in its annual Human Rights Report.
I appeal, once again, to President Obama to go to Gaza: send your special envoy, George Mitchell there, and to engage Hamas as the elected choice of the Palestinian people.
I dedicate this message to those who struggle to achieve a free Palestine, and to the women I've met at Ramle.
Cynthia McKinney, July 2nd 2009, also known as Ramle prisoner number 88794.
by Cynthia McKinney
Original audio message available here:
http://freegaza.org/it/home/56-news/984-a-message-from-cynthia-from-a-cell-block-in-israel
A funny thing happened to me on my way to Gaza. Before I left for Gaza, I was giddy with excitement. The children needed school supplies. It was a last-minute, but urgent request. Please bring crayons for the children. And so I accpeted congtributions of crayola crayons, #2 pencils, pencil sharpeners, paint brushes, and crayola watercolors.
When I told people that I was going shopping to buy crayons for the children of Gaza, everyone wanted to donate. By the time I left, my suitcase could hold no more. So, full of expectation, I entered the airport in the U.S. headed once again to Larnaca, Cyprus where the Hope Flotilla, consisting of the "gree Gaza" and the "Spirit of Humanity" were to embark to Gaza.
The "Free Gaza" was to be donated to the people of Gaa so they could replace some of the boats confiscated or bombed by the Israelis during Operation Cast Lead.
It was a beautiful dream. And dream it had to be because I had tried to get to Gaza before. At the outbreak of Israel's Ooperation Cast Lead, I boarded a Free Gaza boat, with one day's notice, and tried, as the U.S. representative in a mulitnational delegation, to deliver trhee tons of mnidical supplies to an already-besieged and ravaged Gaza. But, during Opertion Cast Lead, U.S.-supplied F-16s raised hell fire on a trapped people. Ethnic cleansing became full-scale, outright genocide.
U.S.-supplied white phosphorus, depleted uranium, robotic technology, DIME weapons, and cluster bombs - new weapons creating injuries never treated before by Jordanian and Norwegian doctors. I was later told by doctors who were there in Gaza during Israel's onslaught that Gaza had become Israel's veritable weapons testing laboratory; and the people used to test and improve the kill ratio of their weapons.
The world saw Israel's despicable violence thanks to al-Jazeera Arabic and Press TV that broadcast in English. I saw those broadcasts live and around the clock, not from the USA but from Lebanon, where my first attempt to get into Gaza had ended because the Israeli military rammed the boat I was on in international waters that carried medical supplies. That boat, the Dignity, was completely destroyed in its encounter with the Israeli military.
Again, on a humanitarian mission aborted by the Israeli military. I am now known as Israeli Prisoner #88794. I am in cell number 5, Ramle Prison. How could I be in prison for collecting crayons for kids and trying to get the crayons to them?
The Israeli authorities have tried to get us to confess that we committed a crime. And while in the cellblock, I have kaccess to my clothes and a cell phinbe, but not the crayons or any clothing that has the word "Gaza" on it. Zionism has surely run out of its last legitimacy if this is what it does to people who believe so deeply in human rights for all that they put their own lives on the line for someone else's children. Israel is the fullest expression of Zionism, but if Israel fears for its security because Gaza's children have crayons then not only has Israel lost its last shred of legitimacy, but Israel must be declared a failed state.
I am facing deportation from the state that brought me here at gunpoint after commandeering our boat. I was brought to Israel against my will. I am being held in this prison because I had a dream that Gaza's children could color & paint, that Gaza's wounded could be healed, and that Gaza's bombed-out houses could be rebuilt.
But I've learned an interesting thing by being inside this prison. First of all, it's incredibly black: populated mostly by Ethiopians who also had a dream. My five cellmates have been here for about six months each. One is pregnant; they are all in their twenties. They thought they were coming to the Holy Land. They had a dream that their lives would be better. The CIA-installed puppet in Addis Ababa, President Meles, whom I have met, has put the once-proud, never-colonized Ethiopia into the back pocket of the United States, and become a place of torture, rendition, and occupation. Ethiopians must flee their country because superpower politics became more important than human rights and self-determination.
My cellmates came to the Holy Land so they could be free from the exigencies of superpower politics. They committed no crime except to have a dream. They came to Israel because they thought that Israel held promise for them. Their journey to Israel through Sudan and Egypt was arduous. I can only imagine what it must have been like for them. And it wasn't cheap. Many of them represent their family's best collective efforts for self-fulfillment. They made their way to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. They got their yellow paper of identification. They got their certificate for police protection. They are refugees from tragedy, and they made it to Israel. Only after they arrived, Israel told them "There is no UN in Israel."
The police have license to pick them up and suck them into the black hole of a farce for a justice system. These beautiful, industrious, proud young women represent the hopes of entire families. The idea of Israel tricked them and the rest of us. In a widely propagandized slick marketing campaign, Israel represented itself as a place of refuge and safety for the world's first Jews and Christians. I, too, believed that marketing and failed to look deeper. The truth is that Israel lied to the world. Israel lied to the families of these young women. Israel lied to the women themselves who are now trapped at Ramle.
And what are we to do? One of my cellmates cried today. She has been here for six months. As an American, crying with them is not enough. The policy of the United States must be better, and while we watch President Obama give 12.8 trillion dollars to the financial elite of the United States it ought now be clear that "hope," "change," and "yes we can" were powerfully presented images of dignity and self-fulfillment, individually and nationally, that besieged people everywhere truly believed in.
It was a slick marketing campaign, as slickly put to the world and to the voters of America as was Israel's marketing to the world. It tricked all of us but, more tragically, these young women.
We must cast an informed vote about better candidates seeking to represent us. I have read and re-read Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever imagined that I, too, would one day have to do so. It is clear that taxpayers in Europe and the U.S. have a lot to atone for, for what they've done to others around the world.
What an irony! My son begins his law school program without me because I am in prison, in my own way trying to do my best, again, for other people's children. Forgive me, my son. I guess I'm experiencing the harsh reality which is why people need dreams. I'm lucky. I will leave this place. Has Israel become the place where dreams die?
Ask the people of Palestine. Ask the stream of black and Asian men whom I've seen being processed at Ramle. Ask the women on my cellblock. [Ask yourself:] what are you willing to do?
Let's change the world together and reclaim what we all need as human beings: Dignity.
I appeal to the United Nations to get these women of Ramle, who have done nothing wrong other than to believe in Israel as the guardian of the Holy Land, resettled in safe homes.
I appeal to the United States Department of State to include the plight of detained UNHCR-certified refugees in the Israel Country Report in its annual Human Rights Report.
I appeal, once again, to President Obama to go to Gaza: send your special envoy, George Mitchell there, and to engage Hamas as the elected choice of the Palestinian people.
I dedicate this message to those who struggle to achieve a free Palestine, and to the women I've met at Ramle.
Cynthia McKinney, July 2nd 2009, also known as Ramle prisoner number 88794.
I plan to go...who's with me?
Activists plan March to break Gaza siege
By Richard Hall
Daily Star staff
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
BEIRUT: A coalition of activists belonging to various Palestinian solidarity organizations are planning an international march in Gaza aimed at ending the blockade of the territory. The event will aim to bring thousands of demonstrators from around the world to march alongside Gazans as they breach the blockade imposed upon the population since the election of Hamas in 2006.
"This march draws inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi," said a draft statement of purposes and principles written by the "Coalition to End the Illegal Siege of Gaza," obtained by The Daily Star. "Those of us residing in the United States also draw inspiration from the civil rights movement," it added.
The statement also outlines plans for the march, which will take place on January 1, 2010. "We will march the Long Mile across Erez checkpoint alongside the people of Gaza in a nonviolent demonstration that breaches the illegal blockade," it said, adding that "We conceive this march as the first step in a protracted nonviolent campaign ... If we bring thousands to Gaza and millions more around the world watch the march on the internet, we can end the siege without a drop of blood being shed."
Professor Norman Finkelstein, a political analyst and author of several books on the Israel-Palestine conflict, is one of the organizers of the march. "We want to send over several thousand people from around the world to march alongside several hundred thousand Gazans," he told The Daily Star.
Finkelstein hopes that large numbers of international activists and world leaders will attend the march, and as a result, prohibit a violent response from Israeli authorities. "If the likes of Jimmy Carter, Noam Chomsky, Bishop Tutu and Nelson Mandela are at the head of the march; if behind them are students holding high signs of the schools from which they hail - Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Oxford, Cambridge; if behind them are the ill and the lame, the young and the innocent of Gaza; if behind them are hundreds of thousands of others, unarmed and unafraid, wanting only to enforce the law; if around the world hundreds of thousands are watching the internet to see what happens - Israel can't shoot," he said.
"The first formal organizational meeting of the coalition is set for July 13," said Finkelstein. "We hope then to create an umbrella steering committee. Right now the working group consists of individuals who belong to organizations that have been active on the Israel-Palestine conflict such as CodePink."
Members of the coalition are now contacting Palestinian solidarity groups around the world in preparation for the march.
By Richard Hall
Daily Star staff
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
BEIRUT: A coalition of activists belonging to various Palestinian solidarity organizations are planning an international march in Gaza aimed at ending the blockade of the territory. The event will aim to bring thousands of demonstrators from around the world to march alongside Gazans as they breach the blockade imposed upon the population since the election of Hamas in 2006.
"This march draws inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi," said a draft statement of purposes and principles written by the "Coalition to End the Illegal Siege of Gaza," obtained by The Daily Star. "Those of us residing in the United States also draw inspiration from the civil rights movement," it added.
The statement also outlines plans for the march, which will take place on January 1, 2010. "We will march the Long Mile across Erez checkpoint alongside the people of Gaza in a nonviolent demonstration that breaches the illegal blockade," it said, adding that "We conceive this march as the first step in a protracted nonviolent campaign ... If we bring thousands to Gaza and millions more around the world watch the march on the internet, we can end the siege without a drop of blood being shed."
Professor Norman Finkelstein, a political analyst and author of several books on the Israel-Palestine conflict, is one of the organizers of the march. "We want to send over several thousand people from around the world to march alongside several hundred thousand Gazans," he told The Daily Star.
Finkelstein hopes that large numbers of international activists and world leaders will attend the march, and as a result, prohibit a violent response from Israeli authorities. "If the likes of Jimmy Carter, Noam Chomsky, Bishop Tutu and Nelson Mandela are at the head of the march; if behind them are students holding high signs of the schools from which they hail - Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Oxford, Cambridge; if behind them are the ill and the lame, the young and the innocent of Gaza; if behind them are hundreds of thousands of others, unarmed and unafraid, wanting only to enforce the law; if around the world hundreds of thousands are watching the internet to see what happens - Israel can't shoot," he said.
"The first formal organizational meeting of the coalition is set for July 13," said Finkelstein. "We hope then to create an umbrella steering committee. Right now the working group consists of individuals who belong to organizations that have been active on the Israel-Palestine conflict such as CodePink."
Members of the coalition are now contacting Palestinian solidarity groups around the world in preparation for the march.
Repression (and Hope) in Honduras
Hondurans Pour into the Streets Demanding Zelaya’s Return
by Medea Benjamin
The day started out full of joy, as thousands of Hondurans converged in front of the National Institute of Pedagogy, intent on marching about three miles to the airport to greet the plane that was supposed to bring deposed President Zelaya back to Honduras.
"Our president's coming home today, this is going to be a great day," said Jose Rodriguez, a campesino who came from Santa Barbara with his farmer's group to join the anti-coup movement. The military tried to stop them from getting to the capital, so they had to divide up and take local buses from town to town. "It took us two days to get here, and we slept outside in the forest last night, but we had to be here," said Rodriguez.
A group of young girls came with their church from Olancho. They were determined to greet Zelaya, who they said was sent by God to be president. "The Cardinal is against our president, but he doesn't represent many of us in the religious community. Our pastor is against the coup and so are we," said Alejandra Fernandez, a 23-year-old university student.
I asked why she supported Manuel Zelaya, or "Mel", as his supporters call him. "The government said he broke the law and is guilty of 18 crimes," she said. "Do you know what they are?" She pulled out her cell phone and started to read from a list: He raised the minimum wage, gave out free school lunches, provided milk for the babies and pensions for the elderly, distributed energy-saving lightbulbs, decreased the price of public transportation, made more scholarships available for students." Suddenly a crowd gathered around us and started chiming in. "He fixed the roads," said one. "He put schools in remote rural areas, like my little village, that never had them before," added another. "He let anyone go into the Presidential Palace and converted it from an elite residence to the people's house," said another.
"You see?," Alejandra smiled. "He is guilty of even more then 18 crimes. That's why the elite classes can't stand him and why we want him back. This is really a class struggle."
The march wound its way through the streets of Tegucigalpa, gathering more and more people along the way. The massive crowd sang and chanted slogans like "No somos cinco, no somos cien. Prensa vendida, cuentenos bien" (We're not five, we're not 100, you sold-out press, count us well")-referring to the fact that the mainstream press has been ignoring or grossly undercounting the movement that had been holding street demonstrations every day since the June 28 coup.
"I've never had anything like this in my lifetime," said an ecstatic Miriam Nunez, a 46-year-old teacher from Tegucigalpa. "Look around you-you can't even see the beginning or the end of this march! It's full of teachers, students, campesinos, union workers, indigenous people. One thing the coup succeeded in doing is bringing together the social movements in a way that never exited before in this country."
What made the march particularly exciting is that as it approached the airport, there were rows and rows of soldiers and police in riot gear blocking their path. Each time the security forces tried to stop the crowd, there would be negotiations with the police, who would finally back down and allow the protesters to get closer and closer to the airport.
Luis Sosa, a university professor and anti-coup leader, was one of those negotiating with Police Commissioner Mendosa. "Mendosa and I went to school together 20 years ago and we play soccer together every Sunday. So he knows that if his men get rough with us, there will be hell to pay next Sunday," laughed Sosa. "But seriously, we're trying hard to maintain discipline among our ranks-taking sticks and rocks away from people who want to provoke violence-and the police say that as long as we are peaceful, they'll let us go all the way to the airport."
Sure enough, the crowd made it to the airport peacefully and waited patiently for Zelaya's plane to arrive. Suddenly, a plane flew in low and circled around the airport. The crowd went wild, cheering and jumping up and down, but became angry when they saw that the plane was not able to land. Military vehicles and soldiers were on the runway, making it impossible for the pilot to maneuver safely.
On the far end of the airport, a group of mostly young people tried to get through the fence to make their way to the tarmac. According to Al Jazeera cameramen Alfredo Delara, some of them started throwing stones and bottles at security forces. The troops responded by lobbying tear gas and then firing their weapons in the air. Suddenly, at least one soldier pointed his weapon directly at the crowd.
"A young boy was hit right in the head, his brains gushing out. He was killed instantly," said Delara. "His mother came running, screaming hysterically ‘My son, my son, they've killed my son.'" Others in the crowd were wounded and it was reported that another person was killed.
Between the violence and the fact that President Zelaya was forced to fly on to El Salvador, the crowd became despondent. The organizers tried to keep up their hopes. "Perhaps the United Nations will send peacekeepers," one of the leaders shouted through the sound system. The crowd cheered and yelled, "We want the blue helmuts, we want the blue helmuts."
"Can you believe this?," asked indigenous leader Berta Caceres, her eyes welling up with tears. "Now they are killing our people. Where will this end? We need the international community to step in and stop the crazy people who have stolen our country."
Meanwhile, another piece of news circulated-that the government had just moved up the curfew from 10pm to 6:30pm. The crowd rushed to disperse, fearing they could be arrested for violating the curfew. But they vowed to keep up the fight. "We will be marching again tomorrow, come join us," the leaders announced. "This struggle is not over."
"If they think that were are going to give up, they are badly mistaken," said Caceres. "The events of today make us more determined than ever to overthrow this terrible coup."
Medea Benjamin (medea@globalexchange.org) is cofounder of Global Exchange (www.globalexchange.org) and CODEPINK: Women for Peace (www.codepinkalert.org ). She is part of a delegation an International Emergency Delegation to Honduras that includes members of Nonviolence International, Global Exchange, CODEPINK and Rights Action. For more information or to join the delegation, contact Andres@nvintl.net.
by Medea Benjamin
The day started out full of joy, as thousands of Hondurans converged in front of the National Institute of Pedagogy, intent on marching about three miles to the airport to greet the plane that was supposed to bring deposed President Zelaya back to Honduras.
"Our president's coming home today, this is going to be a great day," said Jose Rodriguez, a campesino who came from Santa Barbara with his farmer's group to join the anti-coup movement. The military tried to stop them from getting to the capital, so they had to divide up and take local buses from town to town. "It took us two days to get here, and we slept outside in the forest last night, but we had to be here," said Rodriguez.
A group of young girls came with their church from Olancho. They were determined to greet Zelaya, who they said was sent by God to be president. "The Cardinal is against our president, but he doesn't represent many of us in the religious community. Our pastor is against the coup and so are we," said Alejandra Fernandez, a 23-year-old university student.
I asked why she supported Manuel Zelaya, or "Mel", as his supporters call him. "The government said he broke the law and is guilty of 18 crimes," she said. "Do you know what they are?" She pulled out her cell phone and started to read from a list: He raised the minimum wage, gave out free school lunches, provided milk for the babies and pensions for the elderly, distributed energy-saving lightbulbs, decreased the price of public transportation, made more scholarships available for students." Suddenly a crowd gathered around us and started chiming in. "He fixed the roads," said one. "He put schools in remote rural areas, like my little village, that never had them before," added another. "He let anyone go into the Presidential Palace and converted it from an elite residence to the people's house," said another.
"You see?," Alejandra smiled. "He is guilty of even more then 18 crimes. That's why the elite classes can't stand him and why we want him back. This is really a class struggle."
The march wound its way through the streets of Tegucigalpa, gathering more and more people along the way. The massive crowd sang and chanted slogans like "No somos cinco, no somos cien. Prensa vendida, cuentenos bien" (We're not five, we're not 100, you sold-out press, count us well")-referring to the fact that the mainstream press has been ignoring or grossly undercounting the movement that had been holding street demonstrations every day since the June 28 coup.
"I've never had anything like this in my lifetime," said an ecstatic Miriam Nunez, a 46-year-old teacher from Tegucigalpa. "Look around you-you can't even see the beginning or the end of this march! It's full of teachers, students, campesinos, union workers, indigenous people. One thing the coup succeeded in doing is bringing together the social movements in a way that never exited before in this country."
What made the march particularly exciting is that as it approached the airport, there were rows and rows of soldiers and police in riot gear blocking their path. Each time the security forces tried to stop the crowd, there would be negotiations with the police, who would finally back down and allow the protesters to get closer and closer to the airport.
Luis Sosa, a university professor and anti-coup leader, was one of those negotiating with Police Commissioner Mendosa. "Mendosa and I went to school together 20 years ago and we play soccer together every Sunday. So he knows that if his men get rough with us, there will be hell to pay next Sunday," laughed Sosa. "But seriously, we're trying hard to maintain discipline among our ranks-taking sticks and rocks away from people who want to provoke violence-and the police say that as long as we are peaceful, they'll let us go all the way to the airport."
Sure enough, the crowd made it to the airport peacefully and waited patiently for Zelaya's plane to arrive. Suddenly, a plane flew in low and circled around the airport. The crowd went wild, cheering and jumping up and down, but became angry when they saw that the plane was not able to land. Military vehicles and soldiers were on the runway, making it impossible for the pilot to maneuver safely.
On the far end of the airport, a group of mostly young people tried to get through the fence to make their way to the tarmac. According to Al Jazeera cameramen Alfredo Delara, some of them started throwing stones and bottles at security forces. The troops responded by lobbying tear gas and then firing their weapons in the air. Suddenly, at least one soldier pointed his weapon directly at the crowd.
"A young boy was hit right in the head, his brains gushing out. He was killed instantly," said Delara. "His mother came running, screaming hysterically ‘My son, my son, they've killed my son.'" Others in the crowd were wounded and it was reported that another person was killed.
Between the violence and the fact that President Zelaya was forced to fly on to El Salvador, the crowd became despondent. The organizers tried to keep up their hopes. "Perhaps the United Nations will send peacekeepers," one of the leaders shouted through the sound system. The crowd cheered and yelled, "We want the blue helmuts, we want the blue helmuts."
"Can you believe this?," asked indigenous leader Berta Caceres, her eyes welling up with tears. "Now they are killing our people. Where will this end? We need the international community to step in and stop the crazy people who have stolen our country."
Meanwhile, another piece of news circulated-that the government had just moved up the curfew from 10pm to 6:30pm. The crowd rushed to disperse, fearing they could be arrested for violating the curfew. But they vowed to keep up the fight. "We will be marching again tomorrow, come join us," the leaders announced. "This struggle is not over."
"If they think that were are going to give up, they are badly mistaken," said Caceres. "The events of today make us more determined than ever to overthrow this terrible coup."
Medea Benjamin (medea@globalexchange.org) is cofounder of Global Exchange (www.globalexchange.org) and CODEPINK: Women for Peace (www.codepinkalert.org
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Meet Ezra Nawi
Unlikely Ally for Residents of West Bank
By ETHAN BRONNER
SAFA, West Bank — Ezra Nawi was in his element. Behind the wheel of his well-worn jeep one recent Saturday morning, working two cellphones in Arabic as he bounded through the terraced hills and hardscrabble villages near Hebron, he was greeted warmly by Palestinians near and far.
Watching him call for an ambulance for a resident and check on the progress of a Palestinian school being built without an Israeli permit, you might have thought him a clan chief. Then noticing the two Israeli Army jeeps trailing him, you might have pegged him as an Israeli occupation official handling Palestinian matters.
But Mr. Nawi is neither. It is perhaps best to think of him as the Robin Hood of the South Hebron hills, an Israeli Jew helping poor locals who love him, and thwarting settlers and soldiers who view him with contempt. Those army jeeps were not watching over him. They were stalking him.
Since the Israeli left lost so much popular appeal after the violent Palestinian uprising of 2000 and the Hamas electoral victory three years ago, its activists tend to be a rarefied bunch — professors of Latin or Sanskrit, and translators of medieval poetry. Mr. Nawi, however, is a plumber. And unlike the intellectuals of European origin with whom he spends most Saturdays, he is from an Iraqi Jewish family.
“My mother gave birth to me in Jerusalem when she was 14,” said Mr. Nawi, who is 57 and one of five siblings. “So my grandmother raised me. And she spoke to me in Arabic.”
His family has trouble understanding his priorities. His mother says she thinks he is wasting his time. And many Israelis, when told of his work, wonder why he is not helping his own. Mr. Nawi has an answer.
“I don’t consider my work political,” he said between phone calls as he drove. “I don’t have a solution to this dispute. I just know that what is going on here is wrong. This is not about ideology. It is about decency.”
For his activist colleagues, Mr. Nawi’s instinctual connection to the Palestinians is valuable.
“Ezra knows Palestinians better than any of us,” said Amiel Vardi, a professor who works closely with him. “This is not only because of the language, but because he gains their confidence the minute he starts talking with them. He has all sorts of intuitions as to what should be done, what are the internal relations — things we hardly ever notice.”
The difficulties of Palestinian life in the West Bank have been well documented: Israeli military checkpoints, a rising separation barrier and Israeli settlers. But in this area, the problems are more acute. The Palestinians, many of them Bedouin, are exceptionally poor, and the land they bought decades ago is under threat by a group of unusually aggressive local settlers. The settlers have been filmed beating up Palestinians. Settlers have been killed by Palestinians. But Mr. Nawi said that the law inevitably sided with the Israelis, and that occupation meant there could be no equity.
“The settlers keep the Palestinian farmers from their land by harassing them, and then after several years they say the land has not been farmed so by law it is no longer theirs,” Mr. Nawi said. “We are only here to stop that from happening.”
That is not the view of the settlers.
“He is a troublemaker,” asserted Yehoshua Mor-Yosef, a spokesman for Israeli settler communities in the area. “It’s true that from time to time there is a problem of some settlers coming out of their settlements to cause problems. But people like Nawi don’t want a solution. Their whole aim is to cause trouble.”
True or not, Mr. Nawi is now in trouble. Having spent several short stints in jail for his activism over the years, he now faces the prospect of a long one. He is due to be sentenced Wednesday for assaulting an Israeli policeman two years ago during a confrontation over an attempt to demolish Palestinians’ shacks on disputed land on the West Bank. The policeman said Mr. Nawi struck him during that encounter. Mr. Nawi denied it, but in March a judge convicted him.
What is left of the Israeli left is rallying around him, arguing that Mr. Nawi is a known pacifist who would not have raised his hand against anyone.
“Since I’ve known the man for decades and seen him in action in many extreme situations, I’m certain that the charge is untrue,” David Shulman, a Hebrew University professor and peace activist, wrote in the newspaper Haaretz. Of Mr. Nawi, he added, “He is a man committed, in every fiber of his being, to nonviolent protest against the inequities of the occupation.”
Mr. Nawi attributes his activism to two things: as a teenager, his family lived next door to the leader of Israel’s Communist Party, Reuven Kaminer, who influenced him. And he is gay.
“Being gay has made me understand what it is like to be a despised minority,” Mr. Nawi said.
Several years ago, he had a relationship with a Palestinian from the West Bank and ended up being convicted on charges of allowing his companion to live illegally in Israel. His companion was jailed for months.
Mr. Nawi said harassment against him had come in many forms. Settlers shout vicious antigay epithets. His plumbing business has been audited, and he was handed a huge tax bill that he said he did not deserve. He is certain that his phone calls are monitored. And those army jeeps are never far behind.
He is not optimistic about his coming sentencing, although he is planning an appeal. And he says the Israeli news media have lost interest in the work he and his fellow activists do. But he does not stop.
“I’m here to change reality,” he said. “The only Israelis these people know are settlers and soldiers. Through me they know a different Israeli. And I’ll keep coming until I know that the farmers here can work their fields.”
By ETHAN BRONNER
SAFA, West Bank — Ezra Nawi was in his element. Behind the wheel of his well-worn jeep one recent Saturday morning, working two cellphones in Arabic as he bounded through the terraced hills and hardscrabble villages near Hebron, he was greeted warmly by Palestinians near and far.
Watching him call for an ambulance for a resident and check on the progress of a Palestinian school being built without an Israeli permit, you might have thought him a clan chief. Then noticing the two Israeli Army jeeps trailing him, you might have pegged him as an Israeli occupation official handling Palestinian matters.
But Mr. Nawi is neither. It is perhaps best to think of him as the Robin Hood of the South Hebron hills, an Israeli Jew helping poor locals who love him, and thwarting settlers and soldiers who view him with contempt. Those army jeeps were not watching over him. They were stalking him.
Since the Israeli left lost so much popular appeal after the violent Palestinian uprising of 2000 and the Hamas electoral victory three years ago, its activists tend to be a rarefied bunch — professors of Latin or Sanskrit, and translators of medieval poetry. Mr. Nawi, however, is a plumber. And unlike the intellectuals of European origin with whom he spends most Saturdays, he is from an Iraqi Jewish family.
“My mother gave birth to me in Jerusalem when she was 14,” said Mr. Nawi, who is 57 and one of five siblings. “So my grandmother raised me. And she spoke to me in Arabic.”
His family has trouble understanding his priorities. His mother says she thinks he is wasting his time. And many Israelis, when told of his work, wonder why he is not helping his own. Mr. Nawi has an answer.
“I don’t consider my work political,” he said between phone calls as he drove. “I don’t have a solution to this dispute. I just know that what is going on here is wrong. This is not about ideology. It is about decency.”
For his activist colleagues, Mr. Nawi’s instinctual connection to the Palestinians is valuable.
“Ezra knows Palestinians better than any of us,” said Amiel Vardi, a professor who works closely with him. “This is not only because of the language, but because he gains their confidence the minute he starts talking with them. He has all sorts of intuitions as to what should be done, what are the internal relations — things we hardly ever notice.”
The difficulties of Palestinian life in the West Bank have been well documented: Israeli military checkpoints, a rising separation barrier and Israeli settlers. But in this area, the problems are more acute. The Palestinians, many of them Bedouin, are exceptionally poor, and the land they bought decades ago is under threat by a group of unusually aggressive local settlers. The settlers have been filmed beating up Palestinians. Settlers have been killed by Palestinians. But Mr. Nawi said that the law inevitably sided with the Israelis, and that occupation meant there could be no equity.
“The settlers keep the Palestinian farmers from their land by harassing them, and then after several years they say the land has not been farmed so by law it is no longer theirs,” Mr. Nawi said. “We are only here to stop that from happening.”
That is not the view of the settlers.
“He is a troublemaker,” asserted Yehoshua Mor-Yosef, a spokesman for Israeli settler communities in the area. “It’s true that from time to time there is a problem of some settlers coming out of their settlements to cause problems. But people like Nawi don’t want a solution. Their whole aim is to cause trouble.”
True or not, Mr. Nawi is now in trouble. Having spent several short stints in jail for his activism over the years, he now faces the prospect of a long one. He is due to be sentenced Wednesday for assaulting an Israeli policeman two years ago during a confrontation over an attempt to demolish Palestinians’ shacks on disputed land on the West Bank. The policeman said Mr. Nawi struck him during that encounter. Mr. Nawi denied it, but in March a judge convicted him.
What is left of the Israeli left is rallying around him, arguing that Mr. Nawi is a known pacifist who would not have raised his hand against anyone.
“Since I’ve known the man for decades and seen him in action in many extreme situations, I’m certain that the charge is untrue,” David Shulman, a Hebrew University professor and peace activist, wrote in the newspaper Haaretz. Of Mr. Nawi, he added, “He is a man committed, in every fiber of his being, to nonviolent protest against the inequities of the occupation.”
Mr. Nawi attributes his activism to two things: as a teenager, his family lived next door to the leader of Israel’s Communist Party, Reuven Kaminer, who influenced him. And he is gay.
“Being gay has made me understand what it is like to be a despised minority,” Mr. Nawi said.
Several years ago, he had a relationship with a Palestinian from the West Bank and ended up being convicted on charges of allowing his companion to live illegally in Israel. His companion was jailed for months.
Mr. Nawi said harassment against him had come in many forms. Settlers shout vicious antigay epithets. His plumbing business has been audited, and he was handed a huge tax bill that he said he did not deserve. He is certain that his phone calls are monitored. And those army jeeps are never far behind.
He is not optimistic about his coming sentencing, although he is planning an appeal. And he says the Israeli news media have lost interest in the work he and his fellow activists do. But he does not stop.
“I’m here to change reality,” he said. “The only Israelis these people know are settlers and soldiers. Through me they know a different Israeli. And I’ll keep coming until I know that the farmers here can work their fields.”
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