Kiraz Janicke
Last year University of Western Australia student Joshua Taafee travelled to Israeli-occupied Palestine to work with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).
The principle role of the ISM in Palestine, Taafee told Green Left Weekly is seek "to empower and enable non-violent resistance by Palestinians. As well as protests, at different times ISM has participated in the dismantling of checkpoints, torn down sections of the apartheid wall, assisted farmers with the olive harvest and escorted children to school.
"Harvesting olives and walking to school may sound like fairly innocuous activities, but for Palestinians they can be fraught with danger. With a foreign face and passport, our eyes and video cameras often help to moderate the behaviour of the IDF [Israeli Defence Force], encouraging the use of rubber bullets and tear gas instead of lethal ammunition."
Taafee explained that what is happening in Palestine "is not a symmetrical conflict", but rather "a humiliating and brutal occupation that has accurately been described as slow drip genocide".
Since the second Palestinian intifada (uprising) against the Israeli occupation began in September 2000, more than 3500 people have been killed. While the predominant images in the Western news media focus on Palestinian suicide bombings inside Israel, Palestinians account for 2669 of these deaths.
However, Taafee argued, "what is not captured by the statistics, is the day-to-day existence of Palestinians — widespread unemployment and poverty, daily humiliation at checkpoints, interruptions to education, restrictions on travel, which prevent work, or families from visiting one another and the interruption of people's lives and their ability to even dream of a future."
Israel has "the world's fourth largest military deployed against a civilian population, strangling economic, social and political life", he added.
During a night raid on the Balatta refugee camp on the fringes of Nablus in October last year, Taafee and another ISM activist, Mark Turner, were shot by the IDF. This followed the murder of ISM activist Rachel Corrie on March 16 and the shooting of ISM activist Tom Hurndall in April in the Gaza Strip, prompting suspicions that the Israeli military has adopted a deliberate policy of targeting "human shields" in Palestine.
"Tom and Rachel were murdered quite deliberately", Taafee argued. "A cursory look at the details of their stories would prove that to anyone. When Mark and I were shot there were a number of considerations that made us both conclude that it was deliberate.
"A week earlier, soldiers had tried to hit us with a teargas canister fired from an M-16 rifle. We were filming Israeli soldiers shooting in the direction of kids and then when we began to walk away, a tear-gas canister flew straight past our heads.
"When we were shot, we were standing in the same position we had been in the whole time. We had moved there deliberately and visibly. The soldiers shot out the power transformer, plunging the camp into darkness and after creating circumstances where they could act with impunity, shot us."
However, Taafee said, "what's important to remember is that in this intifada, soldiers are never questioned or punished when they shoot Palestinians".
"Spending a week recovering in hospital, I began to see how lucky I had been", Taafee said. "Other patients shared their stories. Ghassan, 20, had been a month in hospital with an abdominal wound, shot by a soldier while on his way to meet a friend. The soldier shot him and then left him bleeding on the ground.
"Ahmad, 14, was shot in the legs, like me. He was hit while inside his house in the old city of Nablus by a bullet from the street passing through a window."
When asked what he viewed as a solution to the Israeli-Palestine conflict, Taafee concluded: "In immediate practical terms, a scaling back of the occupation, halting the construction of the apartheid wall and an end to Israel's policy of assassinating militants would produce an environment where both parties could negotiate towards peace.
"Personally, I believe one secular state that respects the rights of all of its citizens is necessary for lasting peace and co-operation.
"What's currently lacking is a will to peace on the part of the Israeli establishment. Their policies of oppression and aggression are directed towards expansion and population transference. These policies endanger the Palestinian and Israeli people. Any solution will require the development of a genuine will to peace, one that exists in sentiment as well as rhetoric."
Since coming back to Australia, Taafee has helped set up West Australians for Justice and Peace in Palestine (WAJPP), currently the group is organising to bring out an ISM speaker from Palestine, members of the group also want to travel to Palestine and work as solidarity activists there. To find out more about WAJPP, phone (08) 9218 9608.
From Green Left Weekly, February 25, 2004.
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