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more reports by John click here>>

7) July 16th, 2003 Violence at the Gate: Israeli civilians and the terrorizing of Palestinians farmers

by John , in Jayous, Occupied Palestinian Territories

On Tuesday, July 15th, four foreign journalists conducted an interview with Sharif Omar, a prominent member of the Jayyous village and leader of the local Land Defense Committee. Sharif has participated in many nonviolent actions against the building of the "Security fence/ Apartheid Wall and has been instrumental in keeping the issue on the table during the current peace negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. The interview took place in a stone and wood structure (which is used for his agricultural work as well as recently providing shelter for international peace activists) on his farm.

The journalists expressed that the goal of the interview was to better understand the concerns of the village over the construction of the separating wall/fence. The interviewers included the Christian Science Monitor, as well as reporters from the Netherlands and Canada, Sharif began by providing an historical overview of the wall: when it was begun, how both the Israeli,s and Palestinians understand its meaning, the legal decisions made by the Israeli high court regarding such, as well as the effects that the wall will have on his local community of Jayyous. What was puzzling to the journalists however was why there had been so much protests against the fence if the gate to their fields have been open and that Israel has given permission for them to travel to such. They would ask "how many times have you been prevented from going" or "how many times have the gate been locked". The answer by Sharif would be "none, but.." Seeing that Sharif was having some difficulty translating his thoughts on this matter into English, I politely interrupted and asked if I could try to clarify. I suggested that while the gate was indeed "open", it does not mean that travel is safe, easy or even advisable. Because of random beatings, the detaining and the intimidation that farmers must suffer, passing through the gate is a very frightening experience for the people. Many men have reportedly been detained at gun point, forced to sit in the hot sun for many hours, beaten by fists and rifles and kicked. Other forms of harassment I had personally witnessed includes the forcing of the villagers to provide their identification cards (passports), give explanations of their destinations, reasons for traveling, etc. Further, one must attempt to imagine the very experience of having to travel daily through a Gate in which one would not know the outcome. Having to interact with guards who had beaten them or someone they personally know in the past. Never knowing when that individual will again decide to beat them again. Further, knowing that these individuals may beat and detain you at gun point without any fear that they will be punished for their actions and that one has not legal recourse to contest such violence.

Another problem that farmers have to deal with is the presence of the Israeli military roaming on their farmlands. Even on this particular day, an Israeli military APC drove aggressively toward the tractor that I was traveling with and forced it to stop. The soldiers jumped out with their machine guns ready in their hands and demanded the Palestinians identification cards. They, like the civilian security guards, asked them questions such as where they were going, what business did they have here, how long did they plan to be there, etc. The farmer would humbly reply "I am merely going out to irrigate my fields and the land which you are driving on has been in my family for dozens of generations". After some 15 minutes of questioning and searching of the tractors cargo, they "permitted" the farmer to continue.

The journalists did find it "interesting" that Israeli civilian security guards engaged in violent activities which they had no authority to do such (security guards are not the police nor the military, but hired civilians to protect construction equipment, etc.). However they dismissed it as insignificant in and of itself. Instead they continued by asking, "what legal action had been taken" or "what has the police done to prevent such appearing to place blame on Palestinians who do not attempt to work through the Israeli legal system for a just solution. They obviously didn't have any understanding that the Palestinians have no legal representation to contest such. Even in cases whereby a settler killed a Palestinian farmer, or where they took someone's eye out by the use of a rife butt, or chased everyone away from a village by the use and threats of continued violence (such as in Yanoun) has consequences been nonexistent.

As opposed to the journalists, I would make the argument that the use and actions of civilians in terrorizing a population is extremely significant. For it illuminates the power dynamics between Israeli civilians and Palestinian residents in the West Bank.

Such forms of daily violence and terror are condoned by the Israeli state. It is not essential that violence is conducted by civilian security guards or the violent ideological settlers. The fact is that the Israeli military considers the safety of their citizens first. Indeed, the Israeli military's presence in the Palestinian territories is for the safety of Israeli Jewish civilians to settle and colonize the "territory". It appears that by allowing such forms of violence against Palestinians to continue without punishment, the state of Israel seem to use these various forms of violence to reach their objectives: the confining of the growth (and ultimate destruction) of Palestinian society and culture and the expansion of the state of Israel in its place.

Violence is ubiquitous throughout the cultural, social, and political context of everyday life in the Occupied territories. This violence runs the gamut from the most rigidly state-organized and executed, to the "symbolic" violence of Israeli soldiers, and the very real threat of violence by Israeli civilians. In understanding how these methods of violence interconnect, we may better understand the dynamics of power and terror.

Israel formally condones structural and systematic harassment and terror. It is exercised through the military (check points, road blocks, curfews, harassment, "episodic but planned attacks and assassinations, and the general practice of military occupation, crackdowns, and invasions in and of themselves). It also engages in what may be defined as "illegitimate forms of violence. This is a term that might be used to describe that phenomenon whereby the formalized and systematic violence of the state withers somewhat at the fringes and becomes replaced by something even more arbitrary and unpredictable. The quintessential symbol and primary practitioners of this would be the individual soldier. Wherever or however they are located, the individual soldier sometimes seem to represent as terrifying power as the whole Israeli army itself! . On a whim, an Israeli soldier may decide to pass someone or not pass them, throw teargas at schoolchildren (as happens in nablus) or detain someone at whim. "Illegitimate forms of violence would also include the actions by settlers and other Israeli civilians (such as the guards for the construction company who monitor the gate) who take it upon themselves to harass, detain, intimidate, punish, or even kill innocent Palestinian citizens. Without accountability, such civilians may actually produce as much terror as the actions of the formalized and "legitimate state.

Perhaps these two forms of violence intertwine and better enable the Israeli state to achieve its aims. The wayward and individual soldier corrupts the totalitarian and formally uniform activities of a state military, but at the same time, and on the ground in everyday contexts, they perform the very important function of terrorizing in a more humane and proximate way with more intimacy and familiarity than a faceless army. The Israeli civilians who participate in the acts of violence and terror similarly contribute to this sense of randomness, arbitrariness, and the constant threat of violence.

It must be asked whether the episodic and unruly nature of sporadic violence conducted by civilians and individual soldiers is as powerful as the formal and controlled occupation. Is it even more powerful? Is violence understood and accepted as exercised only through guns and tanks, or does it also occur through daily interactions with a power such as the individual soldier and the individual settler or civilian?