I asked her why she said Gaza is worse than the prison she worked in back in Pennsylvania

by on May 31, 2009 145
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My group is leaving Gaza over the next couple of days. A few of us don’t want to leave. We feel connected to the place, and the people have been universally welcoming. They all say the same thing. They want to be part of the world, their cause has been cast away by the world.

A number of us feel guilty that we half-believed the propaganda about Gaza. I did myself. I thought it was a fearful place and I was taking my life in my hands. One friend is angry at herself for worrying about her safety constantly before she left. Now it feels egotistical next to these people's safety. John Ging of the U.N. said that if the people were really indoctrinating their children with hatred in the schools, then how come we have been safe everywhere we go?
We had a meeting of the group tonight to go over tomorrow's schedule, and someone asked for people to reflect and Susan Johnson, Susanwhose picture is below, spoke about how wrenching it was to meet so many intelligent people whose largest desire is to live a normal life.
“I’ve done work in prison,” she said. “This is worse than being in prison. How people can be so cruel to other people– I don’t understand, I just don’t understand it. I can understand how people in the United States don’t know it’s as bad as it is. That's because of the press, and we’re probably at this point the best hope these people have for getting the word out. I look on that as a really big responsibility. I don’t want to let them down. I’m not ready to leave.”
Later I asked Susan why Gaza is worse than the prison she'd worked in, Graterford, in Pennsylvania. She said that the prisoners get along with the guards generally; they all understand the system and the routine and the rules. Here, she said, the guards are miles away. They drop leaflets or white phosphorus. She went on, When a bird's in a cage, it doesn't try to fly out; it knows it's in a cage and accepts the fact. But these people are in a cage and they can't fully believe it. They're like birds with their wings cropped who are walking around on the ground and keep flapping on to a branch trying to fly.
Susan and I were both disturbed by the meeting we'd had in the afternoon with a bunch of students who can't leave to go to schools that have given them scholarships overseas. They're incredibly appealing kids; I'm going to be putting up some videos of them in days to come and telling their stories. Seven of them came to our hotel just to talk to us. None of them was angry at us; they've suffered a lot though, and now and then the stark frustration and fear played on their faces. Hazem Abukaresh, below, told me how important it is to get his Ph.D. in computer science before he's 30. He's 24, and has been stopped at the border four times now–just trying to get out, to Europe, China, Malaysia, and Jordan, where schools were expecting him. Hazem
Susan said:
"Those kids just want to meet people, that's all. They want to go places. And they can't go anywhere. They graduate from college and then they can't go anywhere."
Susan asked me for my reflections. I told her I felt bad about my own prejudice against these people ahead of time, and for being so concerned with my own Jewishness, the Jewish future, and the
Jewish image in the world. Here that concern feels stupidly selfish. The
people of Gaza are persecuted. Full stop.
For me to agonize about my
Jewishness when I know about the degree of persecution is actually
indulgent and a dodge. Yes this place touches on Jewishness and the
important issue of how to reimagine Jewishness, to recover it from this
horror, but as my roommate Sammer, an Arab-American, points out, the work ahead of us is political now, trying to move American minds, American policies. A big part
of that is in the Jewish community, of course; and I can't wait to get
home and begin to tell people what I saw here, the cruelties
perpetrated in the name of the Jewish people; and let Hazem tell his story for himself.
That's down the road. I have a couple of days left. I'm going to spend that time listening to Gazans…

About Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in Gaza

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  1. RichardWitty says:
    May 31, 2009 at 4:47 pm

    Are 25% of Mondoweiss readers Iranians? Where did you get that figure from? Phil writes to the international community, and in expressing his reasoned opinion he can persuade, or not. If his writing appeals to prejudice or fuels opportunism, better that he not write or write more concisely and mutually respectfully. Boycott, blockade, embargo are coercive means of achieving some end. Thankfully Obama has committed to talking first, punishing much later. Again, if coercion is wrong or ineffective relative to Iran, to Gaza, to Lebanon; why would it magically be beneficial and effective relative to Israel. Why doesn't Iran appeal to the common concerns of Israel, accept THEM, not only their technology and weapons?

  2. Mooser says:
    May 31, 2009 at 4:49 pm

    -" but what is the point of secular leftists whose grandparents happen to have been born in a Russian stetl adopting "Jewishness" as their personal identity? If it's not Israel, is it just the matzo balls?" Look, I will put up with a lot, but don't steal my lines, huh? I want to warn you Jaffr, I don't know that many jokes, and when I've told them all, I just start repeating them. I got warned, almost banned at Salon for that. Please, don't make it worse than it has to be. Think about it this way, Jaffr. Most of those people you are describing are, at worst (best?) "sentimental ZIonists". Their sentiments depend on a very hazy idea of what is actually required to pull off a colonial-settler-religious supremacist-expansionist state. And they are the ones more easily persauded to look at the truth. Those few American Jews who have actual interests in and connections to Israel are a harder nut to crack, and some will simply be impossible.

  3. Mooser says:
    May 31, 2009 at 4:54 pm

    "My answer at the time was I painted a picture of her, but refused to have sexual relations with her. I hope she's happy" Under those circumstances, how could she be anything but depressed and suicidal? Then again, I haven't seen your brush-work or your schtup-work either, so I wouldn't know. "I agree." I can see my writing is as clear as it ever was.

  4. Mooser says:
    May 31, 2009 at 4:57 pm

    "Once she stole a small creamer from a Howard Johnson's restaurant and regretted it her whole life." I've seen those creamers. I don't blame her a bit. I agree completely. I really don't think religion makes bad people. Bad people and circumstances make bad religion. You would think God would do something about it, but it's blasphemous to even consider God's inadequacies.

  5. Mooser says:
    May 31, 2009 at 5:00 pm

    I have never seen a person so thoroughly decimate his own contention in the first sentence of a comment, Richard. You are a master ironicist.

  6. Mooser says:
    May 31, 2009 at 5:06 pm

    I was about out of the adolescent teens, raised to be a Jewish "sentimental ZIonist" (although if I wanted more, there were no dearth of opportunities, a lot of my family were very active) when it occurred to me that there could not be a magical or special "Jewish" wat to do what had been done. And what had to be done, I wanted no part of, I felt there were much better choices that were being deliberately avoided. Okaym great, but that was just a reasoning excersise, an application of my expanding sense of the world beyond my own ethnic chauvanism. I don't think it is nearly as hard or as meaningful as actual confronting your prejudices at the very time and place. But you guys are gonna have to excuse me if I am sort of giddy. I've waited thirty years to read many of the things Phil is writing.

  7. Mooser says:
    May 31, 2009 at 5:15 pm

    Richard, you have a big problem. If you want to think that the thing is the same as the word, and if you change the word you change the thing, but please, don't insult the rest of us by expecting us to play the same game. Capiche? (that's Yiddish for "farshtaist?") The word 'occupation" doesn't provoke me at all. What has happened over the last forty years shames and sickens me, and it will even if you call the "occupation" a "diet plan". You do that all the time- You posit that things will change because words change. Look Richard, I don't think Kaballah (That's a Jewish outdoor-recreation retailer) won't help you here. Try numerology.

  8. Mooser says:
    May 31, 2009 at 5:18 pm

    "An honest person that does that, articulates what that goal is, discusses that prior, identifies the scope and criteria that they are investigating, and where good options are" And Phil is not doing that? Jesus christ on a 1-gig stick of RAM, Witty. Phil made a personal, signed appeal on his blog, asking for moderation in the comments toward you. "Don't be vicious to Richard Witty" he asked. Remember that? And this is how you repay him? You have a funny way of balancing your books, Witty.

  9. Mooser says:
    May 31, 2009 at 5:27 pm

    "I hope that you have the courage to not conform to what your audience expects, that you have your own voice and thinking." Richard, it's too late. They got to him, brainwashed him, hummus-boarded him, and sent Phil home as "The Palestinian Candidate" Coming to a theater near you! (Cut to picture of Phil's face, blank staring look in his eyes, saying "Mahamoud Abbas is the kindest, bravest, warmest human being I have ever known….)

  10. Mooser says:
    May 31, 2009 at 5:30 pm

    Rowan, he is confronting his thinking at the very time and place, with the very people. And writing about it as it happens. Rowan, let me give you a little advice. Hannah Arendt's most famous phrase, I believe, is "the banality of evil" Well, when you get right down to it, good is pretty banal, too.

  11. RichardWitty says:
    May 31, 2009 at 5:32 pm

    There should be conditions for use of US weapons. I understood that there were.

  12. Mooser says:
    May 31, 2009 at 5:34 pm

    Are we starting to confuse Zionism with Judaism or even Jewishness a little here? Considering that every colonial-settler-supremacist project produces this same state of mind, and so can persecutions, it might be mostly Zionism and it's demands which make Jews think that way. If they indeed, can be accused of doing it more than others. What price Ed's constant kvetching about the persecution od "moderate Christians" and the rejection of their "ethics"?

  13. Shirin says:
    May 31, 2009 at 5:37 pm

    Standard Zionist bullshit.

  14. Shirin says:
    May 31, 2009 at 5:41 pm

    Nothing, really, but it is also important to challenge even the irrelevant lies Zionists use to deny the very existence of Palestinians.

  15. Aly Wane says:
    May 31, 2009 at 7:21 pm

    Thank you for your compassion. If the situation in Gaza is ever going to change, it will because of Jews who are willing to look compassionately into the situation. Peace and blessings.

  16. Jake in Jerusalem says:
    May 31, 2009 at 8:51 pm

    Dagon-Pal. You had all rights under Egyptian and Jordanian rule – and what did you do? You have full autonomy to do your own thing under the rule of your very own Palestinean Authority. And besides wage never-ending Jihad on Jews and murder each other in constant clan struggles, what did you do? Stop blaming the Jews for all of your own misery. It is almost entirely your own fault. Typical Arab attitude…

  17. Jake in Jerusalem says:
    May 31, 2009 at 8:52 pm

    P{resent ANY evidence of something "Palestinean" more than, oh, 100 years old. Maybe a Palestinean ccapital city, or a pal king or a pal language or something… Anything???

  18. Jake in Jerusalem says:
    May 31, 2009 at 8:54 pm

    Israel has left Gaza. The only Jew left in Gaza is Gilad Shalit, who was KIDNAPPED by HAMAS TERRORISTS and held captive there IN VIOLATION OF GENEVA CONVENTION REGULATIONS. So now that you have Gaza to yourselves, what have you done with it besides make more rockets to fire onto Israeli civilians???? Dagon-Pal wants to scream im frustration with his/her Arab self…

  19. Jake in Jerusalem says:
    May 31, 2009 at 8:59 pm

    Strahl: "I didn't know anything about the conflict until last summer." Your postings make it abundantly clear, Strahl, that you STILL know nothing about the conflict. You even appear to know LESS now than last summer, when you knew nothing. Congratulations!

  20. Margaret says:
    May 31, 2009 at 10:13 pm

    I agree with you, Shirin. Jake in Jerusalem: 'Palestine' is an English term. You seem to believe that others exist only if those who use English recognize their existence.

  21. Margaret says:
    May 31, 2009 at 10:32 pm

    Ready to release all the Palestinians detained? Ready to stop detaining Palestinians for the alleged crime of being Palestinians? Shalit is imprisoned because of Israel's military regime: without the otherwise indefensible inequality of the Israeli State, his kidnapping would have been obviously criminal, rather than obviously politically motivated. When a state acts in a manner that is criminal, criminal acts in opposition are likely to be the response.

  22. Margaret says:
    May 31, 2009 at 10:56 pm

    "Keep your eye on the prize" is how we got here, IMHO. "Israel will never and should never give up the Jewish portion of the old city of Jerusalem." Does that require others to give up what they consider equally significant? Or is that a claim that will alienate others, and provoke further opposition?

  23. Margaret says:
    May 31, 2009 at 11:23 pm

    "While more "correct" black activists called Martin Luther King a "Tom", his leadership resulted in the deep respect of MASSES of white sympathizers, and the mass SUPPORT for integration in law and later more intimately. In contrast, H Rap Brown or Stokely Carmichael permanently scared far more than they accomplished." In my opinion, without the fear created by H. Rap Brown or Stokely Carmichael, the road to civil rights would have been much longer. If the Palestinians had not resorted to violence, would anyone have ever questioned whether there were two sides to the story which they had been told? Considering how long the one sided view remained unquestioned, it's doubtful. Boycott, sanction and divestment are a use of political power that answers coercive force in the realm in which it exists. You protest because you fear having the privilege you enjoy being recognized as coercive in nature. You are scary, RichardW, because of the way you compartmentalize rights as being limited to property law. But useful, because you demonstrate the moral vacuity of doing so (despite your attempts at obfuscation.)

  24. estebanfolsom says:
    May 31, 2009 at 11:56 pm

    high praise indeed but i do carry a copy [translation] of 'the milk of millennia' in my wallet cheers est

  25. tree says:
    June 1, 2009 at 1:35 am

    Wow, you are extremely ignorant of history, aren't you? From a general article on the area of Palestine in Wikipedia: "Palestine (Greek: Παλαιστίνη, Palaistinē; Latin: Palaestina; Hebrew: פלשתינה‎ Palestina; Arabic: فلسطين‎ Filasṭīn, Falasṭīn, Filisṭīn) is a name which has been widely used since Roman times to refer to the region that was earlier called Canaan, which spreads between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.[1] It is derived from a name used already much earlier for a narrower geographical region, mainly along the coast". ….. Ancient Egyptian texts called the entire coastal area along the Mediterranean Sea between modern Egypt and Turkey R-t-n-u (conventionally Retjenu). Retjenu was subdivided into three regions and the southern region, Djahy, shared approximately the same boundaries as Canaan, or modern-day Israel and the Palestinian territories, though including also Syria.[10] Early archeological textual reference to the territory of Palestine is found in the Merneptah Stele, dated c. 1200 BCE, containing a recount of Egyptian king Merneptah's victories in the land of Canaan, mentioning place-names such as Gezer, Ashkelon and Yanoam, along with Israel, which is mentioned using a hieroglyphic determinative that indicates a nomad people, rather than a state.[11] Egyptian texts of the temple at Medinet Habu, record a people called the P-r-s-t (conventionally Peleset), one of the Sea Peoples who invaded Egypt in Ramesses III's reign. This is considered very likely to be a reference to the Philistines. The Hebrew name Peleshet (פלשת Pəléshseth) usually translated as Philistia in English, is used in the Bible to denote "the coastal region north and south of Gaza which was occupied and settled by Philistine invaders from across the sea".[12] Another famous inscription is that of the Mesha Stele, bearing an inscription by the 9th century BC Moabite King Mesha, discovered in 1868 at Dhiban (biblical "Dibon," capital of Moab) now in Jordan. The Stele is notable because it is thought to be the earliest known reference to the sacred Hebrew name of God – YHWH. It also notable as the most extensive inscription ever recovered that refers to ancient Israel (see more below). The Assyrian emperor Sargon II called the region the Palashtu in his Annals. By the time of Assyrian rule in 722 BCE, the Philistines had become 'part and parcel of the local population',[13][14] and prospered under Assyrian rule during the seventh century despite occasional rebellions against their overlords.[7] In 604 BCE, when Assyrian troops commanded by the Babylonian empire carried off significant numbers of the population into slavery, the distinctly Philistine character of the coastal cities dwindled away,[13][15] and the history of the Philistine people effectively ended.[7] In the 5th century BCE, the Greek historian and geographer Herodotus wrote in Greek of a "district of Syria, called Παλαιστινη (Palaistinê)."[16][17][18] Syria, at that time, referred rather imprecisely to the region lying between Asia Minor, Sinai, the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf. The boundaries of the "district" of Palaistinê described by Herodotus are even more imprecise, as is the ethnic nature of its people; sometimes it denotes the coast north of Mount Carmel, and elsewhere it seems to extend down all the coast from Phoenicia to Egypt, and as far east as the Jordan River.[19] Its as old or older than the references to "Israel".

  26. Marion says:
    June 1, 2009 at 1:51 am

    Who are you trying to influence with your questions here thedhimmi, the Zionists?I am almost sure that he did meet some people from Hamas(whether he knew it or not) but if he knew he did, why would he be stupid enough to tell you about it? I am sure that Hamas will not be willing to change their charter for the sake of the Zionists…And why is Cpl. Schalit more important to the Jewish Zionists than the 11,000+ Palestinian prisoners being held in Israel(including women and children, many without trial) as well as the millions of Palestinians men, women, and children being imprisoned by the Zionists in Gaza and the West Bank?

  27. Marion says:
    June 1, 2009 at 2:14 am

    Good to see that you and so many others are finally waking up to the facts on the ground Phil!!!! I wish you lot's of luck in spreading the word back here in the U.S. which is in dire need of hearing the truth as opposed to the Zionist oriented propaganda which is geared towards brainwashing the American public into unconditionally supporting Zionist Israel. The path will be difficult because the Zionists are very much in denial and self destructive mode, and the more they are exposed, the more they will work to undermine people such as yourself. And it could get really nasty Phil, so I hope you are prepared for the worst even though I am sure that you would like to hope for the best. When things get tough, and I am sure that they will, keep in mind that the goal of defending the oppressed Palestinians is a just goal, and when the Palestinian plight is finally openly acknowledged and their rights become guaranteed(and they will one day), we can all celebrating an absolutely necessary justice that will be in the best interests of all involved, including the Israelis who falsely believe that Zionism will be their refuge when only the truth can set them free….

  28. _Sarah_ says:
    June 1, 2009 at 4:16 am

    Those conditions exist in law, but the law has never been enforced. It would be good to enforce that law, no? But the US taxpayers are also under no obligation to give our hard-earned money to Israel for the purpose of helping it occupy land that is outside its internationally recognized borders, or to give it to Israel for the purpose of subsidizing the settlements in those occupied areas, as we are doing now. We have a right to say to Israel, "no more money for those things".

  29. _Sarah_ says:
    June 1, 2009 at 4:32 am

    It is commonly understood by archaeologists, including Israeli archaeologists, that most of the biblical account of the Jewish history in the Holy Land is fiction. http://mideastfacts.org/facts/index.php?option=co...

  30. _Sarah_ says:
    June 1, 2009 at 6:38 am

    Full autonomy? What does that mean? Do people who have no control whatever over their external borders, their air space, their water resources, their coastline, and their roads have full autonomy? Do people whose homes are being bulldozed by the thousands by an external occupying power for the purpose of building settlements and roads that they themselves are not allowed to live in or use, have full autonomy? Would you consider your country to have full autonomy if you were living under those conditions? I think not.

  31. _Sarah_ says:
    June 1, 2009 at 6:44 am

    Israel didn't end the occupation of Gaza. It just moved the people who enforce the occupation to the other side of the wall. Israel still occupies Gaza in the same way that the Nazis occupied the Warsaw Ghetto.

  32. RowanBerkeley says:
    June 1, 2009 at 8:45 am

    I don't see where the advice is in that comment, but as to the statements about banality, I find them trite themselves (not to say 'banal'). The statements really mean nothing at all. The fact that you find something 'banal' simply means you are bored with your own thoughts about it. So what?

  33. RichardWitty says:
    June 1, 2009 at 10:14 am

    The agreement between Bush and Sharon to not object to settlement expansion, is now firmly questioned by the Obama administration. Read Haaretz.

  34. RichardWitty says:
    June 1, 2009 at 10:16 am

    Citizen, There are 80 elephants in the room. Some of them are about Israel. Some of them are about those that oppose Israel.

  35. Jake in Jerusalem says:
    June 1, 2009 at 2:29 pm

    Every word true. If you have other facts, please present them with references. Another thing: Palestine is the name fof a region, including what is today Israel, Jordan, parts of Lebanon, Syria and the Sinai Peninsula. Lots of references to prove that. Somehow, you only focus on Israel. We wonder about your obsession with partial truths and complete lies. Not impressive, darlin.

  36. Jake in Jerusalem says:
    June 1, 2009 at 2:32 pm

    Oh dear… The archeologists make new discoveries – real items from past times, entier structures, houses, tools, written tablets – and you think the ARCHEOLOGISTS think it is fiction???? I was at an archeological dig just this morning! Are those imaginary artifacts they are sorting through? Plastic Made In China???? You are falling for Arafat's ludicrous claims, poor girl…. I love your phony "facts". Luckily for those with brains in their head, it is easy to see that you are all false.

  37. Marion says:
    June 1, 2009 at 2:53 pm

    "I've liked your reporting of your experiences from Gaza. I'm glad that you acknowledged that the Gazans are not starving in particular. I expect that when you go to Sderot and see with your own eyes, the Farsi on a reported majority of rocket components, and presence of bomb shelters in every home, that that will also have an emotional and factual impact."–Witty Farsi on a reported majority of rocket components? I take it you haven't seen them with your own eyes Richard, but have read reports claiming such from what sources? I wonder if Phil has witnessed the USA markings on a majority of spent Israeli military armaments used in the last war on Gaza…I know that I have personally witnessed USA markings on spent Israeli military armaments used in South Lebanon… It is reported that the majority of hundreds of thousands of LIVE cluster bomb lets littered throughout South Lebanon by Israel contain made in USA markings….

  38. _Sarah_ says:
    June 1, 2009 at 3:01 pm

    Looks like you didn't read the article in the link I provided.

  39. Matt S says:
    June 1, 2009 at 5:07 pm

    Were they targeting civilians as part of their strategy? And was that before or, in fact, years after the death camps were up and running? The Jews in WWII were not a nation, were not claiming nationhood, were not dedicated to destroying Germany, were not engaged in a decades long armed struggle. The parallel is utterly false.

  40. Matt S says:
    June 1, 2009 at 5:08 pm

    So the "sin" is being effective at protecting Israeli civilians. If Israel put less effort into protecting its citizens, if it let more of them die in attacks, then you would be more kindly disposed towards Israel. Perhaps you might want to think about that a bit and think about why Hamas and Fatah have used civilians as weapons and shields. Maybe the ones to blame are the Palestinians leadership who show contempt for Palestinian lives.

  41. Mooser says:
    June 1, 2009 at 8:22 pm

    Thank you, tree. As long as he is here, you will have to do this over and over. Of course, when Phil gets back, he can argue with Jake. Somehow, I don't think he'll be of a mind for long discussions on the defects of Palestinians.

  42. Mooser says:
    June 1, 2009 at 8:29 pm

    Oh my God! Is Richard saying that every time we say "Occupied territories" he thinks we mean Israel inside the 67 borders, too? No Richard, no one is refering to Israel inside those borders as "Occupied territory". Wow, you are as dishonest with what you don't say as what you do say!

  43. Mooser says:
    June 1, 2009 at 8:36 pm

    Richard, just say" No. 4, The Whole World Sucks"

  44. Mooser says:
    June 1, 2009 at 8:46 pm

    The fact that you find something 'banal' simply means you are bored with your own thoughts about it. So what? Well, that's what I get for thinking I could mot juste: with the big boys. Shot down in flames. I meant that when you get down to it, for most of us being good or doing good is not always associated with great floods of inspiration. That when Phil got down to Gaza, it turned out to be about human suffering, and that cut across all the ethnic and political lines and got through to him. But maybe not in a way that necessarily is inspiring in a literary way. He saw what he needed to do, and he's going to start doing it.

  45. Thom says:
    June 3, 2009 at 6:39 pm

    I know why you were welcomed, for the same reason that American supporters of the Soviet Union were welcomed in the Soviet Union. Because you are their ally. The Soviets wouldn't sic the KGB torturers on a useful idiot from America. They wanted them to go back home and talk about how nice the Soviet Union was. The mistake you make is the same one a lot of people make when it comes to vicious or oppressive regimes (including terrorist organizations like Hamas). You assume that an evil, dangerous organization is going to always do evil things to everyone. So when you see an organization not doing evil to you, at the moment, you assume they must not be an evil organization. In fact, it is only the completely insane that act hostile to everyone at all times. The merely evil or slightly insane do not. Examples of this abound. How often do we hear people expressing shock that someone they know is a serial killer because "he was always so nice".

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