The new prominence of Ayman Odeh, the dynamic and popular Palestinian Israeli political leader, means that the apologists for Israel can no longer even pretend that there are no significant non-violent movements for justice there. Odeh is the 40-year-old head of the Joint List, the coalition of Arab parties which won 13 seats in last March’s elections, making it the third-largest political group in the Knesset. He is on a busy 2-week tour of the United States, and he made a point of visiting the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s home congregation, where he was introduced from the pulpit to a standing ovation.
He stopped off at The Nation magazine offices in New York the other day, where he explained that Dr. King is his hero. “Maybe for you in America, Dr. King has become boring because you hear about him so much,” he said. “But for me he is the man who has most inspired me. During the campaign I used to speak about him all the time. In my first speech in the Knesset, I quoted him.”
Ayman Odeh spoke in a mixture of English and Hebrew, fluently interpreted by his (Jewish) press secretary, Reut Mor. “Prime Minister Netanyahu’s approach is to create hate,” he said. “But we don’t want Jews against Arabs, Arabs against Jews. We want another approach: Arabs and Jews against racism and segregation.” He emphasized that he and the Joint List do not see themselves as only representing Palestinian Israelis. “We have spoken out about all the marginalized groups,” he went on. “Ethiopian Jews, Holocaust survivors, the unemployed, single parents.”
Odeh, a lawyer from Haifa, is not some well-meaning but obscure idealist. He is one of the main political leaders of the 20 percent of Israel’s population that is not Jewish. He is friendly, humorous, and he knows how to work a room. He says he has found ignorance about Palestinian Israelis even among Americans who have a general understanding of Israel/Palestine. “People may not know much about us,” he said, “but there will be no peace without us.” He said Palestinian Israelis suffer “structural discrimination,” and he listed huge statistical disparities in housing, education and public services.
Despite Ayman Odeh’s mild, non-violent approach, the Israeli right attacked him and the Joint List viciously during (and after) the political campaign. In a celebrated exchange during a televised debate, Avigdor Liberman, the former Israeli foreign minister, said, “Why did you come to this (TV) studio and not to a studio in Gaza. . .? Why are you even here? You’re not wanted here.”
Odeh answered calmly, “I am very wanted in my homeland. I am part of the scenery, part of the region. I resemble it. I believe we need to change our attitude, to replace demagoguery with dialogue.”
He laughed when he explained that Liberman maintains the nastiness even when the cameras are off. Prime Minister Netanyahu, however, is more cunning. He invited Odeh to a meeting, but it was a trap, an effort to suggest that Netanyahu’s ugly comments about Arabs on election day had been forgotten. “They planned to have many cameras there,” Odeh said. “I’m a warm person, I smile a lot. They would wait with the camera for that moment, and then they would have a picture of me smiling with Netanyahu.” He declined. He has met several times with the prime minister, but with no media present.
Odeh does warn that “Netanyahu is the main problem.” He says the prime minister is unquestionably a “racist,” but that his remarks are also politically calculated. “By demonizing the entire Arab population, he tries to delegitimize us,” he explained. “We are 20 percent of the population. We just need another 30 percent to start to move the country in a different direction.”
Odeh is aware that people consider some of his views too utopian. “But if you asked the African-American community here 20 years ago if they thought there would be an African-American president, I think they would have said, ‘No way.'”
There was a pleasant surprise in the New York Times yesterday: a brief article by the excellent Rick Gladstone about Odeh’s visit to the United States. Odeh has been big news in Israel for most of this year; this site’s Allison Deger did an interview with him back in March. The Times does have correspondents in Israel/Palestine, but they seem to have had trouble locating him. Too bad Ayman Odeh had to travel to New York to get his his non-violent, conciliatory message heard in the newspaper of record.
Since this article concerns inspiration, I have linked to a deeply moving video of recently deceased Native American poet/activist John Trudell, Crazy Horse- The Original Video, posted at Counterpunch to honor John Trudell.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/09/john-trudell-crazy-horse-the-original-video/
My thanks to Ayman Odeh for his wonderful work for Universal Human Rights and Justice. Martin Luther King would definitely be on his side.
Reverend King would also appreciate this excellent article on how Rahm Emanuel has had the Chicago police trained by the brutal Israeli IDF.
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/12/11/chicago-police-adopt-israeli-tactics/
The officer who killed Laquan McDonald clearly saw his opportunity to get rid of another “sub-human” and took it. And he clearly expected to get away with it.
wow. super inspiring. martin is not boring in this country!! that’s funny. he’s our hero. is Ayman Odeh coming to california? i would love to hear him speak and meet him. for people who ask where’s the palestinians gandhi, perhaps odeh is another example. and he’s not imprisoned! knock on wood.
Except Martin Luther King was an ardent Zionist who would have detested an man like him who works day and night against the renewed Jewish presence in the Jewish ancestral homeland.
This Odeh is a major part of the problem. The point is never, ever about “nonviolence/violence” — a false dichotomy. The point must always be about the mobilization and organization of the people themselves towards a democratic one state solution. And inasmuch as anyone thinks they’re going to get equality by being in the Zionist government or bargaining with Zionist tools over “better conditions” here and there, and placing themselves in a separate box above Palestinians everywhere — they need to be woken up! And inasmuch as anyone thinks a 2 state solution is going to free you (when Zionism is all about separating you!) then you need to be shook up. Inasmuch as some Palestinians in the 48 occupation falsely believe they do not have a major role to play — they need to be woken up! You’ll never get equality unless you have power, and you’ll never have power as long as you go around lecturing in a what is here called a “mild, non-violent approach” about how much Martin Luther King meant to you, so that the New York Times will applaud you (and even MW will!). The US sanitizes the history of civil rights and King, erases the most pertinent lessons of the struggle, and would love nothing more than that Palestinians start “singing instead of swinging”. And oh, forget about compensation and RoR, so you can end up more segregated than before! What is all this enthusiasm? The NYT snippet [called “excellent” above] is a perversion of what we can learn from the civil rights moment, on so many levels. It’s so incredible that I don’t even know where to begin. BTW as far as popular resistance goes, Palestinians have a very long history of ongoing unarmed resistance. But any organized resistance by Palestinians that is threatening will be brutally clamped down by Jewish-Israelis who own the police and own the army– for one reason and one reason only: Palestinians don’t have power. Period . Get rid of the Zionoid delusions.
As a refresher, the democratic state solution movement demands:
1. A secular democratic state that guarantees parity on constitutional matters regardless of numbers.
2. Freedom of movement, no evictions, “transfers” or land swaps, no internal borders, equal right to benefits of citizenship and nationality, land and property, social, health and education services.
3. Freedom from discrimination, and equal esteem in civil, political, social and cultural matters, and on permits, papers and passports.
4. This union will be entered into with full consent and a process of reconciliation, recognising the human value of each future citizen. It is neither a defeat nor a victory for either side but a victory for good sense.
5. A milestone in reconciliation will be acknowledgement of the Nakba and the right of, and orderly provision for, exiles to return with honour and comfort; recognition of the pain and loss suffered by victims of violence on both sides is also essential for reconciliation.
6. The state guarantees religious freedom and does not discriminate against or in favour of any faith.
7. The state will recognise the special ties that both Jews and Palestinians have with their broader communities worldwide, and will welcome especially members of those communities who wish to immigrate to the country and help to build it, or who request asylum from persecution.
8. Institutions of justice, law enforcement and army will integrate at all ranks.
9. The state will maintain free and equal access and protection for holy sites.
10. The state will establish fair, transparent and accountable mechanisms to compensate victims of the conflict.
11. Violence and coercion will not win consent nor aid reconciliation. Common struggle, however, forges bonds, as do common cultural and social projects. People who share political, commercial, professional, educational and cultural interests can start now on liaison that could lead to shared endeavours in a Single State.
12. Meanwhile we demand an immediate end to the siege of Gaza and withdrawal of all occupation troops, the release of all prisoners of the conflict including the Refuseniks, and the rescinding of all military orders that govern the subjected Palestinian people.
(http://onedemocracy.co.uk/why_one_state/)