Arab-American Activism

Ramallah Dance Troupe

Music, stomping, whistles, cheers and rhythmic clapping filled the auditorium of Bogan High School in Chicago Aug. 10, when more than 500 people turned out for a lively performance of Sirriyet Ramallah Dance Troupe. The troupe, which is part of First Ramallah Group, a cultural center in Palestine, was in the United States for a brief cross-country tour.

While the performance was folkloric in nature, it was also political, and the event’s coordinators stressed that the debke dances conveyed Palestinians’ desire for national unity.

Young women dressed in white gowns and crimson tunics swirled and sashayed across the stage, floating in between the young men who stomped, fought, and leaped as they told the story of Palestine’s land through dance. This was no mere celebration of folk tradition, however, as the speakers, the nature of the songs and audience members would attest.

Hatem Abudayyeh, one of the event’s organizers, translated some of the lyrics. One such song proclaimed, “We can never forget the martyrs who gave their lives for the liberation of their land.”

Perhaps that’s why the audience, which initially was preoccupied with socializing in the aisles, came to rapt attention as the performance commenced. The first startling stomp of a male dancer brought everyone together in a common cultural experience, and the energy flowing between the stage and those watching nearly was palpable.

Khaled Barakat, who made opening remarks in Arabic and later translated them, perhaps set the mood with his words, encapsulating the debke in a political framework.

“The resistance in Palestine taught us many lessons,” he said, “and the most important lesson that we learned is the importance of our national unity as Palestinians and as Arabs. The most important factor to remember at this point is one of resistance, to isolate the racist government of [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon, and to establish our independent homeland. I stress the issue of Right to Return. Fifty-three years in refugee camps is too long. We will continue until we go home,” vowed Barakat.

His speech was received with cheers and rounds of applause, and it was into this environment that the troupe came onstage.

Sirriyet Ramallah was initially formed in the 1930s. Women were added to the troupe in 1964. The cultural group disbanded during the 1967 war. Its first performance after it resumed in 1985, in a competition at Bethlehem University, won first place.

Debke has various forms, but is most often characterized by dances performed in groups and in line formation. Foot-stomping, which symbolizes the importance of land to the Palestinians, is a trademark of the dance. Those who perform it, as well as those who watch, would agree that the dance reflects the pride, strength and resilience of the Palestinian people. Now, in light of the intifada, the group presents Palestine’s cultural heritage with a new vision, Abudayyeh said. “We’re singing for love and for the land and this is a form of resistance,” he explained.

The performance, he said, was “an example of how culture and heritage are just as important as the land.”

In addition to the symbolism inherent in the dances, the ability to participate in a cultural experience has many benefits for the people in occupied Palestine, Abudayyeh said.

“It’s important for the people who have to see the gruesome details of their people being killed, and their land being destroyed,” he explained. “Oral tradition is so important in Arab culture. This is just as much a part of our history as struggle is.”

On stage, the dances unfolded much like a ballet or opera, where stories were told through the music and movements of the performers.

One particularly picturesque scene started with notes from a lone flute. Soon, young women dancers moved lithely onto the stage, supporting small earthen jugs on their shoulders. Some of the young men followed, bent under the weight of overflowing burlap bags they carried on their backs. The dancers quickly set the stage with various independent activities. On stage left, a girl and boy flirted, while on the opposite side, a boy massaged a girl’s calf muscle with oil. Some young women sat and made circular motions as if milling grain, and some boys worked the soil. The setting seemed to depict village life with all its toil and wonders. Suddenly the troupe came together in a unified dance until, one by one, they left the stage. The entire set strongly evoked the pride the villagers take in their lives.

In another breathtaking piece about Ramallah, the young women, armed with flat baskets, made motions as if they were harvesting olives or fruit, cleaning them in their baskets before passing them out to their loved ones nearby. One could almost see beyond the stage to a bucolic scene filled with laughing children playing among the orchards, waiting for their mothers to nourish them.

The second act was filled with lively national songs and dances. The audience responded with frenzied clapping and whistling. The performance conveyed strong messages. One song, again about Ramallah, also invoked the names of pre-1948 villages that have been destroyed or are under Israeli occupation.

“Most Palestinians know the essence of the conflict is the return issue,” Barakat said. “They know the essence is 1948, and how 800,000 people were kicked out, so they can never forget the cities and villages from which they were expelled.”

Another song that raised the excitement level began with the words, “We will always insist that Jerusalem is the capital of our land, of Palestine.”

Overall, organizers said they were pleased with the event and the message the dancers communicated. The performance was co-sponsored by Al-Awda Chicago, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee–Greater Chicago, Arab American Action Network, Arab American Media Guild, Palestine American Community Center, and the Palestinian American Council.

—Kristin Szremski

Diplomats From Egypt, Jordan, Israel and Palestine Discuss Conflict With DC Interns

On July 12, the Center for Policy Analysis in Palestine (CPAP) held a panel discussion as part of a series for Washington-based interns. The panel brought together diplomatic representatives from Egypt, Jordan and Israel, as well as a spokesperson for the PLO, and was organized by Jonathan Kessler, executive editor of Middle East Insight. “This kind of gathering is a significant milestone,” said Kessler in his opening speech, “as is each and every time that former enemies and those currently involved [in the Israel-Palestine conflict] can share perspectives.”

First to speak was Karim Haggag, second secretary at the Egyptian embassy and personal adviser to the foreign minister of Egypt on Egyptian-Israeli relations. He addressed misperceptions of the conflict that he described as “so deeply entrenched that they are raised to the status of myths.”

The most pervasive, he said, concerns the Camp David summit. The conventional wisdom is that Arafat could not agree to Barak’s offer, and thus instigated the recent intifada. Such a simplistic explanation of the collapse of Camp David, he said, “disregards the fact that the Palestinian public has a will of its own. Arafat cannot turn them on and off like a light switch.”

The intifada began not because of Camp David, the Egyptian diplomat argued, but because the Oslo agreement was never implemented. After Oslo, the number of Israeli settlers doubled, destroying the Palestinian people’s hope for an end to the occupation.

The second myth, according to Haggag, is that the Oslo agreement is dead. “If Oslo is dead,” he warned, “it is a very dangerous thing, for it dealt with reciprocal agreements between Israelis and Palestinians.…The message we are giving is that peace will not come.” The only discourse available to the Palestinians then, said Haggag, would be that of Hamas and Hezbollah.

The third myth is that the current Palestinian leadership cannot be bargained with. Haggag summarized the resulting conventional wisdom as, “If Arafat is not responsible for the violence, we shouldn’t deal with him. If he is responsible, we still shouldn’t deal with him.

“The message: the current leadership should be deposed,” he observed. “The important question is, ‘What was it that replaced the PLO in Lebanon?’” he reminded the audience.

Manar Dabbas, second secretary at the embassy of Jordan, wished to “underscore regional attempts to defuse the cycle of violence.” The Jordanian-Egyptian initiative, he said, laid the foundation for a political basis to continue negotiations. It was followed, however, by the Mitchell Report, which focused only on security issues rather than on the political steps necessary to resume talks. But the Palestinians, Dabbas said, cannot be expected to perform on the political scene under Israeli economic siege and closure. He urged regional efforts to end their economic deprivation and integrate them into the regional economy, and suggested that the current foreign trade agreement between Jordan and the United States should lay the foundation for such integration.

“Israel came to Camp David with a far-reaching agreement,” claimed Daniel Meron, counselor for congressional affairs at the embassy of Israel and previous foreign affairs adviser in the office of the president of Israel. “All we got was a rain of fire, mortar, shells, and daily shootings for the last ten months.”

Meron waxed eloquently on Israeli security concerns, but resorted to the exact myths Karim Haggag had attempted to dispel. “We say that Arafat can and should control the violence,” the Israeli counselor said. “He knows who the terrorists are and he should arrest them.”

Palestinian television teaches young children to engage in holy war, he alleged, while in Israel, “We teach our children to love our neighbors.”

Meron advocated a return to the negotiating table, but only if Israel sees a true and unequivocal attempt from the other side to stop the violence.

Deputy director of the PLO mission in Washington, DC, Said Hamad, who participated in the Wye River negotiations and the Camp David accords, began by describing the United States as “the other Israeli-occupied territory.

“This may sound harsh,” he continued, “But your [American] representatives enact laws…with tragic consequences in the Middle East.”

Mechanisms have continuously been devised to ensure the survival of Israel, said Hamad, while Palestinians undergo “the most harsh and total occupation of one people by another.” He pointed out that Israel responds to the slightest resistance with collective punishment, detention, home demolitions, and the total denial of human and civil rights.

Hamad traced the last 15 years of Israel-Palestine relations: “In 1988, Arafat recognized the right of Israel to exist,” he said. “Shortly after, there was a meeting in Madrid to peacefully resolve the conflict on the basis of U.N. Resolutions 242, 338, and land-for-peace. All subsequent agreements hinged on land-for-peace.”

Ten years later, said Hamad, Palestinians are still struggling for the right to their lives, their land, and their territory. “With each successive Israeli government,” he charged, “the rules of engagement are rewritten.

“What was wrong with Camp David?” Hamad asked his audience. He explained that the Israeli offer would have resulted in the creation of Arab ghettoes encircled by Israeli settlements. Most of Jerusalem’s Old City would have consisted of unconnected Arab areas under “loose Palestinian control,” while the refugee issue was not even addressed, Hamad said.

During the question-and-answer session, Meron was asked what kind of state the Israelis foresee. “Do we agree that Israel should have a right to be a state for the Jews?” demanded Meron. “If so, how can two people live side by side [within Israel]? Israel will never give up its security. We cannot allow three million refugees to enter and become a majority in the state of the Jews.”

When questioned on the policy of home demolition, Meron insisted, “We have a right to demolish homes if terrorists shoot at us from within.” He applied the same logic to the targeting of small children wielding stones: “There’s always someone with a rifle hiding behind the kids throwing stones,” he claimed. In closing, he told the audience that “we don’t envisage a Norway-Sweden type peace in the next five years. We can have, perhaps, open borders and an open exchange of people.”

Dabbas urged the international community to be even-handed. “Aren’t we worried about Palestinian security as well?” he asked. “If we criticize them, Israel should look at its own actions. The Israelis are committed [to peace]in words, not deeds.”

Palestinians are not asking for what they think is their right, Haggag added. They are merely asking for what they think the compromise is based on. “Look at the map,” he said, “Is this a viable state that can give Palestinians viable rights?”

After the event, Jonathan Kessler privately commented on what he and CPAP expected the discussion, as well as the entire series, to accomplish. “We hope to break through the propagandist wall,” he said. “We tried to involve younger diplomats so we can get a less biased viewpoint.”

Daniel Meron was a last-minute replacement for another representative from the Israeli embassy, so Kessler had not been prepared for the party-line stance that Meron took.

“Doing this in 60 minutes is very hard,” he added. “However, this is our fifth year [of the intern series] and things are no longer theoretical.”

Kessler expressed pride in the overwhelming success of the series. In the last five years, it has brought together interns from organizations with very different agendas, and encouraged them to open constructive channels of communication. “This kind of networking becomes very important when these kids come back to Washington as Middle East policymakers,” he concluded.

—Homayra Ziad

Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi Looks at Intifada Myths and Realities

“The last eight months have been unprecedented in terms of the amount of myth created about events,” said Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi in a June 11 luncheon briefing on the realities of the situation in Palestine and the misrepresentations routinely reported in U.S. mainstream media. The presentation, sponsored by the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine, was an in-depth assessment of the ongoing intifada and its ramifications on Palestinian society. A prominent Palestinian doctor and politician, Dr. Barghouthi is president of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, a grassroots community-based Palestinian health organization seeking to supplement the decayed and inadequate health infrastructure caused by years of Israeli military occupation.

Dr. Barghouthi began by addressing many of the misconceptions offered as facts by America’s mainstream media, as well as the wide-ranging tilt of media reports imposed on the general public. The roots of the ongoing violence, for instance, have been presented as a situation where a “generous offer by Barak was rejected by the Palestinians, erupting in violence and leaving Israel with no other option than to defend itself.”

According to Barghouthi, however, the reality of Barak’s offer would have left the Palestinians with three Bantustans, no real sovereignty in Jerusalem, and Israeli-controlled borders and passages. In return, Palestinians were to accept complete termination of the conflict and abandonment of the refugee issue.

In addressing the overall misrepresentation of the current intifada, he provided attendees with revealing facts about the actualities of the situation on the ground. Over the last eight months, Barghouthi pointed out, not a single Israeli home has been demolished. Palestinians, on the other hand, have had at least 1,500 homes demolished, 3,200 buildings demolished, and at least 27,000 olive trees uprooted.

Reports of violence and casualties are offered as proportional and mutually occurring—although statistics reveal a different story. According to Barghouthi, the last eight months have seen the death of nearly106 Israelis, compared with the loss of nearly 432 Palestinians. Nearly 99 percent of Palestinians killed were shot in the upper part of the body, indicating a clear intent to kill, and 56.4 percent were shot and killed outside conflict areas. Israelis injured number approximately 700, while an unbelievable 23,000 Palestinians have been injured—the equivalent of .7 percent of the Palestinian population. Barghouthi placed these numbers in perspective for attendees by drawing a comparison between the current intifada and the Vietnam War. During the 10-year-long Vietnam War, the U.S. lost 52,000 people. During the 8-month-long intifada, Palestinians have lost the equivalent of 45,000 people in terms of the United States population. The situation, then, Barghouthi pointed out, is a real war of aggression.

The media’s depiction of settlement negotiations also has unjustly cast the Palestinians in a negative light, Barghouthi said, conveniently overlooking the fact that, according to the Israeli organization Peace News, Sharon created 15 new settlements over a period of three months that had increased in size and population by 60 percent since 1993. Israel’s behavior regarding settlements undermined the peace process, Barghouthi charged, likening them to negotiations over pizza: while negotiating how many slices each person should get, one person is simply eating all the slices. Barghouthi’s conclusion was that it is clear that Israel’s ultimate goal is the complete appropriation of Palesitnian land.

Dr. Barghouthi then turned to the issue of misrepresentation in relation to the use of the term “security.” Israel’s need for “security” and “security” concerns have remained unquestioned and served to legitimize its brutal behavior. Borders no longer are the sole security issue: every Palestinian group and community has become a “security threat,” creating a situation where every Palestinian cluster is surrounded. The result has been the creation of at least 120 clusters where people cannot maneuver and are virtually held hostage.

According to Barghouthi, perversion of the realities of the intifada and the situation of the Palestinian people also has served to distort the effects of such realities. Palestinians not only face physical danger, he noted, but strong psychological repercussions. The level of psychological fear has grown tremendously due to the overwhelming imbalance of power. Pregnant women fear giving birth at Israeli checkpoints, the use of collective punishment has generated a wave of terror throughout the occupied territories, unemployment has soared to 60 to 70 percent, the GDP is down by 40 percent, and the GDP per capita is $800 in comparison to $14,000 of Israel.

Although Sharon is attempting to destroy the possibility for a peaceful resolution, he still enjoys the support of 60 to 70 percent of the Israeli public, according to Barghouthi. He sees almost no potential for resolution with the current Israeli government, given Sharon’s inherent desire and almost tangible goal of the complete transfer of Palestinians. Israeli propaganda has perpetuated the idea of Israel as both David and Goliath, Barghouthi noted, proving that it has no qualms about being perceived simultaneously as aggressor and victim. The candidness with which Israel upholds its dual reputation is testimony to the lack of international response or pressure on the Jewish state.

If there is to be positive development in the region, Barghouthi argued, there are several preconditions that must be met. Most importantly, he said, there must be a concentration on the real causes of the crisis, not simply its symptoms. Attention must be brought to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, to the continuation of settlement building and expansion, and to the reality that Palestinians have been living under occupation for 34 years. “We cannot afford—as Palestinians, as human beings, as people who believe in peace and justice—we cannot afford another round of avoidance of the real cause of the problem,” said Dr. Barghouthi.

He also emphasized the importance of keeping the intifada a popular mass uprising, maintaining that militarization of the conflict will not help and that the sustaining of the utmost level of a civilian element is paramount to success.

Describing the present resumption of the Palestinian struggle against Israeli military occupation as “the most serious and sensitive moments since 1967,” Barghouthi called for the support of both the international and Arab communities. Pressure must be placed on Israel, he emphasized, for it is essential that Israel understand that it cannot maintain normal relations with Arab countries in light of the continuation of the conflict. Also imperative is the strong support of citizens of the international community. “Those who believe in the justice of the Palestinian cause, organize here,” Barghouthi pleaded. “That is the best support that may be offered, particularly in a place like the United States.”

As citizens of their respective countries, as well as citizens of the world, Dr. Barghouthi concluded, responsibility for the battle against injustice lies with everyone.

—Shereen Abdel-Nabi

Witnessing the Intifada

Members of a delegation that recently returned from Israel and the occupied territories demonstrated that seeing really is believing. At a July 2 roundtable discussion entitled, “Eyewitnesses to Occupied Palestine,” sponsored by Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Matt Bowles, Ali Hadjarian and Margaret Zaknoun gave their assessment of the situation there. Bowles, a graduate student at American University and a human rights activist, began his account by describing the current situation as an “assault” on Palestinians “by the third largest military in the world.” Conditions are so “extreme and urgent that the international community [must] take action,” he demanded.

Bowles also distinguished between the current al-Aqsa intifada and the first intifada, which took place from 1987 to 1993. The earlier one involved cross-community building, he said, while the current one is characterized by a division between Palestinians and Israelis and a polarization of the two communities. Additionally, he noted during this intifada the Zionist left is shifting increasingly to the right, and understandably is being viewed with suspicion by Palestinians. Bowles also said that the first intifada was pushed by grassroots organizations and NGOs, while the current intifada is spearheaded by Arafat’s group, Fatah, and frustrated members of the Palestinian Authority, who only a few years before were fully supportive of the Oslo peace process. The intifada, he maintained, is “guerrilla warfare from the top down.” Only 2 percent of Palestinians are directly involved in this uprising, he said, although the remaining 98 percent are generally supportive of it.

The role in the current intifada of so-called Israeli Arabs—Palestinians in the state of Israel, who constitute roughly 20 percent of the population—also has changed significantly, Bowles continued. There is a process dubbed “re-Palestinization,” which he described as the ideological identification of Israeli Arabs with the Palestinian nation. The murder by Israeli soldiers of 13 Israeli Arabs last October has heightened the community’s desire to gain civil, political and national rights.

Bowles described in detail the situation of Palestinians living in refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, which he characterized as “the most densely populated place on earth.” Each refugee camp, he told the audience, houses 30,000 people per square kilometer. Residents are not allowed to leave Gaza for work, medical reasons, or even to attend a funeral. “[They] feel like it’s a giant prison,” Bowles said.

The poverty rate is at 80 percent and rising, and the Israeli military is “occupying 40 percent of the Gaza Strip and assaulting people on a daily basis,” he asserted. Bowles painted a picture of a people in the midst of F-16s and Apache helicopters firing over their homes, “trying to survive by whatever means available to them.” Palestinians also must face armed right-wing settlers ready to “shoot at the first Palestinian car in the street,” Bowles said. Some of the most reactionary right-wing settlements can be found in the Palestinian town of Hebron, where graffiti reads “Kill the Arabs,” and bumper stickers say “No More Arabs, No More Explosions.” Although the situation looked bleak, Bowles was touched by the Palestinians’ resistance and survival. “You can’t kill the Palestinian spirit,” he declared.

Hadjarian, a master’s student at George Mason University, described similarly grim circumstances. He introduced his talk by displaying slides of Ali Morad and Sulaiman, 12-year-old boys from the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza who recently were killed. Hadjarian told the audience that the delegation had visited the camp just two weeks ago. Their trip was opposed by Israeli soldiers, he said, who previously had shot some journalists there because they “didn’t want anyone from the outside world to witness the horrors of Khan Younis.” By visiting the camp, however, he hoped to educate the rest of the world about the reality of the situation in Gaza. “This is not a sick joke,” he said, explaining that his goal was not necessarily to convince Americans of the injustice there, but, at the very least, to educate them about what really is going on. “This way they won’t have any excuses,” Hadjarian concluded.

Zaknoun, whose account was read by Georgetown graduate student Nadya Sbaiti, wrote that the intifada “has confirmed people’s worst fears and predictions about where Oslo would lead.” It was not sparked by one incident, as Israel would like us to believe, but rather was the culmination of a systematic process that saw the continual building and expansion of illegal Israeli settlements, bypass roads and house demolitions, she noted.

Zaknoun expressed her frustration with the fact that Palestinians’ need for security is never a subject of discussion in the U.S. “The sense of insecurity is probably one of the most intense feelings for Palestinians these days,” she wrote. “They now have to contend with armed gangs of rampaging settlers and shelling from tanks.”

Like Bowles, however, Zaknoun found Palestinians’ patience and determination inspiring. She concluded by noting that what she took away from her trip is “a picture of a people determined to resist oppression and to put up with all kinds of adversity and personal loss to do so.”

—Laila Al-Arian