Bringin’ it all back home. That’s what some brilliant young Israeli peace activists have done in posting 10,000 electricity cut off notices on homes and apartments in Israel’s major cities in the past few days:
Fake electricity cut-off notices (Yediot Achronot)In a clever and well-coordinated move (what happened to the Shabak?), seventy activists panned out through Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa, and plastered 10,000 electricity cut-off notices to the residents. Of course, the cut-off notices were bogus, but they served to literally bring home to the Israelis that Gaza has been threatened by Israel with a general electricity and fuel shut-off in reprisal for shelling Sderot.
In a tactic that Abbie Hoffman would’ve been proud of, these young people have thought of ways to dramatize the suffering that the IDF’s proposed utility cut offs would cause for Gazans. Very little seems to seep through the protective shell that Israelis have erected to keep themselves from having to know anything about what happens in the Territories. Kol ha-kavod to these guerrilla peace activists for forcing, if only for a few moments, Israelis to contemplate the effect of their own actions on their neighbors.
Jerry Haber seems to be on a roll with posts like this lately. I’ll bet that his son, who belongs to Breaking the Silence, had some part in these festivities. If so, more power to him.
Haaretz translates the text of the mock power shut off notices:
The notices posted Thursday by the activists read: “We wish to inform you that there will be a wave of cessation and severance of electricity. We have no choice but to cut off power and we are forced to do it because in your cities reside the commanders of an army that harms civilians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.”
“For humanitarian reasons, the cessation of electricity will not be permanent and should leave you to consider: should the flow allotted be directed to hospitals, water systems, sewers or private homes? We apologize for the temporary inconvenience this might cause you and emphasize that this is a necessary defense move,” read the notices.
Jerry provides some background on this protest action and those sponsoring it and a well-earned blast of opprobrium for the heinous acts of the Occupation:
This protest action was sponsored by a coalition of lefties calling themselves, the Front for the Liberation of Gaza. They include some of the “Anarchists” who have been protesting the systematic expropriation of the lands of Bil’in every week. Lately they have also been involved in protesting the Israelis-only road 443, the most notorious of the roads of hafradah (Hebrew for “separation”; I wouldn’t dignify the ideology behind it with the term “apartheid”) And many other groups were involved.
Remember when Israelis justified checkpoints and closures by saying that they were “inconveniences” at worst? Well, apparently, the inconvenience of removing posters on their doors has been driving some of them nuts. Imagine what they would do if some of them had to stand in line for hours to get past a checkpoint? Of if their wives died in labor, or their children were stillborn because they did not have the right permit? Some of them would be fighting each other to sign up for the Masada suicide terrorist brigade.
Ah, ain’t nothing like creative non-violent protest….And it’s on the rise in Israel. From Hebron, from the Olive Harvest, from ICAHD’s rebuilding demolished houses, Taayush, Mahsom Watch, Breaking the Silence, Rabbis for Human Rights, the Palestinians who protest the hafradah fence (sorry: the land grab wall) weekly….the list goes on, never enough to cover the war crimes.
My favorite response to the action, was, “Nu, higzamtem”, roughly translated as “Come on guys, you exaggerated this time.” They exaggerated? Israel is about to increase the pressure on an entire civilian population, and the Anarchists are the ones being accused of going overboard! Such is the moral rot in Israeli society today.
These young Israeli Gandhis can’t bring peace. They can’t stop the Occupation. But they can be moral witnesses. They won’t have to explain themselves to their grandchildren as will we.
How appropriate that at a time when Jews are celebrating the deeds of a band of religious zealots, who fought a foreign occupying force that dimmed the lights of the Temple, a group of latter-day Maccabbees have arisen to oppose non-violently a foreign occupying force that threatens to dim the lights of Gaza.
Happy Hanukah to you too, Jerry
Meanwhile, the Israeli Supreme Court has temporarily delayed the implementation of this collective punishment/war crime for Gazans. If they deny the IDF the right to enforce this punishment a little of my faith in the Bagatz (Supreme Court) will be restored. If not, what can I say–it’s just more of the same moral miasma.
Bravo to these folks. May they be a light unto their nation.
So, in your world the IDF is this heinous perpetrator of war crimes. And a veteran of the German 6th army is just a kindly accordion player. Interesting.
Bravo seconded.
I am reading Bertrand Russell on Jewish religious development (in History of Western Philosophy) and he quotes translator Townsend saying that had the Maccabbees not resisted, Judaism could have faded away, therefore no Christianity, therefore no Islam, no monotheism generally.
I don’t know whether to give thanks or wish they’d sat on their bums.
First, those in the Israeli military and government who engage in collective punishment of the civilian population of Gaza are guilty of violating the Geneva Conventions. Second, I wrote about a charming Hanukah book written by a German Jewish woman in which she depicts her friendship with a former Wermacht soldier on Hanukah. If you have a problem with the book or the girl’s relationship with the ex-soldier I suggest you take it up with her, not me.
I don’t know that I would’ve been able to have such a relationship with such a person. But unlike you, I don’t censor her for doing so. Perhaps you should wait until you’ve walked in the shoes of such a German Jewish girl having lost her grandparents to Hitler’s Holocaust. Maybe then you would have the right to issue moral judgment. Till then, I think your views are best ignored.
And instead of being such a spoil sport why don’t you buy the book and read it to your child or grandchild & let them tell you how much they cherish it. Then maybe you’ll get into the Hanukah spirit (if that’s even possible).
Glenn,
Very interesting idea.
One could make a good argument that monotheism has been the cause of more misery than any other concept – to humans, to non-human animals, and to the earth.
Not a popular argument, but one that can be supported with a reading of history.
I’ve always liked Bertrand Russell, altho haven’t read him.
ellen
The Israeli peace activists are indeed a light onto their nation. I have read of many of their attempts to expose the heinous treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. In a recent article in US News and World Report (9/24/07), a member of Checkpoint Watch, an organization of female Israeli monitors, took action against a member of the IDF “who would urinate on the shoes of Palestinian women. It took us many months of complaining to the Army before he was taken off checkpoint duty.”
Do Israelis have any concern that their barbaric treatment of Palestinians creates Muslim hatred of the United States?
Jeanne,
“Do Israelis have any concern that their barbaric treatment of Palestinians creates Muslim hatred of the United States?”
My experience is that the Israelis don’t care. Nor do they care about the humanitarian argument. Nor do they even care -from a self-centered viewpoint – of the effects of this barbarism on Israeli society.
They, or most of them, along with supporters here in US, justify everything in terms of “security”. There is no way to have a logical argument against this framing. At least I have never been successful. If they don’t listen to me, and I am a Jew, and they are not moved by humanitarian or self-interest concerns, then one can not be surprised when a very tiny number of Gazans turn to violence.
What else is left?
ellen
Ellen asked, “What else is left?”
I think we all are keenly aware that we would be in the “resistance” whether it would have been Europe during the Nazi occupation, South Africa during Apartheid, Palestine under Israeli occupation, Tiananmen Square etc. etc. etc. I think each of us could have been with Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman in Mississippi. That we have been so fortunate is all the more reason to speak out for those who are living under repressive occupation.
Richard, I know you have many Israeli friends who must be in the peace movement. How can we express our appreciation for their constant stuggle on behalf of the Palestinians?
Jeanne,
I think you make a good point.
I don’t know about you, but I cannot put myself in the same rank as the people you mention.
Why?
The difference is in having right thoughts versus doing right actions.
The closest thing I know to resistance in US is Jews Against the Occupation, who perform civil disobedience, and go to jail. Does it do anything toward the goal that we all share? I don’t know. But it is at least an act of conscience.
I don’t consider myself writing on a computer to be an act of resistance.
I sometimes think that if there’d been blogging in the days of the Civil Rights Movement, African-American people would still be sitting in the back of the bus.
–ellen
Ellen, I agree that we cannot put outselves in the same catagory as those I mentioned. But I have often thought of my reaction had I been in those places of oppression, and I fear that I would have been somewhere in the resistance. My friends, and those of my children, were mainly Jewish. So I often wondered what would have happened in my neighborhood. I know that we could not have turned away those children if the SS was coming — whatever the consequences. And I know that if it were my children who were threatened, my Jewish friends would have hidden them. At any rate, it would have been HELL for all of us. That we have not been placed in those circumstances, makes it all the more important that we join with those forces who fight oppression.
But it is. I think I have an impact though it may be small. In fact, I think that the internet can prevent or inhibit some of the worst injustices because it enhances awareness & spreads information so quickly.
Regarding Jeanne’s comments about resistance…you should take a look at my friend, Mark Klempner’s wonderful book, The Heart Has Reasons, about five Dutch Christians who harbored Jewish refugees during the Holocaust. They were ordinary people (though all politically progressive) who acted extraordinarily in extraordinary times. No one knows how they might react in a similar situation, but at least these five individuals answered the call to humanity, God bless ’em.
I would like to think that if the Rosa Parks incident had been captured on YouTube, then Jim Crow would have fallen that much faster, but this is just speculation on my part.
I for one think as many Jews as possible should voice their opposition to the occupation on the web and in any other venues that they can. I think that bloggers like Richard and Jerry Haber do a great service in getting the word out and exposing people to uncomfortable truths. My experience has been that most Jews in America are really not aware of what happens in Israel, and the little that they really do know is lost in the noise of all the heinous things that some of the Palestinians and Hezbollah do. A pox upon both their houses is often the best you can hope for from these folks, which is often not enough to get them to take serious action. That may be changing.