Freedom Theater, Jenin
Not content to wage war on armed militants (of whom there are very few these days in the West Bank), earlier today the famed special forces of the Israeli army staged a daring raid on Jenin’s Freedom Theater. In a bold tactical stroke, they woke up a night watchman at 3:30AM by throwing hunks of concrete at the theater entrance. They then strip searched him and made him afraid for his life. Those bold national heroes then arrested a Theater board member and abused the theater general manager, a British citizen. When he called the Israeli civil administration, which has sometimes been known to intercede in the most egregious situations, they hung up on him.
I can’t figure out what’s so dangerous about the Theater’s work. Perhaps the performances of Orwell’s Animal Farm in France? Or The Magic Flute? Is there a message of subversion and a call for insurrection I missed in them? Or perhaps they didn’t like the message of support for the Gaza flotilla on its website?
Given that the founder of Freedom Theater, Juliano Mer-Khamis was assassinated outside the venue a few months ago, this comes as a brutish insult from the Israeli authorities. First the Occupation criminalizes resistance through violence. Then resistance through non-violence. Then they criminalize art and expression.
Everyday Israelis believe that somehow these acts of oppression are located far from them. What they don’t understand is that this rot infects from the outside and works its way in. There will come a time, and not very long, when they’ll criminalize artistic expression inside Israel and Israeli Jewish theater managers will be arrested for expressing themselves. That is, if Israeli cultural institutions haven’t become so co-opted that they no longer offer an alternative to the prevailing nationalist consensus.
H/t George Hale, Jared Maslin, Suzysauce.
The troup “Canaan” from the Freedom Theatre just tourned France with their new spectacle “Sho kman ?” [What else ?], and additional spectacles were given due to the success. They performed in my neighbourhood on Tuesday 12th of July, on the 5th anniversary of the Second Lebanon War, giving it an extra dimension.
http://thefreedomtheatre.org/news.php
The killers of Juliano Mer-Khamis have never been found, and I’m sorry, but this gives me an extra reason to think that there MIGHT be more to this assassination that what we know …. at least the death of Juliano Mer-Khamis suited the Israeli right-wing mighty well.
Although it’s still not clear who killed Juliano, what is perfectly clear is that this raid is a pretext for smearing and intimidating cultural non-violent resistance.
After his death, I found this very interesting interview given by Juliano Mer-Khamis to a Palestinian activist in the US. He talks about the importance of a project such as The Freedom Theater, and in a way maybe also explains why the Israelis might wish to close it down.
Extracts:
“I think we are facing the end of the destruction of the Palestinian people by the Israeli forces – we are in a situation today where not only political and economical infrastructure was destroyed – Israel is destroying the neurological system of the society which is culture, identity, communication.
We are dealing with a traumatized society, a society which lives under heavy siege ….the whole West Bank is cut into pieces, with gates and fences, it’s like a big prison in its concept, with the Israelis living outside the fence and raiding it whenever they want …”
A very sad interview that doesn’t give much hope.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAQYKvxO3vs
Mr Silver,
The Assassination of Juliano Mer who was head of that theater was not investigated by the Palestinians.
Mr. Mer was not only a Palestinian but an Israeli citizen as well.
It looks like Israel has decided to end the cover-up the Palestinians authorities are doing to this murder and to find those who performed it and bring them to justice.
While trying to bash Israel for everything that happen in the world, you twist the story upside down.
So you call this 3 a.m. raid “justice”, huh?
“Ahmad Nasser Matahen, a night guard and technician student at the theatre woke up by heavy blocks of stone being hurled at the entrance of the theatre. As he opened the door he found masked and heavily armed Israeli Special Forces around the theatre. Ahmed says that the army threw heavy blocks of stone at the theatre, “they told me to open the door to the theatre. They told me to raise my hands and forced me to take my pants down. I thought my time had come, that they would kill me. My brother that was with me was handcuffed.
The location manager of The Freedom Theatre, Adnan Naghnaghiye was arrested and taken away to an unknown location together with Bilal Saadi, a member of the board of The Freedom Theatre. When the general manager of the theatre Jacob Gough from UK and the co-founder of the theatre Jonatan Stanczak from Sweden arrived to the scene they were forced to squat next to a family with four small children surrounded by about 50 heavily armed Israeli soldiers.”
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/news/3715-israeli-army-attacks-freedom-theatre-in-jenin-refugee-camp
Here’s the real reason the theatre was raided:
“Just as The Freedom Theatre was built on the inspiration and legacy of Arna, his mother, so will its future work be built on the legacy of Juliano. It will carry on his message to promote freedom – not only for a nation but for each human being.
We are mourning, but we will continue our resistance through art, continue our struggle, continue to do our better than best.
As Juliano would say: The Revolution must go on!”
http://thefreedomtheatre.org/news.php?id=178
This is just another attempt to squash non-violent resistance by demonizing this effort and shutting down those who continue Juliano’s mission with false arrest and no doubt potential smear as you’re attempting to do right now.
Justice my eye!
Kalea, unfortunately you can’t distinguish between facts and fiction.
“Guard woke up by heavy blocks of stone being hurled at the entrance of the theater.”
Fact Guard Woke Up.
Fiction – IDF arsenal doesn’t include stones / blocks.
Real Description: Guard woke up when someone was knocking the door, or hammering the door.
stones ? that’s non violent (yehh right) IDF uses violence therefore doesn’t use stones.
This was an arrest of two people, which took place at 3 am. Why were they arrested ? I have no idea, neither do you.
all one can do, is wait until more info will be published.
You, as someone who seeks justice, should be very concerned of the fact that no arrest was made by the PA in the murder case of Juliano Mer-Khamis
nudnik – Whatever happened to Area A designation for Jenin? It seems that the IDF considers the Oslo agreement and Wye River to be just pieces of paper.
Jdledell
These types of armed raids into designated Area A happen every so often, under specific conditions.
For example, Israeli Police will not be chasing a car thief into the designated Area A. But the IDF will chase terrorists into it.
I have no idea what were the reasons that led to the arrest of the two.
Byt i am sure that within few days, we will all find out.
And these ‘terrorists’ just happen to be a worker & board member of a Palestinian theater which embraces artistic & non violent resistance to the Occupation?? What is the IDF afraid of? That an actor will somehow figure out a way to topple the Occupation??
Are you serious ? you think that the fact they worked for a theater exempt them from dealing with other activities ?
have you ever heard of Hilarion Capucci ? he was titular archbishop of Caesarea, and was caught (both hands in the cookie jar) transporting weapons in his car.
If i remember correctly transporting weapons isn’t part of the daily duties of an archbishop, but maybe i am just wrong.
hey, Nudnik….
It’s Jenin…there’s lots of DEBRIS there so lots of concrete…
Are u aware that the commandos who appeared with black face masks at 330am would have grenaded the door open if it weren’t steel….because they are NOT in the habit of “knocking”
further 1 or 2 of those arrested were US citizens…no explanation why they were taken hostage…no information was forth coming from any “authorities”…embassy was saying (even after the NYTimes reported it) that they had not heard about it.. but at least by then they were not hanging up on callers.
As for forensics…The PA did not do the Forensics..
Hiss at Abu Kabir perhaps “lost” some key evidence.
Nothing like this break in has ever happened at the Freedom theater in all these yrs. But the Israeli authorities have been stone-walling all day…no information for anyone. These are soldiers not police. Different areas of responsibility. Yes, we will all have to wait until they figure out what mendacious story is going to be spun next.
Hey Miriam
Yes i know it’s Jenin, but if you look at the picture of the theater available here ttp://www.alternativenews.org/english/
there were no stones / blocks around.
Simon Breach Grenada works well with steel door. if the IDF wanted the door breached, the soldiers have used the Simon.
And as for the rest, we will wait and see.
Oh please. If a Palestinian witness says they smashed the door with stone blocks that’s what they did. What did you think? IDF Special Forces are going to knock & ask to be invited for tea? Their MO is intimidation. When they want to find stone blocks they can find them. Pls. don’t raise such lame excuses.
As for “waiting & seeing” that seems to be the Israeli mantra regarding the Occupation as well. It’s a nasty business most seem to agree but we’ll just have to wait & see what if anything we can do about it. Meanwhile you’ll wait so long either the Occupation will destroy you or the world will force you to do things you don’t want to do to end it.
The guard by own admission was inside, and asleep.
He reported of what he heard, not what he saw. he saw masked soldiers, and that is indisputable. The IDF has in it’s arsenal intimidating explosives, what do they need to bring stones for ? A flash-bang is way more intimidating then a stone.
I am not sure Israel is the one holding the peace talks, neither does your congress, nor your president. and as for your doom and glum prophecies…
There is an old Jewish saying “after the destruction of the Temple prophecy was given to fools and infants”
I guess a prophecy test would be whether or not Israel will attack Iran in September – less then 45 days to see.
No sorry. We don’t work that way here. We don’t wait for the IDF to parcel out its lies in teaspoons & feed them to us.
As for being concerned about murders for which no one is charged would you care to see a list of the murders & serious mayhem by the IDF & Israeli settlers of Palestinians for which no one has been charged & compare that list to that of the PA?
Whenever you begin a statement with such a phrase almost invariably what follows is utter nonsense which you would like to believe is true, but which almost certainly hasn’t a shred of truth in it. If the IDF solves the Mer-Khamis murder I might just have to learn the polka (something I devoutly wish not to do).
No it only mean, that I, unlike you, don’t pretend to know what I don’t know.
It means that I don’t tell everybody else what the truth is, when I speculate.
Maybe if you and many others consider thoughts as mare thoughts and not facts, the world will truly be a better place.
As for you dancing polka, this is surely a sight I would not like to see, whether the IDF solve this murder or not.
Here’s a quote from your following article that I find appropriate to these night raids by the IDF.:
“In some ways, this reminds me of the 1920s assassinations during the Weimar period by German rightists of their political enemies (like Rosa Luxembourg), which set the stage for the Nazi ascendancy. It was through a combination of political intimidation, blackmail, coercion and legitimate political support that the Nazis came to power. Though the Likud and most settlers are not Nazis, their tactics during the phases of their rise to power share some similarities.”
Although I disagree with you on this: “Though the Likud and most settlers are not Nazis…”. Would you call those who enabled the rise of Nazism in Germany “Nazis”? I would.
Kalea…the similarities and parallels exist…are real…and long ago, an Israeli scientist who was an orthodox theologist coined the term JudeoNazis…after the 67 war…predicting that the occupation would be the ruination of the state. He offered to give back the Israel prize because he knew the PM hated his pronouncements….Yeshayahu Liebowitz, PhD.
I doubt he would last in Israel in these times…he died in his mid 90s about a decade ago.
Leibovitz is sorely missed today – he said things 40 years ago that are now mainstream leftist thinking in Israel
And he was the grandfather of Shammai Leibowitz.
His sister was the great Torah Scholar Nechama Leibowitz.
I studied with her at the Hebrew University.
A couple of years ago someone sent me this extract from “Izkor”, a film by now exiled Israeli Eyal Sivan, and it made me read some of Yeshayahu Leibowitz’s books.
Unfortunately it’s in Hebrew with only French subtitles. I’ve searched but found no English version, and I really hope that some of the Hebrew-speakers here or elsewhere will eventually translate these 6 minutes of a great man and his wise words.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA9gfGvyijs
of course Likudniks are afraid of the pride that this “Freedom Theatre” might instill in the minds of young palestinians. Likudniks are afraid of the power of ART in guiding the life of a nation. all the rest is peripheral. Not many readers but some will remember the WW2 song “DIE GEDANKEN SIND FREI” (My/The Thoughts are Free) that german jews used to silently sing on their way to their death, a song that palestinians should memorize and sing in GERMAN at all israeli festivities they can attend. Of course they will be arrested for singing this “most dangerous” song:
“DIE GEDANKEN SIND FREI”
check: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Gedanken_sind_frei
and for a choral rendition:
Excellent idea! That song is representative of the power of the human spirit. Yes, it should be sung in German or Hebrew. It would be a powerful image of resistance.
Google “DIE GEDANKEN SIND FREI”
I liked these:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAoh03Q3yLI (only one in english)
and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNSfHHM_b28
and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFXfJbMT3JA&feature=related
but also try:
and
and