Canadian Consortium on Human Security

This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of the first Arab-Israeli war, Israeli independence, the Palestinian nakba (‘catastrophe’) and the dispersal of the Palestinian refugees. The conflict, which also led to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip by Israel in 1967, has engendered a tremendous cost in lives and human dignity on both sides. As in most contemporary conflicts, civilians have borne most of the suffering, but have had to struggle for a voice in questions of war and peace. I am currently spending four months in Israel/Palestine carrying out my doctoral field research on the potential of new information and communication technologies (ICTs), such as the Internet and mobile phones, to empower civil society in a context of conflict and occupation.

When asked about the use of ICT in their work, most activists cite its crucial role in mobilisation, networking and raising awareness, but they are often just as keen to share more personal stories. Many Palestinians have told me that ICT is practically a necessity in the face of closures and curfews. A mobile phone is a means of keeping track of children passing through checkpoints, while the Internet is a way to stay in touch with family members not seen for years or to keep up with studies when physical access to the university campus is impossible. Likewise, in their work as activists, ICT has been vital to overcoming their isolation and geographical fragmentation.

Inspired by Gandhi and Martin Luther King, as well as the efforts of other villages, Bil’in is engaged in a non-violent struggle against the barrier. Since Internet access in Bil’in, as in other Palestinian villages, remains poor, mobile phones are the main means of communication among local activists. The Internet, meanwhile, has helped the villagers to break out of their isolation and connect with an informal network of Israeli and international activists, many of whom have become regular participants in the weekly protests. Solidarity actions have also been organised in a number of countries. A sophisticated website designed by an international volunteer, along with the countless photographs and videos of the weekly protests that proliferate on the Web, has expanded awareness of the campaign at an international level, and ICT has allowed local activists to reach the Palestinian, Israeli and international media. Of course, the very technologies adopted by activists in pursuit of their goals can also be an asset to their opponents. A Palestinian organiser of the demonstrations shared stories of monitoring of the campaign’s email list and mobile phone conversations by Israeli security. It should be noted that while the occupied territories are partially autonomous, the ICT infrastructure remains dependent on Israel to a significant degree, and all Palestinian mobile phone calls are re-routed through Israel. Although the campaign operates openly, its direct action tactics often depend on creativity and an element of surprise, so face-to-face networks have consequently been used to avoid such surveillance.

Although all my interviewees so far have been Israelis or Palestinians, I was interested in the work of a foreign solidarity activist I had met through a leader in the Bil’in campaign. I’ll call him Will, since I never had the chance to extend the courtesy of asking if I could use his real name in my work. When I requested an interview, he suggested that I come to Bil’in myself. Having already interviewed a number of Israeli and Palestinian activists involved in the demonstrations, I thought it would be important for me to experience their efforts on the ground. So, I met up with Will in Ramallah, and we took a yellow service (shared taxi) to Bil’in. As we entered the village, the driver of a passing vehicle stopped to warn our driver that there were military police nearby. Our driver was unconcerned. We would not be going in that direction. We finally climbed out of the service and found ourselves in a tranquil village nestled among the green hillsides around Ramallah. Looking out over its valleys and olive groves, it was impossible not to feel inspired by the place.

Will took me to a house where villagers, along with Israeli and international peace activists, were chatting in the front yard, waiting for the demonstration to begin. Some had been coming every Friday. Others were there for the first time. Youth in jeans, men in suits and a contingent of middle-aged women hoisting a Scottish flag laughed together in the warmth of the late morning sun. Will and I decided to wait until after the protest to sit down for an interview and, as noon prayers ended at the local mosque, we joined in the march to the barrier. The villagers clapped and chanted slogans, at one point enthusiastically led by a small boy riding the shoulders of a local activist.

It did not take long to reach the barrier where the demonstrators began chanting slogans in Arabic, Hebrew and English at the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) stationed on the other side. We then moved on to where a hole had been made in the fence, apparently in preparation for the demonstration, and a few protesters proceeded to expand it. Civil disobedience, including such symbolic ‘dismantling’ of the barrier, is a common tactic at these demonstrations. Although the protesters were unarmed and essentially peaceful, a few youth, apparently from the village, turned up to throw stones at the IDF. On more than one occasion, I saw activists from the organised demonstration trying to stop them, concerned that this would only encourage the IDF to use greater force. For its part, the IDF, as usual, dispensed tear gas and rubber bullets, and a number of demonstrators were injured.

Towards the end of the protest, a small number of demonstrators began to approach the fence, raising their hands in the air and calling to the soldiers that they were unarmed. The IDF then unlocked a gate in the fence and charged through, chasing the protesters. As we fled, I saw a number of soldiers, perhaps one or two metres in front of me, seize and begin beating Will as he yelled for help. He had not been engaged in any violent activity, and at the time was, like me, merely running from the army. At time of writing, a few days later, he remains in detention and will likely be deported.

We finally began to drift back towards the centre of the village. One demonstrator had a bloody bandage wrapped around his head. People laughed as two Palestinian medics argued vociferously in front of a Red Crescent ambulance that had belatedly arrived for a badly injured Israeli. I had seen this man earlier just after he had been shot with a rubber bullet. He had been yelling in pain as another demonstrator tried to help him. A woman nearby told me she had seen him protesting peacefully when a soldier shot him in the leg at close range.

ICT has played a vital role in the Bil’in campaign, but can it be considered to have contributed to civil society empowerment? What exactly has civil society been empowered to do? Three years later, what has been achieved? Last fall, in a case filed by Bil’in village, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered a modification in the route of the West Bank barrier, ruling that the existing route was not based on security considerations and was detrimental to the village. Mohammed, a key local organiser of the demonstrations, told me he considered this a victory, but not for the reasons I had expected. Despite the continued impact of the barrier on Bil’in, and the ongoing campaign against it, the case would serve as an example. It would prove to other Palestinians that non-violence could, in fact, achieve results. This was crucial, he said, since non-violence was the only viable way forward for the Palestinian struggle. Force could never work against the superior military power of the IDF, but contemporary wars are also media wars, and the Palestinians could only rely on non-violent protest and international solidarity. His comments reminded me of an interview in Bethlehem in which a Palestinian had told me that if the Internet had existed during the first Intifada, which had been largely non-violent, the Palestinians would have achieved statehood by now. In his view, new media are uniquely suited to winning international support for peaceful, grassroots struggles because they permit marginalised populations to bypass the mainstream media and tell their own stories.

A different perspective comes from a member of the anarchist movement in Israel. The anarchists are perhaps the best known Israeli participants in these Friday protests. While not optimistic about their ability to eliminate the barrier or end the occupation in the foreseeable future, my interviewee emphasised the inherent importance of resistance and of solidarity: despite frustration with the political situation, it remained important to show the Palestinian population that there existed Israelis willing to stand with them against the occupation.

My experience in Bil’in was also instructive for myself as a researcher. With no personal history as an activist, I was drawn to Bil’in as a scholar. Yet, even if I had wanted to, I could not have pretended that my presence there was apolitical. In any given context, particular actions carry particular meanings. My participation in the march alongside the villagers and their allies would constitute a de facto act of solidarity. So it would be seen in the eyes of the villagers, so it would be seen in the eyes of the IDF. Participant-observation means we are intervening in events in the field at the same time as we observe them as scholars. Ethical research entails thinking carefully about our own role in the field and its meaning. Even when our role is small, as mine was in Bil’in, we have a responsibility to decide whether it is compatible with our own values and ethics as researchers and human beings. This was indeed the case for my participation in the Bil’in demonstration. For a protest with different ends and means, I might have decided differently. Scholarly detachment does not free us from moral reasoning.

Likewise, writing itself constitutes an intervention into events. Whether renowned scholars at the cutting edge of the discipline or Ph.D students conducting field research, we should still consider carefully how we represent our experiences. As a participant-observer, my own account of my trip to Bil’in is inherently subjective. Yet, while recognising true objectivity to be impossible, I generally aspire to be fair to multiple perspectives in my work. So, to what extent should I be true to my own experience of what happened, and to what extent should I attempt to provide a balanced account?

For example, who was responding to whose ‘violence’ at Bil’in? I know that I saw the IDF use force before any stones were thrown, but is that what the IDF saw? Did things look different from the other side of the fence? Or, from a human security perspective, would we say that it was the villagers who were responding to structural violence – the dispossession of their lands and livelihood? This is a dilemma compounded by the fact that reality is not always balanced, and balance cannot be equated with a faithful portrayal of events. In this brief field note, I can only say that I have tried to report my own experiences and observations as accurately and completely as I am able to remember them.

Yet not all barriers are made of concrete and steel and guarded by soldiers. Mental and psychological barriers exist as well. While technology plays a key role in mobilisation among Palestinians or among Israelis, little joint peace work exists between Palestinians and Israelis. One exception has been the weekly demonstrations against the West Bank barrier over the past three years in the Palestinian village of Bil’in.

The Israeli government describes the West Bank barrier – part concrete wall, part fence – as a temporary measure to prevent suicide bombers from crossing into Israel from the West Bank. Most Israelis in Jerusalem tell me that they feel safer with it in place, citing a decline in attacks in recent years. Palestinians, meanwhile, feel further isolated in an ‘open air prison’. Moreover, the barrier does not follow the green line that separates Israel from territories occupied in 1967. The villagers of Bil’in complain that they are losing nearly 60% of their land, including the olive groves that constitute their primary livelihood, to the barrier and the settlements built and expanded on the other side.