Brian Yanity: What do you think everyday Alaskans should know about what’s going on in Palestine?

Jessica Marcy: Whew. Where to begin? There is too much that the average Alaskan does not know. Here’s a start:

     They need to know, most importantly, that widespread human rights violations and collective punishment tactics are employed daily by the Israeli army.  The Israeli army occupies every aspect of Palestinian life to such a degree that an act as simple as a 20 minute drive can take upwards of 4 hours. Despite the terrible oppression, 3.8 million Palestinian children, men and women live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, continuing to struggle for their rights and freedom. Still, another several million live as refugees in countries throughout the world. Many live hand to mouth, trying only to provide for themselves and their family and to live with a measure of safety. The image of Palestinians created by our media as religious fanatics who coach their children to be suicide bombers is such a gross misrepresentation of a beautiful culture and people that it hurts me even to say it.

     Alaskans must also know that the separation “fence” between Israel and Occupied Palestine is not a simple barrier, but is instead a solid concrete 30-foot high wall. Even if the argument can be made that the Wall is effective as a security measure (and that is a hotly debated assertion), the fact remains that the route of the Wall does NOT follow the internationally recognized 1967 border (also called the Green Line) that separates Israel proper from the Occupied Territories. It instead winds its way deep inside the West Bank of the Palestinian Territories, effectively annexing over 142,000 acres, or 10% of their most resource-rich land  to Israel. Other areas in which the Wall deviates widely from the Green Line are those that protect the largest of the illegal Israeli settlements built on Palestinian land.

     And finally a few random facts that are key to any discussion of Palestine: While the dismantling of less than 2,000 settlement homes within Gaza is currently in the international limelight and at the center of much heated debate within Israel and the Jewish community at large, the Israeli government is concurrently building an additional 6,400 illegal settlement housing units in the West Bank.

     The U.S.A. funds this Occupation to the tune of over $3 billion a year in direct aid and has done so for each of the past 25 years. This amount does not include an additional $2 to $3 billion given annually in the form of tax-breaks, military support and forgiven loans. The U.S. also stands squarely in the way of any attempt by the UN and the international community at large to hold Israel accountable for their blatantly illegal activities and human rights violations. We vetoed 32 UN resolutions on behalf of Israel between 1972 and 1997 alone. In other words, we shield Israel from holding any accountability under international law. Perhaps that is because, as our own behavior on the international stage today demonstrates, we don’t respect international law ourselves.

Yanity: Why did you go to Palestine and why are you going back?

Marcy: I came to Palestine the first time by chance. I wanted to travel to a conflict region as preparation for future work as a humanitarian aid nurse. I needed to see if I could hack it in an area that was dangerous and challenging, or if I would run home crying for my Mom. Choosing Palestine and Israel as my testing ground came as a result of a number of random occurrences, the primary one being a recommendation by a friend to work at a Palestinian Cultural Center that could simultaneously offer me housing directly within a refugee camp. It was a great opportunity to work with children at an established Center and yet be close enough to the reality of their every day lives that I could gain true perspective of the situation.

     My return to Palestine was inevitable after the intense experiences and deep connections I made with the people who struggle there. I met the most amazing, strong and deeply loving people I’ve ever known. And while I only experienced a minute amount of their suffering, it touched me deeply. The knowledge that our mainstream U.S. media is at best indifferent to Palestinian suffering and at worst prints outright lies about the reality of the Occupation only solidified my determination to return. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and hearing. I couldn’t believe that I had never heard or read anything at home that presented the reality of what they endure. I was determined to return in order to send as much of the truth back to Americans as possible through telling the Palestinian experience.

Yanity: What connections do you see between Israeli’s attacks on Palestine and the U.S. attacks against Iraq and Afghanistan?

Marcy: They are both examples of illegal occupations that have been extensively misrepresented by a biased media. Through acts that have been carried out under these Occupations, the U.S. and Israel demonstrate that they shun international law and adherence to basic human rights.

     The massive propaganda-spewing machine created by our mainstream media and elected officials only contribute to the atrocities endured by both Iraqis and Palestinians. I see and hear lies every day about the attacks waged in these countries and the reasons justifying them. Whatever happened to Afghanistan anyway? Did we ever hear? We transitioned so nicely from Afghanistan into Iraq, from Taliban and Osama to Saddam that few people I know even questioned it. The media and the government are the key players in all of this - here and in Israel. They lie about the tragic reality on the ground, they lie about the number of citizens who die, they lie about the number of U.S. soldiers who die, and they lie about the reasons why the occupations happened in the first place, or in the case of Israel deny that they are occupiers at all.
 
     The apathy of most Americans toward questioning our foreign policies in the Middle East only serves to exacerbate the issues. We need to wake up as a nation and start educating ourselves about what the hell is really going on. We need to stop putting our goddamn flags and ‘support the troops” stickers on our car bumpers and actually get involved in some real efforts toward supporting our troops by getting them out of places they don’t belong.

Yanity: What are the connections between the plight of Palestinians and social justice issues in Alaska?

Marcy: I’m not as familiar with Native Alaskan issues as I would like to be, but I know that subsistence and land rights are major issues. The struggle over rights to the land between an indigenous people versus a group of transplants has happened hundreds of times over throughout history.

     The struggle of who ‘owns’ Palestine is a vital part of the Israel-Palestine conflict. I would bet that Alaskan Natives have consistently received the short end of the stick when this question has been asked about Alaskan land. Whatever rights to the land and water resources they do own today, they had to fight for every inch.

     Palestinians have been locked in a decades old struggle for their land without any positive result thus far. They are denied the right to return to their villages that their families lived in for generations. They are even denied access to land that Israel agrees is theirs when that land is unfortunate enough to be located in the path of an expanding illegal Israeli settlement or more recently the Wall.

     The struggle is not just for the land and a return to their homes, but also for the resources located on and under the land. One of the key questions between Israel and the Palestinian Territories is who controls access to water. The answer is Israel. For example, in the Bethlehem area of the West Bank where I spent most of my time last fall, there exists a relatively large water table underneath the city. However, Israel owns the rights (or rather takes the rights) to all of it. They siphon the water to the Israel side and then sell it back to the Palestinians. Every family I spoke with said they expect to spend some days of every given week in the summer without water because they simply cannot afford to keep their tank filled.

     The major difference that separates the Israeli-Palestinian issue from social justice issues anywhere else, however is the highly emotional cultural memory the Jewish community carries of the Holocaust, as well as their proclaimed historical and religious claim to the land of Palestine. The image that is created is one of Israelis as victimized by the world at large and therefore entitled to reclaim a religious homeland as a place of refuge. The irony, of course is that their ‘salvation’ from the Holocaust and centuries of persecution comes only at the expulsion, victimization and murder of another peoples, the Palestinians.

Yanity: How does mainstream media portray the Palestinian issue?

Marcy: If I were to ask someone on the street what they think about Palestine (and I have), I would find primarily two responses. The first is: “Where is Palestine and what’s going on there? Isn’t that the country fighting with India? Or “They’re the people who raise their kids to be suicide-bombers, Islamic fanatics”.

    Our media does nothing to combat the gross ignorance most Americans have about this issue and it rarely attempts to present the Palestinian narrative.

    One question I rarely hear from the media and others who condemn (rightfully) suicide-bombers is WHY? Why are people willing to kill themselves to attack Israeli citizens? That’s a question our media needs to explore more fully rather than explain away as ‘religious fanaticism’ or ‘terrorism’. While these terms can certainly explain some portion of the Palestinian attacks it does not get to the root of why. To choose a suicide attack at the age of 17 over a future life with much-loved family and community indicates a much deeper issue is at play. One that stems from a life stewed in utter despair and hopelessness for a future.

     A child raised under occupation has watched loved ones being shot and killed directly in front of him, sometimes feeling the brain matter hit his own face (this was a personal account told to me last fall). He has watched his father and mother humiliated at a checkpoint by a teenage soldier drunk on the absolute power he wields over them. One who tells them to wait as he checks their IDs with security, yet then goes to sit down with his feet kicked up for 3 hours in the shade directly in their line of sight. He has been put under curfew along with the rest of his town under threat of death if he leaves his home for any reason. A child raised under this occupation knows no rest or peace when an army raid can happen at any time, day or night, which results in an arrested father, brother or grandfather or all three, without reason. Or perhaps instead this same child is shattered awake by a midnight explosion in the refugee camp as the army destroys an entire apartment building of homes as collective punishment against a single family who lives inside. In actuality of course all the families in that building will be made homeless and the entire camp will suffer the intense trauma.

     These facts of the occupation are ignored in our media and therefore what the American public is left with is only one part of the story. We cannot make an accurate judgement of the Palestinian people or their struggle with only part of the story. Where is the voice of the Palestinian experience in our media?

UN OCHA                                                                      http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/opt/

US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation                       http://www.endtheoccupation.org/            

Voices for a Free Palestine                                 http://www.voicesofpalestine.org/