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| In Tel Aviv. The photographer is careful not to show the faces of the Palestinian women. |
On Friday, July 23rd, a dozen Jewish women, a dozen Palestinian women, one
baby, and three Palestinian children took a trip from the West Bank in six private cars. We crossed several checkpoints, drove
to Israel’s coastal plain, and toured Tel-Aviv and Jaffa together. We ate in a restaurant, swam in the sea, and played
on the beach. We ended our day in Jerusalem. Most of our Palestinian guests had never seen the sea. Most had not, in their
entire lives, prayed at their sacred places: they looked upon them longingly from the heights of Mount Scopus.
None of our guests had an entry permit from the Israeli authorities. We are announcing
here publically that we deliberately violated the Law of Entry into Israel. We did this in the footsteps of Ilana Hammerman,
after the state lodged a complaint against her with the Israeli police. She had written an article published in Ha’aretz
on May 7th reporting on a similar excursion.
We cannot
assent to the legality of the Entry into Israel Law, which allows every Israeli and every Jew to move freely in all regions
between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River while depriving Palestinians of this same right. They are not permitted free
movement within the occupied territories nor are they allowed to enter the towns and cities across the green line, where their
families, nation, and traditions are deeply rooted.
They
and we, all ordinary citizens, took this step with a clear and resolute mind. In this way we were privileged to experience
one of the most beautiful and moving days of our lives, to meet and befriend our brave Palestinian neighbors, and together
with them, to be free women, if only for one day.
We did
not go with “terrorists” or enemies, but with human beings. The authorities separate us from these women with
fences and roadblocks, laws and regulations, often claimed to protect our safety. In fact, the barriers are only designed
to perpetuate mutual enmity and the control of Palestinian land seized illegally in contravention of international laws and
the values of justice and humanity.
It is not we who are
violating the law: the State of Israel has been violating it for decades. It is not we—women with a democratic conscience—who
have transgressed: the State of Israel is transgressing, spinning us all into the void.
Henry David Thoreau, in his famous essay “Civil Disobedience” (1845) wrote: "…when a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the
refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military
law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is the
fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army."
Listen to these words, see how aptly they describe our situation here and now —and do as we have
done.
The above text appeared as a paid ad in Ha'aretz on 6
August 2010. The writers are all Israeli Jewish women.
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