I'm back in my London, Ontario home right now, sipping a tall glass of orange juice and ignoring the television beside me. Halfway across the world, a giant wall is being built that has already stolen hundreds of thousands of dunams of land (4 dunams = 1 acre) and will ravage the lives of millions for many years to come. This Apartheid wall is being built on stolen Palestinian land, which encroaches more than 6km from the 1967 Green Line at some points.
When I was in Arrabony, the devastation the wall has inflicted on the lives of the villagers was palatable. Arrabony lies in the outskirts of Jenin, a rustic agriculture-based community close to the border with Israel's green line. It lost 2000 dunams of land to the illegal Israeli occupation, and is now losing 700 of its 3000 remaining dunams of land to the Apartheid wall.
The land is not about deeds or ownership. It is about livelihood. The entire Palestinian population is dependent on agriculture, both for maintaining the traditional ways of life, and for economic independence. As I spoke to the people of Arrabony, I could see that losing their land would mean losing their livelihoods, for they would no longer be able to farm or raise livestock.
The people of Arrabony knew something had to be done, and so they initiated a peace camp on the site of some of the Palestinian land slated for official theft. Internationals were invited to the camp to bear witness to the atrocity being committed against them. I was arrested on 9 July 2003 with three other internationals for standing in solidarity with the people of Palestine and Arrabony, and camping on Palestinian land that the Israeli Occupation Forces intended to steal. Our presence was our crime.
Since our arrest in Arrabony, over 50 Palestinian, Israeli and international activists have been arrested for protesting the Apartheid wall, and more than ten hurt by rubber-coated metal bullets. The Israeli government has taken seriously its work in suppressing any voices of dissent against the Apartheid wall, and continues to target anti-wall activists.
I should be in jail because being out of jail is complicity. Walls do not simply fall - they must be torn down, and it is my responsibility as a human individual to do my part. I extend this challenge to myself and to all of those around me: that first we learn more about this Apartheid wall and its despicable consequences; that we stand firmly in solidarity with the people of Palestine and Israel who oppose the devastation this wall will bring; and that we protest both here and there peacefully, but with determination. Let jail be not our disgrace, but our badge that we have done right.
in peace
in solidarity
with love
and rage
tarek