Protective Presence Against Occupation of Palestine - Conversation With Will (in-person in East Bay; audio online option)
I just returned from three weeks in the occupied West Bank during the olive harvest, where international volunteers were invited to do nonviolent protective presence work with Palestinian farmers resisting military and paramilitary violence. Settling civilians in occupied territory is a war crime (Geneva articles 49, 85; ICC article 8) backed by US empire; nonviolent presence imposes privileged western bodies in conflict zones to support indigenous resistance to ethnic cleansing.
Soldiers and settlers repeatedly claimed false legal grounds to demand expulsion from ancestral indigenous lands Palestinian families have harvested for generations. Many of the trees we harvested were hundreds of years old, carefully cultivated by people who have lived on this land for millenia - some olive trees can live to be more than 2,000 years old.
The farmers we helped protect were repeatedly harassed and intimidated by armed settlers and the military. 32 members of our group were deported, I was detained for 2 hours as one of our hosts received a death threat if he stayed in the area, and we faced many other incidents of imperialist and zionist violence. We were attacked by settlers several times including when settlers armed wth clubs burned a car; video recorded a Palestinian woman being beaten nearly to death in media coverage that reached a global audience. Several situations became so life threatening we had to flee the areas we were trying to harvest in, sometimes with sudden calls of "Run!" as armed settlers arrived. Many Palestinians were killed in the occupied territories while I was there, and the sham "ceasefire" continues to provide political cover to US politicians during an ongoing genocide.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/07/1152296
https://www.middleeasteye.net/explainers/olive-harvest-israeli-settlers-palestine-west-bank
https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/6603.html
(citations are not endorsement of journalistic outlets)
International Solidarity Movement maintains protective presence across the West Bank during the harvest, at military checkpoints, with farmers facing ethnic cleansing and in solidarity with Palestinian resistance to expulsion. https://palsolidarity.org/. The organization is Palestinian led and follows a wide call in Palestinian resistance communities asking for international volunteers to join protective presence solidarity. Protective presence follows strict tactical nonviolence protocols to intervene in ongoing military and state-backed paramilitary violence. Many countries and languages were represented in our training group includng Italy, Spain, Sweden, the UK, USA, Lebanon, and France. We also worked alongside Israeli Jews resisting zionism, who were able to take greater risks because they cannot legally be deported as Israeli citizens. Our Palestinian comrades report that protective presence and international attention give farmers and community members greater freedom to access their land and live their lives refusing forced removal. This translates into direct material support as bags of olives earn about $400-$500 each and farmers haven't been able to harvest because of the settler violence and olive theft. We met widespread appreciation and gratitude among the local communities we worked with, including frequently being given food, invited to weddings, a civic appreciation ceremony at the local community center, media attention, and even stopped on the street by people recognizing us as international volunteers and offering to help us in any way during our stay.
I was invited to offer an informal conversation with people about what I experienced - I'm not an expert, and I want everyone to listen to Palestinians and people more knowledgable than me directly, but I'll do my best to share some of what I learned and what it means for me and host a discussion. I'm very much a learner here and trying to make sense of how to live in integrity in a world that is completely crazy. I don't have answers but I will encourage you if you can to consider joining protective presence brigades, as well as consider other ways to support indigenous resistance including material aid, prisoner support, the BDS boycott campaign, direct action disruption, and solidarity movements against zionism and US empire. And above all speaking the truth.
Truth, risk, and sacrifice seem to be the most important meditation prompts for personal action.
(Content may be upsetting; this event is for good faith dialogue and learning, not a space for denial of ongoing US imperialist and zionist genocide.)
POTLUCK DINNER/SNACKS😋 🍽️ : It's going to be late to get food outside, so bring a vegan dish/soup/dips/drinks/desserts, plant-based. Have fridge/stove/microwave. We will have a little break for snacks, dinner is optional at 8:30 at same location
Excited to have you all at the event. We had double the amount of people wanting to attend! Venue 2414 Sixth St Berkeley, CA