Part one of this Gaza picture weblog is about obvious suffering, injustice, brutality. Part two is resistance to all that. Resistance how? And what is the context for this resistance?

The context is strangulation, Israel strangling Palestinians thru the Occupation generally but most harshly in the Gaza Strip. Currently [January 16, 2005], due to a Palestinian attack on a commercial entry point, Karni, the Strip is totally sealed. A friend who’d gone in with us last Monday, January 11, 2005, chose not to leave with us on Wednesday but delay her leaving until Friday, and to the best of my knowledge is now trapped inside. She is a United States citizen, working for an NGO, however, no special privilege for her. Imagine what Palestinians experience. In addition, Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has declared a blanket halt to all contact with the Palestinian leadership, including the newly elected president, Mahmoud Abbas. Even in the best of times, Gaza is dangerous. While we were there—aside from the problems of entrance and exit—in the southern section of Gaza City, the Israeli army attacked alleged militants, shelling, bombing, and firing missiles. Friends in that section of the city were terrified; I slept blissfully thru it all.

Another aspect of the effect of strangulation is the purported increase in the crime rate. Although Palestine generally has a low rate (living in Ramallah and traveling fairly widely in the West Bank, I can attest to at least the perception of safety), a Gazan told me Gaza City has had 50 murders (Palestinian against Palestinian) in the past two months.

I asked, why is Gaza targeted for such severe pain? Various answers, among them: the strength of the armed resistance (which is related to the oppression, which preceded the other? if that is a valid question); the geographical separation from most of the rest of the world and the consequent absence of the media; the nearness to Egypt, factions of which provide support including arms; and one not so widely held view that the Strip has resources such as water desired by Israel. Puzzling to me is the presence of Israeli Jewish settlers. There is little historic Jewish activity in this area, so what is the justification?

How is this oppression resisted?

Public Achievement is a program sponsored but the American Friends Service Committee which hopes to teach youth leadership and survival skills. Those completing the program are the coaches. Their imperative is to then train more (and slightly younger) youth. This second high school age group chooses a community service project that implicitly enlists the support of national and local administrations and other organizations.

In Gaza City there are two projects. One group of girls chose to construct a library in a local community organization (the Palestinian Committee for Inter Communication). They solicited book donations, found space for the library, established a way to supervise lending, and when I met them were finishing the installation and rehearsing a program to formally open the library the following day.

The second group of boys and girls (two separate mixed gender groups joining for the final phase) were landscaping a barren traffic circle near the sea. They had planted trees and shrubs and were about to maintain them when I met them. But first, a group session consisting of discussion about democracy, games that built community (like having one leave the room, the others choosing a leader, the absent one returning and guessing who was leading the group in gestures), and a game that might be titled, “Bang, bang, boom,” very close to the violence of their culture, but turning it to play.

The first group was exuberant, hard working, seemingly committed, and had prepared talks and skits for the opening celebration. The second group was moving against a strong cultural wind of separating the genders, but despite that seemed to work together well.

I don’t know the outcome of these two projects, nor of the projects in other parts of Palestine such as Ramallah. Nor do I fully understand how they bring about the end of Occupation, if indeed that is a cardinal principle. I do know that the youth I observed were surviving, aiyish, and more than surviving, thriving, happily, mubsut.

Karni

Prime Minister halts all ties with Abbas over terror, by Amos Harel and Nir Hasson, Haaretz, January 16, 2005--

Gaza generally, via the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States

Crime in Gaza

Public Achievement--

American Friends Service Committee in Palestine (needs updating)

Historic Jewish communities in Gaza--