Fishing in the Sea at Gaza

            The Civil Peace Service Gaza boat (CPS Gaza) has finally started making regular trips with fishermen. Its job is to monitor human and legal rights violations at sea. The situation of Palestinian fishermen is particularly despondent even by Gazan standards. During the last officially brokered peace deal between the PLO and Israel that mentioned borders at the Mediterranean Sea, fishermen were given the right to boat up to twenty miles off the coast of Gaza. While by now that limit is an unattainable luxury, it is still biased heavily against Gaza, since it is the Israeli navy that enforces the border. Presumably this was done with the rationale that Israel needs to defend itself against water-borne weapon shipments into Gaza, which does not sit well ethically since there are no Palestinian boats (if in some alternate reality there was a Palestinian navy) patrolling the Israeli border to ensure that the Israelis do not receive any water-born weapon shipments. The Israeli military has applied successive measures aimed at tightening the economic blockade on Gaza, and now fishermen are prohibited from venturing out more than three miles from the coast.

            When I first went out to the three-mile marker it seemed like a decent enough space to fish in, but I soon found out there is little more in those first three miles than some chance jellyfish. The three miles have been overfished for some time now. This is evident when you look at the fishermen themselves—90% live in poverty, up from 50% in 2008. This policy is obviously targeting civilians. Leaving aside the ethical implications of Israel’s complete dominion over Palestinian borders, the three mile limit is not even justifiable for “security.” It is short work for an Israeli gunboat to overtake any vessel from any range. Weapons smugglers have no chance whatsoever of slipping through the net of patrol boats.

            But let’s even give them the benefit of this doubt, as ridiculous as it is. As soon as the CPS Gaza had left port today we encountered an Israeli gunboat harassing some fishing trawlers. We had watched from a distance as the gunboat came well within the three miles (the fishing trawler was stationary at two miles out) and pulled belligerently up next to the Palestinian boat. At this point the two ships were close enough so that everyone involved could clearly see each other. The Palestinian men were untangling their net and setting it up for another cast. One boat was full of people in camouflage fatigues with heavy machine guns and canons on both ends. The other was full of men wearing shorts and holding fishing line in their hands. There could be no mistaking these men for combatants. The Israelis opened fire. As soon as the CPS Gaza was close enough for the journalist on board to be seen, the gunboat relented and chugged back out to the three-mile line. To say that this was a case of mistaken identity would imply that the only requirement for becoming a sailor in the Israeli navy is an IQ below 50. Another fisherman tossed a still-gasping fish at our boat to show his exasperation. Look at me, he gestured. Isn’t it obvious that I’m fishing?

Fishing trawler fired upon by gunboat

Gunboat in the distance after retreating

Until this point I had harbored doubts about the fishing syndicate’s claims that an international presence increases a boat’s catch more than ten times over but as we proceeded to interrupt other gunboats engaging with Palestinian fishing boats it became obvious that when non-Palestinians are present the Israeli navy stays far away. On one fishing trawler that we accompanied, the men whooped and hollered and told us that this is the farthest they have been able to fish in over two years. After puttering up and down the coast for two hours, the CPS Gaza had succeeded in forcing every gunboat to retreat. We celebrated with the ecstatic fishermen and felt like nonviolent direct action was really accomplishing something. Then, as we docked, the gunboats moved back in and opened fire once again.

Maybe tomorrow we’ll stay out for longer.

Thanks to CPS Gaza for the statistics.

Rafah

            I just came back from the border at Rafah where there was a demonstration planned to protest the paltry 400 person/day limit imposed by the Egyptian authorities. The gathering did not materialize but I got a chance to witness firsthand how difficult it is to leave Gaza. No, the siege is not “broken.” Egypt is championing itself as the savior of the Palestinians when in fact it is merely catching up to its big-brother oppressor’s policies. Instead of a complete stoppage, Egypt is still barring men aged 18 to 40 years from passing unhindered—long held as Israel’s policy in the West Bank. Nabil al-Arabi called the siege of Gaza musheen—disgraceful. As if it’s not disgraceful to assume that every male between the ages of 18 and 40 is some sort of danger to society.

            The siege is not over. There are no goods allowed through Rafah, only human traffic. 400 people moving through each day (and not even that much with all the closures) will not change the 45% unemployment in Gaza. It will not stop the perpetual shelling or the random arrests. It will not make the drones leave the sky. The Supreme Military Council can keep advertising the end of the siege but Gazans are not blind idiots. They see that their tap water is still toxic and they still see a fence in all four directions.

EDIT: Additional information on why the "opening" is worthless

Visiting a Prisoner's Family

            Saleem Ali El-Kayali was first arrested when he was twenty-four. His father had just passed away and they came for him on the third day of mourning. He came and went from prison for eight years, finally settling in a dark cell for one year before he stood in front of a military judge for the five minutes it took to read out his verdict: a life sentence for possession of a weapon—an allegation that he neither confessed to nor was presented evidence of. We are discussing this over afternoon tea with his family. His brother, Ismail, narrates what has happened since Saleem disappeared into prison in 1982 for the last time.

            Saleem’s wife gave birth to their daughter in 1983. Instead of attending the delivery of his daughter, Saleem was just beginning his incarceration. The two did not have any contact for fifteen years. It was only then that she was permitted to show her birth certificate to the warden, confirming for the Israelis what had been obvious to everyone else for one-and-a-half decades: she was in fact Saleem’s daughter. She visited several times and they frantically tried to share what he had missed: toilet training, bedtime stories, days at the beach, the sun, the sky, the sea, scrapes and bruises, tears, laughs, joy, learning to read, learning to write, learning to love, learning to remember, remember that the stranger’s face in the portrait was Father. Each visit was laborious. It involved waiting at the border for hours in order to be allowed forty-five minutes together. She only visited several times because when she turned eighteen, in the eyes of the authorities, she ceased to be Saleem’s daughter. She has spent perhaps five hours in total with the man who brought her into this world.

            Saleem is now fifty-seven. Spending twenty-nine years in jail has left him with diabetes, stomach problems, and high blood pressure. At least, those were the problems he had four years ago when Ismail was able to visit him last. Now his daughter has a daughter of her own. I ask if he knows that he is a grandfather. They tell me that he probably does. Probably, as in there is not a one hundred percent chance that Saleem is aware of her existence. However, they are hopeful. Every year as a gift for the Eid each prisoner is allowed some news of his family. It is more likely however that Saleem first found out through the prison grapevine, a network that shares news heard on the radio. Maybe someone whispered to him out of nowhere, like a knife in the dark, like a shadow of joy—you’re a grandfather. This is how the Israelis extract their retribution from anyone who dares to resist an illegal occupation.

            Ghaiqa, his mother, sits with us today. She has not seen her son in more than ten years. She tells us that she misses him and now cries openly. I shamefacedly hang my head low in silence, and the silence is deafening because there is no message I can impart that will change the fact that she is ninety-seven years old and aching for her son. She sobs, I am going to die. I want to see my son. I hang my head lower because not only have I bought the walls that prevent her son from caring for his fragile mother but I have paid for the jailors as well. She is not even asking for his freedom, just for a visit, a glimpse. No one in the room wants to voice the likelihood that she will not receive it so they console her with the same word that is so common here in Gaza. It is the answer to the fishermen’s wish to do their work without getting shot at and abducted by the Israeli navy. It is the answer to the hope that the drone buzzing above will not give way to the shriek of an F16 and the whistle that only two tons of freefalling TNT can make. It is the answer to the university patient or the cancer patient stuck at the border. Insha’allah.

Support the Troops

            I was getting some paperwork done at the Cairo Press Center and on my way out I noticed there were roughly 100 people demonstrating on the ground floor. Given the fact that major protests took place here in January, the building is one of the most heavily guarded in the city—encrusted in barbed wire, with soldiers lining the corridors and perched in .50 caliber machine gun nests. The demonstrators must have been employees if they managed to access the atrium, and they were just chanting quite peacefully. Right as I walked out the door 50 soldiers toting billy clubs and submachine guns stormed the building.

            I seem to remember some news commentators remarking that Egyptians are in love with their army, and that relations between citizens and officers are excellent. From my limited experience this does not seem to be the case. The military here is as repressive as anywhere else. The junta issues pleas that urge demonstrators to go home in order to show their love for Egypt, and they subvert rallies at Tahrir by claiming there are agents at work who wish to undermine the special relationship between the people and the armed forces. The people, the real people that is, are not fooled. They do not allow government officials or the military near Tahrir. Many Egyptians learned this lesson in the Ministry of Interior, across the street from where I am living. As perhaps the most fortified building in Cairo its armed sentinels radiate for blocks. Home of the secret police, this is where women were recently abducted from Midan Tahrir and virginity-tested. Among the cluster of state ministries it is the tallest—together they form a glittering multiplex dedicated to the wonders of US-sponsored militarism “in which massacre is only an administrative detail.” They are ringed to the south by hotels in the form of 5-star Western-style paeans to rampant capitalism. I thought of Chalmers Johnson:

   As late as 1874, well after the Civil War, our country’s standing army had an authorized strength of only 16,000 soldiers, and the military was considerably less important to most Americans than, say, the post office. In those days, an American did not need a passport or governmental permission to travel abroad. When immigrants arrived they were tested only for infectious diseases and did not have to report to anyone. No drugs were prohibited. Tariffs were the main source of revenue for the federal government; there was no income tax.

   A century and a quarter later the U.S. Army has 480,000 members, the navy 375,000, the air force 359,000, and the marines 175,000, for a total of 1,389,000 men and women on active duty. The payroll for these uniformed personnel in 2003 was $27.1 billion for the active army, $22 billion each for the navy and the air force, and $8.6 billion for the marines. Today, the federal government can tap into and listen to all citizens’ phone calls, faxes, and e-mail transmissions if it chooses to. It has begun to incarcerate native-born and naturalized citizens as well as immigrants and travelers in military prisons without bringing charges against them. The president alone decides who is an ‘illegal belligerent,’ a term the Bush administration introduced, and there is no appeal from his decision. Much of the defense budget and all intelligence agency budgets are secret. These are all signs of militarism and of the creation of the national security state.

Prompted by politicians and CEO’s, myths of civilian/soldier camaraderie run rampant in our post-modern society, predictably culminating in the United States. The panegyrical debate in American politics alternates between portrayals of soldiers as the first line of defense against anti-Western Islamists and lamentations for broken heroes who are taken advantage of by their commanders. The first camp voraciously foams at the mouth for the blood of brown people. The second camp taps the brakes on an all-out assault on human life and entreats us to support the troops, bring them home. At first glance this seems like a quite reasonable place to begin the debate. We know that recruits undergo a thorough psychological battering in boot camp and as part of this conditioning split-second reactions are instilled in their subconscious. However it seems as soon as they graduate from training and enter active duty the discourse strips them of all agency.

Remarkably, the support the troops proposal is a far more hegemonic imposition. At least the right-wingers evoke a patriotic mythology that the soldier is fulfilling. On the other hand liberal reformists are outright dismissive—they do not approve of the conflict but they entreat the recruits to obey the authoritarian command structure. Blind to the realities of warfare, reformists only stipulate that atrocities halt on their command. This poses a dilemma: are we merely calling for a withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq because of our inability to achieve our goals humanely without rupturing the police state’s integrity? I hope not. I would like to think opposition to the conflicts is premised on the fact that belligerent war is the supreme regressive force, on the fact that it is wrong to interfere with a society that has not predicated its existence on harming us.

            If Americans are to oppose war it must be understood that as taxpayers our complicity is double—we send troops bearing our colors into battle and we meretriciously urge them to adhere to the dictates of their superiors. The support the troops argument only addresses the former and in doing so subverts true anti-war efforts. It relives the troops of their moral commitments but then punishes them for exceeding their mandate, which is not a pure one in the first place (here I am thinking of Abu Gharib and kill squads). Right-wingers assume soldiers are exercising their own morals; support the troops wants soldiers to yield to the liberal reformists’ morals, which are frankly suspect.

            When I was in the occupied West Bank I found myself face to face with troops carrying out their duties, which involved physically repressing nonviolent demonstrations. Oddly enough I met a few American citizens wearing the Star of David on their shoulders. As young adults in their 20’s they were fully caoable of acting on their own, something that would surprise American liberal reformists. The IDF punishes failure to carry out orders with prison sentences among other measures. Yet I never once witnessed a soldier choose to be court-martialed instead of beating defenseless civilians or blocking sick children and pregnant women from reaching a hospital. This is telling: given the chance (and there were many given) between committing a  malum prohibitum act—one that is prohibited by the state—and committing a malum in se act—one that is morally wrong—they chose the latter every time. It’s a similar situation in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan (and now Libya and soon who knows where else). Support the troops insidiously shames refuseniks by failing to shame their comrades who chose to go on carrying out imperial aggression. If we wish to end American bellicosity it has to be through disrupting the military’s despotic hierarchy. At the end of the day soldiers are a physical manifestation of the state’s power. They are the ones who arrest civilians, bulldoze houses, deliver ordinance, fire into crowds. Unanimously told to act inhumanely during combat, they come home and turn into adrenaline junkies and drug addicts in order to forget. Truly seeking an end to American warmongering begins and ends with creating an environment that welcomes those who refuse to blindly obey. Paradoxically, this is the converse of support the troops.