Huwaida Arraf
Video of one of those sissy pacifists
Huwaida Arraf (born 1976 in Detroit, Michigan) is a co-founder of the
International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a pro-Palestinian organization.
The stated mission of the ISM is to resist the Israeli occupation using
nonviolent tactics. Arraf is married to Adam Shapiro, another ISM
co-founder, whom she met while both were working at the Jerusalem center
of “Seeds of Peace”, an organization that seeks to foster dialogue
between Jewish and Palestinian youth.Arraf, who is Christian, is the daughter of a Israeli Arab father and a
Palestinian mother. Arraf majored in Arabic and Judaic studies and
political science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She also
spent a year at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and studied Hebrew on
a kibbutz.Huwaida later earned a JD at American University’s Washington College of
Law. Her focus was on International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law,
with a particular interest in war crimes prosecution.
BuddhalovesPaine:
Stan Goff,
I am just a bit puzzled as to why you chose to put the word sissy in front of the word pacifist. While some people such as myself may have defended the use of violent tactics to fight injustice as far as I know neither I nor anyone else has even implied that pacifists are sissies.
I came across an interesting comment yesterday while helping my daughter with a book report, that I think is applicable to this thread.
The scene is a dark jail cell in Nazi occupied Netherlands. In the cell is a wounded communist resistance fighter.
A 12 year old boy has been placed a few minutes before in the cell with HER. The darkness of the cell led the young woman to talk to the boy about about light and darkness. Suddenly she began to talk as if a third person was in the cell.
“Light, yes, but light is not always just light. I mean a long time ago I wanted to write a poem comparing light with love–no, I mean love to light. Yes, that is another possibility, of course. You could also compare light to love. Maybe that is even more beautiful, for light is older than love. Christians say that it is not, but then, they are Christians. Or are you a Christian?”
” I don’t really think so.”
“In the poem I wanted to compare poem love to the kind of light that you see clinging to the trees right after sunset, the magical sort of light. That is the kind of light that they have inside of them when they love someone. Hate is the darkness. That is no good. And yet we have to hate the fascists, and that is perfectly all right. How can that be possible? It is because we hate them in the name of the light. Where as they hate only in the name of darkness. WE HATE HATE ITSELF AND FOR THIS REASON OUR HATE IS BETTER THAN THEIRS. But that is why it is more difficult for us. For them everything is very simple. But, for us it is more complicated. We have got to become a bit like them in order to fight them–so we become a bit unlike ourselves. We first have to do away with something inside of ourselves before we can do away with them. Not them, they can simply remain themselves. That is why they are strong. But they will lose in the end because they have no light in them. The only thing is, we must not become too much like them, we must not detroy ourselves altogether, otherwise they will have won in the end?”
Does anyone know who the woman in the cell was? Does anyone know what became of that 12 year old boy?
13 January 2009, 11:26 amStan:
My wisecrack was stimulated by Mr. Lock & Load.
When I was on the trigger, I was constantly told I was in the light, that I was hating hate. I told myself that, too.
Monday is MLK Day.
13 January 2009, 5:45 pmRequired:
It’s amazing that the sentence “WE HATE HATE ITSELF AND FOR THIS REASON OUR HATE IS BETTER THAN THEIRS” wasn’t meant as a parody mocking advocates of armed struggle. It strikes me as a joke.
I don’t think I would call myself a pacifist, but a lot of the stuff Stan has said about vengeance and forgiveness have really resonated with me.
14 January 2009, 10:36 amBuddhalovesPaine:
Is Lock and Load former President Reagan? Over the past couple years as I have attempted to turn some people in to real agents of change I often pointed out that even the soldiers fighting for Germany in the second world war thought they were fighting to save human civilization from the “barbarian” Russians and decedent capitalists. It is true that thinking that we are on the side of justice is not same as being on the side of justice. That is why we can not judge our advisaries in a religious sense. In the vast majority of cases we can not know for certain what our advisaries know or when they became aware of critical information. But that does not mean that in some conflicts all sides are equally bad to the “eye in the sky”. Although in some cases all sides may be equally bad to them (it). We are forced by the fact that we exist to make moral decisions. Not to make a decision is to make a decision. Because humans, including myself, are so stupid, have such limited access to reliable information, and can not really understand what the consequences of our actions will be when they get factored in to this 6.5 billion ring circus it comes as no surprise that most people just throw up their hands and refuse to do anything other than what is required by their rulers. The eye in the sky who is in charge refuses to come down and take charge. That means te XO is in charge. For most people that means the ruler is in charge. But the eye in the sky never told me that the ruler was in charge. Perhaps I had gone to the bathroom when this information was given out. Now there are all these ideas running through the human population about how one becomes an XO. Ideas like being elected “by the people”, being appointed by God,
by having power to compel obidience, and so forth. Well I do not like any of these theories. So I consider myself the XO. Although the real world functions as Che said it did, men with guns can be fooled or manipulated with money or ideas, positive or negative. Perhaps I am getting off track but my point is that some people for whatever reason, whether it be genetic, or life experiences think that they are capable of making a decision on at least some issues.
This leads me in to something that I have been waiting to comment on concerning your post from several days ago were you closed with the lines fuck government fuck ideologies, the solution is many solutions. I was waiting to see if anyone else would comment on that but it is a thread that seems to be growing stale.
Your closing statement seems to be an endorsement of decentralization. I can understand an endorsement of decentralization. Yet ideologies are inescapable. To say fuck ideologies is itself an ideology. In fact if a person did not know anything about Stan Goff and were to read Fuck Government Fuck ideologies such a person could easily conclude that Stan Goff was an anarcho-capitalist libertarian. I am not convinced that this idea of every community for itself is a wise way for mankind to move in to the future.
If humans live in very decentralized groups then it would be very easy for poultry farmers all over the world to feed their live stock antibiotics to increase their productivity. This is in fact what is occuring right now in our not so decentralize society. Yet this practice has huge potential externalities. I read in a magazine (perhaps Discover, perhaps Scientific American) not to long ago that not only does this practice not raise productivity but it creates bacteria that are immune to antibiotics. I am sure that you can understand the potential public health risks that such a practice raise. Should someone have the authority to prevent poultry farmers from feeding their livestock antibiotics?
I chose this example for a second reason. If we really want to say that we ALWAYS oppose the use of force to solve political problems then we end up by default endorsing an anarcho-capitalistic libertarian society.
I can just see an alien space craft coming to earth from another dimension 111 years from know and finding a planet with no humans. Yet they find some newspapers that tell them the story of earths final days. A special interest group concerned by poultry farming practices tried to gain support for a plan to arrest all poultry farmers who refused to stop feeding antibiotics to their live stock. Yet the poultry lobby struck back. A clever PR firm came up with the slogan I lost my job as a result of society supervision of my industry, at first they prevented poultry farmers from using antibiotics and as a result many poultry farms closed, and I did not speak out. Then they prevented petrochemical industry from from selling drugs to make children happy and attentive in school and many chemical companies laid off workers because of lower profits, and I did not speak up. Then the food industry was forced to adding surgar to cereal and many people at Kellogs were laid off, and I did not speak up. So by the time my industry was regulated no one spoke up for us because we did not speak up for them. This clever laisse faire campaign captured the imagination of enough people that COERCIVE POWER of government was not used against the well meaning but wrong poultry industry so in the end there was no one left to complain about having lost their job.
STAN: Please do something about this formatting, BLP. And if anyone reads what I’ve written — not that anyone should or shoudn’t — then they know that the term “ideology,” in the way I’ve used and explicitly defined it, is not subject to the kind of sophistry to which you put it here. Ideology = a constellation of ideas that simultaneously conceal and reproduce social power.
14 January 2009, 1:26 pmBuddhalovesPaine:
To have believed that the US (military) was on the side of the light during the cold war period may have been a mistake but it seems to me to be a different kind of mistake than thinking the US military is on the side of light since the fall of the USSR. In fact it is US behavior since the fall of the USSR that should really make it clear for anyone who is reasonably objective and slightly informed to see what criminals those who run the US really are.
14 January 2009, 1:55 pmIt has also taken the behavior of businessmen in the capitalist system over the past 20 years to show a former devout anarcho-capitalist libertarian such as myself what a corrupt system it really is.
BuddhalovesPaine:
I received a copy of Bulletin of Thomas Paine Friends today. I would like to share a few paragraphs that were written by Martha Spiegelman.
As we mark the 200th anniversary of his death, in this Thomas Paine Year 2009, we turn to the will of Thomas Paine for a few excerpts. Curiously it is often written that Thomas Paine died in poverty, but his will bequeaths several properties—his farm of well over 200 acres in New Rochelle NY, appreciated shares in an insurance company, plus money and movable effects. He chose to live frugally but he was hardly impoverished. He was physically debilitated, but the will expresses his clear thoughts and intentions.
First, some introductory comments by William van der Weyde. Towards the latter part of January 1809, Paine was very feeble. On the 18th of the month he wrote and signed this, his last, Will and Testament, in which he reaffirms his theistic faith. In April 1809 he was removed from a house on Herring Street to a house now occupied by 39 Grover Street. There he died at 8 o’clock in the morning of June 8th 1809, the year in which Lincoln and Darwin were born. Shortly before he died two clergymen were let in to his room. He shouted, “Let me alone, Good morning!” Mrs. Bonneville, who, with her children, is mentioned in the will as the principle beneficiary, asked Paine if he was satisfied with the treatment that he had received in her house, and he said,
“Oh, yes.” These were the last words of Thomas Paine.
The Will
The last Will and Testament of me, the subscriber, Thomas Paine reposing confidence in my Creator, God, and in no other being, for I know of no other, nor believe in any other. ………………….
If you want to read the rest http://www.thomaspainefriends.org is the web site for the organization that publishes the Bulletin.
14 January 2009, 2:29 pmSamuel Ndegwa:
Stan,
Watching, listening and reading about the history and ongoing story of humankind and in particular the current horror in Gaza prompted me to write the following,titled “The Night Whistler” I don’t even know whether it makes sense but it was spontaneous:
The Night Whistler
Long after the cold arctic winds blew their last breadth,
after the snowstorms, the blizzards,
the lonely cry of abandoned creatures
permeated the frigid arctic night,
the Night Whistler, energized, reborn,
a survivor, walked among the woods and
under his breath, through his pale frosty lips,
the eerie tune of Zionist death song emanated:
“Death, its wake long frozen in the terrible winter.
Before the sun set, death had a face.
Death, now veiled, in the cold of the night,
in search of the sun people.
Find me a woman, a child, a tribe,
for I’m a faithful servant.
Tell me no fables of hell or heaven.
Just show me blood, for fire, for food,
for cloth, for comfort, for profit.
I have no memory of the fallen.
I only hunger for those who wait
for my heavy hand.
Lest death comes to me.
Oh what a cold day”
by Samuel Kimani Ndegwa
Now, I’m searching for evidence to dissuade me from 2 conclusions I have reached about humankind in general:
1. Human Intelligence is overrated (we are not as smart as we think)
2. Human beings are Homicidal (We will always kill our own and other forms of life, the motives, scale, methods, circumstances and number of victims may change)
Somebody, please tell me this is junenile and I’m wrong, because any evidence disproving my conclusions will make my waking hours bearable.
Kimani
15 January 2009, 1:29 amBuddhalovesPaine:
@ Required
15 January 2009, 6:45 amYes when these words, We hate hate itself, are spoken by Mrs. Clinton, they will be a parody and and a sacrilage,
but when they are spoken by a young woman about to face the full fury of the Gestapo they words inspired by the spirit of Jesus herself.
Stan:
It’s amazing how far afield these threads go.
Here is an real story about a real woman in a real place, doing something remarkable. And the story becomes a springboard for one pontification after another. What does this young woman say to us about the world and humanity? Does she warrant emulation? If the answer is yes, then how?
Heretofore, I will not post a single comment on this thread that does not relate to Huwaida Arraf.
15 January 2009, 1:07 pmTimothy R. Anderson:
Huwaida Arraf is the exception, not the rule. I think the world’d
be better is more folks resembled Huwaida Arraf. I am impressed that any response whatsoever was generated by the commenters. When I type in stuff about Afghanistan it is mostly greeted with …… nothing. When I type in stuff about American military servicemembers being raped, it is mostly greeted with ….. nothing. With Huwaida Arraf the thread does indeed goes far afield. At least it goes !
Maybe Huwaida Arraf should get an agent and have a 20 million dollar “low budget” biography Hollywood motion-picture of her life made. I doubt it would make any profit.
Huwaida Arraf WAS BORN IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ….. To me that means that this land is my land , this land is Huwaida Arraf’s land , from the redwood forest to the gulf stream waters, this land was made for me and Huwaida Arraf …… to adopt a few lines by Woody Guthrie.
It was not the intention of those-who-came-before to struggle,
ache, bleed, and die just so the USA would be despised. During the same time that persons such as Huwaida Arraf have been ignored greedy persons with wealth-upon-wealth-upon-wealth such as Donald Trump get all kinds of constant attention. Enron, Madoff, and Huwaida Arraf
who in that list hasn’t been heard of ?
There are WAR CRIMES that have happened and likely will continue to happen in the Iraq War. I read in the post brought to us by Stan Goff that Huwaida Arraf has some knowledge and has spoken out about the topic of WAR CRIMES. With all the attention that the mainstream media places on the Cult Of Personality Obama Family And Their Pets
it is likely that no investigation will ever be done on the majority of WAR CRIMES that occurred during my lifetime and Huwaida Arraf’s lifetime.
It is painful to realize that the work of Huwaida Arraf is undervalued.
Timothy R. Anderson
15 January 2009, 2:26 pmBuddhalovesPaine:
Stan, This message is not intended to be left on the thread but you can if you want to.
16 January 2009, 3:18 amFirst excuse me for not recalling your definition of ideology.
Second, IMO the posts did not go so far afield because the article shows and endorses one possible non violent tactic for responding to injustice. MY comments were perhaps inept but they was an attempt to show that ethics is not a science like physics but an art form and in dealing with injustice we should keep all ethical options on the table. Whether or not an option is ethical depends on the situation. You may not see a connection between that and your article but I do. If I am the only person on the planet who can make that connection so be it.
Third, people are very diverse. Some of us are even weird. Some of us have more free time than others, you leave space for people to place comments about the articles and each article will have a different impact on each person who reads it. These impacts may not be what you had hoped or even what you could have conceived of.
Fourth, I have never found a contact email address for your web site. I remember reading a post from someone else who could not find a contact address either. If there was one, perhaps some things that get posted on threads would be sent to you personally.
Fifth, do you prefer feedback to what you post or not? I am sure you would like to hear more from other people but as far as I can see my comments do not limit the space of other potential commentators.
EOM,
Stan:
I’m frustrated, because the blog has become almost exclusively male, and I know why (women grow weary of our masculinist discourse — mine included — and for good reason). I’m frustrated at having to respond to things while I’m running to work and can’t give thoughtful replies. I’m frustrated because I am nursing a hernia, my car is falling apart which would threaten my ability to get to work, I’m falling further into debt, my shed roof’s leaking, and my married daughter’s dog that is staying with us is uncontrollable. So I got snippy. My bad.
16 January 2009, 5:46 amBuddhalovesPaine:
Look, I too perhaps got a bit snippy, we all have our own demons to deal with, in fact I was thinking about writing an apology a few hours ago myself but then I decided not to because it might be taken in the wrong way.
16 January 2009, 7:25 amIs it possible that the posters are more male because the percent of people who leave comments on any blog are mostly male? Is it possible the the people who leave blogs on your site in particular are mostly male because it deals with subjects that mostly males take a special interest in? Should society be concerned that almost of architectural engineers are men? How many women apply to the field and get rejected? You think that if males do not write male comments more women will participate. It is also possible the no one will participate.
When I was in high school and college the instructor would often pose a question to the class. Then in many cases no one would answer. I would then often take pity on the teacher and try to answer the question. Just because you try to get all the class involved does not mean that everyone will accept your invitation.
Now getting back to Huwaida Arraf. She is a heroic woman. But there is also a very good chance she would be a dead heroic woman if there had not been a camera there to record everything that happened. Then how effective would her action have been? She would just be another unknown statistic. Also what if she had pulled out a weapon and killed those two Israeli soldiers, would anyone have accused her of being less of a person? Now let us also ask the question what if two or three apparently unarmed people had tried approach those two soldiers. They would have felt much more at risk allowing more than one person to come close to them. They certainly would have fired a warning shot if the people would have come closer than say 25 meters. If the people then did not stop the soldiers would have been justified in shooting to kill because why else would an apparently unarmed pair of people want to come closer to soldiers in a combat zone during a battle unless they really have bad intentions towards the soldiers. They could have hidden explosives or even be martial arts experts.
So Huwaidea gets a A for effort. But this video was not bad public relations for Israel. The reason that the march over the bridge at Selma Alabama affects me so much and I figure it had the same impact on others at the time is that we see innocent people getting hurt. A non violent protest in which the protesters do not get hurt is, because of our history, just another political speech. Sad, but I think true.
Now even though I take the side of the Palestinians in this conflict over this one land claimed by two people.
I do not judge the Israeli soldiers as harshly as US soldiers. The Israelis are not traveling 1/2 around the world to drop bombs on apartment buildings and weddings. They are doing it the people outside their doors.
Anyways the comments that I just made could be made by many others that is why I did not post them earlier I post them now because the question was asked what we think of Huwaida.
Da Buffalo Amongst Wolves:
I think it’s the ‘confrontational, armed standoff, and potential death’ part that makes most Americans nervous and comment tangentially. It’s similar with most comments on another American who put her life on the line, Rachel Corrie.
Historically, in the US, women have been the ‘point people’ in the war on injustice
For what it’s worth there ARE people doing other types of ‘heroic’ acts in spite of the danger involved, as a way of enacting their own public diplomacy with the global community, a community which, at this time is aghast at the atrocities the US and Western industrialized nations are committing.
To wit: [January 15 2009] Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: We Won One! The Hippies, The ‘Hashish Trail’, And Johnny Cash Played On An Accordion As Public Diplomacy In Afghanistan
@ My site
@ ArchiveDOTorg
…or more directly, His name is Gregory Warner… and [Here]’s his blog
16 January 2009, 2:39 pmMichael Anderson:
….original point taken. Huwaida Arraf’s actions relate directly to your letter to Christian soldiers in Iraq awhile back. It is NOT the easy road (like Jesus TAUGHT), to put your life on the line without a weapon, to just say “STOP”….this far and no further. Especially if you are a woman. The cost of freedom (and liberation) is the same, as Crosby, Stills, and Nash pointed out…”lay your body down.”
BTW, took a look at Mr. LockandLoads’ website….ick. Guy probably doesn’t go out of his house without a rod in his pocket.
Thanks, Stan….one more lesson to learn. And my sympathies to your home struggles….we all have them, in varying degrees. Good thoughts your way from Oregon.
17 January 2009, 3:13 pmRobert Karaffa:
One thing I can tell you is that I don’t think, cameras or not, that I have the guts to do what she does. Period. I know three people that have this particular aspect of spirit; that act or have the capacity to act as she does from what I have seen of them in action. They are all women. I can’t stand where they stand. And I give them my most heartfelf respect and honor.
17 January 2009, 8:00 pmLinda C.:
So here is one woman’s view. SHE – Huwaida Arraf – has a strength that I wish I had. I read and research almost every day, this “Palestinian thing” I only wish I had her strength to make a difference. I took “sides” on this when I was in my early 20′s and still fight with all of the passions that I can find in my soul. Huwaida Arraf will reap her blessings – maybe not within her lifetime -but maybe in the lifetime of the children that she touches.
18 January 2009, 12:07 amlatte lenya:
‘Sissy’ is a masculine taunt. If women don’t feel included in a conversation that opens that way, it’s because, well, we’re not.
18 January 2009, 4:40 pmThe interesting thing to me about the clip was how nervous and uncertain the soldiers appeared, how ‘disarmed’ they were by the presence of courage that was not masculine, not feminine, just…human. They seemed very trapped in their own training. Had they been wearing American uniforms–whether in Baghdad or in Oakland–the likelihood that she would have been shot, camera or no camera, would have increased, not because Israelis or Americans are any better or worse than anybody else, but because the gender strictures are that much tighter and leave men in that position that much less room to maneuver, to think.
R. Burke:
Isreal created 1948 UN Res.181-the Pentagon’s strategic deterrence-esp. if satellites for ICBMs are knocked out, subs in Israel can still bomb Russia…the Palestinians were invaded-they have a right of return…the USA has always controlled the UN–Western, British imperialism to plunder the arab world for oil(1932 Std oil discovered oil Bahrain)–it has always been about domination -politics of West over East– disguised as religion…the sham of the UN created to “renounce the scourge of war” only a front for the west…I heed economist Mike Clare, NYU (Blood 4 oil), Democracy Now, Moyers, n Daily/ Colbert…”60 minutes” 7-8-7 the US – the power to be contained (I write this often at “feral scholar”) On ‘Moyers’ 3-8-8 ‘the lite @ the end of the tunnel is the on-coming train..2009 high noon, 2017 the crash’…and to help out the invaded Pals, Condi Lisa Rice (speaks Russian) has been helping the US be contained by spending on all the invasions, cia jackels ruining USA standing in the world etc.! Pity the nation of followers/Neruda…no watch dogs-only lap dogs..H. Arraf Not subdued by the “Lucifer Effect”..she is part of the quiet revolution-a Peace Hero.
18 January 2009, 9:30 pmStan:
I used the epithet ironically, in response to an earlier masculine taunt fromt “Lock-and-Load.” I guess it didn’t work.
19 January 2009, 5:22 amVivian Phillips:
I am proud to say that I know Stan personally, so immediately understood his usage of the word sissy.
I visit here as time allows, but rarely post. Sometimes I, a female, feel that there’s a lot of Male Answer Syndrome [as Dave Barry calls it] going on in the posts. I don’t enjoy admitting this, but it was among Stan’s frustrations. I see it when he speaks publicly too; it does seem to be a guy thing.
Stan, I’m truly sorry for your personal woes. As the owner of 2 dogs– and also now have my daughter’s dog– I highly recommend someone in your family [with some time] to watch the Dog Whisperer DVDs. Seriously; no one needs the stress of an uncontrollable dog [who are themselves stressed]. The episode in which women prisoners are rehabilitating problem dogs for adoption made me cry.
19 January 2009, 10:20 amViv
Susan/catlady:
What amazing courage. I have long wondered what kind of training and practice it would take to be able to face down a man with a gun, keep breathing, and summon the Voice to say “put down the gun.”
What a comfortable, cowardly life I have led, far from the killing. Goddess within and the goddess without, grant me grace to follow a path of love and valor, such as that of Huwaida Arraf.
19 January 2009, 1:01 pmjen:
so, i’m supposed to be working on my dissertation instead of contributing to this blog, but stan is frustrated that not many women are contributing, so i’ll contribute a few words while i procrastinate the coding of my interviews. stan’s website is a favorite procrastination spot for me, dennis kucinich’s page, naomi wolf’s page, naomi klein’s page, my facebook page, and the blog of an ex-boyfriend who is incredibly bright and really scary in his political views. i like to toggle back and forth between stan’s and the ex-boyfriend’s sometimes because they are so ridiculously different.
anyway, i watched the video of huwaida and was scared the whole time that she was going to be killed. so i had a feeling of dread in my stomach, though i felt like i should watch. i typically avoid horrific, violent videos posted on the web. while i feel it’s incredibly important that violence not be censored, there’s another part of me that feels like casually viewing a horrific video of violence and atrocities on my lunch hour at work is too much like watching a snuff film. at any rate, i trust stan, who posted it, so i felt compelled to watch. imagine my relief when she was alive at the end of the clip. another nugget, i don’t have speakers on my work computer, so it was all visual. i have yet to watch it with sound.
i deeply admire her strength and her gesture. the video caused me to reflect, that there have been times in my life when i would have been able and bold enough to do something like that. there may be other times in the future – i hope there are. not today. today i am mired in a life, all the cracks filled in as if with cement. a spouse, preschooler, full-time paying job (in a free fall economy, knock wood), dissertation screaming to be completed. it will not be me out there for a while. but i hope that it will be me again. i struggle with the guilt and frustration that i have difficulty doing anything beyond the needs of my own family right now – there are many days where i can barely get them met in any reasonable way. i try to think of ways to be more involved. but lately i usually settle on the reality that it will be a while. this is a different season in life. but i try to pay attention to those other parts of me that are asleep right now through things like stan’s blog, and reading non-mainstream news sources. i’m so grateful that there are people like huwaida arraf, and cynthia mckinney out there fighting the good fight. some of us who are home nurturing young families, may make it back there in years to come. for now, i cheer the others on, and hope to make it back.
boy (no pun intended), i could go on and on, but i shouldn’t. this damn dissertation calls while my family waits at home. that might be a big part of the reason not many of us women get on here, stan. who among us has the time???
so, was this cool for a non-masculinist (spl?) contribution? i can do that too – i have been well trained in academia….
19 January 2009, 1:55 pmMichael Anderson:
…irony taken when read (smile). Reminds me of that guerrilla vid last summer from a Young Republican convention, where the producer asked some of them (males) why they aren’t going out to volunteer for the military to fight for their beliefs. Their backpedaling and excuses were amusing, in a tragic sort of way.
Remember another woman who died in Israel not long ago—Rachel Corrie.
19 January 2009, 2:24 pmGlenn Lewis:
The courage and conviction of Huwaida is a gripping spectacle. She knew the risk and did it anyway. I hope to have this kind of courage when it is called for.
20 January 2009, 4:45 amThe soldiers came to fight. What restrained them? Was it their respect for her conviction, or fear for the presence of cameras, or both?
Huwaida appeals to their sense of decency; she gestures for them to lower their weapons and says, “your shooting at kids…..there’s no one to shoot at”. The Israeli soldiers seem to respond. If they were hellbent and ferocious they could have dispatched the camera and her. Could it be, that these are normally decent young men put into a bad situation?
Not to take anything away from Huwaida, but I have a sense that a young Palestinian male could not have pulled this off. He might have been shot or spread-eagle on the ground.
Glenn Lewis:
It seems there are enough female admirers of this blog. They just needed an opening or request to comment. I find myself in agreement with Latte Lenya’s comments, but I did not understand the statement; “They seemed trapped in their own training”. Did you mean, that they wanted to back-off but felt the need to complete their original intent to use force?
20 January 2009, 5:43 amlatte lenya:
I think I meant they were trapped in their training as men. She was appealing to their humanity, more even than confronting or challenging them, and you could see the struggle, humanity vs. masculinity, as they looked away, lowered their guns, raised their guns, and lowered them again. For many, it seems that to give up masculinity is the greater threat, particularly in the presence of other men, particularly men in uniform.
20 January 2009, 8:24 pmWhen she said ‘there’s no one to shoot at,’ to me that meant ‘there are no enemies here.’ She wasn’t treating the soldiers as the enemy, either, her humanity was stunning. It was much more powerful than all the useless demonizing of Israel that has been going on.
Samuel Ndegwa:
Stan,
I have recently been reading about the Kikuyu (from Kenya) where I’m from and I noticed an interesting similarity between the way the Kikuyu and some native Americans conducted war(before the Europeans). I was curious as to how the Kikuyus, agriculturalists who kept cattle, goats, sheep and chicken, managed to live at relative peace alongside the Maasai and assimilate them (Maasai). The Maasai are fierce nomadic Nilotics who keep cattle and regard all cattle as theirs. What I noticed is how women (unmarried and married) were instrumental, albeit unwillingly, in forging this unusual alliance. You see, the Kikuyus practiced war like some Native Americans. War was not for killing people. It was taboo to kill women, children or animals. In fact, the pre-colonial Kikuyus would leave their cattle exposed so that when Maasai raiders came, they would drive some of the cattle/goats etc away easily. There would be fights involving only young warriors with few casualties. The raiders would also take young girls and women. After the raids, diplomatic overtures resulted in 2 things: 1. Some women would be married by some of the raiding warriors (therefore forming kinship) and 2. Some girls/women would be returned after a war fine was paid. This involved rituals where the tribes would agree to forge alliances against common foes/trade with each other, share customs etc. Over time, the Kikuyu and Maasai became so assimilated that war reduced considerably between them. Today, if you visit Kenya and go to Narok (I went to school there), Kajiado, Central Province, Nairobi and other places, you will find most Kikuyu and Maasai have some blood relations, same practices etc. I must hasten to say that other Africans may have practiced different forms of warfare (e.g Sundiata). I know this comment might raise issues of gender and relevance, but the point is that somewhere between 12,000 years ago and today, warfare changed (and I’m sure Stan you are familiar with the history of warfare) and when you think about it, the biggest casualties are women and children (e.g. Congo, Gaza). Huwaida Arraf is clearly ahead of her/our time. 21 salutes to Huwaida Arraf.
21 January 2009, 1:57 amKimani
Glenn Lewis:
AH!! Yes, the training of men starts from the time we are boys. One mustn’t be a scary cat or chicken. Don’t human societies, as a whole, set a high premium on confidence, toughness and fearlessness, especially in the human male. The world puts on theatrical spectacles to glorify these qualities. In my boyhood, I was consumed with a desire to prove my prowess. So many little boys and grown men dream of being part of these circuses. It seems to me that some men can be led into all sorts of mindless and needless daring-dos, struggles and conflicts to prove their masculinity.
21 January 2009, 5:10 amDecernment reveals that an act of courage is not defined by fearlessness but rather by fear itself. Having a natural fear that one can be harmed but completing an action, in spite that fear, is true courage. But more importantly, I think courage has little to do with masculinity and more to do with righteousness.
As you well put it, Latte Lenya, the soldiers were overwhelmed by the non-threatening rightness of Huwaida but lacked her glorious courage because they struggled against their own consciences to save the face of their masculinity.
Glenn Lewis:
About the demonizing of Israel; I suppose organizations, as well as individuals, are subject to condemnation. That being said, I have spoken to Black Isrealites (great nutritionist) here in Atlanta, who tell me that multitudes Isrealies are sickened by the actions of their ruling elite. They feel as helpless as many Americans do about the actions of the Empire. Isreal is dependent on the American Empire.
21 January 2009, 5:45 amI believe, Stan Goff wrote ( he’ll surely correct me if I’m wrong) about the improbability of a small country like Israel controlling America; rather, Isreal is the forward Base of the American Empire in the region and is fortified and protected as such.
Wolf Peetz:
Dr Hauwaida Arraf may have been putting into action what she may have been teaching — non-violent action! Pacifists who turn the other cheek are sometimes considered sissies who let themselves be run over. Over age 15 guys are Israeli soldiers who must never give-in and be overrun. They were not threatened physically by her. It was pure defensive on her part — protecting the retreating freedom-fighters. She sometimes stepped back for protection but came forward again to take a stand when the soldier hesitated and phoned.
I was there in January 2006 and saw some Internationalists in action in Hebron, Israel. I wanted to determine if I wanted to join them and stand between the soldiers and the locals as an American. I was ready to do what she did, and I would have communicated with them more, if only I knew Hebrew like she did. By talking with the soldiers, inviting them to America when they grew up, and making them realize that she was not threatening their presence or their duty, she would have been practicing nonviolent action and reducing the tension in the air.
8 February 2009, 8:17 pmDuring my presence, I felt that we should obey the soldiers (like the police at home) unless they commit violence or police-brutality. But the ISM man chose to argue with the lead-soldier about letting us American tourists go through the blocked-off short cut, to no avail.
Marilyn Farhat:
Stan,
Thank you for putting up the video of Huwaida ‘Arraf. Huwayda represents the typical Palestinian and Arab woman living in the Middle East who has had to “negotiate” for the rights of her family and men in times of war and occupation. It is a scene all too familiar at checkpoints and border crossings or during kidnappings. Women are the outspoken voice of the conscience of the men. They are the story tellers and the mourners at funerals. They are also the ones who put the men to shame. At a time when the men have to hide to save their skin, their women have conducted the negotiations on their behalf. It does not matter what the circumstance or who the aggressor is.
The slaughter in Gaza was unconscionable. More unconscionable was the cheering that went with it, including among the Arab leadership.
Huwaida was appealing to the most simple moral basis of all humanity when pleading with the soldiers, especially where children were concerned. It was obvious there was conflict in the psyche of these soldiers(there usually is among many Israelis when it comes to their treatment of Palestinian civilians. They were also on camera). Her moral appeal came from a higher source than the dictate of a god or the command of a military; it came from a deeply feminine source that wants to protect all life no matter how insignificant or how unworthy that life is deemed by those who call the shots.
Too bad Arab men are not worthy of their women.
Peace.
Marilyn Farhat.
15 February 2009, 12:10 am