A conversation from the frontlines of nonviolence in Palestine

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( Waging Nonviolence ) – Amira Musallam is a peace activist from Beit Jalla, Palestine. She joins Nonviolence Radio to share her experiences living in the West Bank. Her family is currently facing eviction from their land by nearby Israeli settlers who are backed by the Israeli military. She is part of a exploratory team for unarmed civilian protection, or UCP, in the West Bank and Gaza. She was introduced to the power of UCP when she was 12 years old after her house was bombed by Israel (with American manufactured bombs) and a group of UCP women came to live with her family to prevent further violence and destruction. Since then, she has been actively engaged in nonviolence and UCP.

To hear Amira’s story is to hear the story of so many Palestinians who are struggling for equality and peace through nonviolence in the most heartbreaking and horrific of circumstances. Her story is an urgent call-to-action for all of us to be courageous and work in solidarity with activists on the front lines of the world’s more critical struggles for justice.

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Stephanie: So, welcome everybody, to another episode of Nonviolence Radio. I’m your host, Stephanie Van Hook, and I’m here with my co-host and news anchor of the Nonviolence Report, Michael Nagler.

We are lucky to have a very special guest today, Amira Musallam. She is joining us all the way from Beit Jala in Palestine. And what’s important about this interview is that Amira is working at the front lines of nonviolence in a very violent situation, a very violent conflict.

And we think that it’s important for you, our listeners, to be able to make contact with people from around the globe who would help to tell a different story about what nonviolence is, how it works, and why nonviolence is so important in our world today, and also what’s going on in the conflict.

So, first of all, let’s bring Amira on to the show. Welcome, Amira.

Amira: Hello. Good morning.

Stephanie: Yeah, and good evening to your time. It’s 9:00.

Amira: It’s evening, here it’s good evening. But for you, good morning. Yeah.

Stephanie: Yeah. Well, thank you. It’s wonderful to have your voice here with us. As I was saying, having you as on the front lines in the conflict in Israel-Palestine, you’re going to be able to help our listeners better understand what’s going on and what you’re experiencing. So, thank you so much for joining us.

Amira: You’re welcome. Sure.

Stephanie: How did you get started as a peace activist?

Amira: Well, it started when I was 12-years-old. I live in Beit Jala. I’m American-Palestinian, by the way. I have a U.S. citizenship. I got it from my father, who lived in the States for many years. I visited the States once only, but I never lived there.

When I was 12-years-old, my house in Beit Jala was partially bombed due to the conflict. It was bombed by the Israeli tanks and Apache. And we were in the house – me and my family. And we were able to escape under the fire to our neighbor’s house, which was a more safe to hide in.

That day really affected me so much because before 2000, we used to go uphill near my house to Gilo, which is an Israeli settlement. There was no borders, no apartheid wall, nothing. And we used to play there with kids – with Israeli and Jewish kids. And it was fun, you know.

But in 2000, when the Second Intifada happened, everything changed. Everything changed. Those friends who I had in Gilo, suddenly changed into my enemies, you know? Because of our neighborhood, our town, little town of Beit Jala was bombed, and by the tanks from Gilo.

As a little girl, to see that suddenly, you know, my friends became my enemies. I was so afraid. I was terrified. We were in the house when our house was bombed. I was almost killed. My mom was shouting to – like, for somebody to hear us, to stop because we wanted to escape.

The people couldn’t come to our house to rescue us because it’s a war zone. So, like, the streets are not accessible by cars. Nothing. And so, after that day – after that night, actually, we had to leave the house for a few months until the house was fixed. And then we had a group of women coming to make a human shield or, let’s say, unarmed civilian protection.

And so, they came from England and from other countries. Their name is Woman in Black. And so, they visited us, and they stayed with us at home so they could protect us from any bombing coming to our house.

And one day we were just sitting with one of them, and she told us that a friend of hers would come to visit us. And, of course, she is welcome.

And that woman entered our house. And the moment she saw us, she started crying, and you know, and hugging us and telling us how sorry she is for what her people are doing to us. And it turned out that that woman was a Jewish-American, Israeli woman who came to protect us.

So, as a little girl, you know, I saw there is hope. There is hope that those enemies are not all of them enemies. That there are good people in this world, that those people also have good people in there.

So, since then, all the idea of hating the other just became, “No, I want to talk with the other. I want to tell them my story. I want to tell them how all my childhood was playing with them,” you know? I’m not their enemy. They shouldn’t be afraid for me. That there is another way. Armed force and bombs and attacks, you know, violent attacks from all sides is wrong. And the other way is peace, to talk, to have dialog, to listen to each other.

And that’s when I started attending all kinds of conferences and meetings with the Israelis. And since then, I became a peace activist. I worked in many different organizations when I grew up. And I became – one of my jobs was a regional project manager for a region and project with Jordan, Israel, and Palestine about water management and conflict about water in the Israeli-Palestine conflict.

Stephanie: Thank you so much for sharing your story. There’s a lot in there that I’d like to unpack for our listeners. But first of all, Michael and I both want to just share our grief with you for what you’ve endured since you were 12-years-old. This is very traumatic.

And to imagine not only having your house bombed but losing your friends and your sense of security and not knowing, not knowing what your life is anymore, where you have to leave your house. I mean, that is – it’s hard. I just want to put that in the front for a second and an honor that you’ve been through a lot.

Amira: Yeah.

Michael: Not only that, Amira, but so many people who are subject to that kind of mistreatment, and that kind of shocking reversal where friends become enemies, they themselves become bitter. And it’s a rare person who can stand above that bitterness and that disappointment and recognize the common humanity.

So, again, as Stephanie was saying, we really want to honor you for that. And we look to that kind of human response that you exemplify as our hope for the future.

Amira: Thank you. Yes.

Stephanie: You mentioned the Second Intifada. Can you explain a little of the background of the intifadas so that that’s clear on how that fits into the story?

Amira: Yes. The Second Intifada started in 2000 when Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, invaded the al-Aqsa Mosque with weapons, and with settlers, and so on. And people saw it as an act of humiliation. And it wasn’t so good. And that’s how that the Second Intifada started. Where people went into the streets, and they started throwing rocks at the Israeli Army.

But also, it took a really wrong and bad violent turn, which some arms from the Palestinians were used from – let’s say, Palestinian, men, fighters, freedom fighters. And normally, our fight for liberation was using nonviolent resistance and popular resistance. But in 2000, unfortunately, it took that turn and it was so bad.

We didn’t like it. Nobody liked it. People here in Palestine, they don’t want that. We want just to live in just peace and be liberated and that’s it. So, that’s the Second Intifada. It was so, so harsh. It was so difficult. And people – just like we were under Israeli – they confiscated, like the invaded cities, villages.

So many people were killed in Palestine. We had also curfews. We couldn’t leave home for many days and many hours. Yeah, the Second Intifada was terrible, I think, I believe.

Michael: You know, Gandhi at one point, Amira, said that he had three enemies. The British, which is the least of his problems, his fellow Indians, who would drop their nonviolence sometimes. And then, of course, his worst problem was Mahatma Gandhi. So, we can leave that part aside, but I am interested to hear from you about the internal struggle within the Palestinian community, about whether violence and nonviolence should be used. Could you say a little more about that?

Amira: Of course, of course I can. I am a Palestinian. I was born in Palestine. I lived with people. I know people all over, like in villages and cities in Palestine because I had to, you know, to move around.

Honestly, Palestinian people, they don’t want violence. Palestinian people, as I mentioned before, just want to live in peace.

They just want to live, you know? That’s it. As simple as that. And if you go to the streets, and you ask the most of the people, the majority will tell you, “We don’t want violence. We don’t want anybody to be killed.” Because what I believe, and what I see, that we can’t live without Israelis. And the Israelis, they can’t live without us.

Why? Because we work in Israel, for example. We build their buildings. And the economy in Israel depends on us, and we depend on them. I want to go to Israel and be allowed to go to Israel and not be afraid anymore. I want to be allowed without getting a permit, asking a permit from the military, to get me a permit to go to Jerusalem, you know? So, most of the people think like me.

Now, there is a minority, or there are people who would act violently for many reasons. One of them, some people are brainwashed. Brainwashed from fanatics, from radical – radicalism, you know? This is the most minority of people. Like, you don’t see a lot of people from this kind of people. The second type of people are those who seek revenge. So, a lot of people lost their families. They lost their kids, lost their father, mother, sister.

So, imagine, like, if you lose, someone from your family because someone killed him, not because he died, just like that, naturally. A lot of people would seek revenge. Each one of us would respond to death and killing in a different way.

If something happens to me, maybe I will respond in a – I will forgive because I’m a Christian. So, I would follow the path of Jesus, and I will forgive my enemy, you know, and the one who caused me pain.

But others, maybe they would like revenge. That’s how they will deal with their pain. So, there are lots of people like this. But of course, also, again, not the majority. And the majority, I will tell you, they don’t want revenge. They don’t want to kill. They don’t want violence. They just want to live in peace.

Stephanie: Thank you so much. For those of you who are just tuning in, you’re here at Nonviolence Radio, and we’re speaking with Amira Musallam, and she’s calling from Beit Jala in Palestine.

Amira, can you tell us about where Beit Jala is exactly? And what are the settlements that you were describing?

Amira: So, Beit Jala is part of Bethlehem Governorate. Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. And it’s a neighboring city. So, like, if you walk from Beit Jala to Bethlehem, it’s not like – it’s just crossing the street, you know? That’s how it looks like. I was born in Bethlehem, but I lived, in Beit Jala all my life. So, I’m a Bethlehemite.

Now, what’s happening with us, that I was married nine years ago to someone from Beit Jala whose family has a land in a place called Al-Makhrour. It’s the only green area left for us in Bethlehem Governorate. Why? Because since 2000, the apartheid wall just, you know, took over most of the lands of Bethlehem Governorate.

And we are in a big open-air prison. You know, we are surrounded with the apartheid wall, with the military bases, with checkpoints. And we can only move in and out from Bethlehem as a Palestinian to go to another city in the West Bank through a bypass road that was also built only for Palestinians to take it. So, everybody goes through the same street.

So, Al-Makhrour is the only green area left for us, and we have access to it. And this area is considered Area C. So, for those who don’t know, what does it mean, Area C – in Oslo – in the Oslo agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians in the ‘90s, they divided the West Bank into three zones. Area A, Area B, Area C.

So, Area A is under the civil and military control of the Palestinians. Area B is under the civil administration of Palestinians, but the military control of Israelis. Area C is under the civil and military control of Israel. Now, if we want to do anything in Area C like, you know, build an open road, do anything in construction, and so on, we need to go back to the civil administration, the Israeli civil administration.

So, this area, Area C, is the only green area. If you see it – oh, I wish, you know, there is a camera now. I can show you. It’s really lovely. It’s a lovely area with lots of olive trees, lots of fruit trees. Lots of grape, and so on.

And so, my in-laws, they have land there. They inherited it from the grandfather. And since 2011, they started their own business. It was a restaurant in the field there. It was very nice. Like, people came to this restaurant from all over the West Bank. And even Israelis would come to eat there, you know? Palestinian food and Arabic food, hummus, and so on. It’s really – it was very nice. Yeah.

And then, from 2011 until 2019 this restaurant was demolished by the Israeli military five times. For why? Because they claim that it doesn’t have a license. But anyway, if you go to the Israeli civil administration, and you applied for a license, they wouldn’t give you anyway. So, we would like build without license. Like, let’s say illegally, but it’s not really illegally because, you know, we didn’t like, build the big building or so on.

It was just very simple restaurant outdoors. Just we built the kitchen, you know. That’s the only thing that we built. And the restaurant was demolished five times from 2011 until 2019.

Also, we built a house. They told us that, “No problem, we’ll not demolish it.” And they didn’t give us the demolishing order and that. And we started paying even taxes for, you know, the Israeli government.

But unfortunately, in 2019, they came with big bulldozers and big trucks. And they destroyed – they demolished the restaurant and the house without a demolition order for the house. They just did it.

So, we went to court in 2019, to at least, prove ownership of the land and prove that, you know, my in-laws have Israeli citizenship. They are Arab-Israelis. So, we went to court to prove ownership and to start applying for a license for the house again and for the restaurant again, to rebuild them.

But we were surprised that the JFN claimed ownership also. So, we were in court against them. In 2023, just last year, we proved that the JFN doesn’t have any proof that they own the land. They didn’t prove. They didn’t bring any paper. Even the paper – the deed that they brought from the Jordanian time was fake, and we were able to prove that it was fake.

So, the Israeli court said the JFN doesn’t have any, like, right in the land while a Kisiya family, which are my in-laws, also don’t have ownership as ownership. But they can stay in the land until the original owner, who left Palestine a really long time ago in the ‘60s, can come back. Either him or one of his inheritants to claim the ownership of the land.

So, we stayed in our land. We didn’t rebuild again because we are waiting until we do it, you know, in the right way, in the legal way, getting a license, and so on. And we were there until the 31st of July.

The 31st of July we were in the land. My son, who is 9-years-old, was with his dad on the land and suddenly settlers holding weapons, came into the land, broke the big gate, started aiming weapons at my son and at my ex-husband, threatening them to leave the land. And [Jihan], my ex-husband, he was, like, telling them, like, “Listen, I’m here peacefully. I don’t have weapons. Let’s talk. Let’s talk.” He was like, raising his hands and telling them, “I’m not going to do anything. Just let’s talk. What are you doing here?”

They came without the military, without the police, without anybody. Just settlers. You know, settlers who live nearby in a settlement called Gush Etzion. And after, like, 15 to 20 minutes, police came. The army came. And they stayed there protecting the settlers, allowing them to take out all our stuff, like tables, chairs, even the kitchen. You know, anything that belongs to us, they put it out in the street with the protection of the military, of course. And they took away [Jihan] to the police station, and they gave him a restraining order for like two weeks from the land. And that’s when my in-laws called me – because it was very dangerous. My son was there with those crazy people, you know, with weapons, and so on.

And the moment I arrived to the land, my son was crying because they broke all his toys. They put them out and they broke them all. And I took him away. And I went back because my mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and father-in-law were all alone in the land.

And yeah. And if you want – if you can, like, see the social media, we have lots of videos on about the first day. You will see that those settlers were kids. Kids underage, you know. They were like 9, 10 years, 11 years with two adults with weapons. And the kids were, like, helping in removing us from the land.

So, we stayed there in the land, looking at them, trying to seek help from anybody, you know? So, that’s where I came in because I know lots of activists, lots of peace activists, lots of human rights organizations, I started calling them. And they responded. So, who responded? Most of them were Israelis who responded – Israeli activists, Jewish-Israeli activists, they came to provide UCP, which is, you know, protective presence.

So, they came after like two hours. They responded to our call. They came. They were with us in the land. We tried to talk with the military. More military came. And then the military got a military order, which was, to consider the area a closed military area. Why? Because the settlers couldn’t prove the ownership or any paper.

They didn’t have any paper. And we have our papers. We showed them to the military, but they didn’t care about our papers. So, the military said, “Okay, we will consider this area as a closed military area. Everybody should leave.” And while we were, like, leaving the land, suddenly the head – or the mayor of the Gush Etzion settlement came. Like he’s a powerful man from the settlement nearby.

He came. He was hugging and shaking hands with the military. And suddenly, after five minutes, the military order changed from the closed military area where everybody should leave, to closed military area where Palestinians should leave, and six settlers can stay in the land. You know, this is injustice. This is like really injustice. And we stayed in the land.

We tried to negotiate with the military. Like how come you are in – even the order that they brought and print out, there is nothing from that. It’s only the head of the military who gave that order.

Then they used force to kick us out. They were, you know, holding us, pushing us around until they kicked us out from the land, and they kept the settlers in our land. In our land which we have proof of ownership for – like we have paperwork from the Israeli court, while those settlers don’t have any papers.

Now, what’s their argument that they rented the land? Those settlers rented the land from the [JFN] and the [unintelligible] in 2019. The court which we won was in 2023. So, it doesn’t make sense what you are renting a land in 2019 from someone who didn’t prove ownership in 2023, you know?

But nobody cares. Like they don’t care. The army don’t care. The police don’t care. They don’t want us just to be in the land and that’s it. And since then, on a daily basis, we are in the land, we are in the area, doing nonviolent marches towards the land. Activists from, like, friends from – the Israeli friends, we talk with the police, we talk with the army, we talk with the settlers, telling them, like showing them evidence that this is wrong and what they are doing is illegal and wrong. And they are taking – they are stealing. They are not taking, they are stealing someone else’s property without any right, without any paper. And yeah, and that’s what we were doing. We have now a solidarity camp in the area near the land. Not in the land, of course because we are not allowed to enter.

And now, since then, each time we arrived to the land, they hit us, they beat us. The military, they throw at us stun grenades, teargas bombs. The settlers curse us. Tell us bad words. That’s what’s happening. But we are insisting that every day at 5:00, 5:30 in the afternoon, we are marching to the land with activists from all around. From Israel, from Palestine, foreigners from the States, you know, to show that we are here. We will not leave until we get back our land.

Stephanie: Wow, that is a horrific story of what you’re going through and what you’ve been through. This is quite a lot to take in just to hear and to imagine being in that situation with you. I’m so sorry this is happening.

Michael: One element in what you said, Amira, it does give some grounds for hope, I think. And that is that you are persisting. Because we know that in Central America, there were – this even became a rallying cry, a technical term, if you will, Firmeza Permanente. That in the end, the group that stays in its position and will not be moved will have a very good chance of prevailing. And we certainly hope that this will be your situation in time.

Amira: I hope so. I hope so. You know, this is also happening in all the West Bank, not only in Beit Jala. The problem that those settlers with the leadership of Smotrich, they are acting like lunatics, you know? Like, they don’t have any limits.

They are just stealing, killing, shooting, burning. They also, the settlers in our land, burned the area the other day while we were there to accuse us of burning the area. How come we would burn our lands, you know? We wouldn’t do that. This is our land. We have a connection with our land. This is where our memories happened, you know.

My son was born and lived in that land and in that area. So, we wouldn’t do such things, but they would. They are very aggressive. They are taking all the, you know, the okay from their leaders. And they are doing it because what they are claiming that this is the Judea and Samaria, which is a biblical area and that they should get it back because 3000 years ago, they were there, and their right is to be there again.

But okay, I’m not saying that it’s not their right. Of course, anybody can come back and live with us. With us, not against us, you know? Like with us. That’s what I always say. If those settlers came, and they wanted to live in Judea and Samaria, which is the West Bank now it’s called, we wouldn’t tell them no.

But do it in a decent way, in the right way. If somebody will sell you a land, buy it. Live there between us. We wouldn’t hurt them. But the way they are doing it makes everybody hate them, makes more violence. And more people want to be violent against them because they are being so, so, so violent. And a lot of injustice is happening there, you know?

Stephanie: I have this document here that, according to the UN office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, says that between October 7, 2023, and July 29, 2024, 569 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. And Israeli authorities demolished, confiscated, or forced the demolition of 1,311 Palestinian owned structures across the West Bank in a systemic and concerted effort during the chaos of the genocidal actions taking place in Gaza.

That because of the chaos happening in Gaza, there’s this systemic effort while our attention is on Gaza, to heighten, you know, the push in the West Bank.

Amira: Exactly. That’s what exactly happening. Like all the news is concentrating on Gaza and what is happening on Gaza. And the news, it’s not mentioning the West Bank.

Even when we are calling like press, you know, they wouldn’t really care because there is no genocide happening in the West Bank. But this is ethnic cleansing. It’s the same. Okay, they are not killing us all, but they are ethnic cleansing us. You know, like they are moving us from where we live. They want us to leave.

Like look at Bethlehem. We used to be almost 90% of Bethlehem Governorate was Christians. Look at it now. We are less than 10% Christians here. Why? Because Christians are leaving. Not because they want to leave, but because there is no life here anymore. We cannot go to our lands. We are not allowed to do anything in Area C.

Which is, now it’s like Bethlehem Area A, which I explained about, which is under the Palestinian control, is only 27% of the land of Bethlehem. The rest is under Israeli control, which we cannot do anything in it. So, you know? People are concentrating on Gaza and the Israeli military and the government the fascist government is taking advantage that everybody is busy with Gaza. And they are doing lots of horrible things. And ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. Go see the Bedouin community in the West Bank. Like every day, some communities are leaving, are leaving their place due to settler attacks.

This is horrible. This has to stop. And those settlers are not like Israeli or Jewish settlers. They are – they come from all around the world. And even they are kids. Like, the ones who are in our land are kids. What they call them, they call them like, kids at risk in the system.

So, they go to, like, rehabilitation centers and so on in Israel. And they send them to the settlements to do community work. Their community work is that, is stealing people’s land. This is horrible. This is horrific. You know, also to use their kids in such acts.

Stephanie: Yeah. You’re really giving us a picture of what – of the increasing levels of dehumanization and violence, just in terms of the areas, zones A, B and C.

I think it’s important for people who haven’t been there to understand what that’s like. To see above a village, the road going into a village, this is in Area A. And then it has a sign saying, “You could be killed if you go into this area,” meaning that the Palestinians will kill you if you go.

It’s dehumanizing. And I don’t think people understand that those signs exist and kind of making it seem like these are violent areas if you go in because they’re under Palestinian control. And then you go into areas like Area C, and you see Palestinians not being able to build their schools or have their restaurants or living in fear that their homes are being demolished or having a settlement right across the street who’s threatening their children every single day.

But then the other things that you’ve said, it’s just part of almost like the woodwork there now, but, you know, there’s a wall. There’s this gigantic concrete wall cutting through the land that tries to separate Israelis and Palestinians. And then you were saying there’s a road that only Palestinians can drive on. And that you need passes to go into certain areas.

You need to get approval before you can visit a place. Like, imagine what that would be like. In addition to the zoning of villages, I was surprised to hear that in some ways, it’s positive that the courts were working for you because I know that they don’t work for a lot of Palestinians. So, that was, you know, one development that I haven’t heard before.

Amira: The only reason that we could go to the court, because my in-laws have Israeli citizenship.

Stephanie: I see.

Amira: You know? If you’re Palestinian, like me, I am Palestinian, pure Palestinian with a Palestinian passport, goes to the Israeli court, they wouldn’t listen to me. I wouldn’t even like, you know, reach the door of the court, and then they would kick me out, you know. But that’s the good thing, yeah, for my in-laws.

Stephanie: Thank you for clarifying.

Michael: Yeah. Throughout the Middle East, there have been episodes where the judiciary was able to restore justice, protect justice, and diminish violence. And I think isn’t it interesting that now Prime Minister Netanyahu has actually attempted to neutralize the courts so that he can have absolutely unrestricted license to take over land and do these other kinds of violence?

I want to ask you, Amira, have you been working with Holy Land Trust and with Sami Awad?

Amira: Yes. I worked with Sami Awad in 2016 through 2019 in Holy Land Trust, where we worked on the regional project I mentioned before. It was three countries working together on a water matters project. Israelis, Palestinians, and Jordanians living around the Jordan Valley, from the Red to the Dead Sea, the three communities living around that area.

The project was to show how water resources are also confiscated and occupied and abused by the current situation. Like how water is accessible to Israelis but not to Palestinians. How our water, any water resource that we have, is totally controlled by Israel. And Israel would take it and then would sell us our water, you know?

So, for example, like now in Beit Jala, where I live, where we don’t have water. So, we had to buy water and fill in our tanks. Like we don’t have all the time water. We have to buy water and it’s very expensive. Imagine that. While my neighbors in Gilo, and in Jerusalem, just two minutes away from me, have Mekorot water, which is the Israeli water, which doesn’t stop at any point. And it comes from our resources, our water resources, from the Palestinians.

Michael: What you just said reminds me, Amira, of something very critical that happened in the Indian struggle, where the British were taking Indian salt. Processing it and selling it back to them. And, of course, you know, salt is almost as critical as water for human life. So, you have exactly the same dynamic. And it means that there’s a kind of vulnerability in the very injustice of it. Do you see what I mean?

No one could make a case that the British need to take away Indian salt from their own oceans and sell it back to them. So, the very glaring illogic and injustice can be a kind of weakness, if the nonviolence resistance persists.

Amira: Yes. I mean, like, I hope like more people would be willing to do like nonviolence, resistance. But sometimes it’s really difficult, believe me.

You know, I’m a believer of nonviolent resistance, and I believe that it can happen, and it can win. And it can, you know. But sometimes it’s very difficult. Just imagine putting – let’s just say this example, like putting an animal, a dog in a cage, okay? Where you control his food, his water, his life, his behavior.

And you are just putting him there and telling him, “Okay, live your life in that cage.” At some point, this dog, or this animal will become crazy, you know? Will want to attack you and kill you and bite you and so on. And this conflict is the same. If Israel wants to keep us in this open-air cage, prison, for so long, more people would want violence.

Exactly like what happened the 7th of October. I mean, I’m not giving them – I’m not saying it was a good. Of course, no. Nobody wants anybody to be killed. Nobody wants anybody – neither Jewish nor Israeli or a foreigner or whoever, to be killed. Of course, we are against what happened the 7th of October. But go back to the reason. Go back to why. You know, like go back and study the reasons why it happened and why it’s happening, and it’s still happening.

Stephanie: Often people understand that while we can’t support terrorism, we can understand it. We can learn how to understand what were the conditions that led to it. And that is so important.

You’ve been working for such a long time with UCP. Since you said you were 12 years old, in a very horrific situation. And now you’re continuing to work with UCP with an assessment team, looking to bring more people like the Women in Black, that you had worked with earlier. But talk about the assessment team and what they’re looking to do in the West Bank and Gaza.

Amira: Yes. So, we were four people. One from Canada, one from Germany and two from Palestine. Me and Sami from Palestine. We did this assessment in July. We went all over the West Bank. We conducted interviews with different people – activists, people in the political level. People from the villages around who witnessed UCP before and have experience in that.

And so, we asked this question, what if we bring now 100 activists from abroad? Would that help in protecting the civilians in the West Bank, and of course, in Gaza? What would it look like? Is it going to be a new thing, or would we just add our efforts to the people who already are on the ground and doing UCP? Should we do it now, or should we wait until the war is finished?

Also, in the case of Gaza, how would it look like? You know, it’s different than the West Bank because in the West Bank, we live – like Israelis, like settlers live among us, between us. Like you walk in the street and then suddenly you are near a settlement. And then you go to a supermarket nearby, and then you see Israelis there or settlers there.

So, it’s really different than Gaza. Gaza, it’s more like they are surrounded with Israelis, but not inside Gaza. So, what would UCP look like in Gaza? Should we send people there, or should we do it from like doing advocacy, political pressure? You know, what kind of UCP is needed in Gaza? That’s the assessment we did.

And now we are working on our report for the assessment, which will be finished soon, at the end of this month. And then with this report, we will go together to talk with the different representatives. Maybe countries. Maybe UN. Maybe, you know, we will go and discuss it and see, like tell them the results and tell them how important UCP is. And what we should do and how we need their support in that.

Stephanie: I’ve been made aware that there’s a way that people can help support that project through Nonviolence International, which is the fiscal sponsor for that project. NonviolenceInternational.net is where people can go to help support that. Amira, what were some interesting things as you’re writing, working on the report that you might be able to share of what you noticed?

Amira: Yeah. First of all, that UCP is very, very important. That UCP that happened in the past in the West Bank, in different villages, especially in South Hebron Hills. It was very successful, even though still, there are settlers and attacks and so on. But somehow it helped a lot by not expelling the people who live there.

And people are still steadfast. You know, like they are still there and living in their villages. So UCP showed – this report showed us that UCP is very important. It’s very important for the existence of the Palestinian people in their lands, in their homes. Also, it showed what is needed, really. Like for example, there are lots of the organizations doing UCP already on the ground, but it’s not really organized between them.

So, for example, X organization is doing this, Y organization is doing that in the same place, but they don’t have like coordination between them. So, like they need support in organizing things like logistical stuff, financial stuff. Like, people who would go and do the protective presence. We need cars because the areas that we do the protective presence, they are not like, easy access areas. It’s like, you know, mountains, hills, and valleys.

So, we need like 4×4 cars, for example, which most of the organizations don’t have. Or use their own cars, which are like broken from the first five minutes, you know? And this is one example, you know, from the needs. And like, lots of funding. Like people, they need lots of funding.

Like right now, I can tell you the example of the camp that we are doing in Beit Jala. So, for example, we are calling like activists to come and stay with us 24/7. But for example, there is nobody to bring us food because us, as a family, we can’t provide food because we are – we stopped working. We’re not going anymore to work to stay in the solidarity camp and to do the marches every day.

So, we need like a backup, you know, like money, to be able to cook for those people who are coming with us in solidarity. So, for example, this is like a very small example of food, transportation, gas. It’s tough to cook, you know, like these tents. Like we need a bathroom because we are outside.

There’s no infrastructure there. So, we need a remote, or whatever we can call it – bathroom. So, like, these things is very small things that adds up to the money issue. So, it’s important that people abroad, that if they can’t come and help or support, that’s what they can do. Supports us financially.

Stephanie: That’s amazing because you’ve really helped lay out the entire – a broader vision of how people can support. So, even if they were to come over and say they didn’t become an unarmed civilian protection person, they could also come and help drive a car, or they could help get food made or brought, bring food. There’s a number of other things that people can do, if they don’t feel that they’re being called to be a UCP presence, but that they can still help even from whatever other country they’re in, they can give financial support to the project for all of these daily life needs of the teams and of people that are working on nonviolence, which is important.

Amira: Yes. And also, one important thing that I have to add is advocacy. Advocacy is very important. Like people who have been to Palestine and Israel, when they go back to their countries, just don’t stay there and sit and say, “I once visited Palestine and Israel, and I saw the checkpoints,” and so on. No, go and talk about it, you know? Talk with your community, with your – maybe in universities, in schools, and then in your, you know, barbecue nights with your friends. You know, to tell people what’s going on on the other side of the world because it’s all connected.

It’s all connected. If this area stays like this, all the world is going to – going to really a – bad, bad things. So, I think everybody should talk about it, whoever is interested in this case. And I can help, and many people can help. There are plenty of organizations who talk about the conflict, about what’s happening. You can, you know, Google, and then you have so many organizations who can tell you and give you firsthand information about the situation and what’s happening.

Stephanie: Yeah. I was quite surprised, Amira, after October 7th, when papers started reporting on what life is like in the West Bank and what was happening with the settlements. So many people were surprised, and they didn’t know that was happening, that there was this very intense escalation of violence on a daily basis from the Israeli government on Palestinians, especially in the West Bank. People didn’t know that. So, not to take anything for granted that people understand what’s going on there.

Amira: I totally understand. Like when I talk with people who come, like they meet me for the first time, and I tell them I’m a Christian Palestinian, also they are surprised. Even lots of people in the States, they don’t know that we exist here.

Come on, you know? Like really, some people, they asked me, when did you become a Christian? I tell them I was born. I never became a Christian. I am a Christian because I was born. Since my great-great-great-great grandfather, you know? My grandfather was the mayor of Bethlehem. My ancestors are Bethlehemite Christians from Bethlehem where Jesus was born, like Bethlehem is Christian. Come on.

So, this is like, to that extent, people don’t know about us, about Palestine, about the conflict. Israel doesn’t differentiate us from others. Like they treat us as Palestinians. They don’t give us like special treatment because we are Christians. No. For them, we are Palestinians.

They don’t care. You know, like my house was bombed. Our land is being taken. I have to go to Jerusalem, which is just five minutes from Bethlehem. I need a permit from the Israeli government to cross the checkpoint and go to church in Jerusalem, you know? Even if I have an American passport, I still can’t go, you know? I’m not allowed. Like, if you come to, to visit me, then you can go alone to Jerusalem. I can’t go with you. Even if I’m American. So, yeah, it’s really terrible.

Michael: Yeah. We experienced that ourselves. A friend of ours drove us up to Bethlehem, but had to stop and go back while we went in.

I just want to make one final comment, Amira, and that is that this kind of extreme violence that you’ve been describing is often its own undoing. That historically, if you look back at, you know, a couple of centuries, more centuries, what you see is people think that by being extremely violent they’re going to prevail. They’re going to be secure. They’re going to get what they want. But it always backfires. So, it’s very harmful.

There’s no way of getting around the pain and the risk. But in the long run, I want to say that I believe you are in a stronger position, and we wish you every success.

Amira: Thank you. Thank you.

Stephanie: Amira, thank you so much for joining us today on Nonviolence Radio. I have this, letter from Mel Duncan, who’s also working on the outreach in the creation of this project for UCP.

And he suggests that people tell your story who have heard this, contact their representatives and senators in the US. That they call the State Department and talk about your situation. Demand that the US Embassy in Jerusalem intervene, that it has to stop supporting Israeli expansion on the West Bank. Demand an immediate cease fire in Gaza and stop any further arms shipments to Israel. I’m sure you can. People can find out more about this at NonviolenceInternational.net. Amira Mussallam, thank you so much for joining us today.

Amira: Thank you. Thank you very much. Bye.

Stephanie: Bye. For those of you just tuning in, or have been listening, you’re here at Nonviolence Radio, and we’ve been speaking with Amira Mussallam from Beit Jala, Palestine, about nonviolence in Palestine, and Israel-Palestine, and in the West Bank, and her situation on the front lines of that conflict.

If you want to learn more about nonviolence, go to MettaCenter.org. And you can find archives of this show at NonviolenceRadio.org.

We want to thank our mother stations, KPCA and KWMR. To Matt and Robin Watrous who are going to transcribe this show, thank you very much. Sophia Pechaty, Annie Hewitt, Bryan Farrell over at Waging Nonviolence, the show is syndicated there, also across the Pacifica Network.

Thank you to all community radio supporters. A special thank you to Amira Mussallam for her interview. Mel Duncan for putting us in contact. And to you, all of our listeners, until the next time, as we way, please take care of one another.

Via Waging Nonviolence

Subscribe to “Nonviolence Radio” on Apple Podcasts, Android, Spotify or via RSS.

( Waging Nonviolence) – As a Palestinian, Sami and his family have suffered directly under the long Israeli occupation and more acutely now, from the current war. Sami speaks candidly about the ways in which politicians and media harness fear and exploit unhealed traumas so that violence seems to be the only response to conflict. This, he insists, is a distortion – and one that must be actively resisted. Instead of accepting the simplistic binary categories of victim and victimizer, Palestinians can envision and then work collectively through nonviolent means to realize a just future, one which they themselves have chosen. Such a path calls for broad education in nonviolence, it calls for deliberate organization, it calls for genuine leadership and crucially, it calls for love to be our primary motivation. The situation in Palestine is horrific, there is no quick fix, but when we reject fear as our driver and turn to love instead, possibilities for real change emerge

I think part of loving is to deeply understand who the other is and where they’re coming from and what motivates them to behave the way they behave and do the things they do. And in that love and care and compassion, creates space for transformation and healing. And I think that is definitely much more powerful than fear, and is key. But it’s a journey.

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Stephanie: Greetings and welcome dear listeners to another episode of Nonviolence Radio. I’m your host, Stephanie Van Hook, and I’m here with my cohost and news anchor of the Nonviolence report, Michael Nagler. And we’re from the Metta Center for Nonviolence in Petaluma, California.

On this episode we speak with a truly remarkable guest, Sami Awad. He’s the former executive director of the Holy Land Trust in Bethlehem. With the world’s eyes on this region at this time in the conflict, especially, escalated since October 7, our discussion with Sami explores a new level of activism and understanding of nonviolence in the region, one of the most tumultuous regions in the world.

What I liked the most about this interview with Sami was the depth of his understanding of the dynamics of nonviolence, not only politically, but also what happens in the human heart and mind, and this kind of tension between fear and love.

Sami is a thoughtful, inspiring, and noble human being. And we hope that you gain as much understanding and inspiration and support from this interview as we did. Let’s turn to Sami Awad.

Sami: My name is Sami Awad. I am living in Bethlehem. I am a Palestinian. Both of my parents are Palestinians. My father is a refugee from Jerusalem and my mother is from Gaza, from the Gaza Strip.

Until last week, my mother’s family was in Gaza. We were able to take them out to Cairo a day before the Israeli army started bombing Rafah. And they were in Rafah, actually. So very, very lucky. My uncle, aunt, cousin’s, in-laws – there are still family members that are still in Gaza. We’re still very worried about them. But at least the immediate family, we were able to take out last week.

I grew up in a family that has always been committed to peace work and very deeply influenced at a young age by an uncle, Mubarak Awad. Who was heading the Palestinian Center for the Study of Nonviolence before he was arrested and deported by the Israeli army for his work in nonviolence.

And so, my life journey, my mission, has been to engage in nonviolent resistance and activism towards the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian people and to bring a just peace to this land. Which has not been an easy task for all of us, I think, for all who have been involved in this.

Part of that was in 1998, I started an organization called Holy Land Trust, which I ran for 25 years, until last year, when I decided to step away from the organization. To continue working with them, but stepping into more freelancing and doing more work on a global scale with nonviolent activism.

Stephanie: What does that look like for you today?

Sami: Well, today, I mean, this was all the idea before this war on Gaza took place before October 7. So, it’s been completely taken over by just the reality that we live in now, and then trying to advocate for at least a ceasefire to happen. Trying to advocate for nonviolence, trying to advocate also for people not to be afraid to expose the injustices that are happening, the genocide that is taking place, the growing levels of racism that are happening also in this land, that need to be addressed. So, I haven’t been able to engage at the international level as planned.

But for me, the three tiers of the work that I work in and want to continue working, as I mentioned, the first and maybe the cornerstone is nonviolent activism. The second tier, which I have been doing more and more work in the field also, maybe even at the same level of need, is to address collective trauma, inherited trauma, and how this is an important component actually, of activism that we need to – we need to be motivated not by our fear nor by our trauma as we move forward.

Many, many peace activists are activists for peace because they’re afraid of the other side, not because they honor the other side, respect the other side, or even acknowledge the atrocities that have been done to the other side. “We are afraid of you, therefore, we want to make peace with you,” and that, for me, doesn’t work. And so inherited narratives of trauma, which are key. Key, when it comes to the Palestinian Israeli situation, are some aspects of work that we have been doing.

The third level of work is leadership development. So, for me, we can’t also talk about nonviolence without having clear, visionary, trusted leaders that are motivating their community, that carry the vision, that are leading their people in the struggles of liberation and not just sitting in, you know, five-star hotels and mansions and talking about liberation.

And so, leadership development, nonviolence, and healing are the work that I’ve been engaged in and want to continue to engage in, as I said, locally and globally as well.

Michael: So, in that brief talk, Sami, three things have come up for me of different character. One is, are you working with Combatants for Peace?

Sami: Yes. Yeah, you know, when we look at what’s happening now, as – I don’t even know what the word is to describe it. As sorrowful, as painful as confusing as it is, as dark as it is, there are some beacons of light that are happening. And I think one major one is that there is a level of awakening within the Palestinian activist community.

I’ve been having many of these discussions, many of these discussions happen in my home, including key leaders on the Palestinian side of Combatants for Peace, that we come, and we meet together. And then really ask the questions of, who we are, where are we, what is our mission? What is our goal? What have we done that has worked? What have we done that has not worked as well in the past?

I think October 7, let me say on a positive side, was maybe a wake-up call for many of us to say that, yes, we have been doing work as activists for 25 years and more now since the Oslo peace process began, at least if not before.

And then, did we fall into a routine? Did we fall into a certain pattern of what we did and how we did things that we need to address? And so, I think we’re having really very powerful discussions that talk about, again, who are we? What are we doing? What is the language we want to speak now? How much have we been in a space where we were appeasing the other side, even in our nonviolent activism? To try to bring them into, you know, accepting us or engaging with us?

How much did we downplay our language in a way that makes them want to join? Now we’re saying, “No, we want to label things as they are. We want to speak truth to power.” We want to make it very clear we’re not looking – yes, we enjoy the friendships, but this is not the main part, the part of what we’re doing.

It’ll be amazing friendships when this occupation ends. These are the friendships we want to have. Not before, and then having these friendships become so personal that they interfere with our ability to engage in work because we are worried about upsetting them or not making them – or making them triggered by us.

So, there’s been an awakening, I think, within the activist community since October 7. And these discussions have been very, very strong, and profound. I think.

Michael: Wow, thank you, Sami. Okay. I’ll just move on to my second question, since we had such a great time with the first one. The second one was more like a comment, but I’d like to get your response to it.

You know, in this field, as you know, we talk about negative peace and positive peace. And you just gave a really devastating definition of negative peace when you said, “Some people go into nonviolence because they’re afraid. They’re afraid of the opponent.” And Gandhi would say, acting out of fear is a form of violence.

Sami: Exactly.

Michael: So that, in a way, negative peace is not nonviolence.

Sami: Yes, I fully agree with that statement. And this is why it became very important for us to address the fear. Because we know that fear is part of the collective psyche, for example, of the Jewish community in particular. They grow up in a narrative that says to them, as Jews, we have trusted so many in the past and look what they did to us. As Jews, everybody hates us. Everybody wants to destroy us. And antisemitism is alive and well. There is no denial of that. But there is also, in my opinion, an abuse of that by certain leaders to gain political clout.

One quote that also is as strong for me is, it says, “Fear is the greatest motivator of human behavior.” And then leaders know that if you use fear, people will listen to you. And then we see this politically everywhere in the US, in Europe, growing fascism. To be honest, Michael, even the left in the US is now using fear as a motivation to rally people around them. And so, this has also been negative, negative peace as well.

So, we need to definitely address fear and its history, and the way to deal with it is healing. So, we are very much engaged in creating spaces for Palestinians and Israelis collectively, where they come with very specific programs that we have created to become aware. At least become aware that many of the decisions that they’re making are motivated by fear, and that we can now create a different space where we could put that fear behind us and become motivated by something else.

Become motivated by justice. Become motivated by compassion, by understanding the other, by acknowledging the atrocities that are being committed against the other. Take responsibility. Because fear also just puts you more in the victim’s mindset. And then we need people to understand that they have responsibility in terms of what’s happening here.

Michael: You made a statement, which is of really great significance in the nonviolence field. Because there is always this specter raised because of the tremendous power of Gandhi and King and a few others, there is, of course, a school that wants to not have charismatic leaders, which I don’t agree with that school very much.

And it sounds like you agreed with me, which is quite thrilling. That you said that a leader has to at least emerge, someone who can rally, who can refocus people, has to emerge.

Sami: Yes. Yeah. I think for us as Palestinians, this has been a question for me that I’ve been in for a long time. This is why I actually started doing the leadership training programs in the Palestinian community, because in a way, I could say we have too many leaders, but we don’t have leadership.

We don’t have clear leadership that is really able to unite the community. Our sad reality is we have leaders that are tribal leaders representing political parties. They’re trying to gain politically for their party based on, you know, putting others down or even struggling or having conflict with others, as we see between – for many, many years and until now between groups like Hamas and Fatah, each one trying to gain power in a situation where we have nothing, absolutely nothing.

Sometimes I compare this like people fighting over who’s going to be standing on top of the trash dump instead of asking, how can we all come together and clean this mess that we have been put in? So, for me, leadership is key, is important. We have leadership that are, again, ready to not just speak a vision and inspire people but are ready to be on the ground.

This is what Gandhi did. This is what King did. They were on the front lines of demonstrations. I’ve been in so many demonstrations here that we organized, Michael, where Palestinian leaders come to join us. And as soon as it reaches that hot zone where, you know, where it’s ready to have that tension between us and the army, they’re the first ones to leave, many of them, not all of them, but many of them will just turn around and go back.

They got their photo op, they got on the camera. You know, they got the interview on TV, and that was it. This is not the leadership that we want. And then I will even add to this and say that part of our work is to also build up the capacity of young leaders, which are very important for us.

This is key motivation. And, as important, women leaders in the Palestinian community, which were very, very strong, and very, very powerful until the Oslo peace process began, and the Palestinian Authority was created. And this absolute male masculine energy took over and women were sidelined for all the work that they did. And now we see, like all – most of the leaders in the Palestinian community are men.

Even somebody like Hanan Ashrawi, who was a woman leader for many years, you know well. She’s been sidelined. You know, given sort of like a spokesperson position at best. And so, for us, bringing young leaders and women leaders in full force in the Palestinian community is key as well.

Stephanie: Sami, as you’re speaking, first of all, I just want to pause and see if, you know, you’ve covered a lot of ground – has anything struck you as you’ve been speaking, that you want to go into a little bit further before we guide into another place? How are you feeling?

Sami: No, I’m feeling good. We’ll see where we go. I mean, I think it’s important at some point to talk about what – I don’t even know the answer to it, but what is nonviolence in the midst of all what’s happening now?

Stephanie: I do have a lot of questions about the various aspects and angles of nonviolence. One is that fear is the greatest motivator for politicians in particular, I think is what you mean.

Sami: It’s what the politicians use to motivate. So, fear is the greatest motivator of human behavior. And politicians know how to play that game very well. That’s – yeah.

Stephanie: Do you think love could be the greatest motivator?

Sami: Yeah, yeah. No, for me, I mean, I think a big part of the work we’re all doing is to conquer fear with love, for sure. And that’s what we want. But I think to really make that happen, I think we also need to understand how deeply fear has also been embedded in love itself. And how many people, you know – fear has, there is a certain understanding of love that I think is really missing.

I think most people who engage in love, if it’s at the personal or the collective level, still have this component of fear in them. Fear of losing a loved one, fear of being alone, fear of separation, fear of judgment. A lot of fear comes in love relationships. And so, this is something very important for me that we work on, which is how to also free love from fear itself.

And for me, there is a love that I think is very powerful and can be motivational. And that is when we talk about love that is unconditional, for example. Like, how can we love somebody despite the triggers, despite how, you know, their behavior that makes us feel insecure or something? And then how can we be part of that healing journey for them?

To love somebody, in my opinion, means to unconditionally love them. And then for me, you know, my history connected to this has been – I always say how I began to discover Jesus when I let go of Christianity. And then I started studying Jesus independent of Christianity. And then one key statement, a commandment, actually, not just a statement that he told his followers in the midst of a very brutal occupation that they were living in under the Roman occupation, which is, love your enemy.

And then I went on, it was my spiritual journey to understand what does it mean to love somebody? What does it mean when he is telling Jews who lived under a very violent, brutal occupation to love their enemy? He didn’t say, “Make peace with your enemy.” He didn’t say, “Resolve a conflict with your enemy.” He didn’t say, “Reach a peace treaty with your enemy.” He said, “Love your enemy.”

And then I think part of loving is to deeply understand who the other is and where they’re coming from and what motivates them to behave the way they behave and do the things they do. And in that love and care and compassion, creates space for transformation and healing. And I think that is definitely much more powerful than fear, and is key. But it’s a journey.

I want to say that it’s been one of my biggest disappointments since October 7 was in seeing how many Israeli peace activists that I’ve worked with, connected with, been in spaces with, engaged in nonviolent resistance with, immediately, immediately on October 7 itself fell into the trap of absolute fear from the other and even calling for violence towards the other.

And this is why I say it’s the greatest motivator. Because if you’re not really embedded and stable and have deep roots in love, then that tree can fall very quickly and then fear takes over. And so, yes, love is ultimately the greater motivator. But my fear, my problem at this time is that, sadly, in the world we live in, fear and separation are the motivations.

Stephanie: I was just reading in Thérèse of Lisieux, a Catholic mystic, who said on this topic of loving your enemy, that it’s not enough to love your enemy, you have to prove it.

Sami: Yes, I love that. I jokingly say sometimes, when I was in that question of what Jesus meant by loving the enemy, you know, I would say like, should I go to checkpoints and open my arms out to Israeli soldiers and say, “I love you, Come and – now give me a hug?”

And so, love, there is a proof to it, component as well. It’s not just words. It’s actions. It’s deeds. It’s energy that you bring into the space. It’s an opening, an invitation. So, there is action for sure when it comes to love as well.

Stephanie: And I think in that same context, it was something like the greatest – that before Jesus was crucified, that he gave another commandment which was even greater than loving your enemy, which was love one another the way that I’ve loved you.

Sami: Yeah. And yeah, for sure. And his story, his journey of his life is one where it was expressing love and living love and teaching love and being unconditional in love. And not separating between different tribes and different people and different groups when it comes to love. And even being challenged by himself, like when he showed love to the enemy, and he showed love to the – I think it was, there was a woman who was from a different identity group that even challenged him to heal her because he didn’t want to heal her initially.

And then she challenged him, and he did heal her. And for him to be in the humbleness of it, and accepting that he also has his learning to do when it comes to this from the enemy, from others. So, yeah, for me, everything that Jesus did was an embodiment of love and transformation and healing.

And then this is why, for me, it’s very important then to talk about him and to talk about his teachings in that way.

Stephanie: And on that topic again, of fear, and as you said, you know, love is sort of hiding behind fear in a way. That in the work of the trauma work and of, you know, getting to this place of nonviolence from this place of unconditional, fierce love, detached love, even, I wonder what you think that fear is doing there.

Why is fear so intertwined with love?

Sami: Yeah, yeah. It’s a big question. I mean, I think part of it is, we grow up in communities and in identities that promote separation and promote division. Starting with family, you know, now it’s about the nucleus family. It’s not about the bigger community that we are part of. It’s my father and my mother and my siblings.

And then there is the other. It’s my school, and then there is the other. Everything is polarized, everything is dualistic, everything is divided. And in that, because of these narratives we grow up in, there is this illusion of security that we have to create around my identity, my narrative, my people, my tribe.

And the illusion is that this identity creates a sense of security for me to be part, to belong to something. And then the moment that is challenged by something else or by a new narrative that comes into play, then immediately fear of losing comes up. And I think fear of losing is the biggest fear that we have, not just losing life but losing, losing connection, losing community, losing identity.

And to be honest, this is what I see a lot within the Israeli community. That for so many years now, decades, it’s been embedded in them that the state of Israel, this state is the only safe place for you. This state is the only place that you could come to that will protect you when the rest of the world begins to attack you. This is why you have to –

So, the love for the state of Israel is coming completely from an ideology of promoting fear of the other. That if you don’t love Israel and you don’t give everything to Israel, your commitment, your vows, your money, your vote, then you are with the other, you are with the enemy. You are allowing. So fear – this is why I keep saying fear is a great motivator.

And then many, many Israelis and talking to them, especially when it comes to trauma healing work, there is this fear of who are we, even now, without the state? And yes, the state has problems. And yes, the state has issues. And yes, the state is not doing good things. But, you know, there’s always this, but we go back to it. And we need to fix it. We need to make it better.

But it’s still this whole nation that is completely embedded and motivated by fear. And again, I’m not denying the past that created this, but to say that there is an abuse of this at this time that is taking place, that’s making people completely lost in it.

So, yes, separation and division and dualism is key in promoting fear and dismantling love in spaces. When we talk about love, it’s about community. It’s about oneness. When you love somebody, you are creating something new with them. It’s not just the I and the they. It’s the we that comes out, that emerges. It’s the new creation that comes out of love.

And for me, this is like – this is my dream for this place and this land. What is the new that we can create? When we look into the peace treaties that have been offered, the Oslo peace process. A peace process. Even leaders won Nobel Peace Prizes on it. Like the greatest honor of peace. If we look deeply on it from that lens, it wasn’t a peace process. At best, we could say it was a security process to put like a positive note on it. It was negotiating security, and security means there is fear. And so, when there is fear, we need to negotiate the best security mechanism for us.

Israelis were negotiating from a place of, how do we maintain a Jewish nation, a Jewish state? Because, again, of how the world has treated us, how the world has seen us, the fear and the trauma that we have experienced. And then we have to deal with those Palestinians that are in this land. We wish they were not there, but because they’re there, we have to find a certain arrangement for them.

And the Oslo peace process failed because that arrangement was only about how can we control the Palestinians in order to maintain security. How can we create a Palestinian Authority to help us suppress the Palestinians in a way to maintain security for Israel and the Jews?

And that failed. The Palestinians’ leadership on the other side was also motivated by fear. The PLO at that time had lost its legitimacy in the global community when Yasser Arafat stood with Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War. You know, the faucet of financial support from the Gulf state was cut, diplomatic negotiations with the US and Europe that were secret were ended.

He was motivated by fear of losing everything. So, he jumped into the Oslo peace process again from a place of fear. Both sides were motivated by fear. And for me, yeah, when we talk, imagine if they were motivated by love in that way, like by a deep understanding, compassion, care, a desire to reconcile the grievances that were created by both sides, a desire to even apologize and mend what we have done to you. We would definitely not be in this situation. But sadly, that’s not the motivation that was there.

Stephanie: You’re here at Nonviolence Radio. I’m Stephanie Van Hook. I’m with Michael Nagler. And we are speaking with Sami Awad from Israel-Palestine about the work of nonviolence in the region.

A while ago, we had interviewed Ali Abu Awwad from Taghyeer, and he said something that ties into something that you said earlier about the victim mentality. He said, “When we stop seeing ourselves as victim or victimizer, that’s really the basis for being able to move forward together.”

Can you speak to the – again, that kind of tension between love and fear within this identity of a victim or victimizer when, clearly, we can be both victim and victimizer at the same time? So, how do we release ourselves from that space? How do you do that in your work?

Sami: Yeah, so again, for me, it comes down to motivation. And what is that motivation for action that it creates? At first, we cannot deny the reality that we live in. On that scale, there is a victim and there is a victimizer, there is an oppressor and oppressed, there is an occupier and an occupied.

The question is, being the victim, what do I do? What do I engage in? How do I behave? Do I allow myself to completely surrender to victimization, which means my action is about blaming, complaining, seeking entitlement, not taking responsibility, not taking action, labeling everything as impossible because of what they’re doing to us? And so, there is a consciousness of victimization that I can choose to be in.

And there’s another consciousness of victimization, which is, yes, I am a victim, but I have power. Yes, I am a victim, but I can unite my people around the call. Yes, I am a victim, but I can have a vision for the future. And I can engage in action to bring a better day for me and my people, and for the victimizer themselves as well.

I think it’s not about denying the reality, but it’s about saying that I make a choice. Everything in life is a choice. And then again, we see this on a personal and then the collective. This is why, for me, always, the personal and the collective are intertwined. We learn from each other. A person who is abused in a relationship and is a victim has a choice.

And sometimes we think we don’t have a choice because fear takes over. But we always have a choice. Then what is that choice that we make in the midst of the oppression, of being victimized? It’s not about denying it. I think that’s very important.

And then I fully agree with you. Yes, I can be a victim in the context of an occupation, but I can be a victimizer in the context of how I connect to my neighbor, or how I connect to my family or my children.

And so, we all have that, we all have that component in us to be both at the same time. I don’t want to belittle the reality that we live in and to say no, that at that mega political level, that is the reality, and we need to address it from that point about how do we empower the victim, and how do we – and this is a key part of nonviolence, is how do we pull power away from the victimizer?

I think many people just completely ignore the component of nonviolence, which is the need of nonviolence to pull power away. Michael, Mubarak, Gene Sharp, talk about this. That we need to – yeah, so, when it comes to the power dynamics, it’s where the shift needs to happen.

Stephanie: Yeah, Michael and I were listening to a practitioner of restorative justice from Northern Ireland the other day, and he was working with victims of sexual assault, I think at one point.

And he said that one of the stories was that this woman had the opportunity to be in the room with the person who had raped her, but he wasn’t going to apologize for what he did. And so, the guy was like, “Well, we could call off the session because you’re not going to get what you want.”

She said, “No, we’re going to go through with it because he’s never going to have that power over me again. It’s not that I want his apology. I don’t want him to ever have that power over me again.”

Michael: She showed that she wasn’t destroyed by what he did. That was her triumph in that situation.

Sami: Yeah. And not make him decide what the discourse of the conversation would be. But he decides he wants to apologize or not, that’s not, that’s not important to her. Yeah, that’s beautiful. I love that.

Michael: You know, at the end of Man’s Search for Meaning, which is Viktor Frankl, the psychiatrist who was in Auschwitz for two and a half years. At the very end, when the camp is liberated, he’s walking out of the camp with a fellow prisoner, and they walk past a wheat field. And the other prisoner runs into the wheat field and starts trampling the wheat. And so, Frankl says, “What are you doing?” And the guy says, “They did this to me, so I’m going to do this to them.”

And there’s just like such a stark allegory of this man let himself be destroyed by his victimization. And Frankl, for some, you know, God’s grace descended on him or something and he didn’t let himself be destroyed. So, I’m guessing that when you do a lot of trauma work with both camps, actually, that this is something that you emphasized, not to let yourself be, not to adopt what your enemy tells you you are.

Sami: Of course. Of course. And then we see this fully in history, where unhealed trauma creates a cycle of, a new cycle of victim and victimizer, of oppressor and oppressed. And we all know this is a big part of this reality that we live in. The fact that there was no real deep healing work for the Jewish community after the Second World War when it comes to trauma healing, it was never addressed at that level.

It was just, in a way, coming out from guilt and shame that the international community had to make up for the Jewish community. But until today, there hasn’t been a real reconciliation process. And we see this, and then we see that that lack of healing has created this system that we have lived in for many, many years that has completely now exposed itself.

And then it’s violence. And then it’s sad. It’s really sad. Like, it’s not easy for me to create a comparison between how they were treated and how they’re treating us. This is not the point. But to say that the lack of healing of the Jewish community has created a community where they are committing atrocities against another people.

And to say that in the future that the lack of healing for Palestinians from the traumas that they are facing will result in them creating violence and atrocities against others. If it’s another group of people, if it’s different identity groups within the Palestinian community, if it’s gender-based, religious-based, to say that the Palestinians are excluded from that cycle, it’s not going to happen if we don’t engage in trauma healing as soon as we are able to move in that space for the Palestinians.

So, peace, any peace that comes in the future, in my opinion, needs to be deeply embedded in truth and reconciliation and trauma work for both communities.

Michael: We recently interviewed Ofer Cassif, and he had a very interesting image for this. He talked about Israelis and Palestinians living side by side, but not looking each other in the eye. That they are really not seeing one another on a human level.

In other words, they’re trying to coexist rather than live together. And that kind of thing has never lasted.

Sami: Yeah, I fully agree. And not just that, I will add to it. We’re living next to each other, coexisting – and I think that’s what he was also meaning, with completely different narratives of who we are and who the other is.

We’re not even listening to each other’s stories. We’re not even listening to each other’s pain and narratives. So, the Israelis are living their own complete narrative. And actually, it’s interesting because part of the conversations we’re having is how media is being presented on both sides. And the absolute contrast with what the Israeli media’s presenting, what Palestinian media’s presenting.

And it’s not about truth or not like it’s that’s, you know, the media is media. But it’s just the stories, the narratives that are being presented by one, and how the same experiences presented by the other is a completely different story. And then people, this is what they’re listening to. That’s what they’re hearing, and that’s then what they’re sharing as their experience.

We need to find that space where – and it’s not even about creating one story. I mean, it’s about just beginning to really listen to the other and then seeing the other eye to eye, and honoring and respecting the other, trusting the other for their experience and what can be built with them.

Stephanie: We have a good friend, Amery, who is an artist. In his art, he tries just to bring people together to build relationship with each other, whether it’s like rolling a ball back and forth in a park. That is his art in a way. And so, I’d love to move into this question of what nonviolence looks like in this situation right now. And yeah, let’s just open that up.

Sami: Yeah. So, I’ll begin by saying that nonviolence in the midst of war and violence is not something very easy to engage in. It’s sad to say this, but when the emotions are so high, when the arms are so powerful and strong, and the use of weapons is so easily done, all of us, all of us, we’re all in a place where we are in the question of what can we do?

You know, we’re seeing demonstrations happening around the world. Millions and millions of people. We’re seeing politicians that are probably going to lose elections because of their stance, and they’re still advocating for violence and for this war to continue and for more weapons.

So, on one level, I would say, we – I can’t be always optimistic and say, yeah there is a nonviolent solution at this time. At this time, I think it’s very difficult. And I think it’s very important for us to honor that within us as activists. To actually acknowledge despair as it exists within the community and not to play around it. And in that place, to create conversations of how do we move, and where do we move, and what are we creating for any future work we want to do?

We definitely know that at the end of this war, there isn’t any political agenda out there that is going to promote a just peace to this situation. We’re going to fall back into a reality of fear, and victimization, and victimhood, and oppressor, and oppressed, and power dynamics the same way. Yeah, maybe a different political map of it, but that same energy is still going to be present.

And that, I think, is where we will have an opportunity to engage. And so, in a way, when the dust settles from this atrocity that we’re facing, it’s going to be our time to take charge, to move forward in work. And these are the conversations we’re having with activists.

It’s not to say that we cannot engage. We do the best that we can, which is creating advocacy. Many, many of us are on webinars and Zoom calls around the world talking about nonviolence, talking about the Palestinians, talking about the rights of the Palestinians, creating more international support, the momentum for a just peace in this land. Because that is an opportunity that we have to work with.

But none of us are able to go now and stop a tank from shelling a house in Gaza. Even though there are many conversations – I’ve been in conversations with women leaders from around the world that are talking, let’s bring 100,000, 200,000 women to come and stand. And even with their willingness to understand that some of them might even lose their life in this.

And then there’s conversations happening around that, for sure. But to understand even that is going to be difficult to do. And we’re still engaging in the conversations at this level of activism and action. But there is a time that will come that I think many people will look back and say, “Violence has not worked. What we did in 2023 and ‘24, with so much death and destruction, did not achieve anything for both people. And we need a different route.”

The power dynamics will still stay there. And I think that will be the door opening for us to say there is a way, which is nonviolence, which is a more powerful force, which is also a force that will have the negative and violent response from the oppressor towards it. And this is something we need to engage in.

You know, I think, as I said, we’re having all these conversations now, and I think part of the conversations is to actually present nonviolence as a powerful force that many people lost touch with. Nonviolence became, again, like the negative peace, the negative nonviolence that Michael talked about, which is let’s get together, let’s do a sit-in somewhere.

To be very honest, in many nonviolent actions that are joint Palestinian/Israelis, there was pre-negotiations with the army that we will be there for an hour – or you’ll be there for an hour. After an hour, we’ll start shooting. And the demonstrators would leave before the hour ended because they did not want to engage in the clash. And now what we’re saying is, “No, if we want to engage in nonviolence in the future, we have to be ready for that clash. We have to be ready for the response, the violent response from the other side.” To reclaim nonviolence for its core and its power, I think is the opportunity that we have ahead of us.

Stephanie: Yeah, I’ve heard comments that this conversation is extremely difficult to have because people have said Palestinians have tried nonviolence with the specific emphasis on the Great March of Return and that you had so many people joining that and that the soldiers just shot people down. So, how do you respond to that?

Sami: Yeah, I mean, I always say the March of Return was an example. I also say that the March of Return was and could have been much stronger if it was much more organized and much more embedded in a unified Palestinian cause of resistance. That it’s the West Bank and Gaza coming together, it’s leadership that was missing.

And then sadly, like in the First Intifada, where that was a very strong example of nonviolence that actually achieved great results for us, it’s, one, honestly, I would say corrupted leadership wanted to ride the wave and took it over, that it began to collapse. And many people who were organizing the March of Return were not committed – were not part – or supporters of Hamas.

And then, sadly, I would say at one point, again, leaders saw an opportunity for them to gain power and they rode that wave. And of course, you know, once – nonviolence and this is something that we always learn in nonviolent resistance and activism, even Gandhi talked about the army of nonviolence. You have to be trained in it.

This is not just about, you know, let’s go out and do it. Then we’re missing this: we’re missing the schools, the education, the training of nonviolence, as if you are trained to join an army. The only thing different is the weapons that you use are different. And so, there’s a sense of discipline, there’s a sense of camaraderie, there’s a sense of steadfastness, of willing to sacrifice, understanding this, that is missing, I think, I would say at this level, in most of the global, nonviolent movement, not just here.

So, yeah, it was an example. And then we could definitely build on it more. And to say, yes, the other side will engage in violence. And by the other side actually engaging in violence, it actually is a proof of the success of nonviolence, as we know, it’s not that it failed. It actually showed success. When the other side uses violence as a response.

Stephanie: So there were two intifadas, right?

Michael: Yeah.

Sami: Yes.

Stephanie: Where this – where the Second Intifada was more grounded in nonviolent action. Or the first one was?

Sami: The first one.

Stephanie: The first one. Okay, so Third Intifada? Is that a conversation that’s taking place, or what would be your vision of a Third Intifada?

Sami: I think what we need to – it’s probably coming, the Third Intifada. It’ll probably eventually come. But I think there are certain things that need to be in place for that intifada to happen.

It cannot just be another sporadic, you know, movement or resistance that – because even between the intifadas, we had many of these things that have happened where it could have launched the second or could have launched the Third Intifada, but then it quickly died out. And so, I go back to the issue of leadership and vision.

You know, the sort of the three circles that I use in our training work is you need nonviolent resistance as a strategy. You need leadership and a vision. You cannot have two only of the other. You have leadership and you have nonviolence. Without a vision, you’re going nowhere. You have leadership and a vision without a community that is committed and engaged in violence, you go nowhere. You have nonviolence and a vision, without leadership, you’re going nowhere.

And so, for me, if we want to engage in achieving that, that level of the Third Intifada or intifada that has a great potential of succeeding, we need to start doing the groundwork for it and preparing for it.

And I think this is part of the conversations that we are having within the Palestinian community and leadership within the Palestinian community. What is the leadership that we need? What is the vision? What are we struggling for? What is it that we want and that we need to come to an agreement on this? And again, sadly, within the Palestinian community, we don’t have a clear vision.

You know, the two-state solution was imposed on us. Most people do not support the two-state solution, at least in the way that it was presented. And most people have seen on the ground the reality that with the expansion and building of new settlements of the apartheid wall and the confiscation of land and water, that that solution wasn’t a working solution to start with.

Then again, I even mentioned that they show fear. How it was motivated by fear. And so, we need to come together, and I would say, as Palestinians first and ask what is the vision we want? And then invite Israeli partners and activists to join us in these discussions. But again, I think one of the big challenges is that since Oslo, everything had to be done jointly.

And I would say this is probably in my memory, and you could correct me, the only liberation movement where members of the oppressor had a voice as equal to the oppressed in what is the strategy and what is the vision and what is the tactic. Like, you know, the civil rights movement wasn’t bringing white people and black people to talk about what is the vision, what to create.

No, it’s the black community saying this is what we want to achieve. In South Africa, this is – the LGBTQ community, this is what we want. And we invite solidarity. We invite people to join us in this. The Black Lives Matter wasn’t, you know, some, you know, like a 20-year-old white person from Seattle coming in and saying, “Yeah, I like your movement, but I think you need to do this and that.”

This is what we get as Palestinians from our Israeli friends. And we need to say, “No, this is what we want to achieve, and you need to trust us and not be afraid of us. And join us at some point and help us achieve this, this vision and the goal and create a new future for all of us. But you don’t have a veto or a say in deciding it.”

So yeah. So, it starts by the Palestinians coming for a vision and start training and the strategies of nonviolence that we will use, start building momentum around it, creating a movement around it, bring in more people. Nonviolence is, it means mass popular movement. It’s not just the 20 of us going into a demonstration or tying ourselves to trees as nonviolence. These are actions that are happening.

A movement of nonviolence means that the greatest majority of the Palestinian community are committed at one level or another to it.

Stephanie: Well, that’s our show today. You’ve been here at Nonviolence Radio where we explore nonviolence all over the world. And today our guest was Sami Awad from Israel-Palestine speaking about nonviolence in the region. We want to give a shoutout to our mother station, KWMR, to all of the people who help make this show possible including Matt and Robin Watrous, Sophia Pechaty, Francesca Po helping out on social media. To Bryan Farrell and the friends over at Waging Nonviolence who help syndicate the show, as well as friends on the Pacifica Network, thank you for sharing Nonviolence Radio with a much wider audience.

If you want to learn more about nonviolence, visit us at www.MettaCenter.org. And you can also found the show at www.NonviolenceRadio.org.

Until the next time, please continue to study nonviolence, practice nonviolence and take care of one another. The world needs you. Until the next time.