Last night after I posted some of us went to Siderot which is a small town near Gaza that has experienced a disproportionate amount of bombing by Palestinians. There was a film festival showing Afghan Star, a very popular show in the Arab world, and we were given the option to see the movie or talk to people in the town about their thoughts and opinions. Gabriel and I had planned see the first few minutes of the movie to see if we would like it (expecting we wouldn't) and then wander around town, but we quickly found out why that show has been such a success and ended up staying for the entire thing. Fascinating!
Today we went to Erez again and brought "contraband" (ie. semame seeds, matches, chocolate, paper, etc) and set up a theatrical protest where we had a fake wall where we brought the contraband and dug tunnels to get it all underneath. I was a Gazan prisoner (as we all know that Gaza is the world's largest prison). We took our passports to the guard again but were promptly denied. A few individuals took our names to Tel-Aviv to officially request entry to Gaza through Eres but we were denied visas.
We then took the protest to Karni, another border that is only for the entry of the 40 products that are allowed into Gaza (Erez is for people, which begs the question as to why it exists). We tied balloons and put the products we brought on the fence and set up the playground - it was really fun.
We came back and after a lovely vegan lunch (although I'm really missing cheese right now) we met with a woman who taught us about boycotts, divestments and sanctions. The group's website is www.whoprofits.org. We talked a lot about the exploitation of Palestinian workers, who by law have the same labour laws as Israelis, which is a relatively new law and rarely enforced. We also discussed the fact that many Israeli companies are joint companies with the US so that they can hide the fact that they are Israeli, and that security is the most profitable industry in Israel. She suggested that divestments are actually more practical for Canadians and North Americans as Israel doesn't actually export a lot of products to North America. We also learned about Violia, a French company who recently dropped a contract to build a light rail system in Jerusalem because of international pressures.
Later in the evening we met with five refusenik women who are all around 18 and were part of the twelfth grade letter movement, wherein they write letters on their graduation to the Ministry of Defense and the Prime Minister saying that they are refusing to participate in an army that commits war crimes. Two have spent time in jail and risk spending more time in jail, as each time they are released they are expected to join the army and can be arrested and charged each time they refuse, without a maximum. One claimed mental health issues (which can affect her future abilities to get jobs as she is labelled as mentally unfit), and one is taking a year off and will be refusing this year. There are two options if someone wants to avoid jail: they can claim mental health issues, wherein they have to be deemed mentally unfit by a doctor hired by the army, or they have to go in front of a panel and claim conscientious objection. The women said that the panel is basically a token institution as unless you say exactly what they want to hear and what they deem to be pacifism, you will be denied conscientious objector status. The two women who went to jail tried this route first but were denied - the one who claimed mental health issues essentially had to lie. One of the women who went to jail was very to the IDF about her objection to the occupation, as she feels that the crimes being committed there must be brought to light and will use her going to jail to do so. We also found out that suicide is the number one cause of death in the IDF, and of people ages 18 to 21 in Israel. I felt very honoured to have met these women.
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