I think the two reasons that the [Palestinians] continued to work with us was, first of all because we did our best - and I'm by no means saying we were perfect at this - at working at eye level, as equals. Second, I think we had some results to show - practical, concrete gains that people could show that came from their work with us.
Rabbi Arik Ascherman
29
Vision
Lessons Learned
How do you feel your activism has changed since the second intifada and why?
I don't think our work has changed, though everything around me has. We know that the second intifada caused many, many people that have been activists to throw up their hands. This collapse affected the peace movement in this country more than it did the human rights movement. Human rights are maybe of even more importance when you are dealing with conflict situations. Human rights are not predicated by having partner for peace. Right after the second intifada broke out, a boycott was issued by the umbrella organization of Palestinian NGOs (PNGO) on working with Israeli NGOs. Up until now, we have never been boycotted and Palestinians have continued to work with us. Also, the PNGO boycott had certain exceptions, one of them was human rights organizations. I think the two reasons that the [Palestinians] continued to work with us was, first of all because we did our best - and I'm by no means saying we were perfect at this - at working at eye level, as equals. Second, I think we had some results to show - practical, concrete gains that people could show that came from their work with us. We were responsible for what was the first major Israeli-Palestinian joint action of the second intifada: an olive harvest. That was when villages were totally blocked in and blockaded. We marched out with Palestinians to their lands. At first the army was blocking us and then they were protecting us from the settlers who were harvesting their [the Palestinians'] olives, and this kind of thing. The year after that we started with sending out people as human shields. In the [Palestinian] village of Yasuf, the nearby settlers of Kfar Tapuach for three days had been coming and stealing [the Palestinians'] olives. One British woman who was volunteering was shot at. The [Israeli] police or army would come by on their jeeps every couple hours and look and move on. Needless to say, we were there the next day, if for no other reason than that friends stay with friends. What happened on that particular day was that at first the army was protecting us, then settlers gathered with their dogs and you could hear the army on the walkie-talkies not knowing how to handle it, and so the easiest thing, rather than deal with the violent settlers was to get rid of the nice peaceful activists, get them out of the area, and so they closed the area and declared it a closed military zone and moved us out of there. By word of mouth, there were activists that were willing to serve as human shields to help harvest olives. That's really how that started as well, even if not directly because of the second intifada.