Sami
Awad,
Holy Land Trust
By
Vicky
Rossi, TFF Associate
September 5, 2006
Interview
# 4 of 4
Sami
Awad
Executive director, The Holy Land Trust
Bethlehem, Palestine
The Holy Land Trust (HLT) is a Palestinian not-for-profit organization
established in 1998 in Bethlehem with the aim of strengthening, encouraging
and improving the Palestinian community through working with children,
families, youth, and the non-governmental organization (NGO) community.
This goal is achieved on three levels: the creation of comprehensive
community awareness programs, working on local and international advocacy
initiatives, and building local and international networks and partnerships.
Holy Land Trust promotes and supports the Palestinian community
in its struggle on two fronts: achieving political independence through
supporting the Palestinian community in developing nonviolent resistance
approaches towards ending the occupation; and assisting it in building
an independent Palestine that is founded on the principles of nonviolence,
democracy, respect for human rights, and peaceful means of resolving
conflicts. In addition, HLT works to build deeper and broader international
understanding regarding the situation in the Holy Land in order to
strengthen the capacity of all those working for achieving positive
change in this region. HLT believes in the important role the international
community plays in achieving a just and comprehensive peace in the
Middle East.(1)
In 2003, the Palestine News Network (PNN) became a programme
of the Holy Land Trust. PNN simultaneously broadcasts four news bulletins
over 13 local Palestinian radio stations in the West Bank and Gaza
via satellite and on PNN’s website. PNN has also begun broadcasting
its tickertape on eight local television channels in the West Bank
and expects to increase the number of participant channels to 12 in
the near future. PNN has also begun sending SMS breaking news via
mobile phones in Jordan. This service is expected to extend to a large
number of Arab countries as soon as this is possible. PNN is also
negotiating with the international Committee of Local radio so the
network’s news bulletins could be broadcast over several European
radio stations in the near future. (3)
In January 2006, Sami Awad ran in the elections for the Palestinian
legislative council.
Vicky
Rossi: Could you tell me a little more about your understanding of the
term nonviolence. This morning in your speech you said that nonviolence
for you was about empowerment and the recognition of equality.
Sami Awad:
For me the concept of nonviolence was one that I can say that I grew up
with. I grew up in a family that was very understanding of the political
realities that we live in under occupation, but was always looking for
ways to find solutions. The person who had the most influence on my life
was my uncle, whose name is Mubarak Awad. When Mubarak returned to Palestine
from living in the U.S. in 1984, he opened a centre called the Palestinian
Centre for the Study of Nonviolence. As a young teenager, I was very involved
and active with the activities he did. We would go out to lands that were
going to be confiscated by settlers and we would plant olive trees. We
would organise demonstrations and activities. I think everybody who has
uncles has a favourite uncle and Mubarak was my favourite uncle for these
activities we did, but as a 13 year old boy it was also for the motor
cycle he had. It was always fun to ride on the back of a motorcycle!
In 1988 Mubarak was
arrested and tried in an Israeli court and was deported because of his
activities in nonviolence. For me that was a big transformation in my
life, where it wasn’t just the thing to feel good about –
to plant trees on a land, to organise demonstrations and so on –
it was something that was really serious and it was something that the
occupation was very afraid of. That was when I decided to commit my life
to the study of this field and for me what I realised is that it truly
is empowerment. It takes people away from the feeling of being negative,
complaining, blaming others and it makes people say, “Well, what
can we do to get out of this situation?” That’s the power
of nonviolence.
Vicky
Rossi: I have visited Israel, but I have never been to Palestine. Palestine
is depicted in a certain way in the mainstream media, so my question is
what is daily life really like for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank?
Sami Awad:
As you can guess, we do live a difficult life under occupation. As I said
today, it is not just the issue of the military violence that we face
and have to deal with on a daily basis. It is also the structural violence.
The occupation has created an entire structure where every aspect of our
lives is controlled: our movements, our food supplies, our electricity
comes from Israel, our water comes from Israel. Even though the water
wells, the natural reserves, are under West Bank territory, as Palestinians,
in areas we control, we cannot dig for water. The water is dug by Israelis
and sold back to us at over 10 fold the price that we would have paid
for it if we were able to find our own water resources. In addition, every
small aspect is controlled - your movements, for example, in Europe you
are very precise, on time, but if I wanted to have a meeting in Ramallah
I would say that I will meet between 9 a.m. and 12. This is when we will
have the meeting because of the check points that exist.
The difficulty is
that the way the media perceives this and the way the Israeli government
tries to show this is that all these measures are taken for security.
What is the security when we have a checkpoint between two Palestinian
villages or towns? It is more of an insulting act against the Palestinians
and a demonising act for the Palestinians. That’s how we feel it.
And Palestinians do feel that. There is, as I said this morning, a continuing
feeling of hopelessness that exists because there are no answers, there
are no alternatives that are being presented.
The Wall that is being
built is not just built between Palestine and Israel. It is built in a
way that is dividing Palestinian lands from each other. Bethlehem where
I come from is a city that will be completely surrounded by the Wall and
villages around Bethlehem will have walls around them. Now you can call
it a wall, you can call it a fence. The Israeli government makes the claim
that this is not a wall it is just a fence. And as Palestinians we call
it a wall because in residential areas it is a concrete wall. It is in
the outside areas where no people live that it is called a fence. But,
how many people know that the Berlin Wall was mostly a fence? They called
it a wall even though the majority of it was fence. But on the ground
it is a wall and that is what it feels like. That is what we face.
The settlements are
another aspect. They continue to grow and expand. Everybody has heard
about the settlers who left the Gaza Strip last year. The number is 8,000
settlers. 8,000 settlers left the Gaza Strip. How many people heard that
within 2 months 14,000 settlers moved into the West Bank. That’s
another form of the violence that we face on a daily basis.
Vicky
Rossi: In what way did daily life change for Palestinians when Hamas was
elected to government in January of this year?
Sami Awad:
The victory of Hamas in the elections was one that was a
shock to everybody, including Hamas. The majority of the Palestinians
did not vote for Hamas. The statistics show that less than 40% actually
did vote for Hamas, but the majority of the Palestinians voted for divided
political factions such as Fateh, which had many different candidates
running in the election. The victory of Hamas happened in a fair and democratic
election. It was an opportunity I believe that was missed by Israel and
by the international community. As soon as Hamas became engaged in the
political process, many of us in Palestine said, “Take advantage
of this. Don’t throw them back in the corner”.
They tried to come
out of that isolation, of being on the fringes but sad to say the world
pushed them again in the corner and they pushed more Palestinians there
too as now we have a boycott. The global community has imposed an economic
boycott on Palestinians. For 5 months now, government employees have not
received their salaries. The majority of those who are employed are from
Fateh, the political party of Yasser Arafat and the political party that
Israel and the world wanted to win. And these people are angry with Israel
and with the U.S. and with Europe. And I can say very sadly that many
of them are moving towards Hamas out of solitude, out of support for the
government. So this has become a big issue.
The economic situation
because of the boycott has become very, very difficult. We have seen the
level of poverty increase tremendously in the Palestinian areas. I can
also say that this boycott has affected non-governmental organisations
(NGOs) like our organisation because now there is the fear from other
international organisations of supporting anything in Palestine. Not because
of what we might do with the money, but because of how their own governments
might react to them. So organisations in the U.S. have said, “Until
this thing with Hamas is resolved, we don’t want anything with Palestine.”
In Europe as well.
So even the NGO community,
which in many cases was the balance, has been affected. When there was
an attack on the Palestinian Authority - even during the days of Yasser
Arafat - and there was no economy moving, the NGO community took charge
and it was able to make the balance. Now the scale has broken on both
sides, so that creates an even more difficult situation. And that’s
where we are today.
Vicky
Rossi: To what extent is coalition-building on a national or international
level important for the work of the Holy Land Trust?
Sami Awad:
Networking and building coalitions is a very important aspect of our work.
The way we have divided the networking is on two levels: the local networking
and the global networking. Locally when you engage in nonviolence, the
way nonviolence is now practiced in Palestine, it’s done as small,
sporadic activities that are reactionary in nature: so, the Wall is being
built in a village, people go and resist the Wall after it even starts
being built; a road is being blocked, people go and react to it; a bombing
happens, people go out and demonstrate against it. So nonviolence now
is done, as I said, in small areas where there are the direct effects
of the acts of occupation.
But for nonviolence
to become successful, it has to transform itself into a larger, pro-active
movement, where as Palestinians we start taking the initiative and the
actions and then seeing how the Israeli military, the Israeli government,
react to us. We lead and they follow in the actions that we do. In order
to do this you have to build a strong and powerful network. The problem
that we have now of course is that the divisions that are imposed on the
Palestinian community prevent us from holding these very important meetings
and discussions. Yes telephones are an option, yes emails and internet
are an option, but there is nothing better than to have a face to face
interaction when you are discussing such activities.
Part of what we have
done to help in this is that we have completed a training of 30 trainers
and the 30 trainers are located in 10 different areas in the West Bank.
All of them are now engaged in trainings in their local areas with villages,
with cities, with political factions, other organisations, the Palestinian
Authority itself, where they are doing the trainings so that they will
develop local strategies but at the same time because the training is
so similar we would be able to bring them together when we can to develop
national strategies. So this is at the local level what we are trying
to do and as I said before we are working with other organisations. This
is not only the work of the Holy Land Trust.
On the global level
we realise that for nonviolence again to be successful it definitely needs
the international community to play a very big role in this. The best
comparison I can give is to the situation in South Africa. While there
was a strong resistance movement happening in South Africa, mostly being
nonviolent, that was able to create awareness of the injustice that was
happening in South Africa, it took the international community when it
clicked and they woke up to say enough is enough and then the different
forms of pressure, the different forms of convincing, the different forms
of negotiations started taking place between the South African government
and the international community, which lead to the collapse of the apartheid
regime.
Vicky
Rossi: In your eyes, is the United Nations totally ineffectual as a mediating
body in the Middle East as long as the U.S. has a veto power within the
Security Council?
Sami Awad:
I think this is one point Palestinians and Israelis actually agree on,
the ineffectiveness of the UN! But for different reasons. I for one truly
believe in the “potential” of the United Nations, that it
can truly be a body that can encompass the global community, can present
the issues that are proving challenging to us as a global body and can
play a big role in resolving these conflicts and issues.
But as I said it’s
a “potential” because what I see now is the United Nations
being controlled and manipulated by certain powers, especially the U.S.,
in determining not just the policy of the United Nations towards Palestine
and Israel, but to any conflict that happens. It seems it is up to the
U.S. when they feel they need the UN to justify an act. When they do then
they take the United Nations file off the shelf and present it. If they
feel the global community is going to oppose them through the United Nations
then they just put that file back on the shelf again and do the act on
their own and there is nobody telling them do not, telling them to stop,
telling them that they themselves are violating international laws and
precedents.
So I hope that something
will happen where the United Nations would be what it is supposed to be.
But as a Palestinian I say it has been very disappointing from the very
beginning. Israel actually – many people don’t know that –
has refused to abide by more United Nations resolutions made against it,
or asking it to conduct certain actions, more than any other country.
Fifty seven rulings by the United Nations – and these are not ones
that were vetoed by the United States, these are ones that passed by the
United Nations – that Israel is until this day refusing to abide
by.
Vicky
Rossi: If then it is not through the United Nations, through which channels
do you suggest that the international community work and what kind of
initiatives should they be promoting?
Sami Awad:
I’m a strong believer in grassroots activism and grassroots work.
I believe again similar to South Africa that what made countries change,
what made the US government change towards South Africa was the masses
of the people, the organisations, the networks in the United States that
said enough is enough. This is the change that we are looking for. I believe
that we do have systems in power and these systems are corrupt. Government
systems around the world are corrupt and we have to find a way to truly
send our message not just as a criticism of the systems but as a means
to try to change the systems that exist by working through them and within
them.
When we talk about
democracies, this is when the role of democracy plays a part. It is when
the masses of the people in different areas of the world reach a point
where they will say to their governments it is time to put a stop, it
is time to put an end to the occupation. I believe this will happen not
just in the Western world but it will happen in Israel itself. The Israeli
society needs to rise up to the policies of the Israeli government. I
always say that it will not be the Palestinians that will bring down the
Wall. The only people who will bring down the Wall are the Israelis.
Then it comes back
to us as Palestinians and that’s why I ask what are we doing to
take responsibility? This morning I talked about the surplus of powerlessness
that exists within the Palestinian community and for me it would be like
a snowball effect: when Palestinians start engaging in nonviolence and
this movement grows more and more within the Palestinian community, and
the press starts reporting on it and organisations start talking about
it, and communities start discussing it, it will create the change within
the Israeli society where they will start challenging their own government’s
policy and say, “Why are we building this Wall?” “The
justification of security even if it was taken out of proportion before,
there is absolutely no justification for the Wall now.” “Why
are we continuing the occupation?” “Why are we building the
settlements?” And then the more important question, they would ask,
“What can we do?” “We the Israeli society, what can
we do to put an end to this?” And this would create a new peaceful
revolution within the Israeli societies and then this would spread to
other parts of the world.
Now I don’t
say this as a theory. I say this as something that happened, which was
during the first Palestinian uprising in 1987. In 1987, or prior to 1987,
the Israelis did not even know of the existence of Palestinians. They
were just “Arabs on our land”. The Israelis would come into
our supermarkets on Sabbath, Saturday, because their stores were closed
and they would buy cheaper food. It was open to everyone. There was no
Palestinian identity recognised by the local community.
When the Intifada
happened and it was nonviolent in its nature, and the televisions started
showing how the Israeli soldiers – young adults – were reacting
to the nonviolent demonstrations, the first community that rose with us
was the Israeli community and the peace movement really grew during that
first uprising. It wasn’t before that. It was the first uprising
that made the Israeli peace movement develop in a very strong way. That
led to many things for us: the recognition of us as a people, the recognition
of our leadership and most importantly to negotiations between Palestinians
and Israelis. So I don’t put my trust in the current structures;
I put my trust in the people, that when we are ready to wake the world
up, it will wake up and stand in solidarity with us.
Vicky
Rossi: How important do you think it is to engage young people in nonviolent,
direct action?
Sami Awad:
I strongly believe in the need to work with young people and to learn
from young people. […] But being young for me has really nothing
to do with age. It has to do with how much energy and how much spirit
you have to put in this work. This really gives me my inspiration to continue
this work seeing so many people involved and so many people active in
this work and so many people seeking to learn. If you want to talk about
young adults, there are so many who are here in this summer camp [in Tamera]
and people who have dedicated their lives to this. This is truly empowering
for all the work we do, so how can we continue to build this energy in
this young generation? This becomes the important question for us.
Vicky
Rossi: My final question relates back to the talk you gave this morning
when you spoke about fear. You said that in order to overcome fear there
was a need for dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis and that that
dialogue should be initiated by Palestinians. My question is whether the
Holy Land Trust has been facilitating, or intends to facilitate such a
dialogue in the form of a National Dialogue in which all stakeholders
can participate and in which mediation is carried out by a third party
such as the Holy Land Trust?
Sami Awad:
As an organisation and for me personally, it is more the issue of action
than dialogue. As Palestinians we need to engage in activities and actions
in addition to dialogue that can truly convince the Israeli side to start
putting trust in us. Not to say full trust. Not to say absolute trust,
but really to start building the trust process between us and them.
As I said this morning,
both of us are victims of what happened to the Jewish community. We are
not the victims of the victims. Our problem will not be resolved in my
opinion until the Israeli society is truly able to reach a certain point
of understanding and I can even say forgiveness for what happened to them
in their history. As Palestinians we have to play a role in initiating
this. We have to play a role in convincing the Israeli society that they
did not come from the ghettos of Europe to the ghettos of the Middle East,
that this is a mentality of fear as if they were kicked out of one bad
neighbourhood and then were sent to another bad neighbourhood that was
going to do the same thing to them.
A process, I think,
should have taken place a long time ago, decades ago, where even at the
time the Jewish community first started coming into Palestine, as Palestinians
we should have had the understanding. Now of course how media played a
part, how propaganda played a part in what was happening in Europe to
the Jewish community, all of us know the stories and all of us know how
the Americans and the Allies claimed that they had no ideas what was happening
in the death camps, even though there are reports now that they did know
about them and they had taken pictures of them and they knew very well
details of them.
But it’s never
too late and I think there is an opportunity now for us to have this and
that’s why I went to Auschwitz-Birkenau, to have this experience
so that then I would know what actions and activities I can do in Palestine,
that when I do these actions they will not enforce the spirit of fear
in the Israeli society or the Jewish society, but would break that barrier,
break that wall that the Jewish community has built around itself. I had
an Israeli friend who said “What we are now living in, in Israel,
is a ghetto that has a nice beach view, but it is a ghetto and we are
not able to get out of it.” Through our help to them, through your
help to them, they can break the walls of this ghetto.
1. From the Holy Land
Trust
http://www.holylandtrust.org
2. Palestine News
Network
http://www.palestinenet.org
& http://www.pnn.ps
*This transcript
represents an accurate but non-verbatim representation of the original
interview.
For further
information, please contact:
Sami Awad
Director, Holy Land Trust
#529 Manger Street
Bethlehem
Palestine
Email: sami@holylandtrust.org
Tel: +972-2-276-5930
Websites
The
Holy Land Trust
- with articles by Sami Awad and others
Palestine News Network
http://www.palestinenet.org
& http://www.pnn.ps
The 4 interviews
Interview
# 1 - Reuven Moskovitz
Interview
# 2 - Inam Wahidi
Interview
# 3 - Lisa & Asher
Interview
# 4 - Sami Awad
All
Rossi interviews here
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