Indian-American woman confronts Israeli Terror with nonviolence

[Resistance]

Indian-American Woman Confronts Israeli Terror With Nonviolence

... it’s in Tulkaram and other refugee cities in the West Bank that Radhika Sainath, 24, of Newport Beach, has been taking a stand for more than a year – opposing human rights violations of Israeli soldiers by nonviolent direct action.

Which is why Sainath is often at the wrong end of machine gun toting nervous young Israeli soldiers. In the harsh glare of the sun, her dark brown skin and youthful appearance makes her standout. She often rides along with Palestinian ambulance drivers and journalists to negotiate quick passage through Israeli checkpoints.

... far from the terraced hillside lots and priceless views of the Pacific Ocean, Sainath has joined a group of volunteers who are spearheading a growing international nonviolent movement that offers one of the best hopes for achieving an end to the Israeli military occupation and a just peace for Palestinians and Israelis. She has found a place where “everyone has a story of suffering and loss, every family has experienced death, injury, imprisonment, and the destruction or loss of land and property.”

In the process these weaponless warriors are laying their lives on the line. Like fellow volunteer Rachel Corrie of Olympia, Washington, who was run over by an Israeli bulldozer while engaged in nonviolent protest. Or British peace activist Tom Hurndall who was shot in the back of the head while shepherding a group of children to safety under sporadic fire from an Israeli observation tower.

Sainath is among the volunteers with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) who help out with the Red Crescent (the Muslim Red Cross), riding with ambulance drivers, resulting in fewer delays at checkpoints. They escort children to school to try to de-escalate confrontations with the occupying troops. They accompany protests of the "Security Fence" the Israelis are building, which Palestinians instead call the "Apartheid Wall.” They defy curfew to bear witness to human-rights abuses and violations of international law.

[Resistance]

1. Fear and Intimidation

Fear and Intimidation: My Abduction by Israeli Undercover Police by Radhika Sainath

What does the Israeli government have to fear from nonviolent civil disobedience against the occupation that it would spend so much time, money and energy into the abduction and arrest of a 25-year-old female American non-violent human rights activist?

In the ten months I have spent in the West Bank as a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement I have grown to be prepared for anything; Palestinian schoolchildren forced to wait for hours at checkpoints or farmers detained and beaten by Israeli soldiers while picking olives with their families. Nonetheless I never thought I would be observed, followed and abducted by undercover Israeli police as I was on Thursday December 4.

(snipped)

Clearly, Israeli authorities wanted to arrest me away from the press, my lawyer and supporters, and put me on a plane before this illegal step could be blocked. They are afraid that a legal suit like mine will publicly demonstrate that the methods they are using to crush non-violent opposition in the Occupied Territories are both illegal and immoral. The fact that the police chose to pursue elaborate tactics of fear and intimidation indicates that the Israeli government will not tolerate even nonviolent opposition to its policies.

My arrest is yet another example of the efforts by the Israeli authorities to prevent non-violent groups like ISM from supporting Palestinians in non-violent resistance to the Occupation and to the construction of the Wall deep within the West Bank, and to stop groups like ISM from getting information out to the world about the daily human rights violations committed against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.

[Resistance]

2. Update on Radhika Sainath

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0312/S00044.htm

Update on International Solidarity Movement volunteer Radhika Sainath, who was arrested by Israeli Immigration Police Thursday evening

Following a jurisdictional change from Magistrate to District court this morning, the deportation order and charges of illegal entry pending against Ms. Sainath were dismissed.

Following her release Ms. Sainath has been ordered to remain under house arrest with a friend in Israel until the time of her scheduled departure on 12 December.

[Resistance]

3. An American source covers the Sainath story

(albeit a marginalized, progressive source ... but still)

Indian-American Activist Faces House Arrest in Israel

An Indian American activist, currently under house arrest in Tel Aviv after being arrested by plainclothes policemen for visa violations, has accused the Israeli government of illegally detaining her for 53 hours following a lawsuit she filed against the Israeli government.

Sainath accuses the government of having an agenda. "If in their view I had broken the law, there is no reason why they could not have come with regular policemen after I had given testimony," she said

She said that the Israeli government wanted to send a "strong message . . . that nonviolent opposition towards its policies would not be tolerated. It's a vindictive measure because it's the first time anyone has dared to file a legal suit against them for their policies of targeting human rights workers in the West Bank."

"As an Israeli it scares me," her friend Eidelman, a human rights activist, told India-West from Tel Aviv. "It's scary that this is how my country is behaving."

[Resistance]

4. haven't heard much on her for a few days

The elite press is totally ignoring the story.

[drdon326]

5. As is everyone else.

I wonder why. Its almost as if no one cares about her.

hey,has she filed that lawsuit yet??

[Resistance]

6. maybe non-violence isn't as interesting as violence?

nah, people would pay attention if they were in the elite news alot.

[Resistance]

7. what I mean to say is

people would give the subject of non-violent resistance to Israel's aggression alot more attention, if the elite media ever gave the topic the consideration it rightly deserves.

But they don't, of course, and that leaves our choices and opinions limited to some quite narrow views.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

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[Resistance]

14. what was that about?

[drdon326]

9. kick

.

[Resistance]

10. thanks

confronting Israel's terror with non-violence is a good thing. We should honor this peace worker for her bravery and commitment to peace.

[brainshrub]

11. Compared to her

I am a slug.

[Resistance]

12. frankly

she's lucky she wasn't shot in the head in cold blood like the IDF did to Tom Hurndall and Brain Avery, (not to mention their bulldozing to death of Rachel Corrie)

[Resistance]

13. kinda like Gandhi confronting British killers

[Jim Sagle]

15. Except that Gandhi wasn't demanding that Great Britain disappear.

[Resistance]

16. neither is she demanding that Israel disappear

so what's your point?

[Jim Sagle]

17. The Palestinians she is supporting do. THAT'S my point.

[number6]

18. so you've talked to every Palestinian she is supporting ...

and they all want Israel to disappear ???

[Jim Sagle]

19. Yes, I went over for a fact-finding tour.

;-)

[Resistance]

20. no you didn't

why would you even say that you did?

[number6]

25. your a busy guy

;)

[sujan]

21. actually Gandhi did want Great Britain to disappear

[bluesoul]

22. And the Palestinians

do?

[Resistance]

23. what?

When did Gandhi advocate the destruction of Great Britain?

[Violet_Crumble]

24. In the Swaraj Resolution of 1920...

He gave Britain an ultimatem where he said: 'Therefore, this creed is elastic enough to take in both shades of opinion, and the British people will have to beware that if they do not want to do justice (independence for India) it will be the bounden duty of every Indian to destroy that Empire.'

p.s. the bit in brackets was my addition so that the context was clear...


Violet...

[Violet_Crumble]

26. Gandhi - supporter of terrorism?

Y'know, if we were to take some of the 'proof' used to argue that the ISM are supporters of terrorism, I think there's a pretty good case to be made that Gandhi was also a supporter of terrorism ;)


Violet...

[Resistance]

27. I don't doubt it

We've seen how words can be twisted into "proving" that the ISM supports terrorism, even when we all know they don't.

What exact words and actions of Gandhi's could be twisted, do you think? Oh this will be fun!

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

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