“My favourite movie is Life is Beautiful,” Refaat Sabbah tells me. “I lovethe way the hero protects his son from the experience of the concentrationcamp. I try to protect my children from the horrors around us too,” he addswith a gentle smile. “I notice my daughter doesn’t draw guns and tanks.”

We are sitting in a covered porch in his modest home in a downtown Ramallahneighbourhood. The night before, Israeli troops nearly decimated YasserArafat’s compound nearby. Refaat and his wife Soreida were up all night. Theshelling began at 2 a.m. and continued until 6 a.m. The children — a girl, 9,and a boy, 4, slept through it. Not so the little girl next door, who hasbeen crying ever since.

This is life in Ramallah, the administrative capital of the Palestinianterritories. Refaat is the founder and head of the Teacher Creativity Centerhere, and Soreida works with women’s groups. They are intelligent, charmingand passionate about life.

Like many activists I meet here, they are remarkably without hatred or bitterness. Refaat tells me that he tries to avoid crossing the checkpoints that surround Ramallah so that he won’t get too angry with the Israelis.

I am in Palestine. Even the term makes me a little uncomfortable — I am Jewish,born and bred. I went to Hebrew school. My first battle for equality was toinsist on having a bat mitzvah in my 13th year: in those days, only boys hadthe coming-of-age ceremony. My father was a major fundraiser for the UnitedJewish Appeal, with most of the money going to Israel. Israel is supposed tobe my homeland.

I went to the Palestinian Territories recently as part of a fact-finding triporganized by Alternatives, a Montreal-based organization with a history oftwenty years of work with groups in Israel and Palestine. I accepted theinvitation because I had become increasingly disturbed by the Israelioccupation of the Palestinian territories and the uncritical support for Israel by Canada’s organized Jewish community.

What I saw was both deeply disturbing and strangely inspiring. Theinspiration came from people I met on both sides of the Israeli-Palestiniandivide. I was already aware of the brave people of the Israeli peacemovement who stand up against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land,land that Israel agreed to withdraw from in 1967 and again in the Oslo accords.

What I didn’t know was that there is a strong, growing movement ofactivists in the Palestinian territories who call themselves the democraticopposition. Most work through the non-governmental organizations thatprovide what is left of social services in the Palestinian territories. LikeRefaat and Soreida, these are compassionate people with a strong commitmentto democracy, equality and peace. As one said to me, “I only wish theIsraelis realized that their best hope of security is a strong Palestinianstate. The rest of the Arab world hates them, we don’t — we know them, theyare our neighbours.”

Mustafa BarghouthiWhile the outside media rarely mentions the democratic opposition, theirpopularity in Palestine is growing, and some plan to run for office in thecoming elections early in the new year. The most prominent figure among thedemocratic opposition is Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, president of the Union ofPalestinian Medical Relief Committees. “What we are witnessing,” he argues,”is an annexation of the West Bank — the same process as in 1948 when thestate of Israel was founded on previously Palestinian land. The currentstruggle,” he said, “will decide if there will be two independentstates — Israel and Palestine — or one apartheid state of Israel.”

Barghouthi’s words have echoed in my head since my return to Canada, as theIsraeli aggression has stepped up. While there, I saw the series ofcheckpoints as a new Berlin Wall in the making. Now, they’re building thewall.

Visiting the West Bank is a frustrating experience because of thecheckpoints, while living there seems almost impossible. The checkpoints divide the West Bank into 120 different areas. If you want to go from one area to the next, you cross a checkpoint. You never know if it will be open, andit’s impossible to know how long you will wait. If you’re sick, old orpregnant, you still wait. If you want to visit your aging parents in thenext village, you need permission from the Israelis. “We cannot breathe,”one woman said, jammed against us in the crowd at a checkpoint.

According to Barghouthi, the checkpoints and the daily dramas that occur at them are simply a method ofharassing Palestinians, like the thousands students at Birzeit Universityliving in Ramallah who must cross a checkpoint twice — there and back — to getto school, walking more than a kilometre each way.

In Canada, we hear much more about the horror of suicide bombings than aboutthe killing of Palestinian civilians. According to the Palestinian RedCrescent Society, 1,599 Palestinians — 85 per cent of them civilians — have beenkilled and 19,452 injured since September, 2000, when the second intifadabegan. In the same period, 563 Israelis have been killed and 3,545 injured,according to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The suicide bombings, as terrible as they are, are not the reason forIsraeli aggression in the Palestinian territories. The real reason is to protectever-expanding Israeli settlements. But the bombings do provide a moral andpolitical justification for the occupation. The Israeli peace movement thatwas so powerful only a few years ago is now isolated, with 70 per cent ofIsraelis supporting the aggressive policies of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Adam Keller is a Jewish activist from the peace group Gush Shalom. “It isvery difficult,” he told us. “Like all Israelis, I am afraid of the suicidebombers. But what makes me different is that while I believe they are wrong, I understand that this is the only way Palestinians feel they can fight back against the terrible injustice being inflicted on them by my government.”

The checkpoints, 24-hour curfews, mass arrests of adult males, rotatinginvasions, strafing and bulldozing of houses, occupations of cities andrefugee camps, and refusal to allow Palestinians to work in or trade withIsrael, are all justified by the attempt to stop suicide bombings. Now,they’re building a wall around the West Bank. What next?

My experience convinced me that Israeli aggression simply plants the seedsfor more suicide bombings. Everywhere we went were posters of “martyrs,”both suicide bombers and young men posing with machine guns who were killedresisting the Israeli invasion last April. In one refugee camp, young boyswore photos of the martyrs in pendants around their necks — like saints’medals. “I am not afraid of the Israelis,” Refaat told me. “I am afraid thatviolence is becoming a positive moral value in our society. And from that wewill never recover.”

All the activists we met oppose the suicide bombings, both morally andpolitically. But they are frustrated that no one in the outside world askswhy so many young people are desperate enough to blow themselves up. Theweek after our visit, a large number of Palestinian intellectuals andactivists made a public statement condemning suicide bombing and calling onextremist Palestinian groups, like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, to stoprecruiting young people for these acts of terror.

The state of Israel is not in danger. The Palestinians have no army, andother Arab countries are not leaping to their defence. Only Israel has thepower to stop the escalating violence. Surely memory is not so short — andIsraelis can remember when they were a people without their own land or anarmy to defend them, and with a strong, proud identity and history ofresisting persecution.

What struck me most in my visit was how similar are the Palestinians and the Jews. One man in East Jerusalem asked me: “If you are Jewish, why don’t you support the Israelis?” I responded that I couldn’t accept that my people, who suffered for so many centuries, could turn around and persecute another people. There is no justice in that — and where there is no justice, there will be no peace.

Judy Rebick

Judy Rebick

Judy Rebick is one of Canada’s best-known feminists. She was the founding publisher of rabble.ca , wrote our advice column auntie.com and was co-host of one of our first podcasts called Reel Women....