The story goes like this:
Henry David Thoreau sits in jail for his refusal to pay war taxes to support slavery and the War on Mexico and is seen by his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson. "What are you doing in jail," Emerson asks and Thoreau says, "What are you doing out of jail?"
This past week, Israeli peace activist Ezra Nawi and friends had a picnic before he was to do a month-long prison term. More peace activists are likely to follow.
What are we doing while we are out of jail?
This past Saturday I also went on a picnic with my family, but in stark opposition to most Israeli picnics it tried to enact a remembering by exposing the continued domination and expulsion of Palestinians. We joined a group of Jews and Palestinians from Ta'ayush in the south Hebron desert to break bread together and bid farewell to Ezra Nawi, who the following day began serving a jail sentence for resisting Israel's occupation.
We chose this spot because almost a decade ago the Palestinian cave dwellers who lived there were expelled from their ancestral land by Jewish settlers from Susya; these settlers were supported by the Israeli government, military and courts. Nawi and other Ta'ayush activists have, over the years, aided the expelled Palestinians to return to the last swathe of land they can still call their own. Today there is a small village made up of more than 10 tents, a few caves, several scores of sheep and chicken and a solar and wind-based electricity system.
Ezra was convicted of striking an Israeli soldier, based solely on the testimony of the solider.
..judge Eilata Ziskind, who convicted Nawi. Based solely on the officers' testimonies, Ziskind sentenced Nawi to a month in jail and an additional three years probation, during which if he is caught insulting an officer, disturbing the public order, participating in an illegal protest, etc, he will immediately be imprisoned for six more months.
.....
...Nawi's conviction points to a relatively recent development regarding the restriction of resistance, to extremely passive modes of protest. And, in some cases, even these kinds of protests are prohibited, as in Sheikh Jarrah where activists are repeatedly arrested simply for demonstrating against the seizure of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem.
(see the whole column here)
Many more peace activists are likely to follow in Ezra's footsteps.
Here is the video of Ezra as he protests the demolition of Palestinian homes.
In the coming days, the Israeli military promises to stop over 600 people from entering Gaza, and quite possibly will take everyone into at least temporary custody (presuming Israel does not sink the boats instead, which is not likely, but not impossible). Israel may also choose to let them through so that they may accomplish their mission, delivering aid to Gaza, after considering the political costs of arresting hundreds of people from dozens of countries around the globe and thereby angering many governments, except a few like the US government, which fully supports any and all measures of punishment against the people of Gaza and anyone that supports the people of Gaza.
Sometimes jails are one of the most logical places to be in times of a great injustice. Organizing on the streets is another logical place. Keep spreading the word. Support the protests in Bi'lin, in Occupied Jerusalem, in Gaza (here's the link to news of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and another one here)
They need our support.