From: Starhawk
Subject: [starhawk] Four Years Ago--and Today!
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2007 18:05:07 -0700

Four Years Ago Today
By Starhawk

March 16, 2007

Four years ago today, I was in Nablus in the Occupied Territories of
Palestine, volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement that
supports the nonviolent movement among the Palestinians. I was also
supporting my friend Neta Golan, an Israeli woman and one of the founders of
ISM, now married to a Palestinian, who was about to give birth. I had spent
a strangely idyllic day in a small village outside Nablus, where a group of
ISM volunteers had gone because weıd received a report that the Israeli army
was harassing villagers. When we got there, the army had left, the cyclamen
and blood-red anemones were in bloom underneath ancient olive trees, and the
villagers insisted we stay for a barbecue.

We were just passing through the checkpoint on our way back to Nablus when
we got a call from Rafah, in the Gaza strip. Rachel Corrie, a young ISM
volunteer, had trying to prevent an Israeli bulldozer from demolishing a
home near the border. The bulldozer operator saw her, and went forward
anyway, crushing her to death.

Rachelıs death was a small preview of the horrific violence that the U.S.
unleashed, three days later, with the invasion of Iraq. In Nablus, we were
gearing up for a possible Israeli invasion when the war began. I was
working with another volunteer, Brian Avery, to coordinate the team that
would maintain a human rights witness in the Balata refugee camp on the
outskirts of Nablus. I was also praying that Neta would not go into labor at
some moment when the whole town would be under siege and we could not get to
a hospital, and boning up on such midwifery knowledge as I possess. Perhaps
I prayed too hard‹she showed no signs of going into labor at all, and
finally, in an act of great unselfishness, sent me down to Rafah to support
the team there that had been with Rachel. I offered such comfort as I could
to volunteers who were young enough that most had never before experienced
the death of someone close to them.

It was a strange spring. I made it back to Nablus to support Netaıs
birth‹but the joy of that event was tinged with horror, for the night
before, Brian was shot in the face in Jenin by the Israeli military in an
unprovoked attack on a group of international volunteers. All during Netaıs
labor, the nurses (yes, thank Goddess, we made it to the hospital!) kept
turning on Al Jazeerah which was showing scenes of the U.S. bombardment of
Iraq. I kept turning it off. Even in a world full of war, I wanted her
child to be born in a small island of peace.

I went to Jenin to support the team that had been with Brian, and then to
Haifa to visit him where he was awaiting surgery. I spent much of the next
weeks traveling frenetically, often alone, through the one piece of ground
on earth most difficult to travel in, where checkpoints truncate every
route. The olive trees broke into leaf, and the almonds swelled into fuzzy
green pods which the Palestinians eat young. They taste lemony, sharp and
poignant, like the moment itself.



I visited with the Israeli Women in Black in Jerusalem, and trained ISM
volunteers in Beit Sahour. A young British volunteer, Tom Hurndall, went
down to Rafah straight from the training. Walking on the border, near where
Rachel was killed, he saw a group of children under fire from an Israeli
sniper tower. He ran beneath the rain of bullets, pulled a young boy to
safety, went back again for another child. The sniper targeted him,
shooting him in the head. So I went back to Rafah, that surreal town of
rubble and barbed wire, ripe oranges and bullet holes, to support the team
that had been with Tom.

Everywhere I went, the sun shone, the flowers bloomed, and the army seemed
to melt away, as if I carried some magic circle of protection. I was a long
distance witness to death, a support for grief without suffering the searing
personal pain that comes with the loss of a child, a parent, a lover. My
own grief hit later, when I was home, and safe, and cried for weeks.

I cry now, every spring, here in California as the daffodils bloom and the
plum trees flower. The beauty of spring is forever tinged, for me, with the
grief and wonder and horror of that time: Neta sweating in labor while the
TV news shows images of war, blood staining the wildflowers a deeper red.

I cry, and then I get I mad. Four years have gone by, and the killing still
goes on‹in Palestine, in Iraq, and if Bush has his way, in Iran. Ghosts
haunt the green hills, shimmering like heat waves under an unnaturally hot
sun: all the uncounted dead of this uncalled-for war, all those yet to die.

Iıve got a garden to plant, and a thousand things Iıd rather do, but once
again this spring, Iım gearing up for action. The peace marches have become
boring, strident and predictable. To be absolutely honest, I hate marching
around in the street chanting the same slogans Iıve been chanting for forty
years. Iım going, anyway. Iım so tired of die-ins and sit-ins and
predictable speeches shouted over bullhorns that I could scream if I werenıt
hearing in my ears the far more bitter screams of the dying. Iım even tired
of trying to drum and sing and make the protest into a creative act of
magic. Itıs not creative‹itıs a damn protest, and I have real creative work
to do: books to write, courses to teach, and rituals to plan. Nonetheless,
Sunday will find me trudging along on the peace march and Monday will find
me lying down on Market Street in some picturesque fashion with a group of
friends and our requisite banners.

Why? So I can look myself in the mirror without flinching, and answer to
those hundred thousand ghosts. But more than that, because itıs time,
friends. Public opinion has turned‹now we must make it mean something real.
Itıs time to send the Democrats back to their committee meetings saying,
³Hell, I canıt even get into my office‹the halls are blocked and the streets
are choked with people angry about this war.² Time to send the Republicans
off to their caucuses murmuring quietly ³If we continue to support this
disaster weıre going to lose every semblance of power or popular support we
once possessed.² Time to let the rest of the world know that dissent is
alive and well here in the U.S.A. Time to regenerate a movement as nature
regenerates life in the spring, with the rising energy that alone can turn
our interminable trudging into a dance of defiance.

You come, too. You can skip out on the boring speeches and make cynical
remarks‹but get your feet out on the street this weekend, somewhere.
Thereıs a thousand different actions planned around the country‹and if you
donıt know where to go or what to do, check the websites below.

Act because hundreds of thousands who are now alive are marked for death if
this war goes on or expands into Iran. Act because every perfumed flower
and every bud that breaks into leaf this calls to us to cherish and
safeguard life.

Starhawk

www.starhawk.org


For a listing of actions, check:

www.unitedforpeace.org <https://www.unitedforpeace.org/> .

or

https://declarationofpeace.org/march-16-19-nationwide-nonviolent-civil-disobe
dience

Starhawkıs many writings on her time in Palestine and other issues can be
found on her website at:

https://www.starhawk.org/activism/activism-writings/activism-writings.html