On March 18, we hosted the awesome and courageous Jewish ally Sam Stein. Over the last 7+ years, He has been spending his time on and off in different West Bank villages, literally putting his body on the line to protect Palestinians from settlers and IDF terrorists.
Long time Freedom Advocacy Network member and supporter, Karina Q, who also has also presented on two different topics, has kindly brought us our next three guest speakers after her visit to the West Bank a few months ago.
Sam Stein, who, in his own words from his Patreon page describes his work: “For the past 6 years, I have been engaging in protective presence activism in the West Bank of Palestine. This has entailed using my privilege as a shield, knowing that my presence is enough to reduce settler and military violence. During incidents of violence, I filmed, used my body as a shield, and helped deal with state actors when necessary and requested of me. I also used the footage to help NGOs compile data and build case studies, while publishing it in newspapers and social media to raise awareness. I have relocated to Boston, where I am engaging in solidarity work with immigrants facing draconian oppression by ICE and the police. While the context is different, the work will be essentially the same. I hope that this Patreon will allow me to support myself and pursue this work full-time.”
Agenda:
– Updates from the West Bank
– What is protective presence?
– How can I get involved?
https://www.instagram.com/sam_avraham/
https://www.facebook.com/sam.stein.31/
https://www.patreon.com/cw/Sam_Avraham
Housekeeping:
Survey: Muslims at Work: The Questions We’ve Been Waiting To Be Asked (10-15 min): https://form.jotform.com/260694296232058
Notes:
- Sam is Jewish American with very Zionist family
- The word Occupation was never used
- All kids in the community did gap year in Israel
- Sam did his gap year in a settlement
- Never said the word Palestinian – only referred to as Arabs
- Seeing the checkpoints and knowing Jim Crow background opened his eyes
- Trump 2016 radicalized him politically
- Started questioning the narrative – “moment that sticks out”: The Hillel Jewish club invited a Palestinian to speak – he was from Bethlehem – was right next to the Efrat settlement – “neighbours under entirely different legal systems”
- He mentioned needing to go through checkpoints, permits, flying to Jordan and then flying out – that really stuck out to Sam as “apartheid”
- Has a lot of cousins in Israel including settlements
- Mostly remember the gap year fondly
- Wanted to be involved in activism at West Bank as an activist
- Before Trump, never thought or cared about politics
- After landing, connected to all the groups he could find – connected with “All that’s left” – group of International Jews doing grassroots work – very decentralized group
- Became interested in protective presence – Jews, Israelis and international jews, using their presense as descalation and violence against Palestinians
- It has become a 24/7 endeavor – often needed most during agricultural seasons – especially olive harvest
- Moved to Tel Aviv in 2019 – then COVID happened – then late 2020 started doing more protective presence – moved to Jerusalem
- Palestinians started needing more protective presence 2020 onwards
- Stayed in West Bank days at a time, and then stay in West Bank 3 months straight at one point
- “Monday a settler’s kid stole a phone, Tuesday settler violence, Wednesday army raids, Thursday, settlers from nearby threw rocks” – had to go to an extreme settlement to report the issue to police
- This happens every single day
- Not a single incident sticks out – situation has only gotten much much worse in the last 6 years
- End of this three month stay was in May 2021 – there was a big escalation and Israel new additional violence and restrictions on Al Aqsa
- Was attacked very severely by Settlers with clubs and sticks – his 70 year old friend was hurt badly in the head
- When Sam reported the issue, Sam himself was arrested instead – had a complete “sham interrogation” – and then was banned from West Bank for “two weeks”
- It was unusual for a Israeli activist to get arrested for getting attacked at that time – now unfortunately it has become a norm
- After Oct 7, you can’t even now tell whether a settler is a soldier or not
- The new baseline continues to be much more violent
- During the “ceasefire”, Israel increased soldier presence, and put up much more gates all over the place
- Most of Sam’s activity happened in Area C, where PA has no authority – 98% of Palestinian complaints to Israeli police are completely ignored
- Area A is series of ghettos/bantustans – it is actually illegal for Israelis to use Palestinians to use – Israel has put up literally 100s of additional gates on these roads
- These gates are worse than manned checkpoints – at checkpoints you might get through – with the gates however, there is no getting through – the IDF terrorists just close them and leave
- When Ceasefire “ended” – settlers started taking out aggression on Palestinians – the dials just keep going up in terms of violence
- For the last 6 months, was working with “Rabbis for Human Rights” – lived full time with the village of Ummul Khair? They give him a house
- Arabic improved
- Was a very special experience
- Saw the Palestinian experience from a very different perspective
- Gave him a much better idea of what the Palestinian experience is like and all the oppression every single day
- Really believed in the protective presence – “i know things are worse when I am not around” – the math was not adding up – just the “presence itself was de-escalating”
- “I speak Hebrew and Arabic”
- In March, an very important moment: A community near Hebron, had a signed court papers, that they have access to their land, Sam joined them, settlers called the army – told him “they (Palestinians) can stay but you can’t” – as Sam was getting close to his car, asking him many questions about his whereabouts, they kept on escalating – and said “you just ruined 6 hours of your life” and beat Sam up really badly – repeatedly told him to unlock his phone and threatened his life – they thought Sam was Palestinian – dragged him to a military base and faced him to the ground – they finally looked at his ID and realized he’s Jewish. They were very confused. They did not touch him after that. They were debating in front of him how much they should beat him up and “my life wasn’t entirely discardable” – was kicked once more and not touched after that.
- The second I was not Palestinian, I had legal rights all of a sudden
- Was later arrested by Civil police – and given access to a lawyer, rights which are not provided to Palestinian
- “If I was Palestinian, I would be dead… and there would be a story the next day that a Palestinian terrorist was neutralized”
- If as a Palestinian and was not killed, i would get processed in a military jail, and hold me without charges indefinitely
- Majority of the Palestinians don’t have a charge and certainly not convicted
- These stories are exceedingly common –
- For 5-10 min I was as close to Palestinian as possible – and saw the glaring difference between what Palestinians vs Jews face in Palestine
- “There are no laws in the West Bank… by virtue of lack of legislative body”… whatever the commander says goes
- This past olive harvest was the most violent one on record
- All other wars, like with Iran and Lebonan always lead to mroe escalations
- There are probably about a 100 people performing “protective presence” in West Bank – coverage is growing
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