On Occupied Palestine . Starhawk's Denied Entry

Denied Entry
By Starhawk

Today is March 16. Five years ago, I was in a small village in the
Occupied Territories of the West Bank of Palestine with a group of
volunteers from the International Solidarity Movement, which supports
nonviolent resistance against the Occupation. We had gone because the
villagers were being menaced by tanks from the Israeli military, and
wanted witnesses, but by the time we arrived, the tanks had gone. Instead
we wandered through the olive groves, studded with pink cyclamen and
blood-red anemones, and ate barbecued lamb in the courtyard of an ancient
stone house with domed ceilings and arched portals. It was a strangely
idyllic day—until on our way back to Nablus we got a call.

Down in Rafah, in the Gaza strip, a young volunteer named Rachel Corrie
had been crushed to death by a an Israeli military bulldozer as she
attempted to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian family’s house.
Today I sit in a room in Washington D.C. overcome by grief as in the next
room my new friend Laurie writes out card after card with the names of the
dead—American soldiers and Iraqi civilians, pile after pile of them. I’m
grieving for all the dead, and a bit for myself, because I meant to be
back in Palestine, or at least in Israel, now. But I have been denied
entry and sent home, because of my past work with the ISM. I have been
denied entry, even though my intentions this time were strictly to work
with permaculture and ecology groups, including the three Israeli groups
that have sent me formal invitations, and even though Israel claims to be
a refuge of last resort for everyone born Jewish, as I am. The fact that
I’m here, not there, is a measure of how much the Israeli authorities fear
a movement of nonviolent resistance in general, and the ISM in particular.
Why is nonviolence so threatening? Violence attacks the body, but
nonviolence threatens something deeper and more tenuous—the
self-perceptions and rationalizations that let basically good people act
in cruel and heartless ways. The Israel/Palestine conflict enacts on a
mass scale some of the same dynamics as family abuse. Israel is like the
abused child who grows up to be an abuser.

Abusers generally feel like victims—and truly the Jewish people have been
victimized, again and again in history, culminating in the still unhealed
wounds of the Holocaust. Every rocket attack, every shooting spree in a
Yeshivah, every suicide bomb in a bus reinforces that sense of fear and
persecution that seems to cry out for violence in return.

Once in Germany I walked through an exhibition on the propaganda of the
Holocaust. One cartoon seemed to illuminate the dynamics of the current
conflict: a burly, blond, muscle-bound body-builder of a German clubbing
a weak, cringing, forelocked Jew. Israel was founded by a generation
that said, “Never again will we be the ones who cringe and get clubbed.”
Instead, she has spent sixty years on the Nautilus, building her military
muscle. But somewhere deep inside is still the perception that Israel is
tiny, fragile and weak and anyone who attacks her is the giant with the
club. And so the suffering of the Palestinians, the real disparities in
power, become invisible.

Nonviolence dramatizes and makes visible the true power differentials.
Week after week, unarmed Palestinians and their allies march to the Wall
to face tear gas, rubber bullets, clubs, and at times, live ammunition.
Women sit in front of bulldozers, children march out of school to confront
soldiers.

Nonviolence humanizes the enemy. When the Palestinians are seen as
‘animals’, as filled with blind, irrational, implacable hatred, it is easy
to hate them in turn and to justify every system of control and every
incursion. But nonviolence gives the enemy a face. Moreover, in the
demonstrations against the Wall and the peace camps set up in the
villages, Israeli peace groups often come to stand with their Palestinian
allies, shattering the myth that Israelis and Palestinians can never get
along, never collaborate or work together for common ends.

Abuse is perpetuated by secrecy and silence. The ISM and other peace
groups such as the Women’s International Peace Service and the Christian
Peacemaker Teams have brought thousands of witnesses into the places that
outsiders are not supposed to go: into refugee camps under siege, into
villages and streets and checkpoints and the daily, dehumanizing grind of
life under occupation. They witness, they write, they take pictures and
videos, and then they go home and talk to people. They go where the
mainstream media is unwilling to go, and tell the stories that are not
being told.

And the ISM, in particular, has heroes and martyrs. Working with the ISM,
I’ve been privileged to meet people of truly staggering courage—among whom
I do not rank myself. My own courage is middle rank. Yeah, I’ll stand in
front of a tank, but at the end if it doesn’t stop I’ll get out of the
way. I’ve known a woman who would walk up to artillery and put her hand
over the mouth of the gunbarrel. Rachel and her team stood out in front
of Palestinian wells, day after day, under fire from Israeli sniper towers
in the distance. Tom Hurndall ran under bullets to rescue children under
fire from Israeli snipers, who targeted and murdered him. And there are
many, many more.

I feel somewhat overrated to be counted among their company. My plans, as
I’ve said, were actually different this time. I had hoped to work with
the land, to teach some of the techniques of bioremediation that I know
and to learn from the many wonderful groups there. I feel great grief
that I cannot do that work. But if that is the price of my commitment to
justice and nonviolence, I am willing to pay it. It’s a tiny price,
indeed, a miniscule sacrifice, compared to those, like Rachel, who have
given their lives.

Starhawk
www.starhawk.org

ENVIRONMENT: Dirt Isn't So Cheap After All
By Stephen Leahy

Credit:USDA

Severe erosion in a wheat field in the U.S. Pacific northwest state of Washington.

BROOKLIN, Canada, Aug 30 (IPS) - Soil erosion is the "silent global crisis" that is undermining food production and water availability, as well as being responsible for 30 percent of the greenhouse gases driving climate change.

"We are overlooking soil as the foundation of all life on Earth," said Andres Arnalds, assistant director of the Icelandic Soil Conservation Service.

"Soil and vegetation is being lost at an alarming rate around the globe, which in turn has devastating effects on food production and accelerates climate change," Arnalds told IPS from Selfoss, Iceland, host city of the International Forum on Soils, Society and Climate Change which starts Friday.

Along with many other international partner institutions, Iceland is marking the centenary of its Soil Conservation Service by convening this forum of experts.

Every year, some 100,000 square kilometres of land loses its vegetation and becomes degraded or turns into desert.

"Land degradation and desertification may be regarded as the silent crisis of the world, a genuine threat to the future of humankind," Arnalds said.

Food production has kept pace with population growth by increasing 50 percent between 1980 and 2000. But it is an open question whether there will be enough food in 2050 with an estimated three billion more mouths to feed.

That means more food has to be produced within the next 50 years than during the last 10,000 years combined he noted.

"Global food production per hectare is already declining," said Zafar Adeel, director of the United Nations University's Canadian-based International Network on Water, Environment and Health.

There are a number of reasons for this decline, including the fact that soil degradation is producing growing shortages of water. Soil and vegetation act as a sponge that holds and gradually releases water, Adeel explained.

The newest challenge to food production and conserving land and water resources is the boom in vegetable-based biofuels, says Andrew Campbell, Australia's first National Landcare Facilitator.

"Soils are under greater pressure than ever before," Campbell said in an interview. "Governments around the world are subsidising crops to produce biofuels."

Hundreds of millions of square kilometers of farmland will soon be used to meet a small part of the world's rapidly growing thirst for fuel. And even if rainforests aren't being cleared to grow biofuel crops, as is the case in parts of Asia and South America, they offer little if any net environmental benefits, Campbell argues.

Another reason to rethink the stampede to biofuel: These crops use a lot of water. In future, there will simply not be enough water to grow the food we need, he says.

By most analyses, biofuels do little to help out the problem of climate change, but preventing deforestation and soil loss the quickest and easiest way to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

Paradoxically, the environmental problem of climate change may finally move the world to act on another long-term fundamental environmental issue -- the protection of soils.

Land degradation and desertification may account for as much as about 30 percent of the world's greenhouse gas releases, according to researcher Rattan Lal of Ohio State University. These changes to the land also alter the water, temperature and energy balance of the planet.

And climate change makes land degradation much worse and more extensive, mainly through changes in precipitation and increased evaporation that trigger more extreme weather.

Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas and "keeping carbon molecules in the soil and in forests and grasslands is the quickest and best bang for the buck in addressing climate change," Adeel said.

There is money to be made in the new carbon markets by sequestering or storing carbon in the soil and vegetation. As much as 20 percent of anticipated net fossil fuel emissions between now and 2050 could be stored in this way, said Maryam Niamir-Fuller of the U.N. Development Programme.

However, the so-called Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) rules under the Kyoto Protocol treaty on climate change need to be changed to ensure the triple benefits from climate mitigation, climate adaptation and sustainable development for the poor are achieved, said Niamir-Fuller in a statement.

A number of other fundamental policy changes are also needed if conservation of soil and vegetation and restoration of degraded land to ensure humanity's future survival, experts say.

Ending the estimated 30 billion dollars in food subsidies in the north that contribute directly to land degradation in Africa and elsewhere, and which force poor farmers to intensify their production in order to compete, would be a good start, Adeel said.

For Andrews, a sweeping change in how land use decisions are made at all levels of government is needed. Soil, water, energy, climate, biodiversity, food production are all interconnected, which demands integrated policy-making. Decisions and policies are currently set by different governmental departments and agencies with little regard for the impacts on other sectors, he said.

Energy ministries will happily spend billions on biofuels without worrying about where the water will come from, or how they will impact soils, biodiversity and food prices, he warned.

There is also no formal agreement on protecting the world's soils. Delegates at the weekend forum in Iceland will consider propositions for an International Year of Land Care to focus attention on soil stewardship, which affects food and water security worldwide.

"We have battled very severe land degradation in Iceland that has taken us 100 years to tackle," Arnalds said.

That degradation means one-third of Iceland's 103,000 sq km area is still desert.

Iceland has should serve as both a warning to other countries and hope that it is possible to restore degraded lands with enough resources, he says.

"It is far better to preserve than restore," the scientist noted.