Commemoration of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising retaken by Anti-Fascist activists

Tags

Anti Fascist, Commemoration, Iris Bar, Warsaw 2019, Warsaw Ghetto

Marching in Warsaw under the flags of the international struggle for liberation and equality for all

By: Iris Bar (text, painting and photos)

(Initially published on Facebook, April 20, 2019)

I’m writing it in English so all my friends can manage reading it if they like to…

Yesterday I participated in an alternative commemoration of the Warsaw Ghetto Rebellion, organized by groups of young Polish leftists – mainly anarchists, anti fascists and trade union activists.

In spite the fact that almost all my family was murdered by the Nazis, it was the first time for decades I participated in such commemoration, as I didn’t want to be part of the exploitation of their death for whitewashing the acts of colonialism and racism that are done, all the time, by Israel against the Palestinian people.

Two different commemoration events were held yesterday (April 19) in Warsaw – official & alternative – and they both started at 12:00 on different sides of the monument of the defenders of the Ghetto. On one side there were no more than 100 participants, most of them of soldiers, Polish & Israeli, and representatives of those 2 extremely right-wing governments. On the other side there were almost 1000 people, many of them young, raising red flags of the Bund and the old Anti-Fascist flags with its 3 arrows aimed at capitalism, racism & reactionary… holding in their hands yellow daffodils, the polish symbol of commemorating Polish Jews who were murdered by the Nazis (I saw that day many ppl in the city wearing yellow paper flowers on their chest). On the front of the parade marched the flag of the Naftali Botwin unit (a Bundist unit) of the Palafox battalion of the international brigade during the Spanish civil war with the slogan “Para vuestra libertad – y para nuestra” – ”For your liberty – and for ours”… a banner of freedom and justice for all the human kind.

The only state flag in this parade was the flag of the Spanish republic… We passed by memorial stones and noticed that people lit memory lamps (with crosses) in front of them… From time to time the parade stopped and a choir read texts and sang worker & socialist songs in Yiddish. At the end one of the organizers made a speech and explained that they are organizing this event, every year (I think already for three years), as part of their Anti Fascist struggle, the struggle against anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Xenophobia in general (this days mainly against workers from Ukraine & Belarus), male chauvinism, hate against LGBT people, criminalization of poverty and other forms of racism…

I cried.

I was touched to see all those young activists, determined to remember in purpose to gain more power to struggle for a world in which such crimes could not be done again – a world of liberty, justice and equality for all.

 

We are all Islamic Movement

These are harsh times. The Israeli government is running around like a pyromaniac having an attack, daily masterminding a new plot how to inflame the region. So I decided to write down this funny little story which may help calm the situation a bit.

During a spate of murderous attacks on the Gaza Strip, in the last days of 2008, Abna el-Balad movement (a leftist Palestinian movement operating inside the Green Line) called a demonstration in front of the Egyptian Embassy. We wanted to protest the participation of Egypt in the siege imposed on the strip.

The police decided to do everything in its power to prevent the demonstration. They even arrested the bus driver who was supposed to drive the protesters from Haifa. Nevertheless, several dozen protesters arrived at Basel Street in north Tel Aviv where the embassy is located. A large scale police contingent awaited the protesters and prevented us from approaching the embassy building. The cops told us to move to a square next to a shopping center nearby, which we did.

Although it was a relatively quiet vigil which did not violate any law, fifteen minutes later, the police moved in and attacked the demonstrators. The cops began beating demonstrators while calling on them to disperse. (There had been no previous instruction to disperse.) Five protesters were arrested and some were brutally beaten up even after their detention.

The protesters were released the next day in court, but they were later indicted for “rioting”.

The amusing bit, however, came during the court’s proceeding when a senior police officer described to the judge what happened, as the police understood it. He explained that the police arrived to disperse a demonstration organized by the Islamic Movement. When asked how did he knew that it was an Islamic Movement protest, he told the court that the police had prior intelligence information that the Islamic movement was planning a demonstration at the site.

The defense lawyer made it difficult for the officer and asked him if the demonstration that he actually saw seemed like a demonstration of the Islamic Movement. She asked about such thing as the demonstrators dress style and the fact that some of them were Jewish. The officer said that it is well-known that when the Islamic Movement organizes a demonstration, all the Arabs turn up: Communists, Balad, Meretz – the whole lot.

By this time the judge couldn’t restrain himself anymore. He apologized to the accused for the intrusion and asked their permission to ask them what their religion was. Two of them identified themselves as Christians and one woman said she is an atheist.

If you are concerned for our friends in the dock – Well, following a mighty legal effort, the defense lawyer managed to force the police to show the court the video record taken by a police photographer. It clearly showed that the officers attacked the protesters for no reason. The defendants were acquitted and the judge reprimanded the police.

Now, that the Islamic Movement has been outlawed, the police would have a good legal cause to attack anti-war demonstrations and to silence any voice condemning racism or occupation. After all, in the final analysis, we are all Islamic Movement.

* * *

The post above was published in Hebrew in Haifa HaHofshit (Free Haifa in Hebrew) on November 17, 2015. On this day the Israeli Apartheid government decided to outlaw the Islamic Movement – the biggest political and social movement by which Palestinian Arabs in the ’48 occupied territories organize to defend their rights. By this act the occupation tore the mask from upon its own ugly face and ridiculed the fake claim that Arab people here are “Citizens” in a “Jewish-Democratic Israel”.

It was translated by Sol Salbe of the Middle East News Service, Melbourne, Australia – thank him for that.

* * *

First They Came

Pastor Martin Niemoller

First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist

 

Then they came for the Socialists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Socialist

 

Then they came for the trade unionists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a trade unionist

 

Then they came for the Jews

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Jew

 

Then they came for me

And there was no one left

To speak out for me.

Why I was transformed from a political dissident to a dangerous terrorist?

Tags

Abna elBalad, ACRI, airport security, Bagats, blacklist, Isreali Security Services, Lod's Airport, The Workers' Alliance

The following story is 100% true. It tells us a lot about the modus operandi of the security services… and not necessarily only in Israel.

(A story goes with it… As this story was already published in Haoketz, +972 and Al-Ittihad, what Free Haifa can add is the story behind the story. You may find it at the end of the original text.)

During the seventies of the previous century I was active in the leftist organization “The Workers’ Alliance”. It so happened that I represented this organization in several meetings and conferences in Europe.

In those days, the security services shared the left’s belief in the power of the word. According to this belief, as the world was created by words, it can be changed through words… The services put a lot of efforts to monitor our words. On each “visit” to Lod’s Airport, while traveling out of the country or on the way back, just as I presented my passport for examination, I was taken to the police station at the airport, like many other activists and opponents of the regime. They would search my bags and clothes, looking for any piece of paper that could indicate what I’m up to, where would I travel and with whom I met or will meet.

Human beings, by their nature, learn from experience. On one occasion they found a phone book in my possession and took it for farther inspection. It came back by mail weeks later, all ragged and torn. I decided to make things easier for me and for them and started searching myself before being searched, to make sure that I don’t have with me any piece of “personal” paper that may open the way to questions or to prolong the inspection.

Everything went on very well. Gone were the days of “The Workers’ Alliance”, I joined “Abna Al-Balad” and did not have any political travel for a long period… I found a job in high tech and began traveling for work. But once you entered the blacklist it was very hard to get out. I continued to search myself before arriving to the airport and “The Comrades” there continued to stop me every time I presented my passport and search me without finding anything to ask about.

I’m a quiet person by nature. I don’t like to complain and I was satisfied with the mutual security arrangements. But I learned that some other “names” on the blacklist become managers and university professors. They had to travel many times and were tired of the repeated searches. Their complaints reached the press. Finally they couldn’t bear it any more and petitioned “The High Court of Justice” (the famous Bagats) through “The Association for Civil Rights in Israel” (ACRI).

I did not follow the details and I was not interested in the subject, until the day in November 1989 when I was sent by the company to an important conference… As I presented my passport to the border police – I knew that they will arrest me and search me and I was assured that they will not find any forgotten paper… However, even though I was ready for any strange occurrence, I was surprised… I noticed how the officer’s face became pale with fear as she looked at the computer screen after typing my passport number. Within a few seconds security guards surrounded me, carried my bag and escorted me into a special search area that I did not know before.

I was observing their actions and didn’t understand. They are not looking for papers. They took the clothes from the bag one by one and sprinkled strange powder on them… They rummaged every object meticulously and carefully. Even the toothpaste – they squeezed most of it out of the tube beyond repair. There is no other explanation: They are looking for explosives!

I began to ask myself: What was the secret information that changed my status with the security services from “political dissident” that is subject to traditional search through his papers to a “dangerous terrorist” against whom you should apply all the innovations of chemical search? Does “The Comrades” know about me things that I don’t know about myself? Is it possible that “the leadership of the world revolution” has decided to move me from the political to the military wing and forgot to tell me about it, but the news arrived to the services?

* * *

One would expect that the story will end here. I would be left in ignorance and the doubt will eat me from within: “Who framed me?”… But, fortunately for me, at the same period I used to volunteer at ACRI and I had to accompany one of their lawyers to Jerusalem…

The trip from Haifa to Jerusalem is pretty long. The urgent issue that we were traveling for was probably fairly simple and didn’t require discussion nearly as long as the travel. The conversation between us switched from one subject to another. As I was looking for topics of conversation I asked the lawyer:

–         By the way, what happened with the petition to the high court against the blacklist? On my recent trip they gave me some hard time.

His reply was:

–         Well, the result is not bad at all… We did not get everything we wanted, but we agreed on a compromise that satisfies us… The court endorsed our main argument that it is not acceptable that border security will be used for political control. Of course, we can’t object that they will perform the original duty, searching for explosives!

* * *

It turns out that, on the day of my traveling, I happened to be one of the first “suspects” that came to the airport after applying the “new regime” – which turned ​​us, by a keyboard stroke, due to the “achievements” of ACRI and the “wonders” of the Israeli democracy, from “political hazard” to “terrorist danger”. That’s why the officer, when the new classification popped before her eyes, was so horrified. For this reason the security personnel took their search task so seriously.

Over time, naturally, they got used to the fact that this new classification is essentially “nonsense” (probably some of them have realized that it was political harassment) and the claimed search for explosives became fast and superficial, just as the search for papers before them…

My name was not deleted from the blacklist until 2003, after some other interesting experiences which I might tell another time.

* * *

This story was originally published in Arabic in the literary supplement of Al-Ittihad newspaper on 31.5.2013. It was later published in Hebrew on Haoketz. Today it appeared in English in Haoketz and +972.

The illustration is a gift from the artist Iris…

The Story Behind this Story

As some of our good friends started “The Warsha” to bring a little bit of culture to our people in Haifa, I wanted to support them and signed up to a “creative writing” course with the writer Ala Hlehel. It came out that I hardly can build one proper sentence in Arabic, so Ala sent me to learn grammar instead. I ended up in the hands of a stern Arabic teacher Mussa ‘Odeh.

One day he assigned me the task of filling a page titled “In the Airport”. At first I wanted to tell the story of a lonely Arab man from Haifa that was induced to import a Jewish bride from the US. When he met her at the airport it turned out that she was a poor black woman. As far as I know they leaved happily ever after.

But this sticky romantics was too much for my poor Arabic, so I sticked with the devil that I really know – the Israeli security octopus.

After I filled the page, and my teacher Mussa and my Arch teacher Rajaa Zoabi Omari, corrected my Arabic, I changed the title to be more dramatic. It took another month of nagging Hisham Naffa in Al-Ittihad and it became my first work of art to be published beyond my high school paper.