Spirit in Action
Steadfast Nonviolence on the West Bank - Iyad Burnat
Iyad Burnat is a full-time non-violent activist against the Israeli occupation in Bel'in, in the West Bank. Jailed numerous times, dedicated to the creative act of non-violence, Iyad has 4 children and is currently speaking for 3 months in the USA, sharing first-hand experience of activism. His village has had some success in facing down the expropriation of their land, including at the Israeli High Court.
- Broadcast on:
- 06 Jan 2013
- Audio Format:
- other
[music] ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark helps me. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred food in your own life. ♪ Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ That we may dream as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ My home, Eau Claire, Wisconsin, benefited from two days' visit in December by Palestinian activist Iat Berndat. He's one of the less than 2,000 people living in the West Bank village of Belene, harnessing the power of non-violent resistance to the occupation and abuse of the Israeli government, and they've had some successes, which Iat would tell us about. You may have heard or even seen something about the very creative and persistent work of the non-violent resistors of Belene, including through the Sundance Prize-winning film Five Broken Cameras. The latest resistance to Israeli occupation has continued at least weekly for the past 8 years, and Iat is a full-time activist uniting the adults and children of his village in non-violent struggle, not an obvious task when considering the provocations of the occupiers and the frustrated lives of the Palestinians. Fortunately, with persistent strategy and help from Israelis and other international supporters, Iat Berndat and the other citizens of Belene have made real progress in their struggle. Fitting a visit with Jordan Spirit Radio into Iat's busy daily schedule was not obvious, but we agreed to meet while we launched at a local coffee shop, officially known as the Dancing Goat Coffee House, affectionately known locally as The Goat. Fortunately for the shop, the goat was very busy during a yacht's mid-December visit, so unfortunately for you, there's lots of background noise to deal with. But before we speak to a yacht, let's start off with a bit of music from Emma's Revolution. I've had Pat Humphreys and Sandy O as my guest over the last couple years, and we'll start off with one of their songs about reconciliation between all of the parties of the Middle East Mass. It's called "Peace Salaam Shalom" by Emma's Revolution. "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam" "Peace Salaam" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam" "Peace Salaam" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam Shalom" "Peace Salaam Shalom" happen, Goat Coffee House, to talk with Iyad. Iyad, welcome to Spirit in Action. Hi. So, you're about a month into your three-month trip to the US. Give our listeners a little bit of the background of what's going on there, your village, and the kind of protest, how long they've been going, that kind of thing. Yes, you know, about Palestine, we are now 65 years under the occupation. The Israeli occupation continued to confiscate the Palestinian land and to build the new colonies in their lands, especially after 1967 in West Bank and that's the area where we live as farmers. So, from 1990, they started to confiscate our land in the village and it's a small village that where I live. It's a 1900 people living in this village, most of them are farmers and when the Israelis came to confiscate the land, they said, within the first and the beginning, it's for security reasons, sometimes a closed military area and after a while they started to build new colonies in this area. By disconfiscated, they destroyed the life of the farmers, you know, they destroyed a lot of olive trees that's in the area and the olive trees is the life of the farmers there. So, we started our non-violent struggle when they started to build the apartheid wall in our area and destroyed the land. So, since eight years now, we have weekly demonstrations against the Israelis' apartheid wall and against the colonies in that area. I think you just referred to it as apartheid wall, which I know that phrase was the first time it came to my attention is when Jimmy Carter used it, that what's being done with the Palestinians is apartheid. You grew up in that village the whole time, have you always lived in that village? You've traveled a fair amount too. Yes, I burned in that village and also my father, my grandfather, so I find myself there, I am 39 years now and all my life under the occupation, all my life in resistance against the occupation and this apartheid wall. So, as you mentioned, Jimmy Carter, he's also visited our village in 2008, 2009 and he also says that this is apartheid wall and this is a legal settlement that they build it on our land and also it's apartheid wall. Yes, if you talk about bees and the freedom and justice and equality and these words that's the apartheid wall is kill all these words, it's kill the bees, it's kill the quality between the people, it's kill the, it just tastes the freedom. So, this is the apartheid wall that's the build it between us and between our land, between us and between our friends, our people in the next side of the world. Could you talk a little bit about who participates in your weekly demonstrations? I understand that there's internationals there as well, of course, local folks and also Israelis that it's a mixture of people. What kind of mixture is it usually? Yes, since eight years now, we have every week our nonviolent demonstration and also we have other demonstrations, other ideas in the middle of the week. We have a lot of international solidarity movement to participate with us every week in our demonstration. We have also groups from international groups who comes to our village and in other days, for example, or in Friday, to know about our struggle. We have Israelis activists also who participate every week in our demonstration and now just not just in Berlin, now we have 20 places that's who do the same of the line weekly demonstration and in each place we have international and we have Israelis activists who participate in these nonviolent demonstrations. What kind of percentage? Is it mostly people from the village? Is it a lot of international? Does that vary from week to week? It's not the same. Sometimes we have our demonstration 4,000 people. Yes, sometimes we have when we have a big demonstration and invite more people to come to participate, we have 3 to 4,000 people participate. But sometimes in the weekly normal, weekly demonstration, we have between 150, 200, 300 people. And every week we have international and Israelis activists participating in these demonstrations. But the most people is a Palestinian, of course, that's who's from the village, the farmers from other villages who participate with us in our demonstration. I think that the soldiers that you have to face down during these demonstrations, they usually come and try and close down your demonstrations, is what I understand. They're all Israelis. You do have a number of Israelis who participate in your demonstrations? Yes. We have for example, in Berlin we started in 2004, December. It was about 8 to 10 Israelis activists who participate with us. But after one year when we called for a big demonstration, we have 400 to 500 Israelis who have been in this demonstration. And also the Israelis activists now, they also in many villages, they send in each village a group to participate every week. So we have a number of them that participate in many places now. But you know, it's still a small number for the Israelis population. So we try to, many times, to send messages to also the Israelis people that say to have our people who participate with us, to grow and to know what's happened in our village and in other areas, that to know that the Palestinian, we can live in peace together. We can have one democratic states that's Israelis and Palestinian together, quality states, have the freedom, the justice. So this is what we call every time and we send our message to the Israelis people that we can live in peace. So just to be clear, and I think I've heard you say this, so I want to just make it in very clear words, the objective is not to get rid of Israel. The objective is to live peacefully alongside, respectfully, with justice alongside each one another. Yes, for sure. We are not against the Jewish in the world. We are against the occupation and we want our goal to have our freedom like everybody in the world. And this is our right to have our freedom like all of the people. Our message to the Israelis people that we can live in peace and it's the holy land that's for everybody. You mentioned, I think, that these demonstrations happen on Friday. I'm curious as to the choice of Friday. I think for Muslims that Friday is usually a holy day. Of course, with sundown for Jews, it starts as a holy day. So why the choice of Friday? Friday, we have, in our demonstration, we need a lot of people to participate because it's a non-violent way. It's a cross root resistance, so everybody can participate in this demonstration. So on a Friday, it's a yes for the Palestinian holy day and you find a lot of people who didn't work and can join you in this demonstration. If you want to do it in Monday or Tuesday, so it's you didn't have people because it could occur all at work. Yeah, and we didn't want to make also the life hard for the people. That's to, they didn't let them go to war. So Friday is everybody didn't work, so they can join and participate in these demonstrations. And also for the Israelis, it's more easy and the international also who comes and participate in this demonstration, it's easy for them to come and participate in a Friday. Of the Palestinians who live there, what is the religious mix? What percentage are Muslim or possibly Jewish? I don't know if there are any Jews who live in your village, Christians and non-religious people. No, in our village, it's a, all of the people is Muslims in Bahrain, but we have also other villages doing the same and barcibet with us. We have a lot of a Christian people who comes and barcibet with us in other villages like Inaric village, it's half and half the Christian and Muslim like Abu village, it's also half and half Christian and Muslim. So we have good contact with them and they comes and barcibet with us in our actions, but all the people in Israel is Muslims. And the international participants, where do they come from? How important is their witness being there? I think when you have international eyes upon you, it makes a difference. I think Israelis, they're very careful to be good when the cameras are looking. Yes, it's for sure, it will be different when we have a Israelis activist or international activist in our demonstrations because they scared the Israelis army to do a lot of violence against the Palestinians. Every time we have a violent in the demonstration against everybody, but it's less, more or less, for the violence from the Israelis soldiers. So it's very important to have international solidarity movement that's barcibet with us every Friday with various cameras and also the international is our messengers outside. So when they came and saw what happened in the ground, they go back and they tell their friends, their families, there's people, what's happened in the ground. It's also against the Israelis of Rubuganda that's always told the people the wrong things that happen. So this is our messengers outside. So the international community from all of the world, every week we have a new people who's coming. So it's different between before five years and now. Before five years the people didn't know a lot about Palestine and about the walls and the occupation and this, but now we have a lot of people who start to know and the international committees grow and grow about Palestine. I'm also interested in why you choose to do non-violent witness. Certainly there's got to be a temptation when people are hitting you when they're shooting rubber bullets or using tear gas. There must be a tendency to want to hit back, but for some reason you've chosen non-violence. Is that a spiritual theological reason? Is it just practical? Where did you learn your non-violent ideas? I think it's the historic of the Palestinian people that they use the non-violent struggle. It's not started in Berlin, village. If you go back in 1936 that's the Palestinian have a big intifada against the British occupation. It was six months and non-violent way, hungry strike and in the streets, demonstrations and this. And also if you go back to 1918, that's the first intifada also. It was a bubble-alentifada and it was a non-violent way. So it was every time in before Berlin also it was a lot of villages doing the same demonstrations as a non-violent way. But what we do in Berlin is that it was the creative ideas that we use. You know, it's a new thing for the media. So by this creative idea is that to put ourselves, for example, in cage in front of the bulldozers, to type ourselves in the olive trees, to put ourselves in cage and in cylinders and barrels and these things to fight by our body that's to make war on our body. This is things that creative ideas that we was used, it's Bush the media to talk about these things more than other places. We have a committee and we was decided every week that's what we go to do next week and we have these ideas. When they started to destroy the olive trees, we take a decision to type ourselves in these olive trees. So it started from down and from here and every week we had a meeting and we decided what to do the next Friday or next other days. And especially these creative ideas, it was in other days, not in Friday, it was in the middle of the week or in Sunday or in other days that's because it was at early morning the idea to stop the bulldozers on the ground. So we had it in early morning before the bulldozers come to war. And also in these ideas we invite a lot of international media and Israeli media, a Palestinian media. So all the media was invited to show the new thing that we do in Berlin. I still am wondering though with the origins of this. So you say goes way back to 1938 to the British occupation that already you're using nonviolent methods. I guess Gandhi was contemporary at that time so he might have been inspirational. I think of the civil rights movement in the United States, Martin Luther King Jr., and other folks who used a whole lot of nonviolent techniques. Now for Gandhi, Satyagraha, Soul Force, it's a spiritual principle that he started from. I think Martin Luther King combined that with what Jesus said. When you talk about the roots of the ideas, why it's important, what do people agree on that it's important in your village, Berlin? Yes, because we believe that the nonviolent way is more lower than other ways. Everybody can participate with you in these demonstrations. Women's, children, men, everybody, traditional Israelis activists, the media also. Also we believe that the nonviolent way is succeed more quickly than other ways and you can send your message more quickly to many people in the world. And on the other side, you didn't lost a lot from your people. Yes, they used a lot of violent against us. They killed two of our friends in my village in eight years. In eight years, we have a lot of people who was injured. They used against us many kinds of weapons. But if we go to other way, for example, in Gaza, they killed 1,500 people in 2009, in 21 days. They demolished more than 1,000 houses in 21 days. Yeah, 3,000 houses and yes, 400,000. It was in the last one in November, 2012, and they killed 150 people in one week. So it's different between what the Israelis use against you in the nonviolent administration and what they use against the violent way. Also, in a nonviolent way, you can break the legs of the occupation. So the occupation is standing in three legs, strong legs. First is the military, the army. That you can break the army by this way, by the people. They cannot use against you, the planes or the rockets or any kinds, any kinds of the weapons. And they need a lot of soldiers, group of soldiers to stop you. So it's caused the Israelis government a lot. They lost also, sometimes more than you, by the economy. And also, the Netherlands is the economy of the Israelis. So you can't fight the economy of the Israelis by the BDS, by the boycott, to ask your friends to have this in your country, to ask all the friends outside to start the bucket, and it's easy for the people to join in you in this struggle. The third leg is the media, and it's the strongest one now in the world that's the people fighting by media. And also the Israelis fight us by the Israelis propaganda in the world. So by this way, we can send our message quickly to the people. We can go outside and speak against the Israelis propaganda. So we believe in this way that we succeed soon, and also we have hope every time to have our success. And we succeed in Berlin that we move the world back 500 meters, for example. It was a small succeed for the small village. We succeed to stop the settlement, to build more houses of the settlement. We succeed to spread our message to many people in the world. We have a lot of people who visit Berlin and talk about the nonviolent struggle. So it's in short time, it's a big succeed for small village. And so the success that you had there with the wall being moved back by 500 meters, or the 2000 apartments, not built the settlements that were not taking your land, how was that decision reached? Was that both of those from the Israeli Supreme Court? Did they all come from the court system in Israel, or are there other ways? Yes. So first is the demonstration and the action in Friday or in other days. Second is the law, the court against the court by their slow. So we have Israeli lawyers that's working with us to go against the wall and against the settlements and against everything by the court, by the Israeli school. But what's happened? Its many villages go to the court by Israeli lawyers without demonstrations. They didn't succeed. So the important thing is to have the demonstration, the actions, every week to put the pressure in the Israeli court to have this decision. So after two and a half years from our struggle in Berlin, we succeed to have a decision from the Israeli High Court that's to remove the wall back 500 meters. And it's the same court that say they take a decision to build the wall and they say this is a security wall, you know. So after two and a half years they say this is not a security wall, we can move it 500 meters. So it's succeed for the non-violence struggle in Berlin because they had a lot of pressure from outside, from the people, from the newspapers, from the media, from the people in the underground that have to move this wall. The settlements, that's they build it on our land. It's called Métitia Homézra in April. It's the atheist that's illegal by the international law and also illegal by the Israelis law. They have a beer machine from the court to build 1,600 apartments in this settlement, and also it's illegal. But what the company is there, the companies and the mayor of Métit in Italy, that's the big settlements there, and the army, they change the beer machine. They take a decision between themselves to build 3,600 apartments in the front of 1,600. So it's changed the decision from the court. It's become illegal by the Israelis court. So we know that after we know that they change it and they have more 2,000 apartments. They want to build it on our land also, close to the village. So we started to fight against the settlement. So we going and we put caravan in our land near the settlement. The soldiers came and they take it and other caravan in other night. We bought ourselves in this caravan and they came and take this caravan also. But we asked why you take our caravan and you let the settlers to build houses without permission. So it was the answer from the Israelis officers that this is other system, that this is cement and windows and ceiling and doors. So we need a beer machine from the court to demolish it. Let's talk about the settlement now. So what we do an other night, we bring our cement and we build our room with the same system near the settlement. And you know when the soldiers came they find our room. We build it in 3 hours at night. It was very sad, the soldiers very crazy. But they cannot also demolish it. They need a beer machine from the court. So we built, we tried to put our smart ideas. Yes, clever ideas. Yes, after this we built more 2 and 3 rooms in our land. But you know after June 2011, they demolished the wall and they built a new wall in after 500 meters from our land. So they have also a decision to demolish our rooms in that area. So they demolished the one that we built in 2006. But we built another rooms after this. So it's neat time to demolish it by the decision from that court. What are your relationships like with the soldiers and taggnostic friendly? I mean these are for the most part young Israeli people who are constricted into the army. How do they react to you? Can you have friendships? Can you communicate well? I think we had many times you saw in the movie or if you saw the video that we had many times he tried to spoke with the soldiers. So why you are here? This is our land and many people. We understand Hebrew and also they understand Arabic. They can't speak in Arabic the soldiers and we can speak in Hebrew. So we tried to talk with them many times that's why you use the violent against us, why you are in our land, we can work together, we can. But you know the soldiers didn't understand that. They have just a decision from their leaders how to break the people, how to shoot the people, how to beat the people. This is what they know. They didn't talk with the people, they didn't understand anything. They just want to let the people go back. They didn't have a march, they didn't have a demonstration. This is what they know. And also the people, the population of the Israelis, they had the same or the closed area. They didn't let him to go to his bank. Also the activist sometimes they worked for them checkpoints to didn't let them to come to our demonstrations. But they came from the heians and from the fields. But also the media inside of Israel and they closed them, they didn't want them to talk with the Palestinian. It's be hard for the people to understand inside. And we cannot go there also. So it's like, you know, about five. We didn't want you to talk with our people. And the people cannot come to West Bank or to talk with the Palestinians. But also we have a small group of the youngest people who refused to go to army. And they came to participate with us in our demonstration. And also we have other group. And they was in the army and they didn't go more to the army. They deserted from the army? Yes, it's a small group. And we have contact with them and they can't participate in our demonstration or to meet us or to be part of our action against the occupation. So are they all part of break the silence, that movement? Yes, they call the break the sign up here. You're listening to spirit and action. This is Northern Spirit Radio production on the web at northern spirit radio.org. I'm your host, Mark helps me and you can listen to us and download all seven and a half years of our programs on the web. Also find links to our guests and leave comments. We talk to you. So please talk to us. There's also a donate button on northern spirit radio.org or you can look for the address to mail donations too. Your support makes this kind of positive, deep and persistent programming possible. Also consider supporting your local community radio station. They run economically but definitely still need and deserve your donations. On spirit and action today, we're speaking with Palestinian activist Iad Bertnott, one of the non violent leaders of his village, Belene in the West Bank. And we're speaking to him in a busy and noisy shop called the Goat Coffee House on Water Street in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Before we head back into the din of the Goat Coffee House for further visit with Iad Bertnott, let's share another song. This time by another of my spirit and action guests, musician John McCutchen. Unfortunately applicable to continuing generations of Palestinians as well as many more people, John's song "We Know War." We know war. A hundred years it haunts our homes. We know war. The generations left alone. The wombs forever wanting. The burdens we all bore. The empty chair at supper. The chaplain at the door we know war. Death falling from the sky like rain we know war. In the sirens wail again. The blackouts and the blitzkrieg as we huddled on the floor. Children trembling in the shelter amidst the unrelenting roar. We know war. We know war. The rows of crosses and feet. The endless longing that cannot be concealed. The history shows what lays in store. We know war. By the blood in every speech we know war. In the poison that they preach. The young ones see horrors they've never known before. The scar that never heal in heart. Where hatred keeps the score we know war. The army's rolling through the street. We know war. We are the ones who taste the feet. The endless occupation and the searches door to door. The fear that stalks the night. Until you can't take anymore we know war. When the paths over victors count the cost. Cold calculation. What is one and what is one and what is one and what is one and what is one and what is one and what is one. We know war. And everyone's so much the same. We know war. No longer will we add our name to the killing and the dying we have known too much before. When we pray for patience and you ask of us what for. Because we know war. John McCutchen we know war. Now back to the goat coffee house and our guest. In talking about the eight years that you've been involved yet. Can you say how many times you've been arrested and how many times you've been jailed. How old were you in the first time you got jailed. It was in the first century for 1992 I was 17 years old. That's the first time I've been in jail for two years. I spent two years in the knockout jail and the desert. Since eight years in our non-violence struggle in Berlin that's I've been arrested many times. It's a four week two weeks for 24 hours sometimes that just to keep us away from our village and from our non-violence struggle. Because they know this way is effected the Israelis army. I have been many times injured in the demonstrations by the rubber coat steel bullet by the tear gas canister. Also many times I've been beaten by a little group of soldiers. There was beating me and one side was in hospital after this beating from seven soldiers in the same time. So yes it's a very hard life and back to we keep always our hope to continue our struggle to have our freedom. Where do you draw your inspiration from? I take it that not all of the 1900 people in the village go to prison but maybe I'm wrong. Is this most of the adults at one time or another go to jail are beaten and so on or are you perhaps a little bit more motivated than the average. The want to put the pressure on the committee and the leaders in the village. So more the pressure comes against the nuclear committee in the beginning. But also all the villages lost. All the families in the village is lost. We have also a 150 who has been in jail for a long time between four months to eighteen months. Sometimes we have a lot of them as all of them have to pay to the court money between two to fifteen thousand shakers sometimes. All the village they want to break all the village at night time when they raid the village also they raid all the houses in the same night. And also most of the people that they have been arrested is children thirteen fourteen fifteen years old. This is also some ways to break us and to give us the didn't go to our demonstration. One of the reasons I do this program spirit and action is to find people who are making a difference in the world and to try and understand fully what motivates them so that we can share that with other people so that together we can draw on that power to change the world. So I'm still wondering I'm not sure I still understand for you what makes this something that you're given so much of your life so much of your energy to. You're protecting your village I do understand that but somehow you're protecting your village with more of your vital energy than others. What's the inspiration? I told you believe in this way that's more strong and more more lower than anyways and because we have hope to have our freedom. I think maybe you'd be happy to not have to be a non-violent demonstrator if you could go and have your job be there with your kids all of the time. I think you'd be happy to have this and so you didn't have to be an activist. Look we didn't like to be in demonstrations every week or non-violent or violent or this is not our goal to have the demonstration. Our goal to have our freedom and this is the way to have our freedom is the non-violent demonstration. All the Palestinian people that's suffering every day so there is no other way that they have to resist. They have to send their message to all the people in the world to put pressure on their government to put pressure on Israel's government to end the occupation. If you had your choice and you weren't having to fight for your freedom to fight for your land to protect all of the trees of your area what would you be doing? What work would you be doing? What have you trained for? What have you hoped to do or maybe you actually do it except one day a week? I am full-time of this struggle and sometimes we didn't sleep at night because the rate of the soldiers but if I have my country, if I have my freedom I didn't care what to work. I can work everything, do everything in my life, if I have my freedom. Construction, farming. I am a writer, I am a farmer, my family is a farmer, it's before me and yes I like to be a farmer. So we hope that we have our freedom and we will talk about this more. I do hope to be able to interview you when you have your freedom so I can hear all of the good things happening for you and your children. This is a very interesting, I'd say distressing, actually part of the Israeli's technique in fighting you is the jailing or the rousing of children in the middle of the night. Is that because children are a big part of your demonstrations or do they go after the children for some other reason? They've communicated to you. Yes I told you that from the beginning, they know that this way is affected the Israeli's army. So they want to stop this way by anyways, to beat the people in the demonstration, to arrested people, to shoot people, to come at night time, to arrested children, this was how they want to break us and to stop us. But they didn't succeed to stop us because we continue and sometimes they try to change our demonstrations to violent way. They try to provoke violence on your part? Yes, many times they send official forces under cover, soldiers, work like our clothes and join the demonstration. And it was in the big demonstrations also when we have a lot of media, a lot of famous people, a lot of internationalist activists. So they want to change our demonstration to show to the people that this is not violent, not a non-violent demonstration, this is a violent. So they send soldiers in our demonstration under cover to throw stones to the soldiers. So this was happened many times. But because we have our strategy to do the non-violent demonstration every time we know that nobody can throw stones in our demonstration because we go in this way. We know them, that's the they are special forces under cover. So when they start to throw stones to the soldiers, we told him, "Sorry, we didn't throw stones in our demonstration." So they didn't hear for us and all the people who come to join us, they are under the umbrella of the bubbler committee. So everybody have to hear what we're doing. So they didn't hear us, they continue to throw stones. So when we go to them and tell them, "Go back please, we didn't get you to participate with us in our demonstration," they take the guns and start to shoot and they arrested two of us. So this, and it's not just in Berlin, they use the special forces in many places now. They want to change the non-violent demonstration to violent. They want to change everything to there's a propaganda. For example, the last time when it was murdered in Gaza, you know the man there was kill him, Ahmadi Jabari. He was in negotiation with the Israelis before two days, you know, and many times he was in negotiation with them. So they came and kill him and they know that after kill him, they will be rocketed, they know that. But what they're doing, they want to push the Palestinian every time to use the violent. They want to provoke the violence, yes. And it's happened every time before the Israelis' election. In Gaza, if you remember, 2008 it was, before the election they killed 1,500 Palestinians. Now, before the elections they also attacked Gaza. So they try many times and every time to push the Palestinians and to do, there is propaganda in the war. You mentioned when you were speaking at the school here that you have four children and they're on the young end, that they're younger, that 14 years old and younger, I think is the age of your children. Yes. Are they allowed to participate in demonstrations or is it enough that their father gets arrested all the time? No, they always participate with me in the demonstration because, you know, to participate in the demonstration or they saw the violent at night time at the end of the school everywhere we have the Israelis in the village, the Israelis are moved. So they saw the violent, every time. So we teach him how to participate in non-violent demonstration. Every time we teach him, we take him with us. I have four children, 14, 12, 10 and 8 years old. The big one he was injured also in the demonstration. When they attacked my home they was scared of them and they afraid from the soldiers. So because these many times I tried to take him to the demonstration, to break the afraid of them, to break the scared of these children, of my children. So yes, it's in our way everybody can participate and be with us. One thing that I wondered about is how do you train the people to not be violent. I mean I'm sure there must be young hotheads there who want to react with violence. I thought when you had the Ajahn provocateur there the Israelis undercover, the ones who are throwing stones. I wonder if everybody sits down and points at them and saying they're being violent to not participate. For sure we have many times the children for example they try to take theirs angry outside, they take stones, they try to throw to the soldiers or will they have theirs friends being injured or killed or so you know you cannot catch the anger of the children. So sometimes they use it but we teach them every time that the soldiers like this, they want us to use this. How do you teach them that? Is this at school, is this organization or just right before you have a demonstration? How do you do that? Sometimes when we have a demonstration we go to the children who throw stones, we catch them one by one and to teach them how we use our non-violent way and why and you know if you throw a stone that you help the soldiers to shoot us you know and to give reason to the soldiers to attack our non-violent demonstration, to attack our media, to attack everything. So the children we understand that and they continue to be with us but also they take care to the dead, throw stones in the next time. But you know it's many times you deal with the people, not with the group of the soldiers to tell him go from here and they go, you have many ideas, many people participate with you, many age of children, so it's very hard to deal with the people that you have to work 24 hours for them to teach them and to learn them the non-violent stuff. But you've been pretty successful. Yes of course we succeed to have, for example we have our children group that's we teach him how to take photos in the demonstration, not to throw stones. In the beginning that's some children they like to throw stones because they want to have their anger outside. So we teach him to throw eggs, eggs, yes for example. It's not a stone but you can throw eggs in the beginning. So eggs or water or something like this or we have sometimes we put in balloons, sheet water, yeah that's a balloon. Oh balloon, a water balloon. A balloon filled with water? Not water, we put a lot of chicken crap. Chicken crap. Yeah and we teach the children that you didn't have a throw stone, you can throw this one, it didn't kill anybody or injure anybody but it's make himself very bad smell. So he will like the idea, you know. So a step by step you can teach the children and people how to use non-violent balloon. I can see that there's a lot of creativity and cleverness there. Is there one of the demonstrations, one of the techniques that you used that was the most fun for you that you enjoyed the most? Yes and we like our people to join us in fun things like Avatar movie. The Avatar, yeah we make the people in the village, like Avatar people and we go to the world. You got them all green, the nose and the eyes, everything. Yes and this was very successful demonstration, the soldiers saw the people of Avatar coming to the world and they didn't know what to do. And also the people in Berlin was happy to do Avatar movie on the next side of the world. So yes there's many creative ideas that push the media also to come and to see. Well I thank you so much Ayat for your creativity, for your dedication to this. Is there any last message that you want to leave for the American people, for the listeners to this program? I think I am here because this to send message to American people that are the important people I think that have to know our message from Palestine. First all the Palestinian people that believe that America is part of the occupation because there is money, there is weapons, there is support, political support of the Israeli occupation. So we have every year three and a half billion dollars sent to Israel's army and it goes to the weapons that skill our friends and our people by these weapons. And this have to American people to know about this and also the weapons that they use against us in the demonstration, it's made in the United States and the one that's killed our friend Basim Abraham, it's made in the United States. Many of the kinds that's killed our friends in many demonstrations in non-violent demonstrations. So we hope that the American people can stop this to put the pressure in their government to stop this aid to Israeli occupation. I told you we are not against the Jewish, they can support the Jewish people, they can send their money to human rights or to peace things, to food everything they can but our problem that they send the money to the Israeli army. And they know that's where this money goes. I've been very sad if I see my child kill, they kill him by weapons made in the United States and also all my friends that have their children was killed, their friends were killed by the Shia movements. So we ask our people in the United States that to put the pressure in the government to stop these weapons to kill us. Well again, yeah, it's so good for you to come and travel and bring firsthand witness to all of us. And I thank you so much for taking the time away from your four children. I know that's not easy. I appreciate so much that you joined me too for spirit in action. Yes, it's very hard to leave my family for three months but it's very important to be here and to talk with the people who didn't know about our struggle and about our suffering. So I hope I have soon a good future for my children also. And this comes before I am here and I've been many times in Europe speaking outside many times to send my message and to tell more people to know about our struggle. Thank you so much. Shukran, have fun. I have a link from NortonSpiritRadio.org to track down Ayat Bepnot and the work of the Citizens of the Village of Belene. Also a link to the award-winning Sundance movie, Five Broken Cameras. We'll close out today's spirit in action with musical commentary about the weapons the U.S. provides in the occupation of the Palestinians. Exactly as David Rovex, also an earlier Norton Spirit Radio guest, puts it, "Who would Jesus bomb?" We'll see you next week for Spirit in Action. I've seen you in the markets, I've seen you in the streets, and at your political conventions. Talking of your crusade, talking of your nation and other things too terrible to mention. And you proclaim your Christianity, you proclaim your love of God, you talk of apple pie in mine. I've just got one question and I want an answer, tell me, "Who would Jesus bomb?" May Jesus would bomb the Syrians, 'cause they're not Jews like him. Maybe Jesus would bomb the Afghans on some kind of vengeful whim. Maybe Jesus would drive an M1 tank and he would shoot sit down. Who would Jesus bomb? Yes, I've seen you on the TV and on the battleships, I've seen you in the house on the hill. And I've heard you talking about making the world safer and about all the men you have to kill. And you speak so blibly about your civilization and how you have the moral higher ground. While halfway around the world, your explosive smashed the buildings. You could only hear the sound. But maybe Jesus would sell land mines and turn on his electric chair. Maybe Jesus would show no compassion for his enemies in the lands way over there. Maybe Jesus would have formed the plains that killed the kids in Vietnam. Who would Jesus bomb? Yes, I hear you shout with confidence as you praise the Lord and you talk about this God you know so well, you talk of Armageddon and your final victory when all the evil forces go to hell. Well, you'd best hope you've chosen wisely on the right side of the Lord and when you die, your conscience it is clear. You'd best hope your atom bombs are better than the sword at the time when you're reckoning is here. Because I don't think Jesus would send gunships in the Bethlehem or test to raise the towns of chimerys. I don't think Jesus would lend money to dictators or try those SUVs. I don't think Jesus would ever have dropped a single ounce of Nepal. The theme music for this program is Turning of the World, performed by Sarah Thompson. This spirit in action program is an effort of Northern spirit radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website northernspiritradio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host Mark Helpsmeet and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is spirit in action. ♪ Feeling ♪