Comments on: Fear and tear gas in Nabi Saleh

By: Frank Herles Matos

Frank Herles Matos — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 17:50:51 +0000

I do not see a single ounce of courage in what you did, I see opportunities innocent (?) motivated by personal ideologies.
You knew beforehand that the IDF did not kill you, in the maximum would be neutralized, imprisoned or slightly injured. Courage you would if was going to some Muslim country to protest against the government in defense of the poor that country living in eternal oppression, especially the women.
You was not go to Israel for defend the oppressed and spread ideas of justice and humanism, was to seek fame – at least some Palestinian-Arab camcorder recorded your performance exotic and dantesc.
Lamentable

By: Lynne Bush

Lynne Bush — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 16:26:19 +0000

In reply to Hagen. Dear Hagen: I took your comment as you meant it, I think, and struggle myself with my cultural baggage and assumptions sometimes to the point of being paralyzed into inaction. The first step as you know is to be aware. I was appreciative of the reminder.

By: Lynne Bush

Lynne Bush — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 16:22:47 +0000

Dear Shoshana: thank you for making this effort and for writing candidly about it. and thanks to Gershon Baskin, who I have met, and his counterparts, for their continued efforts.

By: Hagen

Hagen — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 13:52:46 +0000

In reply to JG.

I am not sure I understood your criticism properly, could you explain a bit what exactly you mean?
I should note that I was thinking more of a cultural concept, a certain cultural mindset, less about ethnicity, race or something along the lines of that. You may very well have an African ethnic background, yet culturally be “white” in the sense I was thinking about.

I didn’t mean to insult or offend. Maybe I should have made more clear that I did love this blog entry, that I really do think what Shoshana did is something to be proud of and something that should be spoken of just like this entry did. I’m sorry if I came across as criticizing, that’s not what I meant to do, I just wanted to point out how hard it is to free oneself from all the (often unspoken) concepts that cultures carry in their bag. Maybe this was actually the wrong place, since it is only quite indirectly related to the article itself.

By: Dwight Towers

Dwight Towers — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 13:22:20 +0000

It took physical courage to go (which is not lack of fear, as another commenter said). It took courage to write what you did. It took courage and an open-ness of heart to respond to that first critical comment in the way you did.

There are people who will be jealous of your courage, and who will hate you for having it when they don’t. And they will sneer and deride.

And your courage can of course falter, and unless you are super-human, you will always have blind spots and inconsistencies and vulnerabilities.

Keep working for justice. Thank you for what you’ve done so far.

By: Specializing in Intolerance « jerusalempeaceseeker

Specializing in Intolerance « jerusalempeaceseeker — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 14:39:45 +0000

[…] broken up by the police, and demonstrators arrested. Just for one example, read this blog about a demonstration in Nabi Saleh on […]

By: lirun

lirun — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 10:23:48 +0000

powerful piece..

thank you for the openness sensitivity and candour..

By: judith

judith — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 10:11:51 +0000

Thanks Shosh. It all seems very far away from rainy London. But I continue to tell (sometimes cynical) friends here about Israeli activists who in many different ways are confronting the oppressive acts of their own governement. Miss you all. x

By: Shoshana London Sappir

Shoshana London Sappir — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 07:32:10 +0000

In reply to walt kovacs. Walt, I sense cynicism in your comment. But in case you are really asking, yes, the goal was to test whether the presence of Israelis marching alongside Palestinians would change the behavior of the Israeli army, and afford some protection to the Palestinians. So I knew I was going into a violent situation.

By: Nivien Saleh

Nivien Saleh — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 05:44:19 +0000

Thank you for this very thoughtful and well-written piece. I linked to it on Facebook and hope that many people will read it.