Seven Oaks Magazine.

Melissa Mullan is an activist with the Vancouver chapter of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). She has twice travelled to the occupied Palestinian territories, including earlier this year, and recently sat down to discuss her experiences with Seven Oaks.

Seven Oaks: You've travelled to Palestine twice. What originally motivated your travels, and your work with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM)?
Melissa Mullan: After I graduated, I decided to go to the Middle East, and it was right before the war started, so everyone thought I was crazy. So I went to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and I ended up in Israel. I had heard about ISM before, but I had never really thought about it that seriously, but then when I got there I met a lot of people working with ISM, and found out a little bit more about what they were doing. So, having no reason to come home, I decided to stay. So, I stayed for an extra month with them.

S.O.: What were some of the more striking things about life in the occupied territories, things that you had to witness first-hand to really understand?
M.M.: I think life in the camps. People here, when you hear "refugee camps," you have a picture in your head of tents or something, and people just don't really understand at all what it's like there. Just the incredibly cramped living conditions, alleyways so narrow that you have to turn sideways just to walk down, not having electricity. My friends in Rafah, right now, haven't had electricity for the past 24 hours. Not being able to use water. When I was living in Jayous, the village only got water two days a week, and only for certain hours. And during those few hours, they have to try and store as much water as they think they'll need for the rest of the week. And just the hardships and the shortages of everything.

S.O.: What are some the concrete ways that ISM activists, and internationals, try to alleviate the hardships of living under occupation?
M.M.: We organise a lot of demonstrations, but that's only part of it. Right now, the focus is on the wall. A lot of the villages, they've seen what's happened to the other towns and villages with the wall's construction, and so they're a lot more outraged and they're willing to risk a lot more. So, just having a steady presence, to try to prevent further construction of the wall. We also do accompanying work; just helping people to go about their daily lives, helping people go to school. And then, under curfew, since internationals can break curfew without facing as much retribution as the Palestinians, bringing food to the people that are stuck inside for long periods of time and don't have any access to food. Another thing is helping to remove roadblocks that have been built, cutting off main streets.

S.O.: What is the reaction, from Palestinians, to internationals, Westerners, being there with them in the occupied territories?
M.M: In general, very good. Most of them are very happy to see you, even if they think that you can't do anything to help. They're happy, just knowing that people 'outside' care about what's going on, and want to know about what's going on. And they know that when we go home we'll speak about it, and try to bring more attention to the situation. A lot of the families I stayed with would say to me, "Well, I don't think that you can stop that from happening." Like, "What are you going to do if they come to knock my house tonight? But we like having you here because it makes us feel better, that we haven't been forgotten, and that not everyone in the world thinks that we're terrorists." Also, there are Palestinians who are suspicious of Western people, which is understandable because there are a lot of undercover people working in the occupied territories. So some are a little bit wary to give you their trust. But, overall, they are very welcoming if you respect their culture.

S.O.: I guess the flip side of that is, what is the Israeli reaction to internationals?
M.M.: Well, if you are talking about the Israeli population in general, of course there are a lot of leftist Israelis who support it and are doing the same things themselves. And there's sort of the population in general that really doesn't care. And then there's the extreme rightists who think that we're all terrorists. But in the army, they've really been clamping down on internationals. For example, during the past year with my two trips, the change was like black to white as to how internationals were treated. When I was first there, going through checkpoints, you could just show your passport and by-pass the checkpoint line. And you generally only had to worry about the Palestinians you were travelling with getting through. Now it's the opposite. (I will point out that I always did wait with the Palestinians, even when internationals were just waved through). Now, you get to the front of the line and the soldier won't let you in, for the sole reason that you are an international. Before that only happened if there was closure or some extreme situation, and you could generally talk your way through it. But it's getting a lot more difficult. A lot of the soldiers, though, really don't care, and are quite apathetic. It really depends on what soldiers you're dealing with. The older ones, for whom the military is their career, treat you a lot worse than the younger ones, who'd rather not be there, and are just doing their compulsory service.

S.O.: It was a year ago this month that the Israeli military killed Rachel Corrie, an American ISM activist. The two questions, then, are did you have any close calls yourself, and what should the world's response be to the stepped-up intimidation of and violence against internationals?
M.M.: Yes, I definitely had some close calls. In Nablus, we were always monitoring clashes in the street and a couple of times we were shot at, mostly just with rubber bullets. One of them ricocheted off a wall and hit my leg, but that wasn't a big deal, I didn't even have a bruise. In Rafah, we were shot at while trying to visit the house that Rachel Corrie was killed protecting. They started shooting at us with live ammunition, no warning shots or anything. Rachel's best friend was with us that day, and our Palestinian guide was so concerned for her safety. He didn't want something bad to happen to her at the same place. I think that the world's response should just be total outrage that unarmed people, be they internationals or not, are being targeted. They are being targeted; it's not accidental. In Rachel's case, it was claimed that she had not been seen. But it's the bulldozer's driver's responsibility; there were other internationals shouting at him to stop. So I think there just needs to be more support, more actions from people, forcing their governments to take action when one of their citizens is killed or injured, actions that are not illegal, that are not threatening the security of anyone else involved. The American government has not put any pressure on the Israeli government, so [the Corrie family and ISM] are trying to pass a bill right now to get an investigation into Rachel's death, so hopefully something will come of that.

S.O.: Is it frustrating, for you, given the present situation in Palestine, to meet people here who are uninformed or who couldn't care less about the conflict in the Middle East?
M.M.: Yes, it's very frustrating, and many of my friends fall into the category of being persuaded by our media. They either know absolutely nothing or associate "Middle East" with "terrorist." So, I wish that people were better educated on the issue, but I can't expect it when the media that we have doesn't do a good job of educating people, and most people don't have the time to search for other sources, to get the other side of the story.

S.O.: What do we need to be doing, here in Canada, to educate people and to have an impact in supporting the Palestinian people?
M.M.: We definitely need to be putting pressure on the Canadian government now. I've heard that with the new prime minister, they're planning on re-evaluating all Canada's foreign policy. In theory, right now, we're supposed to have an 'unbiased' position regarding Israel-Palestine, so I can only imagine how it's going to be "re-evaluated." So people need to be informed about things like this and realise that our government does have a lot of power. We shouldn't just be worried about ourselves in terms of the upcoming elections; we should also look at policy from our government towards the rest of the world. So, again, people need to educate themselves, and go to all candidates meetings and ask questions on these issues and force them to realise that the Canadian people aren't just willing to stand by and let governments do things that we don't agree with.