Ali Abu Awwad

Ali Abu Awwad
Ali Abu Awwad, July 2014.
Born	1972 (age 43–44) Halhul, West Bank
Nationality	Palestinian
Known for	Palestinian activist and pacifist

Ali Abu Awwad (Arabic: علي أبو عواد, born 1972) is a Palestinian peace activist. He founded Taghyeer (Change), a National Palestinian Nonviolence Movement, in the belief that nonviolence is the only way to bring peace to the region and end Israeli occupation. At the end of 2014 Ali created the Palestinian non-violence center “Karama” (“Dignity” in English), on his family’s land situated in an area between Bethlehem and Hebron City. In that same year he co- initiated “Roots” with local Israeli activists - a local initiative to engage communities and community leaders from both sides in reaching a just solution to the conflict. Ali tours the world to tell his riveting story of violent activism, imprisonment, bereavement and his eventual discovery of non-violent resistance, which he describes in his book “Painful Hope” (to be published 2016). “We will have peace when the painful price of peace will be cheaper than the terrible price of war”. His life and work have been featured in two award-winning films, Encounter Point and Forbidden Childhood. He lives in Beit Ummar, in the Palestinian Occupied territories.

Biography

Awwad's family are refugees from Al-Qubayba near Bayt Jibrin, forced off their land during Al Nakba (“The Catastrophe”) in 1948 and settling in Beit Ummar before he was born: He himself was born in Halhoul, Hebron Governorate in the West Bank. Awwad’s family was very politically active, and he followed in his mother Fatma (Um Yousef) 's footsteps. At 15 years old he saw his mother physically beaten by Shin Bet agents and arrested several times. She spent five years in Israeli prisons and Ali became a leader in Fatah. He served two prison sentences: His first arrest occurred while studying for his secondary school exams, after an Israeli helicopter observer reported seeing him throw stones. He refused to pay a 1,500 shekel fine, stating later that, while a stone-thrower, he had not stone-throwing on the day in question.[9]He served three months in prison in the Negev. Eight months later, he took part in the First Intifada as a teenager, and was subsequently sentenced to 10 years in prison in Israel on charges of stone-throwing, throwing Molotov cocktails, and being part of a military cell. According to Awwad, his ‘major crime’ was actually refusing to cooperate with his interrogators who wanted information concerning his mother's activities, and the prison term (not usually so long for stone throwing) was increased for this reason.[2][9] In 1993, after a 17 day hunger strike he managed to get his jailors to allow his request to see his mother who was also in prison at the time.[9] The success of his strike was a turning point, as he realized that non-violent protest along Gandhian and Mandela’s principles might be a better way to defend one's rights.[9] He served four years and was released after the signing of the Oslo Accords,[2] and confined to Jericho. On his release, he was recruited by the Palestinian National Authority as a security officer, and began arresting and interrogating fellow Palestinians suspected of violence, in order to support the success of the Oslo Accord. He resigned in shame in 1997, feeling that the continued Israeli occupation of the West Bank meant that his security work was in effect securing Israelis without achieving independence and rights for his own nation.[9]

On 20 October 2000, after the outbreak of the Al Aqsa Intifada[10] (the Second Intifada), Awwad was shot in the leg in a drive-by shooting by an Israeli settler driving a Subaru station wagon with Israeli license plates. (Awwad later learnt that the man had killed another Palestinian in Halhul that same day).[9] Seriously wounded, he was evacuated to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment. Awwad says that on returning, he learnt his brother Youssef had been murdered, allegedly shot at point-blank range in the head by an Israeli soldier at a checkpoint located just outside their village. Awwad claims that his brother was not involved in any violence, and had been shot for talking back to the soldier, in violation of a new regulation his brother had been unaware of.[2]

Determined not to fall into cycles of revenge and violence, and inspired by the teachings of Martin Luther King, Mandela and Mohandas Gandhi, Awwad started teaching nonviolent resistance to men, women and children in Palestine, Israel and people from different nationalities and backgrounds.

Together with his mother and siblings he became a member of the Bereaved Families Forum in 2002, an organization founded by Yitzhak Frankenthal, an Orthodox Jew, whose son had been kidnapped and killed by Hamas activists.[9][12] This organisation brings together Israelis and Palestinians who have lost a family member in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with an emphasis on dialogue – both in individual encounters between Palestinians and Israelis and in public dialogue – to raise awareness and promote nonviolence.[13] At the Forum, Awwad met and was befriended by Robi Damelin, a Jewish woman who made aliyah from South Africa in 1967.[12] Damelin's son, David, a peace activist and officer in the IDF who opposed service in the Occupied Territories, was killed by a Palestinian sniper at a checkpoint in the West Bank in 2002.[14][15][16] Awwad and Damelin toured the world together for several years, arguing that peace can only occur if reconciliation takes place between the victims.[12][15]

In 2010 he left the forum and started the Israeli- Palestinian initiative “Leading Leaders for Peace”. www.LeadingLeadersforPeace.com

He has also built a compound on his family land between Bethlehem and Hebron City, to serve as a center for nonviolence and dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis.[9]

In early 2014 Awwad cofounded “Roots” together with Shaul Judelman’, a local Israeli. Roots is an Israeli-Palestinian initiative, focused on bringing the local communities and leaders into dialogue and action around reconciliation and solution. In the fall of 2014 and 2015 he toured the US with Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger, the third director of Roots, discussing how both Israelis and Palestinians can be "right" but that peace will require mutual understanding and honest dialog.[17][18][19] Now a friend, Hanan Schlesinger has als invited Awwad to address the settler community at Alon Shvut.[9]

Challenged once by a Palestinian woman who called him a traitor who creates obstacles for Palestinians who want to fight, Awwad is said to have replied:

"If you feel that the Palestinian airplanes and tanks are locked away in a warehouse and I am holding the keys to prevent you from using them, then you can kill me".[2]

David Shulman describes him as one of the leaders of a new generation of non-violent resisters in Palestine, and quotes him as arguing:

"The Jews are not my enemy; their fear is my enemy. We must help them to stop being so afraid – their whole history has terrified them – but I refuse to be a victim of Jewish fear anymore".[20]

On Gandhian principles[edit]

David Shulman has cited Awwad as one of three exponents of satyagraha active on the West bank, together with Abdallah Abu Rahmah and the Israeli peace activist Ezra Nawi.[21]"Some people think that Satyagraha [Gandhi's word for nonviolence] is weakness; they believe the angrier you are, the stronger you will be. This is a great mistake. ... You cannot practice nonviolence without listening to the other side's narrative. But first you have to give up being the victim. When you do that, no one will be able to victimize you again".[22]