May 7, 2004
Life Onboard - Rami Nasserdin - Peace is Possible in Israel and Palestine

http://www.peaceboat.org/images/aaspacer.gif \* MERGEFORMATINET


Rami Nasserdin

http://www.peaceboat.org/english/voyg/ov/45th/lob/0507_11/11.html
Note: Rami Nasserdin is the director of a Palestinian non-governmental organization called http://www.palestinianvision.org \t _blank Palestinian Vision. Since first meeting Israeli peace activist Keren Assaf onboard Peace Boat’s 33rd Voyage in 2001, both Rami and Keren have worked together on various conflict resolution projects to bring Palestinian and Israeli youth together. In 2003 they were awarded the http://www.peaceboat.org/english/news/back/031115/031115.html \t _blank Mount Zion Award for their peace-building work. It was hoped that Rami would join Peace Boat’s 45th Voyage from Mombasa, Kenya to Amman, Jordan together with Keren, however, he was unable to gain entry upon arrival in Nairobi. In order to communicate Rami’s voice, albeit in a less personal and direct manner, a telephone interview was organized to discuss the situation in Palestine with Rami.
PB - If you had been able to come on Peace Boat this time, what would you have wanted to talk about? 
RN - I would've talked about different issues, but one of the main issues I wanted to talk about was the Separation Wall and how it's affected us as Palestinians, how it destroys our land and how it makes the environment of the place very ugly.

I also wanted to talk about the Palestinian youth, how they work under the Occupation, and about the Occupation, and the effect it has had on us as Palestinians. And of course when we talk about the Occupation we talk about several issues: check points, martyr attacks, curfew. All of these things I was going to talk about.

But particularly, about the youth and children. How the Occupation has affected them and how we work within this situation. I was also going to talk about cultural and social things, as not everything is political. I was going to talk about us as Christians and Muslims, how we live together, our customs, our traditional clothes, famous cooking, our dancing even.

But the most important thing I was going to talk about was that we, the Palestinian people, also love peace, and want to be in a peaceful place, and that we are fighting and working for peace. 
PB - In your life when have you felt this conflict the most? When was it most real to you?
RN - It was real to me when I was born. But it most affected me during the first Intifada, in 1987. When the first Intifada started, I was a kid, and we were involved as children. At that moment I realized the meaning of Occupation and it changed my life. But before it, I knew there was something wrong because I saw the soldiers, but it affected me in the first Intifada when we started fighting and struggling against the Occupation. 
PB - How did [the Intifada] affect you?
RN - You know when I saw these people, other people I mean, fighting for one goal. Fighting for resistance. I started to realize then. And it affected me more and more when I lost a lot of friends, and a lot of my colleagues have been arrested. Then I joined them. This all affected me, but I was most affected when I lost one of my colleagues in 1999 in the massacre of Al Aqsa, and I realized that we should do something as Palestinians. And even before that the moment that really made me think about it and our situation was in 1999 when I lost my brother.
PB - What motivates you to do what you do today for peace?


During their first voyage together, Keren and Rami playing a song called Shalom, Salaam (Peace in Hebrew and Arabic respectively) together

RN - The reason why I make it my work is because I realized there are different methods, different things you can do to resist. Not just throwing stones or shouting, but you can resist by giving people knowledge. And I'll be frank with you concerning Peace Boat. Without Peace Boat I couldn't do it, because I never knew personally an Israeli before I joined Peace Boat. Before that I was against anything to do with Israelis. 
What [experiencing Peace Boat] made me do was change me into dealing with the peace issue. It was in 2001 when I joined the ship and met Keren. And after I joined and met Keren, it changed my life. It turned it upside down. What happened to me was that I started working and convincing the Palestinians that we should do things in different ways. We should meet with the Israelis, convince them of our rights, that there's an Occupation, that they [Israelis] should struggle with us, that there's a very difficult situation. 
I have a lot of friends now from the Israel side and I love it. It affects all of my life. After I met Keren everything changed. Even my thinking changed. My policy of dealing with things changed. Understanding our enemy in a different way. It affected me a lot in a very positive way. 
PB - What is life like in the Occupied Territories? In East Jerusalem?
RN - I will tell you how life is in Jerusalem, and will do my best to tell you about life in the West Bank because my work is involved in the West Bank. In Jerusalem we have one resistance, and in the West Bank we have another living system. Our resistance in Jerusalem is a civil resistance. I mean that people who live in Jerusalem are suffering from differences. One example is the high taxes we pay with low salaries. The second thing is that we cannot as Palestinians have houses in Jerusalem. They don't give us land to build on in Jerusalem. And another thing is that we are under 24-hour security. They are trying to make us hate Jerusalem. It is very expensive to live in Jerusalem, and the salaries are low. And there is also a lot of discrimination. If you want to take a receipt for a phone call or something, it's all in Hebrew. There is nothing in Arabic. They are trying to change our identity as Palestinians living in Jerusalem. Although we don't have any citizenship, we don't have any Palestinian nationality. We only have travel documents and Israeli travel documents that say we are Jordanians.
To live in Jerusalem is very complicated. Even those in the West Bank don't know as much about our suffering. We have a different kind of suffering. In the West Bank, it's like military mode. By this I mean, for instance, you cannot move freely. If I want to go from place to place I have to climb over the mountains. We have a lot of curfews and unfortunately the demolition of houses. There are many arrests and the economic situation is really getting worse. The people, they have nothing to do. That's really bad. 
And sometimes there are clashes between the settlers and Palestinians. There are also the check points, which are really miserable. They try to insult people. For example, if I want to cross I have to wait for a couple of hours. Sometimes I have to take off my clothes. I have to hear some bad words from them. The West Bank is really suffering. You cannot compare throwing stones with shooting from a tank or an F-16 or Apache helicoptors. Life is really miserable. Each time depends upon the mood of the solider to enter and go out of the city. So the situation is really bad on the West Bank, but Gaza is suffering more and more. They are now throwing everything in Gaza. Everything like, throwing stones. There is nothing. That's what they are focusing now on the West Bank, cutting and dividing it into different small lands. There will be no cities afterwards. This is the situation right now. You cannot do anything because there is a lack of money and a lack of freedom.
But the most important thing I want to tell you, is that these things make us as Palestinians work harder and challenge us more. It doesn't stop us. No, it's the opposite. It makes us who we are, encourages us to work harder and work more. 
PB - What do you see as a solution to this problem?
RN - For me, each time there is no easy solution, because there is the interest of politicians, even if we want something. But I believe that we have to solve this conflict as two nations, without any third party. The third party is always interested in something. We have to finish, to resolve this conflict as two nations. And I believe we can handle it, if we compromise. And I believe as Palestinians, that we compromise a lot. The thing that I believe as a Palestinian is that the Israelis should stop and believe that we have rights in this land, it's our right to live in this land. The problem can be solved if the Israelis believe in our issue and give a hand to us, and history can say that none of the negotiations, the initiatives have succeeded because of the governments and policy of Israel.
But we as the Palestinians can see that we are the weak part, and each time we compromise although it's not acceptable for us, we say it's okay. So I believe it's for the Israeli government and the Israeli people to realize that we compromise a lot. And they have to say, That's it. That's my point of view. I can't give you a solution right now because I believe the Israel government doesn't see any solution. What they want now is to erase something called Palestine. Is that any solution? But to solve this conflict I think we need a lot of discussion, with Palestinians and Israelis meeting together. They should talk together so they can solve it together.
PB - What do you think of the suicide bombings?
RN - First of all we don't call it a suicide attack, we call it a martyr attack. For example, what happened with the Japanese kamikaze pilots in World War 2, how they fought with the ships and the planes. I believe we were not the first people to do these things, and that's the most important point. A lot of people think that we as Palestinian people are raising something new. But think, when a Palestinian boy or girl, 18 or 19 years old, does something like killing him or herself, it is the question of Why? we must raise. Of course we Palestinians are all against killing civilians. But what do you want from a guy or a girl who lost their family, who is under curfew for 24 hours, who doesn't go to school, whose lives have been destroyed. What do you think they will do? Find a solution? No, because they don't have any other alternatives. That's what they think about. They don't have any weapons. They don't have tanks, they don't have Apaches (helicopters), they are killing us and we don't have another solution. We have to fight in this way. But I believe in something. Killing is killing. If I kill you by shooting or if I kill you by Apache, it's the same thing. When a soldier is killing a boy, what's the difference of a boy killing a soldier? This is an issue we have to raise. Although again I insist we are against killing civilians.
But this is one of the things that for people in Palestine, there is no other option. They (the Israeli government) are killing us. They are killing children. Most of the people they are killing are civilians. Not any terrorists as they say, although I don't believe in this word itself. People, like in Japan, should understand that we as Palestinians don't have weapons. It's not a war. It's not an equal war. They have a strong army and we are just people. There are lots of differences between the two peoples. When you have this difference, I believe we should think together why he did that as a Palestinian. Why he killed himself. It's not so easy for a Palestinian to press the button and say goodbye. It's not that easy for any Palestinian, but he wouldn't do it unless it was the very last solution for him. But that's why he did it. That's my opinion about it. And we as Palestinians do not feel proud about it, but proud about how he decided to give his body – not that he killed Israelis – how he decided to give his body, to die for his country. That's the only thing that we are proud about as Palestinians, not that he has killed anybody. Again, I am against killing Israelis, civilian Israelis, I'm against killing anyone. But for the Palestinian, if he had another solution of course he would choose it.
PB - Do you have any closing words or final message for Peace Boat?
RN - The last things that I want to add are for the Japanese onboard. What I want to say to them is that we as Palestinians, I as a Palestinian, learn a lot from the Japanese and I think they learn from us. And because they have such power in this world they can make a change and should do something as a people. They are letting their government send troops to Iraq. They are supporting Israel in a way by not doing anything. My message to the ship and to the Japanese people is to wake up, stand up and see what their government is doing. And to stop supporting them as a state and stop supporting their government, and hallah, this means, finished in Arabic. We have to stop all of these things. Any which way they have to think about it. Don't agree with the government’s lies. That's my message to them. Stop and think. Stop and think as Japanese. They know right from wrong. They should start moving and working hard, not to change their government but to change the policy of their government. And we are looking forward to working together with the Japanese people, as usual. And we believe that Palestinian and Japanese people are very peaceful, and we show that. I'm not just talking about this. I know it and I feel it, and have been touched by before as a Palestinian. That is my message to the Japanese.