A Canadian Jew in Palestine
A Q&A with Anna Lipman who has just returned from doing solidarity work in the West Bank
For the past two weeks, Anna Lipman, 33, has been in Palestine. She’s shared some of her experiences on Twitter — like reflections of what she’s witnessed and videos of confrontations with IDF soldiers. She was there with a group of observers who stand watch to help reduce the harassment that Palestinians face from Israeli forces in daily life.
I asked Anna if she could talk about this work and she graciously agreed. Here is our Q&A, facilitated through Twitter DMs.
Can you introduce yourself and tell me what your path into activism has been?
I’m Anna Lipman I’m a PhD student at York University studying sociology and I organize with IJV and SURJ. My path into Palestinian solidarity activism really started when I volunteered on a kibbutz about 5 kilometres from Gaza when I was 19 and I started seeing the hypocrisy and injustice in Israel. A few years later I joined If Not Now and started organizing for justice for Palestine.
Tell me about the process you went through to decide to go to Palestine right now?
In May I went to Palestine on a delegation with the Centre for Jewish Non-violence where we were in East Jerusalem for Flag Day and then built a playground in the village of At-Tuba in Masafer Yatta. I decided to join the delegation because I wanted to gain a better understanding of the situation on the ground. I was supposed to return in mid October to help support and document the yearly olive harvest.
Due to the situation, settlers in Masafer Yatta were given machine guns by the government and drafted into the army. This meant that Palestinians could not leave their homes or visit their fields without fear of being shot. For about two weeks there was almost no ability for activists to get down there and provide protective presence, which meant some villages were forced to evacuate due to violent threats by settlers. In the past few weeks, movement has been less restricted, and so there has been a desire to go out again to shepherd and plow as these are the main sources of income for villagers right now. Protective presence and documentation by Israelis and foreigners often makes this work possible.
Responding to the call for protective presence, I decided to go back to Masafer Yatta. As a Jew, my ability to travel into Israel and around Israel/Palestine is largely unquestioned and unrestricted, so it felt important to support right now when so many others are unable to do so
Wow. For so many Canadians, Israel's attack on Gaza feels very far away and so I'm sure many people are wondering: How has it been to be there while Gaza has been under attack?
It’s been a huge impact everywhere. In Jerusalem, protests have been impossible because of police and army crackdowns. Many Palestinians aren’t leaving their house for fear of harassment. In West Bank area A, there has been violent raids in places like Jenin. In Area C of the West Bank, settlers have been armed and drafted by the government, making the situation nearly impossible for Palestinian villagers in the area.
Settler violence has increased and movement has been so restricted that most families were unable to harvest their olive trees this year (a huge part of their income). Sixteen villages in Masafer Yatta have been evacuated since October because of settler death threats. In Wadi Tiran, a village about 40k from Gaza that I stayed in, settlers came in November and threatened to kill the entire village if they didn’t leave within 24 hours. Thankfully the protective presence there has been successful and everyone has remained. The mood is extremely tense and most people spend their evenings watching Al Jazeera for updates on Gaza.
Can you tell me more about what the protective presence has looked like? What have you been doing?
It’s a mix of Israelis and internationals, many of whom have been supporting folks in Masafer Yatta for years. On October 7th, the situation became so bad that no one was able to get out there for about two weeks and in those two weeks multiple Palestinians were shot by settlers and army as well as death threats and demands to leave their villages.
Since November the situation has become a little easier for people to come down and support, though activists have been targeted more than ever with a European national being deported last month. Typically a few people will go to villages that we have relationships with and have requested our support. Because settlers often use drones to surveill the villages, often our presence is enough to prevent the worst of violence and night raids.
Documenting incidents of violence and oppression is also key to the presence as this helps make the army behave, share these incidents with the public, and build evidence to challenge these illegal incidents in court. Often the army and settlers intentionally speak Hebrew to the villagers knowing full well they largely only speak Arabic. The army frequently demands ID and detains Palestinians who have left their ID in their homes (which are mere meters away). The protective presence can sometimes translate and negotiate in these situations. Because these moments can happen at any time, much of what we do is sit around and wait for something to occur. This down time is usually spent drinking tea and chatting with our hosts, or being dragged into soccer games by the children.
What have your interactions been like with the IDF?
For us personally our interactions have been pretty mild. They have mostly just asked me lots of questions about who I am and why I’m there.
We went out in the village of Wadi Jahesh to help the families do some plowing for the first time this year which a lawyer went to court and got some paperwork to prove they could plow there. The army came and in the span of an hour confiscated my passport three times to examine it and take pictures. The Palestinians who stand right next to me receive much different treatment with soldiers yelling at them, pushing them, and pointing their guns at them.
They detained several Palestinians over the course of the day because they left their IDs inside their homes, which were about ten metres away. They argued with our Israeli companion about the legitimacy of the court order until the border police came and approved the plowing. But the army still stuck around to try to find any misstep that could halt the plowing. At one point we were on top of a hill and the army started yelling at us to move or they would start firing. They detained a villager and his son was so upset he started arguing with the officer, who immediately pointed his rifle at the kid and told him to go away.
They took the ID of a man who works as a taxi driver (and needs his ID for work) and it took hours to get it back because each officer kept telling us a different officer was holding it. This is the mild stuff that happens when there are international eyes on the soldiers. That night, the army was patrolling on the village land and everyone was extremely anxious that they would be coming to seek revenge for not being able to prevent the plowing. Luckily, they never left their jeeps, but typically if we weren’t there no plowing would have happened and the army definitely would have felt emboldened to come scare the villagers at night
What do you want Canadians to know about the work that you're involved in?
I think what’s most important for Canadians to know is that for Palestinians living outside Gaza, life is dictated by a complete apartheid system that strips them of any rights, dignity, or humanity.
Much of life is spent worrying about how they will feed their livestock and get potable water for their family. Children who live under these conditions are expected to attend schools that are hour long walks away and do their homework in between settler raids. Many end up dropping out.
As a Jew, I was able to fly into Israel, drive into Palestine, and share these experiences publicly. Most of the Palestinians who hosted me have never seen Al Aqsa Mosque which is less than 100 kilometres away or seen the ocean that literally borders the entire country. News outlets paint the people that welcomed us into their homes and shared their food with us as hate filled terrorists who want my death, but in Palestine, they teach life. They want nothing more than to be able to sleep at night and farm in the day in peace. As all eyes have been on Gaza, the situation in Area C has become increasingly unbearable, but none of this is a recent development. In Palestine, waving a Palestinian flag can lead to arrest for inciting violence. Here in Canada where our civil rights are far more accessible, it is our duty to wave the Palestinian flag until those in Palestine see liberation and can raise the flag themselves.
thanks for this!