Humanitarian recounts West Bank situation

JONATHAN YOUNG/Daily Bruin Adam Shapiro, a
humanitarian who was in Arafat’s compound, retells his experience
in the West Bank with photos and a personal story.

By Dexter Gauntlett
DAILY BRUIN STAFF
dgauntlett@media.ucla.edu

A non-practicing Jewish American who ate breakfast with Yasser
Arafat while he was holed up in his Ramallah compound, gave his
version of the truth behind the mayhem in the West Bank at UCLA,
Tuesday.

Returning to the United States after a three-month fact-finding
and humanitarian aid mission to besieged Palestinian cities, Adam
Shapiro spoke for two hours to a crowd of more than 100 people. The
recent media magnet, who has been called everything from traitor to
“Jewish Taliban” since his return, criticized the
international media and Israeli army, and described the Israeli
offensive as “greatly disturbing.”

Shapiro and his Palestinian fiancee founded the International
Solidarity Movement, an organization that supports nonviolent
struggle for sovereignty, designed to bring impartial fact coverage
and humanitarian aid to the West Bank for the last three
months.

“There was finally a witness and not just having
Palestinian claims being refuted by Israel,” Shapiro said of
himself.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has used strong rhetoric in
what he considers Israel’s war on terror, likening the
military operation to that of the United States in Afghanistan.

“The battle continues and will continue, until all those
who believe that they can make gains through the use of terror will
cease to exist,” Sharon said in Washington earlier this
week.

But Shapiro said it is not just terrorist compounds that are
being destroyed in Israel’s occupation of Ramallah and other
West Bank cities. Commercial centers such as an Internet cafe,
arcade and a fast food restaurant have also been targeted, he
said.

“Unfortunately, the media didn’t cover these areas
that were obviously not part of the “˜terrorist
infrastructure,'” Shapiro said.

“Operation Defensive Shield” was launched March 29
against Palestinian militants after a wave of suicide bombings in
the Israeli cities of Netanya and Haifa.

On the initial day of the operation, Arafat was confined to a
few rooms in the compound, and Shapiro entered in an ambulance to
distribute aid during the first 24 hour period, Shapiro said.

After three days, his organization decided the international
community wasn’t doing enough to call a cease fire, and a
group of 30-40 activists marched into the compound with hands in
the air. Israeli soldiers fired into the air around them and threw
tear gas containers and stun grenades at the activists, he
said.

“We were a human shield,” Shapiro said.

Nineteen of the activists, including six Americans, stayed in
the compound until the siege ended a few days ago.

In many respects, Shapiro succeeded where the United Nations
failed in their attempt to send an international fact-finding
mission to the Jenin refugee camp.

He showed pictures of small apartment buildings with entire
walls missing, but with families still living inside. One picture
showed a makeshift tent that used an enormous Palestinian flag to
shelter part of a disbanded family on the rubble of their former
home.

Israel maintains it did not target civilians in Jenin, but
Shapiro said the devastation of refugees was not an uncommon sight
for him.

The very roads he walked on in Jenin were paved with the remains
of steamrolled dwellings, he said. He also saw numerous bodies
charred beyond the point of recognition.

One dilemma Shapiro and his group encountered in many cities was
the denial of food by the Israeli army to Palestinians, he
said.

An attempt to bring food to the Palestinians in the Church of
Nativity in Bethlehem, where the Israeli army reports gunmen are
holed up, resulted in 13 of the activists distracting the Israeli
soldiers while 10 delivered food into the church.

This event resulted in some members being bound by hands and
feet by the Israeli army and being driven outside of Jerusalem,
Shapiro said.

His fiancee was one of the detainees who had distracted the
Israeli soldiers, along with other British and Swedish women whose
passports and cellular phones were confiscated, he said.

Then, he added, the Swedish woman was dropped off alone
“in the middle of nowhere” after her hands and legs
were untied.

Shapiro’s fiancee is still in Tel Aviv receiving treatment
after going on a hunger strike in protest of their treatment and
not being allowed to be in contact with the embassy, he said.

Since his return to the United States, Shapiro’s family
has received numerous death threats and has left their Brooklyn
home for safety reasons.

Shapiro said he tries to be impartial and understands how both
peoples are oppressed.

But he also said, the occupation by the Israeli army is
oppression, and the United States supports that oppression via aid
to Israel.

Shapiro is strongly opposed to the use of suicide bombing and
said such attacks are morally unjustifiable and indefensible.

Facing sharp criticism for a perceived favoritism toward
Palestinians from some of the audience members during the
question-and-answer portion of his talk, Shapiro repeated several
times that his goal for the evening was only to report on the real
conditions and not to further Palestinian propaganda.

One audience member, Alan Tsarovsky, a recent UCLA graduate and
former head of the UCLA coexistence movement, said it would have
been more effective with a second side.

“I would have liked to see the event co-sponsored by the
Jewish groups on campus,” he said.

“I respect what (Shapiro) does, but there is a lot of
reductionism and the situation is not so simple,” he
said.

Ramin Nema, a fourth-year biotechnology student from Cal State
Northridge, said information is key and not many people have seen
what Shapiro has seen.

“I read a lot about it, but with Shapiro, there’s no
“pro” and no “anti” ““ just the
truth,” he said.

With reports from The Associated Press.

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