This Is Not a Democracy!
The protest went off as planned, and seven hundred women took part, joined by Uri, Amos, and Abie and a busload of other Israelis. As they marched, they encountered soldiers with batons and translucent riot shields and dark helmets. Awaiting Dayan’s order, the soldiers stood ready. “If you do not disperse, we shall shoot,” an officer screeched into a megaphone while giving the signal for his men to attack. Steering away from the Israelis, the soldiers flung themselves at the women, clubs swinging like scythes; some fell to the ground, and soldiers kicked them with steel-toed boots. Just as Raymonda reached down to help an elderly woman who had fainted, she felt the sharp pain of torn flesh. A bludgeon had struck her on the back of the head.
“Bitch!” she heard a soldier snarl out in Brooklyn English, as he took another swing, and then threatened to arrest her—she was on the ground staring up at him—because she called him, in the colloquial English she picked up from her mother, a “jackass.”
Dayan and his men probably would have considered the protest of little consequence had Avnery not returned to Israel with photographs and graphic description of the club-wielding soldiers in HaOlam HaZeh.
The next day, Avnery was dragged from the Knesset because of his fiery speech, warning against the blowing up of Palestinian houses. “You are going to leave a scar in the heart of every person in Nablus,” he shouted while being shoved out the door.
The violent break-up of the demonstration, Raymonda told people back in Nablus, was just like Karameh: brute force failed to break the will of those seeking their freedom. “It was Dayan who lost, not us.”34 The cycle of guerrilla “operations,” Dayan’s iron fist, and Raymonda’s activism continued.
The Shin Bet arrested a group of five girls from bourgeois families on suspicion of terrorism. One had tried to plant a bomb in an Israeli supermarket. Once again, the collective punishment Dayan meted out was to blow up the old mansions belonging to their families.
Raymonda rallied public opinion against the home demolition orders, this time firing a telegram off to Dayan. No answer. She got the media involved, Time magazine, no less. She organized another sit-down strike in front of the office of the military governor.
The Israeli military governor of Nablus, General Givoli, called her into his office and asked her with alarm, “What the hell are you doing by trying to go against General Dayan?” He was speaking with uncharacteristic emotion. Givoli shifted his attention from the pin on Raymonda’s coat lapel “Self-Determination for Palestine” to her file. “Mrs. Tawil, you are playing with fire. This is really no joke.” He cleared his throat and looked up from the paperwork. Raymonda noticed a copy of Avnery’s magazine on the desk.
The general’s mild manner encouraged her to open up to him. “But in Israel as a girl that’s what I learned: people go to the streets to protest injustice by the government. That’s what Israelis do. It’s democracy!”
He took off his glasses and set them on her file. “My dear Raymonda, let me offer you a friendly piece of advice. You are not a little girl in Haifa, and you’re no longer an Israeli citizen. Israel is a democracy, true, but in case you haven’t noticed, what we have in the West Bank, my dear lady, what we have here is NOT a democracy! It’s a military occupation. Shall I spell it out for you? O-c-c-u-p-a-t-i-o-n. Unless you understand the difference, I foresee some big problems for you up ahead.” He ordered her to stop working with Avnery, Nathan, and Kenan.
Nervous, she drummed her fingers on one knee. The general began tapping his fingers on the desktop as well before finally spelling out what his boss Moshe Dayan had in mind: “Next time we will take measures against you,” he said without a trace of hostility, like he was a doctor telling her to take her meds. He stood up and accompanied her to the door.
“General Givoli, I have a question for you. You are a humanist, I believe. How can you order your men to beat a group of unarmed women?”
He hesitated, as if unsure how to respond. “The order,” he finally said with a hint of bitterness, “came from Minister of Defense Dayan.”