December 27: Anarchists Against the Wall

Jonathan Pollak, an anarchist activist against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, was sentenced to three months in prison and fined 1,500 shekels on this date in 2010 for his 2008 arrest at a Critical Mass bike protest in Tel Aviv against Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead” invasion of Gaza. Pollak’s arrest triggered implementation of an earlier suspended sentence for his participation in protests against the construction of Israel’s security wall in the West Bank town of Budrus, where Pollak and other young Jews stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Palestinians in regular clashes with Israeli soldiers. Pollak’s father Yossi is a prominent Israeli actor who has pledged to boycott performances by some of Israel’s leading theaters in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Ariel, and his maternal grandfather, Nimrod Eshel, was jailed for his leadership of a strike by seamen in the 1950s. “Jonathan . . . is a man trying to prove that those who believe in occupation cannot claim to be humanitarian or civilized,” said Ayed Morrar, the leader of the Budrus protests (which were highlighted in the Academy Award-winning documentary Budrus). “He also wants to prove that resisting oppression and occupation does not mean being a terrorist or killing.” “To our assertion that there is a duty to violate the law at times, the court answered that in such times, one must accept the punishment as well. This response contains an obvious moral failure. The correct response would be that those who violate the law must expect punishment. Expect it, but under no circumstances accept its legitimacy” —Jonathan Pollak, sentencing statement