Month: November 2011

Freedom Riders: I witnessed six Palestinian activists demand freedom

by Holly

16 November 2011 | Carbonating Change

Yesterday I witnessed six Palestinian activists demand freedom, justice and dignity as they defied Israel’s apartheid policies when the group successfully boarded settler-only buses and attempted to enter East Jerusalem, where they were eventually brutally dragged off and arrested by the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF).

At the press conference and in the lead up to the event, the activists described how they had taken inspiration from the U.S. Civil Rights Movement and the heroic actions of Rosa Parks. Drawing on the struggles of African Americans who fought against segregation and inequality in the Unites States, and South Africans who battled against apartheid, the Palestinian Freedom Riders aimed to draw the world’s attention to the similarity of the struggle faced by the Palestinian people on a daily basis.

However, it must be recognised that the formation and continued policies of Israel’s apartheid state have far superseded the actions of both the Jim Crow South in the U.S. and the white supremacists in South Africa. Only last week when visiting Ni’lin, I was told of how when the wall was being built (which stole 30% of Palestinian land from the people of this small village), the IOF imposed a four day curfew on the village. This was enforced night and day, and if the people tried to leave their homes, tear gas and sound bombs were fired relentlessly into the narrow streets.

In South Africa, the white settlers sought to dominate the native population by incorporating them as inferior citizens in a state under exclusively white control. Zionism is founded upon a similarly colonialist ideology, but goes further in its attempts to establish a Jewish demographic through an ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from their land.

Unlike in the American South of the 60s, you will not see signs around the settlements or at the checkpoints stating “No Palestinians here” – Israel manages its PR machine far too well for such overtly racist statements to be witnessed by the other “democratic” countries which fund its existence. Similarly, Palestinians are technically allowed to ride “settler-only” buses and drive on “settler-only” roads, something repeated by the Israeli media and the settlers who came off the buses yesterday.

But the segregation, inequality and the denial of Palestinian’s rights to enter their own land is implemented in a far more covert way by Israel. Whilst Palestinians may be able to travel on the buses and roads, these buses lead either into the internationally recognisedillegal settlements, or into East Jerusalem where Palestinians are forbidden to enter. East Jerusalem is the intended capital of a future Palestinian state, yet Israel has denied the majority of Palestinians access to the city without a permit, which are almost impossible to obtain.

As a result, Israel has been able to continually expand the settlements in East Jerusalem, particularly in the highly contentious area of Sheikh Jarrah, and this has lead to the annexing of Palestinian populated areas in the city so that it is surrounded by Israeli settlements, systematically destroying the possibility of having a Palestinian controlled capital.

As I hope is becoming evident, the Palestinian Freedom Riders movement is not simply about the segregation of buses, the problem here is much larger. Palestinians face an apparatus of military control over Palestinians that needs to be dismantled, along with the settlements themselves.

The Israeli government will continue to defend their denial of Palestinians into East Jerusalem and the segregation of settler buses and roads because of the “security” threat from suicide bombings, their continual excuse and reasoning behind the occupation of Palestine. However, Israel’s colonialist project and abhorrent treatment of Palestinians began long before the first suicide bombing took place, and the continued occupation will do nothing to deter the desperate and destructive acts of suicide bombers.

However, the violence that has blighted the region for many years was far from the minds of anybody who witnessed the Palestinian Freedom Rides yesterday, as they took part in a determinedly non-violent resistance that attempted to demonstrate the popular, direct action movements which have been been gaining momentum in Palestine to resist Israeli occupation.

Yesterday’s action was a well orchestrated media circus, with hundreds of journalists swarming around the riders trying to get the best shots and interviews for their stories. However, in order for the Freedom Rides to have a true impact on Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories, they will need to engage the wider Palestinian community and encourage these acts of civil disobedience in the next waves of the Freedom Rides. I have every faith that the activists involved in the initial wave will continue tirelessly to do so, facing arrest by the Israeli forces and attack by the settlers at every turn.

Furthermore, the onus is now on people around the world not to co-operate with the apartheid policies of the Israeli regime and to take action against them, starting with the boycott of companies – such as Egged and Veolia who run the settler buses – who profit from Israel’s illegal apartheid system.

This protest was not about the UN Statehood Bid. It had nothing to say about armed struggle. Instead, this is one of the most inspiring acts of people power I have seen since arriving in Palestine. The Freedom Riders are demanding that their very basic human rights are upheld in accordance with international law, and to demonstrate that they will continue to engage non-violently to win the freedom, justice and dignity for which the Palestinian people have struggled for so long.

Holly is a volunteer with International Solidarity Mvoement.

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile in Gaza

by Radhika S.

15 November 2011 | Notes from Behind the Blockade

Beit Hanoun locals march to Buffer Zone - Click here for more images

I awoke today with the news that the NYPD was clearing out Occupy Wall Street and that Israeli tanks were shelling “northern Gaza.”  In the West Bank, Palestinian Freedom Riders, inspired by the US freedom riders of the 1960s, were getting ready to board segregated buses to occupied East Jerusalem.

Here in Gaza, we head to Beit Hanoun for their weekly nonviolent protest in the buffer zone.  For three years, Palestinians in the north have been marching into the barren, no-man’s land which encircles the inside of the narrow strip like a slowly-tightening noose.

We arrived around 11 a.m. and gathered in front of a bombed-out house down a dusty road leading to the border. This was my second buffer zone protest. At my first, two weeks ago, the Israeli army had fired a few shots from the military towers at the border.  I wondered what would happen today.  As a foreigner, I was to don a reflective fluorescent yellow vest and walk in front of the Palestinians, which seemed to provide them a degree of solace.  They seem to think that the Israelis were less likely to use lethal violence when Americans, Italians, and Brits walked with them.

I was not so sure.

About two dozen people waving Palestinian flags marched down the dusty path towards the buffer zone.  The landscape reminded me of home, of California, with its thorny tumbleweeds and cactus.  It was hard to believe that only ten years ago fruit orchards and olive trees filled this area. But Israel had bulldozed it all, claiming it needed 300 kilometers of Gaza’s most fertile land, but in reality taking more.

Onwards we walked, the Palestinians singing songs and holding a giant Palestinian flag. I wondered what was in store for us today as Israel’s concrete wall and military towers became visible. Would they shoot in the air first? Or would they shoot at us? If they shot us, would they shoot someone standing in the middle first (as I was) or someone standing off to the side?  Would they shoot us in the legs?  And how good was their aim?

We past a small farm and the family waved at us. They were very brave to have stayed, I thought.  Another farm had stuck a large white flag in the dirt in front of their house, as I had seen other families near the buffer zone do. Other farm houses had clearly been abandoned.

We were getting close to the buffer zone now, and the journalists that had come along moved from the front to the back. They didn’t want to get shot either. I started to imagine what it felt like to get shot.  Excruciatingly painful, I decided.

At that point, I recalled that I had never made a will. If I died intestate, what law would apply? I had just moved from California to New York, but was I officially a resident of New York? And how would Gaza factor into it all?  Was Gaza like the West Bank, where Israel applied a strange patchwork of Ottoman, Jordanian and Israeli military law as it pleased? Not that I really had much to bequeath.

We continued on, and I could see the Palestinian flag we had planted in the earth two weeks before. It was a windy day, and the flag billowed beautifully. The Israeli army had not shot it down.  About 50 meters behind it loomed the wall and the military towers.

“Our flag is still there!” I exclaimed to Nathan, an American volunteer walking next to me.  The Israelis had used the last Palestinian flag as target practice.

“Do you want to sing the star-spangled banner?” he joked.  I smiled, I hadn’t intended to make the reference. Yasser Arafat had symbolically declared Palestinian Independence 23 years ago today, on November 15, 1988.

We stopped, well before the flag, at a large cement block painted red, black and green. Sabur Zaaneen from the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative, the leader of the march, had thought the area to be more dangerous in recent days.

He gave a brief speech on Palestinian independence and the countries that were standing in the way of Palestinian freedom. As he spoke, I stared at the Israeli towers and the wall, the Israeli flags on top and of the land beyond it on the other side. I wondered if at that moment, Palestinians were attempting to board Jewish-only buses in the West Bank, facing violence from Israeli settlers not unlike the KKK in the Jim Crow south.

The speech ended and the Israelis had not shot at us.  A few of the young men broke into a dabke dance, a Palestinian line dance of sorts, as one of them played the tabla and sung, and the women clapped in rhythm. I didn’t know the words but I clapped along as well.

We head back, and I had the star-spangled banner stuck in my head. “O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave, O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

One day, Palestine too would be free.

Al Qasab demolished as hundreds of Israeli soldiers watch

by Guillaume and William

15 November 2011  | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
This morning, on Tuesday 15th  November, national day of Palestine, three houses in Al Qasab near Jericho were destroyed by the Israeli military.

 During the early morning, between two and three hundred Israeli soldiers entered Al Qasab with bulldozers and destroyed the houses. The village is in Area C; under full Israeli administrative and military control.

 The Fakhori family had some time to move some furniture and belongings outside before their house was destroyed as they were present when the Israeli military arrived.  The two other families were absent and didn’t have the chance to salvage any possessions.  They returned to find their homes reduced to rubble, with all their belongings inside.

 No one in the village was informed of the reason for the demolition and no prior warning or legal order was delivered. One of houses was built just two years ago and the family had a permit to build  from the Israeli administration.

 The three families must now find a roof to cover their heads tonight. One family is able to move in to his father’s house, but  it is not known what the others will do.  Naturally, the victims are distraught.  They asked us ‘Who will pay for this?’ but they are under no illusions; they know that neither the Israelis or the Palestinian authorities will provide them with any help.

Guillaume and William are volunteers with International Solidarity Movement (names have been changed).

Jerusalem: Explosions, arrests and violence as Israel clears way for settlement activity

by Alistair George
13 November 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Three Palestinians were arrested and others were detained, beaten and pepper sprayed by the Israeli military in Al-Walajeh yesterday, as villagers attempted to prevent the detonation of explosives used to widen the route for the separation wall on the village’s land.

Previously, large explosions on 3 November2011 in the village had sent large rocks several metres into the air, damaging nearby houses and trees and endangering life.  The explosions have damaged the foundations of nearby properties.  Yesterday, protesters attempted to peacefully prevent a similar explosion from taking place.

Explosions, violence, and arrests in Al Walajeh – Click here for more images

At around 8am yesterday morning, villagers from Al-Walajeh, near Jerusalem, were working on an UN project to enlarge the village’s graveyard at the Western side end of the village.  They discovered that the Israeli military and contractors were laying charges to explode rock and widen the path for the construction of the separation barrier on the village’s land.  The barrier will completely encircle Al-Walajeh if completed. Access will be gained via a tunnel and checkpoint, manned by the Israeli military and open for a limited time each day.

A man from Al-Walajeh, who gave his name as ‘Abu Sultan’, explained that  he “was the first to arrive at the scene– 10 days ago the officer of the DCO [District Coordination Offices] told us that they were not allowed to make any more explosions, and that if they tried we should stay on the land and prevent it – so the DCO should stand with us.”

Abu Sultan tried to take the dynamite from the ground but was pepper sprayed and detained for over 3 hours before being released. Another villager, Mustafa Odeh, was beaten and arrested by soldiers.

Another man, who did not want to give his name, was also pepper sprayed when he attempted to peacefully prevent the soldiers laying the charges.

“The soldiers told us to leave and they pushed us as if we were sheep.  Without warning, they grabbed pepper spray and sprayed my eyes and mouth. I was taken to hospital where they washed my eyes and gave me oxygen.  The soldiers prevented the ambulance reaching me, two men had to carry me…It still burns [five hours later] on my face and around my mouth, and  it is difficult to breath. I am very upset and angry.  I’m an old man and the soldiers are young boys, it is very disrespectful behaviour.”

After the men discovered the military laying charges, villagers gathered to demand that they cease their agenda. By 11:00 AM a crowd of around 30 Palestinians and several international observers and journalists had gathered at the site of the charges.  At 11:20 AM approximately 20 Israeli soldiers and contractor security guards began to roughly push and barge the crowd up the hill, away from the site.

Protesters voiced their disapproval but offered no physical resistance; however, the Israeli military became increasingly violent.  After attempting to grab and arrest some Palestinian protesters, several people tumbled down a steep verge; one Palestinian, his face streaked orange with pepper spray, was arrested, while another fled the scene.  The military deployed pepper spray and began to strike the peaceful demonstrators.

Sheerin Alaraj, a popular resistance activist from Al-Walajeh was pepper sprayed and blood ran from a cut on her face.  A 38 year old woman, ‘Nadia’, was pepper sprayed in the face and was also taken to the hospital after losing consciousness.

The Palestinian academic Mazin Qumsiyeh was also on scene filming the protest.  He was arrested and dragged to a nearby military vehicle by the Israeli border police.  A witness, who did not want to be named, stated that “Mazin was filming with his video camera and the soldiers wanted us to retreat.  They could have asked us to retreat but they just singled him out. It was intentional.  I was next to him, doing the same thing, and they didn’t want to arrest me.”

An Al-Walajeh resident, who gave her name as “Fadwa,” said that the Israeli soldiers “have to be more human and understand our feelings, they can’t just cause explosions.  They said that the explosion today would be small, but you can’t trust them.”

After soldiers had cleared the area, they fired two tear gas canisters across the valley where only some women and small children were visible.  At around 12:30 PM they detonated a single charge, sending a cloud of rock and debris high into the air.  Bulldozers then began work to clear the shattered rock for the path of the wall.

Residents of Al-Walajeh said that although the explosion today was relatively small, it was still carried out within a few metres of the village’s graveyard and several olive trees.  Previous explosions have damaged foundations of nearby houses.

A resident, who lives near to the proposed route of the wall, said that the explosion on 3 November 2011 endangered life in the village as the blast sent large rocks a distance of several hundred metres.  Some rocks were around30 cm long, weighing several kilograms;

“Stones fell right beside my uncle’s house.  When they make explosions it’s like an earthquake, the house shakes.”

Four explosions had taken part in this area of Al-Walajeh in recent weeks, and there have been explosions to clear debris for the wall in other parts of the village.

A woman from Al-Walaja, who did not wish to be named, said that the explosion on 3 November threw large rocks several metres into the sky.

“Stones fell onto my house; the children were in the house and were very scared.  Plants and olive trees were damaged on my land.”

The DCO (the Israeli body responsible for coordinating administrative activities in the occupied territories, including construction) was unwilling to provide a reaction to yesterday’s incident.

Following the Six Day War in 1967, much of Al-Walaja’s land was given to the nearby Israeli settlements of Gilo and Har Gilo, which are considered illegal under international law.  A 2011 report by the UNRWA (United Nations Relief Works Agency) revealed that private investors announced plans in 2004 to build an additional settlement called Givat Yael, consisting of 14,000 housing units.  This settlement would expropriate around 60% of the territory of the West Bank part of Al Walajeh.

Israel claims that the separation wall is necessary to prevent attacks on its territory.  However, in its detailed analysis of the Israeli legal justification of the wall, the International Court of Justice  found that the conditions necessary to justify the movement restrictions imposed by the Barrier were not met.  Work began on the wall in Al-Walajeh in April 2010 and has progressed at a furious pace, with significant sections of concrete, several metres high, now in place.  Residents estimate that, at the current rate of construction, the wall will be completed in 2012. Rather than following the Green Line demarcating the West Bank, the proposed route of the wall in Al-Walajeh cuts deep into the village’s land.  According to the UNOCHA (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), between 4-5000 dunums (1 dunum =1000 square metres) of Al-Walajeh’s land lies outside the route of the wall.

If the wall is completed, and the village is entirely encircled in concrete walls and metal fences, the restricted access to the village will drastically curtail normal life in Al-Walajeh as over 2000 inhabitants will be prevented from travelling freely to work or to access essential health and education services.

Alistair George is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

Palestinian woman struggles for proper medical treatment

by Wahed Rejol

14 November 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

In 2004 Amal Jamal was sentenced to 12 years in Israeli prison. A year later the Palestinian woman from Nablus was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Today from a hospital in Nablus she awaits a decision from Israel authorities that will determine whether she will be permitted to travel outside of Israeli controlled territory to receive medical treatment.

Prisoner rights worker Myassar Atyani and Amal Jamal in a Nablus hospital.

In 2005 Jamal began to suffer from severe pain and bleeding as a result of her illness. Yet she received little treatment from the Israelis. She was given only medication for pain and an unidentified sedative that affected her mental stability. Her diabetes went untreated altogether resulting in later complications.

After suffering more than four years Jamal was transported to Hiafa where she underwent surgery for her cancer. But the surgery was unsuccessful.

Last month Jamal was released by the Israelis as part of a deal between Israel and Hamas where 1,027 Palestinian political prisoners were released in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Jamal has refused further treatment within Israel and is instead awaiting permission from the Israelis to travel to France via Jordan to receive medical attention.

Wahed Rejol is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).