Year: 2012

George Orwell meets Mel Brooks in detention of international activist

by Jack English

20 January 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

The ongoing repression of international activists took a turn for the ridiculous on Thursday night in Al Khalil, also known as Hebron. At approximately 7:30pm on January 19th, an activist approached a military checkpoint en route to his apartment, where two soldiers on duty, recognizing him as an activist and international observer in Al Khalil, demanded to search his person and bag. Upon finding two bags of bulk tea, which they insisted were drugs, and a fork-knife-spoon camping utensil, they called the police to make an arrest.

However, upon arrival at the scene, the officers confirmed the legality of possessing both tea and eating utensils. Yet upon further discussion with the soldiers, the activist was informed that he would still be detained and brought to the police station in the neighboring illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba for interrogations under the charge that the activist had “insulted a public servant.”

The specific alleged act was explained as, incredibly, “farting on a soldier.”

En route to the police station the accusing soldier sang songs demonstrating his excitement and belief that the international would be deported for this alleged flatulent offense. Of course, following a long wait and brief interrogation, the ludicrous charges were thrown out, and the activist was released.

While he was leaving, the soldier left him with the parting warning and threat “I will remember your face. I will be your worst nightmare”.

While the comic absurdity of this event calls into serious question the maturity of many of the heavily armed members of the Israeli occupation soldiers, and the professional integrity of the Israeli police officers who attempted to proceed with these charges, it is significantly less funny when viewed in the context of the occupation, and specifically the situation in Al Khalil, where 600 illegal settlers have taken over the city center, protected by 2,000 Israeli occupational soldiers, enforcing the ban of Palestinians from certain streets and the closure of 1,800 Palestinian shops in and around Shuhada Street.

This comes with the frequently raid of Palestinian homes, and subjection of Palestinians to humiliating searches, harassment, and detention while passing through the numerous military checkpoints in the city center. Meanwhile, illegal settlers are protected when they violently attack the remaining Palestinian residents of the area and attack their property, such as the burning of a Palestinian family’s car in the neighborhood of Tel Rumeideh last Saturday, while soldiers looked on.

Even the mere presence of the various international groups that serve to observe and document these abuses in Al Khalil is viewed with unveiled disgust by both settlers and the military. The settlers frequently respond to this presence by verbally, sexually, and physically attacking internationals while onlooking soldiers characteristically turn a blind eye.

The soldiers do their part with unwarranted, long, and frequent detentions of the internationals, recent attempted raids on both the apartments of the International Solidarity Movement and the Christian Peacemakers Team, and when possible, as is clearly illustrated by this most recent incident, arrests under even the most absurd pretenses.

It is important to note that while internationals at least have the “benefit” of being subject to Israeli civilian law enforcement and it’s civil constraints, Palestinians can be arrested by the soldiers themselves, face significantly longer detentions, are tried in Israeli Military Court, and finally, often face obscenely long prison sentences.

This is why it is so important to maintain an international presence here, and illustrates why this mere presence is viewed as such a threat. The work of both internationals and Palestinians of exposing the realities of this occupation to the international community is essential in fighting Zionism’s systematic erasure of Palestinian history, culture, and theft of their right to land and freedom.

Jack English is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

Further into the No Go Zone

by Nathan Stuckey

19 January 2012

Every Tuesday we gather next to the half destroyed Beit Hanoun Agricultural College.  At eleven o’clock, we set out into the no go zone.  This week there were about thirty of us, members of the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative, the International Solidarity Movement, and other activists from Gaza.  At eleven o’clock the megaphone starts to play Bella Ciao and the flags are hoisted in the air, soon we start to march down the road into the no go zone.  Today feels strange, something is different, there is only one body in the sky, the Israeli blimp that constantly hangs over Beit Hanoun watching our every move is missing, today only the sun is over us in the sky, the sun and some Israeli F16’s.

Entering the no go zone is always a strange experience.  First, you always remember the danger, Israel claims the right to shoot anyone who enters the no go zone, every week, someone is shot for doing what we are doing.  They are shot for going to their land, sometimes to gather cement to rebuild the houses shattered during the massacre the Israeli’s call Cast Lead, sometimes searching for metal to recycle and sell for a few shekels, sometimes shepherds with their sheep.  The no go zone is like a dystopian future, the people who used to live there have all been expelled, they live as internal refugees in the prison that is Gaza.  When you walk in the no go zone you are sometimes reminded that people used to live here, you find shredded irrigation pipes, wells, the foundations of houses, and today, for the first time, I saw an old quarry that used to provide rocks for building.  The orchards and fields that used to cover the no go zone have been thoroughly erased, there is no more evidence that they even existed.  In 1948 the Zionists plant forests to hide the ethnically cleansed Palestine villages, in Gaza, they do not bother, they just grind the evidence up under the treads of bulldozers.  The orchards have already disappeared, there is no trace of them, most of the houses have disappeared, with time even the wells and the remaining foundations will slowly be ground to nothing.  Only the quarry will remain.  The land here is not like the rest of Gaza, walking is difficult, the bulldozers have left it completely scarred, jagged mini hills and ridges are everywhere.

Today, we walk deep into the no go zone.  Deeper than we have ever gone before, to land no Palestinian has been on since 2000.  Sometimes it feels like a nature walk, instead of watching out for tigers or lions we watch out for jeeps or tanks.  We finally reach the barbed wire that lays about 20 meters in front of the wall, there is no way through it.  A smaller balloon than the usual one begins to rise over the wall.  Sabur Zaaneen from the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative speaks, “We would like to welcome all of the activists who have to come to Gaza with the Miles of Smiles Convoy, I hope that many more activists come to Palestine to work in the towns and refugee camps of Palestine where they can confront the state terrorism of Israel directly.”  We climb a nearby hill and plant a flag.  We spot a jeep; it drives up to the concrete tower embedded in the wall.  The soldiers climb the stairs and begin to shoot at us.  We begin to walk back to Beit Hanoun.  The soldiers climb down from the tower, get in their jeep and drive to higher hill overlooking the no go zone.  They get out, and aim their guns at us again.  It does not matter that they are under no threat, that we are a completely nonviolent demonstration of civilians on their own land.  In Gaza, the occupation is reduced to its most basic, the tracks of bulldozers and the crack of rifles.  The bulldozers erase all evidence that anybody ever lived there, the rifles erase the people that live here.  We will not be erased.  The olive trees that we plant in the no go zone will feed the children of Gaza.  The martyrs will live on in our hearts.  The popular resistance will outlast the occupation.

Eight homes ordered to be demolished in Khalit Al-Dar

by Jack English

17 January 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

On January 4th, an Israeli military commander served 8 demolition orders in the town of Khalit Al-Dar, just south of the city of Al-Khalil, also known as Hebron.

Suleiman Abu Snina, from Khalit Al-Dar, displays the demolition order he received.

The reason given for issuing demolition orders to the families is that they have built additions onto their homes without Israeli-issued building permits.  In accordance with the 1994 Oslo agreements, building permits in the town are issued by the municipality of Al-Khalil, which had issued the necessary permits to the families.  However Israeli authorities maintain that permits may only be issued by the Israeli government, which has, since the Israeli occupation of the West Bank began in 1967, only issued one building permit for the town, in 1980.

Khalit Al-Dar is a small, impoverished town, and the residents are mostly laborers and farmers.  When the demolition orders are carried out, approximately 60 of them will be displaced from their homes.  Other demolitions have recently happened here, in both 2007 and 2009.

The pressure on the residents of Khalit Al-Dar manifests itself in other ways as well. The large water collection basin in the town remains unfinished after 15 years, as the Israeli government will not allow the construction of wells in all of the West Bank. This leaves all Palestinians at the mercy of Macarot, an Israeli water company, for their entire water supply.

A view of Khalit Al-Dar

By refusing to issue building permits, towns cannot grow, and as families grow there is less and less space to live in without building extensions to their homes.

Khalit Al-Dar is surrounded by six nearby illegal Israeli settlements, Hagai, Kyriat Arba, Carmel, Arsina, Susya, and Ma’on.  Once the residents of Khalit Al-Dar are out of the way, more settlements can be built, connecting the existing ones and creating more Israeli “facts on the ground” that work to solidify the stranglehold of the occupation.

Jack English is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

Israeli army complicit in settler car-burning

by Sarah

17 January 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

On Sunday, the 16th of January, at approximately 2 AM, about fifty settlers, accompanied by Israeli soldiers, entered the Abu Haikal family’s field in the neighborhood of Tel Rumeideh in Hebron. After throwing stones at the family’s house, they savagely burnt the car of Hana Haikal, fifty-three years old.

The Abu Haikal’s house is only a few meters away from a settlement from which the family are subject to constant pressure. This is the eighth car that the settlers have burned in the last five years. Five belonged to Hana, the remaining 3 to her brother. The agenda of the settlers is simply to harass the family as much as possible in order to force them away from their house and land. Their tactics include the burning of cars, verbal harassment, throwing of stones, destruction of land, and poisoning of soil to kill the family’s olive trees.

When Hana saw the car that morning she was devastated and crying. She said that since 1994, the simple act of staying in their home is a fight against the settlers, a fight that she will never give up. Unfortunately, insurance does not cover settler attacks and Hana has no more money to pay for another car.The insurance companies know that in this neighborhood there are often settler attacks and refuse to cover this type of “accident” any more.

She is demanding justice and the right to live in peace and security. But with the situation in Hebron as it is, she is left with little in the way of legal recourse.

Settlers are systematically killing Palestinian heritage, stealing land, attempting to erase their identity by poisoning the trees and attempting to make their daily life unbearable.

From this point on, Hana says she will protest until the government acts.

“She’s going to stay there, she will stay there. She will not eat, not drink until something is done,” said her brother.

A protest camp has been set up at the site of the burnt car. A group of approximately forty local Palestinian residents gathered there on the afternoon of the Monday 17th of January to express their outrage at the attacks and their solidarity with the Abu Haikal family.

A tent has been erected and Palestinian flags placed on and around the burnt car. A sign attached to the front of the car’s skeleton states: “We are here…not to upset anyone and not to make anyone happy…we are here because we are here.”

Soldiers and police arrived, apparently at the behest of a single settler who had seen the crowd gathering. In order to again protect the settlers from the peaceful gathering crowd, they took control of any area overlooking the site and barred people from leaving via the main route away from where they were.

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

Kufr Qaddoum: Not peanuts in the colonists’ jar

by Amal

16 January 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

The cold and rain did not keep the residents of Kufr Qaddoum from protesting this past Friday. Even the hail storm did not stop them from demanding their equal rights. The resilience and courage of the residents cannot be summed up in words. However, this is not the message they wanted to broadcast. Besides their everyday demands for justice, they wanted to express their concern for the “Judiazation of Jerusalem.” This term refers to the Israeli strategy of erasing all Palestinian and Arab identity in Jerusalem. Kufr Qaddoum residents expressed this concern by wearing traditional Arab clothing during the protest. They proudly walked around in this traditional clothing because they know the history of this land and their legitimate connection to it. Although this was a symbolic gesture for solidarity with the Palestinians from Jerusalem, culture theft is a wide spread concern for all Palestinians.

Insisting on the culture of Palestine - Click here for more images

The term the “Judiazation of Jerusalem” does not show the entire picture because Palestine as a whole is at risk of having its  history censored. Israel’s strategy to legitimize its self consists of de-legitimizing Palestine. This strategy has been in place sinse the creation of Israel, and the tactics do not appear to be slowing down.

The Israeli government uses many methods, but one of the most inhumane is home demolitions. The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) has documented that 2011’s house demolition numbers have doubled from previous years. In order to “make room” for more illegal settlements, Israel is continuing the displacement of hundreds of Palestinians every year. As reported by ICAHD, 622 Palestinian structures were demolished and 60% of the displaced people are children.

The landscape itself has fallen victim to bulldozers and landscaping. Debris from destroyed villages is cleared, and trees are planted to create forests in an attempt to show the land was never populated, while its refugees still hold keys to their leveled homeland.

While the landscape is under attack, the very names of villages throughout Palestine have been turned into Hebrew. Rabbi Kahane, an American Zionist and ultra nationalist, stated that there was no such thing as an Arab village with an Arab name. “It is all Jewish,” and according to him, rightly so.

This attempt to destruct Palestine has of course targeted the culture in addition to the geography. In what appears to be a comical topic, Israel forges its way into Levantine culture by thieving falafel and hummus through its public stunts and marketing at supermarkets. From translating popular Arabic songs to Hebrew, to borrowing the culture of Arab Jews to mask a mostly European colonial pursuit, Palestinians still trace their authentic history to the land while most Israelis will eventually admit where they are from, while mechanically uttering state fed propaganda:

The indigenous, regardless of religion, have more in common with the land and its history than Zionist immigrants can attest to.

If Israel’s “Judiazation” procedures continue to target the land, the homes, and the people who are forcibly “replaced” by “the chosen inheritors of the land,” then the indigenous Palestinian, Arab culture will be replaced with manufactured Israeli culture.

These are the reasons why Kufr Qaddoum residents and other Palestinians resist; for their existence. Yet, when American politicians state that Palestinians are “invented,” it goes to show just how essential it is for those in solidarity with Palestine to showcase what is actually occurring on the ground: that it is Israel itself  who has manufactured itself.

It is becoming more and more obvious as insecure, violent settlers showcase the nature of colonialism, with the self righteous, pompous attitude of gun holders. No Palestinian would deface the land just to prove a point. Historical truth does not change, regardless of the millions of maps and books Israel and America author. As Edward Said stated, “It is quite common to hear high officials in Washington and elsewhere speak of changing the map of the Middle East, as if ancient societies and myriad peoples can be shaken up like so many peanuts in a jar.”

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