You had the good sense to see what was coming – the security forces in cooperation with the judicial system of Israel decided to take steps against, what they call the “strategic threat”, of the Palestinian citizens of Israel, and to do away with their leaders. They want to return us to the days of martial law – to fear, to the permits, to the dark cells of the security forces, to the era in which only collaborators could claim at least some of their rights.
Inside the 1967 borders, Israel was not yet employing the methods it now uses in the occupied territories. It did not execute people without trial, condone mass arrests, cause starvation, or destroy infrastructures. Now, as “the only democracy in the Middle East”, Israel claims to function according to just and lawful means.
But “the law” is the security forces and the police; the judicial advisers to the government and the judicial system are its full-time employees. Your sentence was passed even before the accusations against you were announced, and you have no way of establishing your innocence before these war criminals. They speak a language different from ours – in their eyes, anyone who is against war and aspires to the peaceful coexistence of two nations is classified as a criminal, and persecuted. You cannot conduct a political struggle from the witness box. They will not allow you to insist that you are fighting for both nations. In the courts of the police state, they will tie a rope around your neck.
The agonizing failure of the Israeli Army against the Lebanese Resistance maddens them. In the face of such a defeated and cruel establishment we must act wisely, intelligently. After all, it is more sensible for a freedom fighter who is cut off by a military unit to withdraw, or to escape, and to wait for a more favorable time to return fire – and here I am not speaking of live fire, but of the “fire” of thought and the written word.
Azmi my brother – THEY ARE AFRAID. The terrified commanders and their soldiers are afraid. I encounter them frequently in Jenin Refugee Camp where they fire on children who dare to glance from an upstairs window, or from round the corner.
Apparently you represent a ‘strategic threat’ to the “Jewish State”. It seems that your vision of a ‘state for all its citizens’ is a threat to the actual existence of Israel, a country that has been created out of force, control and discrimination of another nation. Ideas of equality or of the coexistence that the Balad Party represents, deprive the government of Israel of the main ideological elements it uses to justify its existence – power, despotism, segregation, racism, barriers and fences.
Azmi my brother, you did not run away!
You made clever use of conditions and circumstances, and managed to evade the execution squad with which the ‘judicial system’ confronted you. As a seasoned warrior you dodged the bullets of the security forces and went underground. And it makes no difference whether it was to the caves of the Galilee or to Qatar, Dubai, or Cairo.
Many will urge you to return. Many others would rejoice to see you rotting in the cells of the security police. There will be others who would sacrifice you – your courage concealing their helplessness and fear. All sorts of mud-slingers will sprout like mushrooms after rain, insisting that leaders do not abandon their flock. They will call you a coward and many other things. Ignore all their remarks about ‘courage and sacrifice’. Do not listen to your political opponents at home, who will call for stringing you up in the Town Square. Carry on with your struggle from abroad, like so many illustrious others. What is exile if not sacrifice!
And be assured – the day will come when you can return, borne on the shoulders of your comrades.
We have always praised the freedom fighters who succeeded in escaping the dungeons of the security forces. We rejoice when guerilla fighters are released by their comrades from behind prison bars. We applaud your successes in this puppet government and in revealing its true face.
You did not escape from arrest. You avoided being executed without trial – “targeted elimination” in the local jargon. Bless you for that!
Prelude to the Third Intifada? by Anna Baltzer, 30 April 2007
Atara Checkpoint in early April: Passover—the Jewish holiday celebrating freedom from oppression—is accompanied by tightening restrictions on Palestinians in the West Bank, resulting in checkpoint waits of many hours. Photo by Anna
It’s been more than three weeks since I last wrote. The reason is simple: things have been awful on the ground here in Palestine, leaving little time for reflection. As usual, Passover—the Jewish holiday celebrating freedom from oppression—was accompanied by tightening restrictions on Palestinians. While Jewish Israelis were feasting nearby, travel within the West Bank became difficult if not impossible, except of course for settlers who would breeze by the hundreds of Palestinians waiting for hours at checkpoints on their way home, to work, to the hospital, or elsewhere. Calling the Army was no help since most offices and services were closed for the holidays. Palestinians urgently requiring permits to reach hospitals were forced to wait as well.
A quick look at the Palestinian Center for Human Rights’ weekly report shows that Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF)—among other activities—killed 9 Palestinians (including 2 children and 4 extra-judicial assassinations), injured 20, conducted 30 incursions into West Bank Palestinian communities, arrested 44 Palestinian civilians (including 8 children), demolished 8 houses rendering more than 48 people homeless, and continued to impose a total siege on the Occupied Territories… all in the past week. This is about average. In the past few weeks, Israeli settlers have also moved back into an evacuated settlement in Nablus.
Hani Abu Hakel’s car torched by Israeli settlers, Photo: ISM Hebron
Meanwhile, several hundred Jewish settlers took over a massive building in the heart of Hebron, and Israel immediately deployed soldiers to protect the new Jewish-only colony. The nearby Abu Haykal family, friends whom I visited last month in Tel Rumeida, had their car torched by Hebron settlers who want nothing more than for them to leave so that a new Jewish settlement can be set up next to the already existing ones.
The ongoing brutality and harassment are fuelling a growing tension that I predict will one day explode into a third intifada (Arabic for “uprising”). The signs are there—intense frustration but an even stronger determination to throw off the Occupation’s yoke. Demonstrations have been happening all over the West Bank, sometimes several per day. Israel’s excessive force and continued colonization are unsustainable, because the Palestinians will never stop resisting. To stop resisting is to have no future—it is national suicide. The worse the Occupation gets, the stronger the resistance.
Although it is not reported as such, most of the current Palestinian resistance has been nonviolent. At the Arab American University of Jenin, the “Green Resistance” student group succeeded in banning the Israeli-produced Tapuzina fruit juice from the AAUJ campus, part of a growing Palestinian campaign to support local products rather than paying for their own Occupation. My neighbor Abu Saed in Haris, whose trees have been uprooted by settlers three times over the past month from his land near Revava settlement, continues to replant them week after week, with support from Rabbis for Human Rights and IWPS.
Israeli Forces prohibit bike race to Jericho, Photo by Jonas
And about a month ago, more than 350 people—Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals—gathered for the first-ever Palestine International Bike Race from Ramallah to Jericho, an event organized by the East Jerusalem YMCA for people from all over the world to protest human rights violations in Palestine, demand freedom of movement for Palestinian civilians, and “support the values of peace and tolerance in the area.” The event was projected to be the longest ever international sporting event protesting the Occupation, but Israeli jeeps cut the race short by closing traffic to two-wheelers and the “Bikes not Bombs” enthusiasts were forced to turn back.
Near the Quaker Friends School where the bike race commenced is a cultural center where dozens of Palestinian youth come together every week to make short films and dance together. After watching an intensely physical and emotive modern dance rehearsal when I visited one day, the students explained that for them “art is not a luxury—it’s a must.” The Occupation not only threatens Palestinians’ homes, land, livelihoods, time, and future, but also creativity and expression. The cultural center is tool to prevent Palestinian culture from being lost or distorted, and students described how they would meet in secrecy to practice quietly during invasions and curfews as their own form of creative nonviolent resistance.
In the Salfit region where we live, a new center has been established to conduct trainings and workshops in strategic communication, peace-building, conflict resolution, and techniques of nonviolent resistance. I spoke with the director Fuad, who explained that nonviolent resistance in Israeli jails (hunger strikes, etc) has recently increased, and that many Palestinians—particularly those returning from prison—have been building what he called “a nonviolent movement for freedom, equality, democratic values, and human rights.” His organization aims to develop programs suitable for each section of Palestinian society, as well as human rights and democracy awareness workshops and resistance trainings, but they lack the proper funding to do so. Fuad told me his own story of transformation from a soldier in Arafat’s “Sabahtash” Army to a committed nonviolence advocate after his brother was killed. Fuad was particularly inspired by the first intifada, during which all parts of Palestinian society joined in nonviolent civil disobedience to demand freedom with one loud voice. When I told Fuad that IWPS could offer no financial support (although you could—please contact fuad_alramal@yahoo.com if you can help), he replied, “We have no money, but our strength is in our beliefs: our commitment to nonviolence. Violence kills the spirit, pushing it towards more violence or submission, but nonviolence will always prevail in the end.”
Fuad said he chose to work in the Salfit area because of its history of nonviolent resistance. Indeed, the past few weeks have seen a number of major actions in our oft-forgotten rural region. On Land Day, hundreds gathered in Rafat village to protest the Wall that is slowly enclosing their village, but when they found the cage unguarded they grabbed hold and began to rock it, back and forth, all together, until finally the gates exploded open. When the soldiers arrived, protesters retreated to their homes, not a single stone thrown. They had made their point: Rafat will not accept collective imprisonment.
Demonstrators from Salfit remove the electric sensory wire lining the Wall that has cut their town off from their main road and land.
The next day in Salfit town a group of demonstrators found the Wall unguarded and began removing the electric sensory wire that lines the fenced sections. Soldiers arrived quickly and began shooting into the air, but protesters held their ground and raised Palestinian flags above the cage that cuts off their main road and annexes much of their land. Salfit, too, will not accept collective imprisonment.
Protesters raise the Palestinian flag above the Wall that encages them.
Nor will the rest of the West Bank, where many other actions took place on Land Day weekend. In Qaffin town in the north, thousands of demonstrators gathered and marched, danced, and drummed their way to the Wall to show their spirit and resolve to resist the illegal barrier and Occupation.
Nablus residents march to Beit Furik checkpoint
In Nablus, hundreds marched to Beit Furik, one of the six city exits—all Army checkpoints—through which men 16 to 45 years old are not allowed to pass without a special Israeli-issued permit that can only be obtained outside the city. The march, organized in part by the Nablus Women’s Union and a society for local handicapped people, continued through the checkpoint past stunned soldiers unable to hold the cheering protesters back.
After succeeding in pushing through Beit Furik checkpoint, Nablus residents occupy the checkpoint, climbing up onto the waiting pens and hanging freedom signs around the base.
The group then occupied the checkpoint, first by sitting down and later by climbing atop the waiting pens and hanging Palestinian flags and freedom signs around the base.
Injustice is unsustainable. It cannot be normalized, because there will always be resistance. The third intifada will come. It may be nonviolent as the first, or it may be more like the second. Is it a coincidence that Israel began construction at the Temple Mount holy site in Jerusalem just as warring religious and secular Palestinian factions were coming to a truce? Israel prefers that Palestinians resist one another rather than their oppression, but Palestinians in the West Bank and at the negotiating table have shown their resolve to work together against their common enemies: Zionist racism and the Occupation. United, they will prevail. If the third intifada does not succeed, there will be a fourth. And then a fifth… As many as it takes, until justice is served.
Anna Baltzer is a volunteer with the International Women’s Peace Service in the West Bank and author of the book, Witness in Palestine: Journal of a Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories.
Bil’in, West of Bethlehem, Jafa – the joint struggle continues by Ilan S., AATW, 29 April 2007
Bil’in
It was a “regular” Friday demonstration in Bil’in – the 116th since it started 25 months ago. As usual, we started at noon the march towards the route of the separation fence which is used to rob most of the lands of the village for the building additional district in the settler colonialist town Modi’in Ilit. The marchers – Palestinians from the village and the region, internationals, Israelis of the Anarchists Against The Wall initiative, did not choose the road that leads to the Western lands and blocked by the gate of the fence structure. Instead, we went the other direction, part of it through paths within olive groove. We out smarted the Israeli state force who were expecting us in the main road (about kilometer away) to prevent us from coming near the fence – as they did the two previous Fridays. The last few hundred meters where the far away soldiers could see us we were running.
Till the main force of the soldiers arrived, few of us already passes through the razor wire spools and the metal fence beyond on our side of the route of the fence, and stood along the electronic fence. Most of the others stood along the metal rails at the edge of the route – banging on it with stones. The state force tried to drive the intruders and the rest of us who were near by with tear gas grenades, but after they got few of them thrown back – they stopped. They tried the water canon to drive us away – but in the hot spring day it was mainly refreshing us… They tried to arrest two of the ones that were near the electronic fence – but comrades dearested them and the soldiers yielded.
In this unusual situation, the stone throwers who do not approve our nonviolent demonstration and usually disrupt it, were in position among us, but hesitated due to the “interesting” way the demonstration developed, and did not throw stones till the demonstration was declared finished and the nonviolent demonstrators started to disperse.
When part of us tried to pay a visit to the usual site of the Friday demonstration – near the gate on the road leading to the lands of the village West of the fence, the soldiers resisted us with tear gas mainly, and arrested one of the village comity as a way to press us to return to the village faster – promising to release him when we will be on the way to the village. They shoot tear gas canisters to hasten us, but when we were near the houses of the village they released the comrade.
No one was injured seriously this Friday, but many of us were wet and colored by the turquoise powder added to the water of the water cannon.
——————————– Bethlehem
Today. over a hundred demonstrators from the villages of Beit Fag’ar, Um Salamuna, Wadi An-Nis, Al- Masara, Al-Khadr, and Beit Ommar joind by internationals and Israeli activists made an attempt to block route 60 outside the settlement of Efrrat, the demonstrators carred signs against the building of the apartheid wall in the area south of Bethlehem only a large presence of border police and soldiers who waited in the area managed to keep the demonstrators from blocking the road. Doing this kind of activity in the front door of a big settlement is another step for the struggle in the area .
——————————— Jaffa
Long ago, Jaffa was annexed to the Jewish Tel Aviv municipality and settled with lot of Jewish immigrants which “diluted” the remnants of the original Palestinian residents who where not transfered out during the 1948 Nacba.
Last Friday, a few hundred Jafa residents and supporters marched through the city against a move by the municipality to transfer some 500 Arab-Israeli families out of their homes. The marchers included local government officials, a rainbow of local organizations, residents, and supporters from around the country – including activists of the anarchists against the wall. There were cries of ‘Jews and Arabs Against Home Demolitions’ and ‘This Transfer Will Not Pass’, comparing current events to the Nakba in 1948, but altogether the march was a bit subdued. As usual for Jafa protests there was no police presence in sight, to keep things calm but also in reflection of the relationship between the Arab residents and the police. At the end marchers sat in a basketball court overlooking Jaffa’s reef beach, that after years of neglect and 20 years in the planning, is now being converted into a grand park — just in time for the hundreds of new wealthy residents who are entering Ajame neighborhood. Speakers included representatives of the new popular committee established to combat the situation, residents who’s homes have become part of the struggle, and members of organizations supporting it — all were encouraged by the large turnout and hopeful about the days ahead.
At some point anarchists raised a banner with the anarchist “A” and flag but took it down on request of the organizers.
Forcing Transfer in Izbat at-Tabib by the ISM Media Crew
Izbat at-Tabib, Qalqilya district
The Palestinian village of Izbat at-Tabib is situated a few kilometers east of Qalqilya and north-west of the town of Azzun, between the large illegal Israeli settlements of Alfe Menashe and Ma’ale Shomeron, in Area C. The majority of the village residents are refugees from 1948, from the destroyed Palestinian village of Tabsur, which is now the Israeli city of Raanana, located approximately 20 kms from Izbat at-Tabib. The first house was built by the Tabib family in the 1920’s on their land and later the village developed after Nakba (1948), when other members of the Tabib family fled from Tabsur. Some of the 226 Izbat at-Tabib residents are from other families and approximately two-thirds of the 226 inhabitants are children. Currently there are no medical services or schools in the village.
The Israeli occupation and illegal confiscation of Palestinian lands for the purpose of the Apartheid Wall, Israeli settlements and settler-only roads are having a grave impact on the village of Izbat at-Tabib.
Denial of Building Permits
The Israeli policy of denying building permits is wide spread in the West Bank. Despite the fact that the Izbat at-Tabib is well established, the Israeli government claims that the village and surrounding area is only agricultural land. Since 1991, inhabitants have been applying for building permits for new homes, house additions, barns and service buildings since 1991, but their applications have been denied by the Israeli government. There are approximately 40 homes in the village. Some of the residents live in corrugated iron and cement block homes, while others live in crowded homes. Because Israel refuses to issue building permits, they are unable to build a house with a cement roof or expand their existing homes.
Apartheid Wall
The village has suffered grave consequences from the construction of the Israeli Apartheid Wall, which is illegally built well inside the 1967-green line to annex the illegal Israeli settlements to Israel. The sections of wall affecting the village began in 2002 and were completed at the end of 2003. With the construction of the Apartheid Wall the village has lost 250 dunnums from one section of the wall and 20 dunnums from another section of the wall. For many families in Izbat at-Tabib, the loss of access to their lands has resulted in severe economic hardship as they depend on the olive harvest and other crops for their livelihood. Many olive trees have been uprooted in order to build the wall in the area. Up to this point in time, two families have been forced to move because the Wall has taken away their means of livelihood in Izbat at-Tabib. The village has taken their illegal land confiscation case to the Supreme Court and the decision was granted in favor of the village in 2005. In 2006, they were supposed to be given access to a portion of their confiscated land once the route of the wall is re-located, but the construction of the new section of the wall has not yet been built.
Demolition Orders and Settler Roads
The existing settler-only road has cut right into the agricultural land of Izbat at-Tabib resulting in the loss of 15 dunnums. The Israeli government is threatening Izbat at-Tabib with home demolitions and is trying to force the illegal transfer of village residents to the neighboring town of Azzun, in order to clear an area for the new settler-only road. On March 1, 2007, the village received official documentation indicating the details of the plan for the new settler-only road cutting right through several homes in the village, as well as eviction notices for many families in the village. A total of 21 demolition orders have been issued for homes and barns, as well as the two-story service centre (kindergarden and clinic) still under construction.
Military Incursions, House Raids and Checkpoints
The residents of Izbat at-Tabib are currently experiencing daily incursions by the Israeli Army, one to six military vehicles (jeeps and/or hummers) patrolling the village and sitting in their vehicles on the edge of it. During several incursions, boys have been taken from the village by the army, on occasion have been beaten, and then returned to the village after two to nine hours. On April 13, 2007 the level of harassment from the Israeli Army increased in the village. After 8:00pm, the Israeli Army entered the village, imposed a curfew and established checkpoints around the village, preventing anyone from entering or exiting. Seventeen houses, nearly half of the houses in the village were raided and forced outside. In many houses, the army damaged the contents. Twenty-five men and fifteen boys, some as young as four or five years old, were forced to line up with hands behind their backs for one to two hours facing a wall off the main road of the village. The reason they gave the army gave for the incursion was a complaint by a settler that stones were thrown on to the main road. The men were told the village would be punished for any rock throwing, regardless of who was responsible.
The Israeli Army has a history of destruction in the village. The road behind the village, leading to the village of ‘Isla, has been dug up twice. The village was finally granted a permit to rebuild the road within the last two years.
International House
In response to the threat of further violent incursions and home demolition orders in Izbat at-Tabib, the mayor, Bayan Tabib, on behalf of the village council, has invited international solidarity activists to establish a presence in the village. A small house has been set up for internationals to live in during their stay.
Non-violent action on Palestinian land occupied by Israeli convict by Polly Bangoriad, 28 April 2007
Israeli peace activist converses with Israeli soldier- photo by Polly Bangoriad
On Saturday morning Palestinian, Israeli and international peace activists accompanied a Palestinian farmer to his land near Al Khader village, in the southern West Bank Bethlehem district. Their intention was to plough the agricultural land in preparation for planting crops. However, the land is being occupied by an illegal Israeli settler and convict, who has been permitted by Israeli court to spend the remainder of his sentence there.
The land in question is the centre of a complex situation. Recently, the Israeli settler named Hanan, was charged with the attempted armed robbery of a bank in Israel. The Israeli court sentenced him to 8 years in prison, 6 of which he has served. However, the convict suggested to the court that he ‘imprison’ himself for the remaining two years in an illegal settlement outpost on Palestinian land instead. Bizarrely, the court agreed, and Hanan is presently occupying an illegal outpost on the agricultural land of a Palestinian farmer, Ass’ad Sudeh from Al Khader. The settler has now started trying to use the Palestinian’s farm land for himself.
Upon hearing this story local activists decided to support Sudeh, whose land is under threat from the convict settler, and help him plow it today. It soon became apparent that the land has already been utilized by the convict- who is aware that he does not rightfully own it- for his own personal use. However, the settler argues that if the Palestinian farmer who owns the land attempts to remove the grape vines he has planted on the land and farm it himself, he will charge the farmer a great deal of money. This threat may sound petty and inconsequential, but the Israeli court is notorious for manipulating or even inventing new laws for Palestinians. The farmer could easily be forced to pay the settler a huge amount of money for the ‘right’ to remove the vines planted by the settler and work his own land.
About half a dozen illegal settlers some of whom were armed intervened when the peaceful activists started working the land. Despite the fact that the convict settler himself admitted that the land is owned by the Palestinian farmer, some of the other settlers confronted the activists, saying that they owned the land themselves and always have done. About a dozen Israeli troops also arrived promptly at the scene and demanded that the activists leave the land. Eventually the activists decided to leave but some were forbidden to use the dirt road leading out of the rural area by the Israeli troops, who deemed it an “Israeli-only road”. After much protest the armed Israeli troops finally permitted an elderly female British peace-activist to use the easier road instead of the uneven hillside.
