Author: ISM Media Group

Mass anti-apartheid demonstration in South Bethlehem, this Friday

A Mass Demonstration Against the Annexation Wall, South Bethlehem

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
25 April 2007

This Friday, April 27, Palestinian residents of the south Bethlehem area are calling on international and Israeli anti-Apartheid activists to join them in a mass demonstration against Israel’s Apartheid Wall.

Palestinians must take a bypass road to the Beit Fajjar junction. Israelis and international activists are expected to meet at the Gush Etzion junction on Route 60, where they will then meet up with the Palestinians at the Beit Fajjar nearby. Palestinians will pray at the junction near the Israeli settlements of Efrat and Gush Etzion, then demonstrate against the Apartheid Wall.

Activists will join the residents of all of the villages and towns being hurt by the erection of the annexation wall around the settlements of Gush Etzion and Efrat for a mass procession and demonstration. For many weeks the residents who live in villages and towns to the south and west of Bethlehem have been holding weekly demonstrations against Apartheid Wall that is being built on Palestinian lands. This week, for the first time, a non-violent protest will be held in which the residents of all of the villages that are affected by the wall, including residents from Beit-Jala, Walaja and Btttir in the North to Um Salamuna, Beit Ummar, Surif and Al-Jaba in the South.

Destruction of the land and uprooting of trees by Israeli bulldozers are currently happening to make way for the Apartheid Wall. Mahmoud Zawahira, from the village of Umm Salamuna, called on internationals and Israelis to join in on the demonstration, saying, “before we are caged in like animals behind walls of concrete, let’s come together to stop the destruction and share our stories with the world.”

When asked about what he thinks may happen at the demo, Mahmoud said, “We will chant songs of freedom and show symbols of Occupation. We are expecting attacks from the Israeli settlers and hope that internationals and Israeli activists come to witness and to help.”

Internationals and Israelis will meet at the Gush Etzion Junction and Palestinians will gather at the Beit Fajjar Junction at 11am. The demonstration will begin at 11:30 and is expected to last about 2 hours.

For more information, contact:
Mahmoud Zawahira, 0599-586-004, 0522-591-386
ISM Media Office, 0599-943-157, 02-297-1824

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Background:

In addition to the separation fence that is beeing built close to the Green Line north and west of the Gush Etzion Settlements, another wall is built that will effectively close off the area from the west and south and whose goal is to isolate the Gush Etzion region from the western West Bank. This is part of the declared plan of the Israeli government to annex settlement clusters. Not only will 60,000 dunams of land be expropriated, but nineteen thousand Palestinians will be caged in by the enclaves created by this wall, and thus will be cut off from their land, medical and educational services, sources of employment, outlets for their agricultural produce, and from community and family connections.

The fate of these nineteen thousand Palestinians is clear: For most, life in the ghetto will prove intolerable and they will be forced to leave their homes and land – easy prey for proponents of annexation and real estate sharks; the rest, the weaker and the more submissive, will live without rights and will supply cheap labor for the building of settlements.

This wall will also spell disaster for those residents who border on the enclave from the outside, since it is being built on the agricultural lands which supply the livelihood of many residents from Beit Jala in the north to Beit Umar in the south; it will also cut them off from most of their land, which will be closed off inside the enclave. For these residents as well, the wall’s meaning is poverty and hunger, since the land that they will no longer be able to reach has become the last means of livelihood left to them.

This is not a security fence. This is a wall of annexation, expulsion, and oppression.

It is not yet too late to stop the bulldozers from turning the vineyards and the fruit orchards into dust, but if we do not join the struggle today, in just a few weeks this nightmare will be realized and become an established fact.

Palestinian refugee children’s art stolen from library

PALESTINIAN REFUGEE CHILDREN’S ART STOLEN FROM LIBRARY
from Birthright Unplugged, 25 April 2007

Organizers Suspect Political Motives

Boston Public Library Branch Reports First Time Ever Theft Of Art Exhibit

For Immediate Release

BOSTON, USA– On April 19, 2007, eighteen photographs were stolen from an exhibit documenting Palestinian children’s journey to Jerusalem, the sea, and their ancestral lands. The exhibit, which opened on April 14, was hanging in the Honan-Allston branch of the public library, and was scheduled to remain there until May 25.

The exhibit was created by children from Balata refugee camp in Nablus, West Bank. In January 2007, the Boston-based organization Birthright Unplugged took the children on a trip to areas that their grandparents were expelled from and that their families have been prohibited from returning to since Israel was established in 1948. The children documented their experiences and created an exhibit.

“An important part of our work is the ability to bring Palestinian voices to people in the United States,” says Birthright Unplugged co-founder Hannah Mermelstein. “This is a sad reminder that members of our community will resort even to theft to silence these voices.”

While the thieves of the artwork are unknown, Birthright Unplugged organizers suspect that the motives were political. The Honan-Allston library confirms that this is the first time a theft of this kind has happened there, although they often display art exhibits.

“We are grateful to the Boston Public Library for allowing us to share these children’s images and words,” says Birthright Unplugged co-founder Dunya Alwan. “We are working with library staff to replace and re-hang the photos as soon as possible.”

Birthright Unplugged has taken more than 80 children on these “Re-Plugged” trips since January 2006, and more than 60 North American people, mostly Jewish, on 6-day “Unplugged” trips through the West Bank since July 2005.

PNN: From Palestine to Virginia Tech

From Palestine to Virginia Tech: We are with you in this Time of Pain
by Sami Awad, 20 April 2007

Two days ago a tragic event took place in Virginia Tech in the US that shocked not only the people of the United States but people all across the globe. A violent massacre took place there that resulted in thirty two killed, individuals who presented different cultures, religions and nationalities. In a sign of solidarity the people of Palestine in general and those from the Southern villages surrounding the Holy city of Bethlehem dedicated their weekly nonviolent activity against the building of Apartheid wall to the families of the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre.

Photo: Muhamad Zboun - PNN

Every Friday, Palestinians, internationals, and Israeli nonviolent activists gather in the Southern villages of Bethlehem to protest against the building of the Apartheid Wall that will eventually destroy the livelihood of these villages. This Friday, the protest began with a silent procession by the group of about fifty participants. We carried banners and leaflets with the Virginia Tech logo and statements supporting them in this time of pain. Thirty two olive trees were also carried in the procession to remember each person killed in the massacre. The olive tree is a global symbol of peace and hope.

Muhamad Zboun - PNN

Once we reached the path created by the by the bulldozers for the building of the Apartheid Wall we dug the earth and plated the thirty two olive trees in a row – instead of building an ugly wall that divides people, let us plant trees that bring people together. Several of the participants made statements condemning the violence that we all, as the human family are witnessing and condemning the building of the Apartheid wall and the killing of innocents. Over 150 Israeli soldiers came to dismantle our protest. Our commitment to nonviolence and to achieve our goal completely paralyzed their weapons and their goals and eventually our power made them withdrawal. The planting of the trees was followed by reciting the names of all those who were killed in the Virginian massacre followed by a fifteen minute period of silence before the group moved back to the villages.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said “where there is an injustice somewhere … there is an injustice everywhere.” This also means that where there is violence somewhere there is violence everywhere… We need to work for peace somewhere so that peace can also spread every where.

JPost: When will it end?

When will it all end?
by Gershon Baskin, 24 April 2007

When the siren sounds I cry. The world stops and despite the whining scream of the siren – silence is what I hear. The pain of loss, the weeping of mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters – never to touch again, never to kiss, hug or just look at. Killed in the line of duty. A hero. Serving the homeland. He fell so that others could live. Cemeteries, unending graves, each year new stones engraved with new names, new battles, new mourning families. News songs to be song next year in the Square.

We wake with news each morning of more death, more killings, more victims, and more bereaved families. Sometimes ours, more of the time, theirs. Our tears, their tears, our pain, their pain. We fight for our homeland, they fight for theirs. Our cause is just, we say. They say that theirs is just. We have the most moral army in the world. They are bloody murderers, we say. They say we kill innocent women and children much more than they have ever killed. We cry for our children. They cry for their children too.

Death pains a Jewish heart as much as it pains a Palestinian heart. We all carry our traumas with us and each and everyone one of us, Jew or Arab is a victim of this conflict carrying the trauma of war with them deep inside. This conflict has left no one without pain. For 100 years we have been killing each other for a piece of this land, for a piece of peace and quiet. We have been blinded by our pain and they have been blinded by theirs.

We don’t believe that they long for peace like we do. We don’t believe that they want peace, like we do. They don’t want their children to play in the parks on sunny weekends. They yearn to kill us, to push us into the sea, to wipe us off the map. That is what we see when we look at them. They are different from us.

WHEN THEY see us, they see in us exactly what we see in them. Enemies. Brutal enemies who kill without remorse. The dead have no names for the other side. They have no families, there are no tears, there are no bereaved ones who remain behind longing, waiting, crying, remembering. Our newspapers, their newspapers – two dead, killed by the enemy. A 15 year old killed by accident. A Kassam kills two children. No names, no matter.

An eye for an eye only makes a lot of blind people, Gandhi told us. Our pain and their pain make lot of wounded souls. Our cause is just, no doubt; but so is theirs. Our yearning to be a free people in our land is not different than theirs. We have no other state; this is the only home for us. They too have no other; they too are not welcome in other lands, only in their own.

We will never be a free people in our land until they too will be a free people in their land. We are linked to each other tied to this land which has taken too much of our blood and too much of theirs.
It is time to make the desert bloom, not with blood, not with tears, but with the love that we both share for this land. Our love for Israel is no stronger than their love for Palestine. Our songs for Zion play in our minds and hearts just as their songs for Biladi play in theirs.

We dwell in our histories. We tell and retell the stories of heroism. We have our ceremonies, we light ours candles, we sing our songs. We cry and we remember. We are glued to the TV screens on our memorial days. So many memorial days. So many ceremonies. So much history. So much to remember.

My children don’t want to go to school – “it’s just going to be a day of ceremonies” – they say. I explain: “There is no choice – you will go to school, the ceremonies are important and there is nothing to argue about.”

After the evening siren, standing on the side of our stopped car on the way back to home, back to Jerusalem, my son says: “I’ll go to school, I understand.”

We have our state. We wake up from our mourning to the celebration of liberation, victory, Israel. For as long as I remember myself I still feel the chills in my spine when I sing Hatikva. It’s a feeling that I can’t explain. It is the feeling I have when I see the coast line from the window of the plane after a long trip home. I see the flag, the blue stripes and the star and I am at home.

Flying home for years with Palestinian colleagues, I always wonder what goes through their minds when they see the same coastline. They too are coming home, home to Palestine. But before they reach there, before they get home, they have to face the policeman, the security guard, the checks and the questions, the checkpoint, the soldiers, all of the obstacles before they can feel that they have reached the end of their journey.

We don’t want them here and they don’t want us, yet we are here to stay, and so are they. No one is leaving this land and no one will succeed in forcing the other to leave. We all know it. The entire world knows it. We have accepted to divide the land. They too have accepted it. Once demanding 100%, both of us are willing to take less. They demand 22% of the land and accept our keeping 78%. We want more, they want more, but we can all live with that 78-22 split. That is the formula for peace that is the formula for putting history behind us. No, we won’t forget, and no, they won’t forget. Our pain, our sorrow, our struggle our fight, will live on forever. So will theirs.

How do we convince them that we really want peace, how do they convince us? How do we both put an end to all of the sorrow and pain? How do we each acknowledge the pain and sorrow of the other side?

Perhaps only when we will celebrate each others freedom.

Gershon Baskin is the Co-CEO of Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information.
www.ipcri.org

V for Vacation

V for Vacation
By Omar in Jordan, 24 April 2007

Yesterday I drove for around an hour all the way to the Jordan River near the Dead Sea; I was going to King Hussein’s gateway to pick up my parents who were spending some time in our native city Nablus, my father’s been planning to move out to there since ever but only recently managed to put some real effort in the process.

When I reached them they looked excessively exhausted, no doubt the trip (that technically should take an hour and a half!) is physically draining, not to mention humiliation, but they looked overly exhausted and I thought something’s wrong. When I asked my father about it and he answered very furiously:” Well, you can say I’ve been up for the last 48 hours! The Israelis thought Nablus citizens should watch some fireworks last night, and so they amused the inhabitants with some!” He was really pissed, and obviously loaded with much more to say. I waited until we reach home and they get some rest to set down and listen to what they got.

Later at night, they started telling me about the things they did, the people they met, and the places they went to, mostly people I already know and places I already had been to but I kept listening until my father started talking about the trip back to Amman, and to say the least, I never saw my father that disgusted and fed up in my entire life, he was about to blow up of anger while talking, he started talking about his last night in Nablus and how they spent it terrified counting the number of explosions caused by the Israeli Occupation Forces while trying to catch some 25-year-old suspect around the neighborhood, he said the Israeli army pounded a few houses with missiles and heavy weapons, not to mention a lot of gun fires all night long, it was a war zone he said, the only difference is that it was a one-sided war! They couldn’t sleep that night at all, they left very early in the next morning to avoid any unexpected traffic, of course, to those who don’t already know, the process of leaving any city in the occupied West Bank is very complicated, and may very easily fail! It all depends on the mood of the Israeli officer at each checkpoint, that is, every 10 to 20 kilometers! The first checkpoint you encounter when you leave Nablus is Huwara checkpoint, the infamous center of humiliation.

As I said, my parents reached there early inside a cab, they waited behind the long line of cars in front, after some time people are forced to leave the cars and walk on foot to take another cab waiting on the other side, that’s in case the Israeli officer said it’s ok to do so! People lining up were mostly women and old men, with a decent number of college and school students and teachers; my father was close to the office/barrack and could see the soldiers inside, and by soldiers I mean around 16-year-old kids holding M16’s taller than they are on their backs, the queue was stopped for a long time without one of the soldiers coming out to do some work as usual, my father had been there for around 2 hours now standing beside lots of older men only when they heard the soldiers kids laughing out loud inside their barrack and then started getting out of it playing in front of 300 people waiting for them to finish, one of the soldiers kids jumped on her soldier kid boyfriend’s back and started laughing and giggling while whispering to him and licking his ears and cheeks, my father describes the situation with genuine pain in his voice, he was furious to a point I cannot describe by words, after all, he was a man standing in line like a prisoner, right outside the city his family belonged to for thousands of years, waiting for a little girl, who he’s three times her age, to give him the permission to start searching through his stuff and then decides if he’s qualified enough to pass to the next checkpoint were he could be treated the same way. He then describes how the girl disgustingly orders old men to open their bags with the head of her machine gun, and then flips through their stuff with the same gun. I was pretty sure he intentionally cut some parts because if he didn’t he would’ve had a heart attack while repeating!

My mother took the story into another level, she bought me some very nice shirts and pullovers from there, they looked really expensive, and because I know that cloths are usually expensive in the West Bank, I asked her how much did all this cost? She said they were around $5 each! I couldn’t believe my ears; those shirts would have cost a small fortune in a normal situation, but that’s not even the point, she told me that she actually bought them out of pity! She entered a shop trying to find me a shirt or something, and the salesman literally begged her to buy anything! He was selling at 90% off the original prices; his family needs bread he said to my mother.

The situation inside the occupied West Bank is by all means miserable; the occupation is turning life there into a living hell; poverty, unemployment, lack of security, and desperation haunt the place, it’s unacceptable for human beings to continue living like this.