Author: swing

Palestinians protest land confiscation in Hebron

9 May 2009

The Youth Against Settlements group, with participation from international and Israeli solidarity activists, organized a protest in Bwaireh north east of Hebron on Friday. The protesters built a small booth in response to the recent construction of a settler outpost. A month ago, local settlers created a structure to de facto annex Palestinian land with a colonial outpost in the area.

The Israeli settlers trespassed on to the Palestinian land owned by Issa Abu Karsh Jaber a month ago and built an illegal structure. Israeli army and police, who were present, did not interfere despite the illegality of the structure.

Israeli forces arrived to the place of the protest to protect the settlers who began attacking the protesters and their booth violently, under the leadership of their fundamentalist leader Baroukh Marzel, using stones, tools, and fire lit cloths causing many injuries to the Palestinians and solidarity activists.

The Israeli army proceeded to arrest 8 activists and the Palestinian Wael Azaatari. Then, a Closed Military Zone was declared, and the demonstrators were forcefully removed from the sight while the settlers remained.

The spokesperson of the Youth Against Settlements group said that “the carelessness towards settlers’ violations on Palestinian lands is dangerous and is a major cause for land loss and confiscation, the settlers ambitions should be countered immediately and any slowness will cost the Palestinians high price of property loss and settlers’ attacks and violence.”

Settlers often create structures as primary steps for de facto annexation of Palestinian land.

New York protesters call for Mother’s Day boycott of Leviev diamonds over Israeli settlements

Adalah-NY

9 May 2009

On the day before Mother’s Day, 40 New York human rights advocates gathered at the Leviev jewelry store on Madison Avenue and called on throngs of weekend Madison Avenue shoppers to boycott Israeli diamond mogul Lev Leviev over his companies’ construction of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land in West Bank villages including Bil’in and Jayyous. Mother’s Day is one of the biggest jewelry shopping periods in the US annually. The New York protest came as controversy is growing in Norway over Norwegian government investments in Leviev’s company Africa-Israel. The New York protesters also commemorated Bassem Abu Rahma from Bil’in who was shot to death by Israeli soldiers last month during a peaceful protest against the construction on Bil’in’s land of Israel’s wall and of the Mattityahu East settlement by a Leviev company.

http://blip.tv/play/8zyBgMAoiep1

Riham Barghouti of Adalah-NY explained, “Thousands of New Yorkers heard our message today that Leviev should not be allowed to exploit this holiday honouring mothers while his companies are ruining the lives of Palestinian mothers by stealing their land for Israeli settlements.” Alexis Stern from Adalah-NY added, “The government of the United Kingdom, UNICEF and Oxfam are all now boycotting Leviev. We’re calling on New Yorkers, and the government of Norway to join them.”

The Norwegian government is under increasing pressure to divest from its pension holdings in Leviev’s Africa-Israel. An April 28 article in the UK’s Guardian by Abe Hayeem of Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine urged Norway to follow the UK’s example and sever its relationship with Leviev’s companies. The villages of Bil’in and Jayyous then wrote to Norwegian officials asking them to divest from Leviev’s companies, citing the devastating impacts of settlement construction on their villages’ agricultural land. This was followed by a May 5th letter from Adalah-NY and ten national and international organizations and networks from Europe, Palestine, Israel and the US calling on Norway to comply with its ethical guidelines for investment and divest.

During the New York Mother’s Day protest, the terrible impacts of Leviev’s settlement construction were brought home in a commemoration of Bassem Abu Rahma from Bil’in. Video from April 17th shows that Abu Rahma, a dedicated nonviolent activist, was participating in a peaceful protest in Bil’in against the settlement and the wall when he was suddenly shot directly in the chest with a teargas canister from a short distance by an Israeli soldier. One New York activist read aloud a tribute to Bassem written by his friend and colleague from Bil’in Mohammed Khatib. Two Jewish-Americans who have protested in Bil’in with Bassem then spoke of the courage of Bassem, of the people of Bil’in and of the millions of Palestinians confronting Israeli repression daily, and urged people in New York and around the world to stand with them.

Inspired by Bil’in’s four-year nonviolent campaign, that continues despite Bassem’s death and the injuring of 1,300 civilians, New York protesters chanted, “Your mama didn’t raise you that way, don’t buy from Leviev on Mother’s Day!” They passed out hundreds of copies of the cartoon flyer, Who Is Lev Leviev?, and carried signs saying, “Embrace moms, don’t displace moms.” Customers sitting outside at an upscale restaurant near Leviev’s store listened as protesters sang, “Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to build settlements,” and, to the tune of “Mama Said” by The Shirelles:

Mama said don’t build settlements,

don’t build on other people’s lands,

Mama said don’t buy diamonds,

from a guy with blood on his hands.

Leviev has also been criticized for human rights abuses in Angola where his companies mine diamonds.

Fayyad calls for end to land expropriation

Ali Waked | Ynet News

8 May 2009

Palestinian prime minister attends Friday prayer in east Jerusalem, promises residents to thwart Netanyahu government’s plan to confiscate property in Abu Dis area.

Battle over east Jerusalem lands heating up: Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Friday took part in a prayer held on disputed lands in the Abu Dis area, where protest tents have been set up following the Israeli demand to expropriate lands.

Fayyad participated in the prayer held by Kadi Taysir Tamami, head of the Palestinian Authority’s Sharia courts, near Area E1, which is the focus of a dispute between the Palestinians and Israel, which seeks to build the community of Keidar and connect between Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim. Hundreds of Jerusalem residents attended the prayer.

The Palestinian prime minister stated that “the PA will not agree to all the Israeli plans”, and promised that they would not succeed.

Talking to Ynet, Fayyad’s advisor for Jerusalem affairs, Khatem Abdel Kader, said that the prime minister’s arrival at the area served as a message to Israel that the PA would fight the expropriation plans.

“This is also a message to the international community, that it must work to implement the principle that these are Palestinian lands which will be an inseparable part of the Palestinian state,” Abdel Kader added.

“And it is also a message to the Palestinian people, that the PA will not abandon them in the face of the plans that (Interior Minister) Eli Yishai and his friends are working to implement.”

Apart from the area near the community of Abu Dis, PA officials have also expressed their fear this week that Israel plans to confiscate dozens of acres including dozens of buildings with some 1,000 residents near the neighborhood of al-Bustan, next to Silwan, as part of what they referred to as “an extensive expropriation campaign”.

Settlement expansion seeing biggest boost since 2003

Amos Harel | Ha’aretz

7 May 2009

West Bank construction has been accelerating for several months, putting Israel on a collision course with a U.S. administration taking a hard line on settlement expansion.

A new outpost, new roads, and other building projects have raced ahead in and around the settlements, often without legal permits, producing the biggest construction drive since 2003, according to Dror Etkes of the Israeli advocacy group Yesh Din. That group monitors construction in the West Bank.

The construction, which has sped up even more since Benjamin Netanyahu’s government took office this spring, is to be a main issues in U.S. President Barack Obama’s meeting with Netanyahu at mid-month.

Vice President Joe Biden called on Israel on Tuesday to stop building in the settlements and to dismantle existing illegal outposts. However, left-wing groups monitoring events in the territories say the construction has accelerated in recent months, not halted.

Examples include the following:

Construction in outposts: Between Talmon and Nahliel, west of Ramallah, a stone house and another structure have been built without a permit, next to a vineyard set up by settlers a year and a half ago. The Israel Defense Forces’ civil administration has recently issued an order to stop the project.

Illegal construction has been carried out on Palestinian land at the outposts Mitzpeh Ahiya and Adei-Ad, north of Ramallah. A mobile home has been set in an outpost near Susia south of Hebron. An outpost that was vacated near Hebron has been reinstated.

Construction east of the separation fence: New houses have been built in the Eli settlement, Rechelim, Ma’aleh Michmash and Kochav Hashahar (north and east of Ramallah). In addition, a neighborhood has been built in Na’ale, and there are at least 10 houses in Halamish and new houses in Talmon (all west of Ramallah).

Construction west of the planned fence route: Land has been prepared for building in the Kedar settlement, and 30 houses have been built in Ma’aleh Shomron. There is also a new neighborhood in both the Elkana and Zofim settlements.

Road construction and farmland: This has gone on near the Bracha settlement south of Nablus, near Tapuach, in the Eli and Shiloh area and in the Amona and Elazar settlements.

The accelerated construction stems mainly from the reduced supervision of events in the territories in the last stages of the Olmert government, while Netanyahu’s right-wing government, part of which supports the construction, hasn’t begun to address the issue.

The settlers also took advantage of the public and media attention’s focus on Gaza during the IDF offensive in January to continue the settlements and outposts’ expansion in the territories.

Israel is officially committed to the promise made by former prime minister Ariel Sharon to the Bush administration to evacuate all illegal outposts built after March 2001. But evacuations have been carried out languidly and with long intervals.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak recently reached an agreement with the settlers to evacuate the largest outpost, Migron, and transfer it to the nearby settlement Adam. But the agreement has yet to be implemented.

The Mitchell Report of May 2001 and the Bush administration’s road map of 2003 called on Israel to halt all construction in the settlements. This implies stopping construction for natural growth as well. Israel, however, has never stopped this kind of construction.

Sharon’s government reached a tacit agreement with the Bush administration to reduce construction east of the separation fence. Israel kept this promise until recently, when building resumed there as well, mostly without legal permits.

The extensive and often illegal construction west of the fence and in the large settlements has been going on continuously. The authorities have not tried to stop it even in cases of illegal construction, says Etkes.

The defense minister’s bureau said Barak supports evacuating outposts not because of promises to the Americans but to maintain the rule of law. Every new outpost is evacuated immediately, Barak’s aides said. The minister is not under the impression that the construction of illegal outposts and settlements has accelerated, they said.

It takes a village

Stefan Christoff | Hour

7 May 2009

Montreal’s ties to illegal Israeli settlement

In April, Palestinian activist Bassam Ibrahim Abou Rahme was killed by Israeli military forces after being shot at close range by a teargas canister, becoming the 18th Palestinian to have been killed for protesting against the Israeli wall being built in Bil’in, a farming village.

“Bassam was a leader from the Bil’in movement against Israeli apartheid. Everyone in the village loved Bassam, who regularly worked with Israeli activists,” remembers Abdullah Abu Rahme, a Bil’in resident and activist.

Local residents have held weekly demonstrations every Friday in attempts to alert the world to their cause.

Rahme says Bil’in has been severely impacted by the construction of the security wall, which will annex around 50 per cent of village lands, mainly farm lands. In some areas, the wall towers over eight metres high and is fortified by armed military watchtowers. The village is also battling Israeli attempts to build illegal settlements on the land, a project with ties to Montreal.

Bil’in has launched a lawsuit in the Quebec Superior Court against two companies registered locally, Green Park International and Green Mount International, who are currently helping to build an Israeli-only settlement on land within Bil’in’s municipal jurisdiction.

“Israel is colonizing our land and stealing it for future generations. They are trying to erase Palestine,” explains Rahme.

In June 2009, Bil’in village is scheduled to have a series of court dates that will determine if the lawsuit filed with Quebec Superior Court will be heard.

A solidarity protest with Bil’in village is scheduled for Friday, May 8, at noon outside Indigo bookstore (corner of Ste-Catherine and McGill College).