Category: Journals - Page 105 - International Solidarity Movement

Testimony from Detained Human Rights Defender

by Mary, December 18th

There have been four occasions in the last two and a half months when the Israeli army and police have helped and encouraged Israeli settlers to trespass on Palestinian land. This is against Israeli law. The aim is probably to help Israeli settlers establish a bridgehead on Palestinian land so that in the future they can insist that they have been using the land.

Yesterday, at 12.30pm, I was ill and asleep when I had a call from an international human rights defender (HRD). She said that Palestinian children were being stopped returning home from school. Israeli settlers were on Palestinian land, being protected by soldiers, who said that Palestinians would not be able to pass for 5 hours. This was a particularly serious offense for a number of reasons. Three of the reasons are as follows. Firstly, there has been an Israeli court order that Palestinians must be allowed go to their homes. Secondly, the police (who admitted the first reason) would not come and help. And thirdly because the Israeli army insists that Palestinian families, who live near their base, may not use the road but must pass this way. The trespass on Palestinian land is also an offense.

So I got out of bed and went out. I asked the soldier at the crossing what was happening. He said that I knew what he thought about this but that he could do nothing. So wheezing loudly, I went up the very steep hill to Abu Hekel land where there was an army jeep and many other soldiers. The officer in the jeep was a captain and seemed of high enough rank to be some help. I said that they were breaking Israeli law and threatening the safety of Palestinian children and that it was the army who insisted that the Palestinians pass this way. It made no difference. I stood by his jeep to stop him from leaving and rang the District Coordinating Office (DCO-the Civil Administration wing of the Israeli military in the West Bank). I do not have my telephone, which was lost and found in West Jerusalem and, being deaf, could not hear well on the substitute.

Israeli settler children were being allowed on to Palestinian land but Palestinian children were being turned away. Then two young women with babies were turned back by the soldiers. I rang the DCO again. She said to call back at 2pm. I looked at my watch. It was 1pm and all the children were out of school. So, this was totally unacceptable. I tried again to get the officer to let the children through and to protect them. But to no avail. One soldier told another HRD that he would be too frightened to try to escort Palestinian children past these violent settlers!

Then the police arrived. I said that they should be protecting the Palestinian children and complying with Israeli law. Instead they decided to detain me. I said that they had a responsibility to the children. They said that they would take me to the police station and then go back. But they lied. They stayed at the police station. After four hours, I was let out into the cold even though they knew I was ill. I had to promise that for two weeks, I would not stand outside my house, go to my rubbish skip, visit neighbours across the road or up the street, go to the community centre or go to the only local shop. How petty can you get? I can scurry round the corner, where I can stand and talk to Palestinians or sympathetic soldiers or go down to the checkpoint.

The Palestinian children waited for another half hour and were finally led away by soldiers to go another way that was very rough and would take them at least twenty minutes. I do not know what happened to the mothers with babies.

On Sunday October 8th, the Israeli army invaded H1, Palestinian administered Hebron. That is, most of Hebron. They forced shops to close. Then the checkpoint for Palestinians was closed. This meant that people could not come home from work or shop for food. After much telephoning, it was opened spasmodically. Israeli settlers arrived at the checkpoint and blocked the way for Palestinians. At 3.30pm, about thirty soldiers escorted the settlers through the Palestinian only checkpoint and it was closed – until 7pm we were told. This was very bad because in Ramadan Palestinians eat at sunset. They needed to cook their food for a meal at 5.45pm. And workers needed to get home to eat it. There is another way, which is a ten minute taxi ride, which many can’t afford. The reason for the invasion was to take the Israeli settlers into a Palestinian house without permission. They wanted to see the Cave of Otneil Ben-Knaz. This was both trespass and invasion.

On Friday November 17th, about 100 Israeli settlers and their visitors went onto Abu Hekel land right next to their house. They were accompanied by two Israeli policemen, while three soldiers watched from behind a fence. They stayed for ninety minutes saying prayers and having a speaker. The family was naturally very frightened. They have been attacked by settlers on many occasions and also by soldiers. The following Friday this was repeated with forty settlers and police.

This pattern of behaviour must stop.

The first part of this testimony relates to the settler trespass in Tel Rumeida on December 17th.

Checkpoint Humiliation

The other day as we were travelling through Zatara checkpoint between Ramallah and Nablus, I witnessed a particularly disgusting display of power by the Israeli army. An extremely public humiliation of a woman, who was taken out of a shared taxi and had her ID and phone removed. She was fighting back the tears, trying to retain her dignity, but was clearly distressed. Everything about the soldiers interaction exuded contempt for her. One in particular was clearly getting something from “punishing” her. We were prevented from speaking to her, which made our ability to intervene somewhat limited. What we were able to do was remain present until she was released. Most of the time I do not feel very effective; the most I can do is be present.

Apparently her ID did not “allow” her to travel to another part of the West Bank. Apart from being extremely punitive, excessively controlling and frankly wrong by any book, it is also arbitary. The rules of the game change. I have been in shared taxis with people who have been turned back…. ‘last week’ they could make that journey, ‘yesterday’ they could make that journey, ‘next week’ they ‘may’ be able to make it, but today “NO”. After a while I feel like I can never hear the word “LO” again (Hebrew for “no”), it is barked and shouted countless times a day, controlling so much of day to day life for Palestinians.

After an hour, on this bitterly cold day, the soldier returned the woman’s ID. He simply took it out of his pocket and gave it to her. Clearly she was not a “security threat”. Detaining her, frightening her, and publically humiliating her, were blatantly intended to make sure she would not attempt this journey again. I was enraged. The soldiers are boys with guns and egos. They have so much power in a situation that is impossible for them to understand with their conditioning and youth.

At this same checkpoint, in this same period of time, another situation was unfolding. It was hidden away and not for public view. I became suspicious and approached a soldier and border policeman; it was then that I saw a boy of around 15 years, sat hunched behind a concrete bollard, hidden from view, his face wet with tears. He looked petrified. He has good reason to be.
Every single person in Palestine will know someone who has been arrested or detained. Ill treatment is commonplace, and torture is far from being eradicated. I have no idea how long the boy had been held for. He was in tears as the soldiers were speaking to him, but fortunately he was “allowed” to go.

Recently I was travelling through Nablus to a nearby village, the taxi driver pointed out a street where, just half an hour before, the army shot dead a man. Apparently a targetted assasination. Five other people were injured, one seriously. “Normal life” (whatever ‘that’ is living under
Occupation) continues just a few streets away.

My time here is coming to a close, I am in a quiet, reflective mood. From all the conversations I have had, with countless people, two things are screaming out for attention. One is the overriding sense that things are getting worse. And worse. And worse. I was not here during the bloody years of the Intifada, but I think it is absolutely vital to understand that although the bloodshed and violence is less, the situation is worse. The oppressive control, which works on every level, mental and physical, is steadily going to new levels. One of the women I am working with grew up under Apartheid in South Africa. Along with several other South African activists who are here in the West Bank, she says that Apartheid here is ‘even worse’ than it was in South Africa. This has not been said lightly. The other thing I am forever requested, “tell people what is happening”.

“Welcome to Israel” – a trip down the Jordan Valley

by John, December 14th

Today we had a trip down the Jordan valley which didn’t start too auspiciously for our Palestinian contact – he had just been delayed for two hours at a checkpoint. A soldier on the way through a checkpoint had drawn a star of david in the dust of the car. When they returned the soldier wanted to know who had wiped it off and held them for two hours demanding to know.

We started at a farm near the Bisan checkpoint in the north where Palestinians now find it very difficult to take their produce through to the markets they once used, and therefore now have to go to markets elsewhere. However with problems at checkpoints this is often problematic and adds huge costs to their journey making their products less competitive as Israeli trucks are allowed to use settler-only roads and bypass the checkpoints.

Despite the fact that this is the Jordan valley the Israelis do have farms out here, which occupy almost all the agricultural land, and many Palestinians are angry at the amount of land that they have taken off them. Israeli settler-colonists who want to move here are given 70 dunnums of land, a house and long term loan of 70,000 USD.

Companies providing electricity, telephone and water services are obliged to give them discounts of up to 75% . This obviously makes their lives much easier out here despite the fact that this is well into the West Bank. Many soldiers seem to ignore this little fact – when checking our passports one soldier said “Welcome to Israel – I hope you enjoy it here”.

However it is not the case that although these settlers pay 75% less than the Palestinians, in fact the Palestinians pay nothing for these utilities. Why? Because they are not available to them – we passed a large number of houses often next to huge water tanks and electricity wires that they are not allowed to connect up to. Many Palestinians only build plastic houses or corrugated metal houses as otherwise the Israelis knock them down.

In fact even these can be knocked down. Last year 22 houses were demolished in one day while around half the land in the Jordan valley is no longer available to Palestinians – it is close to Israeli colonies, environmental reserves and military training areas. Now, as an environmentalist I would normally applaud the opening of environmental reserves but actually these people live very sustainable lives and there is no reason why these areas should be, in particular, protected. This has led to the population to drop from 300,000 pre -1967 to 52,000 last year, including the Jericho urban area.

Planning permission for new houses for Palestinians is impossible to get, a new school built in Al Jiftlik village is threatened with demolition, attempts to generate power are stopped.

Bardala has been waiting years for permission for a water tank but the nearby Israeli colony, built without planning permission, has services described in the paragraph above. A clinic in a tent has also been deemed illegal in the past and knocked down – despite electricity lines going right by it and some more ‘permament’ buildings they are not electrified.

But it isn’t in just these respects that the Israelis control the local area, they even try and control the sun, one Palestinian joked. A community project with NGO support enabled a few households to purchase solar panels to generate electricity. One man was arrested and put in prison for three days for ‘stealing’ this off the Israelis, despite the fact he had documentation to demonstrate how he had come to acquire it. He was fined 300 NIS and put in prison for three days without even being able to call relatives to help out while he was away. Israeli colonists then came and looked around the house while he was still in prison.

When visiting another farmer we saw the electrified fence, where the English reads, danger electric fence, but the Arabic says warning: potential death. The farmer’s daughter touched it and received a shock.

The land that is fenced off was once his but was taken in around 1970. The Israelis steal this by saying that land not used in three years can be taken and redistributed, the fact that many of these people were unable to return home or were prevented from accessing their land is not important. He finds it difficult to get water all year around as the Israeli settlers get the water from the Valley, in fact he has to drink bottled water.

Again the message I got was all these people want is their rights to be respected his family had lived in this area since 1920. The farmer accepted that the Jewish must live here (in Israel) but they did not have the right to take his land. He can’t see an end to this situation as both peaceful and non-peaceful means have both failed. The more time I spend here the less likely I think there is going to be peace anytime soon. Certainly if any peace deal does not remove the Israelis from most of this land and if the wall is at least not rerouted out of the West Bank then it certainly won’t be possible.

At checkpoints where we were stopped we often just handed our passports to them and they handed them back a few minutes later without checking them. Often however Palestinians are forced to wait much longer than we are.

Olive Harvest Reflections

by Jane Smith, December 10th

I have been back in Palestine for a week. Although the violence and tension is less than in the early years of the Intifada, the oppressive control of Palestinian life is worse than ever. People are losing hope.

Despite this, I feel so fortunate to be here during the olive harvest and have been welcomed with incredible generosity and open heartedness. I have climbed olive trees and experienced the beauty of harvesting; feeling ripe olives running through my fingers, and hearing them fall like huge drops of rain on the tarpaulin below. Resting in the shade of the olive groves I have shared much laughter and amazing picnics with Palestinian families, who despite hardship, danger and suffering retain their humanity and infectious sparkle.

The olive harvest is a crucial time of year and is part of the very fabric of Palestinian society. Many farmers have suffered huge land loss and with this, mounting poverty. Land has been confiscated to build the Apartheid Wall, to expand Israeli settlements (whose very existence is illegal under International Law) and to construct “settler only” roads. Many farmers have land which is virtually inaccessible, falling behind the Wall, and have to negotiate a punitive system of permits and locked agricultural gates. Internationals offer accompaniment to farmers who are in danger, from both the Israeli Army and armed Israeli settlers. We stand in solidarity in the struggle to preserve land and livelihood.

I have been working in the village of Aw Zawiya, in Salfit district, central West Bank . The Apartheid Wall is already complete on one side of the village, resulting in massive land loss. Over the coming months Az Zawiya will be imprisoned on a further two sides. Many Palestinian villages are being strangled by “Ariel finger” which cuts deep into the West Bank, forming a “land corridor” between Ariel settlement and Tel Aviv.

The village of Aw Zawiya will become isolated into an enclave, along with the villages of Rafat and Deir Ballut, inaccessible to currently neighbouring villages. The army can easily control the one road into the village – a tunnel running under a “settler only” road. Anyone who has any doubts about whether Apartheid is really happening need only take a look at the segregated road system.

The main problems the farmers from Aw Zawiya face are from Israeli settlers. Although the settlements in that area are not particularly radical, the gun is commonplace. Whilst accompanying one family we were forced to walk for 100 meters through a dark, claustrophobic drain which ran under the “settler only” road. Shortly after emerging from the drain we met the army, controlling a small break in the Wall. An elderly man, alone and trying to reach a hospital appointment, was turned away. He did not have the “right” ID. In fact he was trying to save time and money, taking a short cut along a route that would have been possible before the Wall was built. Internationals negotiated for 2 hours with the army to be able to join the Palestinian family we were accompanying, whose land was dangerously close to a settlement.

Another family we accompanied have land which now lies within an Israeli settlement. They had to pass through the agricultural gate at Mas’ha village in order to harvest their olives. Permits to reach this land are only given during limited periods during the year, and only to older people. The gate is opened and closed once a day, and does not allow for a full days work. Palestinians have no choice or control over when they go to their land.

We also harvested with a family from the village of Haris. Their land was overgrown and the trees had not been pruned, a result of the farmer being unable to safely access his fields. Revava settlement was built on their land, and their remaining trees (from the 500 which were cut down) are very close to the settlement. Revava is becoming increasingly radicalised, and there are growing numbers of attacks, intimidation and threats made towards Palestinian farmers. The first morning we were met by armed settlement “security”, who made veiled threats to shoot if we did not leave. They were joined by the Israeli army. Throughout the 2 days we had many more visits from both the army and “security”, but the harvesting continued. More than in other places we could feel our international presence making a difference. This, of course, is only possible because of deep seated racism.

In a village near Nablus, another group of Internationals accompanied a family to their land which now has an Israeli watchtower built on it. They had not stepped foot in these groves for 6 years, for fear of being shot. International accompaniment not only increases the feeling of safety for the farmers, but can make a concrete difference in negotiations with the army.

Recently I accompanied a family to their land in the village of Orif, near Nablus. The day before they had been stoned by settlers; one man needed medical treatment. In Occupied Palestine the parameters change. I feel relief that it was rocks and not bullets. There have been many times when Palestinians have been threatened by armed settlers, and occasions when this has resulted in serious injury or death.

The Israeli High Court of Justice ruled in June this year that Palestinians have a right to property, and a right to enter and work their land. The army and police are legally obligated to take action to protect Palestinian farmers and their property from attack. This ruling is a victory for the recognition of Palestinian rights. What remains to be seen is its effects on the ground. There have been several occasions this year when it has made a difference, when adequate army protection was given to farmers to protect them from settler attacks. There is still a long, long way to go before farmers have free and safe access to their land. In the meantime internationals continue to offer accompaniment, armed with our international privilege, our cameras, our phones and a copy of the High Court decision.

Buying Palestinian olive oil is a concrete act of solidarity www.zaytoun.org

To join the olive harvest next autumn go to www.iwps-pal.org, www.palsolidarity.org www.zaytoun.org, www.rhr.israel.net

From the inside looking out: The Passion of Mordechai Vanunu

by Jerry Levin, December 3rd

A friend responding to my latest report on the trials of Mordechai Vanunu (See From The Inside Looking Out report-73, December 2, 2006: Mordechai Vanunu and the Perils of Speaking English) described his travails as a “pathetic little Kafka tale.” Down home in Alabama we have another way of describing those ordeals, You can’t win for losing.”

Take for instance his civil suit against the Israeli newspaper, Yediot Aharanot. It was launched while he was still in prison for revealing Israel’s secret atomic and hydrogen bomb making program through an article in the London Times. “The newspaper published stories about me saying I was sending information out how to build bombs to the Hamas,”said a still incredulous Mordechai. “When I came out of prison the trial started.”

“We bring to testify the head of the Shabak [Ed: aka Shin Bet, the Secret Service, equivalent to the FBI in the United States]. He said that he received the information from his people and that he didn’t check it. And we proved that I don’t know any information about how to make bombs. But a year ago they win in the court.”

“How? Why?”

“The judge decided that the newspaper has the right to publish the story because it received it from the Shabak. Shabak is like the voice of god.”

“So you lost.”

“Big.”

“What do you mean, “big?”

“Well, if newspapers publish lies about me, you would think I have the right to receive compensation from the newspapers and they would be denied to publish more lies. But the judge decided, no, I should pay Yediot Aharanot $10,000.00. How can a newspaper be damaged by publishing such stories about me? So we are appealing this decision. The hearing could be soon.”

Turning to the criminal charges against him for speaking to foreign journalists, I asked if his defense intends to call any more witnesses beyond the army general who signed the orders restricting his freedom of movement and speech.

“Yes, Peter Hounam, the reporter who in 1986 wrote the story I give the London Times about Israel’s nuclear bomb program. They have charged me that when I was released from prison in 2005, he was involved in a big interview which I gave to the BBC. But the allegation is not true because the interview was done by an Israeli journalist. But they deported him anyway. So we are negotiating about this,”

“About what?”

“Well, he has accepted to come, but the government wants to complicate the case by insisting to decide that they can refuse to let him come back. So they are saying he must have the same restrictions on him that they put on me. But he says that if they confine him to a hotel he will not come.”

“So what is being negotiated?”

“We accept not to bring him, if the government cancels this charge about the BBC interview. If they don’t take it out, we will bring him.”

“Do you see an element of persecution in all this governmental pressure?”

Unhesitatingly, Mordechai answered. “There is. It is my Christianity that they cannot accept. That is the source of my problems with my case.”

“All?”

“Yes, because even if they understand they need to make justice with me and let me go and let me speak, they have a problem with their people. What to do about a Christian man who was born a Jewish man who became a Christian and who received respect from all over the world. They don’t want this man to be receiving a good image especially with the young Israeli generation. So that is the first point.

“The second point is, because Israel is a Jewish State, the government believes they have the right to have the bomb. But I am coming and saying they don’t need to have the bomb. They need to make peace. And that is another source of the problem for them. But even with that I don’t understand why they are persecuting me. What are they afraid from?”

“But they say they know what they are afraid from. They say you have more secrets.”

“But they know that this is blah, blah, blah, because my secrets are twenty years old. All this nuclear weapons has continued to develop and all what I had was published twenty years ago. There is nothing new from me. And now North Korea has built the bomb. Iran is going to build the bomb. So what information can I contribute when it is twenty years old? Israel should let me go. They have had their revenge. Even killers murders in Israel are released after fifteen years, seventeen years. They let them go. Run away do what ever they want.”

“Are you hopeful?”

“I have my scenario that includes the hope that Israelis are also human beings and that one day they will wake up because they must wake up and become normal society. Because there still is danger that what they saw in the past one hundred fifty years, all those extreme nationalists, dictators, right wings that brought tyranny to Italy, Spain, Germany, South Africa, Russia all of them collapsed because they were not normal society. Their people woke up because they wanted normal society. But here we don’t have normal society. Here is Jewish religion society and even liberals here are speaking like they are dictators.

“Israel is not like the United States. People came from Europe to build new society in the name of freedom, liberty for all the human beings. But they didn’t respect the Indians in the beginning and the blacks. But then one day they woke up and start giving them rights. That is what normal society does. But here it is not normal society. It is about religion. So my scenario is when the Israel people who want normal society wake up it will be a total disaster for the Jewish
state.”

“Supposing five years from now when I’m eighty and you are fifty-five, we are still here talking about your situation; we are talking about how every year the government renews the restrictions and the courts agree; and we are talking about your scenario that has stayed just a
dream?”

“I hope when you are eighty I will meet you in Washington DC. But for that to be we need to do some extraordinary acts to get out from here.

“What kind of extraordinary acts?”

“I can tell you this way. Israel kidnapped me from Rome in 1986 and put me in prison. So I’m calling to the CIA and to all the world to kidnap me from Israel.”

“Kidnap you?”

“Yes, if some one, or any organization will help me to try to get out from here. I will do it. And the Israelis know it very well. I am ready to leave the country in any way.”

“Even being spirited out?”

“Yes, because I am not allowed to go to foreign embassies where I can ask for asylum. That’s why they watch me, because they don’t want me to get out from here.”

“You want the CIA, special forces, whatever to do a reverse Entebbe?”

“Yes,” he said with a big grin, “the Marines. But I don’t think your military your defense establishment like me. Otherwise they would have helped me long ago. But the real government of the United States is the Pentagon. That is the power behind Israel. They give Israel two billion dollars and military power in support. And so those military maybe don’t like me because I am speaking against nuclear weapons and I am speaking for peace. So they are worried.”

“What you want to do is dangerous.”

“Yes. But you have done it. So I will be happy for anyone to take me out from this prison.”

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