Category: Journals

Volunteers with the International Solidarity Movement are encouraged to write personal reflections about the work they engage in with Palestinian communities, the events they experience, and the people they meet. These journals offer the human context often missing in traditional reports or journalism. These articles represent the author’s thoughts and feelings and not necessarily those of the International Solidarity Movement.

Settler press conference and clash in Sheikh Jarrah

16 October 2010 | International Solidarity Movement

Thursday illegal settlers of the Umm Haroun Compound of Sheikh Jarrah, Jerusalem gave a press conference about their plans for the upcoming year. The Settlers’ Organization stated that they plan to build two new blocks of settlements and a holy tourist park of biblical archeology on the Palestinian owned land of East Jerusalem. The organization’s website has a one-year-plan on how to remove the Palestinian people from Umm Haroun.

Later in the evening there was a violent clash between settlers and Palestinians. Police arrived and arrested three Palestinians and one Israeli activist.

Sheikh Jarrah is home to about 3,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem, close to the 1967 border that separates East and West Jerusalem. The residents suffer from settler violence and several families have been unlawfully evicted from their homes, in the Israeli authorities’ effort to replace Palestinians with Israeli settlers and “Judaise” Jerusalem.

The Palestinian community organized a contra press conference to provide more information on the history of the area. Ownership of the land is disputed, according to the Israeli government, because Israeli laws recognize Jewish citizen’s assets from before 1948, but don’t allow claims to Palestinian assets prior to 1948.

In the late 1990s, Jewish settler groups began seizing buildings and settling compounds in the neighborhood. One of these compounds is a plot of 70 acres in which twenty-eight Palestinian refugee families whose homes were taken in 1948, came to live. These refugees were given houses by the Jordanian government and the UN during the 1950s in exchange for renouncing their refugee status and the rights and welfare that go with that status.

These Israeli laws, founded in racism, were used to forcefully evict three Palestinian families from their homes in 2009. In August and November a large number of Israeli police and border police blocked sections in East Jerusalem in order to evict the Palestinian families by force. These families still are unable to return home.

After the press conference, young Palestinian boys from the group “Batizado Caipoera” made a performance in Caipoera (martial arts) to symbolize their struggle for ownership of their land.

For more information about the problems in Sheikh Jarrah you can read on: http://www.en.justjlm.org/.

A tour of the maze of Israeli (in)justice

11 October 2010 | Stella, International Solidarity Movement

The international activists that were arrested at the demo on Saturday witnessed a 25 years old Palestinian, with mental problems, while he was extorted the confession that he was throwing stones. However he had been arrested at the very beginning of the demonstration when no one was throwing stones yet.

The other three Palestinians, all minors, were treated very violently: they had plastic restraints so tightly around their wrists that their hands were swollen. They were blindfolded and forced to kneel down and one of the younger ones was violently pushed with his head against the wall.

The international activists repeatedly asked for a doctor but the soldiers refused to call one and said the effect of the spray only would last 20 minutes. Since the effects only get worst with water, the four international activists asked to have some milk do clean themselves but the soldiers arrogantly answered that they had no cows there.

Then they were separated to be interrogated. One of the questions that the peace activists had to answer was “Why are you here?”.
One of them said that she was taking pictures of the occupation. The soldiers answered back that there is no occupation because all Palestine is part of Israel.

Three of the internationals came back late at night after ten hours in a prison. One of them, the Irish activist, was not released and had to face a trial on the 10th, in Jerusalem. The trial was quite fast as the judge just decided that the Irish activist would stay in jail till the 12th when he would have to go back to court. It seems that he had admitted that he had broken the condition they had given to him when they arrested him a couple of weeks ago at another demonstration in Beit Ummar. In fact he was supposed to stay at least 200 meters away from the settlements.

On the 12th he was moved to a detention center near Tel Aviv waiting to be deported the day after.

Nonviolence in Beit Ummar met with brutal force; eight arrested

9 October 2010 | ISM Media

Beit Ummar, West Bank

Israeli repression of peaceful dissent continued this week, as a nonviolent demonstration in Beit Ummar was crushed in an explosion of violence and arrests.

Beit Ummar, a city near Hebron, hosts weekly nonviolent demonstrations against the Israeli occupation. The nearby settlement, Karmei Tzur, has confiscated much of the city’s land.

Palestinians and international activists gathered Saturday with the intention of walking towards the illegal settlement. The marchers were met by Israeli soldiers, who blocked off the demonstration route. Shortly after the marchers were obstructed, soldiers began throwing sound bombs. A 25-year-old Palestinian was arrested as the crowd began to disperse.

Soldiers then pointed to and began to arrest an Irish activist. A second international attempted to prevent his arrest, and both were pushed violently to the ground. An additional two international activists came to their side, and all four were pepper-sprayed. The debilitating effects of direct contact with pepper spray facilitated their arrests.

Shortly thereafter, three Palestinian youth (15, 16 and 17) were arrested by undercover Israeli police who had posed as Palestinian youth. Soldiers then dispersed the remaining crowd by firing barrages of tear gas. Journalists documenting this attack were threatened by the soldiers.

The arrested Palestinian youth were taken to the nearby police station, blindfolded, and forced to kneel. One teen’s head was pushed violently into a wall.

The four arrested internationals were also taken to the police station. One suffered extreme pain from the pepper spray and repeatedly requested for medical care, which was denied.

The internationals were then separated and interrogated. They are charged with violating a “Closed Military Zone” order, although soldiers didn’t produce any such order before the activists were arrested.

After ten hours, three of the international activists were released. The activists continue to suffer from the effects of direct contact with pepper spray, and one is covered in bruises.

The fourth international activist remains in prison and will face trial on October 10th.

A perfect day ruined

by Stella

It was a beautiful morning but as usual too hot. We went with Mahmud’s family to harvest their olives. 7 of us rode with Mahmoud on his tractor as it jumped up and down the street filled with un-repaired potholes.

Once we arrived at the family’s olive trees, Mahmud’s wife began singing Palestinian folk songs. In any other world this would have been a perfect day with good food and happy people enjoying each others company while they worked. But this is not that world. This is occupied Palestine.

A military jeep pulled up close to Mahmud’s land and two soldiers approached us. They said we could not stay there without permission from the District Coordination Office (DCO). We explained that it is nonsense for Mahmud’s family to be forced to ask “permission” to farm land that he legally owns.

Mahmoud’s family is required to ask for permission to farm their own land because of the illegal Israeli settlement that sits a few hundred meters away. A road for Israeli settlers cuts through Mahmoud’s land. Two settlements sit on the tops of hills nearby and the residents speed past the olive grove. We suspect one of the settlers who drove past while harvested olives called the military.

Fearing he might be arrested if he protested this treatment too much, Mahmoud and his wife decided to return home. They had collected about one bag of olives. Some other bags filled with olives collected the day before had to be left once again.

This is the mundane reality of the settlements in the West Bank. They are obstacles to the normal lives of everyday Palestinian families just working to make a decent living and enjoy their lives. While politicians argue over non-existent settlement “freezes”, Mahmoud’s family hopes they can receive “permission” to collect olives off trees they own.

Victory in Sheikh Jarrah!

by Ron

05 October 2010

Sheikh Jarrah, Jerusalem

Activists were delighted yesterday when they won a sweet victory against the ever-encroaching colonization of east Jerusalem. The Zionists at Shimon Hatzadik had planned a huge rally for the night of the sixth of October and to support that had illegally (as always) erected three large metal flag-posts on land that was not theirs. Not only was this blatant trespass and criminal damage to property but these seven meter tall monstosities towered over the area in nasty attempt to dominate the locals, who already suffer from daily harassment and persecution. A large but calm crowd of Palestinian locals, Israeli activists and ISM’ers gathered with a view to removing this provocative eyesore without delay.
Inexplicably the Israeli activist Sarah from Solidarity Sheikh Jarrah who reported the offence committed by the Zionist colonizers was arrested, despite clear video evidence showing she had not done anything wrong of any description. The message is clear-report criminal activity by Zionists and you will be arrested.
At any rate within an hour the Palestinian landlord of the property arrived and despite attempts by the Zionists to bribe him, without hesitation, he ordered the offending posts to be taken down. To great cheers they were immediately torn down and unceremoniously chucked back where they had come from. Like a smaller version of the fall of the Berlin wall everyone was excited and happy afterwards. The cowardly Zionists could only look on, impotent to intervene without the might of the Israeli military machine to protect them.
A bold, brave and successful action by all concerned and one to stiffen our resolve to fight the ever-ongoing ethnic-cleansing happening day after day in Jerusalem.