Category: In the Media

U.S. blasts Israeli restrictions on American travelers in West Bank

Barak Ravid, Amira Hass & Natasha Mozgovaya ¦ Ha’aretz

20 August 2009

The United States has harshly criticized new Israeli restrictions placed on foreign nationals entering the West Bank via the Allenby Bridge, calling the new regulations ‘unacceptable’. A report on the restrictions appeared in Haaretz last week.

Earlier this week, a senior official at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv met with the head of the Foreign Ministry’s consular division, Yigal Tzarfati, for clarifications on the new procedure, by which passports are stamped at the bridge with a directive limiting the bearer to areas of the Palestinian Authority only.

The U.S. message was that such a procedure is harmful to U.S. citizens who come to the Palestinian Authority.

At the meeting in Jerusalem, U.S. diplomats asked Tzarfati what the reason was for the restrictions, and a statement issued yesterday by the State Department said that “the United States expects that all American citizens be treated equally, regardless of their national origin or other citizenship.”

The statement added, “we have let the government of Israel know that these restrictions unfairly impact Palestinian and Arab-American travelers, and are not acceptable.”

In addition to its critical public statement, on August 14 the U.S. State
Department renewed its travel advisory to Israel and the Palestinian
Authority, drawing the attention of American travelers to Israel and the West Bank to the new procedure at the Allenby Bridge.

For some three months, border control officials at the Allenby Bridge have been stamping visitors’ passports with a visa and the additional words “Palestinian Authority only.” Those who have received the stamp are mainly citizens of countries that have diplomatic relations with Israel, from Europe and the United States, and are mainly those who have family in the West Bank, work or study there.

At the same time, Interior Ministry officials at the borders advise these
people not to come to Israel through Ben-Gurion International Airport or the Sheikh Hussein Bridge crossing with Jordan near Beit She’an, rather only through the Allenby Bridge, frequently after they had been refused entry through the other entry points.

Meanwhile, other foreign nationals arriving at Ben-Gurion airport have
reportedly been asked to sign a pledge that they will not enter Palestinian Authority territory without the approval of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories.

Senior Foreign Ministry officials said that the Interior Ministry is behind the new procedures, and the Foreign Ministry does not support it and does not understand its logic. “It is unclear what good it is and how it can be enforced,” a Foreign Ministry official said. “All it does is damage Israel’s image in its foreign relations,” the official added.

Haaretz has learned that a number of European embassies are planning to
approach the Foreign Ministry to protest and seek clarifications.

The Oslo Accords state that citizens of countries with diplomatic ties with Israel can enter the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with their Israeli visa and a valid passport.

According to Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabine Haddad, the procedure is based on a decision by the interior minister and the defense minister from 2006 that “any foreign national who wants to enter the Palestinian Authority must have a permit issued by the army, and entry is permitted only into PA territory.”

Haddad refused Haaretz’s request for a copy of the text of this decision.

Instructions the coordinator of government activities sent to diplomats at the time, which were based on the decision, do not prevent entry to Israel, but determine that foreign nationals must request the approval of “the military commander” to enter the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Authority is not mentioned as one of the categories in these instructions. In the past three years, no procedure has been enacted to receive the “military commander’s approval.”

BlackRock divests from the West Bank

Erik Hagen | Norwatch

20 August 2009

The British bank BlackRock has divested from Lev Leviev settlement projects on West Bank. The divestment follows pressure by three Norwegian banks marketing BlackRock funds. BlackRock was second biggest shareholder in the controversial Israeli firm.

When the British Embassy in Tel Aviv was looking for new premises and was offered the opportunity of occupying a building owned by the investment company Africa-Israel Investments, the ambassador refrained. The reason was that the company was also responsible for settlements on the occupied West Bank. Africa-Israel Investments’ main owner is Israeli diamond magnate Lev Leviev.

Now the UK bank BlackRock has followed in the footsteps of the ambassador.

The bank was for a while the second largest shareholder in the Israeli investment company. Africa-Israel Investments is, among other things, in on the construction of the settlement Ma’aleh Adumim (above). The construction of settlements on occupied Palestinian territory is in conflict with international law.

It was Norwatch who this past spring revealed BlackRock’s investments in the controversial company and how private investors in Norway could invest in the project by means of the fund BlackRock Emerging Europe.

This was possible through Norwegian insurance company Storebrand, Norwegian-Swedish bank Skandiabanken, and the Norwegian-Danish Danica Pensjon.

But after all 3 banks have taken action, the British bank has now announced its divestment from the Israeli company. This must have happened sometime between June and August, possibly as late as this week.

“We have received confirmation from BlackRock that Africa-Israel Investments no longer is part of their portfolio,” Johnny Anderson, Information Manager of Skandiabanken, confirmed to Norwatch. The confirmation of the divestment was sent to Skandiabanken the day before yesterday, on 18 August.

“The way I interpret the e-mail I have received, Africa-Israel is no longer to be found in any of BlackRock’s funds,” Anderson said.

The e-mail from BlackRock to Skandiabanken was sent after the Swedish-Norwegian bank had approached BlackRock with regard to the controversial Israel involvement. That is the first time that Skandiabanken had contacted BlackRock about the case. Also the bank Danica Pensjon end of last week contacted BlackRock about the matter, confirmed Geir Wik, Sales and Marketing Director of Danica Pensjon to Norwatch yesterday.

Met BlackRock

It was, however, Storebrand who was the first bank to really take action.

In April and May – a few weeks after Norwatch’s first coverage on the matter – they met with BlackRock with regard to the investment.

“We brought up our concerns with regard to Africa-Israel Investments. So far their response has been satisfactory,” Christine Tørklep Meisingset, Head Storebrand SRI investments at Storebrand Investments, wrote to Norwatch last week.

The fact that Storebrand was satisfied with the meetings they had with BlackRock already before the summer may indicate that the British bank promised either sale or active ownership.

“Each quarter we carry out checks on the external funds that Storebrand offers its customers, including this BlackRock fund. In case a fund is in breach with our ethical guidelines, we do what we can to make the manager change course. We ask them to a) contact the company in question to perform active ownership, or b) divest from the company in question. If our demands are not complied with, we may stop offering the fund in question,” Tørklep Meisingset wrote.

As late as at the end of last week, Tørklep Meisingset explained that they do not know whether BlackRock had brought up the problems with Africa-Israel Investments.

Silent Bank

BlackRock is not very communicative about its investments.

Norwatch has several times tried to obtain an answer from BlackRock about the extent of its investment in Africa-Israel Investments and asked whether the bank has been in communication with the controversial settlement constructor. The last e-mail we received was from BlackRock press contact Karen Hazelwood on Thursday of last week.

“We do not comment on individual stocks or securities. I am therefore unable to help you further with your enquiry,” Hazlewood stated.

This ambiguous answer leaves it unclear whether BlackRock at that point had still invested in Africa-Israel.

It is not known whether BlackRock dropped the investment of financial or ethical reasons.

According to information that the web site Electronic Intifada has obtained, BlackRock was the second largest shareholder in Africa-Israel Investments in the middle of June.

This position they got after buying Barclays Global Fund Advisors –which at the time was the second biggest shareholder in Africa-Israel Investments. Before this, BlackRock was already the seventh biggest shareholder alone.

The Pension Fund Next?
The Norwegian Government Pension Fund has also invested in Africa-Israel Investment, and its related firm Africa-Israel Properties. The investment is for a total of 6.6 million Norwegian kroners (760,000 euros). According to the sums from Electronic Intifada, the Norwegian government is thus the fifth largest shareholder in the company.

Many Israeli and Palestinian organisations and villages have in the course of the summer written to Norway’s Minister of Finance, Kristin Halvorsen, and requested that the Norwegian government sell its investment in the two related firms.

The government’s decision has not yet been made.

Six Arab families from East Jerusalem appeal eviction

Akiva Eldar | Ha’aretz

19 August 2009

The eviction of six Arab families from their apartments in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood this month stemmed from serious mistakes by the authorities, including the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court, the former residents wrote in an appeal to the Jerusalem District Court.

The families contend that the staff of the Bailiff’s Office, who had orders to evict Maher Hanun and Abdelfatah Gawi, improperly evicted six other families as well.

The eviction proceedings were filed on behalf of a Sephardi Jewish community organization that the court found had rights to the property dating from the Mandate period. Following the evictions, Jews moved into part of the property.

The Magistrate’s Court ruling stated that Majad and Halil Hanun were evicted because they were living there by virtue of being the sons of Maher Hanun. In their appeal, however, they state that they are Maher Hanun’s brothers, and that they were living there in their own right and not through their brother.

Family members of Abdelfatah Gawi argue that they also have independent rights to the property, were never parties to the eviction proceedings, and never received orders to vacate the premises.

The lawyer for the evicted tenants said the Magistrate’s Court judge did not thoroughly consider the evidence, and that the court ruling even contained basic typographical errors, including mistakes in the parties’ names.

Tuesday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs released a report stating that 53 people, including 20 children, were evicted from the Sheikh Jarrah site, and that another 475 may be evicted from the neighborhood, allegedly to build housing for Jews.

Left, right-wing camps demonstrate on J’lem building issue

Ronen Medzini | YNet News

17 August 2009

Dozens of right- and left-wing activists gathered outside the Shepherd Hotel, site of a disputed planned Jewish housing project in east Jerusalem, to demonstrate in favor of their two sides of the issue. The planned building on the site evoked angry responses last month from the American administration.

The left-wing protestors gathered under the auspices of the Peace Now movement. The right-wing protestors were joined by rightist Knesset members. The two camps hurled insults at one another. Each side called the other “provocateurs.”

The right-wing activists held signs calling Obama “racist” and accusing Peace Now of encouraging terrorism. The left-wing activists slammed the rightist camp as “fascists.”

The protestors gathered as US Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee arrived at the hotel for dinner with Knesset members, including Tzipi Hotovely (Likud), Uri Ariel (National Union), Michael Ben Ari (National Union), and David Rotem (Yisrael Beiteinu).

MK Arie, whol took part in the right-wing protest outside the hotel, said, “No one will stop this tune. We build and will continue to build in Jerusalem. Whoever wants can protest, but Jerusalem is united. All in all, some 300,000 Jews live today in the east of the city. The Americans don’t want to recognize Gilo, the Western Wall, or the Temple Mount either. They can express their opinion, but ultimately this is our capital city.”

MK Michael Ben Ari added, “Jerusalem is Jewish for all eternity. Our message is unequivocal – Zionism continues to be on the up rise. We praise Huckabee for joining support of our return to Jerusalem. Peace Now members can curse as much as they want, but it won’t work. Zionism will grow and will influence all of the Land of Israel.”

From the leftist camp, Peace Now Secretary General Yariv Oppenheimer said, “We came to say loud and clear that settlement in east Jerusalem is not Obama’s or Europe’s problem, but is the Israeli public’s problem. We must be outraged at the attempt to make Jerusalem indivisible and unsolvable. We came to protest against this and the settlers’ provocations. The hotel is only one step along the way towards their larger plan of commandeering other neighborhoods in east Jerusalem. Our demonstration is against the overall policy.”

Members from the center of the political map also showed up to protest. MK Otniel Schneller (Kadima) said, “Jerusalem is not left and is not right. It belongs to generations past and the generations to come. What I and Kadima represent is a bid to extend our hand to both sides. A controversy can’t be formed over building in Jerusalem in these places. This is the opinion of Kadima. Such is also written in our platform – Jerusalem is unified. The Israeli public and the Americans need to know that there will be no controversy surrounding Jerusalem.”

Huckabee said earlier Monday that the Obama administration was too harsh with Israel on the settlement issue. During a tour of east Jerusalem, he said, “It concerns me when there are some in the United States who would want to tell Israel that it cannot allow people to live in their own country, wherever they want.”

August 2009: night arrests in Bil’in

B’Tselem

18 August 2009

Since June, armed forces have been entering the village of Bil’in at night and arresting residents. The soldiers arrive at the village, which lies west of Ramallah, with Israel Security Agency agents holding lists of persons suspected of involvement in the weekly demonstrations held in the village against the construction of the Separation Barrier.

According to testimonies given to B’Tselem, in some of the cases, the soldiers and ISA agents cuffed and blindfolded the detainees and took them out of the village, where they were questioned. Only later were they taken to detention facilities. Some of the detainees stated that soldiers had beaten them.

Muhammad Wajih Bernat, 21, told B’Tselem:

On 17 July, around 1:00 A.M., masked soldiers came to our house and took me out of it. A soldier asked for my ID card and told me to stand aside. Two minutes later, a soldier cuffed my hands, blindfolded me, and made me stand behind the house. The soldiers began to search the house.

About three minutes later, some villagers and foreign activists came there and tried to prevent the soldiers from detaining me, but they failed. Two soldiers dragged me by my hands to a place between the groves. I bumped into bushes, thorns, and rocks on the way. Soldiers walked behind me hitting me with their hands and their rifle butts in the legs, stomach, and head. The whole way, I felt the cuffs digging into my wrists. They dragged me about 500 meters, until we got to the separation fence.

From there, they took me by army jeep to a place I don’t know. I was in pain from the beating. They didn’t give me food or water and left me sitting with my hands cuffed and my eyes blindfolded until noon. Then they took me to the Ofer army base. The next day, the second day of my detention, I was interrogated. One of the interrogators asked me about my activity in the Popular Committee against the Wall. He said he had confessions from other persons about stone throwing and hurling back tear-gas canisters that the army throws but don’t explode. I didn’t admit to the things they charged me with. On my fifth day of detention, they took me to a court, and the judge ordered my release. I still had marks from the beating and the handcuffs and scratches on my legs.

Rasha Ayub Yassin, who is 21 years old and has a daughter, gave B’Tselem a testimony about the detention of her brother-in-law:

On Monday, 3 August, at 4:00 A.M., I woke up from the sound of soldiers shouting. I saw about fifty masked soldiers come into our house and go up the outside steps to the roof. This was the third time they came looking for my husband’s brother, ‘Abdallah Ahmad ‘Issa Yassin, who is eighteen years old.

I climbed up to the roof and saw the soldiers cuffing ‘Abdallah’s hands in front of him. He said to me, “Look what happened to my eye.” I saw that his right eye was bleeding badly. He asked me to help him put on his shoes, because his hands were tied. I did as he asked. They didn’t let him get dressed and took him away wearing only shorts and an undershirt.

B’Tselem knows of 26 residents of the village who have been detained, some of them on suspicion of throwing stones and organizing the demonstrations. Among the detainees, seven (including two U.S. citizens and one Israeli) were released on bond. Indictments have been filed against some of the detainees, most of them for stone throwing and damaging the Barrier.

Two of the detainees, Adib Abu Rahma and Muhammad Khatib, are heads of the Bil’in Popular Committee. They were arrested after two 16-year-old minors told interrogators that members of the Bil’in Popular Committee organize the weekly demonstrations held in the village. Indictments were filed against Abu Rahma and Khatib for incitement and soliciting young people in the village to throw stones, among other charges. The indictments did not contain evidence against Abu Rahma and Khatib and alleged they had committed the offenses based solely on their membership in the Committee.

At a court hearing, the judge ordered that Abu Rahma be released. However, the state appealed and the judge of the appeals court accepted its arguments, ordering that Abu Rahma remain in detention until the end of the proceedings. Only afterwards was the indictment against him amended and the count on solicitation, the more serious charge, deleted.

Muhammad Khatib was charged, among others, with throwing stones. This charge was refuted when his attorneys proved that on the day the photo on which the prosecution bases its case was taken, Khatib was abroad.

The indictment further alleges that members of the Bil’in Popular Committee give demonstrators “T-shirts and pieces of iron for deflecting the tear-gas canisters that the IDF fires to disperse the demonstrations.” These “pieces of iron” are tin shields that the demonstrators have begun to carry to protect themselves from the tear-gas canisters that soldiers fire against them in violation of the Open-Fire Regulations. They have done this since a resident of the village, Bassem (Phil) Abu Rahma, was killed by a canister that a soldier fired at him during a demonstration in April. As the videos of the incident and B’Tselem’s investigation show, Abu Rahma was not throwing stones or endangering soldiers in any way.

The military court judge released Khatib, noting that there was no precedent for holding a person charged with incitement in detention until the end of the court proceedings. The judge further stated in his decision that Khatib’s attorney had submitted evidence indicating that members of the Popular Committee “are acting to reduce the violence arising from the processions.” However, he imposed unprecedented restrictions on Khatib’s release, including restraining him from being ten kilometers from Bil’in on Fridays, during the time that the demonstrations are taking place in the village.

More than two years ago, the Israeli High Court of Justice ruled that the route of the Separation Barrier built on Bil’in land was illegal, finding that it was set to enable expansion of the Modi’in Ilit settlement. The High Court rejected the state’s contention that the route was set for security purposes and ordered it to propose an alternative route. In December 2008, the High Court rejected the amended proposed route, as it did not meet the criteria specified in the Court’s decision. The judges ordered the state to pay court expenses to the petitioners. The third route also did not meet some of the criteria, and the village objected to the requisition orders issued pursuant to the proposed route. The state has not yet filed a response to the objection, and the Barrier has not yet been moved.

The recent wave of detentions raises grave concern that the army intends to suppress any kind of protest against the Barrier’s route in Bil’in. It appears that to the army, any kind of protest against building the Barrier along the route that has been ruled illegal, even if nonviolent and non-threatening to security forces, is illegal and warrants arrest.