Category: In the Media

The blue velvet hills of my youth have been destroyed

Raja Shehadeh | The Guardian

5 July 2009

I can remember the appearance of the hills around Ramallah in 1979, before any Jewish settlement came to be established there. In the spring of that year I walked north from Ramallah, where I live, to the nearby village of A’yn Qenya and up the pine-forested hill. A gazelle leapt ahead of me. When I reached the top I could see hills spread below me like crumpled blue velvet, with the hamlets of Janiya and Deir Ammar huddled between its folds. On top of the highest hill in the distance stood the village of Ras Karkar with its centuries-old citadel that dominated the area during Ottoman times. I had been following the worrying developments of extensive settlement-building elsewhere in the West Bank and wondered how long it would be before these hills came under the merciless blades of the Israeli bulldozers. I didn’t have to wait long. A year later the top of the hill was lopped off and the settlement of Dolev, then a cluster of red-tiled Swiss-style chalets, was established.

Now, more than 25 years later, Dolev has expanded and taken over the hills to its north for vineyards. Numerous highways for the exclusive use of its Jewish settlers connect it to the many other settlements in the area and to Israel’s coastline. Those settlers travelling to and from Israeli cities where they work can only see road signs indicating other Jewish settlements. They encounter no Palestinian traffic on the roads nor do they see any Palestinian villages. No wonder then that I was once stopped by an armed settler and interrogated as to why I was taking a walk in his hills. When I asked him what right he had to be there, he answered: “I live here.” He then pointedly added: “Unlike you, I really live here.”

Not a single year has passed since Israel acquired the territories in 1967 in which Jewish settlements were not built. Had it pursued peace as assiduously, surely it would have achieved it by now. Instead, whenever the US pressed for a peace initiative, the “proper Zionist response” was the creation of new a settlement. The pattern of settling the Ramallah hills illustrates well the workings of this doomed policy. The Jewish settlement of Talmon was established in 1989 on the lands of the Palestinian village of Janiya, when the government of Yitzhak Shamir was being pressured to agree to start negotiations with the Palestinians. Talmon B was established, about two miles away, when the US secretary of state, James Baker, arrived in Israel two years later to broker the first ever peace conference between Israel and Arab countries.

At that time, Shamir dismissed the new settlement as “just a new neighbourhood”. The signing of the Oslo accords under a Rabin government in 1993 led to the building of a road connecting Dolev to Beit Eil, running through private Palestinian land. This winding road passed through the beautiful wadi linking Ramallah to A’yn Qenya, causing extensive destruction to the ancient rock formations and olive orchards along the way. One rockface that I particularly miss used to be studded with cyclamens during the late winter months, coming down all the way to the spring – which was also destroyed.

The Israeli policy of speeding up settlement construction in the face of US diplomatic pressure shows no sign of changing. Following the latest US administration declaration that Israel must impose a complete freeze on settlements, the country’s defence minister, Ehud Barak, declared last week the decision to establish 300 housing units in Givat Habrecha (Hebrew for hill of the blessing), one of the 12 outposts near the settlement of Talmon in the Ramallah hills. A few days later, on 29 June, he announced a further expansion of the illegal settlement of Adam, where 50 families are to move to a new neighbourhood located on a relatively large parcel of land outside the built–up area of the settlement. This also violates the Israeli commitment in the road map agreement not to expand the area of existing settlements.

This demand for a freeze on new settlements – which is not accepted by Israel even temporarily, as one Likud minister underlined today– falls short of what should happen if a viable peace is to be achieved: a complete evacuation of all the settlements built illegally in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967. Some would say this cannot possibly happen, given that there are around half a million Israeli settlers living in the West Bank. But who would have thought in 1962 that it would be possible to evict a million French Algerians who had been living in the country for almost a century and who represented roughly 9% of the population ?

Until this happens, we will have a continuation of the present reality where there is a single apartheid Israeli state encompassing pre-1967 borders and the Palestinian occupied territories. The sad truth is that when Israeli illegal settlements come to an end, as they must, Palestinians will not be able to undo the damage caused to the landscape by this massive, politically motivated development.

Nobel peace laureate jailed in Israel for Gaza activism

Jonathan Lis | Ha’aretz

6 July 2009

A Nobel Peace Prize winner and a former U.S. congresswoman are among eight people to be released today and expelled after having sailed on a protest ship heading to Gaza from Cyprus, the Israeli Interior Ministry says.

Mairead Corrigan Maguire, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 for her peace campaign in Northern Ireland, has been in prison in Israel since Tuesday after being removed from the ship.

Israel has imposed a naval blockade on the Gaza Strip, so the ship, which flew a Greek flag, was intercepted by the navy. Among the passengers detained was former U.S. congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.

When the crew of the Greek ship failed to respond to the navy’s order to stop, the vessel was boarded by Israeli forces, but no weapons were fired. The ship was taken to the port of Ashdod. “Free Gaza,” the organization that organized the attempt to sail to Gaza, has said Israel’s navy used electronic devices to scramble the ship’s navigation equipment.

This was not the first foray into Middle East politics for Maguire, who shared her Nobel Prize with Betty Williams for their efforts at conciliation between Catholics and Protestants. In the past, she has also advocated awarding the Nobel Prize to Mordechai Vanunu for his anti-nuclear activities. Vanunu was jailed by Israel for leaking details of Israel’s nuclear program to the press.

McKinney released a statement contending that the ship was a civilian vessel that was unarmed and carrying humanitarian assistance in international waters.

‘Israeli doctors to train Bil’in protesters in first aid at site of disputed security fence’

Ilana Strauss | The Jerusalem Post

5 July 2009

Physicians for Human Rights will be offering a first aid course on July 11 near the security barrier at the West Bank village of Bil’in for protesters to help them deal with injuries they incur in almost weekly confrontations with what the group’s doctors call an aggressive Israeli occupation.

“In a way, they are going to risk themselves,” said Ron Yaron, director of the international group’s occupied territories department, who explained the need for medical assistance in the West Bank.

“There are medical fields that are not available in the West Bank both due to Israeli restrictions and the entry of goods and medical equipment,” he told The Jerusalem Post.

The Israeli government limits the number of medical personnel who can travel between Israel and the West Bank, he said. Hospitals have to limit the number of workers they hire based on government quotas and medical supplies are also limited. According to Yaron, this “causes many delays” and “patients cannot reach hospitals on time.”

The Palestinian Authority has “not able to provide adequate health care to its residents,” he added. “The health care system still relies on external medical services.”

Yaron explained that the doctors involved in the training hope to provide basic skills in first aid for the protesters so they can “deal with the injuries that they face.”

Well-known Israeli doctors, including Rafi Walden, vascular surgery expert and board member of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, have been involved in the event. Many other highly skilled doctors will be teaching the course.

In addition to providing medical training, Physicians for Human Rights will also be working on a mobile clinic to treat patients who cannot reach hospitals in time. Other Israeli citizens will come to the area to provide medical care for the population.

The first aid course is as political a move as it is a medical one. One of its aims is to show solidarity with the protesters against the Israeli occupancy of the West Bank. As Yaron puts it, “People are wounded by the Israeli army and its use of weapons in an illegal way” on a weekly basis. The aim of the training is first an act of solidarity with the people who fight against the occupation and the building of the wall,” said Yaron.

Professor Zvi Bentwitch, a Physicians for Human Right board member who will be helping out at the event, agrees with Yaron, describing the protests as a “just cause.” Protesters come every week to protest at the Bil’in wall, which has also seen border policemen and other security personnel injured by rock-throwing Palestinians and their supporters.

The training is not intended for the general public, with only protesters – 20 Israelis and 20 Palestinians – allowed to take the course.

Yaron believes that the main problem surrounding medical care is rooted in recent history. “Israel didn’t develop the Palestinian system at all,” he explained. “Israel should bear responsibility [to help Palestinians].”

Bentwitch sees the first-aid course as a positive step in Israeli-Palestinian relations and considers it a “very positive bridge to peace between Palestinians and Israel.”

“I think that even protesters, if they get hurt, should get proper medical treatment,” said Bentwitch.

While he agrees with the Palestinian cause, he emphasizes that his principle focus is helping those in need. “We are doctors and don’t see any differences in gender, religion, or belief,” he explained. “It is one small contribution towards a major goal,” he said. “As a doctor, I am proud to help.”

Al Jazeera interview with Mairead Maguire

Free Gaza Movement

5 July 2009

The Israeli prison guards are denying the right for Mairead to access her medicine. Continue to email and call Mark Regev and Shlomo Dror and express your outrage over the treatment of the FreeGaza21 while they are imprisoned. The women have no access to their luggage or their clothing.

Mairead is fasting, not just for her friends incarcerated along with her, but for the 11,000 Palestinians also thrown into jail, many without benefit of trial.

Hear her eloquent interview with Al Jazeera.

Interview from a kidnapped passenger, Adie Mormech

Free Gaza Movement

4 July 2009

Adie Mormech, one of over 21 human rights workers and crew taken prisoner on Tuesday 30th June when their boat was forcibly boarded by the Israeli navy, has spoken by mobile phone from his prison cell at Givon jail, Ramle, near Tel Aviv.

Amongst the other prisoners from the Free Gaza Movement boat, Spirit of Humanity, are Nobel Peace prize winner, Mairead Maguire, and former US Congresswoman, Cythnia McKinney. A message from McKinney on 2nd July condemned Israel for its “illegal” action in “dismantl[ing] our navigation equipment” and confiscating both the ship and its cargo of medical aid, childrens’ toys and olive trees.

McKinney went on to say that “State Department and White House officials have not effected our release or taken a strong public stance to condemn the illegal actions of the Israeli Navy of enforcing a blockade of humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians of Gaza, a blockade that has been condemned by President Obama.”

The Free Gaza campaign succeeded in entering Gaza by sea on several occasions in 2008, carrying humanitarian aid, medical personnel, journalists and human rights workers. However, later attempts have been met with aggression by the Israeli navy, with one boat, the Dignity, having to seek refuge and repairs in Lebanon after being rammed three times by an Israeli warship.

In a brief interview with Andy Bowman of Manchester’s Mule newspaper (http//www.themule.info), Mr Mormech gave the following account:

How are you being treated?

It’s bad, but the conditions are OK for me, I’ve not been beaten up, they’re a bit nasty sometimes and when they boarded the boat we had our faces slammed against the floor. It was bad for the older women like Mairead.

The four other UK nationals are in the cell with me. There’s 14 of us in the 7 by 7 meter cell which includes the toilet and shower, so very crowded. It’s very hot and there’s only a tiny window. We get awakened at 6 in the morning for an inspection and have to stand to attention, and then they repeat that at 9 am, and we are only allowed out of the cells for a few hours each day. They keep giving us forms to sign but they are in Hebrew so we don’t. Although I’m able to cope here, other people are less comfortable than me in the situation. If we’re here for a long time – like some of the other people in here have been – then it will be tough.

Have you had access to a lawyer yet?

We have, and at the moment we’re discussing what to do about our deportation. They’ve taken our personal items – laptops, cameras, phones and many other valuables, and we want to find out where these are. They obviously want to deport us as quickly as possible, but some of us are thinking about fighting the deportation. Firstly on the basis that if we get deported we won’t be allowed into the occupied West Bank or Israel for another 10 years, but also, because we didn’t intend to come here to Israel – we intended to go to Gaza, and went directly from international waters into Palestinian waters. There is nothing legal about what Israel has done to us grabbing us like this. We’re considering fighting the deportation on the grounds that we shouldn’t accept and legitimize this barbaric military blockade of Gaza.

If you challenge the deportation could you remain in prison for a while longer?

Yes we could – there’s some people that need to get home, but some will challenge. And for those it will be a few more weeks in prison at least, we expect.

And you?

I’m veering towards challenging it on the basis that it’s a scar on my name to accept that I shouldn’t have been here, but in fact I have every right to go to Gaza just as everyone else does. That’s the whole point of these voyages and that’s the principle we want to stick to.

Have they told you what has happened to the cargo of the boat?

No, we don’t know what they’re doing with it. We’ve been told a lot of lies so far about where we’re going and what’s happening to us, so we just don’t know. They’re already prepared to deprive the people of Gaza of a lot of aid anyway.

What is your message to people back in the UK?

This is not about us here in the cells, it’s about the denial of human rights to the people of Palestine, and in particular the inhumane blockade of Gaza. People must not forget about what is happening to Gaza. At the moment they are even being denied food and medical supplies. After the carnage of the 1500 people killed in January, we won’t forget and we’ll keep on going and keep fighting for the human rights of the people of Palestine.