Category: In the Media - Page 281 - International Solidarity Movement

Dying for Peace: The Tom Hurndall Story

Dying for Peace: The Tom Hurndall Story
by Mohammed Al Shafey
9 April 2007

London, Asharq Al-Awsat- Jocelyn finds it painful to recollect her memories when she speaks about the suffering she endured while wandering down the corridors of Beer Sheva’s Soroka hospital in search of her son after he had been shot. She is the mother of Thomas Hurndall, a British peace activist who was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper while trying to get Palestinian children out of the line of gunfire in Rafah, Gaza Strip in April 2003.

“There were many Palestinian women dressed in black inside and outside of the hospital lobbies,” Jocelyn said, “and elderly men who dressed in white.” She said that she had initially thought they had come in search of their children only to find out that they had come to check up on her son, Tom. Tom was shot while attempting to rescue Palestinian children during a demonstration in Rafah, he was felled by a bullet fired at him by a soldier from the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

After lying in a coma for nine months in a London hospital Tom lost his struggle for life. His mother said, “I used to look into the faces of the elderly Palestinians around me, sometimes they would speak to me in Arabic or in silence. I would see their eyes brimming with tears and the wrinkles of suffering on their faces; with them I felt that time had stopped.” Today, she feels that Salem, the 9-year-old boy whom her son Tom had lost his life to save, is a member of her own family.

Asharq Al Awsat met with Tom’s mother, Jocelyn, in a quiet street in North West London two days after the publication of her new book ‘Defy the Stars’ which was issued on the fourth anniversary of her son’s accident. Inside the elegant and carefully arranged house are many pictures of Tom throughout the various stages of his life; as a child and a young man, a journalism and photography student at Manchester Metropolitan University and a young activist and member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) dedicated to the Palestinian cause [the ISM is a Palestinian-led group which campaigns against Israeli occupation using non-violence]. The images and memories are spread throughout each of the rooms; his mother said that many of the pictures were taken by his girlfriend Michelle.

Jocelyn talked about the difficult times she went through after Tom was shot and still vividly remembers the moment when Sophie, her daughter, rang her in the school where she works to tell her that Tom had a serious head injury after being shot while using his body as a human shield to protect children in Rafah. She recalled arriving on April 14th, 2003 at Ben Gurion International airport at half past five in the morning and was received by a British diplomat three days after the incident. At one o’clock in the afternoon she stood in front of the hill on which her son had been shot. This is where she saw the Palestinian women who were dressed in black, “I felt that we were suffering the same loss and that our grief was shared. These women lose their children in the resistance on a daily basis. I felt that Tom had become one of their heroes or one of their sons,” she said.

Although she has witnessed the manifestations of racism in South Africa, Jocelyn said it was easy for her to discern the difference and the scale to realize that what the Palestinians are being subjected to on a daily basis are severe human rights violations. At the hospital she had found an Israeli nurse crying bitterly by the door of her son’s room, apologizing for what the Israeli soldiers had done to her son. “Upon my arrival at the hospital, the doctors informed me that Tom only had a few days to live due to the severity of his injury. He was suffering from multiple skull fractures. The bullet had lodged into his brain and left residual traces that caused severe brain damage,” she said and added that, “Our lives were turned upside down after what happened to Tom. I left the school where I had worked and was about to get promoted to the position of school principle. We stayed at Tom’s bedside for two months in the Israeli hospital. Myself, my husband Anthony and my children Sophie, Billy and Freddie would alternate as we waited by his side. We were later able to move him to a hospital in Britain.

But Jocelyn said that she did not try to prevent her son from volunteering in the Palestinian territories as an ISM activist and neither did she prevent him from going to Baghdad to photograph the human shields who had volunteered to protect Iraqi civilians against the threat of the US-British aggression. While in Baghdad Tom heard about Rachel Corrie, a 23-year old American activist and member of the ISM who was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer while trying to prevent the demolition of a house in Rafah. Jocelyn explained that her son had had a special gift of foresight so that he knew what his path was in life. She knew that she could never have been able to prevent him from going to Iraq or Palestine and added, “he had control over his future and went towards it according to his own will. If I could go back in time I know I still wouldn’t be able to change anything that was his fate. Since my arrival to the hospital I felt that he might never recover. He died peacefully nine months after the accident,” she affirmed.

However she feels that justice has not been served despite the fact that the IDF soldier, ex-sergeant Taysir Hayb, has been convicted on charges of manslaughter in June 2003 and was sentenced to eight years in prison. Still, she stated that during the trial the soldier kept repeating the same words over and again: “I was only carrying out orders.” She believes that the real perpetrator responsible for the murder of her son is the Israeli military establishment or the general in charge of training the IDF soldiers stationed in the south. That same general attended the trial and praised the Israeli soldier who had murdered her son, hailing his morals and excellent conduct. It was later revealed that this same soldier was previously imprisoned for drug abuse. She remained dissatisfied with the fact that the soldier was put on trial for the shooting while the senior officials were not subjected to any accusations. “The Israeli politicians and the military officials who trained her son’s killer are the ones who should be in prison,” she said.

Mrs. Hurndall explained that the case is still open at the office of British attorney general Lord Goldsmith pending further details from Israeli forensic medicine reports so as to enable the arrest of others and serve the long-awaited justice. “There were surveillance cameras on the site but they were directed towards the Egyptian side of the Rafah border. If only these cameras were aimed in the other direction we would have been able to find out more details about the shooting,” she said.

“To this day I still wait for British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to condemn the Israeli military establishment but despite my urging it has yet to happen. On one occasion I asked him personally and angrily to condemn the accident but it became clear that he had his own interests to protect in addition to being worried by the strong ‘Jewish Lobby’ in Britain,” she said. On an official level, the British government has not done much. Despite many officials stating that the British government exerted pressure on the Israeli government to bring about the required transparency and impartiality throughout the investigations around her son’s death, she maintains that their promises were not sincere. However, she added that a group of British representatives in the House of Commons stood by her.

After repeatedly trying and failing to meet with one Israeli official, it was on the day before they left Israel that the Hurndall family was summoned to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs building. They were assured that the Israeli soldiers did not see Tom as their view was blocked by buildings they said. Anthony, Tom’s father, protested saying that there was a watchtower and cameras and requested to see the recorded tapes but was told that none existed. Jocelyn continued to say that at the ministry they were given a bounced cheque worth £8,370. And although the sum was meant to cover the expenses of her son’s transfer to the UK and was only a fraction of the aforementioned expense, they still got nothing out of it.

But the Hurndalls continue to receive letters of support from all over the world, including Palestine. Tom is the third member of the ISM to have been killed or injured in the Palestinian territories within the same month. When Anthony Hurndall, a lawyer, tried to write a report comprised of the testimonies of witnesses to indicate the Israeli army’s responsibility in the death, the report issued by Israel was full of falsehoods, conflicting facts and accounts, misinformation and even a claim that it was a Palestinian who had shot his son. One of the accounts said that Tom was the sniper who opened fire. During the Israeli soldier’s trial, the Israeli army referred to a medical expert that blamed British doctors claiming that they had given Hayb a strong dose of morphine. The map included in the report was invalid; the site were Tom was struck down was wrong. There were conflicting reports over the number of bullets fired, all of which were said to have been shot to break up the demonstration.

“Generals turn a blind eye to what happens in Palestinian territories against Arab citizens,” said Jocelyn. Ex-sergeant Taysir Hayb, the soldier imprisoned for shooting her son was a Bedouin Arab whom she said appeared to have been suffering from a learning disability in addition to not being able to speak or read Hebrew. She stressed that it was known that many Bedouin Arabs join the Israeli army to improve their social status. “When the verdict was pronounced, I felt that my son was the victim of another victim because it is the military officials that should be persecuted. Her voice trembles and tears fill her eyes when she recalls the old Palestinian man who rushed to her side when she first arrived for the first time with a British diplomat at the location were Tom was shot, “Time had engraved trenches of suffering on his face. He spoke to me in Arabic and made some gestures with his hands, his eyes overflowing with tears. It was as though he wanted to tell me that we were sharing the same pain and that their sons die everyday. I was so traumatized to see how they were living and suffering such a life under the Israeli occupation. Even the elderly women, although silent, conveyed that here was a Western European family sharing the pain that they have to endure every day and the danger that they have to survive and struggle against. It was a most simple and most poignant message.”

FPA: The Massacre of Deir Yassin – Lessons for Today

Free Palestine Alliance

Introduction:
April 9, 1948 is engraved in the collective memory of the Palestinian people – it is the day the Zionist movement carried out the Massacre of Deir Yassin. In our commemoration of this monumental turning point, the FPA attempts to draw lessons for today as we place the struggle of our people in its historical context.

We believe that we are presently enduring a period in Palestine and elsewhere that is similar in many ways to that of the Nakba era , during which Arab regimes and functionary aristocracies played a critical role in deflating the fledgling anti-colonial Arab struggle. Between the thirties and sixties of last century the struggle was over the advance of colonial projects. Today, it is about normalizing the material gains of these same colonial projects as integral parts of the Arab national fabric in all of its components.

On an overall Arab level, today there is an aggressive attempt to advance the reactionary monarchy of Saudi Arabia as the viable leading voice for the Arab people. Coupled with the multitude of other functionary despots, primarily Egyptian and Jordanian regimes, the Saudi monarchy is in fact completing the very role it was destined to fulfill – to deliver the Arab Nation to Western colonialism – all the way while the project to de-Arabize and truncate the Arabs is in full swing.

On the Palestinian level, the project to end Palestine is also in full swing. The Palestinian decolonization movement for freedom and independence is being replaced with a quarrel over the size of the mini-Bantustan in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank – and damned be the rest of the Palestinian people and the rest of Palestine. And rather than firmly continuing the insistence that the Palestinian struggle is one of national liberation, the Palestinian movement is being reduced to one of “refugee rights” merely requesting human rights.

Lest it is forgotten, we believe that there can never be return without liberation and there can never be liberation without return. This inseparable dialectical relationship between the two is what anchors the Palestinian movement and is further shored up by its third anchor, the democratic and populist nature of this anti-colonial struggle, away from monarchs and functionary despots.

History in perspective:
Much like a long list of successive massacres against Arabs and Palestinians, such as Sabra and Shatila of 1982 and Jenin of 2002, Deir Yassin is a shameful blot on the conscience of the world while, ironically, also constituting a reminder of the resilience of those struggling for freedom. It is a story told in blood and enduring pain, as it is repeated today albeit with the perpetrators assuming differing names.

In a vivid reminder of today’s Palestinian calls for solidarity and support, Abed Al-Qader Al-Husseini, then leader of the Palestinian resistance movement during the late forties, returned empty handed from various Arab countries, except for the popular support of the Arab masses. He was at the helm of the resistance movement facing the advance of Zionist forces throughout Palestine. On April 8, 1948, Al-Husseini was murdered by Zionist forces in a counter attack in the Battle of Al-Qastal in western Jerusalem. His death sent shock waves throughout Palestine. On the following day, and no sooner than the news began to spread, the vicious gangs of Irgun and Stern led by Menahem Begin and Yitzhaq Shamir, both to become Israeli prime ministers, swept the nearby village of Deir Yassin, which had previously brokered an understanding of non-violence with the nearby Zionist colony . At least 245 unarmed Palestinians were executed, with many of the victims discarded in mass graves.

Two days later, on April 11, the Zionist Haganah forces destroyed Kalonia, and by April 30, all Palestinians in the areas of Jerusalem occupied by Zionists were forcibly expelled. These are the primary areas of Jerusalem that is often referred to today as West Jerusalem, which has been under Israeli control since 1948 ; the part the Palestinians are required to cede happily to Israel.

The Deir Yassin massacre and the terror that seized the Palestinian people in its wake marked the beginning of the destruction and depopulation of over 500 villages, the uprooting of approximately 75% of the Palestinians from their homes, and the colonization of 78% of their land, upon which the Israeli polity was declared as a state.

To enumerate Israel’s campaigns of settler colonial violence would far exceed the space of this document. In fact, Zionist campaigns of terror are not limited to the Palestinian people. In Egypt, 1954, the Israeli Mossad planted several explosives at public places and the British and American Cultural offices in Cairo and Alexandria to aggravate the British and Americans against the newly formed Egyptian revolutionary Republic under Nasser. Between September 1967 and May 1969 Israel carried out bombings against residential quarters in Ismailiah, Suez and Port Said, and Al Mansoura. In 1970, it launched air raids killing laborers at Abu Za’bal factory and young pupils at Bahr Al Baqar school.

Between 1959-63, Israel raided and killed the residents of Nuqeib, Rafat, Al Karamah, and Sheikh Hussein in Syria and Jordan; and in 1967 it launched massive shelling of Al Salt and Irbid areas. It also carried out continuous Napalm bombing of the villages and the refugee camps on the Eastern Bank of the Jordan River in February 1968, and Al Karamah in March 1968. The Israeli destruction campaigns in Lebanon are well known, including in 1978, 1982, the massacre of Qana in April 1996, and the latest assault of 2006. In 1950 Iraq, the Israeli Mossad committed viscous crimes by bombing synagogues to cause artificial fear among Jewish Arabs, to force migration to the newly formed Zionist state. In 1985, US-made Israeli jets bombed an Iraqi civilian nuclear installation near Baghdad. It was Israel that bombed the Libyan civilian airline in February 1973 killing 105 passengers. In Tunisia, Israel shelled the area of Hammam Al Shat suburb in June 1987 and in April 1988 landed in the same area to assassinate the late Khalil Al-Wazir.

Democratic Pan-Arabism: The Heart of Anti-Colonialism
The scorching and robbery of Palestine, cumulatively referred to as Nakba of 1948 and commemorated on May 15 of every year, was taking place during a period the newly installed post WW II puppet Arab regimes were implementing a British-French-US agenda of establishing proxy neo-colonial functionary entities. In fact, the British and French had secretly cut up the Arab Nation in 1916 in what became known as the Syks-Picot agreement, slicing up various Arab lands and people for French and British colonial rule. Handpicked regimes were placed in various areas, and fictitious boundaries were drawn, under the overarching slogan “divide and conquer.” In effect, the genesis of much of what exists today comes from that era.

As geo-political interests evolved and political systems developed in the Arab world, all pro-western functionary regimes were rewarded and strengthened, and all those daring to challenge the might of colonial powers were targeted for destruction. The dichotomy between opponents and proponents of Arab independence became vivid, with those in opposition emerging as an organic extension of the colonial project.

As an example, when on July 23, 1952, the Free Officers led by Gamal Abd el-Nasser succeeded in revolting against the British-propped monarchy in Egypt under King Farouq, Egypt earned the distinction of being a primary target of colonial powers. It is in this context that , following the nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956, France, Britain and Israel launched a tripartite attack on Egypt on October 29 of the same year in an attempt to dislodge this fledgling expression of Pan-Arab independence. The intent was to deny Egypt the ability to finance the Aswan High Dam through potential earnings from Suez Canal navigation fees. The Aswan dam was projected to propel Egypt into modern capabilities in agriculture, manufacturing and commerce. It was termed Egypt’s oil equivalent. Only two days after the tripartite attack, Zionists carried out the massacre of Kufur Qassim in Palestine. Egypt remained under this distinction until the death of Nasser in 1970 and the rise of Sadat, better known as western functionary par-excellence.

The lesson colonists hoped to teach through this attack was the same the US attempted in Iran when it toppled Prime Minister Mohammed Mossaddeq in 1953 for daring to consider nationalizing Iranian oil away from Western control. Similar coups, murders, and destabilization projects were carried out throughout the southern hemisphere from Guatemala’s Arbenz in 1954 to Chille’s Allende in 1973, to the murder of Congo’s Lumumba in 1961 in Guevara in 1967, to the landing of the US marines in Lebanon in 1958, and the list goes on. This is the real legacy of colonialism that the west is attempting to whitewash today through their petty minions.

To the disappointment of colonists, however, massacres have typically revolutionized popular movements by dropping the farce of benign colonialism. Such was the case, for instance, with the Sharpville massacre in South Africa in 1960 that caused the African National Congress to form in response its armed wing, the Umkhonto We Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), and radically transform its character. The defeat of the Egyptian forces in Palestine in 1948 due to despotic government and outdated and dysfunctional weaponry gave one of the main impetus for the Free Officers to launch the July 23 Revolution headed by Nasser. From the massacres of 1970 in Jordan, rose the Palestinian movement in Lebanon, and from the ashes of Sabra and Shatila rose the Intifada of 1987.

As movements emerged, so did revolutionary literature which developed the understanding of violence in the context of colonialism. Here, Frantz Fanon’s groundbreaking work while narrating the struggle in Algeria is worth re-discovery. The work of the Pan-Arabists and Palestinian democratic nationalists that evolved into the Arab National Movement also set a new paradigm to understand the nature of the conflict. Rejecting the notions of colonial discourse that the resistance of the colonized is evil, the Arab movement pointed to the wrath of western colonial adventures in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Iraq, Palestine and beyond to reflect on the real meaning of resistance. Volumes of works by democratic and populist revolutionaries were published and debated, including writings of the late Palestinian writer, Ghassan Kanafani.

Kanafani critically evaluated the class and political character of the years leading up to the open advance of Zionist forces throughout Palestine, when the Palestinian people had organized a multitude of successive revolts in opposition to British-Zionist colonial programs. Of particular importance was the 6-months long general strike of 1936 that swept the entirety of the county paralyzing all aspects of life. It is critical to note that this strike was aborted from within at the hands of corrupt Arab leaders, as was the case with the Madrid Conference and Oslo accords that deflated the 6-year long Intifada of 1987, and the same with the Intifada of 2000. In the same context, it is also important to point out that it was treasonous regimes and corrupt functionaries that aided in the defeat of the Palestinian anti-Zionist struggle in 1947 and 1948.

The common thread between the despotic Arab leadership then and now is that they both served functionary roles irrespective of the will of the Arab masses and aspirations – always attempting to secure their positions at the expense of the people’s struggle, bartering on the way any remaining piece of dignity and using the will of the people as a chip in a poker game of servitude.

Despots
As is the case today, two camps were then locked in an existential struggle over the Arab people. On the one hand, anti-colonial revolutionaries led by Nasser were positioned to sweep the region as the Algerian struggle set forth a new flagship of revolutionary resilience. On the other hand, corrupt Saudi and Hashemite monarchs and other puppet rulers throughout the Arab Nation were implementing the bid of imperial designs in direct confrontation with the rising anti-colonial movements worldwide. These are the same two camps today, with the Palestinian revolution occupying the flagship space of the Algerian. The monarchs are the same, and those functionaries may have changed names, but certainly not roles.

The dangerously destructive influence of the Saudi and Hashemite monarchy today, propped up by the despotic Egyptian regime, constitute the primary danger within the Arab fold. These functionary regimes along with their extensions in Palestine through Mahmud Abbas, in Lebanon through Fouad Saniora, and in Iraq through the existing government(s), are eager to eliminate anything that stands in the way of the US-Israeli program they are entrusted to implement.

Key elements targeted by these functionaries are (1), the Palestinian movement anchored by the right of return, (2) the resistance in Lebanon, (3) the strengthening of a genuine resistance in Iraq, and (4) the rise of popular movements against despotism and neo-colonial policies throughout the Arab Nation.

Deir Yassin: The Struggle Continues
Ironically enough, the same April that invokes memories of massacres and destruction of the yester years, does the same today. It was on April 18, 1996, that Israel committed the Masacre of Qana in Lebanon, and on April 3, 2002 Israeli tanks rolled into Janin under the watchful eyes of Arab regimes and functionaries, and it was in April the following year, 2003, when US forces assumed their now-failed control over Iraq, with the active participation of these same regimes – the ones who just convened their summit in Riyadh in late March of this year and enthusiastically announced their willingness to normalize with Zionist colonists.

Thus, Deir Yassin is even more than a massacre – it is all the Deir Yassins that preceded and followed. It is a reminder of the wrath of colonists, a manifestation of corruption and acquiescence, and an inevitable result of placating imperial policies. Never forget that had the Palestinians were genuinely supported in 1948, the outcome of the Arab struggle against Zionism would have been different. It is also a reminder that political clarity is a must; and that trusting those who repeatedly sacrifice the Arab people on the US-Israeli alter, is, at best, dangerously naïve.

Deir Yassin is a lesson that unity can never be forged with those who sell Arab land and struggle. And a sad reminder that, like 1948, the course put forward by corruption is a course that leads to nothing other than death. Victories and freedoms are never earned through palaces of monarchs or maneuvers of sell-outs – they are earned in spite of them.

The FPA calls on all to reclaim our history and path of resistance by rejecting the capitulating alternatives of today and championing the strength and will of an organized popular mass movement that spans the Arab Nation from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf, with Palestine as its flagship.

ei: Torture: Read it in the Israeli Press

by Miko Peled | Electronic Intifada

Thanks to the Israeli press, people in Israel are informed regularly about their government’s mistreatment of the 4.5 million Palestinians under their rule. Most of the information regarding the occupation of Palestine and the oppression of its people is well documented and accurately reported in the Israeli press. But even the most serious offenses are given a “kosher” stamp, so to speak, once the word “security” is attached to them.

There are ample examples of this, but few are as striking as the one provided in the March 23rd issue of the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot. In this issue, there is an interview with the retired Chief Interrogator of the Shabak, Israel’s internal secret security service, 79-year-old Arieh Hadar. Mr. Hadar admits to acts taken by the Israeli internal secret security service that have never before been revealed publicly.

Were Israel to be the democracy it claims to be, this man would be put on trial, or at least beg for amnesty in exchange for the damning testimony he provided. If Israel had the least amount of respect for human and civil rights, this interview would lead to an investigation and perhaps even arrests. But in the Jewish democracy men and women of this kind are above the law, and beyond incrimination. In Israel, the security apparatus is a sanctified system that no one dares to question, it is a world of shadowy heroes to whom Israelis are made to believe they owe their lives. Mr. Hadar is interviewed as a hero who served his country instead of a villain that brought it shame.

Most of the interview deals with violations of civil rights of Israelis, violations that took place in the early years of the state due mostly to the paranoia and McCarthyist tendencies of Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion. Examples of blacklisting civil servants and military personnel who did not tow the line with Ben Gurion’s party Mapai; opening voting ballots to ensure that retribution followed dissent; and breaking and entering to dig up information on people deemed by Ben Gurion and others in the party as “enemies of the state.”

But as the interview continues, Mr. Hadar also touches on the issue of torture as part of the interrogation process. He mentions cases of interrogations where his agents lied in court about getting confessions through torture. “Since the suspects were Arabs the judges would always take our word over theirs” he says and continues to say that he found “Arabs were often glad to be slapped a few times” because it gave them an excuse to turn against their people and collaborate with the interrogators. He typically refrains from using the “P” word and refers to Palestinians only as Arabs or as terrorists.

This hero of the state who obviously takes pride in his work continues: As the work load increased around 1967 due to the increase of security threats involving “Arabs”, there was an increase in the use of physical force, which he says he regrets but claims that they had no other choice then, nor does any other choice exist today.

Mr. Hadar was not confessing his crimes in the interview, but rather priding himself in his good work. He describes an instance where a suspected terrorist was in the hospital after being shot. “He had one tube in his vein and a one going from his nose to his abdomen … the doctor on duty understood what we wanted, turned his back and said: ‘you do your work and I will do mine.’ At that moment I began tugging at the tubes. The suspect understood we meant business and immediately began to talk.”

According to this report, it is not only permissible to use torture even though it is illegal, it is also acceptable for a doctor, who has taken the Hippocratic oath (or is it an oath of hypocrisy) to turn a blind eye while these illegal acts are taking place. Clearly such a confession given by a high-ranking security official in Israel demonstrates one thing: that he knows he will never be brought to justice for his crimes.

Indeed Hadar was summoned in 1984 to appear before a commission that investigated the Shabak following summary executions of Palestinians who kidnapped a bus in Israel. He says he told the commission that: “applying physical pressure is clearly illegal, but regrettably there is no other option. I explained that these means, including hitting, sleep deprivation, mock executions, and exposure to extreme weather conditions for many hours were the only means at our disposal for getting to the truth … I told the commission that I do not feel good about it but someone had to do it.” In other words, it’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it.

Sadly, it seems that Israeli society has accepted the role of partner in crime with people like Mr. Hadar. What separates Israel from its neighbors is not democracy or respect for human and civil rights: it is the discriminatory fashion by which these rights are denied. The insistence that acts of torture are illegal but inevitable and excusable in the context of Israeli security, point to Palestinians as the only possible victims.

The author, Miko Peled is an Israeli peace activist living in San Diego, California. His father was the notable Israeli general, Matti Peled.

UN Committee Urges Israel to Revoke the Citizenship Law, Dismantle the Wall…

UN Committee Urges Israel to Revoke the Citizenship Law, Dismantle the Wall, Bind the Jewish National Fund to Anti-Discrimination Principles, and Recognize the Unrecognized Villages

ADALAH’S NEWSLETTER
Volume 34, March 2007

Adalah: “The UN Committee, which is composed of legal experts, reached these concluding observations based on the principles of anti-discrimination. Therefore the concluding observations constitute an official statement that institutionalized discrimination exists in Israel.”

On 9 March 2007, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (“the Committee”) issued its Concluding Observations, following its review last month of Israel’s implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (“ICERD” or “the Convention”). In its Concluding Observations, the Committee emphasized 25 areas of concern and recommendations regarding Israel’s compliance with the Convention concerning the rights of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel and Palestinians living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). Representatives of Adalah, Attorney Sawsan Zaher and Rina Rosenberg, Esq., and other Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights organizations participated in the UN sessions held on 22-23 February 2007 in Geneva.

The Concluding Observations reflected numerous issues highlighted by Adalah in its reports to the Committee noting Israel’s violations of the ICERD.

A high-level delegation of 13 state representatives, headed by Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Yitzhak Levanon, also participated in the Committee’s sessions. Nevertheless, many of the questions sent in advance to Israel remained unanswered, as the Committee noted at the outset.

The main concerns and recommendations adopted by the Committee, which is composed of eighteen independent experts including law professors, lawyers and former judges, included:

1) The right to equality and a prohibition on racial discrimination should be explicitly included in the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty.

2) Israel should ensure that the definition of the state as a Jewish state does not result in any systemic distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin in the enjoyment of human rights.

3) Israel should ensure “equality in the right to return to one’s country and in the possession of property”.

4) Israel should ensure that the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund, which manage land, housing and services exclusively for the Jewish population, are “bound by the principle of non-discrimination in the exercise of their functions.”

5) Israel should revoke the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Order) – 2003, and “ensure that restrictions on family reunification are strictly necessary and limited in scope, and are not applied on the basis of nationality, residency or membership of a particular community.”

6) Israel’s policy of affording highly advantageous benefits, particularly for housing and education, to those who perform military service is incompatible with the Convention, bearing in mind that most Arab citizens do not perform national service.

7) Israel should assess the significance and impact of Israel Land Administration’s “social suitability” admission criterion to small communities, as it may allow in practice for the exclusion of Arab citizens from some State-controlled land. The Committee recommended that Israel take all measures to ensure that State land is allocated without discrimination, direct or indirect, based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin.

8) Israel should assess the extent to which discriminatory attitudes by employers against Arabs, scarcity of jobs near Arab communities, and lack of daycare centers in Arab villages are a cause of high unemployment rates, particularly for Arab women.

9) Israel should enquire into possible alternatives to the relocation of inhabitants of unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Negev/Naqab to planned towns, in particular through the recognition of these villages and the recognition of the rights of the Bedouin to own, develop, control and use their communal lands, territories and resources traditionally owned or otherwise inhabited or used by them.

10) Israel should address concerns that the psychometric examinations used to test aptitudes, ability and personality indirectly discriminates against Arab citizens in accessing higher education.

11) Israel should ensure that laws and programmes be equally devoted to the promotion of cultural institutions and the protection of holy sites of both Jewish and other religious communities.

12) Israel should increase its efforts to prevent racially motivated offences and hate speech, and ensure that relevant criminal law provisions are effectively implemented by prosecuting politicians, government officials and other public figures for hate speech against the Arab minority.

13) “A high number of complaints filed by Arab citizens against law enforcement officers are not properly and effectively investigated and that the Ministry of Justice’s Police Investigations Unit (Mahash) lacks independence.” The Committee regretted that Israel provided no comments in this regard as requested or information as to whether the persons responsible for the October 2000 killings have been prosecuted and sentenced.

14) Israel’s position that the ICERD does not apply in the OPT “cannot be sustained under the letter and spirit of the Convention, or under international law as also affirmed by the International Court of Justice.” Moreover “the Israeli settlements are illegal under international law.”

15) Israel should cease the construction of the Wall in the OPT, including in and around East Jerusalem, dismantle the structure, and make reparation for all damage. Israel should also “give full effect” to the 2004 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice.

16) Severe restrictions on the freedom of movement in the OPT targeting a particular national or ethnic group, especially through the wall, checkpoints, restricted roads and permit system, have created hardship and have had a highly detrimental impact on the enjoyment of human rights by Palestinians, in particular their rights to freedom of movement, family life, work, education and health.

17) Different laws and practices apply to Palestinians and to Israelis in the OPT, in particular the unequal distribution of water resources to the detriment of Palestinians, the disproportionate targeting of Palestinians in house demolitions, and different criminal laws leading to prolonged detention and harsher punishments for Palestinians for the same offences.

18) While stressing that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is an important cultural and religious site for people living in the OPT, the Committee urged Israel to ensure that the excavations in no way endanger the Mosque and impede access to it.

19) Israel should increase its efforts to protect Palestinians against violence perpetuated by Jewish settlers, particularly in Hebron, and ensure that such incidents are investigated in a prompt, transparent and independent manner, are prosecuted and sentenced, and that avenues for redress are offered to the victims.

The Committee also recommended that Israel make its reports and the Committee’s concluding observations readily available to the public in both Hebrew and Arabic.

Israel should submit answers to questions not provided in its submission and representations within one year, together with information on any first steps taken towards implementing the Committee’s recommendations. Israel should submit its next periodic reports and address all points raised in the concluding observations in February 2010.

For more information, click: Adalah’s Special Report on UN CERD

Palestinians build new outpost near Bil’in

YNet: Palestinians set up outpost near Bilin
by Ali Waked, 29 March 2007

Dozens of Palestinians from the village of Bilin in the West Bank set up an outpost on land they say was expropriated from them by Israel to expand a Jewish settlement in the area.

Accompanied by women and children, activists crossed the security border and built what they said was a makeshift center for child education.

Mohammad Khatib, a activist in a Palestinian organization against the security fence, said the purpose of their activity was “to prove to the world the racism and discrimination of the Israelis.”

A number of Israeli peace activists were also present.

Khatib added that the Ministry of Defense was continuing construction on the Matiyahu neighborhood in the Modi’in-Ilit settlement on land declared as Palestinian by the Israeli High Court.

The ministry’s civil administration argues that the land had been expropriated to meet the settlement’s demographic needs.

“We also need buildings. The administration has to explain to the world why it is demolishing buildings we build for our needs while it continues to build on land that has been declared as ours by an Israeli court,” Khatib added.

Khatib said a police force arrived at the outpost accompanied by a civil administration official. No violence was reported.

“We told them: You can demolish it but you will be breaching the law,” Khatib said of the newly set up structure.

Khatib said villagers wanted to know why the administration refused to grant them building permits while it allows settlers to build in a “wild” manner.

Palestinian and Israeli peace activists have been holding protests against the fence section near Bilin every Friday for over two years and frequently clash with security forces.

End YNet article

From Abedallah Abu-Rahma, Bil’in:

أهالي بلعين ينجحون في بناء الغرفة الثالثة لهم خلف الجدار
مواد البناء وضعت اسبوعين تحت الأرض
الخميس 29\3\2007
تمكن مجموعة من الشبان في بلعين من بناء غرفة أخرى لهم خلف الجدار ، وقد جاءت هذه الخطوة بعد سلسلة خطوات نجح خلالها أهالي القرية في اثناء نضالهم ضد الجدار والإستيطان ، وردا على الأمر العسكري الإسرائيلي الذي يدعو إلى هدم الغرفة الأولى ، التي بنيت في 25\12\2005 ،بمشاركة متضامنيين إسرائيليين ودوليين ، وقد ساهم بناء تلك الغرفة في وقف العمل والتوسع وعدم السماح بقدوم الساكنين الجدد لمستوطنة ميتاتياهو الشرقية المقامة على أراضي بلعين ، والتي تعتبر حي من أحياء مودعين عليت .

أما الغرفة الثانية فقد بنيت بعد ثلاثة أشهر من الأولى ، وكانت ردا على القرار العسكري الذي نص على مصادرة سبعة دنمات لبناء نقطة عسكرية للمراقبة فيها ، وقد نجحت اللجنة الشعبية من خلال محاميها بالحصول على قرار يلغي المصادرة ومخطط بناء النقطة العسكرية .

أما بالنسبة للغرفة الثالثة فقد خطط لها من حوالي شهرين ، حيث قامت اللجنة الشعبية لمقاومة الجدار بتخزين المواد اللازمة للبناء قبل حوالي أسبوعين ، وقد دفنت تحت الأرض ، لأن الجيش يأتي للتفتيش بين الفينة والأخرى ، وكان هناك مجموعة لرصد تحركات الجيش لانتهاز الفرصة المناسبة للقيام بهذه المهمة ، وقد كان يوم الأربعاء الساعة السادسة مساء ساعة الصفر لبدء العمل ، فما كان من مجموعة من الفدائيين الذين هبوا هبة رجل واحد بالعزم والإرادة القوية وإيمانهم العميق بحقهم أن أنجزوا تلك المهمة وبناء غرفة كاملة بمساحة خمسة وعشرين مترا في وقت قياسي لم يتجاوز ثلاث ساعات .

لقد بنيت هذه الغرفة على الأرض التي أعيدت للمواطنيين في قرية بلعين قبل حوالي ستة أشهر بقرار ما يسمى المحكمة العليا الإسرائيلية ، حيث أن جزءا من الأرض المعادة يقع في المستوطنة نفسها ، أما البيت الجديد فهو لا يبعد عن المستوطنة المذكورة سوى سبعين مترا .

وقد عبرت اللجنة الشعبية عن أهمية تلك البيوت ، حيث يتواجد فيها شباب القرية على مدار الساعة لمراقبة ما يجري في المستوطنة ، ولتشجيع الفلاحين للعمل في أرضهم دون خوف من أحد ، والقيام بالعديد من النشاطات والاجتماعات هناك ، أضف إلى أنها ساهمت في وقف الزحف الإستيطاني الذي كان يهدد معظم أرض القرية ، ناهيك على انها ساعدت المحامي في الترافع في قضية الجدار والمستوطنات غير الشرعية ،وأحقية اهالي بلعين في أرضهم .

لقد تزامن بناء هذه الغرفة مع الذكرى السنوية الحادية والثلاثين ليوم الأرض الخالد ، وبهذه المناسبة تعبر اللجنة الشعبية لمقاومة الجدار والإستيطان عن تشبث أهالي بلعين بأرضهم وتمسكهم بها وإن خير ما يقوم به المرء في مثل هذه المناسبة اعمار الأرض وفلاحتها والدفاع عنها والموت فيها ، ومن جهة أخرى تؤكد اللجنة على مواصلة التظاهرات الشعبية الأسبوعية ، حيث تدعو كل من يعشق الأرض ويدافع عنها الانضمام إليها في يوم الأرض يوم الجمعة القادم للوقوف في وجه العدو الغاشم ،لتحي هذه الذكرى الخالدة .

لمزيد من المعلومات مراجعة :
عبدالله أبورحمة – منسق اللجنة الشعبية لمقاومة الجدار والإستيطان في بلعين
0599107069 أو 0547258210 أو 022489043