Category: In the Media

Palestine Times: “Defiant villagers united in face of violent occupation”

by Asa Winstanley, December 18th

The demonstration is small but feisty. Accompanied by around 15 international supporters and a few Israeli stalwarts, the inhabitants of Bil’in, a village in the West Bank near Ramallah, voice their protest against the Israeli Wall and settlements that threaten their village. Chanting Arabic slogans and demanding in Hebrew that the soldiers go home, the demonstrators are prevented from passing through a gate in the Wall by a unit of Israeli soldiers and their jeeps. The soldiers wave their clubs menacingly – not today, they seems to say.

After about 15 minutes, Abdullah Abu Rahme, the coordinator of the village’s Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements, calls for the crowd to follow him. They try to find another way through the large coils of razor wire on the near side of the Wall. Some of the demonstrators pull at the wire with thick gloves. These attempts are soon stopped by Israeli soldiers.

The village has been involved in resistance and weekly demonstrations against the Wall for nearly two years beginning in February 2005. The Wall in this area consists of large coils of razor wire, a steep bank, a high fence, a dirt path, another fence and finally a tarmac road, which the soldiers patrol with thier jeeps and humvees. Despite the initial claims of the Israeli government that the Wall is only for “security purposes”, in Bil’in, as along some 80 percent of its route, the Wall does not follow the route of the 1967 Green Line. Israeli ministers ar enow openly saying that the route will determine final borders.

As the Wall has been designed to accommodate the expansion of Israeli settlements, the village stands to lose 60 percent of its land on the other side. For the small agricultural village some 25 minutes drive from Ramallah, this is a crushing blow.

“They took away the land I used to graze my sheep. They uprooted my family’s olive trees. I used to plant beans, wheat and potatoes. I’m not allowed to get to my land now that it’s behing the wall” says Wadji Burnat, a 50-year old farmer from the village. “The Israeli government is a government of thieves. They only care about a small part of their own people. They want to expel the Palestinians.”

Despite this, the villagers have shunned armed struggle in favour of non-violent marches and protests. “We chose this way of resistance because we believe in it”, says Mohammed Katib, a member of the Popular Committee. The Committee was set up at the beginning of the campaign to coordinate the struggle in all its forms.

“We are leading a legal battle and resistance at the same time”, says Katib. “We want to try every possible form of non-violent struggle”. Katib, like many of the other non-violent activists in the village, has been repeatedly beaten and tear-gassed by Israeli soldiers at the demonstrations.

Israeli authorities also carry out arrest raids in the village during the dead of night, rounding up leaders of the campaign. One such raid occurred at 2 a.m on November 22nd. According to the International Solidarity Movement’s media team, head of the Popular Committee Iyad Burnat, along with three other activists from the village were taken from their homes by Isralei soldiers. They were driven to Ofer prison and then taken for interrogation at the Mod’in police station.

Police and then the Shabak – the Israeli domestic intelligence service – questioned all four at length on their involvement in the weekly demonstrations. They threatened to imprison them. The four were finally released without charge the same evening.

Coordinator Abdullah Abu Rahme, a school teacher, has also been beaten and arrested several times. He recently had a trial postponed after Israeli border police failed to appear in court. Abu Rahme was arrested at three different demonstrations during the summer.

Katib does not regret the campaign however. “We had to do something to stop them from taking our land – everyone in the village together. We had to act. In the committee, we are focusing on a campaign to encourage people to join our demonstrations.”

The weekly demonstrations are joined by supporters and volunteers from across the world. Groups of peace and anti-occupation activists and volunteers, such as the International Solidarity Movement, come to Bil’in each week.

One ISM volunteer chose to come to Palestine because of its global importance. “Within this region there is the central issue of injustice against the Palestinians. When these two issues overlapped I had to see it with my own eyes”, says the freelance journalist.

Israeli supporters also join in the demonstrations every week. A dedicated group of Israeli, who support the Palestinian right to self-determination, attend the weekly demonstrations week in week out, and have made many Palestinian friends. They include the Israeli film maker Shai Pollak, who won the Best Documentary award at this year’s Jerusalem Film festival for his documentary, “Bil’in My Love” which is about the village and their struggle.

Kobi Snitz, another regular, says he first started coming to the West Bank three years ago when he saw the projected route of the Wall in an Israeli newspaper. “I was shocked. I couldn’t believe anyone would support it. I started showing the map to people and saying “look at what they’re going to do!” It struck me as an impossible solution. Soon after I joined a group of activists who were doing something about it – the Anarchists Against the Wall. ”

Israeli from groups who go to the West Bank like the Anarchists are subject to harrassment from the Shabak, says Snitz. “They have ‘invited’ most of the hardcore activists to an individual meeting. They say ‘please come’ but its an invitation you can’t refuse. They say they will come and pick us up off the street otherwise.”

“The meetings consist of them saying they are watching us and tapping our phones. Maybe they are bluffing, but they definitely want us to be paranoid. Personally I have nothing to hide. If my personal life is interesting to anyone then: ahlan wa-sahlan (welcome). They gave us lectures about how we should ‘watch out’ for Palestinians because they will ‘use us'” says Snitz, who, like many of the other Israeli activists, is a competent Arabic speaker.

Mansour Mansour is a Palestinian non-violent activist from the nearby village of Biddu. The former ISM coordinator regularly comes to Bil’in demonstrations. “The Israeli activists face the same violence as us at the demonstrations. They don’t tell us what to do – they follow our plans”, he says.

Israeli activist visits to Palestinian villages, under threat from the Wall and from settlements, are subject to debate, however. There is sometimes criticism from Palestinians that such visits constitute “normalization”. Normalization is the concept that the Palestinians and Israelis nedd only to sit down and get along better to solve the problems in the region. Critics say this is politically naive thinking that completely ignores the basic political situation of the Palestinians under Israeli occupation – that the two “sides” are anything but equal.

Normalization projects were popular during the early Oslo years, when many Palestinians and Israelis were hopeful for an end to the “conflict”. Dialogue groups were set up all over the West bank. Most Palestinians now agree that much more is needed – namely an end to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Snitz is aware that their solidarity might be misunderstood. “As long as it’s clear our purpose is supporting the struggle, then that’s altogether different from coming just to drink tea. This is an education that the Israeli peace movement needs to go through – even the part of it that is not afraid to come to Palestine”, he says. “It’s up to the Palestinians to decide if the contribution we make to the struggle outweighs any inadvertent negative effects from normalization. It’s their struggle. If they want us to participate we will.”

Despite the popular conception in the Western media of the Islamic movement of Hamas as anti-Semitic and “dedicated to the destructionof Israel”, Hamas politicians have been amongst the many public figures participating in the joint demonstrations. Even people from the more hard-line group Islamic Jihad have participated. Both groups have done so in the full knowledge that they would be marching alongside Israelis and Jews from around the world”, says Katib.

“Representatives from every Palestinian faction have come”, he says. “Hakam Yousef, the leader of Hamas in the West Bank came more than once. Ksadar Adnan, a spokesperson from Islamic Jihad has participated too. They came in the full knowledge there would be Israeli at the demonstration. They said that if they saw this form of resistance against the occupation working, then they would follow our example.”

Mansour says it was the same in Biddu. “Hamas, Jihad – all the factions supported the demonstrations. The people were just defending their land. They are farmers. If someone from Hamas is about to lose his land then of course he’s going to take part in the demonstrations.”

Back at the demonstration, as usual, the gate Israeli say allows farmers to access their land is blocked by soldiers. The demonstrators want to reach the annexed village land. An emerging pattern in all villages along the route of the Wall seems to be that even when the Wall is completed, people are barred from padding through the gates. This includes farmers with permits.

A handful of protesters holds a sit-in on the area between the razor wire and the first fence for about 20 minutes, while soldiers prevent more from joining them. Eventually, the Popular Committee calls on the demonstratorsto follow them back into the village as one group.

On the way back, groups of youth are attacked by Israeli border police who have taken up positions in and near houses on the outskirts of the village. This is followed by the youths, fed up with the presence of the paramilitary force, hurling stones at them. The rest of the demonstrators are forced to take a long circuitous way back to avoid the unevenly matched clashes.

The December 15th demonstration in Bil’in was relatively peaceful, with less military violence than in the past. However, the Israeli military still used rubber bullets and tear gas to attack Palestinian youths who stoned them in defence of their village. Additionally, soldiers also shot rubber-coated steel bullets at them, causing some minor injuries.

Past demonstrations have faced far more serious violence, especially duting the Israeli invasion of Lebanon this summer. These clashes witnessed extremely brutal behaviour by soldiers, who used clubs, rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas to break up the demonstrators. Those who were seriously injured included Palestinians, Israelis and international volunteers alike. Thankfully, there were no fatalities at in Bil’in, possibly due to the presence of the media. Other peaceful Palestinian dmosntrations not covered by the international media have ended with fatalities.

Mansour’s village of Biddu held regular non-violent demonstrations during 2004 to resist the Wall and settlements. This sustained campaign, combined with legal challenges in Israeli courts, led to a significant alteration in the route of the Wall. But this sucess came at a high cost.

“The soldiers used to react really badly. They beat people and broke my cousin’s nose. They also broke the bones of people who were sitting down on the ground in an attempt to block the path of bulldozers. People were chaining themselves in a big circle around the bulldozers – not looking for clashes”, recounts Mansour.

“Five were killed during the campaign. Three were killed in one day, February 26th 2004. The fourth was shot with a rubber bullet in the head and died six days later on March 2nd. The fifth was killed on April 18th.”

For today, the demonstration is over and most villagers have returned home. The distinct sound of live ammunition firing still echoes from the direction of the soldiers, while they continue clashing with stone-throwing youths. “This is nothing – I’ve been in a war”, one soldier earlier boasted to me during the demonstration.

Mohammed Katib is tired, but still full of energy as he looks to the future. “The struggle against the Wall did not start in Bil’in. For us it was a learning process from places like Mas’ha, Budrus and Biddu. It’s been nearly two years and we will continue until we see success on the ground, till we obtain our goals, change the route of the Wall and liberate our land”.

PNN: “Palestinian nonviolent protest at checkpoint as Israeli soldiers beat student”

by Ali Samoudi, December 20th

On Wednesday Israeli forces occupying Al Hamra Checkpoint in Jenin confiscated the identity cards of hundreds of Palestinians, detaining them for five hours. While the soldiers were confiscating identification and detaining citizens, a young man spoke to the soldiers while others shouted to stop oppressing students.

Eyewitnesses report that an Israeli soldier took the identification of Salem Zayada and suddenly pulled the student to the ground by grabbing ahold of his beard. Soldiers drug the young man behind a barrier where seven soldiers beat him.

Hundreds of Palestinians were shouting to stop as they disembarked from their cars while Israeli soldiers trained their machine guns on the people. A nonviolent protest ensued with residents shouting for justice while beginning a sit-in.

Taxi driver Zacharia Khalid requested that an Israeli officer come to the checkpoint in hopes that an official would make the beating stop, but instead Israeli soldiers began to fire into the air and physically attacking people. The young man, beaten and bloody, was then taken to an unknown location.

Incidents of abuse such as this are not unusual, but are instead so commonplace that they often go unreported, even in the local press.

At the checkpoint of Al Hamra between Jenin and the rest of the West Bank, driver Firas Abdel Nasser reports that soldiers deal “cruelly and ruthlessly with people, always oppressively, especially against young bearded students.”

Abdel Nasser added that just last week Israeli soldiers attacked and beat three young men periodically while holding them for three hours.

Another driver, Bilal Hadoq, told PNN that Israeli soldiers arrested a young man because he had written on his notebook the words “God…scourge of criminals… victory for the vulnerable.” Another student was attacked when he was instructed to open his schoolbag for inspection and Israeli soldiers found the Holy Qur’an inside. Hadoq said, “He was beaten and whisked away, arrested for that.”

Ynet: “Palestinian: Soldiers invaded my home to nap”

by Ali Waked, December 19th

Resident of Palestinian village forced to empty his home to accommodate over 20 soldiers for some 15 hours supposedly to carry out observation. Palestinian claims soldiers ‘just went to sleep’

A resident of the Palestinian village of Salem near Nablus was forced to accommodate 20 soldiers for 15 hours in his home, after they broke into his house in order to rest.

The soldiers claimed that he had to empty rooms for them in his house, for a security mission.

Mudayen Jbur, a resident of the village, told Ynet that “just before morning prayer, at around 5 a.m., I heard hard knocking on the door. The soldiers shouted, ‘it’s the army, open up, open up’.”

Jbur asked the soldiers to identify themselves, for fear of burglars. When he realized they were soldiers he opened the door and, according to him, “immediately after I opened the door 20 or more soldiers barged in. They said that they were here on a security mission, to observe the road around the Alon Moreh settlement, to make sure kids from the village don’t throw stones at the settlers’ cars.”

Once in a while, Israel Defense Force soldiers carry out an operation in which they evacuate residents from their homes or certain rooms in their homes, and take charge of the area for an unlimited period of time, for security purposes.

Mudayyen’s home is the most external house in the village and that is supposedly why it was chosen by the IDF to carry out the observation mission.

‘These acts deepen loathing, hatred’

However, according to Mudayyen, the soldiers did not carry out any observations whatsoever during their stay in his home.

“The soldiers put me and my wife into one of the rooms and posted a soldier outside to guard us. They even said that if we needed anything, we were allowed to ask. But they did not carry out any observations. They spread out in the rooms of the house and simply went to sleep. It seems they were looking for a place to rest. They didn’t even open one window, they didn’t move any curtains, so what observation are they talking about?”

Mudayyen told the soldiers that lately, for almost over a year now, not one stone has been thrown from that area towards vehicles on the road, “but apparently the stone throwing matter was just an excuse, because they didn’t do anything, they just slept in the house.”

In the afternoon Mudayyen’s parents, who live nearby, began to worry since they had not heard from him. They tried to search for him, but they too were stopped by the soldiers.

“First my parents sent my brother to check on us. The soldiers saw him near the house, stopped him and threw him in me and my wife’s room. My other brother came and they stopped him too. My parents also showed up to search, not only for me but also for my brother who had disappeared – and the soldiers threw them in the room. In a short time we found ourselves to be eight people in the room, for no reason and without the soldiers doing anything,” he said.

Operation’s Coordinator in the Palestinian Authority for the Rabbis for Human Rights Organization Zachariah Sida managed to contact the IDF’s Coordination and Liaison headquarters, and over 13 hours after the soldiers took over the house, he managed to convince the army to get the soldiers out of the house.

Sida told Ynet that this was ‘gang behavior’ and that “the activity had no security purpose, it was simply bullying, which only deepens the loathing and hatred between the two sides; IDF will not achieve security in this way.”

Military sources told Ynet that “In this case, the claims about the restriction of the house’s inhabitants from being able to move freely are untrue. The family was permitted to move freely about the house and eat, and after a few hours the forces left the space after evaluating the situation.”

Haaretz: “An Enlightened Occupier”

by Gideon Levy, December 17th

The juggler from the palace of justice has struck again. In a single week, retired Supreme Court president Justice Aharon Barak proved his impressive acrobatic talents. In his last rulings, all of them having to do with the occupation, the outgoing Supreme Court president seems to have wanted, as he has during the 11 years of his presidency, to have his cake and eat it, too. Barak wants to appear as though he is both upholding justice and not harming security – the unofficial religion of a state that shoots, then cries. What an enlightened occupier!

But even Barak’s verbal acrobatics, his impressive formulations and his lofty words cannot conceal the bitter truth: It would have been better had these rulings not been handed down. Going forward, it is perhaps preferable that proponents of human rights no longer petition the High Court of Justice. The fact that the new president of the court and his deputy are not signed on some of these rulings ensures that nothing will change in the future of our Supreme Court.

At the end of this productive judicial week, the Israeli occupation won significant power. This additional power came in the form of the broad legitimization granted its injustices by the most prestigious institution in Israeli society, also lauded abroad. The targeted assassinations will continue in full force, the victims of the occupation will hardly be awarded any compensation and the separation wall will be completed as planned. The cruel reality of the occupation will not change in the wake of these rulings, but now these actions will have the court’s seal of approval.

The Israel Defense Forces assassinating unhindered is one reality, and an IDF that assassinates with the High Court’s blessing is an even worse reality. The right’s moaning about these rulings is therefore just a manipulation: It should be very pleased.

This last ruling is also the worst of them. Barak’s crescendo will echo for many years: The court has laundered the executions. All the restrictions the High Court of Justice placed on targeted assassinations are no more than a collection of hollow words. A failed method of warfare, intended for thwarting ‘ticking bombs,’ has become unbridled and a matter of routine. In fact, 339 Palestinians have already been killed this way since the start of the current intifada; only 210 were intended targets and it is doubtful that all of them deserved to be executed. The rest were innocent bystanders.

Hit lists and death squads, death sentences without trials, and what does the High Court of Justice say? It is necessary that there be “well-founded, strong and persuasive information as to the identity (of the person assassinated) and his activity.”

And who will determine what is “well-founded, strong and persuasive information?” The Shin Bet security services. And who will supervise the assassinations? The executioners. Instead of making clear and bold statements, that, for instance, assassination is permissible only in the case of terrorists en route to a terror attack, the court is being disastrously – and typically – ambiguous and, is essentially passing the responsibility to the IDF and the Shin Bet.

We spent five whole years waiting for this? The High Court of Justice could have determined this long ago.

The court also has lofty words for conflicts where rules of international law apply, though it has never expressed its opinion about the endless violations of such law. Jewish settlements in the territories, the transfer of prisoners in Israel, Israel’s refusal to care for those living under occupation – all of this is one big, brazen violation of international law. How is it that the High Court of Justice has never ruled on the legality of the settlements, for example?

The court has proved once again that when given the chance to impact reality and bring about significant change, it instead withdraws in panic. Even when it revoked the Intifada Law, it knew that nothing would change on the ground.

Despite the public uproar, a Palestinian’s chance of winning compensation from the state for crimes against him remains close to zero. Maria Aman, whose mother, brother and grandmother were killed in a failed assassination attempt in Gaza, can only dream of compensation. She and her family were after all harmed in the context of “an act of warfare,” which the High Court of Justice has now sanctioned. It is permissible to launch missiles at cars in the heart of crowded cities, but it is not necessary to compensate the innocent, inevitable victims.

“The military commander must defend human rights,” wrote Barak in another of his rulings – the one that okayed the wall severing the a-Ram neighborhood – summing up in a single sentence his efforts to safeguard the human rights being trampled in the territories. The military commander will “preserve human rights?” Given the reality in the territories, there could be no greater contradiction.

From now on, the Supreme Court will act without Aharon Barak. It will, however, presumably continue to act within his legacy, which has authorized nearly all injustices in the territories. Barak, meanwhile, will continue to be depicted in Israel and the world as a pursuer of justice. But the question will come up one day, and people will want to know where the High Court of Justice was when all this was happening. And where was Aharon Barak? No, not only did he not try to stop it; he was also a willing partner.

The Independent – Gaza City: ‘Free the women and you free the whole country’

by Johann Hari, December 15th

There are many things you expect to find in the cratered, cramped heart of Gaza City, but a group of proto-Germaine Greers and Betty Friedans would be low on the list. Yet, I am sitting under a lush green tree with a group of tough old ladies at the heart of the feminist hub they have built here – and where hundreds of Gazan women are flocking to find freedom.

In 1989, the women’s rights campaigner Um Ahmad returned to her native Gaza after decades working for women’s groups across the world. “I was determined to do something about the fact that women were in a much worse position here than even in other Arab countries,” she says.

She found that Palestinian women were trapped between the savage Israeli occupation and a suffocatingly patriarchal Palestinian society. She knew there was only one way to free them – by getting them jobs and hard earning power.

Her proposal to establish an organisation providing jobs for women was refused by the Israeli occupying authorities, but Ms Ahmad refused to let this stop her. Risking interrogation and imprisonment, she went ahead and set up a network for women to make jams and foods in their homes and to sell them on. In Gaza, the Women’s Institute was revolutionary, and jam-making an act of subversion.

After four years, Ms Ahmad’s organisation was finally legalised. Today – thanks to the Welfare Association, one of the three charities being supported in this year’s Independent Christmas Appeal – it has a permanent base.

She is sitting with me in the courtyard, watching women sip coffee and read print-outs from the internet terminals here. If you shut out the endless car-horns – the tinnitus of the most congested land-mass in the world – and the simulated explosions of the Israeli sonic booms, this is as close to tranquil as Gaza City gets.

“Women are suffering most from the occupation and economic collapse,” she explains. “When the husband is out of work and at home all the time, he starts picking on his wife. For a lot of men, being unemployed and humiliated by the Israelis makes them show they are still in control somewhere – over their wives and children. Often violence breaks out.”

Ms Ahmad’s priority was to give women a chance to earn money and achieve independence. That is why she set up a women-only, non-profit clothing factory, and today as she walks along its floor with me, the 30 women are engaging in the usual factory-floor banter. They all have a story of how this centre changed their lives. Leila is a 40-year-old sewing machinist, and as she steps away from her machine she explains: “I used to live on food and money subsidies from a local charity. I was stuck at home, staring at the walls and thinking ‘What am I doing with my life?’

“Then a charity worker told me I was intelligent and I could be a producer, not just a passive recipient – and he put me in touch with this charity. Now I support my husband and my seven children.” She laughs with a mixture of surprise and glee. “I am convinced that sitting at home waiting for donations is bad. Going out, fulfilling yourself, being independent – that is good. I want all women to be able to do this.”

Fatima is a bubbly 18-year-old who works on the knitting machines. She has always wanted to be a teacher of deaf children, but her parents could not afford to send her to university – so she is paying her own way as a student while working. “It’s an amazing feeling, to be able to stand on your own feet: to be an independent woman,” she says.

The Welfare Association helps to pay for these women to make school uniforms for the poverty-wracked children, and to maintain a bakery. Ms Ahmad says: “The most noticeable thing is that when women first join our society, they don’t speak a lot. They are silent, because that’s how they have been taught to be. But after a while they start to express their views, and soon they are drawn out of their silence. They want to browse the internet, see the world out there. It’s like a person who has been locked in a room; then you offer them a window and they want to see more and more.”

Ms Ahmad wants to open more windows – but she needs your money to do it. “When you help a Palestinian woman, you help all her children,” she says. “When you free a Palestinian woman, you help to free Palestine.”