Haaretz: “IDF told to dismantle small barrier hampering Palestinians”

by Amos Harel, December 14th

The High Court of Justice on Thursday ordered the Israel Defense Forces to dismantle a small barrier that runs along 41 km in the southern West Bank, following a petition submitted by Palestinian residents and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.

The 82 cm-high barrier was built along the road connecting the settlements of Carmel and Tene in the Hebron Mount area, after a High Court ruling on the route of the planned Separation Fence left the settlements on its Palestinian side.

In their petition, Palestinian residents complained that the barrier prevents them from accessing areas they use for grazing and farming.

Former Chief Justice Aharon Barak said that the concrete barrier is “a disproportionate security measure,” since other solutions could have been used to secure the area with lesser impact on the Palestinian population in the area.

The IDF says that the barrier is important for protecting the nearby settlements and Israeli cars traveling on the road. But Colonel (reserves) Shaul Arieli, who wrote a report for the Council for Peace and Security, said this claim was unfounded and that the barrier is a security hazard, if anything.

The council is a voluntary body of retired senior officers, diplomats and government officials offering advice on ways to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

According to Arieli, the height of the barrier not only leaves traveling cars exposed to shooting attacks, but also allows gunmen to hide behind it and make their capture more difficult. “They are not providing security but create an impossible situation,” Arieli said.

“The true reason for the construction of the barrier is to bar the Palestinians’ access to their lands and allow the gradual takeover by settlers. The barrier prevents the passage of pedestrians, the ill, women, children and cattle. But a terrorist can jump over it easily,” Arieli said also.

Brigadier General (reserves) Yehuda Golan told the High Court he is “convinced that this is not an act in the name of security. Had I feared that Israeli citizens would be harmed as a result, I wouldn’t be here,” he told the court.

“This is a misleading and irresponsible use in the name of security for other purposes,” he said.

The High Court allowed the IDF to create an alternative obstacle that would, however, allow the passage of pedestrians and cattle . The court instructed the state to pay the legal expenses related to the trial totaling NIS 75,000.

Postcards from the Edge

by Victoria Macchi, Skin Magazine

Katie Miranda’s “postcards” create visual dispatches to the American people of life, death, and innocence demolished in Palestine

Two young men, backs turned, wrists bound, heads hanging – paired with anger, a mouth stretched wide open in rage and spewing hate. “You are disgusting Arabs and you should be beaten like animals and stay in jail”.

You don’t look at Katie Miranda’s work. You feel it, a punch in the gut that sucks the wind out, replaces it with incredulity, then knocks you down again as you struggle to get up. Yet her pieces, reflections of life in occupied Palestine, are anything but hyperbolic. Both an artist living
in the West Bank city of Hebron and a volunteer in the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), Katie Miranda has walked the streets of the West Bank alongside Palestinians, drank the same water, protected their children, broken bread with their families – and her paintings reflect it. Her “Postcards from Palestine” series is an eternal testimony to a wounded people. The ongoing collection of paintings of people she has met comes with a message to the American people, exactly like a postcard – although instead of margaritas, sunsets and dolphins, the paintings reflect the violence committed against Palestinians by the IOF and settlers in the territories.

“I wanted to use my artistic ability to tell the story about what’s happening here,” says Katie, a 31-year-old San Francisco native. “I’m an illustrator by trade, so creating pictures that tell a story is what I was trained in… I just decided to interview people about their life and paint about individuals and about situations I witnessed.” As a human rights worker in the West Bank, she has a deep reservoir of stories; most burst with acts of hatred, moments of irony, wisps of humour. “A good deal of the violence is perpetuated by children because of an Israeli law that allows them to be free from arrest and prosecution if they are under the age of 12,” explains Katie.

In one postcard, the innocence of children is portrayed in the hopeless eyes of a girl holding a stuffed rabbit, her father killed by IOF soldiers and her house demolished, which are juxtaposed with a carefree boy playing with a ball, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. It’s difficult to imagine humans so jaded so young. But again, they have never known an unoccupied Palestine, freedom of movement, or simple justice for their friends and family slain during four decades of war.

Katie recalls an incident when life and art collided. It was the day after she arrived in Palestine, back in May. The ISM was called to the Balata refugee camp because the IOF had invaded and, the reports said, were killing people randomly. “ISM helps with medical evacuations in these situations,” Katie explains. “Sometimes when a person is shot or injured, the soldiers refuse to let the ambulance leave, so we try to negotiate with them to allow the ambulance pass. Right before we got there these two kids were killed.” Best friends Ibrahim Issa and Mohammad Natoor, both 17, were drinking tea on the roof of their apartment when they were shot by a sniper. Katie documented their funeral in one of her postcards, and in her message to the American people noted what they loved and how they smiled – and just how young they were. She transcribed the words of Ibrahim’s brother:

“Anywhere you see him, you will see Mohammad Natoor with him and anywhere you see Ibrahim and Mohammad, you will see them smile at you and say ‘hello, how can we help you?’” Mohammad was killed by Israeli forces on his 17th birthday.

The pair are immortalised on one of Katie’s postcards. “It was such an emotional experience because they were just kids, you know, they hadn’t done anything wrong,” says the artist. “And no one will be held responsible. It was a meaningless death. I couldn’t get the image of those kids’ faces out of my head for weeks. So I dealt with that and the trauma of being in a place under siege by painting the picture of Ibrahim during his funeral procession that wouldn’t leave my head.” She later painted a picture of him from a photo studio portrait. “When I gave it to the family it was really emotional. I could tell they were really touched and really liked it – but of course it also reminded them that their son or brother was dead. It was hard for me to look at his brother’s face when I gave him the portrait.”

In another postcard, a fairly innocuous image, a young boy is shown with his mouth gaping open and a few teeth missing. But it is rendered appalling by the explanation – a settler woman had filled his mouth with rocks and slammed his jaw shut, shattering his teeth. Another postcard elevates a Palestinian man, now paraplegic after a shot to the neck by an Israeli sniper in 2000, by painting him at a sharp angle, facing upwards, with the colours of the Palestinian flag bursting behind his head. Katie hopes this empowers the wheelchair-bound former karate champion.

The “Postcards”, though, are only her latest artistic project in Palestine. Katie, who estimates she has been attacked by settlers and soldiers around 50 times since arriving to Hebron in May, originally wanted to paint over the settlers’ anti-Arab graffiti. In one case, she covered up the words “Die Arab sand-niggers” with a mural of children playing in the sun. “When I first saw that graffiti it really disgusted me,” she says. “I wanted to get rid of it and I thought a nice cheerful mural of kids playing would be a good solution. It’s the idea of fighting hate with love.” “The mural is still there, but it has been defaced by the settlers, which I knew would happen. But it doesn’t really bother me because I was expecting it and it’s just another example of how hateful these people are.” She also wanted to obscure another spray-painted slogan, spread over two metal doors, that read “Gas the Arabs.” The Palestinian residents opposed the idea, explaining that the racist graffiti should stay precisely because it is so shocking. “When tourists, journalists and NGOs come into the area they are so shocked and horrified that they write and talk about it,” says Katie. “It’s also a great opportunity to see visual evidence of the disgusting nature of these people who live [in the settlements].”

While in Palestine, Katie also painted on what is becoming the largest canvas in the world – the West Bank wall. Her politically relevant reinterpretation of Michelangelo’s Pieta remains on the grey concrete near the Qalandia checkpoint. Eyes shut, palm upturned – in resignation, desperation – a woman holds a dead husband/brother/father/son who is slumped on her lap. “When I got the idea [in 2004], I knew that it had to be painted on the apartheid wall,” she says. “But I never imagined I’d actually be able to get it together to go to Palestine and do it.” She also painted a Soviet-esque angular figure of a man in black and white swinging a sledge-hammer into the wall – denting it but not yet breaking it down. “I hope [the murals] are destroyed when the wall comes down, inshallah,” says Katie. Her creativity enhances her non-violent resistance to the Israeli occupation. Along with an ISM colleague, Katie performed “fire circuses” in Hebron. “No one had ever seen anything like it before and it was a big hit, especially the kids… We’d start performing when we’d see soldiers detaining and harassing Palestinians. It’s just such an absurd situation to see a bunch of teenage punks with guns start acting disrespectfully and physically aggressive towards women and old men for no reason at all. We dealt with that absurdity by adding to it… it had the effect of drawing the soldier’s attention away from the Palestinians and also entertaining the Palestinians while they were being detained.”

One of the greatest challenges of living in Palestine, says Katie, is having to accepting that my tax dollars as an American go towards funding the Occupation and the violence. “Americans grow up learning the values that everyone is equal and everyone, in theory, has the same rights. “To see that this is neither true in theory nor in practice in Palestine turned my world upside down – it’s like all of a sudden someone tells you 1 + 1 = 3 and you just have to accept it.” As Katie asks in her blog, also entitled Postcards from Palestine “Is this apartheid yet?”

More of Katie’s artwork can be seen on her website: www.theopticnerve.com
She also maintains a blog at: moomin13.livejournal.com

Occupation Hazards

Katie shares with Skin her top altercations with the IDF:

1. Water supplies being poisoned by Israeli soldiers

Our water is kept in tanks on the roof of our apartment building. The IDF soldiers occasionally use our roof as one of their outposts. One day we discovered some creepy-crawly things in the water coming out of the kitchen sink faucet. We went up on the roof to investigate and discovered that our water tanks had been turned into an IDF garbage dump. The garbage included forks, spoons, knives, army netting, unexploded bullets, paper, plastic, glass, bricks, broken pipes, pudding containers, an extremely outdated, unopened yoghurt package, and plastic trays on which soldiers’ meals are served. The water on the bottom of the tank was completely black but the water on the top was clear. When I smelled it I felt like I was going to throw up. Since we get the water on the top of the tank first, we didn’t notice a problem until we noticed wriggly things in our water. After we made the discovery I went to the doctor who found that I had some kind of gnarly amoebas living in my stomach. One volunteer was diagnosed with tapeworm.

2. Being trampled by a police horse

There were some Israeli mounted police who were allowing the horses to s**t all over this area in Jerusalem where Palestinians frequently pray… I went up to one of them, asked them if they had any intention of cleaning up after their horses and the cop jerked the reins of the horse so the horse’s head knocked my head and then the cop ran the horse into me, causing me to fall over. I wound up under the horse that then trampled on my foot. When my friend came to my assistance and started screaming at the cops, he was beaten. We were really lucky in that neither of us were hurt badly.

3. False accusations of assault on a settler

I was taken to the Israeli Hebron police station on suspicion of assault after a settler accused me of scratching her as I escorted a woman past a group of settlers who had been taunting, harassing and throwing rocks at Palestinians. The Israeli police present did nothing to rein in the settlers and did not see me assault anyone because of course I didn’t. But nevertheless I was taken into custody and interrogated.

Maariv: “There are some who understand that Palestinians are human”

Translation from original Hebrew by Rann Bar-on

Waji Burnat, whose son was injured six years ago from Israeli army fire and has since been confined to a wheelchair, welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision. Now he’s considering suing for compensation. “Any amount of money will help the recovery”.

by Itamar Inbari, December 12th

“The Supreme Court’s decision proves that there are people who understand that Palestinians are human beings like any others.” – said Waji Burnat, a resident of the Palestinian village of Bil’in, this afternoon to NRG/Ma’ariv. His son Ranni, 26, was injured at the start of the Intifada and has since been confined to a wheelchair. Burnat added that any amount of money his son will receive from the Israeli state would help in his recovery.

Ranni Burnat was seriously injured from Israeli live fire soon after the start of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in September 2000, a few days after the former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount. Burnat, who was participating in a non-violent demonstration in Ramallah at the time, was hit with live ammunition. The bullet that penetrated his neck paralyzed him, and since then he has been confined to a wheelchair.

Ranni’s father says that he has previously tried to sue the Israeli army and even contacted a lawyer. When the latter did not return his calls, he understood that the probability of the case reaching the courts was small due to the “Intifada law”.

Today, after he heard about the Supreme Court decision, Waji Burnat said that he hopes to sue the state. “My son is the most precious thing I have and what has happened is in the past already. Any amount of money Ranni will get will help his recovery,” he said. The father praised the Supreme Court judges for their decision. “I feel that there are people who understand that Palestinians are human, just like everybody else,” he said with satisfaction.

“Comprehensive Damage”

Today, an expanded panel of Supreme Court judges decided unanimously that Palestinians injured during Israeli army operations in the last six years can sue the state for damages. Nine judges, headed by the former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak, canceled the amendment to the compensation law that removed the right of Palestinians to sue and ruled it unconstitutional. Despite that, the Supreme Court left as written the part of the law barring members of terrorist organizations and subjects of enemy states from suing the state.

The Supreme Court partially accepted an appeal filed by nine human rights organizations, including Adalah and the Association for Civil Rights and canceled an amendment to the damages law that was approved by the Knesset 18 months ago. According to the amendment, the Minister of Defense can declare areas in the Occupied Territories to be “zones of conflict”, even if no combat activity took place in them. The amendment to the law was approved in July 2005, but was applied retroactively to damages caused to Palestinians from the end of September 2000.

Since then thousands of claims for damages were submitted by Palestinians to various courts around the country. According to estimates, their total monetary value is tens, or even hundreds of millions of shekels. The amendment to the law gave the state immunity from such claims and and de facto removed the right of Palestinians from the Occupied Territories to sue for damages. In the verdict, the judges stated that the removal of responsibility from the side of the state for damage caused to Palestinians contradicts the rights set forth in “Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom.”

“We must remember that the territories of Judea and Samaria, as well as Gaza until August 2005, were subject to combat status for almost forty years”, wrote Barak in the verdict. “The security forces maintain a permanent and continuous presence in those areas. This kind of blanket immunity given to the state means that the state gets a pardon from responsibility for damages with regard to a wide range of activities unrelated to combat. It means that many victims, who were never involved in any hostile activities, are left with no compensation for the damage caused to their lives, their bodies and their property. Such comprehensive disregard for their rights does not align with the duties of the Israeli state.”

Amnesty International Secretary-General visits Tel Rumeida

Ma’an News: Amnesty International’s secretary-general visits Hebron, meets Old City family besieged by settlers

December 7th,

The secretary-general of Amnesty International is currently in the occupied Palestinian territories on a special tour to assess the human rights situation in light of the current situation. On Wednesday, the secretary-general, Irene Khan, visited the ancient holy city of Hebron, situated in the south of the occupied West Bank, and the site of much friction between the native Palestinian population and the Israeli Jewish settler population, who are doing everything in their power to push the Palestinians out.

Mrs Khan toured the old city of Hebron, where much of the friction occurs, and the Ibrahimi Mosque where she prayed. The Ibrahimi mosque, or the Cave of the Patriarchs, is the burial spot of Abraham and many other early prophets and is therefore considered holy by all three monotheistic faiths. As a result, the building is split in two: one side is a mosque and one side is a synagogue. The whole complex is controlled by the Israeli military and the soldiers decide who may enter through a series of checkpoints.

The Israeli forces prevented Khan’s companions and media people from entering the mosque with her. They also forbade any photographic shots to be taken during her visit, claiming that the area was a closed military zone.

Khan then toured the streets of the old city where she faced harassment from the Jewish settlers. She then visited the family of Hanna Abu Haikal in their home where she was briefed by the family members about the harassments, bribes and threats that they face from the settlers. They told her that the Israelis paid them $20 million to leave the house, but they refuse to sell the house.

The Abu Haikal family home is located in the middle of many Israeli settlers’ houses. As a consequence, the family suffers harshly. The family told Khan that often during the night, the Israeli settlers break into the house.

When Khan was asked by Ma’an about what her organization can do to help this family, she replied that Amnesty International continues to help by reporting such incidents and revealing such Israeli violations, which she affirmed occur not only against this family but against dozens of Palestinian families. She said that Amnesty International aims to help Palestinians who live adjacent to the Israeli settlements and to present their case to the international community.

Earlier on Wednesday, Khan had visited the southern Israeli town of Sderot that has been hit by numerous crudely-made Palestinian projectiles emanating from the northern Gaza Strip. Khan will also spend a day in the Gaza Strip, visiting Beit Hanoun and other localities badly hit by Israel’s military machinery. She will also meet with various Israeli and Palestinian civil society representatives and members of the respective leaderships during her six-day tour.

Palestine News Network: “Settlements further encroaching into Tubas; major loss imminent”

by Ali Samoudi, December 10th

The northern West Bank’s Tubas is under imminent threat by Israeli settlers who have long had their eye on the Palestinian town’s agricultural lands.

The settlements are already encroaching onto the land with continual expansion. One of the leaders of the local community said that all facts indicate that there are new attempts to expand the settlements by confiscating large tracts of remaining farm land.

It is clear, as reported by the local community, that the Israeli policy is to eliminate any Palestinian presence in the Jordan Valley area, including confiscating the fertile land, building the Wall, and expanding existing settlements while building new ones.

Resident Azmi Abu Al Wafa said that the “looting and confiscation of adjacent lands” began in 1969 and that Israeli forces are looking to “loot the remainder thereof.” He said that farmers have endured years of harassment by the settlers and soldiers. Resident Ra’ed Suleiman said that settlers closed-off his land to him entirely, despite its distance from the settlements.

The numbers of loss in dunams of land are staggering and rising. Israeli forces issued home demolition orders and are overtaking the water supply and some of the most fertile lands. In 1983, 1984 and 1986 Israeli settlements took more of Tubas. Suleiman said that Israeli policy is removing residents from the land one decade at a time.