Category: In the Media - Page 41 - International Solidarity Movement

An Open Letter from Gaza to EU: Do not reward apartheid!

19 August 2012 | Besieged Gaza, occupied Palestine

We call on the European Union to challenge and not embrace Israel’s incessant land expropriation and racist subjugation against the Palestinian people. The European Union’s own reports document and supposedly lament Israel’s apartheid policies, yet continues to pursue policies that legitimize them, such as the scandalous upgrade of trade relations currently being put forward.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has said that the regime you wish to do even more business with is worse than South African Apartheid, having been to the West Bank many times. But you turn your eyes and ears away from him. So does former ANC MP Ronnie Kassrils and countless other South Africans who have been to see the physical and psychological matrix of control Israel has mounted against us.

You are very well aware of what is happening to us. In terms of the brutal and illegal colonisation of the West Bank your own report from the Office of the European Union Representative (EUREP) in Jerusalem of July 2011 stated

“…large Jewish populations have settled into the occupied territory, in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and international humanitarian law. In 1972 there were 1,200 settlers which have grown to 310,000 settlers today in 124 settlements and 100 so called outposts in Area C. The Israeli government subsidizes and provides incentives including funding for housing, education and infrastructure such as special roads and water connection… The municipal area of settlements encompasses 9.3% of the West Bank Territory. However, due to the extensive network of settler roads and restrictions on Palestinians accessing their own land, the whole structure of the Israeli settlements dominate more than 40% of the West Bank.”

This is enforced Apartheid Segregation. Perhaps you shy away from using the words,”Ethnic Cleansing”, despite categorical evidence you yourselves present: “Prior to the Israeli occupation in 1967 the Palestinian population of the Jordan valley was estimated at between 200,000 and 320,000. As of 2009 the population is approximately 56,000…” This is ethnic cleansing in its most explicit form.

“Settlements of all kinds – formal or informal outposts – are illegal under international law.” You explain in the report.

They violate the prohibition against transfer of population of the occupying power to the occupied territory (art 49 IVGC), the prohibition against appropriation of private civilian property without military necessity (Regulation 46 Hague Regulations 1907) Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention names deportations and transfers under article 49 as grave breaches of International Humanitarian Law.

So why does the EU make detailed reports on Israel committing self-evident crimes against humanity – vast theft of our land, using bulldozers, tanks and army to violently push our people out? One wonders as to why such reports are written? We fail to understand how, in spite of your own findings, you decide to reward the aggressor!

The main legal basis through which you conduct EU relations between Israel and the European Union is an “association agreement” dating from 2000. In article 2, respect for human rights is described as an “essential element” of the accord, stating that, “relations shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles which must guide internal and international policy”.

More than 15,000 illegal Israeli Jewish settlers were added last year making the current number of “illegal settlers” 650,000. Yet still you propose a Palestinian state based on the Bantustans we have been herded into, without rights to water, to real movement, to airspace, sea space and certainly no rights to the 6 million refugees around the world who European countries have continually turned their backs on.

Notably, this trade upgrade was originally frozen when the Israeli Army, the fourth most armed in the world, committed atrocities over the new year of 2009 that you, the EU, couldn’t even ignore, the Gaza Bloodbath, the 3 week Israeli operation that killed over 1400 (over 340 children) injuring over 5300, the vast majority civilians. Palestinians of Gaza are still recovering from that, though most of them never will. For most of them lost a friend or relative and the trauma continues to manifest itself in all the generations, especially the youngest.

Since the EU feels ready to reward Israel with an upgrade, does it assume that justice was brought to the perpetrators of the bloodbath Palestinian civilians suffered in Gaza, and they now have their human rights fully respected by Israel?

Seeing as you do not read your own reports perhaps we can fill you in. Despite the wide scale crop contamination, a spike in child deformities and cancers from the incessant and illegal white phosphorous and chemical weapons showered on Palestinians of Gaza; despite our destroyed roads and sewage system, despite the United Nations accusing Israel of, ‘probable war crimes and crimes against humanity’, NO international criminal court hearings, NO sanctions, NO expectation of compensation from Israel for the 20,000 houses, hospitals, schools, shops, offices, damaged or destroyed, and NO effective easing of the now 5 year medieval blockade that has left much of the infrastructure in ruins due to limits on concrete, electrical and building materials. Israel right now is collectively punishing all of Gaza, contravening article 33 of the Geneva Conventions, supplementing nicely its record number of United Nation Resolution violations.

Europe’s aid to Palestinians will not free them from political oppression. Charity has never helped free a colonized population. The funding of weapons to Israel completely negates it. 11 of the top 20 weapons dealers to Israel are EU member states. Germany actually sold 2 dolphin submarines while Israel was bombarding Lebanon in July 2006, killing over a thousand people. In the first three months of 2008 alone, Britain rubberstamped timely military exports of almost £20 million to Israel giving it a suitable arsenal to blow us up with a few months later. Among the Gaza debris of the 2009 Cast Lead attacks, Amnesty International found, “made in France” labels on components used in Hellfire missiles. We hope the money was good for Europe’s biggest arms exporter to Israel. EU Scientific collaboration and investment in Israel is even more rewarding.

And it comes full circle when it was revealed that €11 million worth of damage was caused to EU financed infrastructure in Gaza during these bombings. Prior to that, from August 2001 to November 2008, Israeli attacks on the occupied territories inflicted damage worth more than €44 million on EU provided aid. As Mustafa Barghouti asked European Parliamentarians, “Are EU taxpayers really happy to reconstruct what US taxpayers have paid to destroy?”

We’re not surprised that an EU diplomat found it hard to hide this epic EU hypocrisy of the new trade deal, “I was struck by the fact that a whole range of relations was offered to Israel, at the request of Israel, as if nothing is happening on the ground… We should be using [Tuesday’s] dialogue to get what we want, which is Israel’s compliance with its obligations under international law.”

Europe has historically accepted Israel trampling all over Palestinians, from the beginning in 1948. With precision brutality we have been uprooted, humiliated at checkpoints, imprisoned without charge, denied our heritage and religious sites, denied our freedom to move and see family members, denied water and our livelihoods, our arable land, our access to the sea, our dreams of visiting other countries. And Europe has merely watched. And Israel has carried on. Because it knows Europe makes noises but it does not stand up to Israel.

It is time to stand up!

Stand up for basic human rights. Is it too much to ask you to follow basic expectations of human rights in your dealings with Israel? Stand up against its policies of occupation, colonization and apartheid? When justice eventually comes and we can live as equals, not under an apartheid system that denies us our rights and our homes, people will look back on this period aghast that such collective punishment of an entire population, the majority children, was allowed to go on for so long, aided and abetted by the European Union. Stand up now, end this trade agreement with Israel and remember when and why Europeans finally put human rights first by sanctioning the White Afrikaaner regime. Legitimising Apartheid was wrong then, and it is wrong now.

Read the text with footnotes at One Democratic State Groups webpage

In suspected Jerusalem lynch, dozens of Jewish youths attack 3 Palestinians

By Nir Hasson

17 August 2012 | Haaretz

One of the Palestinians was seriously wounded and hospitalized in intensive care; eyewitness: Today I saw a lynch with my own eyes.

Dozens of Jewish youths attacked three young Palestinians in Jerusalem’s Zion Square early on Friday morning, in what one witness described as “a lynch” on Facebook.

One of the Palestinians was seriously wounded and hospitalized in intensive care in Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem. Acting Jerusalem police chief, General Menachem Yitzhaki, gas set up a special team to investigate the incident and detain the suspects.

The three were allegedly attacked by youths shouting “Death to the Arabs” at them, as well as other racial slurs. One of them fell on the floor, and his attackers continued to beat him until he lost consciousness. They subsequently fled from the scene.

Within a short period of time rescue volunteers and Magen David Adom rescue services arrived on the scene, and found the victim with no pulse and not breathing. After a lengthy resuscitation attempt, he was transferred to hospital.

Writing on her Facebook page, one eye witness decribed the attack as a lynch: “Its late at night, and I can’t sleep. My eyes are full of tears for a good few hours now and my stomach is turning inside out with the question of the loss of humanity, the image of God in mankind, a loss that I am not willing to accept.”

“But today I saw a lynch with my own eyes, in Zion Square, the center of the city of Jerusalem ….. and shouts of ‘A Jew is a soul and Arab is a son of a –,’ were shouted loudly and dozens (!!) of youths ran and gathered and started to really beat to death three Arab youths who were walking quietly in the Ben Yehuda street,” the witness wrote.

“When one of the Palestinian youths fell to the floor, the youths continued to hit him in the head, he lost consciousness, his eyes rolled, his angled head twitched, and then those who were kicking him fled and the rest gathered in a circle around, with some still shouting with hate in their eyes.”

“When two volunteers [from local charities] went into the circle, they tried to perform CPR the mass of youths standing around started to say resentfully that we are resuscitating an Arab, and when they passed near us and saw that the rest of the volunteers were shocked, they asked why we were so in shock, he is an Arab. When we returned to the area after some time had passed, and the site was marked as a murder scene, and police were there with the cousin of the victim who tried to reenact what happened, two youths stood there who did not understand why we wanted to give a bottle of water to the cousin of the victim who was transferred to hospital in critical condition, he is an Arab, and they need don’t need to walk around in the center of the city, and they deserve it, because this way they will finally be afraid,” she added.

“Children aged 15-18 are killing a child their own age with their own hands. Really with their own hands. Children who’s hearts were unmoved when they beat to death a boy their age who lay writhing on the floor.”

Sheikh Jarrah: ‘My Neighbourhood’

By Patrick Keddie

4 August 2012 | International Solidarity Movement

The Israeli authorities’ attempts to ethnically displace Palestinians from East Jerusalem have intensified greatly in recent years; in some areas, such as Sheikh Jarrah, eviction notices have been handed out to nearly every Palestinian family. My Neighbourhood, a recent short documentary film produced by Just Vision, examines the struggles against mass Palestinian eviction and asks important questions of how to resist.

The film focuses on Sheikh Jarrah, an area less than 5 minutes’ walk from the opulent American Colony Hotel (favourite haunt of foreign journalists, NGO workers and politicians). The main protagonist is Mohammed El Kurd, an ebullient and thoughtful Palestinian teenager who experiences the trauma of partial eviction, as half of his house taken over by Israeli settlers.

In August 2009, Mohammed’s neighbours were evicted by Israeli settlers, supported by the Israeli authorities, who broke down the doors and smashed windows to force out the distraught Palestinian family living there. Mohammed remembers “a lot of policemen, a lot of angry faces.” The house is now garlanded in Israeli flags and rigged with Closed Circuit Television cameras.

In My Neighbourhood, a spokesperson for the Sheik Jarrah Settlers Group declares that evictions are justified because the Bible decrees that the area belongs to Jews. Angry settlers are shown descending on the area after Shabbat prayers, some brandishing automatic weapons and chanting, “in blood, in fire, we will kick out the Arabs.”

In November 2009, a group of settlers forcibly claimed half of Mohammed’s house – an extension built by the family without permission (it is almost impossible for Palestinians to acquire building permits in Jerusalem under Israeli law). Three young settlers, rotating in three month shifts, have since occupied the front half of the house, whilst the 13 members of the El Kurd family live in the back. Inevitably, this bizarre situation causes huge tension and resentment. The El Kurd family are subject to regular provocation and harassment, whilst their attempts to reclaim the rest of their house have failed.

Like many others in the neighbourhood, Mohammed’s family arrived as refugees. The El Kurds moved into the house in 1956 after being forced out of Haifa during the 1948 Nakba. The attempt to evict them from their current house would be a second ethnic displacement. Palestinians in Jerusalem endure a precarious existence under Israeli law; they are not recognized as Israeli citizens and can be stripped of their residency at any moment, with little recourse to the law. If the family is evicted they will likely be forced to move to the West Bank and prevented from returning.

A protest movement against the Israeli settlements in Sheikh Jarrah quickly grew, partly organized by Israeli peace activists. My Neighbourhood features Zvi and Sara Benninga, young leftist Israeli activists, who are at the forefront of organizing solidarity protests in Sheikh Jarrah. The protests against the evictions initially attract 20 to 30 people and eventually culminate in a rally of around 3000 protesters. Over the course of two years, Mohammed overcomes his initial scepticism and forges strong relationships with the Israeli activists.

By 2011, an uneasy stalemate has been reached. Settlers still occupy half of the El Kurd’s house but the protests have helped prevent any further evictions from taking place in the neighbourhood. Zvi Benninga argues that “Sheikh Jarrah elicits hope.”

However, in a talk after a screening of the film at Amnesty International, co-director Julia Bacha said that the achievement should be seen in context, “It’s a pause” she said, “nowhere near a victory. Literally, Mohammed could be evicted tomorrow from his house.”

Mohammed states his ambition to become a human rights lawyer to “use the law to evict them.” However, whilst international law condemns the occupation and the attempts to forcibly create settlements in occupied territory, Israeli law is systematically designed to facilitate occupation.

Settlers have found or forged deeds from the Ottoman era, purporting to show that the area used to be occupied by Jewish inhabitants; under Israeli law, this can facilitate the eviction of Palestinian properties. It seems a wider challenge to the law and the structure of occupation itself is required.

How to resist in the battle for Sheikh Jarrah?

My Neighbourhood is only 25 minutes long and therefore inevitably lacks detail and some wider context. There is little mention of the wider struggle across Jerusalem against Zionist colonization, such as the eviction of Palestinians in Silwan, the Old City, and Beit Hanina.

However, it is an assured film and offers a lucid critique of Israeli occupation. It is a useful and direct resource that can be shown in schools, colleges and workplaces to educate and inspire. The violence, injustice, and cruelty shown in the film generate a raw, visceral sense of outrage, whilst the relationships formed between Palestinians and liberal Israelis are encouraging. However, My Neighbourhood is also useful as it provokes fundamental questions about how to resist.

The Brazilian co-director Julia Bacha is perhaps best known for the 2009 documentary Budrus, which followed the successful attempts of a West Bank village to resist the building of Israel’s separation wall on their land. Budrus showed how disciplined, strategic, and forceful non-violent resistance can succeed and the film serves as a model for challenging the terms of the Israeli occupation.

In contrast, My Neighbourhood is a snapshot of popular protest, which stops short of non-violent direct action. The protests at Sheikh Jarrah offer a limited methodology for challenging the underlying effects of the occupation and suggest that more is needed to resist occupation of East Jerusalem and to actively re-gain the rest of the El Kurd’s house.

When I was in Sheikh Jarrah in late 2011, a sense of drift and aimlessness had descended on the neighbourhood. There was much talk of needing to re-vitalise the protest movement to actively force concessions from the settlers and the Israeli authorities, rather than just holding the authorities back enough to maintain the unhappy status quo. In My Neighbourhood, Mohammed laments that the family now says, “if we regain the house, rather than when”. Not only is the status quo undesirable, it is also fragile; the Netanyahu government and the right-wing local authorities are fiercely committed to extending the settlements and millions of dollars are flooding in to the area to finance settlement construction.

Bacha argues that the first Palestinian intifada, which was overwhelmingly characterized by non-violent direct action, was successful as it forced the Israelis to negotiate. The uprising ended when the negotiations began and it was these actual agreements made during the Oslo Accords in 1993 that were unsuccessful and led to the strengthening of the Israeli occupation.

In the current struggle of attrition in neighbourhoods like Sheikh Jarrah, Israel is gradually eroding the Palestinian presence in East Jerusalem and thus ending any hope for justice and reconciliation. Bacha suggests that mass, direct non-violent resistance on an intifada scale is what is needed to destabilise the structures of law and occupation that facilitate ethnic displacement in East Jerusalem. And that it should not stop until it achieves its aims.

Concern mounts for three remaining hunger strikers

30 July 2012 | Addameer, Al Haq, PHR-Israel

Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Al-Haq and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-IL) are gravely concerned for the life and health of the three remaining Palestinian hunger strikers held by Israel. Of utmost concern is the health and life of administrative detainees Samer Al-Barq, today on his 70th day of renewed hunger strike, and Hassan Safadi who is on his 40th day of renewed hunger strike. Samer, whose current strike follows his previous 28-day strike and whose health continues to deteriorate rapidly, is only taking salts and vitamins and he is still being held in isolation.

Following the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) denial of access of an independent doctor to the hunger strikers Samer, Hassan and prisoner Akram Rikhawi, PHR-IL submitted three appeals to the district court of Petah Tekva requesting immediate access to independent doctors. On 23 July, the district court ordered the IPS to allow an independent doctor to see Samer no later than 1 August and to see Hassan and Akram within two days of the hearing.

Despite prior coordination with the IPS regarding a PHR-IL doctor’s visit to Ramleh prison medical centre on 25 July to examine both Akram and Hassan, the IPS informed the doctor on her arrival that Hassan had been taken to a court hearing and therefore only Akram could be examined. In clear breach of the court order, the IPS still ignores PHR-IL requests to allow the independent doctor visit to Samer and Hassan.

Akram Rikhawi ended his hunger strike on 22 July after 102 days upon reaching an agreement with the IPS. According to the agreement Akram will be released on 25 January 2013 to his home in the Gaza Strip, which is six months prior to his original release date.

Following the visit to Akram, the PHR-IL doctor reported that though his general feeling has improved, he is still suffering from multiple conditions which have been left untreated. Akram’s asthma continues to be a cause for concern and is severely unstable despite treatment with steroids. The doctor also emphasized that asthma is a life-threatening illness that in the case of a severe attack could lead to death. Furthermore, the doctor also found that Akram suffers from unbalanced diabetes and recommended the renewal of his treatment which was stopped during the hunger strike.

Akram also suffers from severe weakness in his left foot with a lack of full sensation in his left thigh. As his condition has not improved since ending the strike, this would indicate progressive motor and sensory damage to the left thigh. The PHR-IL doctor recommended Akram’s immediate referral to a public hospital in order to identify the etiology and to perform a full neurological investigation.

It should be noted that in the two previous visits of the PHR-IL doctors to Akram, on 6 June and 5 July, both recommended further medical neurological investigation and warned of the danger of peripheral nerve damage. The doctors also recommended immediate examination by a lung specialist. To date, these recommendations have not been performed.

Hassan Safadi is on his 40th day of renewed hunger strike, after previously spending 71 days on prolonged hunger strike. His last administrative detention order was due to expire on 29 June and, according to the agreement ending the Palestinian prisoners’ mass hunger strike, he was supposed to be released on that date. However on 21 June he was informed of the renewal of his administrative detention order for a further six months, in violation of the agreement.

According to PHR-IL lawyer Mohamad Mahagni following his visit to Hassan on 22 July, Hassan is currently being held in an isolated cell. Hassan has reported escalating pressure from the IPS to end his hunger strike. Hassan further noted that his court hearing on 25 July has been delayed again until 07 August, stressing that he is in no condition to travel 15 hours every time for the court hearings. He also reported suffering from kidney problems, sight problems, extreme weakness, severe weight loss, headaches, dizziness and has difficulty standing.

Today represents Ayman Sharawna’s 30^th day of hunger strike. Ayman was released as part of the prisoner exchange deal in October 2011, only to be re-arrested on 31 January 2012. No charges have been filed against him. Ayman has been recently transferred to Ramleh prison medical center due to the deterioration in his health.

While administrative detention is allowed under international humanitarian law, it must be used only under exceptional circumstances as it infringes upon basic human rights, including the right to a fair trial. Indeed, the denial of a fair trial constitutes a ‘grave breach’ of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Furthermore, the European Parliament called on Israel in a September 2008 resolution to “guarantee that minimum standards on detention be respected, to bring to trial all detainees, [and] to put an end to the use of ‘administrative detention orders”. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has stated several times that prolonged administrative detention is likely to result in the exposure of detainees to “torture, ill-treatment and other violations of human rights.”

In light of the further deterioration of the conditions of the remaining Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike, Addameer, Al-Haq and PHR-IL urge the international community to immediately intervene on their behalf and demand:

That the agreements reached on 14 and 15 May 2012 be respected, including the release of administrative detainees who were promised release at the end of their current orders, renewal of family visits and lifting of the punitive measures used against Palestinians in Israeli custody;

Unrestricted access for independent physicians to all hunger strikers;
The immediate transfer of Akram Rikhawi and Samer Al-Barq, as well as all other hunger strikers who have been striking to for more than 40 days to public hospitals;
That no hunger striker be shackled while hospitalized;
That all hunger strikers—especially those in advanced stages of hunger strike—be allowed family visits, while they are still lucid;
That all information regarding prisoners medical conditions be given to their families, in accordance with standards of medical ethics;
That Hassan Safadi, Samer Al-Barq and Omar Abo-Shalal along with all other administrative detainees, be immediately and unconditionally released;

‘Palestinians for Dignity’ rejects EU hypocrisy in upgrading its relations with the Israeli Occupation

30 July 2012 | Palestinians for Dignity, Occupied Ramallah

It has come to light over the last week that the European Union (EU) has decided to upgrade its trade and diplomatic relations with the state of Israel despite the latter’s intensification of its occupation, colonization and apartheid against the Palestinian people. The new deal will reportedly offer Israel upgraded trade and diplomatic relations in more than 60 areas, effectively reversing the freeze that was imposed after the vicious assault of the Israeli Occupation Forces on the Gaza Strip in December 2008 – January 2009.

This latest move by the EU is nothing less than outrageous, particularly given the EU’s continuous verbal criticism of Israel’s belligerent settlement plans. This duplicitous behavior epitomizes the reasons why the Palestinian people have no faith in the EU. While some in the Palestinian leadership might have common personal interests with the EU and Israel, the Palestinian people will not accept only hollow words of condemnation.

We should not need to remind the EU that Israel continuously flouts the will of the international community, remains in breach of UN Security Council resolutions, continues to violate its international law (including IHL) obligations, and daily abuses the human rights of the Palestinian people. Whether in its settlement policies, construction of the Apartheid Wall, its ethnic cleansing and “Judaization” of Jerusalem and the Naqab (Negev), its criminal blockade of Gaza, its denial of the UN-sanctioned rights of the Palestinian refugees, its violation of the rights of Palestinian prisoners (including children), its demolition of Palestinian homes, and its countless other illegal policies, Israel is undoubtedly guilty of gross human rights abuses, deserving of condemnation and sanctions, not rewards and benefits.

In its most recent plan Israel has decided to destroy eight Palestinian villages in southern Hebron, displacing more than 1000 Palestinians, in order to have more military training grounds for its soldiers. Rather than taking measures to ensure respect for international law as called for by Common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions, it seems that EU Member States have decided to reward Israel for its continued abuse of the Palestinian people. Moreover, EU Member States have chosen to completely ignore Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which is designed to deter human rights abuses by clearly stating that EU-Israel ‘’relations shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles which must guide internal and international policy”. These actions can only send one clear message to the Palestinian people – that our rights and lives are trivial, deserving only the occasional lip service but never meaningful action.

As Palestinian youth, we are tired of the EU’s hypocrisy and its contemptuous policies that use aid and development programs to mask political cowardice and complicity in Israel’s crimes; it has to be made clear that all the financial support going to the PA is futile when the EU offers unconditional political, trade, academic and other forms of support for Israel. The EU’s policies have only served to prolong Israel’s occupation and our oppression. The time has come for EU Member States, and the EU as a whole, to decide—to either demonstrate their support for human rights or continue their support of Israel’s violent occupation and apartheid regime and risk losing not only the Palestinian people but Arab peoples and people of conscience all over the world.

We hereby call on the EU to (1) immediately freeze the new upgrade of relations with Israel; (2) suspend the existing EU-Israel Association Agreement until Israel complies with international law; and (3) investigate and halt the work of all European companies benefiting from Israel’s occupation and settlement policies.

Barring meaningful action on the above, the Palestinian youth movement will organize to protest the latest manifestation of EU complicity and to challenge its presence and operations in Palestine.

Palestinians for Dignity