Category: In the Media - Page 82 - International Solidarity Movement

Settler Family Stabbed to Death; Troops Attack Northern West Bank Villages

12 March 2011 | Palestine News Network

Five Israeli settlers from the same family were stabbed to death on Saturday at dawn in their homes located in the settlement of Itamar in northern West Bank.

Israeli sources said that the five killed were the father, mother and three children aged 11, three and three-month old baby. According to Israeli police and army reports the attacker entered the home at around 1:00 am and stabbed the family as they slept, three children of the family aged 12, 6 and 2 managed to escape to nearby house and call for help.

Large forces of Israeli military and police closed all roads around the settlement and engaged in a manhunt for the attacker who escaped the scene; police reports say maybe it’s more than one attacker. The Israeli army also started an investigation on the fact that the alarm system of the security fence around the settlement did not go off when the attacker jumped the fence into the settlement.

Later on Saturday Israeli troops stormed a number of west Bank villages in northern West Bank and searched homes.

Palestinian sources said that soldiers invaded the villages of Zababda, Mislya, Sanour and Awarta and searched homes and farm lands nearby. Troops enforced a curfew on Awarta village and announced all northern West Bank as a closed military zone, Palestinian sources added.

Settlers groups accused Palestinians of the attack, the reasons and the group behind the attack remains unknown. Eleven Palestinian civilians were reported injured by Israeli army and settlers attacks in the past week, Palestinian sources reported. Settlers attacks on Palestinians escalated in the West Bank shortly after Israeli troops evacuated a settlers post in northern West Bank two weeks ago.

Bill to punish anti-Israel boycotters passes first Knesset hurdle

09 March 2011 | Haaretz

According to proposal, Israelis would face harsh punitive measures for such actions; controversial bill also calls for imposing sanctions on foreign nationals and groups and on states that give boycotts force of law.

The Knesset plenum on Monday approved in its first reading a “boycott law,” which would levy harsh punitive fines on Israelis who call for academic or economic boycotts against Israeli institutions.

The controversial bill was put forth by 24 Knesset members, including Kadima party whip Dalia Itzik, coalition chairman Zeev Elkin (Likud ) and committee chairman David Rotem (Yisrael Beiteinu ).

The bill was supported by 32 members of Knesset, while 12 MKs opposed.

The draft law also calls for imposing sanctions against foreign nationals and organizations that call for anti-Israel boycotts, as well as against states that pass legislation giving such boycotts the force of law.

Elkin said prior to the vote that while in the United States it is considered illegal to boycott Israel – punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of $1 million – the Israeli legal system cannot punish an Israeli who urges an American company to boycott his own country.

“This is an important and reasonable bill that will enable us to continue to ask the U.S. to take legal action against its citizens who boycott Israel,” Elkin said.

Kadima faction chairwoman Dalia Itzik voted against the bill, and said that “it has nothing to do with the left or the right, for or against Arabs. MK Elkin, this is not what the poet intended. As a private civilian, do you want to put me in jail? You have taken the bill too far.”

The Ministries of Justice, Foreign Affairs and Industry, Trade and Labor are fiercely opposed to the bill, on the grounds that it will not achieve its stated purpose of curbing boycotts and will only hamper efforts to cope with boycotts and the delegitimization of Israel on an international level.

Representatives of these ministries told the committee that the law would violate the right to freedom of expression and could damage Israel’s relations with the European Union and the Foreign Ministry’s freedom of action.

The preamble to the bill states that its aim is “to protect the State of Israel in general and its citizens in particular from academic, economic and other boycotts targeting the state, its citizens and its corporations because of their connection to the state.

The draft law distinguishes among boycotts by Israeli residents or citizens; by foreign residents or nationals; and by foreign states, through legislation. It explicitly includes boycotts that affect the West Bank, such as boycotts of goods and services originating in the Jewish settlements there.

Under the provisions of the bill, the court could levy a fine of up to NIS 30,000 on Israeli citizens calling for or taking party in boycotts against Israel. Foreign citizens who violate the law could be prohibited from entering Israel for 10 years or more.

Foreign states that pass laws leading to a boycott of Israel or of Israeli products could be barred from carrying out transactions in Israeli bank accounts and from trading in Israeli stocks, land or real estate. In addition, the state could suspend the transfer of payments owed to the states. Israeli citizens who have suffered damage as a result of the boycott could sue for compensation, to be paid out of the frozen funds.

Army arrests local protest leader in Nabi Saleh last night

6 March 2011 | Popular Struggle Coordination Committee

Naji Tamimi, member of the Nabi Saleh popular committee and one of the leading figures in the struggle against the annexation of village lands by the nearby settlement of Halamish, was arrested last night during an army night raid on the village. The military also searched the home of another popular committee member, Bassem Tamimi, absent at the time. These last few weeks saw the army waging an extensive arrest campaign against village residents, specifically targeting minors.

At around 1:30 AM last night, dozens of soldiers swarmed the village of Nabi Saleh, north of Ramallah, arresting 47 year old Naji Tamimi. Tamimi, who was sleeping in his home at the time, was taken out blindfolded and handcuffed. Tamimi is one of the village’s leading figures in its struggle against the occupation and for the protection of village lands from a Halamish settler take over.

Simultaneously, another group of soldiers raided the home of Bassem Tamimi, another prominent activist with the village’s popular committee who was absent at the time. Tamimi’s wife, Nariman, was woken up by the violent pounding and opened the door holding a video camera and filming. The soldiers ordered her to stop filming, and when she refused, violently confiscated the camera. After conducting a meticulous, hour long search of the premises, the soldiers left the house.

Over the last five weeks the army has arrested sixteen of Nabi Saleh’s residents on suspicion of participation in protests in the village. Half of the arrestees were minors, the youngest of whom merely eleven. The arrests were conducted based on incriminations extracted from a fourteen year-old boy from the village, recently arrested and subjected to verbal and emotional pressure during his interrogation. Prevented from consulting an attorney, he was interrogated in absence of his parents, albeit obliged by law. The interrogators have also never bothered informing the boy of his right to remain silent.

Ever since the beginning of the village’s struggle against settler takeover of their lands, in December of 2009, the army has conducted 63 arrests related to protest in the village. As the entire village numbers just over 500 residents, the number constitutes a gross 10% of its population.

Tamimi’s arrest last night corresponds to the systematic arrest of protest leaders all around the West Bank, as in the case of the villages of Bil’in and Ni’ilin. Only recently the Military Court of Appeals has aggravated the sentence of Abdallah Abu Rahmah from the village of Bilin, sending him to 16 months imprisonment. The arrest and trial of Abu Rahmah has been widely condemned by the international community, most notably by Britain and EU foreign minister, Catherin Ashton. Harsh criticism of the arrest has also been offered by leading human rights organizations in Israel and around the world, among them B’tselem, ACRI, as well as Human Rights Watch, which declared Abu Rahmah’s trial unfair, and Amnesty International, which declared Abu Rahmah a prisoner of conscience.

Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem’s visa revoked

02 March 2011 | Arieh Cohen

Sheil Dawani is considered a foreigner, having been born in Nablus, while the Anglican cathedral and offices are in East Jerusalem. Without a visa, in theory he can be arrested and deported at any time. Appeal already submitted to an administrative tribunal could have the negative effect of giving reason to the government.

Israel’s Interior Ministry has revoked the permit for the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem, The Rt Revd Suheil Dawani, to live in Jerusalem, and has refused requests to reinstate it, in spite of protests by Anglican authorities in the West specifically the United States.

The Bishop is a native of the Holy Land and has spent most of his life and ministry here, but cannot obtain either citizenship or legal residence in Israel, since he was born in Nablus, i.e. in the West Bank, which has been under Israeli occupation since 1967, but has not been annexed to Israel. East Jerusalem, on the other hand, where the Anglican Cathedral and Diocesan offices are situated, was also occupied at the same time, but Israel annexed it and considers it part of its national territory (although no other country in the world recognizes this annexation). Therefore, Bishop Dawani is considered by Israel to be a foreigner who can only visit – let alone live in – East Jerusalem with a special permit, which the Israeli authorities can either grant or deny at their sole discretion. In fact, even the original Palestinian inhabitants of East Jerusalem, and their descendants, are considered by Israel to be foreigners who are no more than possessors of a residence permit, which Israel can revoke.

Since the Bishop has of course remained at his post, in Jerusalem, without the permit, he could be arrested at any moment, be put on trial for being in Israel illegally, be sentenced to a prison term – or simply be forcibly removed from Jerusalem.

This situation is causing deep worry to all the Churches in the Holy Land. Because of the representative function of the Churches in the Holy Land, on behalf of the world- wide Christian communities, and because of various personnel needs, a large portion of the bishops, clergy and religious serving in Jerusalem and elsewhere, come from other countries. Israel does not allow them to acquire citizenship or even legal residence, and they can only remain in Israeli territory in virtue of visas that need to be renewed every year or two years – at the Government’s sole discretion. Indeed, as has been made public by news reports over the years, the issue of entry visas and residence for Catholic clergy and religious is a priority item on the agenda of the negotiations between the Holy See and the State of Israel, right from their beginning in 1992 – with no agreement yet. So the predicament of the Anglican Bishop is being watched closely by all the Churches here.

The Bishop has now applied for an Israeli administrative court to intervene, but the prospects for his lawsuit are far from certain. As a matter of general principle, the Government is free to issue or to withhold the kind of permit he needs, without giving detailed reasons, except essentially raisons d’état. There is an opinion, too, that turning to the court is a mistake, since an unfavourable decision by the court (the likelier outcome perhaps) would give the Government the cover of law. It might have been better for him, some say, to rely instead on rousing Western public opinion, in the name of religious freedom and natural justice. Time will tell.

Palestinian refugees supporters protest Canada Park

21 February 2011 | The Alternative Information Center

Palestinian, Israeli and international activists gathered in front of the Representative Office of Canada to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and the Embassy of Canada to Israel in Tel Aviv for protest vigils on Monday (21/2) organized by the Committee for the Defense of the Rights of the Latrun Villages.

A Memorandum to the Representative of Canada to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and the Ambassador of Canada in Tel Aviv respectively was submitted, protesting on behalf of families of the Latrun villages, who were forcibly expelled from their villages in the 1967 war by the criminal action of ethnic cleansing, classified as a crime against humanity under international law.

Canada Park, built in cooperation with the Jewish National Fund, now occupies the site of the villages of Imwas, Yalo and Bayt Nuba, which were were completely destroyed in 1967. Their residents are now refugees in the West Bank and Jordan.

“Canada Park was planted and funded with the support of the Jewish National Fund of Canada over the lands and over the ruins of three ethnically-cleansed villages: Imwas, Yalu and Beit Nuba, occupied and ethnically cleansed in the course and the wake of the 1967 war,” Dr. Uri Davis told the Alternative Information Center (AIC) outside the Canadian Embassy.

“The ethnic cleansing was perpetrated by the Israeli army, not the JNF, but the JNF is complicit in this crime against humanity by veiling and covering up the crime, planting the Canada Park over the lands and over the ruins, and presenting itself as an environmentally-friendly organization concerned with public will and recreational welfare of all citizens of Israel.”

Participants carried banners reading: “CANADA PARK IS COMPLICIT WITH A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY PERPETRATED IN OUR VILLAGES,” “WE DEMAND THAT THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA RECOGNIZE AND ACT TO IMPLEMENT THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE OF THE LATRUN VILLAGES,” and, “WE DEMAND THE NULLIFICATION OF THE LEGAL STATUS OF THE JEWISH NATIONAL FUND (JNF) IN CANADA.”

The village defense committee has repeated requested that the Representative Office of Canada to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah meet with the Ambassador of Canada to Israel in Ramallah and together tour the Latrun area and the visiting the remains of the destroyed villages over whose ruins the Jewish National Fund (JNF) has planted “Canada Park.”

“Most representatives of the destroyed Latrun villages are not able to come to Tel Aviv to meet the Ambassador, it is our request that the Ambassador arrive in Ramallah, meet the people concerned and with a delegation of the destroyed, ethnically cleansed villages, visit Canada Park and submit an official report of his fact-finding to his government,” Dr. Davis said.

He continued saying, “Canada Park represents a blatant violation of international law, but it also represents a blatant violation of official Canadian policy condemning any intervention of settlement or occupation or change of demographic composition or any other alteration in the 1967 occupied territories.”