Category: In the Media - Page 99 - International Solidarity Movement

Gaza’s virtual connection to the rest of the world

23 May 2010

Eva Bartlett

The Gazan skyline reveals a particular need to link with the outside world. (Emad Badwan/IPS)

GAZA CITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IPS) – “I’ve learned most of what I know about photo editing and graphic design via the Internet,” says Emad, 27-year-old filmmaker and editor. In Gaza, this sort of thing has become usual in a different way.

“This program isn’t available here,” he says, smiling triumphantly as he finishes downloading the latest edition of an advanced video editing program. “Even if it was, I can’t afford to pay $600 for it, not even if I worked for two months. But I need this for my work, so I looked for a free online version.”

Isolated under a siege which began shortly after Hamas was elected in 2006 and heightened severely in mid-2007, Palestinians in Gaza have suffered the effects of such alienation in all aspects of their lives. The economy has been destroyed both by the prolonged and choking siege and the 2008-2009 Israeli assault on Gaza, leaving unemployment hovering near 60 percent.

Aside from denying Palestinians in Gaza an astonishing number of the most basic of daily items, as well as material vitally needed for reconstruction or in the health sector or for schools and universities, the siege is a psychological attack and strangulation which has pronounced affects on Palestinians dreams, hopes and daily realities.

“I’ve tried on various occasions to leave Gaza, for workshops abroad and for study,” says 24-year-old Majed. “But even when I’ve secured visas and invitations, the closed Israeli and Egyptian borders have prevented me from leaving.”

Likewise, Hatem has held a number of scholarships to study in the US and Europe, all of which have been lost to the whims of the Israeli and Egyptian officials imposing the siege.

Defiant despite the worst of obstacles, Palestinians continue to seek ways to educate themselves, as well as to feel connected to the outside world.

“The Internet is the most helpful thing right now,” says Emad. “For example, I’d like to study lighting in university, but it isn’t possible. Those type of programs, or anything on filmmaking and photography, are not available in Gaza. And since I cannot leave, I look online.”

Artists and musicians, as well as independent filmmakers, have virtually no market in Gaza for their work.

“Because of the siege and closed borders, the Internet is vital for promoting my work,” says Emad. “Someone anywhere in the world can see my photography, designs or videos and contact me about them. But for me, the most important is constantly sending a message about the reality of Palestine, whether it’s about the lives of children, or about the war, or the hardships under siege.”

Mahdi Zanoon keeps busy volunteering and filming with an organization in Gaza’s northern Beit Hanoun. But when not working, he too longs for contact with the world outside. “I chat with friends in other parts of Palestine and in countries abroad,” he says. “It is a small means of escape, when we always feel choked.”

Denied the opportunity to leave and visit family and relatives outside of Gaza, the Internet fulfills another vital role. “It’s too expensive to call people outside Gaza, but using Skype or a messenger program, I can keep in touch with friends and family abroad.”

Activists and educational groups also make the most of the Internet and technology. Satellite-enabled video conferences and Skype hook-ups allow university students in Gaza to connect with those in the occupied West Bank and with universities outside of Gaza working to break the siege on education.

The annual Bilin conference on 21 April this year included a satellite hook-up with academics and activists in Gaza, as well as residents in one of the hardest hit areas during the Israeli war on Gaza.

Ezbet Abed Rabbo, which had 372 homes destroyed, 333 partially damaged and suffered some of the worst human rights violations and war crimes at the hands of Israeli soldiers, played host to the conference, enabling the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem activists to show their solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. The conference also enabled continued dialogue between Gaza and the West Bank, something that the siege and Israeli policies works to severe.

But for many in Gaza, the Internet and television are less political and academic, and more about killing time. In a Strip where time is the only thing in abundance, lack of work and leisure activities leads more people to surf the net or watch television.

Turkish dramas have gained a wide audience in Gaza. “I like to see something different. Their clothes, their customs, their surroundings,” says Umm Fadi. “When the power cuts, I get so anxious because I don’t want to miss an episode of the drama.”

The programs provide a means of escaping the daily reality of life in Gaza, where many feel tomorrow will be no different from today or yesterday. “Nothing changes, every day is the same,” says Mohammed. “There’s no work, no freedom, nothing to do.”

“You know, we watch television for the news, but also see how life is in other countries,” says Mahfouz Kabariti. “My kids see ‘normal’ life in other countries and ask me why our lives are so different.

“Can you imagine, this is the 21st century and my kids have never seen a real train. They live by the sea and only dream of sailing.”

Gaza youth learn music and challenge the occupation

Electronic Intifada

21 May 2010

Eva Bartlett

Rita, nine, learning the basics of the violin. (Emad Badwan)

GAZA CITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IPS) – “Why are you rushing? Isn’t it nicer like this?” Mohammed Omer, oud (an oud is similar to a lute) teacher at the Gaza Music School, asks his student. Omer takes the oud and demonstrates, playing the song slowly, gracefully, with the ornamentations that are key to Arab music.

Mohammed Abu Suffiya, the 10-year-old student, has only been studying for six months but has already learned to read music and play a working rendition of a well-known song by Lebanese singer Fairouz.

Glancing only now and then at the sheet music, he begins to play again, more slowly and with more expression, his teacher accompanying him on a tabla (hand drum).

Mohammed Omer, 28, is one of five teachers at the Gaza Music School in Tel al-Howa, Gaza City. Formerly in the al-Quds hospital Red Crescent complex, the school moved to its current location not far from the hospital after the complex was bombed and burned during the 23-day Israeli assault on Gaza. A piano and at least two ouds were destroyed with the school premises.

The school opened about six months before the Gaza assault in December 2008-January 2009 as a response to the demand at the Qattan Center for the Child in Gaza City.

School director Ibrahim Najjar holds a music degree from Cairo. Mohammed Omer studied oud in Iraq. The piano and violin teachers are from Russia.

“We are open in the evenings, five days a week. Students receive one-on-one classes, 40 minutes each lesson,” says Najjar. “We teach the solfege system of note reading, because it is internationally understood.”

Currently, students can learn the violin, guitar, oud, qanoon (a zither-like instrument) and the piano. “We’d love to teach other instruments, but we lack professional teachers aside from the five we have.”

Fifty students now study at the institute, half in their first year, and half in their second, continuing from their start in the al-Quds complex.

Elena, the Russian piano teacher, works with 11-year-old Hada. “All my students are girls this year, but I hope next year will have some boys studying piano,” Elena says.

Tala, 11, is a second-year student, having studied piano in her first year. She sits with a qanoon before her, slowly plucking her way through a song, starting to find the techniques necessary to make music.

She has studied qanoon for a year now. “I chose it because it has a beautiful, unique sound. It is difficult, and not many people play it, so I wanted to learn it,” she says.

“When I play, I forget any problems and just think about the music.”

“All children like music, it’s the language of peace,” says Ibrahim Najjar. “And it’s good for the mind, body and our daily lives.”

At the moment, students are all from the Gaza City region. But this is more a question of logistics than preference.

“They don’t pay for the lessons,” says Najjar. “The Qattan center funds this program.”

But because transportation from regions outside of Gaza City is too expensive for most families, the students are local.

Najjar hopes to change this. “I’m trying to arrange a bus, so that students can come from any region of Gaza, if they have potential.”

“Even if they’ve never played an instrument, they can have the chance to learn. We test their ear: can they hear and hum a melody? And we test their rhythm: can they replicate a rhythm?”

Mahmoud Kohail, eight, has studied the qanoon for just under a year, but took first prize in a Palestine-wide competition in oriental music for ages seven to 11.

“Everyone asked me how many years he had been studying,” laughs Najjar. “When I told them it had been only 80 hours, they couldn’t believe me.”

Emad Kohail, Mahmoud’s father, is an accomplished oud player, and his mother a talented singer.

Also a doctor of mental health and alternative medicine, Emad Kohail explains how music has helped his son.

“Mahmoud suffered the same post-traumatic stress disorder [(PTSD)] that nearly all Gaza’s children suffer, as well as an attention deficit disorder,” he says.

“Music has made an immense difference in Mahmoud’s behavior. It has been a therapy for his PTSD and as a means of teaching him to focus.”

Ibrahim Najjar agrees that music is therapy, and constructive for children’s learning and mental health.

“There is a big difference in the students’ behavior from when they first came. Now, they are calmer, and listen and respect each other. I teach them this, but also to behave like this in all aspects of their lives.”

On a sunny Friday morning in Gaza’s south, east of Khan Younis, Abu Mohammed strums his oud for an appreciative audience: the children have been traumatized by a May 2008 Israeli invasion which destroyed their home and farm.

“They were terrified, we were in the house as Israeli tanks and bulldozers destroyed the land and our chicken coop attached to our house. My children were so frightened by the shooting and explosions,” says Laila Abu Dagga.

The family has since vacated their house, 470 meters from the Green Line boundary, instead renting a house half a kilometer away. But on this Friday morning, they revisit their home, with friends, clapping and dancing to Abu Mohammed’s music. “Music really helps people improve their mental health,” says Abu Mohammed.

The oud player says he had to struggle to learn music.

“My father was very religious and looked down on music, thought it was a waste of time. He used to keep me from playing, but I’d learn in private. He didn’t understand, but music can be resistance, my oud can be a weapon against the Israeli occupation.”

With a stigma against musicians still prevalent in Gaza, projects like the music school, and individuals like Abu Mohammed are vital to the society.

Learning on his own, Abu Mohammed in 2004 won the Gold prize in a competition sponsored by Palestine Television. His winning composition featured the story of a pregnant Palestinian woman who died waiting at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank for the Israeli soldiers to allow her to pass and continue to hospital.

He plays his own works, set to the words of poets, and highlights themes of the Israeli occupation, siege, and the war on Gaza. Political, traditional, therapeutic, Abu Mohammed’s music meets various needs.

Towards Ending our Ongoing Nakba: Statement by the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC)

International Solidarity Movement

20 May 2010

17 May 2010 — For sixty-two years, Palestinians have been denied their dignity and fundamental human rights. The creation and “international” acceptance of Israel in 1948 marked the culmination of a new kind of politics in the region that continues to have devastating consequences. The acceptance of an ethnic Jewish state over the ruins of Palestinian society in a historically pluralistic region meant that indigenous Palestinians were automatically considered superfluous in the land they had inhabited for many generations. Emboldened by external support, Israel carried out its well planned campaign of mass scale ethnic cleansing, dispossessing and uprooting at least 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland. Zionist militias, and later the Israeli army, destroyed 500 Palestinian villages and forcibly emptied 11 urban neighborhoods in this process. The newly formed State of Israel encompassed 78% of Historic Palestine.1

With their lands confiscated, the refugees have been denied their legally guaranteed and UN-sanctioned right of return to their homes of origin. Palestinians remember this massive wave of dispossession as the Nakba (catastrophe).
Israel’s continued occupation, colonization and apartheid represents an ongoing Nakba. It could not have continued without international complicity, particularly by the US and the EU. The decision to allow, unhindered, Israeli accession to the OECD – cynically announced just a few days before the Nakba Commemoration Day – painfully underlines the failure of the international community to hold Israel accountable to international law and human rights principles. The fact that the UN itself condemned in its Goldstone report Israel’s atrocities in Gaza — in its operation “Cast Lead” — as constituting war crimes and possible crimes against humanity had no bearing, it seems, on the OECD states that voted unanimously to accept Israel’s membership.

It is this failure of the “international community” to uphold international law and the pattern of treating Israel as a state above the law that makes civil resistance and solidarity through the global BDS movement all that much more relevant and crucial. As in the boycott campaign against apartheid South Africa, the fast spreading BDS campaigns by international civil society are the most effective form of solidarity with Palestinian rights that promise to end Israel’s impunity and compel it to respect its obligations under international law.

For the past 62 years, Israel has consistently violated international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention and the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, with little fear of accountability. With the growing BDS movement, however, Israel is increasingly being perceived as a pariah state at the grassroots level. World public opinion clearly indicates a sharp drop in tolerance of Israel’s continued multi-faceted colonial and racist oppression; many governments that unconditionally support Israel are facing unprecedented stiff opposition from their respective publics.

The massive scope of the Nakba 62 commemoration, both in historic Palestine and internationally, is reflective of the pace at which popular resistance and protest against the ongoing Israeli colonisation is growing. Rallies and other commemoration events in Jerusalem, the Galilee, Hebron, Ramallah and Nablus have been matched with events across the world. Activists across the UK held protests inside supermarkets that called for the banning of the sale of produce from illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian Territory and a boycott of all Israeli produce. In Rome, over 50 activists gave out information about the BDS movement and displayed items barred entry to Gaza by the Israeli siege including chocolate, toys and fishing poles in order to demonstrate the callousness of the siege. Similar actions took place in towns and cities all over the world.

The 2005 Palestinian civil society call for BDS includes all three constituencies of the Palestinian people – those living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, those living inside Israel, and the millions of Palestinian refugees who form the great majority of the Palestinian people. Nakba awareness and the call for the right to return are a key part of the BDS movement; both the National Committee for the Commemoration of the Nakba and the Right of Return, Global ROR Coalition are important members of the BNC.

The BNC fully endorses the 15 May call of the National Committee for the Commemoration of the Nakba, which included:

For the Palestinian leadership to:

– Adopt a coherent strategy towards a just and permanent solution for the Palestinian refugees and IDPs, based on their right to return and in accordance with international law, universal principles of justice and UN resolutions 194 (1948) and 237 (1967);
– Halt all negotiations, whether direct or indirect, until Israel completely halts settlement expansion, population transfer (“Judaization”), and construction of the Wall and other infrastructure of colonization and apartheid, such as roads and the so-called Jerusalem Light Rail connecting illegal Jewish colonies to West Jerusalem;
– Ensure national reconciliation and unity as a matter of urgency, and rebuild the PLO as a legitimate and credible platform representing the entire Palestinian people and its political organizations;
– Support and activate popular resistance in all forms permitted under international law;
– Establish a consultative mechanism with professional civil society organizations to support the efforts of the PLO in international forums.

To the public in Palestine and abroad to:

– Build and expand the civil society-led movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law, and exert stronger pressure on states to implement sanctions and adopt decisions and resolutions which support the global BDS Campaign;
– Redouble efforts for investigation of Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity and prosecution and punishment of those responsible, as well as efforts to prevent Israel’s accession and integration into international and regional organizations.
– Only through effective, sustainable and persistent efforts to hold Israel accountable to international law can there be hope to establish a just peace and end Israel’s ongoing Nakba against the entire Palestinian people.

1 Survey of Palestinian Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons 2008-9, BADIL Resource Center

General ‘tried to cover up truth about death of Rachel Corrie’

The Independent

7 May 2010

By Ben Lynfield

Israeli war hero accused of suppressing testimony that could reveal what really happened to Gaza activist

The peace activist Rachel Corrie died on 16 March 2003.

Seven years after the American activist Rachel Corrie was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza, evidence has emerged which appears to implicate Israel’s Gaza commander at the time, in an attempt to obstruct the official investigation into her death.

The alleged intervention of Major-General Doron Almog, then head of Israel’s southern command, is documented in testimony taken by Israeli military police a day after Ms Corrie was killed on March 16, 2003. The hand written affidavit, seen by The Independent, was submitted as evidence during a civil law suit being pursued by the Corrie family against the state of Israel.

Ms Corrie, who was 23 when she died, was critically wounded when a bulldozer buried her with sandy soil near the border between Gaza and Egypt. The American, wearing a fluorescent orange jacket and carrying a megaphone, was among a group of volunteers from the anti-occupation International Solidarity Movement who over a period of three hours on that day had sought to block the demolition by Israel of Palestinian homes.

The Israeli military has maintained that its troops were not to blame for the killing of Ms Corrie and that the driver of the bulldozer had not seen her. It accused Ms Corrie and the ISM of behaviour that was “illegal, irresponsible and dangerous”. Three days after Ms Corrie’s death, the US state department announced that the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had promised the US President George Bush that the Israeli government would undertake a “thorough, credible and transparent investigation”.

But according to a military police investigator’s report which has now emerged, the “commander” of the D-9 bulldozer was giving testimony when an army colonel dispatched by Major-General Almog interrupted proceedings and cut short his evidence. The military police investigator wrote: “At 18:12 reserve Colonel Baruch Kirhatu entered the room and informed the witness that he should not convey anything and should not write anything and this at the order of the general of southern command.”

The commander was a reservist named Edward Valermov. He was in the bulldozer with its driver. In his testimony before he was ordered to stop, he told military police investigators that he had not seen Ms Corrie before she was wounded. Alice Coy, a former ISM volunteer activist who was near Ms Corrie during the incident said in an affidavit to the court that “to the best of my knowledge the bulldozer driver could see Rachel while pushing earth over her body.”

Hussein Abu Hussein, a lawyer for the Corrie family, said Major-General Almog’s alleged intervention blocked the possible emergence of evidence that could have determined whether Mr Valermov’s assertion that he did not see Ms Corrie was reasonable. “Do I believe him? Of course not. There is no doubt this was manslaughter,” Mr Abu Hussein said. “First of all we claim the state is responsible for the death of Rachel. And secondly we claim that the investigation was not professional.”

“When you, the state of Israel, fail as an authority to perform your function of having a credible investigation, when your standard falls from reasonable, objective standards than you have caused evidentiary damage,” Mr Abu Hussein said.

Contacted by The Independent, Major-General Almog, a hero in Israel for his role in the 1976 raid to rescue hostages in Entebbe, Uganda, denied ordering the bulldozer commander to desist from testifying. In 2005, the General narrowly escaped arrest in Britain on a war crimes charge for allegedly ordering the destruction in 2002 of 50 civilian homes in Rafah, where Ms Corrie was later killed. Major-General Almog was tipped off about the warrant and did not disembark at Heathrow, returning instead to Israel on the El Al flight.

Mr Valermov said in his testimony that the bulldozers, manned by two people, were ordered to continue their work despite the presence of the ISM protesters. He said that troops in an armoured personnel carrier threw stun grenades, used tear gas and fired shots towards the ground to scare the protesters away. “It didn’t help and therefore we decided to continue the work with all possible delicateness on the orders of the company commander” he said.

The testimony was interrupted after Mr Valermov said the driver of the bulldozer, named only as Yevgeny, said he did not know if Ms Corrie had been harmed by the shovel of the D-9. “It was only when we moved the D-9 backwards that I saw her. The woman was lying in a place where the instrument had not reached. As soon as we saw the harmed woman we returned to the central corridor, stood and waited for orders.” The soldier’s last statement before the order to stop speaking was: “My job was to guide. The driver cannot guide himself because his field of vision is not large.”

Another army document strongly suggests that Major-General Almog opposed the military police investigation. Dated 18 March 2003, a military police investigator petitioning a judge for permission to conduct an autopsy on Ms Corrie’s body said that “we arrived only today because there was an argument between the general of southern command and the military advocate general about whether to open an investigation and under what circumstances.” The judge granted the request provided the autopsy would be done in the presence of a US diplomat as the Corrie family requested. But the inquest was carried out by Israel’s chief pathologist without any US official being there, in apparent violation of the judge’s ruling.

Major-General Almog denied halting Mr Valermov’s testimony. “I never gave such an order, I don’t know such a document. I conducted my own investigation, I don’t remember what I found. There were 12,000 terrorist incidents when I was general in charge of southern command. I finished seven years ago, if they want to invite me [to testify] they know the address. I certainly didn’t disrupt an investigation, this is nonsense. In all of my service I never told anyone not to testify.”

Asked if he gave an order to harm foreign activists interfering with the army’s work, Major-General Almog responded: “What are you talking about? You don’t know what a general in charge of command is. The general in charge of command has 100,000 soldiers. What are you talking about?”

Moshe Negbi, legal commentator for the state-run Voice of Israel radio, said of Major-General Almog’s interdiction: “If a commander prevents a witness from testifying then it is disruption of an investigation, a criminal offence whose penalty is three years imprisonment.”

Craig Corrie, Rachel Corrie’s father, said the alleged intervention in Valermov’s testimony was “outrageous.”

“When you see someone in that position taking those steps you not only have to be outraged, you have to ask why is he covering up, what has he done that he needs to take these steps to cover it up?”

An Israel Defense Forces spokesman said: “Any military police investigations are completely independent and cannot be influenced by outside sources.” The Israeli state attorneys handling the case declined to be interviewed. The trial is due to resume in September.

Rachel’s nightmare scenario

Before she became a political symbol, Rachel Corrie was an American student on a study-abroad programme. A member of a middle-class family from Olympia, Washington, she was attending college locally when she travelled to Gaza with the intention of initiating a twin-city project between Olympia and Rafah.

Arriving in Gaza in January 2003, she linked up with the International Solidarity Movement, and spent the next two months as an activist. In the weeks before her death she wrote a series of emails home to her friends and family that detailed her impressions of life in Gaza. “I have bad nightmares about tanks and bulldozers,” she told her mother. “I’m witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide and I’m really scared… This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop.”

The emails, which later inspired a play that appeared in London but was cancelled in New York and Toronto, end with an exchange with her father. “I am afraid for you, and I think I have reason to be,” he wrote. “But I’m also proud of you – very proud… But I’d just as soon be proud of somebody else’s daughter.”

Corrie died on 16 March 2003. Like the death of the British activist Tom Hurndall in similar circumstances a year later, it prompted an international outcry about Israel’s deeds in the Palestinian territories.

Nobel Laureates: ‘We are all peace makers, and we believe that no amount of dialogue without economic pressure can motivate Israel to change’

Mondowiess
28 April 2010

Support for divestment continues to grow. Here is the latest amazing statement urging the University of California to divest:

“To the ASUC Senate,

We the undersigned Nobel Women Peace Laureates support your courage and call on you to reaffirm the ASUC Bill in Support of UC Divestment from War Crimes. We stand united in our belief that divesting from companies that provide significant support for the Israeli military provides moral and strategic stewardship of tuition and taxpayer-funded public education money. We are all peace makers, and we believe that no amount of dialogue without economic pressure can motivate Israel to change its policy of using overwhelming force against Palestinian civilians. Last year’s nearly 400 women and children casualties in Gaza, and thousands more injured and killed, were all victims of a well armed military machine allowed to operate unchecked. A delegation of us went to Gaza and saw firsthand the evidence of wholesale killing and destruction. Our hearts grieve for Gaza and we demand that there be no more Gazas. We urge the UC system to take the lead in this direction as has been its tradition, and commend the students who are working to achieve this goal. We reject the portrayals of this action as anti-Semitic, and maintain that it does not make a choice between Palestinians and Israelis, but between universal freedom and oppression.

Signed,

Shirin Ebadi, Iran, 2003 Nobel Peace Laureate
Mairead Maguire (Corrigan), Ireland, 1976 Nobel Peace Laureate
Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Guatemala, 1992 Nobel Peace Laureate
Jody Williams, USA, 1997 Nobel Peace Laureate”