Tadamon!: Palestine – Apartheid Fares

By Aaron Lakoff, October 2008,
Interview recorded in Biddu, Palestine

To view original interview posted on Tadamon!, click here


Photo: Aaron Lakoff. Mohammed Mansour, near Biddu, Palestine.

Mohammed Mansour is a resident of Biddu, a village near Ramallah in the West Bank of Palestine. A former organizer with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), he now works as a service (taxi) driver to support his family. As someone who makes his living on the roads of the West Bank, Mansour is all too familiar with Israel’s complex settler road system, which Israel has unilaterally separated into roads for Palestinian use, and other roads as Israeli only. We sat down with Mohammed at his home in Biddu, after he took us on a long tour around the apartheid roads circling the village. Mansour spoke to us about Road 443, a new Israeli settler road badly affecting transportation for Palestinians in the area, and his views on the peace process.

Aaron Lakoff: Please start by introducing yourself and your work in Palestine.

Mohammed Mansour: Born in Palestine, from Biddu, was working in [construction], then was a volunteer with the ISM (International Solidarity Movement) for four years, and now I work as a [“service” or taxi] driver to support my family.

Aaron Lakoff: In your work as a service driver, you spend a lot of time on the road. The settler roads, or the apartheid roads, are a very big issue in Palestine. Can you talk about the settler roads around Biddu and the effects they have on the village?

Mohammed Mansour: They make the Palestinian people suffer a lot. Before the Israeli government built these settlements around the villages, not just Biddu, but all of Palestine, they took the main roads from the Palestinians and created other roads for the Palestinians, making us drive a long way.

We were together, and you saw with your own eyes; we were stuck at a checkpoint for fifteen minutes, but sometimes we are stuck for three hours. Imagine if it’s winter, or hot like today, and imagine if there are kids or old people struck in the car – imagine how they would suffer. Israelis say the settler roads are for the safety of the Israeli people, but that is not true. These roads are built to steal our land and build new Israeli settlements. They want to cleanse the Palestinian people from this land.

Aaron Lakoff: Can you talk about how the settler roads work to control movement in the West Bank and how they function to control Palestinian movement?

Mohammed Mansour: For example in this area north of Jerusalem, with nine villages, including Biddu. You witnessed the massive gate while arriving, the Israelis built this gate along with a new road , however if Israel want to close it completely they can and we can’t move. One military gate for over 60 000 Palestinians.

Aaron Lakoff: When was that road, including the gate, finished?

Mohammed Mansour: Just one month ago. It’s a new military gate.

Aaron Lakoff: Before the one military gate, built by Israel to control Palestinian movement, there were more possibilities for Palestinians from the villages to enter Ramallah, also other ways for people in surrounding villages to visit each-other in general. Can you talk about how things have changed?”

Mohammed Mansour: Before the settlements of Giv’at Hadash and Giv’at Ze’ev settlement were built illegally, you could get from my house (in Biddu) to Ramallah in five minutes. Now we can’t do that because of these settlements, and the main road that we used before (connecting Biddu and Ramallah) is now used by the Israeli settlers.

Aaron Lakoff: Does the Israeli army ever close the gate going in to Biddu?

Mohammed Mansour: Yes, sometimes, without any reason. Israel doesn’t need any reason to close the gate. Just to punish us.

Aaron Lakoff: What do the settler roads look like? What are the differences between the Palestinian roads and the settler roads?

Mohammed Mansour: Now remember when were driving and I told you that if my car has problems, I would block the road. Now Israel only allows one lane for us to use. The road that used to be ours, is now an Israeli road, it is more than twenty meters wide while each road has at least three lanes. Israelis have lights on their roads, but we don’t have any lights. Israel’s roads are elevated, so they can smell and breath the air, but we are down (the Palestinian road goes through an underground tunnel below the settler road). These are clear difference between our roads and the Israeli roads.

Roads that Israel has built are constructed on our land. Israel steals our land and build settler only roads on our historical lands.

It is clear that Israel has taken our best land in Palestine and constructed very large settlements which they’re living a very lavish life. Israeli settlers have access to the good roads and all the main roads and can travel wherever they want and live their lives as if the Palestinians didn’t exist.

All of these people living in the settlements, are people from outside countries – they’re people from Europe and the U.S. who become Israelis. How can these religious people come to Palestine, occupy our land and pertend that Palestinians and Palestine doesn’t exist.

All of us are human beings; we must live together and in this light we are not against the Israeli people. Have many Israeli friends, like those involved with Anarchists Against the Wall, who are my brothers. It is not the Israeli people that I have a problem with, it is the Israeli government.

I love peace. I want to open my eyes one day and see a new morning.

Sometimes people in the world ask why Palestinians go on suicide missions. I want you to ask yourself why Palestinians have blown themselves up. If you come to visit me here in Palestine for one month, you will pass through a lot of checkpoints, see the apartheid wall, the intense poverty and you will how all the Palestinian people are suffering. Some people simply don’t have the patience, they lose their minds and go on suicide missions. Some who make this choice have lost their family, their fathers, their mothers, or their sisters or brothers.

Palestinian women have been forced to give birth at checkpoints and some have died.


Photo: Aaron Lakoff. Rich agricultural land surrounding Biddu, Palestine.

Aaron Lakoff: Wanted to talk with you specifically about road 443, because it is now a big issue now in this part of the West Bank. Can you talk about this road which connects Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and how that is impacting you village Biddu?

Mohammed Mansour: Road 443 was the main road for about fifty villages. It was the main road for fifteen of the villages north-east of Jerusalem and thirty-five villages west of Ramallah.

Before there were many villages who could travel from their villages to Ramallah in about fifteen minutes, such as Nil’in, Suqba, Shibteen, Budrus, Beit Sira, Beit Liqya. Now it impossible, Palestinians are forced to go all the way around. In the last three months we’ve held five actions against road 443. We’re hoping to reclaim this road from Israel because it is completely unfair that now students are always late for school, people are late for work and people are dying on their way to receive medical care simply because they are all Palestinian. This road was actually built before the Israeli occupation started, an old road.

Aaron Lakoff: And when was road 443 closed to Palestinians?

Mohammed Mansour: About eight months ago. Even though it’s forbidden, I sometimes find a way and go onto the road, which is a very dangerous risk, however we can never surrender or give-up in the struggle to reclaim this road and our land as Palestinians.

Aaron Lakoff: Can you talk about the economic and social impacts of the settler roads around Biddu? Has it affected Palestinians ability to work or see their families?

Mohammed Mansour: Biddu used to be 6200 dunums. Israel then built a wall around Biddu and inside the wall there are only 1200 remaining dunums. 600 were stolen by Israel to build the wall on, as the width of the wall is sixty meters. 4400 dunums have been occupied by the wall, which we can’t touch. There are 8000 Palestinians living in this area and many people have lost their land. You can find forty people living together in one house, because their land has been stolen and they have become landless people.

4400 dunums of agricultural land are now behind the Israeli apartheid wall. Most of our wells and water resources are now behind the Israeli wall. Also the place to put our garbage used to be far away not a long time ago, but now due to the wall, it is impossible to take our waste to another area. Waste and rubbish stay inside the village and there’s is always a stench.

Another main concerns and problem due to the wall is that there is a checkpoint which control our movement to the rest of the world. Many students who need to arrive at school by 8 o’clock simply can’t arrive due to the wall and also there are Palestinian teachers and others who can’t get to work.

There are about 10 000 Palestinian people who need to use this road, students and workers who need to arrive at 8 o’clock end up getting there by noon, and then their employers just say ‘go home’. This is how life is like.

Peace talks are empty rhetoric. Israelis don’t want peace.

The ones who want real peace will pay a price. Israel continues to build new settlements, even within the 1967 borders. How are we supposed to believe that Israel wants peace when they are building these settlements?

How are we to believe someone like George W. Bush or the U.S. government, when they invade Iraq and lie to the U.S. public about weapons of mass destruction. It’s the same reality in Afghanistan and possibly tomorrow in Iran and Syria. Today, a lot of people have nuclear weapons. Why today are we singling out Iran? I don’t believe in Bush, I don’t believe in the U.S., I don’t believe in Israel and I don’t believe in Mahmoud Abbas.

Aaron Lakoff is a member of Tadamon! and an independent journalist in Montreal, who recently volunteered for six-weeks at the International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC) in Bethlehem, Palestine.

Haaretz: Hebron settlers assault Palestinians, activists harvesting olives

By Nadav Shragai

To view original article, published by Haaretz on the 18th October, click here

Witnesses and Reuters crew on Saturday said that Israeli settlers clashed with Palestinians and others helping them pick olives in the West Bank town of Hebron.

The settlers reportedly punched and kicked two news photographers and a British woman helping Palestinians pick olives.

The scuffle in the town of Hebron was the latest of a series of efforts by settlers to disrupt an annual harvest critical to many Palestinians’ livelihoods.

Witnesses and Reuters television footage showed four settlers headed into a grove next to a Jewish enclave where a few dozen Israeli, Palestinian and foreign activists were helping to pick olives.

The settlers punched and kicked Abed Hashlamoun, a photographer for the European Pressphoto Agency (EPA), leaving a bloody scratch beneath one eye. They similarly assaulted his brother, Reuters photographer Nayef Hashlamoun, who suffered no injuries.

Janet Benvie, a British activist with Christian Peacemaker Teams, sustained a scratch on her lip after a scuffle with a settler who had grabbed a camera.

“When I went to get the camera one of the settlers punched me in the face,” Benvie told Reuters television.

Israel Defense Forces soldiers arrived at the scene to break up the scuffle, television footage showed. They also permitted the settlers to leave the scene, Benvie said.

Israeli security declared the area a closed military zone, Danny Poleg, a spokesman for Israel Police said.

Poleg said settlers and Palestinians had thrown stones at each other at the site.

Issa Amro, a Palestinian who works for the Israeli human rights group B’tselem, denied any stones were thrown and said police arrived at the scene after the scuffle had ended.

Poleg said no settlers had been arrested because no formal complaint had been lodged.

Three Israelis at the olive grove to help Palestinians with the harvest were later held for questioning after they refused police orders to leave the area, Poleg said.

Later on Saturday, Hebron settlers urged the police to prevent “provocations” by left-wing activists and anarchists.

The IDF faulted the Palestinians and their supporters for going out to
harvest without coordinating with military officials first.

“The Palestinians are aware that there must be coordination before harvesting,” the military said. “There was no coordination before they arrived … something that constitutes a provocation.”

“As for the attack on the photographer, the media must understand that they entered a closed military zone and that they undertake risks when they do so,” it said.

“Police have launched an investigation into the actions of the Palestinians and their supporters and the local residents who attacked them,” it added.

Resident of Ni’lin shot twice by rubber-coated steel bullets during demonstration in Ni’lin

Friday, October 17, 2008

On Friday 17th October, the village of Ni’lin held a peaceful prayer on their land followed by a demonstration over property that has been annexed by the Israeli government to build the Apartheid Wall. At 11.30, Ni’lin residents held a prayer for the return of their land. Immediately after, around 150 Palestinians along with Israeli and international activists, were shot at with tear gas, sound grenades and rubber bullets.

The Israeli army began shooting at demonstrators around noon and continued to shoot while moving throughout the olive groves until 13.30. The soldiers withdrew to the construction site near a current checkpoint where over 100 settlers where waving Israeli flags and chanting insults on a loudspeaker.

The Israeli army had five jeeps and around 30 soldiers close to the site where three bulldozers were working to build the Apartheid Wall. While the settlers remained at the site, soldiers continued to shoot rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas from both the construction area and from the olive groves to the side of the demonstrators.

At around 14.00 the bulldozers ceased their construction for the day and the settlers left the site, followed shortly by most of the soldiers. The Popular Committee of Ni’lin then declared the end of the demonstration and demonstrators proceeded to head back towards the village. While most of the 150 demonstrators suffered from tear gas inhalation, it is reported that a total of ten people where injured by rubber bullets. Mohammad Hussain Srour, 22 years old, was shot on his knee by two rubber bullets and taken to the Ramallah hospital.

Farmers in Shufa denied access to their lands for 5th year in a row

Ahmad Droubi and his 80 year old father, Mahmoud, were refused access to their olive groves located within the illegal settlement of Avne Hefez for the third time this week, despite having received prior permission from Israeli authorities.

Private security guards at the settlement refused to allow the farmers, accompanied by international activists, entry to the settlement – first denying them entry outright, and then telling the farmers that they would be allowed to enter the settlement if they traveled around the settlement to the back gate. The farmers complied, making the long trip through the rocky olive groves, to find the back gate locked and abandoned.

After waiting for over an hour, attempting to convince the Israeli District Coordination Office (DCO) to uphold their coordination, the farmers gave up trying to harvest their olives. Representatives from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) claimed that it was the farmers’ fault that they were not allowed to enter their lands, because they provided their land ownership papers directly to the Israeli DCO, rather than sending them through the Palestinian DCO. Such bureaucratic nightmares are a mainstay of the Israeli occupation, working to keep Palestinians from their lands; transfer ownership of lands from Palestinians to the Israeli state; and deny Palestinians identification cards.

The Droubi family’s lands were encircled by the settlement walls five years ago, when its boundaries expanded. Having already lost more than 240 dunums (60 acres) of land when the settlement was first illegally built in 1982, it has been extremely painful for the family not to be able to access their remaining five dunums. “Since five years we have not been to our land, we have not even seen our trees. Once i went to try to look just to see if there was any fruit on the trees. But the grass was so long I couldn’t see anything”, says Ahmad. “For my father these trees are like his sons, because he planted them. He says that they are even better than his sons, because the trees are obedient and we are disobedient”. There is one olive tree that remains outside of the settlement fence. The elderly Mahmoud rode his donkey around the settlement to find it, and brought back olives to the family, “Just for the memory of the trees”.

Usually the family is unable even to visit this one tree, or to even to try to see the trees through the settlement fence. Watching farmers pick outside of the settlement, while waiting at the gate, Ahmad commented, “If it was not olive harvest season, they [soldiers] would shoot them”.

Shufa village plunged into darkness for sixth day

The village of Shufa in Tulkarem has been without electricity for the sixth day in a row, after the municipality generators, which are the only power source for the village, burnt out.

Shufa has inexplicably been denied connection to the main electricity grid by Israeli authorities since 2001, despite the fact that all of the necessary towers and lines are in place. “Many times we have tried to take electricity from Tulkarem municipality or from Israel, but Israel will not allow” says a local resident.

Until six days ago, the village was supplied with electricity from the municipality-owned generators for six hours each day – from 6pm-12am; less if the price of diesel was high. The cost of the electricity they provided, however, was prohibitively high, at five shekels per kilowatt. In the city of Tulkarem, residents pay less than one shekel per kilowatt. This has forced residents to keep their power usage to a minimum, with monthly power bills regularly exceeding 500 shekels to run just lights and refrigerators for six hours each day. One resident of Tulkarem compared, “I have air-conditioning in the summer; heating in the winter; washing machine, everything, all 24 hours a day. And my bill is just 250 shekels each month”.

Now residents have no electricity at all. “I am sorry I cannot offer you cold water”, apologised one resident, Ahmad, “there is no electricity, so the refrigerator is not running. Yesterday my mother had to throw out all of the food. All of the chicken and meat from the freezer – it all went bad”. There is no knowing when there might be electricity again, as the Shufa municipality cannot afford the repairs to the generators. It is estimated that just to transport the generators to be repaired will cost 20 000 shekels. “I asked the head of the local council”, reported Ahmad, “He said, ‘really, I don’t know”.

While the village mosque, and a few of the wealthier residents have private generators, the rest of the village is dark at night. “If you come during the night, it is a tranquil place, like a cemetery.”

Whilst, lawfully, Israel should have no power to deny Shufa electricity, in practice, the power lines will necessarily pass through Area C – the areas of the West Bank that, since the 1994 Oslo agreement, are under full Israeli local government and security control. This denial thus begs the question as to why the Israeli authorities would do such a thing. The answer may lie in the strategic utility of the village, whose name “Shufa” refers to the fact that the village occupies a prime position for visibility of the surrounding areas. Many believe this is a strategy to drive the Palestinians from the village.

If this is the case, it is a strategy which is working. In the past five years it is estimated that more than 30 of the 150 families in the village have left, seeking a better life elsewhere. Prior to this, many villagers also moved from Shufa to Izbit Shufa – the lower part of the village, separated by a 1km road blocked at four points with earthmounds – because of the ease of life with electricity and viable transport options, which are denied to Shufa.

While the siege that plunged Gaza into darkness made news worldwide, Shufa suffers in silence. While Israeli authorities are currently dangling the promise of allowing Shufa to connect to the grid in December or January, villagers are not getting hopeful. “They say this all the time”, says Ahmad. “Always they are saying, maybe in one month, two months, three, you will have electricity. It never happens”. Until it does, the residents of Shufa may well continue to spend their nights by candlelight.