Newsweek: A Grittier Trip to the Holy Land

A Grittier Trip to the Holy Land,
Sarina Rosenberg, May 21 issue

The Israel that 18,000 young Jewish Americans will see this summer on the free, 10-day trip offered by Taglit-birthright Israel is a land of ancient religious sites, sandy beaches and buff young soldiers. “It’s a Jewish identity trip,” says Wayne L. Firestone, president of Hillel, which runs one of the largest Birthright tours. But according to Dunya Alwan and Hannah Mermelstein, two Boston-based activists, the Birthright-sanctioned trips don’t give a true picture of Israel because they minimize the experience of the Palestinian people. (Mermelstein is Jewish; Alwan, the child of a Muslim-Jewish marriage, calls herself a “secular Muslim-Jew.”) In 2005, the pair launched Birthright Unplugged, an “alternative” tour of the West Bank in which the Palestinian narrative takes center stage. This Israel is a land of refugee camps, military checkpoints and security fences. “We want to put people that would otherwise not have the access in direct contact with the Palestinian people,” Mermelstein says.

The Unplugged tours are relatively tiny, with just 60 travelers in two years, compared with Birthright’s 125,000 in seven years, but applications are increasing. The six-day trip costs $350 and stops at Hebron, Ramallah and Dheisheh, a Palestinian refugee camp in Bethlehem. (Birthright avoids areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority.) Accommodations reflect Palestinian living conditions, Mermelstein says—the group rides in local buses and opts for home stays over hotels. Nova McGiffert, 24, an Austin, Texas, social worker who traveled on both Birthright and Birthright Unplugged last winter, says the latter drove home what she called the devastating results of an Israeli occupation. “During Unplugged, all of my nightmares came true about the realities of the situation,” she says.

Unplugged travelers have angered the larger Birthright operation by using the latter to get to Israel free of charge, then extending their stay to experience Unplugged. “Showing the Palestinian side is not the mandate we receive from our donors,” Taglit-birthright Israel spokesman Gidi Mark says. “It’s abusing their generosity.”

IWPS: Family home in Al Funduq to be demolished in three days

by Sue, IWPS, 16 May 2007

Photo by Angelika & Kim, IWPS

A family in Al Funduq had a demolition order delivered to their home while both were at work yesterday, 16th May. The paper was left on the door. It was the third final order and it left them three days to leave before destruction of their home.

Photo by Angelika & Kim, IWPS

The man, 29 years old is a worker for the Red Crescent Society. The woman, 25 years old, is a school-teacher. They have two children, four years and 8 months old. The house, which had been built for them to move in after their wedding, is 150 square meters and an approximate value of NIS 180,000 or USD $45,350.

The International Women’s Peace Service, Haris, Salfit, Palestine.

Tel:- (09)-2516-644

The house has been under threat of demolition since February 2006, when the first demolition order was delivered. The second demolition order followed in May 2006. Each time, the family has retained an attorney in an attempt to appeal against the demolition. They paid out approximately NIS 12,000 or USD $3020 USD to the lawyers and nothing was achieved. The order which had been left by Israeli soldiers on the door of their house yesterday, the family retained a third lawyer for NIS 7,940 or USD $2000.

Last year, one of the man’s brothers had his home demolished (see IWPS HR Report No. 279) nearby to this house. The reason given then was lack of a permit to build. Reasons given for this year’s slated demolition is also lack of a permit to build. The family has a deed to the property dated from 1964.

Please don’t shit on the apricots

by: Yifat Appelbaum

this is an infographic

Today I feel frustrated. I sat in a cute little apricot orchard in a village near Beit Lahem as the army watched us through binoculars from the hill, a menacing bulldozer in the background. They’re going to ‘doze this orchard to make way for sewage pipes from the Efrata settlement. New sections of Efrata are being built on the hill above the orchard. I was imagining all the problems that are going to happen once the settlers move in; villagers will need special permits to access their land. These permits will be difficult to obtain. Even if they do get permits, they will still be subject to the whims of the army who can either let them work the land or not, depending on their mood or the mood of the settlers controlling them. It will become like a hell, like so much of the west bank is already becoming. This has happened hundreds of times already.

this is the army

The only way to look at this is warfare. Land is stolen, no one in compensated. If some kid so much as throws a pebble in the direction of the invading army he’s going to get shot or arrested. People whose families have supported themselves for generations off this land are suddenly without a source of income and forced to rely on handouts from various NGOs since, as we know, foreign aid is no longer coming into Palestine because of the international boycott of the Hamas government. Does Ismail Haniyeh look like he’s starving yet ?

this is ismail haniyeh who is not worried about where his next meal is coming from

It’s starting to feel ineffective to sit around for a few hours here and there and block a bulldozer while the army is patiently waiting for you to get bored and leave, and they know you will. So we save an orchard for one more day. Maybe a few extra hours here and there.

But I do know something. There is absolutely no way to justify this in the name of security for Israelis. No way at all.

Israeli police to human rights workers: “Don’t do anything stupid!”

Tel Rumeida Report
by ISM Hebron, 17 May 2007

A Palestinian got arrested and brought into the Israeli settlement of Tel Rumeida between 7 and 8 o’clock this morning. Three human rights workers (HRWs) started to film the incident and the Israeli border police from a distance.

Israeli soldiers at the Tel Rumeida army post told the HRWs to leave the street.

Two Israeli settlers, the local settler bus driver and Yifrad Al Kobi, came down to where the HRWs were standing and blocked them from filming and began to shoot photos of the HRWs. The driver claimed to have orders from the army to tell the HRWs to move back.

The HRWs refused to move and after a while the police showed up. The officer whose name is Avi Dubour was very upset and did not give the HRWs any chance to explain themselves, their reasons for not moving and so on.

The Israeli officer ordered the one who was filming to give him the camera and when another HRW attempted to take the camera away to copy the tape, the officer arrested both of the HRWs. The HRWs, along with the Palestinian, were driven to Kiryat Arba Police Station and detained there for between 3-4 hours. They were not told why they were being arrested.

In the end, the HRWs were warned “not to do anything stupid and released without an interrogation” and driven back to Tel Rumeida.

“(VIDEO) Don’t s**t on our apricots!”

“Don’t S**T on our apricots!”
by Martinez, 16 May 2007


Mohammad Abu Swai, who holds the deeds to this land, explains the situation in Artas village

Maybe it was because the word was spread, the call was headed, and 4 Israeli and 9 international solidarity activists joined Palestinians in the village of Artas today to resist the Israeli army’s demolition of a field of apricot trees in Jesus’ hometown of Bethlehem.


Photo of apricot tree, cut by Israeli forces, Photo: Jonas

Or maybe it was because it started to pour down rain, equipped with lightning and thunder, causing not only the army, but also the activists to take shelter in the nearby caves.


Israeli bulldozers ripping apart land for extension of Israeli settlement of Efrat, Photo: Jonas

Regardless, the Israeli bulldozers will be back tomorrow morning, and the Palestinians of Artas village are still seeking the help of solidarity activists to join them in resisting these abhorring actions on behalf of the Israeli army.

The illegal Israeli settlement of Efrat is in the distance. The army is destroying this field of apricot trees in order to pave the way for a new sewage system for the illegal colony. The day before we arrived, contractors and soldiers lined the trees and land with markers, reading “10 meteres, 40 meters, etc,” leading all the way up to 150 meters.


Israeli settlement of Efrat in distance, Photo: Jonas

Some of us talked about making T-shirts that say “Don’t shit on our apricots!”

Artas is a beautiful village, as are her apricot trees and her people. As Israeli bulldozers ripped away the hilltop in the distance to make way for military roads, settler roads, and a place for the militarily-funded Bedouin security personnel to sleep at night and guard the construction site, farmers from Artas whipped up some delicious tea and thanked us all for coming to resist the demolition of their fields.

But the rain came and pushed all the soldiers away. Villagers from Artas believe they will be back in the morning.

Update to come.

We’ll be back there too.