death, destruction, racism, flowers
by Yifat Appelbaum, February 26th
Monday morning I got a call saying there is a major invasion in Nablus because soldiers had uncovered an explosives laboratory. The entire city was under curfew, and ISM needed volunteers to go there and help the medical teams. Of course, sure, I had a day off so why not spend it tramping through the wet, muddy streets of Nablus with the UPMRC (the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees) Sounds like a party to me.
Before leaving we learned that soldiers had taken over the local TV station and were broadcasting the names of eight men they wanted either dead or alive and that the operation would last until the men were found. Hmm, so they want to kill or arrest eight men and so the entire city is shut down, everyone is ordered to remain in doors while the soldiers rampage through the city, occupy homes and schools and continue the general harassment that is jading me to the point where things that seemed worthy of writing home about are brushed off and no longer given a second thought anymore. That is bad.
The road from Ramallah to Nablus is beautiful in the spring. The almond trees are blooming, there are fields of yellow and purple flowers and my favorite flower, the striking red poppy.
After arriving in Nablus, our team of four international volunteers met up with a group of PMRC volunteers and began the somewhat harrowing job of breaking curfew in order to check on sick people and bring medicine and food. I’ve never walked around a city under curfew before. It looked like a ghost town except for a few stragglers and teenaged boys who were provoking and teasing the teenaged soldiers. Ridiculous. Is any of this worth dying for ? I don’t think so, I wonder if the soldiers do. Then comes the existential questions, what am I doing here, is it helping ? Why bother… Even when the occupation has ended, the strife will move to another part of the world. Who is to say the Palestinians won’t turn their collective devastation onto another population like the Israelis have done to them and the cycle will continue ? The world is such a bad place now. I feel helpless.
Nevertheless we followed the UPMRC teams with our hands up shouting “MEDICAL RELIEF, WE ARE UNARMED, DON’T SHOOT” whenever we encountered soldiers. There’s nothing like staring down the barrel of a gun to pull you out of bouts of self-pity. It’s ironic how the unarmed UPMRC guys seemed so much less frightened than the jumpy soldiers who were armed to the teeth. Fear is a funny thing. I guess they’re used to it; it’s their city; it’s normal life for them. We helped them bring food and medicine to people who had called in with requests because the soldiers are less jumpy and violent when they see a group of international girls breaking curfew.
At one point a group of eight soldiers walked passed us, guns aimed in every direction, accompanied by an older Palestinian man. I couldn’t figure out what the Palestinian man was doing with them because he didn’t appear to be under arrest. I asked one of the PMRC volunteers who explained to me that the man had whispered to him that he was a human shield. He’d been “kidnapped” since 4am that morning and was forced to accompany the soldiers as they patrolled the streets so that Palestinian fighters would not shoot at the soldiers. You know this happens, you read about it but nothing prepares you for the shock and disgust of actually seeing it yourself. We made some phone calls to Israeli human rights organizations. The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the use of civilians as human shields in military operations. At this point I start to wonder if anyone cares if a father of five who sells vegetables in the market during the day is being used as a human shield in a military operation.
As it began to get dark we found a hotel to stay at and the UPMRC guys helped us locate what seemed to be the only open grocery store in all of Nablus.
The following morning I left back to Ramallah. The beautiful ride back is kind of like the payment you get for the devastating way being in Nablus makes you feel. As I’m writing this report I heard of the first casualty of the invasion. A 50 year man was shot in the back of the neck while walking down the street with his son.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has a section where readers can post comments on a story, and while reading a recent story on the current situation in Nablus, I uncovered this little gem:
Title: God Help those who live near savages
Name: Steve
City: Tel Aviv
Why do we even associate with these people. Wall them in, expel them, and import thai laborers. END OF STORY. We need to be COMPLETELY seperate from murderous barbarians.
Isn’t this what’s already happening?
South Bethlehem cultural festival on land annexed for Wall
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
This Friday villagers from South Bethlehem will hold a cultural festival on their land which is being confiscated for the annexation barrier. Villagers will march from Umm Salamuna village mosque after midday prayers to this confiscated agricultural land. In a celebration of Palestinian culture local children will sing, dance and recite poetry.
Last week work restarted on the annexation wall in South Bethlehem after an Israeli Court lifted an order freezing work, even though a court case about the route of the wall in this area is pending. Without giving villagers any map showing the land to be razed and annexed, part of Umm Salamuna’s agricultural land has already been razed. Last week soldiers and surveyors marked out the wall route in the village’s vineyards and olive groves, and today diggers and bulldozers started razing this land.
Israeli authorities plan to annex 700 and raze 270 dunums of agricultural land with olive trees and grape vines in Umm Salamuna. Confiscation orders have also been issued against neighbouring villages, which have already lost much of their land to the Efrat settlement, part of the ever expanding Etzion block.
The villagers have vowed to defend their land with all the strength they have and appeal for international solidarity. According to Village Council President Mahmoud Rashid, “it constitutes their only source of livelihood, and no one will accept that the Wall is on their land isolating hundreds of dunams from each farmer and outright destroying at least a 200-meter wide strip of land”.
Contacts:
Mahmoud Zawahira, Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements, Umm Salamuna
0599586004, 0522591386
Haaretz: “U.S. synagogue holds event promoting sale of West Bank homes”
by AP, February 26th
As protesters chanted and waved signs outside, roughly 250 American Jews were able to get information on buying homes in the West Bank during a Sunday event promoted as a way to help Jewish settlers.
The sales pitch, organized by the Amana Settlement Movement, took place in Teaneck, New Jersey at an Orthodox synagogue, Congregation B’nai Yeshurun.
The event drew rebukes from an Israeli group, as well as pro-Palestinian organizations, who say such efforts undermine international peace efforts.
The opposition groups believe the gathering represented the first time West Bank homes have been offered for sale in the United States.
They also questioned if the sale of what they claim is illegally-occupied lands violates anti-discrimination laws, but a New Jersey official has said U.S. state and federal authorities have no jurisdiction on overseas property.
Rabbi Steven Pruzansky said people were interested in the houses as an investment and as a possible home for themselves, as well as to make a public statement that “there are Jews in the world who believe, want to send a message that, the land belongs to us, to the Jewish people, and we make that statement without any shame, any hesitation.”
Aliza Herbst, a representative from Amana, said the company was turning to North American Jews to buy homes so it can rent them out to young Israeli families who want to move into the West Bank, but can’t afford to build.
One person who left the Teaneck event with plans on buying was Jack Forgash, 60, of Teaneck, who said he would see the purchase not only as an investment.
“I would consider it generosity, charity, a form of giving somebody a chance to live in a house, not be homeless, said Forgash, who described himself as a business executive.
“I don’t see a problem with Jews living there because I recognize the fact that over a million Arabs are living in Israel proper, and they came to be happy with their lives,” Forgash said.
“Every settler who is added to the West Bank makes the realization of President Bush’s vision of a two-state solution more difficult,” Ori Nir, a spokesman for Americans for Peace Now, the sister organization of Israel’s largest peace group, Peace Now, said last week.
Aaron Levitt, a member of Jews Against the Occupation, said the sale was deliberately inflaming the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The enemies of the U.S. are able to use the Israeli occupation as a rallying cry,” the 37-year-old Queens, New York, resident said as he took a break from protesting in a crowd of about 25 people.
Samer Khalaf, a member of the New Jersey Chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee who was also protesting, said his group wants to make sure discrimination doesn’t rear its ugly head in New Jersey.
“This country, decades ago, got away from selling land to someone based on their religion, ethnicity or race. That’s essentially what’s going on,” the 39-year-old Paramus attorney said, adding that his group also wants to discount the argument that the land can be sold because it is not occupied.
Police were on site to make sure the protest remained peaceful, which it did, even after a handful of counter-protestors gathered in front of the synagogue.
In a letter to American Jews, Amana noted that the Israeli government has ended new home subsidies for settlers.
“Almost all communities in (the West Bank) are full, with no possibility of accepting new young couples or families,” the letter said. “If we don’t find a solution now, we will create our own population freeze, which may, in turn, begin a phenomenon … of families leaving in communities.”
Single-family homes begin at $120,000, the letters said. American Jews were asked to buy a home and then rent it to settlers for about $250 per month.
Anniversary Demo of Mosque Massacre in Hebron
by ISM Hebron, February 25th
Today was the 13th anniversary of the Ibrahim Mosque massacre, in which 29 Palestinians were killed and another 125 injured. The massacre was carried out by Baruch Goldstein, a resident of the nearby Kiryat Arba settlement. Standing in front of the only exit from the cave and positioned to the rear of the Muslim worshippers, he opened fire with the an assault rifle and four magazines of ammunition. The massacre occurred during the overlapping Jewish and Muslim religious holidays of Purim and Ramadan. After the massacre a memorial was erected for Baruch Goldstein at the entrance to Kiryat Arba.
In remembrance of the massacre, Palestinian residents of Hebron held a demonstration this morning outside checkpoint 56, the main checkpoint into the Tel Rumeida district. About 20 people gathered and a local Palestinian gave a brief speech.
Settlers marked the day by dumping rubbish on Shuhada Street and later shovelling it onto the steps leading to a Palestinian home.
