International Solidarity Movement - Page 1340 - Nonviolence. Justice. Freedom.

Haaretz: “Quality time”

The Jordanian MIRS chirps on the table. “Where’s Nur?” asks the woman on the line from Amman. “She’s standing next to me,” replies her husband in Azariyeh, east of Jerusalem. A chirp every few minutes. Yihye Bassa, a 40-year-old date merchant, has for several years been forbidden for security reasons to travel to Jordan; Nibin, his wife, 26, is forbidden to come here. He barely knows the two girls, 4-year-old Nur and 1-year-old Talin. They are with their mother in Jordan. Yihye met Nur for the first time two years after her birth, when he was still allowed to travel to Jordan; he met Talin for the first time a few weeks ago, on the Allenby Bridge.

In an unusual and very moving humanitarian gesture, Israel let the couple meet for three hours on the Allenby Bridge, after preventing them from seeing each other at all for about two years. Family reunification: a half-meeting on the bridge, without refreshments, as a “pre-High Court of Justice petition” gesture. Moreover, Israel allowed Nur to join her father for a few months, and now she is here, in Azariyeh. But 18-month-old Talin was not allowed to join her father. All for security reasons. Yihye says that his problems began when the Shin Bet security services wanted to recruit him as a collaborator and he refused. Since then he has been refused permission to leave.

Now Yihye is sitting in the offices of the new community center in Azariyeh that he runs on a voluntary basis. Nur is still confused by the new person in her life and the foreign landscape, and Nibin chirps from Jordan on her MIRS every few minutes to ask if everything is all right. Oh, the Israeli occupation.

Yihye Bassa is a Hebrew-speaking businessman, who buys dates in the Arava and the Beit She’an Valley and sells them in the West Bank and in Gaza with an Israeli partner. His paternal grandmother was Jewish. When he was still allowed to travel to Jordan, he had a company there too, which bought dates in Iraq and sold them in Jordan. Six years ago he married Nibin, a Palestinian from Jordan. Yihye divided his life between Amman and Azariyeh. Nibin has submitted several requests for an Israeli visa at the embassy in Amman – and was refused with the explanation that she is too young. The couple ran their lives with interruptions, in their home in Jordan. Yihye’s parents, his family and his business are here.

Four years ago, when Yihye was once again making his way to his wife and his business, he was arrested on the Allenby Bridge: Banned from crossing. Why? he asked. “Take a note, return to the area and go to the Shin Bet.” Yiyhe went to the Shin Bet and there, he says, “Captain Yariv” told him: “Help us – and we’ll help you.” He told them: “Why should I help you? I have money, work, what deal would I make with you?” In short: He refused an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Yariv tried again: “Go to your family, come and we’ll talk,” and again: “Help us and we’ll help you.” For the next two years, Yihye was prevented from traveling to Jordan. He turned to the civil rights organizations and with the help of his attorney, to the military court in Beit El. Meanwhile their daughter Nur was born in Jordan; Yihye did not see her. Two years later the court allowed him to travel to Jordan and he once again visited with his wife and daughter. Nur was already two years old when she saw her father for the first time. After two visits – he was refused again.

This time, he says, security people offered to let him go for four years, without the possibility of returning. Yihye refused this temporary expulsion. In 2005 he was arrested on suspicion of attempting to murder a collaborator. He was released on bail. Yihye says that it was a false arrest.

Exactly a year ago, in February 2006, they came to his house to arrest him again. This time he was placed in administrative detention for half a year, without a trial, and as is usual in administrative detentions, the reason is unknown. Yihye is an avowed Fatah activist, but his attorney, Walid Zahalka, says that he is not involved in terror. Half a year ago, he was released from detention. Last week the judge, Major Dror Sabrensky, ordered the erasure of the indictment against him, because of which he was arrested the first time, File 3405/05.

Upon his release from detention, he wanted once again to travel to Jordan, to visit his wife and daughters. In Amman, meanwhile, Talin was born, and he had never seen her. Again they offered to let him go for four years, without the possibility of returning, and again he refused. He is unwilling to cut himself off from his parents and his business dealings, his home is here. His attorney demanded one of two things: either he should be allowed to leave, or his wife should be allowed to enter.

In contacts between his attorney and the authorities, before turning to the High Court, the state prosecutor made a creative suggestion: a meeting on the bridge. Attorney Raanan Giladi of the State Prosecutor’s Office wrote on January 17, in the name of the State of Israel:

“Urgent. Re: Pre-High Court of Justice petition 562/06.

1. As you have been informed orally, the state is willing to allow a meeting between the petitioner and his family who live in Jordan.

2. The meeting will take place at the Allenby Bridge terminal, tomorrow, January 18, 2007.

3. We have been informed in writing by the manager of the Allenby Bridge terminal, Mr. Gideon Shikloush, that the meeting on the aforesaid date has been approved and that an appropriate place will be allocated for the purpose.

4. According to the details you have sent us, the family members who will be able to meet are as follows: Yihye, Nibin, Nur and Talin.

5. In case unexpected difficulties arise, we can be contacted by phone.”

In the morning Yihye got up and went to the bridge to meet his wife, his elder daughter, whom he had met twice, and his younger daughter, whom he had never met. At the terminal he was greeted by Sammy, who said he would take care of everything. But Sammy had an exam at Tel Aviv University and he soon disappeared. Yihye waited for three hours on the Israeli side, Nibin and the girls waited for three hours on the Jordanian side, until at about 1 P.M. they started walking toward one another. Yihye wanted to buy refreshments for his wife and daughters in the cafeteria on the Israeli side, but he was not allowed to do so, he says. They were placed in the VIP room at the terminal and were allowed to stay together until 4 P.M. Three hours after two years, quality time for the parents and the girls. “Nur knows me. She knows who I am. The little one doesn’t know who I am,” he said dryly.

When the meeting ended, Yihye wanted to take the girls with him for a visit to Azariyeh. No problem, they told him, but after a little while things became complicated: Nur could stay with her father, but only starting the next day. Not today. Why? Because. And how would he come to take her? And how would she cross the bridge alone? Only Nur, who has a Palestinian passport, could cross. Little Talin does not yet have a passport, a Palestinian passport can be issued only in the territories, and that’s why she can’t come in. A “catch-22.”

Yihye called Asaf, whose phone number appeared on the state prosecutor’s letter, in case “unexpected difficulties arise.” But in vain. Not today and not Talin. Nibin cried and Nur, who was promised that she would go with Daddy, also cried. He returned alone and despondent to his house in Azariyeh, without his younger daughter, without his elder daughter.

The spokesman for the Civil Administration, Captain Tzidki Maman: “From an investigation, it turns out that for security reasons resident Yihye Bassa is forbidden by security factors to travel to Jordan. As far as the entry of his wife and daughters, in the existing lists we found no documentation of requests to enter to visit the region. If requests are submitted in the usual manner, they will be examined in accordance with the instructions and the existing policy, with an emphasis on the humanitarian circumstances.”

Attorney Zahalka dismisses the response of the spokesman: “That’s nonsense. After all, we asked for one of the two, either that he be allowed to leave, or that his wife be allowed to enter.”

The end of the story: Last week Yihye’s mother went to Jordan, and on Shabbat she returned with her granddaughter Nur to Azariyeh, for a first visit with her father. Talin is still refused entry, as is her mother. Yihye pulls out three pictures from an envelope: His wife and his two daughters. Now Nur is playing with the computer in the pleasant and spacious community center run by her father, which was built with money from the German government, and asking where her mother is. This week her father registered her for the kindergarten in Azariyeh, until she goes back to her mother in Jordan. Occasionally the MIRS chirps and asks: “How is the child doing?”

Normal Life, Destroyed Homes, and Israeli Apartheid

by Schlomo Bloom

The other day, I got a tattoo. Actually, I should say that I got another tattoo, as it is not my first, or for that matter, my last. The day I got my tattoo, was more or less like any other; I got to work by my usual bike route (uphill, unfortunately), had my morning latte, and fortunately got off of work early. Of course, there were the occasional daily annoyances, my daily cup of coffee, anxiety about the tattoo (yes, this one hurt!), but for the most part, there was nothing terribly abnormal about my days events; so what the hell, let’s call it a ‘normal day.’

On February 14th, I received confirmation through a CPT report, that the homes of friends of mine in Palestine were destroyed. In one sense, this is also normal, as they were not the first, and won’t be the last homes destroyed in Palestine by Israeli soldiers (or Palestinian homes destroyed in Israel for that matter). But truly, how can the demolition of your home by an illegal military occupation ever be considered normal? How can such brutality be carried out by human beings who are just following orders, without some semblance of reflection and disgust? And how do my friends, and countless other Palestinians, find the strength to survive such violence, and not only carry on, but rebuild and hope for the future?

In a moment, I’ll be going through the pictures, both from my trip and the current destruction, but first a few more words. I wrote about the community that has suffered this outrage before, in a diary called Close Encounter of a Settler Kind . It is the village of Qawawis, and the residents have endured numerous acts of violence over the years, the main aim of which is to remove them (and other small villages in the area) from the land.

If one looks at the many maps available, they will show you the logic of the occupation in this area; the less populated (by Palestinians) South Hebron Hills have been targeted for annexation by the Israeli settlers for decades, as opposed to the more densely populated Palestinian areas of Yatta, Samu, and Hebron nearby (that said, Hebron is another story). The villages of Qawawis and many others like them are a problem, not due to ‘terrorism’ or ‘security’as such, but due to their repeated refusal to leave, and their rootedness in the land.

Adi Ophir wrote in an article in the Book, Against the Wall that the occupation is defined not as much by overt acts of violence (although they do occur from time to time), which he calls kinetic violence, but by violence in small bursts, or even more, violence suspended, always there and threatened, always possible, but held back for the present. This is one of the reasons that conveying the terror and violence of the occupation can be deceptive to those that do not understand the way occupation dominates the daily life of Palestinians. But in the time I spent in Qawawis, I witnessed so many small and large examples of violence, it is hard to list them all. Just getting to the village requires a circuitous route replete with checkpoints, backroads and some on-foot traversing; then there was the morning we found 6 olive trees cut down by settlers, the surprise visits by the army, the countless visits to the village by armed and violent settlers. And then there is just the physical setting; Qawawis is ringed to the north, south and east by 3 settlements, and one major highway cuts it off from the village of Karmel. Two more roads branch off the main highway, completing the pincer which surrounds and attempts to choke off any ability to survive for the villages of the region. On top of that, in addition to the Apartheid Wall which passes close to the Green line, they are building an inner wall along the Highway, which will completely seal off the villages from Karmil and Yatta. The Supreme Court ordered the IOF to remove this wall over two months ago but this hasn’t happened yet.

Now I don’t just know this because I read Jeff Halper’s Matrix of Control article, which describes this basic policy and strategy of control and suffocation that the IOF employs, and is certainly applicable to Qawawis and other parts of Palestine. I know it because I lived it when I stayed in Qawawis. When we would take the goats and sheep out to graze, we could go only so far as the lack of roads and settlements would allow us (to give you some idea, I traverse well more than twice that distance during my 20 minute bike ride to work). And when we would be near the roads, we would be in constant threat of soldiers and settlers, due to military orders which say that they need to stay 200 meters from the roads. Some days, the army jeeps would drive by and ignore us, and some days they would try and force us to leave. Some days, the settlers would ignore us (you can always tell who they are by the orange ribbons, a holdover from the disengagement), or some days they would honk their horns at us, or shout from their cars. And, some days, they would do more, as my previous post explains.

But on February 14th, the suspended violence gave way to a full-scale explosion, in the form of home demolitions, in 3 villages in the South Hebron Hills. First, here is a portion of the Haaretz article that discusses it;

Security forces demolish seven houses in Mt. Hebron villages
By Mijal Grinberg, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service

Security forces destroyed seven illegally constructed Palestinian houses and 13 other structures Wednesday on the southern slope of Mount Hebron in the West Bank.

The demolitions took place in the villages of Manzal, Umm al-Khir and Gawawis.

The Civil Administration said, “Twenty illegal structures were destroyed after demolition orders were issued, and offers were made to the owners to pursue the available options before the planning organizations. The supervisory unit of the civil administration will continue to operate against illegal building activity in the area, and to implement the steps mandated by law against this illegal activity.”

And if you would like to see some of the reuters pictures of that day, go here

And here is the CPT report, which was emailed to me by Joe Carr & posted on the ISM site, and is fully approved for reposting;

CPT: Israeli military demolishes seven Palestinian homes in south Hebron district

Israeli soldiers demolished homes in three Palestinian villages near bypass road 317 on February 14, 2007. Starting in Imneizil at around 9am about forty Israeli soldiers with two bulldozers demolished one home, an animal pen and a stone bake-oven. At noon the soldiers moved to Qawawis where they demolished the homes of five families and one bake-oven, then on to Um Al-Kher where they demolished one home and damaged a wall of another home.

At Imneizil several young children were in their home eating when the Israeli military arrived; the soldiers gave the family time to get out, but did not give them time to remove their personal belongings. The animal pen was demolished with a few animals inside; two lambs were injured. The Palestinian family began immediately to build a makeshift pen for the animals as the majority of the sheep were just returning from grazing in the fields.

In the village of Qawawis one of the demolished homes was over sixty-five years old, and sheltered two families. Photos of the families amid the rubble are on the CPT photo gallery: www.cpt.org/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album93

The Israeli military, in concert with Israeli settlers, has been trying to force the Palestinian residents of the south Hebron hills to leave their homes for years. Due to harassment from the nearby Israeli outposts several of the young families of Qawawis moved to a nearby town; when the Israeli army then forcibly evacuated the remaining families, a court ordered that the families could return to their homes. According to a lawyer representing the families, the Israeli army now claims that this court ruling allows only the last inhabitants of Qawawis to return, not their children who earlier fled the assaults of the Israeli settlers.

“Our children need homes,” said one villager. “What do they want us to do”?

The Israeli army said, “Twenty illegal structures were destroyed after demolition orders were issued, and offers were made to the owners to pursue the available options before the planning organizations. The supervisory unit of the civil administration will continue to operate against illegal building activity in the area, and to implement the steps mandated by law against this illegal activity”. The Israeli military made no provisions for shelter for the families whose homes they demolished. The families asked the International Committee of the Red Cross to provide them with tents.

The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions said, “A building permit is unavailable there [in the south Hebron hills].” The preceding day three Israeli peace activists and two internationals, including CPTer Sally Hunsberger, joined approximately fifty Palestinians in working on their land near Imneizil. The Palestinian men, women and children planted 600 olive trees in fields that they had afraid to walk on for the past four years due to threats of settler violence. During the action, soldiers and settlers watched from a distance, but did not interfere with the tree planting.

Now, I would like to walk through some of the pictures, which consist of the day’s destruction, and my own pictures that precede it. It was especially painful to see these pictures, as these are people that fed and took care of me, in whose homes I slept and ate, and whose children I played with.

First, here is a picture of Qawawis from sometime bin 2004-2005, with the house of Hajj Khalil in the center. The land is farmed for olives, almonds and figs on the hills, and elsewhere for wheat and grazing for livestock.

Next to Hajj Khalil’s house is the smaller structure that the internationals would sleep in. It is made of stone, mud & cement, with a tarp for a roof (after the rain, the water would collect in bunches and we would have to take sticks to push it out). The winter was cold there, but we would always gather in Hajj Khalil’s house for sweet tea to warm us up.

And here are the remains of the home I stayed in, stones, tarp & all.

In the center of this picture is my dear friend, Hajj Ibrahim, and to his right, his wife Hajja Amne. Of the homes there, only Hajj Khalil’s, seen behind them, still stands.

Now, this is a picture of my lame attempt to put together a family tree of the families of Qawawis, and I show it to you as my excuse for not remembering everyone’s names in the photographs; the families are big, and it has been some time since I was there last, so my apologies!

Here I am in the home of Ibrahim, son of Hajj Mohammed who lives in the nearby village of Karmil. In the center is Ibrahim’s son Mohammed, who lives and works in the nearby town of Yatta and teaches English. He was very welcoming, his English was excellent, and I enjoyed spending time with him there. One of the great things about staying in Qawawis was that it really forced me to learn some Arabic, as few spoke English, but when he was there, I luckily had some help!

The taller boy is Salah, and the younger one is either Eyal or Lohai, I honestly forget! I remember playing soccer with them & I twisted my ankle on the rocky terrain (that said, one of the kids was playing barefoot!)

Here is Ibrahim, sitting with his family in the ruins of his home, the one in which I took the previous pictures. To this day he bears an injury to his leg from a confrontation with soldiers years back (he was audacious enough to take his flock by the highway, can you believe that?).

The house is shared with his brother Abed, whose wife Mariamme is here in front of the tire.

some of their possessions that survived the destruction.

Here is a picture of Hajj Mahmoud from last year. He was a funny guy and fed me many times in his home. He also was a bit impatient with my steep Arabic learning curve; as soon as I would figure out a word or an expression of the most rudimentary sort, he would jump straight to full-speed Arabic! I had to learn how to say to him “slow down, I know very little Arabic;” needless to say, I forgot how to say even that.

Here is Hajj Mahmoud after the destruction of his home, with his wife Aisha and his son Ziad, who’s wife was pregnant and has since given birth to their first child. Now they are all homeless, from the newborn to the grandfather.

Here I am in the home of Hajj Khalil with Mahmoud’s son Ziad. Khalil and Ziad had just come back from Karmil after voting in the January 2006 election, fingers purple and all. Hajj Khalil was truly kind to me, and I look forward to seeing him and his family again; who knows, maybe I can help with the rebuilding of their homes, as rabbis for Human Rights and others have pledged to help them rebuild.

This is Hajj Khalil, just minutes before the settler came and attacked us, as described in my diary Close Encounter of a Settler Kind . The man is over 80 years old, and despite everything, both he and his family will refuse to leave their land.

Who is the Terrorist?

“Israeli settlement sale in Teaneck discriminatory, may violate international law and the roadmap”

Press Release from ADC New Jersey and 11 other Civil and Human Rights groups

February 23, 2007, Clifton, New Jersey – The New Jersey Chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC New Jersey) was joined today by 11 civil and human rights groups in warning New Jersey public officials that the February 25 planned sale of Israeli settlement homes in Teaneck, New Jersey may violate international law and the US government’s Roadmap to Peace, and introduce discriminatory sales practices in New Jersey. Groups joining ADC in this warning included The Center for Constitutional Rights (www.ccr-ny.org), The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (www.endtheoccupation.org), Jewish Voice for Peace www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org), and The International Committee of the National Lawyers Guild (www.nlginternational.org). ADC New Jersey’s expression of concern was sent to Teaneck Mayor Elie Katz, Congressman Steve Rothman, Senator Frank Lautenberg, Senator Robert Menendez, Attorney General Stuart Rabner, and Teaneck Rabbi Steven Pruzansky of Congregation Bnai Yeshurn.

The sale of Israeli settlement homes in the Occupied Territories by the Yesha Council is planned to take place at Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck, New Jersey on Sunday February 25, 2007. Property in Israeli settlements has historically been sold exclusively to Jewish people. Palestinians who live in the area are not permitted to purchase such property because of their religion and their ethnicity. ADC New Jersey and the 11 other civil rights groups warned against the toleration of such discriminatory sales practices in New Jersey.

Pursuant to the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signatory, an occupying power is prohibited from transferring civilians from its own territory into the occupied territory, and from creating permanent changes in the occupied territory that are not for the benefit of the occupied population. There exists broad international consensus that that all Israeli settlements in the West Bank – including those in East Jerusalem – violate the Fourth Geneva Convention (Article 49) and constitute a war crime. Any sales of settlements are therefore presumably illegal. Liability attaches under international law for aiding and abetting the commission of a war crime.

The illegality of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories has been affirmed by the UN Security Council the International Court of Justice, major human rights organizations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Israeli organization B’Tselem, and affirmed by the US government throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

The rental and sale of Israeli settlements at the event in Teaneck, New Jersey may also contradict US government foreign policy as outlined in the United States Government’s “Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” which, in Phase I, requires Israel “to freeze all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements).”

CONTACT: Samer Khalaf – ADC-NJ at (201) 280-3434; Hany Khoury (973) 246-7474

Water cannon fails to dampen spirits on Bil’in second anniversary demo

by the ISM media team, February 23rd

Around 1500 demonstrators attended today’s second anniversary protest against the Apartheid Wall in Bil’in. Despite the peaceful nature of the protest the IOF used violent means to try to disperse the crowd, including firing sound bombs directly at protesters at close range. Several needed medical treatment for injuries incurred when the sound bombs exploded on them.

Before today’s march to the Wall protesters had a chance to view a photo exhibition of the two years of resistance in Bil’in as well as some of the props used in various creative actions. Bil’in villagers were joined by other Palestinians, including two Palestinian Legislative Council members and Member of the Knesset Jamal Zahalka, as well as 200 Israeli activists and 50 internationals.

On reaching the gate in the Wall the villagers chanted resistance slogans and waved Palestinian flags. When some protesters climbed onto and walked along the gate soldiers tried to push them off. The restraint of the soldiers lasted longer than usual, perhaps due to the large media presence, but a few stones thrown at them was the trigger for them to use tear gas and sound grenades against all the protesters. Several were hit directly with the sound grenades . They then invaded through the gate and started firing rubber bullets at children throwing stones. Some activists went down the hill and started dismantling some razor wire.

A water cannon was brought up and used indiscriminately against everyone, including the media, but this didn’t have much effect.

When a small group of 20 protesters sat down in front of the gate soldiers tried to remove them violently but failed.

Then several bursts of water were sprayed at them but they remained steadfast.

Others standing near them had sound bombs thrown at their feet, which exploded causing deep cuts on their shins and ankles. Two had to be carried away to have their injuries bandaged. One Israeli activist was arrested.

There were 20 injuries from sound bombs and rubber bullets, including three journalists.

***********************

click here for Guardian coverage
click here for BBC coverage
click here for Al Jazeera coverage

The Guardian: “Anti-wall protests hit second anniversary”

by Rory McCarthy, February 23rd

Israelis and Palestinians will gather today for a demonstration to mark the two-year anniversary of their most high-profile joint campaign against Israel’s barrier in the occupied West Bank.

Weekly protests at Bil’in, a village west of Ramallah, may have done little to alter the path of the 437-mile concrete and steel barrier, now more than half complete, but the protesters highlight the possibility of continued, non-violent joint action that bridges the Middle East divide.

Villagers of Bil’in say they are cut off from 200 hectares of farmland by the barrier – here a steel fence with stretches of barbed wire and patrol roads. Though the land is on the Palestinian side of the 1967 boundary dividing Israel from the West Bank, Israeli authorities claim it as “state land” and are extending Jewish settlements nearby, particularly Modi’in Illit.

When work on the barrier began, in June 2002, there were joint Israeli-Palestinian demonstrations in other villages. But the response of the Israeli military and border police has been tough, and in time most of the demonstrations dried up.

At Bil’in they continued. Stones are often thrown, though organisers argue for non-violence, and the Israeli military and border police fire rubber-coated bullets and tear gas. Several dozen demonstrators have been hurt and at least two, an Israeli and a Palestinian, severely injured.

“We have been working for two years but we haven’t achieved our goal, which is to destroy the wall and the settlements being built behind the wall,” said Abdullah Abu Rahme, 36, a teacher from Bil’in who organises the protests. “We will continue, even if it takes another 10 years. We have no choice. The wall took our land, destroyed our economy and will make a difficult life for our children in future.”

A battle is under way in the Israeli courts against the siting of the barrier. “The route of the barrier was decided according to parameters that have nothing to do with security but are according to the desires of the settlement of Modi’in Illit to expand,” said Michael Sfard, an Israeli human rights lawyer working on the case. Modi’in Illit, home to more than 30,000 mostly ultra-Orthodox settlers, is projected to expand to a city of 150,000.

Bil’in won a brief victory more than a year ago when it secured an injunction to stop the building of a new settlement area, Mattityahu East. Two weeks ago the court agreed retroactive planning permission and work is expected to restart soon. Yet the protests continue.

“One of our greater achievements has been building a resistance movement to the occupation that is joint Israeli and Palestinian, but led by the Palestinians,” said Jonathan Pollack, 25, an Israeli graphic designer. “This hasn’t really happened before in 40 years of occupation.”