TOMORROW: Student’s Demonstration Against Checkpoint North of Ramallah

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tomorrow morning at 11 am Palestinian students will hold a demonstration against the Atara checkpoint (just north of Bier Zeit village, Ramallah). They will be joined by Israeli students and international activists from various Palestinian solidarity groups.

The demonstration will be taking place on the same day that a coalition of Israeli peace groups will hold a large march and rally in Tel-Aviv. The action is intended to be the beginning of a larger series of joint activities against the economic siege of the Palestinian, and against the checkpoints of the Israeli army.

For more information call:

Mansour Mansour: 0545 804 830 or 0599 964 448
ISM Media office: 02 297 1824

Beit Ummar Farmers Struggle to Work Their Land

by Zadie Susser

We visited the land of Samer Shahdah Abu Asara, a Beit Ummar farmer who owns land directly next to the illegael Israeli settlement of Efrat. In part of his land he used to grow grapes. Another part, 25 dunums in size, has been annexed and enclosed by the settlement. This section of his land is surrounded by an electric fence, which was built about 6 months ago. It has been ten years since he used his land for growing grapes because settlers have erected a barbed wire fence inside and put up a tent that is used for vegetables. The tent has been there for about 4 years. Efrat settlement was built 27 years ago on the land of Abu Brekoot and now spans 3000 dunums. Samer Asara is intending to take his struggle to the Israeli courts to show that he has legal right to the land and the documents to prove it.

Later we visited the land of Mohammed Abu Solebey on the wadi Abu Reesh. He has 200 dunums of land near the Beit Aian settlement and suffers from the settlers there. The settlers bring their sheep to his land to graze and the sheep eat the new growth on his grape vines, fruit and olive trees. The settlers have pushed over many of the grape vines and destroyed them. He has gone to the police and they have written eight different police reports dating from 2004 to this year. On the 3rd of February last year he was severely beaten by a settler and was admitted to the hospital for his injuries.

Ynet: “Israeli professor: UK boycott justified”

Yedioth Ahronoth, 31st May 2006.

Professor Rachel Giora of the University of Tel Aviv backs boycott on her colleagues with different views; ‘I support every form of open criticism against the current policies of the Israeli government,’ she says

In a special interview with Yedioth Ahronoth, Professor Rachel Giora of Tel Aviv University gives her reasons for supporting the British boycott on Israeli academic institutions.

You support the campaign of the British lecturers’ organization for an academic boycott on Israel. Why?

“A boycott of this type is a civil, non-violent act. It is a straight and clear expression of reservation by the boycotters.”

But why an academic boycott?

“I support every form of open criticism against the current policies of the Israeli government in the occupied territories, whether it is an economic boycott other forms of resistance. A lack of such stances allows Israelis to assume that the world is not against them. But the world, or large parts of it, are against them. And rightly so.”

Isn’t it better to act through academic cooperation?

“It’s hard to express revulsion and shake off criminal acts through cooperation with those who we oppose. Cooperation in the case is mistaken and blurs all of the evil.”

What is your response to the claim that the struggle against the occupation should be limited to Israel, and ‘the dirty laundry shouldn’t be taken outside?’

“How many other sacred stances will we draw here to silence resisting voices? Women who are beaten and raped were also demanded to keep silent ‘for the peace of the home.'”

There are those that claim that calls to boycott Israel are an expression of a known and ancient European anti-Semitism.

“Israel is not the victim here, but the aggressor, and the criticism against it are not a form of anti-Semitism. Those who criticize it assume that it is possible to demand that it be moral – to take real responsibility for peace in the region, to stop the killing and the starvation, and to get out of the territories. On the part of Israelis criticizing their country, they are doing it out of deep worry for the society in which they live.”

There are many countries that are thought of as imperfect in terms of human rights – China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, even the United States, and they do not face sanctions.

“I have expectations that Israel will not be catalogued together with Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, and even the United States. It’s difficult for me to think that a ‘democratic’ state is not different from military dictatorships. Unfortunately, in its essence Israel is not different, but it is appropriate that it should be.”

Cementing Apartheid in the South Hebron Hills

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The villagers of Qawawis woke up Wednesday morning to workers building a meter-high cement wall along the road that runs through their land between the illegal Israeli settlement of Susya and Hebron. The mini-wall designed to keep Palestinian cars from accessing the settler-only road will have the effect of preventing the villagers from being able to access their villages by car or being able to access their lands on the other side of the road. Sheep, tractors or even donkeys will be unable to access the land.

Tomorrow morning villagers will lie down along the route of the wall demanding the a gap is left for them to be able to pass through.

Qawawis villagers, whose sole income is shepherding are forced to live in caves since any structure they construct is demolished by the Israeli authorities. Today alone, thirteen structures were demolished in the south Hebron region. Most of the structures served as outhouses for Palestinians, according to a report in Haaretz (1). Qawawis’s outhouse and their taboon oven are slated for demolition by the Israeli authorities. The villagers are also subject to ongoing attacks from the Israeli settlers who occupy the area.

For more information:

ISM Media Office: 02 297 1824

(1) See: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/721882.html

Two Houses Demolished in Brukin, Salfit

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

30 May 2006: Two houses were demolished by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in the village of Brukin, Salfit, West Bank, on Tuesday morning, 30 May, 2006. They were among 70 houses that have received demolition orders, according to Brukin’s Mayor Ekremah Samara. The village, which has lost 8000 dunums of land to Israel, is designated as “Area C” under the Oslo Accords and is along the route of the Apartheid Wall.

According to eyewitnesses, 25 military vehicles comprised of hummers and two bulldozers entered the village at 6:30 a.m. They split into two groups, one heading for Buk’an, the northwestern part of the village, and the other to a hill overlooking the Mosque.

In Buk’an the bulldozer demolished a half-completed home being built by a local man who works in Jordan. He had planned to house his family of ten in it. None of his relatives witnessed the demolition. The home was among five other houses in the same neighborhood under threat of demolition.

Simultaneously, the IOF razed a newly-completed 130-square-meter home valued at approximately 150,000 NIS. It was to house a 26-year-old unemployed man and his wife after their marriage this summer. The family had hired a lawyer to appeal the demolition order but no action had occurred.

In both locations, soldiers prevented other villagers from entering the areas. Local residents were ordered to remain in their homes on threat of being shot.

According to Ekremah Samara, if all notified homes are demolished, nearly 700 people could become homeless.

For more information and photos contact:
The International Women’s Peace Service (IWPS)
Office: 09-2516-644
iwps@palnet.com
http://www.iwps.info