ICAHD: “Don’t Say ‘We Didn’t Know'”

A message from the Israeli committee against home demolitions:

A few years ago Zakya from the village Zita donated a kidney to her brother. It didn’t help and he passed away due to delays in the granting of permits for continuation of the treatments. This was at the beginning of the Intifada. Today Zakya’s income feeds and clothes her sister-in-law, her four children (aged 2-12) and also her elderly parents.

Zakya’s main source of income is her land. The construction of the separation fence passes near her village, about 3km from the Green Line, has left around 500 dunam (out of the total village land of 1000 dunam) on the other side of the fence. Therefore Zakya is forced to walk 10km to pass through the gate in the fence and arrive at her land, which is around 500 meters from her home. Additionally, her permits are occasionally not reviewed and she is entirely prevented from reaching her land.

How Many Escorts Does it Take to Get 3 Children Home?

“When are we going to get a reality show in Tel Rumeida?”
by Shlomo Bloom


HRWs (the two women in vests) try to escort Palestinian kids (left) through a razor wire fence while settlers (background) and Israeli activists (foreground) look on

20th May 2006: How many people does it require to escort three Palestinian children home while they pass a bunch of angry and violent settlers? Really, it was so many this time that I lost count. This report is the combined testimony of several different Human Rights Workers (HRWs) present in Tel Rumeida, Hebron today.

After last week’s attacks, we decided to have four HRWs present to make sure that three Palestinian children got home safely as they passed the Tel Rumeida settlement. I was going to stay on the roof of our apartment and film where I had a great view of the street and hopefully not get attacked by soldiers and settlers like last time.

A little bit of background on this particular situation: there are three Palestinian children who have to walk along a narrow path directly below the Tel Rumeida settlement in order to go home from school. The settlers consider this a provocation and regularly throw rocks at the children as they walk home. The settlers told soldiers to put razor wire across the beginning of the path and the children have to move it out of the way every day. There is an Israeli supreme court order that allows the children to use this path but soldiers on duty nearby rarely know this and often refuse to help the children get home safely.

Today, Shabbat, is always especially difficult because the settlers are not at work or school and they hang around waiting to cause trouble.


Settler woman (with baby) tries to convince soldiers that Palestinian kids (left) are not allowed to pass

I began filming as I saw one HRW walking with the children up to the entrance to the path and this is what I saw and what the HRW later told me. The HRW walked with the three children up the hill. A member of EAPPI (Ecumenical Accompaniers for Palestine and Israel) was close behind. The HRW started explaining to the soldier on duty that the children must be allowed access to the path to go home. The kids began trying to climb over the wire when several settlers appeared and a settler woman began yelling at the Palestinian children and at the soldier, telling them they were not allowed to pass and that they had to go around. Immediately on hearing the settler woman, the soldier told the kids that they were not allowed here because this was Israel and that they should go back. The HRW replied that it was an Israeli supreme court order that they should be allowed to pass! No one gave solid reasons whythe children were not allowed. The HRW then asked the soldier to call for backup because the settler woman hit her and was shoving her in an attempt to get at the Palestinian kids. Many settlers were crowding around the HRW and the Palestinian children at this point as they were trying to climb over the razor wire. One of the settler threw a rock that hit the HRW. The HRW begged the soldier to ask his commander about the order and he refused.

Eventually the soldiers ordered the two HRWs and the Palestinian children back down the hill where they would wait for approximately 45 minutes for the right people to show up and allow them home.


Palestinian child waits to go home

At this point there were about fifteen soldiers present and they noticed me filming on the roof. Some soldiers took my picture and I smiled, waved and blew them a kiss.

At this point the HRW on the street with the children called the District Command Office to try and get them to order the soldiers to let the children go home. She also called the police.

Another Jeep full of soldiers arrived. Some soldiers were holding the settlers at the top of the hill at bay but most had positioned themselves in the road so that the children could not pass.


Members of TIPH (Temporary International Presence in Hebron) watch soldiers

Now there were four members of TIPH (Temporary International Presence in Hebron), four members of EAPPI, three of us, two Israeli activists, two people wearing UN vests and God knows how many soldiers present all discussing whether or not these poor kids should be allowed home.


The Palestinian children’s uncle (in black jacket) tried to convince the soldiers to allow the children to go home

One of the Israeli activists called the police, explained the situation in Hebrew and requested their presence. They finally showed up.


The three Palestinian kids wait


UN workers talk to Israeli police

Eventually someone figured out what was supposed to happen and one police officer, the two UN workers and three or four soldiers walked the children up the hill and over the razor wire.


The children are finally escorted home by police, soldiers and UN workers

As soon as the police and soldiers were out of view, an adult settler woman threw several rocks at the Palestinian children as they walked along the path to their home.


The children are finally escorted home by police, soldiers and UN workers, settlers are in the background, guarded by soldiers


Kids walk over the razor wire

The children got to their home about an hour after they should have.

YNet op-ed: “Mr. Occupation Saw the Light”

From the Hebrew edition of Ynet. Translation by Rann.

With his own hands and orders Brigadier General Ilan Paz deepened the suffering in the Occupied Territories. Surprisingly, the political realization and moral insight broke through moments after he returned his equipment. And he’s not the first…

“Nothing good can come out of the humiliation of a neighboring people…the Convergence Plan won’t be implement even in another twenty years…if we do not transfer the land to the element that has a common interest with us to get to a two-state solution in the ’67 border, the situation will spiral out of control…the time has arrived to examine the saying that Abu Mazen is a weak leader and therefore isn’t a partner. We had a major part in creating this image…in Hebron there are terrible instances of violece against Palestinians, but also against the security forces. An entire settlement has taken the law into its own hands. I believe that there is no alternative but to remove the settlers from there…tems of settlements sit on private land that was stolen from Palestians and that contiunes to be developed under the sponsorship of the government.”

Who stands behind this range of quotations? Uri Avnery? Shulamit Alony? Perhaps a field activist from Ta’ayush? No. These logical statements were quoted in Ha’aretz from the mouth of Brigadier General (ret.) Ilan Paz, the head of the District Coordinating Office (DCO) until just a few months ago, when he left the army. The army received his equipment and we receieved a well-justified and harsh series of statements against the Occupation and the disaster of settlements. Paz got released, saw the light and hurried to tell all of us that the Occuapation is bad.

We are talking about a syndrome, that could be called ‘Denied Moral Failure’. A senior officer strips off his uniform and exactly then, not a minute before, his mind awakens to the fact that he dedicated his last few years in the army to the entrechment of a policy of occupation and violence that takes its toll in useless human sacrifices and undermines existential Israeli interests. Before Paz, there was Brigadier-General Giyora Inbar, the former commander of the Lebanese liason unit. Even before the small of gun oil left his clothing, the newly-made civilian hurried to give retirement interviews in which he stated that the Israeli presence in Lebanon was useless, creates pointless human sacrifices, and that we must get out of there immeadiately. Here too, surprisingly, the political realization and moral insight broke through not a moment before he returned his equipment.

Or maybe it was all previous? Is it possible that Ilan Paz and Gyora Inbar understood the size of the mistake and the depth of destruction while they were still in uniform? Which is worse: an IDF Brigadier-General whose uniform takes away his abililty to be logical and judge morally and independently, or maybe a Brigadier-General who knows full-well good from evil, and is aware of the disaster that he creates with his own hands and his orders, and despite this continues in the same path, because ‘an order is an order’?

Ilan Paz, like Gyota Inbar before him, cannot hide behind the duty to obey orders. We are not talking about some minor office here, but rather about the commander of the DCO himself. A man whose signature decorates thousands of orders and regulations, that themselves have turned the occupation into the curse that he now condemns with such vigor: checkpoints, theft of land, building roads on Palestinian lands, the impostion of a Kafka-esque regime of personal and trade permits, and reunification of families, and separation of familes and anything that happens to pop up in the military mind. In other words, during his three years in the job, Ilan Paz was Mr. Occupation himself, second only to the head of the army. Now he tells us ‘Na, I was just kidding. I actually hate the occupation and want to return to the ’67 borders.” Ilan Paze participated personally in the 2002 capture of Marwan Baghouti. Now he rebukes the state of Israel as one that with its own hands contributed the situation of ‘there is no partner’.

And Ilan Paz is not apologetic. He doesn’t even dream of apologizing (Gyora Inbar also skipped over that embarrassing matter). From his point of view, thare is no contradiction between his activities as an army officer and his statements as a civilian. Privately, he brags about this cognitive separation wall: in battle you shoot, at home you talk. He did not refuse his commanders, he did not leave his job slamming the door behind him: a nine-month leave padded his retirement. Mabrook (congratulation, Arabic). This is what will be done to an officer that fulfills his duty, gets a bit disgusted, and shuts up.

It’s a pity that Brigadier-General Paz broke his silence upon his release. It’s a pity that he didn’t spare us the insights that burned in his bones. Now he feels brave, and we feel cheated. And it’s not all this will move the machine of occupation from its path, not even by a millimeter. This machine is built on thousands of such Ilan Paz’s, they are its cogs and screws; good, moral people who only do terrible things out of necessity. Indeed, few are in as strong a position as Paz, a position that could have enabled them to really rock the boat, with a brave act of refusal. But together they call continue to carry the burden; they all promise that the machine will never stop. Is it too much to ask that at least their futile remarks stop?

Shlomo’s Journal: “The Magic Answer”

By Shlomo Bloom

Today I arrived at Qalandia checkpoint on my way to Jerusalem from Ramallah and got in line behind about 15 Palestinians. The line moved at a slow but steady pace until two people showed their IDs to the soldiers behind the glass and an argument in Hebrew began. It was clear the Palestinians were having trouble communicating in Hebrew so one of them asked if the soldiers spoke English. The conversation then continued in English and I was surprised to hear this Palestinian talking in an extremely assertive manner with the soldiers. He talked like an American I thought, Palestinians don’t tend to be quite as sassy with the soldiers. The problem was very clear. The American man’s relative was not being allowed through the checkpoint. Apparently the relative had an appointment in Jerusalem to get a visa to go to America, but he did not have an ID that allowed him into Jerusalem.

Basically, depending on where you live is the controlling factor on where you can travel. if you are Palestinian and do not live in “Israel” (this includes all of occupied east Jerusalem which was unilaterally annexed to Israel) you can’t go to Jerusalem. Never mind that it is Islam’s 3rd holiest city… if you live in the west bank, you cannot go there.

So, he needed an ID that says he can go to Jerusalem. And He didn’t have one.. so he can’t go there no matter what, even if he has business there.

This reminds me of a friend of mine who had to appear in court in Jerusalem a few months back. He did not have a Jerusalem ID and was not going to be allowed into Jerusalem. But if he did not appear in court, he would have been arrested. So, he had to “sneak” into Jerusalem.. walk around the wall, basically.. He had to enter illegally so he would not be arrested. It’s ridiculous.

And yeah, to get a visa to go to the US, apparently you must go to Jerusalem…

The two men were showing the soldier a piece of paper which seemed to state that the man did have an appointment today. The soldiers did not care. They refused to let him through.

“How is he supposed to get his visa if you won’t let him through ?” The American argued. The soldiers simply refused. This continued for a few minutes and then I asked the American-speaking man if he was, indeed American. He said yes. I told him “I am too, I’ll try to talk to the soldiers for you if they let me through.” He asked the soldiers to let me through and they refused.

Eventually the two men were forced to give up and go back. The American said they had been waiting two months for this appointment.

When it was my turn to show my passport to the soldiers I chastised them for not letting the two men though. “He clearly had an appointment in Jerusalem, why can’t you let him through to go to the appointment ?” I asked.

Want to guess what the answer was ?

I’ll give you a hint- this is the answer they give to any question you ask “Why did you beat this man ?” “Why is this man detained ?” “Why are you searching this little girl’s backpack ?” “What are you doing invading this family’s home ?”

As my friend thalya pointed out it is also the answer to the fallowing questions-

“Why did the NSA go trawling through millions of phone records of american citizens making domestic calls?”

“Why are an unknown number of young soldiers being held indefinitely without charge in Guantanemo?”

“Why does the Patriot act give the government the power to review records of who is checking out what books from a library?”

“Why are we planning to bomb and/or invade Iran despite the fact that they have never threatened and could never threaten the U.S. and clearly do not posess nuclear weapons?”

“Why were all the ‘intellectuals’ in NAZI Germany arrested and imprisoned?”

“Why was Tibet occupied by the Chinese?”

The answer of course is- “Security.”

SchNEWS: “Wall of Shame – West pushes Palestinians further into crisis”

From SchNEWS number 544

The remnants of Palestinian civil society, brutalized by the occupation and ongoing encirclement by the apartheid wall, is now reeling under the shock of the sudden removal of all US and EU aid. Their crime? To have voted in free and fair elections for a movement, Hamas, which Bush and Blair argue is ‘terrorist’.

Bank transfers to the Palestinian Authority (PA) have been blocked by the US. Slowly but surely the PA is being starved of the funds needed to maintain basic services and infrastructure. The civil workforce have not been paid for two months and hospitals are desperately short of vital medicines. Jack Straw argued that aid to the PA had to be cut because Hamas refuses to recognise Israel or renounce the right to resist the occupation. Yet the UK is an enthusiastic backer of the Israel whose new Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said “I believe with all my heart in the people of Israel’s eternal historic right to the entire land of Israel.” – meaning a racially-exclusive state from the Mediterranean to the Jordan. Hamas’s claim to the same territory, with roots in living memory rather than biblical mythology is treated as terrorist rhetoric and attracts crippling sanctions from the West. Are we about to do to Palestine what was done in Iraq during the nineties?

Annual UK arms sales to Israel have doubled over the last year to £25m, and since 2000 the UK has sold £70m worth of arms to Israel, including tanks, helicopters, mines, rockets, machine guns, tear-gas, leg irons, components for fighter jets and surface-to-surface missiles. Over the last 30 years Israel has been by far the largest recipient of US foreign aid.

This sanctions regime is being conducted against an occupied people on behalf of an occupying power. While the West demands that Hamas renounce violence, the low intensity war against the civilian population in Palestine continues. In the months of April and May, over 40 Palestinians have been killed by the army – most of them civilians, at least eight of them children – with the most perfunctory coverage in the western press. Aggressive expansion of settlements together with the building of settler-only roads continues. Israel maintains a stranglehold over the Palestinian economy, meaning that the PA is totally dependent on external sources of funding.

The icon of this oppressive regime is the building of the apartheid wall – some 730km of concrete and steel which will annex huge swathes of Palestinian land and turn towns and villages into gated mini-prisons. If completed it will allow Israel to control all significant movement within the West Bank, allowing further degradation of daily life in the Occupied Territories. A bitter fight to resist this symbol of repression has been growing over the past few months, as SchNEWS’s correspondent in the village of Bil’Iin, near Ramallah, reports…

BIL’IN UP

“Bil’In is a small village close to Ramallah six kilometres inside the Green Line (the 1967 ceasefire line). For over eighteen months the villagers of Bil’In have been resisting attempts by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) to build a section of the apartheid wall on village lands.

At a demonstration on Friday 12th May, 300 Palestinians, international and Israelis converged at the gate of the wall, the villagers non-violent protest was met by a hail of plastic-coated steel bullets fired at close range. Two international activists were hospitalised with head injuries (one needing treatment for a brain hemorrhage) and dozens of Palestinians were also shot and injured.

As in other villages, the Israeli government argues that the route of the wall in Bil’in was determined purely for security reasons. However, a visit to Bil’In shows that the work is aimed at the annexation of the villages’ ancient olive groves in order to allow expansion of the illegal ‘Israeli-Jewish’ settlements of Mattiyahu East and Mod’In Illit. The annexation will directly benefit the Israeli real estate developers ‘Green Park’ and ‘Heftsiba’

.The villagers of Bil’In have gained large-scale support from Palestinian, Israeli and activists from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in their struggle against the construction. Since February 2005 villagers have staged hundreds of demonstrations at the route of the wall. The village has become a symbol of Palestinian non-violent resistance and the demos have become a regular feature in the Israeli press.
Israel has built an incomplete barrier separating the villagers of Bil’In from their olive groves. In 2005 the villagers built an ‘outpost’ on their own land, imitating the Israeli settler tactic of claiming Palestinian land through building illegal outposts, close to the settlement of Mod’In Illit. The outpost is constantly manned by Palestinian and international activists and has become a point where villagers can meet and discuss resistance to the construction.

The villagers hold a demonstration at the gate to their lands every Friday. On one such demo in April, villagers’ protests centred around the boycott of apartheid Israel. Protesters burned Israeli products in front of border police in riot gear, before breaking down the gate in the wall and trying to access their land. The demonstrators were met with with batons, tear gas and rubber bullets.

Mohammed Khatib, a member of the Bil’In Popular Committee Against the Wall, said… ‘in the face of our non-violent resistance, Israeli soldiers have attacked our peaceful protests with teargas, clubs, rubber-coated steel bullets and other ammunition. They have injured over 400 villagers, they invade the village at night, entering homes, pulling families out and arresting people.’

The IOF have repeatedly arrested youths from the village in attempts to intimidate those taking part in resistance, often demanding large sums of money in bail. In April two children were arrested while herding goats.The two boys picked up one of the pieces of scrap metal that litter the fields next to the construction site. One of the settlers noticed and called the police, accusing them of theft. The police arrested the pair and later made additional charges of entering Israel illegally and throwing stones at a recent demonstration. The boys’ release was secured by the ISM for 5000 NIS (Israeli shekels) each.

Despite IOF repression, the resistance raises the spirits of the people of Bil’In in the face of the brutal Israeli occupation. Tom Hayes, a volunteer in Bil’In with the ISM, an organisation aimed at supporting Palestinian non-violent resistance, said that, ‘the atmosphere in Bil’In is one of hope – the villagers respond to Israel’s apartheid policies with increased resistance and are confident that they will win their fight.’

Similar widespread resistance in the nearby villages of Budrus and Biddu, where other sections of the wall have been built, has lead to Israeli Supreme Court decisions limiting the amount of land which the IOF can annex behind the wall. The villagers of Bil’In are hoping to draw international pressure and media attention to influence the court’s decision.

The villagers of Bil’In have issued three petitions against the wall to the Supreme Court. The most recent, filed on May 14th, states that the route of the wall is specifically designed to benefit real estate companies and should be removed. Supreme Court Judge Salim Jubran ordered the state to respond to the villagers’ request for a temporary injunction within seven days.

The ISM has worked in Bil’In for over a year and is committed to supporting the villagers’ struggle. Contact www.palsolidarity.org to join us in Palestine.”

  • www.brightonpalestine.org – blog of ISM activist working in Palestine
  • www.palestinecampaign.org – Palestine Solidarity Campaign
  • www.ism-london.org.uk – ISM London
  • www.stopthewall.org – Palestinian anti Apartheid Wall Campaign

Solidarity Events

  • May 20th – Demonstrate for Palestine, March and Rally, assemble 12 noon, Embankment, London
  • May 24th – Introduction to ISM – Wednesday 24th May 7.30pm @ The Bread And Roses Pub, Clapham
  • May 27-28th – ISM Training Weekend – @ The Square, 21 Russell Sq, London, WC1.
  • May 30th – International Work in Palestine, discussion, 6.30pm, Cowley Club, 12 London Rd, Brighton