Palestinian and Israeli Activists Demonstrate Together in Bil’in
Joel Beinin has written a thought provoking review of Shlomo Ben-Ami’s Scars of War, Wounds of Peace in the April 17th issue of The Nation. It’s well worth reading in full, and Beinin finishes on an optimistic note:
Where, then, is the hope for a peaceful solution to the conflict? I believe that it lies in the young Palestinians, Jewish Israelis and internationals who have been fighting shoulder to shoulder in weekly battles against the Israeli security forces since late 2003 to halt the construction of the separation wall. This struggle has been led by Palestinian villagers in unheralded places like Budrus and Bil’in, organized in the Popular Committee Against the Wall. Although their successes have so far been minor, these actions have demonstrated that trust is built through joint political action and that whether there will eventually be two states or one, coexistence, not separation, is the foundation for peace.
B’Tselem today urged IDF Chief-of-Staff Dan Halutz and Judge Advocate General Avihai Mandelblit to make public immediately the open-fire regulations that have been given to soldiers in the Occupied Territories. The request follows publication of an IDF report that verifies human rights organizations’ repeated claims that the regulations are unclear and can be understood in different ways.
B’Tselem contends that the secrecy enables the senior IDF staff to avoid responsibility for the killing of innocent persons, and to divert the criticism to the soldiers in the field. Since the beginning of the intifada, the IDF has related to the open-fire regulations applying in the Occupied Territories as “confidential information,” which are provided to soldiers verbally, and not in writing, as was previously the case.
The IDF’s internal report, which was published on the Ynet Website, states: “There are units in which the Open-Fire Regulations have been condensed and summarized into a number of sentences, such that ‘the soldiers fail to understand the regulation’s nuances.'” The report also reveals that there are battalion commanders who added their own regulations: “In places in which the unit added ‘a verbal instruction” to the regulations, it was found that the soldiers become confused from the large amount of information.” These findings are consistent with the claims that B’Tselem and other human rights organizations have raised for a number of years.
Secrecy of the Open-Fire Regulations encourages a quick trigger finger. The soldiers are given the regulations in oral briefings, which easily result in distortions, misunderstandings, and hidden messages. The policy has led to the killing of civilians in unprecedented proportion. According to B’Tselem’s figures, from September 2000 to the end of March 2006, IDF soldiers have killed at least 1,816 Palestinians, 593 of whom were minors, who were not participating in the fighting.
B’Tselem’s new research illustrates why the regulations must be published immediately. Investigation of the circumstances in which nine unarmed Palestinians were killed near the Gaza perimeter fence raise a suspicion that Israel classified the land next to the fence “killing zones,” that is, areas in which the soldiers are ordered to open fire at any person who enters the area, regardless of the reason of entry. IDF officials, among them Judge Advocate General, Brigadier General Avihai Mandelblit, vigorously denied the existence of any such regulation. However, the nine cases, which occurred following the disengagement from Gaza, strengthen the suspicion. Publication of the regulations will eliminate the ambiguity and enable judicial and public review of this important issue.
Hamas officials say Israeli police have detained a cabinet minister from the new Hamas-led Palestinian government.
Khaled Abu Arafa, minister of Jerusalem affairs, was arrested on the outskirts of East Jerusalem, the officials said.
Hamas said Mr Abu Arafa, a resident of the city, had been detained several times by Israel in the past.
He is one of a group of officials who became ministers last week after the militant group won December’s Palestinian elections.
Israeli officials have so far only said that they are checking reports of the arrest. The matter has been referred to the Israeli prime minister’s office.
News agency reports said Mr Arafa was detained at a checkpoint at the entrance to al-Azaria, a suburb of East Jerusalem.
His bodyguard told the BBC that their car was stopped by Israeli border police and the minister asked for his papers. He said there was an argument and Mr Arafa was dragged from his car.
The BBC’s James Reynolds in Jerusalem says it seems likely that Israel arrested Mr Arafa because he was on his way to inaugurate new political offices.
Israel bans all political activity in East Jerusalem.
Heart of the conflict
East Jerusalem is at the very heart of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. The majority of its residents are Palestinian, and Palestinians hope to make it their future capital.
Israel says the whole of Jerusalem is its indivisible capital. East Jerusalem, like the West Bank, has been occupied by Israel since 1967.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1981, but its claim to the area is not recognised internationally.
Under the plan for further unilateral disengagement proposed by acting Prime Minister and Kadima party leader Ehud Olmert, East Jerusalem and large areas of the West Bank, especially the area around the city, would remain under Israeli control.
Jane’s Journal
Demonstration
I came back from Hebron to go to the Bil’in demo which happens every week on Fridays. Last Friday a delegation of foreign diplomats from about 8 European countries visited Bil’in and met with the Popular Committee. Apparently they observed the demonstration but I didn’t see them. Some people felt the Israeli soldiers were on their best behaviour because of this. This didn’t stop them arresting 3 Israeli’s, 1 foreign journalist and Harrison from ISM, hitting another journalist in the back of the neck with a rubber bullet and injuring two Gush Shalom peace campaigners from bits flying off sound bombs and stun grenades. It didn’t stop the soldiers gripping their clubs like they were ready to beat the shit out of you but perhaps it did stop them doing it. I’m more scared of the clubs than the rubber bullets. The Israeli activists were arrested for being in a closed military zone and damaging Israeli Defence Force (IDF) property. The military can decide anywhere in the West Bank is a closed military zone and invariably do when there’s a demonstration. At the Bil’in demo’s people often bang the metal rail of the wall/annexation fence with stones which makes a loud ringing tone. This can lead to the accusation of damaging IDF property. It’s so kafkaesque in the context of the damage to the land caused by the fence that looks like an enormous scar across the beautiful landscape and the damage to people caused by the soldiers brutality. After Harrison was arrested he was accused of attacking the soldiers. Again a very common accusation when the Israeli Police or military get their hands, clubs, boots on a Palestinian or international. All were realeased later that day. Harrison signed a paper that means he can’t go near the wall/annexation fence at Bil’in for 15 days.
The villagers processed to the wall/annexation fence carrying a large metal pot, empty of food, with a child in it. This symbolised the hunger Palestinians are experiencing caused both by the annexation fence and the with holding of tax revenue since the election of Hamas. Lack of food and money caused by the annexation of their land which falls on the other side of the wall/fence on which villagers grow olive trees, graze sheep and goats, plant vegetables, gather wild herbs and wood. Lack of work and money caused by the wall/annexation fence being another huge barrier to travelling to work and the transportation of goods and materials from place to place. The wall is a malevolent tool for wrecking what’s left of the Palestinian economy. Baraket told me he has a permit for working in Israel but since the demonstrations started in Bil’in he hasn’t risked using it. This is because it’s very likely that when passing into Israel and showing his permit, a soldier will confiscate his permit as punishment for the protests. His permit lasts till 2009 and he’s thinking it will be better to keep hold of it for possible use in the years to come. At the moment he has work 1 or 2 days a week. Mohammed Khatib and his brothers explained that economic aid is only available for short term projects. There’s even a US Aid project that doesn’t pay wages but just gives people food in return for their labour. No one will fund a self sustaining project that will provide long term jobs. People in Bil’in are living day to day.
The people of Bil’in say they are facing another wall that is causing hunger, the International Community threatening to withdraw aid and allowing Israel to with hold Palestinian taxes. Did you know that Palestinians pay VAT on things they buy in shops in the occupied territories and road taxes to Israel. A percentage of this has to be returned to the Palestinian Authority by international agreement. It’s this money that Israel is refusing to release since the election of Hamas. It’s Palestinian money, paid by Palestinians, in Palestinian occupied territories.
On the moring of the demonstration the Israeli’s closed the gate at the wall/fence which now prevents Palestinian vehicals driving to the outpost. During the demonstration villagers tried to construct a bridge of peace over the closed gate that was seperating the two people, the Palestinians and the Israelis. When Israel builds a wall, Bil’in will build a bridge.
Drowning
Today is not the first of the rain. Three nights ago it absolutely poured down, Thunder rolled across the countryside, lightening flashed in the window of the hut at the outpost. I kept waking up with a start, thinking the soldiers had come and the flash of light was the hummers headlights. As the rain stopped, Ashraf, Chris and I didn’t realise that the construction of the wall/fence had caused a damning effect, leading to the river in the valley rising and then swooshing over the bridge on the Palestinian road carrying away 2 brothers in their car. One brother was found alive and taken to hospital. The other brother Eyad Taha’s dead body was found entangled in the wire mesh of the wall/fence, half a mile downstream. His body was eventually recovered from the water, his body was carried back the half mile to the ambulance, his arms and hands jutting out from his body.
I need to head back to the Bil’in Outpost now. More later…
by: Alys a member of IWPS (The International Womens Peace Service) Prologue By ISM media
Palestinian child in Tel Rumeida
Hebron, a city in the southern part of the West Bank, is unique in that the settlements, inhabited by fanatical Zionists, are located right within Palestinian neighborhoods. The proximity of the settlements and the often violent and abusive behavior of the settlers, makes life extremely difficult for the Palestinians whose homes now fall into H2, the Israeli-controlled area.
The population of Tel Rumeida settlement, along with the three other settlements located in the Old City (Beit Hadassa, Avraham Avinu and Beit Romano), totals around 500, yet results in approximately 4,000 soldiers being stationed there. The daily lives of Palestinians are severely disrupted by both the settlers and the military.
Tel Rumeida settlement, which began in 1984 with six mobile homes/caravans occupying Palestinian land, has continued to expand, with the settlers using any means necessary in their attempts to drive the Palestinians away from their homes and land. In 1998 the Israeli government officially approved the settlement and in 2001 the Israeli Defence Ministry gave a permit to build 16 housing units. Without the support — financial and military — of the Israeli government, it would be hard, if not impossible, for the settlement to continue.
The settlers are extremely hostile, on many occasions violent and abusive. The forms of violence include throwing stones and rocks, spitting and physically attacking Palestinians, sometimes resulting in broken bones. The settlers are free to wander the streets with guns slung over their backs. Their armed presence and near impunity before the law means they wield great power.
For the Palestinian families whose homes are now spitting distance — literally — from the settlements, their refusal to move, to be driven out, is a daily form of resistance. It is a resistance which takes courage,determination, and strength.
Shabbat. A beautiful spring day. Two teenage boys walking casually down the deserted main street. In another place, in another life, maybe a different story. But here they are armed settlers. Teenage boys, indoctrinated with fanatical religious beliefs, guns slung over their backs. A street that had formally been a thriving, bustling market. Now not a single shop remains open and only a handful of Palestinian families remain living there.
And for the Palestinians there is much to negotiate. For the families who now have the settlers living right next to them, on their land, even leaving the house is an ordeal. Not only risking being attacked, spat at, verbally abused, but also some are no longer free to walk down the street to reach their house.
Three small girls on their way home from school help each other climb over razor wire which blocks their way home. No longer able to walk down the street, the only route left to them — a narrow, rough track cut into the hills — is now blocked by razor wire.
I was shocked walking through the deserted Old City, once a thriving Palestinian market area, now a ghost of its former self. Wire meshing above my head. A net strung across the alleyway to catch the rubbish thrown by the settlers — toilet paper, rotting vegetables, lumps of concrete.
The journey to school not only involves negotiating the checkpoints, but also the settlers. Internationals are involved in the ‘school patrols,’ strategically positioned along the route to school (and indeed some remaining in the school itself) intervening when necessary. Getting between the settlers and the Palestinian children they are throwing stones at. Hopefully helping the journey to school be less of an ordeal. And throughout the afternoon being a visible presence on the streets, complete with video cameras. The camera not only documenting, but also acting as a deterrent.
H2, the Israeli-controlled part of Hebron, is an intense, crazy place. Resistance takes many forms. Refusing to be driven from your home is an act of resistance. Playing football in the street, laughing, having even a fraction of trust in strangers — all these are forms of resistance. I was touched by the strength of the Palestinians as they sought to maintain their day to day lives
and humanity in the face of such hostility and insanity.
Prologue:
On Saturday the 1st of April, Silvana Hogg a Swiss human rights worker with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) was assaulted by an Israeli settler in the Tel Rumeida area of Hebron. This follows on from the previous Saturday when Brian Morgan, an America human rights worker with the Tel Rumeida Project, was attacked by a mob of 20 Jewish settlers while a nearby Israeli soldier ignored repeated pleas for help. Bith required stiches to the head.
Silvana was accompanying Palestinian school children on their way home when the attack happened about 5 meters from a small Israeli army outpost. Three eyewitnesses to the assault went into the Israeli police station wwith a photograph of the settler ofeender and made statements. Silvana herself went to make a statement the next day. The Police are yet to get back to Silvana about the attack.
Both Silvana and Brian regularly work in the Tel Rumeida area accompanying Palestinian school children on the their way to and from classes so that there is less chance that the children will be attacked by the settlers. Attacks on Palestinians and internationals increase on the Sabbath and on holidays when settler youths are not in school and when religious settlers can not use their cars and have to walk home, often harassing Palestinians as they go.
