FootBall against the Wall

Today, Tues the 21st of February at 11:00 Bil’in villagers will inaugurate a football field on land cut off from their village by the route of the Annexation Barrier. This land has been earmarked by the Israeli authorities for the expansion of Modi’in Elite’s illegal outpost Metityahu Mizrah. Work in Metityahu Mizrah has recently been frozen following an appeal by the village council and Peace Now that pointed out that most of the structures in the outpost were built without permits and that the land they are built on was stolen from it’s Palestinian owners.

The football game will beplayed by Israeli, Internationals and Palestinian participants of the Conference on “joint struggle” held in Bil’in since yesterday.

The Siege on Balata Camp Continues

19:10 February 19, 2006 Twenty-two year old Mohammad Subkhi Abu Hanade was shot in the chest with live ammunition while he was in his home by a sniper in an occupied house adjacent to his. A medical team andinternational volunteers who were in the vicinity say that the atmosphere was quiet when they heard two shots followed by screaming coming from the house. They immediately came in and found Abu Hanade bleeding heavily. After Mohammad was evacuated, a pregnant woman in the house went into what seemed to be shock induced labor and was also evacuated to hospital.

They say they saw no weapon, nor any apparent reason for the shooting. Israeli soldiers subsequently ordered Mohammad’s family, a total of 12 people including two small babies, out of the house at 20:45 and detained them in the street for an hour and a half.
Since the incursion in Balata refugee camp started on 1:00 am February 19, Balata camp has been under ongoing curfew. In addition, The Israeli Military has made medical emergency work impossible. All entrances to Balata refugee camp are blocked. The one ambulance left in the camp brings the wounded only to the edge of the camp, as medical workers fear that the army would prevent the vehicle from re-entering.
The wounded are carried on stretchers to the entrance of the camp and transported to hospitals in Nablus. Normal ambulance traffic has come to a complete halt. International volunteers are working with ambulance personnel to transport the wounded to an emergency field clinic inside the camp and to hospitals in Nablus and other cities. They witnessed all following incidents or heard and confirmed them from ambulance personnel of the United Palestinian Medical Relief Committees (UMPRC) and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS).
• 07:15-An Israeli military Jeep shot in the direction of an ambulance
and prevented it from approaching the camp.
• 11:15-The military attempted to close the UN medical clinic by shooting warning shots and percussion grenades. They also prevented patients from entering the clinic.
• 13:45-Mohammad Yousef was shot with a rubber coated metal bullet in the head while throwing stones at a military jeep on Jamal Abdel Nasser Street near the entrance of the camp.
The bullet entered several centimetres into his skull. Today there were an additional 12 young men injured while throwing stones at the military jeeps, in Balata village. Another five were injured in the Balata refugee camp by rubber coated steal bullets.
• 15:20-Four youths are injured by rubber coated steel bullets in Balata village. One of them is shot in the head.
• 15:40-Israeli soldiers denied entry to a medical team attempting to deliver food and medicine into the camp. The Israeli soldiers also threatened to shoot them.
• 18:00- Until the writing of this report, a large group of soldiers are surrounding a house in the Magdush neighbourhood in Balata camp.
Soldiers have broken into neighbouring houses and broken windows and doors. In several instances today, soldiers drove through the camps cursing the residents’ mothers and sisters in Arabic in what seemed to be an attempt to provoke the youth to throw stones. The volunteers have witnessed no armed resistance, only youth throwing stones and building
barricades.

Freedom Summer 2006 – Building Bridges

Why Palestine?
Palestine is a place where you can not only learn valuable lessons in community organizing around non-violent resistance, but can experience first-hand a place where people are resisting occupation every day. Palestine needs internationals to support their demonstrations, to help protect their land, and to support their continuation of everyday life, such as going to school or getting through a checkpoint.

Why Now?
Now more than ever, Palestinians need an international presence to ensure that the lives of average Palestinians and not their governmental leaders are the focus of world-wide attention. When the Israeli government says they are going to “Starve” the Palestinian government, they are really intending to starve the Palestinian people. The world believes that Israeli Occupation ended with the Gaza pullout. It is important for internationals to witness the continued settlement expansion on Palestinian land in the West Bank, and the insatiable appetite of Israel for Palestinian land.

International Volunteers with ISM’s Freedom Summer 2006 will stand side by side villagers in places like Bil’in as they continue their tireless struggle to save village land from Israel’s apartheid wall. When international volunteers are not standing with Palestinian non-violent protesters, the Israeli occupying forces often uses live ammunition against them.

Volunteers will also serve as human rights monitors in the Hebron neighbourhood of Tel Rumeida, where Palestinian children are harassed on their way to school daily by settlers, and in the small village of Qawawis, where shepherds and farmers face regular intimidation from soldiers and the occupants of three surrounding hilltop settlements. This is also a form of non-violent resistance. Last but not least we need volunteers in the ISM media office doing support work for activists out in the field.

The power of visiting Palestine during this difficult time is that volunteers witness first-hand the suffering, the courage and the generosity of the Palestinian people under Israeli occupation rather than just seeing the sanitised media view. Experiencing the reality of the situation as a eyewitness experience will equip you with the facts to highlight the issue with others and influence opinions in your home countries.

Your presence in Palestine this summer, for a week or for three months is an important part of building bridges with Palestinians. Freedom Summer 2006 will run from July 2 until the August 5 with volunteer training sessions to be held every weekend, July 2-3, 9-10, 16-17, 23-24, and 30-31.

For more information on how to Join Us in Palestine, see: https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/join,
Contact: info@palsoldiarity.org

— Please Forward Widely —

www.palsolidarity.org

Post Publishes Three Letters in Defense of Georgetown Conference

The following letters were printed on Friday, February 17, 2006, in the Washington Post:

Regarding the Feb. 12 Close to Home commentary by Eric Adler and Jack Langer [“Why Is Georgetown Providing a Platform for This Dangerous Group?”] about the student conference being held on the Georgetown University campus this weekend:

First, Georgetown prizes its commitment to free speech and expression. Georgetown student groups and faculty have the right to invite speakers and conferences to campus in accordance with the university’s speech and expression policy. This does not mean that the university endorses any speakers or their views.

Second, federal law enforcement authorities assured the university that allegations that the conference host, the Palestine Solidarity Movement, is connected to terrorism are false.

Third, Georgetown faculty and administrators will monitor the conference to ensure that both conferees and protesters comply with the university’s policy on speech and expression.

Mr. Alder and Mr. Langer also said that Georgetown refused to host a conference for America’s Truth Forum. In fact, Georgetown had no role in that decision. Decisions about that conference were made by Marriott Corp., which operates an independent hotel and conference center on campus.

Erik Smulson
Assistant Vice President for Communications
Georgetown University
Washington

– – – – – – – – – –

Eric Adler and Jack Langer disparaged the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a movement that I co-founded in the spring of 2001 in the occupied territories of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem to help draw attention to the human rights abuses suffered by Palestinians as a result of Israel’s occupation. The ISM also is a resource for Palestinian nonviolent resistance to the occupation. The ISM believes that average civilians can bring about change, and it tries to unite Palestinians, Israelis and other people in nonviolent resistance to Israel’s occupation policies.

When I “acknowledged” that the ISM “cooperates with Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine,” I was offering concrete examples of the ways in which these groups were engaging in nonviolent resistance.

Both the ISM and the Palestine Solidarity Movement advocate nonviolent resistance to Israel’s human rights abuses — the ISM through organized action in the occupied territories and the PSM by promoting international divestment from companies that profit from occupation.

Huwaida Arraf
Washington

– – – – – – – – – –

The piece about the Palestine Solidarity Movement (PSM) conference that starts today at Georgetown University was misleading. PSM’s organizers are people of all faiths and backgrounds. Many are Jews.

The PSM’s Web site condemns racism and discrimination. Its FAQ page says, “The PSM does not support or endorse terrorism.” The FBI does not consider the PSM to be a terrorist organization; nor does any other government agency.

The Close to Home commentary was nothing more than an attempt to stop Americans from hearing our message.

Fadi Kiblawi
The writer is an organizer of the PSM conference at Georgetown University
Arlington

Resistance Collecting Momentum


Photo By AFP

The struggle of Palestinian villagers against the separation wall and settlements is collecting momentum. In addition to the ongoing direct action of manning the two Palestinian “out posts” that Bil’in villagers have built on their land to be stolen by the annexation wall, three demonstrations were held this Friday. As usual, the Israeli military attempted to block the way of the Israeli activists to Bil’in and detained two of them who were not fast enough to evade the few soldiers allocated to the mission.

In Bil’in, about 20 internationals who came to participate in the Bil’in international conference due 20th-21st February joined the 70 Palestinians and the 20 Israelis in what has become the traditional Friday demo.

The demonstration began at noon with a march towards the land cut off from the village by the route of the barrier. Protesters first attempted to pass through the olive orchard towards the part of fence not yet finished but , the soldiers were ready to stop them among the olive trees… so they diverted back to the road leading to the open gate in the fence – now “blessed” by the highest court of justice as opened always for passage, though the armed forces make an exception, and block it every Friday during the demonstration.

The march was blocked by a border police unit about 20 meters from the passage. During the usual confrontation the protestors advanced about 2 meters – something the commander of the unit took personally. A few shock grenades and physical pushing gained the Israeli military the last two meters. After a while, people tried to get down from the road to the olive orchard in order to go around the blocking border police and get nearer to the fence. A large group of demonstraters did reach the fence route and started to bang with stones on the low fence bordering it. A small unit of soldiers who rushed there tried unsuccessfully to disperse the people with tear gas grenades.

After the nonviolent demonstration was declared over, many of the protestors stayed near by observing the usual confrontation between the stone throwing youngsters and the military, shooting tear gas grenades at them.