Christmas Stories from Occupied Palestine

  1. Christians, Jews and Muslims Meet on the Road to Bethlehem
  2. The Tent of Defiance
  3. The Palestinian Outpost Strikes Back!
  4. Trailer Evacuated and Removed But Bil’in’s Outpost Remains
  5. Christmas lights in Bil’in
  6. Detained Peace Activists barred from accessing Bethlehem
  7. Does Santa get through the checkpoint?
  8. Bil’in In the Israeli Press – four articles

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1) Christians, Jews and Muslims Meet on the Road to Bethlehem

By Father Firas Aridah
Originally published in the Toronto Globe and Mail
December 24th, 2005

As a parish priest in the West Bank village of Aboud, my Christmas preparations include recording the identity card numbers of my parishioners to request permits from the Israeli authorities to allow us to travel to Bethlehem.

Some may be denied permits and prevented from worshipping there. While decorating our church for the joyous birth of Our Lord, we also prepare banners for the next protest against the wall that Israel began to build on our village’s land a month ago.

Aboud is nestled among terraced olive groves in the West Bank, west of the city of Ramallah. The village has 2,200 residents; 900 of them are Christian. Within the village are seven ancient churches and the oldest dates back to the third century. We believe that Jesus passed through Aboud on the Roman road from Galilee to Jerusalem.

The wall that Israel is building through Aboud is not for the security of Israel. It is for the security of Israeli settlements in our area.

The Israeli government continues to claim that it is building the wall on Israeli land, but Aboud lies six kilometers inside the Green Line, the pre-1967 border between Israel and the West Bank. The wall will cut off 1,100 acres of our land for the sake of two illegal Israeli settlements.

Sometimes the Israelis give special treatment to the Christians in our village. Sometimes they give them permits to go through checkpoints while they stop Muslims. They do this to try to separate us but, in reality, we Muslims and Christians are brothers.

Our church organist Yousef told me: “Some foreigners believe that Islam is the greatest danger for Palestinian Christians rather than Israel’s occupation. This is Israeli propaganda. Israel wants to tell the world that it protects us from the Muslims, but it is not true.”

In Aboud, we Muslims and Christians live a normal, peaceful life together. Last week our village celebrated the Feast of Saint Barbara for our patron saint whose shrine outside our village was damaged by the Israeli military in 2002. We invited the Muslims to share the traditional feast of Saint Barbara. They also invite us to share their traditional Ramadan evening meal. We have good relations. Muslims are peaceful people.

With signs, songs and prayers, our village has been protesting against Israel’s apartheid wall. Through peaceful demonstrations and the planting of olive trees, we want to tell the Israelis and the international community that we are against Israel taking our lands. We are working for peace here, but still the Israeli soldiers have attacked our peaceful protests with clubs, sound bombs, tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets.

Two weeks ago, we were honored with a visit to Aboud by the highest Roman Catholic official in the Holy Land, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah. Patriarch Sabbah, a Palestinian, planted an olive tree on the planned route of the wall, and told 1,000 peaceful protesters, “The wall doesn’t benefit the security of either Israel or anybody else. Our prayers are for the removal of this physical wall currently under construction and the return of our lands.

“Our hearts are filled with love, and no hatred for anybody. With our faith and love, we demand the removal of this wall. We affirm that it is a mistake and an attack against our lands and our properties, and an attack against friendly relationships between the two people.

“In your faith and your love you shall find a guide for your political action and your resistance against every oppression. You may say that love is an unknown language to politics, but love is possible in spite of all the evil we experience. We shall make it possible!”

Just after Patriarch Sabbah left, an Israeli protesting with us was arrested by Israeli soldiers as he planted an olive tree.

We have good Israeli friends. We do not say that every Israeli soldier is bad, because they are just soldiers following orders.

Yes, there are Palestinian Christians here in Aboud, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Ramallah, and Gaza. We are the Salt of the Earth.

My religion tells me that I have to love everybody and accept everybody without conditions.

We have here good Jewish people, good Muslims and good Christians. We can live together. This is the Holy Land.
If we in Aboud can send a message to the world this Christmas, it is that Jews, Christians and Muslims have to live together in peace.

Father Firas Aridah is a Jordanian priest serving the Roman Catholic Holy Mary Mother of Sorrows Church in the village of Aboud.
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2) The Tent of Defiance
December 24th, 2005

In a demonstration held at noon on Dec 23, the villagers of Bil’in erected a tent on land cut off from the village by the annexation barrier. The tent was meant to replace the trailer that was forcefully evacuated and removed the day before by the Israeli military. The tent and trailer are the headquarters of “The Center for Joint Struggle for Peace.”

The evacuation took place a few hundred meters away from the construction site of the Matityahu Mizrah settlement where, according to the Israeli civil administration, hundreds of housing units are being built without permit contrary to Israeli law (not to mention international law).

Some 400 Palestinians, Israelis and internationals, walked peacefully from the village to the soldiers’ lines and managed to put up the tent despite the soldiers’ violent attempts to prevent them. The demonstrators chanted and sang in the rain around the tent.

Some of the villagers tried to access their lands across mounds of rocks nearby while soldiers beat them with batons in response. Suddenly a group of soldiers went after one of villagers, Adib Abu Rahma, father of 8 children; they pushed him to the ground hitting his head strongly on a rock and then dragged behind a military jeep kicking him along the
way.

Soon after Israeli activist Yotam Ronnen was also arrested. According to Yotam, soldiers of the “Yasam” unit, beat him and Adib, focusing on Adib, while the two were sitting on the ground with their hands handcuffed behind there backs.

“Adib was already in a lot of pain from the blow to his head. I kept asking the soldiers to have the military doctor who was there with them check Adib. When they finally did this half an hour later the military doctor concluded that due to his head injury Adib requires hospitalisation. Despite this and the fact that he was clearly in severe pain the military released me after some time but kept Adib.” said Yotam.

Adib was transferred to Givat Zeev settlement police station and interrogated for five hours. At 9:00 PM he was transferred by a Palestinian ambulance to a hospital in Ramallah. He was later released to his home but was not able to comment due his condition.

Israeli activist Leiser Peles and another Palestinian activist were also beaten severely.

The route of the wall in Bil’in was designed to annex Bil’in’s lands to allow for the expansion of the Modi’in Elite settlement.
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3) The Palestinian Outpost Strikes Back!
December 25th, 2005

The residents of Bil’in have placed yet another trailer on their land across from the Illegal Metityahu Mizrah outpost. The trailer that houses “the Center for Joint Struggle for Peace” stands on Bil’in village lands that are to be cut off from the village by the annexation barrier. The Barrier is designed to allow for the expansion of the Modi’in Elite settlement and cuts village residents off from more than half of their lands.

The previous trailer that was erected on Thursday the 23d of December was evacuated and airlifted by the Israeli military that evening. This procedure took place in stark contrast to the treatment that massive settler apartment buildings, being built just hundreds of meters away , receive. These buildings are illegal even according to the Israeli civil administration as most are built without a permit but the Israeli authorities chose to turn a blind eye and assist the continued construction.

Bili’n residents have a pending Supreme court case regarding the route of the barrier on their lands. Their Lawyer Michael Sfard has uncovered that the current route was designed to protect the investment of Israeli and Canadian real estate sharks who claim to have bought the land from Bil’in residents and claim that they need the barrier to protect their ability to “develop” the land by expanding the settlement. The Companies have failed to provide any proof of the transaction and Bil’in residents deny that any land was sold.

For more information from the caravan:
Mohammed 0545-851893
Abdullah 0547-258210
Attorney Michael Sfard 0544-713030
ISM Media Office: 022971824
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4) Trailer Evacuated and Removed But Bil’in’s Outpost Remains
December 26th, 2005

Class to take place in new structure today.

At 11:00 AM the Israeli military forcefully broke into, evacuated and removed by crane a trailer placed by the villages of Bil’in on their land cut off from their village by the wall. But, the villagers of Bil’in have expanded the “outpost” neighborhood of Bil’in west and built another structure that will serve as a school.

Today at 2:00 PM the village children will attend the first class to take place in the new structure.

The villagers have been provided with a permit from the Bil’in village council verifying that the land is legally owned by Bil’in residents and that the council approves the structures.

The trailer removed today was placed yesterday December 25th and replaced another trailer that was established and removed the same evening on Dec 23d. Both trailers served as “the center for joint struggle”. The evacuation procedure took place in stark contrast to the treatment of massive settler apartment buildings, being built just hundreds of meters away. These buildings are illegal even according to the Israeli civil administration as most are built without a permit but the Israeli authorities chose to turn a blind eye and assist the continued construction.

Bil’in residents have a pending Supreme Court case regarding the route of the barrier on their lands. Attorney Michael Sfard, representing Bil’in residents, has uncovered that the current route was designed to protect the investment of Israeli and Canadian real estate brokers who claim to have bought the land from Bil’in residents. The Companies have failed to provide any proof of the transaction to the court and Bil’in residents deny that any land was sold.
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5) Christmas lights in Bil’in
By Maria and Anna
Bilin: December 26, 2005

On Christmas day, a day representing love and hope for millions of people around the world, the brave people of Bilin put a new caravan on land that they have been wrongfully cut off from by the Israeli authorities. The first caravan was evacuated by the Israeli military and police on Thursday 22 December, only a day after it was erected. Bilin’s land has been marked for confiscation for the construction of the annexation barrier and the expansion of the Modi’in Ilit and Matityahu settlements.

This time the people of Bilin decided to build a “house” (only a single room) near the caravan during the night. Nine people, members of the Bilin Popular Committee against the Wall and the Settlements and Israeli activists spent the cold and rainy night in this little Palestinian “outpost”, a few meters away from the settlements.

This morning, December 26, the Israeli military and police, in the presence of settlers’ security personnel, evacuated and removed the new caravan as they had the previous one. Two ISM volunteers (us) who were inside had to get out before it was lifted by a crane. As for the “house”, it has been given a 10-day notice by the Israeli military and police before they demolish it on 5 January.

During these 10 days (and cold nights!) there will be locals, Israelis and international
activists in and around the house. Bilin’s Popular Committee is determined to keep on building a new house every time the previous one gets demolished. It is really a great irony that the Israeli authorities are going to demolish the tiny Bilin house built on Bilin’s land when at the same time they allow massive construction in the settlements nearby to carry on against international and even Israeli law.

Bilin December 27, 2005

Luckily the weather got better and the rain stopped (rain is good for farmers but uncomfortable for activists!). A welcoming fire kept on burning in front of the “house” and we had a good time telling jokes and eating nuts and sweets around it. All this time an Israeli army jeep was very close with its headlights straight on us, making a very loud noise from time to time in order to scare us or just annoy us. The settlements have so many lights!
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6) Detained Peace Activists barred from accessing Bethlehem
December 27th, 2005

Four human rights campaigners who have spent Christmas in an Israeli jail were denied access by an Israeli Judge today to the Palestinian town of Bethlehem to attend a peace conference.

The four are experienced peace campaigners who were on their way to the “Celebrating Non-Violence” conference beginning on 27 December in Bethlehem. They were stopped by Israeli immigration police at Ben Gurion airport, Tel Aviv, on December 20th.

Three of them are from Britain: Theresa McDermott, 42, from Scotland; South African Michael Horsell, 42, from South London; and Sharon Lorke, 33, from Hebden Bridge. The fourth, Vittorio Arrigoni, 32, is from Italy.

Vittorio Arrigoni, 34, was injured when Israeli authorities tried to deport him and two other detained UK residents, from South Africa and Australia, by force, according to Israeli lawyer Gaby Lasky. Lasky added that the authorities failed to notify her or the consulate of Vittorio’s injury and originally instructed their guards not to allow the three detainees to communicate with their attorney or consulate representatives.

Israeli Judge Mudrik of the Tel Aviv District court decided that the three constituted a security risk based on secret evidence presented to him by the state.

The organizers of the peace conference, Nonviolence International and the Holy Land Trust, have issued the following statement:

“Israel is stopping people from attending a conference about nonviolent activism because they are nonviolent activists. The Holy Land Trust and Nonviolence International believe that by consistently denying access to the Palestinian Territories, Israel is isolating the Palestinian people and is not acting in the interest of peace. We call upon the Israeli government to change its policy of denying entry to international visitors who seek to support a non-violent solution to the problems in Palestine.”

In Bombay, India, the Israeli Consulate also denied visas to five other conference participants. Hundreds of human rights workers have been denied access to the Occupied Palestinian Territories by Israeli officials in the last three years.

Another British man, Andrew Muncie, 31, from Fort William, Scotland, has been in jail in Israel for almost a month. He is resisting deportation from the Palestinian Territories by Israel. He was arrested while acting as an international observer in the West Bank. (www.theherald.co.uk/news/51950.html)

For details of the conference: www.celebratingnv.org
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7) Does Santa get through the checkpoint?
December 26th, 2005

Huwarra checkpoint is the main checkpoint to the south of Nablus, and probably one of the worst ones that I have experienced in Palestine.

Every time I pass through, people are being humiliated in many ways: screamed at, beaten, detained, forced to wait for no reason, arrested, you name it. Some days it is open, some days closed. Some days women can get out, some days not and if you are from one of the refugee camps, you might as well forget about being able to get through Huwarra, even on a good day.

So approaching the checkpoint sometime around 4pm, we saw just what I feared; the checkpoint was crammed with people, all of them crushed in a mass trying not to get wet in what was a day of constant rain and bitter cold weather, as well as suffering the beatings and abuse of the soldiers manning the checkpoint. Having been stuck there before in a similar yet less intense version of this situation for at least an hour (but in good weather), I decided that we should just use our privilege as foreigners and just walk through the checkpoint. I had never done this at Huwarra, or any checkpoint, for that matter, but with the weather nasty and the checkpoint even nastier, I just had to do it. So we walked confidently (and inside quite guiltily) past the hundreds of Palestinians, who had been waiting there for hours, and flashed our passports to the soldiers there. They waved us on, but then changed their minds and said to check in with the officer at the end of the checkpoint. We went to him and he asked us the usual stupid questions;

Q: Did you get special permission to be in Nablus?
A: Sir, we were let through the checkpoint when we arrived.
Q: Where did you stay? A hotel?
A: Yes, at the Yasmeen hotel.
Q: Is it a five star hotel?
A: Sir, I have no idea how many stars it has, it is a good hotel.

And more like that; stupid questions asked by young boys with guns that have a slightly hard time mustering up the kind of racism and nastiness that comes easily when questioning Palestinians. After a very poor search of our bags, we passed through Huwarra. Just before leaving, I stopped when I saw that 3 or 4 young male Palestinians were being detained in a small area of the checkpoint. I turned around and asked the soldier that had just let us pass “How long have those boys been there? Why are they there?” The soldier said to me “They hit a soldier,” and made a motion like a slap.

This just made me so angry inside I can’t tell you. Myself and every other person I know that went through that checkpoint that day saw soldiers hitting and beating Palestinians. Of course, I’ve seen it many other times as well; activist friends of mine have been arrested for allegedly beating a police officer, which are just plain lies told by the police (even the Israeli judge in one case stated that he was “outraged” by the behavior of the police). It seems a logical axiom that if one is charged by the Israeli military for beating a soldier, that means a soldier assaulted you.

“They hit a soldier,” he said. So, in response to the officer, I mustered as much sarcasm as I could manage without screaming, and said “Well, that’s too bad,” and walked away.
And so I left, angry, guilty, just plain revolted at the injustice and brutality of it all. If this was my daily life, what would I do with all these emotions? How would I survive?

Next was to arrange a ride to Ramallah, the next large city before crossing into Jerusalem. What followed was a crazed and dysfunctional process of getting either a taxi for the two of us or waiting until enough people trickle through the checkpoint to fill up a shared taxi.

While we were haggling over prices, we had a surprise; who shows up, but our friend who left hours before us! He had arrived at Huwarra at 1pm, and did not pass through until 4pm!! Even he had tried to use his passport to get ahead of the line, but to no avail; they told him to wait his turn, and that he did. Needless to say, he was happy to see us, and I could not imagine what I would be like mentally after 4 hours of being crushed in a sea of people, in that weather, while watching soldiers beat and abuse people the whole time.

He joined us in the shared taxi, but our travels had not ended yet! Off we went from Huwarra in the pouring rain and thick fog, which did slow traffic from its usual somewhat too fast driving pace, but as a lovely Christmas present to Palestine, the IOF had a few more hurdles to get past. Usually, the next manned checkpoint is at Zaatara, not too far down the road from Huwarra. But on this day, there was an impromptu “flying” checkpoint, as they are called, both before and after the Zaatara checkpoint. It usually consists of an army jeep/truck blocking the road with soldiers out waving people to stop or keep going.

Sometimes taxis alert each other ahead of time and they can be avoided, sometimes not. So, before getting to Ramallah we had to show our IDs and be assessed by soldiers at checkpoints three times. Each time is much like the other, the humiliating experience of being treated like possible criminal just for traveling in Palestine. And as awful as all these experiences were for me yesterday, it is nothing compared to what a Palestinian has to go through. My time here has given me the barest, most basic taste of what it is like, but I would never claim to ‘know’; in the end, I am a foreigner, and eventually, I will leave Palestine with my all powerful passport and white male privilege intact.

And then to Ramallah we arrived. After a walk in the rain, we got our things organized for the next leg of the journey, the crossing at Qalandia checkpoint into the ‘Greater’ Jerusalem area which the Apartheid Wall is annexing to Israel as we speak. Qalandia Checkpoint has always been another one of those nasty, abusive and in the past, makeshift checkpoints, and with the construction of the Apartheid Wall, Qalandia is out of control; blocks of cement, railing, piles of gravel and dirt, fencing, razor wire, sniper towers, and plenty of subversive graffiti, of course. Right next to this is the most surreal thing; where there was once a hill, the hill is no more, and a brand spanking new, shiny and gleaming terminal-like building has been constructed, along with a parking lot and a large sign with a picture of a flower, next to which is written in three languages “The Hope of Us All.” Myself and other activists who have seen this feel that it is only a matter of time until: “Arbeit Macht Frei” or “Despair all ye who enter here” are spray-painted in its place.

This is the new (improved?) Qalandia terminal, paid for by US tax dollars, of course, and it is a cruel joke. I don’t know which is worse, walking through a random assortment of concrete and steel while soldiers point guns treat you like dirt, or a spotless post-post-modern cross between an airport terminal and a sanatorium, with soldiers sitting behind bullet proof glass and yelling commands through a machine while they sit comfortably, as if you are some infected microbe that they dare not be in the same room with. The walls are complete with screens that say “welcome” and other signs saying “please keep the terminal clean,” and “enjoy your stay.” Who was it that designed such a cruel joke? This checkpoint is miles past the 1967 green line, well into Palestinian land, and no one has any possibility of ‘enjoying their stay’ while they are being humiliated, whether up front or by remote control.

So, do you think that that is it? Nope, one more checkpoint, a quick stop while taking a bus to Jerusalem. Everyone on the bus has the process down: lifts up their IDs, the border policeman comes in, looks at them, and then waves us on (on a good day of course). It was close to 9pm when we got to the hostel, a journey of 60 kilometers took about 5 hours (for Aaron, 9 hours) and we had to pass through 6 checkpoints in the process.

And people ask, when will peace come to the Holy Land? God only knows, when people are forced to live like this.
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8) Bil’in In the Israeli Press – four articles

1.There’s a system for turning Palestinian property into Israel’s state land
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=662729
By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz

2.Bilin: Illegal outpost may become school
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3190350,00.html
By Ali Waked, Ynet

3.Bil’in demonstrators return to outpost
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1134309646601&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
By Erik Schchter, Jerusalem Post

4. Palestinians, left-wing activists rebuild ‘outpost’ in village of Bil’in
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/662203.html
By Jonathan Lis and Meron Rappaport, Haaretz Correspondents
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Christmas lights in Bil’in

By Maria and Anna
Bilin 26/12/05

On Christmas day, a day representing love and hope for millions of people around the world, the brave people of Bilin brought a new caravan on their land that has been unrightfully cut off by the Israeli authorities for the construction of the annexation barrier and the expansion of the Modi’in Ilit and Matityahu settlements ( the first caravan was evacuated by the Israeli military and police on Thursday 22 December, only a day after it was erected ).

This time the people of Bilin decided to build a “house” ( literary a single room ) near the caravan during the night. Nine people, members of the Bilin Popular Committee against the Wall and the Settlements and Israeli activists spent the cold and rainy night in this little Palestinian
“outpost”, a few metres away from the settlements.

This morning, 26 Dec, the Israeli military and police evacuated and removed the new caravan, in the presence of settlers’ security personnel, just like the previous one. Two ISM volunteers -us- who were inside had to get out before it was lifted by a crane. As for the “house”, it has been given a 10-day notice by the Israeli military and police before they demolish it on 5 January.
During these 10 days (and cold nights!) there will be locals, israelis and international
activists in and around the house, and it looks like the Bilin Popular Committee are determined to keep on building a new house every time the previous one gets demolished. It is really a great irony that the Israeli authorities are going to demolish the tiny Bilinian house built on Bilinian land when, at the same time, they allow massive construction in the settlements nearby against international and even israeli law.

Bilin 27/12/05

Luckily the weather got better and the rain stopped (rain is good for farmers but uncomfortable for activists!) A welcoming fire kept on burning in front of the “house” of Bilin and we had a good time telling jokes and eating nuts and sweets around it. All this time an Israeli army jeep was very close with its headlights on, straight to us, making a very loud noise from time to time in order to scare us or just annoy us.The settlements have so many lights!

Four articles on Bil’in In the Israeli press

1) There’s a system for turning Palestinian property into Israel’s state land
By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz

2) Bilin: Illegal outpost may become school
By Ali Waked, Ynet

3) Bil’in demonstrators return to outpost
By Erik Schechter, Jerusalem Post

4) Palestinians, left-wing activists rebuild ‘outpost’ in village of Bil’in
By Jonathan Lis and Meron Rappaport, Haaretz Correspondents

***********

1) There’s a system for turning Palestinian property into Israel’s state land
By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz

Ehud Barak likes to compare the State of Israel to a villa in a jungle. It would be interesting to know whether he means that the areas of the settlements in the territories are a legal veranda of the villa or part of the jungle.

Right under the noses, in the best case, of prime ministers, chiefs of staff and GOCs of the Central Command, who are responsible for “Judea and Samaria” (the West Bank), among them Barak himself, the State of Israel has imposed the law of the jungle on those territories. The Civil Administration, with the blessing of the State Prosecutor’s Office, has been a key partner in a system of real estate deals, of which the description “dubious” would be complimentary.

Building companies owned and managed by settler leaders and land dealers acquire lands from Palestinian crooks and transfer them to the Custodian of Government Property in the Israel Lands Administration. The custodian “converts” the lands to “state lands,” leases them back to settler associations that then sell them to building companies. In this way it has been ensured that the Palestinians (under the law in the territories, the onus of proof is on them) will never demand their lands back.

A year and a half ago, when this became known to him, Brigadier General Ilan Paz, then the commander of the Judea and Samaria district, issued a written order to shut down the lands laundry. He reasoned that even if this was legally correct, it smelled bad. These lands have already served for the establishment of dozens of Jewish settlements and others are awaiting purchasers. Some of these lands, for example the lands of the village of Bil’in – now known thanks to the determined struggle against the separation fence – are adjacent to the 1967 border. The Defense Ministry has seen to it that the route of the fence will “annex” them to the “Israeli” side and the entrepreneurs are hastening to establish facts in concrete.

Two weeks ago it was first published here that adjacent to Bil’in, in the Jewish settlement of Matityahu East, a new neighborhood of Upper Modi’in, hundreds of apartments are going up without a permit. The lawyer for the inhabitants of Bil’in, attorney Michael Sfard, sent the State Prosecutor’s Office a copy of a letter that Gilad Rogel, the lawyer for the Upper Modi’in local council, wrote to the council’s engineer. Rogel warned that entrepreneurs are building “entire buildings without a permit, and all this with your full knowledge and with planning and legal irresponsibility that I cannot find words to describe.”

In a report that he sent to the Interior Ministry, the council’s internal comptroller, Shmuel Heisler, wrote that the construction in the new project was being carried out contrary to the approved urban construction plan and deviates from it “extensively.”

The Justice Ministry has confirmed that “apparently illegal construction is underway in the jurisdiction of the locale Upper Modi’in, and that the Civil Administration in the area of Judea and Samaria has been asked to send its statement on the matter.”

The Civil Administration spokesman has said that “in light of the fact that at this stage, too, construction work is being carried out there, it is the intention of the head of the Civil Administration to examine as soon as possible the legal means of enforcement at his disposal, in order to bring about the stoppage of the building that is being carried out in this area.”

On the ground, the work is proceeding as usual. Documents in the possession of Haaretz show that building violations are just the very tip of an affair that is many times more serious. The first document is a sworn statement by attorney Moshe Glick, the lawyer for a settlers’ association called The Society of the Foundation of the Land of Israel Midrasha, Ltd.” On June 16, 2002, Glick declared to attorney Doron Nir Zvi: “I hereby submit this sworn statement in the place of the mukhtar [headman] of Bil’in. To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Muhammad `Ali Abed al Rahman Bournat is the owner of the plot known as Bloc 2 Plot 134 in the village of Bil’in.”

Never set foot

On November 16, 2003, Glick signed another sworn statement. The new statement was aimed at explaining the strange phenomenon of an Israeli attorney swearing under oath, a procedure that is parallel to sworn testimony in a court, in the place of the mukhtar of an Arab village. From the new statement it emerges that Glick has never set foot on the lands to which his statement relates. “This sworn statement comes in place of a statement by the mukhtar of the village of Bil’in, as because of the security situation there is a real danger to the life of any Jew who tries to enter the village of Bil’in (and needless to say when it is a matter of the issue of the purchase of land). Moreover, there is a prohibition by the authorities that forbids citizens of Israel to enter Areas A and B.”

The spokesman of the Civil Administration confirmed yesterday that the village of Bil’in
is located in Area B, which is under Israel’s full security control, and that Israeli citizens are allowed to visit there.

On the same day that Glick signed the sworn statement, the well-known land dealer Shmuel Anav appeared before him and also signed a sworn statement pertaining to that same plot. Anav, too, explained that the reasons it was impossible to bring an authorization by the mukhtar are the “security situation” and the prohibition on entering areas A and B.

In the section for “detailing the evidence” on which the Land of Israel Midrasha Foundation is basing its demand to register the plot in its name, Anav declared that “the owner sold it to his son and the son sold it to the Society of the Foundation.” The owner died several years ago. His son, Sami, who according to inhabitants of Bil’in forged their signatures, was murdered in Ramallah at the beginning of 2005. Had the police taken the claim of the Bil’in inhabitants seriously and examined the propriety of the sworn statements given in their mukhtar’s name, with a dubious security excuse, the police would have found that the name of Anav has been linked to land deals that have turned out to be land theft.

He starred in the affair of Nebi Samuel, the neighborhood that hit the headlines 10 years ago during former minister Aryeh Deri’s trial. Plia Albeck, for years was the director of the civil department at the Justice Ministry, testified that a building company owned by settlers called Moreshet Binyamin had purchased from Anav 200 dunams of the land in the area of northern Jerusalem, and that he had purchased them from an Arab named Shehada Barakat, who testified that he owned the lands – but it turned out that he had sold lands that belonged to his relatives. Three years earlier Anav was convicted of soliciting donations from land dealers for the Likud’s election campaign, “with the condition and expectation that in return the donors would receive benefits.”

The Justice Ministry has responded that “property will be considered government property as long as the opposite has not been proven. Hence, it is possible to declare that privately owned land is government property, only if the owners of the land have asked the Custodian of Government Property to manage the property.”

Michael Ben Yair, who was the attorney general in Yitzhak Rabin’s government, has told Haaretz that he never approved turning private lands into government lands, and that this is the first time he has heard of this procedure.

Attorney Talia Sasson was also surprised to hear that the Civil Administration has served as the settlers’ land laundry. This is not to say that the author of the report on the illegal outposts does not know that the Civil Administration serves the settlement project in the territories. In a lecture at University of Haifa, which dealt with the non-implementation of the recommendations of the outposts report (the chairman of the committee for implementing the recommendations, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, has not yet found time to submit its recommendations to the government), Sasson related yesterday to the contribution of the Israel Defense Forces and the Civil Administration in particular to the establishment of the settlements in the territories.

“The Civil Administration was established because under the international law that applies in the territories, the commander of the area is obligated to take care of the `protected’ population in the area, that is to say the Palestinians who were there when the IDF entered the territory,” the attorney explained. “Over the years the Civil Administration became the main body that dealt with all the matters of the Israeli settlement in the territories, not mainly the Palestinians, but in fact the Israelis,” she said. It allocates lands to settlers, declares lands to be state lands, approves the connecting of water and electricity to the settlements and more.

Sasson said: “In effect, it is the Civil Administration that enables in practice the acts of the Israeli settlement in the territories.”

Sasson emphasized that the Civil Administration is subordinate to the IDF – on the one hand to the GOC and on the other to the Coordinator of Activities in the Territories, who wears a uniform. “It emerges that the body by means of which the governments have been acting over the years concerning the implementation of settlements is a body that is subordinate to and run by the IDF (and at its head is a brigadier general). This mingling of the IDF and the settlement project is a bad and damaging mingling.”

All according to a master plan

In the process of preparing a new report that deals with the expansion of settlements under cover of the separation fence, researchers from B’Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, and from Bimkom, Planners for Planning Rights were able to lay their hands on the map of “The Master Plan of the Upper Modi’in Area” for the year 2020. The map confirms that it is not only security issues that interested the planners of the route of the fence in the area of the battles for Bil’in. They were so hungry they “forgot” that security needs make it essential to keep a suitable distance between the fence and the nearest Jewish locale. It turns out that in addition to the usual master plans, at the initiative of the Construction and Housing Ministry and in cooperation with the planning bureau of the Civil Administration, in 1998 the Upper Modi’in local council and the Matteh Binyamin regional council drew up a master plan for the whole bloc. The plan does not have statutory validity, but it is a guiding document in the framework of which the planning policy is determined for a given area, and in the light of which the master plans are formulated. The report points out that under the master plan about 600 dunam adjacent to the plan for Matityahu East, which are owned by families from the village of Bil’in, are slated for the construction of 1,200 new housing units. Less than two months ago inhabitants of Bil’in discovered that a new road had been cut through from the Matityahu East neighborhood to a large grove of olive trees that is located in the area.

The village council filed a complaint with the Shai (Samaria-Judea) police about the uprooting of about 100 trees and their theft. The cutting through of the road reinforces the suspicion that under cover of the fence, there is a plan for a takeover of the land adjacent to the East Matityahu neighborhood, which is already in the process of construction.

Similarly, cultivated lands owned by the villagers of Dir Qadis and Ni’alin on an area of about 1,000 dunams, adjacent to the plan for Matityahu North C, have been added in the framework of the master plan to the plan for the neighborhood.

The authors of the report note that the master plan for Upper Modi’in arouses a strong suspicion that one of the covert aims of the fence is to cause Palestinian inhabitants to stop cultivating lands that are intended for the expansion of the Jewish settlements, to enable the declaration of them as state lands. Hence, as described above, the way to the building companies is very short.
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2.Bilin: Illegal outpost may become school
By Ali Waked
Ynet, December 26, 2005

Leftwing activists and Palestinians have plans to set up a makeshift school on lands Israel plans to expropriate from the village of Bilin to construct the security fence; school to teach Palestinians `citizenship` After lighting Hanukkah candles Sunday evening for the “liberation from the occupation” near the West Bank village of Bilin, leftwing activists and Palestinians built a small structure Monday near a caravan along the security fence.

Last week the IDF evacuated an outpost set up by activists on land Israel plans to expropriate from villages to construct the fence and expand the Modiin Elit settlement.

The evacuation lasted two hours as tens of activists and Palestinians huddled near the caravan and confronted security forces.

The permanent structure offers a glimpse of future plans to set up a youth center and a makeshift school to hold lessons about citizenship in Arabic.

The Civil Administration has given activists a deadline to present construction permits by January 5, threatening to demolish the structure should the activists fail to prove
its legality. Security forces suspect activists will use the time limit to prepare for another confrontation with security forces, seek legal advice, and construct more buildings.

Activist Yonatan Pollak said the building was set up to prove Israel’s discriminating construction policy. “The land of the villagers has been expropriated to expand the illegal settlement of Modiin Elit. Authorities are not lifting a finger to stop the expansion which is taking place at the expense of land belonging to Bilin,” Pollak said. “The caravan is a statement that the state of Israel is an apartheid state. The settlers are allowed to build illegally and the Palestinians who are requesting to build legally are being forbidden from doing so, and are evacuated by force,” Pollak added.

On Sunday Palestinians and activists lit Hanukkah candles to celebrate the Jewish festival which they said commemorates the end of foreign occupation. “The building on liberated Palestinian land is a statement against imperialism,” activists said.
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3. Bil’in demonstrators return to outpost
By Erik Schechter, Jerusalem Post
December 25, 2005

A group of 22 Israeli and Palestinian demonstrators lit Hannuka candles Sunday night at an illegal caravan erected for a second time near the West Bank settlement of Modi’in Elite.

The lighting of the first candle at this spot, said Yossi Bartal, an activist from Anarchists against the Wall, represented “the fight for freedom from occupation.”

The group’s choice in symbols was a provocative one given that the Maccabean revolt that Hannukah commemorates broke out in ancient Judean town of Modi’in. Likewise, the caravan was located adjacent to the new neighborhood of East Mattityahu, named after the rebellion’s famed patriarch priest. But protesters contended that the victims nowadays were the Palestinian residents of the village of Bil’in, a half a kilometer away. The route of the security fence blocks villagers from their farm land and protects ever-expanding settlements, they said.

“The barrier cuts off Bil’in from one-half to two-thirds of its agricultural land and is meant to protect the settlements of Kiryat Sefer and Modi’in Elite,” said Rabbi Arik Ascherman. Ascherman, who heads Rabbis for Human Rights, a left-wing association that has also trumpeted the cause of Bil’in, said that the caravan was illegal – but so were the new settlement neighborhoods. Both were set up without government permits, he said.

Last Thursday, about 50 activists barricaded themselves in a similar outpost at the same location, but soldiers removed the caravan, and police briefly detained seven demonstrators.

The expansion in the East Mattityahu neighborhood went unhindered. “The quick evacuation of the first outpost, within 24 hours of it being set up, exposes the blatant policies of Apartheid and selective enforcement going on in the Occupied Territories,” said Yonatan Pollack, another anarchist.

Pollack promised that Sunday’s caravan “will become the foundation stone for a West Bil’in.”

At the last outpost demonstration, soldiers fired tear gas to keep additional protesters from reaching the caravan, but this time around, a police and IDF jeep passed by without responding.

Military sources said the outpost, like the last one, “would be removed by the police and the IDF Civil Administration.”
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4. Palestinians, left-wing activists rebuild ‘outpost’ in village of Bil’in
By Jonathan Lis and Meron Rappaport, Haaretz Correspondents

Palestinian residents of the West Bank town of Bil’in, along with left-wing activists, have rebuilt an “outpost” Sunday two days after the Israel Defense Forces removed the container from the identical spot west of the separation fence route near the settlement of Upper Modi’in.

The caravan was situated on land adjacent to the Matityahu East neighborhood of Upper Modi’in, where 750 housing units have been built illegally. The mobile home, which arrived yesterday from inside Israel, is standing approximately 100 meters away from the Matityahu East construction site.

Last week, the Palestinians erected the outpost as part of their plan to establish a “center for the joint struggle for peace.” They even brought cement to the site, adding that they intend to build “the western neighborhood of Bil’in.”

The separation fence cuts off village residents from approximately half of their lands. The placement of the caravan is meant to serve as a protest against the fence and against illegal settlement construction.

Bil’in has become the symbol of the struggle against the separation fence, serving as the site of dozens of joint Palestinian-Israeli demonstrations in the past year. Some of the demonstrations have ended in violent clashes with security forces.

An IDF spokesperson that the army evacuated the container because it was placed in a closed military zone and that “it is forbidden to transport caravans” in the territories.

“Private Palestinian land is in question here, not state land. The village council approved setting up a caravan and thus this is a legal structure,” Attorney Michael Sfard, who represents the Bil’in residents, said last week.

“This will be blatant proof of the fact that there is selective law enforcement if they deal with the poor caravan before the hundreds of housing units built illegally in Upper Modi’in,” he added.

Sfard submitted a letter in the name of Peace Now to the Civil Administration demanding a halt to the construction within a week. At the end of this time, Sfard wrote in the letter, he will turn to the Supreme Court.

“After what happened today in Bil’in, there is no reason that the state should defend its decision to continue the construction” in Matitiyahu, Sfard said.

“Now the truth is out, and the truth is that Jews are allowed to break the law and Palestinians are not.

“This,” Sfard continued, “is called apartheid.”

Does Santa get through the checkpoint?

Huwarra checkpoint is the main checkpoint to the south of Nablus, and probably one of the worst ones that I have experienced in Palestine.

Every time I pass through, people are being humiliated in many ways: screamed at, beaten, detained, forced to wait for no reason, arrested, you name it. Some days it is open, some days closed. Some days women can get out, some days not and if you are from one of the refugee camps, you might as well forget about being able to get through Huwarra, even on a good day.

So approaching the checkpoint sometime around 4pm, we saw just what I feared; the checkpoint was crammed with people, all of them crushed in a mass trying not to get wet in what was a day of constant rain and bitter cold weather, as well as suffering the beatings and abuse of the soldiers manning the checkpoint. Having been stuck there before in a similar yet less intense version of this situation for at least an hour (but in good weather), I decided that we should just use our privilege as foreigners and just walk through the checkpoint. I had never done this at Huwarra, or any checkpoint, for that matter, but with the weather nasty and the checkpoint even nastier, I just had to do it. So we walked confidently (and inside quite guiltily) past the hundreds of Palestinians, who had been waiting there for hours, and flashed our passports to the soldiers there. They waved us on, but then changed their minds and said to check in with the officer at the end of the checkpoint. We went to him and he asked us the usual stupid questions;

Q: Did you get special permission to be in Nablus?

A: Sir, we were let through the checkpoint when we arrived.

Q: Where did you stay? A hotel?

A: Yes, at the Yasmeen hotel.

Q: Is it a five star hotel?

A: Sir, I have no idea how many stars it has, it is a good hotel.

And more like that; stupid questions asked by young boys with guns that have a slightly hard time mustering up the kind of racism and nastiness that comes easily when questioning Palestinians. After a very poor search of our bags, we passed through Huwarra. Just before leaving, I stopped when I saw that 3 or 4 young male Palestinians were being detained in a small area of the checkpoint. I turned around and asked the soldier that had just let us pass “How long have those boys been there? Why are they there?” The soldier said to me “They hit a soldier,” and made a motion like a slap.

This just made me so angry inside I can’t tell you. Myself and every other person I know that went through that checkpoint that day saw soldiers hitting and beating Palestinians. Of course, I’ve seen it many other times as well; activist friends of mine have been arrested for allegedly beating a police officer, which are just plain lies told by the police (even the Israeli judge in one case stated that he was “outraged” by the behavior of the police). It seems a logical axiom that if one is charged by the Israeli military for beating a soldier, that means a soldier assaulted you.

“They hit a soldier,” he said. So, in response to the officer, I mustered as much sarcasm as I could manage without screaming, and said “Well, that’s too bad,” and walked away (for more descriptions of what checkpoints are like, I highly recommend an article by Gideon Levy, Theater of the Absurd).

And so I left, angry, guilty, just plain revolted at the injustice and brutality of it all. If this was my daily life, what would I do with all these emotions? How would I survive?

Next was to arrange a ride to Ramallah, the next large city before crossing into Jerusalem. What followed was a crazed and dysfunctional process of getting either a taxi for the two of us or waiting until enough people trickle through the checkpoint to fill up a shared taxi.

While we were haggling over prices, we had a surprise; who shows up, but our friend who left hours before us! He had arrived at Huwarra at 1pm, and did not pass through until 4pm!! Even he had tried to use his passport to get ahead of the line, but to no avail; they told him to wait his turn, and that he did. Needless to say, he was happy to see us, and I could not imagine what I would be like mentally after 4 hours of being crushed in a sea of people, in that weather, while watching soldiers beat and abuse people the whole time.

He joined us in the shared taxi, but our travels had not ended yet! Off we went from Huwarra in the pouring rain and thick fog, which did slow traffic from its usual somewhat too fast driving pace, but as a lovely Christmas present to Palestine, the IOF had a few more hurdles to get past. Usually, the next manned checkpoint is at Zaatara, not too far down the road from Huwarra. But on this day, there was an impromptu “flying” checkpoint, as they are called, both before and after the Zaatara checkpoint. It usually consists of an army jeep/truck blocking the road with soldiers out waving people to stop or keep going.

Sometimes taxis alert each other ahead of time and they can be avoided, sometimes not. So, before getting to Ramallah we had to show our IDs and be assessed by soldiers at checkpoints three times. Each time is much like the other, the humiliating experience of being treated like possible criminal just for traveling in Palestine. And as awful as all these experiences were for me yesterday, it is nothing compared to what a Palestinian has to go through. My time here has given me the barest, most basic taste of what it is like, but I would never claim to ‘know’; in the end, I am a foreigner, and eventually, I will leave Palestine with my all powerful passport and white male privilege intact.

And then to Ramallah we arrived. After a walk in the rain, we got our things organized for the next leg of the journey, the crossing at Qalandia checkpoint into the ‘Greater’ Jerusalem area which the Apartheid Wall is annexing to Israel as we speak. Qalandia Checkpoint has always been another one of those nasty, abusive and in the past, makeshift checkpoints, and with the construction of the Apartheid Wall, Qalandia is out of control; blocks of cement, railing, piles of gravel and dirt, fencing, razor wire, sniper towers, and plenty of subversive graffiti, of course. Right next to this is the most surreal thing; where there was once a hill, the hill is no more, and a brand spanking new, shiny and gleaming terminal-like building has been constructed, along with a parking lot and a large sign with a picture of a flower, next to which is written in three languages “The Hope of Us All.” Myself and other activists who have seen this feel that it is only a matter of time until: “Arbeit Macht Frei” or “Despair all ye who enter here” are spray-painted in its place.

This is the new (improved�) Qalandia terminal, paid for by US tax dollars, of course, and it is a cruel joke. I don’t know which is worse, walking through a random assortment of concrete and steel while soldiers point guns treat you like dirt, or a spotless post-post-modern cross between an airport terminal and a sanatorium, with soldiers sitting behind bullet proof glass and yelling commands through a machine while they sit comfortably, as if you are some infected microbe that they dare not be in the same room with. The walls are complete with screens that say “welcome” and other signs saying “please keep the terminal clean,” and “enjoy your stay.” Who was it that designed such a cruel joke? This checkpoint is miles past the 1967 green line, well into Palestinian land, and no one has any possibility of ‘enjoying their stay’ while they are being humiliated, whether up front or by remote control.

So, do you think that that is it? Nope, one more checkpoint, a quick stop while taking a bus to Jerusalem. Everyone on the bus has the process down: lifts up their IDs, the border policeman comes in, looks at them, and then waves us on (on a good day of course). It was close to 9pm when we got to the hostel, a journey of 60 kilometers took about 5 hours (for Aaron, 9 hours) and we had to pass through 6 checkpoints in the process.

And people ask, when will peace come to the Holy Land? God only knows, when people are forced to live like this.

Trailer Evacuated and removed But Bil’in outpost remains


Class in new structure Today.

At 11:00 AM the Israeli military forcefully broke into, evacuated and removed by crane a trailer placed by the villages of Bil’in on their land cut off from their village by the wall. But, the villagers of Bil’in have expanded the “outpost” neighborhood of Bil’in west and built another structure that will serve as a school.

Today at 2:00 PM the village children will attend the first class to take place in the new structure.

The villagers have been provided with a permit from the Bil’in village council verifying that the land is legally owned by Bil’in residents and that the council approves the structures.

The trailer removed today was placed yesterday December 25th and replaced another trailer that was established and removed the same evening on Dec 23d. Both trailers served as “the center for joint struggle”. The evacuation procedure took place in stark contrast to
the treatment of massive settler apartment buildings, being built just hundreds of meters away. These buildings are illegal even according to the Israeli civil administration as most are built without a permit but the Israeli authorities chose to turn a blind eye and assist the
continued construction.

Bil’in residents have a pending Supreme Court case regarding the route of the barrier on their lands. Attorney Michael Sfard, representing Bil’in residents, has uncovered that the current route was designed to protect the investment of Israeli and Canadian real estate brokers who
claim to have bought the land from Bil’in residents. The Companies have failed to provide any proof of the transaction to the court and Bil’in residents deny that any land was sold.