Christmas in jail for peace campaigners

An Italian peace activist was hospitalized Thursday after refusing to be deported from Israel.

Italian, Vittorio Arrigoni, 34, was injured yesterday evening when Israeli authorities tried to deport him and two other detained UK residents,from South Africa and Ausralia, 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 concilate representatives.

Vittorio was returned yesterday to the detention centre at Tel Aviv airport. The three are being held after they were refused admission to Israel to attend a peace conference in Bethlehem. They will be spending their Christmas holidays in Israeli jail.

The three are experienced peace campaigners who were on their way to the “Celebrating Non-Violence” conference that starts on 27 December in Bethlehem. But when they tried to pass through Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv on December 20, when the authorities detained them.

Only quick legal action by an Israeli lawyer prevented the three from being forcibly deported Thursday morning. They must now await the outcome of an appeal hearing, the date for which has yet to be set.

All three have worked previously as international observers in the Palestinian territories. All are members of Access for Peace in the Middle East, a pressure group that intends to challenge the criminalisation of peace workers and the deliberate isolation of Palestinians from international observation and assistance.

One of the detained activists, Robin Horsell, a UK-based South African who formerly campaigned against apartheid gave his reasons for fighting deportation: “Israel gives spurious grounds for deportation or refusal of entry. But the real reason is our support for human rights and justice. We hope this legal challenge sets a precedent that in future will allow international citizens full access to Palestinian lands.”

Many prominent peace campaigners support Access for Peace in the Middle East including Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Nonviolence International, European Jews for a Just Peace., Clare Short, George Monbiot, AngieZelter, and Jeremy Hardy.

For more information contact:
Attorney Gaby Lasky: 054 441 8988
Charlotte: +44 (0) 7768 305897, charlotte@ism-london.org

For details of the conference: http://www.celebratingnv.org
Access for Peace in the Middle East

Christians, Jews and Muslims meet on the road to Bethlehem

By Firas Aridah
Originally published in the Globe and Mail

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 kilometres 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 honoured 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.

The Tent of Defiance

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 centre for joint struggle”.

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.
For main stream media coverage click here
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.

A Weekend Program of Nonviolent Resistance

Friday, December 23

  • 9:00 AM: Salem Village, Nablus Region
    Farmers, joined by international and Israeli supporters, will replant hundreds of olive trees destroyed by settlers from the Alon More settlement. 200 trees were cut down by settlers on November 27, and in October 50 acres were burned and more than 300 trees destroyed. There have been ten such attacks in the past two years. Salem residents have difficulty accessing 2,500 dunums of their land due to settler violence. Israeli authorities have failed to provide adequate protection.

    For more information call:
    Albert 054-5617547
    Mohammed 0546218759

  • 12:00 AM: Bilin Village
    Villagers will be joined by Israeli and International activists as they march to their lands that are being cut off by the annexation wall. Yesterday a structure established by the villagers on their own land and with a permit from the Bilin Village Council was removed and its inhabitants evicted by the Israeli military. This happened while massive illegal construction in the nearby settlement is allowed to continue and confiscate more of Bilin’s land.

    For more information call:
    Mohammed Khatib 0545851893
    Abdullah Abu Rahme 0547258210

Saturday, December 24

  • 9:00 AM: Salem Village, Nablus Region
    Farmers will continue to replant hundreds of olive trees destroyed by settlers from the Alon More settlement with the help of international and Israeli supporters.

    For more information call:
    Albert 054-5617547
    Mohammed 0546218759

Sunday, December 25

  • 9:00 AM: Burin Village, Nablus Region
    Farmers, supported by Israeli and international activists, will tend their olive trees destroyed by settlers of Har Bracha settlement on Friday, December 16th. 140 trees were cut down that day. The attack was a response to villagers accessing the land for the first time in many years with the support of the Israeli human rights organization Rabbis for Human Rights.

    For more information call:
    Albert 054-5617547
    Mohammed 0546218759
    Arik Ascherman (Rabbis for HR) 050-5607034
    The head of Burin village (Arabic only) 052-2458857

Nablus Region: Palestinian Farmers Protest Massive Settler Vandalism

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

From on Friday Dec. 23 untill Sunday 25 , villagers in Salem and Burin, in the Nablus region, will attempt to replant trees and tend their land near the settlements of Elon Moreh and Bracha and the Har Bracha outpost. The farmers will be joined by Israeli and international activists.

“We haven’t been here for five years,” said one of the farmers from Burin on Thursday, Dec. 15th, as they were taking a break from the plowing of their lands next to Har Brakha. “What do you mean?” another asked. “I haven’t been here since 1989.” “The last time I was here was with my grandfather” a third commented. But on this day, the villagers, accompanied by Israeli activists with Rabbis for Human Rights and ISM internationals, the people of Burin were able to plow their land and tend to their land and trees in peace, despite the attempt of a settler to stop the day’s work.

But on Friday the 16th, 140 trees in that very area were cut down, and on the 19th of December another 100 trees of Burin village were cut down by the settlers of Bracha. This is just one of many acts of property destruction, land theft, and violence committed by the Nablus area settlers who are able to act with impunity and without any significant response by the Israeli military, police or justice system for their actions.

On Friday Dec. 23 and Saturday Dec. 24, villagers in Salem, to the east of Nablus, will attempt to replant trees and tend their land near the settlement of Elon Moreh, joined by Israeli and international activists. All the farmers’ fruit trees in the area that the villagers will attempt to work in are gone, victim to settler attacks on Nov. 27, when 200 trees were cut down, and in October, when settlers burned 50 acres and destroyed more than 300 trees, according to the Israeli daily Yediot Aharanot. There have been ten such attacks in the past two years. Salem villagers have difficulties accessing 2,500 dunums of their land due to settler violence, and Israeli authorities have failed to provide adequate protection.

Where to meet in Burin: Sunday 8:30 AM by the Council building.

Where to meet in Salem: Friday and Saturday at 8:30 AM by the Council building

For more information call:
Mohammed Ayash 054-6218759 or 0522-223374
ISM media office 02-2971824
Arik Ascherman (Rabbis for HR) 050-5607034
The head of Burin village (Arabic only)052-2458857