RAMALLAH, October 2, 2005, (WAFA)- Tens of Foreign and Israeli pacifists joined Palestinian peasants in picking olive behind the Apartheid Wall in the village of Bil’in, near Ramallah.
The pacifists and Palestinian farmers reached the Palestinian orchards, seized by Israelis, and helped the Palestinians in picking up olive harvest.
Israeli pacifist, Neta Golan, told WAFA reporter that at least fifty foreign pacifists joined the Palestinian farmers to protect them from the Israeli occupation soldiers and to help them in picking olive.
She added that the pacifists initiated to help the farmers because they face several troubles and restrictions by Israeli soldiers during gathering the olive harvest every year.
Head of the Anti Apartheid Wall Committee, Iyad Burnat, praised the efforts of the members of the International Solidarity Movement in supporting the legitimate rights of Palestinians.
He added that the pacifists will continue their help till the end of the olive harvest.
In the last couple of days, Israeli soldiers prevented hundreds of farmers from reaching their farms behind the Apartheid Wall for gathering olive.
Thousands of Palestinian agricultural land was cut by the Apartheid Wall in the Wets Bank. The Israelis soldiers prevent the farmers from reaching their farms the matter causes fatal economic losses.
On September 30th the people of the West Bank village of Bil’in attempt to harvest their olives. Their lands are now on the other side of the Apartheid Wall construction site.
A REPORT ON THE CNI PUBLIC HEARING ON CAPITOL HILL
The links between the U.S. occupation of Iraq and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and Golan Heights were emphasized in a September 26th public hearing sponsored by the Council for the National Interest at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington DC. The speakers were Kevin Zeese, Director of Democracy Rising and a candidate for U.S Senate in Maryland; Phyllis Bennis, a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies; and Huwaida Arraf, co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement.
Bennis addressed the question of how the United States plays a direct role in both. In Iraq, it is as the major occupier. In Palestine, the role resembles that of the “enabler,” the power than allows Israel to carry out its occupation. For a more direct link, she pointed out the role that Jenin played both occupations, and how the U.S. military experts learned the “right” occupation techniques from Israel’s brutal destruction of the refugee camps.
“Israel is the largest recipient of U.S financial aid in the world, receiving a staggering $14 million per day for the last 25 years,” Zeese noted. Yet while it has given Israel more aid than it has to the entire continent of Africa, the U.S. does not control the relationship. In fact, the reverse is true, Zeese claimed, with Israeli leaders often in the driver’s seat.
Nor has the “special relationship” between the U.S. and Israel for more than fifty years brought a viable peace agreement between Israel and Palestine. “A viable Palestinian state is the basis of peace,” Zeese said.
The occupations of Iraq and Palestine have not made the world safer, Zeese argued. “Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the number one place to train terrorists” according to CIA reports. Thus, despite the large number of casualties and an enormous expense, the war on terrorism has made economic conditions for Americans worse, not better, while extending the scope of the war. Bombs are now being directed at European capitals, with a great loss of civilians.
Huwaida Arraf
Arraf sought to share last four years she spent “on the ground” in Palestine helping people survive atrocities and steady threats from an abusive Israeli military. “The Gaza disengagement is a good step but masks what is still going on.” Violence has escalated; houses continue to be demolished and groves and orchards uprooted.
She provided the example of several youth organizations that have tried to save the olive trees in the village of Shuqba, which, along with its fig trees, have been the main source of income for the farmers and their families. “This isolated and confiscated land,” she pointed out, “was the only income for one farmer named Sadaat and his family of thirty. He witnessed his land being destroyed and the trees uprooted with his eyes. Now he witnesses his family’s hunger and suffering because of the Apartheid Wall and the Jewish-only bypass roads.”
Elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, the Apartheid Wall prevents farmers from gaining access to their fields. In some areas, only a single gate provides access, and the posted times are not often kept. Farmers must wait hours to get to their fields, she said, and sometimes they are forbidden access for days.
Arraf also leveled complaints about the bias in the national media in covering Israel/Palestine events. “It reports the acts of violence against Israelis but never mentions the illegal acts on the Palestinians and the militants fighting for peace on both sides.”
Nor do most people realize the strength of the peace movement in Israel. “Two-thirds of Israelis want a two-state solution,” Arraf said, adding, that many “are now ready to support Palestine.” She quoted from the statement of the Refuseniks, the Israeli soldiers who have refused to serve in the West Bank: “We, who know that the Territories are not a part of Israel, and that all settlements are bound to be evacuated, hereby declare that we shall not continue to fight this War of the Settlements. We shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people… We shall continue serving the Israel Defense Force in any mission that serves Israel’s defense.”
Bennis took up the question of military occupation under international conventions and the rules governing the U.S. Arms Export Act, both of which Israel has repeatedly violated. She reminded the audience that under international law, “occupation is supposed to be temporary. The occupiers are supposed to provide food, energy, even recreation.” Yet the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories is now in its 38th year.
Israelis are also violating U.S. laws, specifically the terms of the Arms Export Act. “Arms exported abroad aren’t supposed to be used except in self defense, certainly not in war or on people,” Bennis said. “Israel violates the arm export act when it uses F-16s to bomb and assassinate Hamas officials in Gaza and the West Bank.”
All speakers agreed that that United States needs to own up to its responsibilities. According to Zeese, 83% of the American people feel misrepresented by their own government. “It is a key moment and the media has to change in order to show the problems of United States’ foreign policy. It also takes the courage to challenge power – we have to challenge the government.” Bennis added, “The main key is education.” Arraf insisted, “We must let the government officials know what we want and increase the pressure on our congressmen.”
After the main group of settlers had passed us on the hill, Moran and I followed the rest of them up to the intersection at the top of the hill where many of them were milling around.
We wondered where Eva and Sarah were. We later found out that they had been forced into the shop by the crowd of settlers chanting “death to the arabs” and by the soldiers. The store keepers had bolted the door and showed them the back way out and they had made their way to the stairs of the apartment.
Moran and I observed about 10 small settler boys (of varying ages between 6 and 12) throwing stones up toward our apartment and yelling (although we could not understand what). We thought they knew it was the internationals’ apartment and were just generally showing hostility, but we realised later they had seen Eva and Sarah and that is who they were yelling at.
An apparently senior member of the settler group with a long beard and prayer shawl aged about 50 was shooing the boys away, and three police officers were also scattering the boys.
After less than 5 minutes one of the police approached us and spoke Hebrew to Moran: they told us to get out of here for our safety.
We returned a short way back past the soldier station down the hill and watched until the group dispersed in both directions (towards the tombs and Tel Remeida settlement).
Generally it was a very intimidating day with settlers harranguing us and the boys spitting on us (I got big green ones on 3 different occasions during the day). I also witnessed Galit intervene to stop a settler girl (around 15 years old) from touching a Palestinian child, and the girl slapped her. She was walking with a family group consisting of parents, baby carriage, a small boy and 2 teenage girls. Settler parents of often actively encourage their children to assault Palestinians and stand with them as they stone Palestinian children.
Mohamed, 13, runs with the Palestinian flag on a beach near the former Israeli settlement of Neve Dekalim, 12 September 2005. Mohamed said this was the first time he had been to the beach since he was born. Thousands of residents of the Southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis came to the coast which is just some 3 km (2 miles) away. (Photo: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)
Request for letter campaign Repression of Human Rights and Land Grab at the Village of Bil’in
The State of Israel is erecting the Separation Wall on Palestinian land out of “security considerations,” while the true objective is to annex land west of the Wall into Israel.
This provocative act is being conducted against the ruling of the International Court of Justice in the Hague, as well as the resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations which accepted the ruling of the Court. This act is being carried out with all the oppressive and violent means at the disposal of the occupying forces – through shooting and killing, serious injury, beating and threats, closures and curfews, and fear and intimidation tactics.
This aggression is currently faced by a growing non-violent opposition to this land grab and denial of Palestinians’ human rights to exist and live freely on their native land.
Israeli and international activists for peace and human rights are expressing their opposition to this act through joint demonstrations and protest campaigns.
Up until now the State of Israel has built 180 Km of the planned 620 km of the Separation Wall, appropriating tens of thousands of acres of private land, uprooting tens of thousands of olive and fruit trees, and destroying the entire fabric of life of hundreds of thousands of people in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The village of Bil’in is a small and peaceful village near Ramallah, whose 1,700 residents gain their livelihood through agriculture and occasional external employment. The Separation Wall is appropriating 50% of the village lands and about 70% of its cultivated area.
The real objective of the Wall’s route in this area, as in others, is the expansion of the massive settlement of Upper Modi’in illit. This settlement has already 35,000 residents, and according to the plans of the Ministry of Housing, will number, in 2020 150,000 people. The expansion of Modi’in Illit is being done at the expense of the seized lands of Bil’in and neighboring villages.
Now, with the world congratulating the Israeli Government on its implementation of the Disengagement Plan and the withdrawal of 7,000 settlers from the Gaza Strip, thousands of housing units continue to be built for new settlers in the West Bank, 3,000 of which are on Bil’in’s lands.
While the army now uses force to prevent the right to demonstrate, we invite everyone to protest against this oppression and against the denial of life and basic human rights of the Palestinian people in general, and of the village of Bil’in in particular.
Please pass on this call for action from the hearts of all freedom-lovers to all your friends, to the Government of Israel,to the Israeli Representatives in your country, to your own governments, to your Members of Congress and Members of Parliament, resound the cry of those who are being silenced. Help us put halt the repression of non-violent popular protest in this struggle to stop the building of the Separation Wall of Hate in Bil’in.
With your help Bil’in will not fall!
Sample letter:
Dear Sir,
Re: The Separation Barrier in the West Bank
More than a year ago, the International Court at The Hague ruled that the construction of the separation barrier on Palestinian lands is in violation of International Law. Later, this ruling was adopted by the UN general assembly. Despite all this, Israel continues to build the separation barrier on Palestinian lands. Reports in the media indicate that under the guise of security, the barrier’s route is annexing about ten percent of the West Bank into Israel, thus frustrating any prospects for a viable Palestinian state and for the end of the conflict in the region.
Undeniably, Israel has the right to defend its citizens against terror. However, this does not allow it to grab Palestinian land and to destroy the basic fabric of life in many villages and towns in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The route of the barrier invades deep into the West Bank in an attempt to encircle almost every settlement possible. Palestinian villages and towns are caught in small enclaves.
Recently, the small village Bil’in has reached the headlines when essentially non-violent demonstrations there were brutally suppressed by Israeli security forces. Palestinians, Israelis and protestors from other countries faced the same reaction from the army: tear gas, rubber-coated bullets and physical violence.
In Bil’in, the barrier confiscates half of the lands of the village, depriving its residents of their livelihood and future. At the same time, the nearby settlement Modi’in Illit continues to expand eastward, on the lands left west of the route.
Ironically, the same barrier devised to bring security is already the cause of clashes, disquiet and violence. If the construction of the barrier continues, the long-term consequences are likely to be more violence and bloodshed.
There are compelling legal, humanitarian and security reasons to challenge the barrier’s current route. There is clear international interest in securing stability and peace in the Middle East. The barrier will clearly achieve the opposite.
I therefore call upon you do whatever you can to stop the construction of the barrier in its present route and to bring about the dismantling of the parts of the barrier already built on Palestinian lands.
Send protest letters to:
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
Fax: 02-6513955
e.mail: pm_eng@it.gov.il
Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres
fax: 03-6954156
e.mail: s_peres@netvision.net.il
Minister of Foreign Affairs Silvan Shalom
fax: 02-5303704
e.mail: sar@mofa.gov.il
Minister of Defense Shaul Mofaz
fax: 03-6976218
e.mail: sar@mod.gov.il
Minister of Justice Tzipi Livni
fax: 02-6287757
e.mail: sar@justice.gov.il
Minister of Internal Security Gideon Ezra
fax: 02-5811551
e.mail: sar@mops.gov.il
Minister of Construction and Housing, Isaac Herzog
fax: 02-5847688
e.mail: sar@moch.gov.il
