Joy persists amid occupation

by Erik

Yesterday, the first of September, Joy persisted through the dismay and hopelessness of occupation. A group called the Media Youth Collective came to the village of Bil’in bearing the tools of Renoir, Kahlo, Van Gough and others; they came with art supplies. This group of 5-10 high school and college-age avengers met quite a large group of 20-30 young girls and boys from the village to paint pictures and paint faces. The event arose much livliehood and light-heartedness to this community who has seen unpredictable, unexpected incursions by soldiers twice already this week.

Yet, for those of you who have paid attention or experienced the resistance that this village has diplayed, creativity is not a fogotten factor, but more commonly a blazing medium, a way to demonstrate intelligently what lies and broken promises have been committed by the Israeli, U.S., and U.N. governing bodies.

The might that is wielded by the art of this resistance, will have a crucial role in the liberation of an occupied people.

Shot in the Shoulder

Nina, Eric, Phil, Greta

About 10 pm last night, soldiers came roaring into Bil’in, coming down the road by the school and throwing sound bombs at the village. As they continued down the road to the mosque, they began throwing tear gas as well.

They were met at the mosque by boys throwing stones, giving them an excuse to throw another tear gas container. A Palestinian man was shot in the shoulder by a rubber bullet as he was trying to stop the boys from throwing stones.

The soldiers apparently set up a temporary checkpoint at the end of the village close to the house they had threatened to burn down just two nights before.

After an hour, they left, and the village returned to as normal a routine as a village can that is under occupation. These incursions are now happening every other night and at different hours, making life impossible for the children.

ICAHD and other Israeli Peace Groups call for the cancellation of a planned Muslim Quarter new settlement

Another illegal act in East Jerusalem undertaken by the Israeli Government and the Municipality of Jerusalem has recently been uncovered: a plan to build a new Jewish settlement in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City near Herod’s Gate.

Recently the Sub-committee of the Local Committee for Planning and Construction in Jerusalem has confirmed a plan to erect a Jewish neighbourhood in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. According to the plan, 30 housing units and a synagogue will be built to accommodate some 150 people. Professionals (BIMKOM – Planners for Planning Rights) warn of the implications of this plan:

The proposed plan violates the basic planning principles of all construction in the Old City:

  1. Principles of preservation: in order to preserve the history and heritage of the Old City, any construction is limited by height and proximity to the walls of the city. The proposed plan violates these two principles.
  2. The Old City is the most densely inhabited place not only in Jerusalem but also in Israel; this density in the Muslim Quarter is 182.7 capita per dunam (5-20 capita in other neighbourhoods in Jerusalem). In recent years planners have been working to find ways to decrease or dilute that density. Any new project aiming to house external communities will badly harm the planners’ work.
  3. In addition to the density, changing the open space, which is among the extremely few open spaces in the Old City, into a housing area will seriously harm the welfare of the people living there.

    4. Besides the above planning drawbacks and the environmental implications, we recognize the political danger inherent in the plan. Building housing units for Jews in the Muslim Quarter has far-reaching implications over the delicate social fabric of the city. The Palestinians in East Jerusalem live in socio-economic distress, therefore a permanent presence of Jews in such a vicinity, in improved living conditions, would lead to provocation and a serious political and social crisis. Moreover, the proposed plan is also a continuation of a consistent Israeli policy whose purpose is a violation of the balance between Palestinians and Israelis in Jerusalem, creating by this policy a Jewish majority in East Jerusalem.

    Increasing Israeli control over Palestinian land in East Jerusalem is intended unilaterally to create facts on the ground. With such policy Israel is violating international law, which does not recognize Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem, occupied in June 1967. Resolution 478 of the UN Security Council declares the annexation of East Jerusalem to be illegal under international law, and according to article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention it is illegal for an Occupying Power to deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.

    This is basically a political plan that gives new meaning to the term “United Jerusalem,” preventing any possibility for political negotiation for a just solution in Jerusalem.

    Please find maps and aerial photos at the following website: http://www.poica.org/editor/case_studies/view.php?recordID=645

    Signatories:
    AIC: Alternative Information Centre;
    Bat Shalom;
    Gush Shalom;
    ICAHD: Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions;
    MachsomWatch;
    Peace Now;
    Ta’ayush

Is this a real move to peace?

by K. Flo Razowsky
Originally in The Minneapolis Star Tribune

According to the international media, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip is an unprecedented move toward peace. The situation on the ground demands further inspection.

Daily, new settlements are under construction in the West Bank, existing ones are being expanded and Israel’s Wall is being built. The village of Bil’in, in the western Ramallah region, is losing more than 52 percent of its land to this type of new construction. This style of settlement growth directly contradicts President Bush’s road map. Similarly, during the Oslo period, Israel expanded settlements and doubled the number of settlers within the West Bank, contradicting that peace agreement.

Despite the evacuation of more than 8,000 settlers from Gaza and from four settlements in the West Bank, about 420,000 settlers will remain in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel recently announced its plans to incorporate the largest of these settlements, Maale Adumim, into Israel proper.

Evacuated settlers are being compensated with $300,000 to $500,000 and given free land by the Israeli government and the World Bank. Palestinians also regularly face eviction and home demolitions by the Israeli military. In these cases, however, they receive no compensation, new home or land.

The settlers, who had months’ notice of their evacuations, were assisted by Israeli soldiers in packing their belongings. Palestinians may get a 15-minute eviction notice before their homes are demolished. Workers have been scurrying to collect all the domestic animals left behind before the bulldozers move in.

Another glaring difference is in the behavior of the Israeli soldiers. The largely unarmed soldiers who removed the settlers from Gaza are the same soldiers who regularly open fire with live ammunition on nonviolent Palestinian demonstrations. Some of these unarmed soldiers were attacked by violent settlers.

During the most recent of my three trips to the occupied West Bank, from March to June of this year, I saw with my own eyes the new and expansionist settlement construction. In villages like Bil’in, I witnessed the daily nonviolent resistance by Palestinians and their international and Israeli supporters. Every day I watched these efforts squashed with violence by Israeli soldiers.

So praise Ariel Sharon if you must for these supposed moves toward peace, but do not judge this situation without considering the full picture.

K. flo Razowsky, a Jewish American from is a Minneapolis, Minnesota, has spent 17 months since August 2002 in the Occupied Territories.

So Little Hope

Greta B.

Today as I was walking back to the hotel in Jerusalem, I heard a terrible crying. It was coming from a pile of garbage outside the Gloria Hotel. It’s very difficult to pick up garbage in the old city, unless you just happen to live in the Jewish quarter,because, although Palestinians pay the same taxes that Jews pay, they get very little services…not even the mail unless they have a post office box at one of the few post offices.

So the crying continued, louder and louder as I approached the garbage heap. There, under all the orange peels and detrius was a tiny kitten, yelling as loudly as she could. She isn’t more than six weeks old.

What could I do? Every bone in my American body said I had to rescue her, and every bit of common sense said to leave her to die. In Palestine, it’s survival of the fit, not the weak. A young girl in Marda has to have a kidney transplant. Hadassah hospital in Israel wants $40,000 up front. She will die.

Another l8-year old girl has epileptic seizures, and her father must pay $400.00 a month for her medicine, because they have no insurance to cover this kind of monthly cost. And he doesn’t even make $400.00 a month. She is
slipping further and further into mental retardation.

So I looked at the kitten, and I knew she would die in the garbage of the Gloria Hotel. I just couldn’t leave her. I picked her up and took her to my hotel and asked for someone, anyone, to save her.

One young man lives illegally in one room with his wife, three children and his fear of being caught. He doesn’t have a Jerusalem ID and will be thrown in jail if the Israeli authorities find him living with his wife and working in the city. He’s already been in jail for 3 months, because he was caught working.

Another man lives in Ramallah and walks nine hours to get to Jerusalem. He knows that when the 27-foot wall that is encircling Jerusalem is finished, so is his job and so are his hopes.

I sat on the floor of the dining room with this little kitten in my lap, and I cried. One of the waiters took pity on me and said he’d take her home for his son.

I can only hope he meant it. It’s foolish I know. We can barely help the Palestinians open their shops or go to school and demonstrate against the wall, and I’m worried about a kitten.

I’m very sad.