International Solidarity Movement - Page 651 - Nonviolence. Justice. Freedom.

Settlers set two cars on fire in Burin

24 February 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

Settlers came down from the illegal Israeli settlements of Bracha and Yitzar thuesday night and harassed families in the village of Burin.

Around 7 o’clock in the evening settlers attacked a family that live near the Yitzar settlement, throwing red paint on their house. At about the same time settlers entered the village throwing stones and harassing the villagers. The settlers then got escort back to their homes by the Israeli Army.

At midnight settlers came back, throwing molotov cocktails at two cars, setting them on fire. Both of the cars were parked on in front of the houses of their owners.

One of the cars belongs to Abdeel Aleem Shuhade. He purchased his car just two days earlier, because the previous car was also burned and destroyed by the settlers. In 2002 his brother was shot and killed by settlers in his home and his wife that was pregnant at the time was injured.

Waleed Najar, the owner of the second car, reported the incident to the Israeli police, who then accused him of setting his own car on fire.

Attacks like this are common in Burin, to date 13 cars have been burned by settlers.

Burin is a small farming community located 7km southwest of Nablus. Former incidents in the village include settlers destroying olive trees, stealing and shooting animals, setting crops and houses on fire, destroying homes, shooting at people with live ammunition and firing rockets at the village.

On 27th January, 20-year old Oday Maher Hamza Qadous was killed by settlers from the same settlement whilst farming between the villages of Burin and Iraq Burin.

Palestinian refugees supporters protest Canada Park

21 February 2011 | The Alternative Information Center

Palestinian, Israeli and international activists gathered in front of the Representative Office of Canada to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and the Embassy of Canada to Israel in Tel Aviv for protest vigils on Monday (21/2) organized by the Committee for the Defense of the Rights of the Latrun Villages.

A Memorandum to the Representative of Canada to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and the Ambassador of Canada in Tel Aviv respectively was submitted, protesting on behalf of families of the Latrun villages, who were forcibly expelled from their villages in the 1967 war by the criminal action of ethnic cleansing, classified as a crime against humanity under international law.

Canada Park, built in cooperation with the Jewish National Fund, now occupies the site of the villages of Imwas, Yalo and Bayt Nuba, which were were completely destroyed in 1967. Their residents are now refugees in the West Bank and Jordan.

“Canada Park was planted and funded with the support of the Jewish National Fund of Canada over the lands and over the ruins of three ethnically-cleansed villages: Imwas, Yalu and Beit Nuba, occupied and ethnically cleansed in the course and the wake of the 1967 war,” Dr. Uri Davis told the Alternative Information Center (AIC) outside the Canadian Embassy.

“The ethnic cleansing was perpetrated by the Israeli army, not the JNF, but the JNF is complicit in this crime against humanity by veiling and covering up the crime, planting the Canada Park over the lands and over the ruins, and presenting itself as an environmentally-friendly organization concerned with public will and recreational welfare of all citizens of Israel.”

Participants carried banners reading: “CANADA PARK IS COMPLICIT WITH A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY PERPETRATED IN OUR VILLAGES,” “WE DEMAND THAT THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA RECOGNIZE AND ACT TO IMPLEMENT THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE OF THE LATRUN VILLAGES,” and, “WE DEMAND THE NULLIFICATION OF THE LEGAL STATUS OF THE JEWISH NATIONAL FUND (JNF) IN CANADA.”

The village defense committee has repeated requested that the Representative Office of Canada to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah meet with the Ambassador of Canada to Israel in Ramallah and together tour the Latrun area and the visiting the remains of the destroyed villages over whose ruins the Jewish National Fund (JNF) has planted “Canada Park.”

“Most representatives of the destroyed Latrun villages are not able to come to Tel Aviv to meet the Ambassador, it is our request that the Ambassador arrive in Ramallah, meet the people concerned and with a delegation of the destroyed, ethnically cleansed villages, visit Canada Park and submit an official report of his fact-finding to his government,” Dr. Davis said.

He continued saying, “Canada Park represents a blatant violation of international law, but it also represents a blatant violation of official Canadian policy condemning any intervention of settlement or occupation or change of demographic composition or any other alteration in the 1967 occupied territories.”

Three killed in Gaza buffer zone

22 February 2011 | ISM Gaza

Ashraf Abdellatif Iqtifan was born in Gaza City in 1980. He grew up surrounded by five brothers, two sisters, and everyday violence. When Ashraf was eleven years old, his 14-year-old brother Rami, who on his slightly yellowed photo smiles cheekily and brightly into the camera, threw a stone at an Israeli soldier whilst Gaza was occupied by Israel. A soldier standing next to them saw this, he took his gun and shot Rami between the eyes, the bullet got stuck in the brain. The brain-dead boy was brought to Israel, the family got him back cut open, all organs – even his eyes – were missing. The parents went to court and won. The soldier who had shot Rami, was sentenced for manslaughter of a child to 15 days of prison. Yes, days. He was also demoted two ranks.

But in spite of everything, Ashraf dreamed of a better life in Israel. When he was 19 years old and Gaza was not yet a jail, he managed to escape. He went to Tel Aviv and began to work as a dishwasher. His salary may not have been high, but it was enough to feed his entire family in Gaza; after the blockade none of them have work anymore. For 12 years Ashraf lived and worked in Tel Aviv.

But five months ago, the horror from which he had escaped all those years came back to him. He was stopped by the police, and when looking into his passport, they noted that he was from Gaza. Shortly afterwards Ashraf was back in his hometown. But the joy of reunion lasted only very briefly. Ashraf found his family in poor living conditions, and now absolutely no money came from outside, no one had work anymore. He began to accompany two young men from the extended family, Fathi Jihad Khalaf, 21, and Ar-Tal’at Ruwagh, 25, by collecting stones, so that at least some money came in. They went every day into the area of a former Israeli settlement in northern Gaza, near the border with Israel.

But the missing money and the related concern of no longer being able to care for his family was not the only thing that made Ashraf so desperate. Every day he looked across to the country that had been his home for many years, where his work was, his flat, his friends, his life. “No, Ashraf was not married,” says his father, “that wouldn’t have been possible. I have to approve the marriage, and the whole family must be present at the celebration”. He had begun to plan a marriage for his son, he suggested possible partners. But each time Ashraf refused with some excuse or changed the subject. Maybe after so many years, he deviated a bit from his tradition. Perhaps contrary to father’s firm conviction a girlfriend did wait for him in Israel, who knows, maybe he even had a family there.

And so he developed a plan that was so stupid and naive that you have the urge to shake him and his two friends with whom he was collecting stones, when they hadn’t already paid for this stupidity with their lives.

One can imagine Ashraf raving to his friends about the better life in Israel, about the opportunities they would have there, about the freedom. And these two guys who should have known it better, who were confronted with the violence of the Israeli military in the buffer zone on a daily basis, suddenly believed they knew the area well enough to see an opportunity. These two young men should have known better. They all should have known better.

“Maybe he thought that the soldiers at the border were just as the people with whom he used to work in Tel Aviv, maybe he thought that they wouldn’t immediately shoot him”, his father said quietly.

Whatever Ashraf thought, he wanted to return at any rate. On the night to the 17th of February he and his two new friends set up to their way to the border.

Did they really believe that this would work out? Ashraf perhaps hadn’t realized yet that Gaza had become a high security prison during the long years of his absence. They hadn’t even reached the border when they were fired at – by a nearby gunboat on the water, by a drone from the air and a tank at the border. Half of Arafat’s head was missing when the three bodies could finally be rescued four hours later, around six clock in the morning. No weapons were found, neither on the bodies, nor in the close surroundings.

“I don’t know if he told anyone of his friends in Israel about his plan,” said his father. “He didn’t even tell me that he would try it that night.” The declaration of the Israeli military stated that they “thwarted a terrorist attack”, the men would have been caught, “deploying explosives at the border”. And that’s how the story was probably in the Israeli media. Did Ashraf tell his friends about his plan? Have they read the news? Do they know that he is dead, that Israeli soldiers didn’t prevent a terrorist attack, but killed their friend, who wanted to go back? Ashraf, does that name ring a bell to you, you inhabitants of Tel Aviv? Was he your employee, or the man who washed your dishes in your favorite restaurant, perhaps you’ve seen him on the way out? Was he your friend, partner, perhaps even father? The man who was sitting next to you on the bus, the guy with whom you started a conversation in the long queue at the supermarket? He’s dead. Have you thought of him as you read the news about the last thwarted attack from the terrorists? About three more deaths on the long road to adequate safety? Ashraf was on his way home.

“I only have you to count on.”

24 February 2011 | Vera Macht, ISM Gaza

“I only have you to count on. From now on, my children depend on you.”
This was the desperate call of a man who sees no way out for himself and his children, and we ISM members who came to his phone call, received it in helpless silence. It is not the first time that we have visited this family, and every time we go home more horrified.

The last time we were there was on the 14th July 2010, a day after his wife died; was murdered, there is no other way to say it. Nasser Jabr Abu Said lives in Johr al-Dik, 350 meters away from the border with Israel. On the evening of the 13th July, Nasser’s wife was in the garden with two other women from the family when they were fired at with artillery shells from a nearby tank. They used flechette shells, which explode in the air so that five- to eight-thousand nails shoot out of them, piercing everyone and everything in a cone of 300 by 100 meters. They are also illegal under international law.

Nasser’s wife was not injured, but the Nasser’s sister was wounded in the shoulder, and a third woman, Sanaa Ahmed Abu Said, 26, was wounded in the leg. The family took shelter in the house and called an ambulance, which was unable to approach because it was stopped by machine gun fire from the nearby Israeli soldiers. At this point, the 33 year old wife of Nasser, Nema Abu Said, realized that the youngest of her children, Jaber, was asleep in the garden. As Nema ran outside to bring him to safety, she and her brother-in-law were pierced by the nails of another flechette shell. It took four endless hours before the ambulance finally got the permission to help the family, but by then Nema had died.

When we first visited the family, no one had yet had the heart to explain to Jaber that his mother had died. He kept asking for her while we were there, but how do you explain something like that to a three year old child?

When we went this time, all the children knew only too well what had happened. Nasser explained that he could no longer live in the house because of the almost daily incursions; bombs and shootings have destroyed their damaged psyche and now they wake up every night, screaming from nightmares and having wet the bed. UNRWA rented a tiny apartment for the family – right next to the cemetery where the mother is buried. “I couldn’t get my children away from their mother’s grave. It happened more and more that I suddenly noticed at night that one of the children had gone, and I found them crying in the cemetery, I knew I couldn’t stay there any longer”, Nasser told us.

His alternative is disconcerting. He has pitched a tent, funded by the Red Cross, a few hundred meters away from his old house. The Red Cross also brought three blankets. When Nasser requested more aid he was told that he had already been helped. UNRWA told him that they could not finance a new house. Although they also recognized that the danger was too great to stay in the old house, they said that the old house would first have to be destroyed. Until the house is destroyed, they won’t act.

In this tent, amid the rain of the winter, Nasser now sleeps with his four sons and his daughter, 3, 5, 8, 9 and 10-years-old. They sleep on only two mattresses because he has to burn the old mattresses every few weeks, as every night they are wetted by the children. There is not enough money for new mattresses, for a sufficient amount of blankets, clothes and school uniforms for the children, or for their transportation to school. He doesn’t dare to send them to school before it’s light, which means that they miss two hours of lessons every day. “They urgently need psychological care,” says Nasser quietly; he didn’t know where to start when we asked him what he needed the most. They received psychological care for a short while, and the psychologist diagnosed that they remained mentally in the state which they were in when their mother died. When a few days ago the bombs fell – one of them near the house – the children’s screams woke up their father.

They need the continuous care of their father, but that is not the only thing that prevents him from earning money. Nasser can’t farm his land any more: it was too often flattened; it is situated mainly in the inaccessible buffer zone; and he lacks the resources to be able to start farming the rest of his land. He doesn’t have the money for seeds to plant something. “I would love to plant eggplants again, cabbage and watermelons. Also, sheep would be a big help. But my water system is completely destroyed from the bombs, and I lack the money to rebuild it.”

“I am an old man,” Nasser Abu Said says, 37 years old, “to me it is no longer important, but what about my children? Don’t they have the right to life, the right to grow up in safety and with some joy?”

“From now on, my children depend on you,” this sentence stays in your mind. And so I do what is in my power. I write about it. Nasser’s misery concerns all of us. This wasn’t fate, that wasn’t a natural disaster. A few years ago, Nema and Nasser Abu Said were a happy and content family.

Adalah-NY: New Yorkers protest Israel Philharmonic for whitewashing apartheid, protests planned in other US cities

22 February 2011 | Adalah-NY

New Yorkers protest Israel Philharmonic for whitewashing apartheid, protests planned in other US cities

February 22 – Seventy New Yorkers protested the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra’s (IPO) performance at Carnegie Hall Tuesday evening, using chants, songs and street theater to highlight the IPO’s role in whitewashing Israel’s apartheid policies against the Palestinian people. The orchestra’s performances are being met with protests in six of the seven cities on its US tour, including a protest last Sunday evening in West Palm Beach, an upcoming Wednesday protest in Newark, and further protests in Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles, as reported by the Israeli news website YNet.

Noelle Ghoussaini from Adalah-NY explained, “Tonight we sent a clear message to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and the Israeli government’s “Brand Israel” campaign that their music cannot drown out Palestinians’ calls for justice.” The US protests respond to the call from the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) to boycott cultural institutions like the IPO that work to normalize Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and whitewash the oppression of Palestinians in Israel, the occupied territories, and in exile.

Hundreds of well-dressed concert-goers paused on the edge of the sidewalk in front of Carnegie Hall, and looked across the street at the protesters’ signs, and listened to their chants and songs. Many were handed a mock IPO program that featured a cover photo of a past IPO performance in front of Israeli tanks for the Israeli army, and, on the inside, the PACBI’s call for an international boycott of the IPO.

Protesters held signs saying, “Israel Fiddles while Palestine Burns,” “Justice Presto not Lento,” “Without Justice There’s No Harmony,” and “Boycott the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra;” and they carried a banner with the words “Don’t Harmonize with Israeli Apartheid,” surrounded on each side by a violin with a rifle barrel as its neck. Protesters chanted, “We love Gustav, we love Mahler, but occupation makes us holler;” “For liberation take a stand, don’t let Is-ra-el rebrand;” and “Muslims, Jews, Atheists and Christians, stand for justice like Egyptians.”

In a street theater skit, a protester -turned-IPO conductor asked the crowd, “How can apartheid continue without us promoting the new, positive, aesthetically vibrant and civilized Israel? Don’t forget, there is “art” in “apartheid.” The conductor instructed three violinists to play progressively louder in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to drown out and cover up Israeli crimes against Palestinians that kept welling up behind the orchestra.

By serving as cultural ambassadors for Israel, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra is supporting the “Brand Israel” initiative, a campaign by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to divert attention from Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and “show Israel’s prettier face, so we [Israel] are not thought of purely in the context of war.” The IPO refrains from criticism of Israel’s policies and is described by the American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra as “Israel’s finest cultural emissary.” American Friends of the IPO further notes that “the goodwill created by [the IPO’s] tours…is of enormous value to the State of Israel. As a result, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra maintains its position at the forefront of cultural diplomacy and the international music scene.”

One corporate sponsor of the IPO’s US tour is Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev, who hosted a gala IPO fundraiser. Leviev’s companies have been shunned by UNICEF, CARE, Oxfam, the British and Norwegian governments, and Hollywood stars for building illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and for involvement in human rights abuses in the diamond industry in Southern Africa.

The growing international movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel has gained momentum in recent years, with performers like Elvis Costello, Gil Scott-Heron, Roger Waters, Devendra Banhart, and the Pixies all refusing to play in Israel. The 2005 Palestinian civil society call for BDS until Israel respects Palestinians’ basic rights was endorsed by over 170 Palestinian civil society groups. The Palestinian BDS movement is a nonviolent campaign for Palestinian rights inspired by the international boycott campaign that helped to abolish apartheid in South Africa.