Israel pushes out its own people

Dimi Reider | The Guardian

10 June 2009

Whenever Barack Obama speaks of the Middle East these days, there’s one thing that worries “senior Israeli officials” most. “He didn’t say ‘Jewish state’,” they mutter to reporters. “He had all the time to say these two words, and didn’t. Why didn’t he?”

Binyamin Netanyahu himself utters this phrase at every opportunity. He even went as far as turning this coveted idea into a precondition for negotiating with the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, before being shushed by Washington.

But why this sudden insistence on what is supposed to be an internal Israeli matter, the self-definition of the state? As Abbas rightly commented, Israel can call itself the Hebrew Socialist Republic for all he cares. Why bring up this internal matter with Obama and Abbas, Israel’s primary foreign policy objectives?

The truth is that Netanyahu is speaking neither to Abbas nor to Obama. He is speaking to world public opinion, as he prepares for confrontation with a fourth party to the conflict, one that is as crucial as it is overlooked: the Israeli-Palestinian minority.

Israeli Palestinians, most of them native Palestinians who remained in what became Israel after 1948, constitute 21% of the population. Their very existence poses a critical reality check on Israel’s self-perception as Jewish and democratic, and if one throws in the population of the West Bank and Gaza, the proportion of Jews in Israeli-controlled areas shrinks to a mere 51%.

Despite discrimination in all walks of life – education, housing, civil service, politics – the Palestinian minority in Israel is slowly gaining ground. The number of Palestinian students on Israeli campuses is growing from year to year, discrimination is actively challenged both in court and in public life, and the years of housing neglect are biting back at Jewish hegemony as they push more and more young Palestinian professionals into previously Jewish-only areas.

So as almost any honest Zionist will tell you, here’s the dilemma. Israel’s proclaimed raison d’etre is maintaining a rigidly ethnocentric Jewish state, one in which Jews will never be in a minority. Being a minority must be understood in the emotional sense rather than the numerical one. This is important to our own historic memory as persecuted minorities, but even more so because maintaining a democracy is quintessential to Israel’s standing in the world community. On the other hand, given Palestinian advancement within Israel, an open democracy that plays by the rules will inevitably result in the erosion of the purist nation-state. So in the three-part Jewish, Palestinian and democratic conundrum, one element has to be dismissed. Netanyahu’s new catchphrase seems to indicate that that element will be the Palestinian minority in Israel.

Avigdor Lieberman is much maligned for his racism, but his line exemplifies one that had become very mainstream in Israel: a Palestinian state needs to be established – the sooner the better, before Palestinians in the occupied territories despair of nationalism and begin requesting the vote. Yet the geopolitical situation as it stands will, in such a scenario, still leave Israel as a bi-national state. His solution is annulling the citizenship of about half the Israeli Palestinians and redrawing the maps so that they find themselves within the new Palestinian state.

Lieberman’s position is widely shared; even self-proclaimed dove Tzipi Livni said, on several occasions, that “once a Palestinian state is established … we will be able to tell any Palestinian wishing to realise his national identity that he is now able to do it elsewhere”. More ominously, recent developments on the ground suggest the machinery for carrying out such an unprecedented task is already in motion.

The interior minister, Eli Yishay, had launched a legislative project to allow him the annulment of anyone’s citizenship without the authorisation of the attorney general. The IDF announced it would be allocating a special infantry brigade “to deal with a potential Arab uprising in case of war”. Last week’s national defence drill included just such a scenario – while most Israelis practised going into bomb shelters, army and police practised “suppressing a large-scale Arab revolt in the north” – the exact area of Lieberman’s proposed geographical experiment. And the outlandish bills recently tabled at the Knesset, ranging from banning commemoration of the Nakba to making citizenship conditional on a loyalty oath to a Jewish state, contribute to further alienation between the two communities and attach new fuses to an already much-rattled powder keg.

Are we facing the prospect of an ethnic cleansing? To a degree, ethnic cleansing has always been part and parcel of Israeli political life. Despite its bloody connotations, ethnic cleansing can be carried out in many ways. Family-by-family expulsion from “illegal housing” and discriminative economic pressure to emigrate is ethnic cleansing, too. We appear to be marching towards a nasty and brutal escalation on that front.

The reason why Netanyahu is talking over the heads of Palestinian Israeli citizens is precisely because most of them (over 70%) want to remain part of a sovereign democracy rather than the vague and improbably West Bank statelet. The reason he’s trying to create a fictional outside leadership for them in the character of the Palestinian Authority they so despise is precisely because their real leadership – their mayors, intellectuals, politicians and NGOs – persistently call for internal, Jewish-Arab dialogue over their rights and the role each community should play in a joint and truly democratic state.

Netanyahu’s efforts to throw in Israeli Palestinians with the West Bankers must be resisted. If he wants to make them part of the regional process, they should be heard speaking for themselves; if he doesn’t open the door for them as partners, they must be let in through the window, with every discussion of the peace process featuring exploration of the Israeli Palestinians’ exclusive plight. Most importantly, powerful international defence of their rights as Israel’s equal must be mounted and persistently ensured.

Israeli navy shoots at Gazan fishermen, no injuries

Ramattan

12 June 2009

Israeli warships shot at Palestinian fishermen in the northern coast of the Gaza Strip on Friday, Palestinian security sources said.

Sources reported that the Israeli navy opened heavy fire against a number of Gazan fishermen and their boats near Al-Sudaniya neighborhood north of Gaza, no injuries or damages were reported.

The Israeli navy prevents Gazan fishermen to sail more than 3 miles into Gaza regional water, what makes it difficult to find the good fish.

Yesterday, Israeli gunboats also opened heavy fire at Palestinian fishermen in the coast of Gaza without causing injuries or damages.

Ni’lin residents demonstrate against the Apartheid Wall

12 June 2009

Ni'lin demonstrators tear down barbed wire surrounding the Apartheid Wall.
Ni'lin demonstrators tear down barbed wire surrounding the Apartheid Wall.

Approximately 100 Palestinian, Israeli and international solidarity activists gathered today in the village of Nil’in. The atmosphere was charged following last week’s murder of Yousef Akil Srour, and demonstrators were unsure of the force that would meet them as they marched towards the Apartheid wall.

50 meters before reaching the razor wire fence that charts the intended route of the separation wall, which parts villagers from their fields, Israeli forces began firing tear gas. While those with children ran from the ensuing gas, others continued down towards the fence, yelling in Hebrew to the soldiers ‘Go home’. The group immediately dispersed and people fanned out along the ridge that runs alongside the road and razor wire. In one area youths were able to dismantle a section of the fence spanning four meters as others threw rocks onto the fence below.

There was a huge soldier presence, with more than 12 army vehicles, although they maintained a distance they shot multiple tear gas canisters (16 fired per round) from atop of the jeeps. At one point a few soldiers advanced on foot, leaving the road through a small gate, allowing them to shoot from a closer proximately. At times, they would shoot the tear gas canisters from three directions at once, making it impossible for demonstrators to reach safety.

While a few protesters were hit by tear gas canisters, no one was seriously injured. The protest ended earlier than normal, as people returned to the village fearing that the army was going to move in.

However as the army did not enter the area, the demonstration ended with a memorial for Yousef Akil Srour.

To date, Israeli occupation forces have murdered five Palestinian residents and critically injured 1 international solidarity activist during unarmed demonstrations in Ni’lin.

  • 29 July 2008: Ahmed Mousa (10) was shot in the forehead with 5.56mm caliber live ammunition and pronounced dead upon arrival at a Ramallah hospital.
  • 28 December 2008: Arafat Rateb Khawaje (22) was shot in the back with 5.56mm caliber live ammunition and pronounced dead upon arrival at a Ramallah hospital.
  • 28 December 2008: Mohammed Khawaje (20) was shot in the head with 5.56mm caliber live ammunition. He died in a Ramallah hospital 3 days later on 31 December 2008.
  • 5 June 2009: Yousef Akil Srour (36) was shot in the chest with 0.22 caliber live ammunition and pronounced dead upon arrival at a Ramallah hospital.

In total, 35 people have been shot by Israeli forces with live ammunition: 7 were shot with 5.56mm caliber live ammunition and 28 were shot with 0.22 caliber live ammunition.

Since May 2008, residents of Ni’lin have been organizing and participating in unarmed demonstrations against construction of the Apartheid Wall. Despite being deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004, the Occupation continues to build the Wall, further annexing Palestinian land.

Ni’lin will lose approximately 2,500 dunums of agricultural land when construction of the Wall is completed. Ni’lin consisted of 57,000 dunums in 1948, was reduced to 33,000 dunums in 1967, is currently 10,000 dunums and will be 7,500 dunums after completion of the Wall.

Additionally, a tunnel for Palestinians is being built underneath road 446. This tunnel will allow for the closure of the road to Palestinian vehicles, turning road 446 into an Israeli-only road. Ni’lin will be effectively split into 2 parts (upper Ni’lin and lower Ni’lin), as road 446 runs between the village. The tunnel is designed to give Israeli occupation forces control of movement over Ni’lin residents, as it can be blocked with a single military vehicle.

‘Tear gas is an emotional state’

Iris Leal | Ha’aretz

11 June 2009

The three days of mourning over the death of Yusuf “Akal” Srour, who was shot at close range on Friday during a demonstration against the separation fence in Na’alin, ended Tuesday. Srour was shot when he tried to help another demonstrator who had been hurt by the soldiers’ fire. The condition of that demonstrator, a boy of 15 from the village of Na’alin, is still serious. He underwent surgery and one of his lungs was removed.

In the past year there have demonstrations in Na’alin every Friday. In neighboring Bil’in, the residents have been demonstrating since 2005, when the construction of the barrier on their land began. In spite of a High Court of Justice ruling on September 4, 2007, which proposed that, within a reasonable period of time, a plan be considered to reroute existing and planned sections of the fence to reduce harm to the villagers, with preference to be given to construction on state land; and despite a subsequent ruling, after nothing was done, declaring that security considerations do not justify maintaining the route along its present line, and ordering the respondents to act on the court’s decisions without delay – the fence is still in the same place, separating the village from its land.

On the way to Na’alin, from Highway 443, one can observe the dance of the unattractive cranes that are industriously building the city of Modi’in. From the Shilat junction, one can see the depressing results of construction beyond the Green Line. It is hard to describe the ugliness of the new neighborhood there, Matityahu East, and upsetting to think about Modi’in Ilit, to which it belongs. Suffice it to say that this is misanthropic architecture, inhospitable to its residents, who are large ultra-Orthodox families, and to its rocky surroundings as well.

It is even harder to grasp that from the land on which these huge stone boxes with their fiberglass balconies are now sprouting, only four and a half years ago silvery olive trees and apricot trees grew – the livelihood of farmers from neighboring Bil’in, who now have the separation fence stuck in their throats.

It’s noontime on Friday, and most of the village residents are still at the mosque, in the midst of prayers. A large sign demands of the president of the United States, in English: “Have a look.”

One can only guess what the locals expect Barack Obama to see, the day after his speech in Cairo: perhaps the separation fence that passes through the backyard of a home, the agricultural land that lies on the other side, or the fresh grave of Bassem Abu Rahmeh, who was killed by a gas grenade that hit him during a regular Friday demonstration a month earlier. Palestinian flags and a tiny palm tree adorn his grave in the plot of the shaheed (martyrs) in the center of the village. Children energetically engaged in commerce momentarily stop selling cups of coffee and bracelets embroidered with the Palestinian flag, to tell people gathering next to the wall, before the weekly Bil’in demonstration, the story of Abu Rahmeh’s death in three languages.

Information begins to be exchanged as an essential part of the preparations. Haaretz photographer Tomer is delighted to see his friend Oren, who is setting up his own photographic equipment. Tomer has heard that they have improved the quality of the tear gas. Oren then tells him about the new device that fires 64 tear-gas grenades at once. And what about the stink bomb? Tomer has been talking about it all the way to Bil’in because he’s heard that it’s impossible to get rid of the stench for days – only immersion in the sea helps somewhat. But his friend who goes to either Bil’in or Na’alin every week and is therefore an authority on the matter, says he has not encountered it.

‘Goodbye Bassem’

Across the way, at the entrance to the grocery store, sits Abdullah Abu Rahmeh, who introduces himself to me as the “coordinator of activities of Bil’in’s Popular Committee Against the Wall and the Settlements.”

“Yesterday was great,” he says without enthusiasm. “People came from all over the territories, they came from Jenin, from Hebron, to send a message to Obama that we want deeds and not words.”

A practical man, tall and mustachioed, he wears a shirt that says “Goodbye Bassem,” with a picture of the dead man in terra-cotta hues.

From the direction of the mosque Mohammed Khatib approaches. He takes a stool and crowds in next to us in a small patch of shade, particularly precious during the hot midday hours. He has played a substantial part in the prolonged media coverage of Bil’in’s struggle against the separation fence. Indeed, one could say that Khatib is the dramaturge of the struggle, the one who comes up with the theme of the protest processions. During the Soccer World Cup three years ago, they wore the uniforms of soccer teams; on Christmas, they dressed up as Santa Claus. Occasionally the demonstrators have tied themselves to olive trees, while at other times they entered the tanks that supply the village with water – a reference to the popular story by Ghassan Kanafani “Men Under the Sun.” Khatib is a person who succeeds in maintaining his good spirits even on terrible days, as this one will be in the end.

The imam is reaching the end of his sermon and soon the procession will set out, as it does every Friday. I ask Khatib if he is nervous.

“Each time we go to a demonstration, we’re never sure we’ll return to our families,” he replies calmly, “although it’s not a violent demonstration and although there is a specific order not to shoot with live fire. In the end it’s their finger on the trigger. I was next to Bassem a month ago, it could have been me. We clearly understand that we are living very close to death and are getting closer to it all the time.”

Khatib’s prosaic manner is highly polished and he excels at creating dramatic moments – a talent I can appreciate, although at the same time I am wary of it: the exaggeration, the love of spectacle and the longing for the impossible constitute the necessary romantic foundation for struggles of this kind.

Equipped with bottles of water, we set out: A huge loudspeaker is perched on the back of a pickup truck, broadcasting praises of the latest shaheed. Palestinian flags are flying high. I march alongside Talila, Bassem’s friend, who has been coming here every week for the past two years. And then it is revealed to us in all its glory – the separation fence, a lattice of iron behind which Israel Defense Forces soldiers are patrolling while waiting for the weekly encounter. Beyond them, as if in defiance, are the agricultural fields of contention.

“You can’t get to your lands at all?” I ask Basman Yassin, a farmer who shows an interest in my yellow notebook and the pen hovering above it. He says that in theory, with the proper permits – which are a pain in the neck to obtain – there is access to the land, but in practice it is often denied for prolonged periods. Crops do not tolerate caprices, they demand regularity.

What is a regular feature here, however, is the following ritual: A barrage of gas grenades is fired at the people leading the procession while they are still a considerable distance from the fence. A double “tak-tak” sound and after it a murmur, like when the air is let out of a tire. One such sound signals the use of a rubber bullet, like the one a boy gets in his leg that day. Thus, without any provocation and in a single moment – and it’s hard to understand what sets it apart from all the moments that preceded it – a white cloud that smells like a discharged cap gun and tastes bitter descends upon the dirt path and the protestors.

“Tear gas is an emotional state,” explains Khatib, his eyes red and teary. “The most important thing is to become emotionally strong.”

We decide to approach the fence from the right side, in order to speak to the soldiers, and so we cross the olive grove. Through my gas mask, the situation becomes even more conflicted: Who are the men in uniform, whose rubber bullets and stun grenades and tear gas are scaring me, and why are they speaking to me in Hebrew?

“Hey, bro’,” shouts Tomer, the photographer. “Why are you throwing a stun grenade – don’t you see I have a camera?”

“We didn’t notice,” comes the answer.

At this same time, the army is making widespread use of weapons in Na’alin. “They arrived before prayers and tried to take over a building with dozens of gas grenades,” Yonatan Pollack, founder of Anarchists Against the Fence, tells me the next day. “There were clashes that calmed down when the Friday prayers began. As soon as the procession set out, at a distance of a kilometer from the fence, the army began to attack from inside the village.”

According to Pollack, live fire, the use of which is restricted to certain situations, was used.

Back in Bil’in, we are refreshing ourselves with cans of cola when Khatib informs us: “There’s a shaheed in Na’alin.”

Later I ask Khatib: What’s the story of the water tanks and “Men Under the Sun”?

“Ah,” he says, “it’s the story of a Palestinian refugee who is looking for work, and for that purpose tries to sneak over the border between Iraq and Kuwait. Together with another three men, he hides in water tanks being delivered by a truck. It’s the desert, in mid-July. The truck driver is stopped for questioning at the border. While he is trying to allay the suspicions of the soldiers, the men suffocate from the heat inside the tanks and die.

“They didn’t dare bang on the sides of the tank, or call for help, because they were afraid of being caught,” says Khatib, explaining the moral of the story. “But we refuse to die quietly.”

Iris Leal’s most recent book, “Home Fires Blazing” (in Hebrew), was published by Kinneret Zmora Bitan.

Israeli forces kidnap two Ni’lin residents

11 June 2009

In the early hours of Thursday morning, at 2.15am, the Israeli army invaded the village of Ni’lin and kidnapped two young men from their family homes. Mohammad Waed Khawaja (22), and Mohammad Ratib Khawaja (20), were each forcibly arrested, blindfolded, handcuffed, and taken away.

The soldiers arrived on foot from the nearby fields and simultaneously surrounded the houses before entering. The army arrived at the house of Mohammad Waed Khawaja, with their faces painted black, and screamed his name ordering him to come out. Before the family could respond, the army smashed the windows and the entrance door of the house and 11 soldiers forcibly entered, with 30 remaining outside. The 13 members of the family were woken up, harassed and forced into one room of the house. The terrified family attempted to question why Mohammad was being arrested but the soldiers refused to respond. Twenty minutes after the soldiers entered, they left with Mohammad who was blindfolded and handcuffed and led away through the field on foot.

At the house of Mohammad Ratib Khawaja, one of his sisters heard the soldiers arriving and alerted the family. To prevent the soldiers causing damage to the door, it was opened by the family and they employed the same tactics, forcing the family into the living room and searching the lower apartment of the house. The soldiers then went to the second floor where Mohammad lives with his heavily pregnant wife and interrogated him alone for 10 minutes. Once again, the soldiers refused to give any reason to the family for the invasion and arrest of Mohammad, who was also subject to blindfold and handcuffs. According to the neighbours, the soldiers had been searching the area previous to the invasion of the house.

According to the family of Mohammad Ratib Khawaja, he was taken Ofer prisoner camp, outside Ramallah, where the inmates are held in tents. It is unknown where Mohammad Waed Khawaja was taken.

These arrests are just the latest of many arrests in Ni’lin, where it is commonplace for the army to invade during the night and harass residents. According to Adalah, The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, there were 11,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails as of April 2008.