Live from the West Bank, Israel’s repression of Ni’lin

Max Blumenthal

16 May 2009

I have been in the West Bank of Palestine all week filming a video series on the Occupation that I will release in a few days. Yesterday, I traveled to Ni’lin, a town in the West Bank that has been the site of weekly demonstrations against the construction of a portion of the Israeli separation wall that would effectively and deliberately annex farmland from the villagers for a nearby Jewish settlement. Each week the Israeli Army puts down Ni’lin’s demonstrations in a draconian manner, escalating from the firing of teargas from surrounding hillsides to rubber bullets and live fire when they invade the town center.

Yesterday, true to form, the army set up positions in the hills above the village and began firing teargas volleys towards a cluster of about 30 demonstrators seeking to block the path of the wall’s construction. I stood behind the demonstrators and filmed. Within minutes we were blanketed by teargas as canisters exploded all around us. My eyes burned until I couldn’t see; I struggled to breathe as I ran down a narrow street, seeking cover behind walls. This happened over and over throughout the day. At one point the army cornered journalists and a group of demonstrators in a parking lot then appeared to pursue us until we leapt over a series of backyard walls and scattered. Afterwards the Shabab assembled at various points and began slinging rocks towards the Israeli positions.

By 3 pm I was exhausted. My head was searing with pain and my clothes were immersed in teargas residue. Most of the journalists and many of the international demonstrators had left, so I followed them out of Ni’lin, passing on my way out through an Israeli flying checkpoint that had sealed off the town’s main entrance. With the media and international presence gone, Israeli forces transitioned from tear gas to live bullets.

At approximately 4:30 pm, a 12-year-old girl named Summer Amira was struck in the arm by a .22 caliber bullet from an Israeli rifle as she passed by the window of her home. She was taken to the hospital fifteen minutes later and released (luckily) with superficial wounds but in a state of shock. This is nothing new for the residents of Ni’lin. The town of only 5000 residents has lost four young people to Israeli gunfire since May, including an 11-year-old boy. An American activist named Tristan Anderson lies comatose in a Tel Aviv hospital, the victim of a direct cranial hit from an Israeli teargas canister. This is the price Ni’lin pays for daring to resist the impending destruction of its farmland and the irrevocable rupturing of its community. Next week the town’s residents will try again to stop the wall.

I will post hopefully later today on a series of actions against settler violence against Palestinian farmers in the Hebron hills. The ISM’s account of Summer Amira’s shooting is here.

Nakba demonstration held in Aneen village

15 May 2009

Jenin residents demonstrate against the Apartheid Wall
Jenin residents demonstrate against the Apartheid Wall

In commemoration of the 61st year of al Nakba, residents from all over the Jenin area went to Aneen to demonstrate against the Apartheid Wall built on Palestinian land. About 300 woman, children, and men marched together in a peaceful protest towards a gate in the Wall, chanting in Arabic and English.

When the crowd reached the gate, the chanting increased and people fixed posters and Palestinian flags on the razor wire. Several speeches were held at the scene; amongst the speakers was the founder of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The non-violent demonstration went on for an hour. Then everyone walked back to the village without incident. Three military jeeps were parked by the gate even before the demonstration had started, and about a dozen soldiers were standing on the other side of the gate with their weapons pointed at the crowd initially.

Aneen is a village northwest of Jenin, with a population of 12,000 inhabitants. The Wall was built on Palestinian land in 2002 during the massacre at the Jenin refugee camp.

11,000 dunums of Aneen’s land were appropriated for construction of the Apartheid Wall Wall. Even more land is unreachable for the farmers, because it is situated on the other side of the wall. The Palestinians need permits to enter the gate to go to their land.

For the olive harvest last year, 1,600 farmers received permits. This year, only 30 farmers where granted a permit to go to their land, mainly elderly and often sick farmers who are not able to work their land themselves. Last year, two of the permits that were handed out to the villagers were in the name of individuals who had already died more than two years ago.

Even those who receive a permit are not sure that they will be able to pass the gate. The people who want to pass have to stand in line from 4 o clock in the morning to have a chance of passing since the gate is only open until 7 am. After that, they are closed until the afternoon.

The Israeli army only lets one person at a time pass the gate. There are four doors to be passed, the third door has electrical sensors so it alerts the Army if someone tries to pass the gate unattended.

Israeli barrier bites into Palestinian village

Ivan Karakashian | Reuters

18 May 2009

Israel’s land barrier is slowly destroying the fabric of this Palestinian village of Christians and Muslims in the West Bank, setting a prime example of why the United States wants settlements to stop.

One third of Aboud’s open space has been turned into a buffer zone. Hundreds of olive trees have been uprooted to make way for a dirt road closed off with barbed wire and patrolled by the Israeli army.

The land seized lies beyond Israel’s barrier along the 1948 Green Line that was once the Jewish state’s western border. The bulge encroaches six kilometres (4 miles) inside occupied Palestinian territory to safeguard the Jewish settlements of Beit Arye and Ofarim.

Palestinians hope U.S. President Barack Obama will press Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at talks in Washington on Monday on their demand to remove settlements, checkpoints, walls and fences, and establish a state in return for peace.

Aboud’s parish priest Father Firas Aridah blames the Israeli barrier for decimating the income of Aboud’s Christian community and forcing 34 families since 2000 to leave in search of more stability and security.

“The biggest problem is the loss of their land. Their olive trees have been cut down, and this in turn has cut them off from their source of livelihood,” said Aridah.

The Fawadleh brothers, George, Francis and Khalil, watched 117 trees owned by their family for generations being uprooted early last year. They now have only 26 left and worry those will be destroyed as well.

“It felt like having a stroke,” said George Fawadleh, a Catholic. “It’s our land. When they uprooted the trees, it was a catastrophe for us.” Nearly 70 Christian families own land in the buffer zone, said Aridah. While they currently are able to reach their land through open gaps along the road, to tend their trees or graze livestock, they fear one day being completely cut off.

APPEAL FAILED

Aboud lies north of Jerusalem in the Ramallah governorate. About half of its 2,200 residents are Christians. The parish runs a school up to ninth-grade, and most pupils are Muslim.

“We live together in every respect, as a united town, as Palestinians, we live with each other in harmony,” said Father Aridah, 34, who also serves as headmaster.

Across a small courtyard lies a building housing the church and Aridah’s office and residence. The church is beautifully decorated and well kept, in stark contrast to his hectic office.

“In Aboud, the priest is for everyone, no exceptions,” Aridah said. “Not just for Christians, but also for Muslims.”

But the Christian presence in Aboud is dwindling, as it is across the West Bank. The main reason they cite is the Israeli occupation and the security restrictions it imposes, stifling the economy and limiting opportunity.

Palestinians say the 720-km (450-mile) barrier Israel began constructing in 2002 is a naked land grab. Israel says it is a temporary security measure which radically reduced Palestinian suicide attacks and has kept its cities safe.

Aboud petitioned against the road before the Israel Supreme Court in 2006 but its plea was rejected. The Israeli army says the security fence tries to balance security needs “with Israel’s desire to reduce, to the greatest extent possible, any disruptions to Palestinian residents’ quality of life”.

It notes the court’s conclusion that “the path of the Security Fence (at Aboud) was built to the greatest possible extent on Israeli state land and close to Israeli communities”.

Father Aridah has raised the issue with the Vatican and testified before a United States congressional subcommittee.

Several U.S. senators, including Patrick Leahy, have visited Aboud, so far without producing any change on the ground.

But the priest intends to carry on fighting for the rights of his people, Muslim as well as Christian. “The voice of the church must defend the victimized,” he says.

The Palestinian Authority says the Christian population of the West Bank — about 50,000 — has shrunk over the last 30 years due to emigration. Christians tend to be better educated and richer than the average Palestinian and have opportunities to vote with their feet and seek a new life abroad.

During his pilgrimage to the holy land last week, Pope Benedict lamented the departure of Christians and the artificial divisions disrupting normal life for Palestinians.

“One of the saddest sights for me during my visit to these lands was the wall,” the pontiff said after confronting the towering barrier between Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

“As I passed alongside it, I prayed for a future in which the peoples of the Holy Land can live together in peace and harmony without the need for such instruments of security and separation.”

Israel begins new settlement, despite U.S. opposition

Ha’aretz

18 May 2009

Israel has begun constructing a new settlement in the northern West Bank for the first time in 26 years, Army Radio reported.

The move comes on the eve of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s first meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, despite Western calls for Israel to halt its settlement activity.

Tenders have been issued for 20 housing units in the new Maskiot settlement and contractors have arrived on site to begin foundational work, the radio reported.

The initiative began three years ago, under the auspices of then defense minister Amir Peretz, who promised to transform a former army outpost into a permanent settlement for evacuees from the Gaza Strip. The move was then frozen due to American insistence.

The Jordan Valley Regional Council head, David Ahayeini, has insisted that the construction is being carried out completely legally.

“There is full consensus among Zionist parties that the Jordan Valley must remain under Israeli control within the framework of any diplomatic deal,” he said. “The Jordan Valley is needed for the sake of state security, and woe to the administration that strays from this path.”

The Peace Now movement called the move proof that “Netanyahu is not ready to commit to a two-state solution” and is striving to “prevent the creation of a Palestinian state.”

“The way to do that is to built settlements and make all of us – Arabs and Jews – live in one state,” said Peace Now chief Yariv Oppenheimer.

Arabs slam bill to criminalize ‘nakba’

Brenda Gazzar | The Jerusalem Post

17 May 2009

Arab activists and politicians are slamming proposed legislation that would criminalize commemorating the establishment of the State of Israel as a day of mourning.

The bill, which has been submitted by MK Alex Miller (Israel Beiteinu), would punish citizens with jail terms of up to three years for commemorating what Palestinians and Arabs consider their nakba or catastrophe. The bill, which is still in a preliminary stage, is expected to be discussed by the cabinet in the coming weeks, Miller said.

“We think this is another step to limit freedom of speech and political activity” of Arab citizens, said MK Hanna Swaid of the Arab-Jewish party Hadash.

Such a proposal, he said, was an attempt to deny Arab citizens their right to commemorate a very important chapter in their history and identity. While it is considered unlikely to pass, Swaid said he feared that such a bill could stir up a “dialogue of hate” against Arabs in Israel.

“To deny the right of the Palestinians to commemorate this is very limiting and very frustrating,” Swaid said.

But Miller of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s Israel Beiteinu Party argues that the bill could contribute to coexistence and unity of the state.

“From my perspective, it very much harms me, as a citizen, when citizens… mourn the establishment of the State of Israel when they themselves have equal rights in this country,” Miller told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

“If we really want to achieve coexistence, the time has come that we stop this absurd theater,” he said, noting that some demonstrations commemorating “Nakba Day” have turned violent.

Some of the community’s leaders, he said, “try each year to incite citizens in the state and I want to stop this through this law.”

According to Prof. Avishai Braverman, the government’s minister of minority affairs, the bill would infringe on one’s inherent right to protest and “is a danger to democracy and is liable to strengthen the extremists.”

He also added, however, that “the deligitimization of the State of Israel by an extremist part of Arab citizens does not contribute to building coexistence.”

A “responsible and moderate” attitude needs to prevail both in Israeli politics and in the Israeli public, he said.

There were no disturbances or problems on Friday, when Arabs in Israel commemorated “Nakba Day” with events throughout the country, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said Sunday.

Similar proposals have been introduced into the Knesset in previous sessions but have not passed.

However, Jafar Farah, director of the Haifa-based Arab advocacy organization Mossawa, said he would not be surprised if the law did pass given the current political climate vis a vis Arabs in Israel.

“The ongoing efforts of extremists in the government to complicate the Middle East conflict with confrontations with our community are alarming,” Farah said.

“Thoughts and feelings will soon be forbidden in the State of Israel,” he said. “It reminds us of the McCarthyism in the US and it’s about time to show the leaders of the extreme right wing how humanity treats civilians.”

MK Sheikh Ibrahim Sarsour (UAL-Ra’am Taal) said that such a proposal would not stop Arabs from commemorating the nakba, even if it meant they would all be put in jail because of it.

“Israel’s insistence on a formal and public denial of its responsibility of the Palestinian Nakba… and its constant desire to erase the memory of Palestinian generations in all possible ways, all this will not change reality and will never reduce the complete rights of the Palestinians in their homeland,” he said in a statement issued on Friday.