Tag: Apartheid Roads

Illegal settlers and Israeli military attack Palestinian non-violent demonstration against settlement expansion

International Women’s Peace Service

8 January 2010

On January 8, villagers from the Palestinian village of An Nabi Saleh (population approx 500), located in the north of the Ramallah district, held its third demonstration in three weeks against creeping settlement expansion and land confiscation by the illegal Israeli settlement of Hallamish (also known as Neve Tzuf). According to the residents of the village, since the settlement was established illegally on land belonging to An Nabi Saleh in 1977, there have been repeated attempts to expand the settlement. In 2009, the village successfully challenged, in the Israeli courts, the expansion of the settlement fence to land immediately alongside settler highway 465. In the past month, however, illegal settlers residing in Hallamish colony have attempted to re-annex the land alongside the highway, which now divides An Nabi Saleh’s land. In this period, the settlers have proceeded to build a shelter structure for the purpose of a memorial, on the land, which includes a fresh water spring used by An Nabi Saleh farmers and shepherds.

In response to the attempts by the Hallamish settlers to re-annex the land, An Nabi Saleh residents commenced non-violent demonstrations and actions to oppose the settlement expansion in December 2009. Prior to the demonstration on 8th of January, actions were also held on 1 January 2010 and 26 December 2009. These demonstrations included the replanting of olive trees in the area annexed by the illegal settlers.

Around 120 residents of An Nabi Saleh were joined by Israeli anti-occupation activists and internationals from the International Women’s Peace Service and the International Solidarity Movement in a non-violent demonstration, marching to the land which the Hallamish settlers have attempted to re-annex. During the course of the demonstration, the residents of An Nabi Saleh successfully blockaded 465, the illegal settler highway, for more than two hours. Mid-demonstration, one section of the non-violent demonstration also broke off from the highway and successful reached the land re-annexed by Hallamish, tearing down the illegally built settler structure.

Both sections of the non-violent demonstration, however, were met with force by the Israeli military who deployed more than 17 jeeps and at least two dozen soldiers to the area. During the course of the two hour demonstration, the Israeli military proceeded to fire up to 100 tear-gas canisters, as well as firing rubber-coated steel bullets and live ammunition at the un-armed demonstrators. More than 20 residents of the village were injured as a result, including three who were hospitalized. Those hospitalized, included two people injured by rubber bullets, and one teenage boy who received a head injury when he was struck in the head with a tear gas canister.

Many of the non-violent demonstrators were also injured by rocks which were thrown by illegal settlers from Hallamish from the hillside below the settlement and above the demonstration. One IWPS volunteer narrowly missed being hit by one of the rocks thrown by the settlers.

Despite a large presence, the Israeli military did little to stop the illegal settlers’ violent attack on the unarmed Palestinian demonstration. In one instance, when the Israeli military did attempt to prevent the illegal settlers from descending the hill in order to reach the non-violent Palestinian demonstration, the illegal settlers also attacked the soldiers. For several hours after the conclusion of the non-violent Palestinian demonstration, settler youth repeatedly threw rocks at passing Palestinian vehicles on the road below Hallamish colony. On 9 January, the day after the non-violent demonstration, residents of An Nabi Saleh informed IWPS volunteers that more 100 olive trees had been cut down and burnt by the Hallamish settlers on the land that belongs to the village, which the settlers were trying to re-annex.

Are Israel and apartheid South Africa really different?

Akiva Eldar | Haaretz

4 January 2010

The Supreme Court ruled last week that route 443 must be opened to Palestinian traffic. (Reuters)

The day after the murder of the settler Meir Hai about 10 days ago, Major General (res.) Amos Gilad was asked to comment on the claim by settlers that the attack was able to take place because roadblocks had been lifted on West Bank roads. The security-political coordinator at the Defense Ministry told his radio interviewer that the policy of thinning out internal roadblocks has greatly contributed to the West Bank’s impressive economic growth. According to Gilad, who until recently was coordinator of activities in the territories, the improvement of the Palestinians’ economic lot has contributed substantially to Israelis’ security.

An army man, who is not suspected of belonging to a human rights organization, thus upsets the simplistic and most accepted formula: restrictions on Arabs means more security for Jews. The Supreme Court ruling last week to lift the ban on Palestinians using Route 443 shows that members of the judiciary also no longer stand at attention when they hear the magic word security. Nonetheless, the judiciary members, like politicians and the media, still find it hard to let go of their paralyzing dependency on this term. This is intentional: If discrimination is not mandated by security considerations stemming from the threat of Palestinian terrorism, how can we diagnose this regime as segregationist? If it is not diagnosed as such, there is no need to treat it.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, which appealed against the ban on Route 443, dared suggest the word apartheid and was reprimanded for it. In her ruling, Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch wrote that “the great difference between the security means adopted by the State of Israel for defense against terrorist attacks and the unacceptable practices of the policy of apartheid requires that any comparison or use of this grave term be avoided.” A similar argument was voiced during the days of Israel’s military administration over its Arab citizens, which was lifted in 1966, and which is today considered a dark period in the country’s history.

Beinisch herself is a co-author of about a dozen rulings that exposed the malicious use of the segregation regime in an effort to take over Palestinian land. In some cases, most notably one concerning the separation fence near Bil’in, she wrote that the invasive route set by the army was inferior from a security point of view to the route proposed by experts at the Council for Peace and Security. In another case the state admitted that the person in charge of planning the fence did not inform government lawyers that the route had been adjusted to the blueprint for expanding the settlement of Tzofin. Were it not for human rights organizations and conscientious lawyers, who would prevent shortsighted politicians from annexing more and more territory “for security against terrorism”? asked Beinisch.

One of the myths among whites in South Africa was that “blacks want to throw us into the sea.” Many of apartheid’s practices were formally based on security, mostly those involving restrictions on movement. Thus, for example, at a fairly early stage, black citizens needed permits to move around the country. During the final years of apartheid, when the blacks’ struggle intensified as did terrorism, its practices became more severe.

To avoid the rude word apartheid, Beinisch pulled out the well-known argument that apartheid is “a policy of segregation and discrimination based on race and ethnicity, which is based on a series of discriminatory practices designed to achieve the superiority of a certain race and oppress those of other races.” Indeed, systematic segregation (apartheid) and discrimination in South Africa were meant to preserve the supremacy of one race over others.

In Israel, on the other hand, institutional discrimination is meant to preserve the supremacy of a group of Jewish settlers over Palestinian Arabs. As far as discriminatory practices are concerned, it’s hard to find differences between white rule in South Africa and Israeli rule in the territories; for example, separate areas and separate laws for Jews and Palestinians.

Last Wednesday, Israeli policemen blocked the main road linking Nablus and Tul Karm. Dozens of taxis with Palestinian workers on their way home from another day on the job in the settlements were told to park on the side of the road. Cars with yellow license plates passed by. There was no roadblock for security inspections; it was just the memorial ceremony for Rabbi Meir Hai. Just as long as they do not say that there is apartheid.

28 kilometers of distilled apartheid

Gideon Levy | Haaretz

29 December 2009

Palestinian, Israeli and foreign protesters run from tear gas fired by Israeli troops during a demonstration on Highway 443 in 2008. (AP)
Palestinian, Israeli and foreign protesters run from tear gas fired by Israeli troops during a demonstration on Highway 443 in 2008. (AP)

This highway has told the whole story. They pave a road, expropriate Palestinian land and the High Court of Justice approves the expropriation, in its words, “provided that it is done for the sake of the local population.”

Afterwards they prevent the “local population” from using the road, and finally they build a wall with drawings of creeks and meadows so we don’t see and don’t know that we are driving on an apartheid road, that we are traveling on the axis of evil.

Apartheid? What are you talking about? It’s just a freeway to the capital, because that’s how we like it best. Going (quickly) along with the occupation and feeling like there is none. That way the highway has fulfilled another secret national wish – that they get out of our faces.

How many of the masses of travelers on this high road to the capital have looked to their left and right? How many of them have noticed the 12 roads blocked by iron roadblocks and piles of garbage? (Is there another country that blocks roads with garbage?) And what about the 22 confined and concealed villages alongside the road? How many people have asked themselves how it is possible that a road that was paved in the heart of the Land of Palestine has no Palestinians traveling on it? How many have noticed the sign that leads to the “Ofer [army] camp”, another whitewashed name for a detention facility or the hundreds of prisoners detained there, some without trial?

How many have observed the inhabitants trudging over the rocky ground to get to the neighboring village? It’s 28 kilometers of distilled apartheid: the Jews on top on the freeway becoming of the lords of the land. Palestinians down below, going on foot to the Al-Tira village girls’ school, for example, through a dark, moldy tunnel.

I, too, have deliberated more than once whether to take Highway 1 with all of its traffic jams or 443 with all of its injustices. In my transgressions, sometimes I have opted for the injustices. It’s like shooting and crying. First you kill and then you are struck with grief over what you have done. I have driven and cried.

The High Court of Justice has again proven how essential it is. Too late and too little, and strangely imposing a delay of five months in the implementation of its ruling. It is not a beacon of justice with regard to everything related to the occupation, but it is at least a small flashlight shining a faint beam: beware, apartheid.

Justices Dorit Beinisch and Uzi Vogelman should be commended. They have reminded us what had been forgotten. There are judges in Jerusalem, and periodically they even come out against the injustice of the occupation. See you in another five months. By then maybe the state will find a range of rationales and excuses not to enforce the ruling. Palestinian cars on Highway 443? You’re making me (and the army) laugh.

Israeli military constructs new roadblock in West Bank village, crippling farmers’ economy

28 December 2009

The Israeli army erected a giant earth mound across a crucial agricultural road in the northern West Bank village of Madama this week. The road block severely limits hundreds of farmers’ access to their lands, making transport by vehicle all but impossible. The intentional crippling of the village’s chief economy comes as settler violence continues unabated in the region.

Four Israeli military jeeps and one Caterpillar bulldozer entered the village on Wednesday night to construct the road block. The targeted dirt road cuts directly underneath the speedy settler road leading west from Yitzhar settlement, where a tunnel was constructed to allow the road’s continuation to farmers’ land. The bulldozer quickly moved massive mounds of earth across the road underneath the bridge, entirely blocking it and removing the possibility of access to cars and tractors by village farmers.

ISM activists visited Madama to witness families clambering over the earth mound on foot and herding, with great difficulty, donkeys and flocks of sheep and goats across the blockage. The prevention of tractor access is critical now especially, as Palestine enters its wet season and land must be ploughed to become fertile for the new year. Approximately 500 of Madama’s farmers hold land on the other side of the road block, whose economic livelihood is severely threatened by this senseless impediment.

The road overhead, linking Israeli settlers effortlessly with their homes and work outside the settlements, cuts deeply through Madama’s land, as it has done since it was built 10 years ago. Two homes, belonging to Yasser Taher’s family, are now isolated on the other side of the highway, marking them as prime targets for settler and military harassment, leaving children traumatised and inevitably forcing the majority of the family to move to a safer home within Madama.

Madama resident Abed Al-Aziz Zeiyada became the latest victim in an endless series of settler incursions as he drove his taxi home on Friday night. Settlers of Yitzhar settlement, waiting on the side of the road, hurled rocks at his car and destroyed the windscreen. When Zeiyada reached Huwara, now without a windscreen in his car, he was stopped by Israeli forces at a flying checkpoint. Showing them the unmistakeable damage, Zeiyada was refused assistance by Israeli soldiers. He returned to Madama and paid a 700 shekel bill for the window to be fixed the next day.

Residents of Madama always have one eye fixed on the settlements that loom over the village; Bracha to the north, and Yitzhar to the south. Yitzhar alone is built on 1000 dunums of Madama’s land, including all of its water wells. Villagers are forced to spend vast amounts of their income on water, a 90-litre tank costing a crippling 125 shekels. Settler incursions also occur frequently, wrecked upon homes on the edge of the village, if not from the settlers then from the military, whose base next to Bracha send jeeps careening through the streets of Madama and neighbouring villages by night.

Israeli settlements, illegal under international law, and their network of Apartheid roads, in addition to Israeli government and military suffocating policy and presence in occupied Palestine culminate in a devastating effect on the everyday lives of Palestinians, such as residents of Madama village, whose voices all too often go unheard.

After period of daily harassment from Israeli soldiers and settlers, residents of Bir el-Eid celebrate small victories

28 December 2009

When I arrived in Bir el-Eid on 15 November 2009, it was obvious that international accompaniment was needed. There was daily harassment from soldiers and settlers. The villagers were not allowed to use the road. They were officially restricted by the army (DCO) to 20 dunums of land around the village.

With support from internationals living in the village (usually two), and daily visits by Israeli activists, plus legal support from Rabbis for Human Rights, and larger groups of Israeli activists coming to the village on Saturdays (and sometimes other days as well), the villagers engaged in nonviolent resistance by not accepting the restrictions the Israeli military had put upon them.

The villagers grazed their sheep far from the village. They continued to use the road in spite of continual harassment from soldiers and settlers. They installed water tanks where they were forbidden. Gradually the military backed down and eventually agreed to villagers using the road. The military agreed to grazing far from the village (there needs to be more pushing of these boundaries). Recent settler harassment has been token, like stopping village tractors for 15 minutes. We can celebrate the victories the villagers have won.