Tag: Apartheid - Page 8 - International Solidarity Movement

Palestinian Freedom Riders to ride settler buses to Jerusalem

13 November 2011 | Freedom Riders

Inspired by the Freedom Rides of the US Civil Rights Movement Palestinian activists will attempt to board segregated Israeli settler buses to occupied East Jerusalem

Groups of Palestinian Freedom Riders will attempt to board segregated settler buses heading to Jerusalem through the occupied West Bank this Tuesday November 15, in an act of civil disobedience that takes its inspiration from the US Civil Rights Movement Freedom Riders aim to challenge Israel’s apartheid policies, the ban on Palestinians’ access to Jerusalem, and the overall segregated reality created by a military and settler occupation that is the cornerstone of Israel’s colonial regime. While parallels exist between occupied Palestine and the segregated U.S. South in terms of the underlying racism and the humiliating treatment suffered then by blacks and now by Palestinians, there are also significant differences. In the 1960s U.S. South, black people had to sit in the back of the bus; in occupied Palestine, Palestinians are not even allowed ON the bus nor on the roads that the buses travel on, which are built on stolen Palestinian land.

In undertaking this action Palestinians do not seek the desegregation of settler buses, as the presence of these colonizers and the infrastructure that serves them is illegal and must be dismantled. As part of their struggle for freedom, justice and dignity, Palestinians demand the ability to be able to travel freely on their own roads, on their own land, including the right to travel to Jerusalem.

Palestinian activists also aim to expose two of the companies that profit from Israel’s apartheid policies and encourage global boycott of and divestment from them. The Israeli Egged and French Veolia bus companies operate dozens of segregated lines that run through the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, many of them subsidized by the state. Both companies are also involved in the Jerusalem Light Rail, a train project that links illegal settlements in East Jerusalem to the western part of the city. By facilitating population transfer into occupied Palestinian territory, Egged and Veolia are actively and knowingly complicit in Israel’s settlement enterprise, which the International Court of Justice has determined to be a breach of international law, and particularly Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibiting an occupying power from transferring part of its population into occupied territory.

This Tuesday, Palestinian Freedom Riders will head to Jewish-only bus stops in the West Bank and attempt to board the settler buses. Palestinians understand that this act of nonviolent disobedience may result in violent attacks and even death at the hands of Israeli settlers that are to Israel what the Klu Klux Klan was to the Jim Crow South, or the authorities that protect them. Nonetheless, the Freedom Riders believe that this act of civil resistance is necessary to draw the attention of the world to the immorality of Israel’s occupation and apartheid system as well as to compel justice-loving people to take a stand and divest from Egged, Veolia, and all companies that enable and profit from it.

The Freedom Riders will be joined by activists from all around the world who will stage activities in their cities that highlight the systematic oppression of Palestinians and the need to divest from Egged and Veolia.

For inquiries send an email to palestinianfreedomriders@gmail.com

###

Background

The buses that the Freedom Riders will be boarding are operated by the Egged, the largest Israeli public transportation company, and by the French transnational company Veolia. Both companies are complicit in Israel’s violations of international law due to their involvement in and profiting from Israeli’s illegal settlement infrastructure. Palestinian Freedom Riders endorse the call for boycotting both companies, as well as all others involved in Israel’s violations of human rights and international law.^[1]

In July 2011, an Egged subsidiary won a public tender to run bus services in the Waterland region of the Netherlands, north of Amsterdam. The company makes money from trampling on the rights of Palestinians and has been a target of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign, which is endorsed by an overwhelming majority of Palestinian civil society. The Freedom Riders call on the people of the Netherlands to sever all dealings with companies, like Egged, involved in human rights violations.

Veolia, has been a target of an international divestment campaign or running bus lines through the West Bank connecting settlements to Jerusalem and for its involvement in the Jerusalem Light Rail which connects Israel’s illegal settlements in and around occupied East Jerusalem to the western part of the city, thereby directly servicing the settlement enterprise.^[2]

Over 42 percent of Palestinian land in the West Bank has been taken over for the building of Jewish settlements and their associated regime^[3] (including the wall which was declared illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004), depriving local communities of access to their water resources as well as agricultural lands. Settling Israelis in the occupied Palestinian territory constitutes a war crime according to the Fourth Geneva Convention^[4] and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.^[5]

The occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip constitute only 22 percent of the Palestinian homeland from which over 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed in 1948 when the state of Israel was created. Since then, Palestinian refugees have been languishing in refugee camps and other places of exile, denied the right to return to their homes.

[1] Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS, available at: http://www.bdsmovement.net/call.

[2] http://www.bigcampaign.org/veolia/

[3] B’tselem Report: “By Hook and By Crook, Israeli Settlement Policy in the West Bank,” July 2010; summary available at: http://www.btselem.org/publications/summaries/201007_by_hook_and_by_crook.

[4] See “Israel’s settlement policy is a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention,” The Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Gaza, highlighting the relevant articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention to support the determination that settlements are a war crime, at http://www.pchrgaza.org/Intifada/Settlements.conv.htm; see also “Demolitions, new settlements in East Jerusalem could amount to war crimes – UN expert,” UN News Centre, June 29, 2010, at http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=35175&Cr=Palestin&Cr1.

[5] Article 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court prohibits “[t]he transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

Solidarity with the Palestinian Freedom Riders

10 November 2011 | Jewish Voice for Peace

On November 15th, Palestinian activists will attempt to board segregated Israeli settler public transport headed to occupied East Jerusalem in an act of civil disobedience inspired by the Freedom Riders of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. Fifty years after the U.S. Freedom Riders staged mixed-race bus rides through the roads of the segregated American South, Palestinian Freedom Riders will be asserting their right for liberty and dignity by disrupting the military regime of the Occupation through peaceful civil disobedience. Organizers say that this ride to demand liberty, equality, and access to Jerusalem is the first of many to come. The Freedom Riders will be riding Egged and Veolia buses. Veolia runs many transportation services in local US communities, and is the target of many BDS campaigns. This provides a great opportunity for local Boycott or Dump Veolia campaigns to have a creative action that ties directly to Palestinian-led direct action.

Palestinian Freedom Riders are asking US activists to step up alongside them, taking to the streets (or buses!) to show our solidarity with these courageous and historic protests.

Learn more about separate and unequal transportation systems here.

The resources on this webpage outlines some easy ways to organize solidarity actions in your local community. If you have any questions or would like some support planning, please be in touch! Email: stefanie@jvp.org

Resources for Solidarity:

Click on image to download the toolkit for acting in solidarity with the November 2011 Freedom Rides campaign inspired by those of the Civil Rights Movement.

Click on image to download a high-res copy of the Freedom Rider Cartoon. Cartoon by Ethan Heitner.

Click on icon to listen to an mp3 recording of the Freedom Riders song. Lyrics are available in the toolkit.

Palestinian Freedom Riders to challenge segregation by riding settler buses to Jerusalem

7 November 2011

On Tuesday, November 15th, 2011, Palestinian activists will reenact the US Civil Rights Movement’s Freedom Rides to the American South by boarding segregated Israeli public transportation in the West Bank to travel to occupied East Jerusalem.

Soldiers set up a “flying checkpoint” outside Ramallah, near the village of Surda

Next Tuesday, Palestinian activists will attempt to board segregated Israeli public transportation headed from inside the West Bank to occupied East Jerusalem in an act of civil disobedience inspired by the Freedom Riders of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in the 60’s.

Fifty years after the U.S. Freedom Riders staged mixed-race bus rides through the roads of the segregated American South, Palestinian Freedom Riders will be asserting their right for liberty and dignity by disrupting the military regime of the Occupation through peaceful civil disobedience.

The Freedom Riders seek to highlight Israel’s attempts to illegally sever occupied East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, and the apartheid system that Israel has imposed on Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Several Israeli companies, among them Egged and Veolia, operate dozens of lines that run through the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, many of them subsidized by the state. They run between different Israeli settlements, connecting them to each other and cities inside Israel. Some lines connecting Jerusalem to other cities inside Israel, such as Eilat and Beit She’an, are also routed to pass through the West Bank.

Israelis suffer almost no limitations on their freedom of movement in the occupied Palestinian territory, and are even allowed to settle in it, contrary to international law. Palestinians, in contrast, are not allowed to enter Israel without procuring a special permit from Israeli authorities. Even Palestinian movement inside the Occupied Territories is heavily restricted, with access to occupied East Jerusalem and some 8% of the West Bank in the border area also forbidden without a similar permit.

While it is not officially forbidden for Palestinians to use Israeli public transportation in the West Bank, these lines are effectively segregated, since many of them pass through Jewish-only settlements, to which Palestinian entry is prohibited by a military decree.

Russell Tribunal on Palestine finds Israel guilty of the crimes of apartheid and persecution

by Dr. Hanan Chehata

7 November 2011 | Middle East Monitor

The Russell Tribunal on Palestine and its eminent panel of jurists has determined that Israel’s practices against the Palestinian people are in breach of the prohibition of apartheid under international law. Following two intense days in Cape Town listening to testimony from expert witnesses, the Tribunal concluded unanimously that “Israel subjects the Palestinian people to an institutionalised regime of domination amounting to apartheid as defined under international law.” The jury reached this conclusion having paid particular attention to the legal definition of apartheid and ensuring that each of the defining criteria was met. This included the following facts: “(i) that two distinct racial groups can be identified; (ii) that ‘inhuman acts’ are committed against the subordinate group; and (iii) that such acts are committed systematically in the context of an institutionalised regime of domination by one group over the other.” They considered in their judgment the widespread evidence of, inter alia, “targeted killings”; the “use of lethal force” against peaceful demonstrators; and the torture and ill-treatment of Palestinians.

The Tribunal declared that although “the Palestinians living under colonial military rule in the Occupied Palestinian Territory are subject to a particularly aggravated form of apartheid” the latter extends to Israeli treatment of Palestinian citizens within Israel, and that “Israel’s rule over the Palestinian people, wherever they reside, collectively amounts to a single integrated regime of apartheid.”

The Tribunal also held that there were sufficient grounds to declare that another Crime Against Humanity is also being committed by Israel and that is the crime of persecution. This involves “the intentional and severe deprivation of fundamental rights of the members of an identifiable group in the context of a widespread and systematic attack against a civilian population.” It concluded that the crime of persecution could relate to several Israeli acts, including “the siege and blockade of the Gaza Strip as a form of collective punishment of the civilian population; the targeting of civilians during large-scale military operations; the destruction of civilian homes not justified by military necessity; the adverse impact on the civilian population effected by the wall and its associated regime in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem; [and] the concerted campaign of forcible evacuation and demolition of unrecognised Bedouin villages in the Negev region of southern Israel.”

While the Tribunal has no legal status and is a purely civil society initiative – “a court of the people” designed to be a “citizen-based Tribunal of conscience” – its jurors are nonetheless made up of individuals of sufficiently high calibre, expertise and experience for its judgment to carry a lot of weight. It is hoped that this judgment will go some way to expose the crimes being committed by Israel; to inform the public who may be unaware of some of the most pertinent issues; as well as to exert pressure on global institutions and decision-makers who have thus far failed to take a strong enough stance in the face of Israeli crimes against humanity.

In terms of the legal consequences of the judgment, the Tribunal has called upon Israel to “cease its apartheid acts and its policies of persecution and offer appropriate assurances and guarantees of non-repetition”, as well as to make reparations and pay compensation to Palestinians for the damage it has caused. They call upon the international community to fulfill its individual and collective duty “to cooperate to bring Israel’s apartheid acts and policies of persecution to an end”, including by ending any aid or assistance being given to it.

In their recommendations the Tribunal members also call for the following: the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to initiate an investigation into the international crimes being committed by Israel; Palestine to accede to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court; and the UN General Assembly to convene a special session “to consider the question of apartheid against the Palestinian people” including considering the roles of individuals, organisations, corporations and all public and private bodies which have been material in assisting Israel in its apartheid policies.

An in-depth MEMO report on the Tribunal as well as interviews with several key members of the jury will be available on the MEMO website in the coming days.

See full summary of the judgment produced by the Russell Tribunal

Final Note:
“The Israeli Government was invited to present its case before the Tribunal but chose not to exercise this right and provided no answer to correspondence from the RToP”

Budrus marks Land Day with olive tree planting and nonviolent resistance

International Solidarity Movement

31 March 2010

Nearly 100 residents of Budrus, Israli activist and internationals comemorated Land Day with a nonviolent march and tree planting action. The IOF used tear gas, sound bombs and rubber-coated steel bullets to violently repress the commemoration. Less than ten villagers were hit with rubber-coated steel bullets resulting in no serious injuries. About fifteen demonstrators were treated on-site for severe tear gas inhalation. There were no arrests made.

Demonstrator places flag on Separation Fence

As the IOF soldiers made their hasty retreat, the demonstrators happened upon the remnants of Israel’s vain attempt to suppress the nonviolent popular resistance. Three barrels of tear gas canisters had been left during the soldiers haphazard exit from the village. Each once housed 400 tear gas canisters and the evidence they had been filled to the brim was scatted about the farmfield.

A lone man sat on a rock about two hundred fifty meters from the fence to where the demonstration had pushed at it’s furthest. A crowd of youth began to stand around the man.
“I’m sitting on the Green Line now,” he began, staring at the fence in the not-so-far off distance. “But they won’t let us farm from here to the fence. They’ve place cameras on these high towers that can look into our homes. We want our privacy and we want to farm. Today is Land Day, so we make a demonstration.”
The day had been long and the man had not lied; they had made quite the demonstration.

The demonstration began with exuberance. The shabab were quite elated. Through the heat, they mustered enough energy for a rare jubilance. Their cries for freedom were catapulted out of their jumping bodies. Halfway to the separation fence, olive trees were set beside the street. Demonstrators grabbed them with great zeal and hoisted them above their heads.

As the demonstration reached the fence, a well-organized frenzy erupted. People began planting the trees within a meter of the thin fence that separated the villagers from their land. Those who weren’t planting, chanted with dignified rage and emotion. The IOf soldiers appeared intimidated and surprised.

After ten minutes the military shot low-flying tear gas at the demonstrators. They went the sides of the road for a brief period as the soldiers locked the inner gate. The villagers, cut of from the trees they had just planted, returned to the fence and resumed their soulful demands for justice.

IOF tear gasses nonviolent demonstration

Because the gate had been closed, the IOF was unable to effectively shoot tear gas at the demonstrators so close to the fence and demonstrators seemed to ignore the percussoin grenades that fell near them. Their attempts to disperse the crowd were in vain. The youth of the village were able to hold their ground for over twenty minutes until the IOF began shooting rubber-coated steel bullets. These lethal shots were illegally shot at heads and torsos. Demonstrators recounted hearing the bullets “whiz” past their heads, coming within a meter their persons.

The IOF opened the gate and drove jeeps toward the village, but were unable to reach the center, because of the demonstrators organized nonviolent community resistance.

After two hours the IOF made a hurried retreat from the village, leaving the remnants of 1200 spent tear gas canisters, percussion grenades and rubber-coated steel bullets. The villagers continued to demonstrate as close to the separation fence as possible. The IOF then invade the village again with two of the twelve jeeps that had amassed just outside the fence. The were unable to dissolve the demonstration and left after 20 minutes. They returned into the village after a brief time, but seemed to realize that there violent repression would not quell the nonviolent popular struggle in Budrus.

Through the use of nonviolent resistance Budrus successfuly moved the wall into no-man’s land.